Side: Tsumugi
The first night of the overnight training camp. I lay curled up in a small ball in the futon at the edge of the room, a room that felt unbearably uncomfortable.
…Because there was no place for me anywhere in this world.
“——I totally get it! Parents are so annoying, right?”
“Right?! I wanna run away from home as soon as I graduate! Or like, just disappear.”
“Disappear is a bit much! But seriously, I feel that!”
All that reached my ears were light, shallow voices.
This room, assigned mechanically by student number order, held four people, including me. The other three had been chattering nonstop, as if they’d been friends forever.
Happily, innocently, without a single thought.
—Annoying?
—Disappear?
How could they say such things so easily about their irreplaceable families?
Maybe they meant it as a light joke. But that very lightness made me sick to my core.
Could you all still say the same thing if you really lost your family? Could you just laugh it off after tasting that feeling like a hole has been torn in your chest? Do you know how loneliness comes crashing down on you at night, in an unguarded moment? Have you ever been confronted with the reality that you’ll never hear their voice again, never touch them again, that no matter how much you call, there will be no answer?
—Of course, you haven’t.
Suddenly, that woman’s voice revived in my head.
‘I hope you can make some friends. I’m sure these three years of high school will become precious memories.’
Memories? With people like these? The idea that people like these could be “precious memories” is no joke. Give me a break.
The words of people who haven’t lost everything are endlessly light. If spending every day laughing with these kinds of people is the alternative, I’d rather be alone forever. I don’t need a single friend. If only my sister had just stayed by my side, that would have been enough. That alone would have been enough.
…There’s no joy left in my life anymore. My only reason to live… is revenge.
“Hey, what do you think, Yoshino-san?”
My heart jumped for a second when the conversation was suddenly directed at me. I could feel their eyes on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to show my face from under the futon.
“…I’m sleeping.”
That was all I said before burrowing deeper into the futon.
“Ugh, let’s just leave her alone.”
“She’s gloomy and boring.”
Say whatever you want, just leave me alone. I’m not alive to play nice with the likes of you.
The thought of telling them my circumstances and being pitied is absolutely repulsive. I don’t want to hear things like “That must have been hard,” or “You poor thing,” or see those fake sympathetic faces… I don’t want any of it directed at me. And I don’t want my sister’s death to become just another topic in someone’s conversation.
I pulled the futon over my head, shutting out the outside world. The laughter, the whispers—I pushed it all away. And what naturally surfaced then was the face of that woman back home.
——Akane Shintani.
Even in the darkness, I could recall her clearly. The way she’d start to say something, then swallow it back, and the gaze she’d try to fix directly on me.
That woman stole my sister from me. She ruined my life. My sister is dead, and that woman is alive. I can’t forgive that. There’s no way I can forgive it.
‘——I’ll make you see hell someday.’
I definitely said that to her back then. But so far, I haven’t been able to do anything, and I haven’t even come up with a plan. All that comes out of my mouth are, at best, just words.
“Murderer.” “Hypocrite.” “You should have died instead.”
I’ve hurled every word I can think of at her, but I don’t feel like I’ve truly gouged out her heart.
She makes a hurt face. Sometimes she seems to catch her breath. But that’s it. She isn’t broken. She hasn’t crumbled. That woman is still standing.
Deep in my chest, frustration slowly, steadily builds.
My words aren’t enough yet they’re lukewarm. But even though I want revenge, I don’t know how. Just hating her isn’t nearly enough.
There has to be… there has to be something more. I need something that will strip all composure and resolve from her face and dye it with nothing but despair.
——Then should I hit her? Hurt her?
…No, that’s wrong. Crime is out of the question. I at least know better than to cross that line. Besides, doing something like that would be meaningless. The satisfaction would only last a moment, and physical pain is fleeting.
And death is too lukewarm. If she dies, it’s over. I wouldn’t even be able to make her suffer. I don’t want to end it. I don’t want to end her; I want to make it continue.
When this training camp ends and I return to that house, that woman will surely greet me with that face again and say:
‘Welcome home.’
As if nothing ever happened.
Only my sister was supposed to say those words. It was always my sister who welcomed me home.
But every time that woman, that outsider, says it, I feel like that memory is being overwritten, little by little.
The image of my sister in my memories is gradually fading.
I don’t want that at all. I don’t want to forget, yet I feel like I’m starting to. If I’m going to forget, I’d rather stay in pain forever.
And yet because of that woman, my sister is disappearing.
I can’t forgive this. Isn’t there something… some method of revenge, even for someone like me?
I closed my eyes under the futon and thought of nothing else. While steadying my breathing, I turned it over and over in my mind.
But no answer came. The more I thought, the more the hollow space deep in my chest just seemed to grow.
The sense of loss that gaped open in my heart when I lost my sister still hasn’t been filled in the slightest. I don’t think it ever will be filled from now on. It’s not something anyone can fill. Not that woman, not friends, not anyone.
…Only my sister. Only my sister could.
And so, my thoughts grew dull. Revenge, anger, frustration—they all gradually lost their shape.
Before I knew it, my consciousness had snapped, and I was dragged into a darkness called loss, falling into a heavy sleep.