*
* *
R O R
R I M
chapter four
"Enjoy life today. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow may never
come."
* * *
I've never seen him look so sad.
I don't know if I'm grateful or disturbed. His penchant for icy gazes
appears to have waned; the formerly omnipresent glacial quality of his eyes is
missing, as though broken away by a warm tidal flow. The now unhampered
topaz, clear like a diamond and still capable of being just as splitting, is
alarmingly incongruous to what my reeling mind can recall. The malignancy
is gone. There is something more human now.
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
I'm not even surprised he's here. His tension is apparent with the shell
of cold gloss stripped crudely away; like it's a mistake, that he shouldn't be
here, and . . . well. My shoulders are given a squeeze, crooked though
they may be in the awkward position I'm sitting in. I am back against my
haunches, knees bent inward and weight tilting towards one, and my head craned
to the side and back to look up the length of clothed arm to his face. I
probably look like hell. The tears are incidental now. I've
lamented enough.
He is all together morose in the colors he's donning: a beryl sweater and pair
of blue jeans dark enough to be considered midnight if minded improperly.
The wool of his cuffs brushes against my neck, where my raven hair had been
pushed behind my ear at some point in our silent contemplation of one
another. His smile is melancholy. He feels he has been late for
something; the disquiet on his face is as readable as a book; he has always
been so punctual in his exploits. He reminds me of the White
Rabbit, forever obsessing over his pocket-watch and its Victorian hands.
His disappointment in himself is dense.
I want to tell him it's okay; I'm okay. But I can't seem to find the
words.
I don't remember him ever crying before. He is now, and I can't help but
marvel at that fact: But whom are you crying for?
Yourself? . . . Or is it I too now?
The alarm clock rings, irritatingly bright and cheerful. Predawn
stretches zirconium fingers across the sable horizon in a slaughter of night
and proud heralding of sunrise, edges vaguely pink. The silver-footed
queen, whose nocturnal post had been so high, flees toward the west, yowling
vengeful curses that she would return in a day's breadth. Their dance
carries on, unbeknownst to most of the populace who lay unaffected in their
beds at this ungodly hour.
I open my eyes after enough screaming insistence; the ceiling -- a sparse
number of feet away from where I lay on my elevated mattress (only accessible
by the ladder that is propped nearby) -- gives salutations in unmoving
floral-white plaster and paint. My hand slides out from beneath the downy
comforter and searches half-blind along the adjacent ledge. The bells
stop their head-splitting cacophony once the offending machine is turned off.
I roll onto my side, bleary-eyed, searching for the much easier to read neon
numbers that my desk clock bares lambently in spite of the darkness. Five
o'clock (AM, of course). My slipshod morning condition makes seeing
difficult for a while; sometimes I wonder if there are glasses specially
designed to tackle this problem. I gurgle something incoherently and
return to where I had been, flat on my back. My eyes slip shut, as I'm
still half-asleep and in that zone where dreams can so smoothly overtake you
again.
"KEN-CHA~AAAN!!"
It's a lot harder to accomplish when Wormmon plops square on your chest.
"I'm awake," I profess, trying to shake him from his perch.
"You saw to that."
Copper trickles down the back of my throat. Only a little. My
dreams had evaporated upon waking.
"I just had to make sure you were awake!" he giggles, hyper and
spontaneous in the barely lit hours even when not the overly energetic
Minomon. A green feeler taps against my cheek in an obscure form of
affection.
I smile. "Thank you. I'll get up now."
The bathroom floor tiles are always very cold. My smoke-gray uniform is
immaculately pressed (as always), the pyrite clasp and rows of cufflinks
polished (as always), and smells of lemons and sunshine due to the fabric
softener my mother uses (this, too, as always). My socks and shoes, the
latter having been shined the millionth time by a compulsive hand, reside by
the front door; the slippers I usually wear are being laundered. The
ceramic chill is unfamiliar to me. Feeling queasy, I settle my weight on
my toes and lift upwards to reduce the contact. The edge of the sink,
similarly cool but bearable because of my clothes, dents the fabric at my waist
as I lever against it. My hands open the medicine chest in front of me.
I still don't know when the entire practice started. The foundation was a
definite result of dun half-moons I would find under my eyes, no matter how
much or how often I slept. Annoyed at my own vanity, I still resorted to
using various powders and tinted creams thieved from my mother's collection to
try to conceal the ugly marks. It was after I found a satisfactory combination
of products that I began to buy my own. After that, amidst all of the
secrecy this invoked, I dappled with other angles of beautifying myself.
