Chapter 04 – She Hated the Rain
Kawada Sakura hated the rain.
A storm would blow away the petals of the cherry blossom in peak bloom. She was never allowed outside when the winds were too fierce, and she would not see what was happening to the tree. In spring like now, she would hate for a storm to come.
She hated the rain. A normal rain might not do much harm, but she hated it anyways.
It never rained that night after all.
~ . ~ . ~ . . . ~ . ~ . ~
The flint sparked, lit the gas and a small flame emerged from the lighter.
Sho with that carefully handled fire as knelt down to prevent the occasional wind from extinguishing it. He guided the fire to the crumpled paper in his other hand, when started to burn he put it into the heap he and Sakura gathered.
From the lighter, to the paper, to the trash, the flame started small but gradually, it got bigger. Its reach would extend. Soon enough,
It would extend. And it would burn.
Sho satisfied seeing the heap burning nicely and walked to where Sakura was. She was sitting on a nearby rock. Sho kept standing.
"As expected, watching flames at night is better than in the day." The boy said. Sakura wholly agreed.
This place was a clearing with many trees around making the surrounding seem darker. However, because it was like this that the flames could look so radiant and beautiful. If they were to burn things in the morning, the sun would overwhelm the flame making it seem weak.
Within the veil of the night and the cover from trees, everything would seem dark. The sky, fortunately, had the moon but the ground had nothing. In this dark place, the light was the flames. Only in this kind of situation could the fire become brighter than anything.
"…So… What did you bring?" He asked after some time had gone past.
The Indigo-haired girl stood, straightened her posture. She brought out something from her sling bag, and said, "A love letter, I guess?"
"Eh…?" Sho was obviously shocked as he looked at her.
"There was this person whom I liked in middle school," Sakura explained. "I always watched him in the classroom but I never worked up the courage to confess. I was afraid that he might turn me down, and at the same time, I felt like I was not ready for any relationship. There were other reasons as well, and with them all combined, I ended up never confessing."
"…Then he sent you a love letter?"
Sakura laughed a little, shaking her head. She stared at the letter in her hand. "No. This is the love letter that I was supposed to give to him. Graduation was approaching that time, and I heard my classmates writing letters to their crushes. Confessing through letters seemed easier than doing it in person and I was prepared for whatever he would answer. It was my last chance too and I risked everything. But when I stayed late at school so that I could slip the letter into his shoe locker, I saw him. He had a girl with him. The next day, I found out that they were dating."
"…I see. That's a shame then. Do you still like him?"
"Not anymore, I think. There's a little regret though."
"I see." The boy gazed at the flames again. The girl continued, knowing this.
"If I had worked up the courage, would he have answered my feelings? That kind of regret." She walked forward. "But it was all in the past and there's no point thinking about it."
Sakura held the letter above the red flames and the light illuminated it. It was a white envelope with blue-colored patterns. The silhouette of the folded letter could be seen through the envelope. The fire kept on burning. Sparks flew.
Sho spoke.
"There are some things you can't redo."
The letter fell and burned.
Sakura could not easily let go of her feelings and she had regrets about it. But it was better to be forgotten. She had learned to move on. Although it remained doubtful to her why she still held some feelings for the letter, it was better to burn it so that she wouldn't be reminded again.
"The next one will be test papers. I nearly failed my English Subject, and these are my test papers. I never liked this subject. My father gave me a hard time at home that time and even decrease my allowance for a month."
"Ah. Yes, parents truly do that."
"Yes, they do!" Without too much delay, she threw the papers. Earlier the love letters gave her the feeling of loss and longing as it burned. The test papers, invoked nothing. She never really cared for her grades, especially in her worst subject which was English. She just brought them since she could not find anything else.
"And for the last, my father's pair of slippers."
Sakura, with a moment of pause, casually toss her father's favorite rubber slippers in the flames as well.
