Chapter Twelve: The Decision That Changed the Course of Events / Chapter Thirteen: About a Girl Named Horikita Suzune

The girl's daily routine had become regular—and even strict—years ago. Horikita Suzune was a girl who strove for perfection.

Or rather, she was a younger sister who kept moving forward in pursuit of her older brother's example. Since Horikita Manabu was practically perfect in her eyes, there was nothing wrong with saying she pursued perfection as she moved forward.

After finishing her thirty-minute morning workout and returning home, Horikita Suzune changed out of her clothes and took a hot shower. Under the rush of hot water, her usually sickly pale skin turned faintly red. Her waist-length black hair fell loose down her back, shrouded in steam and as black as a raven's wet feathers.

After washing away the sweat from her workout, Horikita Suzune began preparing a meal for herself, taking meticulous care with every step. Cooking was a skill she had to master to live on her own, and after years of practice, she had become quite capable. Among people her age, her cooking was already impressive.

She carried her prepared breakfast to the table and turned on the television to watch the morning news. Living alone didn't mean shutting herself off from all the information in the outside world. As she precisely cut the food on her plate and brought it to her mouth, she took in all kinds of news.

After breakfast, she washed the dishes. To keep dish soap bubbles from getting in her way, Horikita Suzune casually swept her long hair back and tied it into a high ponytail. She never went out of her way to style her hair, so she usually wore it straight and loose. That was why an occasional change in hairstyle made such a striking difference. The high ponytail swayed lightly with the movement of her hands, lending the girl a touch of liveliness.

Horikita Suzune's daily life was always the same, until three minutes later, when she received an international call from Horikita Manabu:

"You should meet Ryo today, if you can. Even if all you do is get acquainted and become friends, that would be good."

That was what her older brother told her over the phone.

And so Horikita Suzune's daily routine came to an end.

Chapter Twelve: The Decision That Changed the Course of Events

A fitting room was an extremely narrow space. Many people liked the small, enclosed area, where they could see everything around them at a glance, and believed it gave them a strange sense of security. Karuizawa Kei couldn't accept that idea. To her, a cramped, enclosed space had nothing to do with "safety." More often than not, it brought to mind unpleasant words like "danger" and "nowhere to escape."

At the thought, Karuizawa Kei's breathing grew a little ragged. But she soon remembered that Kitagawa Ryo was standing just outside the door. That fact enveloped her, and at last she could move about normally in there.

She took off her clothes and put on the carefully selected black dress. The clock outside chimed the hour, and Karuizawa Kei's breathing grew heavier. Her breath fogged the top of the half-length mirror in front of her, blurring that part of its surface.

It was now eleven o'clock in the morning. Karuizawa Kei seemed to be deliberately dragging her feet as she took her time trying the dress on.

Kitagawa Ryo had told her that morning he had something to take care of at noon. Or rather, he had to meet someone. It was his parents' idea.

Karuizawa Kei had keenly picked up on that detail. So during their shopping that morning, they still hadn't found anything. No matter what Kitagawa Ryo thought of an outfit, Karuizawa Kei always said there might be something more suitable and started the whole process over again. From last night until now, she had lost count of how many times she had repeated the same excuse.

Karuizawa Kei reached out and wiped a distinct streak across the half-length mirror, revealing her pale neck in its reflection.

She raised her eyes. Reflected in the glass was a body that had yet to fully mature, but could already be called battered.

Her arms were so thin they seemed as though they might snap with the slightest bend, and they led to small hands. She looked as if she had never exercised.

Her chest had filled out a little, but still traced a gentle curve. The rest of her body was much the same, from her small navel to her slender waist and down to her feet. When she looked down, she could see her toes without any effort. Just as Kitagawa Ryo had once thought, Karuizawa Kei was shrouded from head to toe in a feeble air that could provoke someone's sadistic urges.

