I confess what I did to Dumb, Fat, and Angry while sitting in a French-themed cafe. Chiyo orders a strawberry shortcake with a yuzu tonic and I ask for a chocolate crepe with a steaming cup of hojicha. We hadn’t seen each other in a while so obviously we had to cut school to meet.
Texting about you hastened my recovery. I had so many thoughts and feelings about you that I kept bottled up inside, mostly because there was no one I could talk about them to. But letting Chiyo know that I was intimate with a victim of a murder she was closely following finally gave me an outlet.
I told her everything she wanted to know and more. As I was lying in bed, my thumbs did their best to paint a portrait of you. Blonde, blue-eyed, and all-American with a love for fish and swimming. Our matching water drop necklaces. The tattoo on your ankle. The small eternity of our relationship. I left out the most intimate details, the parts of you I wanted to keep for myself.
So by the time I met her at the cafe, I was sure she heard enough about you and started the conversation with a different topic. It wasn’t entirely random. In the days I was bedridden, I was curious to know if Airi’s bullies listened to my threats.
“They left her alone for a few weeks,” Chiyo says after hearing my explanation for why I targeted them. “But they’re picking on her again.”
I pause midsip. Drops of hojicha slide down my chin. “What?”
“It’s small things like stealing her sunglasses. They never get caught and they manage to blame it on other students. It’s a different girl every time.”
I let out a curse, briefly drawing stares from the other customers. I make a hasty apology before turning to Chiyo again.
“So it didn’t work.”
“Technically it did. You told them not to hurt Airi. They don’t even speak to her in school. But they do threaten other students to get them to do their bidding.”
I point out the video that I had of Fat. “I could expose her and ruin her mother’s reputation. She would be expelled from St. Catherine’s if I leak it.”
“The main problem is Angry. She’s the one with the vendetta against Airi. Fat and Dumb just like to join in. If you expose that video, it would put a target on your back. Fat would go after you and Airi wouldn’t be better off.”
I sit back, amazed. “You’ve really thought this through.”
“It’s not rocket science. That’s how petty grudges work. Airi will have to apologize if she wants this to end.”
If it was that easy, it would have happened already. At least, that’s what I thought. I write off the option.
“Why don’t I just threaten them again?”
She frowns at me, making a noise of displeasure. “That’s exactly what you’re not supposed to do. Now that I think about it, Angry could be acting alone this time. If she’s getting other people to do her dirty work, she doesn’t need Fat and Dumb in the same way. They would want that too since neither of them truly has anything against Airi. I think she just has to talk to Airi.”
“But-”
“You could actually get in trouble with the police if Dumb or Angry came forward. They have physical evidence of what you did to them on their bodies. I’m betting that they took photos of those cuts and bruises. Don’t be surprised if they try to blackmail you in the future.”
I bury my face in my hands, realizing just how stupid I had been in confronting the trio alone. Rather than stopping my sister’s bullies, I only encouraged them to find smarter ways to hurt her.
“Airi doesn’t want to apologize, doesn’t she? I’m guessing she won’t tell you what happened with Angry either. It’s a tricky place to be in. Maybe you should let her handle it by herself.”
“No,” I blurt out. “She can’t. She’ll just let them run over her.”
I see her cowering in the sun, locked out of the classroom. Maybe if she weren’t so pale or delicate, I would have more faith in leaving things as they are. But I know she needs my help even if she can’t bring herself to ask me for it.
“You’re overprotective of her. It’s kind of cute.” She reaches over to lightly pinch my cheeks. I swat her hand away.
“She won’t protect herself. Someone has to.” After all, the last time I didn’t look out for someone I loved, they died.
“I know the feeling. I had a younger sister before. She was so tiny, barely coming up to my hips.”
I look at her quizzically. I assume that she was an only child judging by the way she was pampered by her parents. But then again, she never talked about her family outside of her half-European heritage. I inquire further.
“My sister was my only sibling. No brothers, no older siblings. Just the two of us for a few years. She was the treasure of my family. If she was with us for longer, I think she would have grown to be prettier than me.”
“Did she die?”
I didn’t mean to be so straightforward, but life feels fragile after I heard you passed. Death is one misstep away. I find myself irrationally afraid of taking in the wrong breath, eating a bit of the wrong food, or better yet, making the wrong person mad.
“She might as well have. A few years ago, she disappeared just like your girlfriend did. No one tried to find her even though it seemed like the whole world loved her. I couldn’t make any sense of it. Even now, I don’t see how my parents could pretend she never existed.”
Maybe they didn’t have a choice. I know I didn’t with the way my mother rushed to move here. But if someone said that about you, I would go mad.
“Didn’t they call the police?” If there’s one thing I did right, it was filing that police report.
“They called the police, hired a private investigator, and told the news stations. Everyone in Tokyo knew that she was gone.” She takes a deep breath. “And not a single one of them could find her.”
The longer a person stays missing, the higher the chance that they are dead. She knows this better than the average person. Suddenly, her true crime obsession makes perfect sense. I picture her combing through the internet, looking for her sister in every gruesome crime and obsessively following missing persons cases.
“How old would she be now?”
“Ten. I paid a digital artist to create what her face would look like with age. Since my parents give a big allowance, I also hired my own investigator this year to restart the search with that photo.”
She plucks the picture from her wallet and slides it across the table. A younger version of Chiyo stares back at me, wide-eyed and innocent.
“Is there anything you didn’t think of?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve thought of every possible scenario. Every year that passes, I can only imagine the worst. So if you need help protecting Airi, I would be the expert.”
I drink the last of my hojicha, leaving half the crepe on my plate. I walk out of the cafe, plagued by thoughts of you and Chiyo’s sister.
Later at night, I slip into another strange dream. Death hangs over me in a cloud while I walk through a hiking trail. The vapors cling to me no matter how high I climb, resisting the fresh mountain air.
You were in the middle of a clearing, smoking a blunt. The sweet thick incense drifts by, briefly chasing death away. It’s more than I deserve. I cry heavy tears, the glass drops shattering on the ground.
“Eat these to defeat the Rat King.” You hold a fistful of quail eggs, thrusting them in my face.
A tangle of rat tails materializes before me. The fleshy rope disappears down the path I came from, stinking of death.
I plop a raw egg into my mouth, crunching the shell between my teeth. The gooey insides are savory, reminiscent of a well-seasoned curry sauce. The rest of the eggs go down easy, shells and all.
A knife appears in my hand, similar to the one I used to cut Dumb. I approach the tangle of rat tails wriggling on the ground. I raise my head, looking for the impossibly large rats that were no doubt stuck to the mass of tails. They’re so big that they blot the sky with a forest of gray fur.
I slice at the ground to free the rats from the tangle. Chunks of dried-up fluid flake from the tails, evidence of the filth that stuck them together.
They run from the tangle of tails, squeaking in pain. Their beady eyes see the blood on my knife, the blade that freed them. Rather than thank me, they descend upon me, screaming in despair.
I wake up in sweat, still feeling their teeth on my skin.
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