Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter05 02

/2 Paradox Spiral

Click, a noise. It's the room beside mine.

Is it getting around 10 o'clock? Only a few minutes have passed since and I'm tired from work, I entrusted my body to my bedsheets. Woken from my shallow sleep I was suddenly dozing off again.

The noise from the other side of the door only came once.

The door opens. It connects to the room next door. A square light enters my dark room with its switched off light.

Is it mother? I sneak a peek in that direction with half closed eyes.

At this point I always have a thought.

That, this kind of scene, it would have been better had I not seen it.

The one who opened the door is my mother. Because of the light coming from behind her I can't tell anything about her except that she's standing there. That image isn't important as my eyes see nothing but the dreadful image visible though the open door.

The image of my dad lying slumped over the dinner table.

The cheap table, which should be brown, is dyed red and my fallen father keeps dripping red blood onto the floor. ... It just seemed like a broken tap.

"Tomoe, please die," says the standing shadow.

I only knew that the shadow was my mother after I had been stabbed in the chest.

My mother stabs me over and over with the kitchen knife, lastly she slits her own throat with it.

Its a nightmare to end all nightmares.

My nights, always finish in this manner.

* * *

Click, click, click.

... When I woke up to the sound in my ears, Ryougi had already gone out.

Lifting up my body, which is bruised all over from the beating I got, I look around the room.

Stuck in the corner of the second floor in a four storey apartment, this is the house of the kimono girl. Or, would it be more appropriate to call it a room than a house. The hallway stretches 1m from the front door to the lounge, and on the way is a door leading to the bathroom.

As if the lounge doubles as a bedroom, the bed upon which the woman was sleeping till a moment ago is there. There's another room next to the lounge but it seems that it is not being used.

--- Last night.

After following her for an hour, the place I arrived at was this room. Seeing as the mailbox at the apartment entrance bore the name Ryougi, it seems that the woman's last name is Ryougi.

That woman --- even after Ryougi brought me into the room she didn't say anything but instead stripped off her leather jacket and crawled into bed.

Even indifference should have a limit. I started to get angry and honestly thought about assaulting her. But, if I did so and caused a commotion a crowd would gather and I would be in trouble. After pondering what to do for a long time I used a cushion that was rolling around on the floor as a pillow and just decided to sleep.

And, this morning, when I opened my eyes, that woman was nowhere to be seen.

"--- What the hell is she thinking," I mumble absent-mindedly.

Thinking back after regaining my cool, Ryougi appears to be the same age as me. It seems more suitable to call her a girl than a woman.

If she's seventeen she's a student. In that case has she gone to school? I don't think that's correct, this room is too bleak to accept that. The only things in this room are a bed, fridge, phone, four leather jackets hanging on the coat hanger and a wardrobe, which feels like it would contain clothing. There's no TV or even a radio. There are no magazines that were carelessly dropped after being read and there isn't even a table.

All of a sudden, I remember her words from last night.

When I said that I had killed someone Ryougi had replied that she had done the same. ... Ryougi's words didn't seemed real back then, but they might be true after all. Because this room is a fugitive's room. The sense that someone lives here is lacking to the point of morbidity. At that moment I got a chilling sensation. I thought I had picked up an ace of spades but had I picked up a joker instead? ... Whatever the case I didn't intend to stay long. I wanted to at least say goodbye but since the person in question isn't here there's no helping it.

Walking carefully like a thief who has broken in, I decided to leave the unfamiliar girl's room.

Coming outside I wandered aimlessly.

At first I hesitantly went around the road beside the mansion, but regardless of my situation the world was no different from usual. Like a hand on a clock going round and round it was just repeating its daily routine with no change at all.

So its like this in the end. Depressed, I came out to the main road.

The road is the same as always. There are no police looking for Enjoh Tomoe, and there are no looks holding me in contempt for being a murderer.

For some reason it seems the bodies haven't been found yet. Yes, there's no way the world could change so much due to something a half-wit like me did. I don't seem to be a fugitive yet. Even so I didn't feel like going back home.

Past noon and I've come to the plaza with the bronze statue of a dog. Draping myself onto a suitable bench I look up at the big neon sign set up on a near-by building.

In that state I spent a few blank hours.

Even though its a weekday this place is booming with people. The side-walks are overflowing with people and when the pedestrian lights turn green, a tide of humanity flows out with a force that seems set to knock the cars out of the way.

The majority of the crowd are humans that aren't so different in age from me. On the whole they walk foward with smiling faces or iron visages. There's no hesitation there. No --- they've probably never even thought of hesitating. On their faces there isn't even the letter 'life', I can't see these faces as living for a hope-filled future or a dream they wish to fulfil. Everyone walks on with faces that say they know everything about the world. But amongst all that, how much truth is there?

