Vol 1 Chapter 2 (2/2)

'I’ll ask once more Who is that child?’

Yakumo pointed at Sachiko’s child

'I don’t know either’

Sachiko covered her face with her hands and shook her head, flinging her hair about

'Has that child been there since the test of courage?’

'I don’t know Yakumo-kun, what should I do!?’

Sachiko was in hysterics It looked like her e open

'Has the child been there since the test of courage?’

Yakumo repeated his question with no care for Sachiko’s emotional state

'I think that’s probably it,’ replied Sachiko in a quiet voice

'So that really is it,’ murmured Yaku gaze

Under that pressure, Sachiko leant back

There was a freezing silence –

Akeot to breathe as she watched

After a while, Yaku surprised

'You…?’

Yakumo spoke in a lowered tone

– What happened?

Ignoring Akemi, who didn’t understand the situation, Yakuainst his left eye and collapsed to his knees

His body shook, like he was in pain

'Are you OK?’

Yakumo didn’t respond to Akemi’s question

Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and his shoulders heaved as he breathed

'Hey, Yakumo-kun’

Akeet up, but Yakumo stood up himself as if to avoid that

He aying, as if he were dizzy

'What’s wrong?’

Akemi put a hand on Yakumo’s shoulder

'Let go!’

Yakulared at her fiercely

There was a violent wrath in that gaze

For a while, Yakulared at Akemi, but then he left the room silently

'Sacchan, wait a bit’

Akemi left Sachiko’s room and went after Yakumo

When she reached the corridor, To, 'What happened?’

'I will be right back’

Akemi waved Tomoko off and ran out the entrance

She found Yakumo immediately

He was leaning against a telephone pole with his left hand on his face as he looked down His breathing was ragged, as if he had run at full speed

'Yakuht?’

When she touched Yakuility of a cat and put distance between himself and Akemi

'Stay away’

Yakuer at her as a warning

Why was Yakuuarded? And what had he seen?’

'Did you know?’ said Yaku unsteady

Akemi didn’t understand the question, so all she could do was keep quiet

While neither of them spoke, the silence continued, to the point that the sound of the as hurting her ears –

The strength suddenly left Yakumo’s shoulders, and he turned his back towards Akemi

However, that didn’t mean the dismissive air around Yakumo had disappeared

'It’s fine You go back first And don’t go near that woain’

After saying that quickly, Yakuait

'Where are you going?’

There were s that she wanted to ask, but Yakumo didn’t stop or turn around

– ItYakumo

Regret gradually greithin Akemi

6

Left behind by Yakuised for what had happened earlier, and then went back to the priests’ quarters where Isshi+n and Nao aiting

'It isn’t your fault, Akemi-chan’

After Akemi explained, Isshi+n said that with a shake of his head

Wasn’t Yakumo supposed to use this spiritual incident to break his own shell? That hat Isshi+n had thought, so this must have been below his expectations

Though he didn’t say it, he must have been disappointed

'If it’s all right, would you let h she thought herself it was an impudent request

Yaku to Sachiko’s room

Heunbelievable She wanted to knohat on earth it was

Also, she did want to be with Isshi+n a little longer

'It’s a humble place, but please feel coer too’

Isshi+n was holding Nao and looking at her face as she said that

Nao happily stuck her finger in Isshi+n’s nose

– What is she doing?

'Um, I – ’

Akemi hurriedly tried to take Nao, but Isshi+n stopped her

That wasn’t all – even Nao shook her head

'Being with you alet that I’m a teacher, Isshi+n-san’

It was a bit strange now that she thought about it The teacher had gone to her student’s houardian hold her own child

'Fro Yakumo’s teacher, you’re also my cute student You don’t have to worry about those details now, do you?’

