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If it weren’t for the sound of Shio’s footsteps echoing through the empty halls, she might have thought all the sound in the world ceased to exist. The closer she got to the specific destination she had been searching for, scorch marks along the floors and walls became more noticeable, creeping up the walls like shadows ready to tug at her ankles.
No one had come to this building in quite some time. The abandoned apartment complex was dark, the smell of must and decay clinging to the heavy air. It almost felt difficult just to inhale, but something about it was strangely nostalgic. It made something in Shio’s chest ache, some broken part of her that would never heal correctly. Most days she could feel it prodding at her from inside, like a piece of glass stuck under skin that had already started healing shut. Here she was, in the first place she ever felt safe, a feeling she was robbed of all too soon.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. This was nothing more than a decrepit building. These walls held nothing for her. There wasn’t anything but the ghosts. Remnants of all the life that once existed here, but were now just barely a whisper in the air. There was no safety to be found here. Her safety was a person, and that person was gone.
She was fourteen now, and even though it’s been six years since her death, not a single day went by that she didn’t think about Satou. She still wondered, sometimes, why she saved her right at the end. It had been Shio’s idea to die in the first place, hadn’t it? Why would she even think that this was anywhere near what she’d wanted? A life without Satou wasn’t one worth living. She thought she’d made that clear.
She’s had dreams about her. Nightmares, too. Countless dreams, countless nightmares, filling the space above her bed night after night. Dreams where everything went right, dreams where they didn’t. Nightmares of fire and blood and baseball bats. In some of them, she asked these questions, hoping the Satou that always lived on inside of her would have the answers she’s been seeking for what felt like an eternity.
She never got any answers, of course. In some, her lips would move as if she was answering, but no sound could be heard coming from them. In others, she’d simply smile and talk about the new cake she’d gotten for them to try, as if responding to an entirely different conversation. Then there were the ones where she’d open her mouth and a river of vibrant red blood began pouring out, draining from every orifice on her face, painting her skin and her clothes and flooding the room around them until they were drowning.
For the first couple years, she thought having the memory of Satou would be enough. That as long as she had those memories, she would live on, in the castle within Shio’s heart. She still believed that, but it wasn’t so simple anymore. She couldn’t remember exactly how her voice sounded, and photographs online were the only thing keeping her face from fading away. She couldn’t feel Satou’s touch on her skin, couldn’t conjure up the words she’d say. No matter how hard she tried to imagine, her daydreams could never replicate reality to her liking. The Satou inside of her felt more and more like a phantom. No matter how desperately Shio clung to those memories, they began to corrode with time like sand between her fingers. The horror sank in; she was forgetting. She was forgetting Satou.
It was those feelings that compelled her to come to this place. She couldn’t say why she wanted to come back here, or whether or not she truly thought it would help. Most likely not; nothing helped. So long as she couldn’t feel Satou there with her, nothing would ever make this better.
Six years had passed since she last stepped foot in this place. This was the place that offered the happiest memories, but also the most painful. It wasn’t an entirely unwelcome pain, though; it was a pain born from love, their love. Her heart wouldn’t have been able to die here if Satou hadn’t brought it to life to begin with. Still, love alone wasn’t enough to protect her from the effects of the passage of time. She had to do something. If she didn’t, the memories would continue to fade, swallowed by the sea of nothingness in her mind.
Sneaking away from her mom and Asahi was easy enough -- they were finally in a place where they could sleep soundly, most nights. Not that she cared. Even after all these years, living with them brought her no sense of comfort or belonging. Her mother tried to tell her how much she regretted what she did, back when she was in the hospital, but Shio wasn’t buying it. There was still nothing behind those amethyst eyes, no glimmer that suggested that anything had changed. Her mother’s heart was as empty and broken as it ever was. Even if she had, it didn’t matter. The past couldn’t be erased so easily.
Her brother was another story entirely. Asahi was still convinced they could put everything behind them. That they could become a normal, happy family. As if it were easy as sweeping her mother’s abandonment under the rug and having a family game night every week, eating dinner together every night. Doing things that made them seem like the normal family they’d never be. He had spent so much time convinced that their dad’s death would be the solution to all their problems, he couldn’t seem to comprehend why so little has changed.
More than anything, though, he’d hoped that one day she’d put everything that happened with Satou behind them. He wanted her to realize what a horrible person he thought Satou was, as if Shio didn’t love her in spite of those things. As if Satou was the one who ruined everything, and not him. As if she’d ever be able to look at his face, her face, either of their faces without feeling sick. Without thinking back to this burning apartment building and wishing she’d just buried that shard of glass into her throat when she had the chance.
Even if Shio’s heart hadn’t died with Satou, the picture perfect family he envisioned was never going to be anything more than a figment of his imagination. He could pathetically cling to the notion that they’ve found their happy ending all he wanted. It wouldn’t make a difference. Shio already had everything she could ever need with Satou, and he was the reason everything went wrong. He tore her away from her happily ever after and selfishly tried to force her into his own, and she could never forgive him for that. How could she even pretend to not be disgusted and enraged at everything he’d taken from her? The Koube household was no family, and it never would be. They would only ever be strangers, three ghosts inhabiting the same house. Nothing more.
