"Remaining Life Matchmaking" Episode 6 #CreativeAward2025 #MysteryNovelCategory
≪Episode 6≫
The next day, I had plans to meet Kanade-kun in the evening.
When I told him about today over the phone, he said, "Let's look into it together," and since students who come to school on Sundays are usually in the gym or on the outdoor field for club activities, he opened up the library room for me from the daytime.
I take a few sheets of paper out of the envelope I had in my bag.
They are screenshots of social media that I printed out late last night.
One is a post from what appears to be Kaede's secret account.
There are no photos. Just a cryptic remark that seems to have been taken from some novel or poem, and unnatural hashtags.
"The night you wish to believe is a paper's width away from betrayal"
#QuietCourtship #TheBoundaryBetweenTrustAndBetrayal #TheLastDate
"…Found it. A comment. This is Shiori Koyanagi's name."
Kanade-kun's finger points to the comment section lined up below the post.
A dim account name. The profile is locked.
"I believe we will meet again"
"…What does this 'meet again' mean?"
I flip the paper to look for another screenshot.
A posted photo. The shadow of a building. A blurred sunset.
The silhouette captured there was one I recognized.
"Hey, it's strange, isn't it? There are others, like '#QuietCourtship' or '#TheLastDate'…"
"Look at the comment section. …This account, Shiori Koyanagi."
"…So it is related after all."
"It says 'I believe we will meet again' here too. …What does it mean?"
"Yeah. And look at this photo… the background."
"This wall, somewhere… ah, the back alley of the old child guidance center?"
"…I know this place."
Kanade-kun lets out a small voice.
"Eh?"
"This wall. When I was in middle school, I stopped by on my way home from school… that back alley of the child guidance center."
Kanade-kun's expression freezes.
"…That place should have been demolished already…"
His voice was trembling.
Looking to the side, I notice Kanade-kun's hand is slightly shaking.
"Kanade-kun…? Do you know something?"
"…A long time ago. When I was in the facility. I was still young and hadn't realized it until now, but there was a young female teacher there who was very kind to everyone."
The crackling sound of the heater and the scent of coffee in the cup drift softly.
"That teacher might have been called Shiori-chan by everyone."
Those words sank into my chest with a certain weight.
Quietly, surely, one dot was about to turn into a line.
My sister's death.
Quiet Courtship Program.
And Shiori Koyanagi.
Furthermore, Kanade Naruse's past.
Everything might have been closer than I had thought.
"I have someone in mind. Someone who seems to know everything about it. Will you investigate with me?"
I looked up and asked Kanade-kun.
Kanade-kun gasped briefly, smiled ever so slightly, and nodded.
The neon lights of a convenience store floated in the night road.
On the way home from the high school where Kanade-kun works, it was not far from the cafe where that program is held.
When I picked up a canned coffee from the shelf, a voice came from behind me.
"I knew it."
The moment I heard the voice, my spine went cold.
When I turned around, there was that same smile.
"…Shuhei Aida."
"It's been a while, Minami. You don't look… well, though."
As always, his voice and eyes are gentle.
But I know that that gentleness accurately gouges out the pain of the past.
"What are you doing at this hour?"
"I saw you near here the other day. So I came to see you. Or rather… to a place related to Kanade Naruse, that is."
"…Eh?"
He stepped closer. Kanade-kun is outside the convenience store on a work call.
What he took out of his coat pocket was an old photograph.
In one of them, a young Kanade Naruse was captured. A defenseless smile. And several people around him—.
"This is a photo taken at a facility a long time ago. Kanade Naruse was there. He was participating in a certain 'mental healing program'."
Looking at that photo, my body trembled with a sense of déjà vu. It was strikingly similar to the scenery of the back alley of the child guidance center I saw in the library earlier.
This photo—I remember seeing it at Shuhei's room before we broke up, back then.
However, at that time, I didn't know the names and just thought it was part of the scenery.
"How do you know? Why are you… telling me this now?"
"I thought you should know. That 'Quiet Courtship' is—not just some matchmaking. And I know what that teacher who spent many years with him is capable of."
The lightness had vanished from Shuhei's expression.
And Shuhei told me that he had participated as an assistant to Professor Koyanagi, who was involved in the research of that program during his university days.
Back then, I believed in "psychology".
Rather than believed, I blindly trusted that psychology was "correct".
It gives logic to invisible emotions and brings human suffering back into a "comprehensible realm". That's what I thought.
I never imagined that it would become a weapon that destroys human lives in such a cruel way.
"Shuhei-kun, did you bring out the data?"
When I opened the door to the seminar room, Shiori Koyanagi said without even turning around.
Surrounded by piles of materials, she was calmly sorting documents.
"Yes, I've summarized it for now. The observation logs and the emotional transition graphs as well."
"Thank you. By the way—you haven't told her that she's a 'subject' yet, have you?"
Hearing those words, my chest hurts just a little.
She—was "Yuri Katano". She was my girlfriend at the time.
Unlike me, who was enrolled in the psychology department, she was a student in the education department and worked part-time at a small cafe.
She was pure, considerate, and the corners of her eyes would droop slightly when she laughed.
I proposed Yuri's "honest reactions" to Professor Koyanagi.
As a subject to observe natural reactions to emotional manipulation.
"If it's someone you're dating, the observation will be natural. In fact, for you, it's a good condition, isn't it?"
Professor Koyanagi said that.
In the beginning, Yuri didn't suspect anything.
Because for her, me starting to "record emotional changes" was just "a kind boyfriend who listens to my daily worries".
But, from a certain point—something begins to break.
"Hey, lately… you don't look me in the eye much."
When we were sitting on a bench near the university, Yuri said quietly.
I immediately replied, "That's not true." But Yuri didn't miss the note I had written in my notebook: **《Anxiety tendency: Increasing》**.
…I felt a chill at my own actions.
Yuri gradually developed a habit of blaming herself when she met me.
"Sorry, I said something unnecessary again, didn't I?"
"I'm heavy, aren't I…"
Every time, while I replied with words like "That's not true," I felt guilty that I had to report all of that to Professor Koyanagi.
The last day. Yuri was smiling.
That was more terrifying than anything.
"When I'm with you, Shuhei-kun, 'peace of mind' and 'fear' come at the same time.
I wonder why. It's strange, isn't it?"
Saying that, she went down the stairs in front of the station.
The next morning, just before I left for university, I received a phone call.
"Yuri Katano was found collapsed at home"
Her breathing had already stopped, and there was no suicide note or anything. It was a suicide.
When I ran into the seminar room and told Professor Koyanagi about it, she moved her eyebrows just a little, and then said this.
"…It is within expectations that the observation subject breaks. If the data remains, it can be used for the future."
That was her answer.
I quit the seminar right then.
I couldn't go to university for a while either.
I went to apologize to Yuri's parents.
I couldn't tell them that she had been "observed".
If I had stopped my own actions back then—
If I had been a "lover" instead of an "observer" back then—
Yuri might still be alive today.
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