Is it everyone, or is it just a portion.

Real and fake.

I kept looking from within the crowds, unable to be reconciled, to try and find a real one, but couldn't distinguish them at all.

Is it obvious? --- As originally the only one who would know such a thing is yourself.

I turned my eyes from the crowds of humanity up towards the sky.

Yes --- to that point I wasn't real. I may have thought I was real but then I hopelessly revealed my true nature.

... Until I entered high school Enjoh Tomoe was a well known name in the track and field world. Hating to lose, I didn't once see the backs of other athletes during junior high. I was confident of shortening my record still further, and there was no reason to suspect my intelligence either.

Besides, I liked to run more than anything else.

In that I at least was genuine. I even had a conviction that I wouldn't let any obstacle get in my way.

But I stopped running.

Our family was never rich. My father lost his job when I was in elementary school so our household was always barren. My mother was born in a distinguished family and it was said that she broke off all ties with her family to marry my father. My dad who lost his job and didn't work, and my mother who grew up ignorant of the world and didn't know how to do anything.

In that crumbling family I think I grew up faster than other children. I lied about my age to do part-time work and I was at least earning my school fees in any way I could.

I don't know anything of what was going on with our family. I was too busy just living my life.

I went to school with the money I earned, and entered high school through my efforts alone. My parents whom I already could not think of as parents and the problem of money with which to live on. To me who bore those two burdens, running was my unique salvation.

So no matter how tired I was I continued club activities and was able to enter high school as well.

But then My dad caused an accident. He hit a person with a car. That wasn't the only problem. Dad didn't even have a driver's license ---.

I think mother obtained the indemnity for the victim's family by borrowing money from her relations with her head bowed. At that time I was depressed and didn't want to think about anything so I can't be sure.

Waiting for me, after all the strife was over, was the change in my surroundings. There was no longer any connection between me and my parents, but for just the reason that I was their child there was a sudden change in the school community's attitude towards me.

The track team coaches, who had always been helpful, then began to openly ignore me. The seniors who had supported me saying that a prodigy had joined the club pressured me to quit the track team.

But I was already used to that sort of thing so it wasn't really a problem.

My problem was my family. Because of the accident, my dad lost the little income he had and no longer had the strength to support a family. My mother started doing unfamiliar part-time work, but that kind of thing could only cover the heating and lighting bills.

Already unable to obtain a proper job from a few years back, to make us more miserable my dad killed a person while driving without a license. That rumour spread and spread until my dad could no longer go outside. My mother braved the insults to go and find work but she could never stay in one place for long. It got so bad that if I just took a walk somebody would throw a rock at me.

... The criticism from those around us got worse daily, but I didn't feel any anger about it. What my father did was real. I thought of the persecution and contempt as a natural reaction. After all the one at fault wasn't the world but my dad.

And yet, it wasn't as if the object of my anger was my parents either.

At that time I hated everything. Everything that surrounded me became annoying.

No matter what you did or how hard you tried, the result would be the same. No matter how fast you ran, if that annoying thing called family followed along the future was as clear as a flame at night.

It was definitely then that I stopped fighting.

We chase after the so-called natural life and undergo painful experiences as a result. If I accept that my life is like this anyway, there's no reason to think myself unfortunate.

It's just like when we are young. Exchanging reality for a fantasy, I decided to live on by myself.

Everything seemed to be of no import after I made that choice and school was the first thing I quit.

No, if I didn't work all day I couldn't support my family. If you are young there are plenty of jobs available regardless of experience.

Awkwardly for me I possessed that useless thing called a conscience, and I couldn't throw away my family. Yet I did not talk to them at all after I quit school.

Acting in this manner --- I woke up one day to find that I had clean forgotten about the running I had liked so much.

It was something I had enjoyed so much. Something that had been such a source of relief. It became something I gave up because of a trifling misfortune occurred, that realisation shocked even me.

The people who had praised me disappeared, and I didn't have time to run anymore. How could such excuse-like things break me of my enjoyment.

If I was real --- if running was something that I could never have exchanged for anything else, if running was the heart of the human called Enjoh Tomoe, things wouldn't have turned out like that.

... When I was young, I followed my parents to a ranch and saw a horse. Seeing that horse that I didn't even know the name of, I broke down and cried. Seeing that being whose only act in life was to run, I couldn't stop my tears from pouring out. If there were such things as past lives I would have been one of them. That was how strong my belief was, that was how much I admired the very act of running itself.

