"Then I'll help you remember right now."
"I forgot to mention this, but ever since that incident back then, I've been diagnosed with some kind of disorder. I don't know what it is, but apparently beating people up isn't exactly illegal for me."
A man's voice suddenly appeared in the air, so abruptly that the girl's hand seemed to freeze under some mysterious power.
"Emi Eura."
"Sixteen years old, from Toshima Ward, Tokyo. Father: Eura Tadashi, formerly an employee of Toshima Chiba Heavy Industries, currently unemployed. Mother: Eura Yuko, a housewife. Family debt: 31 million yen. You attended Shuchiin Middle School, but were expelled in your first year for intentionally injuring someone."
The man's voice paused. From the background came the unmistakable sound of heavy breathing, along with a series of thuds.
"If I'm right, then please stop the series of actions you're about to take that might hurt Kei."
The voice carried on the wind sounded sharp and dangerous, like a silent threat.
Only then did Emi Eura notice that the voice was coming from the phone in Karuizawa Kei's hand, with its speakerphone on. The fact that someone had threatened her so casually made her inexplicably furious. Just as she stepped forward to continue, another sound came through the phone:
"If you hurt her, I swear, no matter what's written in your diagnosis report to help you dodge responsibility—"
"I'll make you pay for it."
"And I'm on my way."
"Kei, turn off the speakerphone."
"Oh, right."
Hearing Kitagawa Ryo's words, Karuizawa Kei quickly turned off the speakerphone and pressed the phone back to her ear.
"Like this? Is this okay?"
"I'm not sure. It's enough if I can keep them there."
His voice on the other end was slightly breathless and hurried.
"I'll be there in three minutes. Hang on a little longer."
"Trust..."
"I trust you."
"Okay."
Karuizawa Kei heard him let out a soft sigh, then the call ended.
Kitagawa Ryo hung up and checked the location and direction again. Already running at a decent speed through the woods, he pushed himself to go faster. A deep, powerful older man's voice came through the white earpiece in his right ear:
"Five minutes."
To be honest, running through the woods wasn't a good choice, but if he ran along the hiking trail, the staff would definitely stop him if they saw.
He adjusted his center of gravity to dodge a rock ahead, then began to steady his ragged breathing. He'd been weaving through the woods for seven or eight minutes since receiving Karuizawa Kei's distress call, and he had roughly six hundred meters left.
If Kitagawa Ryo had to run six hundred meters on a proper track, he wouldn't need three minutes. But given the terrain and his stamina, three minutes was the most he could promise.
Kitagawa Ryo didn't make promises lightly, but he'd just promised to reach Karuizawa Kei in three minutes.
His lungs were nearly on fire, and his throat gave a painful, rasping cry, like a dried-up riverbed.
His breathing grew heavier by the second, his heart pounded wildly in his chest, and the sweat that seeped from his pores dried almost at once in the wind. His clothes clung limply to his body.
"Hey..."
Just as he could almost see the two of them, Kitagawa Ryo suddenly received a call from Ichinose Honami.
"Ryo, I've already contacted the park staff. They should be here in about ten minutes. Don't do anything rash. As long as Maki..."
Her voice on the other end was just as breathless. Ichinose Honami spoke into the phone:
"Anyway, Ryo, don't hang up. I won't feel at ease otherwise."
"Got it."
He'd lost about twenty seconds, but there was still time.
He reached out and pushed aside Emi Eura's arm. The arm she'd raised high but hadn't dared to bring down was like an antenna pointed at the sky, rigid and unwilling to lower.
The boy stood in front of Karuizawa Kei as if he'd always belonged there.
He wet his dry lips with his tongue, stepped onto the stairs with his right foot, and leaned forward slightly. The movement made him look dangerous and provocative.
"Who the hell are you, kid?"
"Kitagawa Ryo."
Kitagawa Ryo glanced at the phone in his pocket. The green call button was still lit.
"I'm the boyfriend of Karuizawa Kei, the girl you've got cornered here."
"You here to pay her debt? By yourself?"
The man called Ken-ge seemed to feel that being challenged like this by a kid who looked like he was still in high school was humiliating. He stepped forward, spat out his cigarette butt, and stamped it out.
"No."
Kitagawa Ryo looked at Karuizawa Kei, who seemed on the verge of tears at his arrival, and Ichinose Maki, who was hiding behind him with a frightened look on her face. His voice turned even colder.
The barely restrained anger and slightly manic tone made Ken-ge feel uneasy.
He slapped Emi Eura across the face, hard enough that Kitagawa Ryo's palm turned faintly red.
"I'm here to stand up for my girlfriend."
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
Ken-ge wasn't that attached to Emi Eura, but his girlfriend had been hit in front of everyone. As their leader, he couldn't just stand by and do nothing. The delinquents behind him immediately moved in.
But just as they were about to teach this clueless kid a lesson, they suddenly heard the synchronized sound of footsteps. It seemed like people were coming down the mountain, and there appeared to be quite a few of them.
Ken-ge's expression darkened. Whether they were visitors or staff, if they were caught beating someone in public, even with some influence in the area, it would take a lot of effort to settle things.
"Kid, you're lucky today. Move!"
He scowled and led his group toward Kitagawa Ryo, trying to shove him off the hiking trail.
"I really am lucky today."
Kitagawa Ryo laughed, his tone relaxed.
"My family happens to have a contract for a project up on this mountain, so it's easy for me to call people in."
