Act 4: Mirrors
 
Scene 1: Precognition
 
Reading fiction feels strange after you’ve spent a week burning facts and histories into your mind. The last time I read anything for fun was in the hospital, months ago. I was a voracious and attentive reader, losing myself and my problems in fictive worlds. At the time it was all I could do to cope with the uncertainty of my own future. Maybe that’s why my imagination was so malleable. Like a single-celled organism that adapts to its environment in whatever way it sees fit. A blank slate where I can write anything I want.
 
It might have also been the lack of stimuli. The sterile, inoffensive colours, the perpetual cleanliness, the hushed voices of doctors and nurses in the hallways. I’m reminded of how Rika described her hospital self as being so different from her normal self. Maybe reading is part of my hospital self.
 
The bus ride is smooth enough, only lurching a little bit at the occasional dip and rise in the highway as we travel into the more deeply wooded area of the campground. It’s already a lot more remote than I had been expecting, based on the way it had been described to me. I’ve never really gone camping, before. It always just sort of seemed boring to me. Rika had suggested I bring some reading to keep myself busy while everyone else was out having fun. When she saw this morning that I actually had packed a fair number of books, she just scoffed and shook her head helplessly. Turns out she’d only been joking.
 
Even though the ride is relatively noiseless, with most of the students either sleeping or quietly occupying themselves and each other, I can’t concentrate on what I’m reading. It might be that the book itself isn’t very good. It’s a sci-fi novel that Mutou had recommended to me earlier in the year. The way he’d talked about it made it sound pretty interesting but I keep realizing that my eyes are moving and I’m turning pages without even registering what’s written. In fact, I’ve been on the same page for the last ten minutes, habitually flipping it ahead before having to turn back once I realize I haven’t actually been reading.
 
Every so often I look out the window and watch the scenery, the passing trees. My mind is busy with my own story. The old uncertainty I was fleeing is gone, and all I have ahead of me is probabilities, potential outcomes, and the tangle of delicate choices that might take me one way or the other.
 
Unlike many of the students I’ve overheard chatting, I’m not worried at all about the outcome of my exams. I walked out of all of them feeling fairly confident. The ill-gotten gains of Rika’s obviously stolen answers tug a bit at my conscience, but it’s not as though I technically did anything wrong. After all, I learned the material, and I may have even done as well without her help.
 
I still have no idea how, or why, she managed to get her hands on the exam answers. It doesn’t seem like her. Is it a sign that she’s, at least in her own conniving way, starting to contemplate the possibility of a future? There’s always the possibility that she cares more than she lets on. Rika does tend to posture a bit and it’s not always clear whether or not she means what she says. I can’t imagine anyone caring as little as she purports to care about her own future. Nobody can really be that ambivalent about death.
 
But actions speak louder than words. And she certainly is bold. What was her motivation for this? Was it just a point of pride? There’s no way my little challenge to her could have given her enough time to nab up some exam answers. We started studying the very same day I brought it up.
 
I can’t figure it out. Authentic or not, she always seems to be one step ahead of me. Always making eye contact the moment I walk in the room.
 
Rika is sleeping on my shoulder, her hand wrapped around mine, her steady, slow breaths brushing my neck. It’s still pretty early in the morning and she’s not the only student who chose to do a little extra sleeping instead of taking in the scenery of the countryside. I probably couldn’t sleep if I tried to. I’m still a little fired up from my morning jog with Emi at the track.
 
Thinking of Emi saddens me a bit. I must have neglected to mention to her that I was going on this weekend trip, and when I told her this morning, she mentioned that she’d been thinking of going, but that none of her own friends enjoy camping. Maybe I should have invited her? Then again, there might be a reason Miki didn’t ask her to come? Miki doesn’t seem to get along with any of the girls at school, but it doesn’t seem like she’s at all unfriendly towards Emi.
 
Rika stirs a bit, clearing her throat. With her sunglasses on, it’s hard to really tell if she’s sleeping or awake. She might have left them on purposefully, just to keep me guessing. So that even this close, she could still get the jump on me.
 
It’s more likely because of her sensitivity to sunlight. Unlike almost everyone else, Rika is hardly showing any skin in her “summer” outfit. Still wearing a pair of jeans, and with a loose, long-sleeved shirt. This morning when she greeted me, she was holding a fashionable parasol. I almost complimented her on it before thinking better – she’s probably not thrilled about having to draw attention to herself with an accessory like that. With the school uniforms, at least she can visually blend in to some extent. But here, surrounded by people in their summer garb, she looks more like an outsider than ever.
 
Every so often I’m reminded of just how lonely Rika must feel. Miki had told me before, about Rika, that there’s only so much “reaching out” that people should be expected to do, and that’s true. And while I know the students at Yamaku are accepting of those who are different, there’s still that non-physical difference that sets Rika apart. What that Tezuka girl pointed out to me, and what I’ve always sort of suspected: that there’s an air about her that troubles people. How often she might want to talk about things like death, how unwilling she is to sustain the pretense of normalcy to which so many of the other students devote themselves.
 
If only anyone else had a shred of Rin’s frankness, or Rika’s, I wouldn’t have to be kept guessing like this. But it seems like people are superstitious of Rika. And knowing her, she’d rather entertain that superstition than do anything to correct it.
 
Suddenly I find myself wondering whether Miki’s optimism about Rika has anything to do with how new Miki is at Yamaku. Rika must have been “transferred” to Miki as a running partner pretty recently. And I’m enlisted to help her, too.
Maybe Nurse is running out of people who haven’t given up on her.
 
I hear a little laughter from Miki’s direction, where she’s sitting with her friends, playing a card game that looks like it must be either Go Fish or Old Maid. She quickly folds up her hand of cards and bites them between her teeth as she hurries to explain something to her friend Lelouch, who seems confused by what’s going on. He squints his eyes and peers at his cards before asking in a slow, measured tone whether Miki has any threes, to which she mercilessly responds, “Go fish, dude!”
 
Next to Lelouch is Takashi, a good friend of Miki’s who usually sits with her in class. He’s only half-attentive to the game, and it seems what he’d rather be doing is staring out the window and watching the scenery. Everyone who is remotely familiar with Takashi knows that he’s one of the more overzealous members of the Art club and constantly looking for “inspiration” in whatever form it might come. I’ve always thought he was kind of an arrogant jerk, to be honest, but maybe he just comes off that way to the people he hardly knows.
 
He notices me staring at him and gives me a polite nod. Miki waves at me with her uh, left wrist, and Lelouch continues to stare thoughtfully at his cards, his lips seemingly trying to form words.
 
Other than the five of us, I don’t really recognize anyone else on the bus. A mix of my underclassmen and people from other classes whom I’ve never met. A few might not even be students, for all I know… it’s possible that people in town are catching a ride out with us.
 
And it’s a relief, not having to worry about my fellow students. Things would have been pretty awkward with Shizune out here. And even possibly with Emi, even though a part of me wishes she could have come along. This is a good chance for me and Rika to spend time together in a different context, away from school, away from Yamaku and its “program” as she calls it.
 
I wonder if we’ll be different people out here, the way we’re different people in the hospital. Rika complains that she isn’t herself in the hospital, because of the amount of safety. What must attract her about the camping trip, since it’s obviously not the chance to be out in the sun, is the added risk, however illusory. The exposure. The vague promise of something unfamiliar, something unknown.
 
“Hey, a bear!”
 
Takashi’s voice gets everyone’s attention as people hum at the sight of not one, but two black bears coming to the brink of the woods as we pass. One of them sits back on its haunches, seeming to sniff the air, showing off the large, white v-mark on its chest. The animals look massive, though it’s hard to tell exactly how big they are from a distance.
 
“Rika,” I hiss. “Look outside.”
 
She stirs to consciousness and leans over me, staring out the window. The sound of her little impressed gasp amuses me, being so unlike her, and she makes a visible effort to mask her reaction.
 
“Ever seen one of those before, Hisao?”
 
“No, can’t say I have.”
 
She gives a muffled chuckle, as if she were somehow taking credit for the bear’s appearance.
 
“I hope you’re not afraid of bears, because it’s not the last one we’ll be seeing.”
 
“First of all, Rika, that's a lie. You don't hope I'm not afraid. Second of all, I'm sure the bears don't go near the campsites."
 
She raises her sunglasses so I can see her smug expression.
 
“Hisao, surely you don’t expect us to stay on the beaten path?”
 
 
 
 
Scene 2: Mythology
 
It turns out there’s a lot that it was assumed I would just know about camping. An embarrassing amount. For one, it’s a good idea to get hiking shoes for all the walking you end up doing. In particular, when you’re one of the three guys saddled with the task of carrying a weekend’s worth of camping equipment.
 
Takashi glances at me with a perpetually annoyed expression as he hauls a medium-sized cooler, presumably exaggerating its weight and the extent of his inconvenience. It’s nice to know I’m not the only person that doesn’t seem to be hardened to the idea of camping.
 
It’s also sort of nice to be reminded of the good shape I’m in compared with Takashi. Emi would be proud to see me winning at endurance like this. Quite the opposite of Miki who has been asking me all day if I need to take a break or slow myself down at all.
 
Lelouch for his part seems compliant enough, or at least he’s remaining characteristically quiet as he lugs around the tent poles and what look to be fishing poles, as well as a rather heavy-looking backpack.
 
Rika and Miki also have backpacks which I believe contain our sleeping gear. From where I’m standing I can only see Miki from behind as she chatters in Rika’s direction about something that’s too faint for me to hear, and the back of Rika’s parasol that she can’t help twirling from time to time.
 
My backpack tugs at my shoulders and I instantly regret my decision to bring an ample selection of reading material.
 
“This thing is impossible,” Takashi says, hoisting the small cooler in front of him with effort. “Those girls are slave drivers.”
 
Lelouch laughs diffidently.
 
“Just a few more kilometers!” Miki yells over her shoulder. Takashi groans.
 
“Come on dude,” I say to him, “where’s your sense of chivalry?”
 
“Screw chivalry,” he says. “I thought this was the twenty-first century, and we’re pack mules just because of our gender. That’s discrimination, man, any way you look at it.”
 
Lelouch looks like he’s about to say something, but just hums to himself. Takashi nods in his direction.
 
“Lou knows what I’m talking about.”
 
I wish I could reach up and wipe the sweat from my brow, but with my hands full I’d have to stop and put my things down. Somehow I feel like stopping for any reason would be tantamount to agreeing with Takashi, which I’d really rather not do. I bear down with the stubbornness of the Fastest Things On No Legs, sweat dripping from the tip of my chin.
 
Miki turns around and gives us an approving look. Rika doesn’t so much as look at us. I can’t help wondering what they’re talking about.
 
Takashi paces a bit more closely to me and leans in, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
 
“So… you and Rika are an item, huh?”
 
I shrug at him. “I guess you could say that.”
 
