'I hate her!
'I detest her!'
'I despise her!'
Cho Kururugi, Agasa Tsudzuri and Yanagi Hakushū's voices echoed off the roof of the small apartment. Shirane Nakagiri had covered his ears at the piercing sound of their voices.
'Because of her, young and delicate girls like us have been tormented!' muttered the Gothic-Lolita and the four of them broke into cold sweat and trembled as they remembered the punishment the master had inflicted on them the day before.
'Never in my life had I felt so humiliated!' Cho grumbled. 'And when I think that Tsunan had seen me like this!'
'It's all the fault of that she-devil of Shun Shutsuki!' roared Agasa, utterly pissed off.
They began applying more energy to what they were doing, that was, tagging the walls of the said she-devil's apartment and putting everything upside down.
'Here! Take this! This! And this!' they gritted out together as they went on, venting out their fury.
Cho Kururugi paused down when her phone rang and seeing that it was Master Kagami, she picked up the call. The others paused down too to look at her to know what the master wanted.
They couldn't hear what was being said but they saw the ginger-haired girl go very still and paled, her breath freezing and her lower lips beginning to shake, her eyes widening with horror.
'What's wrong?' they demanded at her, anxiously, when she had hung up.
She stared at her phone one long minute, as though, she was plunged into a terrible nightmare while being fully awake, before she lifted her eyes onto them and announced them the news that was going to shake their worlds.
***
Meanwhile…
I had to take support from the pillar on my left when I felt my legs become extremely weak in all of a sudden. But I was incapable of holding myself up for long and I slid to the ground, losing muscle control over my legs and arms.
'Hey!' Ayame called at me as he quit ignoring me. 'HEY! What's wrong with you?' He took a glance around of us at the half-crowded train station and the curious looks of passer-by.
Oh no! Did it really have to be now for me to have an attack of cataplexy?!
'Get up!' he hissed at me, in-between clenched teeth. 'People are looking at us! You're making me ashamed!'
'It-It's going to pass!' I croaked out, the inevitable sense of distress that accompanied these attacks, accentuating. 'I'm really sorry.'
He frowned at me.
'I've noticed that you fall asleep at anytime and anywhere. And now, this. Are you narcoleptic?' he asked me, staring seriously.
I didn't answer him and averted my eyes.
As far as I remembered, I've always been ashamed of my narcolepsy. I didn't want anyone to learn it and especially, the members of the organization. But it wasn't something that could be hidden indefinitely.
His phone rang at that moment and he moved away- out of my earshot- to answer the call.
I waited for the attack to pass and fortunately, it lasted only a few minutes. I was about to get back to my feet, but froze when a hand came down onto my shoulder from behind out of the blue, accompanied by a familiar voice, which spoke in my ears, 'So, Shun, are you happy with your first mission?'
My blood ran cold.
Ta-Tadashi!
Even if I wasn't looking at him, I could feel his mocking smile against my skin.
'Buddying up with monsters, eh? This has played tricks on you in the past,' he said, his tone sardonic.
He giggled sadistically then, straightening up. When I managed to put up enough courage to look over my shoulder, he was gone. I clutched at my pounding heart, swallowing the lump in my throat, trying to control the tremors wracking my body.
I would have believed that the small exchange had only been a hallucination on my part, if Kōmori-san wasn't still staring wildly past my shoulder from where it was sat in my lap. I pondered over what Tadashi had said.
Yes, it's true! We have been friends at one time. Even more than that. I considered you as a member of my family. How did we come to this? When did you change so much? Tadashi...
I got to my feet when Ayame returned, his expression was fazed.
My heart picked up speed.
Did he see Tadashi?
I doubted it.
Who was on the phone with him?
I had a very bad feeling.
'We're not going back to Toda anymore. We're leaving for Kusunoki,' he informed me, his voice strained.
'Oh, okay!' I said, very quickly, slightly baffled. I dug into my bag for my train ticket and handed it over to him to change it. He turned around swiftly and began to walk away when I called at him, anxiously, 'But why? Did... something happen?'
He stopped, but didn't turn around.
'Naoto Higaonna- an ancient member of the organization- is dead!' he replied, his voice breaking by the end.
My heart skipped a beat.
He punched the pillar on his right, making me flinch. Even if his back was turned towards me with his head bowed, I knew that he was crying as a sob escaped his mouth.
