Contrast

As I stepped into the house, my sand-covered sneakers had to come off. Upon realizing I'd gotten in, my sister greeted me. No words, though. Just simple acknowledgement. She was still seated at the same spot, donning the very same outfit. Honestly, it was a little weird, for it looked like she hadn't moved at all since I'd left in the morning.

“Wow. Have you been sitting there all day? You look exactly the same as when I left", I remarked with a pinch of irony. “Go have a shower or something, honestly…", I commented, hoping to tick her off.

“Hey, Akito… Have you gotten to that part in school where they teach that little sisters go through a phase in which their biggest desire is to kill their older brother when he cracks jokes at their expense?", she asked me, threateningly.

“Hmmm... The threat was good, but the question was way too long. It's easy to lose track, and it's very difficult to get a punchline for a joke with that many words in it. 8/10 for your efforts, sister”, I assessed.

“Where were you, at the circus perchance?”, she retorted. Unfazed by this kind of vulgarity, I walked up the stairs to my room, laughing loudly. “Did you at least have food today?”, she tried to interrupt me on my way up.

“No...", I confessed, still on my way up.

“There’s a bowl in the microwave for you", she said.

“I’ll be down in a minute. Thanks", I said, still gazing at the ceiling beyond the staircase. The spiral design almost threw me for a loop, and I felt a bit dizzy.

However, I stopped on my tracks while still only halfway up the stairs.

“Hey, Yuki. Serious talk...", I began talking, turning my sights to the first floor where Yukina was.

“Hm?", she looked at me with that look that only siblings know how to give, and only do so when they are genuinely concerned about whether the next sentence is going to be more banter or something actually serious.

“If I were immortal, what would you do?", I asked.

“I would kill you a million times", she replied coldly. Apparently, she thought it was more messing around on my part.

“Thanks, Yuki", I, somehow, felt like that was the normal and appropriate answer she'd give me. Our typical bantering was the only normal thing that happened to me that day.

I debated for a moment whether I should tell her about my newfound abilities as an Apparition. However, I immediately gave up. Siblings are truly impossible creatures. Even more so than Apparitions. So, the truth remained stuck in my throat. No matter how hard it tried to tear its way out, the powers of the photographed would heal me before it could.

At my room, I threw myself onto my bed, first thing. Forget a bath or any other part of my routine — I was exhausted, practically broken. I, then, let myself melt into the gaps formed by the blankets, pillows, and cushions.

Then, I felt my cell phone in my pocket, and took it out. As soon as it turned on, I was caught off-guard by the photo of my date with Rio. My new lock screen: the two of us, smiling innocently.

Concerned over her safety, I called her number without giving it much thought. The phone rang a few times, and my anxiety grew. However, I didn't know what would make me more nervous: her answering the call, or not answering it.

“Hello, Akito?”, she answered.

“Rio? Is it you?”, I asked.

“Who else could it be? Did you happen to butt dial me, Aki?", she joked, mocking the stupidity behind my question.

“Ha-ha, I suppose it could only be you...”, I admitted defeat.

“So, you okay?", she asked me, striking up a conversation.

“Oh, yes! Everything's fine... How about you? Did you get home alright?", I asked.

“Yes, I did. Thanks for asking, Aki. He-he", she laughed, responding casually.

I sighed with relief, having confirmed her safety. It seemed to me that Akashi was right: Braz Cubas wouldn't find her anytime soon. Now, I was free to talk freely, without the shackles of worry, and ready to enjoy my time with her.

Time? What was that again?

“By the way... Did you manage to get the camera working again?", she asked me. I swallowed hard, taken by surprise.

“Ah... No, not yet”, I confessed.

“Well... How about we meet up after school tomorrow? I have some tools here at home, I'm sure my dad will let us use them...", she proposed.

Immediately, I felt indescribably excited to see her again.

“I'm sorry... I don't know about tomorrow...”, I said, forced to postpone our next meeting. After all, I didn't even have the camera on me. Damn you, Cubas.

“I understand...", she replied, discouraged.

“Ah! But...", I hesitated, and missed the opportunity to say anything meaningful.

“Hey, Aki... I wanted to ask you something", she began. “You talk so much about not having anything fun to do... How do you cope with boredom?", she asked me.

I was caught off guard, once again. This girl somehow always managed to surprise me. In a way, she surprised me even more than the supernatural events that had been afflicting me. I suppose that, in some ways, the extraordinary could be found even in the most mundane things.

“Well...", I had trouble finding an answer that didn't involve ratting on Akashi or Cubas. “Could you be a little more specific?", I asked her, looking for a thread from which I could pull a conversation.

