"Okubo?"
Suzuki Maika frowned, as though recalling something, and a shadow crossed her face.
"A middle-aged man? Wasn't he a man of twenty-seven or twenty-eight?"
"No, he wasn't that young. That man was definitely over fifty," the waiter said confidently, giving her an address.
"Uchiha, sorry for the trouble, but please take this drunk back to her room by yourself. I have something to deal with."
A trace of confusion flickered in Suzuki Maika's eyes, but she decided to meet this unexpected visitor anyway. After parting with Uchiha Naruto, she left the fishermen's guesthouse and went to a nearby Sea House restaurant.
Inside, a stubbly, somewhat haggard man over fifty was waiting for her.
"You're Suzuki Kimie's younger sister, Maika, aren't you? I heard today that someone saw you back in Obama City. Sorry for asking you to come here."
"May I ask how you're related to Okubo Ryoya?" Suzuki Maika asked without preamble.
"I'm Ryoya's father," the middle-aged man said.
Suzuki Maika's expression turned cold, and she moved to get up and leave.
"Then I have nothing to discuss with you."
"Ryoya passed away six months ago." The middle-aged fisherman closed his eyes, his face filled with anguish.
Suzuki Maika froze.
"Ryoya killed himself."
Suicide? How dare he?
Though Suzuki Maika had no fondness for the six people who belonged to the same yacht club as her sister and had survived that year's storm, their survival had come at the cost of her sister's precious sacrifice.
One of them, Okubo, had actually chosen to end his own life. What meaning did her sister's sacrifice have, then?
If Okubo was going to kill himself, he might as well have died in that shipwreck and left a place on the life raft free. Then her sister would not have had to