11
What reawakened Ogami's senses wasn't a feeling of icy cold, but an intense pain throughout his whole body, especially in his extremities. At first his fingertips hurt, and then the moment he recognized it as pain, his whole body throbbed with pain as if anesthesia had worn off. He immediately tried to stand up, but his limbs wouldn't move like he wanted, so he lost balance and plunged head-first into the snow.
When he raised his head, he realized his body was covered by the duffle coat he thought he'd left in the car. But his mind was unable to arrive at what that meant. He tried to stand up again, but it wasn't going well; even so, he crawled toward the parking lot where the car was parked to escape the agony his body was in. His senses were muddled, but his body remembered that he could get relief if he went there.
Ogami's body was hardly advancing forward at all, like trying to run in a dream. It almost felt as if there were an invisible force slowly pulling him backward. There must be a hollow under the snow, something like an antlion pit trying to pull me in, he hazily thought. But past a certain point, the path suddenly became flat, and he advanced slowly but surely walking on his knees.
He arrived at the car and reached for the door. But it didn't open when he pulled the handle. He dug through his pockets with his numb hand. The key was nowhere to be found. His senses were growing distant, but when he pulled forcefully on the handle again, this time the door opened with a hard sound. It seemed it hadn't been locked, but had just frozen shut.
He climbed up into the driver's seat, and turned the still-inserted key with his shivering fingers to start the engine. He cranked the heater to the maximum and waited for the hot air, but all that came out of the vents was a chilly breeze slightly preferable to outside. Repeatedly stepping on the gas to idle the engine as if praying, the air slowly began to heat up.
Ogami held his hands in front of the vents and warmed his fingertips, then warmed his neck with his fingers. He repeated this over and over. Remembering he had a blanket in the car, he pulled it from the back seat and put it over his shoulders like a cape. His chills weren't letting up, and as the temperature in the car increased, the unfathomable pain in his body only became more intense. His limbs were heavy and cold, as if they had been switched out for something else while he was unconscious.
This whole chain of actions had been done practically subconsciously. At some point, the sky had started to lighten. He took a reserve pack of cigarettes from the glove box, struggled to take one out with his numb fingers, held it between his lips, and lit it with the lighter. That was his first conscious action. When the smell of the cigarette filled his nose, he finally came to his senses.
I've survived, Ogami thought. He accepted this not as a good thing or a bad thing, just as the reality. He couldn't muster emotions of any kind about that reality. Just like how when a baby is born, it doesn't judge the good and bad of that fact but simply cries, he kept absentmindedly shivering.
Then the next thing he thought was: Where did Kasumi go?
Once his wet clothes dried, and his body warmed enough to walk properly again, Ogami returned to the place he woke up, still wearing the blanket. He picked up the duffle coat, wiped the snow from it, and took a look around. There was no sign of Kasumi, but he saw small footprints from around where she'd been lying down. Following them, he found they met up with the trail left by his crawling. He didn't bother to follow the footprints further, but they seemed to lead back to the car. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen her coat in the car. Nor her Handcuff. Had Kasumi retrieved her coat and Handcuff, put the coat over Ogami, and walked out of the park?
The chills were coming back, so he returned to the car. Just as expected, there were footprints that appeared to be Kasumi's going from the car to the park entrance. But following these footprints wouldn't let him catch up to her. They surely would have come to an end around the exit of the park.
By now, hunger and throat dryness were being added on top of the chills and pain. Thinking Kasumi might come back to the car, Ogami stayed in the park for about two hours. Of course, she didn't come back.
She must have stopped just short of death, and decided to leave here by herself. That was what he had to conclude for now.
If so, that was an entirely reasonable judgement, Ogami thought.
He returned to the car and left the park. His movements were still stiff as usual, but for whatever reason, he was able to drive the same as always once he grabbed the wheel. What a well-built machine, Ogami thought with delayed admiration. It didn't seem very appropriate for an automobile to be the first thing he was impressed by after reviving from the brink of death, but in that moment, Ogami felt automobiles to be the far superior entity to humans. With machines having no wills of their own, they made no mistakes.
Just to be sure, he drove around within a radius of a few miles from the park, but saw no figures that looked like Kasumi. This time he gave up for real, and returned to the apartment.