A group of around twenty men came charging down from above. Except for the elderly man leading them, they were all muscular adults wearing identical black, tight-fitting T-shirts. What made Ken-ge's throat go dry was that every one of them was holding a baton about forty centimeters long.
Kitagawa Ryo took a baton from his family's butler and pointed it straight at one of the delinquents, a man with dyed blond hair.
The setting sun, nearing dusk, cast a vast, brilliant wash of blood-red light behind him.
"I remember you having the dirtiest mouth."
"Come on out."
"Are we not going up?"
"We should still have time."
After the staff took away the delinquents, who had "accidentally" fallen and ended up covered in bruises, Kitagawa Ryo sat on the stone steps and smiled at Ichinose Honami, who had rushed over. Unlike the slightly ferocious expression he'd worn before, this was the kind of smile he showed only when looking at Ichinose Honami.
"I never thought something like this would happen."
Ichinose Honami smoothed down her skirt and sat beside Kitagawa Ryo. Ichinose Maki and Karuizawa Kei were being questioned as witnesses to the "incident." The other group was so cowed they didn't dare say a thing, so the two girls were free to make up whatever version of events they liked.
"Is this what your family does, Ryo?"
Kitagawa Ryo scratched his head and hurriedly denied it.
"Our family runs a legitimate business. We just had these men stationed here temporarily because we've got a contract for a project on the mountaintop. I heard they're building a huge observation deck where you'll be able to watch the fireworks in Tokyo directly..."
"I want to take Maki home. She must be shaken up by what happened today."
Ichinose Maki interrupted Kitagawa Ryo, looking tired. She glanced toward the mountaintop, which wasn't far away, and managed a weak smile.
"Next time we come, let's go up to the top."
"Sorry."
Noticing the girl's lack of enthusiasm, Kitagawa Ryo fell silent.
"Mm, there's no need to apologize. Besides, Karuizawa was frightened too, wasn't she? Ryo, make sure you thank her for me."
"You could thank her yourself, Honami."
Ichinose Honami watched the sun slowly sink behind the mountain, then answered quietly, her eyes sidelong on her shadow.
"Isn't she your girlfriend, Ryo?"
Kitagawa Ryo stared at Ichinose Honami for a few seconds as if he didn't recognize her, then teased her in a light tone.
"What? I guess we acted pretty convincingly if even you think that."
"Mm-hm. Then Kei's friends shouldn't be able to see through it either."
"Actually, I've been thinking about when to tell Kei..."
"Maki's come out."
Ichinose Honami suddenly stood up. Even she could hear the pleading in her own voice.
"I'll head down with her."
"Sure, no problem."
Kitagawa Ryo suddenly felt like he'd heard himself say those words before, but he couldn't remember when he'd said them to Ichinose Honami.
He silently watched Ichinose Honami and Ichinose Maki walk down the mountain. Maki seemed to glance back at him twice, and he looked up and waved at her with a smile.
Kitagawa Ryo felt as if he were floating on the surface of the sea, like a limp, fragile duckweed plant adrift in a desolate, endless ocean. The past stood there like reefs, and every so often he would collide with them, each impact sending pain through him.
When one person's memories of their relationship with another were missing, all the past they shared would fall into a black hole of time. Every word and every sentence, every memory you treasured—when you were the only one who remembered, it was nothing more than a corpse left behind by time, worthless.
"Kitagawa-senpai."
He didn't know how long had passed. Only when the girl behind him called out did Kitagawa Ryo finally come back to himself. The sky had darkened, and it was almost six o'clock.
"I'm sorry about what happened today."
Kitagawa Ryo looked at the girl standing there. Her honey-colored hair fluttered in the air like a fairy's.
"I didn't expect those people to show up."
"It's okay, it's okay."
Karuizawa Kei hurriedly shook her head. Nervously, she twisted a lock of hair around her fingers.
"Senpai only asked me not to turn down Maki's request and to enjoy the day here. No one could have known we'd run into something like this."
"Kei knew, didn't she?"
Kitagawa Ryo gave a bitter smile and reached out to catch a falling leaf.
"Mm. I came today to play along with Kitagawa-senpai's confession plan."
Karuizawa Kei nodded and held up three fingers.
"Actually, Senpai had planned this date from the beginning. The whole thing about taking a random route bus was fake, because Senpai had already looked into the bus schedule and arrival times. As for the park, all you had to do was suggest getting off here when you noticed we were close to the stop."
"Although I don't know what Senpai arranged, you were definitely going to reach the temple with Ichinose-san around noon and make your first attempt there. From what I noticed at noon, it probably had something to do with the love fortunes, since that rule about not untying them was just too intriguing."
"And the mountaintop was supposed to be the final spot for the confession. But because of what happened today, I didn't get to go up there, so I can't guess what you had planned."
Karuizawa Kei smiled sheepishly, then pointed to herself.
"As for my role, I was supposed to break up with Senpai there."
"Judging by the result, I, the actor Senpai handpicked, really messed up my performance. I was supposed to end up as part of the audience, after all."
"No."
Kitagawa Ryo suddenly laughed, but there wasn't the slightest trace of happiness in it.
"Honami was the one who acted the worst. She was so bad I couldn't play off her, so bad she couldn't catch any of my cues, so bad she couldn't deliver her lines or keep a straight face."
"Senpai..."
Karuizawa Kei looked at Kitagawa Ryo with concern.
"Ah, I'm fine."
Before you continue