Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter05 04

/4 Paradox Spiral

That day, I was at the back alley where I first met Ryougi.

Even in these daylight hours there's no one about, and not even the myriad noises of the streets can be heard. Exhaling clouds of vapor into the cold air (!), I was standing in that place from which the bloodstains of that time had neatly disappeared.

Clickclickclickclick.

October's drawing to an end too. It's approaching one month since I ran away casting aside home, work, and everything else in my life.

However there's no sign that the police are looking for me. Not only that but on the TV news that I diligently go to check everyday at the mall, nothing about the murder I had committed was being said. I've been reading newspapers too whenever I felt like it, but as expected no such story appeared.

That affair, it's in a whole different dimension from the street homicides going on right now. There's no doubt that it's the sort of thing that the TV audiences would lap up. So there's no way it would have been handled as a simple accident.

"--- Impossible --- Could it be that they haven't discovered it yet?"

Hearing my mumbling voice, I want to throw up the contents of my stomach.

It's not as if it matters what happens to people like that but --- just thinking about what those bodies would look like after they had been left there for a month wraps me up in gloom.

Should I go take a look --- no, that's not possible. I don't have the courage to do so, and there could be police watching the scene.

In any case all I can do is keep a watch on the situation from outside like this.

--- Just once.

Just once is fine so if it was reported on TV as a crime, I could harden my mind and disappear from Ryougi's life. If Enjoh Tomoe becomes known to the world as a murderer it would be an inconvenience to Ryougi --- and I could leave this street with no regrets.

"Damn it, what is up with that. You bastard called me---."

Does that mean I can't leave Ryougi.

Clickclickclickclick.

The wind's picked up. I came walking out of the back alley as if I was being chased by the cold north wind. I was walking through the downtown area when I saw Ryougi at a far-off pedestrian crossing. A red jacket over a kimono - it couldn't be anyone but her.

Looking at that figure from far away --- I spotted a familiar face.

It's a guy from that night Ryougi and I first met, one of the ones who were the cause of that meeting. With practiced footsteps he's acting natural while he follows Ryougi.

Click, clickclick, click.

--- Hey, that's dangerous.

Mixing into the crowd I stalk the guy stalking Ryougi.

After stalking Ryougi for a long time the guy goes off somewhere. Shortly afterward, another guy from that time replaced him and continued to stalk Ryougi.

It seems that they don't actually plan to do anything to Ryougi but simply stalk her. Even so --- for them their movements are too faultless and well-organized to be not suspicious.

I kept watch them for an hour, and then decided that I needed to know where the one that had trailed off had gone. Fortunately the one that fainted after eating Ryougi's high kick finishes his shadowing and starts to head back.

When I hurried after him he -------- went into the alleyway that I had been in till just a little before.

--- It's a trap.

It's not for me to know what this is all for. But... this whole thing definitely has an ominous feeling to it.

Stopping at the entrance of that string-like path leading into the back alley, I looked inwards. Wouldn't it be possible to find out what they were doing from here?

Looking carefully, I see someone standing there.

It's a wine-red long coat.

That slim-figured shadow, is it a guy? His long hair is the color of gold, and even when I'm looking from a distance I can tell his is an annoying face that looks as if its owner is looking down on someone ---.

But --- who is that guy?

"□ □ □ □ □ □ ---."

A fluent intonation flows past my ears.

Surprised, I look back, but no one is there.

When I quickly turned back around to look at the alley, the man in the coat had disappeared.

A cold north wind blows through the street.

Brrrr, my body's shivering.

Hugging my body, which is still shaking oblivious to Enjou Tomoe's will,
Resisting an urge to cry for no reason with all my might.
I was feeling the end of autumn and the end of my existence.

* * *

Night fell, and I told Ryougi about the fact that she was being stalked. That the creeps from that night were actively keeping watch on her. (!)

But Ryougi's reply was brief as usual.

"Oh, really?"

"So?", she asks, with her flawlessly clear eyes.

Even I lost my grip on reason this time around.

"It's not something you go 'so?' to! It's not just those jerks watching you! Do you have any memories of a foreigner wearing a red coat?"

"I don't have any delightful friends like that."

That was it for Ryougi, and she didn't respond to this story any longer.

