Another Episode S / 0

by Yukito Ayatsuji

  That month, one of the students in third-year Class 3 at North Yomi jumped off the roof of the school building and died.

  6

  Last summer break of middle school

  These words were written on the old color photo in the standing frame. I stood in front of the desk on which it rested, gazing down at it once again—

  “What is this a photo of?”

  I remembered being asked this question last summer, in this same spot, by that girl—Mei Misaki.

  “On the right there, is that you when you were younger, Mr. Sakaki?”

  Five people standing with the lake in the background.

  Facing the picture, the boy on the far right with his hand on his hip was definitely me. On the date printed in the photo—“8/3/1987”—a fifteen-year-old Teruya Sakaki.

  “It’s a photo that brings back a lot of memories,” I said in answer to her question. “Of that memorable summer vacation.”

  “Oh yeah?” she responded offhandedly. “You look like you’re having a lot of fun, the way you’re smiling in this picture. You look like a totally different person…”

  I’m sure I do, I now remember thinking at the time. Because I don’t think I smile this way very much now that I’m an adult.

  “It’s because I was with really good friends,” I think I answered at the time. “We were all classmates in middle school.”

  …Yes.

  That’s right: Everyone in this photo, we were all friends in third-year Class 3 that year at North Yomi…

  “My dad took the picture for us,” I remembered adding, though she hadn’t asked.

  “Grandpa was there?”

  A voice came from one side. It was Sou.

  I recalled that, unusually, Tsukiho had brought both Sou and Mirei over to visit that day. I could hear the sounds of Mirei frolicking with her mother downstairs.

  “Yup,” I replied, turning to look at Sou. “Back then, Grandpa lived in this house, too, and so did you. Although you were just a baby.”

  “Did Mom live here, too?”

  “Of course she did. It must have been hard for her looking after you back then.”

  I seem to remember that the girl listened to us talk in silence, her right eye, without its eye patch, crinkling with a smile.

  7

  I looked anew at the commemorative photo taken during the summer break eleven years ago. Then I ran through the faces and outfits of the four people in the photo other than myself.

  Two boys and two girls.

  The two boys were on the left side, and the two girls were on the right side. I/Teruya Sakaki was standing on the right edge of the group with a noticeable gap between the two girls and me. I was holding a cane in my left hand, probably because the injuries to my leg still hadn’t healed three months after the accident.

  The boy on the left was tall and lanky and was wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, exuding an unmistakable air of “off to summer holiday!” He had his right hand thrust forward with a thumbs-up and was grinning broadly.

  Beside him, a boy wearing a blue T-shirt was comparatively short and chubby, his face ridiculously serious behind his silver-rimmed glasses. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, and his lips were twisted a little grouchily.

  One of these two was the Arai who’d called me. But which one was it?

  I stared at their faces.

  Then I reached out for the picture frame with both hands and tried to gently pick it up. It lifted. Exerting this level of influence over an object this size wasn’t difficult.

  I felt like the impression I’d gotten from his voice and way of talking matched the Hawaiian shirt kid on the left more. But…argh, I don’t know. I couldn’t remember which of them was Arai, nor the name of the one who wasn’t Arai.

  I shifted my gaze to the two girls.

  The one on the left wore a light blue blouse with a tight, white skirt. She, too, was short and wore silver-rimmed glasses, but her short haircut and delicate features seemed to suit her. She was flashing a peace sign and smiling slightly, but her expression betrayed a trace of nervousness.

  The girl on the right was slender and about the same height as I’d been at the time, dressed in denim pants and a beige shirt. She was holding down her long hair, which was being teased by the wind, while also flashing a peace sign with a relaxed smile…

  …No, I still had no idea.

  I returned the frame to its spot and lowered myself into the chair at the desk. I slumped against the back of the chair.

  These people had been good friends of mine, and yet…And yet I could remember nothing about them. Not their names, or personalities, or their voices, or how they talked.

  “It’s a photo that brings back a lot of memories.”

  The words I had spoken in response to a question from Mei Misaki that day last summer echoed very distantly, somehow hollow, in my ears that were themselves nothing more than a “relic of life.”

  8

  I casually opened a drawer of the desk without any particular purpose.

  My eye happened to fall on something while I slumped in the chair, and truly unintentionally, I reached out a hand toward it. It was the lowest, deepest drawer.

  Several partitions divided the interior, in one section of which rested a row of several thick notebooks. The notebooks…No, they were store-bought diaries. Seven-by-ten daily planners sold at bookstores and stationery stores toward the end of every year.

  They were arranged in the drawer with their spines upward. The spines were printed to read, for example, “Memories 1992”…

  …That’s right. I remembered now.

  I had started keeping a diary every year in this room. I did it when the mood struck me or when it seemed necessary, and the majority of it was dashed-off notes, so writing by hand had been much more convenient than starting up the computer.