Though Isshi+n’s words were rather strong, they were also convincing to her

He really was a mysterious person

'If you’re sure it’s all right’

'Then I’ll pour some tea’

After saying that, Isshi+n stood up, Nao still in his arms

'No, I’ll do it’

Akemi stood up as well

'No, it’s fine Please sit then’

'Then I’ll take Nao’

'That’s fine too’

Isshi+n’s only fault s himself

However, that also made him look cute

'Please choose one of those options’

Akery as she approached Isshi+n

Isshi+n looked troubled, but finally he chose Nao and sat back down

Akemi went to the kitchen and looked around

It was kept well, but there were oppressively few seasonings When she opened the fridge, as expected, there was virtually nothing that could be called an ingredient

'Isshi+n-san, what do you normally eat?’

'Well, we’re just two men We eat frozen food and side dishes purchased from the supermarket – a variety’

That wasn’t a variety

However, perhaps it couldn’t be helped Isshi+n was doing his work as a priest and acting as Yakumo’s parent on his own

It would be difficult to provide meals on top of that

Ake

– All right, I’ve decided

'Sorry, please watch Nao for a while’

Ake roo

'Where are you going?’

Isshi+n looked confused as he looked up at Akemi

'To buy dinner’

Isshi+n looked surprised by Akemi’s response

Even Isshi+n had taken time to understand what she meant

'No, that’s too much Er…’

Isshi+n stood up and was fu for words

He was probably trying to refuse, but he didn’t kno to do it

'Please leave it to me’

Ake room before he could stop her

It was strange Even though she was old enough to know better, when she looked at Yakuht that she wouldn’t lose to Sachiko

Therewith me –

7

Yakumo stood in the school’s backyard

The cherry blossom tree, the start of the incident –

Because it was a Saturday, he had thought that nobody would be at school, but the basketball club was in the gy Their yells and the sound of the balls echoed

Yakuh

At the root of the cherry blossoravestone

Though it’d be hard to tell at first glance, this area only had different coloured soil

Yaku to Sachiko when she went to her room

He also kne to solve the spiritual phenomenon

However, he didn’t feel like actually doing it

Yakuhtly touched the tree trunk

'Were you unwanted too?’

There was no response

There was a suffocating feeling in his chest

Why did he have to suffer like this?

If he didn’t know anything, he wouldn’t be troubled like this

'I…’

'What are you doing, you bastard!?’

Yaku his murmur

When he turned around, he saw Tsukasa there in a jersey

Like they were obeying Tsukasa, there was a posse of students, with Youhei at the start

'I’ you Answer’

Tsukasa spoke quickly as he approached Yakumo

– These guys h to destroy me

That ruinous thought suddenly came to Yakumo’s head

'It’s got nothing to do with you,’ said Yakuly as he tried to leave

'Wait!’

Tsukasa glared at Yakumo with animosity as he blocked Yakumo’s way

Yakumo stopped and looked back at Tsukasa

'You’re in my way’

'What? If you get too ahead of yourself, I’ll beat you up!’

Tsukasa glared at Yakuether

– Oh, so he’ll kill me

'Do it,’ said Yakumo expressionlessly

'What?’

'You’re going to kill ht?’

'You…’

Tsukasa took a step back, as if afraid

'Kill ht? Or are you scared?’

'You brat…’

'It looks like your leader is too afraid to put a hand on me’

Yakumo spoke to the posse behind Tsukasa

Tsukasa’s expression twisted into humiliation

'Get him!’ said Youhei

'Yeah, get him!’

The other posse members spoke up too

'Show your stuff’

When Yaku

Yakumo took that surprise hit and lost his balance

Then, he underwent a shower of kicks

As he fell to the ground, the other students joined in, and he was showered with blows

– Now I don’t have to suffer any more

In that intense pain, Yaku released

8

After Gotou left the perverted coroner’s hospital, he went straight to the investigation on the inforawa

Though it was called an investigation, it was just boring work, questioning people around the telephone booth

For Gotou, asn’t good at using his head, this as more suitable for him

However, he hadn’t found any useful infor to do about it The telephone booth was under a pedestrian bridge and at a dead end

