Heaven's Postman
Fear is the tax that the conscience pays to guilt. –George Sewell
Author's Notes: Like I promised, a new chapter added soon. Enjoy!
Chapter 9 – When the Conscience Pays Guilt
Sakura froze when she saw the empty chair. Her breathe caught, suddenly making her dizzy. Her eyes fiercely glanced around the room but could not find the dark-haired boy. For a moment it seemed like something was telling her everything was a dream and that the man named Sasuke she knew was no more than the wind.
Someone beside Sakura muttered something angrily because she wouldn't move up in the line. To Sakura, the person's voice was muffled and fuzzy. Her eyes fixed on the empty chair as she began pushed through the crowd, her arms feeling light and weak. Sakura kept telling herself that Sasuke was a person and she knew him. Not a ghost or a part of her imagination. That he would never abandon her after all they've been through in the past week. After the thoughts and emotions they shared…
An emotion of sorrow overwhelmed her when she realized everything was like déjà vu. It was the situation with Daisuke again. Daisuke left and deceived her. Maybe Sasuke was just someone she made up in her head to help replace that cold spot Daisuke left when he abandoned her.
"Sakura, what's wrong?"
Blinking through he thin layer of fluid in her eyes, Sakura realized she was staring at the same pair of hazy onyx eyes that she was familiar with. He silently looked at her with confusion.
She sat down on the chair across him, still in shock. What happened just then?
"I always have to go buy it. You can buy it one in a while… I want a Caramel Macchiato," she told him.
"I can't," he replied bluntly.
"Why not?" she questioned.
Sasuke shuffled in his chair uncomfortably. "I can't buy it."
"The money's right here." Sakura passed him the crumpled bills and coins from her pocket. "Hurry and buy it."
"Sakura, I said I can't," he said firmly this time.
"Why?" she demanded. "There's no reason to why you can't, Sasuke! Get up and buy it!" Something knotted in her chest. She never wanted to go through something like that again. The thought of Sasuke disappearing was suddenly comparable to death itself.
Sasuke remained at his seat, unmoving.
Sakura got up and yanked at his wrist, pulling him to his feet. "Get my Caramel Macchiato!" she sobbed, shoving at his back now. "Hurry up…"
His feet stayed planted to the ground and her weak pushing was not enough to even push a shopping cart down an isle. Then Sakura snapped and cried on his back. Destroyed, he knew he couldn't say or do anything to make her crying go away. He glanced at the people around him and realized that all they saw was a pink-haired girl crying and pushing at air.
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"Sakura!" he yelled after her as she marched angrily away from him. "Sakura, just wait for a second!"
She left the coffee shop and thought to get away from the building as soon as possible. The pinkette was filled half with anger and sadness. With her tangled emotions, she ran away toward the city park and Sasuke followed.
He roughly pulled her shoulder back when he caught up. She shook his grip away but turned to face him. He was surprised at her glare that seemed to be breaking him down.
"You're not a person? Do you really deliver Heaven's mail?" she demanded. "All along I thought you were some psycho who stole the key to the mailbox and began reading all the mails, pretending to be Heaven's Postman!"
Thinking about it now, Sakura knew that she never believed what Sasuke said earlier about being an angel. She thought he was simply a man who was trying to fill up people's hopes again even they lost a dead loved one. Sakura knew how it felt, and said to herself that Sasuke was a good guy.
Sasuke purposely avoided her gaze. He had already told her several times before that he was a spirit. Why did she have to get mad about it now? "Something like that," he muttered instead of tensing the argument between them.
"What do you mean by 'something like that'?" she demanded, exasperated. "But I can see you in front of me right now! Kumiko's father-in-law can see you. The bus driver can see you, so why are you telling me all this nonsense?"
Through all his frustrations, he held it together. "I can only be seen by people who miss someone who is dead. People who can't accept someone else's death," he explained calmly. "If you stop thinking about and missing that person, you won't be able to see me anymore."
