The Gate of Sorrows
Page 61
“You’re not the only one. This kind of thing always gets out. I told the cops everything. I want you to know that.”
“Okay,” Kotaro said.
Seigo turned and headed toward the stairs. “I brought your pay slip,” he called over his shoulder. “It’s by your bed.”
“Thanks, Seigo.”
Seigo opened the door to the stairs. Another friend was leaving him, but this time Kotaro spoke up.
“Hey, Seigo! Okay if I come to work again?”
Seigo stuck his head around the door. “Tokyo office closes at the end of the year.”
“Then I’ll work till the end of the year.”
“Got it. Give Maeda a ring. We’ll get you a shift.”
He disappeared down the stairs. Kotaro heard his footsteps dying away on the metal steps.
“Hey, dummy.”
He turned toward the sound of a girl’s voice. She stepped out from behind the line of white sheets fluttering in the wind on a clothesline.
“Did you really need to ask him about that? Why does it matter now?”
She was outfitted in her standard black, looking good as always. It was positively annoying.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Kotaro said. “That’s why it was okay to ask. I doubt you’d understand, though, seeing as how you’re still so green that Ash has to scold you all the time.”
U-ri the wolf was not thrilled by this statement. She frowned. “That’s not very nice.”
“I hear you’re not strong enough to go places like the ones I went with Galla.”
“Well, it’s not like you went there on your own, is it?”
He smiled. They leaned against the fence side by side. “I wonder if I saw your brother in the Nameless Land.”
U-ri turned to look at him. She sighed softly. “My brother isn’t there. Not as an individual person,” she said with great gentleness. In a way, Kotaro felt her tone was meant for him as well as her brother. “You met the nameless devout. You only met emptiness. They aren’t anybody specific.”
“Oh. I see.”
“It’s great that you made it back.”
“Thanks.” Kotaro meant it, but U-ri shook her head.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it. I couldn’t do anything. The power of your story brought you back. That’s where you should send your gratitude.”
“Yeah. As soon as I’m out of here, I’ll go see her.”
When he was unconscious in the intensive care unit, dozens of voice messages and a mountain of mails had piled up on his mobile phone. The Nagasaki siblings topped the list. As soon as he was able, Kotaro had gotten in touch with Hatsuko and apologized for causing her worry.
“My heart almost stopped when I saw the news,” she said. “Mana is worried sick about you too.”
“When I’m better, I’m going to bring the world’s sweetest little girl the world’s sweetest cream puffs,” he said to U-ri.
U-ri giggled. “Head over heels, eh?”
Her cheerful response struck home. Something hard and unyielding seemed to give way in Kotaro’s heart.
“I ignored your warning. I just made one mistake after another. I can’t change anything. I can’t go back and fix anything.”
U-ri didn’t answer. He felt her slipping away.
“If you’re looking for somebody to comfort you and tell you things aren’t that bad, you won’t get it from me. Goodbye, Kotaro.”
“Hey, wait!”
She was already gone. “Thanks a lot! Why did you bother to even come?”
He wanted her to tell him. It was something he couldn’t ask anyone else. But he could ask her. He could cry like a wimp and cling to her and ask her.
“What do I do now?”
Just live. Live, live, live.
He looked out at the city spread below him. At reality. At the world.
This was the Circle, where stories never end, where the cycle of life rolls on, where prayers are answered, where cries of grief echoe.
You are a child of the Circle. Live.
He tarried on the roof for a long time. Finally—
“I am sorry.”
He said it aloud. “I am sorry.”
Somewhere inside and beneath the whisper of the wind, he thought he heard singing—or was it an incantation? The nameless devout. And on the wind, the scent of night dew and dry spring grass.
He gazed up at the Gate of Sorrows in that far-off land at the edge of the Circle. A gate guarded by something that once had been Galla.
I will live.
This is a work of fiction.
During the research for this book, I received valuable assistance from the staff of Pitcrew Co., Ltd. as well as the Social Affairs Desk of the Mainichi Newspapers, Tokyo Headquarters. To the extent that the events depicted herein reflect contemporary social conditions, it is thanks to the efforts of everyone who was kind enough to assist me. For this I would like to extend my sincere gratitude.
Miyuki Miyabe
January 2015
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Morino is the strangest girl in school—how could she not be, given her obsession with brutal murders? And there are plenty of murders to grow obsessed with, as the town in which she lives is a magnet for serial killers. She and her schoolmate will go to any length to investigate the murders, even putting their own bodies on the line. And they don’t want to stop the killers—Morino and friend simply want to understand them.
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