Silent-chan
Aochi-san is mistaken.
What I saw in the mist was a memory with my best friend, but there my lingering suspicion turned into certainty. Surely, he alone has no idea of the truth.
Oze-san is like me. Living in loneliness, losing someone precious on this ship.
What choice will he make? About the other two, about Mamoru-kun. Will he accept reality and give up, or will he sacrifice himself to save the rest?
And me? Watching Ululu playing with Aochi-san, I think this child is far more worthy than I am to go on to the next world.
They say it’s possible if we share the Harvester’s heart, but I can’t believe our timid Harvester would ever do such a thing.
So in the end, I must… with the blade that extends from my hand—
While I was lost in thought, Oomi-kun’s voice asked, “What about Mamoru-kun?”
I had spoken with this boy earlier that evening inside the ship.
He’s remarkably perceptive—he noticed the structure of this ship even faster than Oze-san.
Though shaken, he still tried to protect the other two. More importantly, he never once thought of sacrificing himself. That’s what makes him extraordinary.
He firmly believes he’ll go on to the next world. Unlike me and Oze-san, who long to die, and unlike Aochi-san, who knows nothing.
And Mamoru-kun, when asked—he was a child once called back from death by Oze-san. Will he end up like Kaori-san, who died a second time?
Oze-san is wrong. He did not kill Kaori-san twice. She fulfilled her role and departed from us. Kaori-san, who always stroked my hair—I can still feel that touch.
Her role was to protect Oze-san. When Oze-san grew stronger, she simply returned to where she belonged. Mamoru-kun doesn’t cry because he knows this.
I must make up my mind as well. I no longer have anyone left to protect me. I will protect Ululu, and together—no, the three here with me, and Mamoru-kun too—we will all reach the next world, none left behind.
♢♢
We stood for a while in the midnight sea.
The traps of the god were so noisy, I’d forgotten the sea itself.
The night sea is a seductive black, undulating as if to beckon.
Unlike the god’s traps, it pushes us away at the very edge.
“The sea without a god is beautiful.”
I had muttered it unconsciously.
Aochi-san flinched and looked at me. He still isn’t used to me speaking.
It wasn’t as if I chose silence. Being called Silent-chan surprised me.
It’s just that my voice wouldn’t come. When the three I traveled with died, I screamed too much—and when finally my best friend died, I think I exhausted the very source of my voice for a lifetime.
“A sea without the god is free.”
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The Harvester answered cheerfully, which surprised me.
“If only the god would never appear again.”
Oomi-kun said this without taking his eyes off the horizon. He hadn’t been surprised, had he, the first time he heard me speak? A boy with steady nerves.
“Then, while the god is away, may I go check on Rhone? I’d rather the Harvester went, but if something happens while he’s away, I wouldn’t like it. I’ll go alone.”
As I thought, Oze-san worried for Rhone.
I was the same. Even knowing my companions were dying—more than that, even encouraging it—Rhone, I forgave him almost at once.
Because I realized it was his own way of showing kindness, different from their Harvester.
“If you see him, please tell him thank you.”
At my words, Oze-san raised his hand and walked away.
♢♢
“You have a good voice, Silent-chan. You must be good at singing.”
Aochi-san spoke to me with a refreshingly bright smile. He must be the popular type. Just a moment ago, he’d been shocked that I spoke at all, but now he talks as if we were old friends.
And yet it doesn’t feel pushy. It feels warm, friendly.
Kaori-san especially liked him. I don’t know if she ever realized.
I too think he’s the most charming of the three—and at the same time, the one most likely to be left behind in this world.
“I haven’t sung since I became an adult. What about you, Aochi-san?”
“Aochi-san is good at singing and sports. But bad at drawing.”
Oomi-kun answered in his place, and Aochi-san pretended to smack him on the head.
“You two are really like brothers. I envy that.”
“Big brothers are nice.”
Mamoru-kun’s face shone with joy in the faint light from the ship’s bridge.
“I like the Harvester’s voice too. Maybe I like husky voices? Huh? Where is the Harvester?”
As Aochi-san looked around, a dry yet rich voice rang out behind him.
“Here.”
A voice like old wood. As if some ancient tree that had lived beyond imagination, knowing everything, had begun to speak.
He was seated against the wall of the deck’s storage shed—what Rhone had called a storehouse on the other ship. More lying down than sitting, really: his legs stretched out, his back and shoulders resting against the wall.
“Come sit, you all.”
When invited, you just want to rest there. Truly, he was a great tree. He didn’t even look that young, yet why was he so alluring?
I felt jealous of those who had received a piece of this man’s heart and gone on to the next world.
“Ulululululu.”
I was startled. Quiet as he had seemed, Ululu slipped in first beside the Harvester.
He looked up at the sky in the same posture, legs kicking.
I hurried to lie down beside him.
Aochi-san and Oomi-kun exchanged glances, then ran lightly to settle on the other side. Mamoru-kun took the best position of all, perched on the Harvester’s legs.
Above us spread a black sky I had never seen.
“The stars have fled, afraid of the god.”
The Harvester murmured.
I’d mistaken black for a color of threat. I thought it frightening, as if it would swallow me whole. But I was wrong. Black is gentle. It hides both the good and bad within. The Harvester is a man of black.
White—that’s what is frightening. A backdrop that exposes everything as it is.
I had thought it background, but at some point it came before me, and I was trapped inside. From white, there’s no escape. Unlike black, which allows you to aim for light, white leaves nowhere brighter to go. White is the color of the god.
“The god is lonely. Always alone, fighting in pure white.”
Born from white, black—the Harvester said sadly.
The midnight sky. Even if winter nights are long, how much time remains for this world?
“Whose side are you on? The god’s, or ours?”
To Aochi-san’s words, the Harvester gave a sigh-like laugh. His profile was beautiful. If he looked this way now, how breathtaking must he have been in youth—perhaps surpassing even the god.
“I’m on no one’s side. The god doesn’t want to destroy this world. It’s the moon that will destroy it.”
“The moon? I thought something was strange. Clear skies, but no moon. Too many oddities, I didn’t notice till now. Is it a new moon?”
“What do you mean, destroyed by the moon? It can’t literally crash into us, can it?”
“But I like the moon.”
“Uluu~”
Everyone spoke at once, and the Harvester smiled wryly, helpless. He could smile like this too. Again, he clutched my heart.
“Unfortunately, Aochi is right. The moon will fall. But it won’t be an impact. It will crush us quietly. You’ll see. At the end, this world will become nothing.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Nothingness must be boring.”
“I don’t want it to disappear.”
“Uuuuu…”
Again, everyone spoke at will. No one scolded. The Harvester’s eyes were gentle, like both father and mother, as he watched us.
I wanted to become nothing—that’s what I had thought, all my life.
And yet, even now, I found I wanted to live. No—“want to live” isn’t right. I wanted to continue existing.
“Soon the Triangle Five Lines will come.”
The Harvester gazed up at the sky and murmured.
“Another trap of the god? Quite the item collection. What’s next—Triangle Five Lines?”
Oomi-kun said it like a game, and the Harvester answered with a bitter smile.
“Something like letters, like a diagram. If strange characters float in the sky, don’t let them capture you. The figures can slip into your heart.”