No -- not beautifying exactly -- but something to make me . . . well . . . I
don't know.
I take out a dark-colored tube no larger than a thin ballpoint pen and unscrew
the cap, meanwhile closing the cabinet with a knock of my elbow. Liquid
eyeliner is a challenge. It feels like aqueous satin and has the
consistency of thick ink. It will be runny if you're not wary; however,
the glossy quality is amazing after accurate application with the minute wand,
which broadens the lash lines (when not producing a "raccoon" effect)
and defines every curve. Its most useful operation is to give the eyes
that inexplicable theatrical flare, drawing attention to them well. It
distinguishes the face as the most unique part of the human body, as it really
is. I like the dramatic look it gives me. Daisuke just thinks I
look like a girl.
"A girl?" I ask, turning my head.
We make a ritual out of meeting after school each day, something sacred and
hollow; our anger at one another for missing an appointment due to
miscommunication of when and where is always incredibly stellar. As of
the past week, I had spent at least five of those days standing by the roseate
brick walls that encircle the school-grounds at Odaiba, whiling away at least
an hour or more while he suffered through a browbeating detention for any
menagerie of offenses.
I was bothered only with some regularity by die-hard fans that remember, in
their words, when I was "more untouchable." I nodded and smiled
mindlessly, eyes trained to the chalk graffiti of a green elephant, unable to
discern more than a pair of dead eyes and string of victories (chess, Judo,
soccer) as I thought back. Praying, hoping, even demanding wordlessly
that the teachers release him a tad early ensued.
Today is different. He's had to wait for me at the discordance of asphalt
and iron that together form the gates to Tamachi for more than an hour himself.
I think he's worried about me. The words "Ichijouji Ken" and
"detention" are evidently not synonymous with one another. He
didn't ask why I had been served the punishment, and I didn't tell him. I
know he'd only fret more. My lack of elaboration doesn't faze him.
"Yeah," Daisuke replies, regarding me in jest, "really feminine
and stuff. That sort of thing."
His eyes are toasted ovals of cinnamon bread, spread with a citrine jam that
turns the crusts into gold. The sun gives a wounded cry; the influx of
sunlight is hinted with a bloody mandarin orange. I hear the hum of
passing cars somewhere behind me, but it's curiously far-off at the same
time. The present is here; now. My gaze darts to the movement of
his shoulders, rolling upwards in his joking nonchalance. I'm infatuated
with the rippling of his clothes.
We strangely haven't gone anywhere yet. Nine times out of ten Daisuke
will have after-school plans for us, with or without my consent -- an impromptu
game of soccer on the school field that usually results in us getting caught
and seeing how fast we can run, or even stopping by the nearest ice cream
parlor for an unhealthy treat prior to dinner. ("No one has to know,
Ichijouji," Daisuke explains, rolling his eyes at me. They're full
of laughter. "So stop whining and eat your ice cream before I
do.") He hasn't offered us any outlet. I notice there are no
elephants drawn near our feet.
"Well," I murmur, inconspicuously exchanging hands with the Tamachi
issue briefcase I'm holding. It serves as our backpacks; makes us look
more professional. We're almost adults, after all, at the ripe old age of
thirteen or fourteen. "I think it looks . . . nice." I
couldn't condone saying dramatic. I thought Daisuke would laugh at
me.
He grins somewhat bemusedly, eyes twinkling with warm mirth. In this
moment I know he wouldn't have laughed at me had I confessed I fantasized about
being a pretty-pretty pony princess. I feel flushed. If I am,
Daisuke elects not to say anything about it.
"Come on, Ken," he chides, turning on a heel in the direction of the
street. I follow automatically, observing his unrepeatable profile of
auburn spikes for as long as he faces me sideways. I will always have
sharp regret for never learning how to draw, as word-oriented as I am, because
he would be the perfect bronze specimen for my pencils and paints. He
begins across when it's clear, calling back to me. "You're going to
call your mother!"
A hideous squeal of tires assaults our ears.
"Are you psychic, Daisuke-kun?"
He never saw that van coming.
