Another, Vol. 1 (11 page)

I started forcing myself to take deep breaths again, my eyes roving over the armies of dolls. It felt as though every last one of them was staring at me. The old woman still wasn’t back at her table…I suddenly recalled, at this moment, the conversation I’d had with the old woman a few minutes earlier. It was only now that
a certain phrase
caught my attention…What had she meant by
that
?

…God, I really was messed up. Just a little…no, totally messed up.

After taking an extraordinarily deep breath, I turned my eyes back to Mei.

For an instant, as she sat on the sofa, the level of light made her entire figure seem to transform into the deepest of shadows. The sensation I’d felt when I first saw her in the classroom rose again in my mind. A “shadow,” whose outlines were ill-defined, with only the faintest sense of reality…

“I’m sure you have a lot of other things you want to ask me,” Mei said.

“Uh, well…”

“You aren’t going to?”

Her bald question left me scrambling for a quick response. Her name tag, glinting on the front of her school uniform, now rested in the corner of my eye. The two characters—
Misaki
—written in black ink on the wrinkled and dirty light purple card stock…

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, then opened them, trying to somehow calm my emotions.

“Ever since I transferred here, there have been things that seem odd to me. And…well, that’s why…”

“I told you to be careful, didn’t I?” Mei let out a soft sigh as she ran her fingertips over the edge of her eye patch. “I told you not to come near me. But maybe now it’s too late.”

“Too late? For what?”

“You still don’t know anything, do you, Sakakibara?” She sighed softly again, then lifted her back from the support of the sofa. “We have an old story.”

Mei began to recount the story, her tone of voice dropping somewhat.

“A story of long ago…of twenty-six years ago at Yomiyama North Middle, in third-year Class 3. No one’s told you this story yet, have they?”

“Twenty-six years ago, there was a third-year
student
at North Yomi. A student who had been popular with everyone since first year. Good at schoolwork and at sports, talented in art and music…and yet, not such an amazing student that it would make you gag. Kind to absolutely everyone, with just the right amount of friendliness. So this student was beloved by everyone, students and teachers alike.”

Mei told the story quietly, her gaze fixed on a single point in space. I listened in silence.

“As it happened, this kid changed classes when starting third year and joined Class 3. When first semester started, right after turning fifteen, this student suddenly died. There’s a story that this student and their family were in a plane crash, but there are all kinds of other versions, too. That it was a car accident instead of a plane crash, or that it was a house fire…all kinds.

“Anyway, everyone in class was completely shocked.
It can’t be true, I don’t believe it
, and so on. Everyone was completely grief-stricken. But then out of the throng, suddenly someone spoke up.”

Mei shot a glance over at me, but I stayed quiet. I was at a complete a loss for how to respond.

“
Misaki didn’t die
, they said.”

Mei went on quietly.

“
Look, Misaki’s with us right now.
This person pointed at the desk the student had used and said,
Look, Misaki’s right there, alive, right over there…

“And then, one student after another popped up in support.
It’s true, Misaki’s not dead, Misaki’s alive, Right over there…
It spread through the room like a chain reaction.

“No one wanted to believe it. They couldn’t accept the fact that the most popular person in the class had suddenly died like that. It’s not like we can’t understand how they felt. But…the problem was, they kept
this thing
going after that, too.”

“What do you mean?” I opened my mouth for the first time since she’d begun her tale. “What
thing
?”

“Everyone in the class, from then on, started
pretending
that the kid was still alive. The head teacher helped, too. The teacher told them,
Absolutely, Misaki isn’t dead. Misaki’s alive even now in this room, as a member of the class. So everyone needs to come together and do their best to make it to graduation day.
Stuff like that.”

We’ll all pitch in to help each other and make this last year of middle school a good one.

I don’t know why, but the words of the teacher from twenty-six years ago, as recounted by Mei, crossed now with the speech Mr. Kubodera had made to introduce me to the class the morning I started school.

All of us are going to do our part. So that next year in March…

“In the end, everyone in third-year Class 3 played out the rest of their middle school lives that way. They left the desk of the dead student exactly how it had been and would talk to the kid, or horse around with them, or go home from school with them…Of course, it was all just
pretend.
And when it was time for graduation, the principal arranged for there to be a special seat for that student.”

“Is this a true story?” I asked, unable to hold back any longer. “It’s not some kind of rumor or legend?”

Mei did not reply. She simply continued telling the story coolly.

“After the graduation, they took the class photo in their classroom. With everyone in the class and the head teacher. But as it happened, when they looked at the developed photo later, everyone noticed something.”

Mei paused for the slightest of moments, and then said: “In one corner of the group photo they saw that student, who couldn’t possibly have been there. With a face pale as a corpse and smiling like everyone else.”

So it was more like a legend after all. Maybe it was one of the “Seven Mysteries” of North Yomi. Though it was a pretty elaborate story, if so.

