Rain and the Broken Clock — The Time That Stopped for Cherry - The Second Diary

The rain thins the breath of every person living in this city, one by one. Ameiro City—a taciturn provincial town where the annual number of rainy days exceeds one hundred and eighty. The Ameiro River meanders through its center, dividing the old quarter and the new quarter along its banks. Annual precipitation: two thousand three hundred millimeters, of which one hundred and two days are drizzling rain. Sunshine hours amount to only sixty-two percent of the national average. Here, no one uses an umbrella on rainy days. Because there's no point. The drizzle slips through the ribs of an umbrella and, before you know it, dampens the nape of your neck. Minami Housing Complex, Building B, Room 403. Through the north-facing window, a gray sky peers in like a single sheet of board. Kuroki Kurenai had her knees buried up to the kotatsu and a notebook open in front of her. —I can't work. That was her entire present. Twenty years old. A faded gray hoodie and black sweatpants. Her bare toes had turned faintly red from the kotatsu's heat. Her black short hair had absorbed the humidity of the rain, curling and clinging to her forehead. Her tired, deep-brown eyes slid across the notebook, but her focus wasn't fixed on anything. A slender, delicate build. On the pad of her left middle finger, fountain pen ink sat like an old stain. On the ring finger of her right hand, there was a single hard callus from writing. There was almost no sound in the room. If there was any at all, it was only the sound of rain. A calendar hung on the wall. It was stopped at March of three years ago, left torn. Beside the kotatsu sat a black telephone. An NTT model, made in 1985. The cord was connected to the wall jack, but the service had long since been canceled. Even so, Kurenai couldn't bring herself to throw the phone away. It was simply that she couldn't think of a reason to. And—at the highest point in the room, atop the bookshelf, sat a broken clock. The long hand pointed to seven, the short hand to one minute, and it hadn't moved in three years. Kurenai was running her pen across the notebook. 'Sato Kenji.' She wrote it, then erased it. 'Tanaka Miho.' She wrote it, then erased it. Other people's names. She didn't even know if they existed. Names she'd heard on the train, names that had flashed across the TV news—names that had merely sunk to the bottom of her memory. Kurenai wrote them down one by one in her notebook and erased them with an eraser. Why she was doing such a thing, she couldn't properly explain even to herself. It was just that—a person whose name is called eats away that much of someone's memory. This city has had that legend since long ago. A called name feeds on memory, and an uncalled name devours its owner. In the unsorted materials of the city history compilation office, there apparently remain records from the Edo period called the "Name Register," documenting villagers who lost their names. Even after the war, there were periods in 1955 and 1987 when reports of "missing-name persons" clustered together. In none of those cases was an official investigation ever conducted. Kurenai had been born in this city because it was that kind of place. Kurenai was afraid of the act of calling a name. To be precise, she was afraid of having her name called. The moment her name left someone's mouth, it felt as though a part of her was being eaten by that person. She'd had that sensation since middle school. Every time a classmate called her "Kuroki-san," a strange coldness spread inside her chest, as if it were slowly becoming hollow. So Kurenai stopped calling people by name. "Hey." "Um." "You." That was how she'd lived, avoiding names. And this was the result. —Unable to work, shut in her room, with nothing left but writing, for three years. Kurenai turned a page of the notebook. The remains of names written and erased had gathered in the corners of the pages as eraser crumbs. (...I'm such an idiot.) A self-mocking smile rose to the corner of her mouth. But she couldn't stop. By writing names, Kurenai confirmed that she was still on the side of the act of "writing." She couldn't work. She couldn't go outside. She had long since dropped out of society. Even so, the single point that she still held a pen—that alone, she hadn't lost. That single point was what held her whole body together. Outside the window, the rain grew a little stronger. Kurenai put down her pen and stood up. She went to the kitchen and turned the faucet. She filled a glass with water and took a sip. Cold. Only the coldness passed through her throat. On her way back to the kotatsu, Kurenai suddenly looked up at the clock on the bookshelf. Seven-one. The same time for three years. This clock had stopped shortly before Kurenai shut herself in this room. She didn't remember the exact date. She just felt as though her own time had stopped along with it that day. (Seven-one... what happened at seven-one?) She couldn't remember. When she tried to remember, the back of her mind went white and smooth. Kurenai stopped thinking about it. Every time she looked at the clock, she'd stopped thinking about it, just like that. Three years' worth of "stopping" had settled into the air of the room. She returned to the kotatsu and closed the notebook. That was when it happened. —Ping. Her smartphone rang. Kurenai absentmindedly picked up the phone she'd left on the kotatsu. One notification on the screen. A DM on a messaging app. When she looked at the sender field, her fingers stopped. 