Sometimes you just have to grin and bear it. It's a lesson everyone
learns outside of the classroom about getting through school intact and
moderately unhurt. Survival skills are essential in this jungle of impersonal
faculty and a student-body that would only step over you (or on you, if they
were feeling hateful enough) if they found you frantically trying to collect
dropped assignments in the middle of the hall. I've never met anyone who
ever bothered to stop and help out those in distress -- the hostile stares from
everyone else they receive in turn is enough to send them scuttling on -- aside
from myself, as I feel impervious to their judgment now.
While laughter may be easiest to throw off . . . whispers are not.
Half-cloaked in airy tones that can easily be mistaken as the ruffling of a
breeze by your ear, you're never wholly sure of what they're saying, even if
immediately deciding it's derogatory. It's frustrating.
"Have you heard . . ." someone breathes into his best friend's ear in
the locker room. I'm changing out of my soccer practice attire -- a lot
of hard work and concentration has gone into assuring that the skills obtained
while I wasn't myself are still exemplar. I am team captain. I write
the playbooks. I pull the jersey upward, seeing only terre verte material
as I listen to their damning words. ". . . Ichijouji-kun . . . yes,
ever since he got back. He has been hanging around that guy from the Odaiba
team. A lot."
"I did not think he was . . ." his companion whispers into his hands.
My uniform top slaps wetly on the bench, soaked in sweat from the impossibly
harsh training schedule I've had my team on. We have our practices before
the school day. It's cold in the locker room, just as it was in my
bathroom this morning.
The eyeliner is waterproof. Only a combination of soap and water can have
it effectively cleansed from the skin. Even then, its richness usually
attributes to how it can almost, but not quite, stain your
eyelids. Vigorous scrubbing is required. It hurts, but it's worth
it.
I lower back down onto my feet, revolted at the chillsome floor, and go to
search out my soccer uniform. I have soccer practice today, before
school. Getting up at five in the morning is the latest anyone can sleep
if they want to make it on time.
"KEN-CHA~AAAN!!"
It's a lot harder to accomplish when Wormmon plops square on your chest.
"I'm awake," I profess, trying to shake him from his perch.
"You saw to that."
Copper trickles down the back of my throat. Only a little. My
dreams had evaporated upon waking.
"I just had to make sure you were awake!" he giggles, hyper and
spontaneous in the barely lit hours even when not the overly energetic
Minomon. A green feeler taps against my cheek in an obscure form of
affection.
Something doesn't click right. "Didn't you say that to me
already?"
I brush a fringe of hair from my eyes after we make it to the other side of the
street together. The moon, grinning silver, lances another blow off of
the already crippled sun. More definitive spatters of vermilion snakes
over us in abnormally spaced bands while we continue down the sidewalk. I
don't know where we're going, but I've never questioned Daisuke's leadership
abilities, now have I?
"Are you psychic, Daisuke-kun?"
"Maybe. But I want you to have dinner at my house
tonight." He smiles at me. I tentatively return the
expression, feeling that I would awkwardly shuffle my feet and blush like an
ignorant schoolgirl if we weren't still moving. "You'll call your
mother to make sure it's all right."
"Of course," I reply, and the world is real again.
I hear low snickering as I sit, reaching down to unlace and take off my
grass-stained cleats. This must be their revenge. These two
particular acquaintances on the team I had been especially verbose with
concerning their tardiness. They had neglected to come for a lot of the
starting warm-up and drills. I suppose they can't take reprimands very
well. I also forced them to stay for an extra twenty minutes.
Everyone else has already left.
"Has he ever looked at you in the showers?" he grunts
peevishly. I must have missed something. I pause, one of my shoes
resting in my hand. "Jesus, Hiroshi . . ."
Yes, sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.
"Isn't this magnificent, Ken?" my mother titters, standing back a few
feet so she can survey just how splendidly I look with the antique objet d'
art by my side. I swivel in my computer chair, regarding her rather
distrustfully. What use would I have for another mirror? The one in
the bathroom is fine. "I bought it at this strange little thrift
shop in the city, and I just knew it could liven up your room."
I only smile complacently, thoughts drifting back to where I had just
been. The school night ruined it. We have sleepovers often enough,
even when . . . well, regardless, I don't need her "livening up" my
life (thank-you-very-much). Looking toward the mirror, its surface
catches the light just so, and winks. I feel unnerved.
"A shooting star! Look!"
I bolt awake violently. I'm lucky I remember to duck my head when I sit
up, as otherwise I would have ended up with a rather nasty scrape to my
scalp. My cloud-white duvet is wreathed around my waist and legs
tightly. There had been a considerable struggle with invisible demons,
and the rancid taste of my mouth gives evidence to that. A trembling hand
lifts, using the linen of my sleeve to wipe the gelid sweat from my forehead
and cheeks.
