Chapter 7 | Contents | Chapter 9
Since I’d been allowed to use a wheelchair with the condition of having the nurse’s assistance, Mabuchi-san’s rehabilitation menu changed. Up till now, I’d done stretches while lying on the bed, but today, the exercise of stretching and twisting my uninjured left leg while sitting on the side of the bed was added.
Mabuchi-san did not seem nervous, but he was careful. He gave me a hand in moving to a sitting position, and paid attention to ensure that I wouldn’t put stress on my right leg that had surgery done on it. While doing the stretches as instructed, I asked a question that had been on my mind for a while.
“Mabuchi-san, you’ve been coming here every day.”
I was run over on the 22nd. Rehabilitation started on the 25th, while today was the 30th. The year was ending soon, and Mabuchi-san had worked for at least six consecutive days at the end of the year.
Mabuchi-san laughed.
“Yeah, I sure have.”
“Do you not have rest days?”
“I do, but not now.”
Smiling merrily, he continued.
“There’s a shortage of manpower at the end of the year. People who are single like me are easy to use, so we have tight shifts. Don’t worry, I’ll still be in charge of you for the rest of this year.”
“Will someone else be here at the start of next year?”
“I’ll take a break on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, but a replacement won’t be coming in. I’ll hand you the list, so you’ll have to do the more simple exercises on your own. I’ve prepared exercises that you can do on the bed so that there is no risk of you getting injured.”
It was a good thing for Mabuchi-san to at least get some rest at the end of this year and the start of the next. On the other hand, it seemed that the nurses would still have to come in for work. Indeed, New Year’s Day doesn’t mean that the patients wouldn’t have to eat, or that their conditions would suddenly stabilize. Calendar holidays have no bearing on whether they have to work. What a tough job.
“The nurse in charge of me has been working non-stop as well.”
“They’re not just in charge of you, but they’re in charge of the entire floor. What’s their name again?”
“I don’t know. She’s young and has really short hair.”
Mabuchi-san looked at me doubtfully.
“Does she wear glasses?”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“I’m not sure, then. Well, young people are usually in the continuous work shift, though the veterans and doctors do it too. Ten days consecutively, or even more.”
That made me afraid to enter the real world and join the workforce.
A short while after rehabilitation ended, the very short-haired nurse came over, even though it was still too early for lunch. I was not on an intravenous drip now, so I wondered what she was here for.
“Kobato-san, would you like to take a walk?”
She asked.
“A walk?”
“We cannot go outside the hospital, but we can go to the roof or to the courtyard.”
If my body allowed me to, I would have jumped up in joy!
I hadn’t been outdoors since the accident. My life here was the same everyday – only consisting of three meals, a checkup, rehabilitation, and recalling memories that I couldn’t describe as pleasant. I never thought of myself as the outdoor type, so it was quite unexpected that my heart would skip a bit upon hearing that I would be able to be out under the sun. There were reasons for me to refuse, but I decided to be myself.
“Yes, please.”
A clumsy smile drifted onto the nurse’s face. I could sense that this suggestion to take a walk was either an order by someone else, or was a part of the set hospital program, and not borne from her goodwill. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that the nurse would want me to sit still and not take a walk, but I didn’t think of holding back due to that.
Like the day before, I moved onto the wheelchair with the nurse’s help. The wheelchair almost slipping had caused me to break out in a cold sweat yesterday, but today the moving process was smooth. After resting my feet on the step, the nurse asked as she gripped the handle.
“Where would you like to go, the roof or the courtyard?”
If I’m going outside, I want to feel the wind.
“To the rooftop, please.”
As she was about to push the wheelchair, I hurriedly asked.
“Wouldn’t it be cold up there?”
“I think it is cold.”
“Could you place a blanket on me?”
The nurse put on a face that revealed she hadn’t thought of that. Eventually, I left the hospital room wrapped in a blanket on the wheelchair, quite an adorable figure if I may say so myself.
After leaving the room, we first turned left, then to the right. I asked the nurse a question.
“So, we can go to the roof?”
“Yes, we can.”
“The roof in my school is off-limits. Is the rooftop here used for drying sheets and the like?”