Furthermore, numerous people used telephone booths

It wouldn’t be that easy to get eyewitness testimony

It would be different if they at least had the date and tiue

If the inforured out that much, they would have to be quite keen

Gotou recalled the man he’d seen on the ay

An unsettling man in all black He had to be the informer Gotou was near certain

'Gotou, let’s take a break’

Without waiting for Gotou’s reply, Miyagawa leant against the fence dividing the school and the road and lit a cigarette

'Miyagawa-san, you’re getting on in years if you’re going to throw in the towel here’

Gotou threw a little bite into his usual comeback

Gotou thought that Miyagaould get angry, but Miyagawa just let it slide with a snort

'Don’t chat – getwarm to drink’

Miyagawa threw a five hundred yen coin at Gotou

'Would coffee be all right?’

'Black!’ yelled Miyagaith a wave

– There should be a vending machine around here

Gotou turned right at the road along the fence and went to the back of the school

Just as he’d re machine there

Gotou jogged up to the vending machine and put aanted

It’d be a pain looking for another vending machine –

'Tea will be fine, right?’

Gotou was pressing the vending machine button when he suddenly heard a voice

'Die! Take that!’

There were jeers unsuitable for an area near a middle school

Gotou looked around and spotted four or fivein a circle underneath the dead cherry blossom tree behind the fence

There was a boy of the saround inside that circle

Gotou ran before thinking

'Oi, you brats! What are you doing!?’

He climbed onto the fence and yelled from the bottom of his stomach

The boys scattered in all directions at this sudden intruder, leaving the boy collapsed on the ground by himself

'Oi You all right?’

Gotou jumped off the fence and went up to the boy

He tried to give him a hand, but the boy stood up on his own as if to say it wasn’t necessary while pressing a hand against his left eye

However, it looked like the injuries were severe He was staggering like a fawn

'Oi Don’t overdo it’

Gotou forced the boy to sit on the ground and looked at his face to check his injuries

The boy opened his eyes

'You! You’re the kid from that time!’ exclaimed Gotou in surprise

This was the boy he ht was the informant

'You’re speaking too loudly right next to lob of bloody saliva

– He’s damn impertinent for his awful state

'Do you know those guys?’

'I know the you who they are’

The boy tried to stand up using the tree trunk without even wiping the dirt off his clothes

Gotou quickly grabbed the boy’s arm

Gotou had a lot of other things he wanted to ask this kid

'Let go of me!’

'Nope, not going to I’ve got a lot of questions for you’

'I don’t have anything to say’

'Shut it Don’t act clever – you’re just a brat who can’t do anything without his parents!’

Gotou had planned on saying that to get him to submit

However, Gotou was the one who became lost for words

The boy slowly took the hand off his left eye His glowing red eye woke Gotou’s sleeping memories

– I’ve seen this red eye before

It was a rainy night nearly ten years ago –

At the ti as an officer at a police box, and a man showed up then

– A child is about to be murdered

The man had said that

Gotou did as theunder construction

He saved a kid as about to be strangled to death by a woman there

That kid had had a red left eye, like the boy in front of him

He found out later that the woman who tried to kill the boy was his mother

– What sort of life will this kid live after his mother’s tried to kill him?

Gotou recalled thinking that at the time

And now, he had the answer in front of his eyes

He was in a rage His eyes see in the world

Did this boy have hatred or despair in his heart –

'Your naht?’

Gotou said the name left in the corner of his head

'You’ve just re at Gotou

– What kind of tone is that, you brat?

Gotou forced himself not to lift his raised fist

'Ah, that’s right I should’ve noticed the other tied so much And you were smaller then’

Gotou put his palround and placed it at his waist

Yakumo looked at him coldly

– Cold eyes for a brat Don’t look at me like that

'Were the guys who beat you up earlier classmates?’

