'I can't change anything. No one can.'
The door of her house closed, and Yumiko was alone. Looking at the mug of hot tea on the nightstand, she thought about reaching for it, but didn't dare, for she was exhausted. The schoolgirl thought what a fool she was, since she couldn't sleep all night because of the incident outside the restaurant, and became so helpless that even Akiko gave her a helping hand. She tried to figure out to herself what things she had begun to waste her precious time on, for she would not have fallen for life's tricks before, giving her whole self to education.
Yumiko had missed today's school day, which made her feel very ashamed. The change in her surroundings and character, she felt, was beginning to have a detrimental effect on the promise she had kept since childhood. Closing her eyes, she immediately fell asleep. The hot tea remained undrinkable.
Regret.
"Yumiko…" came a muffled child's voice. "Yumiko, are you here?" continued to echo, deep in the girl's mind. "I'm scared, Yumiko. Save me…"
The little girl's voice never dared to fade, repeating again and again, but as an endless echo, as if the girl were in empty space. In an instant, the echo ceased evenly, and the voice exclaimed the brown-eyed girl's name. Awakened by the shouting, she barely woke up in her warm room, lying on her bed. When she looked around, she saw a girl with dark brown long hair in a white dress standing beside her, and she realized that her dream had been brought down by one girl.
"Yumiko, there you are awake!" The little girl rejoiced mercifully, and Yumiko woke up as if nothing had happened.
"What are you doing here?" Yumiko wondered, causing the little girl to pout. "The door was locked."
"No it wasn't, it was open, like always! Mama is still waiting for Daddy — and that's why the front door stays open all the time. It's a bad habit of hers! What if a maniac gets in?!"
"Nonsense," Yumiko replied nonchalantly, and pointing her hands toward the girl, she stroked her head. "No one is going to hurt you."
"I'm hungry!" Lucky said the girl, and Yumiko nodded peacefully. "Let's go to the kitchen, Yumiko!"
In her attempt to get out of bed, the girl felt no weakness in her body. She could move her muscles freely. Standing on her feet, with small steps she carefully followed the girl. In the hall, the girl grasped the TV remote and drummed her fingers hard on the buttons, looking for exactly the one that would turn on the TV screen.
"Wait, you'll break it!" Yumiko remonstrated, noticing the girl's haphazard actions. Sitting on the couch, the button-pushing girl was able to turn on the TV, and the first channel that came up spewed the daily news on the screen.
"Ugh! Stupid news again," she stuck out her tongue, and finally noticing the beer cans at the bottom of the empty table, puzzled. "Beer cans? Is she still drinking? That's the trouble."
Yumiko looked at the sad girl, not knowing what to say to her. Rejecting the couch, she ran into the kitchen. The girl had no choice but to follow her. Once in the kitchen, the little girl set her chair against the countertop and reached up and pulled a chef's knife from the wooden counter.
"Wait, don't take…" Yumiko couldn't finish the sentence as the ringtone of the house phone in the hallway rang unusually loudly. When she reached the phone, she gently picked it up and put it to her ear. The first thing she heard was a hiss of failure.
"Hello," came a mature female voice, "Yumiko Sato, you didn't inform the school today that you wouldn't be participating in class. What's the matter?"
"Ah… I forgot to call you."
"Do you realize, high school student, how hard it is for the school committee to take care of people who don't report their absence from school? Can you imagine the significance of one student day to your education? Missing classes is not a serious matter."
"I understand it all…" Yumiko didn't finish, because she was drowned out by the somber and low tone of the caller's voice, which no longer resembled that of an educator.
"One mistake, and your whole life will go down the drain," came this frightening sound, and Yumiko's body felt a kind of fear. "Your fickleness makes me come to you and decapitate you. Your trembling amuses me — you're always scared to be alone in the house, aren't you?"
Yumiko abruptly hung up, trembling with her whole body. Goosebumps coursed through her skin like crazy. Her tranquility disappeared gratuitously with the arrival of an eerie anxiety. She walked back into the kitchen and saw a brown-eyed high school girl as tall as she was cutting up a mango that she found in the house by no means. Yumiko was sure they hadn't bought mangoes.
The girl stopped after cutting only half of the fruit and turned to Yumiko. Their gazes crossed, shocking Yumiko. Both girls were perfectly identical, as if they were looking at themselves in a mirror. Exactly like her, the girl seemed to be smiling, and there was a yellow carnation attached to her right ear.
Approaching from behind the shocked girl, the little girl uttered: "Oh, you have arrived!" and jumped up. But the little girl ran up, not to Yumiko herself, but to the one standing by the tabletop, and embraced her. Yumiko was trapped in even more confusion, making her unable to even cover her mouth.
"However," the girl added, turning coldly to the brown-eyed girl, "you are not the genuine Yumiko, but only a liar who called herself by her name. A genuine Yumiko would not skip school or waste her time on useless things for education, for she treasures every second of her life. She spends her free time tirelessly on self-improvement, caring only for the future, as befits an intelligent person."
Removing a yellow carnation from her ear, the doppelganger awarded it to the girl. The girl, quietly accepting the carnation, walked over to Yumiko and gave it to her. The flower withered as soon as the brown-eyed girl took it in her hands.