“Hmm... Is there anything that motivates you to do the trivial things of everyday life?", she asked.

“Trivial things? What's up with that, Rio?", I said indignantly. “You're the last person I expected to hear that from, especially after that conversation we had earlier...".

“He-hee, you got me there. But the question remains", she admitted.

“Well... As of right now, my reason for waking up tomorrow is the obligation to go to school", I admitted, as pathetic as it might have sounded.

“Oh, that's true. Your semester starts tomorrow”.

“Honestly... I'm thinking about not showing up”, I confessed.

“No way", she said promptly. “I know it's boring, but...”.

“What else could I do, right?", I said.

“What do you mean?", she asked, a little confused.

“After all, even if I skipped school tomorrow... What else would I do?", I asked, rhetorically.

“Well...", she was at a loss for words.

“Even though I'm an advocate of exercising your free will to the fullest, it's not like I have some great existential mission to fulfill between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. tomorrow", I explained. “Do you have such a mission?", I then asked her.

“Well... Not exactly", she confessed.

“What do you have to do tomorrow, Dee?", I asked.

“Well... No one is forcing me to do anything, to be honest", she said. “That's why I don't know what to do", then returned to the original question.

“Combating boredom is...", I assessed, at that moment, the enormous discrepancy between the number of concerns that seemed to afflict each of us at that moment. In fact, not exactly the number of them, but rather their qualities.

My heart was being torn apart by the possibility that Braz Cubas could find Rio at any moment and just kill her in cold blood. In addition, I was questioning how trustworthy Akashi Asami could really be. Finally, I had to contemplate a multitude of possibilities regarding my existence, in which death was a voluntary act, not an inevitable consequence of life. She, on the other hand, was ignorant to all of that.

“Let me entertain you for a moment", I said to her.

“Hm?", she asked, interested.

“If you were given immortality, what would you do?", I asked.

“Oh, we'll play make-believe?", she replied excitedly. “Let's see...", and then she started to think.

“Take your time", I said, mostly to break the silence.

“First question: do I age?", she asked.

“No. Besides being immortal, you are permanently the age you are now, and you have no daily or periodic needs", I replied, using myself as the reference point.

“Any restrictions?”, she continued to try to understand the specific parameters of the hypothetical scenario.

“None... Oh! There is one, yes. You are doomed to always wear the same clothes, but they don't get dirty, damaged, or wet", I said.

“Okay, okay...", she thought for a moment. “What a strange restriction, but that's fine. Let's use the clothes I was wearing earlier today, for convenience's sake”.

“That's right, that's a good idea", I agreed.

“... First thing, I think I would read every single book in the whole wide world", she revealed.

“Wait, wait, wait! What about the people you know now? What about college?", I was surprised by her answer.

“Oh, that's right. I forgot. Te-hee", she laughed, almost as if ridiculing the importance of the things I mentioned in the face of the prospect of immortality.

Interestingly, it wasn't much different from the thought that had been on my mind a few moments ago, when Akashi asked if I wasn't going back home. We really did kind of think alike.

“So?”, I pressed on, trying to get more inspiration out of her.

“Well... I think I'd need to tell someone first, right?”, she concluded. “Aki, would you be my accomplice?”, she asked.

I swallowed hard.

“Well... Sure, sure, I...”, I stammered.

"Great! Then I'd tell you all about it. And I'd be really sad, because you'd still be mortal. After crying for a little bit, I'd probably calm down and wander around for a while. I wouldn't have to worry about college anymore, since I'll have forever to get my degrees... I would only attend the classes I like, and take some tests just to assess my own ability", she continued with her reasoning.

“And then?”, I urged her to continue.

“I would try to find out if my immortality could be useful to others. If my organs regenerate indefinitely, for example, I could be a great organ and blood donor, and do philanthropy with that", she elaborated.

“Help others, huh? That's so you”, I commented, even though it wasn't that different from me turning into a temporary blood bag for Akashi.

Despite that, I wondered if there wasn't a slight difference between wanting to help others and wanting to martyrize oneself.

“Then, I think I would travel a lot. I would find my favorite place in the world and stay there, learning their language, the customs, the food...”, she thought, enjoying herself.

“What if your favorite place was right here?”, I threw her a curveball.

“... I think I would stay with you, Aki. You would be my representative in mortal affairs, and I would be the owner of a mansion, sitting on a throne and helping everyone I could, including you", she fantasized, leaving many gaps of reason to be filled in with imagination.

“Who are you, exactly!? Queen Elizabeth, perchance!?”, I quipped.

“Finally... I would become a librarian, the best in the world, and the wisest, the most experienced, and most reliable source of historical information. It would be nice to spend eternity like that...”, she revealed.

