THE STORY OF A CERTAIN UNDYING, GIRL, AND RADIO ON AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON

He’d spent so long staring at ceilings that the sheer height of the sky made him dizzy.

Even on this planet blanketed with low clouds of fine dust, the sky was so high, so far away. It might look close enough to touch, yet he knew that he could never reach it, no matter how far up he stretched his hand. Legend had it that people had been able to see an unbroken view of the universe in the skies of the blue planet that had once existed at the end of the world, but Harvey couldn’t quite imagine what a “clear sky” would look like.

As he stared up, hood pulled back off his forehead slightly, the thread of white smoke rising from the tip of his cigarette was sucked up into the sand-colored autumn sky.

“Anyway, your stupid face looks disgusting.”

“Heh. You could call it a badge of honor.”

“Like that even makes any sense. Take better care of your body, dammit,” grumbled the radio perched next to him on the staircase. And even he didn’t know himself what he’d meant, so nothing more was said about his injuries.

“Well? Are you ‘ready’ now? You’re looking strangely cheerful.”

Harvey let his gaze wander a little. “Uh, the thing is…I had some unfinished business, so I hadn’t felt like coming home yet, so I hadn’t really gotten around to thinking much about, well, that.”

“You jerk, you always put off dealing with anything troublesome!”

“No, no. I’m ready now,” he amended hastily. Even if that was less thanks to his actively thinking about the situation, and more thanks to Kieli.

If Kieli hadn’t come to visit him yesterday, maybe, just maybe, he would have run away by himself and never seen her again. A part of him had thought that if he was going to make her cry before long either way, maybe it’d be best to just leave things the way they were. “…But she came to get me, and seeing her made me feel relieved somehow, and I felt really guilty; so, I think as long as Kieli wants to be with me, I’ll take that responsibility…I kind of think that’s why the world gave me some more time.”

“What do you mean ‘some’ more?…Hey, you’d better not be thinking you might not have much time left. You did tell me that the next time you got a deadly injury, you’d probably die, didn’t you…?”

The radio’s voice was suddenly meek, and Harvey couldn’t help himself: it startled an unbidden laugh out of him. “What’s with the funereal voice there?”

“What’s so funny?! That was not the time to laugh!” the radio spat glumly, spewing static from its speaker.

Harvey answered in his normal voice, as if he felt bad for laughing when the Corporal was worrying about him. “But that’s normal, right? Normal people die after deadly injuries.”

“Forget dying, normal people can’t move after deadly injuries. You’re the only one dumb enough to walk around with a hole in his stomach, making himself worse,” retorted the radio snidely. Harvey couldn’t argue with that, so he just hunched his shoulders and stayed silent.

Just when he’d finished his business in town and come back to their meeting point, his legs had failed him, and he’d collapsed on his rear end on the staircase. So now he was taking a break as he waited, and having a smoke while he was at it. During that time, he’d privately told the radio about the crack in his core.

“Now you listen to me—try not to block out your pain if you can help it. Pain is your body’s way of telling you you’re about to be in trouble. Actually recognize normal feelings. Be more thankful that you’re alive!”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Harvey was grateful for the warning, but this was starting to get annoying. He wished he’d never said anything.

“Hey, you bastard, you’re not listening to me, are you?! I’m worrying about—”

“I know, Corporal. Thanks.”

“—You—” Caught off-guard by the frank thanks, the radio broke off mid-rant.

“I am properly grateful, you know. That I’m here.”

He gazed up at the sky past the thin column of tobacco smoke.

He couldn’t see a starry sky, but the sky he had was more than high enough for him.

Despite the Church Soldiers’ information control, some sort of rumor—another body being discovered at the east end of the waterways—had leaked out, and all the onlookers had started drifting that way. Kieli slipped through the gaps in the one-way flow of townspeople, going the opposite direction as the crowd. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in the strange corpse, but the important thing right now was to take advantage of this confusion and get out of town.

The sports bag slung over her shoulder bounced off of her back. She’d briefly gone back to Julius’s nursemaid’s house to pick up her things and say thank you, for Harvey as well as herself. Harvey had told her to do it. When the lady had taken in Kieli’s appearance, stoically trying to bear her soaking-wet clothes and the giant scrapes on both knees, she had almost tearfully pleaded that Kieli take a bath, get warmed up, and bandage her wounds before she left, so Kieli had lost a whole half hour she hadn’t planned on.

Now she was belatedly beginning to worry that maybe Harvey had deliberately sent her to the lady so that he could disappear again. The closer she got to the train station, the faster her jogging steps got, until before she knew it she was running full tilt.

She came to a halt after plunging into the traffic circle in front of the station. She squinted past the line of parked three-wheeled taxis, but she couldn’t see any heads of copper hair at the foot of the staircase where they were supposed to meet.

