Rain and the Broken Clock — The Time That Stopped for Cherry - The Night I Write Under Your Name

The rain kept falling, as if tracing the outlines of things that had vanished. Saturday morning. The fourth-floor corridor of Minami Danchi Building B was patchily wet from the rain that had blown in overnight. Kuroki Kurenai opened the door to Room 403 and breathed in the outside air. The smell of damp concrete. In the distance, the sound of cars crossing the Ameiro River. (Outside. I went out.) On Friday—yesterday—Kurenai had gone outside for the first time in three years. In the parking lot after the rain, she had met a woman without words. A gray sky reflected on the surface of a puddle. White fingertips. She had written "you" twice in her notebook. Only a day had passed since then. And yet, there was a small change inside her. The act of going outside had become just a little less frightening. —Footsteps approached from the far end of the corridor. Kurenai pressed herself against the wall. The door to Room 402 opened. The person who emerged was a small woman with a bright light-brown short bob swaying as she walked. Round dark-brown eyes. As always, she carried a shopping bag in one hand. Takahashi Yuuko. The resident next door, a part-time worker. Forty-five years old. She had lived next door ever since Kurenai moved into this housing complex. Yuuko spotted Kurenai and stopped for just a moment. Good morning. That was all. Three years ago, when Kurenai had first shut herself away, Yuuko had called out to her almost every morning. From beyond the door, a worried voice would come: "Kuroki-san, are you all right?" Again and again and again. Kurenai had never once answered. Even so, Yuuko had kept calling out for a while. Eventually, the frequency dwindled, and now she only said "Good morning" when they passed each other. (This distance. It's just right.) Kurenai watched Yuuko's back as she walked away. The finger pressing the elevator button. The gesture of regripping the shopping bag's handle. The sound of ordinary life—breathing hard as she went up and down the stairs. (I should have been part of that, too.) The elevator doors closed. Yuuko disappeared. Kurenai shut the door to Room 403. Back inside, the sound of rain grew a little more distant. A north-facing window. Dim. The calendar on the wall was stopped at March, three years ago. The clock on the bookshelf still pointed to 7:01. Kurenai looked at the notebook on the kotatsu. Yesterday, after parting with the woman in the parking lot, Kurenai had written "you" twice in the notebook. Those two characters now sat quietly on the page, watching her. (Where did she come from, I wonder.) (She has no name.) (She has no words.) (And yet, she received my question.) Kurenai turned the page. Blank. She picked up the pen. (Can I write?) (About her?) The pen tip touched the paper. "You." Kurenai stared at the word. Instead of a name, a second-person pronoun. The only word she had to call her by. (She wants my name.) (But I don't know my own name.) (Because I erased it.) (Three years ago, I burned it along with the diary.) Kurenai closed the notebook. Something deep in her chest creaked faintly. —Evening. Just like yesterday, Kurenai headed for the monthly parking lot on the west side of Minami Danchi. The rain had grown stronger than it was in the morning. She had no umbrella. The people of Ameiro City didn't use umbrellas even on rainy days. Kurenai followed that custom too, walking while getting soaked. She arrived at the parking lot. Of the twenty spaces, only three were occupied. A kei truck, a sedan, an immobile wagon. The asphalt was cracked, weeds growing through. Puddles had formed here and there. Kurenai looked at the spot where the woman had stood yesterday. No one was there. The sky was reflected on the surface of the puddles. A gray sky. Raindrops struck the water, making ripples. (She's not here.) Kurenai stood frozen in the middle of the parking lot. The woman was nowhere. No scent, no presence, nothing. (She was here yesterday.) (She was definitely here.) Kurenai peered into a puddle. Her own face reflected on the surface. Her black short hair was soaked from the rain, plastered to her forehead. Tired, deep-brown eyes. A faded gray hoodie. (She won't come.) (Not today.) Kurenai took out her notebook. Opened it. Blank. She picked up the pen. (What should I write?) (Nothing comes to mind.) The pen tip hovered over the paper, motionless. The rain wet the edge of the notebook. The ink bled. (I can't write.) Kurenai closed the notebook. A sensation like a hole had opened up deep in her chest. (Lonely.) (...Ah. I see.) (I'm lonely.) For the first time, Kurenai recognized the woman's absence as loneliness. She had been alone since three years ago. Never seeing anyone, never speaking to anyone, living only to write. She had thought her loneliness had long since gone numb. And yet. Just one encounter with a partner who had no words, and her one-person room suddenly felt so much larger. Kurenai left the parking lot behind. —Sunday. The woman didn't come. —Monday. The woman didn't come. Kurenai went to the parking lot every night. She stood before the puddles and waited for the woman. But the woman never appeared. She returned to her room and opened the notebook. (I'll write.) (There's nothing else I can do.) Kurenai picked up the pen. "You come from beyond the puddle." She wrote. "You don't get wet in the rain." She wrote. "You gaze at my notebook." She wrote. "You have no words." She wrote. "You want my name." She wrote. The pen wouldn't stop. Kurenai kept writing about the woman, in the second person. "You." She didn't know her name. She had no name. So she could only write "you." But by writing, she was trying to make her exist. (The diary writes my days before they happen.) (But this is the opposite.) (I'm writing toward her.) (It's an act from me to her.) Kurenai filled the pages of the notebook. "You tilt your head when you