Life changed dramatically for Akiko after she joined the literary club. She used to rely on societies of people who had no understanding of who she was, because it was easier for her to make relationships that way. She met many young and creative people, including: musicians and actors, all kinds of personalities, but no one seemed like a sincere person to her. There were a few people in her entourage with whom she could really relate, but they also gradually disappeared from her sight because they too were like Akiko herself.
With hundreds of friends and acquaintances, she was lonely.
The girl trained hard to achieve the beauty she had long dreamed of. Her hard work paid off: she soon really began to impress people with her slender figure, but small body shape and beauty that elevated her to the level of an idol of most schoolgirls.
But loneliness consumed her. Again and again. She begged for mercy, tried everything to overcome this loneliness, but all was in vain.
All this went on until she met Yumiko and her company, after which Akiko's views on the world and people in general changed dramatically. Now she wants to overcome the shadow of her past life and gradually seeks to get closer to the members of the club who helped her free herself from the deception.
She decided to get up early in the morning and was about to leave the house.
'It's been a day since the beginning of my last year of school. I can't believe it's just a little longer…'
She put on her school shirt and looked at her face in the mirror.
'Akiko Yosano…' she patted the tip of her hair. 'This is it, isn't it? This is what I wished for... I'm not alone anymore. I wouldn't dare cut my hair and return it to its natural color, for I was afraid of being rejected by my acquaintances and becoming a nobody again… But now, thanks to my friends… my life seems to have been transformed.'
She looked happy. Smiling broadly, her snow-white teeth gleamed in the mirror.
After she changed into her school uniform, there was a knock on her room three times and the door opened. Mari walked in through the threshold, dressed in the cute little homemade clothes she had been bought two weeks ago.
"Sis, good morning."
Akiko said hello in response, after which Mari added that breakfast was ready.
"What would I do without you…! I'm already ready to eat everything sweet Mari-chan made."
"I wouldn't mind feeding you five servings in a row, but alas, I didn't make that much food!"
Akiko waved her palms, "That's okay, I wouldn't be able to eat it all anyway."
Mari, who noticed her dreamy look, asked her about it with interest.
"Ah, Mari-chan… I want to see Glenn today. He must be tired of looking at four walls forever."
"Ah… well, then please hurry."
Walking out of the room, Akiko glanced back at the girl, who dared not take her modest eyes off her.
"Mari-chan, you can come with me too. That's the thought I was leading up to."
"Huh?!" Mari shook, and after a moment she glowed with joy. "E-excuse me for my obtuseness! I'm impatient to see Glenn-sama."
"You're not a slowpoke. And stop calling him that!"
Akiko lived in a two-story house not far from her school. After eating breakfast with her whole family, she and Mari were soon getting ready to leave.
"You have school in the afternoon, don't you," revealed the kind voice of her mother coming from the kitchen.
"We're going to a friend's house!"
They dressed in their winter clothes and went outside. The chilling climate with each new day preceded another fall of white, gentle snow. As they boarded the bus and made their way downtown, they made their way to the Central Hospital.
The girls put their clothes in the checkroom and they headed toward Glenn's room on the second floor. Akiko held her school bag with her hands so she wouldn't forget or lose it.
"Sis Akiko, you look like a princess with your hair like that! If you were the heroine of some fairy tale, I would gratuitously claim you as Belle from Beauty and the Beast!"
Akiko chuckled, which struck Mari as cute, and asked:
"And who would be in the role of the Beast?"
"Glenn's brother, of course!" Mari proudly revealed, surprising the schoolgirl.
Meanwhile, they were walking up the long stairs.
"I don't think Glenn-kun would be suitable for the role of the Beast, but judging by his personality and character traits…" Akiko said, and wondered how nimble Glenn really was and could do anything.
'He'd be perfect for that role! A real rascal.'
"Uh-huh, but the Beast starts to change and eventually becomes a person who has feelings for Bella… So I wouldn't say that the Beast is really a bad character."
Mari felt a rhythm in such reflections. By making associations of familiar people with fictional characters, she found commonalities in the people from the real world and the fictional world the author wanted to describe.
