Heaven's Postman
A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth. –Aesop
Chapter 10 – Catching a Liar
"Kazuma… Kazuma!" Ryouji cried, slamming his palms on the table with his head down.
The tape stopped and all that was heard in the room was Ryouji's sobs. Sakura patted him on the shoulder and looked up at Sasuke. She noticed something odd in Sasuke's eyes… like guilt.
"Look—" Sasuke began.
"Your son forgave you, Misuta," Sakura said, quickly interrupting him on purpose. She wondered what he was up to, but had a good idea of it. She threw him a warning glace.
Despite Sakura's attitude, he stepped back to bow at the man. "Please forgive me, Ryouji-san, but this tape is fake," he said calmly. "It's made up. We recorded the voice with the help of a voice specialist. It was edited."
Sakura scoffed, wanting to shut Sasuke up with her first against his abdomen. "Sasuke!" she warned. "It's the truth! I really found this in Uruguay… I spent all my time looking for you."
"That's a lie, Sakura!" Sasuke barked at her.
"No it's not!" she said, screaming now.
"A minute ago, you two acted like you didn't know each other," Ryouji said without looking up. His cries had stopped and dimmed into realization after hearing Sasuke's words.
Feeling cornered and defeated, the pinkette took Sasuke's wrists and dragged him out the back door to the lawn outside. He unwillingly went with it, though he could have pulled away with brutal force if he wanted to.
"Why?" she demanded. "We were doing just fine!"
"We shouldn't continue doing this," he said, his voice in a surprisingly calm level now.
"Why? He believed me! That's how he became relieved! He could have been comforted, Sasuke! Did you have to ruin it?"
He exhaled, trying to keep his anger in. He didn't want to fight with her. "This is between him and his son."
Her lips trembled for a moment of collecting her voice and thoughts. "You don't know anything! You've never been in this type of pain before—missing someone so much that you'd kill a person to see them again! You have never experienced that horrible feeling in your life, have you? Lies can make it better. You wouldn't know how to make people feel better!"
"Lies don't matter because sooner or later, everyone will face this kind of situation. I know people can deal with the pain because it is just a part of life. It's normal, just like breathing air or eating. Only cowards have to lie because they want to erase their minds. You have to be realistic," he countered. "Let's stop this and stop using lies as a key to putting hope back into people's lives."
Sasuke was caught in shock for a moment because he realized the truth of his words. You live, then you die. Your loved one lives, then they die. It was the cycle of life and it is a normal experience. It's one of those things you can't help but face sometime.
Sakura crossed her arms across her chest. "Then why did you start working? What are you? You send dead people letters from the living world and work as Heaven's Postman, right? I actually think about other people's feelings ahead of mine." She scoffed. "You're a coward aren't you?"
He gritted his teeth and balled his fists. "What did you just say?"
"You're a coward, Sasuke!"
"Say it again!"
"I can say it a hundred times if I wanted to. Stop being so selfish!"
Ryouji suddenly appeared under the door's frame and he was putting his arm in between them. "Now, now, now."
Looking back at the old man, they both realized who they hurt most of all in the situation—the great feeling of lying relief to be crushed by the truth. The two bowed at him respectfully and muttered apologies.
He sighed and closed his weary eyes. "I can't believe this… I'm sorry, but can you two leave? I want to be alone." Without another word, he closed the door and locked it, leaving the two outside.
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Sakura had ended up deciding to leave first as she angrily stomped away across the streets and roads. Like last time, the postman followed her. He wasn't sure why, because Sakura obviously wanted to be alone as well. A part of him told him to follow her even though.
He paused on his heels when she did meters away. She waited until she knew he'd stop following her. Sensing her thoughts, Sasuke gestured to a different path to his left.
"I'll… go this way," he muttered, though he did not move from his spot.
Sakura turned and walked ahead to the opposite direction, wanting to get away from the world for a while. He stared at her retrieving back. Something restrained him from chasing her any longer. After a few steps, she halted and turned around. It was like she sensed something had suddenly disappeared that she had left earlier.
Sasuke watched as she ran at his direction although her eyes always passed through his figure. She gripped her hair, almost pulling a bunch from her scalp. Her eyes scanned the area around her frantically. Slowly, Sasuke realized he was invincible to her again.
As he watched her troubled expression, he noticed the stress he was spilling all over her. Sasuke thought that getting to know her was a mistake because it would end up hurting both of them at the end. He'd have to leave n less than a week and he did not want her to feel any more pain than she did now. Sasuke promised to himself that he would never get involved in her business ever again.
Three Days Later...
Ryouji held the camera up to his eye and snapped a photo that angled to the dark clouds over head. Looking at his picture on the screen, he thought that it was the best picture of the nimbus clouds he had ever seen. He had picked a good day to take a walk with his camera.
A rain drop splashed against his nose. Soon enough the clouds had released everything and dropped all heck on the entire town. Under seconds, it was already pouring outside.
He instinctively covered his camera with his arms, instead of protecting his head. Ryouji had noticed the sudden halt of the drops on his head and the presence that appeared behind him. Looking up, he saw a yellow umbrella with red cherries shielding his body from the rain.
"Hello again, Ryouji-san."
Glancing behind him, he saw the same pink-haired girl he had met three days ago.
