Petit Bourgeois Volume 6 Part 1 Chapter 2: My Middle School Crimes

Chapter 1 | Contents | Chapter 3

The closing ceremony for the second trimester of my school was to be conducted the next day. I had some blood drawn from me in the morning.

I also had a checkup, but since I had been told to avoid rolling over in bed, it was difficult for me to move to the consultation room, so I was truly humbled as a doctor came all the way to my hospital room. He was an elderly physician by the name of Wakura. He asked about my date of birth and today’s date, so I at first wondered if some problem had cropped up regarding the documents, and I was still none the wiser when he inquired about my birthday and address as well as my parents’ names. I was being incredibly slow, and it wasn’t until I was given some questions involving simple addition and subtraction that I realized I was undergoing a checkup.

After the set of questions was over, Wakura-sensei spoke in a sleepy manner.

“Looks like there is no problem with your cognitive ability. Your thinking ability is also not impaired.”

That’s good.

That’s really good. It’s all I have.

A short while after Wakura-sensei left the room, the young doctor who had explained my condition after I regained consciousness and who had taken charge of the operation on my leg walked in. I had definitely been somewhat lightheaded before undergoing the operation, for it was only now that I noticed the name tag on his chest that read, “Miyamuro”.

Clipboard in hand, Miyamuro-sensei gave me an explanation.

“You have quite a lot of white blood cells, but it is within the allowable range after surgery.”

Besides that, Miyamuro-sensei also checked if I was still having a fever and feeling pain, and emphasized once again that I should not roll over in bed.

It became a time that could be considered as afternoon, and I heard a knock on the door. Thinking that it was someone coming to visit, I answered, “Come in,” but a man in work clothes entered while saying, “Sorry for intruding” and holding a mop. While he looked like he was past middle age, his movements were swift and without hesitation. After checking that the rubbish bin was empty, he mopped every nook and cranny of the hospital room, even under the bed, then exited with another apology.

The visitors came in after noon. They were my homeroom teacher, as well as Tobe-kun and Satoyama-san from the class committee. The teacher looked genuinely concerned, but both students seemed apathetic, saying their lines of sympathy as if they were reading an essay aloud. I couldn’t blame them. With the entrance exams looming ahead, it was all they could do to worry about themselves, so it was probably difficult to think about what to say to a classmate who had already dropped out.

I was thinking that a thousand paper cranes¹ would take up a lot of space, but just like yesterday, there were no extravagant get-well gifts, with no cranes and no tortoises. There were also neither baskets of fruit nor flowers. All I received were Satoyama-san’s words, “Take care. I hope you get well soon.” and Tobe-kun’s swift delivery of what he seemingly meant as a joke, “A hit-and-run? There’s no way you were being targeted, right?”

Since I am relatively close with Doujima Kengo, I would have told him off out of kindness if he had been the one to say that line. Implying that a person almost died not due to an accident but because they were targeted for a murder is simply not a funny joke. However, I wasn’t that close with Tobe-kun, so all I said in response was a curt “Perhaps.”

After the three visitors left, the same nurse from yesterday entered.

“I’m here to give you a bed bath.”

I wondered what a “bed bath” meant and if it entailed anything improper, but it evidently meant wiping my body with a towel. Given that I couldn’t move my body properly, it was troublesome to remove my hospital gown, and on top of that it was a little embarrassing, but having my body wiped with a hot steamed towel was a lot more comfortable than I imagined and helped instill a sense of relief. I was a little annoyed that the parts that were wiped by the steamed towel would quickly feel cold due to the heat exchange of evaporation, though.

After the nurse wordlessly wiped me down, she helped me put on my hospital gown. She then left the room, with the only apparent changes in the hospital room being the sun on the other side of the curtains which had slightly moved, as well as the trickling IV drip.

Time passed, and it became late. I wasn’t experiencing any pain, probably because the painkillers were working, I didn’t have a fever, and my stomach wasn’t feeling empty. All I did was look up at the ceiling, with nothing I could do as the final day of my high school’s second trimester dragged on. Since my mobile phone was broken, there was no way for me to contact anyone. At one point I started counting the number of drops trickling down from the IV drip, but I grew bored before I even reached a hundred. The table next to the bed that I could reach by extending my arm contained the basket of fruit that Kengo had given me when he came over to visit, as well as textbooks, notebooks and stationery that my parents had brought over. However, I am not such a praiseworthy student as to begin studying on the day after a surgery, given that my entrance exams were to be pushed back by a year.

Thus, I decided to write about something else in my notebook.

…I decided to write about Hisaka-kun.

Kengo said that Hisaka-kun had killed himself.

That had to be the result of some misunderstanding. Of course, Kengo must have misheard.

I was in the same class as Hisaka Shoutarou-kun in the second and third year of middle school.

Thinking about the kinds of actions conducted by my past self would make me want to roll around, and since I had been advised against rolling over in bed, I decided not to think about myself. Hisaka-kun was, to put it in a phrase, a cool guy.