It tastes like I have a mouthful of copper ball bearings stuffed in my cheeks,
melting together into one large sphere that will reside there until I muster
enough fortitude to swallow. Copper always reminded me of blood.
Arching a svelte brow, I pass Daisuke a side-glance before returning my eyes to
the starry night sky. The disintegration of the cosmic chunk of debris
was swift and entirely too ephemeral. I smile knowingly, having caught
sight of my hopeful friend squeezing his eyes shut and crossing his fingers,
making that unsaid wish for all the universe to take into its heart. I
don't tack my desires onto the tail of transient stars. I'm afraid they'll come true.
"You know, Daisuke," I recite softly, feeling that all suffixes are
unnecessary while we're truly alone. This section of the park is
wonderfully excluded in the first stripes of the coming night, a spot we
discovered after fitful wandering here following dinner with his family.
We have school tomorrow, so we can't stay out forever.
"Yeah?"
We're sitting next to each other, admiring how visible the wild yonder can be
even in the middle of a horrendously refulgent city, outstretched legs straying
close enough to touch one another. I lick my lips before speaking:
"Some people believe shooting stars denote sadness and grief."
His good-natured grin fades. I feel horribly guilty. His voice is
quiet when he speaks: "Do you believe that, Ken?"
"I wonder if he has fucked that guy . . ."
They never stood a chance. I still don't know what happened
exactly. Something snapped in me, like all of my insides had been a
tightly wound spring, and their little guffawing assumptions just kept twisting
and twisting it around. When it broke, I didn't have any sort
of control over myself until it was too late. I frighten myself a lot,
anymore. There are just moments when I wonder if maybe I shouldn't have
resisted the therapy and lithium.
I place a hand abruptly on the ground beside me, taken from its post of lying
parallel to my leg. I use it to steady myself, watching the world tumble
around me crazily. Where am I? What time is it? I . . . oh,
crickets in the background, and the victorious pale cornsilk moon dancing
across the sky. The park. And Daisuke . . . he's looking at me,
anxious: "Are you all right?"
"Something's broken," I whisper, feeling more ill.
I don't employ my fancy self-defense martial artwork on them. They don't
deserve to only come out with homely bruises that will teach them better than
to say such rude and prejudice things. The janitors are the first to find
me with them, and they go to get more robust attendants to haul me off when
they can't stop me. I scream the entire time, a high-pitched keen that
just tears their hurtful laughter apart while I bash them repeatedly with the
spiked flat of the shoe I have just taken off.
I know I left one of them unconscious, bearing a concussion I'm sure was the
result of when I threw him into the row of cerulean lockers. The other
boy, his name I can't extract right now, is left with a split lip, broken nose,
and plenty of bloody puncture holes.
I only receive a detention, although the principal is furious. He says,
"We will discuss the matter of expulsion with you later!" I
want to tell him to fuck off. I really do.
His good-natured grin fades. I feel horribly guilty. His voice is
quiet when he speaks: "Do you believe that, Ken?"
Hadn't I already been here? My memories . . . they've all blended
together.
I watch Daisuke's face for a moment more. "I don't know," I
offer honestly, tilting my head back to take in the dark tapestry with its
crystalline studs. A breeze toys coltishly with a few longer tendrils of
navy blue that had been intruding my eyesight.
There's warmth on my cheek. My eyes widen, and I level my chin with the
slightest turn of my neck to look back towards my stargazing colleague.
His fingers, tanned and healthy-looking, clash greatly with my own blanch skin;
they rest near my mouth comfortably, his eyes burning with an emotion so vivid
and denuded that it scares me.
"You don't have to be sad any longer," Daisuke clarifies for only my
ears, shifting a little on the moist grass that blankets the ground. He
looks beautiful. "I'll always be here for you. And I think
your eyeliner makes you look pretty, too."
(Love -- strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal
ties; affection and tenderness felt by lovers.)
I begin to cry when he touches his lips to mine, and my arms fasten themselves
around his waist. I finally know absolute completion.
I go to sleep thinking of Daisuke and his kiss with its silent promises.
