The Innocent of Remembrance (Part 2)
At this moment, it occurred to them how different this shop was from the school environment in which they spent most of their time. It was like being in the depths of the earth, a place in which sunlight could not reach. The smell of degeneracy stung the nose—the smell of lingering stagnancy and discontent. It was the kind of place for which the term ‘den of iniquity’ was invented.
Standing here, Kaname and Sousuke faced a pair of problems. The first was that the man called Kusakabe had them surrounded with twenty of his allies, and none of them seemed happy to see the pair. The second was the history that man had mentioned sharing with Hayashimizu. Had their president really killed someone? How could that possibly be true?
“Hayashimizu-senpai killed someone? It can’t be...” Kaname said, dumbstruck.
“I’m sure it’s more complicated than that,” Sousuke replied, though he seemed similarly cowed.
Kusakabe gave them a sarcastic smile as they paused. “What’s with you two, eh? You forgot whatever business he sent you here on?”
“Well... the truth is, we came here to ask you about Hayashimizu-senpai, not to cause trouble,” Kaname started, casting an awkward glance at the two men Sousuke had laid out. “This was just... an unfortunate series of events.”
“Oh, yeah? Then if an ‘unfortunate series of events’ were to befall you guys, too... well, that’d just be the way of the world, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, I think that’s a different—”
“Like maybe I beat the shit outta you, strip you down naked, let the men have their way with you, then hang you upside-down in front of the Koma Theater,” Kusakabe mused. “That’d be unlucky as hell, right? A real ‘unfortunate series of events’.”
Kaname didn’t know how serious he was being, but one way or another, it seemed unlikely that he was about to let them go. “Well... I...”
There were twenty men, which was too many for even Sousuke to handle. He’d smuggled in his mini-shotgun loaded with its usual stun rounds, but he only had five or six shots at most.
Nevertheless, Sousuke spoke up with great confidence, “Chidori, are you ready?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what we’re doing... hoo boy...” Kaname reached into her bag.
That same instant, Kusakabe snapped his fingers. “Get ’em.”
The men moved. Most were unarmed, but some carried riot batons, knives, or bike chains. The angry men fell on them, shouting threateningly.
“Time to die, assholes!”
“We’ll teach you for pickin’ a fight with us!”
“Yeah, it’s payback time!”
But Sousuke had already produced a hand grenade. He pulled the pin, threw it onto the floor... and moments later, the grenade was putting out white smoke.
The hooligans started in shock. This wasn’t any ordinary smoke: it was teargas, designed for riot control. It invoked a stinging sensation in any exposed mucous membranes such as the eyes, nose, and throat, leading to a temporary paralysis of pure agony.
Sousuke had told Kaname in advance about this measure, so by the time the gas reached her face level, she was already wearing the gas mask she’d pulled out of her bag. Sousuke was just a few seconds behind her.
Meanwhile, the rest of the people in the room were left affected by the gas. The ventilation in the basement was poor from the start, so the teargas filled it immediately, transforming the shop into an echo chamber of screams and barks of anger. The men coughed and staggered around the room. Some clung to chairs, pillars, and walls. Some raced for the building’s door. Some swung their bats around in desperation.
The fire alarm, triggered by the gas, released its piercing wail... But the sprinklers didn’t activate. The room was host to cigarette smoke all the time, after all; the shop owner, sick of dealing with countless false alarms, must have shut the system off.
Kaname clicked her tongue behind the mask. “Not good. The police are gonna hear this and come running.” There would be a number of men collapsed at the top of the stairway after escaping the gas, and they’d be noticed by a local patrolman soon enough.
“We should leave and bring this man, Kusakabe, with us. We’ll question him outside.”
“Right. He should still be... Oh, there he is.”
The smokescreen had lifted to a certain degree, and Kusakabe, the gang’s apparent leader, was on the ground on all fours, writhing in pain. “D-Damn you...” he proclaimed between coughs.
Sousuke walked up to Kusakabe and pressed a stun gun to his neck. Eighty thousand volts of electric current knocked the man unconscious on the spot. “Right. Let’s go.”
“Not to be negative or anything, but we basically just broke in and kidnapped a guy, right?” Kaname observed as they hefted the unconscious Kusakabe onto their shoulders and left the chaotic bar behind.
