Chapter 3 - Common Camellia
This time, there’ll be negative expressions. Horror flavor
A large one-story Japanese-styled house… An unimaginably large garden in the city center.
Listening to the chirping of the birds' singing, I, who had entered an apprenticeship here, swept the large garden with an old bamboo brush. Every time I moved, black cloth swayed.
It was a tidy black sailor uniform with white embroidery sewn on it. A pleated black skirt without a single crease. Black knee socks with the school insignia embroidered on them, and elegant black leather loafers. I was perfectly black from top to bottom, and despite that, I liked it for some reason.
Although cute things were overflowing in this world, they didn't suit me - was what I thought. It didn't suit the dull iron-colored-haired me. It didn't suit me who couldn't even smile properly.
After sweeping the garden, I groomed the garden next. Though even if I said that, I only touched the Common Camellia, and listened to the old gardener coming from time to time while fiddling with it a little.
I broke off a hanging withered branch by touching it with my finger, and cut a branch that had grown too long with a pair of scissors. As long as you removed the extra branches, the remaining branches would bloom beautifully.
“What should I do…” There was a branch I had been interested in for a long time. The branch had been left behind for some reason and had now become too thick to be cut with scissors. If I had high twig shears, I could cut it, but there was nothing like that here because the gardener would trim the trees in the garden. I was certain...that we might have a pruning saw in the shed. But I was a little afraid of sharp tools. I was pretty used to the scissors, but I felt like a saw that had so many teeth was very scary.
At that time - I felt like there was a “white butterfly” fluttering softly in the corner of my eye.
“Should I cut it for you?”
“Wha!?”
I suppressed the sound I was about to leak at the sudden whisper in my ear and unconsciously let the scissors fall, but the man, as if he had foreseen it happening, caught it with ease.
"Ah, Brother Akino…"
"Morning, Tsubaki."
Tsubaki. That was my name. Three years ago - the grandfather-like person, Senjou Fukami, took me in on that cold rainy day and gave me it. I also didn't have any memories. He accepted a child who had nothing and gave them a name. Because a beautiful Common Camellia was blooming that day, I was named “Tsubaki”.
This person… who became my brother, Akino Fukami, slowly placed the scissors back into my hand.
“I’m sorry. Did I surprise you?”
“N-not really…”
I answered Brother Akino with a few words. Brother liked to play small tricks on me.
After seeing my reaction, he had a teasing expression on his face. Although he was in his second year of high school, three years above me, he had an refined mannerism like adults. And with a handsome face, he was getting closer to me with that expression, and although I was aware of him teasing me, my ears grew hot. Still, that behavior was most likely to make me blend in with this new family.
Aside from my name, the me who had lost her memories of everything, was close to the people in the Fukami family like a real family. Even though I… couldn’t pay them back.
“It’s fine to call me Brother, but doesn’t it make you wanna call me Big Brother1?”
“Eh...Uhm...I apologize, I can't do it.”
Brother Akino said things like that occasionally. When we had just met, he told me to call him “Dear Big Brother2” too.
But I can’t do that. I, a nobody’s child who had been taken in, feel like I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I acted spoiled with them.
Besides, with my ”voice” I didn't suit to act cute.
The day three years ago, I had raised my voice screaming until it was on the verge of breaking, and although it wasn't like it normally, it lowered when my emotions became stronger.
Which was why I didn't talk much. I didn't raise my voice much. So I lowered my head to apologize, and Brother Akino stroked my head tenderly.
“Let’s eat breakfast soon. If you don’t hurry to eat, you’ll be late, you know.”
“Okay.”
My name was ”Tsubaki”. Aside from that, I didn’t know anything else about myself.
School was boring, but I was taught new things in class every day.
If it had been in a normal situation where I was a normal student, studying would have been for the sake of my future, but for me, who couldn't picture my own, school had become a mere gathering of knowledge of taking scores.
I also, at least, had so-called "friends". We greeted each other in the morning and evening on our way to and from school. We also called out to each other. And sometimes, we ate together during lunch.
I didn't know if I was supposed to call them "friends" though. I didn't see the difference between business relationships and friendships. We didn't talk on the phone until late in the night. We didn't go out during the holidays to go shopping. We didn't confide our worries with each other.
Because there was something missing inside of me.
Therefore, there was no need to talk. I didn't see the need in going out together. There was no way anyone would be able to understand my worries.
I slammed the trash can upside down, making a banging sound at a garbage collection place, and the trash can while returning to the classroom.
Even if I came back to the room, there was no one there. The girls on the same cleaning duty as me had to "hurry" because they couldn't miss club activities and cram school.
Well, even if they had come with me, we wouldn’t have talked.
“Ah…”
One of my braids was unraveling. Maybe something was caught in it.