What happened was that she lost interest. No matter what effect an incident will have on Ryougi Shiki, if Ryougi Shiki herself thinks it's unimportant, this brat will ignore it. Even if she was to be disgraced and treated like a murderer, she probably wouldn't care. Since what's important isn't what the world thinks, but how she feels.

... Yeah, I was expecting her to be like that too, and I thought that Ryougi, for whom that was natural, was proudly lonely; but this time, at least, is an exception.

Those creeps --- no, that guy is real.

Me and those jerks are either fake, or have no possibility of being imitations. Unlike us, Ryougi has pure impulses.

"Listen to me! This isn't somebody else's business. It involves none other than yourself! At least spare some thought for my worried mind!"

My shouting may have annoyed her, as the kimono girl nimbly turned the gabuza (!) on the bed around and looked up at me.

At that time, I think I was wearing a very serious face.

It isn't even because Ryougi is so preposterously unworried. The reason is a bit simpler. That is ---

"Mm, it definitely is my business and not someone else's. But why are you worrying about my problem, Enjou?"

Well, that's ---

"Idiot, of course I'm worried. I don't want you to die. Because --- I've fallen for you."

The taut air suddenly freezes.

... I said it. I, who must leave soon, said what must not be said.

Those words --- above everything else for myself, they were something that should not have been said.

Ryougi's looking at me as if she's seeing something strange.

A few seconds pass and the kimono girl bursts into laughter.

"Hahaha, what are you saying, Enjoh?! You've fallen for me? Did that guy in the red coat hypnotize you or something? Try going through your memory, there will definitely be a weird noise mixed up in there!"

Ryougi --- Shiki... laughs it off and will not face me.

I don't know what proof she may have, but she definitely concluded that it couldn't be real.

As for me, obviously --- I can't accept that.

"It's not like that! I'm being sincere. Seeing you, for the first time I felt that a human was beautiful, and I thought I had finally found someone like me. You are real. If it's for you, I can do anything ---."

Grabbing Ryougi's shoulders, I glare at Ryougi.

Ryougi stopped laughing and turned around to look at me.

"Hmm, is that so?"

A dry tone.

Ryougi's hand grabs my sleeve. All of a sudden, I spin lightly around as if I had become a piece of paper, and end up lying flat on the bed.

Ryougi is on top of me, holding a knife ---.

"Then, can you die for me?"

The knife blade touches my neck.

The light in Ryougi's eyes doesn't change much.

Stabbing down the knife as usual, she will flippantly kill me.

Ryougi isn't asking if I can die doing something for her. She's saying, I'm going to kill you for my enjoyment. That's what the question means.

--- This girl can't feel affection except through something like that.

Dying is scary. Even now, I'm so scared that I can't even tremble. But... this life of mine won't be long. Having killed someone, I'm bound to be caught by the police and never be able to return to this place again. In that case ---

"All right. I'll die for you."

I said it.

Ryougi's eyes, they regain a humane light.

"Do as you like, I haven't got long left anyway. Since I killed my parents. It will probably be an execution. If that's the case --- I think dying by your hand is better than the gallows."

"You killed your parents?"

With her knife pressed against my throat, Ryougi asks me again. I decided then to reveal the memories I had hidden, and tell the story just before I died. That was probably because I wanted to at least pretend to be at a confession at least once before I died.

"Yeah. I killed my parents. Because they were bad parents, they borrowed money behind my back and went around having fun. I couldn't handle cleaning up their mess so, time after time --- so that I wouldn't screw up and have it end at attempted murder --- I wildly stabbed them in the gut with a kitchen knife. Our house doesn't even have heating. That night was cold too, right? My breath was steaming white, but a human's intestines were warm. Steam coming from a human's stomach, that was a sight that you might see once in your life!

Heh heh, rats --- everything was paralyzed and I became an idiot. I hadn't put the knife down, and my hands kept digging into those guts. Eventually, it got to the stage where you couldn't tell whether I had stabbed them to kill them or to dig into their guts, and you could no longer tell that those things had once been human."

Shall I cry? I thought that, but the tears wouldn't come.

Instead, I felt strangely refreshed. By the fact that I had killed those awful parents and was really free.

"--- Tomoe. You... why did you kill them?" asks the girl in front of my eyes.

I think. Why did I kill them? Did I hate them? Or were they annoying? No, it wasn't such a clean emotion.

In that case, was I --- afraid?

"I... was afraid. I had --- a dream.