Arriving at his room, he turned on the heater and warmed up some leftover stew. He heated up water and took numerous raw gulps of it. He took a scalding hot shower, changed clothes, lay down in a comfortable spot, and slept there for hours. He started to wake up at one point, but then quickly fell back asleep, then woke up from hunger a few hours later so he had a meal, then fell into another long sleep.
By the next time he woke up, the date had changed. After three sleeps, his consciousness had regained some clarity. He thought it over again with a clear head. Where had Kasumi gone? He thought about calling her, but if she were willing to respond to a call, she surely would have contacted him a while ago. Or else she would have visited the apartment directly.
Remembering the conversation they had before he lost consciousness, he pondered at what point she could've had a change of heart. Even after Ogami aired his theory that Sumika's death was indeed a suicide, having just been presented as "a staged suicide gone wrong," her intentions hadn't wavered. She'd said that there was no changing the fact she left her sister to die.
"Perhaps I was able to avoid dying until today because I knew you'd become my Sakura someday."
Those were Kasumi's final words he could hear before passing out. Even when she spoke those, it indeed seemed she was accepting death.
Then Ogami suddenly realized. Maybe it's not necessarily true that she chose to live.
Maybe she just chose to to die on her own.
Maybe by saving my life in the end, she meant to make amends for the regret of letting Sumika die.
He must have had that mindset to thank. Because when the detective came to his room and informed him of Kasumi's death, he was able to hear it calmly.
Her body was discovered early yesterday morning, hanging in the woods a little over a mile from the riverside park. By the time it was reported and an emergency team arrived, she had already breathed her last.
The detective arrived just as the streetlights were starting to come on. Hearing the knock, Ogami opened the door, and saw him standing there emotionlessly. And he concisely informed him of Kasumi's death.
Ogami's reply was simply "I see."
"You're not surprised," the detective remarked. "Did you perhaps know this would happen from the start?"
If he wanted to smooth things over, there were plenty of ways to do so. But right now, Ogami didn't care about revealing the truth and putting himself in a risky spot. So he told him everything just as it was. Him being Kasumi's Sakura. Multiple Sakura being assigned to her. Exposing himself as a Sakura to her, and proposing a double suicide. Her confession about the truth of Sumika's death while carrying it out. And Kasumi having disappeared when he woke up.
"If her death were a murder, you'd be the first suspect," the detective said with a stunned expression. "And yet, you probably won't even be questioned. Since her death was clearly suicide, without a speck of doubt."
"Why do you know that much about the details?"
"Thanks to an acquaintance. I can guarantee it's reliable information."
Ogami went to the kitchen and heated up water to make coffee for two. Taking his coffee, the detective took a sip and continued.
"With Kasumi's death and what you just told me, I'm finally seeing the full picture of Sumika's death. There are still questions remaining, but those should be resolved soon enough."
"The full picture? Wasn't what Kasumi said everything?"
"If it were, then why did Kasumi decide to let you leave with your life?", the detective asked aloud. Then he sat down on the tatami floor and looked up at Ogami. "Sumika, Kujirai. Please, tell me what sort of relationship you had with those two. Honestly this time."
Ogami hesitated a bit, but decided to tell him everything. Maybe this man would be able to derive a different understanding from my past than I had. Maybe he would be able to repaint what that past had meant.
"They used to be my best friends," Ogami said. "Yet, it was only me who thought that, as in reality they were Sakura assigned to me. I became friends with Sumika in winter my first year of middle school, then Kujirai in spring of my second year. That relationship continued until winter of my third year. But prompted by me happening to witness a secret meeting of theirs, I began to suspect they were Sakura. Questioning them directly made them both admit it, so our relationship ended there."
Ogami also brought up how after hearing the teacher's story, he was no longer sure if Sumika had really been a Sakura. There was a possibility that Sumika Takasago had been no more than a mirror, and simply reflected back Ogami's suspicion. Meanwhile, there was no room for doubt that Kujirai was a Sakura. He'd left him a sharp parting remark of "I was always irritated by you."
After finishing his story, Ogami observed the detective's reaction. He felt maybe his explanation had been rather lacking and unclear, but the detective didn't have any questions or seek any supplements. Stroking his chin with the joint of his index finger, he was deep in earnest thought.
After a considerable silence, the detective said "I guess that does it."
"With what you just told me, I finally understand the truth about Sumika. There was no need to look for Kujirai from the start. If I'd just stubbornly pressed you, that would have taken care of it."
"How do you mean?", Ogami said. Even he was surprised by how loudly he spoke it. "Just what kind of answer did my side of the story lead you to?"