What embarrassed Karuizawa Kei even more were the bruises that had yet to fade and the small scars that dotted her chest, stomach, shoulders, and back. They seemed to remind her, over and over, of what she had been through.

Karuizawa Kei brushed up her bangs. A scabbed-over scar stood out clearly on the right side of her scalp. It was a cut about six or seven centimeters long. Karuizawa Kei had already forgotten who had given it to her. At the time, she had only been relieved that the ugly mark could be hidden.

But now Karuizawa Kei was deliberately exposing it again. She stared at it through the mirror, a little afraid, then reached out and touched the scab. The healed wound could no longer cause her physical pain. When she touched it, it even felt as if it had become separate from her body. Its bloody scent had long since faded, as though it had never happened at all.

Karuizawa Kei began changing into the black dress piece by piece. In the past, she usually wore casual clothes in shades of blue or white, or the uniform required by her school. So trying a different style every now and then made her look utterly different, as if Cinderella had been transformed by magic.

There was no denying that the dress suited Karuizawa Kei perfectly, judging by Kitagawa Ryo's reaction and even that of the shop assistants. Even she herself was a little stunned when she stepped out of the fitting room and stood before the enormous full-length mirror.

"Let's buy this one."

Kitagawa Ryo spoke with a certainty he had hardly ever shown before. Standing beside Karuizawa Kei, he praised her without holding back:

"I didn't realize you suited dark-colored clothes so well, Kei."

Kitagawa Ryo wasn't wrong, and Karuizawa Kei herself thought the dress suited her especially well. But at this delicate moment, she couldn't help feeling that he wanted to finish this task as quickly as possible so he could go do his own thing and meet someone else.

Karuizawa Kei was suddenly struck by panic. The air around her and the sound of people talking swirled through her hollow, empty mind and body. The pure black seemed like a bottomless abyss, dragging her down. She grabbed Kitagawa Ryo as he was about to pay, as if clutching a rope thrown down to her.

"I feel like...it doesn't really suit me. Should we look at a few more stores?"

Karuizawa Kei casually tugged at the hem of her dress.

"It doesn't seem to fit quite right."

As soon as she finished speaking, she lowered her head and pursed her lips, fiddling with the lace on the hem as if counting the patterns. The dress really was finely made. Karuizawa Kei studied its neat stitches as she waited for Kitagawa Ryo to respond.

"But I think it suits you pretty well, Kei."

Kitagawa Ryo remained a little stubborn, but when Karuizawa Kei saw him glancing at the clock on the wall, she felt a wave of agitation.

Karuizawa Kei simply went back into the fitting room. She took the dress off even faster than she had put it on. Holding the dress, she handed it back to the shop assistant as if she couldn't wait to get it out of her sight.

But Kitagawa Ryo's voice quickly followed her:

"But I really think you look especially good in this one, Kei. There might be something even more suitable, sure, but buying this dress doesn't stop you from trying on clothes at other stores..."

Kitagawa Ryo had somehow taken the dress back from the shop assistant. He seemed to be waiting for Karuizawa Kei to nod and say something. The very next moment, the dress would be wrapped up and handed to her.

"Ryo still has six days before he leaves. We've got plenty of time to look."

Karuizawa Kei made sure to emphasize the word "six" as she spoke, as if reminding Kitagawa Ryo that he was only back for a week—and that one-seventh of it had already passed. In that light, "plenty of time" carried a hint of resentment.

She really did want Kitagawa Ryo all to herself for that entire week. Karuizawa Kei wanted to remember every minute and every second of it clearly, like an animal storing up food before winter. She knew perfectly well that Kitagawa Ryo leaving six days later was unavoidable. So she had to save up memories in advance for the days that followed. She didn't want to be like a hibernating bear, left hungry with nothing to do but lick its paws.

In truth, Karuizawa Kei feared Kitagawa Ryo leaving more than anyone. She had long understood that their relationship was like a child and the kite in their hands. Kitagawa Ryo was a kite tied to her hand, but for now, he hadn't flown away. If he soared into the sky, all that would remain between them was a thin string, one that could snap at any moment. Karuizawa Kei even thought he might break it himself.