Sakura suddenly jerked off balance, but then regained herself. She looked directly at his eyes as if she was searching for something. "I can't see you very well these days," she said in broken whispers. "Earlier in the coffee shop, I turned around and I couldn't see you at all. It seemed like you weren't there."
"Yes," Sasuke swallowed hard, "because you are starting to forget about Daisuke."
She felt the tears sting her eyes and her breath became shallow. "That's because you're by my side," Sakura stated, meeting him in the eye again, proving she meant every word. "We even kissed!"
He clenched his jaw and spoke slowly through his teeth. "If you forget about the person who died, you can't see me," he repeated.
Sakura thought that the world wasn't fair. She was right when she stated many times that it truly wasn't, and that day was just another day when her statement was proven to be the truth. Sasuke's words translated to 'If you stop loving Daisuke, you can't see me. If you continue to be in love with him, you'll see me.' Sasuke had already filled her heart and the part that Daisuke took with him. Why would she still think twice about her ex lover?
With all her strength, she took hold of his wrist. He did not tear away her weak grip. "Even if you like me, I still can't see you?" she asked.
Sasuke suddenly thought about what Ryouji said the other day about confessing because you never know when you'll get to see your loved one again. She didn't even know he would be going back to Heaven in a few days. "I—"
Abruptly cutting him off, Sakura's phone rang, playing her ring tone from inside her pocket. Clearing her throat and dabbing against her eyes, Sakura answered it with a flick of her wrist.
"Yes?" she managed to say. "I see… Uh-huh… I'll be right there, Misuta."
Then she hanged up and shoved her cell phone back in her pocket. "The recording of the Ryouji-san's son's voice is finished. I'm going to get it now."
"Let's just give it up, Sakura," he told her.
"Let's go get it together, okay?" She took his wrist and started pulling him away.
This time, Sasuke tugged his hand back, declining. "He knows my face."
Teary-eyed again, she threw him a tantrum. "Let's go together. Please!" The stubborn girl shoved against his chest. "I don't believe you! I don't believe everything you just said! You're a normal person and we really kissed and…" she trailed off, struggling to continue. "Because I like being around you, Sasuke."
Angrily, she marched away without Sasuke to retrieve the recorder from the Alibi Factory. All she hoped now was that he'd show up to help her convince Ryouji later. Sakura left the surprised postman behind as he stared at her retrieving back, feeling something knot painfully in his chest.
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Sakura walked up the stairs toward Kazuma Restaurant feeling as if the tape recorder in her hand weighed a thousand pounds. Looking through the glass window on the door, she watched the old man that had to be Ryouji refilling the salt shakers. She slid the door open and bowed. "Good afternoon." The place was empty after lunch hours, she noticed.
The man looked up as he screwed the final bottle together. "Hello, please come in." He approached her with his hands folded on his abdomen.
"Are you Tanaka Ryouji?" she asked before he could question her about ordering.
He nodded, a bit puzzled. "Yes, I am."
"I have something important to tell you."
"Oh, all right. Please, come this way and take a seat," he gestured toward an empty table.
Sakura carefully placed the tape recorder on the table but did not take a seat.
"Let me get you some water," he said, stalking away.
"No it's fine. You don't have to worry about me," she called before he completely disappeared behind the kitchen doors.
He cleared his throat, approaching her again slowly. "May I ask you something? I might sound crazy, but is there a man over there?" Ryouji said, pointing behind her.
Glancing behind her, she was relived to see Sasuke seated at a table, looking through a black binder. He entered the restaurant while she went and got the tape recorder.
"Yes, I see a man." She bowed toward him. "Nice to meet you."
Going well with the charade, he got up and bowed in return as if they had met for the first time.
"See? You were joking about what you said last time, Sasuke. You can't joke around with an old man like me like that, you know?" Ryouji said to the postman who half-heartedly grinned back.