'Kuroki Kurenai.' —It was her own name. Kurenai stared at the screen for a while. (...Someone's idea of a joke?) But this app didn't have her real name registered. Her profile was empty. For that matter, Kurenai barely used this app at all. She had no friends. She hadn't registered any contacts. And yet her name was displayed in the sender field. What's more—it was the name Kurenai had erased three years ago. Three years ago, Kurenai had once discarded her own name. To be precise, she had burned every diary in which she'd written her real name. The reason she'd burned them—she didn't remember well. She just knew she had to burn them. That if she didn't, she wouldn't be able to remain herself. From that day on, Kurenai stopped calling herself "Kuroki Kurenai." The diaries, the name, the past—she burned it all. —Or so it should have been. Kurenai's fingers were trembling. She gently scrolled the screen. The message was a single line. 'This is the second time you've read this.' Kurenai couldn't move. Her breathing grew shallow. (Second time...?) She didn't understand what it meant. If this was the second time, then when was the first? Kurenai didn't remember. She didn't remember, and yet she felt as though she'd read this sentence somewhere before. Deep in her chest, in the deepest part, an old memory stirred slickly, like a stone at the bottom of water. (...What is this?) Kurenai set down the phone. She turned the screen face-down and buried her face in the kotatsu. The sound of her heartbeat rang absurdly loud behind her ears. Outside the window, the rain raised its voice with a shaa. Mixed into that sound—she thought she heard something like laughter. Kurenai lifted her head. She looked at the window. Beyond the north-facing window, the housing complex's courtyard was visible, and past that, a narrow alley. Only one in five streetlights worked, and at night it was almost total darkness. No one was there. But Kurenai had definitely felt it. Something was there, deep in the alley. A damp smell. A smell like soil and rust and old paper. And—hunger. Hungry for a name. Kurenai felt that hunger beneath her skin. Her back slowly grew cold. (...Because I erased my name.) Three years ago, Kurenai had erased her own name. Where do erased names go? In this city, uncalled names accumulate deep in the alleys. And something starving devours them. That was all Kurenai knew. But now that something was trying to eat Kurenai's name. (It's going to eat... my name.) Kurenai looked once more at the smartphone she'd placed on the kotatsu. The screen was still face-down. Kurenai stood up. It was a movement that didn't feel like her own will. Kurenai, who had a habit of walking without making footsteps, headed toward the back of the room, to the closet. She opened the closet door. The smell of dust rose softly. Inside, unused futons, an old garment case, and cardboard boxes were crammed in haphazardly. Kurenai began digging through the back. She didn't know why she was digging. But she felt she had to. She moved one cardboard box aside, then two— And there it was, at the very back. An old diary. A black cover. The corners were worn, the spine was peeling. The rubber band that had held the cover shut had deteriorated and looked about to snap. Kurenai lifted it gently with both hands. (...This is...) She recognized it. It was the diary she should have burned three years ago. No—it was 'the same thing as' the diary she should have burned. Kurenai traced the cover with her fingertip. Cold. Not the cold of paper. A deeper cold, the cold of earth. Kurenai opened the diary. The first page. There, her own handwriting was packed densely across it. 'March 11. Rain. Rain again today.' 'March 12. Rain. I'm afraid to write names.' 'March 13. Rain. I erased it again.' Kurenai turned the pages. Turned them. Every page bore Kurenai's handwriting. Letters that looked scrawled. Disordered letters. Here and there, the ink had bled. She had no memory of writing any of it. None at all. The diary from three years ago, she had certainly written. But this diary— (It's my handwriting. But it's not in my memory.) Her hand stopped turning the pages. The second-to-last page. Only one sentence was written there. In neater handwriting than any other page. Handwriting that looked as though it had been written for someone. 'This is the second time you've read this.' —The same sentence as the DM from earlier. Kurenai closed the diary. Her hands were trembling. (Why?) (Why is something I don't know written in my handwriting?) (Is my past not my own?) Still holding the diary, Kurenai looked up at the bookshelf. The broken clock was there. Seven-one. —Its second hand. Was trembling faintly. Kurenai held her breath. The long hand and the short hand remained stuck at seven-one, unmoving. But only the second hand— Tick. It moved. Again, tick. The second hand that had been stopped for three years was now trying to move. Kurenai clutched the diary to her chest. The sound of her heartbeat and the sound of the second hand overlapped. Tick. Tick. Tick. Outside the window, the rain grew stronger again. From deep in the alley, a damp smell slowly flowed into the room. Beyond that smell, Kurenai once again heard a presence like laughter. (...My name was called.) Kurenai thought. Three years ago, Kurenai had erased her own name. But now—the erased name was calling to Kurenai. A person who erases their name leaves behind that much hunger deep in the alley. And the starving name devours its owner. Kurenai felt that hunger as a coldness throughout her body. (...I haven't been eaten yet.) (But I will be.) (If I do nothing, like this.) Kurenai placed the diary on the kotatsu. Next to the smartphone. Next to the face-down screen. And she looked up at the broken clock. The second hand was moving. Tick, tick-tick— Watching the clock, Kurenai thought. (Time is about to start moving.) (My time.) (From the stopped seven-one.) That was when Kurenai realized for the first time. That what she had been waiting for all three years— might have been this moment. She looked at the smartphone once more. The sender field still displayed Kurenai's name. The name she should have erased was there. With trembling fingers, Kurenai touched the screen.

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Episode 1

Name: Rain and the Broken Clock — The Time That Stopped for Cherry
Author: Novelia

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