Even as I thought these things, for whatever reason, I couldn’t just laugh it off. I tried to force myself to smile, but my cheeks just wound up twitching.

Mei had been expressionless throughout.

Her gaze still fixed, she pressed her lips together and her shoulders slowly lifted and fell a few times…before she finally added, in a voice like a whisper, “That kid—the one who died—was named Misaki.”

Now that was a sucker punch.

“Misaki?” My voice was unintentionally shrill. “Was that…their last name? Their first name? Was it a boy or a girl?”

“Hm-m-m.”

Did she not know? Or she knew, but wasn’t going to tell me? Her lack of expression as she inclined her head slightly told me nothing.

“Apparently there are some versions where the name is ‘Masaki,’ but they’re the minority. I think it really was ‘Misaki.’”

…Twenty-six years ago.

Deep inside, I mulled over what Mei had just told me.

Twenty-six years ago, there had been a popular kid named Misaki in third-year Class 3…

…Hold on.

Hold it right there.

That was when the idea hit me.

If it was twenty-six years ago, then maybe my mom—my mother, who had died fifteen years ago—wouldn’t Ritsuko have been in middle school then? In which case she might have…

I don’t know if Mei noticed the slight change in my reaction. She leaned back against the sofa again and, her tone unchanged, she told me, “There’s more to this story, actually.”

“There is?”

“You could say the part I just told you is like the prologue.”

And then—

A vibrant, electronic noise started up inside my bag, which was resting on the sofa. I was getting a call on my cell phone. I guess I’d forgotten to set it to vibrate.

“Oh, sorry.”

I quickly reached out for my bag and pulled my phone out. The screen displayed a notice reading: “Yomiyama—Grandma & Grandpa.”

“Ah, Koichi?”

Just as I had expected, I heard my grandmother’s voice.

“Where are you? It’s so late…”

“Uh, I’m sorry, Grandma. I got sidetracked on my way home from school…Yeah, I’m coming home now…How do I feel? I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

I hung up hastily, and then noticed that the vanished string music had started playing again.
Hey now
, I thought and turned around. I don’t know when she’d come back, but the old woman was at the table by the entrance. She was facing this way, but her eyes were hidden by the dark lenses of her glasses, so I still couldn’t see them.

“What an awful machine.”

Mei was looking down at my hand, her eyebrows knit in disgust.

“No matter where you are, you’re connected. They can catch you.”

Then she stood up from the sofa and walked away toward the back stairs without another word…What? Was she going back to that room in the basement?

Should I go after her? But if I went after her and found she was gone…hey, what’s wrong with you? What a stupid thing to think. That couldn’t happen. Obviously it couldn’t. So…but no…

As I hesitated, the old woman spoke in a thick voice.

“I’m closing up soon. You go on home for today.”

It was the end of May—which usually meant midterm exams at school. They were spread over two days next week, Monday and Tuesday, and only for the five major subjects.

Caught up in the scramble of moving, hospitalization, and switching schools, some part of my mind had been numbed to this most mundane of events. This made me realize that.

About two weeks had passed since I started school here, and my initial nervousness had eased considerably. But I still hadn’t completely adjusted to the new group to which I now belonged. There were a few people I could chat or joke around with, and the pace, I guess, or the rhythms of this school had slowly soaked in, although they were hugely different from my old school. At this rate, I even felt as though I could probably make it to March next year without too much hassle. But then…

In the midst of it all, still, there was something that nagged at me.

The alienness that surrounded the existence of Mei Misaki, that resisted all attempts to unambiguously grasp its nature. Like a single, relentlessly echoing discordant note in the peaceful, inoffensive melody that was daily life at this school.

“When midterms are over, it’ll be straight into a week of guidance counseling,” Teshigawara moaned and ground his hands in his bleached hair. “The whole time, I’m gonna have to talk to the teachers all seriously about it, too. It’s gonna be total misery.”

“You’ll be fine,” Kazami, who was with him, flippantly replied. “Over ninety-five percent of people get into high school nowadays. Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a school you can get into, too.”

“That’s supposed to cheer me up?”

“That’s how I meant it.”

“You’re saying I’m stupid.”

“I told you, I’m not.”

“Hmph. Well, in any case, our old ties are only gonna last until graduation, I guess. I wish you all the best.”

Teshigawara was waving at the “honor-roll-esque” boy he’d known since childhood, as if bidding him farewell for the rest of their lives. Then he looked at me.

“What are you gonna do for high school, Sakaki? You going back to Tokyo?”

“Yeah. My dad’s coming back from India next spring and all.”

“Some private school?” Kazami asked.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Must be nice being a college professor’s kid. Wish I could go to high school in Tokyo.”

Teshigawara was needling like always, but his tone was frank and didn’t sound sarcastic for once, so it wasn’t unpleasant.