I could sense a hint of laughter coming from her.
“No, the roof here is used as a garden.”
“Like the Hanging Gardens?”
But my historical joke did not land with the nurse.
“That is because some of the patients cannot be discharged from or leave the hospital for a long period of time.”
Was it set up so that those patients could at least go up to the roof? I was hospitalized for only ten days, but I was happy for that thoughtfulness.
We turned right at the end of the corridor before turning right again. It was the same route we’d taken when going to the toilet. Indeed, there was an elevator in front of the toilet.
The elevator’s interior was spacious. How many dozens of people could it fit if they all squeezed together?
As I watched the nurse push the button for the topmost floor, I wondered why they had to build such a large elevator. It was when the doors closed and the elevator started moving that I realized that it was to hold stretchers and wheelchairs.
The nurse had pressed the button for the fifth floor. There was no one else in the elevator. It silently ascended, and the doors opened.
We exited into a corridor. Right in front of us was an automatic door with a touch sensor. The nurse put her hand over the panel, causing the door to open.
In front of that door was a windbreak room and another door, which the nurse also opened. At that moment, wind rushed into the room.
It was a freezing winter wind, which I breathed into my chest. My broken rib would hurt whenever I took a deep breath, but I didn’t mind. It was refreshing. It felt as if all the bad elements in my lungs got washed away with that one breath.
The nurse pushed my wheelchair, and we went out into the garden.
It could have been more colorful if it was the season for flowers. It could have been more refreshing on the eyes if it was the season of fresh greenery. But now that December was about to end, the rooftop garden was desolate. The evergreen plants’ leaves were withering, while the soil in what looked like flowerbeds was leveled. However, that was the first time I found winter to be so beautiful. The sky and sunlight were clear, and the cold wind caressed my skin.
After calming down and taking a look around, I noticed that the rooftop garden was not very big. If there was no problem with my legs, I could have run one lap in fifteen seconds. However, the shrubberies and arches were positioned in such a way that caused visibility to be poor, making it difficult to notice how small the garden was.
Someone else was already in the garden. An elderly person was sitting on a wooden bench, staring blankly at the sky. They were only wearing a hospital gown, which I thought would make them feel quite cold whenever they got hit by a breeze, but they looked unfazed. Noticing us, they lowered their head, and I also gave a polite nod in return. It didn’t seem like they were about to talk to me.
A white iron railing was put up around the garden. It was tall, and had its top part curved inwards such that it resembled spikes. Perhaps it was a precaution so that no one would climb up and fall down.
I could see the city on the other side of the canopy. I could also see the Inaba River, which was now so narrow it almost looked like it’d vanished into the ground, due to low precipitation in this dry season. Realizing that I had almost died there, a weird feeling came over me, where I wanted to look at it for a long time, yet couldn’t bear to look at it. I was probably smiling. I’d never imagined that such a small garden could bring me such joy.
I turned back to look up at the nurse who was pushing the wheelchair.
“Thank you so much for bringing me here.”
“No, it’s good that you are satisfied. Now, the weather is cold, so let us go back.”
“Before that, please tell me this. If I become able to use a wheelchair on my own, can I come here any time I want?”
She glanced down at me.
“Patients can freely enter this garden from eight in the morning to five in the evening. After that, you must be accompanied by a nurse.”
That was good enough.
Thinking about it further, if I became able to ride a wheelchair on my own, I would probably be allowed to go outside. But… what should I do? It would likely be spring at that time, so how about buying strawberry tarts from Alice? Since Osanai-san wished to pursue higher education, as long as she didn’t get rejected from every single one of the colleges she applied to, she would no longer be in this city next year. I would have a monopoly on those strawberry tarts.
The nurse repeated herself.
“Come now, it is cold.”
Reluctant to leave, I gazed up at the sky. Because of the snow that had piled up on the road, I had no where to run, and was run over by a car. Now, the sky was clear, with nary a hint of snow.
I turned to look back at the nurse over my shoulder.
“Thank you so much.”
“…”
“Thank you so much for everything.”
The nurse with very short hair smiled gently.
The uniform we’d checked at Akiritsu-ya was from Ouyou High School.