But I was a fake.

Yes. It was only that I had a firm belief of my reality, I was actually nothing more than a fake ---.

"--- You even killed a person in the end."

Heehee, I laugh. To be laughing when I'm not happy at all, humans are so flawed.

Even looking at the sky gets tedious, so I look around the street.

... The flood of humanity doesn't cease at all.

Those people going on by with smiling or cold faces can't be real. If they were living with some goal in mind there's no way they would be in a pleasure area like this. Or rather, if you were to say that their objective in life was to play --- that kind of 'real' I can't accept.

... Clickclickclick.

Suddenly, I came back to my senses from there onwards. For me --- as self-righteous as my thoughts are, there's nothing like a meaning in my position.

Looking at the clock, it was becoming night time without me having noticed.

I can't stay here for hours on end. I left the overflowing tide of humanity behind and left that place.

* * *

The light from a weak streetlight is illuminating the street by an unfamiliar residence.

After the autumn sun fell I walked for three hours.

While pondering where to spend the night, I recollected my wits and found that I was close to Ryougi's apartment.

Humans, if we crash once do we become so unable to act like men?

I was always prideful of the fact that the merit of the guy called Enjoh Tomoe was the rapidity with which my feelings changed. But if I'm like this its not fast or slow. Am I still unable to cut those lingering attachments after all?

When I look up I don't see a light on in Ryougi's room. It seems that she is absent.

"--- Fine. Since I've come here I may as well look."

I go up the stairs. Let's confront the harsh reality, the reason for my actions was that I wanted to guide that part of me that still clung to a unique salvation.

Going up the iron stairway that clanged with every step, I arrived at the room on the end of the second floor.

The paper that was here when I came out this morning isn't there. It looks like Ryougi came back once. There's no response even when I knock on the door.

"See, she's not there."

After I just wait for a bit I try turning the handle.

--- It moves.

The door opens easily.

The inside is dark. With the handle in my hand I froze. My mind is blank.

How long am I going to stand here like this? The moment I thought that --- I shoved my body through the opening and went inside.

"---."

Gulp, I swallow my saliva.

I can't believe this, I can't believe this, I can't believe I would do something like this.

Of course I am playing the part of the criminal now, but I always hated anything resembling crime. Since I was young I disliked cowardly acts. Yet, after committing murder I am now trespassing. --- No, this is force majeur. Anyway, that girl said so as well, that I could use this place as I liked.

Clickclickclick.

Repeating incoherent excuses in the bottom of my heart I walk in. From the front door to the corridor, from the corridor to the lounge.

The light's aren't on so the room's dark. Within the darkness, I gasp for breath and kill the noise of my footsteps.

--- Damn it, under these circumstance I may as well be a thief. Lights, I have to turn on the lights. You get suspicious if it's dark. Ah, but where's the switch ---?

I pat the wall looking for the light switch for the fluorescent light.

At that moment I hear the door open.

Ryougi's come back, before I could think to explain myself, the owner of the house turned on the light and opened the door.

She opens it, and stares at my trespassing self with blank eyes.

"--- What, you came today as well? What are you doing, not even turning the lights on."

Speaking coldly as if berating a classmate, Ryougi closes the door to the room and sheds her leather jacket.

Straddling the edge of the bed in that state, she put her hand into the convenience store plastic bag she was holding in one hand and rustled around.

"Do you want it? I hate cold things."

Hwik, she throws me a cup of ice-cream. The label says Haagen-Daaz's strawberry. The fact that she doesn't care about an invader like me isn't the only puzzling thing about her, buying something she doesn't like is a riddle as well.

Holding the cold cup in both hands, I fully mobilise my reasoning power.

This girl doesn't care about me at all. Even though she knows ... well I can't be sure how sincerely she takes it... that I'm a murderer. Does the fact that she still offered her room as a refuge mean that this girl is someone the police is after too ... ?

"... Hey. You. You are a suspicious person aren't you?"

When I asked such a thing ignoring all the things I had done, the kimono girl started laughing, "Ahahahaha!" loudly.

"You are a weird one, you are. Oho --- suspicious, you say I'm suspicious! That's a really good expression, it really captures the feel, really!"

Ryougi was earnestly laughing. As the black hair that she had cut as she liked became scattered, I couldn't see her anything but a suspicious person.

"Haha, ahahahaha, ha --- Mmm, yeah. There's no one in this area who kicks up a fuss like me. But didn't you kick up quite a fuss yourself? In that case it shouldn't matter what's happened, should it? For that sort of thing? Is that all you have to say?"