“You really are greedy, aren't you? You want all the knowledge in the world for yourself...”, I joked a little.

“Yes! That's right”, she confirmed, laughing. “What about you, Aki?”, she asked me in return.

“Me? What?”, I played dumb.

“What would you do if you were immortal?”, she asked me, intrigued.

“Well...”, I didn't know what to say. “To be honest, I don't think it would change much. Not in the first few years, at least”, I confessed. “I would finish school, work a bit to save money, especially since I wouldn't need to spend on food and necessities...”, I began to think.

“How normal", she commented. I couldn't tell if there was disdain or respect in her voice.

After I took Cubas out of the picture, what would happen to me and Rio? I would remain immortal, and Akashi would probably want to keep me as his personal blood bag. If I'm being honest, I must clarify that becoming the assistant to a great, historic vampire is, definitely, a much grander destiny than anything the after-school world had in store for me. Similarly, in Rio's proposed timeline, becoming her manager of mortal affairs seemed equally extraordinary to me.

I considered whether, by chance, she would still see me in the same light if she knew the truth. I also considered, for a moment, telling her the truth. Once again, it got caught in my throat, and I felt myself suffocating.

The ocean of pillows and blankets briefly turned into the real ocean, from when I was swimming for my life after being thrown to sea by Akashi. Navigating this conversation without telling her the truth was becoming more difficult than swimming to shore had been. I imagined myself rising from the deep sea, and set myself out to fly through the skies. Perhaps this was beyond my capabilities, but according to popular belief on vampires, it was certainly within Akashi's powers. I wanted him to show me at some point whether he had wings or was able to fly without them. Akashi seemed, in my view, more imprisoned by his vampirism than he was free thanks to it.

“Maybe I'd take the opportunity to go for some extreme sports”, I said. “Or high-risk jobs”, I thought.

“But... Why?”, she asked me. At that moment, I realized that, in spite of our similarities, Rio's philosophy of life was vastly different from mine in one crucial aspect.

“Carpe diem”, I replied simply, knowing she would understand. “Regardless of what I'm doing, I'll make the most of it”, I explained.

“You really are carefree...”, she scoffed.

“I wish I were”, I joked. “But, seriously, I think I would try to protect everyone around me”, I confessed.

“Protect? From what?”, Rio was dumbfounded.

“From everything”, I simplified.

“But wouldn't that be the same as keeping them all in captivity? It's against their free will”, she pointed out.

“Would it be part of my free will to take it away from others?”, I speculated.

“I suppose so, but it's kind of sad”, she concluded.

“Yes. It really is", I agreed. “So, to be more specific, I would try to help everyone with anything I could do that involved risks to their lives and well-being”, I elaborated.

“You... want to be a martyr too, right?”, she asked.

I hadn't yet seen it from that angle. In a way, we both saw immortality as an opportunity to sacrifice ourselves for others, in an attempt to justify our own existence. In her case, becoming a generational slave of knowledge, and as for me, sparing others from the usual pain and suffering in life.

“You can't become a martyr without dying", I argued.

“You can't talk about immortality without talking about death itself”, she replied, witty.

“What meaning would you like to give to your death, then? If you were immortal, when would you let yourself die?”, I asked while pondering the question myself.

For an immortal, the only possible cause of death in this scenario would be suicide. That was the truth, albeit a painful one.

“Well...”, she thought. “For an immortal, wouldn't the greatest possible sacrifice be to keep on living? No matter what?”, she asked me, and I was left speechless.

"You mean... For us, the definition of sacrifice is to hasten our death... Whereas, for an immortal... It's to postpone it?", I sought clarification.

“That's right", she replied, briefly. That truth tore at my chest, and I felt like I could cry.

“I understand...”, I managed to blurt out.

“Immortality... It's so, so distant, that it seems like we would cease to be people altogether”, Rio commented.

“It would seem so", I agreed.

The question posed by immortality was, strangely, similar to the subject of suicide. After all, what was death? A natural consequence of life, except for immortals and suicidals. I was reminded of Osamu Dazai. In his intimate relationship with death, and guilt, he ended up exploring his feelings — almost an addiction — in depth, and sharing them with his lovers.

Once again, I returned to the question of sharing the feelings of immortality with Rio. Technically, that was what I had been doing, albeit very slowly. Personally, Dazai's romantic suicide seemed increasingly appealing to me.

“Still, it would be really nice to be able to live without worrying about my own biological clock”, she commented. “Speaking of which, Aki...”.

“Yes?”.

“In our photos... We don't age, right?”, she commented, and a chill ran down my spine.

If Akashi was correct, my photograph, the one in Rio's possession, would be showing all the wounds I had suffered throughout that day.

