"Shimazaki, you've had too much. Tomorrow's the Mermaid Festival. If you're too drunk to get up, you'll embarrass your father."
Three young men were drinking at a beachfront bar on a beach in Obama City.
Two of them only sipped their drinks, but Shimazaki Daiki poured beer down his throat, glass after glass, as though trying to suppress the fear inside him.
"I know what I'm doing. Can't you see I'm only drinking beer? It won't affect my police duties tomorrow." But Shimazaki Daiki wouldn't listen. His eyes were already hazy with drink.
The other two exchanged a glance and shook their heads helplessly.
"You only ran into Suzuki's younger sister. Is there any need to be this terrified? It's not like you actually saw Suzuki," said a man with glasses and a thin, two-part mustache, dismissively.
"Haga, it's easy for you to talk!"
Shimazaki Daiki slammed his beer glass onto the table with a dull thud.
"Suzuki's sister looks far too much like her. At first glance... I really thought Suzuki's ghost had crawled out of Wakasa Bay."
You're such a coward.
A trace of disdain flashed through Haga Ryuji's eyes, but he had the sense not to say it aloud.
After all, Shimazaki Daiki had a police chief for a father, making him the most influential member of the Yacht Club.
Ever since abandoning Suzuki Kimie in the storm five years ago, the six members of the Yacht Club had been in the same boat. Their shared secret had bound them tightly together, and they had stayed in frequent contact even after graduation.
Haga Ryuji and another Yacht Club member, Yamamoto, had happened upon Shimazaki Daiki drowning his sorrows at the beachfront bar. From him, they learned that Suzuki's younger sister had returned to Obama City.
"You don't