Suzuki Tadashi

“Matsuda-senpai?” I asked him as I frowned my eyebrows a little.

With the same smile on his face, he nodded, moving his head up and down slowly. “Yeah, Matsuda.”

“T-The hell’s left to talk about him?”

“The shit you’re gonna learn about him is gonna change your whole perspective about him, kiddo,” He said with his smile. “Matsuda… was a very mysterious man. I was tryna check up on his past so that I can maybe put the blame for his murder on someone else, but… I found something very interesting instead.”

The two of us were sitting on the wooden chairs, looking at each other, with a wooden table in between the two of us. Both my hands were in the middle of my thighs, my eyes looking at Kurayami, and my back meek. Kurayami had both his hands around the cup of coffee right in front of him on the table. He then turned his eyeballs a little down and turned at the cup of coffee in front of me on the table. “So, why don’t you drink a sip in?”

I gulped in, turned my head down at the cup kept at the edge of the table, moved both my hands up, held the cup with both my hands, with the forefinger and middle finger of my right hand inside the handle of the cup, moved the cup up.

Kurayami was smiling as he heard the “Srrrrup.”

The cup then touched the wooden table again. My eyes were in front on him.

The whole restaurant was filled with the silent indistinct chatters of people who sat in the restaurant. It was lightly bright yellow because of the direct sunrays which fell inside from the open glass wall on our left. From our right, a waitress walked down with a tray in her hands.

“I-I wanna know what you got to know about Matsuda.”

Kurayami turned his head a little down at the table, moved the cup up through both his hands, took a little sip, and then moved the cup in front of his chest, moving it down slowly at the table, his eyes still at the edge of the table. “Before I tell you what I got to know, I just wanna know how you see him as a person.”

“Evil,” I instantly replied, without wasting a second. “He was evil… and lazy… and he exploited me. He also tried to harass me. Moreover, he was greedy. He was always buttering people up to get more customers. He was a total jackass.”

“Yeah. Agreed. But… he gave shelter to you, did he not, Suzuki-kun?”

“Just to exploit m—”

“Then he could have just had a slave instead. Dozens of cheap and free slaves are available. On top of that, he could have some young men working under him. Why only you? And why do you think he never had a slave or a servant before you?”

Both my hands were still holding the cup at the edge of the table. I moved both my hands back slowly as I looked at Kurayami. I stuffed both my hands in the middle of my thighs again, and continued looking at his smiling face, which had a pinch of sadness mixed in it because of his narrowed eyes. His elbows were on the table, his hands holding the cup in front of his chest, and his eyes fixed on me. He then opened his lips, “See, Suzuki-kun, Matsuda had a family too. He had a beautiful wife, when once he too was young, and two giggling daughters. At those times, he was just transporting his horses from the western countryside to the city, when suddenly it came into the limelight that he was actually illegally transporting these horses from the neighboring kingdoms. His house was raided, and in the process, his whole family who were sleeping by the night… died.”

I was looking at the moving lips as they suddenly stopped and continued to smile. There was a second of silence between the two of us as we sat on either sides of the table, looking at each other, his eyes dejected, his lips smiling, and my eyes shocked, my mouth open.

“The news about the illegal transportation… turned out to be fake.”

***

Kabata Katsuki

The sun was right on top of the black haired heads of the soldiers as they stood on top of the defensive walls of the city. I was sitting on top of a brown horse with shiny fur, my body moving up and down as the horse tapped its hooves on the white bricked wall beneath, walking deliberately. The bricked railings on both sides were as large as the back of the horse. The path in front of me was tilting a little to my right, and was both empty and silent. I was donning the same dark green robe on top of my black pair of pants and ankle-length boots. I turned my head to my left, looking into the woods with my back held high.

TADAK-TADAK! TADAK-TADAK!

NEEEEEEEIGH!

I turned my head to the front, noticing a black horse running quickly toward me from some steps away. On top of it was a man riding it, with his right hand high up in air, waving at me, and his left hand holding the straps. His mouth was wide open as he shouted, “KATSUKI!”

I frowned my eyes a little as I glared at him running at me. “Is that… Ayato?”

THADAK-THADAK! THADAK-THADAK! THADAK-THADAK!

After some seconds, Ayato pulled the straps of the horse, and it slowed down a little, walked some steps to the front, and then stopped right in front of the face of my horse. His eyes were seriously glaring at me as he held the straps of his horse with both his hands. His mouth was open from which he was panting in and out continuously.

“HUFF! HUFF! Listen to me, Katsuki.”

“W-What happened?” I asked, maintaining my personality.

“It’s… It’s fixed. We’ve tracked the hero.”