look at me." "Your fingers are cold." "Your eyes absorb light." "Your hair stays dry even in the rain." "Perhaps you were born from the name I erased." —Her hand stopped. (What did I just write?) Kurenai stared at the last line. "Perhaps you were born from the name I erased." (My erased name.) Kurenai set down the pen. Her fingertips were trembling. (That can't be.) (Because I burned the name.) (Along with the diary. All of it.) Kurenai turned the page. The words she had just written gave off the smell of ink. (But what if.) (What if the name I erased didn't disappear, but remained?) (What if that's her true identity?) Kurenai shook her head. (I'm overthinking this.) (It's just a delusion.) She closed the notebook. Outside the window, the rain grew stronger. —Tuesday night. Kurenai opened the notebook. She reread the pages she had written up to yesterday. "You come from beyond the puddle." "You don't get wet in the rain." "You gaze at my notebook." —Her finger stopped. In the margin of the page, there was writing. It wasn't Kurenai's handwriting. Red characters. Distorted, emaciated characters. "You erased me." Kurenai held her breath. (What is this?) (Who wrote this?) (Not me.) The red characters glistened on the paper, raw and vivid, like blood seeping from a wound. "You erased me." Kurenai overlapped that single sentence with her memories of three years ago. A rainy night three years ago. Kurenai had burned her own name, along with the diary, in an alley. Burned it. Erased it. Her own name. (That time, I.) (I erased my name.) (And now, after all this time.) Kurenai closed the notebook. Her heart was making a strange sound. (That woman is something born from the name I erased.) (That possibility.) (For the first time, it occurred to me.) Kurenai slumped face-down onto the kotatsu. The sound of rain filled the room. —Late Wednesday night. Kurenai couldn't sleep. She lay under the futon, staring at the ceiling. The rain had stopped in the early afternoon. Even at night, the air remained damp. (I can't sleep.) (When I close my eyes, the red characters float up.) "You erased me." (I erased you.) (I did.) —Just then. The air in the room changed. Cold. A chilling presence filled the room. Kurenai sat up. A dark room. From the north-facing window, a thin sliver of streetlight filtered in. —Someone was standing in front of the door. No. Inside the door. In the room. Black hair. Waist-length black hair swayed slowly in the darkness. Ash-brown eyes. Eyes like the trunk of an elm tree, absorbing light. It was the woman. The woman she had met in the parking lot. The intercom hadn't rung. There had been no sound of the door opening. Before she knew it, the woman was inside the room. Kurenai swallowed a scream. Deep in her throat, her voice crumpled. (Scary.) (But.) (She came.) The woman didn't take off her shoes. Barefoot, she walked across the tatami. Her footsteps were inaudible, mixed into the sound of rain. The woman sat down quietly beside the kotatsu. She placed her white fingers on the edge of the tatami. Kurenai got out of the futon. Still in her pajamas, she sat facing the woman. Across the kotatsu, the two of them. The woman looked at Kurenai's notebook. Then she looked at the broken clock on the bookshelf. The clock stopped at 7:01. The woman gazed alternately at the clock and the notebook. (What is she looking at?) (What I wrote, and stopped time.) Kurenai opened her mouth. ...You came. The woman didn't answer. Because she had no words. But her ash-brown eyes slowly turned toward Kurenai. (It's getting through.) (To her, my words are getting through.) Kurenai picked up the notebook. Opened it. "You come from beyond the puddle." "You don't get wet in the rain." "You gaze at my notebook." —And the red characters in the margin. "You erased me." Kurenai showed that page to the woman. Can you read this? The woman stared at the page. Her long black hair slid off her shoulder. The woman's finger slowly rose and traced over the red characters. "You erased me." Her fingertip slid across the words. (Did she write these characters?) (Or someone else?) Kurenai wanted to ask. But the woman had no words. Instead, the woman placed her own fingers over Kurenai's palm. Cold. But deep within that coldness, something was lit. (I want you to listen.) (To what I have to say.) Kurenai drew a breath. ...I'll talk. The woman didn't move. She simply kept her fingers over Kurenai's palm, perfectly still. Kurenai began to speak. About a rainy night, three years ago. Her voice trembled. I burned my own name, along with the diary. The woman's finger twitched. Deep in an alley. So no one would find it. I lit a match and burned it all. Kurenai looked at her own hand. The fountain pen ink stained into the middle finger of her left hand. Back then, there was another me inside me. (I'm saying it.) (Something I couldn't tell anyone for three years.) A me who called my name every day. A me who bound me to being me. I couldn't bear it anymore. Kurenai's throat went dry. So I erased it. The name, the diary, all of it. The woman listened in silence. But after I erased it, I realized. Kurenai looked down. The name I erased hadn't disappeared. It was still there, deep in the alley. Her core grew cold. That night, deep in the alley, something thin bit me. The woman's fingers gripped Kurenai's hand tightly. It sniffed out the scent of my name. It sniffed the scent of the name I'd erased, and it laughed. Kurenai looked at the woman's face. The ash-brown eyes were shining in the darkness. ...After that, I couldn't go outside anymore. The name no one calls calls to me. When I go outside, I feel like I'll be dragged in. So I shut myself in my room and did nothing but write. Kurenai looked at the notebook. Write, erase, write, erase. I'd think of names

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Episode 4

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

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