Editing Kamisu Reina:Volume 2 Ryoji Kamisu (section)

===1===

"I will die in a few days from now," says my little sister, Reina Kamisu, while she is enjoying a cup of Darjeeling tea on the terrace.

"Hm?" I groan not because I didn't understand her, but because I couldn't catch the meaning. After all, she wouldn't speak about her death like about the weather tomorrow.

"As I said, I will die in a few days."

I attempt to read a metaphorical meaning into her words, but at least for now there is just no plausible explanation why she would suddenly come up with such a statement.

"Die?" I ask.

"Yes."

"You?"

"Yes."

"That joke is—" Lame. And Reina <i>does not</i> tell lame jokes. "...Are you serious?"

"I am serious," she confirms without hesitation.

"Okay—"

What's the deal? Does she want to bother me with nonsense? Reina...? No, she wouldn't do that. What she said must be a simple truth.

Reina will die; if that's the truth, I ought to become disconcerted. However, I don't know about others, but at least I can't just believe and embrace the thought of her death just because she predicted it. No, maybe I can't do that <i>because</i> it's me.

"You...you don't have some incurable disease, right? Haha...this isn't some schmaltzy book, after all."

"No, I do not have a disease."

"All right, let's set aside for a moment whether or not you'll die. Why did you tell me that, anyway?"

"Because it is the truth and you belong to my family, Ryoji-san."

"Ha!" I sneer. Family?

Reina dryly calls me "Ryoji-san" instead of using some sort of nickname as is usual for siblings. I'm sure it's not actually with intent, but I can't shake off the nasty feeling that she is trying to deny our blood relation.

Well, I'm probably the only one who thinks like that.

<i>Family</i>, eh? I don't know about her, but at least I never considered her family. To me—to our family—she is not a member, but a piece of art.

"Excuse me, but did I say something bizarre?"

"No," I utter in response.

Despite talking about her own death, Reina gives me a smile. Yes, <u>she is smiling indeed</u>—and that's our punishment for treating her like a piece of art.

I don't remember an exact date, but when Reina was around ten years old, she lost all her emotions. At the very least, I could no longer observe any stirrings of emotion in her. The only thing she would show—regardless of the situation—was a smile. In fact, I can't even picture her to myself without one.

There is one thing I always think when looking at her:

—We must not disturb her smile.

Reina is a person. But we somehow forgot about that while associating with her and eventually treated her with utmost care as though she were a fragile work of art. Reina became obliged to smile and we became obliged not to disturb her smile.

She was sensible enough to recognize that role we had force upon her and played along.

However, she also had the skill to fulfill that role. Since she was intelligent to begin with, Reina quickly became what one could call <i>perfect</i>. She became perfect in every thinkable aspect—be it her appearance, manners, wits, personality, or her skills—so much that it bordered on being plain creepy.

We were all equally shaken, I presume, but nobody said anything; after all, this is what we had wanted Reina to be. Besides... <u>what problem is there with being perfect?</u>

Therefore, all we could eventually do was watching in amazement as she elegantly drunk tea on the terrace as if she was a piece of art.

...But I digress.

"If you know that you will die within a few days, that means that you plan on ending your life, right? In that case, it would indeed be plausible to say that you will die in a few days."

"So you think that I will commit suicide?"

"No, I don't."

"But?"

"If you thought about committing suicide, then you wouldn't tell me, would you?"

Reina smiles in response to my statement.

"I would stop you, Reina, if you told me about suicide, although there would be no need to tell me in the first place if you were serious about it. Moreover, you might give me a guilty conscience by evading my attempts to stop you, and you are too smart a person for such a misconduct that nobody profits. You aren't so weak as to say this because you want me to stop you, either. But most of all... you don't trust me enough to confess your plans of suicide to me."

"That is not true."

"I wonder," I say with a wry smile and sip at my lukewarm cup of black tea. "Anyway, the answer is that you are going to be killed in a few days."

"But did you not say that I will end my own life a few moments ago?" Reina asks.

"You said that <i>you will die in a few days</i>. In other words, <u>you are aware</u> that you are going to be killed. No one is holding you captive, Reina. Even if someone was threatening you, you could escape with with some effort. However, you don't, which means that you have decided to end your life. Besides, if you really planned to commit suicide, there would be no need to use a vague expression like <i>in a few days</i>."

"I understand," says Reina with a nod. I doubt that something I can think of would not occur to her, so she might just be trying to be polite.

"Compared to a normal person, there are more reasons to target someone like you. For one thing, our family is fairly wealthy, and your looks would justify an attempt to murder you as well. There are more than enough reasons for murder to occur."

"That might be true," she says with a smile, agreeing with the absolutely disagreeable fact that I pointed out. It's perfect. The mask she is wearing is perfect.

Is she scheming something else beneath that beautiful mask of hers? Perhaps. But if nobody is able to perceive what that is, those thoughts are technically non-existent.

"All right," I say, finally cutting to the chase. "What do you want me to do, Reina?"

Reina answers with a smile. "I just wanted you to know."

"Hold on! So you want me to sit on my hands and do nothing even though I now know that my sister is going to be killed?"

I may have said this, but as a matter of fact I can't imagine Reina getting killed; although I don't know if that is because she's so blunt about it or because I've subconsciously sorted out the possibility.

Or perhaps because I care about other people as little as Reina does.

"...I see where you are coming from. Asking this of you might be cruel indeed."

"See?"

And because of that, our empty conversation felt very artificial and superficial, with neither of us putting their cards on the table.

"In that case, go to my room when the time comes."

"...To your room?"

Come to think of it, I can't remember when I last was in her room even though we live under the same roof.

"When the time comes...?"

"You will be able to tell!"

If anyone else other than Reina had told me so, I would have laughed it off. However, Reina is saying so and she is smiling.

"Do not worry about me, Ryoji-san," Reina says to me while I'm struggling to find the right reaction. "I will die—"


"—but only metaphorically."



However, Reina died.

A few days after our conversation—three days, to be exact—Reina killed herself by jumping off the roof of a school building.

She didn't leave behind a last will, but there were more than enough witnesses to confirm her death, since it happened shortly after school was over. Reina jumped head-first off the building and died. Unless all the witnesses were lying, that's a truth.

However, because more than half her pretty face was missing after the fall, I have not seen her body.

Every person dies eventually. <u>Every person</u>.

This always gets me wondering; <u>would Reina really die?</u> Would a being so perfectly balanced really die like the bunch of us?

Even though the answer is as clear as day, my head keeps telling me "no". But that's absurd.

But Reina has indeed said it. She's many times smarter than me, and she has smilingly said it.


<i>"<u>Only metaphorically</u>."</i>



I know it's foolish to believe it, and yet I know that I'm right. I suffer of two conflicting thoughts.

Somewhere, maybe in the course of our conversations, Reina has infected me with a Trojan horse that keeps asking me—

—<u>is Reina Kamisu really dead?</u>