The Songwriter's Funeral Song

XV. Piece of Something

The Songwriter's Funeral Song
Piece of Something

“I know. I was there,” Takuya said, making me gape for seconds.

“How?”

Realizing his presence that time made me mad at him. He might indeed have gone there. I saw an icebox last time at the tent with his shop’s logo on it.

With anger, I hastily walked towards him and held his collar. I pulled him centimeters near my face and asked, “Why did you not even come close to her?!”

He remained silent and didn’t bother to stop me from pulling his collar.

“She hasn’t told you?” he asked, making me halt.

“What was it?”

“In time, she’ll die. But no matter what, I shall not come forth to embrace her,” he answered.

Confusion drew my eyes. I remembered something from the past but needed to ask more.

“Make it clear!” I shouted at him.

He didn’t fight against it and just answered, “Riri is my younger sister.”

He finally revealed it, but it’s too late. I’d let go of him and took a seat. “I know. She told me last night. Is it all about her making distance from you?”

“Yes, and I must obey it no matter what. I saw that she had a company, and I thought that’s enough.”

“You’re not feeling anything about her passing.”

“Of course, I feel grief. But the thing is, I don’t understand what happened.”

“Did you see her jump from the bridge?”

“No,” he replied. He removed his specs and wiped his eyes. “I already saw her dead. Did she really do it?”

“The result says it’s a suicide, but I’m not convinced.”

I haven’t brought the documents, since I was in hurry to leave the apartment. Takuya is a man who doesn’t just believe in such things easily. But that time, he made the tables turn.

“It might be true. Riri is a lonely person. It’s normal to be lonely, you might say. But Riri… her loneliness became constant since our parents separated. Riri was twelve back then, and I’m seventeen. Our mother was married to a rich man and had a new family. While our father, became miserable. He took his own life. Them, leaving us, made us live with our own hands. You might be seeing Riri smile and laugh, but those were just bandages to cover her wounds. She told me before her major debut in the music industry that she would kill herself at some time she might want to do it. Maybe, she found the right time.”

I didn’t want to believe Takuya’s words, but he’s a loyal man. He might hide some secrets, but he hasn’t lied to me.

“But she told me once that if she suddenly dies, I must not think of it as a suicide because she’ll never do that.”

“She said that for you not to empath.” He put his specs back and walked off the counter. He picked one ice cream from the freezer and started to remove its wrapping.

“Look at this ice cream,” he said as he slightly raised the ice cream with its cone. I looked at it and lent my ears to him, “once frozen, it’ll have its shape based on where you molded it. It won’t just fall when you put it this way or this.”

He started to flip and rotate it to some angles. “But when removed from the freezer, it’ll start to melt. Little by little, it’ll return to its liquid state. And little by little, it’ll drip, until it’s deformed.”