Katsumi stood by the window with his hands pressed to the glass and stared at the rain which turned the world outside into an Impressionist painting. He was intruding just by being here. This wasn't anything to do with him and he'd known it from the start. As soon as it was polite to do so, he'd retreated to his room, or rather Takafumi's spare room which currently had most of his stuff in it, claiming a headache. The last thing Takafumi and Keisuke needed at the moment was a third party who did nothing but get in the way. This wasn't his problem any more. He had his own problems to deal with and he had no right to try to deal with this one as well until he'd sorted out some of his own.
Unless they actually wanted him at the moment, he'd stay out of the way.
He didn't want to think about what would have happened if Keisuke and he hadn't arrived at that café when they did. They should have been there earlier, they could have prevented this… but if they'd arrived later, what would have happened? Katsumi knew from experience what was likely to have happened. At least they'd been able to do something. At least they hadn't been too late to help.
He doubted he'd sleep well tonight. He doubted the others would either.
He didn't want to be here. Not now. Putting his coat on and picking up the umbrella he'd bought just under a week ago when it became apparent that the bad weather was only going to get worse, Katsumi walked out of the room and the flat, closing the front door carefully and quietly behind him. He didn't know where he was going and didn't care that he didn't know, but he had to get out. He was interfering at a time when Takafumi and Keisuke should have been left alone.
In the kitchen, Keisuke frowned to himself and looked at the floor. He didn't know what to do, what to say. And to think today had begin so simply. He wasn't even sure why it was they'd agreed to go out - to break the monotony of what had promised to be such a dull day. It had been Takafumi's idea and he'd laughed at the stupidity of it, of going out for the sake of it and just seeing what happened. And even when they'd gone out…
Katsumi had met his sister and they'd talked for a bit about school and parents, mind-numbing family stuff. He'd smiled a bit and it was rare to see Katsumi smile these days. Takafumi had then said something about wanting to go and see if a book he'd ordered had arrived or not though Keisuke suspected that was a cover for wanting to go shopping. Katsumi, nonetheless, had grabbed him by the arm and asked him to save him from the tyranny of medical textbooks and Takafumi had laughed again and said something about being careful and if you don't stop flirting so obviously with Kei, Katsumi, I'll really have to get you, then he'd walked off.
Takafumi hadn't said a word to either of them since, and Keisuke hadn't felt able to ask Katsumi what exactly had happened when he had been in Koji's flat earlier that afternoon. It probably hadn't been much but for Katsumi, knowing what he knew about Koji, it had doubtless been enough that he could fill in the blanks as to what had happened and what Koji and his boyfriend (Katsumi had told them very little about the man save for the fact that he was a jealous, sadistic lunatic) had intended to happen.
What was it Katsumi had said to him after they'd seen Koji at that coffee shop? Something like that Koji, along with that boyfriend of his, were the only people in the world that he could quite cheerfully murder.
Keisuke knew the feeling. He wasn't a violent person by nature but already he knew the feeling and it frightened him.
In an attempt to keep himself busy and stop himself from thinking along those lines, Keisuke decided to start making a dinner which he didn't think anyone would be in the mood to eat. At least the option would be there, he thought. Displacement activity - it would keep him busy at least. He didn't think he could stand to do nothing but think and blame himself for not having thought a bit earlier. Katsumi could have told him it was futile to think like that, though it was hardly as if Katsumi didn't think like that himself.
Sat on the floor of the bathroom dressed in a bathrobe, Takafumi looked round the room through a curtain of wet hair without seeing anything. He felt like he should say something to the others but wasn't sure what. He didn't know how to react to what had just happened.
So he didn't react at all.
***
Kimie Mori, currently lying on his front on his bed with a book that he wasn't even looking at let alone reading, wearing a walkman that he hadn't even bothered turning on, listened to his parents arguing again and wondered if things might have been easier had he been born into a different family, preferably one who didn't live in a cramped high-rise with paper-thin walls. If he could hear his parents then the neighbours could. Their neighbours, not that they were really on speaking terms, had to be getting well and truly fed up of living next door to them - they'd be round to bitch tomorrow, no doubt, about the baby needing it's sleep. Big deal. Kimie needed sleep as well but he didn't complain when the baby went off at half past two in the morning for the Xth night in a row.
But Kimie was getting well and truly fed up of listening to his parents' 'disagreements', that was for sure. He wished they'd stop arguing. More to the point, he wished they'd stop arguing about him.
Kimie didn't know what had sparked off this argument - it wasn't like they'd have told him if he'd asked anyway. It had been fairly obvious before. At least twice a week he had been chided for his behaviour, for not being serious enough about school, for being irresponsible and reckless. That had at least made some sense and had at least involved him. Now when they argued about him or the way he was behaving they didn't tell him as much. They just argued with each other and if he asked what the problem was he was told quite brusquely that it had nothing to do with him, when that was clearly not the case. They had to think he was stupid. He supposed it was easier to think of him that way than to see him as someone who did dumb things. Maybe it was his medical bills this time - he knew his family were not rich, he also knew he'd cost them a lot in the last few months.
