Chapter 7.5

Spreading out a fresh sheet of Japanese writing paper over the desk, Seishin hunched his upper body forward slightly over it. The chair that had been used since his grandfather's time let out a creak like a sigh into the still of the night. With a spaced out stare up to the aging grains of wood on the ceiling, his vacant attentions lingered on the past, cornered by a single word.

----What the hell happened?

(Nothing...)

---Mind if I ask why?

(There wasn't any reason or anything.)

He played with his pencil in his hand as he thought.

The hard lead was sharpened to a fine tip like the point of a sword.

When he had first started writing novels, for some reason or another he had it in his mind that he should write in pen, so he made use of a fountain pen that he never did get used to. That summer, fearing the way the ink smeared, he switched to pencil. His dorm room was so hot that the air trapped between the Japanese writing paper and his left hand warped under the heat.. Just leaning forward caused the sweat to pour endlessly, the ink becoming brown and blue halos.

The reason he had used slim, hard leaded pencils for each short story was because it no matter what the grit of the pencil would end up littering the paper. He tried a different hardness of the lead, a different maker, and about the time he had found his present model, an upperclassman who had graduated had come by the dorms to hang out. Tsuhara who had entered the publishing industry took Seishin's manuscript with him, then returned with orders for him to rewrite it. How many times did he fix it, as told? After some count of times, Tsuhara took the manuscript with him and, that night, there was a phone call. We're printing it, he was told, and he remembered not having any idea what he was talking about.

---Weren't you writing looking to go pro?

Remembering that conversation, even now a wry smile leaked out. It wasn't as if he'd by any means particularly thought about becoming an author.

---Then, why did you fix every little thing every time I told you to!

Becauset he was told it would be better to fix it; and the next time Tsuhara came by he would ask "Did you fix it?" and so for no other reason he showed it to him.

---You are a real piece of work.

Tsuhara's voice overlapped with the dorm adviser Muramatsu's.

---It's you we're talking about, how can you not know?

(Even now I still don't.)

As if mesmerized, Seishin stared at his left hand atop the writing paper. The cheap, boorish model of wristwatch. The reason he had started wearing it was, of course, to cover the scar that was there. Now there was nothing more to see of that scar than a white line but still, if he took off his wristwatch, he himself was suddenly taken aback by what a scar it was.

---There's no way you were drunk, is there? I heard you basically never drank.

(Indeed, I have no memory of drinking.)

---If it's hard to say, a letter or anything will be fine.

The first composition he wrote, intending to sound out his own heart, somewhere along the line became chaos, skipping from point to point, repeating itself. When he'd turned it in to Muramatsu, he appeared to be deeply, sincerely annoyed.

---I don't have any idea what you're trying to say. Isn't this a novel?

Looking at it again having been told that, it did indeed resemble a novel. The next time, he wrote from the beginning with the intent to write a novel. For Seishin who didn't particularly have anything like a hobby, it became the closest thing he had to one.

Why. Why, this of all things?

Why would you consent to sin thusly?

Why, he was asked by so many people, but Seishin couldn't answer. To tell the truth, it was because he didn't know the reason, himself. If truly pressed to say something, it was just that he wanted to try it. That was it. In his second year of college, at the end of the year party, he thought. Suddenly, he just felt like it. Vaguely, he knew that it wasn't enough to die from but, dying or not dying wasn't that important at the time, he thought now. He left the drinking party early, returning to the dormitory bathroom. It was the season of end-of-the-year parties, and the season for going home, so the community bathroom was unmanned. There, indifferent, he cut into himself.

In truth, no matter how he thought about it, Seishin couldn't think of anything that had happened for him to wish death on himself. He wasn't particularly unhappy, nor did he by any means have any particular self loathing. Because he knew that a person would not die from cutting their wrists, it was unlikely that he really wanted to die.Seishin had a feeling that at that time for himself the meaning was not in the result but in doing the act itself. It was not that he wanted to die, he didn't think it was anything other than wanting to try dying, but the origin of that impulse was one he didn't understand well even now.

Beneath the wristwatch, while hidden the scar was still evident. Everyone in the village knew about it. That was why they pretended not to see, and before Seishin knew it he was used to it. Just when, he thought, did it feel like something that people couldn't see?

(....It was not jealousy.)

Seishin gripped his pencil.

He was still possessed by something. The sudden murderous intent took him unexpectedly.

(No) Seishin murmured. He had just wanted to try it. With no murderous intent, he killed his little brother. (.... It's better this way.)

The hallway confined within grey stone was empty, dusk and dawn alike basking in its widths. The dark, dull grey pile up had no decoration aside from a glass window very high up in one corner, light shining down through it diagonally.

The light, donning a melancholy hue, glistened on the white linen cloth. Spread out above the cold stone paving, the reason for the rises and falls drawn by the white sheet was was that beneath it were laid out his little brother's remains.

He and the sage, with his little brother's remains interposed betwixt them, had a confrontation. And yet even so, he could not pry his eyes from the dull light of the linen cloth, and because of that very light shining down, he, in the dimmer still light, had the sensation of a singularly abandoned orphan.

----Why would thou commit such a sin?

The sage had been asking him such through dusk. And yet even so, he could not answer. If you wish to know why it was because him himself did not know the reason that he had killed his little brother.

He was the one who wanted to ask why.

His single blood relative, gentle and with a profound kindness, like an incarnation of splendor itself was his brethern. He did, in reality, love his brother, and liked living together with his little brother. As to why he had to kill his little brother, he had no sort of reason at all. Yet nevertheless, he took up arms against his brother.

It was an impulse of an attack. Surely, there was no murderous intent towards his brother. Yet raising a weapon against his brother certainly did bring about his brother's death as a result.

That little brother became a Shiki and trailed him across the wasteland. His futile stare seemed always to be asking, always, why? Had he a clear reason for murderous intent, if he'd had any grounds on which to criticize his brother, or had it been self defense, he would have to please forgiveness and yet, he had none of them and he could not. He could do not but hate that fleeting impulse, not but grieve that its result was his little brother's death. ----That wasn't its intention.

I definitely never hated you.

It wasn't like I'd wanted you to die. There wasn't anything I wanted to get revenge for or make you realize.

Forgive me, into the dawn he moaned, taking to his knees upon the cold wastelands. His brother's answer, of course, did not come.

Seeking a gust of wind into which he could fathom an auditory hallucination, he at last fell to sleep.