The detective smiled ambiguously, and put his hand to the floor to stand up. "It'll become clear sooner or later. You've already acquired plenty of material."
"I don't want to know sooner or later, I want to know now."
The detective shook his head. "I'll refrain from telling you everything myself. This kind of truth is better reached by your own power. If someone else told you it first, then it would become an already-read truth, so to speak. No matter how perfect second-hand goods look, you can't fully put your heart into them. That's why I'd prefer that you unseal it with your own hands. A brand new, unopened truth."
"I've been thinking about it myself this whole time. Yet I don't understand a single thing about what Sumika was thinking. Could you at least tell me something?"
"Then I'll give you a relatively harmless truth. If my prediction is accurate, you could wait here forever and not meet Kujirai."
With that, the detective left the room and shut the door.
I should probably be saddened, Ogami thought to himself. Because a girl who had once offered to put her fate in with mine had left this world on her own. But once the detective left the room, Ogami found he was already beginning to adjust to Kasumi's death. Of course it was a shame he'd never get to meet her again, but he got a sense that he'd only slightly accelerated a predestined farewell. Maybe part of that was because of what her father proclaimed.
Please don't trouble yourself over not being able to save Kasumi. She's been dead from the start. You've been holding onto a dead girl's hand.
And somewhere in Ogami's heart, he perceived Sumika and Kasumi as paired entities. Thus, Kasumi's death felt like an inevitable phenomenon that was an extension of Sumika's death.
It even made sense to consider that his relationship with Kasumi going so well was because she was dead from the start. There's no room for social phobia with the dead.
He accepted Kasumi's death, but it didn't bring this to an end. It seemed as if the detective had unraveled all the mysteries earlier, whereas Ogami had not. He still didn't know the truth behind Sumika nor Kasumi's death. Despite the claim that it would become clear sooner or later, it probably wasn't like someone would come and bring him the answer if he just sat around and twiddled his thumbs. It was up to Ogami, so that time could end up coming days from now, or even years from now.
Ogami decided to stay in the Town of Sakura until he could solve that mystery. For a few days afterward, he was racking his brain whenever he wasn't sleeping. If the detective was able to put together the truth of Sumika's death from Ogami's short story, that meant Ogami had been given what was necessary to arrive at the truth from the start. And then there was the meaning of "you could wait here forever and not meet Kujirai." Just by hearing about Ogami's middle school days, the detective concluded that he couldn't meet Kujirai - at least not in this apartment. Ogami's past connected not only to the truth of Sumika's death, but even Kujirai's whereabouts.
Was there really an element like that in my story? Where?
Ogami kept walking around town, ruminating upon his talk with the detective and his last conversation with Kasumi. And he scribbled every little thing he remembered or thought of in the notebook he'd bought from the variety store.
Compared to when he first moved into the apartment, the coldness in town had calmed a fair bit. The sky was dull and cloudy as usual, but even when it snowed, it stopped before it could pile up. Most of the snow the plow had moved to the side of the road had melted, and the blurred boundary between sidewalk and road finally showed itself. The people living in town were wearing fewer layers, making them look more refreshed.
It wasn't such a bad season to be thinking about the dead.
The key probably wasn't going to be that Sumika was my Sakura. It was that I had convinced myself she was my Sakura. There was a big difference between the two. Let's first recognize that I had made a mistake in assuming she was a Sakura. Unless I work from that premise, I'm likely never going to arrive at the truth. Just like I'd failed to do for these past seven years.
Sumika Takasago wasn't my Sakura - in that case, how should I interpret the last conversation we had? If Kasumi was to be believed, Sumika choosing to die in that riverside park was some kind of message to me, and she'd continued thinking about me even after graduating middle school. If that's true, then what in the world made her say "I didn't like you at all"?
Perhaps it was out of consideration for me. Maybe she heard my question of "You never really liked me at all, did you?" as "Let me have a clean breakup with no bitterness." Maybe she was just complying with that request and nothing more.
But supposing that's true, how does that connect to her death?
Ogami's thoughts reached a dead end there. Like the detective said, at this point he should practically have the answer, yet he was subconsciously avoiding a certain way of thinking. So it might be more accurate to say he didn't come to a dead end, but had stopped walking himself.
One evening in early April, a snowstorm came to town. It was a violent one, as if it were trying to drive back the approaching spring.