He whistles. “Well, you gotta be careful with her, alright man? You know what they say about her, don’t you?”
 
I give him a dirty look and he raises his eyebrows with an innocent expression.
 
“Hey man,” he says, “it’s none of my business or anything. I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
 
After what must be about twenty minutes, but what would certainly have been longer according to Takashi, we arrive at our campsite in a nice, secluded forest clearing. In the middle of the clearing is a fire pit with a small pile of wood for burning, an axe, and a small picnic table with a bit of moss growing on it which gives it a nice “roughing it” aesthetic. At this point we’ve gotten so deep into the woods that I can hardly believe there’s anyone around us. The trees are tall enough that the only thing visible other than them is the mountains and hills off in the distance. The forest chatters with wildlife. There’s a perpetual rustle in the branches, and everywhere the sound of birds with their distinctive calls. Takashi had at one point during our walk mentioned that he’s good at identifying birds by the sounds they make, but when I pressed him for an example, he changed the subject.
 
The moment we enter the clearing, and before any of us can really enjoy it much, Miki starts to survey the lay of the land, instructing us on where to lay our tents. Rika busily starts to unpack some of our miscellaneous camping supplies at the picnic table: an oil lantern, the deck of cards Miki had been playing with, some wire coathangers, flashlights, and a few other devices I don’t recognize.
 
With Miki’s help I manage to put up our three tents: a large one for Takashi and Lelouch, a small one for Miki and two smaller ones, one of which is apparently intended for myself and Rika.
 
“It’s the biggest one I had extra,” Miki says, rubbing the back of her head with a sheepish grin. “I thought it was bigger but I guess that’s because I haven’t used it since I was little. Sorry.”
 
Takashi slaps me on the back. “You can always shack up with me and Lou if you want. He’s got a pretty big sleeping bag.” Lelouch starts to stutter a response, and Miki just laughs.
 
“We’ll be fine, thanks,” I say.
 
Within the hour we’re done setting up our campsite, and the whole area is still pretty big even with the tents set up. A dirt and gravel area around the campfire is host to our five fold-out lawn chairs. Over at the picnic table is our cooler and a couple of bags of food, a hot plate plugged into our one electrical outlet. Miki, Takashi and Lelouch take advantage of some of the space for a quick Frisbee game while Rika and I, at her suggestion, take a walk to fill up our water jug.
 
She takes my hand and gives me a warm smile as we walk down the forest path. I carry the empty water jug in my left hand and she absent-mindedly twirls her parasol against her shoulder with her right. The sun is pretty brutal at this time of the year and I almost wish I'd done a better job of sheltering myself from it. Most people who come out here probably love the feeling of the hot sun against their skin, but I just find it tiresome. As a lot of this is.
 
As much as I’d like to enjoy my surroundings, the beautiful dense foliage of the trees, the hilly landscape that animates the horizon all around me, the birds fluttering through the branches, I find myself unable to think of anything but my relationship with Rika. The context we’re in is so new to me that it’s almost unsettling. Things feel so normal, so ordinary. And the nonchalant manner in which she holds my hand, probably so meaningless to her, still makes me blush every time she takes the initiative.
 
“Are you having fun yet?” Rika asks me. I can’t tell if she’s joking.
 
"I thought we were just getting the chores out of the way for now. When does the real fun start?”
 
“Well, there’s plenty to do during the day. There’s a pretty big lake where you can do some swimming. A lot of these hiking trails are nice and you can have a good time taking in the flora and the fauna. Some great sightseeing around here. If you’re a bore you could even sit around reading books until nightfall.”
 
“Miki seems to think most of the fun happens at night.”
 
She giggles. “Miki’s idea of fun is the kind of things that happen after the sun goes down.”
 
“Well, you guys at least have that in common, it seems.”
 
Rika squeezes my hand and gives me a wry grin.
 
“Our site really is secluded,” I say. “I haven’t seen a single person other than us since we arrived. Kind of dangerous isn’t it?”
 
She shakes her head at me. “Park rangers patrol the campgrounds, but unless they think you’re up to no good, they leave you alone. That’s one of the reasons people come out here, after all. To get away from people. I think they realize that so they try to stay out of your hair.”
 
“Maybe we should come out here alone sometime,” I say.
 
This wins me another smile from her. “That might be fun. I’m alright with Miki but I don’t know how I feel about her friends.”
 
“You don’t like them?”
 
She shrugs. “Takashi gets on my nerves. I don’t really want to explain why.”
 
I laugh politely, but her expression saddens a bit at my response. Maybe Rika and Takashi have a history, or something. He was pretty open about his own feelings towards her, after all. She continues talking before my thoughts can get very far.
 
“I don't really know Lou. It’s hard to really tell what’s going on with him since he almost never says anything. He has aphasia, you know.”
 
“Yeah, but I’m not really sure what that is.”
 
“I don’t know a lot about it myself, Hisao. It’s a language disability. It means he has trouble reading and communicating. Of course, instead of leaving him alone, the school thought it might be funny to get him to join the literature club. Now he spends all his extra-curricular time trying to keep pace with novels and poetry.”
 
“Must be hard on the poor guy,” I remark.
 
“I couldn’t tell you,” she says. “I’ve never seen what goes on at those club meetings. But it’s got to be one of those overcompensation gimmicks. You know, like the girl with no arms who paints, or Emi the track star. The aphasic poet.”
 
Rika’s unhappy mention of Emi puts me on guard, as always.
 
“Well,” I say, “what would you rather he do? Just stop talking?”
 
She pauses thoughtfully. “If it were up to me, I’d get him to join the art club. Learn to do something he actually can do instead of trying to teach him to do something he can’t.”
 
“You make it sound like they’re forcing him.”
 
“The magic of Yamaku is subtle,” she replies. “Compliance is not always consent.”
 
“The dream of parity?” I quote her.
 
“Precisely. Some of us don’t mind being broken, you know. Would you rather be average at one thing, or excel at something else at the cost of another? Maybe his brain is honed in other ways that we don’t realize. The way they say a blind person’s other senses are enhanced.”
 
“He still needs to learn to communicate, though.”
 
She shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t? Animals don’t need words and they get by fine. Think of how many people could benefit from a few less words.”
 
“Like Takashi?”
 
Rika laughs and pulls me closer to her, nudging me with her shoulder. Making fun of disabled people is a new low for me. It makes me wonder whether or not people make jokes about us. That Tezuka girl had said something bordering on mockery when she called us “doubles,” but that’s the worst I’ve ever heard. The way Takashi talks about Rika, though, and the way she talks about Takashi, I’m starting to think people at Yamaku aren’t as accepting as they might seem at first blush.
 
It could be that Rika and I aren’t noticeably disabled or really physically impaired. We have our limitations, but it doesn’t affect our day-to-day lives in a way that others can point out. Maybe there’s a common resentment towards students such as us, whose disabilities aren’t readily apparent? Rika sure seems to harbor resentment to most of the other students and the ways in which they “compensate.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the other students knew she felt this way.
 
Between her affinity with night and her friendly attitude towards death, I suppose I can’t blame the other students for being superstitious about Rika. By the way she stares at the horizon as I fill up the water jug, I can tell she’s longing for dusk, and I feel that longing myself, as well. Whatever supernatural affliction Rika's got, I must have caught it from her by now. I crave the silence of the night, the moonlight, the intimacy. The liberty. A time when the world is like a beautiful girl that you can watch as she sleeps.
 
And how different it must be out here, where the rules of the city don’t apply. How many more creatures like us will be lurking at night?
 
 
 
 
Scene 3: Magnum Opus
 
As we walk back to the campsite I look down at my shadow, still a little short but lengthening enough that it must be later in the afternoon. My hunger is another strong indicator of what time it must be. I had a pretty light breakfast before the trip out here, and that was a long time ago. The sun has already crossed its zenith. At Rika’s suggestion, I left my watch back at home. “Time doesn’t matter in the wilderness,” she said to me. Contrary to her intentions, being without my watch isn’t helping me lose track of time. I keep wondering about it. Maybe because I’m eager for the waning of the daylight hour. Maybe because I’m overly civilized.
 
On our return, Miki uses the water to prepare a lunch of instant ramen which we enjoy in our seats around the inactive fire pit. Takashi, mostly with his mouth full, rants about his plans to get a lot of nature photography for use in his art projects. I try to mask my increasingly negative predisposition towards him while he talks, since nobody else seems to be paying attention to what he’s saying. Rika silently contemplates her surroundings as she eats, saying nothing, and Lelouch, having already finished his meal, taps a pencil against a notepad with a deeply thoughtful look on his face.
 
“What are you writing?” Rika asks Lelouch at the first break in Takashi’s monologue.
 
He starts to say something in reply, sighs, and scribbles a word down on his notepad. After staring at what he’s just written for a second, he speaks.
 
“Haiku.”
 
“May I see?” she asks. He nods and hands her the notepad, and she scrutinizes it with a furrowed brow.
 
“Lou writes haiku to help with his language skills,” Takashi pipes in.
 
Lelouch shakes his head at Takashi. “No,” he says. “I always have.”
 
“You’re in the literature club, right?” I ask him.
 
He smiles at me and nods. “I love to,” he says.
 
“You love to what, Lou?” Takashi says in a pedantic tone.
 
“Read,” he replies after a pause. Takashi smiles condescendingly.
 
“We’re here on a mission of inspiration,” Takashi says to me. “Any artist can only take his craft so far in the confines of society. Here in the wilderness we can truly come to grips with human nature, really grapple what it means to be in the world, to exist. You know, stuff like that.”
 
“You sound just like Nomiya,” Miki says.
 
Takashi scoffs at her. “Don’t be a philistine, Miki.”
 
Rika makes eye contact with me and I grin at her. I’m not sure what Miki likes about these guys, or how she came to be friends with them. It might have something to do with the fact that she’s still so new at the school. Maybe they adopted her into their social circle the way Shiina and Shizune pounced on me during my first week of classes. She doesn’t seem to have a lot in common with them, but the way she banters with Takashi I can tell she’s having a good time.
 
And really, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having fun as well. Being outside of the school context and spending the weekend out here, even with a handful of people I hardly know, is really calming. I haven’t just casually hung out with people like this since before my first heart attack. Even Rika, notwithstanding the fact that she’s hardly said a word since we arrived, seems to be enjoying herself in her own way.
 
After our late lunch, the five of us decide to hit one of the hiking trails that leads deeper into the vast beech forest surrounding the campsite. The canopy of the trees practically blocks out the sky as we follow the path deeper into the thicket. Shrubs and low tree branches encroach on the footpath in a way that makes it seem like we’re the first people to pass through here in a long time. I really wish I’d invested in some hiking shoes before coming out here. Stepping on stones and twigs is already starting to hurt the soles of my feet through my running shoes. Hopefully I don’t need to replace these later.
 
