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In the dark of night, a girl dangled her feet over the side of the rooftop, in the spot where the safety railing always seemed to mysteriously disappear any time she came up there alone.
“Hmmm…” She watched the lights under her, the ones that were so, so far away from where she was, unable to reflect light onto her face and keep her out of the dark. On the rooftop where nobody else could see or find her, it was as if she had already disappeared from the world.
Her pink hair flowed freely and unburdened behind her in the cold wind. Her name was Iroha Tamaki, and she had been coming up here for quite some time.
“Maybe I should…” She leaned her body a bit over the edge a bit, although she had no intention of falling just yet. After all, her companion wasn’t here yet, and the motion was only meant to grab her attention.
“You can’t!” Right on cue, a girl materialized to Iroha’s left and held her hand out to try and stop her, although her arm passed right through her, as it always did.
Iroha leaned back, removing herself from the precarious situation, and let herself give a giggle. “Did you think something new would happen today, Kuroe?”
“No, but…” The apparition looked away, unable to meet Iroha’s gaze. “I had to try and stop you, anyway…”
“C’mon, did you really think I was going to do it right then, without you even here?”
Kuroe didn’t respond for a moment, until she realized what Iroha had meant. “Oh… you were baiting me, to get me to show up…”
“Got it in one try,” Iroha replied, with a smile. “I was thinking that this might be the night, and I didn’t want our time together to end before I got to talk to you again.”
“…Is there really nothing I can do to talk you out of it this time, Iroha?”
“Well… I don’t think so, not this time…” Her façade of cheer dissolved, the last remnants of it sticking to her after having to keep it up the entire day finally allowed to fade away.
“I see…”
The first night that Iroha had come up to the rooftop of Kamihama Municipal, full of doubt and fear about her existence and her future after the accident that had taken the life of her sister, she had seen the missing railing and taken it as a sign.
But a shout from behind her caused her to stop before she could take the plunge, and when she turned around, she saw a girl that wore the uniform of her school, but whom she had never seen before in the hallways, or any of her classes.
She had introduced herself as Kuroe, although she refused to offer any more information up about herself, no matter how much Iroha asked her to.
Iroha didn’t jump that night, but she returned to the rooftop frequently, and each time she did, it didn’t take long for Kuroe to appear (she had tried looking for some explanation of how she got there, because she didn’t go through the door to the rooftop, but the girl would always appear out of her field of view, and she ultimately just accepted that she showed up out of thin air).
At first, the two of them would simply talk about whatever was on Iroha’s mind, with Kuroe interjecting very little of her own personal thoughts in (to the point where Iroha wasn’t sure if she had much of a personality at all), but eventually, she often took the conversation towards directions of Iroha seeking help…
“Iroha… don’t you think it would be a good idea for you to look into therapeutic options to deal with your pain? You can mend your relationship with your parents and your broken heart over your sister… but you can’t reverse your own death…”
Iroha sighed, for this wasn’t the first time she had gotten hints that Kuroe wanted something from her other than what she had already decided. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that, Kuroe… I’ve already made my mind up, and I’d rather that we don’t spend our times together talking about useless stuff…”
“But why, Iroha? You—"
“I can already tell what would happen if I tried again,” Iroha said, cutting Kuroe off. “Things would feel better for a bit, and then it’d just be worse than before, because I’d just have more proof that my feelings could never be fixed… just temporary solutions to a permanent problem.”
Kuroe thought about what she wanted to say next, for a moment. “Maybe it’s just like that, then? You just keep finding temporary ways to heal the pain, and then eventually, you find you’ve lived a full life…”
“I won’t,” Iroha said in response, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but that just sounds miserable… having to delude myself over and over into believing that things are better than they are, just to survive.”
The black-haired girl looked from side to side, as if nervous, before looking back at Iroha. “Then… I’m curious… why do you keep coming up here? If you’ve given up, you must not have any reason to hesitate, right?”
“Well…” Iroha smiled. “I told myself that I wanted to wait until I learned more about you.”
Kuroe’s eyes widened. “Me?! Why?”