The new mirror says nothing to me, and merely keeps watch from its post
opposite of my private terrace. And that's when I dream:
"I can't believe I have to take you to get ice cream," Osamu
grumbles, pulling his sweater around himself tighter in his vexation. He
shoots a glare to my obliviously happy face, the ice in his eyes making a
rather fearsome comeback. "I'd rather be studying."
I crane my head back, taking in the list of frozen flavors that had been posted
by the roadside confectionary stand we're visiting right now. There's
vanilla (too plain!), mint (too weird!), rainbow sherbet (too colorful!),
strawberry (too fruity!), almond (too nutty!), butterscotch (too sticky!), and
. . .
"CHOCOLATE!" I blazon at last, tugging at my brother's hanging
arm. "I want chocolate!"
Osamu stares at me for a moment, before a rather insidious smirk crosses his
pale lips. "Too bad. You're getting vanilla," he
rectifies, using the limb I'm riveted onto to knock me back a number of feet
carelessly.
"No!" I yell, stomping my foot. "You never listen to
me! I want chocolate! Chocolate chocolate chocolate chocolate
chocolate chocolate --"
"SHUT UP!"
I find myself on the ground, ankle almost sprained from its rather painful position
underneath the rest of my body. The vendor, pitying but unable to really
help anything, just decides to move on. While I gape at my brother
hatefully, tears well in my eyes, large and globular. They drop like shiny beads down my face, tasting metallic at
the corners of my mouth. My scorn throbs like the hand imprint on my face
where he had so mordantly struck me down.
"Why can't you be like other big brothers?!" I wail, scrambling
uselessly at the few pebbles that I just want to hurtle at him. "They're
always nice to their little brothers! And they take them to do
stuff! You always have to study, and when you're not studying, you're hurting
me! Huh? Huh?! I . . . I hate you!"
He looks stunned. The frost in his vision falters, but I'm realizing all
of this just too little, too late. He bends down to me, reaching out a
hand with caution, as if he is about to touch a battered animal.
"Ken-chan . . . I'm sorry . . ."
No, he's not. Say it. You say it at night, when you're crying
into your pillow.
What? No, I can't . . . not again . . .
You say it while you're hiding in the shower stall, when your parents just
don't care.
It's not his fault! There's something wrong with him! I've
realized that!
And now, look at you, about to let him just do it all over again . . .
I . . . I can't . . . it could be different this time . . .
Really? You know it can't be. But you still have the power to
make everything better, at least for a little while. You can't deny that,
because you wish . . . you wish . . .
"I WISH YOU WOULD JUST DISAPPEAR!"
Osamu recoils instantly, straightening up as though called to attention.
He looks at me indifferently while I continue to cry, more so from my own shame
of saying something so cutting to my elder brother. I stand shakily,
small hands clenched into fists as I almost choke on my own
self-loathing. I barely hear him when he addresses me.
"All right, Ken. I will." He steps back into the street
while I'm looking down toward the chipped concrete.
A hideous squeal of tires assaults our ears.
My head snaps up, eyes as wide as tea saucers. Osamu! Osamu!!
Osamu . . .
He never saw that van coming.
I bolt awake violently. I'm lucky I remember to duck my head when I sit
up, as otherwise I would have ended up with a rather nasty scrape to my
scalp. My cloud-white duvet is wreathed around my waist and legs
tightly. There had been a considerable struggle with invisible demons,
and the rancid taste of my mouth gives evidence to that. A trembling hand
lifts, using the linen of my sleeve to wipe the gelid sweat from my forehead
and cheeks.
It tastes like I have a mouthful of copper ball bearings stuffed in my cheeks,
melting together into one large sphere that will reside there until I muster
enough fortitude to swallow. Copper always reminded me of blood. My
dry lips would crack and bleed before I took serious consideration into using
balmy salve and I could flicker out my taste buds for just one suggestion of
it. A solid ball of rotting blood is in my mouth -- his blood? --
and the rancor makes me want to vomit.
After I manage to ingest it, I decide that a glass of cold water will dispose
of the acerbic and dry aftertaste on my tongue. I climb out of bed,
careful not to hit my head or rouse Wormmon, and pad into the kitchen.
It's on the way back that I spot the new mirror, my teary and disheveled state,
and . . . I sit down, bewildered.
And it is later that I take the penknife from my desk . . . and . . . words,
thoughts, feelings . . .
A pair of hands falls onto my shoulders when all of it is done. I
investigate upward, sniffling.
I've never seen him look so sad.
