Distance

“Kaoru… Kaoru…”

Silence.

The voice reached me from somewhere far away, muffled, as though it had to pass through a wall of water before it could reach me.

I couldn’t hear anything clearly—only the monk’s steady, lifeless voice reciting the sutra, the echoes of strangers’ whispers, and the endless shuffle of hundreds of feet. Every now and then, the faint rustle of another black suit pulled me from my thoughts. People approached the altar one by one, bowed deeply, and scattered a pinch of incense over the glowing coals.

A thin gray thread of smoke rose into the air, drifted upward, and slowly dissolved.

I watched it disappear and realized that I was disappearing with it.

The funeral altar stood before me, covered in chrysanthemums. At its center was Mia’s portrait in a black frame. She wore a faint smile, as though the picture had been taken sometime in the middle of summer—as though, at any moment, she might turn away from the camera and call my name.

Beside the photograph stood her memorial tablet. A little lower down was the urn, wrapped in white cloth.

Everything was too proper. Too clean. Too restrained.

Exactly as it was supposed to be at a Japanese funeral.

And it made me want to turn myself inside out.

Countless shadows had passed before me over the last few days. People lowered their heads, brought their palms together, and whispered condolences I neither heard nor wanted to hear. I couldn’t make out their faces. I couldn’t remember a single word they had said.

A deafening silence had been ringing inside me ever since that evening when you left.

My brave little girl, whose hand I had held through her final moments—until her last breath.

The sister I had loved more than anyone else.

I had wanted to save her.

I honestly had.

I wanted to give her a chance at a healthy life. The best treatment. The best doctors. The best surgery. Everything I could possibly find or wring out of this damned world.

But not everything could be bought with money.

Not everything could be changed by it.

And no matter how hard I tried, no matter how desperately I begged the heavens to protect her fragile heart, the surgery couldn’t save her.

“Kaoru.”

A hand caught my shoulder and gave it a careful shake, forcing the blurred world back into focus. I raised my head in confusion and stared at the figures in black standing beside me.

A red-haired man was crouching in front of me, holding out a white handkerchief. His face remained nothing more than a pale blur for several seconds, but then those familiar green eyes finally came into focus.

Aya?

So the voice had been his.

Another man stood behind him.

“I’m sorry about Mia,” he said quietly.

At first, I didn’t recognize him.

Then the cold winter light streaming through the tall windows of the funeral hall fell across his face, and my entire body began to tremble.

Dey.

The same Dey.

His long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, though several loose strands had fallen across the thin frame of his glasses. His gray eyes rested on me with an expression I couldn’t read.

How long had it been?

Ten years? Twelve?

I could no longer remember how long ago he had walked away from me, leaving behind a void that continued tearing at my soul for another five years.

I looked from him to the man crouching beside me.

Aya too?

No.

What the hell was this? Had the entire circus of my exes decided to gather here?

Not today.

Why the fuck had they chosen to show up now, when I didn’t need anyone anymore? Why torment me like this when I barely had enough strength left to breathe?

Aya remained beside me and pressed the handkerchief into my hand. A lock of red hair had fallen across his forehead, and his eyes were still just as impossibly warm.

He had never known how to hate properly.

He always forgave.

Especially me.

“Kao, how are you holding up?” Dey asked, his voice almost cold, as he lowered himself onto the floor beside me, a little apart from the rows of folding chairs where relatives, acquaintances, and people I didn’t even know sat in silence.

“How the hell am I supposed to be?”

I closed my eyes and rested the back of my head against the wall. The scent of incense filled my lungs, mingling with the chill of the hall, strangers’ tears, and the whispers of the sutra still drifting from somewhere ahead.

“She was my…” My throat tightened, refusing to let the words through. “It feels like I’ve lost myself.”

“Of course it does,” Aya whispered, barely holding back his tears. “You two were halves of the same whole.”

As always, he was too sensitive for situations like this and therefore of very little help to me. Watching him struggle not to cry only made everything worse.

“I’m sorry. We found out too late,” Dey said, his voice subdued.

The sympathy in his voice only made me feel sick.

In my mind, he had long since become nothing more than a traitor and a liar. I was physically incapable of believing in his sincerity.

“Oh, please, Dey. Not now.” I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t need your pity. Especially not yours.”

I gestured toward the small family room behind the folding screen, where tea, rice, snacks, and bottles of sake had already been arranged on a low table.

“Let’s drink. I’m not in the mood to untangle old relationship bullshit right now.”

I tried to stand, but the moment I put weight on my legs, my body lurched sideways, and my shoulder struck the wall with a dull thud.

The world blurred again.

“Hey, no, no… Careful.”

Aya caught me before I could fall.

Dey remained frozen beside us, watching with an expression I couldn’t read. He looked as though he had no idea what to do—or as though he was afraid that touching me would only make things worse.

Aya slipped an arm around me and guided me behind the screen. Dey hesitated for a moment before following us and taking a seat across from me at the low table.

The monk’s voice sounded quieter there, but it still refused to disappear, as though the damned sutra had already burrowed beneath my skin.

A young woman in a black uniform approached us, her hair pulled back into a severe bun. She placed a small plate in front of each of us, bowed, and slipped away so quietly that it was as though she had never been there at all.

“How did it happen?” Dey asked as he poured sake into our cups.

“The surgery failed.” I stared at the clear liquid. “They only gave her a thirty percent chance. She was already weak, and by the time her turn came, it was too late.”

“I heard they let you say goodbye.”

“Yes.”

The word came out sharp.

I didn’t want to continue. I didn’t want questions. I didn’t want memories. I wanted silence, and the fact that he couldn’t understand something so simple made anger begin to boil beneath my skin.

Dey had always been like that.

Indifferent.

The kind of person who didn’t understand other people’s feelings. The kind who never knew how to choose the right moment or the right words.

Sometimes I thought he was simply incapable of empathy. Completely numb.

Or perhaps that military family of his had taught him to hide every human reaction so well that nothing could escape anymore.

But I didn’t care what exactly was wrong with him.

Not now.

Not when my heart felt incapable of another beat and my lungs refused to draw in another breath.

Not when I wanted to scream and hate the entire world.

Not when all I wanted was to be there with her.

Inside that white urn beside the altar, among the incense, the chrysanthemums, and the bows of strangers.

Inside an urn filled with nothing but ashes.

Ordinary gray ashes that, only a short time ago, had been my twin.