Prelude

Prelude

 

On a very cold and snowy day in early March, a girl climbed to the top of our prefectural high school, Shinyo Academy, and proceeded to throw herself off the roof of the building. Her name was Minahoshi Suiko. She was only seventeen.

“Mariko-san, what do you like most?” she’d asked me abruptly one day, back when she was still alive.

Without putting much thought into it, I gave her the name of a pop star that everyone was listening to.

“Hmm… Really?”

“Yeah. He’s kinda cool,” I said offhandedly.

Suiko-san took a deep breath, faced the setting sun, and began to whistle.

Our school is up in the mountains, and it’s a place where most students end up taking the bus to get to or from. On that particular day, Suiko-san and I had decided to walk home together, and we had the streets all to ourselves.

The tune she whistled turned out to be the pop star’s most popular song. Suiko-san was clearly an exceptional whistler. She made the melody sound quite beautiful, to the point that it sounded much, much better than the actual song itself. When she finished, I couldn’t help but applaud.

“That was amazing! Suiko, you’re really good!”

“Not really. If you liked it, it’s simply because you already had a predisposition to liking it in the first place.”

She was the type of person who said dramatic things like that, and they came to her quite naturally.

“You must have practiced, though. Do you play an instrument?”

“No, just by ear.”

“Then you must have perfect pitch or something. That’s so awesome! What do you usually listen to?”

“Stuff nobody’s ever heard of.”

“Like what?”

“Mm, for example,” she said and took another breath, beginning a different piece.

This time, it was more humming than whistling, as if she were a magical instrument that could reproduce any melody in existence.

“……!” I was so stunned just listening to her that I forgot to breathe.

There was simply no comparison to the first song. There was a resonance in my chest, a vibration in my heart that somehow made me feel very sad, all of a sudden. It was a strange melody—both rhythmic and powerful.

When she finished, I couldn’t applaud. I was too choked up, with tears welling up in my eyes.

“…What’s wrong? Didn’t you like it?”

“No…no! It was…it was…uh, I feel sort of embarrassed now. It’s like my song was just an imitation of real music…”

“I thought you liked that song?”

“N-no, I think I couldn’t have, really. When I heard your song just now, it felt like…this is the first time that I’ve ever really known that I liked a piece of music. And it didn’t have anything to do with what’s popular or trendy!” I exclaimed, getting worked up.

“That’s nice,” Suiko-san said, smiling. She was as beautiful, if not more so, than the song itself. She stood there, backlit by the red light of the evening sky. It was like I was seeing the silhouette of a goddess.

“What song was that?” I asked.

She giggled. “You won’t laugh?”

“Why would I?”

“The name of the piece is Salome. It’s from a ballet.”

“What’s odd about that?”

“The composer is Ifukube Akira.”

“Who?”

“He’s most famous for writing the soundtracks to monster movies,” Suiko-san said, putting her hand to her mouth, shoulders trembling as she laughed.

This gesture was so feminine that it made my heart beat faster, and I thought, I could never laugh that naturally. Truly, there was nobody else I knew who could laugh so beautifully or as unreservedly as her.

But now she was no longer with us.

I couldn’t understand it. Why would a girl like her ever want to kill herself?

They said she hadn’t even left a note. We don’t know if she had some secret pain that drove her to it, or if she did it just to prove some kind of point.

But I want to know. I had to know.

I can’t honestly say that the two of us were all that close. But on those rare occasions when we were alone together, she would always talk openly to me. That was about it, though.

Still, she was without a doubt the most real person I’d ever met, up to that point. I can’t think of any other way of describing it. Everyone else was just imitating someone else, trying desperately to pretend that it was their true nature. They were all frauds.

So I thought that there must be some meaning behind her suicide.

That’s why I’m going to follow her.

Is that imitation, too? Probably.

What’s sad is that I don’t even know if I really loved her. And that’s the irony; my life is going to end without me really understanding much of anything.

 

***

 

Komiya Mariko stood on the roof of the school, composing her suicide note in her head, but decided to not write it down.

The sky was dark.

The sun had set a long time ago, and the last traces of light were quickly fading away.

“Suiko-san…”

She looked over the edge of the roof.

Below her, she could still see the white line where Minahoshi Suiko’s body had landed. The world around her was almost completely dark, but that line alone seemed to glow, floating upwards.

She swallowed.

