“All right,” she murmured. She let go of my hand and, brushing the dirt from her clothes, continued. “You should be good now.”
She turned to face me.
“…What?”
“You found the body you were looking for and…Did you manage to remember? Why that body was hidden in a place like that? Or what led to Mr. Sakaki’s death that night three months ago?”
“Oh…maybe.”
I gave a slight nod, my head still drooping.
“For the most part.”
“—Well?” Mei Misaki pressed. “You found the body…and then what happened? Do you feel like you can connect, like you were saying yesterday? With ‘everyone’ who died before you?”
“Oh…well.”
I dissembled and, keeping my head bowed, looked up to read the girl’s face. Mei’s lips were tightly pursed, and she was staring at me with a calm expression.
“Nobody knows what’s going to happen after death until they die. So that’s why I think what Mr. Sakaki believed while he was alive was a fantasy.”
“A fantasy…”
“See, death is—”
Mei explained it matter-of-factly.
“Death is more endlessly empty and endlessly isolated than that…And well, maybe it’s just my own fantasy, but…Come here.”
She waved me over, and I moved unthinkingly toward her. It was several steps away from the center of the hall, toward the mirror hanging on the wall.
Mei stood beside me and pointed deliberately at the mirror.
“What do you see over there?”
“Over there…You mean inside the mirror?”
“Yes.”
“That’s…”
Mei Misaki was reflected in the mirror. My/Teruya Sakaki’s image was…not beside her. Of course, there was no reason to think I would appear in the mirror.
“Only you,” I answered quietly. “The mirror only shows you.”
“I see,” Mei replied with a sigh, then went back to brushing dust off her clothes. “But…it’s strange. Because I can see you.”
“What?!”
“Even in that mirror, I can see you standing beside me.”
“Wh-what does that mean?”
My eyes shot to her face in profile to me. Her gaze was still turned straight at the mirror.
“You must be doing that with the power of your doll’s eye…”
“Nope.” Mei shook her head fractionally. “I don’t think it’s that.”
She slowly lifted her left hand and covered her left eye with her palm.
“Even when I do this—there—I can see you.”
“…Meaning what?”
“It has nothing to do with the doll’s eye. I can see you reflected in the mirror with this eye alone.”
That was…How could it be?
What did that mean? What was she trying to tell me?
I was rendered speechless by my overwhelming confusion. Mei Misaki looked straight at me.
“You still don’t understand?” she asked. “You still can’t see it?”
“I…”
“You’re the ghost of Mr. Sakaki. Who lost his life here three months ago and whose body was hidden in that room in the basement. Tonight you finally realized where the body was and you went into that room to make sure…But you were calling out for help, right? ‘Help me,’ ‘No,’ ‘This is wrong’…stuff like that.”
“Th-that was…”
I pressed my arms against my head. I was sure I would sink to the ground right there if I relaxed for even a moment.
“You’re right, that this is wrong,” Mei stated crisply. “You were wrong. From the very beginning.”
“…But…”
“Look this way.”
I obediently turned toward her. This time, Mei had raised her right hand to cover her right eye with her palm and fixed her gaze on me.
“I don’t see the color of death on you,” she said again crisply. “I haven’t been able to see it ever since I first met you. So…”
“…That can’t be.”
I groaned weakly. Mei lowered the hand covering her right eye and turned both her eyes straight on me…and finally said again in a clear tone, “So you aren’t actually dead. You’re alive. You have to realize that for yourself, first of all.”
22
That’s ridiculous…I couldn’t help thinking this, even so.
I/Teruya Sakaki had died.
On May 3, three months earlier, things had happened the way I had finally remembered this evening…and I had died. I died. I died and became a ghost, and this whole time I had been like this…
“That can’t…You’re lying.”
“I don’t lie.”
“You’re lying. Teruya Sakaki died. We even found the body. You saw it just now!” I argued, uncomprehending. “I am Teruya Sakaki’s ghost, and…I don’t show up in mirrors, and no one besides you can see me, and I appear and disappear all over the place…”
“But you are alive.”
Her eyes still fixed unwaveringly on me, Mei repeated, “You are alive.
“You are not a ghost. I don’t think ghosts exist, actually. Because I at least have never seen one.”
What in the world was she saying? It was crazy. I couldn’t understand what it meant. Was it possible…could it be that this conversation itself was some fantasy or hallucination I was having? And in reality, I was still in the darkness of that room in the basement? And Mei Misaki had never appeared? And I was having this fantasy…
“…That can’t be.”
My voice shook even more.
“That can’t…What am I? What are you…?”
“You need to wake up for real soon,” Mei said, reaching out both hands and resting them on my shoulders. “Poor thing.”
…Poor thing?
“Wh-what do you…?”
“You’re still just a kid, but look how tall you’ve grown. You work so hard to act like a grown-up.”
…Still…a kid?
“What are you saying…?”
“You aren’t Teruya Sakaki.”
…Not Teruya Sakaki?