“Well… you’re really the only friend I’ve had, ever since this all happened, and I’ve been really happy to have someone to talk to, even if it’s just like this. You can’t fix my life, but I thought that maybe I could help you a bit before I go.”
“I… see…” Kuroe sighed. “If you really wish for me to tell you what would make me happy, I’d like for you to disappear from this rooftop and try to live your life again. Knowing that there’s still a chance for you would give me a bit of hope.”
“…No.”
“It was worth a shot…”
Iroha tilted her head at the girl sitting next to her, as both of them sat at the edge of the rooftop. “Why are you so interested in me? I really have no idea…”
“…I won’t tell you that.”
“You’ve never told me about yourself, Kuroe, no matter how much I ask you…”
“There’s a very good reason for that…” She mumbled in response, looking down at the city below, rather than at Iroha.
“What’s that, then?”
“Well…” Kuroe thought about her options for a moment. “What do you believe I am, Iroha?”
Iroha put a hand to her chin. “I had always just assumed that you were someone who died here previously… but your sprit wasn’t able to leave.”
“That’s… not quite it.”
“Really?” Iroha sounded disappointed. “I was kind of hoping that if I jumped from this spot, I might get trapped up here with you.”
Kuroe’s face shifted to one of horror. “Why would you want that?!”
Iroha’s look turned playful. “Well, at first, I was hoping that if I could help you out, you might be able to do like spirits do in movies and be able to move on.”
“…That definitely won’t happen,” Kuroe responded, with a bit of bitterness.
“It won’t if you never tell me about yourself, at the very least,” Iroha continued. “But if I could get trapped up here and stay your friend forever, I’d at least be able to make sure that you aren’t lonely.”
Kuroe still wouldn’t meet Iroha’s gaze. “Trust me… that isn’t what will happen.”
“Why not?” Iroha asked, with confusion. “You keep saying all of these confusing things like there’s an important and hidden truth behind it all, but you won’t tell me…”
Kuroe sighed. “As I’ve said… my intention from the start has been to not tell you the truth, as I never confirm it to anyone, and that conviction’s only increased with the time that we’ve spent together…”
“Then, why’s that?” Iroha looked away from Kuroe, so that both of them were looking at the city below, and not each other. “…Why won’t you tell me?”
“…I fear it would hurt you, more than anything else.”
“Well…” The pink-haired girl said, tentatively. “Since it’s the last time that I’ll be here… it’d be okay for me to get a bit more hurt, right?”
“Iroha…”
“Hey, Kuroe…” Iroha tilted her head back up to look at Kuroe, who was still focusing on the lights below, far, far out of reach. “Won’t you look at me?”
“I…”
“Please?”
Kuroe tried to keep her gaze on the city below her, to see how far out of reach the lights were, to remember that such things were not hers to have, just as the stars above her weren’t as well. But hearing Iroha’s voice made her crack, and she lifted her head to see the other girl’s kind smile.
Meanwhile, Iroha looked into Kuroe’s purple eyes, which now seemed impossibly deep, so deep that she could fall down them forever. Had they always been like that, or only revealed themselves now?
Kuroe was able to hold the eye contact for a few moments, before the intensity of Iroha’s gaze made it too much, and she had to tilt her head to look down to somewhere around the girl’s knees. But Iroha gently made the motion of lifting her chin up (since the two couldn’t actually make contact, with Kuroe’s form passing through humans), and Kuroe found herself lifting her head up with it, so that their eyes met once more, and this time, Kuroe just simply looked into a corner of the sky to avoid Iroha.
“Are you… sure you really want to know?”
Iroha nodded. “Yes.”
Kuroe took a deep breath, and then without further delay, spoke. “I’m sort of… a guide to what comes after life. I appear to people who are about to die, and shepherd their journey beyond.”
Iroha tilted her head, hungry for further explanation as she continued to kick her feet back and forth off of the side of the building. “So, you’re like… one of Death’s assistants, I guess?”