"H-hey…! Was that enough for you to hate him like that?" The boy sounded a little worried.
"No. I love my father." Sakura grinned. "He has spares at home. I checked before taking them. I know what I'm going to do is bad, but I wanted to do this at least once."
"Ah. I think I know that feeling. Sometimes, doing the things that are not meant to be done, can be quite liberating."
Sakura thought of the consequences of her actions. Her father would be mad while looking for it. She would play innocent when that happens.
The slippers were slowly burning very slowly, few parts started to melt. The flames were not strong enough to burn it alight. The flames had gotten weaker as the fuel was consumed. But as it was mostly plastic, only the upper part of the heap was burning. The underneath trashes were untouched by the flames.
As Sakura was debating in her mind if she should do something, she noticed Sho returning by her side again. It seemed that the boy went away for a moment to take something. In his hand was the wooden rod that he used yesterday to turn over the pile.
Sakura stared at him. Sho noticed it returned the gaze and then handed her the stick. Sakura wordlessly accepted it. The length was a bit shorter than her height and her hand could wrap around its width. One end was visibly burnt black, apparently because of being exposed to the fire. She moved ahead.
The fire was radiating, despite being dying, brilliantly. The girl plunged the stick in the heap of trash, then turn them over to the fire. She repeated the process six more times. With the plastic exposed to the heat, they started burning. The flames grew, with each stroke the girl did, the flames grew.
She guided a part of Styrofoam in the flames, it melted instantly. Next, she pushed the rubber slippers through the raging flames. They started melting soon and a pungent smell wafted through the air. Sakura never liked this smell. Burning wood was way better.
Her brows twitched due to the smell. She covered her nose with her hand.
"Kawada-san, the stick will burn that way."
Sakura realized that the other end of the wooden rod was still in the burning heap. She quickly pulled it out but its end was already burning. It was as if she was holding a torch with a gentle flame. She held the rod and pulled the flames close to her.
She slowly swayed it, as if playing to be a mage of fire.
Then she held the rod in slant with both hands and turned around to Sho in a big motion. With a smile on her face, she said, "Don't I look like some magician, right now?"
Sho was perplexed, and his mouth was slightly open. He closed them only to open them again
"You're right," he said as he also smiled. "You kinda looked like one."
They both smiled at each other. After Sakura extinguished the flame in the stick, she went over to Sho as they found a place nearby to sit. They watched the fire in silence. Plastics, different from woods and leaves can burn longer. The trash heap right now would probably last for a while.
Sakura sat on the log, nearby was the rock where the boy sat. She could see Sho's green hair illuminated with a tinge of orange and his eyes were, as expected, focused on the fire. Sakura recalled that she should apologize to the boy. She was a little scared that Sho would not forgive her. But it was okay. She had prepared for it. Sakura looked down on the dim soil, steadying her breath.
"Kawada-san, I will tell you about my story."
She suddenly felt cold. The wind blew earlier, and she was quite far from the flames now but it was not the cause of her bad feeling.
"Our house burned down four years ago."
[...I know. I was here that time.] Sakura prepared herself for whatever was going to happen next.
"We moved after that. My family doesn't want to remember what happened that day, so we never came back here."
Sakura listened to him. After he would finish telling his story, she would accept every consequence of her action.
She would admit her sin, and she would apologize for burning their house.
However, she could have never imagined what he would say next.
"My little brother died in that fire, you see."
—The girl sucked the cold air; she felt the chill piercing her lungs.
"Mom and Dad went on a trip by themselves," Sho started. "I was left with my little brother and everything was fine until we had a little scuffle as siblings."
Sakura's hands clenched, her breathing became rough, her body tensed. Sho's voice was regretful and melancholic. But right now, she couldn't even pay any heed to it. She only stared wide-eyed to the ground as she listened.
