Fireworks Fade Away (Part 4)

"Mr. Izaki?"

He had been about to go out and tell the butler about it, but unexpectedly, the butler came to the hospital room first. His expression was even more serious than Kitagawa Ryo had expected.

"Uh, do I have some terminal illness? Or did you not sleep well last night, Mr. Izaki?"

As usual, Kitagawa Ryo joked around and stretched his limbs.

"I feel pretty good now. Can I be discharged?"

Mr. Izaki looked him over. Kitagawa Ryo's complexion was much better than the day before, so he nodded.

"Let's wait for the doctor to examine you again this morning. If everything's fine, you can go home. The young master has always been in good health."

"Sounds good."

Kitagawa Ryo swung his arms in approval. Even he thought his illness this time was purely the result of several factors piling up—a coincidence so unlikely it was practically astronomical.

"Hm? Why's that umbrella here?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a black umbrella leaning against the wall. Kitagawa Ryo frowned and walked over to take a look. The I&K on the handle proved it belonged to Ichinose Honami.

"Miss Ichinose probably forgot to take it with her last night."

"Come on, who forgets their umbrella on a rainy day? They'd notice when they got caught in the rain."

Kitagawa Ryo edged toward the hospital room door and poked his head out, looking around.

"Or did Honami come by this morning?"

"But Miss Ichinose definitely didn't take this umbrella with her last night. I happened to see it at the hospital's lost-and-found."

Mr. Izaki's account was so calm that it was impossible to tell whether he was joking. He sighed, then continued:

"Miss Ichinose hasn't seemed quite herself lately, has she? Have you really noticed, young master?"

"...Even if I have, so what? I'm leaving soon anyway. Who knows what things will be like when I come back in a year? It can take people more than a decade to grow close, but only a few months to grow distant."

Kitagawa Ryo shrugged, pretending not to care.

"Would you like to hear what I think of your relationship with each other, young master? I suppose I've watched you both grow up."

Mr. Izaki said this, and when Kitagawa Ryo nodded, he continued:

"Miss Ichinose is afraid lately. What she's never realized is that your existence means far too much to her. In fact, she's always been very sensitive to the possibility of losing you. But things are different now. Perhaps your presence has grown too large in her life? She's terrified of the possibility of losing you. That's why she's been acting out more than usual lately."

"Perhaps you don't think there's anything wrong, young master. You may feel that Miss Ichinose hasn't changed much, but that's because you still see her as a well-adjusted girl who gets embarrassed and acts spoiled. For Miss Ichinose, though, this is abnormal."

"What do you think of her relationship with Miss Karuizawa?"

"Not very good? The two of them didn't have much to do with each other in the first place."

"But before, Miss Ichinose would have been more friendly."

"...She doesn't have to be friendly to everyone. Nobody can be. If she can learn to judge people for herself—even if she shows a little hostility—I think that would be growth for Honami."

"Is that so? Is that why you chose Miss Karuizawa?"

"Maybe that was my intention at first, just like when I lied to Honami and told her Maki had confessed to me."

Mr. Izaki fell silent for a moment.

"Was that a test?"

"No, it wasn't."

Kitagawa Ryo ran his fingers over the delicate patterns on the umbrella handle, then raised his head and looked Mr. Izaki in the eye.

"I want Honami to think seriously about our relationship for herself, to let her... Does that sound a little strange?"

He gave a self-deprecating laugh.

"It's like when I gave Hotaru to her. I kept stressing that the cat was hers because I wanted her to know she had something of her own to decide what to do with. She could make her own memories. When thinking about things, she could consider... Ichinose Honami herself first. I think I'm almost there. Just one more step."

"If you have your own plans, young master, then I won't interfere."

"But please allow me to ask one last question."

"If Miss Ichinose ever insists on staying out in the rain and refuses to go home, how would you stop her?"

"The easiest thing would be to get caught in the rain with her, make her worry about me, and then use that chance to take her home."

With a whoosh, Kitagawa Ryo opened the large umbrella. Its enormous black canopy almost filled Mr. Izaki's entire field of vision. He tilted the edge upward.

"But my way is to give her an umbrella big enough to cover two people."

Mr. Izaki nodded, then bowed slightly.

"I'll go get your breakfast."

As he left the hospital room, Mr. Izaki thought back to his conversation with Kitagawa Ryo. He didn't believe he necessarily understood Ichinose Honami better than Kitagawa did. After all, Kitagawa was the one who had been by her side all these years. Still, Mr. Izaki felt a faint unease. He recalled taking Ichinose Honami out of the hospital the previous night. Unlike how she had acted in front of Kitagawa Ryo, she had seemed like a doll on the verge of breaking, as if some spring inside her had stopped working and the gears were grinding with a clatter.

The personality that had been born inside her would surely destroy her emotions and lead her future toward ruin.