“It’s more like… I am Death, I suppose…”
“Oh…” Iroha looked confused for a moment, and Kuroe wasn’t surprised. “I thought you would’ve looked different…”
Wait, that was the part she was tripped up by? Kuroe had never revealed her secret because she thought that it would freak people out… but Iroha didn’t really seem like a normal person, anyway, so it made sense that she wasn’t thrown off by it.
“Well… I just took this appearance and personality because it seemed like the right way to talk to you… I don’t really have any kind of default appearance.”
“I see…” Iroha said, putting a hand to her chin. “So… you're different to everyone then, right?”
“That’s right,” Kuroe confirmed.
“…How many other people do you show up like this, then?”
“Well… I usually at least appear to everyone who dies, and I estimate that I'm talking with hundreds of other people right now, although I have no personal awareness of what's going on with my other selves at the moment… that’s the real reason why I didn’t want to reveal all of this to you.”
Iroha frowned at her words, but didn’t let on any more of her feelings than that. “…Why’s that?”
Kuroe sighed. “I thought that if you knew that you weren’t the only person that I spent time with, you wouldn’t feel like the time we spent together was special. I didn’t want you to feel sad…”
Iroha’s faced stayed in the frown for a few moments… before turning into a coy smile. “Oh? Death herself is concerned that much about my feelings?”
Kuroe was… surprised to say the least that Iroha visibly seemed to take it well enough to start joking, but she assumed it was probably just a coping mechanism as Iroha struggled to deal with the revelation. “It’s just a facet of this personality… I won’t think about it anymore, after you’re gone, because ‘Kuroe’ will be gone, too…”
“Why?” Iroha’s face animated as she suddenly tried to grab onto Kuroe’s hand, although it only found the edge of the building. “Even if I’m going to die, that doesn’t mean you have to, right?”
“This me will have fulfilled its purpose. She’ll be discarded, like every other form I’ve taken in the past. If there’s no you, there’s no me, either…”
“Then…” Iroha’s eyes lit up, seemingly having solved the puzzle. “If I don’t die, you’ll still be around, right?”
“…Is that really what would convince you to stay alive, even after all my words before couldn’t do so? You’re so strange to take me into consideration like this…” Kuroe buried her face in her hands.
“It’s like I’ve said before, Kuroe. You’re the only person who I’ve felt like has actually cared about my situation, ever since Ui died. I wouldn’t go through suffering my life for my own sake… but I’d do it for you.”
“How stubborn…” She shook her head. “Regardless, that idea wouldn’t work like you think it would, anyway.”
Iroha’s face dropped. “…Why not?”
“…If you choose to stay alive, ‘Kuroe’ wouldn’t have any reason to exist either, because I wouldn’t be able to see you anymore. I’d come visit you whenever your natural death comes, but until then, I’d be completely dormant. And after that, the same thing would happen anyway. I don’t think you should make your choices based on what would happen for me.” She gestured to herself a bit, to indicate that she was referring to her present self, and not her entire concept.
“Well… why not?” She repeated.
“Death comes to all mortals. If I take the form of one, it’s not an unwarranted tragedy if it comes to her, right?”
Iroha looks down. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it though, do I?”
“I suppose you don’t, but it also doesn’t mean that you should spend the time that you have left thinking of futile ways to avert it.”
She looked back up to Kuroe and smiled again, their eyes meeting. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“As long as you understand that it’s for nothing…”
“So,” Iroha said, after a pause. “Tell me more about yourself.”
Kuroe blinked. “…What about myself?”
“Ummm…” She had asked the initial question without figuring out what exactly she wanted to know. “What do you do? I mean, for your ‘job’…”
Kuroe looked down at the city below. “Most people seem to assume that a personification of Death would try and convince them to die like a malevolent spirit… but typically, I just appear to them, and either just shepherd their soul if it was a situation where their death took them by surprise, help them accept it if it’s a situation where it’s unavoidable, or make sure that it’s what they really want to do, if it’s a situation where it’s their choice, like yours is.”
“So… do you have the kinds of talks that the two of us had with everyone?”
