I woke up to find the moon shining in through the windows, the room mostly in darkness, and my arms secured to one of the chairs. I felt rope pinching into my arms and legs, and a cool metal I assumed was handcuffs securing each wrist to one of the chair legs. As my vision cleared and clarified, I slowly took in the surrounding scene. All the others were there, and all secured to chairs on either side. Save one.
Sitting in the sixth chair opposite the five of us, Gouto was staring through his glasses, the scene lit by a pair of candles. Their flickering light picked out the piled-up school desks, the podium, the table now in front of him holding that fragmented message...and the newly-produced noose suspended through a hole punched into the ceiling.
The others were also coming round, and Rumiko quickly started to struggle against her bonds. “Hey... What...? What’s going on?!” She saw Gouto. “Hey, Sensei, what’s happening? What are you...” Her eyes travelled up, and she saw the noose. “Oh...my God.”
Takahiro pulled against his restraints, but I saw it was useless. Even with his strength, he couldn’t break out of steel cuffs. Souhei pulled hard with his legs.
“S...sensei... Please...let us...out...”
Yukari didn’t struggle, but looked coldly at Gouto. “I probably should’ve known one of us was responsible for this, but I didn’t expect you to be the one, Gouto-sensei. Nor did I expect you to be so dramatic.”
She too glanced up at the noose. Souhei and Takahiro saw it too, and both looked slightly sick. Rumiko was starting to blubber.
“Go home... I want to go home...”
Gouto-sensei adjusted his glasses and spoke with the same kind of detached tone I recognised from his lectures. “Students, for here and now you still are, something happened here ten years ago. Two deaths, without rhyme or reason. My sister, and your friend, both fell to their deaths from the school rooftop. Today, here and now, we shall discover why that happened.”
I looked hard at him. “What do you mean?”
“I spoke with Akira’s parents recently. They told me something very interesting. One of you, and I don’t know who, is responsible for their deaths. But I know one of you helped create this tragedy. And so, upon learning the full truth, the one who holds the guilt for this act shall be subject to the fate they deserve.”
He slowly pointed up towards the noose. I felt a cold fist gripping my stomach, and Rumiko burst out in a near-hysterical shriek.
“You’re insane! Let us out of here, we can’t tell you anything!”
“Shut up!” Yukari snapped at Rumiko, who was shocked into silence. “We can’t reason with him, so we should play along.”
Gouto looked coldly at her. “How sensible of you, regardless of the language. So very sensible. Perhaps you could begin, Yukari, by telling us about Akira’s meeting with you the day before he died.”
I looked at Yukari, who seemed to be thinking through what to say. I hadn’t known she had met up with Akira that day. She kept her eyes steadily on Gouto as she spoke, as if to hypnotise him with her words.
“I suppose Akira’s parents told you about that? Well, it’s true. The last time I saw Akira was, as you seem to know, the day before the accident. I was coming home from school as he asked me to walk with him. I didn’t know what was going to happen, what might be about to happen.”
“So care to tell us exactly what happened?”
“It’s been...so long.” She closed her eyes in reflection, then opened them rapidly and continued staring at Gouto. “He was in love with two people. A teacher at the school, and a student. I didn’t say anything, but then he asked me directly. He asked me...what he should do. When I told him, that he should make a decision before the beginning of the next school year, he seemed put out. He left, and that’s the last time I saw him alive.”
There was a prolonged silence. Then Gouto approached rapidly and heaved at Yukari’s chair. He pulled her out of the room, and I heard another door being opened and a shuffling sound. Then he re-entered. Rumiko tried to shuffle away in her chair.
“What’ve you done to Yukari?”
“Just left her in the other room. She’s of no further use. Now, Souhei... Didn’t you meet up with Akira on that day too? I’d heard you two liked to bond over the latest computer games.”
Souhei looked abruptly ashamed, as if he’d been slapped in the face. Souhei, for the longest time in high school, was the butt of the joke when it came to his appearance and his hobbies. He was a good student in grade terms, and incredible when it came to technical stuff in college, but that part of him... It was nothing to be ashamed of, loving games and being a trifle introverted, but it was an easy thing to target in Japan even then.
“Well... He...came round to see me...that evening. He wanted me to...give him an opinion... He was...in a state. Said he didn’t know...what to do.” His old stammer was asserting itself. “I met him...outside... He seemed in a...state... Didn’t want to say...anything in front of...the rest of us... I didn’t know...what he was talking about until he...said he’d gotten himself...involved with someone...at school. Like, really involved. I told him...he should talk to them. And come tell us about it...when we met up after the end of...term. I seriously...asked him to come...and play a game with me... He said ‘no’. Didn’t feel like...wasting time.” Souhei choked on a sob. “My God, I didn’t... I wasn’t to know that...”
Gouto got up abruptly and dragged Souhei’s chair from the room. I felt decidedly uncomfortable now. We were down to three, and the image of that noose still swung slightly in a breeze coming from...somewhere. I had no idea where. Gouto reappeared and reseated himself. Then he looked directly at me.
“Sai... You’re not here to tell a story, you’re here to witness everything. Because you didn’t see Akira all that week.”
“How can you know that?” Gouto didn’t respond, and I suddenly felt sick. “I always wondered about... That shape I saw on a corner sometimes, I didn’t pay any attention as I wasn’t ever molested, but...”
