The rest of the day passed by even slower than it usually did, mostly because no one in the office would shut their ever-loving mouths about Misa, like the world had just lost another goddamn Kira-esque messiah or something. I couldn’t tell you how many times my fingers writhed with the urge to nab someone, anyone, by the flaps of their collars and beg them to shut up, that it was just a stupid pop star, that it couldn’t be helped, that we ought to drop it and let life move on.

But I didn’t, mostly because you can’t stop people from talking. If the lips go a-flapping, don’t try a-capping. Let them flap themselves out.

And mostly because I was too busy trying to tell myself that, over and over again, like that damn Misa-Misa CD Kimi had on repeat the whole livelong day.

I stayed in my cubicle the entire time, like a turtle withdrawn into its shell, getting out only to grab a bite to eat and to use the bathroom. And wouldn’t you know, Mrs. Inoue noticed I was falling behind in the accounting, but she didn’t once loom in on Kimi and tell her to turn her music off.

“Miss Takenaka, is there a particular reason why you’re dawdling around?”

The thing about Mrs. Inoue that I hated—among other things—was that she always demanded an answer, and when you did give her an answer, she’d dismiss it as an excuse. You could tell her that you stroked out the night before, and she’d still tell you to pick up the slack or clear out the cubicle for the next one who would. You couldn’t win.

I decided to pull out a fake one. Telling the truth would not only bring out the usual repercussions, but if word got out that I’d seen Misa Amane on top of that skyscraper, I’d be done for. They’d probably fucking execute me, for all I knew and cared.

My cheeks twitched with pain behind the bogus smile on my lips. “Oh, it’s nothing, Mrs. Inoue. Just a…still little hung over from all the Valentine’s Day chocolate and wine, is all.”

If looks could kill, Mrs. Inoue would’ve executed me right where I was sitting. “That was yesterday, Takenaka. How about you focus on the day at hand, hmm? How about you do something more productive than hanging over?” Compared to most other days, her words were relatively mild. Not that that made them pleasant.

The only thing I dreaded more than the day itself was the end of it. Not only did I imagine the lack of anything on T.V. that night except lamentation after lamentation of losing one of the greatest models to spank your macaque to, I wondered if I should take some other way home. Did I really want to go by the tracks again, by the building where Misa Amane had plummeted to a concrete death?

On the other hand, I really didn’t like the bus or the subway. I cringed at the image of being wedged in on all sides with no room to even check my watch and the scent of cologne and armpits in my face…if I could even get across the threshold in the first place. I needed my space, my air, my solitude. I put up with enough people-crap in the office.

In the end, I decided I’d brave it and walk that way again. Why should I let some stranger bother me to the point of inconvenience? I didn’t make her do it, and I couldn’t stop her from doing it, so for crying out loud, Rin, just keep looking straight ahead, why don’t you?!

All the same, I felt like a little kid creeping through the cemetery on a dare, the jitter in my pace almost knocking me off my feet. I held onto my bag as though letting go of it would be the death of me. Milky twilight painted the scenery almost as magnificently as it had the day before, but this time, I didn’t have it in me to enjoy it.

Come on, Rin. One foot in front of the other…just like yesterday. What’s the worst that can happen: you see Amane’s—

Suddenly, the air around me felt chillier, as if something had frozen the life out of it. I found myself pulling my jacket tighter around me for warmth as I stopped by the tracks, almost to the point of splitting the seams. Somehow, as I looked both ways to check for an oncoming train, my eyes drifted up to that goddamn skyscraper, contrasting against the veil of pink and orange like a stray brushstroke of black.

—ghost.

Oh my God.

There she was.

In the same statuesque position outside the safety rails, in the same fluttering Lolita dress, with the same lifeless pancake face.

All the panic that I had fighting up to that point surged over, turning the blood in my veins to ice. I couldn’t look away; it was as if that figure had this magnetic aura that refused to release my eyes from its pull. I don’t know how long I stood there staring at her, wiped clean of every ounce of rational thought. It was as if I had become a statue myself, my mouth arid with the lack of words.

All I know is that as soon as the sun had totally melted into the horizon, and the oranges and pinks deepened into lavenders and navy blues—that time when it was no longer daytime but not exactly nighttime yet—she dove, like a doll knocked off of its shelf, her dress flapping violently around her like a broken parachute as she dissolved into the shadows halfway down the side of the building.

No, really! She dissolved, from pigtail to toe, like sand between the fingers on a blustery day.

And only when that happened did I stumble backward and land on my butt, overwhelmed with the kind of dizziness that came with the lack of breathing. The kind that came from sitting on the ground in the middle of darkness after having seen something that I really wished I hadn’t.

____________

She’s still there.

Every night, or day, or whatever the hell you want to call the time, she’s there, in the same spot on the same skyscraper, facing the sunset, same wardrobe and all. Stays there until the last sliver of sunlight burrows into the shadow. When the light takes a dive, so does she, in a silence totally uncharacteristic to the image she maintained in life as a perky pop star.

People still talk about her—they’re going to be for a while, a long while, or at least until another superstar suffers an even worse death—but no one seems to have noticed Misa’s ghost haunting the skyscraper where she, for whatever crazy reason, dove down to the face of the earth, and simultaneously, off of it. If they have, they must be keeping quiet about it. But somehow, I doubt that; people don’t usually keep quiet about stuff like that.

Needless to say, I haven’t felt too goddamn goofy since then. I really don’t want to think that I was the only one who saw her, before and after she died. Hell, I don’t even know if that crazy bitch’s ghost is haunting that skyscraper at all; she may just be a figment of a guilty conscience that really shouldn’t feel guilty, in the first place.

…

Too guilty, anyway. I mean, guilty to the extent of hallucinating of sky-high Lolitas.

…

I…I guess the only thing I can do about it now is to avoid that road completely, no matter how great it looks in the sunset. As long as I do that, I should get over it, eventually. I should. Eventually.

I’m fixing to take the subway from now on. Yeah, the crowds suck, and I’m always getting forced into some corner across the aisle from some jerk who keeps sneaking eyefuls behind his newspaper like he’s some upstanding businessman.

But you know? Being huddled in a dim-lit tunnel with a hundred people is a hell of a lot better than watching one person—never mind the fact that she was a celebrity—jump off the same height over and over again.

Especially when you may have been—oh, God please forbid—the only one who saw it.

And did nothing.

END