Episode 47: Back Site
The next day, Akari
Tobishima missed school and her part-time job for four days in a row.
I've been watching her
from the comfort of my room with my clairvoyant eyes.
After watching her for
a few days, I had a suspicion.
I thought that Akari
Tobishima had never been a bully.
So, I decided to
contact Eiichi Kasakura, the client.
◇ ◇ ◇
The meeting place was
the same coffee shop I used to meet Kumiko Sasaki.
I walked into the
coffee shop with my mask on.
Then I caught sight of
a man with a distinctly gloomy mood.
“Are you Eiichi
Kasakura?”
I walked up to the man
and called out to him.
“Y, Yes, I am.......”
A faint, almost muffled
voice replied.
I ordered a hot cup of
coffee from the clerk and took a seat in front of him.
“S, so ... what kind of
business do you have? N, no way, you can't accept my request or...?”
“No, not at all, sir.
More importantly, did you bring me what I asked for?”
“Y, yes, ......, this
is it.”
What Sasakura-san gave
me on the table was a pink smartphone.
“This is the phone on
which Yukiko's suicide note was left, isn't it?”
“Y, yes.......”
I had asked him to
bring me Yukiko Kasakura's phone because I was really curious if the
perpetrator of the bullying was really Akari Tobishima.
“Please excuse me.”
I picked up the phone
and looked at it.
There was definitely a
suicide note on the screen.
“Excuse me, what is
this back site written here?”
“Oh, well, it's a
...... back-to-school site, an anonymous bulletin board on the Internet. It
seems that other students were entertained by the bad things that were written
by Akari Tobishima on there.......”
“I see.”
En?
“That's anonymous,
isn't it? How did Yukiko-san know that the person who was writing the bad
comments was Akari Tobishima?”
“Well, that's ......
I'm sorry. I don't know.”
“I see.”
“Oh, um, ...... maybe
Onizuka-san thinks it wasn't ...... Akari Tobishima who was writing the bad
things?”
Kasakura-san turns to
me, cheeks scrunched up and looking like a mummy.
“Well, to tell you the
truth, yes.”
“No, it can't be!”
Kasakura-san suddenly
slammed the table and raised his voice.
The waitress looked at
us to see what was going on.
“T, that, it can't be
......, it can't be .......”
Then the waitress
brought me the hot coffee I ordered on a tray.
“Thank you for waiting.
Here is your hot coffee.”
“Oh, I'm sorry, I made
such a racket.”
I apologized.
“No, it's okay. There
are no other customers at the moment.”
She smiled back at me.
After the waitress
left, “I'm sorry......” Sasakura-san said, bowing slowly to me.
Then continued.
“I, I've been resenting
Akari Tobishima for a long time. I hate her so much that I want to kill her ...
but now suddenly you said she is not the perpetrator, I just cannot believe
that ...”
He piled up words one
by one.
“That's right. You
would be confused if you were told something like that out of the blue,
wouldn't you?”
I preface it like that.
“If it's not Akari
Tobishima, do you have any idea who else it could be?”
I ask.
“...... I, I'm sorry.
My wife and I have not really paid much attention to Yukiko.......”
When he said that,
Sasakura-san fell silent.
A dead end........
But the second I
thought that.
The next thing I knew, “......
Oh, that girl could be.........”
Sasakura-san said as if
he remembered something.
" Who is this
girl?"
“...... Well, she's not
a criminal or anything like that....... It's a girl named Hiiragi Mai who was
very close to Yukiko since elementary school......they went to different junior
high schools, but Yukiko happily told me once that they will be going to the
same school again in high school.......”
“The same high school?”
“Y, yes...... although
the classes seemed to be different.......”
Hmm... I don't have any
other clues, so I'll have to check with the girl.
I thought to myself.
“Do you have a picture
of the girl?”
“Yes, I do. ...... When
I get home, I'll find her picture in the graduation album.......”
“Well, please email me
the pictures later. I'll check it further.”
That's all I said.
I ended the
conversation and left the table.
“So, does that mean
that Akari...... Tobishima is also a victim.....?”
Sasakura-san looks up
at me with hollow eyes and says.
“That's right. She's
being severely bashed by the people around her as a perpetrator of bullying
which she never did.”
“Oh, so it's......?
...... O, Onizuka-san. I'm sure you'll be able to find the real culprit, and, and,
and.......”
“You don't have to say
anything else.”
I said as softly as I
could and left the place alone, leaving Sasakura-san behind.
I want to read more!!!:'(
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