There aren’t any words to really describe in the moment what I felt. Now, looking back, I felt violated and betrayed. My kind and considerate ‘Gouto-sensei’, the ‘odd lingerer’ I’d seen during my high school years, one and the same? There’s no going back from that kind of revelation, no turning away from what that means. He instead turned to Rumiko.
“Instead, you... You said something on the day of Akira’s funeral, didn’t you? Something about impossible love. Why don’t you elaborate for us?”
It felt more and more like the horrible parody of a class. Rumiko frowned for a while, then seemed to become almost self-assured.
“What do you want to know?”
“What was he like the last time you met him? And when was that?”
“It was...on my way to school. We met up and walked together for quite some distance. He was in a bit of a state. Yes, I’d even say distraught.”
“And?”
“Well... Why shouldn’t he have been distraught? I’m quite sure he was on the brink of despair. We loved each other, so—”
“Stop lying.”
Gouta’s cold words made Rumiko’s hackles rise. “What did you say?”
“You heard me perfectly well. Let’s face it, Rumiko. No-one ever cared for you in the slightest. You were pleasant to be around, but the only long-lasting attachment you’ve ever had is to your make-up kit.”
She looked as if he’d stabbed her in the heart. For a moment, she was completely silent, then she began shaking. But not with sadness or sobbing, with a kind of long-bottled fury.
“No matter...what I did. I could never hold anyone. I did my best to look popular, to be pretty and trendy, but it never worked. They always went for Yukari, or Sai, or hell that little bitch Chisato. Why did no-one love me?!”
“Please keep to the point.”
I wanted to hit him. Rumiko also seemed to want to hit something, but restrained herself and kept on talking.
“I tried...to get him to say he loved me that day. He was looking so distracted and forlorn. I said that last night I’d dreamed of him. I had, really I had. In the end, I asked him straight out, did he wanted me? And he said... He said... He said he’d rather have the scarred Oiwa than me. I didn’t hold anything for him. And he said that if I still wanted him as a friend... I asked him right then, who was he seeing? Who had he been with? He didn’t tell me, but I guessed at last. My God, I guessed.”
“And who had he been with?”
Rumiko shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t tell you.”
Takahiro burst out suddenly. “I can.”
Gouto looked at him. “Yes? Why?”
“Because...he’d been with me. In my house. My room... My bed. Rumiko doesn’t like to admit she’s wrong about guys and which way they swing. She’s never been able to get it right.”
There was a long pause, with Rumiko staring aghast at Takahiro. Then Gouto rose and dragged Rumiko’s chair from the room. She started screaming and struggling, but the noise soon ceased. And I heard Yukari’s voice raised in a snapping tone. I was still looking at Takahiro as Gouto entered again and sat down.
“This...is new. Perhaps you could tell us what happened, Takahiro-kun?”
Takahiro squared his shoulders and stared directly into Gouto’s eyes. “Akira didn’t just like the ladies. He saw right through me, saw that I liked guys. When we got together the first time, it was...great. Wonderful. That’s why we stuck together despite us being so different. Him being such a serious student, me being...anything but most of the time. When we were in that friend group, it was...wonderful. Until Rumiko started hitting on him. He didn’t know what to do, he was so confused. Because he was already seeing someone, though he didn’t tell me who.”
“You’re telling the truth about that.”
“I... He came to me that night, must’ve been soon after he met Yukari and Souhei. My parents were away, so I could let him stay the night. He...said he didn’t know who to love. He was caught between two impossible loves. Two unthinkable loves. One of them was me, and... He wanted me to...show...whether mine was the one he wanted the most. So I took him to bed, and we...”
He let the sentence finally tail off. A sudden vague thought flashed through my mind. Bara, the rose and the genre. He reminded me of the physicality used in those works, though there the resemblance surely ended. There was a heart, a soul. He continued speaking with a subdued tone.
“He wanted something more... I tried to give it to him, but it was no use. He was sure. He wanted to go back to the school and make sure the other knew. I told him that if that’s what he felt, that was fine.”
“And the other party was?”
“You must’ve known. All along.”
“Say it. Out loud, right now.”
“Shiki Hisawa. His other love, the one he loved from afar as it were, was Shiki Hisawa, the PE teacher. Your half-sister.”
There was a prolonged pause. For some reason, I wasn’t surprised. Not in the slightest. I always imagined Akira capable of doing something silly, and this fit right in with the easy-going atmosphere the town had seemed to foster. Takahiro pressed on.
“I tried to see him the following day, tried to keep myself normal, but... And then the accident happened.”
“Not accident. Never accident.” He suddenly glared at Takahiro. “You killed him as surely as if you’d pushed those two off the edge. You made him confront my sister that day, confront her on the roof. There’s no way she’d have been up there if not for him. No way, no way.” Why was he suddenly repeating everything? “Now... I think that’s it. That’s over. The truth is known. And judgement shall be delivered for my sister’s life.”
“What?!”
“Must I spell it out? You are the witness. Every execution has witnesses.”
He grabbed Takahiro and started to drag the chair towards the noose. My mind rebelled against this. It was impossible, unthinkable, insane. Gouto was planning on lynching someone for...encouraging the following of one’s heart? The words of that strange apparition flashed into my mind.
“Wait! You can’t do anything yet! There’s one story you haven’t heard!”
Gouto paused, turned. “And who’s is that? Yours?”
“No.” I sighed. “Akira’s.”
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