“I am not smart, I am not pretty.” This is what Kiyoshi Toyoda’s sister had written before leaping from the top of their twelve-story apartment building some time before dawn, leaving her body to be discovered by an old man on his early morning walk. Kiyoshi woke to the sudden commotion of wails and pounding feet, the heavy clang of their apartment door opening and slamming shut. They did not find the note until several hours later; Mai had propped it up on her desk, next to a box of tissues. She had been fifteen years old.
Although Kiyoshi had never been close to his sister, he felt the ripping of something inside him, the rending ache of shock and disbelief. Only yesterday he had seen her as he set his schoolbag down on the kitchen table and got himself something to drink out of the refrigerator. She was sitting on the living room couch, still in her school uniform, watching television while eating from a bag of potato chips. He had not spoken to her. Although he was only a year and half older than Mai, he took no real interest in the dull minutiae of her life: the silliness of her Ayumi Hamasaki albums, the clutter of fashion magazines, lip glosses, and hair elastics that she left strewn about the house. He had gone with his soda to his room and closed the door. That was the last time he saw his sister alive.