26 – Hope

Ruri-chan didn't call out to me when she arrived, but I did hear her footsteps headed my way. Their unique rhythm hadn't changed since elementary school. And when I looked up, there she was. Sweat pressed her bangs to her brow. Once she spotted me sitting on a bench, she walked directly to me. Contrary to the concerned look in her eyes, her lips seemed taut with anger.

"Ruri-chan…"

"What are you doing out here so late?"

She was lightly dressed in a shirt and shorts. She had a smartphone in one hand, and from her swollen pocket, she also had her wallet. She hadn't brought the sharp, silver object that fit naturally in her hand.

A calm, discouraged voice leaked from my lips. "It didn't work."

"Work? What are you talking about?"

"I tried to talk to Mom today." My gaze fell and I saw Ruri's sneakers out of the corner of my eye. There was a tense silence radiating from beside me. "And, I told her… I wanted her to come home from time to time."

"Oh, really? You managed to have a conversation with her? That's great!"

"But Mom refused, then kicked me out of the house."

"…Why? I just don't get it."

"I don't get it, either. But a man I didn't know walked in and, so… I can't go back until nine. That's why I came here, to kill time."

Even though I meant to lay out the facts in an objective way, it felt like there was a dull echo in my voice.

I could hear laughter from the city's nightlife. It was a circle of people, connected like family. The streetlights shining down on them showcased their existence, and when I realized that I wasn't included, my hand on my knee naturally coiled into a fist.

"I even showed her the butterfly hairpin, but… Mom didn't… remember it. She didn’t care at all…"

I couldn't find the words to continue. What next? I… didn't really know how I felt or what I was thinking. Just saying what I did sent a chill down my spine. It was like all of the blood in my body had been sent to permanent cold storage. I felt so, so empty.

I even felt panic when I thought back to seeing my mom’s back. It wasn't that I was defensively managing a crisis, I just had this wrong, indescribable feeling that my reason for existing was adrift, that I wasn't interested in living out the time I had, and it stuck with me.

"I had a conversation with her like you said."

Maybe I should have expected that my birth wasn't normal since I wasn't born in a hospital. Maybe when the umbilical cord was yanked out, something important that connected me and Mom was yanked out with it. The things she'd share, the things she'd teach me—all of them had been flushed down the toilet, and that should prove that I hadn't been normal from birth.

"Tateha…"

Ruri-chan put her hand over mine. My hands were damp with sweat. Our skin stuck together like we had.

"Ruri-chan, I… can't go home."

"Okay."

"I don't want to go home."

"…Okay."

"So…"

If you don't have a home somewhere, then you should make one. A so-called "place of belonging" is a place to process loss, and it's a safety net that's not always there. But I was okay. I had Ruri-chan. I squeezed her hand and stared into her eyes.

"Stab me to death." I was chasing moonlight that swayed on the water's surface. "It's okay if you use a mechanical pencil. A knife works too. I just want you to stab me and not stop stabbing me even when the blood sprays. I want you to gouge and tear into my flesh like you're digging for gold. Cut straight down to the bone. Stab me all the way through. I want you to torment me."

My blood didn’t have any thoughts, after all. It was fine to let it all out. Let all of it out—All. Of. It.—and let it spray into the air like a fountain. I wanted these hard-to-fight instincts of wanting my blood spilled and desiring pain sliced away. If she got rid of the nerves so I couldn't feel pain, the exsanguination should be easy enough. Once my body was cold, it'd be over, and I was sure it'd feel like a bed of feathers.

"Don't worry if my arms fall off or if blood sprays out of my neck. I want your murderous intent to have your heart and soul in it. I want you to think about me seriously. We can buy a knife from that hardware store. I scoped it out just now. Hey, let's go."

I didn't really want to die. But I had no choice but to accept it if death was the ultimate form of pain that lingered once a life was extinguished. I was totally enthralled with the idea.

"I'd… be happy if you were the one who killed me."

Ruri-chan was the one who had breathed life into an existence that had been hermetically sealed since its first cry in a pure white private stall. The silver pencil tip she drove into my right eye was a gust of wind that kicked up the scattered piles of flower petals. My life had started thanks to her. Naturally, she should be the one to end it.

"Don’t say things like that, idiot."

Ruri-chan yanked my hand when she stood up. The instant she pulled me off the bench, the chill against my feet felt like I'd gotten snow in my shoes.

"I know what happened with your mom might be disappointing, but… but… maybe there was something going on. You can't help that, but… maybe it's just for the moment, because… it's not like you're not important, Tateha."

Ahh, there she went, frantically trying to keep her hands clean by twisting words around. Ruri-chan picked her words like she was navigating a maze. She was just giving me lip service; making an argument based on how she felt rather than a genuine, realistic solution.

"Let's go to my place."

"Your place?"

"My parents will take you in if I tell them what's going on. And if they don't, I'll let you in. It'll be our little secret."

Ruri-chan started hurrying off without matching my stride. I stumbled and fell on one knee.

"S-sorry, Tateha…"

"It's fine."

I put a hand on my creaky, feeble leg and tried to stand up.

—A blazing light entered my line of sight. That light was my one ray of hope in this world. My only escape from its unbearable agony. It was the weapon that could make it happen.

Ruri-chan and the others around me definitely hadn't noticed. I was the only one to realize it, because since I came to this district, I'd been looking for it the entire time.

When Ruri-chan was bullying me, I always checked to see if she had one of the mechanical pencils I loved being stabbed with in hand. My body got hot when I imagined what she would do once I saw that sharp silver point between her long fingers, and it made me excited.

Ah, stab me with that. I want you to stab me with it. Please, drag me to the bathroom already.

That's why I'd made a habit of looking at what people were holding onto ever since. Would a person in front of me be able to hurt me or not? Were they holding onto a weapon?

With my left eye—which could still see, and which I'd trained and polished so long for this—I saw a man wearing a hoodie was walking right this way. The glimmer in his hand was most definitely a sharp knife.