Over the past six months, Karuizawa Kei had already realized that memories and everything else were fragile. If Kitagawa Ryo left and never came back, there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't control him at all. He could simply disappear if he wanted to.

"But I still have to meet a friend's younger sister at noon today. He asked me to do it."

It seemed Kitagawa Ryo hadn't understood what Karuizawa Kei meant. He glanced at the time with some frustration and said:

"I didn't expect you to take so long picking out clothes, Kei. I arranged to meet her around eleven or twelve today. It's already getting late, but we should be able to take care of it pretty quickly. I can spend the afternoon with you, too."

Karuizawa Kei didn't manage to hear all of what Kitagawa Ryo said. The moment she heard "her," the hairs on her body stood on end. The vague fear lingering in her heart suddenly became a tangible insect, gnawing at her.

"Ryo isn't lying to me, is he?"

Karuizawa Kei turned to him in an instant. She watched Kitagawa Ryo's eyes and asked softly:

"Who are you really going to meet?"

She was practically interrogating him. Back when she was being bullied, Karuizawa Kei would instinctively use patience and people-pleasing to cope with her fear. But when she was with Kitagawa Ryo, she always found herself inexplicably more assertive, only for the weakness brought on by panic to quickly overwhelm her again.

"If you don't want to tell me, that's okay..."

Just like now, Karuizawa Kei had suddenly wilted. She tugged at Kitagawa Ryo's sleeve as she spoke.

"She's just a friend's younger sister. I'm only meeting her because my friend asked me to."

Karuizawa Kei watched Kitagawa Ryo repeat his explanation, and in the end, she nodded.

Kitagawa Ryo breathed a sigh of relief and was about to hand the dress to the shop assistant to be wrapped up when he suddenly realized that Karuizawa Kei hadn't understood him as he had imagined. Instead, she gave him a completely natural smile.

"If she's just a friend's younger sister, why aren't you willing to cancel your meeting with her for me, Ryo?"

The moment she said it, Karuizawa Kei regretted it. Any lie, whether kind or malicious, always led to a wordless, awkward moment when you dug too deep and exposed it. Karuizawa Kei felt utterly beyond help. Kitagawa Ryo hadn't done anything wrong to her, yet she was still acting like a vicious executioner, striking straight at an obvious lie.

Kitagawa Ryo pressed his fingers to his brow, unable to answer. His lips moved as if he wanted to explain something. The gesture seemed to trigger some kind of switch. Karuizawa Kei clearly felt her eyes begin to swell. She knew she was about to cry.

People couldn't go through life without ever lying, because truth only had meaning in relation to lies. If no one lied, honesty wouldn't be praised as a virtue. Most of the time, lies simply existed to plug the gaps in a situation, or fill in the reasons for some unexpected turn of events.

"We've already made plans, and I promised I'd do this."

Kitagawa Ryo offered a halting explanation and scratched his head awkwardly.

"Sorry. I really can't help it."

He turned and signaled to the shop assistant to wrap up the black dress. A short while later, she handed a paper bag to Karuizawa Kei.

Karuizawa Kei awkwardly hugged the dress to her chest. Only after they had left the clothing store did Kitagawa Ryo speak to her again:

"I've finished investigating the bullying you went through at school, Kei. If you want, I can have everyone come here at noon today, along with their parents, and apologize to you. You can do whatever you like, as long as it doesn't get too serious."

"..."

After investigating all night, Kitagawa Ryo had discovered that most of the bullies came from troubled family situations. Some had divorced parents, while others came from single-parent homes after losing a father or mother. Their personalities had often become twisted because of poor family education and the lack of time their parents spent with them. In everyday life, these bullies were self-centered and willful, and many of them even resented their own parents.

