Oze
Mamoru must have been full, because his eyelids started to droop. We decided to move to the lounge with the big sofa.
“Hey, want me to carry you?”
He was half-asleep and staggering, and with the way the ship rocked, I got worried and called out to him.
“Oze-kun, carrying someone on a boat is dangerous. Maybe just hold his hand instead?”
“Oh, right.”
Even though I’d been speaking politely throughout the meal, she never teased me about it once.
I had a lot on my mind, but it was like an adolescence even more intense than adolescence had suddenly hit me.I rehearsed every word in my head more than ten times before speaking, so I ended up barely saying anything.
She didn’t seem to mind the silence. She walked without stumbling, her thin waist steady, and that alone was reassuring. I wasn’t good with people who babbled about meaningless stuff. What’s shared in silence carries way more weight.
When we reached the lounge, she held the door open for us.
First, I helped Mamoru lie down on the sofa.
She picked up a blanket from a shelf in the corner of the room, but when she saw me taking off my jacket, she quietly put the blanket back.
I laid my jacket over Mamoru, and his little hand gripped the edge tightly.
“I’m not a fan of kids, but this one’s cute. I met him for the first time that day at the supermarket. I guess I’d never seen him before, even though we lived in the same neighborhood, because he was always sick.”
She said it softly, looking at Mamoru’s face.
“Yeah. He wasn’t the kind of kid who could play outside. But he used to come over to my place a lot. He liked listening to me talk more than playing games or anything. Looking back, I think I was the one being listened to. I didn’t have any friends.”
“Just like me.”
She murmured it with a calm expression, a faint smile at the corner of her lips.
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“Just like you?”
“I didn’t have anyone to talk to either. So talking to you saved me, Oze-kun.”
Dependence—most people would call that unhealthy. But what’s wrong with leaning on each other?
“Hey, how did you and Mamoru end up at that supermarket together that day?”
Nope. I still couldn’t bring myself to say her name.
“We didn’t go there together. We just happened to meet there. As soon as we saw each other, we both knew—we’d been killed. And just when I tried to approach him, you showed up… Oze-kun?”
“Wait. What did you just say? ‘Killed’?”
The ship, which had barely been swaying, suddenly felt like it lurched violently beneath me.
“…I thought you already knew. It doesn’t change anything at this point. Not for me or Mamoru-kun.”
I’d thought it was illness and an accident. But it was neither. Not for me.
“Who did it? Why were you killed?”
“I really can’t remember.”
She said it so calmly, I started to wonder if I was the one losing it.
“…No, I just kind of believed it for a second. What an idiot I am.”
The three of us had lived in the same town, so the thought crossed my mind.
But think it through. Back when I was in middle school, Aochi was still in elementary, and Oomi hadn’t even started school. Then again, intent didn’t matter.
Like… say Mamoru’s pet bird was sitting by the window. He used to let it fly free in the house, so it’s possible. The window just happened to be open, and one of those two saw the bird and tried to call it over because it looked cute. Mamoru saw that and panicked, ran out into the street—and…
Or maybe one of them had gone into a café with their parents,and she happened to be there, taking a break from work.The parents were too busy chatting with their friends to notice anything, and one of the boys, bored out of his mind, slipped something into her drink—something she was allergic to.Or maybe they poked a wasp nest behind her apartment. If she was allergic to bee stings, and one got her in the chaos… That’s a stretch, maybe. But she always seemed so healthy, I couldn’t think of any illness that fit.
“Hey… do you remember telling me to ‘catch the bird’?”
She nodded without hesitation. I should’ve asked that first.
“I thought you already did.”
“Huh?”
It was only in the past few days that I even started thinking about catching a bird. I’d forgotten she and Mamoru had told me that.
“Oh, don’t worry. I just kind of assumed you already had. But if you haven’t, then you should. Just like you’re thinking—one of those birds flying in a flock.”
“What for?”
She fell silent, but she seemed to be thinking.
“If you don’t catch one… you can’t even become fuel. You just get crushed.”
“You mean the burning hearts in the ocean? …What do you mean, crushed?”
That was new. Just picturing a heart being crushed from pressure made my chest tighten.
“Probably just what you’re imagining.”
“Did you and Mamoru manage to catch one?”
“You’re supposed to catch one before you die. We didn’t know that, so we failed. We didn’t even know it was something important. That’s why I want you to catch one, Oze-kun. We can still be here because someone still remembers us.”
Someone… well, that’s obviously me. Not that it matters.
But if I feel this desperate to catch a bird now…
“Does that mean I’m about to die?”
She smiled gently. It was a smile I hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Everyone dies, eventually.”
Just as I leaned forward to ask more, the ship shuddered hard, as if it had hit something.
“Maybe… someone on this ship killed us, and we came back to get revenge or something—are you okay? That was a joke… sorry.”