My breath caught.
I felt dizzy.
I hadn’t even considered that. Well, not really. I’d always suspected that Reina was somehow involved with the case. I had considered the possibility of her suicide, although only vaguely.
However, having someone say it out loud like this surprised me. It made me want to scratch my head in disbelief.
“I…don’t understand. Why did she have to commit suicide?”
“Revenge…I think.”
“Revenge…Revenge for Koichiro?”
“The other way around. Taking revenge against Koichiro.”
I put my hands on my head, unable to process everything. “I thought Reina was still trying to avenge Koichiro. And now suddenly she hates him so much that she reverses her plan?”
“I think the abortion was the turning point. Reina had a warped love for Koichiro. But when she got pregnant and realized she had to have an abortion, she had to snap out of her denial. The sad reality that she couldn’t have the child of the person she loved—that it had to be killed. Why was that the ultimate result of this love? She must’ve thought deeply about that. And that’s when she realized.” Dr. Higano shook his head regretfully. “What her father expressed toward her wasn’t love but desire.”
Hearing this, I remembered how Koichiro described Reina during the first questioning: Snow White.
Yes. Though that Koichiro was Reina’s father, he hadn’t ever seen who she was.
“It’s not surprising. Warped love is warped, after all, and can easily transform into hatred.”
He was completely right. Of course, I hadn’t gone through any of this myself, but I could easily imagine that getting pregnant and having an abortion would change your values as a woman.
However…Was what he was saying really true?
The image of Reina in the ever-amber classroom twilight flashed into the back of my mind.
“That’s why I wanted to rip it up.”
The girl who ripped up a book because the story was beautiful.
That’s what she meant.
Ahh…I finally understood.
“She…realized it…” She had been jealous of that beautiful story. “Yes…Reina knew for a long time,” I said. “She knew the relationship she had with her father was wrong! I think the abortion was obviously a shock. It makes sense that she hated her father for that.”
In my mind’s eye, the shredded pages of the book fluttered like flower petals in the twilight.
“But Reina was sharp. She had to know there wouldn’t be a happy ending. There’s no way she wouldn’t have been prepared for it…So why did she choose such an extreme solution?”
“So Reina showed this kind of attitude since high school?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Higano said, “Hmm,” and crossed his arms, as though surprised by that. He leaned back into his chair for a moment.
“That woman who claimed she was Otoha Tamachi in the lobby of the business hotel,” he said, putting a hand to his jaw. “She said that since she was a schoolgirl, Reina had dated lots of guys. I deduced she was trying to influence me into thinking it was only natural for Reina to date many men for her—that is, Otoha’s—own convenience. But now that you’re suggesting that Reina realized the relationship with her father was wrong, I think we can safely say that what Otoha told us was clearly the truth. Maybe she was dating so many people to experiment?”
“Experiment?”
“Yes, she was experimenting and exploring, to see if she could love someone other than her father. And if she found someone, she planned to end her relationship with her father…However, from what we’ve seen, her experiment seems to have ended in failure.”
“In the end, Reina could only love her father?”
“Yes. Shota and Ken were among the failures. However, her feelings of guilt must’ve continued to grow even though she couldn’t love anyone other than him. We can assume that dark thoughts built inside her as the unhealthy relationship with her father continued. The feelings that stagnated inside her became a spark for revenge, and it was only a matter of time until there was an explosion. Then that explosion finally came.”
“That was the pregnancy and abortion…”
Dr. Higano nodded silently.
Just as a newly hatched chick becomes attached to the first thing it sees, Reina loved her father. There was no escaping from what had been imprinted upon you.
“It’s awful. That terrible man considered children as property. He manipulated Reina and destroyed her life.”
“Hmm. Let me clear up one misunderstanding—those weren’t Koichiro’s true feelings. He was only saying those awful things to pretend to be a deranged killer.”
“What?”
But after I thought about it, it was the obvious course of action. Once he gave the false motive, he was pretending to be the killer.
Still, I bit my lip and shook my head. “I don’t get it…Why would he do that?!”
“You don’t? You’re always so clever…You should understand by now.”
Ah.
I did understand.
I wanted Koichiro to be an unforgivable animal.
Otherwise there’d be no outlet for my emotions in such a brutal case.
I wanted to run down a wicked enemy to bring him to justice. I wanted—no, we all wanted a neat story like that.
But that story had fallen apart.
And it had fallen apart because I alone had sought the truth. Like the broken pieces of the puzzle on the table.
“Yuri, you must’ve realized the truth about this case by now, haven’t you?”
It took me a moment, but I said, “Yes.” I clenched my teeth. “Reina took her revenge by committing suicide and making Koichiro look guilty.”
Dr. Higano nodded.
“Yes. And when Koichiro learned the truth, he fulfilled his daughter’s request. He confessed and sacrificed his own life so that his daughter’s plan for revenge would go exactly as she had hoped.”
Koichiro realized the intention behind Reina’s suicide after Dr. Higano’s suggestive phrases:
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“Which is exactly why Reina went to such lengths to take her revenge.”
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“That love was forbidden.”
✦ ✦ ✦
And when Ken called him “an animal.”