"I Really, Really don't want to be here." I couldn't help but say through gritted teeth as my hands were shackled to the desk I was now seated in.
I was of course in an interrogation room in downtown Tokyo, now you wanna why I was here? Funny thing is I suddenly got an arrest warrant put out on me and a whole JSDF Squad came and took me into custody with plenty of police officers from my home, only good thing was nobody was at my house at the time or there was a veritable chance of a bloodbath happening.
And not wanting to kill cops I let them take me away before tossing me in this interrogation room, but I had a fairly good idea why I was here.
Soon enough the door opened and an old man with a scar across his face came into the room, he seemed familiar but then I remembered him when he was younger than he was now thanks to the childhood Hifumi's memories.
"Ahh…. Now it makes sense why I'm here…. So my old man told you my response Uncle Tachibana?" I said as he could hear the clear venom in my voice which made him stop before pulling the chair he had here across from me and sitting down to look at me.
"…. Alright I will get to the point, why is it that you don't want to marry my daughter?" He said not seeing the point in trying to use scare tactics with me as he could clearly see I'm not afraid of him.
"Oh I got several reasons, how about I'm already in a relationship with a girl and we are both happily in love with each other, several girls to be frank and we are all live together quiet well if you've done your homework on me, and I don't think you are all that enthused with thrusting your frail and weak daughter into a situation like that now do yooooou~" I say as that's the most obvious reason out of the few I have to say.
I could hear his teeth grinding while he was holding back his anger since he has done his research and knows I have my own harem of women that I'm in relationships with and their seems to be no issues and that's definitely a situation he doesn't want his daughter in.
But the alternative made him sick to his stomach more than what I said, so he took a deep breath and calm down, "That's not an issue, you know that Polygamy is no longer illegal in this country due to the steady decline in birthrates, and while I don't like it so long as my Marika is first wife then I will not care about the rest."
"Okay then let's go onto the second problem that you should already know about, Marika isn't in love with me whatsoever, and she was the one who told me she wasn't in love with me but in love with…. It's been awhile I know it starts with an R and it's on the tip of my tongue…." I say with a bit of sarcasm but who I was talking about pissed him off more.
"There is no way in hell I'm letting my daughter marry Raku Ichijō!" He said with a shout as he slammed his fist into the metal table with enough strength to dent it from the force alone.
"But the fact still stands that she loves him and she didn't love me, broke my heart into pieces and she didn't feel bad about it all, you know how nonchalant she was when she said those things to me? It was as if the time we spent together for that summer didn't mean shit to her!" I say slamming my fist down into the table, but much harder than him causing the metal table to completely collapse from the force, surprising him completely as a result.
While I, as both Six and later Iseri in my last life, wasn't hurt by what happened, my memories as Hifumi was devastated by what she did to me, and being here was physically making me sick to my core.
"It's funny really, I don't have anything against Raku but I remember that I spent more time playing with her then he did, spent the majority of my summer keeping her company because of her illness made it so she couldn't go out and play with the rest of us, I felt bad for her so I went out of my way to play with her so she wouldn't feel left out, at first I did it because my mom said I should but as the days went on I genuinely liked playing with her you know that?" I say before putting my hand above and below the bent metal table and used the strength in my arms to bend it back into its proper position, surprising Gen more so.
I placed my elbows on the table before resting my chin on top of my hands, "You remember that I got her a hair pin that I had made from a small sunflower that my mom helped make it permanent so it would never wither and fall apart, she said she loved it, next day she was feeling good enough to come out and play with the rest of us." I said reminiscing on the past from what I remembered.
"Raku saw that I made a hairpin for her and he thought of a great idea to make a hairpin for everyone, though he said to be fair I needed to make one for the other girls too, I didn't really want to but I agreed and so Marika got another hair pin from Raku, a orange tulip if I remember right, while me and him made our own hair clips for the other two girls, but I can't quite remember because I didn't really care." I say explaining things as I remembered them since Gen and the rest of our parents didn't watch us that closely and only knew who was their that summer and what important things everyone said and did.
"Then the day before you two would leave me and her would end up making that promise between me and her, something I remember that you were happy about and approved, then Raku came up with the idea of keeping promises with locked pendants and keys, I remember thinking that was cool so me and him got lock pendants while all the girls got their specific keys from what I could recall, and Marika's key was meant for our locket, and what I put in there was….. I can't quite remember what it was but maybe it was the promise that when we were adults we'd get married before she locked in and kept it." I say before I pull my head off of my hands.
