Chapter 23
A phone call at this hour?
I looked at the two detectives in front of me. Just then, Yasuhara said,
“Please, go ahead and answer it.”
He urged.
I stood up and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
[Oh, Natsumi?]
It was my mother. Since I had been living away from home for so long, it was unusual for her to call.
“Is something wrong?”
There’s no way my mother would suspect that her daughter is face-to-face with two detectives right now. Of course, I had no intention of telling her that.
[It’s nothing much, but—you know, do you remember that classmate of yours from elementary school?]
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
My mother’s calls are always all over the place, I can never quite get a clear picture of what she’s saying.
[Mai Yamauchi]
Hearing that name, my heart skipped a beat.
“…… Ah, yeah. I remember her.”
I remember that name very well. No, I thought I remembered, but I forgot.
[I heard she passed away!]
“Huh?”
My startled exclamation caused Yasuhara and Kamiya to shoot sharp glances my way.
[It was around lunchtime today. Apparently, it was an accident. Mom was really shocked!]
“…… I see… really.?”
[I was just thinking, in case you wanted to go to the wake.]
“Ah, yeah, I’ll think about it. When is it?”
After that, I jotted down my mother’s words and just kept nodding, saying “Yeah, yeah.”
Mai-chan…….
That’s right. That girl who was killed by the homeowner after trespassing into his yard that day—that was Mai Yamauchi.
She was alive.
I really broke out of that time loop.
[You and Mai-chan were close back in elementary school, weren’t you?]
Upon hearing my mother’s words, I nodded again.
“Yeah… I guess so. But I don’t really remember much about it. She was from a single-parent family, right?”
I’m pretty sure about that much.
[That’s right. There was that time when you cried and pleaded with Mai-chan’s mom, wasn’t there?]
Pleaded? About what?
“…… What was that about again?”
I didn’t know, so I asked her to repeat it.
[Don’t you remember? I think you were still in the lower grades of elementary school. You weren’t home for a long time, so your mom searched everywhere for you. Then I found you barging into Mai-chan’s house.]
Did that really happen?
[No matter how much you were told to go home, you just refused. When I asked why, you made a huge fuss, saying, ‘To save Mai-chan, we absolutely need Mai-chan’s mother’s help!’.]
…… Mai-chan’s mother?
As I listened to my mother’s words, memories from that time came flooding back.
The day Mai was murdered by the homeowner in that house.
Since then, I have relived that day many times, and whether it was right in front of me or not, I have faced Mai’s death, I struggled desperately to save her.
Even if I tried to stop Mai, she wouldn’t listen. Gradually, I began to think about where the root of the problem lay. If you want to stop the tap water, you just have to turn off the main valve. It’s something like that.
Mai was a restless child. She often told lies and cried a lot. I remembered my mother muttering one day, “I guess she just wants attention, but she’s taking it a bit too far.”
If she wants attention, I should just give it to her.
That’s what I thought at first, so I tried spending time with her. But I guess her heart was never truly fulfilled. She’d casually do dangerous things, showed no sign of opening up to me, and seemed like nothing more than a superficial friend.
I just couldn’t seem to save her, and I was getting desperate. And then, finally, I arrived at the answer.
The person Mai wanted attention from wasn’t me. It was her mother.
It was simple. I think Mai was starving for her parents’ love. She did things she was told not to do without hesitation because she wanted to be loved. Yet, in front of her parents, she would act like a good girl. She never acted selfishly and played the role of the “good daughter”. After all, Mai’s mother believed her daughter was a ‘well-behaved model student.’
I decided to shatter that image.
For Mai to properly lean on her mother and express her true feelings, her mother needed to understand how she really felt.
And so, I barged into Mai’s house.
[When Mai-chan’s mom came home from work, you just blurted out, ‘Please understand how lonely Mai-chan feels! If this continues, you’ll lose Mai-chan!’ I really wondered what had come over you at that moment!]
I blushed as I listened to my mother recount my own heroic tale.
Hmm… maybe it would’ve been better if I’d just forgotten about that.
[But in the end, that incident was the trigger that improved Mai-chan’s behavior. That girl was a bit of a troublemaker back then, wasn’t she?]
“…… I see.”
[You know, Mai-chan’s mom once told me something.]
“Huh? “What?”
[She said, ‘If Natsumi-chan hadn’t yelled at me that day, I might never have realized how lonely Mai was. I’m grateful for that.]
…… Ah, so that’s it. The reason I was able to break free from that loop was because I had actually found the “answer”. That means Mai was able to move forward by following the right path.
Thinking that, I felt a little relieved. There must be a way to save Shinji, too.
“Thanks for calling, Mom. I’ll get back to you. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
I hung up the phone with my mother and turned back to the two people who were waiting for me.
“Was that… your mother?”
Kamiya asked. I nodded,
“It seems a childhood friend of mine has passed away.”
“I’m… so sorry for your loss.”
The two bowed their heads.
“Yes. I suppose it’s a sad event.”
At my choice of words, their expressions changed. Saying “probably sad” about the death of an acquaintance—well, I suppose it’s no wonder they looked puzzled.
“I vaguely remember her. But I’m not sure if we were close enough for my mother to call me so quickly. I guess, in her mind, she must have thought we were that close.”
“Um……”
Yasuhara frowned, looking irritated.
“Ah, sorry. But that phone call just now made me certain of something. Having the two of you come here like this—and thinking about what we’re about to discuss and the future that will unfold from our conversation—has given me a glimmer of hope.”
“Huh?”
Watching Yasuhara’s face grow increasingly tense, I took a deep breath to calm myself. It’ll be okay. Just like back then, I’m absolutely certain I can save Shinji.
Sads Translates 