As third-year middle school students, Osanai-san and I had basic knowledge of high schools within commuting distance. Ouyou High School was a private school, and used to be a girls’ school. While it offered a general curriculum, it was known more for its business courses, and apparently also had a few other courses. Generally speaking, it gave off the impression of a school for people who wanted to work right after graduating from high school.
On the following Monday, I asked some friends in class and my homeroom teacher about Ouyou High School’s location. Since my homeroom teacher knew that I wasn’t aiming for Ouyou, he gave me a puzzled look, but did not inquire further.
“It’s on the other side of the river. You can get there in ten minutes by bicycle, I believe.”
Basically, it was not very far from our middle school, a result that did not contradict the possibility of a student from Ouyou High School being Hisaka-kun’s companion.
Mobile phones were prohibited in our school, so I could not contact Osanai-san before lessons ended. After school when students were leaving in small groups, I met with her outside the school gates, as we’d arranged beforehand. The cleaning of her summer uniform was already complete, and she was currently wearing it.
If it would take ten minutes by bicycle, it was well within walking distance. Had Osanai-san also found out Ouyou High School’s location using her own methods?
“Shall we go?”
I suggested. She responded with a small nod, and started walking.
Before long, we started crossing the iron bridge that straddles the Inaba River. The bridge would shake whenever cars passed, and those vibrations would be terrifying if a truck or trailer drove by. Looking down, I noticed that the embankment road was going under the bridge. It was the underpass we’d walked on two days ago.
The wind of early summer from across the river and the air currents from passing cars buffeted us as we walked on. We did not talk to one another.
Ouyou High School faced a road with a sidewalk, and an arch-shaped structure was erected over the school gate. The school grounds was paved with bricks, and the huge gymnasium that looked to be three stories tall was carrying the school emblem of the number 8 with a vertical bar going through it. We’d come here after school, so it wouldn’t be strange for lessons to have ended here as well. Perhaps lessons were still ongoing or many students were taking part in club activities in Ouyou High School, but hardly any students were leaving.
Osanai-san piped up.
“I heard there are about a thousand people here.”
“A thousand, huh…”
A plastic plate was mounted on the school gate with the words “No Entry For Unauthorized Personnel” written in a soft-looking rounded gothic font. Only the “No Entry” part of that was in red, suggesting that there was no exceptions.
The companion who had witnessed Hisaka-kun’s hit-and-run accident closer than anyone else was here in this school. We had to find her and question her about the culprit.
I asked.
“What do you think the boy-girl ratio is like here?”
“I heard that it used to be a girls’ school, so there are still more girls than boys now.”
Even if the boy-girl ratio was one to one, there would be 500 girls. While it wasn’t impossible to check each and every one of their faces, it would be difficult. Moreover, even if we lined up all the girls in the schoolyard, we wouldn’t be able to find the companion. Neither I nor Osanai-san knew her face; the only ones who knew were Hisaka-kun and Fujidera-kun.
“Now, what should we do?”
I asked that not because I was at a loss, but to see what kind of plan Osanai-san had cooked up. As expected, she did have some ideas.
“It might cost a little, but…”
After that troubled preface, she continued while gazing at the school.
“We could buy a uniform and have Fujidera-kun infiltrate Ouyou High School until he finds the companion.”
“That’s a bold strategy. Isn’t the risk for Fujidera-kun too high?”
“That’s just the way it is, I guess.”
How cruel…
“Fujidera-kun also has lessons and his club activities. He doesn’t have the time to infiltrate this school.”
Osanai-san pursed her lips, apparently reluctant to accept my rebuttal.
“In that case… we could set up a camera in a position that can monitor the school gate, and have Fujidera-kun check the footage. It shouldn’t take more than ten days, I think.”
“Fujidera-kun won’t help us in the first place, though.”
After we’d identified the companion’s uniform the day before, Fujidera-kun had said, “That’s enough, right?” and gone home. He had indeed given us enough help. If we dragged him along any more, Ushio-kun the captain probably wouldn’t put up with it.
Osanai-san looked at me with astonishment on her face.
“I thought Fujidera-kun would happily help us.”
“Why is that?”
