Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter01 01

／1

On a night at the beginning of August, Mikiya came by without any notice.

"Good evening. You look lazy as always, Shiki."

The sudden visitor stands by the entrance as he gives a boring greeting with a smile.

"I passed an accident on my way here. A girl jumped from the top of a building: a suicide. Though I heard it's been happening a lot recently I never thought I'd see one myself. Here, freezer."

He throws me a plastic bag from a convenience store as he unties his shoes by the door. Inside are two strawberry Häagen-Dazs. I guess he means I should put them in the freezer before they melt.

While I was slowly checking out the contents of the bag, Mikiya had finished taking off his shoes and was stepping across the threshold.

My house is a one room apartment. If you go past the hallway, which isn't even a meter long, from the entrance you get to the room serving as both bedroom and living room.

Staring at the back of Mikiya, who was stepping quickly into the room, I followed him into my room.

"Shiki. You skipped school again today, right? You can do something later about your grades, but you won't be able to pass unless you attend at least the required number of days. Did you forget about our promise to go to college together?"

"Do you have the right to lecture me about school? I don't remember such a promise, and what's more, you've already dropped out of college."

"Uh, if you say 'rights', there aren't any rights for anybody."

Sounding sophisticated, Mikiya sits down. He tends to let out his true feelings when he's on the defensive; it's something I remembered just recently.

Mikiya sat in the middle of the room.

I sit on the bed behind him and lay down horizontally. He keeps his back turned towards me.

I look at that back, which is a bit small compared to the average guy, absent-mindely.

This young man named Kokuto Mikiya seems to be my friend from back in high school.

In the midst of youngsters nowadays — where so many fads appear one after another, gain speed, and finally dash out of control into disappearance — he was a "rare kind" that boringly kept the image of a student.

He doesn't dye his hair or let it grow long. He doesn't get a tan or wear accessories. He doesn't carry a cell phone or play around with women. His height is around 170cm or so. His kind-looking face is more on the cute side and his black-rimmed glasses make that feature stand out even more.

Even though he has graduated from high school, he dresses ordinarily. If he were to dress up a bit, he would likely catch a few eyes.

"Shiki, are you listening? I met your mother too. Shouldn't you show up at the Ryougi House at least once? I heard that you haven't even contacted them since you got out of the hospital two months ago."

"No. Especially when there's no need."

"Hey, even if there's no need you should be happy just to be together, they're your family after all."

I paused a bit before replying. "I don't know. It can't be helped ‘cause I can't really think of it as real. We'll just feel more distant even if we see each other. I still feel weird talking to you, so there’s no way I'll be able to keep up a conversation with those strangers."

"Geez, things will never settle if you keep it this way. It'll be like this your whole life if you don't open up your heart to them. It's not right for parents and children to live so close together and yet not even meet each other."

I frown at those reproachful words.

Not right, he says. What exactly is "not right"? There's nothing illegal in what's happening between me and my parents. It's just that the child was involved in a traffic accident and lost all its memories. We are proven to be family by law and by blood, so I'd assume there's nothing wrong with the current situation.

Mikiya always worries about how other people feel. Although I think that is just pointless.

◇

Ryougi Shiki has been my friend since high school. Our school was a famous private high school which taught a lot of students who went to a good college. When I went to see if I was admitted, the name Ryougi Shiki stood out so much that it was stuck in my head. Ironically, we ended up being in the same class. Since then, I became one of the few friends Shiki had.

Our school did not have uniforms so everyone expressed themselves by how they dressed. Within these people, Shiki stood out. This is because Shiki always wears a kimono. Always.

The simple flowing form of the kimono fit Shiki's sloping shoulders so much it made the classroom feel like a samurai-style house just by having Shiki walk through it. It was not just the looks of Shiki, either. No unnecessary movements. Shiki rarely talked, except when in class. I think this alone explains what kind of a person Shiki is.

Shiki's figure is almost too perfect. Hair, beautiful as silk, cut with scissors like it was a bother and left just like that. It is a short cut just long enough to hide the ears, which suits Shiki so much that many students mistake Shiki's sex. Shiki looks so handsome that she looks like a female to men and is mistaken as a male by women. The word beautiful doesn't quite fit her, though. It‘s more like she looks dignified.

But much more than Shiki's looks, what captivated me the most were her eyes. Those eyes have a sharp yet calm look, and her thin brows intensify it. With her eyes, she gazed upon things invisible to us, and that is what made the person named Ryougi Shiki so special to me.

Yes.

Until that thing happened to Shiki.

◇

"Jumping down."

"Er— Sorry, didn't hear what you said."

"Suicide by jumping off something. Would that be considered an accident, Mikiya?" He gathered his thoughts after that meaningless muttering and seriously started thinking about the question.

"Hm, I'm sure it's an accident, but you're right. I wonder what that is. So long as it's the person's will to do so, the blame is only on that person. But falling from a high place could be considered an accident."

"Then it's not a murder, nor is it an accidental death. It's really ambiguous, if you say it this way. Though they should have picked a way that wouldn't trouble others if they were going to kill themselves."

"Shiki, it's not right to talk ill of the dead," Mikiya said flatly. His words are so utterly predictable.

"Kokuto, I hate your common sense talk." Naturally, my response gets a bit harsh, but Mikiya does not seem upset by it.

"Wow, it’s been a long time since you called me that."

"Really?"

Mikiya nods.

He can be called two ways: Kokuto and Mikiya. I don't like the sound of Kokuto, although I don't exactly know why. In the small silence that formed during my pondering, Mikiya clapped his hand as if he remembered something.

"Oh, speaking of uncommon things, my sister Azaka saw it."

"Saw what?"

"That thing. The girl at the Fujiyoh building, the one they say is flying in the air. You said you saw it once too."

Oh, I remember now. The ghost story that started around three weeks ago. As the story has it, there's an expensive mansion in the office district called the Fujiyoh building. At night, a human-like form can be seen floating above the building. The fact that not only I, but Azaka as well, saw it must mean the thing is real.

After being in a coma for two years from that traffic accident, I was able to see things that were not supposed to be there. As Touko would put it, I am not seeing them but rather "observing" them. In other words, it seems that I am able to perceive things at a higher level with my eyes and brain, but I don't care about all the reasons or explanations behind this.

"The thing at the Fujiyoh building, I’ve seen it not only once but many times. Though I haven't been around there for a while, so I don't know if it can still be observed or not."

Mikiya responded, "I see. I go by there a lot, but I never saw the ghost."

"You can't see it 'cause you're wearing glasses."

"I don't think glasses matter," Mikiya frowns. His reaction was so warm and pure. That's probably why it's harder for him to see those kinds of things. Even so, boring incidents keep on happening like people falling and flying.

I didn't understand the meaning behind the thought, so I said a question out loud, "Mikiya, do you know why people fly?"

Mikiya shrugs.

"I don't know why they fly or fall," he said, "because I've never done any of them, not even once."

So matter-of-factly, and so coolly said.

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