Still, the irony of his situation wasn't lost on him. They'd fretted because he'd wanted to go out and now they fretted because he wanted to stay in his room and practically had to be forced to go out, even if it was only to go to school.
He hated school. It wasn't like he'd ever really enjoyed it, but he hated it now. He certainly wasn't learning anything there, with the possible exception of how to hide his feelings. Most of the people in his form thought he'd somehow 'asked for it'. They hadn't told him as much but it had been pretty obvious. No matter what people said he wasn't stupid. A couple of the girls still talked to him, but that was because they found him 'interesting'. Like a zoo animal, or the subject of a Sociology project. The boys ignored him - mainly. It was the ones who didn't he had to look out for. He'd never had many friends but he had none now. Kimie wondered what the problem with him was, if they thought that what had happened to him was contagious. That was a more than averagely stupid idea, but…
Actually part of him did want to go out, but at the same time he didn't. Not that it made any sense to him, that kind of feeling. It was getting dark outside, and he hated being out alone after dark. He hated being alone anyway. At least if his parents were arguing he knew that they were still there. He hadn't been scared of shadows or the night for a long time, he knew there were no such things as monsters in the cupboards or under the beds. It was the people who came out at night that worried him now.
The people… they'd told him something, that couple - he couldn't remember their names, couldn't remember if they had ever let him know them - they'd mentioned someone else to him. It was one of the few things he remembered of the evening with any lucidity. The taller man, the one with long hair, had said something along the lines of you're just like this other boy, you're pretty when you cry. Kimie was sure he'd know the name if he heard it again.
Turning the Walkman on, he tried to blot out the noise of his mother's raised voice and concentrate on the play of raindrops on the windowpane. It was always the way… his mother's voice would get louder and shriller and more hysterical and his father would try to keep his level and calm. It was always the way they played it. Maybe they enjoyed it. It was a relationship of a sort…
"Shut up." Kimie said to himself, feeling the horribly familiar hot prickling behind the eyes that meant he was on the verge of tears yet again. He was so emotional these days… he'd never been seen as undemonstrative but now practically anything could upset him, or so it seemed. "For the love of the Gods shut the hell up."
Kurosaki. He'd said he'd help him. How? In what capacity? You can't help the helpless.
***
The man searching desperately through his pockets for what, Koji didn't know, was in his mid forties at the least. He wasn't that attractive - certainly wasn't cute. There had to be some reason behind him noticing him in the first place. Looking back knowing what he came to know later he wondered if it had been because something about him looked familiar. Maybe it was. Who could tell?
"What's the matter?"
The man was a stranger but there was something familiar about him. What was it? There was nothing about him of any note, he just looked like any one of the city-ciphers you saw day in, day out. So unremarkable he almost became remarkable. It had been so easy to get him talking. After Takafumi's recalcitrance it had almost been pleasant.
"I only wish my son could behave as well…"
The man's name was Shibuya - he was estranged from his son, a nineteen year old student who dyed his hair blonde. He felt it was the boy's fault that someone he'd met in a bar a while back had tried to kill him. He didn't understand how his son could claim that he'd done nothing to provoke it. These things don't happen for no reason at all. He felt that anyone with a grain of common sense would have been able to spot a dangerous situation when they saw it, would be able to spot a killer when they met them, and would behave accordingly. That his son's failure to realise what was going to happen to him was entirely his fault; he was naïve - no, he was stupid. He must have seen it coming, he must have. How can you fail to spot the killer in your midst?
Koji wanted to prove him wrong.
***
Father!
Like a primal scream. Wasn't that some kind of therapy? Wasn't it meant to be therapeutic to scream? Was that him screaming? If it was he wasn't feeling any better but he didn't care because what did it matter how he felt? Maybe he'd once known about whether or not screaming was therapeutic but he'd forgotten it. His father might have known but of course he couldn't ask his father could he? Because all that was over now, over and gone, and there was no way to get it back and he had no way to atone for it and no way to apologise and say he hadn't meant it…
He couldn't take back any of the things he'd said, any of the things he'd later regretted saying and there'd been plenty, god damn his stupid stubborn bloody pride, look where it had got them all, he hadn't been willing to admit he was wrong and now look at the mess he'd gone and made, look at what he'd done to his life and to his family and the people he said were his friends and look what he'd done to his father. Stupid just to assume he'd always be there and that he could go and apologise any time…
Father!
He'd never screamed like this in public before. Never, ever. It wasn't something he'd ever felt the need to do. He'd never cried openly in public either, he'd normally been able to hold back until he was alone or practically alone and it was appropriate for him to cry. Once upon a time he'd had something called self-control but then again once upon a time he'd had a sense of self… he barely even felt it when somebody slapped him.
Calm down. You're making a scene… oh, for heavens' sake, child!