“Rather than why… I thought we would just have to come up with a method to get him to happily work with us.”
I didn’t know what kind of methods she had in mind, but… putting that aside, I made a gesture of clearing my throat.
“Let’s first go with the straightforward approach. It won’t be too late to attack the problem at a different angle later on.”
“The straightforward approach?”
Osanai-san shot me a skeptical look.
“Are you going into Ouyou High School and asking if anyone has seen the accident?”
“I’ll be instantly kicked out…but what about something like this?”
I opened my school bag, retrieved a piece of paper and passed it to Osanai-san. I’d put in some effort to choose an eye-catching font and color for the words on that piece of paper. It read:
| To everyone at Ouyou High School! We are looking for a student from Ouyou High School who witnessed a hit-and-run accident at Inaba River’s embankment road on July 6. For the sake of our classmate who is still injured in hospital, please help us find the culprit. If you witnessed the accident or if you know who witnessed the accident, please dial this number here. Kobato |
My phone number was then listed below. This sheet was just a copy, and I had the original at home.
Osanai-san was leaning forward and staring intently at my face. I instinctively pulled away.
“Erm, is it no good?”
Osanai-san shook her head.
“Amazing, I never thought of such a straightforward method. It’s like…”
She tilted her head.
“How should I put it? It’s like… normal? No, it’s really, just like… a petit bourgeois?”
I involuntarily burst out into laughter. She probably wanted to say that my method was orthodox, but couldn’t think of the word.
“Petit bourgeois? That’s a good one.”
“Uh, I don’t mean it in a bad sense. I really do think it’s amazing.”
“I know.”
With that assurance, Osanai-san nodded in a relieved manner, then read the passage of text again.
“…Yup. With this, we might be able to pinpoint the companion.”
The poster had two purposes. Firstly, it was to call out the companion and get her to contact us and tell us the truth. But that was difficult. She’d disappeared from the accident scene before the police had arrived, and Hisaka-kun had tried to prevent Fujidera-kun from talking about her. It was still unclear if the theory that she was in a polyamorous relationship with Hisaka-kun was correct, and though I didn’t have much interest in that point, it was an undeniable fact that she had been hiding from the public eye. Thinking logically, it was difficult to imagine that she would obediently raise her hand and show herself after being appealed to do so.
And therein lay the second purpose.
If executed well, this poster could start a rumor in Ouyou High School, that someone witnessed and accident and kept quiet about it. As a result, a middle school student was transported to hospital and justice was not served. Just who that person who refused to assist the authorities?
Such a rumor would make the companion feel ill at ease, and could cause them to do some kind of action in response. Or another Ouyou High School student could let us know if someone was acting suspiciously.
I had no guarantee that it would work, but it was worth a shot.
Osanai-san frowned for an instant.
“Is it really alright to leave your number there?”
Indeed, it did not feel good to write my number on a poster which would be viewed by a large and unspecified number of people. However…
“We should do whatever we can, and follow it through to the end, right?”
Osanai-san nodded, and added another question.
“What are you going to do with that?”
I looked to the left and right of the road Ouyou High School was facing. Located not too far away was the object I desired. It was a notice board installed by the city. I walked to the front of that notice board, and Osanai-san followed.
Half of the notice board was taken up by posters of concerts hosted by the city, and the other half had posters arranged in a disorganized fashion. One warned against heat stroke, one announced the opening of a tea ceremony classroom, and one even asked for the whereabouts of a lost cat. There was also enough empty space.
“I’ll stick it here.”
“…Causing trouble is problematic.”
She probably meant to ask if we could put the poster up at our discretion. Any trouble produced from one single poster would not be a big deal, but I’d looked up how to avoid such trouble, just in case.
“I read that you can get permission to put up a poster if you bring a sample to the City Hall or a branch office. Posters for commercial gain or illegal things are not allowed. Since a poster for a lost cat is OK, a poster looking for eyewitnesses should be fine as well.”
“Amazing! You’ve already done the research!”
I accepted the straightforward compliment. It was written in the city information magazine I had at home, so I hadn’t exactly gone out of my way to do the research, but I gratefully accepted the words of praise anyway.
