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First, he holds the blade to his throat. Considers drawing it, straight across the windpipe and jugular. Wants to make himself like those other bodies on the ground, not falling in a circle or a row or a line, or anything but a slaughter: cold and deathless and pale, with determination frozen on their faces.
That, he thinks, and fear.
He can’t do it. He pushes the edge to his throat, lets out a little, shaking sob, and eases it away again. He can’t do it. Too much of a chicken in the end. Brave or not brave, he’s a coward when it comes to death.
2.
Kanji’s the heaviest of them. Teddie’s the lightest. It’s a superficial weight, anyway. They all feel like lead in his veins.
The TV still flickers in the main room. He strips the bodies of armor and weapons, and pushes the bodies through. It’s almost like he’s killing them all over again.
3.
He stays for the funerals. There are going to be seven of them. It’s like burning away parts of himself.
It’s hard to explain the deaths of seven people all at once. Some people say that it’s a suicide ring. The police rule against it, and suggest murder. Then they start searching for a biological cause. Gas leak. Freak Junes accident. No way to explain it. Seven bodies found by a boy in Junes. Of course Dojima interviews him. And of course Dojima lets him go.
He'll offer pins and rings and headbands and earrings and lockets and pigtail holders and bearclaws at the altars. He lied when he said he sold them, but they won't ever know that.
4.
Yosuke’s picture is a portrait from the city. They went for the solemn look: heavy at the mouth and serious at the brow. Didn’t look much like him. At least, not the way he looked around Souji.
Teddie went right next to him, a blur of yellow hair and a white shirt. Not many people knew him, but Souji thinks more people are beat up that Teddie’s gone than they are that Yosuke is. Their classmates make a big show of missing Yosuke, but he’s the one who misses him the most.
It’s hard to quantify that kind of emotion, but he’s pretty sure he’s the one who misses Yosuke the most.
5.
Rise’s death is the one that gets the most publicity. “Cause of death unknown.” It’s written as a tragedy, a young woman’s life cut short before its prime. Lots of flowers. People mail them, send them over, a million deliveries over. Inaba’s blooming in springtime.
Souji doesn’t read the message boards, and doesn’t read the news, and gets a special VIP spot at a funeral that he doesn’t really want to be at.
6.
He forgets which funeral this is. He thinks it’s Chie’s, because he knows he’s been to Yosuke’s and Rise’s and Teddie’s. This funeral’s plain, barebone, and simple. Kind of has to be. No one ever expects the death of a teenager. Weddings, births, funerals--things like these tend to be a little plainer when they’re unexpected.
7.
“Don’t you want to say something?” someone asks him at Yukiko’s. “How you went ahead and killed everyone in this goddamn town?”
“Leave him alone,” says Daisuke. “You want me to punch you out, asshole?”
Daisuke gives the boy a push, and the boy pushes back. Then there’s a fist being raised, and Souji feels something like an explosion in his jaw, and topples over to the ground. It takes him a second to realize that he stepped in front of Daisuke before the punch even landed. Kou’s beside him in a second, venom in his mouth and a punch ready in his fist.
Everyone stands around them in shock. Souji wipes blood from his mouth on the back of his hand.
“Say something,” says the boy. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
8.
One more day, one more body.
9.
One more day, one more body.
10.
“They’re in Heaven now,” Nanako says earnestly. “You’ll see them again soon.”
He wants to see them, but can't bring himself to visit. It's a one way trip. Last time was an exception that took seven lives as recompense.
11.
Souji can see the appeal in drinking now. Not that it’s going to do him much good. Dojima’s pouring all the bottles down the sink.
“The guns and ammunition are kept under lock and key,” Dojima says. “I’m not going to take any risks with you right now. No rope in the house right now either. No pills. I’ve told the shopkeepers to not sell you anything that you might use to hurt yourself. No point in adding another body to this tragedy.”
“Okay.”
Dojima looks like he wants to say more. The drink guzzles down the drain.
“You know,” Dojima says, “it never stops hurting. But one day.”
At least your wife didn’t die to save your sorry behind.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it’ll make anything better.”
No.
“I know those kids meant a lot to you.”
Souji clenches his fist experimentally, and then relaxes.
“But one of these days,” says Dojima, resting a hand on his shoulder. “One of these days.”
12.
Five stages of grief. It feels like one long blur of hollowness to him, stretched out across days and weeks. He blinks, and it’s been a day. Another blink, and it’s a week. Time moves in spurts and jerks, sometimes stuttering in loops for hours, and sometimes speeding by him in an instant. He’s sure he’s been to at least two memorial services, and knows that he’s attended eight, but only remembers being on his way to one, and coming back home from three. He remembers shaving, but he has something of a stubble, and Dojima nearly forces Souji to shave at gunpoint the morning before Souji goes back.
Dojima doesn’t send Souji back to the city immediately. Says that there ought to be a part of the healing done here, and that Souji’s probably not going to be well enough to travel for a few weeks.
Dojima’s right, of course. When Souji goes home to the city, there are too many people all around him. He looks around the train station, and it takes him a moment to see where his parents are.
He smiles when he spots them.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi. Ready to start school?”
He shrugs. A mechanical motion. Everything will be all right.
13.
He would have accepted the fog blinding him and eating him up if it meant he didn't have to live like this.