by Taxi
Kozue:
Ha ha... stop it, that tickles. Stop it! You're so naughty.
No, let's not go out there. I do want to go outside, just not the backyard. No, I'm not afraid of spiders, you are such a jerk! Let's go somewhere else. What? I don't have to explain myself to you. Jerk.
Okay, okay... ha ha... stop tickling me... I'll tell you... Okay, okay, my twin brother and I, we used to play piano out there. I don't remember what we did when it rained, you creep, I was only a kid. Yeah, I used to play piano all the time. I was even going to be in a big concert, well, we were, Miki and I. Miki, my twin brother. Of course I'm telling the truth! God, I hate you.
What, now you believe me? I'm not going to tell you the rest if you're going to be a jerk. Okay. Jeez. We were going to be in this concert, and then Miki got the measles, and I didn't want to play alone. It just hurt too much to play without him.
No, we couldn't reschedule, he was dead. No, it's okay, you didn't know. Really, I've gotten over it, it was a long time ago. I just... I don't want to go out in the backyard, okay? He was my twin brother, you don't forget that easily.
C'mon, let's go to my bedroom instead. Ah... ha ha... stop tickling me, you jerk!
Shiori:
This necklace? I got it from a friend of mine, when I was younger. See? Her picture's in it.
Yeah, she was really pretty. Smart, too. Good at sports, popular... I guess I was always kinda jealous of her. But she was my best friend. We always spent time together, never kept secrets or anything.
No, I don't see her anymore. Well, she had this boyfriend, right? Really cute, and so sweet! I swear, every girl in our class had a crush on him. Probably some of the boys, too, but I don't really know anything about that. Who told you? Ugh, that's a creepy rumor. Listen, I like boys, I don't care what you've heard.
So, anyway, I stole him. It was easy enough, the three of us were always together, and I got really close to him. And I guess I didn't really like him that much, I just wanted to know what it was like to be her. And maybe even show her up a little. She always got everything she wanted, she was always on top. I wanted to be the popular one for once. I wanted to have something she didn't have.
Well, we still hung out after that. She was really nice about it. I do feel bad about it, after all these years, it was a terrible thing to do to my best friend. I never got to apologize.
We were out on the river one day. We had packed a picnic and rented a rowboat, and we were spending the day outside together... he had a club meeting or something, I can't remember. It was like old times, just she and I together, talking and laughing.
I was braiding her hair. She always had this necklace, this locket. And I was teasing her, saying that since I was dating him now, I should be wearing his picture around my neck, and I unclasped the necklace and lunged over to the other side of the boat. And she laughed, and tackled me, trying to get it back. She laughed, but there was something in her face, you know? Not sad. Scared. I wish she would have trusted me. I would have given it back. I wouldn't have kept it or thrown it overboard or anything. We wrestled a little, laughing like children, and she slipped... she slipped and hit her head on the side of the boat...
She was always such a good swimmer, I didn't react, I didn't expect she would sink so quickly when she toppled into the water. I thought she was just joking, and any minute now she would pop up and pull me in as well. But I guess she hit her head so hard that it knocked her out. She didn't come up. A week later, they found her body several miles downstream, waterlogged and unrecognizable.
I still had the locket. And here's the really weird part, it didn't have his picture in it, it was mine. Yeah, I don't know if it was because we were such good friends, or because... or because...
I don't want to talk about this any more, okay?
Wakaba:
Okay, I admit it, there was someone after you moved away. But I didn't date him, I just had a crush on him. I didn't even talk to him, I just admired him from afar, he was so much older than me and so popular, I was too shy to do anything about it.
Well, he died actually. It was so sudden. One day I saw him at school, in the kendo meet, and then the next day he was gone. I guess what had happened was that he got hit by a car. Well, that's what the rumor said, anyway.
Yeah, you know the road that goes out by the church? It was there... he had been out somewhere with a friend, and they were riding their bikes home... no, he didn't have a bike, they were sharing a bike home, one of them pedaling and one riding on the back. It wasn't even suppertime yet, but it was dark... a sudden thunderstorm had blown in. I remember, because that was the week I got my hat, the green one? And I was running home so it wouldn't get ruined by the rain.
So what happened was that it was raining and it was dark, and the bike must have slipped on the damp road, because they fell. And it must have been too dark to see, even in the middle of the day, because the car didn't even notice them.
I didn't know him that well. I can't even remember his first name. Yeah, I know, but it's been so long since I even thought about him. I think it started with a K... I know, it seems like the kind of thing I should remember.
Keiko:
I have so been in that house. I have! My best friend lived there. It's totally gorgeous, you wouldn't believe. I don't even think I've seen all the rooms.
No I'm not! I am so not lying! Remember the Kiryuu family? That's where they lived. I don't know where they live now, they moved pretty soon after what happened to Nanami... and Touga.