I come home from work and go to bed. Shortly afterward, I hear my mom and dad arguing in the room beside mine, and the door opens. My father's covered in blood and my mother is standing there. Just like that, she stabs me to death, then cuts her own throat and dies.

At first I thought, I'm going to die like this, but it wasn't like that. When I woke up in the morning, no such thing had happened. I must have had dreams like that because I definitely wanted to kill my parents but couldn't. Also --- I had that dream every day. Every, single, day, that dream repeated itself. I call it a dream, but every day? I couldn't stand it anymore. I... was more afraid of the night, when I got murdered. I didn't want to have dreams like that anymore. So --- all that happened was that I killed them before I was murdered, in order that I might never have a dream like that again."

Yeah, that night. My mother, who opened the door because she had something to talk about, I stabbed her over and over again with the knife I had hidden. In my dreams, I lost count of the number of times I had been killed. I tried my hardest to kill her, as if I was pouring out all the frustration that had been building up inside of me until now.

I'm free. There's no reason for me to be chained down by such awful parents, or such unpleasant dreams.

Damn it, what a befouled freedom.

"--- You are an idiot."

Ryougi speaks solemnly. Her cold tone conversely makes me feel refreshed.

It really did. I'm stupid, so I couldn't think of any other way to run away, but I don't regret it. Even if I'm bound to be caught by the police, I will still feel better that I did in those nightmare-filled days.

... But, one little thing. It's something I realized as I told my story.

Until now, I've lived thinking that only I was important. Even supposing such a person was serious, to say that they've fallen for someone isn't something they could do. ... They don't have the right to do that. It's natural that Ryougi would just laugh it off. Still ... the fact that I want to protect this girl at least is real. It's the only real thing to this false me. But in the hands of a dirty murderer like me, even that thought becomes polluted. --- If I had any regrets, that is what I regret most right now.

The moment I understood that. The fever that had been driving me towards a violent outburst rapidly cooled off, like an old TV that has been replaced and thrown out.

"Still ---."

I... don't regret that murder.

Tomoe is saying in my head that the murder was not something he should have done.

Ryougi is looking at me with a far-off look in her eyes. An unblinking stare, as if it's piercing the heart of Enjoh Tomoe's being.

"--- A drastic error. Enduring was your forte, but in the end, you chose the painful path. When we first met, you weren't you. Having lost your future, did the empty you want to die like just before?"

... The girl who tried to kill me for a change of mood (!).
... The girl who I thought I would be happy to be killed by.
The two throw the question at me.

... Let's see.

That night, I was handling myself recklessly. I thought it perfectly fine to beat someone to death, and on the other hand, I thought it would be perfectly fine to be beaten to death. But... I didn't want to die. At the time, yeah... simply living had become exhausting. I hated myself, a fake living without any goals in life. This self of mine that thought it wanted to die but couldn't even kill itself was so loathsome that I couldn't take it.

Even now, when I've confessed all my sins to Ryougi like this, I don't want to die. --- But nevertheless, humans will ultimately die. For me it will just be a little quicker, a little shabbier, and less meaningful than another person's.

... Is that it? That's probably what I couldn't stand.

A worthless, stale death.

If I'm going to die like that, I would rather ---

"--- dying for you, it seems much more real so I prefer it."

"No thanks. A life like yours, I don't need it."

The knife drops.

Like a cat that's lost interest in its prey, Ryougi distances herself from me. Is she going out somewhere? Ryougi picks up her leather jacket and prepares to go out.

I can only watch her.

"Hey, Enjou. Where's your house?"

Ryougi's voice is cold like the time when I first met her.

... My family went from rent to rent. We were chased around either because after half a year we wouldn't be able to pay the rent, or the harassment of the debt collectors would be too much to take. I hated that --- I hated it from when I was young, so I envied a normal household.

"What are you going to do with the answer? It's number 405 in some mansion."

"I'm not talking about that. I mean the home you want to return to. If you don't know, that's that."

Ryougi opens the door.

As she went out, the girl spoke without even looking back.

"Well, I'm going. If you feel like it you can use this place again."

Ryougi disappears.

Finding myself left behind alone, this place seemed to become so bleak that it looked like the only colors were white and black.

While I looked at the room that had become totally black and white, the room where I had stayed for a month with my rusty mind, I decided to leave.