Rika and I hang back a few paces from the rest of the crew. With dusk approaching, most of us took the precaution of adding an extra layer of clothing. Rika on the other hand has changed into something lighter: a pair of khaki shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt. Every so often I glance at her and notice her eyes scanning the treetops.
 
Takashi stops us after a few paces and points excitedly into the trees, hushing us loudly.
 
“I don’t see anything,” I whisper to Rika.
 
She puts a hand on my shoulder and points with the other to a spot just ahead of us, where a pair of macaque monkeys are walking single-file across a tree branch. I gasp at the sight, and she seems amused by this.
 
“You don’t get out much, do you, Hisao? Surely you’ve seen monkeys before.”
 
“Only in textbooks and on TV. Damn. I should have brought a camera.”
 
“Maybe Takashi will make you some copies of his pictures.” Her voice lowers.
 
I shrug at her. “I wasn’t expecting there to be so much wildlife.”
 
“Don’t worry,” she says, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “If I see a squirrel, I’ll warn you.”
 
As we walk further down the trail, Takashi is positively animated at the sights around him. It’s hard to harbor negative feelings towards the guy when he’s having so much fun. Miki and Lelouch seem to be picking up a lot of his positive vibes, and from the pace we keep I give him the occasional wave when I notice something that he might like to come take a look at. For the most part Rika and I spend our time passively immersed in our surroundings, her clutching my hand, us guiding each other’s attention to points of interest. The further we roam from the campsite and the darker it becomes, the more fully I turn myself over to the activity. I would have never thought sightseeing would be so enthralling. The sublime view of the enormous beech trees with their looming tangle of bright green leaves, the sounds of wildlife stirring all around us, the odd glimpse of the beautifully clear sky as it reddens with the approach of nightfall.
 
And interspersed with that, the look of Rika’s face, the joy of abandon, the genuineness of her smile, the complete lack of cynicism in her demeanor. It cheers me to see her so at ease for a change, and it honours me that she is so willing to let her guard down around me. We really have come a long way these past few weeks. It seems like not long ago the two of us were still measuring our words around one another. Now we have inside jokes, shared experiences, and a mutual understanding on so many levels. As I gaze at her cheek while she looks away from me, scanning the treetops for signs of life, I think about how beautiful she looks in the moonlight. Imagining the luster of her bright skin, how it glows almost with its own light, fills me with desire.
 
I hear a sound of running water as we approach what seems like a clearing, but turns out to be a shallow brook running over a bed of large, grey rocks. We stop at the brook and start to walk alongside it. The path seems to have come to an end but the five of us are hardly done exploring.
 
Takashi stops walking and gives us another loud hushing noise, even though none of us have spoken a word for quite a while. He points across the water and Rika grabs my arm.
 
“He can’t be serious,” she says. I look in his direction and squint to try and see what she’s talking about, and she runs ahead of me. I follow her at a walking pace, still peering into the darkness as best I can to see what everyone’s looking at.
 
Takashi is taking a few steps across the brook onto a few of the taller rocks in the water. I quicken my pace as I approach. Just a few meters ahead, and close to where Takashi is standing with his camera raised at eye level, I can now see two large black bears that are sniffing at a rotting log across the brook. Miki and Lelouch stand at a cautious distance from Takashi, neither of them saying anything but both looking apprehensive. Rika, undeterred as usual, hops onto one of the rocks near Takashi. I jog over to the brook beside them.
 
“Hisao,” Takashi says in a noisy whispering voice. “Check it out! Those are the same bears we saw on the bus.”
 
“They can’t be,” I say in my regular voice, and he makes his loud hushing noise again so I speak once more, imitating his loud whisper.
 
“They can’t be. Unless they took the bus out here.”
 
He turns around so I can see him grinning. “Nope, it’s them. The big one has a red spot on the white fur on his chest, like he’s been hurt or something. It’s the same one, I’m sure of it. Watch, see if he stands up again.”
 
We stare for a few moments, but the bears are both intent on sniffing and licking the rotting log by the water.
 
“Here,” Takashi says, and picks up a large stone next to his feet. Rika lurches forward to try and stop him, but before she can reach him he throws it in their direction, striking the big log and causing both of them to look at us.
 
“Do you have a death wish, Takashi?” Rika hisses. I can’t tell if she’s warning him about the bears or about her.
 
“Really, man,” I say, “don’t do stuff like that. You’re going to get us killed.”
 
He waves his hand at us. “No, man, they’re not going to come after me. I have the higher ground so I look bigger. Don’t you know anything about bears?” Before either myself or Rika know what’s happening, he lobs another stone in the direction of the bears, and one of them shakes its head rapidly as he strikes it on the nose.
 
“Stop it, Takashi,” Miki yells out from behind us. “Come on, let’s go back.”
 
The larger bear turns towards us and starts to approach. Takashi raises his camera in anticipation, crouching a little to steady himself on his perch. “Here we go,” he says. “It’s going to stand up. Hisao, get a good look.”
 
As the beast approaches us, I feel my pulse accelerating in my temples. Beads of sweat form on my brow and I take long, calming breaths to try to control my heart rate. I look at Rika, who is staring at the enormous animals, her face no whiter than usual, eyes glowing with determination. Suddenly, she hops over to Takashi, grabs his camera away from him, and jumps down into the water, walking rapidly over in the direction of the bears.
 
“You stupid bitch,” Takashi says reflexively as he regains his balance. I look over at Rika, where she’s now seemingly standing on the surface of the water in the shallow brook. In her right hand she’s holding a large tree branch that she must have just found in the water. In her left hand, Takashi’s camera.
 
With deliberation and great agility she steps from stone to stone, approaching the rotting log where the two bears are beholding her with caution. She spreads her arms out at her sides to retain her balance, and as she does so I’m reminded of that first night I saw her walking on the ledge of the Yamaku rooftop.
 
My heart feels like it’s doing backflips as I hear a low grunt coming from the larger of the two bears. She waves the large tree branch over her head, looking not at it, but at the image on the camera that she’s holding in her other hand. It rears back on its hind legs, exposing its broad white chest-mark. Rika’s about three meters away from it. As if conducting an orchestra, or giving it a signal to wait, she holds the tree branch still over her head and stares the bear in the eyes.
 
A bright flash flickers through the air. Then I hear a loud, booming roar.
 
I stand perfectly still. Not that I could move if I wanted to. I glance over at Miki and Lelouch who are petrified, Miki’s mouth gaping open, Lelouch’s lips chattering mutely in perpetual inexpression. Takashi crouches on his rock, looking more offended than frightened.
 
Again, the bear roars at Rika. She holds her ground. Then, with a flourish, she waves the huge tree branch over her head and takes a few steps forward, closing the gap between herself and the bear. I can practically see the fire of her eyes reflected in its own. I don’t know whether to be more afraid for Rika or for the bear.
 
She takes a few more steps and waves the tree branch more violently in the air. After a loud grunt, the bear falls back to its feet and relents, walking back into the woods. Its partner follows in kind.
 
Spinning on her heel and looking nonplussed, she throws the tree branch into the water, throws the camera at Takashi, who fumbles to catch it, and wordlessly walks past all of us into the forest, vanishing from sight.
 
Takashi scoffs loudly and scrutinizes his camera for damage. I look over in Miki’s direction, and instead see Lelouch looking back at me as he hugs her and strokes the back of her head. Her back is heaving as she sobs uncontrollably on his shoulder.
 
I clutch my chest with my hand, gritting my teeth. My heart pumps relentlessly, and I struggle to slow my breathing and gather my strength. Lelouch regards me wordlessly but nods with understanding.
 
I have to go find her.
 
 
 
 
 
Scene 4: The One That Hides
 
Tripping over shrubs and rocks, I stumble frantically through the woods, off any pathway, far from any signs of civilization. After hours of walking into the woods we must have gotten pretty far from the campgrounds. I struggle to find any path. I wave my flashlight around in front of me, looking for any sign that she might have been here. Broken twigs. Footprints. Anything.
 
But there’s nothing. I can’t find her. And I don’t know where I am.
 
I quickly pull my cellular phone out of my backpack to see if I might be able to pick up any service out here.
 
No luck.
 
Sounds rustle in the trees all around me as I push through the dense thicket. My feet are killing me. I’m exhausted. And the urgency is pushing my heart rate to its border.
 
I stop to catch my breath, and a faint noise in the distance gets my attention. Running water. But louder than the sound of the brook where we saw the bears. It’s not possible that I’ve been running in circles, is it?
 
The sound gets closer as I walk on. If there is a stream nearby, I should at least find myself in a clearing where I can have a better look around and determine where I’m located. How long have I been running? It feels like it may have been an hour by now, but it’s hard to tell without the sun in the sky. It’s much darker now than it was when I first undertook my pursuit.
 
I continue my trek, more slowly and listening as best I can to locate the sound of water. It grows louder and louder, to the point where I’m certain it can’t be the same brook I saw before.
 
Finally, almost before I realize what’s happening, the oval of light emanating from my flashlight stretches out over a fast stream of water. Large, round, mossy rocks climb up the hillside as water pours and careens over them, crashing into itself and steadying out into a deep, wide stream. A few fallen logs bridge some of the gaps between the rocks, almost like a pathway deliberately laid out for someone who enjoyed playing at tightrope walking.
 
No sooner can I predict her presence than my light catches a pair of bare legs dangling off one of these logs and over the rolling water.
 
For reasons I don’t presently understand, I click off my flashlight, and I’m instantly confirmed in my suspicion that it’s no longer needed.
 
Moonlight floods the clearing. The stream sparkles with a million reflected stars from the clear night sky. The moon hangs full in the air, enormous, and it startles me to think how I might not have noticed it with my flashlight shining in front of me. My eyes adjust and the redness of Rika’s irises fixes me in my place. She’s close enough that I can see her expression clearly. Solemn, tired, frightened.
 
I scramble up a few large rocks leading up to the broad, fallen beech trunk that straddles the tiny waterfall below. It doesn’t require much daring on my part to do so. The trunk is so firmly planted in its spot that it may have been here for decades for all I know.
 
Rika averts her gaze from me as I approach her, and I take a seat by her side, staring down at the water wordlessly. Our trembling, shaky reflections look back up at us and she’s forced to meet my gaze through the water. We’re barely recognizable in the quivering stream, and yet with no effort at all, our eyes find each other.
 
She starts to smile at me, and I at her. Then, she starts to laugh. I can hear pain in her voice as she speaks.
 
“I can’t hide from you anywhere,” she says. “Anywhere there’s a mirror, there you are.”
 
“Naturally,” I say. “I’m like one of those bogeymen that children tell ghost stories about. Haven’t you noticed?”
 
She shakes her head. “No, you’re finer than that, Nakai. You’re not a cheap monster. You’re one of the classics. Much more frightening.”
 