"I think Glenn-kun doesn't fit here," Akiko consoled. "He is not a bad person, and I'm sure he never has been."
"Sis, if you set aside the plot of the fairy tale and make up your own personal one, you would make a great Beauty and the Beast duo of the modern world. I think you two would be very suited to each other!"
Akiko averted her eyes and said animatedly: "Don't talk about such things so suddenly!"
"Sis Akiko, how close are you two?"
"Um? Well… actually, I admire him, because Glenn-kun has the traits in him that I aspire to achieve. If I were a random girl lucky enough to cross paths with Glenn-kun, I couldn't believe that such a person could exist."
"Why don't you ask him to help you?" Mari retorted. "I'm sure a brother could make your dreams come true!"
"What are you even talking about?" Akiko succumbed to shyness. Mari's words seemed like something of a joke to her, but inside she knew that the girl was only worried about her.
Akiko thought to herself, fascinated, that Mari's cunning and quick-wittedness were not insignificant.
***
The news of Glenn's misfortune struck his family like a typhoon. His mother, upon hearing it from his friends, was despondent, but was finally able to come to her senses, thanks to Lilia's support of her excitement. Finally, thinking with a clear head and a cold calculation, she, who had no other chance, faltered. Memories of the past that had come over her gave her cause to recall the entire family tree of the Zaleman family, from which she found her way out by turning to August.
In the first few days since Glenn had opened his eyes after the incident, in addition to August's unexpected arrival, he had received periodic phone calls from distant relatives on his mother's side. With all of them Glenn communicated diligently, as was his routine style of communication.
No matter what they talked about, it made him feel good to be remembered, even from other parts of the world, so he was sincere in every call. At one point, he received a call from the person he least wanted a call with because he was embarrassed.
Mother.
After answering the phone, a few seconds later a girlish voice emerged from the other side of the receiver.
"Hello…"
"Lilia?"
"Brother… are you all right?"
"Ah, yeah… But I think I could use a little more rest. I really don't feel at ease."
"I see. From now on, be… be more careful…"
There was a silence that neither he nor his companion thought to interrupt. The pause was discouraging in a way that made Glenn feel like he was about to burrow underground.
"I'll put Mom on the phone."
"Yeah…"
Glenn was nervous. He hated himself for never being able to find common ground with her, that would allow the years-long chasm between them to be bridged. For this was their usual conversation.
'How dare I... She's my little sister, after all. Can I even be considered her big brother if I simply can't get along with her…?'
After a moment, he heard his mother's tired voice.
"Son?"
"Yes, mother."
"...You know the first thing you have to do is explain yourself."
"Yes, I'm sorry."
"No one, you know, has ever made me this uncomfortable. Ah, it doesn't matter anymore, it ended well anyway, and there's no point in coddling the past. Son, are you going to make a sound at last?"
"Anyway, I... apologize for not being able to keep the promise I made to you."
The topic of conversation on the phone was set sloppy from the first notes. While Glenn was ashamed of what he had done, his mother was seething with anger but not spilling it out.
"You apologize? You can't even call it an apology. Actually, it was very foolish of you to go out in that state of health. After an examination, it turned out that you simply passed out from overexertion, and that your deplorable state of health had influenced your body to react that way."
"Yes, it's inexcusable, and I understand that."
Mother sighed in exhaustion.
"You must ask for forgiveness from yourself. Your frail health bears a sullen weight in the form of a child gripped by recklessness and with a complete lack of self-preservation instinct. If you had a weak will, you would die in a corner somewhere, and no one would be able to find your body in a short time. You see where I'm going with this, don't you?"
Glenn hung his nose, but he dared not resist his mother's criticism.
"That's just the way it is…"
Finally his mother exhaled anew, whereupon Glenn thought she was actually smoking on the other side of the pipe.
"But it's not for me to judge," she said with the same calm tone of voice. "It was those traits of your father's that made me fall in love with him. He was just as reckless, and yet his strength of will had no limits. He was a true hero, both to his country and to our family, for his actions protected hundreds of people. He loved to work, but most of all that work was of special value to him because of us, his family."