  The first volume was from six years ago. The year my father passed away and I inherited this mansion and took up residence here.

  That was Memories 1992, followed by Memories 1993, Memories 1994, and so on in order.

  I thought, If I could pick these up and read them…

  All the different memories that I had lost or that had faded since I became a ghost might come back a little bit…But no.

  Before that, I need to— I thought, peering into the drawer.

  First would be the new diary.

  May 3 of this year, the day I died. If I had written something down before that night, then I might find a clue to why I died.

  As it happened—

  I couldn’t find that crucial volume, Memories 1998, in the drawer.

  …Why not?

  I was stymied for a moment and looked around the room.

  Maybe on the desk? No.

  The bookshelves on the walls, which were full of books and notebooks. Maybe there? No.

  I opened all the other drawers in the desk, too. But I couldn’t find the planner for 1998 in any of them…

  Maybe I hadn’t been keeping a diary for this year? But why wouldn’t I be? I couldn’t remember what I’d written, but…I remembered writing in it. In this library. At this desk.

  “Your eye. That blue eye.”

  I don’t know why the words I’d spoken to that girl on the shore of Lake Minazuki suddenly came to mind.

  “With that eye of yours, you might be seeing the same things I am…looking in the same direction.”

  The same things as me?

  In the same direction?

  What did that mean…?

  Several images flashed suddenly before my eyes when I stood up from the chair.

  It was something I’d glimpsed the first day I’d appeared in this mansion, when I’d come up to the second floor and gone into the bedroom…

  First of all—yes—it was on the bedside table.

  Now I could see it clearly. It was more than an image; I should probably call it a “vision.”

  A bottle and a glass.

  The bottle prob
ably contained whiskey or some kind of alcohol. And—

  Beside that was a plastic pill case with an open lid. Several pale capsules had spilled out from inside…And then—

  There had been one other thing in the center of the room.

  Something white had been dangling from the ceiling, swaying. Oh—it’s…

  It’s a rope.

  A white loop had been made at the end of the rope, just big enough for a human head to slip through…

  This is…

  This looks exactly like…

  ……

  …A voice (…What are you doing?).

  Someone’s voice (What are you doing…? Teruya?).

  I could hear (…Stop it) (…Don’t worry about it) several voices.

  One was Tsukiho’s (You can’t…Don’t do it!).

  One was mine (Don’t worry about it…) (It’s…too late for me)…

  ……

  ……

  …My face just before death.

  The face reflected in the mirror in the grand entry, stained with blood.

  The contorted, stiff features suddenly slackening into an oddly peaceful look, as if freed from pain, fear, and uncertainty…And then.

  A faint movement on my lips.

  Trembling.

  Words were coming out of my mouth. Wringing out my strength on the precipice of death, some words were…What? What could those words have been…?

  What was I trying to say?

  They were just barely inaudible. Just barely impossible to read. Just on the edge of communicating…Argh—what could I have been trying to say?

  Something clattered, and the vision fell away.

  I looked over and saw the picture frame had fallen onto the floor. Had I knocked it over without noticing?

  I tried to pick it up and return it to the desk. Just then—

  I saw the back cover of the frame had come off. The fastener holding it seemed to have loosened with the impact of the fall, which knocked it free.

  That was when I noticed something. There was a scrap of paper between the photo and the back cover of the frame.

  What is this? I wondered, taking the paper in my fingertips.

  On the scrap of note paper, much smaller than the photo, was handwriting. Written vertically in black ink, it was a list of names—five last names.

  The one farthest to the right said “Sakaki,” and I understood immediately.

  This was a note listing the last names of the five people in the photo, written in the order they appeared in the photo. I had made a note of it.

  I saw the name “Arai,” with the characters for new residence, farthest to the left.

  Ah, this was it.

  So it hadn’t been new well or rough-hewn well, but rather new residence. Just as I had imagined before, the boy in the Hawaiian shirt all the way to the left was Arai.

  My eyes ran over the other three names, too.

  I saw that the two girls were, from right to left, “Yagisawa” and “Higuchi,” and the other boy was “Mitarai”…However.

  In the next moment—really, almost instantaneously, I couldn’t help but notice it, compelled to it. I noticed and couldn’t help but goggle.

  A slight distance below the names, in slightly faint ink, I saw an “X.”

  There were two of them.

  One was below “Yagisawa.” The other was below “Arai.” And—

  Below each of the Xs, small words explained the meaning of the symbol.

  “Dead.”

  Sketch 4

  What does it mean to be in love?

  Why are you asking me that out of the blue?

  Does it mean you like someone?

  Mmm. That you like someone a whole lot maybe. Men usually love women, and women usually love men. Though I guess there are exceptions to that.

  Exceptions…So a man could like a man a whole lot, and that would be love?

  Well, sure.

