Noooooo! Shit! He got me. Sano had grabbed hold of my helicopter, and he was beginning to drag me back “there.” When I turned to look, those totally weirdo blazing eyes were getting closer and closer. Shit!
“I’m holding you responsible, Yoji!” I screamed.
Then I pushed up out of the seat and jumped—straight toward the river of dead souls at the bottom of the sky spread out below…
Byuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
I fell faster and faster, the cliff racing by next to me. The blue river of the dead came rushing up toward me, and as I got closer I could see that it consisted of an unbelievable number of souls—too many, in fact, even for all the people who had ever lived in the whole world. But then it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t just people, maybe these were the souls of animals and plants too. Or maybe even the souls of aliens?
But was this really the time to be worrying about stuff like that?
I was falling and was going to die too!
Falling into the sky to die!
Diving into the river of the dead!
What could be lamer than that?
But just as the river filled up my whole field of vision, just as I was about to plunge in, I felt someone grab my collar, and my fall began to slow. Finally I stopped, right in midair.
Saaaaafe!
I craned my neck around, calling Yoji’s name, but when I looked, it wasn’t Yoji holding me but that weird guy—or girl?—I had met in the underground passage at Chofu Station, the geeky one with the long hair and the pink shirt that looked just like Bondo Oki. What the fuck was he—she?—doing here?
“Who the fuck are you?” I said.
“Calm down, calm down,” said a husky but shrill voice—still no way to tell whether it was male or female—and then I felt myself being lifted up by the collar.
Or maybe I was floating up, along with my geeky rescuer.
Up and up.
Suspended by the scruff of my neck, like a kitten in its mother’s mouth, I floated up through the clouds, back to the valley where I’d been before, though both Sano and the helicopter had vanished.
Good riddance.
I was relieved, starting to feel a little more like myself.
“Who are you?” I asked, trying to sound a little nicer this time.
“Me? My name is Tansetsu Sakurazuki.”
Tansetsu Sakurazuki? What kind of name was that? Sounded like the pen name of some bogus manga writer. And he looked the part too.
But even knowing the name, I still wasn’t sure about the gender.
“And what exactly do you do?” I asked.
“I’m a fortune-teller.”
That figured.
“And where do you tell these fortunes?”
“At Odaiba—in Tokyo—but that hardly matters now, I would think.”
“It matters to me. You look pretty suspicious.”
Sakurazuki let out a sigh.
“Well, Miss Aiko Katsura, your suspicion is the reason my rescue didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked.”
“Rescue?”
“Just come back with me and all will be explained.”
“So was it you who saved me from the Mafia guys on the train?”
“Guilty as charged. I’ve been looking out for you in a number of guises.”
“Were you Emily Henmi too?”
“No, during the Emily and Gucci kidnap caper, I was Shintaro Ishihara, governor of Tokyo. You really shouldn’t have gotten in that car.”
He was Shintaro Ishihara? What was going on?
“That whole episode was a little dicey. If it weren’t for the help I received from your little friend Yoji Kaneda, we might have lost you.”
“Yoji! Where’d he get to anyway? Why are you here and not him?”
“So that’s how Mr. Kaneda has been communicating with you, in those big letters on the cliff. It’s the best he can do—though I suppose you don’t really mind, do you Aiko, since it’s Mr. Kaneda? I suspect you’ll forgive his rather vulgar ‘shouting.’ ”
What was he talking about? Had he somehow figured out how I felt about Yoji?
But he had! Shit! And now Yoji would know too!
“Yoji!” I shouted.
“Do you like me?”
“Hold on, Miss Katsura, are you sure—”
“It’s okay, I need to know.”
“But please wait just a minute, until we get to the top of the cliff over there.”
“But when we get there, I won’t be able to see what Yoji’s writing.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage somehow…”
“No, I want to see what he writes,” I told him.
I was totally embarrassed, ready to crawl in a hole. But I’d had these feelings—this love—for six years now, and I needed to know whether Yoji felt anything in return.
“Yoji? Do you like me? Do you have any feelings for me at all?”
He had saved my life, after all.
At least he hadn’t wanted me to die!
“Yoji? Answer me!”
So, that was that.
Whatever. I knew he was telling the truth. Nobody lies about a thing like that. Not that I wouldn’t have minded if he had—if he’d told me he liked me even if it was a lie—but he was Yoji and Yoji had to tell the truth. Shit, shit, shit!
But at least now I knew.
“Thanks, Yoji. See you around.”
I reached back and yanked the collar of my shirt loose from Sakurazuki’s sweaty hand and sent myself falling again, back deep into the sky.
Byuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!
Sakurazuki came flying after me as I fell, but he looked totally GROSS—so I kicked his ugly face in midair to stop him from saving me. After I landed the kick, he fell way behind and I lost sight of him. Fine with me.
Totally fine with me if I died just about now. Now that I knew for sure, what did I have to live for?
The Way of Love was closed to me, so what was the point of living? Enough already. I knew that only an idiot would give up this easily, but anything was better than living with all this shame and pain. Dying was actually easier. Sorry! Sorry I didn’t have more will to live! But what the fuck? Don’t be mad at me for copping out like this.