"I am disappointed in you. You see, you are a different Yumiko. No longer the impassive girl you used to be – you're a fragile Yumiko. Fragile as crystal. You have changed, but only for the worse.
Silence.
"Pity," the girl added, showing a kind smile, "you must have forgotten my name and who I am. It really upsets me! You should know how awful it makes me when you forget about me."
"What…is your name?"
Smiling again, the girl said poisedly: "Yumiko Sato." Completely lost in the pattern of what was going on, the girl became indignant, so much so that she accepted all that was acceptable, letting only her ignorance get in the way.
"But what is my name?" Yumiko said, wandering in her mind.
"Just Yumiko," replied the girl. "You wish for your father's last name, after all, because you don't want any connection with your mother. So, you're just Yumiko!"
"Yumiko…"
The little girl cried out as if from under the ground: "Mama's here!" and made the brown-eyed girl turn around. In front of her stood the hated mother, who must have been hungry. Her stern look did not portend anything to mark anything useful in the conversation to come, for she was only moved by mad emotions and aimlessness in life. The doppelganger, calling to her mother with the words, "Food is ready," placed two whole large plates of fruit and tropical berries, and the mother, passing Yumiko, sat down on a chair, taking her meal. The little girl, along with her double, followed her example, which made Yumiko cringe.
"No… wait for me."
In an effort to join in, she began to step toward them, but the abnormally heavy footsteps weakened her. The girl could barely lift her leg, let alone take a step. Like a magnet, she was pulled back so she couldn't get any closer to the kitchen table. The strong air rushing from the kitchen into the girl's face made every window in the house shudder.
Behind her, the doorknob of the front door began to beat frantically, and not withstanding, the door in the hallway swung open. The wind of the front door opening immediately drew Yumiko to the exit of the house. She kept getting sucked toward the exit until the girl finally weakened and stopped resisting. There was no trace of the girl.
It was just a dream. Almost gasping in shock, Yumiko lifted her head from the bed. Glancing around every corner of her room with her eyes, the girl came to her senses calmly. Feeling a headache, she touched her forehead, wondering if the fire had disappeared. Nor did she know how long it had been since Akiko had gone to get her medicine. There was a heavy knocking at the front door, which made Yumiko immediately get out of bed and tiptoe over.
Who is frantically knocking, she asked herself, and wondered if her mother was in trouble. If the door was knocked because of her mother's misconduct in any way, she had obviously done a terrible thing. As she stopped in front of the door, she froze, coming to think of some criminal or serial maniac who had come after her.
It could have been anything from a mob agent to middlemen her mother owed money to. Barely reaching for the doorknob, the sound of ferocious knocking disappeared as if nothing had happened. The house went back to the silence and serenity that the girl had dreamed of for the past few seconds.
"Yumiko-o-o!" sounded her friend's voice outside the door. "Open the door!"
Responding, the girl wondered if she had only imagined those knocks, since Akiko couldn't knock hard. As she opened the door to her friend, she met the lovely Akiko, and let her inside.
"I completely forgot to bring my phone with me," the guest said, "and I had to go back inside. It's in the kitchen."
"I'll get it," Yumiko rushed into the kitchen, and her friend followed. After handing her the phone, Yumiko's stomach rumbled and she wanted an apple.
Finding a red apple in the grocery cabinet, she walked over to the kitchen counter and began slicing the fruit. Akiko, who was sitting on the chair with her phone, squinted her eyes.
"Yumiko-chan, why didn't you go to school today?"
"Why how? You asked me to stay home, so I took your advice."
"You've become dependent on us," Akiko spoke with a gruff tone, and Yumiko immediately turned around.
But what she saw was not Akiko at all. Instead of her friend, standing beside her was a two-foot tall thug with unhealthy skin and a bloody mask on his face. The girl could hear his every creepy sigh, and the madman's face was turned toward her. Yumiko knew at once – it was a maniac who stood in front of her and found himself in her house. Her eyes lit up with hopelessness incarnate, for she could not escape anywhere with trembling legs.
Suddenly she heard several loud bells ringing simultaneously from adjoining rooms and, turning sharply toward the hallway, she saw an exact replica of herself dressed in her home clothes. A dried carnation was attached to the doppelganger's ear, and her face was aware of despair, looking at Yumiko as if she were a breathless body. Tears began to flow from her eyes.
"You took my Yumiko from me…!" the doppelganger shrieked, literally shocking the girl. Looking beneath herself, Yumiko comprehended how she was dressed in her school uniform. Turning to the apple, Yumiko saw a mango cut into pieces instead. The apple was gone, and the wide man was out of sight.
Yumiko was lost in thought. The only thing she could think of to relieve her anxiety was to close her eyes, hoping that what was happening around her was a nightmare. Wandering around in her mind, she did not believe that this could be a dream she was having, but rather wished that such premonitions had never visited her in the first place.
Suddenly, all was quiet. The light that glittered from every window of the house disappeared, and the burden around her darkened, as if Yumiko had entered a different, vastly dark dimension.
"Are you worried about something?" echoed. It was a childish, girlish voice, coming from everywhere: from every corner and neighborhood, causing Yumiko to cover her ears slightly.
When she blinked, she immediately saw a little girl with dark brown hair and a white dress standing in front of her.