At the Boundary
Overlooking View 1
August 2015
"Hachi"
"Er...uhh..w-what?" I stuttered.
"No, I didn't mean you, I meant eight," my companion answered.
"I don't understand."
"That's because you haven't been listening." This time she shot me a glare and crossed her arms, signaling her displeasure.
It was almost the end of August, the afternoon light was fading into twilight. Hiratsuka-sensei's office only source of light was the large windows around the room, so now everything was bathed in a dim orange light, it was made even worse by the smoke from sensei's cigarette. I didn't like it, but it suited her I guess. The room was large, but most of the space had been taken by a mess of blueprints, old newspapers and various assortments of occult trinkets. This was not her actual office, not officially at least, somehow she managed to get permission to use a storage room in the old school building as a base for her "extracurricular" activities.
Hiratsuka Shizuka is my Japanese Literature teacher in high school, though I could never figure out how she got the job. Her talents lie in the realm of creation, that is to say she built things. She told me once that humans can be separated into two groups; those who "craft and search" and those who "use and destroy", and she told me that I belong in the former, like her. The blueprints around her office were left over from her countless construction projects, which are her main source of income, but her real passion is for dolls. She doesn't keep them here, but I've seen her work, they were so lifelike that I was sure they probably had more personality than most of my peers. She's also a mage, hence the collection of occult trinkets, and she's a good one too, though I wouldn't know what that would entail.
Her personality left a lot to be desired, though. Sure she likes to act the smart and invincible onee-chan type who likes to explain everything in a roundabout way, but that was only when she has her glasses on. Without glasses, she's one of the cruelest people you could meet. She's also a heavy smoker and shitty with money, probably why she couldn't get a boyfriend.
Sensei was behind her desk, her long red hair tied to a ponytail and her face concealed by the darkness and smoke, only the glint of her glasses was visible. She had a strange habit of wearing at least one piece of orange accessory, today it was and orange tie over her usual white shirt. I was on a small sofa facing the black screen of an old color TV, my back to her.
"For someone who's half-blind, you spend a lot of time staring into space, you know?"
I was getting quite irritated now. "If you're just going to insult me, then don't bother, I've heard way better blind guy jokes. Trust me."
She sighed. "There are eight jumpers, so that means there's going to be two more," she explained.
I nodded, I knew better than to second guess someone like her. "Care to tell me how you know this?" I asked.
"Our mutual acquaintance," she replied in a sing-song voice.
I gritted my teeth. That person wasn't someone I want to have anything to do with, especially not right now. "And you trust her, do you?"
She smirked. "A little bit more than I trust you. She's not the kind to lie," She took off her glasses, bad sign. "Look, that's not important, okay? What's important is what you're going to do about it."
My eyes widened, or at least as much as they could. "What I'm going to do about it? Why would I want to do anything about it?"
She crushed her cigarette on an ashtray glasses and walked up to where I was sitting on the sofa. She pulled my head back down so that we were looking straight at each other, my rotten half-blind eyes paled in comparison to her deep red ones. I never liked looking into those eyes of hers; they looked like they were dipped in blood, beautiful in an unsettling kind of way. "Isn't that why you're here? To ask me about the jumpers? Because you can't stand seeing Yuigahama crying all the time," she answered, her mouth grinning maliciously.
"You think too highly of me," I said looking away rather annoyed.
Two days ago, a senior of mine from school died. Her name was Shiromeguri Meguri. Former student council president and all-around nice girl, her death was shock to the whole school. Perhaps it wasn't so much her death itself that was so shocking but more the circumstances surrounding it. Jumping off an apartment building was one thing, but to be sixth one to do it in 2 months was a whole different thing altogether. Five other girls, all highschoolers, jumped to their deaths in the last two months in exactly the same way, from exactly the same place. None of them had any motive to do so, or at least none that anyone around them could think of, and none of them left any suicide note either.
The news of Shiromeguri's death hit the school hard. Death had a tendency to surprise people, especially ones like these. Even though 5 others girls had died in such a relatively short time, one simply wouldn't think something like that would happen to them or the world around them. Something like the news of girls jumping off buildings is detached from people's lives, our minds comprehend what had happened yet we feel as if it was separate from us, as if it had happened in a movie or some far off imaginary world. Nothing about death is imaginary, we are the ones living in our fantasy world, ignoring death until it eventually it would come for us. Even I did, I suppose, I thought solemnly. My interactions with Shiromeguri were minimal and I couldn't say I knew her particularly well nor did she know me too well either, but I liked her. She had possessed that elusive trait of being a decent human being.
"Cut Yuigahama some slack. No one expected Shiromeguri to commit suicide like that," I mourned for her too, in my own way.
Yuigahama Yui, she was one of the members of the club I was a part of in school. The Service Club, the place where the desperate go when they had nowhere else to go, at least most of the time, other times it was just a place where a certain kouhai would go to bother her three senpais. Basically, we help people, as long as their request were deemed within reason by our president and resident Ice Queen, Yukinoshita Yukino. Yuigahama, ever the ditzy bleeding heart that she is, took Shiromeguri's death quite hard.
"Hmph, if it was actually suicide, I wish they wouldn't cause such a bother for everyone. I couldn't care less..."
"Shut up," I interrupted her. I could feel anger rising up in me; I looked at her straight in the eyes. "She deserved better than that, she deserved better than to be the end of one of your jokes."
"That's a bit hypocritical, is it not? coming from you."
The room was quiet for a moment and my anger turned to dread. My heart clenched, if she wanted to, she could kill me here and now, I thought. I kept my gaze, I didn't want to back down on this. "No need to get feisty," she finally said, standing straight and letting go of my head. "I said if it were was suicide. She was my student, remember?" I wait for her to get back to her desk and put on her glasses again before breathing a sigh of relief.
