Fifty Words for Rain(115)

And there, sitting on the ground with his violin resting casually at his side, is Akira.

Oniichan.

He looks exactly as he did when I last saw him. His pale skin is smooth, his dark hair is neatly combed back from his face, and he is smirking at my frozen expression. He is wearing a loose-fitting blue yukata.

Oniichan.

“Imouto,” he says. “It’s been a while. Ne?”

I am crying. The tears are sliding down my cheeks though I am not sad. I try to speak, but nothing comes out but air.

Akira.

And then I am flying into his arms. He folds me into a tight embrace, pressing his head into the top of my hair. My face is buried in his neck, and I sob helplessly, listening to his heartbeat and feeling his burning warmth. He doesn’t try to shush me. He just holds me until the sobs cease, and then he pulls back, gripping my shoulders so that he can look at my tearstained face.

“None of that,” he says simply, brushing a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “You’re all right now. You’re just fine.”

I sniffle and look into his clear gray-black eyes. “You died,” I whisper.

He chuckles. “I did.”

“But . . . you’re here.” I can feel the heat coming off his flesh. He is very much alive. “You’re real.”

He nods. “I am.”

I have no more questions. I don’t care if this is heaven or hell or purgatory. Akira is here. Here, with me. I press myself against his chest as if I could meld us together through sheer force of will.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “Oniichan, I am so sorry. It’s all because of me. You died because of me.”

He shakes his head. “I died because of fear and hate. Not because of you.”

“It was supposed to be me,” I sob. “You were supposed to live. I can’t do it. I’ve made such a mess. I’ve done nothing of worth, I’m not like you. I’ve failed. I’m so sorry.”

Akira sighs.

“Aho,” he says at last. “All this time and you still don’t understand.”

I peep up to look at him through my lashes. “What?”

“Every choice I ever made was my own. I regret nothing.”

“But if you’d never met me . . .”

He lifts my chin with a finger and looks into my eyes.

“Nori,” he says very quietly, “I would rather have died young than lived a hundred years without knowing you.”

I have no words for this. All I can think of is . . .

“Why?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “You are my sister.”

“Tell me what to do, Oniichan,” I plead with him. “Tell me what to choose. Please.”

He tuts. “Oh, Nori. You know I can’t do that. You must choose your own path.”

“I can’t do it,” I whisper. The paths laid before me are all winding, and I cannot see where they will lead. There is no choice that will not require sacrifice; there is no way to escape pain. “What if I choose wrong?”

Akira winds his hands into my curls. “No matter what you choose,” he says patiently, “just keep going forward.”

“I can’t do it, Akira-san. I don’t want to go back. Please don’t make me go back.”

He tucks my palm into the crook of his arm. “That’s not up to me,” he says gently. “If it’s not your time, you can’t stay here. You’ll have to go back.”

“But I’m dead?” It is half a question and half a statement. But the hope in my voice is undeniable. “This is heaven.”

Akira shrugs again. “You know I don’t believe in heaven, Nori. This is just a garden.”

“I don’t care where it is,” I wail. “I just want to stay with you. Please.”

I wind my hands into the fabric of his yukata, as I used to do when I was a little girl and begging him for just a few more minutes, a few more seconds of his time.

“Please don’t make me live in a world without you.”

His eyes are brimming with warmth, and he leans forward to plant a kiss in the center of my forehead. “Oh, Nori. You’re stronger than you know. You don’t need me anymore.”

“Don’t leave me,” I whisper, leaning forward so that our foreheads are touching.

Already I know that he is right when he says I cannot stay here. I can almost hear the sand slipping through the hourglass. We don’t have much more time. If there is a forever for the two of us, it does not start now.

Akira wraps his arms around me and tightens his grip, holding me close with all of his strength.

“Never,” he says simply. “I will never leave you.”

We don’t say anything else. We don’t need to. I won’t waste whatever time I have left with him on words. There is nothing I can say to Akira that he does not already know, and there is nothing I can do to stop the sand from slipping away. All I can do is hold him, right here, right now.

I don’t know how long it is. In any case, it will never be enough time. I shut my eyes so that I don’t have to see the sky darkening and the garden falling away.

It’s time to go back now.

The way Akira gives me one final squeeze, one last featherlight kiss on the top of my head, tells me that he knows it too. But I will not say goodbye.