“Look, cut it out and…”
“You aren’t Teruya Sakaki or Teruya Sakaki’s ghost. You’re…”
I’m…
“Cut it out…”
“You’re Sou.”
…Sou?
“I’m…Sou?”
“You’re Sou Hiratsuka. A little boy who just started his sixth year this spring. Still only eleven or twelve years old…But when you saw Mr. Sakaki’s death here three months ago, you turned into this…You convinced yourself that you’re Mr. Sakaki’s ghost.”
…Convinced myself?
“That doesn’t…”
“All I can do is guess about why something like this might have happened…”
…I’m Sou Hiratsuka?
“That’s…”
That’s ridiculous—the same thought.
The many times I had appeared at the Hiratsuka house and the time I had appeared at the Misaki family vacation house…hadn’t Sou been there as himself? Hadn’t Tsukiho and Mei and the others talked to him? Hadn’t I seen and heard it happen? And yet she was saying this…?
“That story you originally told about watching yourself dying in that mirror here in the hall? That was Sou, watching from over there—”
Mei Misaki pointed at the base of the stairs.
“It’s what Sou saw in the mirror from over there. After he started to think of himself as Mr. Sakaki’s ghost, Sou redefined the image as ‘what Mr. Sakaki himself saw right before he died.’ From which we can extrapolate the rest, I think.”
“…”
“Even your problems with your memories as Teruya Sakaki.”
“…”
“Because you aren’t actually Mr. Sakaki. So even if you allow for ‘temporary amnesia due to shock,’ it’s only natural that you wouldn’t be able to accurately remember all kinds of things. Meanwhile, the things you’v
e been remembering as Mr. Sakaki’s ghost are things you once heard Mr. Sakaki tell you or things you observed when the two of you were together.”
—Because it was a terrible accident.
I hadn’t said that?
—If only I were dead, things would be all right.
I had heard that?
—Trapped…Yes. Maybe that’s it.
“For example, last year when I met up with Mr. Sakaki a couple times and we talked…you were always there with him. And you’ve been remembering the conversations you heard me and Mr. Sakaki have not as yourself, but as Mr. Sakaki’s memories. I’m sure there are also a lot of things you learned—and remembered—by reading the diaries in the library…”
…
…
…
…Even so.
I couldn’t believe it.
There was no way to believe a story like that.
I was Teruya Sakaki’s ghost, appearing and disappearing now and then in places he had been connected to in life…And since I was a ghost, I could go freely in and out of even locked rooms in this house, and this very night I had been able to get into that sealed room in the basement…
“Like I told you before, the power’s been cut to the second floor, so nobody would be able to make the computer work. It’s not that you couldn’t get it to work because you’re a ghost.”
Mei Misaki continued matter-of-factly.
“And I think you just convinced yourself that you were able to go in and out of the locked rooms. After all, you knew where the keys were kept. You didn’t slide through the doors or walls because you’re a ghost, you actually used the keys to get in and out. You just decided not to acknowledge that fact to fit your story as a ghost…That’s what I think.”
…To fit my story as a ghost?
I was at a complete loss for words, but Mei Misaki fixed me with her point-blank stare and went still further.
“And then there’s the day I first ran into you here—”
It had been July 29, a Thursday afternoon.
“I’d come here to see Mr. Sakaki that day…But someone had left a bike outside. Under a magnolia tree in the yard.”
Oh…that.
“I accidentally ran into it and knocked the bike over. It was hard to pick it back up…and my eye patch got all dirty.”
“—I saw that.”
“Oh?”
“I saw from the window in the library…”
I got the feeling that for some reason I had interpreted it as the bike she had ridden over on. But when I thought about it…
“That bike belonged to Sou, didn’t it?”
At the very least, it wasn’t likely to have been her bike.
After all, two days later, I’d heard them talking at the Misaki family vacation house. Saying that Mei Misaki can’t ride a bike. So…
“You rode it over here, but that didn’t fit your story while you were a ghost—it was an implausible fact, so you glossed over what it meant and acted like you never saw it.”
…Glossed over it, like I never saw it?
“Tonight that bike saved your life.”
Mei Misaki spoke with a touch of heat in her voice.
“I came a lot later than I promised I would…and I’m sorry. There were all kinds of annoying things I had to take care of…I wasn’t sure what I should do, but I thought I would hurry over here anyway. It was already dark out, so I thought maybe Mr. Ghost had disappeared and gone back home, but…I don’t know how to put it. I felt like something was off.
“When I got here, I saw a bike. The lights in the house were off, but since I saw the bike, I figured you had to be here. So I was looking around inside the house…and when I went to take a look in the basement, I heard your voice on the other side of that wall…”
“…”
“I tried shouting back at you, but I guess you didn’t notice? You weren’t exactly in the right frame of mind, huh? Being in that place with that corpse…”
“…”
Since you were in there, I thought there must have been some way in, maybe from outside the house. But I didn’t have time to go looking for it and thought breaking down the wall would be faster. After all, there used to be a door there, and it looked like it had been plastered over…It took a lot of work, though. I felt like I needed to help you, not go looking for someone to help…”
“…”
I was still utterly incapable of responding—incapable of believing it all—and a long time passed.