“I think you’re just easily frightened,” I say to her. She smiles more. Not that I can see it in her heavily distorted reflection. I can just tell.
 
After a few moments of silence, she takes my hand in hers and I hear her begin to cry. I turn to face her directly and see a few tears running down her cheeks, her eyes clenched, new drops forming in the corners. I never get used to seeing this side of her.
 
“It’s funny, you know,” she whispers. “You don’t mean it but you’re right. I really am a coward.”
 
“A coward who just won a staring contest with a black bear?”
 
“No. Worse than that. A coward who hides in a lie.”
 
My skin goes hot as she looks at me with worry in her eyes. I take a few deep breaths, not sure what to expect next. Her voice quavers and cracks as she speaks again.
 
“I just don’t want you to go away, Hisao. Having you with me has made me happier than I have been in a long time. You don’t know.”
 
I clutch her hand between both of mine and look into her eyes. She beholds me submissively, seized by my gaze. An unusual role reversal by our standards. I pause a moment to ingest her sheer beauty in the moonlight, somehow enhanced by the intense emotion that’s overcome her. So foreign to her features, but somehow so authentic, so suitable. I feel a lump in my throat, my heart is thudding horribly in my chest, my face must be completely pale.
 
“Rika, you can’t tell me something that will make me go away. I made you a promise. I mean that.”
 
She looks back down at the water and I seek her gaze in our reflections again. I think I can even see a few glittering tears as they fall into the water from her face, but in the darkness it’s hard to be sure.
 
“Takashi,” she says after a pause, “used to have a friend in common with me. An artist, too. His name was Shin.”
 
Shin. The name crowds the empty spaces of my mind. I suppress my reaction, feigning ignorance as best I can.
 
Rika pulls one leg up and clutches it against her chest, staring into the distance as she talks. She goes on.
 
“Shin was the first person that I ever dated. We were together for a few months, but things moved fast. You see, we had something in common. Something important.”
 
“What was it?”
 
She furrows her brow thoughtfully. Her tears subside somewhat. Talking about this seems to be bringing her comfort. After a shuddering breath, she continues.
 
“Shin was a junior when I came to Yamaku. He suffered from a rare birth defect called hypoplastic right heart syndrome. He’d undergone a series of surgeries as a child and was mostly normal, but he still had… arrhythmias.”
 
She studies my face before continuing. I look at her with concern. Not sure how to feign surprise, or whether I should bother.
 
“He died,” she says. “He died almost a year ago. While the two of us were together. And Takashi… and a lot of people…” Her strength falters and she trails off, the tears coming to her eyes once again.
 
I reach her face and turn her head by the chin so that she’s facing me. She looks at me with worry.
 
I don’t know what to say. I try to think of something, but I can’t. I can’t think of anything but her beauty, her exposure, the total reality of her presence.
 
Almost unwillingly, I put my hand behind her neck and pull her towards me, kissing her on the lips. She nearly goes limp as I embrace her, wrapping my arm around her waist and squeezing her tightly against my body. She exhales through her nose with a light whimper, her tears still wet on my cheek, and I feel her arms wrapping around my body as well.
 
My body tingles with renewed vigor as she clutches me in her arms. What this could mean to her, I don’t know. I have no means of conveyance for the message I want to give her. I want her to know that it’s alright. I want her to know that nothing is changing between us. But words are of no help to me right now.
 
Maybe there are parts of our brain that are stronger when we’re at a loss for words. Maybe our passion can bridge the gaps in our capacity for communication.
 
The blood coursing through me causes me to sweat, to tremble, but I suspend my concern for my well-being. I don’t think this is the feeling that I need to fear. I think it’s that other thing again.
 
Rika pulls back from me briefly, gazing into my eyes with her own, which are half-closed, her mouth hanging mutely open. She looks as though she’s about to say something, so I kiss her again, refusing her the luxury. She graciously complies, her enthusiasm building. We flee the subject matter of the deceased, the pain of history, the unpleasantness of revelation. Passion overwhelms us.
 
In the night, in total solitude, with Rika, I have at my fingertips just what I’ve been longing for. The answer to my desires.
 
Almost as if obeying my own subconscious command, she stands up, pulling me to my feet, and the two of us undress completely, placing our clothes carefully in a deep groove of the enormous beech trunk where we stand. I gather the vision of her nude form with a long, shameless gaze, and she beholds me with the same wonder. I can’t possibly be so luminous as she is in the moonlight. The night air chills my skin, but I can practically feel the warmth flowing out of her, even standing as we are at an arm’s length.
 
Her slender, but shapely legs. The flare of her relatively narrow thighs that tapers at the top forming a triangular gap between her legs. A patch of trimmed, silver hair below her pubic mound. This sight in particular makes me blush, and I’m surprised there’s enough blood left in my body to fill my cheeks.
 
Her hips, so much more shapely in her state of undress, the sight of which makes me want to reach out and place my hands on her delicate, narrow waist. Her belly button, and her firm stomach that tells the story of her life as a gymnast. It quivers as she takes nervous breaths.
 
Her slender arms, one hand holding the forearm of the other as she fidgets only slightly, more from a habitual discomfort than with modesty. Whether she intends it or not, the effect is to pull her breasts together in a way that accentuates their size and shape, soft but round and shapely, their pink tips adding a rare touch of colour to her otherwise pallid complexion.
 
Her narrow shoulders, perhaps her most feminine feature, where I’ve so often placed my hands in times of comfort. Her broad, delicate collar bone, her smooth white neck.
 
Her lips. Her eyes, staring at me passionately. We meet each other’s gaze, at the end of my journey, and I wonder where her thoughts have been running meanwhile. Once more we find ourselves staring into reflections that aren’t ours. My desire is overwhelming.
 
She reaches up and with a swift motion, unfastens her hair. The gesture takes me by surprise, and this causes her to smile as her silver hair falls freely upon her shoulders.
 
Unable any longer to restrain myself, I put my hands on her waist and pull her against me, kissing her with an insatiable lust. She reaches up and puts her hands around my neck, and I feel the spiny tips of her fingernails combing through the hair on the back of my head chaotically as her body tenses up with passion. My hands explore her back, the ridge of her spine, her nimble thighs, the soft convex of her backside. Our kisses deepen as she alternates between moans and muffled laughter.
 
Just as I grow a little more daring with the movements of my hands, she breaks our kiss and stares at me intensely, a wicked grin forming on her lips. Her eyebrows go up and she decides to break the silence with words. Her voice is charged with passion and the sound of it has an almost tangible effect on me.
 
“In the ape valley, creatures from different worlds push words together.”
 
My bemused expression pleases her, and she turns herself around, pushing her back up against me. I place my hands in front of her, and she takes them in hers, running them down her thighs, and up again, toying with me like a puppet. Her hands tremble as she clutches me firmly with her fingers, and even though she is subjecting me to her will, she seems to know exactly where I want my hands to go.
 
Her knees bend slightly as my hands are brought between her thighs, and a faint familiarity overcomes me as the heat and wetness of her nethermost region meets the tips of my fingers.
 
She emits a sharp gasp, almost as though she were surprised by what she’s causing me to do.
 
I reach, defying her grasp, and she tightens her fingers around me. But I overpower her.
 
I bring my left hand up to her chest, clutching her left breast in my fingers. She hums in approval. I kiss her neck, and she releases my right hand from hers, instead putting it behind my head and running her fingers once again through my hair as her head swivels ecstatically. I place my newly liberated right hand once more between her legs, and her mouth hangs open, gasping and moaning without restraint as I caress her with my fingertips.
 
“Do you want me, Nakai?” she says in a low voice.
 
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
 
She giggles through closed lips, and pulls away from me, beckoning with a finger. Before I can once more delight in the vision of her nakedness, she bounds down the large rocks at the side of the stream and lays down in a patch of grass by the woods. I follow her gracelessly, almost losing my footing, but with enough speed to close the distance between us.
 
The daring recklessness that characterizes her is met with a bit of my own. Interlocking my fingers with hers, I pin her down, gazing into her once powerful eyes, having now myself become the one that is in control. She defiantly lifts her hips and clutches me from behind with her powerful legs. I’m awestruck that so much force could be in the body of one with such a light build as hers.
 
With uncanny precision, she draws me into her, her gaze intensifying and delighting in the surprise that’s no doubt overcome my expression. Whether driven by some inner impulse or entirely manipulated by Rika’s agility, I alternately push and withdraw myself with increasing intensity, my pulse soaring, my whole body trembling. I struggle to fend off my release, but it’s futile. Rika’s own moans shorten gradually, rise in pitch, and I can no longer contain myself when I feel her heels on the small of my back pulling me tightly against her. Her eyes clench shut and she lets out a last, shuddering gasp, before her body goes limp.
 
I feel like a servant finally released from bondage.
 
No. Nothing so bad as that. But like one from whom an enchantment has been lifted.
 
Something supernatural. Or maybe, something perfectly natural, but alien.
 
I roll onto my back and stare up at the sky, struggling to catch my breath. Rika’s hand grabs mine and gives it a squeeze. I look at her and she gives me a weak smile, as one exhausted and in search of rest.
 
“What do you think would happen if we slept out here?” she asks me.
 
I enjoy the thought for a second before the answer hits me.
 
“Miki is probably waiting for us back at the campsite. I’m sure she’s worried.”
 
“I’m sure she’s drunk,” Rika says with a light chuckle. The lightness in her voice puts my soul at ease. I can’t blame Rika for wanting to stay where we are. I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever felt so at peace with the world. She’s demanding I give her a good reason that we shouldn’t just stay here forever, and it’s a perfectly reasonable demand. And not one that’s going to be easy to satisfy.
 
“Drunk from worry, though,” I say. “Miki is our friend. We should head back soon.”
 
“Soon,” Rika says drowsily. “But just a little longer, okay?”
 
I nod at her. We look up at the stars which almost look like they’re spinning above us. I can’t figure out why. Maybe I’m dizzy? Maybe I’m coming dangerously close to my second heart attack? Maybe I’ve never been more aware of the fact that the ground beneath me is spinning?
 
The cold grass on my skin makes me shiver. And something else comes to mind.
 
“Rika?”
 
She rolls over to face me, resting her head on my shoulder. Damn. She’s so beautiful.
 
“Yes?”
 
“What was it you said to me before we came down here?”
 
She beams at me.
 
“It was a haiku. By an aphasic poet. I think it was pretty good. Don’t you?”
 
 
 
Scene 5: The New Arrival
 
One of the worst things about waking up in a new place is that brief moment where you have to remember where you are. Today is the first time in a couple of months that I’ve experienced this. My first week in Yamaku was like this, as was my first month in the hospital. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this feeling, no matter how many strange beds I find myself in.
 