Glenn took note of the last thing he said. He was surprised by his mother's speech, and though he couldn't take most of it as truth simply because he hadn't been around in those days, he could no doubt agree with his father's stubbornness.
"Mother, I was just thinking. Why didn't we call August earlier? To be honest, I didn't even remember my uncle existed. Why?"
"Because I saw him very rarely myself," Akina revealed the secret. "He only showed up at important events and left before anyone else. I barely had any idea who your uncle was. But your father… he didn't say much about him, which made me think they had a difficult relationship, since they didn't talk much.
"Still, we might have gotten through to him before all this. If only I had known, all my time spent at work…"
"It's my fault, too, so don't bother with unnecessary thoughts. They'll lead you into more delusions, and you'll burn out in the end. Son, I don't know how, but… I'll definitely give you back three years of your lost life at work, I promise."
Remembering the past conversation with August, which had resulted in Glenn's inner world beginning to slowly collapse due to false notions about Isaac, he accepted his mother's words as fact.
'I never tried to communicate with my family after my father died… Not at all, I didn't stop thinking of my mother as my family, but after laying the foundation that my mother was by no means trying to help my father survive, I stopped all communication with her. For the most part, though, it was just self-indulgence, but I'm sure my mother understood… what was going on inside me. I was being silly by shutting myself off from my family, thereby not giving my mother a chance to properly explain the situation. I'm sure it's a lot harder on her than I might think. And Lilia… all this time she's been wanting to explain herself to me, but we just couldn't find the right moment?'
"Guren, are you on the tube? What are you thinking about?"
"Mother… I'd like to meet you again, but without the pressure that surrounded us during all our conversations."
There was a sepulchral silence, during which my mother could not find the right words. Not even a squeak could be heard through the receiver. The mother, exhaling again, added:
"Good point, I have a lot to tell you, too. About everything. You've always been torn by questions about your father that you couldn't find the answers to. It's not your fault, really… It's just… I'm stupid."
"Stupid? Why do you think so?"
"Stupid for not being able to talk to my son properly."
Her voice sounded a little shaky:
"And I've had to talk to you about this since I was a little girl. It seems your father, now looking from above at you and listening to our conversation, would not have been pleased with me."
She took another big breath. In reality, she was sitting in the kitchen of her house, where there was another person besides her and Lilia. A man who was important to Glenn and Lilia, for he was struggling to take on the role of father, even though he was Aquina's usual friend.
"Enough sentimentality," she said, shaking the ash from the cigarette she held with her free hand. "I'm sure I won't be able to show my face in Japan for a long time because of my work. However, Lilia has convinced me that she wants to come see you after her high school semester is over. I'll be sure to educate her before she leaves, so she can give you a good lesson. You don't care about your health anyway."
Glenn was startled by such jokes. The thought occurred to him, since Lilia was going back to Tokyo soon, whether she was worried about him. These thoughts made Glenn hopefully believe in the ghostly chances that they would get along. In that case, he declared to himself that he would do whatever it took to make those hopes a reality.
"Take care."
"Uh-huh."
Glenn turned off his phone and lowered his head. He was reminded of the date on which Lilia's birthday fell. It would be her twelfth birthday very soon. As he recalled her growing up and becoming what she was now, Glenn noticed that she was tall for her age, which made her seem older than her age. Could it be that her father and mother had such perfect gene combinations!
***
The second day Glenn woke up, Mari visited him with Akihito, and the girl insistently asked him to give up all electronic gadgets. This request was remembered by the teenager more as an offer that was impossible to refuse, rather than a polite request. Mari was worried sick to her bones about him.
Soon after the incident with Tomoyuki, he noticed the aimlessness of everything in the world, for all he did was stare at four walls and a window, happy to see acquaintances coming in.
"If I'm done with what I've been living these three years, what do I have left to do now? It's so strange... I mean, that was the meaning of my life, grabbing every opportunity to survive. But now… I have nothing to worry about, right? But why do I worry…? What am I supposed to do now?"