The thought suddenly came to Mr. Izaki, but it was only his own imagination.

Miss Ichinose had always stood somewhere no ordinary girl could reach. Her personality was beyond the comprehension of normal people, almost too extraordinary to exist in reality. Yet in Miss Ichinose, it didn't seem strange or unnatural at all. Even so, those repressed emotions would one day burst forth. Perhaps someday, for someone, she would abandon every position she had held until then.

Mr. Izaki let out a long sigh as he looked toward the hospital room.

And that person was most likely Kitagawa Ryo himself.

After his morning checkup, the doctor told Kitagawa Ryo that it would be best to rest in the hospital for one more day. With nothing else to do, he could only look at the grass and flowers in the hospital courtyard. It had rained the night before, and the whole courtyard smelled of damp earth, that scent unique to the aftermath of rain. It wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't pleasant either.

Karuizawa Kei arrived with Mr. Izaki at eleven that morning. She hadn't found him in his hospital room, so after walking around for a while, she finally found Kitagawa Ryo in the courtyard, watching ants carry things.

"Are you feeling better, senpai?"

When Kitagawa Ryo looked up, he saw Karuizawa Kei standing right behind him, looking fresh and lovely. She was wearing a sleeveless dress in shades of white and blue, giving her a clean, refreshing look. Seeing a girl with that friendly, next-door-neighbor feel on a summer morning really did put one at ease.

"I think I'm well enough to be discharged."

Kitagawa Ryo brushed the dust off his pants, stood up, and stretched.

"I don't see Ichinose-san."

Karuizawa Kei rose onto her tiptoes and looked around.

"But her umbrella's in the hospital room."

"Honami forgot it last night. She should come by to pick it up today."

"Oh, I see."

Karuizawa Kei took two paper cranes folded from paper out of her bag.

"I forgot to tell you yesterday, senpai. When you fainted, you accidentally knocked over the glass bottle by your bed. Later, when the medical staff came in and carried you onto the stretcher, they didn't notice it either. A lot of the paper cranes inside got crushed underfoot. These are the two fairly intact ones I picked up from under the bed."

"Really?"

Kitagawa Ryo tried to remember. There did seem to have been a sharp sound, like something breaking.

"But it's lucky you weren't cut by the glass. The bottle fell right behind your heel. If you'd fallen backward... Pah, pah, I shouldn't say that."

Karuizawa Kei watched Kitagawa Ryo turning the two paper cranes over in his hands, then asked curiously:

"Did Ichinose-san give them to you?"

"Yeah. I was twelve back then, and Honami even said she'd fold twelve hundred for me."

Kitagawa Ryo tapped the head of one of the paper cranes. The little figures were folded quite exquisitely. Even though she had ultimately given him only a few dozen, it was clear how much effort Ichinose Honami had put into them.

"I remember the legend says that if you fold a thousand cranes, you can make a wish."

Karuizawa Kei knew what paper cranes symbolized. When she had given Ichinose Maki a present, she'd considered folding some herself, but gave up because she didn't have enough time.

"That's what they say, but it's the same idea as drawing a love fortune at a temple."

"If it's someone you love, you don't have to fold a thousand. If it's someone you don't love, folding a thousand won't make you fall in love with her."

"If you really take this sort of thing seriously, believing that folding a thousand cranes can save a sick person's life or win back a lover's heart, just like in a story..."

Kitagawa Ryo released one of the paper cranes. He watched as the wind carried it up into the sky, where it soon disappeared without a trace.

"It'll fly away."

Kitagawa Ryo sat at the table, writing a greeting card. His phone was on his right, and a steaming mug of cocoa on his left. He held his pen, looking rather hesitant. More than a dozen sheets of scrap paper lay piled beside him, each one beginning differently.

It had been a long time since Kitagawa Ryo had given Ichinose Honami a birthday present. Five years had passed since he gave her that umbrella when they were twelve.

Kitagawa Ryo and Ichinose Honami had been exchanging birthday presents since they were seven. Throughout elementary school, they had even developed a strange sort of pattern. If he gave her something handmade one year, she would make him something by hand in return. What Kitagawa Ryo remembered most clearly was when, at eleven, he had gotten the ridiculous idea of making Ichinose Honami a pair of gloves. In the end, she received a tangled mass of yarn that was impossible to identify.

Of course, Ichinose Honami's return gift that time had been just as unusable. The thing she called a "scarf" was no better than the gloves. In the end, the two of them took apart the gloves and scarf, which neither could stand to look at, and turned them back into yarn. Hotaru got several yarn-ball toys out of it.

Back then, they'd thought it didn't matter. They would have plenty more birthdays together. At one a year, there would be enough chances to experience all sorts of firsts.

Because they believed there would be countless next times, they hadn't cared about those first times.

Kitagawa Ryo abandoned another opening and thought carefully about whether giving someone a handwritten card made sense in modern society. In the end, though, he scratched his head and unfolded a fresh sheet.