Satou was the only person who had ever made her feel the way a family should. Satou was always happy to see her, Satou did everything in her power to make her feel wanted, Satou gave her a warm bed and clean clothes and a roof over her head and the safest arms she could possibly rest in. Satou didn’t get mad at her or punish her for her mistakes. Satou was always patient and kind, even when she maybe didn’t deserve it. Satou had worked hard and fought, lied, cheated, manipulated, shed the blood of both herself and others, all to protect the life they shared. With her, Shio always knew that she wasn’t anything but truly and unconditionally loved. Something no one else had ever given her before. So long as that love existed within Shio, it carried on, in life and in death. In sickness and in health. Forever, even after death do they part.
Still, most days were a struggle. More and more, Shio struggled to look for a reason to stay alive. Satou was gone, so what exactly did she have to live for? Her family was awful. She didn’t really have any friends at school, or other people she cared about. She couldn’t connect with other people her age, and wasn’t interested in trying. They could never understand her the way Satou did. All they cared to talk about was stupid and pointless. They talked about this new cell phone charm they got last week, how their parents cut their allowance, about the guys they had crushes on. All these things that bored Shio to tears. All these things she didn’t want anything to do with.
In short, she wanted it to be over. To throw away this wasted life, to fade peacefully, serene with the knowledge that she’d be with the one she loved again. As much as she wanted that, though, she knew that Satou didn’t. She wouldn’t have saved her right at the end if she didn’t want Shio to live. Regardless of what she wanted, it wouldn’t be right. Would she ever forgive Shio if she threw away the life she killed to protect? The life that she died to protect?
Still, she couldn’t say for sure whether or not this place would give her the answers she seeks. This place she found, with the person she considered home. Their castle, the one with sweets and happiness and so much love she could drown in it. Now, all of it has faded, rotted away to nothing. What was once sweet was now as bitter as cough medicine. Bitter, bitter, bitter.
Still, she had to get in. She had to see this place for herself. To find the corpse of her heart, to hope she could salvage just enough to save herself from the all-encompassing desire to destroy the only thing Satou ever cared about protecting. She made the conscious choice to save her life. Even if Shio couldn’t understand it, she had to have a reason.
It was easier than she was expecting, getting into the building. Luckily, it seemed like the owner didn’t care enough about intruders to have any alarms set up; the only sound that could be heard after the shattering of glass was the distant sound of the rock she threw thumping against the floor inside. She tried to be a little careful when smashing the rest of the glass before crawling through, but she did get a cut or two on her leg. They were shallow, though -- she’d given herself much deeper ones before, as evident from the white scars littered all over her thighs and the undersides of her wrists. She could still walk just fine, so she’d clean them out and bandage them up when she got home.
Exhaling a sharp breath, Shio finally found herself standing in front of the specific room she was looking for. It seemed like an eternity ago that she was here, living a life that was happy. The days where she’d be lonely waiting for Satou to come home from work, patiently waiting so they could spend the evening together. Having a bath, making and eating dinner, reciting their vows to each other before crawling under the blankets of their shared bed. There were bad days, days where the loneliness built inside of her like ink, her head spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning. Still, Satou would come and snap her out of it before long, and their happy sugar life could begin once again.
The memories of those days were konpeito candies, sweet and glittering like precious gemstones. Instances of true happiness in a little bag, gone before you know it. Usually, when she got to the end, she’d spit it out for a couple moments before popping it back into her mouth, over and over, trying to stall the inevitable disappearance for as long as she could as the sugar dissolved on her tongue. Trying to convince herself that maybe, just maybe, she could make this candy last forever.
“Satou-chan...” She murmured, voice quiet enough that there was no echo throughout the halls. Saying her name out loud felt like applying pressure to a bruise, prodding her fingers into an open wound. Whispering to the ghost inside of her felt like it was only affirming that there was a ghost, and that it’d never be the real thing. That Satou really was gone, that the happy sugar life she held inside of her would never be anything more than a fantasy.
The room was predictably decrepit, empty of any form of furniture. Not that she was expecting there to be; no one moved into this room after the incident, and she was pretty sure everything they had was tossed out due to the fire. What was left of the paint was damaged by the smoke and flames. Mold was now growing in the corners. For a few moments, Shio just glanced around, a beam of light emanating from the cell phone in her hand. Taking in every detail she could see through the thick shrouds of darkness, trying to reconcile this place with the way she remembered it.
As she stood in the living area of their old room, none of the emotions settling in her body were the ones she was expecting. That wasn’t really saying much, though. It was hard to expect anything, returning to a place that only existed in her foggy and fragmented childhood memories. What exactly did she expect to feel? Sorrow? Anger? Grief? Those things haven’t left her for even a moment since the day Satou died; they’d follow her no matter where she went.
