Takemura Itsuki

It was raining heavily outside on the bricked streets, with water droplets tapping into the bricks. It was nighttime and the brown board with white English text of ‘The Bar’ was outside on top of the first floor of the three-story wooden building. TRING! The bell on top of the entrance of The Bar rang as the door opened.

“We’re back!” Kurayami shouted gleefully with a smile on his face as he opened the door of The Bar and walked in. I walked inside behind him, closing the door behind me. It was a little dark inside with the flames glowing on the sides of the restaurant. I turned my head to the right, looking at the dining area in front of the serving area.

Yumiko was wiping the white shelf with a wet white cloth. She turned her head up to the front at us and smiled. “Welcome back, but it’s closed.”

“We ain’t here to eat, Yumiko,” Kurayami replied with a smile as he started to walk to the front at the door at the left corner of the area.

Yumiko turned her head to the right at him walking in and replied, “Still though, you’re really late. It’s not safe outside nowadays. You know that the sinners are in the city.”

“Yeah, Yumiko, but the sinners won’t be a problem for me.”

“Yeah, but why waste energy on them.”

Kurayami opened the door and walked inside. “Yeah…” He closed the door behind him.

Yumiko then turned her head at her front again at me. “Takemura-kun, Ichika wanted to talk to you over something.”

I turned my head a little down and started to walk towards the door. She turned her head to the right at me as I walked. “I’m a bit tired because of all that shit he just narrated. I wanna sleep for now.”

“O-Okay then…” She shyly replied, turned her head down at the shelf, and started wiping the shelf again.

“… Maybe I’d have to tell her that he’d already gone to sleep.”

***

Ichika was sitting on top of her bed, her right foot on top of the bed, her knee by her chest, and her left leg hanging from the bed to the ground. She had her right arm around her right leg, her eyes fixed at the door. The room was filled with the faint voice of droplets tapping on the wooden building. PIT PIT PIT PIT PIT PIT PIT PIT.

“Itsuki’s late.”

***

Suzuki Tadashi

I was lying on top of hay, my hands on my chest, and my eyes wide open, fixed on the roof of the barn. PIT PIT PIT PIT PIT. The loud voice of rain tapping on the top of the barn was all around. My expressionless dead narrowed eyes with dark patches beneath seemed dead. As I lay there, I thought, “What… has happened to my life?”

I remembered the image of my dad, wearing his usual black coat-suit as he stood in front of the door beside the shoe rack, his right hand on the shoe rack, his body bent a little rightward, his left leg up in the air, and his left hand on his left shoe as he pulled it out.

“Those were the same rainy days when we would sit at home inside the blanket together, playing card games or board games, eating hot lunch and snacks, and… enjoying to the fullest.”

I remembered my father with half-white hairs, half-bald scalp, in casual red t-shirt, sitting inside the kotatsu—the table rose just a little bit up on the ground with a heater fixed beneath the table, with the table covered with a blanket on all the sides—with mom bent down, raising the blanket and moving her left leg in. I—a ten year old, with my elder brother, seventeen at the time—was sitting on the other side, gleefully moving my hands and legs in air, with a board of ludo raised up.

“Yeah, those were some really good days.”

I remembered the blue dot a dozen steps away from my eyes, becoming smaller and smaller as my body cut through the air, falling down and down into the void. I remembered the noise of my clothes as my body slashed through the air.

“I was just an immature little boy, maybe. I didn’t know about good and bad around me, and lived my life to the fullest. Maybe… that’s why… Maybe that’s why I didn’t cry that day. I never anticipated this.”

I remembered Sasaki-senpai when he was applying medicines on my chest, which was bleeding. I remembered the face of his daughter—who was about the same age as me—as she looked at me with pity and worry as she stood behind her dad’s muscular body, and I lay down half-dead in the corner of the house.

“I don’t even remember her name, and still… she was maybe the first girl who’d seen me half-naked.”

I then remembered Sasaki-senpai saying, “You remind me of a wounded lion, kid. Silent, wounded, covered with blood after a brave fight, but still standing alive with pride to live another day.”

“Those were some good days too, maybe not as good, but they were still peaceful.”

“But now…” I closed my eyes, moved my right arm up, and covered my eyes with my arm. A drop of tear came out from the right eye as I pressed my arm harder inside. The drop, finding its way through the gap between the arm and the eye, came out and ran down through my right ear. I remembered the vision of Matsuda-senpai raising his right leg, I remembered the image of the rich guy in blue suit chuckling at a distance, and I remembered my own innocent pleading face and eyes as I looked towards the guy after being hit. My throat was filled with emotions. My chest was hurting. I opened my mouth in pain, my lips covered with saliva. “I miss my dad…”

“Aye, kid, ya still awake?”