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"Cream or sugar?"
"No, thank you."
"Got it."
Ryouji placed a plain cup of coffee in front of Sakura, cream and sugar-less. Meanwhile, she was looking through the man's photo album (the same one Sasuke saw) and admired every picture to the fullest.
"You must take them everyday. The pictures, I mean," she said before taking a sip.
"Yes, I do." He had wandered over to the window, watching the water hit the glass, creating interesting patterns. "There was a powerful typhoon during 2003 at exactly this month. Do you remember it?"
Sakura recalled back to the typhoon that kept people indoors for a long time due to the damages of plenty of buildings in town. She had been sixteen at the time and could not continue high school until a couple of months later. "Yes, I do," she replied.
"I was taking photos of the sky. No matter what, I still kept taking pictures."
She nodded, acknowledging his words. She realized that his son had been dead for a long time. Suddenly remembering her last encounter with Ryouji, she instantly felt that same feeling of guilt that gnawed her insides when she'd think about it.
"Look… I'm sorry about last time," she told him truthfully.
He spoke without turning back. "After that incident, It seemed like I had completely shut down all my common sense. I forgot to open this restaurant yesterday because I was so absorbed in the thought. It was like that time I found out Kazuma died all over again."
Sakura uneasily fumbled in her seat. "You really got mad, didn't you? I'm sorry."
He paced around a small space for a while and then took a seat in a leather couch next to the window. "I'm not mad. You have to face these kinds of things as an adult," he explained. "You guys were so frustrated at each other…"
Sakura laughed, remembering the argument. Since then, she decided to part ways with the postman and never saw him since. When she laughed, it was fake. When she smiled, it was forced knowing that Sasuke himself had given her the encouragement to do those simple things of happiness again. Now that she decided to be separate from him, she was back to the beginning. "We were."
Ryouji thoughtfully stroked his hairless chin. "I thought a lot about it—about who's right and who's wrong."
She blinked, muddled. "Pardon?"
"I was really fooled, you know? I started to ask myself 'Would I have really been comforted if I had believed you?'" He chuckled. "The thought is still here," he patted his chest with a fist, "a deep place. On the other hand, I don't know if it's right to calm someone with a lie, just like Sasuke said."
Sakura was deep in thought, thinking about Sasuke's perspective instead of focusing on hers; something she had failed to do.
"I still don't have my thoughts sorted," he continued. "After I heard from inside that you two were fighting, I though 'they're fighting over me...' Instead of being mad, I am thankful. But what I am surprised at is the sky."
"The sky?" she questioned.
"Yes, the sky. If I continue to take pictures of the sky everyday for the rest of my life, I thought my son would forgive me. It felt like my mind was going to him. I used that excuse for taking pictures, but now it's changed," he said getting up and pacing back and forth next to the window again. She only watched him with curious eyes. "Now that we've talked, I feel comfortable and my life is different now. Thank you." Ryouji smiled, nodding at her.
Sakura smiled in return, realizing that Sasuke was right—Ryouji was okay even though his son died. He could cope with it. All she should have done is talk to him and not go to the trouble of making up such lies that hurt more than they heal.
"Did you and Sasuke ever make up?" he asked with an expectant grin.
She fisted her hands on her lap. "Um…" she hesitated. "No. After that incident we haven't met once."
She remembered that same feeling of emptiness when she turned and saw that Sasuke had disappeared again. Sakura thought it be best if she didn't get mixed up with someone like him, especially after being caught and fighting in front of a kind-hearted man like Ryouji. Even when she told herself that she didn't need him, sometimes she would sit next to the mailbox and wait for hours.
Ryouji sighed. "Really? Sasuke came over here this morning. I asked him if you two made up, but he told me he was going to a far away place today."
Sakura forgot how to breathe, her breath caught in her throat. "He did? Where?"
"I think it was a foreign place. I asked if he would visit soon and he told me that he couldn't guarantee it." He looked up at the ceiling pondering. "What did he say again? Oh… something about being caught lor something. I'm not sure. He can be weird sometimes, you know?"
She choked on words, suddenly recalling one of the things he had told him.
"When we get caught by the people who sent the letters. When they find out what I'm doing and realize it's a lie, I will get discharged."
Quickly she stood from her seat and threw a bill of money and gulped the rest of her coffee quickly. The man asked her what was wrong, but she didn't seem to hear. "I apologize, but I have to leave right now," she said instead, already running out the door into the pouring rain.
Sakura ran thoughtlessly through the road, dodging a car and ignoring the angry honks and stares she got from drivers. Running and grabbing her umbrella first was not in her head. Instead she kept thinking of that familiar face that she sought to find now.
Author's Notes: I got some reviews asking me why Sasuke choose to tell Ryouji about Sakura's plan. Well, here you go. I hope the explanation in this chapter was clear: he knew that lies were not keys to feeling comfort. I think that this is the last bit of Ryouji we see for now. Bye, bye…
In the next chapter, Sakura goes and tried to find Sasuke before his time runs out. Furthermore, information of his life when he was living is revealed (how he died, what he did as a job… ect). Keep an eye on it! Chapter 11 is also the last chapter in my little story… I feel glum now. I'm including an epilogue also, so it'll be two up at the same time next time. Thank you to my wonderful readers!