I wanted to say a comforting word to him, but I resisted the urge, knowing fair well that it's not what he'd want. So, I stood there helplessly, without speaking a word until he walked away to get our tickets changed.
There was a train leaving for the town of Kusunoki in fifteen minutes and we boarded on it.
'Naoto was the eldest member of the organization after the master.'
My head snapped up at Ayame as he finally spoke after hours of silence.
He was sitting across of me, his expression filled with grief and eyes, blood-shot.
'He was sympathetic, gentle and also, very intelligent. He left the organization to become a teacher in a high school. He would visit us every year with his family.' He sighed. 'Above all, it's for Tsunan that it's the saddest. They were really close friends, even best friends, and Tsunan visited him very often.'
My throat tightened.
Oh no! Doctor Tsunan…
'What happened?' I asked, hesitantly.
'He killed himself after having massacred all the students of his course this morning!' he replied in a hoarse voice. He got up from his seat and left then, while I remained there, petrified with shock, trying to assimilate what he just said.
Oh my god! Oh my god! This couldn't have happened!
I could very well imagine what Naoto Higaonna's family, Doctor Tsunan and the other members of the organization were feeling right now; the shock, that indescribable pain; as though the sky and the earth had become one, crushing them in the middle.
My stomach twisted with horror when I remembered that Ayame had gone through something similar before, with his father, Rinshō Tsuge. This must have dragged distant memories of his past to the surface.
I clamped my hand over my mouth, feeling like I was going to puke.
After a good moment, I managed to slow down my erratic breathing. That's when my eyes fell onto one of Ayame's kunai- which he had been toying with earlier- on the empty seat next to his.
He must have dropped it without realizing it, I concluded. I decided to bring it back to him before he'd notice it's disappearance and panic, thinking he's lost it.
I made for the back door of the wagon which opened onto a small open space to find the blond there. He was bended over the rail, gazing at the scenery.
'Listen! I don't want to hear you, okay?' he snapped, without looking at me, agitated. 'It's not because I've told you a few things on Naoto that you're gonna make as if you know him. So, just shut your trap! I'm so tired of you!'
I faltered.
'I-I wasn't here to make any comments on what happened,' I told him, truthfully, in a murmur. 'You-You forgot this inside!'
He glanced over his shoulder as I held out his kunai to him.
Suddenly, his eyes bulged and he swung around violently, snatching the kunai out of my hand, snarling, 'Don't touch it with your dirty hands!'
Since I was holding the kunai by the blade, it sliced through my palm and I winced out in pain, clutching my bleeding hand instinctively, while I stared at the blond, staggered by his reaction.
His eyes were set in a glare and he stomped for the door, knocking me deliberately in the shoulder on his way.
I should never have touched his things, I thought to myself, filled with guilt for having made him furious in his present state of mind.
***
When we arrived in the town of Kusunoki, it was late in the night.
A cold breeze was blowing as we reached Naoto Higaonna's place. His house was two-storied, painted in white, with a small gate in the front and a side yard. The residential area where he lived was quite charming.
'How's your hand?' Ayame asked, in a grumble, as we crossed through the gate.
He paused, half-facing me.
I looked down at my bandaged hand. The cut had been quite deep and so, it had required stitches.
'It's okay,' I reassured him.
He averted his eyes then and mumbled, 'The kunai... they belonged to my father.'
My eyes widened at him.
They belonged to Rinshō Tsuge? The latter was an amateur of sharps and Ayame had inherited the Divine Flame from him. Ayame uses his father's weapons? I wondered what this meant; what it said about his feelings and opinion on his father. Master Kagami had told me that he never separated himself from these kunai.
I understood his reaction better now.
Making for the front door then, he knocked once.
I joined him under the porch.
A minute later, a woman- whom I supposed was Naoto's wife- came to open the door. She was of fair complexion, aged approximately forty, with flip-level curly brown hair. Her eyes were swollen from crying.
'Shiragiku!'
'Ayame!' she moaned out, breaking into tears, and the blond took her in his arms comfortingly, ushering her inside.
I tagged along, following them to the living room; Ayame seeming to know the place quite well.
'Ayame-kun!' exclaimed a young tearful girl who run into his arms.
'Shuko!' He gave her a one-arm hug, kissing her on the forehead, his other arm still around Shiragiku-san's shoulders.