What’s always bugged me about this sensation is the fact that it means I wake up under the illusion that I’m somewhere else. As if I’d been dreaming of days gone by. Since coming to Yamaku, my dreams have been less and less frequent. But what that really means, I know, is that I’ve just been unable to remember them.
 
How much of what happened yesterday was a dream? The events of the day prior are almost a greatest hits collection of dreams I might have had back when I was more of a dreamer. Nightmares, for starters. Big scary animals. A dark forest. Running and running and being unable, no matter what I do, to find my way to safety.
 
And of course, that other kind of dream. I chuckle like a schoolboy at the thought. As irresponsible as it may have been of us to stay away for the time that we did, it took all of my willpower to leave that spot and return to the camp here. Or rather, to follow Rika back. Much to my relief, and less to my surprise, she knew exactly where we were and we were able to return rather quickly. I didn’t ask how exactly she managed to navigate without a compass. She’d revealed enough secrets to me already last night. Letting her retain some of her mystique is the least I could do for her.
 
Our camping party was pleased enough to see us when we got back. Rika was right to assume that they’d be inebriated. It turns out that Miki had smuggled some clear liquor in the cooler, in re-sealed water bottles. Miki, Takashi and Lelouch were sitting around the campfire, sipping away. Takashi greeted us as “heroes” and Rika paid him no mind, heading straight to sleep in our tent. I had a quick chat with Miki to apologize for our disappearance and to make sure she was alright, since she’d seemed so shaken up from our little… wildlife encounter. She told me not to worry about it, so I joined Rika, who was already asleep on her air mattress, fully clothed.
 
As I stare at the bright orange fabric ceiling of the tent, glowing as it is with a faint outdoor light, I’m struck with the embarrassing realization that I want to go home. I took my decision to come out here pretty lightly, and I already don’t know if I can last another day. I miss my creature comforts. I miss the certainty of the daily routine. I miss mornings with Emi, daytime at the school, study sessions with Shizune, checkups with Nurse. Out here, even with the extra noise and in the company of our fellow campers, it feels like Rika has me cornered with nowhere to run.
 
Rubbing the fatigue out of my eyes, I realize that I can faintly hear voices outside. Rika and Miki are discussing something, but I can’t tell exactly what. It still puts a smile on my face, though. Rika hardly said a word to anyone yesterday, and just knowing that she’s socializing without having me around pleases me. Based on what I know about her, Miki may be the closest thing Rika has to a friend. And while the same may not be true of Miki, I know how eager she’s been to close the gap between herself and Rika. It’s good that they’ve apparently found some time for each other.
 
Miki laughs, and the sound almost makes me want to laugh, too. As the zipper on the tent quickly opens, I realize the laughter must have been at my expense.
 
Rika looms at the open tent flap, wearing the same thing she wore last evening. The grin on her face is merciless.
 
“What would Emi say if she knew you were sleeping this late, Hisao?”
 
I yawn. “I’d tell her I got all my cardio last night.”
 
Miki oohs emphatically. I suppose I should have realized she’d be able to hear what I was saying. Rika just rolls her eyes, smiling at me. That couldn’t be what they’ve been talking about. Could it?
 
“Don’t worry,” she says, kneeling as she steps inside of our tent. “Takashi and Lelouch are gone fishing, so you can relax. I know how you hate sharing the spotlight with other men. It’s just us girls now.”
 
“You didn’t want to go fishing?”
 
She shrugs. “It’s not really my thing. Besides, Miki and I don’t trust you to survive an afternoon alone out here.”
 
Good to see Rika’s ego is still healthy after what happened last night.
 
“So what are our plans for today?” I ask as I rummage through my belongings in search of my pills.
 
“Nothing much. We’re waiting for the guys to get back from fishing. Lou knows a good stream around here where you can catch trout. He promised he’d share whatever he caught with us.”
 
“That’s nice of him. Hey, have you seen my pills? I had them in a little clear plastic container.”
 
She leans closer to where I am and peers at my things. “You can’t find them?”
 
I shake my head. My voice, like my searching, grows frantic. “Are you sure? I can’t find them anywhere.”
 
She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hisao, we’re going home tomorrow morning. Don’t you think you’ll be okay until then?”
 
I look up at her. Her expression is opaque and neutral, but her concern seems genuine enough. She shrugs at me. I must be making a face or something.
 
“No need to get upset,” she says coolly. “You got by fine all those years before Iwanako, after all. You should be fine as long as you don’t fall in love, right?”
 
Somehow Rika’s mention of Iwanako’s name is startling to me. The fact that she’s committed the name to memory, that is. On her knees, as the tent size requires, she scurries over closer to me and speaks into my ear as I search my belongings.
 
“Besides, maybe it would be fun.”
 
I ignore her. Harsh, but it’s what she deserves for talking like this. Now her fingers comb my hair as I face away from her, focused on my objective of finding my pills. Where are they?
 
“Worried I might be a hallucination, Hisao? Maybe I’ll vanish if you don’t get your dose. How else can you be sure?”
 
I shudder. I’m now searching all the places I’ve already checked. Is it possible I lost them in the woods? Or misplaced them somewhere after we came out here? If so, what do I do? Should I go out there and search for them? Should I call for emergency help?
 
I feel her tongue on my ear. My heart, already working overdrive, shifts up a gear. I swallow hard. I don’t even want to look at her right now.
 
“Stop it, Rika.”
 
She doesn’t.
 
“Erectile dysfunction,” she says. “Decreased appetite. Drowsiness. Loss of life.”
 
“The only Hisao you’ve ever known,” I counter. She giggles coldly at me, not one to back down from a battle of wits. Her other hand crawls onto my left shoulder like a spider. I stare blankly at the mess I’ve made with my hurried searching, wishing like a bullied child that she’d just let up and leave me in peace already.
 
“Then show me,” she says. “Show me the boy you were before a glimpse of love brought you to death’s door. I’d like to meet him.”
 
I turn around to look at her. The look in her eyes is chilling. There’s no feeling quite like seeing the object of your desire staring at you with lust. She lunges forward for a kiss and I reluctantly comply.
 
The two of us kneeling on the ground, kissing. I feel like a grade-schooler playing spin-the-bottle at a birthday party. And rather than being pushed over the edge, I feel my pulse relaxing.
 
She pulls back and puts her hands on my cheeks, drawing me in with her bright red eyes.
 
“How do you feel right now?”
 
Wherever my medication is, it’s not here. Searching any more than I already have is just going to put me under more stress. I’ll have to try to make it through the weekend. The thought fills me with dread and the anxiety returns to my veins.
 
“I’m scared,” I tell her honestly.
 
Rika pushes her lips against mine in a deep, passionate kiss, holding my head, then pulls back and gazes at me with her usual grimness. With a grin, she pats me on the cheek and I stare at her, baffled, frightened, and undeniably aroused.
 
“Welcome to the wilderness, Hisao Nakai.”
 
 
 
Scene 6: An Omen
 
Over the course of the afternoon, Miki keeps finding ways to indirectly remind me of Emi. I think back to the luncheon Emi so lovingly prepared for her company on the rooftop. Bland though it may have been, I would kill for that level of cuisine right about now. Loath to do cooking of any kind, Miki doesn’t seem to have brought any food that requires more than a two-step process of preparation. “An entire box of crackers” isn’t exactly the kind of meal Emi would approve of, but this campsite seems to be a place of forgiveness. Still, even though I feel like I’d rather be eating something a bit more substantial, there’s a certain guilty pleasure in subsisting primarily on junk food.
 
It’s not until I start drinking water that I realize exactly how dehydrated I am. I can almost feel the cells in my body expanding as the tepid water I fetched yesterday courses through my system. Come to think of it, I missed a whole meal yesterday, but somehow I haven’t felt hungry or thirsty until today when I woke up.
 
Pushing my body to its limits, nutritional or otherwise, is going to be a bad idea. I settle on the conclusion that more food is good food, and the girls snicker at me as I find myself wrist-deep in a bag of mixed nuts.
 
The three of us sit around the dead fire pit nibbling on what’s left of our snack food. It’s a mild summer afternoon, and much to Rika’s advantage, the sky is completely overcast, keeping the sun off our backs but making it hard for me to tell exactly how late I’ve slept in. The humidity in the air adds to the heat and discomfort. Deep down, I worry about the sweat on my brow, a familiar symptom.
 
“I should go check out the showers,” I say. Rika and Miki grin at each other.
 
“Don’t be so civilized,” Rika rebukes me. “A true man of the wild wears his musk with pride.”
 
“We were going to go for a swim anyways,” Miki says, “until the guys get back. You down?”
 
“You could bring a bar of soap,” Rika adds, and Miki laughs again.
 
I guess a relaxing swim couldn’t hurt, I think, even if I have to endure more of this torment at the hands of the girls. After I change into my swim trunks, the three of us hit the trail leading out to the lake. The footpaths are busier at this time of the day and I see a good mixture of families and groups of friends, people riding bicycles, and even a pair of European tourists taking photos. A handful of other people are already swimming in the lake when we get there, and I recognize them as students I’ve seen in the halls of Yamaku. The area around the lake is beautiful and hilly, surrounded by the expansive beech forest which seems to sprawl out endlessly in all directions. A few of the students can be seen diving from one of the higher ledges on the other side of the lake. Miki politely waves at a few of them as we arrive, and wastes no time stripping down to her bikini.
 
I feel Rika’s elbow in my ribcage.
 
“Haven’t you ever seen a woman before, Hisao?”
 
I didn’t even realize I’d been staring at Miki as she undressed. Rika’s already wearing her bathing suit. Compared to Miki's, Rika's swimsuit is relatively modest: silver bikini bottoms with a boy-cut and a matching tank-style top. Her top almost entirely conceals her scar, except for the upper portion that runs between her breasts and up to her collarbone. Seeing her like this instantly calls to memory the events of last night, and she seems to notice that on my face as I blush a bit.
 
“Well,” she says with a condescending smile, “if you can’t control your eyes, at least stay in the water up to your waist, alright?”
 
I look back over to Miki who is giggling as usual at Rika’s remarks. I guess I don’t mind being the butt of every joke if it helps the two of them bond a little. As Miki begins to unravel the bandage on her left wrist I self-consciously avert my eyes. I’ve seen my share of amputees at Yamaku but never actually seen a naked amputated limb, and the thought makes me uncomfortable.
 
I reach for the hem of my t-shirt but hesitate. I haven’t been shirtless in public since…
 
“What’s wrong?” Rika asks me rhetorically, tilting her head. I notice that both she and Miki are staring at me with expectation.
 
I lower my hands at my sides, putting them in the pockets of my swim trunks.
 
“Don’t worry about it.”
 
Miki looks puzzled, but Rika just gives her a look as if to tell her not to inquire. A look of realization comes over Miki’s face and she gives me a playful punch with her… stump.
 
“Nobody’s going to stare at you, dude. Not with me around. Come on, let’s get wet.”
 
