“ Loving someone always requires you to not love others. ”
Shinji slowly fell forward onto his face. Debris bounced up on impact. It took less than thirty seconds for the rest of his body to die. The memento of his beloved uncle--the earring worn by the woman he loved--was now stained with the blood running down Shinji's left ear, reflecting the glow from the red flames of the farm building.And so the boy known as the Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was dead.
~ Koushun Takami
That was it. Shogo stopped breathing. The dim yellow light falling from the ceiling of the pilothouse shone on his pale face. He seemed at ease.Shogo! Shuya yelled. He still had more to say. You'll see Keiko! You'll be happy with her! You're--It was too late. Shogo couldn't hear anything anymore. But his face just looked so damned peaceful.Damn it. Shuya's lips trembled along with his words. Damn it.Holding Shogo's hands, Noriko was crying.Shuya also put his hand on Shogo's thick hand. A thought occured to him. He searched through Shogo's pockets and found the red bird call. He pressed it into Shogo's right hand and closed his hands over it so he could hold it. Shuya then finally burst into tears.
They tried to believe in their classmates. They must have believed that if we could all get together, then we might end up being saved. We should commend them for that. We couldn't do that.
Furthermore--though it was quite irrelevant now--he had no idea his killer, Kazuo Kiriyama, had, in his mansion that was much larger than Toshinori's home in Shiroiwa-cho, mastered the violin at a level far superior to Toshinori's a long time ago--and then tossed his violin into the trash.
