Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe Read Free Book Online

environment, all data would be analyzed, and there would be no questioning of Akira Mitani’s final decision.
    Akira’s peculiar way of doing things had received quite a bit of attention ten years ago when his father passed away. The topic remained to this day a matter of discussion among their relatives. Even though Wataru was only a baby at the time, he had heard the story so many times at family reunions that he remembered the incident as though he had seen it himself.
    Akira had shocked many of his relatives by refusing to conform to the “way things are done.” At his father’s funeral, he questioned the order of names on the invitation list. He questioned the gifts some people brought. He questioned everything. Apparently, it was quite a spectacle.
    Eventually it was poor Grandma, in mourning because of her husband’s passing, who finally spoke to him. “Akira, there will be no more of this,” she said tearfully. “At least give your father the quiet funeral he deserves.” If she hadn’t intervened, their relatives said, the casket wouldn’t have left the house for a week.
    With that one incident, Akira’s reputation was set among their relatives as an “intelligent man, quiet, and gentle enough…but when he gets going, watch out!”
    “Of course, I knew that all along,” Kuniko would say, laughing.
    Akira Mitani was not a scary father. Wataru could not remember ever having been yelled at or struck. So far, he had not even had to face his father’s ultimate weapon: the logical argument that others feared so much. Of course, this was partly because his father was too busy to spend time on family discipline.
    There were things about his father that Wataru didn’t completely understand. But this had never bothered him. The door to his father was simply not open, nor would it probably ever be open, but as long as Wataru cared for whatever was beyond it, and his father cared for him back, that was enough.
    Wataru even liked his father. In this world, where so many people liked nothing more than to talk about themselves—his friends, people on television, at school—he thought his father was cool to work so quietly all day. Like most children his age, Wataru had an image of his father that was nothing more than the image his mother, Kuniko, had of her husband, Akira.
    Even if all Akira did was nod his head and listen, Kuniko seemed to love relating things she had found interesting to him, or things that had angered her. She would even run things by him that had already been decided. Wataru had been like that, too, as a child, always eager to talk. Lately though, he had hardened, like spaghetti prepared al dente , and become less a pure child and more something approaching a young adult. This new Wataru could simply say “Yeah,” when asked a question, and nothing more. Maybe that was the difference between men and women. Or maybe it was something that Kuniko didn’t have, that Wataru had gotten from his father’s genes.
    Still, tonight, their usual exchange had left him feeling strangely unsatisfied. His thoughts stirred as they walked along the hallway to their front door. He suddenly found that he wanted to say many things to his father. Were there really such things as ghosts? If everyone truly believes something, and thinks something is interesting, even if it’s ridiculous, should I play along? If I don’t play along, will they hate me? You don’t think I should, do you, Dad? But they never called you names, did they? Even if something’s wrong and I know it, how do I do something about it without it turning into a fight? Will I be like you someday?
    And what about Kaori Daimatsu—wordless, cut off from the outside world. Dad, she was just like…like a princess trapped in a castle tower in a video game. I didn’t believe such girls really existed. What’s wrong with her? Why can’t I stop thinking about her? Have you ever felt this way about something?
    The words swirled in his head, but