In principle, it was necessary for me to first bring this poster to a municipal office, get permission to post it, then return here. However, it was troublesome to travel here and there, and there was enough space on the notice board, so changing the order a little shouldn’t be a problem… or to borrow Osanai-san’s words, just like a petit bourgeois.
“Shall we put up the poster, then go home?”
Osanai-san seemed to have no objections, and even brought up a suggestion.
“Y’know, there should be an online forum that the Ouyou High School students use. How about searching for that and posting the same text there?”
I considered it for a while.
“A poster will be gone if it is torn off, but a post on the internet might never be removed. I think it might not be good if information of a student from Ouyou High School witnessing an accident continues spreading even five or ten years later.”
“…You’re right.”
“And more simply, I don’t want to leave my contact information on the internet.”
Osanai-san nodded in agreement and said nothing further.
The notice board contained multiple thumbtacks stuck there by previous users. I hadn’t prepared any, so I was really thankful for these forgotten items. On the pavement where Ouyou High School students sparsely passed through, I spread out the poster. The empty space was on the lower half of the notice board, so I had to stoop.
“Osanai-san, sorry, but could you stick the thumbtacks in?”
“Where?”
It seemed like they would be stuck to the back of my head if I replied wrongly.
“At the four corners. From the top, please.”
Osanai-san pulled thumbtacks out from over my shoulder, then first secured the top right corner, followed by the top left corner of the poster. I removed my hands from the poster, then stood up as Osanai-san went to retrieve more thumbtacks.
At that moment, a voice abruptly rang out from behind.
“Oh? Juniors, huh.”
I looked up to see three girls in uniforms that had two lines on their sleeves, looking at us with faint smirks. There was a tall girl, a bespectacled girl and a girl with a short haircut. We would be high school students next year (probably), but being approached by actual high school students now made me feel some sort of pressure. While lowering my head, I wondered about what I should respond with, but the tall one who had been the first to speak followed up with another question.
“You guys are from Takaba Middle, right?”
“Yes, correct.”
She must have figured it out from the school badge on my chest.
“So what are y’all doing here… oh, you’re putting up a poster, huh. I can see that.”
The one wearing spectacles brought her face to the poster.
“To everyone at Ouyou High School, it says!”
She said in a loud voice and laughed a little, but her laughter soon ceased.
“…Eh? A hit-and-run?”
The other two girls exchanged looks and studied the poster.
“Really?”
“Huh? They haven’t been caught?”
I was taken aback by this turn of events. I hadn’t expected to get a response so quick… even before I’d finished putting up the poster!
The tall girl spoke.
“Who got hit? We’re third-years, so it wouldn’t be anyone we know, right?”
On the other hand, the girl with short hair tilted her head.
“So someone from our school saw it? How do you know?”
“There was someone at the scene who saw someone wearing an Ouyou High School uniform.”
“Huh… And that person only saw the eyewitness and not the accident?”
That was quite a sharp question.
“They did see the accident, but they were at a distance away, so they don’t remember the culprit’s face or the license plate number. The eyewitness from Ouyou High School was close to the accident, and we were thinking that they might remember those details.”
“Hmm…”
The bespectacled girl let out a wild cry.
“Ah, could that be Eiko from N course?”
My voice unintentionally grew excited.
“So you know someone like that!”
“Rather than that… well, I suppose I do know her.”
“Please tell us. It’s an important matter.”
…But I’d apparently made the mistake of being too enthusiastic. The bespectacled girl drew back and faltered.
“I can’t tell you. I’ll feel bad if I’m wrong.”
“It is fine even if you’re wrong. Please tell us.”
“Erm, I wasn’t saying that I’d feel bad for you…”
Probably realizing that we’d reached an impasse, the tall girl threw us a lifeline.
“Eiko, right? She should still be in there. I’ll ask her.”
I was at a loss about how to respond to that. The rational thought that I should be diplomatic and politely decline collided with the impulse that I should cling to this lifeline with all my might because such good luck would never come again, and I couldn’t decide which to choose. The tall girl interpreted my hesitation favorably.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. You’re juniors, after all. Anyway, I’m not that friendly with Eiko, so there’s nothing I can do if I can’t find her. Will you two still be around here?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Right, it’s hot, but hang in there.”
