“A friend...” he replied. “Ever since that happened, I’ve been afraid to interact with young women, so I have him tag along with me.”
“I’m... I’m terribly sorry...”
The man who was with Kano-san was her brother, it turned out. Right, they do look somewhat similar.
Aikawa-san averted his gaze to avoid looking directly at Yuko-san. (Let’s call her that and use “Kano-san” for the brother to avoid confusion.) Kano-san sat across from him.
Long story short, Sanko-san had gotten married at the end of last month. At least someone got a happy ending. She had indeed been to N-Town, wanting to apologize to Aikawa-san before getting married. That thing about her moving to this prefecture earlier this year was true. Then, after getting married, she moved to another prefecture. The whole thing is kinda confusing, but I’m impressed by her proactivity, if nothing else. She hadn’t been able to talk to Aikawa-san, since she didn’t know anything about his recent whereabouts except that he lived somewhere around here. However, she’d thought she had caught sight of someone who looked like him in town, and she’d entrusted her siblings with an apology letter she’d written, hoping they would find some way to deliver it to him.
So Aikawa-san wasn’t imagining things when he said he spotted her in town last month. I felt a chill run down my spine.
“You must have been coming to this town regularly, then, huh?” Aikawa-san asked.
“Yes. My brother and I have been taking turns coming here. This is our third time. We planned to send the letter to your lawyer if we couldn’t reach you by the end of this month.”
“You could have just done that from the start, right...?”
“Yes, but then we wouldn’t know if you actually received the letter.”
Aikawa-san sighed deeply. “I don’t need a letter, and I don’t need an apology. As long as she keeps her distance from me, that’s enough.”
“I’m so sorry...”
“You don’t have to apologize either. Send her my congratulations on the wedding.”
“Thank you...”
I couldn’t taste my coffee at all. Ah, well. The perpetrator was happily married, and the victim was left with a deep-seated trauma. This is all terribly unfair, isn’t it?
We parted with the Kano siblings after leaving the café. Aikawa-san quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Hm?
“Good... Now I don’t have to live in constant fear of her shadow anymore...” he murmured softly with a sorrowful smile.
If he’s okay with it, then I suppose that’s that.
“But this...is not really the end of it. My fear of women still remains.”
“Have you considered therapy or...?”
“No, I’m fine,” Aikawa-san said feebly. “I don’t mind, really. But I’ll probably be asking you again to help me out with this kind of thing, Sano-san.”
“Coming to town every now and then? Sure, I guess.”
“Come and see Rin and Ten occasionally too.”
“If you invite me, sure.”
What’s with this conversation anyway? I wondered as we exchanged words sparsely. By now, it had been a while since the Kano siblings had vanished from our sight.
“Is it okay to leave?” I asked.
“Probably...?”
Even though it seemed unlikely, we couldn’t fully discard the possibility of being followed. Plus, we didn’t know if what they’d told us was the whole truth. Both of us had far too many scars to be able to trust people blindly.
“Ah, I need to put the stuff I bought in the cooler!” I ran back to my truck...and found a furious Rin-san. She was platinum mad, as the kids say. (Or do they not say that anymore?) Yuma also stared at me with a disdainful look. Sorry...
“Late,” said Rin-san.
“Sorry, I was talking to that woman’s siblings,” Aikawa-san explained.
“You said...wouldn’t meet.”
“Sorry, but I couldn’t just ignore them.”
“Angry.”
“I know. Sorry.”
It was a bit difficult to put it into words, but Rin-san was clearly different from her usual self—she had a very intense aura to her. Aikawa-san was pretty impressive in his own way, being able to talk to such an enraged Rin-san with a smile on his face.
“Yuma, sorry for taking so long.”
She gave me the cold shoulder. Ouch.
“Yuma, come on! I’m sorry. I couldn’t just leave Aikawa-san on his own, now could I?”
“Couldn’t.”
“Right? I knew you were worried too. Thanks.” I hugged her gently. My girls are so adorable. I took a quick peek at Aikawa-san, and he was being hugged by Rin-san.
All this had taken quite some time, but it was still only a little past noon. We ate onigiri in our trucks—Aikawa-san, resourceful as always, had made a few in case we stayed longer than we’d originally planned. Then, we headed back to the village, taking a detour just to be on the safe side.
Aikawa-san called his lawyer at once to confirm the story. “He’ll probably get back to me tonight. Jeez, so it really was her that I saw last month... I was right to be careful.”
“Definitely. It’s a good thing you didn’t run into her.” And besides, you weren’t sure if it was her, but she knew you were around here. That’s the stuff of nightmares.
“Sano-san, thank you for today.”
“I didn’t actually do anything.”
“Just having you along was really reassuring. If not for that, I would’ve probably run away with my tail between my legs.”
“I...actually don’t think there’s anything wrong with running away in that situation.”
“But that doesn’t solve anything... Don’t you agree?”
“Well, I suppose that’s true.” We both laughed.
After parting ways, I went back to my mountain and let Yuma out.
“Sorry. It was probably tiring for you to stay inside the truck the whole time.”
“Tired.”
“I bet. Thanks, Yuma.”
She went trotting off, probably to look for more food—that onigiri was not enough for her, I’m sure. I heard cooked rice is not very good for chickens, so I only let her have a little. She soon came back after picking bugs and pecking at some grass.
“Yuma, you can go and play if you want to,” I told her.
She pecked me. Why?
Yumoto-san came by that evening to drop off Pochi and Tama. Both went running off somewhere as soon as they stepped out of his truck. Good, good—get as much exercise as you can. I wondered why Yuma was so different from them.
It was already dark outside.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. See ya,” he said before going home. He’d brought something for me again—this time it was canned tangerines. Thanks.
I wonder if chickens can eat tangerines... Probably not canned ones. Too sweet, for one. Wouldn’t want them to get cavities.