The things she felt... It was hard to put names to them. It wasn’t peace, and it wasn’t hope. No surprise there. Those things would never find their way into Shio’s heart again. Melancholy, that was certainly there, maybe a little nostalgia too. There was confusion, pain, and a mix of a million other things. Like a tangled up ball of yarn, it was hard to know which strings led to where. If she tugged on the threads, she wasn’t sure if they’d get tighter or fall apart completely.
Regardless, here she was. In the place where she and Satou lived together for a few brief moments, treasured and irreplaceable inside her heart. This place had seen an abundance of light and love, of darkness and hate, of violence and murder and promises spoken under moonlit nights. Satou Matsuzaka had done terrible things, all in the name of Shio Koube. The two who never knew love before each other, and would never know love after. Good, bad, those things didn’t matter to two as broken as them. Shio loved her as she was, every sick and damaged piece of her, and knew that every bit of love was returned. Two jars, once empty but never shattered, filled only by each other.
Shio found her way to the balcony, shutting off her cell phone’s flashlight. The moon in the sky was round and bright and as beautiful as it was the night she screamed into the sky, begging god to not take their happy sugar life away from her. The god who hadn’t listened, who allowed everything to fall to pieces for reasons she couldn’t understand, reasons she didn’t want to. Shio didn’t believe in god anymore. She sat down, the floor creaking under her weight the slightest bit. Maybe it would cave under her if she wasn’t careful. A part of her hoped it would.
Shio pulled a small handful of konpeito packets out of her pocket, ripping one open and popping the contents of it into her mouth. Sweet, just as it had always been. One after another, she ate the star-shaped candies as she stared out into the clear night sky. A gentle breeze flowed through her hair, much longer than it was back then, worn in the same bun style that Satou used to wear. The August air only slightly cooled by the absence of the sun.
For a long while, she simply sat there, popping candies into her mouth and staring into the night. Her mind wandered, drifting from thought to thought. She still remembered that day, her few brief moments of consciousness after the fall. She couldn’t move much, but she managed to look up at Satou. The only thing redder than those lifeless eyes was the pool of blood underneath her. She didn’t understand why Satou chose to die alone. Why Shio had to be trapped alone on this hell of an earth, patiently awaiting the day she could join her love in the place beyond life. To cross that threshold herself with the knowledge that Satou was there, waiting for her.
A deep sense of longing tore at her at the thought, creating fissures and crevices along the suface of her heart like an earthquake. She could go there now. Satou never got angry at her for her mistakes before. Even when Shio told her she hated her in a heated moment, Satou wasn’t angry with her. Would that really change now? If she could forgive Satou for choosing to die without her, surely she could find it in her heart to do the same. Satou would forgive me. Because she loves me. Right?
With that, her mind was made up. She came here seeking freedom from this desire, but now all she wanted was to succumb to it. The corpse of her heart was desecrated, shattered and rotted to nothingness. There was no salvaging this. She knew. A part of her has always known, that this was how it was meant to end.
Satou had wanted her to live, but it felt like such a waste to continue on as if she had any reason to do so. Satou could see something she couldn't, but no matter how hard she looked, Shio would never find it. How much longer could she go on without understanding? What reason did she have to continue this life, as if it had any hope to begin with? Did Satou really expect her to move on, to continue living as if it had any meaning? She'd never be anything but a ghost, drifting through life confused and lost. Her life was a sinking ship, far off into the ocean with no hope of rescue.
In truth, Shio Koube died long ago. There was no other ending to this story. She could feel it in the deepest pit of her stomach, carved into her bones. She couldn't bring herself to fight anymore. Six years later, she was finally ready to let go.
There were lots of methods at her disposal, but she didn’t have to think too long before settling on one. She reached into her pocket again, retrieving a small switchblade she stole a while back. She glanced down at the weapon, a decently sized blade folded into a black handle with intricate gold vines carved into it. She stared at it for a few moments, enamored by the gleam of the metal in the silver moonlight.
The blade was razor sharp. Even the lightest touches across the skin left tiny beads of blood pooling along the trail of the skin it grazes. She didn’t have to press down all that hard against her wrist as she sliced vertically along her arm before the blood started rushing form it and down her arm like a waterfall. Then, she did the next arm, the amount of blood assuring her it’d be over before she knew it. Now, all she had to do was wait. She continued to stare at the sky as the blood pooled around her arms, her head spinning fast from blood loss. Blots of blackness began to form in the corners of her peripheral vision, her breathing beginning to shallow. This life had been nothing. It ended the same way it began; with nothing but empty, meaningless tragedy.
That beautiful, impossibly full moon was the last image planted in Shio’s mind as she drifted into oblivion. The thrum of her heartbeat slowed to a stop, her lungs ceasing its movements. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she bid farewell to a world that held nothing for her. She escaped to the castle, where she’d spend the rest of eternity with the only person she ever loved. There, and only there, would she find peace.