5. Daybreak
Adam said to Ikaru,
"You said you had been at your father's deathbed at midnight. Was that enough to satisfy you?"
Ikaru did not answer Adam's question, but gazed blankly into space.
The late-night phone call from his stepmother played over and over in head, and then disappeared.
"It's me who had been at his deathbed." "It's me …" "It's me…" "It's me "…
So what ? The canary that died is not coming back.
Wondering about Ikaru who had fallen silent,Adam said,
"Ikaru, Are you listening to me?"
Then, the voice of his heart ordered Ikaru as usual,
"Get away!"
Ikaru followed it as usual.
Immediately, the 'foreign substance' that had been stuck in his chest disappeared into body.
Ikaru said to Adam,
"I was so sorry to hear you were strangled by your mother. I wish ……you had killed such a bad woman, as a child. What's wrong with that?
Murder is a common thing in the slums, isn't it?"
Adam promptly dismissed it.
"Ikaru! don't change the subject. And I don't do murder."
"Heh, unexpected. But as a detective of the Luna City Police Department, you must be in danger. Even when a very bad criminal attacks you and you are in the nick of time, can you say that you won't kill someone?
"I won't."
"That's amazing. Adam is the detective of all detectives, aren't you? But what if it is the moment when a criminal pulls a knife on the person Adam cares about the most?
For a moment, Juliet's smile flashed through his mind. But Adam shook his head to shake it off.
Ikaru said,
"Really, Adam,you're so naive. That's what I call complacency.
"Even so, I won't kill anyone, no matter what the reason, what the case may be!"
Wretched, sudden, pathetic, surprise, agony, pleading, despair.
That unbearable ultimate torment.
Touching the strangulation marks on his neck, Adam glared at Ikaru with a razor-sharp stare. and said.
"I won't kill anyone, because I know what it feels like to be the one being killed."
For that brief moment, Adam did not miss the faintest hint of confusion in Ikar'us eyes. There was a slight blush on his white cheeks, which had looked like wax dolls.
There were no words.But Adam spoke to the child with his eyes.
' I've exposed all my true feelings. So, this time, Ikaru, you should do the same.'
The deep blue of the eastern sky was turning into a faint light blue only at the horizon.
Not yet. Don't let the night go by yet.
Adam asked Ikaru a question as if he were praying.
"It's a exchange condition. You promised to answer my questions after I finished talking about myself."
Ikaru said to Adam,
" I've been already asked the question. You want to know if I was 'satisfied' to see my father die. if you insist ……"
However, Adam interrupted Ikaru's words.
"No, I'm dropping that question. I'm sure you'll get away with it ."
" ...... "
Suddenly, the child backed away. The young detective grabbed his arm with a strong grip, as if he would not let him go.
Adam said,
"I ask you a question. You heard me said before that I know what it feels like to be the one being killed. Then, Ikaru......"
Do you know what it feels like to be the one who kills?
＊ ＊ ＊
The morning light forms a semicircle on the horizon. The orange light overflowing from the waves was washed ashore, reflecting the image of the still-filling sun on the surface of the sea.
In the western sky, however, the moon and stars were still shining thinly, as if they were still lingering in the night.
Adam, who had gone out on the balcony of the mansion with Ikaru, was looking at the dawn scenery with a bitter feeling.
The detective remained silent as he puffed on his "IQOS" . The child by his side looked into his face with reserve.
Ikaru raised his eyebrows a little at the scent,
"I told him I don't like this popcorn-like smell. But I don't care about that anymore. Adam had noticed my lie, hadn't you?
Yes, My father had already dead when my stepmother hit him on the head with the vase.
It was a lie that I was the one who put an end to my dying father who was beaten with a vase of flowers.
Last night, I was invited to my father's room again.I hated it so much that I strangled him with the string of his gown as he fell asleep.
It was midnight when he stopped breathing. I was looking at my watch, and I saw my father's last days, so there's no mistake about the time.
It wasn't my stepmother who wanted to kill my father, but me.
When I returned to my room after a short walk on this balcony to catch some cold wind, I found my beloved canary dead in its cage.
I wondered if it was my stepmother's revenge for my father's death. However, she had taken the time to hit the lifeless father's head with a vase of flowers, taking my crime.
ー Ikaru
"I'm calling you to tell about my sin."
"But I have no regrets."
"It's me who with my husband until the end of his life
"I want to tell you that." ー
Adam thought,
" Ikaru's stepmother called him before she drove her car into a cliff a late-night phone call .
Was it a call to tell her that she was prepared to bear all the sins of her son? Or was it to show off that she had be the one had to be present her husband deathbed ?
Now I know nothing of the truth.Thinking about that more closely makes me disgusting. "
In silence, Adam was staring out at the ocean. Then, perhaps unable to bear the awkward , Ikaru asked to him,
"Hey, Adam's mother was beautiful woman,wasn't she?
'...... yeah.'
" Adam loved your mother,didn't you? So you were happy to had be present with her deathbed."
"Love....? I don't know."
"I'm sure you loved your mother.