I take off my shirt and Miki pointedly retains eye contact with me, smiling with reassurance. Her boldness is contagious. So people are going to stare, I think. Let them stare.
 
The afternoon swim is refreshing and puts me at ease. Rika is a strong swimmer and rarely waits up for me as she goes deeper out into the waters. Miki surprises me with her swimming ability. It makes me wonder how long it took her to grow accustomed to swimming with one hand.
 
I’m not quite so game for physical exertion as my companions are, and I spend the bulk of my time in the water relaxing, wading, back-floating, staring at the increasingly dark clouds in the sky, and letting my mind wander. I try to think of the last time that I went swimming, but somehow I can’t remember exactly when it was. Last summer I spent a lot of time playing soccer with my friends in the park near my house. I try to picture my old friends, their faces, what those days were like. But I can’t. All I can see are the new faces of my new life. Even the old names are hard to recall. Why can’t I remember?
 
The clouds begin to turn amber as the evening approaches, and we’re some of the last people to leave. The three of us towel off and return to the campsite. As we approach, the aroma of fish cooking on the campfire makes my stomach rumble. Discarding our towels, the three of us rush over to dry ourselves by the fire. The sky blackens with the approach of night, and with the increasingly thick clouds cloaking the sky, the glowing orange fire is the only source of light in the camp.
 
Takashi’s cooking is surprisingly good. The various pots and pans around the fire pit are a testament to the amount of work he invested in preparing our evening meal. No sooner did we sit down than he handed us each a plate with a seasoned fillet on top of a mixture of vegetables and rice. There’s so much food to go around that I can barely believe we’d been storing it all. I almost fail to finish eating mine. Takashi offers me a sip from his water bottle and, remembering what’s in there, I politely decline. Alcohol is probably a bad idea.
 
“You don’t eat the garnish,” Takashi says to Miki as she contemplates a leaf on her paper plate. She smirks at him.
 
“Dude, are you trying to put my cooking to shame or what?”
 
“Now, now, Miki,” he says, raising a finger in a didactic flourish, “there’s nothing shameful in being bested in the arts by a true aesthete.”
 
I look over at Rika who is quietly enjoying her food, smiling in spite of herself at the banter between Miki and Takashi. Nobody brings up the events of last night, or the mounting tension between him and Rika. In the glow of the fire, her skin looks bright red. I turn and gaze into the crackling flames and realize that I’m sweating again. My skin feels hot. But it’s impossible to tell whether it’s the result of my illness or the result of sitting too close to the fire. I do seem to have been faring well so far without my meds. As long as I’m careful, I should be able to get by.
 
“We have a surprise,” Lelouch says suddenly. I’d almost forgotten he was here, he’s been so silent. Takashi eagerly makes a loud muffled noise as he chews his food, as though to reserve a spot in the conversation.
 
“What kind of surprise?” Rika asks Lelouch.
 
“Lou says there’s a stream around here where we can catch fireflies,” says Takashi.
 
Lelouch gives him a dirty look. So much for the surprise.
 
“Catch fireflies?” Miki asks. Takashi nods eagerly at her.
 
“Yeah! He says he did it last time he came out here. There’s a whole bunch of them, right Lou?”
 
Lelouch gives a sage nod as he scribbles something on his notepad.
 
“Sounds like fun,” Rika says, looking at me for approval. I’m not sure what to say to it. It does sound like a bit of a juvenile pastime, but after all, there’s not a lot of other things to be doing out here. Other than drinking, of course.
 
“Are we even allowed to catch them?” I ask, and everyone but Lelouch laughs. I guess that was a stupid question.
 
“It’s lonely,” says Lelouch.
 
“What do you mean?” Rika asks him.
 
His expression turns ponderous and he looks at his notepad for a second. “It’s not busy.”
 
“You mean there’s not a lot of people out there?” I suggest.
 
He nods a couple of times, and his eyes light up with joy. “Just us.”
 
 
 
 
 
Scene 7: Captivity
 
The clouds seem to thicken even more as an oppressive darkness blankets the campground. The moment we had put out the fire, Takashi’s flashlight became the only thing visible anywhere. Even now, as we walk through the winding pathway, I have to struggle not to trip over shrubs and underbrush that encroach on us. My pulse quickens as I think of all the creatures of night that might be out here.
 
“At least it’s dark enough that you can’t see anything scary,” Rika says to me, as though reading my mind. She holds my hand as we walk through the woods, steadying a beam of light from her flashlight in the other hand. It’s so much darker than it was last night, and try as she might to instill confidence in me, Rika’s presence hardly puts me at ease. I think about the menacing look in her eyes this morning when she kissed me and convinced me to brave my illness for the weekend. Takashi wasn’t far off base when he told me to be careful with her, even if he thinks so for the wrong reasons.
 
I wish I could see Rika’s face. This is the first time we’ve ever been together in complete darkness, without even the light of the moon to illuminate her. If she seemed like a supernatural entity before, how much more frightening is she now that I know she’s got powers of invisibility? I shake the thought from my head. By that logic, the whole world is a supernatural entity right now.
 
“You’re exaggerating,” Rika says suddenly. I realize that I’m trembling.
 
“What?”
 
“You’re afraid of the dark,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone. “And it’s because you have an overactive imagination. We’re the scariest things out here, Hisao.”
 
“Speak for yourself,” I mutter to her. She doesn’t respond. I wish I could see her face. It’s hard enough as it is to figure out what’s going on in her mind.
 
I can feel myself trembling more, and she tightens her grip on my hand as though to force me to stop shaking. A cool breeze blows through the woods, whistling through the branches of the trees that I can only imagine are still all around us. I try to conjure the image of the forest in my mind to replace the blackness. Nothing works.
 
The other three must be pretty far ahead of us, because I can only faintly hear the sound of Takashi’s voice and I can’t even see their flashlight anymore.
 
Rika holds out her arm and stops me. “Listen,” she says. I hear the sound of a stream.
 
She shuts off her flashlight and before I can ask her what she’s doing, a hundred glowing yellow dots flicker into view, appearing and disappearing behind what I soon realize are the trees of the forest. Further ahead, I can faintly see the glowing waters of the stream. Wherever they alight, the fireflies revive the imagery I was desperate to see before. Like tiny builders reconstructing the missing forest from a great void.
 
“There’s so many of them,” I say in awe.
 
I expect Rika to say something cocky in response, but she stays silent. In the faint light, I can see her mouth hanging open in wonder. She might not realize that I can see her now. Even as far as our relationship has come, I doubt she’d want me to see her like this.
 
“You guys!”
 
Miki’s voice breaks our concentration, and I look out into the clearing where she’s standing by the stream, waving at us. Takashi rummages through his backpack with his flashlight, while Lelouch gazes wide-eyed at his surroundings. Everything is only faintly discernible under the ubiquitous bioluminescence of the tiny insects. As many of them as there are, the darkness of the night is enormous and dominating.
 
Rika turns her flashlight back on and shines it in Miki’s direction, and Miki shelters her eyes with her hand. We approach the threesome by the water, the tiny bugs parting around us as we do.
 
Takashi puts a glass jar in my hand. “You should put some grass in there,” he advises me. He hands Rika a small net and she brandishes it with curiosity.
 
“Seriously?” she says.
 
Takashi nods at her. “Unless you’d rather use your bare hands?”
 
“It’s not a contest,” Miki observes.
 
Takashi’s eyebrows go up at the idea. “Well, we could make it one, right?”
 
I search the faces of our company to see what they think of the idea. Lelouch isn’t paying attention and is instead writing something down on his notepad. I can hardly imagine he can even see what he’s writing in the low lighting, but for all I know it doesn’t even matter. Miki looks a mixture of amused and annoyed. Rika looks back at me with an eyebrow raised.
 
“What are the stakes?” Rika says, turning to Takashi.
 
Takashi hums and taps his chin.
 
“Men versus women. We’ll see who can catch the most in an hour. Losing team has to clean the campsite tomorrow.”
 
Miki scoffs incredulously. Rika just snickers and glances at me. I know her well enough to know she has a bit of a competitive streak in her.
 
“But you have a one-person advantage,” Miki notes. “And Lelouch has done this before.”
 
“Oh, well in that case, the ladies can have the Master of Romance on their team. Unless you object, Hisao?”
 
“Fine by me,” I say. “But I don’t have a watch.”
 
“We’ll keep time,” Takashi says. “We’ll let you know when time’s up.”
 
Takashi claps his hands and is about to spring into action when Lelouch clears his throat loudly. We all turn our attention to him, or rather in the direction where we suspect he is. It’s still so dark that it’s hard for any of us to see each other.
 
“This,” Lelouch says. He yanks the flashlight away from Takashi and bobs it up and down a few times, wobbling the beam of light over the water. A few fireflies approach him as he does so. Miki makes a little impressed noise. He looks at our party to make sure that we understand, and I nod at him with a smile. Nice of him to let us in on a little trick like this. Either he’s overly confident, or just a good sport. The two of them walk downstream, Takashi swinging his net carelessly at his side while Lelouch brandishes the jar and flashlight.
 
The three of us set to work, and quickly discover that our task is more difficult than we might have thought at first. It almost would have been easier with just two people. Coordinating the net, flashlight and jar is the trick to it, and over time we grow a little more accustomed to the activity. I shine the flashlight around on the ground, more for the sake of making sure we don’t get lost than in search of prey, and only once or twice do I try wiggling it around the way Lelouch had shown us. It doesn’t seem to work when I do it, and it doesn’t even seem all that necessary. Finding the fireflies isn’t the hard part. What’s tricky is getting them into the small net and, from there, into the jar. Rika gets a few lucky catches without just the jar and lid, and I mostly just observe the girls idly while I command our light source. The activity is very low-impact and I’m having an easy time keeping my pulse in check. Actually, I feel better than I have this whole trip.
 
“Hisao,” Rika says after a while. “Look.”
 
She holds up the jar and it’s positively glowing with a bright, neon yellow light. It’s so bright it almost looks like she’s carrying a lantern. I click off my flashlight and it hardly makes any visible difference.
 
“Well, doesn’t that just make me useless?”
 
She hops over to me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Obsolescence is a luxury. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
 
After the remainder of the hour, we hear a loud whistle off in the distance. Our luck had diminished in the last little while but in total we’ve managed to get a pretty good haul. Rika hoists the jar impressively in front of her and wiggles it around in a way that attracts some of the fireflies that have yet eluded us. The charmed insects spin around her in a bright halo. It’s a sight like nothing I’ve ever seen. I would never have imagined fireflies would behave this way.
 
She contemplates the contents of the jar and turns it around in front of her as we walk back in the direction from whence we came. Her expression is wistful and difficult to interpret. Her mouth is closed in a frown, her brow furrowed. Something’s on her mind.
 
