The Sound of Snow

Chapter Thirteen: "The Courageous Boy"

     Autumn faded into a bitter December that year as The Boy had dreaded. Finally the endgame of Yukine's life-long battle rolled around.

     Today was The Boy's birthday. Today he turned fourteen.

     Dad had made him and early breakfast with all his favorite foods to celebrate this morning before he had to leave for work – he had been forced to take on a second job in desperate hopes of saving up 800,000 yen before new years. Needless to say, The Boy didn't get any presents. They couldn't really afford such luxuries what with Goto-san breathing down their necks hungry for every penny they earned. Normally his father wouldn't make him collect on his birthday, but The Boy knew better than to object this morning when his father hurriedly gave him a quota to meet before running out the house for a full day's work.

      The Boy now swung the satchel around his shoulder and stepped into the manga café on the square. He had just been biding his time all day until he could head over to the shop where Granny would surely find something to pay him for. Clambering onto the tall stool at the bar, he ordered a milkshake, indulging in the pride of knowing he could pay for it with his own hard-earned money.

     A small grandfather clock hanging on the wall behind the barista read 7:39pm.  The only reason The Boy wasn't at Heavenlee already was because the old lady claimed she wasn't going to start working until later in the evening. She had told her apprentice not to come in until then to help her get ready for the catered order they just received. However, she never prepared catered orders this early in advance and when he skated by this afternoon he peeked through the windows and thought he could see her in the kitchen already cooking up a storm. Since then he'd been luxuriously fantasizing about what sort of surprise she was obviously planning. Even as the milkshake filled his stomach his thoughts drifted to pecan pies, lemon custard cookies, and all the alamode he could dream of.

     The Boy smiled against his straw where he sat at the bar. Even if she hadn't been preparing a surprise for him, he'd be glad just to see her. Despite the dry winter air having woke him up with burning windpipes and the beginnings of a yet another fever this morning, he was confident this year's birthday tonight with Granny would be one of the best. The only way it could get better – besides maybe being asthma-and-cold-free for a change – would be if two other women could be there. These women he thought of every year, one of them he had to keep reminding himself was actually a young woman somewhere, not the twelve year old girl he last saw. If they were here, tonight's celebration at Heavenlee would be perfect.

     Little did he know that his mother and twenty-year-old sister had boarded a plane yesterday morning bound for him with hopes just as high.

     The fourteen-year-old was well immersed in his thoughts when the man sitting next to him bolted out of his seat and ordered the barista turn up the volume on the TV opposite them that was playing the local news. The screen showed a live recording slide of images of policemen taken in the smaller Tokyo airport a few neighborhoods away from here. The Boy's attention, like everyone else in the parlor, was drawn to the TV.

     The airport had been the scene of a mass murder with the culprit unidentified and still at large. The criminal seemed to have had no specific target, killing most but leaving some alive at random. So far the only speculation was a terrorist attack.

     Said the broadcaster, "It appears the terrorist lashed out at the people stepping out of the gates of a newly arrived flight. Recordings of the airport lobby confirm what appears to be a young man in a black kimono attacking civilians within the building with a type of long-sword. However we suspect there must have been an error in the cameras as his presence is difficult to detect on the video footage we have gathered. So far surviving victims have all experienced what medical officials can only accredit as mass post traumatic stress induced amnesia, as they can almost all remember witnessing the attack but are unable to give a visual description of the assailant."