As I thought, the string was too easy to untie. If all you wanted to do was to tie your hair, a rubber hair clip would be enough, but for some reason, Grandfather only allowed me to have cute ribbons or a beautiful string to tie my braids with.
At this school, there were no rules against flashy hair clips and you were free to choose whatever to a certain degree.
It was an all female school with ancient and honorable origins from the Taisho era, but recently, it wasn't only an orthodox school for daughters of high-class families. Many children from common households were enrolling now as well, so this standard of a hair clip wasn't bothering.
Because one had already unraveled, I loosened the other one.
Since I could go home after this, even if I untie my hair now, it won't bother me too much. Probably.
As I arranged my dull colored hair with my hand comb, it fluttered in the breeze.
My hair had grown tremendously the last three years. And although I thought it would be easier to take care of short hair, my older brother and older sister praised it by saying how pretty and mature it seemed when my hair started to grow, and I was so glad that people like them were here so… I couldn't cut it.
As the sun went down, shadows from the school building covered the garbage collection place in darkness.
I didn't like this place.
Because it was in this place that… That appeared.
It was a place without sun but there was still vegetation. It was rare for people to pass through here. It was a place you needed but didn't like.
Feeling like there was something here. But there was nothing when you looked for it. Only a faint scent. And something stagnant on my skin. This was surely a place like that. In that kind of place, "that" lived there.
For a second, something small passed through in the corner of my eye. I thought it was garbage or insects, but when I brushed it with my hand, there was nothing there.
Even when I searched for it, I couldn't find it. But it was definitely living here.
Something that stagnated existed.
When a person became "aware" of its existence, it appeared.
I was so happy to have my existence acknowledged… but so sad that the existence I was acknowledged was ugly.
I wanted to be acknowledged more, I envied the existence that had a heart… so I jealously, hatefully clung to people.
Whistle…
A small "dark being" jumped from behind me, and I grabbed it and squeezed it without looking.
"..."
Nothing remained in my palm when I opened it. It had been a fleeting existence that disappeared from my touch.
That was why I hated it.
Because... It looked like it could see me, right?
This girl school had a middle school and high school division. Right next to it was a boys school that had the same system - Brother Akino went there as well.
Although I didn't know why they didn't have a coed school, the adults probably had a reason for it.
Even after more than a year, I couldn't get used to the large group wearing dark sailor suits and sweaters when commuting by train or bus to school.
I returned from school. When our times matched, I sometimes went shopping with Brother, but most of the time, I went home alone.
It was a 40 minute walk from school. Going with the bus would shorten the time considerably, but it was agony to be shaken back and forth in the crowd.
There was also a downtown area on my way home. It was apparently enviable to talk about it, but I didn’t understand because I was forbidden to stop by. Which is why I walked straight home.
The cities changed little by little with the seasons. I didn’t have any interest in it though.
Three years ago, I wondered “who” I was before I lost my memories. I couldn’t recall anything. Nothing at all. Nothing was probably important to me because I didn’t have a heart.
“I wonder why I’m here…"
Scared by the words escaping my mouth, I walked a little faster.
“Huh…?”
Before I realized it, I stood on an unknown road.
It was somewhat different from the road I usually walked on every day. It was that strange feeling of making one mistake on a street in a residential area with the exact same houses, or going to a different floor in an apartment building.
There was no one here. But it felt like someone was.
It was at this place that “that” was here.
The shade from the tree leaves. The gap between the utility pole and wall. Under the parked car. There were innumerable “black beings” there. And then…
A “black butterfly“ was fluttering far ahead of me, as if it was inviting me.
This sensation… I wondered what it was. I was burning, like it was something smoldering in the depths of my heart.
That day three years ago, when the "flame" that was erased together with my memory in the cold rain and my scream, it felt like my heart was slowly burning.
This wasn't fear… This was...
Before I knew it, I started running.
At the same time, "dark wriggling beings" hiding in the shadows started to move towards one direction at the same time.
I probably started running after noticing this. It was probably because of this that I ran fast. At some point, the "dark butterfly" that I was chasing was erased, and despite that, the "dark beings" continued to run to the same direction I was heading to.
The one reaching the place we headed to first was-
"...Ah… Ahh…"
A material storage site that had been abandoned for who knew how many years. This place was now filled with millions, no, even more “black wriggling beings”.
A person laid in a gaping wide vacant space inside the crowded area.
Who…? That figure was protected by the “black wriggling beings” in awe, and my heart tightened with the shiny black hair.
The colors were erased from the world, and my view was dyed silver.
At that moment, as I stepped forward, the “black wriggling beings” paved the way in fear.
A petite and black haired girl. When I reached her side, the “black wriggling beings” disappeared into the atmosphere.
She’s alive… Tears spilled out of my eyes, and never stopped, and I fell to my knees by her side.