As we walk, a trail of fireflies occupies her, seemingly drawn to the jar in her hands. Her nonchalant gait adds to the mystique it creates. As though they were under her control.
 
“Dude, they’re so bright!” Miki says, brimming with energy.
 
“You’d think they’d be afraid of us by now,” Rika ponders.
 
“You can be afraid of something and still be attracted to it,” I say with a wink. She surrenders a smile.
 
“That. Was. Awesome!” Miki says as she skips along the path. “I’m totally pumped up right now, you guys! We got so many. No way did those guys beat us. We’re on easy street tomorrow.”
 
“It sure was different,” I say. Cheered by Miki’s enthusiasm, mystified by Rika’s enigmatic allure, I illuminate the path ahead of us with the feeble light of our flashlight until we reconvene with our opponents. We can hardly even see the jar in their hands. It’s nearly empty. I hear Lelouch chortle as he apparently sees us from a distance. Takashi serenely shrugs his shoulders. I notice that each of them is carrying a pad of paper.
 
“I’m no hunter,” Takashi says as we approach him. “I’m an artist.”
 
He shows us his pad of paper which is stained with black and yellow watercolours, plainly visible in the light of Rika’s firefly jar. The tiny brush strokes perfectly emulate the paths of light that trail behind the fireflies in the night sky.
 
“He painted,” Lelouch explains unnecessarily, sounding more amused than disappointed.
 
"As you can clearly see," Takashi says in a grand tone, "I have captured the most fireflies."
 
Miki groans.
 
"You have twenty," Rika says. Takashi shines the flashlight on her as she speaks.
 
"What's that?" he asks.
 
She nods at his painting. "There are only twenty fireflies on there. We still have more. Look."
 
He narrows his eyes and scrutinizes the jar's content. Then he throws up his hands with an exaggerated sigh.
 
“Very well," he says. "We may have lost, but the victory is not yours. I was defeated by the power of art. The real error was to have a contest of quantity instead of quality. But we are graceful in defeat, ladies, so we shall honour our end of the bargain.”
 
What an obnoxious prick.
 
Our group heads back to camp, Rika and myself hanging back from the crowd as usual. She continues to scrutinize the contents of her jar. The hike starts to take a bit of steam out of me. I’m starting to feel the absence of my meds. It’s only a good thing we aren’t walking uphill.
 
“Lou,” Rika calls out suddenly. Lelouch turns around and joins us, clutching his notepad in both hands. Is he writing again?
 
“How long will they live?” she asks him.
 
He bites his lip and thinks. The answer must be right there. He’s just looking for the word. Rika patiently waits for him to speak as she gazes into the jar.
 
“In a jar?” Lelouch asks. Rika nods.
 
“Days,” he says. “A few days.”
 
“What if I let them go?” she asks.
 
He tilts his head as he measures his words, then replies.
 
“Weeks, maybe.”
 
“Fireflies don’t live long,” I say. “You know that, don’t you?”
 
“I’m in the same science class as you are, Hisao,” she says defensively. “Lou, how do you know they live longer if you let them go? Does anyone know for sure?”
 
He looks at the jar and almost reaches for his notepad before sighing and dropping his hands to his sides.
 
“They suffer,” he says. The choice of words sends a chill down the back of my neck. Pure poetry.
 
Rika looks at her jar again. Her bright halo is starting to recede as we walk back into the woods. I wish I knew what she was thinking.
 
“Are you going to let them go?” I ask her. She looks at me with perplexity. A sobering smile reaches her face, but her bright red eyes are sad and distant as she whispers her reply.
 
“I don’t know.”
 
 
 
 
 
Scene 8: Channeling
 
The narrow path back to the campsite chokes the five of us into a single-file formation as we return. Rika’s silhouette, surrounded by a faint greenish-yellow glow, walks a few paces ahead of me, not so quickly that I can’t keep up. I wonder what time it is, but not enough to make me want to ask Takashi.
 
Takashi and Miki can be heard chattering up ahead of us. Takashi’s voice is too faint for me to hear what he’s saying, and the only explanation for this is that they’re pretty far ahead of us. I feel like I should ask Rika whether she knows where we’re going, but her steady, unrelenting gait is all the reassurance I need.
 
Funny enough, I don’t even feel ill anymore. The fact that I ever did might have been more a matter of expectation and general anxiety over going without my pills than anything else. The problem with my condition is that it’s hard to tell whether any particular feeling is the onset of a heart attack or just something perfectly ordinary. What Rika said earlier this morning had more of an impact than I think she intended. I was fine before Iwanako came along. I never had the faintest inkling there was anything wrong before that.
 
Lists of side-effects crowd my thoughts. The ones Rika had mentioned this morning. The ones we used to kid around about. I once joked to her that for every side effect on the bottles, there was another one that did pretty much the opposite, so I was breaking even.
 
How do I feel now? What’s the word for it? Exhilarated? Is it just because, perhaps for the first time this whole trip, I’m free from the anxiety that had been gripping me all day? Or was that even anxiety? Am I getting better?
 
Nervousness. Light-headedness. Dry mouth.
 
The leaves in the trees start to rustle. But not in any particular place. All around us.
 
Rika wordlessly breaks into a jog and I chase after her. Before I can wonder what’s chasing us, it hits me.
 
For once I’m not the only foolish one in our company. It doesn’t seem like anyone had the presence of mind to bring an umbrella along, even though the increasingly dense cloud cover should have made it patently obvious that we were about to get rained on. The wetness of the water starts to soak my clothes, but it’s a welcome relief from the otherwise hot night air.
 
Back at the campsite, the five of us scatter like roaches into our respective tents. After setting down her firefly jar, Rika quickly strips out of her wet clothes as I kneel on the mattress, dripping, waiting for my heart rate to diminish and catching my breath.
 
She hits me in the chest with a towel as she hands it to me.
 
“If you’re not going to change, at least dry yourself off. I don’t want to sleep in a puddle.”
 
The rain clatters against the fabric of the tent ceiling. I take another calming breath before lifting the towel to my hair, and I behold Rika from behind, wearing nothing but her relatively dry underpants, as she kneels, sitting on her heels and looking through her belongings. Her skin glows luminously in the faint green-yellow light. The sight of her nudity makes my task of coming down from my runner’s high considerably more difficult.
 
I strip out of my clothes and proceed to dry off my limbs. The sound of thunder booms overhead, catching us both by surprise. Rika straightens up and looks at me over her shoulder. Her face takes on a look of concentration, her eyes searching the ceiling of the tent as there’s anything she could see. A few seconds later, she raises her left hand and snaps her fingers, and a bright flash of lightning illuminates the orange tent for a split second. It’s so bright that it takes a second for my eyes to adjust again as I look at Rika, whose glow now appears muted by comparison.
 
“Impressive,” I say, and she chuckles before turning around to face me.
 
She furrows her brow for a second and puckers her lips, and I can see her tongue moving around in her mouth. Then her lips curl in a mischievous smile. She narrows her eyelids and beckons me with her finger.
 
I crawl towards her, across our air mattress, and she puts an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in for a kiss. My hands instinctively go to her waist, and her tongue parts my lips. She pulls away, and I feel something powdery on my tongue.
 
Pills?
 
“You made it, Hisao,” she says in her most cryptic voice. She lifts a few more capsules to her mouth, splitting them with her front teeth and handing me the remainders, like tiny decapitated bodies. As she does so a seductive look overcomes her. It’s just silly enough to put a smile on my face.
 
With slight difficulty I swallow the dose, swishing my tongue around to get the powdery feeling out of my mouth.
 
“So you're trying to make medicine sexy?” I ask her.
 
She giggles. “It's just one of those things. Like cartoon vitamins, or flavoured condoms.” Rika swallows a few of her split pills and then looks down at her hand, where she seems to have more. We’ve discussed our pills enough times that it’s not surprising she has a good grasp of which ones we have in common. It didn’t occur to me this morning to ask her whether she had brought any extras for me. Come to think of it, I’m surprised she even brought some for herself.
 
“I don’t have any hallucinations for you,” she says. “And I don’t think you take any of these.”
 
“I’ll be okay,” I say. “Do you have any extra erectile dysfunctions, by any chance?”
 
She covers her mouth as she starts to laugh, retaining eye contact with me.
 
“You really are turning into a little boy, aren’t you Nakai?”
 
The two of us repose mostly nude on top of our unzippered sleeping bag. It’s much too warm for us to want to get cover at this point, so we just lay in the humid night air, staring at the faintly illuminated ceiling of our tent as it is lit up with flashes of lightning. I put my hands behind my head, and Rika takes it as an invitation to get closer, putting her arm on my chest. With her toe she traces circles on the top of my foot.
 
Her breathing slows and I wonder if she might be drifting off. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. The soothing sounds of rain play upon my eardrums, and the thunder crawls back to a delicate rumble. Rika rests her head on my chest and I put my arm around her narrow shoulders, clutching her body against mine. Her skin is still damp, a nice contrast to the hot night air. Full of peace, sleep starts to overtake me.
 
I’m roused from my slumber with a start as a crash of thunder is heard, then another, followed by two flashes of lightning. For however long I’d been sleeping, I instantly realize that Rika is still awake. Watching me sleep. Her fingers open and her nails start to walk across my chest towards my shoulder. She starts to tease my feet with hers.
 
Another loud crash of thunder descends, louder than the previous ones, and she grips my shoulder. Almost instantly a flash of lightning illuminates us, and in the momentarily bright light I see Rika ascending, her magnificent nude body pinning me against the mattress. My heart jumps in my chest. Just as I’m about to say something to her, she lunges forward, clutching the back of my head with one hand and pressing her lips against mine. She seethes sensuality and my body defies me. Thunder and lightning flare up in enormous bursts and my retinas can barely adjust to the sight of her as she flickers in and out of existence. Only the pressure of her body against mine assures me that this is no dream, no apparition of the woods. Just a girl.
 
I place my hands on her waist. Her skin is still damp, but hot. Is she sweating? Am I?
 
The sounds of the thunderstorm monopolize my ears. My eyes frantically search the darkness for hints of what’s happening. Gone is the gentle glow of the firefly, Rika’s aura, and everywhere is the noisy clatter of the sky as it pounds the forest with its torrential downpour. I know what she must be thinking. Nobody can hear us.
 
The excitement gives me little option but to comply with her. It’s becoming difficult to count the seconds, or tell which lightning flashes correspond to which sounds. The fire in her eyes glitters as another flash of lightning hits. They remain unclosed, focused on me, as though impervious to the intermittent darkness.
 
I’m overwhelmed with her. A hot moist sensation pervades the atmosphere, crawls across our skin, and grips me as we join together for the second time. Her image flickers like a flip book animation, and I catch glimpses of the intense passion on her face – the raised eyebrows, the mouth that gapes open, the unblinking eyes. Sounds of ecstasy emanate from her, challenging the noise of the storm, and the gusty wind strikes the tent in reply.
 