In the intervals between the strong gusts of wind outside, I could very faintly hear the hoot of the owl clock in the library. Ah…what time would it be by now?
“So you…”
At last I timidly began to speak.
“…You can really see me with your eye?”
A faint smile touched Mei Misaki’s lips.
“This one, yes,” she replied.
With her left hand gently covering the doll’s eye that held such mysterious power.
23
And fearful, I turned my eyes to the mirror once more.
It showed something I hadn’t been able to see when I last looked at it.
Standing beside Mei Misaki—in exactly the spot I was now standing—looking back at me, head cocked to one side…was the figure of a boy, smaller even than Mei. Sou Hiratsuka.
Wearing clothes different from the ones I’d been aware of until now. Not the white, long-sleeved shirt and black pants reminiscent of a middle school student…but rather a yellow, short-sleeved polo shirt and jeans. The clothes, the face, the hair, the arms…all were filthy, caked with dust, soil, and mud. The eyes were bloodshot, and several tracks of dried tears ran down the cheeks. That was—
That was me? Was it me?
That was…
Still looking at the mirror, I tried moving. The boy in the mirror moved the same way.
I tried walking. The boy in the mirror walked the same way. Without his left leg limping unnaturally.
(…forget)
All at once, I heard a voice.
(everything…that happened tonight)
To the side of the boy in the mirror, I saw the indistinct form of Tsukiho. A phantom of Tsukiho with an ashen face, expression hardened and stern.
(…you need to forget)
Oh…I see.
That night, the shock of witnessing Teruya Sakaki’s death had put Sou Hiratsuka into such a stupor and had sent him reeling half in a trance. Tsukiho had issued her order to Sou in that state.
To forget everything you saw and heard here tonight.
Nothing happened here tonight, you didn’t see anything—she had been planting those suggestions definitely. That’s why Sou had…
“…Oh.”
I—myself—let out a long, deep sigh as if to expel everything from within my body, then shyly looked into Mei Misaki’s face. She merely nodded to me in silence and made no further attempt at speaking.
I let out another even longer, deeper sigh. I/Teruya Sakaki departed, leaving only “me” behind.
“…Good-bye,” a voice said.
My voice, which had until early this spring been a child’s alto but had then suddenly become strangely hoarse with the change in my voice (Good-bye…Te-ru-ya).
Outroduction
1
The display room in the basement of “Blue Eyes Empty to All, in the Twilight of Yomi.” In the same old gloominess reminiscent of dusk, in one corner of the cellar-like room—
When Mei Misaki had finished telling her story about another Sakaki she met this summer, I took a series of deep breaths.
I thought I had grown accustomed to the air in this basement room, but once the story reached the final stages, a weird sensation had slowly begun to take hold of me. Each word Mei spoke amplified the “emptiness” of the battalions of dolls, and I felt as if I would be sucked into it…
Unquestionably influenced by an impulse to resist this, I gave voice to a comment with an especially flippant tone.
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“So your story didn’t actually have a real ghost in it after all.”
It sounded so blunt…But no, I had dimly detected a hint of the truth partway through the story.
Why?
Because of what Mei had said the night of our class trip in August.
That time when, in one of the rooms of the Sakitani Memorial Hall, she had told me the secret of her doll’s eye. When she answered my question of whether she had ever seen any ghosts.
“No…Never,” she had said.
She had told me “I have no idea” whether ghosts existed. And that “I think, fundamentally, they probably don’t.”
What Mei’s doll’s eye showed her was only the color of death.
It was in a different class from seeing spirits and being able to predict deaths and stuff like that…That was my understanding.
“So essentially, it was a kid playacting.”
I continued to unintentially phrase things very callously. Analogizing to the Kabuki and classical Japanese dance technique of “puppet miming,” where an actor imitates a puppet, an image had come into my mind of the kid doing “grown-up miming” and “ghost miming.” But Mei grunted and tilted her head slightly to one side.
“I don’t like that much as a summary.”
“Huh?…Oh.”
“Sure, the truth is that it was a delusion Sou was having, so I understand why you want to say that…But still.”
She stopped talking and I saw her narrow her right eye coldly. That rattled me. I sat up straighter and took another deep breath, preparing to meekly guess at what might come after “but still”—
“From his perspective, it must have been a monumentally important issue.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, showing an earnest face.
“I get that, but…I don’t know, it’s so complicated and nuanced, I guess. It seems so hard to explain it just right. I wonder what was really going on in Sou’s mind.”
“…Yeah.”
Drawing her lips tight, Mei nodded.
“I managed to get the overall story from him, and I checked what I could of the facts…but still, the stuff beyond that, you know? No matter how thoroughly he wants to explain it, he can’t do it justice.”
Another Episode S / 0 Page 15