He was taller than me by a fist, or in other words, he was about 180cm tall. When he walked, he would hunch his shoulders a little. When he talked, he would use few words, and when he smiled he would seem almost apologetic about it. He seemed to be the type to have a troubled past. His skin was always tanned, especially during summertime.

His grades in school could be considered average. He did not seem to be struggling with tests, but that said, he never stood out in terms of academic prowess.

On the other hand, he produced excellent achievements in his club. In the middle school that I went to, all students were made to participate in the Middle School Physical Education Association tournament in summer. Naturally, those in sports clubs would take part in their respective sports, while the rest were roped in to cheer for the sportsmen. In the summer of my second year, I was cheering for the Baseball Club, when I heard an exchange between some classmates there.

“I would rather go watch Hisaka-kun than our weak baseball team. He’s strong, right?”

“Yeah, no one’s a match for him in this city.”

I remember someone saying that there was only one person who could stand up to Hisaka-kun. That was probably Mikasa-senpai, whom Kengo interviewed.

Before the hit-and-run, I didn’t have many memories of speaking directly to Hisaka-kun.

In the winter of my second year in middle school, we had kendo for our physical education classes. I’d learned a little when I was young, so I knew how to hold the shinai² and put on the protective armor. We were told to form pairs, so I practiced kirikaeshi – the basic technique of hitting the opponent’s mask repeatedly on the left and right – with Hisaka-kun. When the class ended, Hisaka-kun took off his mask and asked me a question.

“Kobato, you have experience with this?”

I gave a short answer.

“Just a little.”

Hisaka-kun then smiled in the aforementioned apologetic manner.

“That’s what I thought.”

Even during my middle school days when I didn’t fall behind in getting carried away, I didn’t think of myself as a secret sword master. Hisaka-kun probably found it surprising that I was unexpectedly familiar with kendo.

I was also in the same class as Hisaka-kun in my third year, but never had a direct conversation with him. Sure, I wasn’t the social type of person who has good relations with everyone, but Hisaka-kun went above and beyond me, and seemed to not like socializing at all. Given that he had refined facial features and was a good sportsman, he was probably quite popular, and in fact, rumors about him reached even my ears. But the only image of Hisaka-kun that appeared in my head was one of solitude.

There were many common points between my hit-and-run and Hisaka-kun’s, but that did not apply to the season in which it occurred. Hisaka-kun was run over in summer. Specifically, it was before the summer break.

As I traversed my memories, I placed the tip of my pen on the white page of the notebook.

On that day, Hisaka-kun did not go to school.

Frankly speaking, I did not notice that, but I don’t think it was due to a deficiency in observational ability. It is not reasonable to expect me to notice that one student whom I wasn’t particularly close with hadn’t come to school. During that morning’s homeroom session, the homeroom teacher looked sorrowful.

“Some of you may know, but Hisaka had an accident yesterday. Please identify yourselves if you witnessed it.”

From the commotion in the class that caused, I surmised that fewer people knew about it than the teacher had expected. With no classmates identifying themselves as witnesses, the teacher continued.

“Hisaka’s life is not in danger, so classmates may visit him in hospital. Would anyone like to volunteer?”

This time, the people who frequently communicated with Hisaka-kun raised their hands.

“Right, we’ll go after school. He’s in Kira Municipal Hospital. I’ll lead you there, so those who raised your hands, please do not go on your own.”

It seemed like the talk would end there, but someone hurriedly asked a question.

“Sensei, what kind of accident did Hisaka get into?”

I caught the teacher making a face saying that he’d messed up. However, it immediately returned to its original sorrowful expression.

“It was a traffic accident. He was run over at the embankment road.”

That was the first announcement of the incident.

The rumor that Hisaka-kun’s accident was not in fact an accident but a hit-and-run quickly spread. There was even a proper source for that claim. The morning paper for that day reported a middle school student as the victim of a hit-and-run. That article did not report the victim’s name, but it was only natural to link it with the fact that Hisaka-kun had gotten run over.

More detailed information started swirling around at lunch. Some boys had gathered at the back of the classroom, and I overheard their conversation since I happened to be nearby.

“There’s a second-year who saw the accident.”

Instinctively, I turned back to look at them.

I did not consider my class in middle school to have a strict caste system. There was a group made up of students well-versed in both academics and sports, a group for those good in sports but struggling to get by in their studies, a group for the frivolous, and a group for those who liked to stay indoors, but there was no clear contempt or adulation for any of these groups – but that was simply my opinion. Being not very sensitive to these subtleties, perhaps there was some sort of ranking behind the groups, and I was completely unaware of the power balance between the girls’ cliques.

The boys chatting at the back of the classroom were, if I had to say, part of the sports faction, though they were not the star players of their sport. They continued with their gossiping.

“It was a hit-and-run, right? That’s terrible.”

“He won’t be able to make it for the summer tournament, I think.”

“I even heard that he may not even be able to walk again.”

A silence fell. Someone spoke up.

“Do you think they’ll catch the culprit?”

Another moment of silence lapsed before it was broken by someone else.

