COURTING DEATH

Chapter 18 part 2

Foolish Love starts playing from my clock, warning me that it is time to prepare for school. A romantic song of someone yearning for their lost love, it was one of Kyoko's favorite mp3s. Perhaps I should have seen it as a warning sign. I don't have the energy to turn it off, though each musical phrase strikes like a plunging dagger.

A few minutes later my mom calls out. "Michi! Hurry up or you'll be late for school."

I lay in bed, wrapped tight in my blankets with no intention of coming out. I've spent the whole night wrestling with an endless series of shadowy, accusing nightmares. I feel sick. Despair has sapped the strength from my arms and legs. Nausea twists my stomach in knots. I may never go to school again. I don't see any way that I could.

Mom opens my door, her voice soft and concerned. "Michi? What's wrong. Are you sick? Do I need to take you to the hospital?"

"No, mom. But I'm not going to school today."

"Why?"

"Because Ito-senpai has everyone convinced that I started the fight. He says I attacked him when they caught me trying to do perverted things with Shizuku-san."

"Ito who?"

"The guy who led the other delinquents in beating me."

An uncharacteristic severe look hardens my mother's face. "He has, has he? Maybe I need to have a word with Wakahisa-sensei, then."

"Not the principal!" Mom leaves my room, closing the door behind her. Dragging the principal and the teachers into this can only make things worse for me. It's bad enough the whole class hates me. I'm going to have to change schools. Maybe it would be better if I dropped out. School isn't required past the ninth grade. I could just go into one of the trades...

I clutch the blankets tighter. Why even bother? What would be the point? My future has already ended.

A few minutes later, mother's strident voice drifts through my bedroom door. I can't make out the words and, frankly, I can't think of a reason why it would matter. My life is over. The one thing that made it worthwhile, the one thing I never thought I'd be allowed to have, my girlfriend Kyoko is gone and there is no bringing her back.

* * *

I sleep for the rest of the day, fading in and out of consciousness. Mom calls me to dinner. I ignore her. When sleep escapes me, I stare at the ceiling and try not to think at all. It's dark outside when I wake abruptly to drop in temperature and a familiar heavy feeling in the air. My eyes shoot open at the sound of space itself being ripped apart. A black shadow of a familiar size and shape steps into the room.

I wonder, if I admit that love doesn't exist, could I convince her to take me and leave Kyoko alone? At this point, I'd happily go to Yomi or whatever else awaits me. "What do you want?"

Shizuku tilts her head and looks down at me with a faint expression that might just be bitter amusement. Bitterness comes from pain and disappointment. Part of me wonders what expectations in her past had died to cause it.

"I have one more thing to show you."

"After which...what?"

"After which I think I will have made my point—if I haven't already."

I tense, hesitating on the edge of surrender. If I couldn't even make a relationship work with the perfect girl, maybe Shizuku was right. Maybe I had simply fooled myself with the vague dream of something I called love. Love was a type of open-ended promise to care for someone else, wasn't it? Right now I couldn't think of a single promise to believe in. Who could keep such a promise? I sigh, wondering what she had planned for me. "What is it?"