The snow fell all night, then finally stopped the next morning. It became markedly more cold inside the apartment, so Ogami didn't leave bed for a while after waking. When he finally did crawl out of his futon, he heated some water and made coffee, then removed his Handcuff to go out on the veranda and smoke while shivering. He hadn't even put on sandals, so the soles of his feet felt like they were getting frostbite. He'd expected as much, since he heard the sound of the snow plow early in the morning, but snow pushed from the road had been piled like sandbags in front of the apartment.
He couldn't get his car out like this, so he went outside, found the snow-shovel buried in snow, and began clearing the snow in front of the apartment. Creating enough of a path for one car to get out would have been sufficient, but Ogami didn't stop until he had cleaned out all the snow in the area. He felt that moving around actively might help him think. But when he finished the work, he was left with nothing but a heavy fatigue.
As he stuck the shovel in a snow pile and went to return to his room, Ogami noticed someone looking down at him from the second floor. It was a man aged enough that you'd hear no objections to calling him an "old man." He wore a gray knitted cap and a long wool coat. When he made eye contact with Ogami, he didn't look away, and slowly walked down the outside steps. Ogami prepared himself for some kind of complaint, but once the old man came close enough for them to see each other's faces clearly, he mumbled out words of thanks for his work. It seemed he only wanted to thank him for clearing the snow.
After nodding with satisfaction at the snow piles Ogami had made, he made a beckoning gesture and went up the apartment stairs without a word. Though his intentions were unclear, he seemed to want Ogami to come with him.
The old man opened a door at the end of the second floor hall, turned around to confirm that Ogami was following, then went inside. He supposed the man was saying "come on in."
The room was a mess. A cylindrical oil heater sat in the center of the room, and lots of small things were scattered all around it. What most drew Ogami's attention were the piles of leaflets and newspapers. They were piled in a disorderly manner in the corners of the room, towering high. If there happened to be a fire here, the flames would probably spread in an instant. To make matters worse, the heater wasn't the only source of fire; there were used lighters on the floor here and there. The old man appeared to be a heavy smoker, as the whole room smelled of cigarettes. It was like the smoking area of an old Japanese inn.
The old man made tea in a kettle on the heater. It was average, unremarkable roasted green tea, but having it after working in the cold outside made it taste much more delicious. He'd been having nothing but coffee lately, so the simple flavor was kind on his tongue.
"How long you been living here?", the old man questioned. "Not that long, right?"
Ogami replied that he'd been here two months, though even he didn't remember exactly.
"The guy who was in your room before was a young man about your age too," the old man said as if recounting something from decades past. "Didn't notice for a while that you'd taken his place."
"That man was an acquaintance of mine," Ogami explained. "What was he like when he was staying here?"
"He shoveled snow," the old man said. "Every time there was heavy snow, he'd silently clean up the snow by himself. Think even that shovel you were using was his personal property. We talked once, but he was a shy fellow for his age."
The old man removed his Handcuff and took out a cigarette to light. Ogami was briefly taken by how smoothly he performed it, like only a person who's smoked for decades could.
"And he was away all the time," the old man said after flicking some ash. "He was a quiet guy anyway, so I didn't often notice if he was gone, but sometimes his car would be missing for days straight."
Ogami nodded. He couldn't expect much important information from him.
Once he was unable to remember anything else about Kujirai, the old man looked to the window and changed topics to the snow. The snow this year's been particularly bad, but there was an even worse year about three decades ago, he said. Fallen trees blocked roads everywhere, with the town becoming as isolated as an island for a week. There were power and water outages too, so with nothing else to do, he just drank with his friends constantly.
As the old man went to light another cigarette after coming to a pause in the story, Ogami thanked him for the tea and went to leave. Then the old man called after him.
"Hey. Why didn't I ever speak to you until today, do you think?"
Ogami shook his head to suggest he didn't know. He didn't even have a guess.
"'Cause I suspected you might be a Sakura," the old man said. "One of them actors who pretends to be a good neighbor to help pitiful old folk. When you live like this in a place like this, sometimes they'll send 'em your way. Not even realizing it's a hundred times more miserable than just leaving 'em be. So no matter who it is, I always watch 'em for a while. I carefully poke around to look for anything unnatural about their attitude, anything that seems forced. Seemed like you weren't checkin' on me - hell, you didn't even notice I existed. That's why I finally felt like talking to ya."