“My bicycle was stolen. I reported it to the cops and they had me fill out a lost property report, but nothing happened afterwards.”

“My older brother told me the same thing. They didn’t do anything.”

Now, I would find it logical, or at least understandable that the police would be too busy to launch a full-scale effort to hunt down some bicycle thieves. However, at that time, those boys, as well as myself, were worried that the hit-and-run culprit would not get caught, simply based on our narrow experiences.

Someone chimed in.

“…Let’s go to the crime scene. Hisaka is our ace. He was run over after practice on that day. Who would sit around when their teammate gets hit?”

“But there’s nothing we can do, is there?”

“You don’t know that. Let’s go after school. There just might be something there.”

They wanted to check the crime scene and search for any clues that might be related to the incident. When I realized this, I received an impact that made my head spin.

…Up till now, I’d acted like a master detective in middle school. Why did the tug-of-war game during the sports festival get canceled? Who was the person punching first-year students? Where did the cash that disappeared during cleaning go? I was proud to solve these mysteries and prove myself to be more quick-witted than anyone else.

And on that day, I thought that it was time for me to solve a mystery out of school. The fabled Jougorou Kobato would chase down the dastardly criminal who ran over the soft-spoken Hisaka Shoutarou-kun and ruined his final summer tournament in middle school, and drag them out in front of Hisaka-kun.

Of course, even I didn’t want to imagine directly handcuffing the culprit. It was enough for me to discover some trivial clues that the police had missed, and report them as a virtuous collaborator from the streets. At that time, I thought it wouldn’t be a difficult thing to do.

I abruptly spoke to the high-spirited group of boys.

“I was listening in, but could I tag along?”

I wasn’t particularly close with any of them, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t spoken to them before. Being in the same group as Ushio-kun during the school trip in May probably worked well for me. Despite being slightly taken aback, he gave a strong nod.

“Sounds good. Having one more person is always better.”

It was clear after school, with not a cloud in the sky.

I was in the library until the arranged time, looking up information on the incident. As expected, there was an article in the newspaper.

(8 June – Mainichi Newspaper, Society Section) At approximately 5:10pm on 8 June, a pedestrian was run over by a vehicle in Kira City. According to the police, the victim is a 15-year-old middle school student. Though he was heavily injured, he called 119 by himself, and was transported to Kira Municipal Hospital. Judging by the circumstances of the accident, the police believe that there is a possibility of it being a hit-and-run accident, and are searching for the blue vehicle that drove off.

The article implied that it was possible for the accident to not be a hit-and-run, which made me indignant. With a naive outlook like that, they wouldn’t catch the criminal, I thought.

Since I walked to school, I’d been to the meeting spot before.

We were to meet at the foot of Togou Bridge. I thought I had time to spare when I left the library, but I’d misjudged the travel time, and arrived ten minutes later than the arranged time. I’d communicated my lateness via mobile phone, but when the meeting spot finally came into view, only one person was standing there. The other members must have already left, I thought.

However, Ushio-kun, who was the standing alone at the meeting spot, spat out some words when I arrived.

“You were the only one who came. The rest… they all had some urgent business.”

“Urgent business?”

“Some had to go to their club. Some forgot they had cram school. Some had to go for both their club and cram school. Something like that.”

I instantly realized what the absent members were thinking.

They’d probably come to think of it as ridiculous. They’d gotten excited during lunch, but after taking some time and calming down, they’d recognized that there was no way a bunch of middle school students wandering around could find anyone useful at the crime scene after a police search had already been conducted.

Even Ushio-kun, the only other person to arrive didn’t seem to be angry at the absentees, the somewhat glum expression on his face signaling that he might even be regretting his decision to come here. Even so, Ushio-kun started walking.

“This way.”

The numerous tributaries flowing out from the mountainous region in the northern region of the city converge into a large river, the Inaba River. It flows through the city, following the shape of the land before turning to the west, eventually heading south again past the city and joining the Pacific Ocean in the distance. We were walking on Togou Bridge, constructed just past the curved section where the river changes direction from west to south.

The embankment was built to be passing under the bridge, or more accurately, the bridge was constructed straddling the embankments on both sides of the river. A flight of dog-leg stairs covered the few meters that separated the bridge and the embankment road.

Eventually, the two of us reached the embankment road. As Ushio-kun followed the flow of the river south, I remarked.

“I wonder if Hisaka-kun walked in the same way.”

“The same way?”

“Basically, if he walked from the foot of the bridge downstream.”

Ushio-kun sputtered, clearly wondering why I was asking such a question.

“Of course he did. He was on his way home.”

Indeed, going upstream would take him back to school.

That would mean the accident took place about a hundred meters downstream of here. We started walking along the demarcated pavement on the left.

With no traffic lights on the embankment road, cars drove past at fairly high speeds, and we were walking just next to these zooming cars. There was enough space on the pavement for two people to walk side by side, but Ushio-kun and I did not do that. Ushio-kun paced ahead, while I followed behind, while monitoring my surroundings in every possible direction.