Gotou felt uncoht the conversation back on track

However, Yaku himself, he seemed uninterested

'Tell me their names That was clearly assault’

Gotou touched Yakumo’s shoulder, but he leapt away that instant

'Don’t s,’ said Yakumo, voice clearly hostile

'It’s not worthless I’ of you when I say that’

'That’s what’s called worthless You’ll just help here and then act like you’ve got nothing to do with it later, right? Then you shouldn’t get involved in the first place’

– This brat If I keep quiet and listen, he just says whatever the hell he wants

Gotou’s reasoning short-circuited

'Enough already! You think you’re the only guy who’s got it tough, don’t you?’

'What do you want to say?’

'You’re not the only guy who has it tough! People live while helping others! If I didn’t save you then, you’d be dead!’

Gotou grabbed Yakumo’s collar and threatened him

’… Who…’

Yakumo looked away from Gotou and spoke quietly

'If you’ve got so to say, say it clearly!’

Yakuain when he yelled

A chill ran down Gotou’s spine

'Who asked you to save me?’

'What?’

Gotou didn’t understand what Yakumo meant

'Who asked you to savebecause I’m alive! Why did my mother try to kill ive me those answers?’

Yakumo’s face was red – he was so fors

Under that pressure, Gotou couldn’t even think cal of the questions

'You saved ive me those answers? Why!?’ shouted Yakumo

What the hell is he saying? I just saved the life that looked like it was going to disappear fro after that

With anger and confusion, Gotou completely lost his reason

Without realising it himself, he raised his fist and punched the side of Yakumo’s face

Yakumo fell backwards

All his force from earlier disappeared – he looked dazed, like he’d fallen for a tasteless trick

'Shut up, you brat! Think about that yourself! If you want to die so ht here!’

In the heat of his anger, Gotou lifted his fist again

'You idiot! What the hell are you doing!?’

Along with that yell, a violent impact hit the back of Gotou’s head

The ground shook – Gotou couldn’t stand and collapsed to his knees

– Who the hell was that?

With his head in his hands, Gotou looked up

'Are you shaking soe?’

Miyagawa looked down on Gotou with an inti stance

I can’t tell if his tiood or bad –

'I want to hear about the situation in detail’

Gotou looked at Yakuain

He didn’t understand hi with a kid

Perhaps it was because he was like Gotou had been in the past

Gotou smiled self-derisively

9

– Yaku dinner

Though Akeht that, even after she went from the kitchen to the table, Yakumo hadn’t returned

She really should have followed hiht was 20/20

'This looks delicious Let’s eat without waiting for Yakumo’

Isshi+n said that in a carefree

Isshi+n smiled broadly, as if to express how yummy it was, and tried to feed Nao in his lap too

'Nao can’t eat that yet’

'Oh, that’s too bad – it’s so delicious’

Isshi+n shrugged his shoulders like a kid whose prank had been found out

Akemi knew she was a art, but she felt like Isshi+n, on the other hand, was too carefree

'I’ out for a bit’

Ake room

'What happened?’

Ake Yakumo’s face

He looked awful There were scratches all over, and there was blood on his lips and a bruise on his cheek

Furthermore, the contact lens in his left eye wasn’t there, so his red eye was in the open

'Are you OK?’

Akemi tried to look at his injuries, but Yakumo pushed him away

'It’s nothing’

'You can’t call this nothing, right?’

'Leaveat Akemi

Ake when he responded so emotionally to her

'Where did you go?’

Isshi+n asked instead of Akemi

'Investigating the requested case’

It had to hurt Yaku his chin with a twisted expression as he replied

'School?’

'Yeah’

Yakued

'I see,’ said Isshi+n with a nod He didn’t ask Yaku else

Just fro the location, it looked like he’d understood the cause of the injuries

'What’s this?’

Yakumo pointed at the food on top of the table with a suspicious expression

'You can tell froht? It’s dinner’

Isshi+n smiled happily

'That’s not what I’’

'Then what are you asking?’