I contemplated what I wanted to do. She was right, of course, I came here to ask her about the suicides, and she knew a hell of a lot more about these sorts of things than I do.
"So, you don't think it was suicide?"
She didn't bother to look at me before answering me. "The hell should I know?"
Typical.
It hurt. My hand was clutching my right eye as blood kept dripping down my down my arm to the concrete floor. I screamed from the pain. Why? Why had this happened? It wasn't supposed to be this way.
"Hey", came a voice that echoed around me.
"Can you hear me? "The voice continued.
I felt fear for like the first time.
"If it can't see anything, then you don't need that eye."
I woke up with a start, my right eye throbbing with pain. That dream again, I thought bitterly. It's been 3 years now and yet the pain in my right eye lingers, the pain comes less and less frequent as time went by, but it remains. Falling asleep during a wake, how much more rotten can I get?
The wake was solemn affair. A lot of people from school were here; students, staff members, and teachers. Some came because they personally knew her and others out of respect for her tenure as student council president. That's probably why I felt so out of place among these people clad in black clothing. I didn't know her, not really, and I never cared who was president until a few months ago.
I sat under the shade of a tree away from the main house. Shiromeguri's parents almost seemed like they didn't notice me when I offered them my condolences. It was to be expected, I suppose, I wouldn't feel very talkative to if my daughter had just died, especially not to someone who's basically a stranger. I felt my eye throb again when I recall the look on their faces.
"Hikigaya-kun, if your eyes looked any more dead people will start to think that this vigil is held for you."
I looked to my right to see a beautiful girl with long black hair and icy blue eyes approaching me. Ah, yes, there came the usual insult from my beloved club president, Yukinoshita Yukino. I probably should be worried that I've accepted this routine as part of my daily life now. Well, at least she didn't notice that I fell asleep.
"Heh. Are you implying people would care enough about me to hold a vigil when I die?" I replied.
Yukinoshita sat beside me and touched her forehead just above her right brow with a finger and let out a sigh. "How one can be so self-hating and self-loving at the same time I will never understand."
"Didn't someone once say that you could only love the things you hate?"
She let out an even longer sigh. "No, Hikigaya-kun, I don't believe anyone has ever said that."
"Whatever, it sounds smart."
"Yes, that's just like you to rely on one-liners to prove a point," she replied.
"Stuck-up rich kid."
"One-eyed pervert."
We glared at each other for a while before we started chuckling. It felt nice to be insulting each other, strangely enough. We haven't been able to recently and it's probably inappropriate to do it now, but it's not like anyone would care, Shiromeguri probably didn't.
"So...," I started. "Yuigahama couldn't come, huh?"
"No," Yukinoshita shook her head and looked away from me. "She didn't answer my calls."
Yukinoshita always looked more beautiful when she was sad, and I don't think I've seen her more beautiful than she was then. When Yuigahama started to retreat into herself after Shiromeguri's death, it was Yukinoshita who tried the hardest to cheer her up. Alas, positivity wasn't Yukinoshita's strong suit and Yuigahama didn't seem to be at all affected by her beloved Yukinon's words.
"This is what we're supposed to be good at, Hikigaya-kun," she said looking at me again. "We're supposed to help people and yet we can't even help one of our own."
"It's harder to help people who don't want it," I said. "And , I don't know about you, but I feel out of my element right now. We usually help people with stupid shit like their love life or baking chocolates. Death isn't exactly our forte."
Yukinoshita frowned. "That's not exactly true, do you not remember the summer camp?"
"Ah, yeah, but that was totally different."
Our conversation died out after that. And we spend the next few minutes staring at the throngs of people who had come to offer their condolences. After several minutes, it was Yukinoshita who started the conversation once again.
"I heard from Sensei that you've gone there?'
She was talking about the Fujou Tower. It was where the six girls had jumped from.
"Yeah," I answered.
"Well?"
"She's right, there were 8 of them which means two more people are going to die."
"I don't understand," she looked puzzled, "If they're some sort of ghosts why would the last two appear before they die."
"Yeah, well, Sensei tried to explain it to me , but you know how she is. Everything is metaphors and convoluted with her," I tried my best to rack my brain for whatever bit of information I got from what Sensei had explained to me. Suddenly, something clicked in my head, It was the only thing that I sort of understood because I had experienced it firsthand.
"From what I understand is time is all distorted around that building. I could feel it in the air. It's still summer and I was wearing a jacket yet I could feel the chill creeping up my spine. It was as if everything's slower there which is why it was so cold. It was like time had died and rigor mortis was setting in," I stopped and racked my brain again. "Sensei said that it was because time flowed differently for different things, something about entropy or whatnot." I tried to explain.
Yukinoshita was quiet for a moment and then she stood up. "That was a horrible explanation."
"Ah", my right eye twitched. "I guess you're right."
I could feel my eyes growing tired again, I really needed to stop my late night walks.
"Say, Hikigaya-kun, do you know why people fly?"
My tired brain couldn't process the question. "No clue", I say with a yawn. "It's not like I ever tried to."
The last thing I heard before unconsciousness took over was Yukinoshita's voice.
"How befitting of you."
A/N : Uh...Hi? Hello? This is really weird. Well let's just get to the point. Some of you mitght've noticed that this fic is sort of like a crossfic with Kara no Kyoukai. That's because it kinda is. Basically I got the idea because Hikigaya reminded of a character in the 8th movie, if you've seen it, you probably know who it is, and I thought it would be a good idea to use some of its themes and scenarios in SNAFU's universe. Don't know if I'll continue. Really busy with college. God, I'm tired.
P.S: If I do continue I'll probably use the A/N to answer questions.