Chapter 133: Chapter 4.5
May 5 Kimihiko Kimizuka
I'd been standing at the top of that cliff on the cape for more than half an hour. I wasn't doing anything, just listening to the waves break on the rocks. Even so, to me, simply being here had meaning.
There was a white cross beside me, planted in a spot with a view out over the ocean, with lots of flowers laid out around it. It was the grave the facility's children had made for Danny. I didn't pray or anything, and I didn't talk to anyone. I just stood there, with the wind whipping around me.
Danny Bryant. Three years ago, he'd showed up out of nowhere and claimed to be a relative, then my father figure, then my teacher. I'd ended up spending two years with that enigmatic wanderer. We hadn't spent all of that time together. He'd been away from that apartment more often than not.
I'm not saying that's why, but I didn't have many memories of receiving or being given things from him. The pseudo-philosophical chats Danny usually tended to launch into hadn't convinced me completely. In the end, I didn't know whether his way of life, or the way he'd died, had really been correct. I wasn't in any position to make that call.
...But I was here anyway. What had Danny actually done, and what sort of secrets had he been hiding when he died? There was no way to know any of that now. And yet here I was, thinking about the last view he'd seen. It felt as if I didn't have a choice.
"What are you doing, kid?" a voice said behind me.
It was Gekka. I answered without turning around. "I was thinking Is that how he smiled?"
Among the flowers, a canvas stood near the white cross. Grete's portrait of Danny.
"We'll have to put that away before it rains."
I hadn't noticed until Gekka mentioned it, but the sky was cloudy. It could start raining at any second.
"If I said things were better this way, how would you comfort me?" I asked casually. If she'd gone to the trouble of coming out here, she'd probably at least chat with me for a while.
"If I said this was the way it had to be, it wouldn't satisfy you."
Apparently, my question had been a bit mean. When I glanced back, Gekka was staring at the ground rather awkwardly.
Right. Danny Bryant's death couldn't be undone. No matter how I tried to dress it up in words, the facts wouldn't change.
I started to apologize, but just then, she raised her eyes and met mine. "Instead, take this." Closing the distance between us, she handed me her smartphone. "The real data from that flash drive is on here. The one you threw into the flames earlier was a fake I'd brought along. There were video files on the real one," Gekka explained.
"...Is it okay for me to watch these?"
So it wasn't a map that led to Danny's secret? Even if Krone had been lying, Danny had indeed been hiding something, and he'd been on the run from his enemies. Had the contents of the safe been completely unrelated?
"Yes. Your identity makes it okay."
Gekka explained there had been several pieces of data on the flash drive, and she'd only given me some of it. Each of the video files had been meant for one of the kids at Sun House, and he'd left one for me.
I hesitated just a little, then tapped PLAY.
Danny Bryant appeared on the screen, sitting on a sofa in a room somewhere. "Hey, it's been forever. Can you see me okay?"
It felt like a home video. In the next moment, though, the warm aura disappeared.
"I know you're expecting a sweet, emotional video letter. But ditch those expectations, stat."
...There it is, that perfect dose of irritation. This was so like him.
I wanted to tell him I wasn't expecting anything sweet or emotional from him.
Too bad I couldn't.
"First, let me say this: I've got nothing to leave you, property included."
He was talking like he was ready for the end, like this video message was his
final good-bye. The contents were harsh, though.
"That goes both ways: There's nothing you can do for me. The living can't do anything for the dead."
For a moment, the brutal remark made my chest constrict, but I promptly thought better of it. He was right.
We offer flowers to the dead. We talk to heaven. We tell ourselves that he or she is alive in our hearts, and we start to move on.
But... Yeah. In the end, maybe those things aren't for the dead. Maybe we do them to comfort ourselves. Because in reality, those of us who are left behind can't do anything for the dead. From here on out, I would be for Danny—
"And that's just fine."
My head had started to droop, but I lifted it up at those words.
"I did everything I needed to do. That means I'm not leaving any souvenirs you don't need, and you definitely don't need to avenge me. I got it all done. You don't need to be tied down by the gaze of the dead."
From his spot on the sofa, he looked straight at the camera. As he spoke, his voice was gentle, but also powerful.
"So, technically, I didn't need to leave this video. I bet there's someone next to you right now anyway. They'll probably even teach you how to live from here on out. I have some memory space left, though, so...lemme just tell you a couple of things."
Then Danny began to deliver his last words. "—Not having family is nothing special. "Not having friends is nothing special. "Living by yourself is nothing special. "Listen. Don't let those things define you.
"Don't even tack them onto the end of your profile.
"If somebody asks you about it someday, and you remember it like, 'Oh, yeah, come to think of it...' That's what I want for you.
"Right, so there's just one thing that's important:
"Who are you?"
As Danny said that question was key, his voice grew more intense. "Ask yourself that. Keep on asking.
"What do you want to do? What do you wish for?
"What can you do to make that wish happen, and what can you afford to lose? "Hey, Kimihiko.
"What do you want to do tomorrow?"
With that final question, Danny Bryant smiled.
It was definitely the same smile as the one in his portrait. "You're saying that today?" I muttered at the dark screen.
It was May 5. My fourteenth birthday. "That's a terrible coincidence."