To our left was a slope that seemed to go about forty degrees downward. After a short berm, there was another downward slope, with the city sprawled below. Some grass was planted on the slopes, perhaps to reinforce the embankment.

I looked down at the berm on my left as I walked. It seemed to be approximately three meters in width, and people could probably freely walk there. If Hisaka-kun had walked on the berm instead of the pavement, he would not have been involved in such an accident.

However, the school strongly prohibited walking on the berms. I heard it was because people walking there could unearth some of the grass, allowing rainwater to seep through and destroying the embankment.

Ushio-kun stopped moving and pointed at the road.

“Here. It’s exactly like I heard.”

Skid marks were clearly left on the asphalt, but besides that, there was no tape barring entry, and thus no police officers guarding the area. Only those black skid marks on the road could tell us that Hisaka-kun had gotten into a hit-and-run accident here.

First, I asked Ushio-kun a question.

“Who did you hear it from?”

He answered in a bored manner.

“Did I not tell you just now? It was from the second-year who saw it happen. He said I would be able to instantly tell where it is from the skid marks on the pavement.”

Ushio-kun then looked up. Following him, I also looked off into the distance. It was a picturesque panorama, with roads and farms extending off into the horizon. Lattice towers and the wires that connected them stretched from one faraway location to another. We were in the month of June. It was a sunny day during the rainy season, with the sky as blue as it could be.

In this expanse, Ushio-kun clearly lost the expectation that he could do something of use here. Even I could see that his heart was filling with resignation.

He muttered, as if talking to himself.

“What is a clue?”

Your words, not mine, I wanted to say.

“What’s the name of that second-year student?”

“Hm?”

“Their name. It would be great if you could tell me the name of the second-year student who witnessed the accident, and their class too, if possible.”

“Ah, it’s Fujidera, Fujidera Makoto. I don’t know his class, though.”

“Where did he say he saw the accident from?”

Ushio-kun frowned.

“I don’t know. In this kind of place where the road goes on ahead and behind, he must have been behind Hisaka if he said he saw it happen in front of his eyes.”

“How far apart were the two of them?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him for yourself?”

The early summer wind blew across the water surface. Ushio-kun looked around for a negligible amount of time, then made a declaration.

“Looks like there’s nothing here.”

Basically, he had lost his motivation. I did not hold him back.

“Seems like it.”

“Let’s go home.”

“I’ll look for a little while longer.”

A scornful look instantly materialized on Ushio-kun’s face when he heard my reply, as if saying, “What a contemptible wretch, to hover around the scene where a classmate was struck by tragedy just for kicks!” I did not tell him that he was the one who had come up with the idea. I wanted him to quickly leave if he intended to do so.

Eventually, he spoke resignedly.

“Let me know if you find out anything.”

“Of course.”

“See you, then.”

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Ushio-kun walked away. I watched his retreating figure for ten seconds, then turned to look at the skid marks.

The fact that skid marks were left on the scene was an extremely important clue.

If skid marks were left on asphalt, it means that the tires had been locked out of steering. But most vehicles on the road nowadays have the Anti-Braking System, or ABS for short, that prevents tires from getting locked up. In other words, the vehicle that ran over Hisaka-kun was not installed with ABS, greatly narrowing down the number of possible vehicle types.

I squatted on the road.

There were four distinct skid marks. There was now no doubt that Hisaka-kun had not been run over by a bicycle or three-wheeled vehicle, but by a four-wheeled vehicle.

Now the question was one of direction. Did the vehicle hit Hisaka-kun from the front or from the back?

If it was true that Hisaka-kun had been walking downstream, he had probably been run over from the back, I thought. If he had been hit from the front, the vehicle would have had to cross the center line and a lane of oncoming traffic to plow into the pavement, and I considered that to be implausible. Yet the skid marks were arranged in such a way that made it look like the vehicle came from the front.

In other words, the hit-and-run vehicle plunged into the lane on this side of the road and continued hurtling towards the walkway even as the driver stepped on the brakes. Perhaps the driver was distracted by his phone, or perhaps they’d fallen asleep at the wheel.

Since I’d brought a ruler I used for classes, I measured the length of the skid marks. They were approximately 14.5cm wide and 26cm long.

I tilted my head under the blue sky. As someone who lacked the specialized knowledge, I couldn’t think of a way to use the numbers I’d just attained. However, the tires seemed to be quite narrow. I’d measured the tires of the cars parked in school. Those were regular passenger cars, and they were 19.5cm wide where they touched the ground. In comparison, the skid marks left at the scene were narrow.

“A light car³?”

There are exceptions, but tires of light cars are generally smaller than that of regular cars. That may not be strong evidence to declare that the skid marks were left by a light car, but I could say that it was not a large car.

I tried thinking further. Which part of the walkway was Hisaka-kun walking on when the accident happened? I measured the pavement, and found it to be 1.5m wide. Was he walking on the left, in the center, or the right?