The tall girl spoke to the other two girls.
“So, I’ll be heading back.”
The bespectacled girl and the short-haired girl exchanged looks for a moment, then put on expressions of slight annoyance.
“I’ll go with you, then.”
“Ain’t got a choice, huh.”
All I could do was lower my head as the three of them returned to Ouyou High School.
Still holding thumbtacks, Osanai-san said in a small voice.
“That was good, huh.”
“Yeah, our luck was good.”
“Luck?”
Osanai-san whispered. Now that she mentioned it, luck alone did not bring us to this point. In a location that Ouyou High School students would first look at when leaving school, I’d put up a poster arranged with attention-grabbing words.
“Our luck was good, but so was my aim.”
I declared. Even though she’d drawn that line from me, a slightly exasperated look appeared on Osanai-san’s face.
Passing through the school gate, the trio returned to the premises of Ouyou High School. As I watched their backs, I suddenly felt that the weather was indeed hot. All we had to do was secure the bottom half of the poster that had not been tacked down yet, and wait.
A boy left school on a bicycle. Two girls passed us while laughing. A boy wearing the strap of his shoulder bag on his forehead like a headband looked at us with suspicion in his eyes. Taking the average of students who passed by, there were more females than males, as expected.
Five minutes passed, then ten.
Out of the students who passed by, only the trio at the beginning noticed the poster. Perhaps the poster itself hadn’t caught their eye, but they were simply wondering what we, their middle school juniors, were doing.
A boy and girl walked past while continuously glancing at us. A group of about eight students who seemed to be clubmates came by while laughing together, so we had to stick to the edge of the pavement to make some space.
Fifteen minutes passed. I stifled a yawn. Osanai-san’s expression still hadn’t changed. I spoke.
“Hey, if those three don’t come back, how long should we wait?”
Osanai-san answered smoothly.
“Until we see those three again.”
But what should we do if we see them?
Since Ouyou High School was located within the city, I couldn’t imagine it having only one school gate. The arch-shaped object we’d seen probably meant that this was the main gate, but there should be a rear gate. If those three exited from another gate, we would continue waiting in front of the notice board, and end up watching the sunset, seeing the evening stars and viewing the moon together. If so, perhaps we should have bought some dango. Or was June too off-season for a moon viewing?
As I was having those foolish thoughts, Osanai-san asked me a question, apparently a little tired of waiting around.
“Kobato-kun, are you going to high school?”
That was probably the only question she could think of asking after only seeing high school students for a while now.I replied.
“I’ll be going. Tentatively, anyway.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. Funado High School, maybe?”
Funado High School was a public prep school. Middle school students who had pretty good grades and had no intention of having a high school life focused on entrance examinations would usually naturally advance to Funado High School.
“Hmm.”
“What about you, Osanai-san?”
“Funado High School.”
I see.
The two of us were probably not impressed that our desired schools matched. On average, the competition for spots in Funado High School was not so high that I would want to kick down a rival. However, I’d had the intuition that the two of us would continue acting together like this in high school, even though I had no basis to support that. I’d also had a hunch that I would investigate cases and form temporary alliances to find the truth even in high school.
Osanai-san raised a finger and pointed it at the Ouyou High School compound.
“Look.”
In the direction of her finger was the tall member of the trio of girls talking to another girl. They were a good distance away, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. When I strained my eyes to look at them, I locked eyes with the other girl.
She was not very tall, but not strikingly short. She looked neither fat nor thin. Her hair was pitch black and long, covering her ears. She wore a distinctive pair of glasses and was pushing a bicycle. The tall girl was probably telling her about the middle school students searching for eyewitnesses of the accident. The female student being talked to was obviously displaying her bewilderment.
That was probably “Eiko from N Course”. She matched Fujidera-kun’s description of the companion’s physical appearance, but deciding that Eiko was the companion just because she had an average height, had relatively long hair and was wearing spectacles would be too reckless.
Eiko furiously waved her hands in a gesture of denial, then pointed at us and seemed to lash out at the tall girl, who did not try to persuade her. Eiko returned to the school building, while the tall girl shrugged and approached us.