“You... Do you still have mine with you?”, I asked, concerned.

“I'm looking at yours right now, and — oh, do you have light-colored eyes?”, she asked.

“Huh?”, I was confused.

“You have light-colored eyes in the photo. Is it a reflection? A printing error? But it's only the eyes...”, she said, and then thought silently.

Immediately, I understood what was happening. Probably due to Akashi's vampire bite down my neck, the photograph interpreted that all my wounds would had healed thanks to vampirism, and so it was showing what I would look like if I were a vampire, with light-colored eyes like Akashi's.

I felt very lucky that she hadn't seen an unpleasant version of the photograph, one with me being full of holes, wounds, and blood gushing out.

“Weird", I pretended not to know a thing. “We'll take another one when we fix the camera”, I then suggested.

“Yes!”, she replied excitedly. “In the picture we took with your cell phone, you look normal", she commented.

“Normal... That's good, right?”, I asked.

“In your case... Yes, yes it is”, she replied affectionately.

“It was good talking to you, Dee”, I began my goodbyes.

“Likewise, Aki”, she replied. “Not that it was a very normal talk", she quipped.

“Well... In that case, would normal have been good?”, I asked.

“No... I prefer it this way, I think", she replied.

“Well, then. May things continue as they are, normal and abnormal to the right degree”, I concluded.

“True. It’s our normal, right?”, she asked.

“Our normal. I like it”, I admitted.

Despite being the one who introduced a hint of departure to the tone of the conversation, I didn't really want to hang up. It seemed to me, for a moment, that my humanity was inadvertently and irrevocably tied to Rio. The uncertainty of what it would be like to go to school tomorrow, literally immortalized, was consuming me inside out.

The light in the room blinded my eyes, bringing me back to the reality of being sleepless. According to Akashi, I didn't need to sleep — nor would I need to, ever again. The same was true for eating, drinking water, and any other periodic needs. I wondered if it was even possible for me to fall ill.

“Hey, Aki...”, Rio began to say.

“Yes?”, I promptly replied.

“Before you hang up... Can I ask you one more question?”.

“Sure, Dee. There's no reason why not”.

“At school...”, she continued, slowly.

“Yes?”, I repeated myself.

“Were you always like this?”, she finally let out.

“I don't understand”, I confessed.

“I mean, I really liked helping you cheat on the tests and stuff...”, I was surprised that she still remembered. “It was like an adventure, just like the one we had today, walking on the beach and discovering that camera among the rocks”, she explained.

“Uh-huh", I just agreed, to give her a chance to catch her breath.

“But I don't remember you being like this. You already felt different this morning, and even more so tonight, when you called me”.

I didn't know, exactly, how to answer that question. At various points of the conversation, I reminded myself that today had been an exception in my life, from the very moment I stepped outside the house. In fact, to be more precise, from the moment I met Rio onwards.

Asking her out was a rare display of courage, an unusual and selfish act that went against all the rules I had lived by until then. Then, just like that, soon after, she was now my biggest source of concern. Her safety and her well-being. And, I confess, I wasn't just referring to the possibility of a surprise attack by Braz Cubas.

Slowly, I realized certain things I didn't want to realize. Sentimentalism equaled weakness.

“Consider this conversation my apology... For having never thanked you for your help with schoolwork”, I replied.

“Is that it?”, she asked.

My heart tightened. At the same time, I felt fickle and inconsistent, as if there were more than one character embodied within me.

“Yeah. That's all”, I concluded.

“I understand", she replied, conclusively. “Thanks for keeping me company, Aki", she thanked me.

“Thank you for answering my call, Dee”, I thanked back.

“Don't mention it. Call me again sometime, okay?”, she asked.

“Sure”, I agreed.

“Bye, then”, she said her goodbyes.

“Farewell”.

“How dramatic —”, she was saying, but I had already pressed the hang-up button before I heard her speaking.

And so, our connection was terminated. I was sad to not reveal the truth about the camera and my newfound powers. The lies knotted within my stomach, and my stomach knotted up with them.

Apparently, the magical properties of my body would not reset my mental state, regardless of how troubled I was. In a way, it was comforting, as it proved that my soul was still mine, untouched.

I wondered, finally, if there even was such a thing as a human soul, and if it was different from the soul of a being graced with immortality, an Apparition.

I turned off the lights and buried myself in the blankets and pillows again. That night, I had trouble sleeping, as I stared at my phone's lock screen.

For a moment, I wondered if Rio also had trouble sleeping, staring at the same picture on her own phone. I felt selfish for wishing that were the case.

Eventually, darkness engulfed my surroundings, and I managed close my eyes, despite the lack of sleepiness.