Unlike the car, there was no way that Hisaka-kun’s footprints would leave any marks. Once again, it was the skid marks that could be used as a reference to answer this question. I could consider the end of the skid marks to be where the tires stopped, or in other words, where the car came to a standstill. That would mean that Hisaka-kun was struck somewhere before that point.

Examining the skid marks again, I frowned.

Standing in the middle of the pavement, I looked at the skid marks on the road.

The distance between a vehicle’s front wheels and its front bumper is dependent on the model. While some cars don’t have a bonnet like trucks, some have an excessively long bonnet – but do cars with such a long bonnet exist?

I muttered to myself.

“Why did he get run over?”

If Hisaka-kun had been walking normally on the footpath, I couldn’t imagine that he would get hit if the car stopped at that position, which meant… what exactly did it mean?

Paying attention to where the car stopped, I inched towards the side of the pavement closer to the carriageway, and stood still. Judging by the skid marks, Hisaka-kun had been walking at the rightmost edge of the walkway when the accident occurred… at a position just a whisker away from the road.

Automobiles would pick up speed on the embankment road. Even with a pavement set aside for pedestrians, a rapidly moving vehicle is scary. Anyone would want to walk on the side further from the road, yet Hisaka-kun had been walking closer to the road. Was he not afraid of cars?

I probably wouldn’t get anything more from the skid marks. Raising my head, I started searching the surrounding area.

To be honest, I’d thought that I would be able to find broken headlight fragments if I just went to the accident scene. However, the road had apparently been swept clean already, for it was devoid of any items that could serve as a clue. The police had probably used a broom and dustpan to gather any evidence that was left behind. I was starting to give up on the expectation that I would find anything of use. But I did find something, not even 20 meters away from the skid marks.

Something had fallen onto the berm.

The slope facing the streets had a lush layer of grass growing on it, but the grass on the berm had come off in patches here and there, exposing the soil beneath. It was in such a spot where a small red object lay.

Staircases for going up to or down from the embankment were constructed every hundred meters or so. Using a nearby staircase, I descended to the berm and approached the red object. It was a vocabulary book, made up of cards bound by rings. Based on the quality and color tone of the paper, it had been dropped here recently.

Flipping over the red cardboard cover to see the first vocabulary card, I found that the characters written using a water-based ballpoint pen were badly smudged, but I could still read the word they formed. It was “certainly”⁴, a word one would learn in the third year of middle school. I’d just learned it in a recent lesson, so there was no doubt about that.

Someone had dropped the book here, someone in their third year of middle school. With Hisaka-kun being, of course, a third-year middle school student, could the book have been dropped by him?

But I somehow couldn’t think that to be the case. I continued flipping through the vocabulary book. “quickly”, “focus”, “wrong” were certainly third-year words. For some reason, the word “FIGHT” alone was written in capital letters. Each letter was rounded and carried a charming quality. While everyone is free to write however they like, this handwriting did not fit Hisaka-kun’s image.

The letters on each card were evenly smudged. Could the book’s owner have simply wet it by accident, but continued carrying it around? I didn’t think so. It was more natural to think that the letters got smudged by the rain after the book was dropped.

Or…

I looked at the empty patch where the book had been dropped. The soil there was dry, but upon careful inspection, it seemed to be more sunken compared to its surroundings. If it rained, water would be collected there. If dropped in such a puddle of water, the words of each page would get smudged. When was the last time it rained?

Sometime between two days ago and the day before. The deluge that had lasted for two days finally weakened at dawn yesterday and stopped some time past noon.

If this vocabulary book had been caught in the downpour, the words should have been smudged a lot more. In other words, it had been dropped yesterday, after the rain let up and before the water collected in that patch dried up. Hisaka-kun was run over on top of the embankment during that time period.

Thinking about it calmly, there was no reason for me to believe that this vocabulary book was related to Hisaka-kun’s hit-and-run accident. But since I was inundated with satisfaction and excitement at discovering something, I wrapped the book in a handkerchief and stored it in my bag.

At a little past five o’clock in the afternoon, I went back up to the footpath and gazed at the cityscape as dusk approached.

The accident happened at approximately 5:10pm, or just about now. Some students heading home passed by before my eyes. The walkway would eventually reach a dead end, so pedestrians who walk up to the embankment would have to descend via one of the street-side staircases scattered here and there. One might think that it would be better to walk under the embankment instead of taking the trouble to go up and down again, but there is no straight road below and parallel to the embankment, so this path above is already a shortcut for pedestrians. At this time, there were fewer vehicles than I’d expected, with one intermittently flashing past on each side of the road every ten seconds or so. The evening rush hour would begin in a while, so the number of cars would probably increase.

I was in a bit of a dilemma. Should I stay here, or should I move? If I stayed, the criminal’s vehicle might happen to pass by.

But come to think of it, I wouldn’t be able to tell apart the culprit’s vehicle from the rest unless it had Hisaka-kun’s bloodstains stuck to it. After all, I didn’t even know if it was a truck or a sports car, and the only information I had was the news article, which stated that it was a blue vehicle.

