* * *
Now, as Yasahiro trotted along the snow trail, between the sky and the canyon, he was glad he had survived to take care of Miyuki and to mourn with her the loss of Shiori. He had stayed with his wife during her last days and had fulfilled her wish to rest in her daughter’s grave. He had thanked his rescuer, a fisherman who had lifted him from the water. Now, he would also leave this earth. But not yet. He had to warn the old man of the criminals.
Last night’s storm had paved the paths with a foot of snow but he still could recognize the trails hugging the cliffs and sloping into the valley. A sheet of ice glazing the cliff surged into the clouds and another plunged into the chasm. As he negotiated a bend on the path, snow slid down the mountainside and patches tumbled onto his head and shoulders. He stopped and faced the expanse of sky and canyon, waiting for the snow to bury him. After the elements had spared him, he continued to tread through the snow. The old man was probably somewhere down the path, whistling a jingle and hiking toward him. If he reached the old man’s age, Yasahiro wouldn’t be able to hike such a trail. He had never come to Hokkaido before, but would have loved to walk among the lavenders with Miyuki and Shirori during the summer. Instead, he had spent his life in a laboratory designing biological sensors and switches, shining lights on or passing electric currents through phytoplanktons to change their colors.
After rounding a cliff, he confronted a range of snowcaps cascading into the horizon. A bird was cutting through the sky above the range. Below, the slopes rippled toward a canyon where a ravine must have flown during the summer. As on that March day, he felt the elements overwhelming him. He had spent years manipulating the biology of algae but nature, through the tsunami, showed he was a grain of rice in the cosmos. Still, given the chance he would continue to battle with nature and design more accurate light-sensing algae.
As he approached a forest of cedars sloping down toward the main road where a toilet stood amid the snow, he heard a shout around the cliff. The sound ricocheted among the snow-walls and a patch of white fell on his face. He stopped. He looked up. When he saw snow coasting along the slope, he smiled and raised both arms.
The avalanche would bury him just as the tsunami had Shiori. He wouldn’t resist and couldn’t even if he wanted to. Under the snow he might struggle with his every cell but now he welcomed the burial. He would like the snow to bury the delinquents and stop them from further crimes. Still, he would feel sorry for the old man, the romantic who couldn’t give his wife the present, his handicraft.
After a sheet of snow fell on top of the cedars and several patches bounced off the branches, the avalanche stopped. He watched the branches wave at him until more shouts behind the cliff woke him from his daydream.
He marched forward, kicking up snow.
His feet light, his breathing even and his mind certain, he cut through the air and walked around the cliff. Without Miyuki and Shiori, he didn’t dread or despair of his future. He had shed his burdens and now could squander his life. He stopped and glanced across the open area. Several meters from the toilet, a teenager with a scar on his left cheek punched the landlord and knocked him down, while two other boys cheered.
Scar-Face, about sixteen years old, brushed back the hair covering his right eye, and said, "Pops, that’s only the freaking appetizer. Wait till you taste the bloody main course."
Yasahiro knew they were lusting to mutilate their prey. He inhaled, filling his lungs with the cold air, and trotted toward them. The teenager with an eye patch, slightly younger than Scar-Face, was walking toward the old man, who was struggling in the snow, when he turned and stared at Yasahiro.
"Hey, jackass, what you looking at? Tired of living, huh?" Eye-Patch flaunted his hunting knife and slashed through the air several times.
Yasahiro would have nodded if the boy had asked again but now he just marched toward the gangsters while the third and youngest teenager, whose pimples covered his face and forehead, lifted his ax and licked his lips. Though unsure whether he could handle even one of them, he didn’t flinch or hesitate. No longer.
"I want the loser’s balls." Pimple-Face waved his ax and hacked down a branch.
"You dork, the sissy’s got none." Scar-Face rushed past the other two and, taking out a switchblade, said to Yasahiro, "Hey, old man, the wolves here would love your guts for dinner. But I just want your eyeballs."
Yasahiro stood before Scar-Face as the switchblade danced in front of his eyes and fanned his face. He would rather fight Scar-Face than the tsunami. He would rather fight this gang than the elements. Then again, an avalanche might bury them.
Scar-Face spat in his face and the gang guffawed. Before he could feel the liquid on his face, his right fist had landed on the scar and his left heel on the teenager’s stomach while snowflakes gushed into the air. Scar-Face grunted and tumbled onto the ground.
Eye-Patch’s face froze as if still laughing. He raised his hunting knife and said, "You’re dead, jackass." He treaded through the snow and Pimple-Face joined him without a word.
Yasahiro didn’t know how to deal with both the knife and the ax and wished the avalanche would bury them. He wasn’t a hero even if his life depended on it. And his life would depend on it now. He opened his backpack to retrieve the tantō.
But before he could take out the blade, a hiking-stick smacked Eye-Patch’s nape and the gangster grunted and tumbled onto the snow. The old man, his lips bleeding, struck the fallen teenager again.
Pimple-Face turned around and glanced at Eye-Patch. When the old man trotted toward him, the boy dropped the ax and rushed down the path. He slipped and rolled down the slope. His body smashed into the toilet and shattered its walls before stopping at the ledge.
Yasahiro held the tantō and was turning to congratulate the old man when he felt the chill in his abdomen. He looked down and saw the switchblade plunged deep into his parka, a bony hand grasping it.
Scar-Face licked his upper lip while blood dripped from his mouth. "You won’t die so easily, you son-of-a-bitch. Now, guts out." He tightened his grip and began to turn the blade when the stick landed on the back of his head.
After Scar-Face had grunted and released the switchblade, Yasahiro dropped the tantō and collapsed onto the snow, the pain beginning to replace the chill. When his left cheek hit the snow, the origami sprang out of his backpack and landed next to the tantō. Blood was oozing out of his parka and staining the snow.
What a mess. But at least it isn’t in the cabin.
He had wanted to die without the pain or the mess, but couldn’t fulfill either wish. Still, he didn’t trouble the old man. As his left cheek began to numb from the cold, he took out of the parka pocket the picture of Miyuki and Shiori. He knew from the noise and the snowflakes showering on his right cheek that the old man was fighting with Scar-Face, but he ignored them. He only wanted to think of his wife and daughter in his last moments.
He and Miyuki didn’t exchange a word on the night she passed away. He held her hand and could hear Miyuki’s breathing. He could feel her grief and her relief. She had fought the illness to the end and now had to let go. For her to let go and for him to let go. She smiled and then closed her eyes. Her hand went limp and he felt the void in his stomach. He didn’t check the clock. But outside the window, flurries swirled in and out of the darkness as if trying to distract him from his grief. Another part of him had died.
After the cremation, he resigned from the laboratory and sold the flat. When he left Tokyo, he glanced at the skyscrapers and the rush-hour crowd and pushed himself into the sardine-canned subway train. He took the Cassiopeia Express from Tokyo to Sapporo. When the train stopped at Sendai, he surveyed the darkness beyond the train station and imagined seeing the dunes of planks and metals along the coast where former residents would scavenge for pictures, ancestral tablets or the remains of loved ones. When he arrived at Sapporo, he took a bus to the Daisetsuzan National Park near Ashikawa, where the snowcaps and geysers welcomed him.
He welcomed Hokkaido and would rather die in the snow than in his bed. When his hand could no longer hold the picture, he planted it in the snow next to the origami. Then his eyes began to blur as the red patch in the snow expanded. Someone screamed, but he didn’t look. He closed his eyes and a patch of snow fell on his right cheek...