“It’s not her, apparently. She said that the rumor of her getting into an accident started only because her bicycle collided into a motorcycle on her way home and was broken. She also said that those with her know about it, and that she doesn’t even use the embankment road in the first place. Well, that makes sense. I definitely wouldn’t go somewhere like that either.”
“Is that so…”
Well, finding the companion while putting up the poster was too good to be true. We would have to be prepared to take the long view. Having fulfilled her duty towards her juniors, the tall girl seemed relieved.
“Well, I’ll ask around in my class. If the witness is really from our school, I think you’ll find them. I’ll also look out for any rumors.”
I bowed again.
“Um, I am Jougorou Kobato from class 3-1.”
Osanai-san, who had been waiting silently before this, followed after me.
“I am Osanai Yuki from class 3-4.”
The tall girl’s eyes widened, then broke into a grin.
“And I’m Katsuki Aaya. I’m in B course… I mean, the business course, class 3-A. Do your best, Kobato and Osanai. I don’t like that a junior of mine got run over, and the case being left just like that.”
Leaving those words, Katsuki-san turned around and returned to the Ouyou High School premises, probably to meet with the other two. I brought my mobile phone out of my pocket and looked at the time. If I was to get permission for my poster at a municipal office today, I should hurry.
I paid special attention to the battery charge on my phone. I didn’t know when an Ouyou High School student would give me a phone call. It dawned on me that we were reaching the endgame of our investigation, and I had no intention of making the mistake of missing out on an essential call because my phone battery went flat.
I’d lost track of the date.
My room had no calendar, so I couldn’t immediately tell which day of the month it was. I’d logged things down in my notebook, but that was for my memories of three years ago, and not a diary of recent events. To get the date, all I could do was count with my fingers.
It was Christmas morning when I started eating Osanai-san’s chocolate bonbons. I devoured today’s portion (something with orange sauce in it), and found that there were only two left in the box. Basically…
I was surprised. It was already December the 30th. This year would really be ending soon.
I knew that I would be welcoming the new year in the hospital, yet I hadn’t been able to use a wheelchair on my own before the end of this year. How pathetic.
According to Miyamuro-sensei, my recovery was “Going well, surprisingly well” – not counting the fact that he had added, “I usually see many elderly patients,” which made me wonder if my recovery was going well for my age. I could now also change my own underwear, which had been brought to me when my parents visited. I was certainly getting better, bit by bit. Working hard wouldn’t get my bones to mend any faster.
Dinner was chicken steak and curried cauliflower stir-fry. Perhaps it was because I’d realized that it was the end of the year, but the hospital seemed more quiet than usual. The sound of my chopsticks hitting the plastic tableware seemed cold.
She shouldn’t have more free time just because it was the end of year, but the usual nurse came in the check on me a few times while I was eating. While I was somewhat able to move now, I still had to rely on her for moving the trays and brushing my teeth after a meal. When I finished dinner, she brought me a cup of water, as usual. I gulped down the water, received assistance in brushing my teeth, then prepared to sleep.
While my mind quickly became hazy, I somehow managed to take out my notebook and open it to the last page. At the end of the account which was becoming a record of my follies, I added a line.
I was unable to water the flowers.
After that, I placed my pen on top of the notebook, and sank into my pillow, exhausted.
Chapter 7 | Contents | Chapter 9
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Editors (Tier 2): Suleman, Dedavond
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Brilliant! Thank you
Wonder how these new characters are involved and what Kobato couldn’t do to “water the flowers.” As always, thank you for your hard work!
I’m under the impression that “water the flowers at night” means that Osanai wants to him to stay up at night, but he can’t.
Pure guess on my part:
I think Kobato is getting slipped sleeping pills in the water he’s given every night, so Osanai gave him flowers in an empty vase so he has an excuse to dump the water out. Why? Couldn’t tell you, but I don’t trust the nurse.
very good chapter! thanks! Looking forward to the next one!!!
Boa teoria, não tinha pensado nisso, se a culpada for a enfermeira vai me surpreender pois não pensei nela dessa maneira.