Kira Municipal Hospital, where Hisaka-kun was admitted to, was not far from my current location. I would have to ask Hisaka-kun about the moment of the incident sooner or later. If so, the sooner the better. Thus I descended from the embankment and headed towards the city.

The question of what to do for a get-well gift popped up in my mind. I’d never thought it would come to this, so I had no pocket money on hand. I considered picking up some wild flowers, but that seemed to be even more impolite, so I decided to go empty-handed.

Kira Municipal Hospital was situated ten minutes’ walk away from the accident location. The ambulance should have gotten here in a flash… I would like to say, but it would have probably taken quite some time. Pedestrians could go down the embankment using a staircase, but vehicles wouldn’t be able to do that. The ambulance must have taken a detour to a point where it could drive down the embankment.

The hospital was a five-story building. It had a parking area that looked like it could fit 20 cars, as well as a driveway in front of the main entrance. Next to the automatic doors was a plate on which the words “Kira Municipal Hospital” were written, with the different medical departments listed below. There was Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology, Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Neurological Surgery, Cardiology, Radiology, Rehabilitation, and so on. Basically, Kira Municipal Hospital was big.

The receptionist was not in a uniform one would imagine nurses to wear, but was instead clad in a white shirt and light green vest. I told her that I was not here for consultation but to visit a classmate, and asked for the whereabouts of Hisaka Shoutarou’s hospital room. The receptionist who looked like a veteran answered my question in a businesslike manner.

“He is in room 403. Dinner is from 6 to 7 o’clock, so you cannot visit during that time period. Visiting hours end at 8.”

I looked at my watched to see that it was a little past 5:30, so I didn’t have much time.

I got onto an elevator near the reception counter and went up to the fourth floor. On the way, I passed a long-haired, bespectacled woman. It didn’t look like anything was wrong with her, so she was likely visiting someone as well. I immediately found my destination, room 403. There was a nameplate beside the door with “Hisaka Shoutarou” written on it. It seemed to be a private room, which I was thankful for, given that I wanted to ask all sorts of questions. I knocked on the door.

The reply was soft.

“Come in.”

I slid the door open. The door opened quietly, and silently closed on its own behind me as I walked in. The curtains were drawn, causing the room to be dim.

Hisaka-kun had both his hands wrapped in a bandage. A small bit of cream-colored cloth that was wrapped around his chest peeked out from the light blue clothes which seemed to be his hospital gown. Hisaka-kun looked at me, then furrowed his brows in a puzzled manner.

“…Kobato?”

He probably hadn’t recalled my name right away, but it was understandable since we hardly talked to each other. In place of a greeting, I lightly raised my hand.

“I’m here to visit.”

“Ah, I see… The teacher came by earlier, though.”

“Really? Well, I should have come here with them.”

Hisaka-kun did not doubt my words. He didn’t seem to welcome my presence, but didn’t tell me to leave.

“Why don’t you take a seat? There should be a chair around here.”

I found exactly one round chair. Hisaka-kun let out a cynical grin.

“I would bring out the chair myself, but as you can see, my hands are like this.”

It certainly looked painful for both his hands to be wrapped in a bandage. I’d heard from my classmates conversations that Hisaka-kun was unbeatable, but I didn’t know exactly which form of competition he was good at. I felt sorry for his hands, but it would be awkward if he turned out to be a striker for the soccer team, so all I said was: “I hope you recover soon.”

When we started talking, it seemed like Hisaka-kun stopped caring about why I’d come to visit him even though we were not particularly close. He was probably bored. His way of speaking was surprisingly jovial.

“I might look like this, but my hands aren’t that badly injured. They just got sprained when I broke my fall badly. The sensei said I’ll recover.”

This sensei probably referred to the doctor in charge of Hisaka-kun and not the teacher in school. I felt a little relieved for him.

“That’s good. About the summer tournament…”

“As you might expect, that’s impossible. I can’t even hold a racket in this state.”

So Hisaka-kun played tennis or badminton. It probably wasn’t table tennis. When we had table tennis for physical education class, the table tennis club members displayed the difference in level between them and everyone else, but Hisaka-kun’s skill level was not so far off from mine.

I recalled the rumor I’d heard in class.

“I heard that your legs got injured.”

“Legs?”

He sounded dissatisfied.

“Well, I did sprain my ankle. Who did you hear it from?”

“It was from Ushio-kun, but he apparently heard it from someone else.”

“Seems like a weird rumor’s spreading. Not that I really care, though.”

Hisaka-kun placed a hand on his chest.

“If anything, the injury on my ribs is way bigger.”

“Was that where you got hit by the car?”

“No. I don’t know what kind of rumor you heard, but the car suddenly rushed in diagonally and from the front. The driver braked hard, so it was almost stopped by the time it was in front of me. I was just hit by the last bit of momentum, so I did this.”

He slowly took on the pose of a boxing guard.

“I protected my body. But as expected, cars are frightening. I couldn’t completely break my fall and fell behind, causing my ribs to break.”