Karuizawa Kei sat beside him, practicing how to fold paper cranes with the scraps Kitagawa Ryo had thrown away. She'd suddenly become interested in the craft, and didn't seem bored at all. She folded all the sheets covered in all sorts of rambling lines—"Happy birthday, Honami-chan," "I hope when you read this card," "When was the last time I gave you a birthday present?"—into flapping paper cranes. The written side was folded inside, so nothing showed on the outside.

Kitagawa Ryo knew why he couldn't concentrate. He was waiting for Ichinose Honami to come. A phone call would do, too. He didn't believe Honami wouldn't come to get her umbrella, but it was already three o'clock, and the hospital room door still hadn't opened again. His phone, sitting to his right, hadn't shown any sign of a call either.

He felt strangely stubborn about it. If Ichinose Honami didn't call him first, he wouldn't contact her either. Kitagawa Ryo spun his pen and stared at the dark screen, as if it might light up at any moment to show Ichinose Honami's picture. But it never did.

Kitagawa Ryo leaned over the table, tapping it with his pen. He gradually fell asleep. The biggest effect being sick had on him these past two days was probably making him drowsy, as if he were catching up all at once on the sleep he'd missed. His nap wasn't long, but when he woke, his expression turned a little strange.

"What's wrong?"

Karuizawa Kei had finished folding all the paper cranes. She sat there admiring her handiwork. Unfortunately, compared to the one she'd used as a model, hers were noticeably rougher. She was wondering how to improve when she looked up and met Kitagawa Ryo's pensive gaze.

"I had a dream just now."

Karuizawa Kei listened as Kitagawa Ryo described his dream. In that world, he and Karuizawa Kei had hardly interacted at all. Though he sometimes saw news about school bullying on TV, he had never met her.

"What about Ichinose-san?"

Karuizawa Kei pressed her lips together, seeming somewhat dissatisfied with the dream.

"...She was a neighbor who'd moved in not long ago. I only knew her name."

Even Kitagawa Ryo found that surprising. In the dream, Ichinose Honami had no childhood friend named Kitagawa Ryo. On her younger sister's thirteenth birthday, she had chosen to steal a hair clip as a present for her sister. Then her mother had dragged her to the store, where she had prostrated herself on the ground and apologized.

The awful turn of events had made Kitagawa Ryo feel uncomfortable from the bottom of his heart. It was an unmistakable nightmare.

"It was just a strange dream that didn't make any sense. You don't need to worry about it."

Karuizawa Kei gently comforted Kitagawa Ryo, whose face had turned rather pale.

"In reality, everyone in the Ichinose family got a hair clip because of you, didn't they?"

"Yeah."

Kitagawa Ryo replied in a low voice. Suddenly, he knew what to write in the birthday card. He picked up his pen and began writing—not on the scrap paper, but directly on the simple card:

"What I want to tell Honami on her sixteenth birthday is this:

"Time may blur our memories until they're indistinct, but it also proves that the days we spent together were not false. Our bodies are gradually growing, and our hearts are growing stronger along with them. Perhaps someday, Honami will hate who she is now, but I hope she knows that who she is now isn't the end, and that we won't end as the people we are now.

"I know Honami doesn't like looking back. She's always looking toward the future. But I still hope you can remember how you felt in the past:

"The feeling of cherishing someone, the feeling of liking someone.

"The feeling of gentleness, the feeling of warmth, the feeling of happiness.

"The feeling of sadness, the feeling of regret, the feeling of pain.

"I don't think these things are meaningless, because they make up who you are.

"It doesn't matter if they seem insignificant. I want those feelings to stay in your heart. I hope they can become your will and your weapon.

"But I still hope you can become a more genuine person. I hope you can find happiness like any other ordinary girl. Honami has remarkable talent, but sometimes I think it wouldn't matter if she were just an ordinary person, as long as she could smile. It's all right to cry or get angry. You can sulk, be selfish, and even give me a hard time.

"I hope you'll trust your own heart when you make judgments. I hope you'll care a little more about yourself. If a situation arises where you have to sacrifice yourself to save someone else, don't throw yourself away without a second thought. You're not really an all-powerful angel, and you're certainly not a prisoner born carrying original sin.

"These hopes may be arrogant of me, but they're also my most sincere wishes.

"Happy birthday."

The first bad news Ichinose Honami received on her birthday was that her mother had collapsed at work from overexertion. The timing was so uncanny that, for a moment, Ichinose Honami wondered if her mother had done it on purpose, but she immediately dismissed the absurd thought.

She splashed cold water on her face to shock herself awake and force herself to stay alert at four in the morning. Ichinose Honami hurried through the hospital corridors without stopping, registering, picking up medicine, asking questions, and speaking with people from her mother's company. By the time she had finished dealing with everything, the sky was already beginning to brighten.