"Last thing about you"
When a child runs away...
It'd been 7 days since he came back from Japan, but Kaji's life hadn't
changed at all.
Everything seemed to be working fine, maybe a bit too much...so much
that the days were passing on tediously; very much unlike 5 years before,
when he had to live on running serious risks every single day.
And now, no challenge, no buzz, no danger to face…nothing at all.
Never before had he looked at his life and seen it so empty and meaningless.
He was giving up on himself…Any more reasons to enjoy his life? No.
"Where did you say you want to go?"
The taxi driver finally broke into his thoughts and brought him back
to reality. She was a plump old lady, with white curly hair and thick glasses.
"Ah…to Densetsu Kuiki…"
"OK…" she answered, changing the gear. "I haven't been in that place for a long time; there is no reason to hang around that place anymore, after all" she continued, trying to chat up that silent customer.
"Yes, I know" Kaji uttered. He was not surprised by that. He had had
the same comment by the previous taxi driver who had taken him to Aoihoshi,
the suburb where Misato used to live. All he had found there was a run-down
building in the process of being demolished, and no trace of Misato.
From some dark spots scattered all around the building, he could gather
that there had been a fire set off recently…was Misato responsible
of that fire?
At the sight of that gloomy building, Kaji suddenly had a disturbing sense of solitude growing inside him, as he'd never had before. Five years before, that building was almost empty, only Misato and few other families used to live on the top floors.
What happened to them? Maybe they all died in the fire..or maybe they all moved out somewhere else, but where??
Once again, all the thoughts were coming back to him again. He was mainly thinking about the woman who loved and his desperate attempt to trace her back. All his hopes were fading….
Her name was not even listed in the phone book anymore. It was obvious
that, if ever Misato Katsuragi was still alive, she wasn't living in Tokyo-3
anymore.
If she was not, He'd have regretted his not dying 5 years before, by
Seele. At least he'd have lived together with her in the afterlife.
Gloomy and sad thoughts…. despite his optimistic and cheerful nature
.
If only he could have turned the clock back! He'd have done so many things if he could have jumped back to year 2015.
/STREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAK!!
The car suddenly stopped, followed by a sudden turn of the wheel. Not only did Kaji come back to reality from that flow of thoughts, but he was about to bump on the window, hadn't it been for the seat belts.
"What the…"
"Hey you, damned kid!!!! Didn't you see the light??!?! It's RED, dammit!!" shouted the woman and suddenly her smiley face turned into a mad one.
"These damned kids!!! I wonder why their parents let them out so carelessly…####!!!" said the woman keeping beating her hands on the wheel.
Kaji leaned out of the window, trying to understand what was going on.
As soon as he gave a glance to that child, he got really surpised.
What was in front of him was the same person he grabbed in his arms 2 days
before, while he was falling from a tree.
"But but …. I know you kid!" Kaji was amazed and confused at the same time.."are you a trouble-seeker or what?"
"Do you know him? Well, in this case you should really go and have a word with her mum. How can she possibly let such a brat go out????" the old lady said, waiting for the guy to get out of the way.
The guy didn't show any sign of fear, considering the trouble he just
got himself into. What he did was stepping back a bit and this made Kaji
think again. Why had he been so scared when he feel off that tree, busting
into a loud cry, and now was he instead so self-controlled?
This time the guy didn't seem to worry about the car at all, instead
he focused hi attention to the other side of the road where there was something
which scared him off much more than running over a car. He ran away quickly.
The woman was about to go again when another dark-haired man ran off across
the street, following the kid.
"Hey!!! Are these people all blind, or what?!?!?" shouted the woman, blowing madly the horn.
Kaji continued to look at the scene without paying attention to what the woman was saying, and when he saw the child disappearing round the corner he handed a 20 yen note to the taxi driver and said to her: "I get off here, here's your money" before she could even switch on the engine again.
He opened the door and dashed outside.
"What?? What??? Hey, gotta give you the change?!?!?" The woman tried to stop Kaji to give him some money back, but he was already running after that kid and the people who were following him.
End Second Chapter
*****************
Thanks to Fabio Vecchioli (soliton@starmail.com) for this
translation!