Sousuke and Kaname proceeded to haul Kusakabe several hundred meters to the nearby Hanazono Shrine. This meant walking through a crowd while dragging an unconscious man along with them, but nobody seemed particularly alarmed by the sight. Despite the relatively early hour, they probably looked like two people hauling a drunk friend off from a mixer.
There weren’t very many people in the shrine grounds, and the hustle and bustle of the nearby red light district seemed to fade like the memories of a dream. They sat down on the stairs and nursed Kusakabe back to consciousness. After about ten minutes, he finally seemed to catch his breath.
“You okay?” Kaname asked.
“The hell I’m okay... Sheesh. You people’re crazy... Who the hell even are you?” Kusakabe responded weakly. For some reason, he didn’t seem particularly angry—he must have been used to this sort of kill-or-be-killed lifestyle. If anything, he seemed curious about Sousuke and Kaname.
But Sousuke spoke up in an intimidating tone. “You’re our hostage. We’ll ask the questions here. How cooperative you are will determine how well we treat you.”
“Gotcha.”
“Simply tell us everything you know about President Hayashimizu, and I will guarantee you respectful treatment. We’ll even give you a warm place to sleep.”
“Y’know, the only places to sleep around here are love hotels...” Kusakabe grumbled.
“I don’t know what that means, but I’m sure it won’t be an issue. However, if you refuse to cooperate—” Sousuke slowly pulled out a black combat knife. “—You’ll never see the morning light again. Your dead body will be left to the elements, used to fertilize the grass of the fields. If you want to avoid that fate—”
“Would you knock it off already?” Kaname whapped Sousuke on the back of the head.
“...But the man seems unlikely to simply reveal what he knows.”
“Just leave this to me, okay?” she said. “Kusakabe-san, was it? Are you a third-year?”
“Yeah,” the man replied sulkily.
“Okay... like we said before, we’re Hayashimizu-san’s kohai at school. We came to your shop because we wanna learn more about his past.”
“Yeah, sure. Ain’t nothin’ I wanna talk about more than the old times with that bastard,” Kusakabe said sarcastically.
“He’s not a bastard,” Kaname protested. “He might be... strange, and petty, and underhanded, and thoughtless, and untrustworthy... but...”
“I think most people’d call that a bastard, lady.”
“Hmm, fair enough.”
“Chidori,” Sousuke broke in to ask, “Is that true?”
Unable to mount an argument at that moment, Kaname and Sousuke simply folded their arms at each other.
Kusakabe let out a small laugh in response, inviting a questioning look from the pair. “You guys are crazy or something,” he told them. “Why d’you care about any of this? What are you gonna do with the info?”
“Nothing, really. It’s just that we’ve heard a bunch of weird rumors recently. And I know it’s not good to pry into somebody’s past... but I can’t help wondering,” Kaname responded unsteadily.
Kusakabe narrowed his eyes at her carefully. “You really wanna know?”
“Yeah.”
“You swear you won’t tell nobody?”
“Yes, I swear. Sousuke?”
“I swear. I promise.” Sousuke raised a hand.
Kusakabe let out a snort and slumped over. “Okay. I’ll tell you, then. Here, look at this.” He pulled a picture out of his wallet. It was an old picture, beat-up around the corners, of a group of three people. The first was Kusakabe, who looked younger than he was now—most likely in middle school—and wore his hair in dreadlocks. The second was a young person, taller than him, dressed in a well-kept blazer uniform, but whose face couldn’t be seen, as it had been blacked out with marker. A girl of roughly fourteen or fifteen stood between them, grinning.
“Who’s the girl?” Sousuke asked.
“Niiura Tomoko. She’s dead now,” said Kusakabe, as indifferently as if he were describing yesterday’s weather.
“Dead?” Kaname took another look at the girl in the photo, Niiura Tomoko. She had bushy eyebrows and very short dyed hair, as well as crooked teeth. You couldn’t exactly call her beautiful, but she had a warm and friendly manner. ‘Unassuming’ might be the right word—her cheerful smile suggested a person of unbridled honesty. It was almost unthinkable to Kaname that someone so brimming with life could be dead.
“That’s Hayashimizu next to her,” Kusakabe pointed out, “but I got sick of seein’ his stupid face, so I blacked it out.”
“How did you know each other?” Sousuke asked.
“Good question. It wasn’t exactly your typical friend group. It all started three years ago...” Hesitantly, Kusakabe began to open up about his past. The life he’d led back then wasn’t very different from the life he led now: he hung out with a similar group of guys, and if they ran out of money, they’d shake someone down or pick a fight. Then, one day, he’d met a strange girl. Her name was Niiura Tomoko.
“I think it was around summer, my third year in middle school,” Kusakabe said, as if reliving a very old memory. “Tomoko was my age, but she didn’t go to school—one of those ‘perpetual truant’ types you hear about. She didn’t spend much time at home, either, just crashed at my place every night. And spent some nights outdoors, too.”
“Outdoors?”
“It was how she was rollin’ when I first met her. I think it was a shrine just like this... I saw her sittin’ alone at night, and I went up to hit on her. It was mostly teasing; I figured she’d get freaked out and run off. But instead, she grabbed my arm and said, ‘Take me home with you. I’ll make it worth your while.’ So...”
Out of curiosity, Kusakabe had let Niiura Tomoko stay with him. His father was dead, and his mother worked nights as a nurse, so there was nobody to object to the arrangement. She continued to crash there from then on.
“Were you together every night?” Kaname asked. “You and this... Niiura girl?”
“Not every night, but most nights. Weirdly enough, nothin’ happened between us. Did you think it did?” Kusakabe laughed.
Upon realizing that he’d seen through her question, Kaname turned her eyes downward with a blush.
“Tomoko didn’t really have what you’d call ‘feminine appeal’... but she was fun. The morning after the first night she stayed over, she wandered off. Then that night, she came back with this boatload of drinks, snacks, instant stuff... Just arms full of it. That’s how she made it ‘worth my while.’ But she didn’t have very much money, so how do you think she got it?”
“Shoplifting?” Kaname asked, hesitantly.
“Yep. But here’s the unbelievable part—she said she stole it all from a single neighborhood convenience store. Just came and went a buncha times. Talk about your spaced-out counter clerks, huh?”
“No way!” Kaname had to laugh. Obviously, there was nothing admirable about shoplifting, but she couldn’t really help herself.
“Right? Pretty funny, huh?”
Kaname laughed. “Yeah, it really is. What a character.”
While Kaname and Kusakabe quietly laughed together, Sousuke simply looked confused.
“She also stole a Colonel Sanders statue, a reach extender from the station platform... all kinds of stuff like that. And I dunno how she did it, but she actually stole a riot shield from a police box.”
“That’s crazy!”
“She really had a knack for the sticky-fingers stuff,” Kusakabe agreed. “Just one thing after another. Meanwhile, I felt like I’d taken in a stray cat. It was nice comin’ home and feelin’ like I wasn’t alone. I introduced her to my gang and we hung out together, just havin’ a nice time.”
Kusakabe and Tomoko’s life, together but with a respectful distance, had lasted for over a month.
“Her real talent was stealin’ mopeds,” he told them. “She could do that all day. She didn’t have money to take the train, so we’d leave my place in Nogata, jack a moped from the station, then ride it to Shinjuku and Nakano to mess around. We’d abandon that one there and steal a new one when it was time to go home. But we didn’t have licenses or helmets, so it’s a miracle we never got caught.”
“Wow. Did you hear that, Sousuke? This Tomoko girl was as crazy as you are.”
“I’ve never engaged in petty theft, myself. But what relationship did she have to President Hayashimizu?” Sousuke asked.
At this, Kusakabe’s expression first became dangerous, then clouded over with grief. “Hayashimizu... Yeah. Tomoko started acting weird after she met him.” His tone became grave, and he continued his story.
It had all started when Kusakabe got in trouble one day after having a scuffle with a yakuza underling. Kusakabe hadn’t hurt the man very badly at all, but several days later, he’d found himself accosted on a street corner, being told to pay 300,000 yen as ‘compensation for damages.’ Tomoko was with him at the time, and they’d ended up taking her back to their headquarters as collateral.
“Three hundred thousand?!” Kaname’s eyes opened wide.
“Didn’t they have health insurance?” Sousuke’s brow furrowed.
“More like ‘pain and suffering’ stuff... But lookin’ back on it now, I gotta admit they were takin’ it easy on me,” Kusakabe told them.
“Really?”
“Yeah. The yakuza are serious business. Real serious business. If they offer to let you settle things with cash, you take the deal,” Kusakabe whispered.
In that moment, Kaname felt like he looked strangely mature. “So, did you pay?”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Like I had that kind of money. So I asked a friend of mine, Mari, what I should do.”
“Mari?”
“Yeah. She’s a girl, but she’s tough and smart. Mari said she had a childhood friend in the area who was good at dealin’ with that kind of thing. And the guy she introduced me to was Hayashimizu.”
“I see...”
When Hayashimizu Atsunobu had appeared in front of Kusakabe, he was in his third year at Kousei Middle, the elite private middle school. He was tall and slender, with strikingly intelligent almond eyes, and a cold air about him that was difficult to quantify. He seemed annoyed about the trouble, but agreed to help out after hearing more about the situation.
Kusakabe had an in with an underground gambling ring that played high-stakes poker every night at a particular apartment. Hayashimizu had told him to take him there, and in one night they’d managed to multiply the 30,000 yen they had brought with them tenfold.
“It was like magic,” Kusakabe said, breathlessly. “The term ‘poker face’ was invented for that guy. He said, ‘if you do some quick probability calculations, it’s not difficult to estimate the opponent’s hand’... But a third-year in a middle school cleanin’ out veteran hustlers? The guy was wicked.” One way or another, he was then able to give the yakuza their 300,000 yen, so they’d let Tomoko go unharmed.
“Oh? That’s good to hear.” Kaname, who was listening to the story with bated breath, sighed in relief.
“It’s not like I wasn’t grateful to the guy, but... I’d never seen Tomoko so happy about anything. She fell for Hayashimizu hard.” After that, Kusakabe explained, the three of them began hanging out as a group. An honor student, a delinquent and a runaway... It was a very strange trio indeed.
Tomoko was their leader. She would wait for Hayashimizu in front of his school’s gate after classes and practically drag him along with her into the city. She did the same with Kusakabe, and led the two of them around wherever she wanted to go. Shopping districts, aquariums, parks, libraries... Kusakabe and Hayashimizu would both complain, but they always went along. And through her mediation, they gradually became friends. Or at least, so Kusakabe thought at the time... and for a while, that remained the status quo.
“It all started getting weird around October or so,” he continued.
“Weird?”
“Yeah. Tomoko suddenly stopped askin’ us to hang out. She was still crashin’ at my place, but she was hardly ever there. She’d come staggerin’ in in the morning, sleep two or three hours, then head back on out. Over and over again.”
“Where was she going?” Kaname asked.
“To Hayashimizu,” Kusakabe responded, his voice taking on a slightly vicious tone, and Kaname could see the evening shadows of the shrine etched deeply on his face.
Kusakabe would ask Tomoko where she had gone or what she was doing, but she’d never say. She’d just say she was going to see a guy or that she was tired and didn’t want to talk about it. “I didn’t like it, okay? I talked to my gang and they said she was probably screwing the bastard,” he went on. “I thought so, too.”
Kaname listened silently.
“I still don’t know what they were doin’ together. Don’t wanna know, either. All I know is she got more and more tired every day I saw her. It hurt to watch.”
“You’re sure there wasn’t some kind of misunderstanding?” asked Kaname. “Like she got a part-time job somewhere?”
“No way, she was as broke as ever. But one thing I know for sure is she was goin’ to Hayashimizu’s house. I tailed her one time to be sure.” Kusakabe pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. Then he released a slow breath of smoke. “I didn’t like Tomoko romantically or nothin’,” he clarified, “but it bugged me. It really bugged me. That bastard... just treatin’ Tomoko like a toy. I was like, what the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“What happened then?”
“Hah... What happened then, huh? That’s how the story ends. It’s a sad and lousy end... but Tomoko died.”
“She... died?” Even though she’d known it was coming, Kaname felt a sting of pain in her chest.
“It was an accident on the road. She was ridin’ one of her stolen mopeds, cruisin’ around... and got hit by a dump truck at an intersection. Clean snap of the neck. Body was in good condition, at least. Silver linings, right?” Kusakabe spoke bluntly, again, as if discussing yesterday’s weather.
“Then, Hayashimizu-senpai...”
“Yeah. I guess it’s a little much to say he killed her. It was Tomoko’s fault for drivin’ recklessly along Kannana without a license or a helmet,” he admitted. “But... it happened on her way back from his place, and she was always exhausted from lack of sleep, so I say he’s at least partly to blame. If he’d cared about her even a little, it never would’ve happened. That’s what I can’t stop tellin’ myself.”
He fell silent a few moments more, and a clump of ash fell from the cigarette in his mouth.
“The only reason I didn’t beat the shit out of him then and there is ’cause I owed him. He’d be dead right now if not for that,” Kusakabe muttered. “I didn’t wanna look at his stupid face, so I just told him over the phone that she was dead, and that was that. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.”
“But last week...”
“Yeah. Last week, a buddy of mine pulled him into the shop. My first time seein’ him in three years. And what does the bastard do?” There was rage in his voice as he chomped down on the cigarette and spat the filter onto the ground. “The first time I see him after all that time, all he wants to know is Tomoko’s home address. To ‘pay his respects’ or whatever. Asshole.”
“Her home address?” Kaname asked curiously. “Do you know what it is?”
“Yeah. But all that stuff about contacting the family after she died, I left to the police. I never actually met Tomoko’s parents.”
“Did you tell him what it was?” Sousuke asked, despite having been relatively quiet throughout the recitation of prior events.
Kusakabe shook his head. “Nah, I just threw him out on his ass. Knew I’d lose my temper if I didn’t. I even got pissed and broke a chair in front of him... and the bastard actually paid for it! Lookin’ down on me, what else is new...”
“Aha. So that’s what that was.” That explained why Hayashimizu had given the man money, and Kaname was vaguely relieved about it.
Kusakabe glared at her as he noticed her reaction. “What’re you so happy about, huh?”
“Er...”
“He’s a bastard,” he insisted. “Three years without seein’ him once, and all he does is ask me Tomoko’s home address. Didn’t even say he was sorry for what happened. He’s cold-blooded to the core. A rotten damn egg.”
“But—” Kaname was about to argue.
Kusakabe interrupted, sticking out a finger at her as if it was a gun. “But what? There ain’t nothin’ you can say. He’s garbage. He pretends to be some elite master of all he surveys, but what he’s really doin’ is just lookin’ down at the rest of us. The face, the voice, the way he acts; I don’t like none of it.” He looked like he’d physically attack Kaname if she tried to argue. It would be enough to intimidate most people, but...
“Kusakabe-san, you’re an idiot,” Kaname said without thinking.
Kusakabe’s glare grew darker. “What was that?”
“It’s been three years and you still haven’t worked out your own feelings,” she pointed out. “You can’t, because you blame everything on Hayashimizu-senpai. Are you sure you’re not lying to yourself about what really matters?”
Murderous anger rose from Kusakabe’s body like an aura, yet Kaname wasn’t cowed.
“Sorry to presume and all, but it’s pretty obvious to me that you were jealous of Senpai,” she insisted. “You really liked—”
“Don’t you dare,” Kusakabe said dangerously, raising his hand as if to slap Kaname.
“—Tomoko, didn’t you?” Kaname finished, before tensing up.
But before he could do it, Sousuke seized his arm tightly, his expression remaining blank.
“Ngh...” Kusakabe stared at his raised hand and, after a few seconds, shook his head as if he’d snapped out of a dream. “Yeah, whatever,” he whispered. Then he relaxed and slowly stood up with a deep sigh, brushing away the pebbles that clung to his seat. “You got it all wrong, okay? I don’t wanna hear crap from some stupid broad who don’t know shit... Who the hell d’you think you are?”
“I’m sorry,” Kaname said genuinely.
“Anyway... that’s the whole story. Nothin’ more to say. Satisfied?”
“Yeah. For now, anyway. Thanks a bunch.”
“Yeah, any time.” Kusakabe looked down at her with a slightly tired expression. “You guys said you were his kohai, right? At what school?”
“Metropolitan Jindai High.”
“Jin... dai?” Upon hearing that, Kusakabe frowned for a moment. He looked up at the night sky as if something was tickling his memory... then he shook his head. “Never heard of it. Well, whatever.” He turned away immediately. “Later. And tell him this... Next time we meet, I ain’t holdin’ back.”
“You...”
“I’ll seriously beat the shit out of him. All debts aside,” Kusakabe Kyoya said coldly, then departed from their sight.
Sousuke and Kaname simply remained where they were for a time. Then, realizing there was no reason to remain, they slowly stood up and headed home.
The Keio line train they took home was packed with people returning from work. Kaname and Sousuke stood side by side, pressed together in the crush. Even though she was able to keep her bag between them, knowing that her arms and knees were touching Sousuke’s had Kaname feeling extremely alert.
“This is... pretty serious, isn’t it?” she said, speaking at last around the time they passed Sasazuka Station. “I always figured Senpai’s life was smooth sailing. I can’t believe he went through something like that...”
The awful things that the Komaoka Academy student president had said about Hayashimizu had probably originated from the simple fact that he’d kept company with the likes of Kusakabe and Tomoko. It also more or less explained what the secretary, Mikihara Ren, had witnessed.
“But... there’s still so much I don’t understand,” she said plaintively. “What was he doing with her all that time?”
Three years ago, Hayashimizu had been doing something in private with Niiura Tomoko. They hadn’t learned what it was, but Kusakabe’s description made it seem like there was something unseemly going on between them. On top of that, how did he feel about Tomoko’s death? Was he not sad about it? Didn’t he feel any responsibility at all?
“Chidori.” Sousuke, who had been silent since the shrine, finally spoke up as well.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s stop it.”
“Stop what? Stop investigating?”
“Yes.”
“Why? We still haven’t—” She looked up and saw that his face was far closer than she expected it to be. It was his usual sullen expression, but there seemed to be a slight change in it: Sousuke was irritated. Kaname fell silent.
“It doesn’t feel good to have your own past investigated,” he continued.
In that instant, Kaname remembered that she barely knew anything about Sousuke’s past. When he talked about growing up in a rural area full of landmines, it sounded a bit comical... but it really wasn’t, was it? He probably had more than his share of painful memories that he didn’t want to talk about, that he didn’t want known. Was he not thinking about anything related to Hayashimizu, but about how unpleasant it would be if his own wounds were dragged into the open?
“You’re right,” she said after a pause. “We’ll stop prying, then.”
“Good.”
Standing aboard the rumbling, packed train, Kaname laid her head against Sousuke’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Well... you haven’t done anything wrong.”
They didn’t say another word after that.
It was the next day, after class. The sky was clear and blue, and the school was lively with student activity. While the classroom was still noisy, Kaname fought with the task she had been working through all during class—a list of equipment needed for the upcoming training camp.
“Let’s see... one amp, two speakers, a projector... extension cords of appropriate length, five, six, seven... ugh, it’s so annoying!” She mussed up her hair angrily. She flipped through the documents further and clicked her tongue quietly. “Hey, Sousuke!”
“Yes?” Sousuke responded while in the middle of loading hand grenades into his bag nearby.
“What’s this metal detector doing on here?” she demanded to know. “And why are there dogs on the list?!”
“Necessary items for security. Three well-trained Dobermans will—”
“No way! You can play guard dog on your own!”
“Hmph.”
Just then, Tokiwa Kyoko ran into the classroom, gasping for breath. “Kana-chan,” she wheezed, “emergency!”
“What is it?”
“There’s a bunch of delinquents from somewhere or other massed around the front gate. They’re really scary-looking, and they’re shouting, ‘bring out Hayashimizu!’”
Kaname and Sousuke shared a glance.
They ran to the gate, only to find it mobbed. They moved through the crowd and came out the other side.
Kusakabe Kyoya stood there, astride a large motorcycle. There were eight other motorcyclists with him. The delinquent gang revved their engines, glaring at the crowd of students who were watching from a safe distance.
Hayashimizu Atsunobu was already there. He didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid as he stood facing the delinquents.
“Pretty confident, eh?”
“Yeah?!”
“You too scared to talk?”
The lackeys were jeering at Hayashimizu, while the rest of the posse cackled with glee.
“This isn’t good,” Kaname said.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Sousuke agreed. They were about to step out, when...
“Sagara-kun. Chidori-kun,” Hayashimizu said with a tone of utmost calm.
“Senpai?”
“I appreciate your concern, but please stay out of this.”
“But—”
“No need to worry.” The sunlight reflecting off of his glasses hid Hayashimizu’s expression. But... at the very least, from a distance, he looked entirely like his usual self.
“Quiet down,” Kusakabe said, and the roaring engine noise immediately died down, leaving a strange silence in its wake. Within the silence, Kusakabe got down off of his bike and swaggered slowly towards Hayashimizu.
“I’m impressed you knew where to find me,” Hayashimizu said.
Kusakabe shot a glance in Kaname and Sousuke’s direction. “No big. Just shows even a worthless piece of shit like you has kohai who care about him.”
“That explains things.” Hayashimizu looked briefly at Kaname and Sousuke, with a quiet smile on his face. “Now, how can I help you?”
“I came here to beat the shit outta you in front of everyone. And I ain’t gonna stop until you choke out a ‘sorry’ while weepin’ like a little baby,” Kusakabe said, in a voice of merciless calm.
Hayashimizu stared straight at him in response, and slightly—very slightly—his expression took on a note of sorrow. “You won’t do that.”
“The hell you say?!”
“You already know that there would be no point in doing so. No point whatsoever. That is your—our greatest tragedy.”
“You son of a—” Kusakabe’s eyes widened in anger, and he raised his fist.
Sousuke didn’t interfere, and Kaname and all the other students simply tensed up and closed their eyes. But just as Hayashimizu had predicted, Kusakabe didn’t strike.
“That’s right. I was just jokin’ around.” He slowly lowered his arm and opened his fist to reveal a scrap of notebook paper. “That’s her home address. Go on and light a stick of incense for her... If her family’s even set up an altar in the house.” Kusakabe spat the words out, then shoved the paper into Hayashimizu’s hand and went to retrieve his motorcycle.
“Kyoya,” Hayashimizu said to his back.
“What now?”
“Thank you.”
Kusakabe stared at him for a moment in non-comprehension. Then he rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “Whatever. Wish you could just act a little scared or somethin’... that’s what really gets under my skin about you. Yeesh...” Then he mounted his bike and drove off.
The rubberneckers that had gathered around the school gate dispersed while Hayashimizu remained where he was, eyes on the paper in his hand. Then, abruptly, he turned to Kaname and Sousuke, who were standing nearby. “Come with me,” he said as casually as could be, then started heading out the school gate without them.
Kaname and Sousuke shared a glance, then followed.
“It appears you heard most of the story from him, correct?” Hayashimizu asked as they walked the road that ran around the school grounds.
“Well, we just... I... I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s mostly true—I was once the man he described.”
Kaname fell silent.
“I know it’s pointless to deny it, regardless,” Hayashimizu continued. “Back then, I was seen by my family and teachers as a prodigy with high prospects. And, embarrassingly, that went to my head. Had I remained as I was, I likely would have held even people like you in contempt.”
Kaname found herself thinking back on Shiohara from Komaoka Academy.
“Did he tell you about Niiura Tomoko?” Hayashimizu asked.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“She was a unique person. Truly unique. Society’s rules simply couldn’t hold her—a person untouched by loneliness and sorrow. At the very least, that’s what I thought then. But at first, I held her in contempt. You could even say that I despised her.”
“Despised her?”
“She caused me no end of trouble. I lectured her many times, told her to stop stealing, told her to turn over a new leaf, begin studying, advance to high school. I told her that she would never get a decent job otherwise. Quite absurd, coming from me.”
“I see...”
“And then one day, suddenly...” Hayashimizu paused briefly. “She declared to me, ‘I’m going to get into high school, just like you told me to.’”
“She did?”
“Yes. There was a particular school to which she had aspired to for some time, she told me. She asked me to tutor her; I was a prodigy, after all.”
But the school she’d wanted to attend seemed far out of her reach.
“She was a perpetual truant, as you know, and her grades were poor. I told her repeatedly to give up on her choice, but she refused. With no other option, I resigned myself to tutoring her. I gave her long problem sheets and told her to have them completed by the next day.”