"I left him sleeping in his room and it was around midnight when I decided to go out to the convenience store. I went down the hill, bought the ice cream, hoping that we would make up when tomorrow comes. Then as I was heading home, I looked up at the hill and I saw the sky was abnormally bright. I ran to the steps as fast as I could. When I arrived here, the house was already burning."
Kawada Sakura didn't speak anything during Sho's story. She kept looking down.
~ . ~ . ~ . . . ~ . ~ . ~
Four Years Ago.
Sakura climbed up the steps leading upward the hill. She took the concrete steps one by one, not rushed by the time. The moon was shining brightly, giving her enough luminosity to tread without any problem.
Her family had just moved to this town a few days ago. She had no friends or neighbors because their home is so detached from the other houses. Her father gave her a simple tour of the town on the first day there were a lot of places that they missed.
One of those places was this hill. She wanted to reach the end of the stairway to see what's in the top. But climbing it to the top all at once was harder than she thought so she stopped on a landing to take a little rest.
It was then when she noticed that there was a pathway in her side. Curiosity taking over, she headed in that direction instead, thinking that she could climb again later.
There was a clearing ahead and a house stood there. It was a house that was a mix of western and Japanese design with a second floor made of wood. She saw the window above which had the lights were turned on despite being around midnight.
She looked around for a while and neared a detached building made of wood. She thought that it should be the storage room.
"I guess that's all," she said to herself, preparing to leave the place as there was nothing else to do here. She then realized that she had carried something that she took secretly from her father's possession. It was a small stick with white paper covering it. The end had a filter, and the other end was filled with tobacco. It was a cigarette.
Her father always said that it was bad to smoke yet he always did it. Sakura could remember the words of her father saying that she should never try smoking.
One time shouldn't hurt, right? she told herself. She lit the cigarette with the lighter she brought. She put the filter end to her mouth, and she heaved a deep puff.
But soon as the hot smoke entered her mouth and reached her throat, she expelled them right away. She coughed several times; she looked around with teary eyes. She saw a garbage bag nearby and she threw the cigarette there.
~ . ~ . ~ . . . ~ . ~ . ~
Sakura walked slowly and aimlessly down the steps.
After Sho had told her his story, Sakura could not take it and excused herself immediately. Sho apparently noticed that she was acting strange but he didn't ask anything. He just said, "Please meet me here again at the same time."
Sakura agreed. She had walked very fast, much like the time he escaped from Sho, she was escaping from him again. But when she reached the steps, her pace suddenly dropped, as if she was dragging her feet.
She inhaled deeply, as the air came in and out of her chest, her thought continued running.
[I... I burned his…little…b-brother?]
[But…I…I thought t-there were no victims?]
That was what she knew all this time. She never heard of the news about anyone dying. But then, because she was guilty of burning a house, she never went out for days. In reality, what she had burned was not just a house. She had burned a person.
And she never knew about it.
All these years, the only thing she thought she burned was the house. She had killed someone, and was unaware of it for all this time.
[I... killed someone?]
She was supposed to apologize. But was there any apology that would be worth a life? Sakura grabbed her shoulder tightly; legs trembling. She dropped her body down and sat like that.
"H-how would I know? I was just curious and tried it. I didn't mean to cause any fire. I didn't mean to burn the house. I didn't mean to...to kill someone. I didn't mean to kill someone. I didn't mean to kill someone. I never knew. If I had then I would not have thrown it carelessly. I didn't mean it."
Sakura spoke all to her lonesome quickly, convincing herself. But in the end...
"But...It's...still my fault."
Her voice was drowned by her overwhelming emotions. She gasped for air, her voice trembled, her eyes stared blankly. She took in all the negative emotions that were binding her body, absorbed them. She let them fall gently and sink into her being until she had finally calmed down.
She sluggishly rose to her feet. They felt really weak, but she could walk home still—
"So that's what happened."
Her heart stopped beating for a moment. She turned around and found Henkou sitting several steps higher. The boy was let out a wry smile.
"Sorry. I was listening."