I did something bad.
The first bad thing was sneaking out of the house against Dad's wishes and eavesdropping on a conversation between Dad and his friend.
At first, I didn't really understand what they were talking about.
'Antianxiety medication'? 'Panic attack'?
Those were difficult words, but one thing was clear: Dad was sick.
I knew he didn't want to show that he was struggling in front of me, but I had no idea how serious it was.
Mr. Hitokawa's reaction taught me what I needed to know. His voice was a mix of confusion, tension, worry, and anger.
His reaction came from knowing about Dad's condition. It was already beyond anything I could comprehend.
"A guy who says he hates hassle goes and throws away his whole youth raising a kid…"
In the meantime, I clearly heard Mr. Hitokawa mumble that.
I know he meant no malice. It was just something he blurted out in frustration.
But I couldn't let it slide.
To borrow an expression from the novel I'm reading, that voice pierced me like a dagger straight through the heart.
Ah, it's because of me.
It's because he's raising me.
It's because of me that Dad fell ill like that.
That was my second bad deed.
I was destroying Dad. Slowly, in a way he wouldn't have noticed if someone hadn't pointed it out.
It's my fault. It was my fault.
Even though Dad said goodbye to his friend and came back inside, I found it hard to maintain my composure.
No, if I act like this, he'll notice. I'll only make things harder for him.
I hurriedly looked in the mirror and forced on my usual expression and tone of voice. It went better than I thought, so I got away without arousing his suspicion.
The third bad thing was lying to Dad so he'd go to work.
I couldn't stay like that.
I had to do something.
I didn't need some get-out-of-jail-free card saying I was just a kid and didn't have to feel responsible.
If I made Dad suffer, then I had to lift that burden myself.
So I decided to commit the fourth bad deed.
It wouldn't end with just a spanking on the butt when Dad found out… but I did it anyway.
I rifled through Dad's room.
It didn't take long to find the map he always grabbed when he slipped out at dawn in secret.
When I unfolded the map, there were red X's marked all over it.
Here it was.
The place Dad went for me and came back with his spirit completely shattered.
The place where Death—the thing that's eating away at Dad—resides.
I grabbed the backpack Dad had bought me for picnics long ago.
And for the first time, I went out alone, without Dad.
I didn't have much time. At the very least, I had to be back home before Dad finished work and came back.
Koma got around by bike, but Eto didn't have any means of transport.
I had about 4,670 yen on me. It was a lot for a five-year-old to have, but Eto, who still couldn't really grasp the value of money, had no choice but to bring all the cash I'd found around the house.
When we first stepped outside, Eto was in chaos. It was her first time venturing farther than the playground without Dad, so she was anxious.
Eto knows so little about the world, and her common sense comes only from incomplete things she's read in books. She's missing important real-life experience.
It seemed virtually impossible for Eto—who couldn't read bus schedules or subway routes—to find the place with the suicide spot on her own.
But there was something I couldn't overlook here.
Eto was resourceful.
"How do I get there?"
She got on a bus at the stop and asked the bus driver.
She didn't know about bus schedules or routes, but if you're a professional in this line of work, you'd know them well.
The bus driver, who was about to pick up passengers, looked flustered when the kid randomly shoved a map at him and asked for directions, but he soon explained it kindly.
"I don't know why you're headed down a mountain path with nothing out there… but there's a bus stop just up ahead. Wait there and take the number 22 bus. And then…."
Ten minutes later, remembering the driver's words, she boarded the 22 bus that arrived.
But the driver then asked, "Where are your parents?" and Eto, bewildered, bolted from the bus.
And like a predator waiting for prey, she prowled around the stop.
Then she saw a woman boarding the 22 bus with two kids and stealthily followed behind.
The woman paid the fare for her children, and behind her, Eto clung close and paid her own fare.
The woman didn't seem to notice Eto following her, and the driver saw a kid paying for her fare but didn't pay much attention. He probably assumed she was the obedient daughter of a woman who insisted on paying her own fare.
After getting off at the desired stop, Eto studied her map and walked up the mountain road.
According to the map, the suicide spot was at the end of this road, on a sheer cliff.
'Will anyone be there? They have to be….'
With a mix of worry and tension in her chest, Eto finally made it to that cliff after a long journey.
And… there she was.
An old, battered car with its doors hanging off. Rusted guardrails beaten by wind and rain. Beyond that, a vertigo-inducing cliff that seemed to stretch on forever—yet perched atop the guardrail, as if unafraid or simply seeking a thrill, was a woman calmly gazing down at the abyss.
Huuuu…
Only from the angle I couldn't see it, but in one of her hands she held a nearly burnt-out cigarette.
With her sensitive sense of smell, the cigarette odor was disgusting to Eto, but she gritted her teeth and walked towards the woman.
"Huh?"
The woman, sensing someone, turned around.
She looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties. A woman with heavy makeup and a piercing in one ear. Her eyes were sharp like a razor blade, but because they were overlaid with lethargy, she didn't seem particularly scary.
Her scarlet-dyed hair fell down to her hips and brushed against the guardrail she was sitting on, and she wore tight jeans and a tank top that exposed her belly button.
That woman seemed puzzled by the out-of-place sight of Eto in this spot and tilted her head.
"Little one, are you lost?"
The woman's husky voice, maybe from years of smoking, reached Eto's ears.
"No. I'm not lost."
"I got to where I wanted."
She swallowed the rest of her sentence.
The woman looked at Eto for a while, then seemed to lose interest and pulled out a fresh cigarette to light.
She took a deep drag and exhaled an even longer sigh than before.
"…Go home now. This isn't a place for a kid like you."
"Can you stay here, ma'am?"
"Ma'am? Look at your manners. I'm only twenty-six, you know?"
"You're older than my dad."
"…Is that so? Then call me whatever you want."
At a loss for words, the woman no longer corrected the form of address.
Eto moved closer to the woman, placed her hand on the guardrail, and peered over. The height was so dizzying she almost couldn't help but whimper.
"Kid, it's dangerous if you lean on that."
"Why are you trying to die, ma'am?"
Eto kept her eyes on the cliff and asked that, startling the woman, who widened her eyes.
Did the woman think it was unexpected for such a naive kid to say that?
"Dying… I'm just hesitating between living and not living."
"Why?"
Eto took her eyes off the cliff and looked back at the woman.
The woman seemed to wonder if she should take the kid's question seriously. She chewed on her cigarette in silence, then twirled her body on the guardrail.
"Living's not all that great. You start thinking dying might be better. So you come looking for a place you can be sure to die. …But dying takes more courage than I thought."
"Won't anyone be sad if you die?"
"I don't know. Maybe a few…? But in the end, a human dying is inevitable."
Huuuu…
The hazy stream of smoke trailed off and vanished without a trace. The woman stared blankly at that smoke. It looked as if she was saying that humans, too, vanish just as fleetingly.
Then she snapped back to reality, scratched her head, and muttered to herself.
"Why am I wasting time telling this little brat this crap…? Anyway, what are you doing here? Did you come to die, too?"
"No. I came to see you die."
"…What?"
Not seeming to know what she'd just heard, the woman blinked and rubbed her ear.
Eto took a few steps away from the guardrail and faced the woman.
Should I say it? I have to.
I can't hesitate now that I've come this far. If I start hesitating, I'll dig in deep.
Eto took a deep breath.
And to corner herself, to force herself into action,
She placed that one word—the word Dad had sternly warned her never to say—into her mouth.
"I'm a Ghoul."