Missing someone isn't a disease

I was afraid he would miss her, afraid he would forget her, and more afraid still that he would spend his whole life wearing one heavy, invisible coat after another, never able to live lightly again.

(1)

Two days earlier, I had been sitting outside the hospital room, carefully peeling an apple with a knife, when Toji, sitting across from me, suddenly said something out of nowhere that startled me so badly I nearly stabbed my hand.

He said, "Let's move."

I had been utterly stunned. I looked straight at him, hoping to find some hint of a joke in those deep green eyes. But there was none. Toji was serious.

From deciding to move to making it happen, we each had our own responsibilities. He looked for houses during the day, while I looked after Megumi. At night, Toji gave me the landlords' phone numbers and the property details, leaving me to narrow down the choices and talk to them.

He treated me with an incredible amount of respect, nothing like the adult who had so casually burned those photographs.

I labeled several photos of the houses with their locations and information about the surrounding neighborhoods, then spread them across the bed. Just as I picked up the phone to call the landlords one by one, a sleep-dazed Megumi slowly climbed off the bed and rested his head lightly against my shoulder.

"What's wrong, Megumi?" I reached up to support his head, and he let its full weight settle into my hand. His warm breath drifted intermittently through the gaps between my fingers.

"...Lili..."

Well, his memories were muddled again.

Megumi, or Megumi Zenin, or possibly Megumi Fushiguro-oh, whichever Megumi he was, the important thing right now was to soothe him first.

I set aside the phone tucked against my neck and gently wrapped both arms around him instead. Megumi tipped his head up slightly and buried himself in my arms.

My hand stroked his back over and over, but my eyes remained on the property details spread across the bed, while I calculated which house would be better value.

The little boy clinging to me and calling me Lili gradually came to his senses under my soothing touch. The moment he started stumbling over the name Yuanli, I let go.

"Feeling better?" I picked up the phone and discreetly moved a little farther away.

"...Mm." His reply was a trembling breath.

I held back a smile and reassured him. "It's fine. We're family. There's nothing embarrassing about hugging family."

His face flushed so red that he couldn't even manage a breathy reply. His embarrassment made it hard for me to imagine just how harsh his circumstances had been in his previous life. After all, young people his age were at the stage when they could embrace someone with their whole heart.

Hugs between sixteen and eighteen were ardent and honest. After eighteen, even hugs that asked for nothing in return became tinged with something hard to put into words-something gained, or something left unfulfilled.

Judging by Megumi's reaction, he had skipped that entire stage. That wasn't a good thing. Maybe I should try some desensitization training?

I reached out and took hold of him, drawing him closer bit by bit, testing his limits. Even when I had almost pulled him into my arms, he didn't say a word.

"Would you like another hug?"

That was actually a pretty unreasonable request. I was ready to be turned down at any moment; I was only testing his limits, after all.

But to my surprise, he nodded.

It was completely different from when he was half asleep and couldn't untangle his memories. Fully awake, he nestled into my arms of his own accord. His movements were awkward, like an android learning human behavior. His awareness was clear, and the commands it issued were precise, but by the time they reached his limbs, everything went haywire.

He stiffly raised his arms to try to hug me back. He wanted to get closer but didn't dare commit himself completely, so he could only rest his hands awkwardly on my shoulders. In the end, he even solemnly clarified who was hugging me right now, and that he wasn't under anyone else's influence.

I had to make this clear up front: I was still calm and rational. It was just that, that evening, I didn't manage to call a single landlord.

(2)

The house we finally signed for was a small detached home in the West District. The rent wasn't too expensive, since it was still some distance from the commercial district, but it was very close to the hospital.

After bringing Megumi home from the hospital, we hurriedly began packing.

There wasn't anything I absolutely had to take with me except the book holding the remnants of the photographs. I wasn't keeping it because I might decide to die again. Having decided to stay with Megumi, I would certainly follow through.

It was only something to hold on to-a hope that one day I would see her again.

I packed a few clothes and books at random, then walked into the living room. Megumi was already sitting on the sofa waiting for us. He had an easier time of it than I did.

He wasn't taking a single toy, and he only had a handful of clothes he wore in rotation. He had no memories or feelings that made him attached to this house.

Only Toji was left now, and he was also the one I worried about most.

The clock on the wall ticked from one in the afternoon to three. Not a single sound of anything being moved came from behind the tightly closed bedroom door.

I had imagined the scene inside: that enormous worm swallowing the wardrobe, swallowing the bed, then cleaning every trace of the room's atmosphere and sentiment away like a vacuum cleaner.

After the moving company called again and again and was about to come to the house themselves, I had no choice but to interrupt the time I had left to Toji.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside. None of the scenes I had imagined had happened. There was no enormous worm cleaning things away. The wardrobe, the bed, and even the man sitting on it were all unchanged.

Closing the door behind me, I said, "Do you need my help?"

Toji didn't react.

It seemed I would have to bring out my trump card.

"Dad!" That shout finally got a little reaction out of Toji.

He stroked the quilt beneath him, then decisively stood up. "Let's go."

Toji chose not to take anything. His brisk decisiveness stood in stark contrast to all the time he had spent delaying.

The more he acted like this, the more frightened I became. This was absolutely not a normal goodbye.

I suddenly thought of Ayako in the film Moscow. Had her fire really burned everything away? If it had, why would things have ended that way for her?

