Published at 31st of August 2019 1:06 am

Volume 1, Lingering Pain - I

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July is about to end, but not before it dumps a lot of business in my plate. Starting from my friend who, comatose for two years, has finally regained consciousness, to finishing my second big job since dropping out of college and working for Miss Tōko, and even having my sister who I haven’t seen for five years coming here to Tokyo for a visit, I’ve had little time to even stop and take a breath. I don’t know if starting my nineteenth summer like this is the good earth’s way of saying “nice job” or “Mikiya Kokutō needs to be screwed over with greater frequency.”

Tonight is one of those rarest of nights, my night off, so I went with some of my old high school friends to go drinking. And before I could so much as glance at an hour hand, I’d noticed it was late and the train had long since made its last run, leaving me with few commuting options to go back home. Some of my friends took taxis home, but since my payday was held off till tomorrow, my budget can’t cooperate. Left without a choice, I decided to walk back home. Fortunately, my house was only two stations and a block or two away, not too far a distance.

It was the 20th of July up until a few minutes ago. In the midnight of the 21st, I find myself walking in the shopping district, which, seeing as tomorrow is a weekday, sees little foot traffic at this hour. It had rained particularly hard tonight. Luckily, it stopped just as me and my friends were going home for the evening, but the asphalt, still wet, is emitting its potent petrichor smell, and my footsteps make little splashes on the scattered puddles of the streets and sidewalks.

While the above 30 degree Celsius temperature and the humidity of the rain work to make this the most miserable stroll in recent memory, I come across a girl, crouching on the sidewalk and putting pressure on her stomach with her hand like she was in pain. That black school uniform she’s wearing is one I’m familiar with. The uniform, made to resemble a nun’s habit, is the school dress of that academy of ladies of refined taste and upright morals, the Reien Girl’s Academy. Gakuto jokes that half the reason for Reien’s popularity is precisely because of the uniform. Not that I’m one that goes in for that kind of thing; I only know it because my sister Azaka studies there. I know they’re a boarding school, though, which makes that girl’s presence here at this late hour doubly suspicious. Or maybe she’s just some delinquent that doesn’t like to follow school regulations.

Seeing as she’s from my sister’s school, I decide to lend a helping hand. When I call out a simple “hello” to her, she turns to face me, and her black

hair, wet from the rain, sways when she does. I see her gasp once, though quite silently, as if trying to suppress it. Her face is small, with sharp fea- tures. She wears her long hair straight down her back, and it separates around her right ear to form a tassel that goes down to her chest. It seems there is supposed to be a similar tassel on her left ear but it looks like it’s been cut. That, along with her bangs, cut straight and clean in the school prescribed manner, makes me think she’s the daughter of some rich, well- to-do family with an eye for proper grooming standards.

“Yes, what is it?” Her voice is faint and her face is equally pale. Her lips are tinted purple, the mark of someone with cyanosis. With a hand on her stomach, she’s trying her best to look at me normally, but the little muscle movements and the folds in the face that mark a person in pain are obvi- ous.

“Does your stomach hurt?”

“No, er…that is, I…I mean…” She’s pretending to be calm, but she’s already stumbling all over her words. She looks fragile, like she could suffer from a mental break down at any moment, not unlike Shiki when I first met her.

“You’re a long way away from Reien Academy, lady. Miss the train? I could call a taxi for you.”

“No, you don’t need to. I don’t have any money anyway.”

“Yeah, join the club.” Before I’d realized it, I’d already given her an impo- lite answer. Try to salvage this one, Mikiya. “Yeah…so I guess you must live near here huh? I heard it was a boarding school but you probably have some special dispensation to go out.”

“Not really. My house is quite far.” Right. Scratch that.

“So what are you, a runaway?”

“Yes, I think that’s the only thing I can do right now.”

Oh, man, that means trouble. I just noticed that she’s soaked right through. Maybe she couldn’t find an umbrella or a shade the whole time it rained, because she is dripping wet all over. The last time I was face to face with a girl soaking wet in rain, I almost got killed, so I guess that’s why I’m so awkward around this girl now. You never can trust girls in rain. Still, it’ll be a waste of time if I don’t help her now.

“So, you want to sleep over at my place just for tonight?”

“…can I?” she asks, still crouching and looking desperately at me. I nod. “I have a place all to myself, but I’m not making you any guarantees.