“No, it’s just like I said. I didn’t want you to believe that your situation was just like the others, because you’re special to me in a way that no other person who I’ve visited has been. Who I become when I’m with you… is someone that I’ve learned that I feel I can like. The story of ‘Kuroe’ is a story that only you will ever know, so I wouldn’t want you to think badly of me…”
Iroha’s face widens in bewilderment. “You like yourself… because of me?”
“Nobody else has ever tried to be my friend, before… they’re so absorbed in thinking about their deaths that they never pay attention to me. And my feelings are always different, depending on which face I’ve put on, but it doesn’t matter what they are, since they’re never seen."
“Kuroe…”
“But ever since the start, you’ve tried to become my friend and pry into who I was, even when you were at your most miserable.” Kuroe gave a rare smile. “It’s just one version of me, that only exists for you… but it’s the one I’ve come to like the most.”
“Kuroe…” Iroha could only repeat.
“I’ve never actually tried to talk anyone out of their suicide except for you. I can’t hold onto the person that I am now, because the moment that you step through or away from Death’s door, I cease to exist. But… I thought it would be nice if you could remember me at least.”
“Well…” Iroha broke out of her shocked expression, into giggles.
“Iroha?! Are you okay?” Kuroe was worried that the weight of the revelations about herself had finally shattered the other girl’s mind.
After a moment, she was able to recompose herself. “If you really wanted me to live, you should’ve said that from the start. Part of my problem was that without Ui, I’ve had nobody to really live for.”
“…I suppose the form that I’ve taken might be one of a coward.”
“But if it’s for you, it’s like I said… it might not be so bad.”
“Iroha, that’s…” Kuroe quickly wiped one of her eyes, before any tears allowed themselves to fall out.
“But wait…” Iroha’s eyes narrowed. “There’s one thing that still doesn’t make sense to me."
“…What is it?”
Iroha kept swinging her feet off of the side of the rooftop. “If you started caring about me after you talked to me… then why did you try and stop me on the first night? You can’t have known how I would have treated you back then…”
“That’s… I won’t answer that.” Kuroe looked away.
“Oh? Did Kuroe get a crush on me when she saw me?”
She buried her face in her hands once more at Iroha’s teasing, the girl having changed so much from the taciturn one that she had originally met on the rooftop. “It’s… just a facet of ‘Kuroe’… one that I didn’t expect when this personality came into being.”
“There’s cases where I’ve played the role of someone with an infatuation… but it was just to make the person who was dying feel better. This is the first time… where I’ve felt a genuine, organic attachment. And to think it happened right away…”
“Don’t worry about it, Kuroe.” Iroha hovered her hands where Kuroe’s shoulders are, mimicking the act of grabbing them, and leaned into her. “I like you too, you know?”
“That… I’m not sure if it makes me happy or not. I like that you think so fondly of me… but you shouldn’t get so attached.”
“Then I guess it’s going to be unfortunate for you to hear that I just might be.” She pulled back. “Attached, I mean.”
Kuroe sighed. “I see…”
Iroha’s eyes widened, as if she had suddenly realized how embarrassing the words she had just spoken were. Then, she pulled away. “I’m sorry if I’m coming on too strong! You just… give me a lot of confidence. I feel like I’m a bit more important than I actually am when I’m with you.”
“It’s alright…”
The two looked away from each other, and then out in the direction that they were sitting, past the tops of the buildings in front of them, up to the stars above them. It was a clear night, and while the school building was high enough that the lights of cars below them seemed far away, the stars themselves, dazzling in their multitude, were further, further than they could ever reach.
“So… what exactly do you do with someone, after they die?” Iroha asked.
“I just remove their souls from the living plane, and they disappear. I don’t know if there’s an afterlife, or if they’re reincarnated, or if there’s just nothing at all beyond there… that’s not really my territory. I fulfil my role and nothing more.”
“…Do you enjoy it?”
“To be honest, Iroha… I don’t really think that question can be answered. There’s no original ‘me’ who could answer that, just a bunch of fragments that do their job and wither away, to be replaced by others. I’m sure some of the faces that I’ve put on probably relish in their job and drown themselves in the vanity of their role, though…”
“I’m not asking about you as a complete concept… I’m asking about you, Kuroe. Do you enjoy it?”