Ogami nodded wordlessly, and left the old man's room behind.
There was no chance the man would believe him if he said how painfully he understood that feeling. Rather, it would just further agitate his Sakura Delusion.
After returning to his room, Ogami imagined the life of that old man on the upper floor, living in isolation. It wasn't clear which came first; did Sakura Delusion make his life solitary, or did a solitary life invite Sakura Delusion? Either way, it was clear that if I kept on like this, I'd lead a similar life to that old man. The deeper your isolation, the higher the odds that Sakura will appear, furthering your delusion and thus your isolation.
If anything could save that old man - if anything could save us - what could possibly kick things off? If a person we could be 100% convinced wasn't a Sakura came out of nowhere and showered us with generous affection, could we be saved?
Most likely not. At that point, we'd just have to confront a new fear. We would be struck down by an obvious truth: people can put on acts and betray you even if they aren't Sakura.
Maybe what was keeping us locked in wasn't misdirected fear, but misdirected longing.
Ogami closed his eyes and recalled every individual thing he saw in the old man's room. The heavy oil heater, piles of newspapers and leaflets, tatami mats covered in stains, a tea table worn at the edges, a teacup stained from tea, a ceiling yellowed by long years of smoking. It was possible he was carrying out a protracted suicide in that room. Maybe the piles of newspapers and leaflets were meant as kindling for his own cremation.
Once he'd formed that picture, Ogami's focus suddenly turned toward his own room. Come to think of it, he'd never received leaflets of any sort since coming to this room. There were mailboxes for the apartments, but with them being in a hard-to-notice spot, he'd forgotten they existed until just now. Since he'd expected his stay in this apartment to be temporary, he hadn't forwarded his mail. So he probably hadn't received anything important there. That said, maybe the mailbox was overflowing with leaflets now.
He confirmed his mailbox number on the documents he received when moving in, and went to the communal mailboxes. He turned the dial and opened his up. There were only a few leaflets inside. Ogami bundled them up, closed the box, and headed back to his room.
Then something fell out of the bundle of leaflets, and landed in the snow.
Ogami bent down to pick it up.
It was a key. Judging from the size and shape, probably a car key.
And he knew from the moment he saw it that it had been left by Kujirai.
The key was attached to a keychain. It was a leather keychain shaped like a shoehorn, with a luster unique to leather that had been used for a long time.
It was the one Ogami had bought at the variety store seven years ago as a gift for Kujirai.
He finally knew where the paper bag went. That day he overheard the two conversing in the garage, he'd accidentally left the paper bag with the presents beside the garage. And Kujirai found it.
That was all well and good.
But the fact this keychain was here now meant that until just recently, he'd been using this gift from Ogami.
It didn't make any sense. Didn't Kujirai despise me?
He stood in front of the mailboxes for a while, holding the key in his hand.
At any rate, Kujirai wouldn't be coming back here. He must have left this key here because he already had no use for it.
There's no point in me having something like this.
Maybe I should just throw this away somewhere, Ogami thought.
And let that be the end, so I can forget all about it.
He decided to discard the key at the riverside park, where Sumika, Kasumi, and Ogami had all chosen to die. He felt it would be best for such fateful things to all be bundled together.
He parked in the parking lot, smoked a cigarette, and went outside. There was no sign of people in the park, as usual. Sticking his hands in the pockets of his duffle coat, Ogami walked through wet snow toward the river bank.
Bordered by snow, the river was dark, and flowed quietly. Ogami grasped the key in his pocket. As he was about to put his hand up and fling the key into the river, some snow piled on a tree branch above fell down in front of him. A heavy thump like a sandbag dropping echoed through the quiet park, and a spray of snow filled up his field of vision.
If he'd been just a few feet further ahead, he would have really felt the snow coming down on him. To check the safety of where he was standing, Ogami looked above him,
and there, he saw a sakura bud colored a faint red.
Thinking about it, this park had initially appeared before us in a way entirely unrelated to death.
Kujirai had been the one who suggested going to meet the cherry blossoms that day. We tried going south toward the cherry blossom front, so as to see them in full bloom sooner. Ultimately we took the wrong bus, and instead saw the blossoms in this park a few days later, but if not for that, we would have gone and met the cherry blossoms on that day, April 10th.
And as fate would have it, today was indeed April 10th.
He felt that Kujirai was waiting for him, at the boundary between buds and blossoms.