But they only dared to bully their classmates at school. They could brag all they wanted about looking down on their parents, but they never dared to truly defy them. That was simply who they were: resenting their family situations even as they depended on their parents to survive, then venting all their negative feelings on classmates weaker than themselves.

So all he had to do was start with their parents. He would make the guardians who had always covered for them truly understand how serious the situation was. He would tear down the people who had supported them from behind, no matter what, and make them lose the courage to bully anyone again. The night before, Kitagawa Ryo had already used some of the Kitagawa Family's connections to bring pressure to bear. He narrowed his eyes as he remembered the panic on the faces of those bullies, who feared nothing and no one, when they saw their parents drop to their knees and apologize without hesitation.

They said growing up meant gradually realizing that you weren't omnipotent, and that your parents weren't omnipotent either. Once you understood those two things, you could be considered grown up. In that case, Kitagawa Ryo supposed he was forcing them to grow up too quickly. Of course, if the seedlings really died, he wouldn't feel sorry for them.

The only unpredictable one was Emi Eura. She was someone who didn't seem to care much about her parents at all. Even Kitagawa Ryo himself couldn't understand what kept her alive. She seemed to feel nothing but jealousy and resentment, and to want nothing more than to stomp Karuizawa Kei into the dirt and keep her there forever.

It was a kind of pure malice Kitagawa Ryo had never encountered before.

"I don't care about the others anymore. I just want to meet Emi alone. There's something I want to ask her."

Karuizawa Kei still habitually called her "Emi." She tilted her head toward Kitagawa Ryo.

"Just at noon today, just the two of us. Is that okay?"

"No. I don't trust it."

Kitagawa Ryo refused without thinking. He had a feeling that Emi Eura was dangerous, and he definitely wouldn't let the two of them meet alone.

"Then come with me, Ryo."

Karuizawa Kei stubbornly refused to back down, too. She didn't care about Emi Eura at all. She just wanted Kitagawa Ryo by her side. As long as she could make that happen, she'd use anything she could as a bargaining chip, anything she could turn into leverage, and throw it all onto her side of the scales.

Kitagawa Ryo sighed. In the end, he gave in to Karuizawa Kei. He still couldn't realize that what he did next would affect the course of the future. He simply made a decision:

"Then come meet Horikita Suzune with me first, Kei. After that, I'll go with you to meet Emi Eura."

Chapter Thirteen: About a Girl Named Horikita Suzune

For the first time, Horikita Suzune found herself unable to focus on the book in her hands. She sat in her familiar seat at the familiar family restaurant, with a familiar dish in front of her, one she had eaten countless times. Generally speaking, people felt calmer around familiar things. But whenever Horikita Suzune thought about her conversation with her older brother that morning, a strange sense of unease welled up inside her. As a result, she had been stuck on the same page for twenty minutes.

She put the novel she had just started reading, Crime and Punishment by the Russian author Dostoevsky, into her bag. Since she couldn't concentrate, she might as well stop reading. Horikita Suzune carefully put the book away and glanced at the clock on the wall.

It was now eleven o'clock at noon. According to Horikita Manabu, the other party would meet with Horikita Suzune sometime around eleven or twelve that day. Since she didn't want anyone coming into her home, Horikita Suzune had chosen the family restaurant, the second place she knew best, as their meeting spot.

To be honest, with Horikita Suzune's cooking skills, she could easily make meals at home on her own. But she still came here every day, partly to save time and energy, and more importantly because she and Horikita Manabu had occasionally eaten here together in the past.

But that had been a long time ago. Two years earlier, Horikita Manabu had left Tokyo for the United Kingdom on the other side of the world. Thinking about it now, she and Horikita Manabu hadn't seen each other in two years.

Horikita Suzune had wanted to follow in Horikita Manabu's footsteps, but along the way, her brother told her not to. By the time she came to her senses, she had no idea where he had gone. She didn't have the courage to forge a new path for herself, so she could only keep moving forward, step by step, following the footprints ahead of her.