I don't know if I'm grateful or disturbed. His penchant for icy gazes
appears to have waned; the formerly omnipresent glacial quality of his eyes is
missing, as though broken away by a warm tidal flow. The now unhampered
topaz, clear like a diamond and still capable of being just as splitting, is
alarmingly incongruous to what my reeling mind can recall. The malignancy
is gone. There is something more human now.
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
I'm not even surprised he's here. His tension is apparent with the shell
of cold gloss stripped crudely away; like it's a mistake, that he shouldn't be
here, and . . . well. My shoulders are given a squeeze, crooked though
they may be in the awkward position I'm sitting in. I am back against my
haunches, knees bent inward and weight tilting towards one, and my head craned
to the side and back to look up the length of clothed arm to his face. I probably
look like hell. The tears are incidental now. I've lamented enough.
He is all together morose in the colors he's donning: a beryl sweater and pair
of blue jeans dark enough to be considered midnight if minded improperly.
The wool of his cuffs brushes against my neck, where my raven hair had been
pushed behind my ear at some point in our silent contemplation of one
another. His smile is melancholy. He feels he has been late for
something; the disquiet on his face is as readable as a book; he has always
been so punctual in his exploits. He reminds me of the White
Rabbit, forever obsessing over his pocket-watch and its Victorian hands.
His disappointment in himself is dense.
I want to tell him it's okay; I'm okay. But I can't seem to find the
words.
I don't remember him ever crying before. He is now, and I can't help but
marvel at that fact: But whom are you crying for?
Yourself? . . . Or is it I too now?
I take Osamu's hand in my own, and let him help me to stand.
"I was too late," he whispers past his throaty tears, bowing his head
as he regards the effeminate hand in his grasp. Confusion pours over me,
and I tilt my head just slightly, listening. "I thought that I . . .
maybe . . ."
"Onii . . . Onii-san . . . ?"
"Just turn around, damn it!"
I do just as he orders, unquestioning. Everything suddenly seems clearer
and sharper but darker, as though the Kaiser's goggles had been slipped over my
head. I'm lying there, facedown on the jejune fuchsia carpeting,
one arm splayed to the side and the other curled under my body to reach in the
same direction.
The only reflection in the mirror is of my crumpled body, resembling that of a
fallen dove, paralyzed by Coccidiosis at the base of an autumnal tree in a
forest of uncaring shrubbery. The silver of proemial sunrise casts my
hair in an aluminum glaze. It's going to be five o'clock soon. I
have soccer practice this morning.
I take a halting step backwards; luckily my brother is there to catch hold of
me before I can fall once more. I have found the rest of the picture in
my search. Burgundy gashes flay my wrists' veins open both horizontally
and vertically, resembling a pair of very fleshy and untidy T-style
lacerations. A pool of this ichor has spread out a least a half foot from
where my hands rest, one loosely clasped over a gold-handled blade, staining
the sleeves of my pajamas crimson. I must have been there for quite some
-- oh shit. The Primary Village, when I -- and my wrists -- the penknife
-- I was distracted by the daydream . . . oh . . . fuck! I couldn't stop
myself! And afterward . . . but I . . . I was seeing what I wanted to
see: that I stopped in time . . .
I stand there for a long time, trying to process everything.
My brother tugs on my wrist, this one unbroken and perfect. "Ken . .
. it's time to go."
"Where are we going?" I ask him, one arm wrapped tightly around
myself.
He just smiles sadly, tears still present. "You know the
place. It's where your happiness is epitomized, where you can taste the
sunshine on your tongue, run through an open field, and watch the sky in its
summer blue robes . . . where we'll chase butterflies together through the
flowers, and play any game you want, Ken-chan . . ."
I nod, breaking my eyes away from my . . . "You heard my plan that
day, in the graveyard?"
"Yes, I did."
"Onii-san . . . what's the meaning of life?"
He winds his fingers around my forearm. He's warm. I never imagined
he'd feel so . . . real. "Life is but a prelude," he answers,
directing me towards the balcony, where already the shut glass is starting to
swim together and brighten to make a glowing white frame. I can smell
honeysuckle. "What comes after it holds all the
meaning."
I turn my head back one last time before I go through the gateway. I bite
back the bile, trying to sum up all I could say . . . my parents, Wormmon . . .
Daisuke-chan . . .
"I love you all. We'll see each other again someday, ne? . . .
Good-bye."
My alarm clock begins ringing as I step into the light.
* * owari * *
