Anger
The woman that they send me to in order to talk about Saki's death says that the person who killed my sister has a disturbed soul, that they've been twisted by their own self-loathing, and that it wasn't her fault that she died. Apparently, this is supposed to help.
A lot of people didn't like Saki, myself included when she did things to deliberately annoy me. I still don't like her now, because now the neighbours stare at me when I walk down the shopping district, and talk about me when I dare be anything but sad. My parents don't talk any more, they whisper. Mother cries, and Father often closes the store up early because he can't take the strain either. It's because of Saki that things are this way. If she hadn't disappeared that night...
"Konishi-kun, surely you don't hate your sister," the grief counsellor says after her speech about the corruption of the human condition. "You are just in a very difficult place right now. You are angry at the injustice of her death."
No, I'm not. If it's anyone whose head I want to knock off, it's Hanamura's. He goes about school with his gang of friends as if nothing happened. Before Saki died, he was like an old stain that refused to go away. Now he has Seta, and an army of friend and Saki's been discarded like a piece of unwanted trash.
Amagi, Tatsumi, Kujikawa... They all disappeared like my sister did, but they all turned up a few days later. Even the kid who killed King Moron was found after he went missing. A murderer of all people!
"Why? What do they have that Saki didn't? What makes them so special?" I frown, clutching the cup of tea that she's poured out to relax me. I know what she's waiting for, the explosive, textbook outburst where hot water and bone china are hurled at the wall. She wants to sugar coat things, make it seem like everything's okay so that my parents will think that she's done a good job and throw more money at her. That's injustice.
"It's okay to let it out Konishi-kun," she smiles sweetly, using a patronising tone usually reserved for small children and animals.
I picture Hanamura's face in my mind. He's simpering over Saki whilst she works away in that darned Junes. Then he's laughing with Seta and buddies whilst we're burying my sister in the ground. Souji Seta, the transfer student who thinks he can just walk up to me and be my friend just because he got roped into extra-curricular activities.
"More tea, Konishi-kun?" The counsellor beams, noticing that I've finished my drink. "How about a nice cream cake?"
"No." I shake my head, getting to my feet. "I'm going to go home now."
"But you still have twenty minutes until--"
"I said that I'm going to go home now."
I leave her with her sickly smile and sticky buns and wander down the corridor, hoping to find the elevator that will take me to the ground floor. It's hot outside, so the kid they've hired to clean the hospital is wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He catches me staring at him and meets my gaze. I recognise him from school, but I haven't really been around much to learn everyone's name. I bet he's thinking: "That's the Konishi kid, the guy whose sister was found hanging from a telephone pole in April."
No, it's not Saki that I hate. It's those who pity me, who think I should act as if I'm the one who died. It's those who avoid me, deliberately lowering their gazes as I stroll through the hall at school and whispering behind my back. I hate them so much, I could...
A/N: I think I have a subconscious obsession with drinks. First it was orange juice, now tea. 3: