In a fast food restaurant near the suburbs, a young male teacher and his student sit side by side on the swinging bench in the corner, they look at the screen of the laptop and whisper to each other. Their behavior seems a little mysterious, but at least they seem to have a good relationship.
"How do I use this?" clicking on the mouse, Shinji finds the browser not working, he hence passes the mouse to Wataru and says, "Wataru, you do it."
Wataru strikes him a teasing smile, "Told you to call me Yokoyama-sensei."
"No, I don't want to." while Shinji shakes his head, he mentions, "You are not my teacher. You are Wataru."
Shaking his head lightly, Wataru requests again, "At least use the word 'onegai'?"
Rolling his eyes in impatience, Shinji finally compromises, "Wataru, ONEGAI! PLEASE help!"
"That's better." with a wicked smile, Wataru said, then he turns to the laptop and comes to Shinji's aid.
First, Wataru connects his laptop to the free internet provided by the fast food restaurant, after the internet is successfully connected, Wataru opens the internet browser and clicks on the input bar, he types in the keywords.
"Eitsuma Nagasaki 1996..."
However, nothing related to the mass disappearing or mass slaughter of Class 1-1 seems to come up. Afterwards, Wataru tries changing the search keywords several times, he searches page by page, but unfortunately, still, nothing special comes up.
"How is it?" raising his eyebrows, Shinji leans over and asks, "Still nothing?"
Wataru shakes his head, "No, not surprising at all. The school must have covered the incident up." he said, "But worry not, the internet is very powerful. If we can't find anything on the internet, there must be someone out there who knows something about it. We can ask the netizens."
"How?" leaning closer, Shinji puts up a curious face.
"Forum." there, Wataru said, "We just need to post our question up, those people who knew about something related will leave a comment, then, we will send a personal message to them to know more." he mentioned, "Internet is dangerous, but at the same time, it is safe too, the netizens don't have to show their real identity, so they can say whatever they wanted to without worrying being caught or exposed."
With his face brightening up, Shinji grabs Wataru's arm and shakes him vigorously, "Then hurry up, ask them now."
"Such an impatient shonen, Izaki Shinji-kun." with a soft chuckle, Wataru teased. He then starts working on what they are here for.
Wataru first finds a famous forum with the most number of netizens in Japan, he registers as a new member and starts decorating the account. He chooses a pink teddy bear as his avatar, and he names the account 'Karina'. The content of his first post on the forum is as below.
"Minna-san! Nice to meet you all, this is my first post, yoroshiku ne! If there's anyone who knows anything about any bizarre incident that happened in Eitsuma Middle School in 1996, please share with me! Thank you, love you all!"
"Uwa, onna-poi!" making a dry retch, Shinji squeezes his cheeks, "What's with the girl name, Karina? And why do you have to act like a girl? Do you always talk like this on the internet?"
Raising his eyebrows, Wataru voices his concern, "People love to talk to girls, pretending to be a girl might be able to get more intel."
"Sugoi, mean tricks." shrugging his shoulders, Shinji said, he then asks, "So, now what?"
"We wait." crossing his arms, Wataru lays back on the swinging bench, "Until we get some valuable intel from the comments." he said.
"Okay then." jumping down from the bench, Shinji turns to the counter, "I'll go get some food."
"Lunch on me." tossing his wallet to Shinji, Wataru proposed, "Get a set for me too, anything will do."
With a pleased smile, Shinji heads to the counter with a skipping tone.
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Two hours later, around four in the evening, Shinji had already fallen asleep on the table. Wataru does not want to disturb him, but as he sees a suspicious comment appear beneath their post, he can't help but wake him up. He gently shakes on his shoulder, until Shinji gradually comes back to his senses. Shinji rubs his eyes as he lazily gets up from the table, he then gives a glance on the corner of the screen where Wataru is pointing at.
"What?" trying to open his eyes wide, Shinji asked in a hoarse voice, "Do we have something?"
With a light frown, Wataru mentions as he points at one of the comments, "Izaki Shinji-kun, you have to look at this."
There, beneath the post, a lot of comments are seen, but most of them are non-nutritive nonsense, whereas the last one is quite concerning. The user has a rock with an emoji as the avatar, and the account is named 'Rock House'. The content of the comment he left under the post is as below.
"Karina-chan, please return the book you took away from me will you? Love you! (Heart)"
"Uwa!" with a jump, Shinji exclaimed, "Ishiya-sensei!" there he called.
Rock House, Ishi Ya, it must be Ishiya-sensei.
"Ishiya-sensei? Your class teacher?" in a surprise expression, Wataru asks, "What book did you take from him?"
With a silly smile, Shinji scratches at the back of his head, "The commemoration book of 1996, I snuck it out of the office, I left it in my room before I came to the school last night..." he then waves his hand in front of the screen telling Wataru to scroll it away, "J-just ignore him, let's proceed to the next comment."
After refreshing the webpage, Wataru scrolls up and down browsing the comments below the post they created. While suddenly, Shinji slaps Wataru's arm telling him to stop. There, they see a comment written by a user without an avatar, the account name is 'Panda-Ojisan'. The content of the comment he wrote is as below.
"I remember there's a rumor about the headmaster having an affair with the teacher in the school.(smile)"
Unexpectedly, as they read this comment, Shinji suddenly laughs, "This is quite funny." he said, "We heard it from Yamaguchi-ojisan before."
Being curious about it, Wataru asks, "When did it happen?"
"1996." there, Shinji revealed.
"It happened in the same year when Class 1-1 disappeared?" could it be a coincidence? Or was it not?
Wataru thought there might be some connections between the two cases, moreover, this Panda-Ojisan might know more about anything that happened to the school twenty years ago, hence, Wataru sends a personal message to Panda-Ojisan.
Wataru types, "Hi Panda-Ojisan, I've read your comment under my post. Can you please tell me more about it?"
Soon, Panda-Ojisan replied, "Little girl, why are you interested in this matter?"
Wataru replies, "Because I'm about to enroll, I need to do my survey. How much do you know?"
Panda-Ojisan replied again, "I am a private investigator, I still have some cases on hand, but I'm now old, I'm not as active as before."
"So you must know many things!" typing swiftly on the keyboard, Wataru mentions, "What do you know about Eitsuma Middle School? Can I hear it?"
"It's been so long, I think there should be no problem if I tell you." there, Panda-Ojisan unveils, "At that time, I worked in my partner's investigator office, a woman came to me, she wanted to hire me to investigate her husband. Her husband is the headmaster of Eitsuma Middle School, his name is Murakawa Seiichiro, his wife is suspecting that he had an affair."
There, Shinji takes over the keyboard, he types, "I heard Murakawa-kocho was having an affair with a teacher in school, is that true?"
However, Panda-Ojisan denies, "Although the news wrote like that, but actually, it wasn't a teacher who was having an affair with the headmaster."
"It wasn't a teacher?" Shinji asked.
Panda-Ojisan then replied, "No, it wasn't. In fact, it was a female student."
Shinji frowns and gives Wataru a glance, "A student?" he typed and sent.
Soon, Panda-Ojisan replied again, "Yes. I was surprised when I found out the news reported in a different way, the headmaster's affair should be a student, but in the news afterwards, it turned out to be a teacher. It must be the teacher trying to protect her student, that is what I thought."
After pondering for a second, Shinji asks, "Do you remember their names? The teacher and the student."
Panda-Ojisan then replied, "Yes of course, I remember them clearly, because just days after the news was reported, the mass disappearance in Eitsuma Middle School happened. The list of the missing victims were in my colleague's hands, I saw the two of them were in the list too."
"Class 1-1..." mumbling in his lips, Shinji turns to Wataru.
Wataru looks back at Shinji, "They're definitely connected." he said.
Then, Shinji continues to ask deeper, "The teacher and student involved in the headmaster's affair, can you tell me their names? Panda-Ojisan."
"Sure, they should be dead anyway." then, Panda-Ojisan replies, "The teacher's name was Yukimuro Shizuka, and the student's name was Tomori Kokoro."
"Tomori Kokoro..." taking a sharp gasp, Shinji mumbles, "Kokoro-san?"
Seeing Shinji suddenly dazes, Wataru hits Shinji's arm with his elbow, he asks, "You knew her?"
Unexpectedly, Shinji nods, "Yes, I met her in the Forbidden Building."
Leaving a suspicious look on Shinji's face, Wataru then takes over the keyboard again, he types, "Panda-Ojisan, how did your colleague obtain the list of the missing victim?"
Soon, Panda-Ojisan replied, "At that time, the local authority and the media tried to cover up the case, but the parents of the students won't give up, they came to my colleague and hired her to investigate. I don't know the details, I just happened to hear their conversation and saw the list. As for how did she obtain the list, I know nothing about it."
His colleague, a girl investigator, she is a key person, she must know a lot about these cases.
Swiftly, Wataru types his message and sends it out, "Do you have the contact number of this colleague? Can I have it?"
"I used to have it, but it is from twenty years ago, I don't think it is usable." unfortunately, it seems like Panda-Ojisan can't contact her too, "She disappeared too during the investigation." he revealed.
In shocking faces, Shinji and Wataru give each other a glance.
"She vanished too?" there, Wataru asked, "May I know her name?"
Then, Panda-Ojisan replied, "Her name is Yokoyama Yuina, she is very young, she worked part time in the investigator office. I heard her studied in Eitsuma Middle School too."
Yokoyama Yuina, the private investigator's colleague, she was Yokoyama Wataru's sister.
"Onesan...?"