Soon, they found themselves ascending the steps to Kazuo’s apartment.  Though a few chains still hung inside and draped across the floor, many of them had broken, clearing the way into the room again.  Kazuo himself sat curled up, his arms folded across his knees, and his face buried against his arms.

As Hideki approached the door, Suu grabbed his arm gently.

“Do you hear that?” Suu asked, brow furrowed.

“I hear screaming,” said Fumi, quietly, “It’s the same arguing I heard yesterday, the sound of Takahashi-kun’s parents.”

Steeling himself, Hideki stepped inside, and looked around.

He could see two children sitting at the table, picking at their breakfast, keeping their heads down as their parents argued in the kitchen.  Hideki could only vaguely pick up their words, but from what he could tell, they were arguing about money.  As their ghostly images moved across the kitchen, and Kazuo’s mother opened cabinets, he could see only the mirage of doors being opened as the real cabinets stayed shut.

“They’re just images,” said Hideki, “Memories of his, probably.  Either way, they’re not like the demons, so I don’t think they can hurt us.”

Suu slowly stepped inside, and yelped as she heard the sound of a slap.  Kazuo’s mother tumbled to the ground, and his father wrestled with her briefly, striking her a few more times before he pulled a small wad of money from her pocket.  Suu moved out of the way as the man stormed toward her, but his image phased right through Fumi on his way out the door, leaving only the children at the table, and the woman crying on the floor.

“It’s the same as what I saw,” said Fumi as she stepped inside, “I am sorry to say it won’t be long before she’ll be taking out her anger on her daughter…”

Suu winced, looking away, and said, “I’m not sure that I can… handle this…”

“Hopefully we won’t have to,” said Hideki as he kneeled down next to Kazuo, “Hey, Kazuo-kun… We’re back again.  Look, I’m sorry that we upset you yesterday, but… We really do want to try to help you.”

While Hideki continued to talk to Kazuo, with seemingly all of the same results as talking to a brick wall, Suu knelt down beside the ghostly image of the younger Kazuo.  She tilted her head down, looking at his sad features as he stared at his bowl.  Suu lifted a hand to gently touch his shoulder, but instead found that his fingers passed right through him, distorting his image like it were made of smoke.

Suddenly, the younger sister was grabbed up from her seat, and Suu could hear the sound of slaps and crying.  She cupped her hands over her ears tightly, and shut her eyes, turning her face away.  Hideki looked up from where he knelt next to Kazuo, and he felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck, before he heard a soft sobbing sound.  Kazuo was crying, shaking, curled up on the floor next to him.

“Mimiru…” he whispered between choked sobs.

“Mimiru?” Hideki asked, looking at Kazuo.  He slowly pushed aside some of the garbage on the floor, before easing himself to sit down, facing Kazuo as he asked, “Was that her name?”

Kazuo nodded a bit, his head still down.

Hideki lowered his head a bit, to try to get a better look at Kazuo’s hidden face, “Was Mimiru-chan your little sister, Kazuo-kun?”

Kazuo nodded a bit, before whispering, “She was my half-sister.”

Though Hideki tried to focus on Kazuo, and Suu couldn’t bare to watch, Fumi observed everything that happened.  She watched as Kazuo’s mother beat her own child, before dragging her toward the door of the nearby closet.  The girl cried and tried to squirm away.  The woman opened the closet door, or rather, a ghost of the closet door, before throwing the girl in.  To Fumi’s eyes, however, the ghost merely passed through the solid door and out of sight.  The woman slammed the door shut, and the force of the slam seemed to blow all of the smoke-like ghostly images away.  When they reformed again, the parents were arguing in the kitchen again.

“She wasn’t my dad’s,” said Kazuo, “He hated her.  Mom hated her.  They blamed her for everything… for mom having to take off of work when Mimiru was sick… for why we had no money… for why we lived here… If they were mad, they took it out on Mimiru…”

Hideki winced and said, “They’re not here.  These are just ghosts, memories… They can’t hurt you anymore.”

“They didn’t hurt me!” Kazuo shouted, clenching his fists, his chains rattling.  He shook for a moment, before he began to cry again, saying, “They never hit me, at least not hard.  If we could barely afford to eat, they’d give me food but not her… If we were playing too loud, they would lock her in the closet and just tell me to go outside… I tried to tell my grandparents but they didn’t believe me.  They hated her too… they knew she didn’t look like their son…”

Suu slowly uncovered her ears as she listened, staring at Kazuo.  She could hardly believe the sort of things he was describing.  She winced again when she heard Kazuo’s mother tumble to the floor, before his father took her money and stormed out of the apartment.  Suu bit her lip for a moment, before asking, “Why would they single her out?  If they were such horrible people, why was it only her?”

“She was my mom’s boss’s daughter,” muttered Kazuo, “She got drunk one night at a work party and… nnh… I just wish they’d have just divorced!  I wished they’d split up, I wish they’d have given both of us up and gotten out of our lives… I wish… Mimiru got to have a life…”

Suu looked away and covered her ears again as the scene played out, as Kanako threw her daughter in the closet again.  Slowly, Fumi walked toward the closet, lifting her handkerchief to cover her nose and mouth to protect herself from the stench of the filthy apartment.

Hideki looked down a moment, before he looked at Kazuo and said, “There’s nothing I can say that’s going to make it better.  It wasn’t fair.  Nothing about what happened to you or your sister was fair.  But you’re still alive, and--”

“AND SHE SHOULD BE!” Kazuo shouted, lifting his head, his gaunt face twisted into a rage, “She had all the possibilities in the world… She’s the one who deserves to be alive!  Not me…”

“That’s not true!” Hideki barked, clenching his fists, “You can’t decide things like that, you can’t say someone else is more deserving of life than you.  You’ve got your life so you owe it to her to live it!”

“What good is my life?!” Kazuo shouted back at him.

Fumi watched the images play out again as the woman drug her daughter to the closet, flung the door open, threw her inside, and slammed it shut again.  As the ghostly images dissipated once more, Fumi stared down at the door handle.  She could see insects crawling in and out through the crack in the door.  Slowly, she rested her hand on the door handle, before tightening her grip.  On the other side, she heard soft crying.

‘He has to face it,’ thought Fumi, ‘Takahashi-kun has to face what he doesn’twant to accept, just like Suu-chan had to face her shadow.’

Fumi turned the doorknob and opened it, taking a step back as a swarm of flies and stench rose from inside the closet.  She forced herself to open her eyes, looking into the closet, but she was shocked by what she saw.

Sitting on the floor, in the closet, was Kazuo.  His hands and feet were bound with chains, and his mouth gagged with a cloth tied around his head.  In his arms was the body of a small girl, cradled to his chest, bound to him by the chains.  As soon as the door was open, Kazuo looked up at Fumi, and desperately screamed from behind his gag.

“How…?” Fumi asked as she stared at him.  She felt a chill streak up her spine, before she turned and shouted, “Get away from him, Hideki-kun!”

“Huh?” Hideki asked as he looked toward Fumi, and the Kazuo that she’d found in the closet.  He stared at first in confusion, but when he looked back to the Kazuo that he’d been speaking to, he was suddenly struck across the chest and knocked backwards into a pile of garbage.