“So, your arms were only sprained from that?”

“I’m also amazed, but all I have on my arms are bruises. It does hurt, though.”

“I see.”

It’s good that you’re safe, I wanted to say, but Hisaka-kun continued.

“Also, I hit my head. There’s a crack on my skull now.”

“…That doesn’t sound very good.”

Hisaka-kun laughed.

“Hey, don’t say that directly to the affected person! It sounds like a big deal when I say that my skull is broken, but it’s actually just a crack, and I was told that I don’t even need any medical treatment for that. The only thing is that I’ve been banned from doing headers.”

“Not that you would need to, right? Though the ball might hit your head in tennis.”

“In tennis, yes.”

From the way he said that, the sport that Hisaka-kun purportedly had no match for in this city was not tennis. With one out of two options eliminated, I finally got it. Hisaka-kun was the badminton club’s ace.

That aside, hearing that he hit his head elicited a human reaction from even me.

“The bone may be fine, but what about… what about its contents?”

My question caused Hisaka-kun to laugh darkly.

“Thanks for the concern. The doctor did say that it could be a problem. I had an MRI scan, and there was no hemorrhaging in the brain, but they say they would check again tomorrow. If it gets swollen I’ll have to go through an operation.”

“It would be good if you don’t.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

I now roughly understood the extent of Hisaka-kun’s injuries. At the same time, I also now knew what happened, give or take a few details.

As could be seen from the accident scene, the culprit slammed on the brakes to stop the car, but could not avoid the collision with Hisaka-kun, who tried protected his body with his arms and fell behind due to the momentum of the collision. While falling, he tried breaking his fall but couldn’t do it in time, so his torso and head struck the asphalt, and his wrists got sprained. A number of his ribs were broken, and a crack formed on his skull. He also sprained his legs. There was nothing wrong with his brain as of now.

But that was one point that I had doubts about. Like Hisaka-kun had done earlier, I put on a boxing guard pose. Hisaka-kun questioned me about it.

“What are you doing?”

“Well… I was just wondering if doing this would protect your chest when you’re hit by a car.”

Most cars have a bonnet in front which contains the engine. The bonnet’s height differs between cars, but I could not imagine a car with a bonnet so high that it would hit the chest of Hisaka-kun, who was 180cm tall. Would it not have hit his legs or waist?

Hisaka-kun instantly answered my query, seemingly not suspicious of me at all.

“Ah, I was run over by a wagon car.”

That made sense. In a wagon car, the bonnet does not extend far in front of the driver, and in general they have a flat frontage⁵. If such a car suddenly came barreling towards me, I might have taken that pose to protect my chest as well.

That was a big clue in determining the type of the culprit’s car. Now, what other clues did Hisaka-kun have?

“Did you see the culprit?”

Hisaka-kun exuded regret.

“I’ve also talked to the police about this, but I didn’t see. It was all so sudden.”

“You also said it was a wagon car. Do you know its number?”

“I also didn’t see that. But I do know that it was a blue car, or to be more specific, sky-blue.”

“Was there a company name or something written on it?”

“I’ve told you already, haven’t I? It was so sudden, I didn’t have the time to take a look at it.”

“Do you usually use that road to go home from school, Hisaka-kun?”

Hisaka-kun was about to answer, but closed his mouth. Suspicion clouded his eyes.

“…Say, Kobato-kun, what’s up with those questions you’ve been asking me since just now? Are you that interested in me getting run over?”

I might have been a little impatient. Of course he would be put off if I kept hounding him for answers. I waved my hand, trying to convey that it was not my intention.

“No way. Just that something like this happened to a classmate. A good number of our classmates are angry, too.”

“Angry? At who?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? They’re angry at the culprit.”

Taken aback, Hisaka-kun looked down.

“The culprit, huh. I suppose.”

“Some of us were talking about catching the culprit. Of course, we can’t do anything like the police, but someone said that it might be easier for us to do it. Anyway, we couldn’t just sit still, so it was agreed that we would contact the police if we find anything out.”

I wasn’t lying. That ardor had certainly been present among my classmates, at least until today’s lunch break.

Hisaka-kun withdrew the anger that I’d caught a glimpse of and put on a forced smile.

“That’s a ridiculous idea. Who brought it up?”

“Ushio-kun.”

“That guy, huh… he gets carried away easily. So, why is it that you’re here?”

“Everyone else had some urgent business to attend to.”

This time, Hisaka-kun let out a genuine smile.

“Kobato-kun, aren’t you just being used for their own convenience? The guys who brought up this idea should be the ones to come here.”

“I suppose, but I’m confident that we’ll find some clues.”

Hearing that, Hisaka-kun put on a straight face.

“Right. Sorry, but could you pass a message to Ushio-kun and the boys? I’m glad that you’re angry for my sake, but the police are already investigating. If you do something unnecessary like chasing down the culprit, they might escape, or you all might get into danger. Your feelings of wanting to help are enough for me. Please, don’t do anything.”

