Choices

Sometimes, even I would become disoriented, unable to tell what day or year it was, which patch of earth lay beneath my feet, or which sky stretched overhead. Repeated reincarnations and tangled memories left me bewildered and uneasy, unsure how to cope.

And whenever that happened, Yuanli would patiently tell me, over and over, what time it was, and that she was still beside me.

(1)

While washing the dishes, I heard a piece of tableware fall to the floor behind me. I didn't hurry to turn around. Only after rinsing the suds from my hands and carefully drying them with a paper napkin did I turn to face this little mishap.

The child, hidden behind the table and chairs, stood in a puddle of pale brown liquid. The clatter had come from a cup lying shattered just millimeters away from him.

He lowered his head guiltily, refusing to look at me. His shoulders curled inward, making him seem to shrink almost entirely into the shadows beneath the table and chairs.

"Sorry. I'll clean it up." His soft little voice came from behind a table leg. His ears, which he couldn't hide, glowed under the warm light, red as cherry tomatoes cut into thirds.

I looked at the familiar pattern on the broken cup scattered across the floor and caught a faint trace of coffee in the air.

Oh, I see. He wanted to help me. But there seems to have been a little "accident" along the way.

So what caused this "accident"? Were his fingers not dexterous enough?

Toji and I sat side by side on the couch while a comedy show in the style of manzai played on the television. Its unexpected scenes and sudden sound effects were enough to draw in anyone watching.

But my gaze remained on the child squatting on the dining room floor, scrubbing a cloth with both hands.

When he had offered to clean up himself, my first instinct had actually been to refuse. After all, what family would let a child who had only just turned two tackle the little household chores of everyday life?

Just as I was about to speak, I suddenly realized that his mind, his soul, was fifteen. What right did I have to refuse a teenager's request for independence?

So I agreed, while quietly taking care of the things beyond his abilities.

I watched his little hands, not even half the size of Toji's palm, deftly scrub the coffee-stained cloth.

I ruled out his fingers as the cause of the "accident." While I was still considering other external factors, he stood and picked up the little basin, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of the blue-gray shadows beneath his eyes.

The mystery was solved, but I couldn't fix it. At that moment, I was merely a recorder standing at the scene of a disaster, able to do nothing but watch.

(2)

Which was more painful: being unable to eat, or being unable to sleep at night?

I had enough experience to answer that question. For me, it was the latter.

From the day I lost my sense of taste, I had arrived prematurely at the twilight of life. Perhaps my situation was even worse. After all, the elderly still retained a dying sense of taste, whereas mine was probably already dead.

During the most unbearable period after losing my sense of taste, I would endlessly miss the flavors of sourness, sweetness, bitterness, spice, and salt. But given enough time, that longing wore away, gradually turning to numbness.

It took me about four days to grow accustomed to that shift from longing to numbness. For me, losing one avenue to happiness wasn't all that painful. Sleep, however, was different.

I couldn't stand even a single day of sleepless nights.

On nights when I couldn't sleep, my thoughts churned. Whether painful or tender, those fragments of memory would all become veiled in sorrowful tears in the lonely, empty night.

Only sleep offered an escape from them, leaving tears nowhere to flow.

I wasn't very worried about Toji anymore, because at least he could sleep until morning. In fact, he spent much of his time remembering our shared family through sleep.

-But what about you, Megumi? What are you going to do?

Once again, I heard a door burst open outside my room. I was a light sleeper and always woke immediately. I threw back the covers, got out of bed, and habitually picked up a blanket.

Outside my bedroom door sat the child in his usual spot, with a moonless night beyond.

He was trembling all over, his hands overlapped, casting an animal-like shadow in the glow of the night-light.

He looked as though he wanted to break out of this "cage" and rush toward a battlefield I knew nothing about.

Postwar trauma. Both Yuanli and I had suffered from it.

People who had lived through war often struggled to return to peaceful lives. And I would wager that Megumi had died in a particularly brutal battle.

Holding the blanket, I went into the kitchen to find a cup, then suddenly remembered tonight's "accident." I could only pick up a bowl and make myself a bowl of coffee.

Ah, let me have some coffee and think carefully about what I should do.

(3) Interlude

The instant the cup hit the floor, Megumi Fushiguro jolted awake from the drowsiness that had nearly pulled him under.

He blinked hard. The scene before him swayed and blurred.

Why is it swaying?

-It seems my body is swaying.

Then why is it blurry?

-Wake up already, sleepy me.

His vision came into focus, and the first thing he saw was a broken shard traced with green leaves.

Green leaves.

In this unfamiliar house, only one person used a cup patterned with green leaves. And only that person's cup carried a faint scent of coffee no matter how many times it was washed.

