Poison's Repayment, Chapter 3: Shota Yano
My childhood friend Yuna is dead—.
I am Shota Yano, a second-year university student. Yuna and I lived in apartments next door to each other, and having grown up in households that could hardly be called wealthy, we helped each other out at times and cared for one another like siblings. My parents divorced when I was two, and I have lived with my mother ever since. My mother worked constantly; I have no memories of playing with her, and I have only ever seen her exhausted face or her sleeping. As for meals, I had school lunch during the day, and for breakfast and dinner, I was lucky if I had a sweet bun or a bento box that was about to be thrown away. There was a time when I was embarrassed by my mother, who dressed sloppily and had a coarse, boisterous laugh.
The residents of this dilapidated apartment building were all families with their own circumstances, and the men from the nearby shopping district who knew our situation were kind to us. They would give us leftover side dishes from their shops or teach us kendo for free at the dojo next to the community center every Saturday night.
It would be a lie to say I wasn't lonely, but I was proud to see my mother working so hard to raise me, and the men from the shopping district were like fathers to us, raising us as a community to ensure we didn't go down the wrong path. Thanks to them, I was able to apply for a grant and successfully enter university.
By the time Yuna was in her second year of junior high, we stopped visiting each other's homes, as is common at that age. After Yuna quit kendo to focus on high school entrance exams, we had almost no contact, but once we became high school students and both got smartphones, I knew how she was doing through social media.
That day, I was just locking my front door to go to kendo practice. The door next to mine opened forcefully, and Yuna rushed out. She noticed me while locking her door in a hurry and spoke to me.
“Oh, Sho-chan! Are you going to kendo now?”
“Yeah. Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“Yeah, well... ...Actually, it's nothing! Good luck with kendo!”
With that, she ran off.
“H-hey! Where are you going in this rain?!”
The serious look on her face when she started to say something and then stopped. I had a bad feeling about it. If I had stopped her and listened to her properly back then, wouldn't this have been avoided? There is no way Yuna would commit suicide. She must have been killed by someone. Who is it? Regret and suspicion swirl within me.
***
The evening after the funeral, as I was brooding over my thoughts at home, the intercom rang. When I opened the door, a girl I recognized was standing there.
“Um, my name is Mizuki Tajima. I’m Yuna’s best friend... I have something I’d like to talk to you about, is that okay?”
She was, I believe, the closest friend Yuna made in high school. I had often seen her on social media, and I think I greeted her once in the apartment hallway. I wasn't really in the mood, but since she went to the trouble of coming here, it must be for a very good reason.
“Ah... Well, I can't let you into my house, so somewhere else...”
“Um, if possible, I’d like somewhere with no people around...”
“Understood. Well, there’s a somewhat deserted park nearby, would that be okay?”
***
We sit on a park bench, keeping our distance.
“Um... could you look at this?”
She hands me her smartphone and shows me a photo of Yuna and Ms. Tajima. Yuna is smiling happily.
“What about this photo?”
“Eh? Is she not talking?”
“Huh?”
“That’s strange? Um, I can talk to Yuna in this photo. Yuna asked me to go to Shota-san...”
“Huh? Ah... I’m not interested in spiritual stuff, so if that’s what this is about...”
Thinking that this girl must be having a hard time too, I quietly leave the scene.
“Wait, Yuna! Why aren't you talking? I’m being thought of as a weird person. Eh? You mean you can only talk to me? How am I supposed to do that? Eh? The photo? Yeah, yeah...”
She keeps talking to herself as if she is having a conversation with Yuna. 'Is that girl okay?'
“Um! Shota-san! Can I ask you one more time? Please! Please listen to what I have to say.”
Seeing how desperate she was, I felt sorry for her and sat back down on the bench.
“Um, Shota-san, do you have a smartphone? Do you have any photos of you and Yuna together?”
While thinking about how to get rid of this plain, occult-loving girl, I scroll through my photo folder.
“I don't have any photos of just me and Yuna. ...Ah, I have this one.”
A group photo of the kendo club taken at the end of every school year. It was a photo taken three years ago, at the end of Yuna's second year of junior high. We were standing next to each other. Ms. Tajima took my smartphone, zoomed in so that the two of us filled the screen, and handed it back.
“Please stare at this photo.”
Muttering 'How ridiculous...' in my heart, I looked at the screen, and the Yuna on the screen suddenly started talking to me.
“Sho-chan! Can you hear me?”
“Whoa!”
I almost dropped my smartphone.
“Sho-chan, you might not believe it, but I can still talk!”
I couldn't find my voice, and I looked back and forth between Ms. Tajima next to me and the smartphone screen.
“Were you able to talk to Yuna? I can't hear her voice...”
When Ms. Tajima peered into my smartphone, it immediately returned to a still image. When Ms. Tajima moved away from the screen, Yuna's mouth began to move. It seems that only one person can talk on each smartphone at a time, and during that time, Yuna's voice cannot be heard by those around. Wait, hold on.
“Ms. Tajima, can I try a few things to see if the three of us can talk?”
With Ms. Tajima's permission, I connected my smartphone and Ms. Tajima's via LIME, synthesized a photo as if the three of us were in it, and sent it.
“Let's try talking with the three of us while keeping this photo displayed.”
When Ms. Tajima peered into my smartphone, the Yuna in the photo of the three of us began to speak.
“We did it! We can talk with the three of us!”
When we displayed the same photo of the three of us on our respective smartphones and talked, although the sound quality was choppy and hard to hear, that also succeeded. If this is possible, the three of us can talk even if we are in different places. For today, we decided to have the three of us talk using my smartphone. We shared the background so far and the information each of us knew. Ms. Tajima and I were convinced it wasn't suicide, but I couldn't read Yuna's inner thoughts. If only we knew what she was in such a hurry about that day, or if she was meeting someone. There was no progress on this day, but at the end, Yuna said this.
“There is something I want to ask the two of you. Could you go to a certain place this coming Saturday at 11:30?”
⇒⇒⇒ Chapter 4: Rin Suzuki ⇒⇒⇒
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