While Ryouji turned away for a second, Sakura mouthed Sasuke a "thank you."
"So what did you want to tell me?" he asked.
She was not sure how to begin. "It's kind of a complicated conversation… Your son passed away on a plane to Uruguay, correct? In a flightseeing accident, I mean."
Uneasily, he shifted his weight to his other leg. "Yes."
Then Sakura picked up the tape from the table and displayed it in front of him on her plam to see. "I went to Uruguay on vacation years ago to visit Punta de Este, a beautiful place. It's very close to where your son's plane crashed. The manager of the hotel there asked me if I was Japanese. He must've picked up the bag when the waves carried it to shore. It was in a heavy luggage bag wrapped tightly in clothes. The manager told me that this tape fell down from heaven in the winter of 1998."
Like someone physically pushed on his chest, he felt an odd sensation build up. "That's when my son died," he muttered without moving his eyes away from the tape she held.
"The woman who picked it up played it in her cassette player, but could not understand Japanese. She said that she would ask the next Japanese person who would come to the hotel to determine what the boy was saying in the tape," Sakura explained. "When I came, she gave it to me to listen to. Since then, I've been trying to find a relative of the boy's in the tape."
"D-Did you listen to it yet?" he asked, stuttering in shock.
"Yes."
"What was it?"
"It was a will."
Slowly, like if she moved to fast he would misunderstand, Sakura handed him the tape. With his jaw hanging open in both shock and surprise, Ryouji carefully took it from her. He held it like it was worth billions of money. Behind them, Sasuke was beginning to feel the guilt rise as he balled his hands into fists on the table as he listened to Sakura's lies.
"Is this really my son's?" he asked in a whisper.
"I believe so. Your son's name is Kazuma, right?"
He nodded stiffly. "Yes, that's right. My son edits things, so he probably took his camera and voice recorder with him on the plane."
"Do you want to listen to it now?" she questioned.
"Where is that cassette player?" he muttered.
Ryouji looked through the cabinets and the boxes. His hands hurriedly tossed useless things away, eager to listen to his son's final words. Sakura glanced at Sasuke. He gave her an emotionless expression, instead of being happy that Ryouji had bought everything.
When he found his old cassette player in a box, he brought it to the dining area. Sakura and Sasuke gathered around it to listen to the tape. The pinkette had never heard the tape after the man working in the Alibi Factory gave it to her.
As soon as Ryouji pressed play, there was audible screaming in the background—screams from women, children, babies and their terrified fathers. The airplane's propeller sounded in the background.
"This is Tanaka Kazuma. I hope someone finds this tape." Then a shuffling noise came. "My wife Aya, I am so happy that I met you in my life. Take good care of our son. I'm sorry it has to be like this" Something exploded in the background and the screams became ear-piercing. "And also father… It's been a long time since I could talk to you. Father… I forgave you a long time ago. I'm sorry that I worried you. I just did not have the guts to say it. I'm very thankful, Father."
"Kazuma… Kazuma!" Ryouji cried, slamming his palms on the table with his head down.
The tape stopped and all that was heard in the room was Ryouji's sobs. Sakura patted him on the shoulder and looked up at Sasuke. She noticed something odd in Sasuke's eyes… like guilt.
"Look—" Sasuke began.
"Your son forgave you, Misuta," Sakura said, quickly interrupting him on purpose. She wondered what he was up to.
Then Sasuke stepped back to bow at the weeping man. "Please forgive me, Ryouji-san, but this tape is fake," he said calmly. "It's made up. We recorded the voice with the help of a voice specialist. It was edited."
Author's Notes: Every time I check my email after adding a chapter, I am glad to see a bunch of people adding me and this story to Story Alerts, Author Alerts and Favourites. Thank you also for my daily reviewers. Please continue to support me! Also, in the next chapter, Sasuke and Sakura decide to part ways. What will happen after?