A gaze settled on him. It was Yuanli.

-Should I try to explain?

To thank Yuanli for the minced ginger she had inadvertently added to his supplemental porridge that evening, he had instinctively wanted to help when he saw that bastard Toji lie down on the couch after dinner without a care.

He had wanted to help, yet this was how his help had turned out. How could he possibly justify himself? Better to apologize and make amends.

But would he have the chance to choose to make amends?

A small, pale blue plastic basin filled with clean water was set beside him, with a duck-patterned cleaning cloth draped over it. The mess on the floor had been cleared away, leaving only the cooling coffee.

For the first time, Megumi Fushiguro learned that he, too, could have a choice.

-Choice. What an extravagant word.

When he was born, he couldn't choose his parents.

When he was two, he couldn't choose his surname or his family.

When he was five, he couldn't choose whether he was a person or a commodity worth a billion.

When he was thirteen, Tsumiki Fushiguro fell unconscious because of a curse. From that moment onward, he had no choice about his future.

When he was fifteen, during the Shibuya Incident, his choice could hardly have been called a choice. He had to sacrifice himself.

Now his life had begun again, but he still had no choice about his memories.

Megumi Fushiguro couldn't sleep. His mind was such a mess.

At first, faint images of his previous life appeared in his mind whenever he closed his eyes. A few days later, it grew worse.

He pushed open his bedroom door, and outside was a battlefield shrouded in smoke. The ceiling was gone, replaced by an impenetrably dark night. The furnishings that should have stood before him were instead a blood-soaked scene.

"Sealed."

-Who? Who was sealed?

A voice drifted toward him, sometimes distant, sometimes close.

"Gojo-sensei has been sealed."

He stumbled, feeling his legs weaken. He reassured himself that it was all right. There were still his seniors, still the reliable Nanami...

"Dead."

As though struck by sudden, terrible news, he didn't dare ask anything else. But the voice wouldn't spare him.

"Kento Nanami is dead."

He bit down hard on his lower lip, until it bled. The smoke and dust around him thickened, and the Curse User named Haruta Shigemo stood before him.

Almost reflexively, he was about to call out the move that would take his enemy down with him again.

His vision went black. Sight, hearing, and touch were all wrapped tightly in a soft blanket carrying the warmth of having been looked after by the sun.

"What time is it now?"

A muffled voice passed through the blanket and slipped into his ears.

He answered, "It's the Shibuya Incident."

The person outside the blanket fell silent for a moment, then asked again, "What time is it now?"

He gave the same answer, but a trace of uncertainty crept into his tone.

The voice kept asking him the same question, over and over, until he was at a loss for words and gradually calmed down.

The battlefield's rough ground began to turn smooth and cool. The clamorous white noise quieted, until he could hear only his own breathing.

He was in an unfamiliar yet peaceful house.

"What time is it now?"

The question suddenly sounded familiar. He felt that he had said it himself, not long ago. Let him think. He was calm now. He could remember.

Right, Yuanli. I asked Yuanli.

"Is that you, Yuanli?"

The person outside the blanket went completely silent. The silence made him panic, made him feel as though he couldn't breathe.

Just as he began anxiously trying to escape this inescapable net, a corner of the dark blanket lifted. A faint light seeped inside, and with that glow came a person.

He instinctively reached out to block her. His hand didn't touch the edge of her clothes, only a warm cup.

"It's me." Yuanli's voice sounded both very near and very far away.

He took the cup. The faint scent of milk and its rising warmth pulled him out of that weightless battlefield and back into gravity's embrace.

"Megumi, do you know where you are?"

Under the blanket, Megumi Fushiguro couldn't see Yuanli or her expression, but he could hear her voice with perfect clarity.

"Mm." He was at home.

The blanket shifted slightly. Yuanli was shaking her head.

What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?

The movement stopped, and he heard Yuanli speak in her cool, clear voice, slowly and gently.

"You can choose for yourself whether it's the battlefield or the house. Whatever you choose, I'll stay beside you until the memory ends."

The warm cup in his hands suddenly felt too hot to hold. When he bit down again on his already split lower lip, he could no longer feel any pain. There was even a piercing sense of relief.

He heard himself ask, trying to remain calm despite his trembling voice, "Choose?"

The person whose presence seemed to drift near and far resolutely moved a small step closer. Even now, he could feel that they were still far apart, at a perfectly polite distance. Yet the words that followed her breath sounded as close as though they rested against his eardrums.

"Of course."

What moved him wasn't a question that merely offered him a choice in words, but the fact that she had created room for him to choose.

The right to choose had landed in Megumi Fushiguro's hands. Now, which memory would he choose?

Ah, let him have a sip of warm milk too, and think it over carefully.