いとしいこと

Previous   TOC   Next Returning to the store that never stopped smelling like old rubber shoes, Ryousuke entered the storage room still dripping wet. Shinobu locked the door behind them, and just as Ryousuke was about to say, “There’s no need for this anymore,” the candle’s flame went out. The weight of a cold body pressed down on him in silence, and for once, something about Shinobu’s presence felt dangerously off. “What are you—” The touch of lips against his own, disturbingly real and intimate, threw Ryousuke’s thoughts into chaos. Someone had just died. Shinobu had killed him. How could he be doing something like this right now? “Stop it!” He shook his head, but Shinobu kept coming. His wrists were pinned down with one hand, his chin seized with the other. There was no escape as the kiss continued. His right leg throbbed with pain, completely immobile, and all his free left leg could do was swing uselessly through the darkness. “Ryou-chan, you’re weak.” The words fell quie...

Previous   TOC   Next Betrayed. The fact that he’d been betrayed by his father trampled through Ryousuke’s mind like muddy boots on polished floors. The dignified father figure he’d admired collapsed into nothing but a lecherous old man. Sae, whom he’d merely disliked, became a detestable devil. And the childhood friend now claiming seniority just because he’d been born a few months earlier—he became something repulsive, someone Ryousuke couldn’t even bear to look at. But in truth, he didn’t know for certain. It could all be a lie. Just some story Shinobu made up, and he’d fallen for it. There was no way here to prove what was true or false. All he had were the words that came from Shinobu’s mouth. “Sorry to spring this on you, but I really want to ask Shinobu to go get Ibuki,” Taki said the morning of the day he was set to accompany Ibuki to the Matsui Department Store’s underground. “It’s just… I don’t know who else to ask. The others would probably ask questions, and if I t...

Previous   TOC   Next Shinobu collapsed three days later. When Taki came to inform him, Ryousuke was inside the back storeroom of the shoe shop, reading a paperback he'd picked up from a nearby bookstore under the light of a candle. He spent his days idly, locked away inside the store. The offer to help with inventory organizing had been retracted by Tamura himself—“Ibuki says he prefers to work alone,” he’d said—and Ryousuke had been genuinely relieved. He kept thinking he ought to be doing something, but he had no idea what that something should be. Out of sheer boredom, he'd even tidied up the shop. He’d sorted the men's shoes by size, but not a single resident had come by asking for any. Then again, he spent most of the day holed up like a mole in the storeroom, so even if someone had stopped by, he might not have noticed. Once, he tried showing his face at the excavation site, but all he could do was sit and watch. The looks he got from the others were cold. Just then...