Chapter 3: The Chimes of Midnight (3) |
“Finding someone? Leave it to me,” Sakai nodded once we went to his clubroom and explained things to him, “I have a condition though, I’d like to print an interview with Eina-chan.”
“Eh, I can’t say yes without her permission.”
“That’s impossible, right? We’re searching for her without her knowing after all,” Ruka-senpai supported me.
Sakai paused for thought before continuing.
“Then promise me that you’ll persuade her. Obviously I don’t want you to pressure her, she doesn’t need to give a picture, just the interview is fine. She’s so famous after all, her debut work captured the gossip of the entire school and her play made the cultural festival what it was! If we can get an exclusive interview, we’ll be known throughout the world!”
Sakai was practically frothing at the mouth and I was lost. The interview would be dependent on Eina, so…
“Shuu-kun, you can just say okay for now,” Ruka-senpai gave me a strained smile, “you’ve got a serious personality, so you might worry about it.”
“Okay, I’ll try and persuade her.”
“Ta, ta, then let’s get while the getting’s good, let’s start,” Sakai put a tablet on the desk, “‘Eina’ is her internet handle, right?”
“Then let’s check places like Twitter.”
I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself actually. I’d rushed off wanting to meet her, but hadn’t thought things through myself.
Sakai put ‘Eina’ in the search field and about ten accounts showed up on the screen.
“Huh, there’s quite a few,” Ruka-senpai muttered in wonder.
“Roughly half of them are foreigners, so it’s probably one of these two,” While Sakai spoke, he opened tabs for both users’ timelines, “So? Anything look familiar? Or anything that matches something she said?”
“Ah!” I pointed at the one, “This might be her. She wrote about last week.”
Eina @eina002
I’m going out with S-san tomorrow.
Eina @eina002
I got his present ready.
Eina @eina002
I’msonervous!
“S-san is you?”
“Probably…”
I scrolled a little further.
Eina @eina002
I can’t… write the script… Ｉｔ'ｓｏ ｖｅｒ.
Eina @eina002
S-san praised me for the script! I’m so happy!
Eina @eina002
I saw the play! S-san was so cool!
“Eina-chan’s so sweet.”
“I’m sort of jealous.”
Sakai and Ruka-senpai said respectively from my sides, and I knew my face had gone red as well.
“Anyway, this is most likely her account. What do we do next then?”
I feigned calmness and asked.
“We analyse her tweets and look for personal information,” Sakai slid his finger over the screen, whizzing through the timeline, “Oh, she uses a normal blog too, let’s have a look.”
He opened it up in a separate window and several entries, more detailed than the tweets, were shown on the screen.
“Rejoice, Yagi. Eina-chan is awfully net illiterate.”
“Why would I rejoice about that?” I grew uneasy.
“It’s good news for finding her. For example, take this picture…” he expanded a picture of a cherry tree, it was a pretty picture, with the tree in full bloom with pink flowers, “this picture still has GPS data in it. And the title’s ‘A snap from near home’. That lets us know that she lives near a cherry tree. The address is…” he pulled up the location on a map, it was one station down from C Station, and seemed rather rural.
“So that’s how a stalker finds someone…” Ruka-senpai backed away from him.
“Hey, Ruka-senpai! I won’t abuse this! Right, Yagi?”
“Sorry, I think it’s stalker-ish as well.”
“So mean! You’re the same then!”
“Shuu-kun is different! They’re in love!”
“Kuh… What’s with this discrimination!?” Sakai ground his teeth. “This won’t stop me… This is all for an interview with Eina-chan…!”
He really was putting the effort in, and I decided to do my best to ask her for an interview as well.
“There’s a lot of pictures, let’s text-mine her tweets… Oh, a sports day at elementary school? There’s only one school with a sports day then, so… Oh! She uploaded a picture from a window!!” Sakai left us behind for a while, immersing himself in the internet, and then…
“This is probably where she lives,” he pointed at a house on the street view. It would take about half an hour to get there, we could probably check it out. “It looks like it’s the Yokota family’s house. Five years ago, they had a middle schooler and an elementary schooler. I don’t know about now though. Eina-chan doesn’t have any posts since October five years ago, so I can’t narrow it down any more. Maybe she got better habits after that.”
“This… is Eina’s house…” I shook as I looked at the picture, “Thank you, really. I didn’t think you’d find her so quickly.”
“I’m going to be a journalist, so that much was a piece of cake,” Sakai proclaimed proudly.
“Careful not to get killed if you stick your neck too far into some politician’s corruption…”
“I’d be happy to be involved in something so big!”
Ruka-senpai seemed genuinely worried, but Sakai brushed her concerns aside triumphantly.
