Shiratori Haruto

“He might never confess, Miyamura-chan, but he really is the same guy who killed a girl!”

“But… he seems nice to me. Why do you all stereoty—”

“Only to you, Miyamura-chan! To all of us other girls and other students, he’s a cold-ass bitch! He acts like he doesn’t even give a fuck!”

“… You’re his good friend, right? And still, he’s hiding stuff from you.”

“Everyone knows about him. Why does he need to even act like he’s lost his memories?”

“All that memory loss troupes only happen in stories, not in reality.”

“Since he’s nice to you, I feel like you are his next target. Stay away from him. There’s still time until you’re alive.”

“Don’t go to him! No! Miyamura-chan!”

“I’m tired what shit you speak about your classmate, girls! Just stay away from me!”

***

“I had a fight with them,” Hina said as she sipped in the drink from her blue and white small juice carton in her hands, her left elbow on my table, her left hand on her cheek, and her face toward my left too. “And I don’t think that Imma talk to them anymore.”

“But why though? What happened between you and them?” I asked as I looked at her, taking up one of the two lunchboxes kept at the table and sliding it at me. I turned my head down right at the bag, opened the zip with my right hand, kept the box inside with my left hand, and then zipped it again. I then turned my head to the front again at her. She remained silent for a couple of seconds as I looked at her. “You know, you can tell me, at least.”

She nodded a little, sipping in from the white straw.

I frowned my eyes a little, noticing her silence, and then I patted her left shoulder which was facing me. “Is it serious, Miyamura-san?”

She gulped in, her eyes a little wet. She then turned her head at me, looking at my eyes with a serious gaze. “See, I’ve been hearing it for a month, now.”

I noticed that she was getting emotional. “W-W-What happened, Miyamura-san?”

“Now, this time… don’t… don’t lie, okay? Answer honestly.”

***

“… Have you really… forgotten everything?”

“… Yeah…”

“… Why… Why, Shiratori-kun?”

***

Suzuki Tadashi

“A different perspective…”

“Why does Yamazaki-san want me to have a different perspective?”

BANP. BANP. BANP. BANP.

My eyes were confident and determined. My black boots walked through the sand beneath, upsetting them up. My hands were hanging beside my waist, with the scabbard beside my left hand. I had my head raised a little up as I looked at the audience, walking from one edge to the center of the amphitheater. At the front, people were literally standing up on their seats, while others in between were sitting, most of them raising their fists up in air, supporting me. The air was filled with their indistinct chatter, with the chants of my name on top of them. “TADASHI! TADASHI! TADASHI! TADASHI! TADASHI!”

I then turned my head to my right, and then to the left. “On another note, why… am I here anyway?”

“… Was this what Sasaki-senpai was talking about?”

***

“Why… Why, Shiratori-kun? Why do you…?”

I kept on staring at her confusedly. “W-What, Miyamura-san?”

Hina turned her head down in despair, her hair covering her forehead and eyes. “Do… Do you really think that I’d believe such a blunt lie? Like, how can you even—”

I hesitantly replied, “I-I-I’m not lying, Miyamura-san! I-I—”

“I believed in that made-up story for so long, but now that I hear others, I feel like… like really… all of is… is just a made-up lie. I…”

“I-I’m not lying, Miyamura-san! I-I swear it’s all tru—”

“Then tell me why don’t you talk to anyone?!” Her lips beneath her hair shouted at me.

“B-B-B-Because they shun me, and hate me for something which I can’t even seem to rememb—”

“If you truly didn’t know why they shun you, then you’d be making some sort of effort to talk it out with people and get along. But, right from day one, I see you behaving like it’s all an act for me, and that you actually know it all!”

“No, Miyamura-san, I—”

THUP!

She banged her left hand on the table, stood up angrily, and then ran away from my left.

“Miyamura-san!” I turned my head to the back as I looked at her exiting the classroom from my right. I then stood up too, turned back, and then turned to the door on the right as I continued to run behind her.

***

Suzuki Tadashi

“You’ll know once you reach there,” I remembered Sasaki-senpai’s words as I stood frozen there, my eyes fixed on the crowd. “You’re the hero.”

“Yeah, I’m the hero. And… I gotta win today. If this is what Sasaki-senpai was talking about, I guess that I then should take pride that I’ve finally reached where I was supposed to be, or maybe I’m on the right path.”