My hands roam up the sides of her body, caressing her shoulders, her back, delighting in her oppressive beauty. A feeling like a pleasant sickness floods my abdomen. I gasp for air.
 
As the light hits, I see both sets of our hands caressing her body, hers almost tracing a path for where mine ought to go. I chase them. The dark skin of my hands almost looks black against hers.
 
Thunder, louder this time, booms through the air with a sound like the sky being shredded into pieces. I gasp frantically as my pulse quickens, and my temples begin to throb.
 
Rika’s eyes light up with a bright flash that seems almost to linger. The image burns into me and I can’t shake it. This time the light dwindles but the red of her eyes remains, cutting the dark.
 
The eyes that linger no longer seem to be hers.
 
Something foreign but familiar.
 
The unflinching stare takes hold of me, gripping and squeezing my wrists and pinning me against the air mattress below. My insides scramble to satisfy an unfamiliar urge. Something is about to happen. But what?
 
The external and the internal pressure animate me beyond my will. Her hands grip me with the intensity of a person who fears falling to her death.
 
Then she relents. She goes stiff. And she descends on me, curling and crying out in pain. She suffers.
 
I push her back, and as the light on her flickers one more time I see perfect terror on her face.
 
I try to reach out to her, but I’m immobilized. The light stops, the sounds flee and even the sensation of her hands on me is no longer there.
 
Invisible, inaudible, intangible, Rika pulls me into the abyss.
 
 
 
 
 
Scene 9: Parallels
 
The way most people talk about death, you’d think it wasn’t nearly as common as it is. But death isn’t what people make it out to be. It’s not a mysterious existential state. It’s not a faraway place where the souls of your ancestors have conversations with one another. Rika and I know better.
 
We’ve died, the two of us. The body that you occupy simply turns on you. The biological processes you take for granted that operate without your knowledge or intervention decide, for whatever reason, that they simply cannot perform any longer. In this regard, you are at the mercy of your body.
 
Death is not metaphysical. Death is not an angel or a demon.
 
Death is a biological phenomenon. It is the reminder that you only live in this world because of the medium that channels your will, transmits sensory data, and sometimes, but not always, obeys what you ask it to do.
 
You depend on your body. At the peril of death you will do what it asks.
 
You can be its slave. Or you can rebel. But if you choose to rebel, you do so at the peril of death.
 
But these thoughts aren’t mine. Laying here in the wake of my second death, the words of my forebear have been scattered in front of me like a jigsaw puzzle. I hear breathing and voices around me. Familiar voices of people whom I’d love to see. But not the one person I want to see.
 
If I open my eyes now, I’ll be met with an overwhelming relief at my resurrection. Loved ones will greet me and express to me how glad they are that I’m back, and how much they hope something like this never happens again. Welcome back to this life of slavery. Welcome back to your eyes and hands and ears, to your hunger and thirst, to your neurons and synapses, taste buds, reproductive organs, ribosomes, nuclei, mitochondria.
 
Welcome back to the expectations we all have of you.
 
I think of every touch from last night. How Rika pressed down on me when she touched my skin, as if there were a barrier we were trying to breach. And it was that pressure that helped me to see what she means when she says that she doesn’t want to be alone.
 
No matter how hard we press each other, we’re searching in the wrong place. We have no location in our organism. If you cut me down the middle, which half would I be?
 
If a girl loses her legs, who are the legs? Are they nobody?
 
Am I my brain? But the brain is just matter, tissues and atoms that are constantly being replaced and recycled. Am I the sum of my brain’s amassed data? Am I pure information? A list of things remembered? Could I possess another body by teaching it all of my memories?
 
All of these things I know are impossible. I exist elsewhere. Consciousness. Ghost. Whatever you want to call it.
 
The only way to be together is to become one another.
 
“Why won’t he wake up?” Emi asks, her voice full of pain. She’s been at my bedside for hours. The sound of her weeping ought to destroy me, and yet, somehow, it means so little to me. Almost a nuisance more than anything else. A distraction. I’m trying to put together a puzzle and there’s no way she can help me. I conjure a different voice instead.
 
“Have you ever looked in the mirror and wished you might see someone else looking back at you?”
 
We have now, Rika. We’ve seen our share of mirrors, and we’ve seen each other there. We’ve overcome our bodies.
 
It doesn’t matter if you’re alive. We’re together. We aren’t alone anymore. We’ve finally figured it out.
 
This isn’t resignation. It’s liberation.
 
“Doctor,” Emi says, “is he… laughing?”
 
“He may be delirious, Ms. Ibarazaki. Try talking to him.” The voice is from another woman in Emi’s company. The doctor, I’m sure.
 
“Hisao?” comes Emi’s voice. Trembling, desperate. Ignorant.
 
“Sweetheart, it’s okay. He’s stable.” A third woman’s voice. Who is she?
 
I clench my eyes shut as I become more aware of the bright light that glows red against my eyelids. I wish I were back in the dark.
 
The old questions are gone, and new ones come up. Ones with answers I don’t have. Where am I? How is it I’m still alive after what happened in the woods? Who are these women at my bedside? Am I still at the camping grounds? If so, why is Emi here? If not, how did I get where I am?
 
I fear what I’ll see when I open my eyes, because I already feel this lucidity, this keen understanding that I’ve reached, falling apart. The puzzle increases in size as I put it together. All around the edges there are more knobs and notches in the jigsaw pieces. And more pieces around them. I could build like this forever. Should I?
 
I notice pieces missing where I’ve already placed them. The whole puzzle unbuilds itself and I struggle to remember where everything was. My eyes open and I’m met with gasps.
 
Emi is my welcoming committee to the world of the senses. She throws her arms around my neck, crying inconsolably in my shoulder, and I return her embrace half-heartedly.
 
Her tears. The way she’s shaking. The way she’s repeating my name. Over her shoulder I see two middle-aged women: the doctor and another woman whom I can only imagine is Emi’s mother.
 
Reality shakes me out of my daze of absurdities. I stroke Emi’s back comfortingly as I look at the two women staring at me with optimistic, reassuring smiles.
 
“I came as soon as I heard what happened, Hisao,” Emi says. How long have I been here?
 
“When?” I ask.
 
“Miki texted me this morning,” she says, pulling back to wipe the tears from her face. She breathes in, then out, trying to calm herself.
 
“Why did Miki text you?” I ask, thinking aloud.
 
“I made her promise to,” she says. “If anything happened to you…”
 
Of course, Emi would worry about me being away from her. It’s her job to worry. Was she worried about what Rika might…
 
Oh no… Rika…
 
“Where’s Rika?” I say, startled at my own failure to ask sooner. Emi blushes and looks away. The doctor reaches forward and pats me on the knee.
 
“You had a heart attack, Mr. Nakai. Your friend Rika came very close to having one herself. You’re both very lucky that she didn’t.”
 
I let out a sigh of relief.
 
“As a matter of fact,” the doctor adds, “the people who came in with you are seeing her now. I can go get them if you’d like.”
 
The people who came in with me? Miki, Takashi and Lelouch?
 
“Later please, Doctor,” I say. “I already have company.”
 
The doctor smiles and nods at me in understanding, walking out of my room with clipboard in hand. I turn to Emi.
 
Emi sits on the edge of the bed, resting all her weight on her right hand, leaning towards me. Her prosthetic legs in their long, striped knee-high socks swing idly just above the floor. Her face is red, eyelids puffy, and she’s sniffling. She starts to say something but has to clear her throat. I feel as though it’s my turn to talk.
 
I put my hand on hers. “It’s okay, Emi.”
 
“No,” she says with a quavering voice. I look at her with confusion and pulls her hand away from me, straightening up.
 
“No,” she repeats, more firmly. “It’s not okay Hisao. You promised. You promised this wouldn’t happen again. You promised!”
 
She shouts the last word. Rage fills her eyes as her tiny hands clench into fists at her sides.
 
Her mother reaches out to her, speaking firmly but patiently. “Emi, please keep your voice down.” The woman gives me an apologetic look.
 
The energy leaves Emi as her rage subsides, and she slumps back onto my bedside. “I’m so angry, Hisao,” she says in a diminished, weak tone. “You were doing so well. And we were all so proud of you. I know it’s hard work, but we all have to work hard if we want to succeed. Why don’t you care anymore? Are you trying to hurt us?”
 
I stare at Emi wordlessly as her heart pours out to me. Her words hit a snag and she barely finishes her last sentence as tears overtake her.
 
“You’re going to die,” she says faintly. “You’re going to die because you don’t care. Because you stopped caring. All because of…”
 
I tilt my head and give her a stern look. With a glare of her own, she stands to her feet, fists clenched at her sides, resolute, towering over me as she shouts.
 
“All because of that… witch!”
 
Blood rushes to my face as my pulse quickens. The heart monitor on the table beside me accelerates slightly. Alarmed by this, Emi relents, sitting back down and looking at me with a helpless, inexpressible anger.
 
I shouldn’t be angry, though. She doesn’t understand. She’s just a kid.
 
“You just don’t get it, Hisao. I tried so hard to get through to her but I couldn’t. I failed her.” She wipes her tears with the palms of her hands.
 
“I failed her," she says. "And now I’m failing you.”
 
Emi’s mother rubs her shoulders, trying not to look at me. I wish she weren’t here, but I can’t blame her for wanting to support her daughter, after all. Emi is inconsolable. I don’t think there’s anything I could say to make things right with her at this point. She continues.
 
“When Rika and I started running together, I didn’t think it would be so bad. She was shy and didn’t talk much, but she never argued with me and she seemed to be improving. It wasn’t until she started dating that she started skipping workouts, skipping class… and things just got worse and worse. But she had so much promise before. So I thought, maybe you and Miki could fix her, you know?”
 
I swallow hard. Dry mouth. Dizziness.
 
Emi eyes my heart monitor and makes an effort to soften her voice. “But, then you guys started dating, and I… I didn’t know what to think. I thought maybe if I helped you, I could help her, too. And I thought it was working. Miki told me Rika was talking about you a lot and she seemed to be doing better than ever. But you just got worse and worse… and now…”
 
She hiccups as the tears come back.
 
“It’s like she’s sucking the life out of you, Hisao. I thought so at first, but now I know for sure. She won’t stop. She won’t stop until you’re gone.”
 
Emi sits there sobbing, her mother rubbing her shoulders with a bemused look on her face. The way she speaks of Rika, the tremor in her voice, calls to mind the superstitious air of Takashi as he warned me to be careful around Rika. Emi, however, is basing her opinions on observations, not rumours. I realize now that it’s not just girlish jealousy animating Emi’s wariness towards Rika. It’s genuine fear. Hearing it from her, of all people, chills me.
 
[Comfort Emi]
http://pastebin.com/zE7TPPEc
 
[Defend Rika]
http://pastebin.com/G2mik26N