(3)

The new house was very empty. The landlord had left us only a child's bed, a special act of generosity after learning about Megumi.

After entering, I first checked that the water and electricity worked. I climbed up and down, casually exterminating a few "curses" hiding in corners that spoiled both the view and the air, then opened the windows to let the house air out.

The living room and kitchen were on the first floor, with the bedrooms on the second. In Japan, this kind of small detached house was very common in rural towns.

I carried the child's bed by hand into the room with a view of the cherry blossoms outside, then cleaned Toji's room and laid out a thick pad as a makeshift bed.

Just as I had looked after Yuanyin, I deftly settled them in and took good care of them. Unfortunately, neither of them was anywhere near as obedient as Yuanyin.

"Where are you sleeping?" Megumi asked me.

"In the room at the very back."

The child pattered over to take a look, then began altering my arrangements with extreme dissatisfaction.

"Have Toji sleep here."

Hmm, no. That room was too gloomy. He would start dwelling on things.

"It isn't right for Toji," I said, rejecting the suggestion.

A faint hostility toward Toji surfaced on Megumi's face. Then he continued, "Then I'll sleep here."

"It's even less right for you." Sweet little Megumi deserved to fall asleep amid autumn cherry blossoms. I could already imagine petals drifting onto his soft hair when a breeze swept through the house, and the child waking each morning to the sweet scent of flowers.

Megumi was very unhappy at being turned down. His little face darkened as he yawned, then he suddenly looked at me through hazy eyes and said, "Lili, you can stay with me too..."

"..."

Could fifteen-year-old Megumi come online? I kind of wanted to hear him say that.

I went over and soothed the child with practiced ease, patting his back. Only when he grew a little more alert and stammered out my full name did I reluctantly let him go.

Walking into the living room, I had to face the second person refusing to follow my arrangements: the adult.

Toji was sleeping on the floor, in exactly the spot where the sofa would be. Good heavens, even his sleeping position was the same.

"Toji. Don't sleep on the floor. Get up. I've made up your room." I crouched and nudged his shoulder.

Toji simply rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.

"Dad..."

His eyelids twitched.

"Dad! Dad!"

Toji abruptly sat up. "Ah... I heard you." Then he lay right back down.

"Dad, I hope you understand that I'm calling you because I want you to get up and sleep upstairs. Not because I want to hear you answer."

Believe me, I really wasn't angry. Just a tiny, tiny bit-fine, I was a little angry.

Autumn nights were cold and heavy with frost. Toji simply had slightly more developed muscles; at the end of the day, he was just an ordinary person. No matter how strong an ordinary person's constitution was, they could still get sick if they weren't careful.

Perhaps Yuanyin's death from illness had affected me too deeply. Or perhaps Megumi falling ill that night had driven my fear deeper and deeper.

Now, I took my family's health extremely seriously.

"It's pretty good sleeping here too." Toji rolled over and spoke with his back to me.

I really didn't know what to do with him. What else could I do but make the beds here?

I carried the bedding downstairs and spread it beside him, then took my own quilt out of the suitcase and laid it alongside his.

If he couldn't accept change, then what I could do wasn't force him or shake him out of it, but quietly stay by his side.

Lying on the bedding, I turned onto my side to look at Toji. His back was toward me, shaped like a perfect bow. Both its curve and its explosive power inspired awe.

I wasn't someone who treated others as substitutes, but honestly, Toji's back looked very much like Yuanyin's.

Yuanyin had once joked with me that her bones and sinews were made of steel, and half her muscles were metal. I didn't know whether she was mocking herself or joking. She had asked me, "Lili, would you dare call someone like me human?"

I had given her a hug then, and answered with a question of my own.

["Robots don't miss people. But Yuanyin, you would miss me, wouldn't you?"]

(4)

Toji rolled over, lying on his side to face me. His eyes were very empty, like a robot without a will of its own. Those green eyes were his scanner. It was as though he were scanning my identity, my composition, my face, trying to find another face that resembled mine.

-Did the scan give you the result you wanted?

Toji closed his eyes in disappointment.

I thought it wasn't that the scan had found nothing. It had found her, but he didn't dare look.

Toji wasn't a perfect robot, because he was missing someone, someone no program could simulate.

Touching the book I had kept tucked against my chest, I made a decision.

I placed it beside his pillow.

Toji opened his eyes and picked up the book. "What's this?"

He opened it to the first page. Tucked there was the person we both loved.

I knew that even though the photograph was incomplete, one glance was enough for the person he had wanted to scan for to come alive again in his mind.

I slowly moved closer, curling into his arms the way I had curled into Yuanyin's when I was little. Then I told him what I had never said aloud.

"I miss Yuanyin so much. I really, really miss her."

I heard the book being set down, felt his arms surround me, and felt our silent sobs resonate in time with each other.

I actually had no experience at all with the lesson of saying goodbye. This lesson was too difficult; I couldn't keep learning it alone. But now there were two of us. Whenever one of us couldn't go on, the other would pull them up without hesitation. It went both ways. We could each help the other see this lesson through.

After crying late into the night, I was unbearably sleepy. As I drifted off, I wondered whether, if Ryosuke had been beside Ayako on the day she was about to set the fire, that final blaze might instead have become a moment of reflection as they packed their bags, and a chance for them to hold each other and sob. Would they have kept supporting each other, and found their way out of that pain together?

Yes, Ayato Nanami was no good as a director. It really should have been me.