Twenty-Nine Degrees
Part IV: Lonely Wolf
By Pata
In northern Odaiba, there is a small river that feeds into a warm, mossy pond. It is shaded by a ravine of weeping willow trees which freeze over into mystical ice sculptures in the winter. The water in the pond and river is so warm that it does not completely freeze, even in the winter, and it is temperate enough to sustain life. Ducks nest in the reeds that surround it, herons feed on the fish that swim in it, and in the summer boys come to go skinny-dipping and play Tarzan.
It was here that Yamato lay sleeping in the snowdrift, his tattered and blood-soaked clothes wrapped around his pale, almost bluish, body. The gash on his neck had clotted and frozen over into a reddish blotch, and bruises and scratches covered his entire body from trekking through the woods for so long. He was horribly gaunt and ghost-like, thin and bony and malnourished.
Slowly, his eyes fluttered open to join the world of the living and he wiped the snow from his eyelashes. He blinked several times to clear the ice from his vision, and coughed sickly. He crawled stiffly to the pond and dipped his head in like a great horse and drank his fill. He pulled back and shook himself, sniffling. He had grown somewhat used to the cold by now, though he was frail and dying; he knew that they had given up searching for him, but he didn't care. He knew his death was very near, and there was only one thing he wished he'd know. Had Hikari made it home safe? She haunted him in his dreams, her beautiful face looming up over him only to morph into a horrid monster and draw the knife across his trachea time and time again. He would wake cold and shivering and with tears frozen on his cheeks.
What a way to die…
*
Perhaps the only person who had not given up on the search for Yamato was Taichi. Desperate and panicked with love – a love that Hikari knew and understood, as it matched her own love for Takeru and her master – he refused to believe that the boy he had grown so close to was gone forever.
Ken Ichijouji had assured Taichi several times that there was nothing he could do to bring his late lover back. Taichi didn't want to believe Ken; in fact, he was starting to suspect the boy was in on something.
Ken could see Taichi's suspicions and took extra care to act inconspicuous. If Hikari had failed to kill him – though she had assured him time and time again that Yamato was gone and dead as a doornail – both killers were in deep trouble.
Ken was experienced enough in the assassination business to know that the one step to staying anonymous was to not let any witnesses escape alive. If Yamato was not dead, he could prove to be a serious hitch in their plan much later on.
Hikari did not know exactly what Ken's master plan was; in fact, all she knew was that one look into those icy eyes and dragged her down into this forever. She had to obey him now – she loved him in a way she could not explain – she didn't want to, but there was something about him that had pulled on her heartstrings. He was a mass-murderer hiding from police forces, Hikari was the sweet and innocent child of the light – the whole angel and fallen angel motif certainly made the irony all the more bitter.
One night, when Taichi had finished placing phone calls to various missing person shelters and bureaus, Ken asked, "Would you like to me to go out and search for Yamato myself?"
Taichi, who had come down with a bad cold, was not allowed outside; Ken could be his only hope to discovering Yamato. "Yeah…yeah, I'd like that. You don't mind, do you?"
"No, it's no trouble at all. I'll just go for a walk. You have a flashlight?"
"Hai." Taichi rummaged around in his rucksack and took out a long flashlight. "This should do. If you find any clues…just come home, okay?"
"Okay." Ken took the flashlight in his hand and vanished out the door.
The night air was cold and fresh; a new snow had just fallen. Ken's boots crunched on the icy road and he switched on the flashlight, hoping to find a sign that Yamato was indeed "dead as a doornail." His hand instinctively wandered to the pistol he had concealed in his jacket pocket, the same pistol he had used to kill Mimi over the winter hols; and then to his cell phone, so that he could call Hikari (or Taichi) should need arise.
After fifteen minutes of utter winter silence broken only by Ken's humming of 'God Save the Queen', he finally stumbled upon a half-hidden brook the fed into a little pond, unfrozen and unnaturally warm. He shone the flashlight up and down the bank, his heart pounding against his breastbone. Something was not right with this river…
Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he took a tentative step forward. He dropped the flashlight and nearly screamed as his foot connected with something warm and soft. His heart nearly broke his ribs by pounding so hard, but he discovered that it was naught but a piece of cloth, stained with blood.
He picked up the flashlight, but the batteries had fallen out. Wonderful. He hunted around on the snow, looking for them, with no luck. He sighed and chucked the flashlight across the river. He took a few more steps before stopping dead as he nearly trod on the sleeping Yamato.
"Is he dead?" he whispered to no one.
Yamato moaned slightly, his eyes moving under their closed eyelids. Ken blew out through his cheeks. "Great. I'll have to kill him myself."
It was incredibly dark, so Ken could barely see Yamato at all, but he reached back and took the pistol from his pocket, removing the safety and cocking it. His hand shook violently, and he wondered why. He'd killed tons of times before, innocent people, and he hand no qualms about that. Still, he had to do this. Yamato knew too much.
He steadied his hand, on which sweat was now beginning to bead. He could feel his grip loosening on the trigger. The gun clacked as his hand trembled, and he placed his other hand over it to keep it still. He pressed the pistol to the wound on Yamato's throat.
At the touch of the cold metal, the other boy's eyes flew open. Ken, surprised and scared half-to-death, pulled the trigger without thinking and shot Yamato right through the throat. The boy stiffened, and then vomited blood. He fell over with a last dying convulsion, and lay still.
Ken stared in shock and uncertainty. Yamato was dead now, at least he was certain. He covered the body with snow, pocketed the pistol, and ran the rest of the way back to the Kamiya's.
He told Taichi that he had no luck finding Yamato.
*
At the Takaishi's, Takeru was becoming increasingly more suspicious of Hikari. Unlike Taichi, who was blind to all of Hikari's faults, Takeru saw the things that she did and thought that she seemed rather distant and not concerned with the Twenty-Nine Degree Murders.
Wanting to reassure himself that his best friend and hopefully future girlfriend had not killed his brother in cold blood, he phoned her late one night.
"Hikari? I was just wondering…well…any new leads in the Twenty-Nine Degree Murders?" he asked.
"Iie," she said. "We haven't seen anything." A muffled sob. "Did you hear? Mimi was killed too."
"I heard," he confirmed. Why did her cries sound so fake? "'Kari-chan, is there something you are not telling me?"
She seemed genuinely taken aback. "What? Takeru-sempai, how could you even suggest such a thing? I would not play any part in harming Yamato or Mimi!"
"Well…" he was lost for excuses. "Gomen nasai, Hikari. Ja ne."
"Ja ne." She picked up her notepad, which already had two words on it, "Yamato" and "Mimi", and scrawled,
"TAKERU"
*
Exotic eyes hide clouded thoughts
Of death and mutiny
For cold and lonely now she feels
Completely incomplete
*
Die Not, Poor Death