He'd never been accused of being overly inhibited but there'd been some things he wouldn't do but that was all in the past now, everything was all in the past but he couldn't leave it behind like you were supposed to with the past. The past was a burden, memory was a burden, it was all too much and he couldn't get by alone but he couldn't expect to find any sympathy or help and even if he did he couldn't accept it everyone he cared for got hurt or died and there was nowhere to go and no one to talk to, no way to let go and no way forward, it was all too much and he just wanted it all to stop.
Full stop.
Is that his son? I didn't recognise him.
Murderer. Who was a murderer? He felt like a murderer, he'd killed three people because he'd been too much of a coward to go and tell the police what he knew and because of it one of his friends had been raped, someone he didn't even know had been raped and practically killed as well, his oldest friend and his girlfriend had been murdered and so had his father and it was the same man and he could have stopped it and he hadn't so wasn't it his fault since he'd had it in his power to do something and he hadn't just because he was scared? What kind of a person did that make him? He didn't deserve the second chance, the third chance, all he did with life was screw it up so why was he alive when he didn't deserve it? Why had three innocent people been killed because of him? Why was he still alive? Why couldn't he die?
Mother, what's the matter with niichan?
Make it stop.
Just make it all stop.
I don't care how you do it but make it all stop. Please!
This must be what it felt like to be going mad. Maybe he was going mad. A part of him (the rational part?) didn't see how anyone who screamed in public, even at funerals - and wasn't it meant to be the done thing for the men at funerals to act, if not totally unemotionally, then at least to stay restrained? - had nightmares, jumped at shadows and thought obsessively about murder and self-murder and guilt could be considered anywhere near rational. Murderer. Lunatic. Now look what you've done. Who's it going to be next? Where's it going to end?
Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Make it stop.
Do you want to be alone for a while?
He'd felt like this before and he knew how he'd made it stop then. Then again he didn't care about the how. Call it atonement. Maybe if he finished what Koji had started Koji wouldn't feel the need to hurt anybody else any more. He could at least try. Even if he was wrong, it wouldn't matter. At least it wouldn't matter to him and that was all he wanted.
I do apologise for the fuss; he's never done this before. Come on, Katsumi. Let's go somewhere private.
***
"Oniichan." Standing in the hall after changing out of her stiff, uncomfortable formal clothes, Madoka knocked on Katsumi's bedroom door. "Do you want… I mean, I'm making myself some dinner, and I thought you might want something. You should eat something."
She listened to the silence for a bit, then opened the door and looked round the room. Not terribly good form. Katsumi didn't like people walking in on him, but given his behaviour earlier she just wanted to check. At funerals men are meant to be stoic, but this version of her brother, who seemed like nobody she'd ever met before, screamed and cried when he wanted to and just didn't care. Then again he, this familiar stranger, a boy she knew intimately and had never met, was frightened and hurting and nobody could reach him.
The room was a bit untidy, but it was to be expected. Pretty spartanly furnished. Most of the things Katsumi considered to be important he'd taken with him when he left home and were currently in boxes or Takafumi's guest room. Katsumi himself lay on one side on the bed, still fully dressed but apparently deeply asleep. The window was wide open, letting rain into the room. Shaking her head slightly, she walked over to the window and quietly closed it. She watched the rain cascading down the windows for a while, then turned to go when something on the floor nearby caught her attention.
She'd seen it a couple of times previously either yesterday or the day before, she couldn't remember which. A small bottle of clear plastic with a white printed label stuck on it. She'd seen things like it many times before that. Pill bottles, the kind of thing you got prescription medicine in. She picked it up and looked at it, read the label incuriously. She'd been about to drop it to the floor again when she made the connection she should have done the minute she saw it.
When she'd seen this bottle last it had been practically full. She remembered shaking it and listening to it rattle and Katsumi telling her to put it down because he didn't want to lose it. Madoka couldn't help but remember that was probably the most lucid and clear thing he'd actually said since he'd found out about father.
Still not quite wanting to believe it she walked over to Katsumi and tried to rouse him. He was quite a light sleeper ordinarily and she should at least have got a response from him even if it was only some kind of muttered complaint. She should not have got the nothing that she did. Besides which, Katsumi seldom if ever slept on his side, normally preferring to lie flat. He'd seemed rather too tense to sleep when they'd got back as it was and he'd been hysterical earlier - uncle had been forced to slap him to get him to calm down. Alarmed now, she looked round the room to see if there was anything she could…
He'd left his notebook on the desk; she hadn't noticed it when she went to close the window. One page had been torn out of it, she could see even from here there'd been something scribbled on it with a bright red felt tip pen which had probably been the closest thing to hand. A few inches away, a glass about a quarter full of tap water or something very similar. The lid to the pill bottle. If she'd looked closely she would have seen a few specks of white powder on the surface of the desk. Katsumi had opened the bottle there after writing the note, a slightly longer one than last time, then he'd taken the pills which previously he'd poured out onto the desk and had pushed around with the end of the pen whilst thinking of what he wanted to say. After that he'd walked over to his bed, dropping the bottle on his way.
Madoka hadn't looked closely.
"Mother!"
Part 12