“You probably get a free ride to college with your dad’s massive connections, huh, Sakaki?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I countered immediately, but his taunt wasn’t entirely off the mark. After all…

The director of K*** Middle School, where I’d gone in Tokyo, had gone to the same college and been in the same research department as my dad, who’d had a mentor/underclassman relationship with him, on top of being close friends. So, given that, when I’d had to transfer, they’d made special arrangements predicated on my returning to Tokyo next year. Which means that even though I’m in a public school out here for a year, when it’s time for my high school exams, I’ll be able to take the tests to move up internally, from K*** Middle School to K*** High School. So I was told.

I had zero intention of telling anyone this. Because there’s no way anyone would think it was very funny if they found out…

This was after school on Wednesday, May 20.

After sixth period ended, we’d somehow ended up leaving the classroom together and were walking down the hall side by side. It was raining outside, just as it had been all day.

“That reminds me. How do you guys do your school trip here?”

When I asked that, Teshigawara frowned. “Seriously? We went last year. To Tokyo. I went up Tokyo Tower for the first time on that trip. We went to Odaiba, too. You ever done that, Sakaki? Gone up Tokyo Tower?”

I hadn’t, but…

“Last year? But isn’t it usually third-years who go on school trips?”

“At North Yomi, we go in the fall of second year. I heard the third-years used to go sometime in May a long time ago, though.”

“Used to?”

“Uh…yeah. Right, Kazami?”

“Uh, right. That’s what they say.”

For some reason, I felt a faint reluctance in their reaction. I pretended nothing had happened and asked, “Why did they change it to second year?”

“How should I know? That was a long time ago.” Teshigawara’s response was too rough. “They probably had their reasons.”

“They probably also wanted to be considerate and do it before people had to start worrying about exams,” Kazami replied. He stopped walking, took off his glasses, and started to clean the lenses.

“Huh. I didn’t know public school was like that.”

I stopped walking when Kazami did and went over to a window in the hall to look out. We were on the third floor. The rain was falling in a sprinkle now; you couldn’t even see it unless you squinted, and more than half of the students walking through the schoolyard weren’t using umbrellas.

I don’t hate the rain.

I was reminded of what Mei had said, whatever day that was.

My favorite is the cold rain in the middle of winter. The moment it changes to snow.

I hadn’t seen her yesterday or today. She’d been here on Monday, but I hadn’t been able to find a chance to really talk to her. Maybe because I was strangely overthinking how we’d run into each other in the doll gallery in Misaki last week. Thinking about every last word she’d said that day. Every little movement she’d made. Every single element of her behavior…

And when she’d told me that “the story of the Misaki twenty-six years ago” was “kind of like a prologue,” that had really stuck with me. I was pretty much convinced this was another one of the “Seven Mysteries,” but still.
“There’s more.”
What was the ghost story that came after that?

Speaking of which, the week before last, hadn’t Teshigawara mentioned something about “the curse of Class 3” after art class?

“Hey.”

I tried to maintain a casual air as I broached the subject with these guys.

“Do you guys know the story of the third-year Class 3 from twenty-six years ago?”

That same instant, Kazami and Teshigawara both reacted with bald shock. Their faces seemed to go white in a second.

“C-c’mon, Sakaki…I thought you didn’t believe in stories like that?”

“Where did you…who told you that?”

After a moment’s thought, I decided not to bring Mei’s name up.

“I just heard a rumor.”

When I told them that, Kazami pressed in on me, his face serious. “How much did you hear?”

“What? Just the intro, I guess.”

Their hypersensitive reactions had been way more than I’d expected, and I faltered.

“I heard there was a popular student in third-year Class 3 twenty-six years ago and that they died suddenly…That’s about it.”

“So just the first year, then,” Kazami murmured, looking over at Teshigawara. Teshigawara pursed his lips, conflicted.

“What’s going on? You three look so serious.”

A voice interrupted. It was Ms. Mikami, who happened to be passing by just then. Yukari Sakuragi was tagging along beside her, I guess getting her advice on something.

“Oh. Uh, well, you know…”

Talking to Ms. Mikami face-to-face in a situation like this was something I was still not used to. I was terrible at it. As I fumbled for a response, Kazami took a step toward the teacher, as if to silence me. Then he theatrically lowered his voice and told her, “Sakakibara says he heard a rumor…about
the year when it started
.”

“I see.”

Ms. Mikami nodded slowly, then tilted her head to one side. Her reaction, too, seemed somehow odd for this situation. As for Sakuragi, she clearly couldn’t control her shock when she heard that, either, just like Kazami and Teshigawara.

“That’s a difficult issue…” Without so much as a glance in my direction. A deeply thoughtful look on her face, the first I had ever seen like it on her. Her voice smothered, discernible only in snatches, Ms. Mikami murmured, “…not sure. But…as little as you can…now we really…okay? Let’s keep an eye on…”

“Do you remember twenty-six years ago, Grandma?” I asked my grandmother immediately after getting home from school that day.

