Kamisu Reina:Volume 1 Kazuaki Toyoshina

1

It was me who provided the picture for Shizuka Wakui's funeral.

I own more pictures of her than anyone else—more than she did even. Her smiling, her crying, her getting upset... they are all treasures to me.

I raise my head to look at the photo of Shizuka's lovely smile at the altar.

Ah, it's already been a year since she stopped smiling like that.

Ever since that incident a year from now, she hasn't shown that happy and careless smile of hers. Instead, her eyes dulled and her smiles turned into faint motions of her lips.

But I didn't mind. I was willing to wait by her side for her to regain the joy of living and had no plans of searching for another love.

The smell of incense hits my nose.

I feel like I turn empty as the smell soaks into my body; as if it silently bereaves me of myself. What remains of me is a translucent mass of untouchable void.

All colors around me are either black or white, or the green of our school uniforms. Even colors were stolen from me.

Most likely, I'm going to stay in this strangely isolated world from now on.

"Kazuaki," someone says. I turn around to look at a meek Kiichi.

"...You're here?"

"Of course I am. All of our classmates are."

As Kiichi correctly mentioned, our entire class is here. In fact, there are also students from other classes who used to be friends with Shizuka, students I don't even know and even a few students from other schools.

After that incident, Shizuka started to lose her friends one by one and stopped making new ones, until I was the last remaining person at school who was close to her. The friendship between girls is defined by how they relate to each other; at first, her friends accompanied her because of sympathy, but eventually they couldn't keep up with how she changed.

Nevertheless, many old friends have come to Shizuka's funeral and lamented for her sake. Right now, she's the heroine of a tragedy for everyone, which doesn't please me. She was supposed to be my heroine, not someone else's.

Therefore, I ignore them and gaze at the picture of her.

Her smile.

Why, truly why, could I not protect that smile?

Where did we make the wrong choice? What should I have done? Was my choice to embrace her wrong? Or was it too late by then anyway?

Why could I not protect the one thing I wanted to protect whatever it would take?

What am I supposed to do now that I have completely and entirely lost Shizuka—my other half—my hope, my purpose?

I am the same as that picture.

The smile depicted and I are but evanescent remnants of the past.

Shizuka's body was transported away.

I didn't get to see her face one last time because of sever damage to her corpse. Had I insisted, I may have gotten permission to take a look, but neither Shizuka nor I would have wished for that.

I mean, they said damage. Not injury or scars, boy, but damage.

Hahaha, Shizuka isn't a human being anymore. She's void. Seeing that would only sadden me.

The black and white and green colors have disappeared as I keep standing there, focusing my gaze on the door through which her body was transported.

"Kazuaki-kun," someone says behind me.

"Mrs Wakui."

It's Shizuka's mother, a sorrowful expression on her face. She looks like that because of the loss of her daughter, of course, but part of her melancholy is probably due to sympathy for me.

"Let me give you this," she says as she holds out her fist. When I present the palm of my hand, she drops something on it.

"Ah—"

It's a cross choker; a Christmas present I bought for Shizuka two years ago, saving up three months' worth of pocket money.

"Shizuka was wearing it when she passed away. I... I thought I should give it to you."

I don't look up as I listen to her words, and keep gazing closely at the choker in my hand.

She was wearing it at the bitter end? Even though she hasn't worn it a single time after that incident?

What's the meaning of this? Why did she wear it at the end?

"I'm sorry," she suddenly says.

I'm sorry. Words of apology.

"Ah—"

Damn.

Her mother apologized ahead of me.

She took my right to apologize.

It would have been so much easier to blame myself for having failed to ease Shizuka's pain, for having let her accept such a fate, for being responsible for her death. It would have been so much easier to apologize and crack under the weight.

But her mother didn't grant me that right.

She took up that position before me.

The only thing I have left now is—

"Uh..."

"UAAAAAAAWHHHH!"

—to cry my lungs out and grieve.

2

[in progress]