Something that Minahoshi Suiko had said to her once popped into her head.

“Mariko-san, there’s nothing in this world that is ever truly decided. Birds sometimes fall out of the sky, and sometimes it snows in April. Everything is uncertain, nothing is ‘unnatural.’”

I wonder what that meant?

Perhaps I’ll understand if I just climb over this fence…!

The white line moved, beckoning to her. It was an illusion, but it seemed too natural to call it that. It made perfect sense to Mariko.

There seemed to be no other logical choice for her doing anything else in life except jumping. The impulse rose up inside her. Her body shook, but not with fear—no, it was excitement.

“Suiko-san…!”

Komiya Mariko grabbed hold of the fence, preparing to climb.

But a voice came from behind her.

“—You wish to follow Minahoshi Suiko? You can’t do it that way. It’s impossible.”

The voice was very strange, like that of a boy or a girl—yet at the same time, neither.

“——?!” Mariko turned around in surprise.

He sat on the other side of the roof, half hidden in darkness. A pipe-shaped black hat half hid his eyes, and he was wrapped in a black cape with a number of rivets attached to it. He wore black lipstick, contrasting with the white of his face.

“If you jump now, you will not end up where she has gone,” he said quietly.

“Y-you’re…?” Mariko said. She was clearly shaken, but not because she didn’t know him. No, she knew all about him. All the girls in school were talking about him.

But for him to be real…?

“It seems you know me. That makes things easier.” His left eye narrowed, and the right side of his mouth curled up in a strange, asymmetrical expression.

“Wh-what do you mean? Why can’t I go to her?”

“Simple. You are about to end your life of your own free will. But Minahoshi Suiko did not. If there is such a thing as heaven, you will surely end up in a different place than her.” It would be accurate to describe his voice as chilly.

“She did not end her life of her ‘own free will?’ What does that mean?” Mariko felt as if the ground beneath her feet were crumbling.

“You know my name, don’t you? Then you know what I do.” He was half shrouded in darkness. It looked as if he were dissolving into thin air.

“Th-then…you?”

“Yes. I am a shinigami. Minahoshi Suiko did not kill herself. I…killed her.”

“Wh-why?!”

“Because she was an enemy of the world.”

“……!”

“So now what? Do you still wish to die? Unfortunately, I’m afraid I have no intention of killing you. You are not even worth that much.”

“B-but… But…” Mariko stuttered, confused. She wasn’t sure of anything now.

The enemy of the world? Suiko-san? How? What did that mean?

“Alternatively, I could put it this way. Minahoshi Suiko has not yet reached the next world. Unlike me, she was not ‘divided’—though she was equally ‘automatic.’ As for where she is now…I really couldn’t tell you.”

Mariko couldn’t understand anything the cloaked figure was saying.

She hadn’t reached the next world?

Reflexively, Mariko looked at the ground below on the other side of the fence. There no longer enough light to make out the white line.

It was crazy. Mariko had seen her—seen what used to be her, as the authorities carried her body away under a bloodstained white shroud.

“What does it mean, Boogie—?!” Mariko cried out, turning around—but the cloaked figure was gone.

She looked around, but came up with nothing. The darkness was too complete. It was impossible to tell where the mysterious figure in black had gone.

Or perhaps he had never physically been there at all.

“…………”

At last, fear welled up in Mariko’s heart.

She glanced at the ground below.

But the fence that had seemed so easy to scale a moment ago now seemed as if it were a hundred meters tall.

“Aah…”

 

It’s impossible.

You will not end up where she has gone.

Minahoshi Suiko has not yet reached the next world.

 

Her legs shook.

“Aaaaah…!”

And Mariko crumbled, falling to the floor. Tear after tear rolled down her face. She couldn’t stop them from coming. They were the first tears she’d shed since Minahoshi Suiko had died.

She had been convinced it was better to die than to cry, but now she couldn’t hold the tears back.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” she whispered in a slow rhythm, as she rocked herself back and forth. But her tiny voice was faint and was swept away by the wind, to be lost in the night.

 

***

 

“…………”

The cloaked figure in the black hat watched her from below. Beneath his feet a white line in the shape of a person could be seen. He went down on his knee and ran his hand over it.

“She’s certainly not here anymore…” he murmured, and stood up. “Are you going to try again? Imaginator?”

His black cape flapped furiously in the night wind.