In my case,I didn't like at all. That's why I was able to kill her,too. "
"With her?"
"My real mother."
The detective stared back at child with a stinky look on his face. Ikaru smiled back at him.
Adam said to him,
"Your real mother committed suicide. She jumped off this balcony into the sea, and you may have been the cause. But that doesn't mean you killed her."
But Ikaru shook his head.
"No, I killed my mother, too. I wanted to grow my hair long. But my mother always cut it short whenever my father praised my silver hair. The mornings after my father spent with me, she would always give me a bad time until he came back from work.
my mother would lock me on this balcony and pour water on me ,and so on.
I hated my mother, So I killed her."
ー Following the voice of my heart.ー
Ikaru continued his word.
"Hey, Adam, look at the "escape hatch" above this balcony."
Ikaru pointed to a square exit on the balcony above the floor. Adam's eyes widened.
"Ikaru, you don't mean ......?"
The child in front of him turned his blue eyes to young detective and confessed the truth.
"Yes, my mother didn't jump off the balcony. She fell into the sea through a hole that I secretly opened, concealed from view, and guided her through.
After all ,I killed my mother, didn't I?"
＊ ＊
Ikaru said,
"Adam, what are you thinking?"
"Shut up. Don't talk to me."
Ikaru raised his eyebrows at the young detective's blunt attitude.
'What the heck ...... even thought I told you my secret.'
The detective beside him silently continues to puff on his E-cigarette, even as he turns a sulky face.
Ikaru felt pain to stay on the balcony and tried to listen to his "heart's voice" as usual. But no matter how carefully he listened, he could not hear the voice.
'Was he gone somewhere ......?'
Only the sound of the wind passing through Ikaru's hollow heart reaches his ears.
' I had relied on that voice alone, believed in that voice alone, even thought only that voice had been on my own side.'
At that moment, an inescapable sense of loneliness and despair spread through Ikaru's heart.
Ikaru asked,
"Hey, Adam, you're arresting me."
Still, the detective ignored him and continued to think about something. His neat, expressionless profile further aggravated the lonely child's anxiety.
"I’ｍ scary of that！"
Then suddenly, Ikaru slipped past Adam and began to climb from the planter rack in the corner of the balcony and onto the balcony.
"Hey, stop it! "
Adam stopped Ikaru. But, he said,
”No! I don't want to! I killed my father, killed my mother, and watched her die, but instead of being satisfied, I felt empty inside. There is nothing left in me. I didn't want to know what it felt like. I don't want to live like this. I envy Adam. You were saved by watching your mother die, weren't you? But for me, there is no salvation!"
The sunlight from the horizon shone on the small child's back. It was hard for Adam to see the expression of the child's face because he was backlit.
Adam stood motionless, his hand still on the balcony ledge.
He thought,
' It had better not make a stupid move. At that moment, Ikaru would probably jump off into the sea below.'
“Stop!” When Adam shouted, the smell of popcorn from 'IQOS' that had fallen from his own mouth hit nose more than usual.
Feeling Adam's gaze, Ikaru smiled as if relieved.
"Don't worry. Adam said you wouldn't kill anyone, but even if I jumped to my death from here, it wouldn't mean you killed anyone. It's because I did it on my own accord."
So, this is my first and last wish.
It was the only true feeling left in his empty heart. Ikaru put his foot on the balcony ledge and said to the detective, who remained motionless.
"Adam, stay here and watch me fall into the sea. I would be very happy if Adam could see my death."
"No. No, stop! Give me a little more time to think!"
When Adam raised his clear blue eyes at him, Ikaru laughed mischievously and stuck out his red tongue and said,
"No,Adam,Then you'll smoke the cigarette again, won't you, ? I hate that popcorn smell."
Dawn broke.
The sun was rising over the sea. The waves were gently caressing the rocks below , ebbing and flowing.
The sun's rays were too bright to see straight. After closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, Adam took out his cell phone and made a single call to a woman.
”Hello, Juliette? I'm sorry to call so early. What? It's 4:30 a.m....... yeah, I know, but I just had to hear your voice."
Adam let out a begging voice into his phone.
”Can I come over there now? I have to get back here soon, but if I don't see Julia now, I'm going to lose my ...... mind."
He hang up the phone and turn his back to the balcony. Spotting the canary feather that had fallen at his feet, Adam turned away from it as if to run away.
He searched his jacket pocket for an "IQOS" like a tranquilizer, but he had smoked them all and found only one snack from the slum where Juliette had snuck them in .
Baked cake that Ikaru said were tasty ......
But do not have to care for it anymore .
Adam threw it in the trash.
The bitter thought that comes and goes in my mind.
What am I going to tell my boss?
I've done something terrible. Not only will I have to write a cleanup letter, but if I'm not careful, I may end up getting fired from the Luna City Police Department.
The morning sun was shining brightly on the mansion on the seaside, despite his gloomy mind.
Morning would come, even on a day like this.
Adam leaves the mansion, drawn by its warmth.
I want to see Juliet.
Just ...... that's all I want right now.