I’m not planning on doing anything questionable that might offend your person, and as long as you don’t do any funny business, we can keep it that

way. If that’s fine with you, then you can follow me. Now, since my employ- er, in her infinite wisdom, has decided to delay my paycheck, I can’t give you much money, but I do have painkillers for whatever’s bothering you.” She looks happy and smiles. I extend a hand to her to help her up, and she gently grasps it and stands. I notice, for a moment, that there are red

stains on the sidewalk where she was sitting.

Taking her with me, I start to lead her back to my apartment and get us both out of this wretched night.

“There’s a short walk ahead of us. Tell me if you’re having a hard time. I can at least be burdened with one girl on my back.”

“You needn’t worry. My wound has already closed up so it doesn’t really hurt anymore,” she says. The hand that she has yet to remove from press- ing on her stomach, however, says otherwise.

“Does your stomach hurt?” I ask again, as much for her own peace of mind as mine.

She shakes her head, saying “no.” After that, we continue to walk, and she keeps her silence for some time. But after walking for a few more min- utes, she nods.

“Yes, it…it really hurts. Is it…all right for me to cry?” When I nod an affir- mative, her face turns into an expression of contentment. She closes her eyes, looking like she’s dreaming.

She hasn’t really told me her name, and I haven’t told her mine, and I feel it’s more appropriate that it stay that way. As soon as we reach the apartment, the girl asks me if she can use the shower, to which I say yes. She also wants to dry her clothes, so with the lame excuse of buying a pack of smokes, I vacate myself from the premises for an hour to give her some time. Man, and I don’t even smoke the damn things.

After an hour, I come back to find her already exploiting the living room sofa by sleeping on it. With all indications pointing to tons of work tomor- row, I decide to make good what little time I have left for sleep. I set my alarm clock to 7:30am, and I’m off to bed. Before falling asleep, I take one last look on her uniform, and can’t help noticing it has the littlest of tears, just around her midsection.

I wake up the next morning to find her sitting in the living room doing nothing. Apparently she was waiting for me to get up. Once she sees me awake, she gives a quick bow.

“Thank you for what you did last night. I don’t have any way to repay you, but I can at least thank you.” She stands up and makes for the door.

“Wait up, wait up.” I call after her while rubbing my eyes awake. I can’t have her leave just like that when she waited for me to get up. “I can at least get you a breakfast.”

That stops her. Food must really get to her. As I thought, she’s just as hungry as anyone else would be after her ordeal last night. Now then, I’ve got some pasta and olive oil at the ready, which makes spaghetti the obvi- ous choice for breakfast. I quickly whip up two portions of it and carry it to my dinner table, and we eat it together. Since it seems like she’s not in a talking mood, I turn on the TV to watch some morning news. It’s the usual diet of homicide in the city, but this one gave me a strange feeling.

“Ah, strange whodunits with a tinge of the weird. Just the kind of news that Miss Tōko would love.” If I had said that in the office, I’d probably already be smacked upside the head with a projectile shoe. But the news item is bizarre.

The reporter on the scene told the story. Seems four bodies were found in an underground bar that had been abandoned for a half a year. All four of them had had their limbs torn off, and the crime scene was filled with blood. The scene is pretty close by, maybe four stations or so away from where we were drinking last night.

I make a mental note of the fact that the news said that their limbs were “torn off” and not “cut off.” Regardless, the news has nothing more on that angle, and goes on to describe the details on the victims’ lives: all teen- agers, and delinquents who frequently hung around the neighborhood. It seems they were slinging drugs too; corner boys. They have a citizen on the mike now, commenting on the victims.

“Those kids knew what they were getting into, and they got it. I think they deserved to die.”

And with those words, I turn the TV off. I hate it when people say those things, and I hate it even more when the media goes out of its way to give people like that the time of day. I turn back to look at my guest only to find her with a hand on her stomach just like last night. She hasn’t even touched her food. There really must be something wrong with her stom- ach. She looks down, such that I can’t see her face.

“Nobody deserves to die,” she says in between ragged breaths, causing her next words come out in whispers. “Why does it still throb? It’s already healed over, but why—“

Suddenly, she stands up not altogether calmly, making the chair fall to

the floor with a noise, and runs to the door. I start to stand up to go after her, but with head still cast downwards, she raises a palm towards me, as if to say I shouldn’t come near her.

“Wait, calm down. I think I can—”, I start to say, but she cuts me off. “No, please. Now I know…I can never go back.” That face—a face of

pain and resistance, a face of contradiction—somehow reminds me of Shiki. The girl calms down a bit, bows deeply before me, and then turns the doorknob.

“Goodbye,” she says. “I hope we don’t see each other again, for both our sakes.”

Then she opens the door and runs out. The last thing I see is her eyes, because she looked like she was about to cry.

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