Another, Vol. 2 by Yukito Ayatsuji Read Free Book Online Page B

question I’d had when Mr. Chibiki had said that. If “almost none” meant the same thing as “we can’t say it’s never happened,” then that would mean there had to be “a case where they stopped partway through,” meaning—
    Had that rare case been the year that Reiko was in third year, fifteen years ago?
    “Why is that?” Unable to contain my excitement, my words came out forcefully. “What made the ‘disasters’ stop that year, Reiko?”
    But her reply was evasive: “…It’s no use. It’s all fuzzy. I can’t really remember.”
    She thumped herself on the head a few more times, and languidly shook her head.
    “Oh…But you know what? Something definitely happened that summer…”
    In the end, that was all I got out of Reiko that night.
      
    3
    During what remained of June, I’d had two other opportunities to make my way to the town of Misaki, to “Blue Eyes Empty to All, in the Twilight of Yomi.”
    Once, I swung by first thing after going to the municipal hospital for a prognosis on my collapsed lung.
     I paid the fee, looked at the dolls, and went down, alone, into the basement display room, but I didn’t encounter Mei that day. I hadn’t told her I was coming, so I don’t even know if she was at home. I didn’t venture to ask the old woman—“Grandma Amane”—to have Mei come down. I contented myself with viewing several new creations by Kirika, then left a little less than an hour later.
    It feels weird coming here and not running into Mei… The thought went through my mind that day.
    The other time was the last day of June—the evening of Tuesday, the 30th. I’d wound up going because Mei invited me over on the way home from school.
    I didn’t go up to their home on the third floor that day. And I didn’t see Kirika, either. We passed the time on the sofas on the first floor of the gallery, still empty of customers.
    That was the first time I accepted the tea that Grandma Amane made for us. It was far, far tastier than canned iced tea at least, that’s for sure.
    “July starts tomorrow.” Mei was the one who spoke first. I think it’s fair to say those words implied something like “At last, after tomorrow, we’ll get the moment of truth.”
    I was all too aware of that myself, but right then I deliberately dodged the issue. “The end-of-semester exams are starting next week already…Will you be okay?”
    Mei pursed her lips a little petulantly. “That’s not really something someone who’s ‘not there’ needs to worry about, is it?”
    “I guess that’s true, but…”
    “I wish I could see your house sometime, Sakakibara.”
    I faltered for a snappy response to the next of her out-of-the-blue observations.
    “Uh, you mean—wait—my house in Tokyo?”
    “No, here in Yomiyama.” Mei shook her head slightly and narrowed her right eye coolly. “The house where your mom grew up, in Furuchi.”
    “Huh…Why?”
    “…Just because.”
    A short while later, Mei led me down to the basement. A gloomy string melody was playing in the gallery. I thought it might even be the same music that had been playing the first time I’d come here in May.
    The space was crypt-like and sunken in chill, as always. The dolls were set out here, there, and everywhere, with all their various parts. I didn’t feel quite as captive to the sensation that I needed to breathe for all of them that day. Maybe I really was getting used to it.
    Straight ahead, all the way at the back of the room, with a deep red curtain at its back, stood a black hexagonal coffin. We headed over to it; then Mei turned silently back to look at me. She stood in such a way that her body hid from my view the doll shut up in the coffin, the doll that looked exactly like her—
    She touched her fingers to the eye patch over her left eye.
    “I took this off for you once before down here, didn’t I?”
    “Uh…yeah.”
    The left eye beneath her eye patch, that I’d seen that day…Of course I remembered it