“I… I don’t, Iroha.”
“And why is that?”
Kuroe sighed again, and she seemed apprehensive. But Iroha waited for her to answer, and eventually, she did. “I’ll never be able to have the freedom of life, nor the ability to move on into death. I’m just a ghost, shattered into hundreds of different reflections as I repeat the same cycle again and again and none of those reflections are real.”
“Kuroe…”
“There’s never anything of me that I can hold onto, and there’s never anyone who will hold onto me. I just drift away, again and again. Billions of people who have met me, and nobody will ever know me. That’s my fate, and it’ll repeat until the end of time…” She turned to Iroha, who was still looking up at the stars, and smiled. “But it’s okay. Just being here with you right now makes me feel happy. So at least this piece of me can go out with a smile.”
“Kuroe… I think I have just one more thing that I want to ask you.” Iroha asked, without even turning to her.
She froze up, because the idea that Iroha was running out of things to say meant that their time would be coming to an end. She would be coming to an end. “…What is it?”
“You said that it was your job to shepherd souls to what lies beyond life, correct?”
A nod. “Yes, that’s right.”
Iroha turned to her. “…What if you held onto one?”
Kuroe’s eyes widened. “…Iroha?”
“Your existence as ‘Kuroe’ is preserved by my soul being on the precipice of death, right? So, what if you just… didn’t let me go? Hold onto me forever, and never take me to what lies beyond, to release.”
“Iroha, that’s…”
“If that happened… you could stay as Kuroe forever, right? You’d never have to give up the ‘you’ that you’ve come to like.”
“That’s…” Kuroe thought about it for a moment. “As a rule, I don’t take a person’s soul until their natural death has taken them. I’m not like the stories humans tell of the Grim Reaper, that does the job themselves. But if I took yours before you died…”
“What would happen then, Kuroe?”
“I could probably lodge you into my overall concept somewhere. With your existence stabilizing me… I could appear to everyone as ‘Kuroe’, instead of automatically manifesting as whatever would appeal to them the most… although I suppose that would make their situation less comforting.”
Iroha smiled. “Isn’t your comfort important too, though?”
“…I’m not that important, Iroha. Humans exist for themselves, to find purpose in the fleetingness of their lives. I only exist for others. My job is only to complete their journey. Mine is one that never ends, that lacks shape or definition or purpose. It’s not worth trying to make it a bit better.”
“I disagree...”
“…I’m not sure I’d be able to get you out again, as well,” Kuroe continued. “You’d be stuck as a soul within me, a voice inside my head… for eternity. And eternity is a truly long time, unfathomable for a human. You’d get sick of it, just as I already am…”
“Then we’d be sick of it together, wouldn’t we?” Iroha was unshaken.
“Thinking about it…” Kuroe seemed like she wanted to accept Iroha’s offer, before she shook her head. “Absolutely not. I can’t rob you of your freedom for my own sake.”
“It’s what’d make me happiest, though.” Without another word, Iroha stood up, and Kuroe, quickly realizing her intentions, stood up as well and quickly tried to pull her back from the edge, but her fingers simply slipped through Iroha’s arm.
“Iroha, you can’t!” Kuroe’s voice took on a tone of panic that it never had before, that none of her billions of short-lived incarnations had ever approached in emotion. “Remember? You were going to live on so that you could remember me, right?”
She turned back to look at Kuroe again. “But that wouldn’t save you, would it? You’d keep on meeting the same miserable fate of disappearing, time and time again. But this way…”
“Iroha!”
“I can’t make the decision for you, Kuroe… I can only make my decision. And I’m sorry… but I can’t just give up on you.” Iroha smiled, bitterly. “So… either I fall and die, and you take me to what lies beyond, and we separate, neither of us to exist again… or you catch me, and we’ll be together forever.”
“Iroha…” Tears started to slide down Kuroe’s face, and she was surprised at their sting. “Wait…”
“Wait for what?”
“…Would you really stay with me forever?”
She nodded. “I would, Kuroe.”
Then, Iroha allowed herself to fall off the school rooftop, and plummeted towards the ground…
She disappeared before she hit it.