The girl was aged approximately seventeen and she was slender, with shoulder-length straight brown hair, her skin creamy-white.
'Where are the others?' she asked, when she pulled backward, taking a swift glance at me.
'They're already on the way. They should be here before the ceremony tomorrow. We were the closest in the vicinity.'
She nodded, wiping her wet face with her sleeves but more tears flowed down her cheeks.
'I'll take your mother back to her room, okay?' he told her and she nodded again, moving to sit on the sofa. Ayame disappeared in the corridor, leading the girl's mother to her bedroom.
My eyes landed onto a set of pictures on the wall portraying Shiragiku, Shuko and a tall and slender dark-haired man wearing spectacles, whom I supposed was Naoto. They appeared to be a happy family on the pictures and I found it tragic that there won't be any more pictures of the three of them together on this wall.
'You are Shun Shutsuki, aren't you?' Shuko Higaonna asked, her voice hoarse from crying.
I nodded timidly.
'Tsunan informed my father about your recruitment.'
'Do you want me to leave?' I asked in a whisper. It was hard enough for her like this; she just lost her father. She didn't have to support the presence of a criminal under her roof.
'No, stay!' she told me. 'To tell you the truth, I was really shocked when my father has announced to me your recruitment. But do you know what he told me? He said: "The master recognizes people very well for who they are. Trust him!"'
She forced herself to smile but she couldn't stop her tears from flowing; talking about her dad was too painful.
'I'm sorry,' I murmured, sorry for her lost, sorry for the nightmare she was living.
Naoto Higaonna was loved by his family and the members of the organization. And I was sure that if I had known him, I would have appreciated him too.
'There's a guest room at the end of the corridor where you can sleep,' she informed me, before she got to her feet and went upstairs, certainly to find refuge in her bedroom.
That night, sleep was hard to come.
I couldn't stop thinking over what happened at the school, what the Higaonna were going through, but also, the families of the students who have been massacred.
***
The next morning…
Shuko hung up the phone and turned to Ayame who arrived behind her.
'It was school. They want me to come and collect the things of my dad,' she informed him, agitated.
'I'm going to accompany you,' he reassured her and she thanked him, gratefully.
She turned to me, then, asking, 'Do you want to come with us?'
I was a bit surprised that she wanted me to accompany her too, but still, I accepted, Kōmori-san tagging along.
She went to grab her bag and inform her mother that she was going out.
Shiragiku-san wasn't in the capacity to manage anything in her state and I had great admiration for Shuko for remaining strong for two despite the situation and taking care of everything.
Naoto Higaonna taught in Shinsekei High School. It was also where Shuko studied and to get there, we had to take the metro. It was full and we hardly managed to get standing places.
'Look! It's her! The daughter of the professor Naoto Higaonna,' said a whispering voice, and Ayame and I glanced at the two gossiping women. A few gasps could be heard in the surrounding crowd and more eyes zeroed onto Shuko, who lowered her head.
'Maybe, he had problems with his wife; perhaps, she cheated on him,' commented another person.
'Or maybe, it was because of her daughter. You know how youngsters are today! He must have gone crazy!'
'He was mad!'
'He seemed so nice and yet, that guy was a real sicko!'
'She dares to show herself up in public again after what her father has done?! What a shame!'
My heart accelerated in my chest.
No, stop! Stop commenting! They've got to stop.
'Stop!' Shuko wailed, unable to hold it anymore. She pressed her eyes shut to hold back her tears. 'Stop it! My dad wasn't a criminal. He was a good person!'
She dashed out of the door of the metro which opened at that moment, as we reached the station where we had to get down, and Ayame and I ran after the distressed girl.
We lost her in the crowd and split up to look for her. When we still didn't find her after ten minutes, we decided to search for her outside of the station and there, we found her, sitting in a ball away from the crowd in a corner.
'I don't understand why he did this. He loved his students. He was passionated with his work. He had no serious problem. He wasn't crazy. He was a good person. He was-'
Her voice trailed off, her cries becoming erratic.
'I know. I know,' Ayame hushed her, kneeling down and holding her against him as she cried in his chest.
My heart sank. I wished I had the power to go back in time and save her from the tragedy which had befallen her family. But I was only human. This showed how much we humans we are powerless.
Thank you for reading!