Do people think like that when they get into a hit-and-run accident? Having no such experience, I could not imagine Hisaka-kun’s state of mind.

“Of course. I’ll tell them to be careful.”

“That’s not it. I want you to tell them to stop.”

In the dimly lit private room, the two of us briefly searched for what to say next. But none of us got to open our mouths, for the door unexpectedly slid open without a knock.

“Hisaka-san, it’s time for dinner. My, it’s gotten so dark. I’ll turn on the lights, alright?”

A bright-sounding nurse entered the room, pushing a cart that had trays of food piled up on it. She took a glance at me, probably hinting that visiting hours were over.

I stood up from my chair.

“See you, Hisaka. Take care.”

“Ah, thanks. Be careful on your way back.”

He then added a piece of advice, though he seemed to smirk at his own suggestion.

“…And watch out for cars.”

The sun started setting, and it became time for dinner. I closed my notebook and put down my pen.

The nurse with very short hair brought in a tray. Probably for the first time since I was hospitalized, I ate while being conscious of what I was putting in my mouth. White rice, teriyaki chicken, boiled spinach, burdock with sesame mayonnaise dressing, and tofu miso soup. While the salt content was reduced, I didn’t think that the dishes were tasteless. I ate slowly, because my ribs would hurt if I was too quick. Finally, I drank a cup of water before receiving the nurse’s assistance in brushing my teeth.

Can an injured person sleep this well? I rested without even knowing when I fell asleep as if I’d fainted, and woke up in darkness.

It was the wee hours of the morning. The room was still dark, but from the curtains that did not completely block light I could see that the night sky was growing light. I’m probably still tired, I thought. My body that had not rolled over in my sleep was screaming. There was nothing to do but sleep and get through it.

But I thought about Hisaka-kun.

Hisaka Shoutarou-kun, the badminton club ace who laughed in a slightly melancholic manner. There’s no way he killed himself, I wanted to say, but in the end I hardly knew him…

Suddenly getting the urge to look outside, I slightly twisted my body. I reached out for the curtains and pulled it open a little, causing moonlight and light from streetlamps to seep into the room.

Returning my gaze to the room, I noticed a dog on the table.

It was a small gray dog plushie with short fur. I’d thought it was a dog, but it was probably a wolf. It had quite a fierce look in its eyes, after all.

The wolf was sitting atop a chocolate-colored box tied with a gold ribbon. I moved it aside to see that a small cream-colored envelope was inserted in the ribbon. I opened the seal to find a small message card within, just like yesterday.

Merry Christmas. This is the bad wolf who ate baby goats.6 Don’t think that it looks like a kid. Because that’s what I think of the most. Osanai P.S. You’re allowed one chocolate bonbon a day.

Right, it’s Christmas today. Could this wolf be a Christmas present from Osanai-san? Just when destructive thoughts were starting to swirl in my head, I received something completely unexpected. In the darkness, I laughed. The situation with Hisaka-kun must be some kind of mistake. It was too hasty of me to believe what Kengo had told me, when he’d only heard it through the grapevine. It must… it must be some kind of mistake.

I untied the ribbon and opened the box. A sweet fragrance rose.

Tiny chocolate bonbons were arranged in two rows of four. They were cubical, like dice. Compared to the size of the chocolates, the box was quite tall. A piece of paper folded in half was in the box, which upon opening, turned out to be an explanation of flavors in small text and proud writing. It was certainly a gift typical of Osanai-san.

I studied the wolf plushie again.

I’d never imagined that I would spend Christmas like this. Why did Osanai-san give me a stuffed toy?

There was a continuation to the message card. Some text was written on the back.

Yellow, small car (light?), license plate number unknown Slightly different from 3 years ago

The first line seemed to be information of the car that had collided with me. Osanai-san should have fallen down from the embankment road before the accident, but she had apparently still been able to see well, as expected.

And of course, she’d noticed some similarities with the hit-and-run accident from three years ago. It should be an unforgettable event for her, just like it is for me.

Before I closed my eyes, I hoisted the wolf plushie.

If it did eat the kids, it was indeed a bad wolf.

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Chapter 1 | Contents | Chapter 3

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1. A common gift to wish for a patient’s recovery, because the crane is said to be a holy creature which lives for a thousand years, so one paper crane is made for each year.
2. Japanese sword typically made of bamboo used for practice and competition in kendo.
3. The smallest category of Japanese expressway-legal motor vehicles, with their length, width and height under 3.4m 1.48m and 2.0m respectively, and having lower speed limits than bigger vehicles.
4. This is in English.
5. Funnily enough, some non-Japanese sites define wagon car as being longer relative to height, so they are likely to have a long bonnet. Japanese sites are not very clear about wagon cars either. There doesn’t seem to be a fixed definition and seems to be more like a collection of 5 types of vehicles: station wagon, one-box wagon, tall wagon, light wagon, minivan. Of these, only the one-box wagon directly fits the definition that Kobato gives, and the rest are dependent on the car manufacturer and model.
6. Possibly a reference to The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats, a fairy tale published in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.