  Have you ever done that?

  Wha—? No, I’m not into stuff like that…

  I mean have you ever been in love?

  Oh, I see…I’m not sure.

  Do you fall in love when you become a grown-up?

  You can be in love even if you’re not a grown-up. Some kids get right to it.

  Hmmm…So, have you? Ever been in love? Who was your first love?

  ……

  You didn’t have one?

  No…I suppose I did.

  What does it feel like to be in love? Is it fun? Does it hurt?

  It’s…Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer these questions.

  Why not?

  …Because I can’t remember.

  ……

  I can’t really remember. That’s why…

  1

  There are things called “crow days.”

  Several crows, maybe dozens of crows, which you typically don’t see very many of around here, gather around a house. They perch on the roof or trees in the yard, occasionally cawing, one after another. The number of other wild birds and birdcalls drops dramatically, maybe because they’re afraid.

  There are a few days like that each month, and I’ve always called them crow days.

  Why do they all get together on those days? Maybe there’s some reason or something sets it off, but I don’t really know.

  Crows have an image as a sinister bird, but I most definitely do not hate these crows.

  They scavenge in trash bags in the city, so I guess they cause problems, but crows are living creatures, so if they know there’s food in there, of course they’re going to go after it. I’ve also heard that they fly after kids in parks and stuff and peck at their heads, but they don’t do anything like that here. They just caw noisily, and I don’t particularly hate them for that.

  Actually—

  I took care of an injured crow once, a long time ago.

  I treated its wounds as best I could, then put it in a cardboard box with a blanket in it and put that in the garage…I meant to look after it until it got better, but unfortunately it died pretty fast. Before there had been any time to tame it or even give it a name.

  I buried it in a corner of the backyard. I made a tiny grave marker for it from a scrap of wood.

  I made the marker, a misshapen cross. It’s still there.

  Actually…

  After the incident with the crow, I tried several times to keep animals as pets at this mansion.

  Not dogs or cats, but lizards or frogs I caught in the yard or insects like praying mantises or crickets…The only mammal I ever had was a hamster. I also received a pair of finches that I tried keeping as pets.

  At one point, with the finches, I remember I couldn’t stand keeping them locked up in the birdcage anymore, so I let them out. None of the other animals had very long lifespans, and they all died.

  I buried them all in a line next to the grave marker I had first put up for the crow. Making the same tiny marker every time I buried one.

  Thinking back on it, I wonder if I was doing that to see the thing called “death” in a living creature with my own eyes, to touch it and experience it up close…to try and discover what it meant. I suspect that’s what it was.

  2

  It’s possible that my own body is now buried in the earth.

  Somewhere in the yard of this mansion, for example, just like those creatures I buried. Or maybe somewhere in the surrounding forest…?

  With this thought, I carefully scanned the ground on the property. Looking for any signs that the earth had been dug up and reburied. But I never spotted anything clearly indicative of that…

  I can’t deny the possibility that I simply overlooked it. But if the burial spot were somewhere outside the property, it would be utterly beyond my power to search for it…

  (…here)

  Out of nowhere, there came a voice. A fragment of a word.

  (at least…here)

  What was this?

  What could it be?

  (
…in this house)

  Surprised, I tried to catch it…But it slipped through the fingers of my mind and vanished…

  (…forget)

  Ah…Whose voice was this?

  And when?

  (everything…that happened tonight)

  The answer was just on the cusp of being understandable.

  The meaning so close to being visible.

  (…you need to forget)

  Smothered by a foggy sense of discomfort, my thoughts came to a stop.

  3

  Wednesday, July 17.

  Sometime after the schools of the world had gone on summer break. On this day, just past noon, I appeared at Lakeshore Manor.

  The sky was slightly cloudy and not particularly summery, despite it being the height of the season. The sunlight was blunted, and the wind only lukewarm…Yes—and it was a crow day.

  I could tell this from the voices of the group outside. Because it was not just a single cry, but the overlapping, resounding cries of several birds.

  Ah, a crow day, I thought and peeked outside from a window in the second-floor library. An eastern-facing window with no curtains.

  As I looked over the trees in the yard, as expected, I saw the coal-black forms of the crows perched on the branches. That alone was probably close to ten birds.

  There were also several on the roof and eaves of the first floor, directly below the window. I couldn’t see them from here, but I was sure there were several more on the second-floor roof, too.

  A sky burial—the term came to mind unbidden.

  A custom in some country or other, where in order to bury a dead person, the body is exposed in a field and the flesh is picked at by wild birds until only the skeleton is left.

  It didn’t seem likely, but could it be that my body, its whereabouts still unknown to me, had been left in a field somewhere and become food for the crows…?

  Suddenly captive to such unpleasant thoughts, I gazed out the window at the crows for a long while. That was when—

  I heard a harsh sound of a different character than the cawing of the crows.