Impressively, though, she always returned with her assignment complete. In the evening, she would arrive at Hayashimizu’s house and hand in her homework. She would stay in his room until late in the evening while he went over what she’d done wrong, then go home. Over and over again.
She had also asked him to keep it secret from Kusakabe at all costs.
“Why?” Kaname asked.
“He would laugh at her, she said, but I don’t believe that was the only reason. Kyoya frequently used to say that Tomoko was ‘stupider’ than he was, and that was the reason he had to look after her. She would laugh when she told me that... but I think perhaps it really did bother her. One way or another, her passion was genuine.”
Hard work truly could work miracles, and from an outside viewpoint, her academic ability had skyrocketed in a single month. Hayashimizu began to think she really might get into her desired school as an alternate, and worked even harder to teach her.
“But that was... a mistake,” he said, his voice tinged with pain. He was walking ahead of them, so they couldn’t make out his expression. “That night, she didn’t arrive. The next day, either. Then I received a call from Kusakabe Kyoya, who said she had died in an accident.”
Kaname said nothing.
“He was crying over the phone, but I didn’t cry,” Hayashimizu admitted. “I hung up, returned to my usual lessons, watched the news, and then slept peacefully. I did the same thing the next day, and the day after that. Over and over. My peaceful routine had returned.” He’d continued to get the top grades in his class. There were negative rumors that went around about him, but they didn’t alter his elite lifestyle. Had things continued like that, he would have been able to get into a top-ranked school.
Kaname, Sousuke, and Hayashimizu had turned the corner of the school property and entered a narrow back alley. To the right of them was the school, and to the left were apartments.
What are we doing here? Kaname wondered suspiciously.
It was then that Hayashimizu stopped and turned back. “The school she so desperately wanted to join—do you know what school that was?”
“I don’t know.”
“Metropolitan Jindai High School,” he answered.
Kaname and Sousuke both stared.
“Jindai? But why?” Kaname asked.
“I didn’t know. She refused to tell me—she simply said it was ‘a silly little reason.’” Hayashimizu turned his eyes downward, his expression melancholy. “I then spent two and half years there, and still failed to figure it out.”
“Wait,” said Kaname. “You mean... the reason you came to Jindai was...”
“Correct. Everyone in my life opposed the decision. My parents were furious.” Hayashimizu smiled self-effacingly and sighed. “Now,” he said then, suddenly back to his usual self as he retrieved the piece of paper he’d been given. “By a stroke of good fortune, I have acquired her home address. According to this... she originally lived here. I can’t believe it was this close the whole time.” He pointed to an old five-story apartment building across the street from the school. “Heim Sengawa, apartment 403. Will you join me?”
They rang the doorbell of Apartment 403. A woman of just over forty answered, but turned out to be unrelated to Tomoko in any way. Instead, she explained that the Niiura family had moved away two years ago. “The neighbor said that the husband was abusive,” she told them. “He was a layabout, never worked a decent job, just hung around drinking all day...” There was a slight edge to the woman’s voice.
“Do you mind if we come in for a moment?” Hayashimizu asked politely.
“Eh? Ah... all right. Only for a few minutes, though.”
Kaname and Sousuke followed him inside, briefly passing through the living room to make their way out onto the veranda. From there, they could see the entirety of Jindai High School. The baseball, soccer, and track teams were all practicing vigorously on the athletic fields. In a corner of the courtyard, a group of men in rugger shirts were busily cleaning up. On the tennis courts, a group of female students were hanging out and laughing.
It was easy to see inside the building, too. Boys in the classrooms were playing around. A teacher tripped in the hallway, scattering papers everywhere, and a nearby colleague helped her clean them up. On the roof, there was a couple getting romantic, gazing at the setting sun in the western sky.
It looked like the most peaceful place in the world.
The three of them gazed at it silently for a while. It had most likely looked this exact same way, even when Tomoko was a child.
“It’s a great view, isn’t it?” Kaname whispered.
Sousuke nodded. “Yes. I consider myself a fortunate man.”
“I consider myself one, as well,” Hayashimizu agreed. “It’s only a shame that I can’t thank her... She’s the one who brought me here.”
〈Innocent of Remembrance (Part 2)〉
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