Touga, you remember, he was Nanami's older brother? Red hair, really handsome. Yeah, the guy on the kendo team. How could you not know he was Nanami's brother? They were only like attached at the hip.
He wasn't killed in that car crash. No, that was what everyone said. He only broke a few bones, and caught a cold from sitting out in the rain for hours. No, it was the other guy who was killed instantly, the one he was riding home with.
Because I was there when his parents got the phone call! Look, it was that room, second floor, all the way on the left, we were watching television together. God, she had the most beautiful couch, this light blue velevety cushiony thing. Must have cost a fortune, and that was their "bad" couch, the good ones we weren't even allowed to sit on.
It was totally weird, I tell you. It seemed like he should have lived, but... I dunno. He just stopped eating. He wouldn't talk or move or do anything, he'd just sit there. He came home from the hospital the same day of the accident, bandaged and bruised but otherwise okay. And then, a few days after that, he was just... gone. Like he didn't even have a reason to live. And man, I thought the house was quiet before... it was a tomb after he died.
Look, I'll show you the card from the funeral home. It was so sad. I got to sit near the family to keep Nanami company, so I could see every single mourner pass by the coffins.
No, it wasn't a budget funeral, they were rich, remember? It was just a week after the accident... Touga and his best friend, the one who was killed by the car, and I guess there was a little girl in the car who got killed too. Not anyone from our school. I don't even remember what she looked like. I dunno... I guess they wanted to say all the goodbyes at once. Didn't want to have to go to three funerals. It was still the most depressing thing I've ever seen.
I have pictures! Not of the funeral, yuck. Of me at Nanami's house. I'll go get them, okay?
Ick, I don't want to even think about what happened to her. I'd prefer to just remember her as my playmate, not as... well, you know...
Mitsuru:
It's not very nice to make jokes about suicide. Shut up, I'm not being overly sensitive. Well, you've never even known anyone who's killed themselves. I have.
She was someone who I played with, even though she was a few years older than me. Just on the playground, I never went to her house or anything. I'd build sandcastles with her, and her brother would keep an eye on us. He was so cool! I always wanted to be like him.
He died though, in a car accident or something, and she wasn't the same after that. She didn't come to the playground very much, and when she did, she didn't want to play, she just wandered around like she was sleepwalking.
My parents think I don't know what happened to her, but I do. I was there, at the top of the stairs, when they thought I was asleep. Some family friends were over, and they were up late talking. Grown-up stuff. You can't blame me for listening in, eh? They think we won't understand, that we can't handle it, but kids think up worse stuff than what the adults try to keep from us.
So she had a bunch of her brother's stuff, clothes and books and toys, and she was throwing it over the embankment by the dam, in the middle of the night. I don't know why. Maybe she wanted to get rid of any memory of him. It was one of those really disgusting days, cold and windy and wet. One of his sweaters got caught on the dam, I saw it later that week, didn't even know what it was at first.
After she was done throwing everything over, they don't know what happened... if she slipped and fell, or if she jumped in herself. Okay, so I don't know if it was a suicide. It might have been. And she was swept over the waterfall. I don't know if you've seen, but the rocks down there are really sharp. My parents... it's almost like they enjoyed telling the story. How broken she was, how the old woman who found her screamed, where she was buried... next to her brother's still-new grave...
I'll show it to you if you want. If you promise not to be so morbid about everything.
Anthy:
Utena? Utena? Are you asleep? I'll whisper these things to you, perhaps they'll make their way into your dreams.
I hope you don't wake up. I couldn't tell you this then, you wouldn't understand or believe or remember. Everything has to be done sideways, in story and song and shreds of memory.
Don't be afraid, when the time comes, for me to kill you. When you've died as many times as Akio and I have, you get to know the road between life and death quite well, enough to travel it back and forth without difficulty. Death is... it's like peeling a layer of skin now, it hurts but then you're all new underneath. Don't be afraid of the knife. Death just opens the way to be reborn.
I'm sorry it has to be this way. Please believe that I want to free you and everyone from this limbo. Stuck between the worlds, stuck in everyone's memories. But you have to be brave, you have to be ready to sacrifice yourself. That's what true nobility is. That's what creates miracles.
You remind me of him, you know. Dios, back when we were the other kind of eternal, when we didn't die at all. So trusting, so caring. Always putting yourself before others.
I didn't know then. I didn't know that there had to be two sides to everything, a night and a day. That the phoenix must burn itself before it is renewed, that the leaves must fall so new ones can grow. He had to die for their sake, so he could return even stronger, but most humans don't understand this, even I didn't. They blamed the witch, they blamed the destroyer who was sister to the creator. After that, we shared our duties, we were reborn as a soul in two bodies. Do you understand? That's why he loves you so much, because I do. And I want to help you take that final step, to let yourself die completely so you can leave this world and be reborn.
I love you, and when you've been around as long as I have, you know what love is.
Please don't be afraid when I help you die.