I knew it wasn't, but that was all I could say.
I gave the smartphone back to Gekka, then looked up at the cloudy sky. The next thing I knew, a fine rain had begun to fall.
"He really did get it all done, and then he died satisfied." I went closer to the cliff's edge and looked down at the heaving ocean. "Still. He lost his only daughter, started working to protect unfortunate kids instead, and died protecting them—was that really okay? I mean, yeah, he's probably satisfied. I doubt he regrets dying. Maybe he carried out his mission, made sure justice was done, and died happy."
But.
I gritted my teeth so hard I could hear them grinding. The rain was falling faster. Wishing it would wash everything away, I clenched my fists.
"Then at the very least, somebody who isn't him should be sad about his death, right?! If he doesn't regret it, then I'll regret it for him! I mean, it's true, isn't it? This is just way too... An ending like this is just—"
What words could express this feeling?
This agony, the way the world refused to go my way, this overpowering sense of helplessness.
The dead don't come back to life.
There's nothing the people left behind can do.
Even so, this emotion was inexorable, a muddy torrent that was threatening to drag me under. If I was going to condense it into one word, just one, it would be
—
"Unfair...!"
That clichéd word was the answer I forced up from the pit of my stomach. Raindrops struck my cheeks, my shoulders, and the ground.
Cold reality ran me through like a sword.
"—Are you stupid, kid?"
Just then.
Mingling with the sound of the rain, very faintly, I thought I'd heard the sort of words that would overturn that reality.
"He won't die. He won't. Danny Bryant isn't dead." It was Gekka.
Behind me, she spoke quietly, but there was a definite passion to her voice. "As long as there's someone who's inherited his last wish, he'll...we'll never
die. Listen, kid," she said. "How will you live? Now that his last wish is yours, what will you do with it now?"
When Danny Bryant had lost his daughter, he'd chosen to protect kids around the world. What about me? Now that I'd lost my teacher, how would I live?
"I'm... I can't live the way he did; I know that much. I don't have the sort of power that could save everyone."
In that case, what should I do?
I didn't even understand myself, and I was still stubbornly chasing my master's shadow.
"Nobody knows what their genuine self is like. The real you might actually be a friendly, smiley kid."
I remembered Danny had said that to me at some point. It was true: I didn't know anything about myself.
In that case, should I do what you said and try to joke around and smile a little?
How long would I be able to hang on to that easygoing attitude when trouble always found me like a magnet?
"Given your little predisposition there, if you're going to take on the cops and detectives, you're gonna have to be either a con man or a phantom thief."
Yeah, he'd said that, too.
From this point on, I was sure I'd have to deal with more than just cops and detectives.
I'd probably run into gangsters and spies, sickening criminals, and great evils I couldn't even begin to imagine. How should I live a life like that?
"Don't worry. Whenever you're driven by necessity, you'll meet the people you need to meet. That's true now and forever."
So in the end, I should just rely on other people?
...No, that couldn't be it. The time when I'm "driven by necessity" would probably come after I'd already done my best. No matter what sort of trouble I ran into, even if someone was right there with me when it happened, I'd have to keep doing what needed to be done until then.
That's right. This was the only way left for me to live. As I kept getting pulled into all these incidents, I'd end up shouldering people's anger or sadness or pain with them. I'd see how it played out from a front row seat. In that case...
"I'll at least reach out and help the people I can see. That's the kind of person I'll be."
Still chasing my teacher's shadow, I announced to Gekka how I would live with this predisposition.
"I see. That's good to hear." Smiling just a little, Gekka turned to leave. "You're going?"
I didn't ask her where. I vaguely understood that she wasn't just leaving Sun House. She was exiting from my life.
"Yes, my next job is waiting." Gekka spoke with her back still to me, in a tone that betrayed none of her emotions.
I wasn't ready to say good-bye, and I found myself asking her, "Do you think we'll meet again someday?"
Even if we didn't arrange it, maybe we'd be walking down a street somewhere and run into each other by chance. It wasn't impossible, was it?
"I really can't say. It's a big world." Gekka didn't look at me, but I thought I heard a little smile in her voice. "Still, no matter how big the world is, thoughts inevitably intersect someday, somewhere. If you and I inherited the same last wish from the same person, then one of these days, just maybe..."
That sounded like she was hinting at something. Then she started to walk away.
"Gekka!" I called after the Fiend with Twenty Faces, just one more time. "I'll return this favor someday."
Saying "thank you" was too embarrassing, so I left it vague.
Instead...
"Just like you saved me, one of these days, I'll smash that mask of yours." Did she think I hadn't noticed?
Was she planning to walk off alone, acting all mature?
"You're like me. You don't show other people who you really are. You don't let yourself."
She was holding herself back, playing the part of "Gekka Shirogane" behind a false face.
Her "Fiend with Twenty Faces" mask wasn't the only one she was wearing. What Gekka had always kept hidden was the thick armor she wore over her heart.
"Wait just a little longer."
Someday I'll break that mask, that armor. So, until then, this is good-bye.
Gekka gave the biggest sigh I'd heard since we met. Then, turning back, she gave me one last smile.
"You've got a lot of nerve for a kid."
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m