Wearing a meaningful smile, the kimono girl looks up at me. .... That pose with its air of somewhat fragile tranquility, it was similar to a child holding a new toy.

"No.... just one more question. Why, are you helping me?"

"You asked me to help you. I helped you since I didn't have anything else to do. You don't have a place to sleep do you? You can use this place for a while. It's not as if Mikiya is coming anytime soon anyway."

... You helped because you had nothing better to do? What the hell is that, however relaxed you may be, what kind of stupid reason is that? My mind may be upside down, but its not mangled so badly as to blindly accept that. With this as evidence I can at least figure out if this girl is lying or not.

I glare at the girl in the kimono. She doesn't pay any attention at all. It's different from disregard, but it's not imposing indifference either. ... What is this paradox. Distressingly, there is no reason to suspect that Ryougi is not speaking sincerely.

If it's not that, could it be that this person does not need a beneficial reason. If you took it as granted that this girl didn't think of easy to understand reasons like, because you are a friend or, because I can get money.

But, even then ---.

"Are you for real? You are going to hide a suspicious guy like me without wanting anything in return? You haven't taken any drugs have you?"

"What a rude guy. I hate drugs, and I'm extremely normal. I don't even report anything to the police. Although I will if you tell me to."

Ah, I also do not worry about such a thing. Who could picture this girl contacting the police. What I worried about was something more basic than that.

"Look. I'm a guy and you are a girl. Letting someone you don't even know sleep over is a bit... I'm asking if it's still okay, that's what I'm saying!"

"What? Don't guys go somewhere different if they want to hug a girl?"

At this reply spoken with a preposterous face, I didn't know what to say.

"No, I'm saying since ---."

"Ah, just shut up. If this place isn't to your liking you can just find another place to stay. Why are you stubbornly sounding out what I think?"

Harshly cutting off my words the girl puts her hand back into the plastic bag. What she took out was a triangular tomato sandwich.

... It really seems like there's no one like me in her vicinity.

"In that case I will use this place as my sleeping place. Is that okay?"

Although I shouted because of my frustration the other party didn't bat an eyelid and nodded assent.

"Fine. I'll tell you its annoying if it gets annoying," Ryougi says while chewing the sandwich.

With that my strength left me and I sat myself down plumply onto the floor.

And time flowed by.

However it was, I decided to go along boldly. As if to try and regain that conceit that the merit of Enjoh Tomoe is the quick change in feelings, I think about my days to come.

I've obtained a sleeping place for now. As for meals the 30000 yen I've got on me should last me for a month. In that time I have to find a way to live without being caught by the police.

"--- Eh?"

All of a sudden, a question formed. Why was it that tonight the front door hadn't been locked?

"Hey, why didn't you lock the door?"

"Isn't it obvious, I don't have a key so I don't lock it."

"--- What?"

Hearing that I almost fainted.

This girl Ryougi, apparently she didn't have a key to the house. The only time she locked the door was when she slept, when she went out she just closed the door. The position of the person in question being, even if a thief was to come in while she was away, there would be no harm done to her.

So the reason I was able to trespass wasn't a coincidence or anything. It could be that the reason for the absence of any household items in this room is because a burglar broke in.

"You idiot, at least take a key around! Normally, you go and borrow a spare key from the owner if you don't have one."

"I lost the spare too. So what? It's nothing that would trouble you, and if you stole these kind of things it would just weigh you down."

... Damn it, if I talk one way she's the type to rebut my words in that manner. Even so I can't relax if she doesn't have a key. There's a sense of self-preservation that's always on your mind, but is that instinct missing in Ryougi's life.

I put aside the undescribable repulsion I had been holding towards Ryougi until a moment ago, and truly worried about this immature kid.

"Don't say something so stupid. What kind of house doesn't have a key. Wait... Since it's become like this, I'll replace the whole thing with a new one for you."

"... That's fine but, do you have the money?"

"Don't think so lowly of me. I can do this much at least. I'll do it all tonight, so from tomorrow on carry a key with you properly!"

And, I stood up.

I worked at a moving company. I learnt enough about repairing things around a house that I can easily repair something like an apartment door. At the storage facility of the company I had worked at until 2 days ago there should at least be something like a stock door handle.

With a vigor I could scarcely credit, I was running out into the night-time streets.

How do I secretly enter the building when the police could catch me at any moment, I earnestly wonder, I realise that I'm on an extremely dangerous adventure.

Really, I can't say anything about Ryougi.

To be breaking into the company I had worked at for a girl I didn't even properly know the name of, I'm a pretty crazy person too.