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No words can express the sense of loss we feel as a result of this terrible tragedy; as the headmaster said, there is indeed no good way to express the feeling.
The day after the event, when Raibaru went to school, Miss Rino Fukahori said she had something to tell Raibaru and insisted that she take a seat first. She took her to the school infirmary and began explaining the situation in the presence of Miss Nasu Kankoshi, as if afraid she might faint at any moment.
Her strict, impatient homeroom teacher was displaying patience at that moment, a fact that in itself was an ominous sign.
Agonizing, heartbreaking, devastating, they are all the wrong words, since none of them are precise enough. Only the phrase the headmaster used was correct: There are no words that can express the sense of loss.
Miss Rino Fukahori said the police found the suicide note that Osana left. Raibaru wondered: was it because she had said yesterday that they should keep their distance? Was it because Osana was also being troubled by gossip? Or was it because of what had happened during that Monday phone call?
And she would never know. The homeroom teacher conveyed the police’s words; they were merely repeating phrases like “we are actively investigating” and “we cannot hand over the evidence to anyone other than the bereaved family.”
Osana’s bookbag was still hanging on the side of the desk. Her bookbag was bittersweet-colored, with a little sticker showing an orange cat.
Like Raibaru’s cherry blossom scrunchies, they are all objects. Objects outlive human beings, such as museum antiquities or family heirlooms. But for items associated with Osana, that moment arrived much sooner: Osana was only eighteen. Eighteen this year, next year, and forevermore.
That moment would come eventually; it was inevitable. It was more powerful than she was, more indestructible than she was.
Raibaru went to the tree in the plaza where she usually hung out with Osana. She always had so many questions for Osana: What type did she like? What was her favorite color? Did she ever think she was too strong in battle, to the point of being a little scary? Did she ever feel like she was clingy, sticking by her side all the time? Would she feel this way, or feel that way?
However, Osana would now never answer Raibaru again.
Raibaru had read in a book that there were five stages of grief, and the first stage was Denial.
“Osana, answer me,” Raibaru asked the empty space under the tree, imagining Osana’s answers and imitating their interactions from when she was still around.
Even though Raibaru had asked her so many questions before, she still felt she had many more left to ask. She believed that one person could never fully understand another, only get infinitely close to understanding, and in the process of getting infinitely close to understanding Osana, she felt happy.
However, from now on, that would never happen again; Raibaru could guess Osana’s answers, but sooner or later, there would come a moment when her understanding would diverge from Osana’s true essence.
The second stage is Anger.
Finally, Raibaru realized that denial could not go on. She repeated “Don’t do this,” “This is not true,” and the simplest “No.”
She began to feel resentful. The headmaster could have installed a fence on the rooftop earlier to prevent accidents, couldn’t he? Miss Rino Fukahori and Miss Nasu Kankoshi, didn’t they pay attention to the students’ mental health? Taro Yamada and Kyuji Konagawa, did not a single one of them notice Osana? Musume Ronshaku and the other bullies, did they say something horrible to Osana?
And last of all, herself. Raibaru Fumetsu. Why wasn’t she by Osana’s side at that time? If I had been there, if, if only.
The third stage is Bargaining.
Raibaru was willing to do anything to trade for Osana. But where was the way to make such a trade? She desperately wanted to know. She even wanted to ask the members of the Occult Club if anyone could help her.
When she walked to the front of the Occult Club Room, Raibaru remembered how Osana said she disliked the Occult Club. Just a short while ago, they had been laughing and chatting like that, strolling freely around the school, talking about everything they liked and disliked.
This memory suddenly flooding into her mind hurt instantly worse than when she first heard the news. Raibaru knelt on the ground uncontrollably, her tears falling one by one onto the hallway. She began to cry aloud.
“Osana! Answer me! Oh, God! This can’t be happening… No…”
And so came the fourth stage, Depression. Endless Depression. Raibaru sat under the tree, burying her face in her knees, feeling that the fifth stage, Acceptance, seemed as though it would never arrive.
Just at the beginning of this week, Raibaru was still happy for Osana because her relationship with Taro had finally taken a step forward. Raibaru was always happy when Osana was happy, and sad when Osana was sad.
However, Raibaru actually still felt that Osana deserved someone better. It wasn’t because Taro wasn’t good enough, but because she was afraid Taro wouldn’t fully understand Osana’s tsundere nature, afraid that Taro wouldn’t be attentive enough to notice Osana’s subtle habits, and afraid Taro wouldn’t be able to love Osana with all his heart, just like she did.
Would he, like Raibaru, also have his heartstrings stirred by little things about Osana? Raibaru hoped Osana could be with someone like that, and was curious about Osana’s answer.
Immersing herself in memories of the past wrapped Raibaru in a fragile, false sense of warmth. She couldn’t help but wonder whether these memories with Osana, these feelings for Osana, were something she possessed, or something she had lost forever.
In the corner-most seat of the classroom, a plain vase had already been placed, holding an elegant white lily. A concrete embodiment of loss.
Once, Raibaru firmly believed that her friendship with Osana would last for the rest of their lives. She had never had a close friend like Osana; neither had Osana.
She loved her more than anyone else; now that Osana was absent from the rest of her life.
Raibaru remembered the first time she had lost a tooth, when she was just a child. The hole in her mouth felt so strange that she could not stop touching it with her tongue. Now, there was a hole in the world where Osana used to stand.
Osana had died; she had died by suicide. Raibaru found that she had no euphemisms to describe this unchangeable fact; death, especially suicide, could not be glossed over or romanticized.
Raibaru sat down in her seat and took her diary out of her lemon-yellow bookbag. It was filled with things about Osana: she wanted to wear the same perfume as Osana, maybe an orange-scented one; she wanted to buy more accessories that matched Osana; and there were also some feelings she had never told Osana about.
Those unsaid words, those unanswered questions, finally made Raibaru understand—she would never be like the protagonist of a novel, moving from suffering to victory, from confusion to realization, from pain to transcendence.
She could only coexist with this pain, coexist with Osana’s death, coexist with the fact that Osana would never answer her again, forever.