"And then that fateful day came, the day you both were to move away and you know what happened, I can't remember what she said to me but I remember that she didn't want to get married to me when she was older, maybe when she made that promise with me the day before she didn't even know what marriage actually meant, that shocked me and made me sad from hearing her say that." I rapping my fingers over the table.
"But what made it worse was when she tossed the hairpin I worked hard to have made for out her bedroom window, shocking me to my core making me run outside to go and get it while I looked up and she had closed the window and disappeared from my sight." I say to which his face darkens as he clearly didn't know that she went that far as he thought she had just lost it.
"I was feeling a wave of emotions I never felt before in my entire life, I ran, I ran and ran and ran until I couldn't run anymore before finding myself before the river where we all would play by." I say while looking at my left hand feeling like I was holding that hairpin once more.
I gritted my teeth and grabbed at my collar and pulled away as what I saw was my imagination of my old lock pendant in my right hand as well, "I ripped off my pendant, looked at it one last time before throwing both of those things into the river before falling to my knees and crying my heart out from how hurt I was from what she did to me, I can't remember how long I was there but it was long enough that the sun had set that my mother was the one to find me sobbing and crying by the river before she helped bring me home."
"They asked me what happened but I never told them what happened or else we wouldn't even be here right now, and that event was life changing for the worse you know that? Until recently I couldn't trust women and the thought of love with another person disgusted me to my very core, I stopped taking care of myself becoming fat and obese, and worse of all I distanced myself from everyone around me, my family, my friends, everyone that matter to me I didn't want to interact with them and became a hardcore otaku that wrote various fanfictions on stories I liked." I said making him lower his head as I could feel that he was now feeling shame for both what he has done for me today and for what his daughter had done to me back then.
"And it wasn't until a little while after my old house burned down and I was living in an apartment by myself that I nearly died, yeah I nearly died choking to death on hard ramen, and that was the moment I realized that what I was doing wasn't right, was I really going to die while being dragged down by the past? No I wasn't so I changed you know, and you can see the clear results of my training Uncle Gen, I got better lost several hundred pounds, changing my fat for muscle,interacting with people and finding love again and it's all because I gave up on the past, gave up on this in particular and moved on, so I want you to respect that and let me move on so I'm not chained to a past or to a woman who clearly doesn't love me." I say before I place my hands under the table as a click was heard before I pulled out the handcuffs that were now removed from my wrists and put them in front of him.
"... I shall respect your wishes then…. But what if she does want to be with you still?" He said as I shook my head.
"If she never had any intentions of being with me then she never should have made a promise that only I understood at the time and she should have made it with Raku instead, but what I know is that the son of a yakuza and the daughter of Central Japans Police Commisioner getting married wouldn't look good for the police in general unless it was for the possibility to lower crime nationwide as a result, and maybe that could happen but if those feelings are the same for all of us from all those years ago then Raku must be in love with that other girl that he promised himself to." I went onto say as I could see him clenching his fists in frustration as my guess was spot on.
But Raku was currently in a relationship with another girl who he was engaged to all so they could keep a gang war from happening with another group that has come here from america.
"But I think I'm done here, one thing is for sure while it might sound hypocritical with me having so many girlfriends from what you know, I'd rather not be taken as a choice for her if she couldn't get together with the guy she clearly likes based upon how you reacted when I mentioned his name, but I can at least do one thing for her." I say pulling out a business card as I stood up from my chair and put it in front of him.
"You must have heard of the so called 'Wandering Miracle Doctor' that's affiliated with All World Goods correct, well this is his phone number for this week, use it to call him and he may be able to help finally cure her disease." I say while his eyes widen while he looks at the business card that only has a phone number written on it.
"This is my final gift to her, as the thought of her dying at a young age would leave a bad taste in my mouth if I knew I could do something to fix it." I head for the door before stopping at the edge of the interrogation rooms one way mirror.
"…. Goodbye Marika, I hope you live a long life…." I say with a slightly sad smile as I turn slightly to look at the one way glass before I grabbed the door handle and walked out of the police station, and hopefully never to come back here again.
Meanwhile on the opposite of the one way mirror a girl with long Orange hair was crying her eyes out as she curled up into a ball and leaned against the wall.
*Hick Hick* "Hifumi…. I'm sorry…. I'm so so sorry for what I did to you….." Marika Tachibana could only cry as she realized the terrible things she had done all those years ago.
********
Though the question is, 'Why did she do that?' And will her and Hifumi get together in this story? Looks like the only one who will find out is the last Gift he gave her to extend her life.
It's all up to Fortunate Son to find out, but looks like that will have to wait a bit as things have gotten dangerous for people he cares about currently back in Kamoe City.