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As long as the view from every fifteenth-storey window shows the city crumbling into apocalyptic ruin around them, it’s hard to find the right moment to bring it up: Sakurai has to take the first chance he gets.
He corners the kid while he’s alone with his water bottle, recovering from the exertion of his latest round of offensive telekinesis on an implausibly massive scale and still breathing hard, his shoulders heaving. He’s sitting on the arm of a battered old sofa at the edge of the room. There’s more than enough space for Sakurai to sit as well. He doesn’t. This feels like a conversation he should have while standing. He pushes his hands into his pockets and says curtly, “Just thought you might want to know: Miyagawa didn’t make it.”
The kid glances up at him. His face is flushed; his tufty hair is slicked wet and nearly flat by sweat. “Who?” he says politely.
“Miyagawa,” says Sakurai. “From the Seventh Branch. Back when – you remember.”
“I remember the Seventh Branch,” the kid agrees. He unzips the front of his tracksuit top and flaps it a little, cooling himself down. “But I’m afraid I don’t remember any – Miyagawa, was it…? Though I suppose that doesn’t mean I didn’t meet him. Your lot were doing your best to kill us, after all – we hardly had the time to stop for introductions,” he says, and gives a little laugh. It’s a light and pleasant little laugh, and it belongs with a completely different conversation.
“Miyagawa was the fire guy,” Sakurai says shortly. “The pyrokinetic.” A flicker of recognition in those blue eyes. “Yeah, exactly. So that’s why I thought you might want to know: he didn’t make it.”
“I see,” says the kid. He sips his water again. Sakurai’s not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this – whatever this is; it’s weirdly hard to read the kid’s expression beyond that look of mild, amiable friendliness. “Were the two of you close?”
“Just colleagues,” says Sakurai. “I mean, I knew him a long time. But whatever. He was a dick.”
“I suppose he must have been, to attack a child the way he did,” says the kid. He’s looking up at Sakurai politely, expectantly, like he’s waiting for something more…
…but Sakurai’s staring back at him, feeling much the same. Isn’t this all back to front? The kid’s being as meticulously polite as though he’s making small talk at a formal event where he doesn’t know the other guests and doesn’t really want to; Sakurai feels like he’s made the situation awkward – like he’s made some embarrassing social faux pas without noticing, and this kid’s being kind enough to humour him, indulging him with the obligatory social niceties – nice to meet you, and how do you do, and what a pity I’m responsible for a man’s death, and good weather for the time of year, isn’t it…
The kid screws the cap back onto his water bottle. He seems to have decided that nothing else is forthcoming from Sakurai, because he says, in a tone as formal as it’s final: “Well, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“It wasn’t such a loss,” says Sakurai. He’s still feeling wrong-footed, unsettled. He didn’t want commiserations for someone he barely grieved; he wanted to let the kid know he’s technically a murderer, because that seems like the kind of thing a person ought to know about themselves. He’s even got details if the kid wants them, the way Sakurai had thought he might – the duration of the coma, the extent of the damage – but something’s telling him that’s unlikely.
The silence drags on. Outside, distantly, comes the endless echo of concrete smashing hideously into concrete. The kid’s saying nothing. Sakurai’s saying nothing. But he doesn’t leave. If he leaves then the conversation will be over, but it doesn’t feel complete; the conversation doesn’t even feel like it’s begun.
“Well – if that’s all,” says the kid, eventually, in a tone which encouragingly suggests that if that isn’t all then Sakurai should really hurry up and make it all, “then I hope you won’t mind if I get back to work protecting this city.”
Then again: Sakurai said he’d tell him, and he’s told him. He’s done what he said he’d do, so his responsibility ends here. “Sure,” he says, “suit yourself,” and he consigns the entire conversation to the past with a feeling of unexpectedly deep and overwhelming relief.