With the question turned back to hih his hair

Things like that made Akemi think he really was a boy in puberty

'Let’s eat quickly It’d be a waste if it gets cold’

Isshi+n urged Yakumo, but he just looked at the table like a wary cat

Akemi went to the kitchen and scooped rice out into a bowl, handing it to Yakumo

Yakumo probably still hadn’t understood the situation He just stood there with the rice bowl, dazed

'Let’s eat’

Isshi+n put his hands together and started eating the rice heartily

At first, Yakumo looked at thean to eat silently

Even though this was the first ti that had happened hundreds of times in a daily life comic strip

– If only that were the case

Akemi couldn’t help but wish for that

She had always been afraid ever since that incident –

She had felt despair after i herself ten years in the future She had believed that she couldn’t have a bright future any more

However, htn’t it be possible for her to have a happy future like this too?

Wouldn’t a day come when she could have a daily life like this, at a table with her family?

If it ith Isshi+n –

Ake that couldn’t be granted, and her cheeks went red, which was unsuited for her age

'Hey, Yakuhost?’ said Isshi+n after finishi+ng his food

Yakuhtly, but it quickly stiffened

'I don’t want to talk about it’

Yakumo said just that and shut his mouth

It felt like he had grasped the solution to the spiritual phenomenon, but he didn’t want to act on it

'It’d be a transgression if you knew but didn’t do anything,’ Isshi+n said quietly

'I don’t knohat to do’

Yakumo’s voice was so weak it sounded like it could fade away at any moment

'Even if you don’t understand, shouldn’t you do so now that you know?’

'Will doing that bring some benefit to me?’

Yakumo stood up, as if to run from the conversation with Isshi+n

'That’s not what I’ about’

Even though Yakumo had set out to solve the spiritual pheno to Sachiko yesterday, his attitude had turned 180 degrees

Did it have so to do with his injuries?

'I did what I could I don’t want to stick my neck in any further’

Yaku room

'Honestly He’s so stubborn’

Isshi+n looked down, looking like he was s –

10

While driving, Gotou glanced at Miyagawa in the passenger seat

He was srim expression

Miyagawa’s face was already scary enough, so it was hard to tell when he was angry

'I’m really sorry’

Gotou apologised for the nth time

'Don’t worry about it It worked out fine,’ Miyagawa said clearly

It was true that it worked out fine, but Gotou didn’t feel good about it

After Miyagawa stopped him, Gotou was prepared for Yakumo to complain

However, Yaku else

– I’ve already forgotten it

He had said that so readily that it was anticlimactic

And Gotou couldn’t tell what Yaku

His doubt had ser

'Gotou, do you know that brat?’ said Miyagawa, pressing his cigarette into the ashtray

'Yes I’d forgotten him until just then, but that brat’s mother tried to kill him when he was a kid’

'And?’

Miyagawa urged him to continue

'At the ti at the police box and coincidentally saved him’

'I see So why’d his mother try to kill him?’

Miyagawa lit a new cigarette and leant back on the seat

Gotou had that question too Theever since, so Gotou didn’t know, but he had an idea

'You saw it too, right, Miyagawa-san? That eye…’

'Yeah’

Miyagawa closed his eyes, perhaps recalling Yakumo’s red left eye

'That eyeto do with it’

'A forced double suicide fro of their disabled child’s painful future… Stories like that come up often’

As Miyagawa said, Gotou often heard about stories like that

There were often cases where guardians became neurotic and lost their ability to reason coolly Yakuht have been in the same situation –

However, Gotou couldn’t accept it He knehy

'But for him, it was just a red left eye’

His appearance was just a bit different That was all It wasn’t like a disability that would hinder his life

'It’d be nice if everyone were like you’

Miyagawa laughed

'What do you mean?’

'People can be incredibly cold towards others that are different from them’

'Huh…’

'That brat must have suffered countless times because of that eye’

Perhaps it was as Miyagawa said

– Who asked you to save me?

The words Yakumo said earlier came up in Gotou’s mind

'Should I not have saved him?’

He hadn’tthat, but the words came out of his mouth

'What do you mean?’

Miyagawa looked bewildered, like he was reading an English-language newspaper

Now that Gotou had said it, he had to explain

'Earlier, he said this to me Askedas he lived…’

'Meaning he wouldn’t have had to suff