He’s not there…

People running in the same direction as the rubberneckers and babbling in loud, excited voices; people running toward the train station, more worried about being on time for their departures—she looked around as well as she could over the heads of the churning crowd, but she couldn’t find the one head she was looking for.

He’s not there…!

She was automatically gathering herself up to run again when someone suddenly grabbed her arm from behind.

Whirling around with a shriek, she saw a tall figure in a dark gray coat standing there, hood pulled low over his face. One eye peeked out to look down at her, blinking. “How come you look like you’re about to cry?”

“Wh-Why aren’t you where you said you’d be…?!”

“I just figured I should stay out of sight. It was getting crowded,” Harvey answered easily, completely oblivious to her feelings. Sure, that was the way he always was, but she couldn’t help her morose expression. One corner of his mouth twitched up a little in amusement. “Sheesh. I’m not going anywhere.”

So saying, he started walking toward the train station, pushing her along by the shoulder. “Let’s get on board fast. They’ll probably set up roadblocks pretty soon.”

“…Okay.” After she’d let him lead her a few steps, Kieli suddenly snapped back to attention. She stared intently up at his profile. Maybe he pretended not to be there on purpose because he knew it would scare me. He’s so warped.

Harvey just nonchalantly averted his eye, so she couldn’t tell whether it was true or not.

“What did you find out about Beatrix?” she whispered as they weaved quickly through the throng of people. Harvey and the Corporal were supposed to try to follow Beatrix’s trail together while Kieli was getting her things. But now Harvey just shook his head lightly. Apparently they hadn’t found anything.

“Oh,” she said glumly.

“I left a message with the information peddler. I asked him to pass it along to the people on the parish border, too, so I’m sure we’ll be able to get in touch through one of them eventually. Don’t worry.”

Harvey sounded casual about it, but when Kieli thought about how her own selfish actions had gotten Beatrix into this mess, she couldn’t stop the flood of regret. She’d thought she’d be able to talk to the woman a lot more. She hadn’t thanked her yet, or apologized yet, either, and her next birthday was still coming up…

“It’s not your fault, you know,” he said lightly, as if this kind of thing happened all the time. But maybe he was being a little bit considerate about her feelings, because he added, “As long as you’re both alive, you’ll be able to see each other again. She can take care of herself just fine.”

“Although the same can’t be said for you,” jibed the radio.

Harvey twisted his lips. “Yeah, yeah.” Maybe he seemed coldhearted, but Kieli was sure that wasn’t it. He must really trust Beatrix that much.

…I hope someone thinks of me as special like that, too, even just a little. I want to be special to Harvey, and the Corporal—and Beatrix, too, if I can.

“Anyway, you two had better be ready,” said the radio out of nowhere. They both looked down at him, blinking.

“For what?”

A highly bitter voice, accompanied by a highly displeased burst of static, announced from the speaker, “As soon as we’re on the train, I’m chewing you out until your ears bleed. I’ll have you know, I’ve built up a TON of frustration—I mean, a ton of things I want to say to you for your own good.”

“…Okay,” answered Kieli meekly. When she stole a glance at Harvey, however, he was muttering sore-loser things like “I knew I should have left him turned off for a while,” and pointedly looking away. Then his gaze abruptly froze on something, and he stopped walking.

In the distance, beyond the milky-white walls she could see from the station, stood the far-northern mountain range veiled in sandy gas. Sprawling in its center was a dark gray mechanical city, ponderous and quiet like a cluster of giant tombstones—

“Harvey…”

Under the shadow of his hood, the look in his coppery left eye instantly sharpened to a harsh glare. She could see the city reflected in it.

“…Do you want to go back there?”

“Hmm? Nah.” Harvey blinked once and tore his gaze away from the city. With a wry little laugh, he answered, “For now, we’re making a temporary retreat.”

Whoo-oo-oo!

The muffled sound of the train whistle began to echo from the top of the station’s staircase, and the flow of people grew more frantic. Urged on by the radio’s hiss of “Crap, we’re going to miss it!” they joined the wave of people rushing toward the platform and ran up the stairs.

Halfway up, Harvey turned back to Kieli, who was lagging a little behind him and to the side. “Kieli, hurry.” He reached his one and only working hand out to her and knitted his brow just for a moment as if thinking about his next words, before giving her a lighthearted look as though he’d finally freed himself of something. “Do you still want to come with me?” he said.

Kieli prayed to the God who, if He actually existed, was probably watching them from somewhere in the sky but would almost certainly never reach a hand out to her. She didn’t really expect much, but that didn’t make her wish any less heartfelt. Please, let me keep the feeling of this left hand wrapping around my right hand and pulling, and the sounds of our breath and footsteps as we run up the stairs, and the echo of our three voices talking, for as long as possible.

Let’s ride the train together, the three of us, like we haven’t done in a while.

They could sit in those facing seats that brought back so many memories, talking or staring into space, while they watched the boring wilderness scenery.

Fortunately, after all that had happened to them, they wouldn’t run out of things to talk about for a long while.