She was with my grandfather, sitting together in wicker chairs on the porch and looking out at the garden after the long rain. She didn’t even have time to finish saying “Welcome home” before she was blinking at the question tossed at her from her grandchild.

“Eh? That’s quite a while ago. Twenty-six years ago, you said?”

“Yeah. My mom was around my age. I think she was in her third year at North Yomi.”

“When Ritsuko was in her third year of middle school…”

My grandmother rested a hand against her cheek and leaned against the armrest of her chair.

“Oh, yes. The head teacher for her class was a handsome young man…He taught social studies and supervised the theater club or something along those lines. He was quite the fired-up educator. I believe the students thought well of him.”

She pieced her story together slowly, her eyes narrowed, as if she were gazing at something far off in the distance. Beside her, my grandfather nodded his head mechanically.

“Which class was my mom in when she was a third-year?”

“Which class? Oh, my.”

My grandmother cast a sideways glance at my grandfather, and then let out a low, soft sigh at the sight of him still nodding his head so mechanically.

“In her third year, let’s see, she would have been in Class 2 or 3…Yes, I think it was Class 3.”

No way.
Her reply left me speechless; I just felt weird. It wasn’t acceptance. It wasn’t surprise, either, and it wasn’t as extreme as fear. But I felt as if I had suddenly spotted a huge black pit, with no bottom to be seen, right where I’d been about to step.

“Third-year Class 3? You’re sure?”

“When you say that, I don’t feel so sure anymore.”

My grandfather was bobbing his head in time to my grandmother’s voice.

“Do you still have her yearbook?”

“I don’t think we’d have that here. If there is one, I would imagine it’s at your father’s house. When she got married, I think she took all that sort of thing with her.”

“Oh.”

I wondered if my father still had stuff like that at home. At least, I never remembered being shown any of it.

“So then, Grandma.” I continued with my questions. “Twenty-six years ago, when my mom was in third year, in Class 3, did a kid in her class die in an accident or anything like that?”

“An accident? With one of the children in her class…?”

My grandmother looked over to check on my grandfather once again; then her eyes sought refuge in the garden. Finally she let out a slow sigh.

“I seem to recall that there was, now that you mention it,” she answered as if to herself, half in reflection. “I can’t remember what sort of an accident it was, though. What a good child. It was terrible, when that happened…”

“What was the kid’s name?” I was more aggressive than I meant to be. “Was it Misaki?”

“…I really don’t know.”

Once again, my grandmother’s gaze fled anxiously to the garden.

“Misaki. Misaki,” My grandfather murmured in his age-wracked voice.

“Good morning. Good morning.” The mynah bird, Ray, had been well behaved up till then, but now she suddenly spoke up in her shrill voice, startling me. “Good morning, Ray. Good morning.”

“I suppose Reiko would remember much better than I do,” my grandmother said.

“But Reiko was only three or four years old back then, wasn’t she?”

She must have been, considering the age difference between the two sisters. Then my grandmother’s expression abruptly shifted into a confident cast and she nodded deeply to herself. “Yes, yes. Ritsuko was taking her high school entrance exams. I was still looking after Reiko. That was a tough year! Grandpa was all work-work-work and never helped out at all.”

My grandmother fixed a scrutinizing eye on my grandfather. “Isn’t that right?” His lips were moving, like a drawstring purse, in pinched mumbles.

“Why? Why?” Ray asked in her high-pitched voice. “Why? Ray, why?”

It was pretty late at night when Reiko came home. She’d had dinner out. She looked as if she’d had a good amount of alcohol with it. I recognized the smell and her eyes were a little bloodshot, too.

“You think you’re going to ace the midterms next week?”

After collapsing onto the sofa in the living room, she seemed to have noticed that I was in the room with her and so turned this sudden question on me. She sounded as if she was slurring her words ever so slightly. She wasn’t all the way to “drunk,” but this was the first time I’d seen Reiko even this bad.

“No way.” My confusion brought out an honest answer. “I’m still studying for them, as much as I have to.”

“Well, excuse me.”

She chortled softly, then drained the glass of cool water my grandmother had brought her. As I watched her, all at once I—

I pictured how my dead mother must have had alcohol and gotten drunk like this long ago, too. The thought sent a rush through my heart and, in the same moment, I felt my chest squeezing tighter.

“Ah-h-h, today wiped me
out
.”

Reiko stretched out grandiosely from her seat on the couch. She turned her eyes, almost wistful, on me.

“It’s tough being an adult. All these people wanting to spend time with you,
holding you back
. And then…”

“How are you, Reiko?” My grandmother walked over, her head cocked, looking worried. “You don’t usually get like this.”