Chapter 7

──side Kaname──

──Yeah, today’s dinner turned out well. As expected of me.

I decided on tonkatsu for dinner. I tried double-coating and double-frying as I saw on TV, and it seems to have worked out well.

It’s always good to try different things. As I nodded to myself a few times, I noticed Natsuki, who had just returned home, looking down and deep in thought.

「Natsuki, did something happen at school?」

Natsuki attends Kujou Academy, one of the top prep schools in the country. It’s not long ago that I remember this girl, who wasn’t particularly fond of studying, suddenly started studying diligently.

「No, it’s nothing.」

She turns to me with a start and smiles. But how many years does she think I’ve been her mother? I could tell right away that it was a hastily made smile.

「I see, you couldn’t talk to him today either.」

「…Yeah.」

Who? goes without saying. It’s about Shougo, my late best friend’s son and Natsuki’s childhood friend. The other day, I found out he had returned, and thinking she’d be surprised, I told Natsuki the next day that Shougo was back.

I was so confident when I told her, but I ended up being the one surprised. I had no idea Natsuki and Shougo were in the same class.

Yet, neither of them has had a proper conversation even once. In other words, Natsuki still doesn’t know what Shougo has been doing all this time.

Even if they’re childhood friends, it’s not particularly unusual to reunite after being apart for several years, it’s quite common, I think. But these two were inseparable until middle school.

Ever since that boy lost his parents, I’ve treated him like my own child.

Sometimes praising, sometimes scolding, and I think it was at his middle school entrance ceremony that he finally seemed to have moved on from the past and shyly called me “Kaname-kaasan”.

Those two were born on the same day, started kendo on the same day. They went to and from school together… Ah, but sharing futons and baths was only until elementary school, I think?

Because they were so close, it must have been a shock for Natsuki when Shougo had his accident. Of course, it was a shock for me too. I never expected that boy, who was like a son to me, to suddenly suffer a severe injury, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

Naturally, Natsuki visited him diligently every day. I think it was around then that she started studying intensely.

Then, one day, Shougo and the other children who were hospitalized in the same room suddenly disappeared. Without a trace, they literally vanished. Of course, we immediately filed a missing persons report with the police, and this incredibly baffling case was covered in the evening news.

But even after a week, a month, a year, Shougo didn’t come back.

The day Natsuki found out Shougo had disappeared, she lost her composure in a way I’d never seen before and left the house.

Fortunately, I found her in front of the Chihara house, Shougo’s family home, but seeing my child muttering “Shou-chan” like a delirium, I lost the will to scold her.

For a while after that, Natsuki wouldn’t come out of her room. Perhaps the silver lining was that Hina, Shougo’s younger sister and now our second daughter, was by her side.

「Onii-chan will definitely come back!!」

She encouraged Natsuki every day, and actually managed to get her out of her room, so I’m grateful to her.

After that, Natsuki studied so hard that even as her parent, I was worried. The result of that is her current attendance at Kujou Academy. As a parent, I’m proud that she got into such a prestigious prep school, but given the reason, I wondered if it was really okay, if this was really what she wanted. At that time, I probably didn’t fully believe that Shougo would come back.

It was about a year after Natsuki started attending Kujou Academy.

Natsuki continued kendo in high school and was achieving decent results in club activities. As tournaments approached, practice hours naturally extended.

After Shougo disappeared, Natsuki either went home with other girls from the kendo club or by herself, but that day she had stayed late for self-practice and was returning home alone. That’s when it happened.

Natsuki was almost attacked by a stalker.

Fortunately, a male student from the same academy named Amano-kun stood up to the stalker and handed him over to the police, so nothing happened to her. Amano-kun was also in the kendo club and was apparently an acquaintance of Natsuki.

From what I heard, he’s the son of the director of Amano Hospital, where Shougo was hospitalized.

My husband, who works for a pharmaceutical company, said he would thank the parents on his end too when he heard about it.

We invited Amano-kun over once to thank him, but while Amano-kun would talk to Natsuki, Natsuki rarely initiated conversation with him.

If anything, my husband was showering Amano-kun with praise, saying things like “Please continue to take care of Natsuki”.

I asked Hina about Natsuki and Amano-kun in club activities, and it seems there’s talk that the two are dating. There’s no obligation to report who you’re dating to your parents, but while I felt “No way”, I also thought, “Well, it can’t be helped”.

Now that Shougo is back, if they are dating, I wish they’d break up quickly though.

That brings us to the events of the other day.

I was preparing to make curry for dinner when I realized I was out of onions. I needed to go shopping anyway, so I rode my bicycle to the shopping district.

While browsing at my usual greengrocer’s, thinking I might buy something else besides onions, the shopkeeper spoke to me.

「Oya, if it isn’t Nanami-san’s wife. Forget something?」

「Ah, hello… Forget something? I think it’s been about a week since I last came.」

「Ahh, that’s right, it’s been about that long since you came. I was surprised, you see. Shougo suddenly came by to shop earlier. I thought he was running an errand for you and made him buy a lot… Wasn’t that the case?」

「Eh……?」

I don’t remember much of what I talked about with the shopkeeper after that. I think I asked how long ago Shougo had come, but I hurriedly jumped on my bicycle without buying anything.

The Nanami house where we live and the Chihara house, Shougo’s family home, aren’t that far apart. At most, it’s about a five-minute walk. So it takes just over ten minutes to get there by bicycle from the shopping district.

I hadn’t pedaled a bicycle with all my might since becoming a housewife, but this time I did so without caring about the eyes around me. I quickly ran out of breath, and I’ve never cursed my lack of exercise more than at that moment.

As the Chihara house came into view, it seemed the lights were off. Fortunately, I found the spare key to the Chihara house that I had left in my bag, and despite my heart aching from breathlessness and excitement, I opened the front door. Even as I entered the entrance, the rooms were still dark, with no lights on.

──Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity.

「Ahh… ahh…」

Just as I was thinking that, feeling crushed by resignation, I heard what sounded like groaning coming from the direction of the living room.

──Someone’s there.

Given the situation, it could only be Shougo, but if so, why was I hearing groaning?

Forgetting that this was technically someone else’s house, I ran towards the living room.

What I saw there was a boy wrapped in a blanket, crouching, screaming, and groaning.