“So, what do we do next?” I asked.
“We go and check. We haven’t done anything to be guilty of.”
Sakai declared confidently.
No, we really have though, I thought worriedly.
4
It was the next day, Saturday, and Ruka-senpai, Sakai, and I were headed to the Yokota residence.
I bought some sweets in front of C Station.
“What’d you buy in the end?” Asked Sakai.
“Eina likes sweet things, so some dorayaki,” I answered him.
“You really love her,” said Ruka-senpai, and my cheeks flushed.
We got off the train at the next station and walked for five minutes through the quiet suburbs before arriving at the Yokota house.
I stood in front of their intercom and took a deep breath.
Ruka-senpai and Sakai both took a step back and waited for me, not urging me to push the button.
Slowly, I stretched out my finger to the button.
I wonder what she looks like?
What shape are her eyebrows?
What colour are her eyes?
I wonder if she’s pale or tanned.
Is she tall or short?
How long is her hair?
What colour is it?
She was always smiling, what was her smile like?
I pushed the button.
A pleasant chime rang out.
《Yes?》
An adult woman’s voice answered.
“Is there an Eina-san there?”
《Eina…?》
The woman seemed confused.
Was it pointless asking after her handle? She might not have told her family the name she used.
Or do we have the wrong place?
Maybe she’s already moved because five years have passed.
《Did she write a story?》
“Yes! She did!”
I leaned forwards.
However, the speaker fell silent. 《I’m sorry to say so, but she isn’t here.》
“She’s not? Did she move?”
《Umm, wait a moment.》
The speaker buzzed as it turned off, and after a while, a woman came out. She looked to be around twenty. Her gaze was sharp, and she seemed like a rather cold woman.
She gave a small bow.
“I’m Eina’s cousin. It’s nice to meet her friends.”
“It’s good to meet you too.”
I greeted her in turn, wondering to myself if this was the cousin that had bullied her.
“Please, let’s talk inside.”
She invited us in, and all three of us entered the house, she showed us to the living room and we sat down on the sofa.
“To put it bluntly, Eina is dead.”
What did she…?
I tried to ask her, but all that came out was a strangled sound of questioning.
The shock had closed up my throat, and I couldn’t speak.
“Eina went up the hill at the back of our house during a storm five years ago and didn’t come back. She’s still missing. But there’s probably no hope after five years, and we’ve given up,” said her cousin with a grave expression.
I was just aghast, staring at her face.
“Thinking about it now, I think I did something I shouldn’t have. I was always treating her badly… But she was always just shutting herself away in her room, and just using other people’s things. Then there were the arguments with mama and papa, and the worry…”
She began to cry as she spoke.
Ruka-senpai said something to her, and Sakai gave some kind of response as well.
I watched it all dazedly, their voices sounding distant.
A single phrase was just repeating itself in my head.
Eina had died.
Died…
Died!
《But I’m scared. Scared to know my future. I mean… What if I’m dead after five years?》
I remembered Eina’s words.
“It can’t be true…” made its way from my mouth. “It can’t be true…!!”
Intermission 3 — Broken Spell
“You took my hotspot!!”
Onee-chan came storming into my room. I’d been found out. I returned it though…!
My mind went blank with fear. What would happen now?
“What are you doing, you freeloader!? Papa and Mama will be angry with this. I know you’ve been sneaking around with a smartphone,” she said, snatching the phone from my grip.
I tried my best to resist, but an elementary schooler is much weaker than a middle schooler.
She easily took it.
“Give it back, give it back!”
“Ehh, is it so important? Oh, what’s this? Chatting with a boy? You impertinent elementary schooler.”
She looked at the screen and sneered.
“Give it back!”
I reached out for it, but she held it out of my reach because I was short.
“You want it back? Hmph, then maybe losing this will teach you a lesson.”
A chill ran down my spine.
What would she do?
The phone was the one connection between Shuu-san and I.
Was she going to break it?
“Please… I’m begging you… I’ll do whatever you say, so stop it,” I pleaded with her.
But she looked coldly at me and ran out of the room.
I chased after her.
But I couldn’t catch her.
And then, she threw the phone onto the concrete of the entranceway right in front of me.
The phone cracked.
“Now you can’t do anything bad,” she practically spat.
I frantically picked it up.
It wouldn’t turn on.
“Onee-chan, why…?” I looked up at her as I cradled the phone, glaring, “I hate you!!”
I ran outside.
“Oi, where are you going, it’s dangerous!” She shouted from the door, but I ignored her. I didn’t want to be here anymore.
I’d never come back. I’d go somewhere far away, where no one would find me.
With no umbrella to shield against the driving rain, I ran through the streets.