She excelled in her studies and at sports. From elementary school until now, she had never been late or missed a day. Even when she occasionally fell ill, she insisted on going to school. To Horikita Suzune, nothing mattered more than studying hard, getting into a good high school, and then going to a good university.

There was no denying that Horikita Suzune had an unbelievable degree of self-control and self-discipline. She practically ordered herself to move toward Horikita Manabu, like a meticulous machine that had been programmed in advance, never tiring.

In Horikita Suzune's view, she could accomplish anything on her own, so there was no need for her to socialize. In her everyday school life, she had already seen too many so-called "teams" become inefficient because their members shirked responsibility and their leaders were incompetent. She had never seen the benefits of teamwork.

At the same time, Horikita Suzune didn't think eating alone, going to school alone, and going home alone were lonely things to do. In her impression, her older brother, Horikita Manabu, had the same personality. If she thought about it that way, it naturally followed that what she was doing now was right.

That self-contained system, which had been running smoothly and could justify itself, came to an end that morning.

First, Horikita Suzune learned that her older brother had a friend named Kitagawa Ryo.

Second, this Kitagawa Ryo was also her fiancé.

Those two shocking facts hit her at once, threatening to shatter the worldview the girl had built over more than a decade. She had convinced herself that she didn't need friends because her older brother was the same. But then Horikita Manabu suddenly told her that he had a friend—and that this friend was her so-called "fiancé."

Horikita Suzune's right hand paused around her fork before mechanically bringing the food to her mouth and chewing.

She had never understood what a friend was, and she didn't think she could ever make one. Naturally, she wouldn't accept a fiancé who appeared out of nowhere. But at the same time, she was somewhat curious about Kitagawa Ryo, who had yet to appear before her, because of his connection to Horikita Manabu.

She had finished the food on her plate. It was now eleven forty-five. If twelve o'clock was the deadline, then the other party had about fifteen minutes left. Horikita Suzune wiped her fingers and the corners of her mouth with a tissue, then took Crime and Punishment out of her bag again and began reading.

This long novel, written in the mid-nineteenth century, mainly told the story of a protagonist driven by poverty to kill a pawnbroker and her innocent younger sister. After a painful bout of remorse, he eventually turned himself in after being urged to do so by a Christian woman. Like its title, the book was divided into two parts, "Crime" and "Punishment." The first chapter described how the protagonist committed the murders, while the rest of the book focused at length on his thoughts and the suffering he endured.

Since Horikita Suzune had only just started reading, she had reached only the first few sections of the first chapter, right at the part where the protagonist killed the two women with an axe. Dostoevsky's descriptions of this scene were extremely detailed, and all the details made Horikita Suzune, who had just eaten, feel a little uncomfortable.

Her emotions seemed more sensitive today than on any other day. After realizing this, Horikita Suzune looked up at the clock on the wall again.

Eleven fifty-five. Horikita Suzune frowned. If Kitagawa Ryo was late on their very first meeting, her opinion of him would immediately drop a level.

For the last five minutes, Horikita Suzune simply kept her gaze fixed on the restaurant entrance, watching every customer who came in.

At eleven fifty-six, an old man came in with a child.

At eleven fifty-seven, a girl who looked about the same age as her came in. Her honey-colored hair made her easy to remember.

At eleven fifty-eight, no one came in.

At eleven fifty-nine, Horikita Suzune saw a boy push open the restaurant door and immediately spot her.

A short while later, Kitagawa Ryo arrived at Horikita Suzune's table and calmly took the seat opposite her.

"Hello, I'm Kitagawa Ryo. It's nice to meet you."

The boy across from Horikita Suzune nodded as he introduced himself. His features were exceptionally handsome, especially his glittering, black-gem eyes. The moment their eyes met, Horikita Suzune felt herself drawn in.

"I'm Horikita Suzune."

The girl introduced herself stiffly at first, then realized that seemed a little rude and added:

"Hello. It's nice to meet you."