Yashiro Kiyoshi

“What do you mean by that?” I asked as I frowned my eyes doubtfully. I was sitting on top of the backless chair, wearing my usual brown overcoat on top of my white shirt and black pair of loose trousers. In front of me sat Haruto, his head tilted a little down, his hands sandwiched between his thighs in shyness.

“I… feel like I’ve heard the name, but… I can’t seem to remember it…”

I continued glaring at his nervous eyes as he nervously looked at mine, and then turned them a little down. I opened my lips. “What does it… feel like… to hear that name? I mean, any particular emotion… or some particular thing… that you remember?” I moved my right hand up, circling it here and there, demonstrating as I spoke my words. “Because, you see, you can’t just remember, but not exactly remember anything. There must be a reason why you said that… must be something you actually remembered, but are not able to put it into words. Is it?”

“Well…” Haruto tilted his eyes a little down to his left, trying to think and remember. For a second, he thought, and then turned at me again. “You know, it’s… not like I remember anything, but… but it just feels like I’ve known him… Not that I know him really, but just… I feel like it.”

“So, you think you know him?”

“Huh? No. I feel like I know him. This name just seems like something I remember.”

I nodded at the reply, glaring at the child. As I continued looking at his innocent face, I thought, “His body doesn’t say he’s lying. He might have really lost all his memories. But… since he’s forgotten all of it, this feeling… might be true. Takemura Itsuki-kun might be someone who exists. But… his single father denies so.” I frowned. “What if… his father really hated Takemura-kun, so he’s just lying. He might be involved with the incident, maybe.” I then closed my eyes, tilted my head down, and shook my head in denial. “No. It’s something supernatural. All of it proves it. There’s no point in believing that the whole neighborhood will lie about Takemura-kun not existing.” I moved my butt up and stood up. Watching me stand up, Haruto too stood up from his seat in front of me, looking at me as I looked at him. “I guess I’d be questioning you a little more as time passes by.” I then turned up at Minori, who was sitting on the bed calmly, her head facing rightwards at me. “And Shiratori-san, this case literally is a mind twister. But… we’re not done yet.”

She nodded in return with a smile on her face.

I smiled too. “And maybe, you’d be discharged from here soon.”

“Thanks a lot to you, Yashiro-san, to get Haruto back to me.”

I smiled. “He just came back as mysteriously as he disappeared.” I turned to Haruto in front of me again. “Literally, this case is something else. And with Haruto back with us… we might be able to get to the root of it all when he regains his memories.”

I turned to the left at the door of the room and walked away, my footsteps echoing all over the silent hospital room. I pushed open the door, turned right, and let go of the door behind me as it closed on its own.

As I walked through the narrow corridor with a few people standing all over the path, I thought, “Literally, this case is a mind twister. It’s like… Haruto has literally come out of Shiratori-san’s imagination. It’s like… her dreams are turning into reality.

“This case really was a mind twister. It seemed like Haruto had jumped into reality from Shiratori-san’s dreams… her imagination… her mental illness, because there were still so many unanswered questions and unsolved mysteries. How did Haruto go missing? No one knows. How he came back to life? No one knows, not even him himself. What happened in the whole month with Haruto as he was gone? No one knows, not even him himself. This whole thing was… just unbelievable.”

I passed by some nurses on my right who were standing at the corner of the corridor, gossiping. As I passed them, I entered the waiting area of the hospital, with the reception on my right, and the glass entrance in front of me, from which all the afternoon light of the sun came in by. I walked past the wide area between the rows of metallic chairs on my left and the wide reception on my right. The waiting area had some occasional few people just chatting or using their phones or just sitting silently. I quickly walked past the setting to the entrance of the hospital and walked down the small stairs. As I continued walking the straight line, I walked past the boundary of the hospital covered with flowers all around on top of the white wall, and turned left.

“Who would have ever believed this story of Haruto? There was no proof he existed. But now, as he stood in front of me, I knew that we’ve found what we wanted to find for so many days. But, this reveals another set of problems, another set of difficulties. This was not yet another case of hit-and-run, after all. It was… unique… in every aspect as it could have been. And I was yet quite far away from the end of this case. Nevertheless, I knew it was my chance…”

As I walked in the chilly winters with hot sunshine, I turned my head up and looked at the sky.

“… my chance to find salvation… and to do what should be done.”

“Gotta take all this to the next level, Kiyoshi. We’re a bit closer to solving this case today than we were yesterday.”