C1 Part7

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

Part 1 Story 7: Memory and The Future

Translator: Ririi Rain

On the night when Ringo ran away from the

hitman for his dear life,

Maybe it was a flashback caused by the

fear in his heart, but he dreamed of a memory that he didn't want to remember.

It was of his uncle, aunt, and their son, which

was his cousin.

Their son was the same age as Ringo. After

Ringo's parents died suddenly when he was 11, they became foster brothers and

they grew up together like real brothers.

Eigo Hayashiki had always been aware that

he was a freeloader, so he had been doing his best to be useful while he tried

to fit in with his foster family.

Such as greeting them every day and

helping out with housework.

His foster brother was taking the entrance

exam of a private all-boys school, and he invited him to take it as well. Ringo

was able to enter the school with the highest score, which meant that his

tuition would be free.

He thought that all of those brought

delight to his family, or so he believed.

Everything was turned upside down on that

day.

Ringo received a certain award from a

company for his graduation project at the science department of his junior high

school.

The award ceremony was held at a luxurious

hotel in Minatomirai, Yokohama.

Then, at the party after the ceremony, he

was sure that it was when he nibbled at a soft adzuki-bean jelly dessert.

"Mr. Hayashiki. Another guest has

requested your presence."

The hotel staff told him so and he was

guided through the long carpeted corridor along with all his family members.

Then, he fainted on the way, and when he

regained consciousness, he was at a hotel room where the curtains were already on

fire.

What entered his vision was his body that

had been tied to a chair and his foster family's members who were about to flee

from the room where the temperature gradually rose.

"Uncle!!"

He breathed in the hot air and he was

becoming more suffocated. Straining his voice, he cried out. His uncle turned

around slowly. His eyes were terribly still and calm.

It was an unnatural calm that didn't match

the emergency caused by the fire.

For a moment, he could see his aunt and

his younger brother, who were beyond the door, directing cold gazes at him.

Without saying anything, his uncle turned

his back again and the door closed, accompanied by the sound of dry wood.

——He

had been abandoned.

A hard-to-believe reality that made him

crestfallen, Ringo saw it.

His uncle's belt and his younger brother's

tie were tying his legs to the chair. He can't see it himself, but his aunt's

belongings may be wrapped around his wrists behind him.

(Ah, so it was all useless.)

In the end, Ringo was a stranger

throughout all the five years. All the efforts he had put in were meaningless.

No, rather, maybe they thought that those

efforts were nuisances.

The fire alarm doesn't ring for some

reason, and the sprinklers also didn't work.

There were signs of people outside, but

they seemed to be in a state of tumultuous panic because of the poisonous gas.

Even when he raised his voice to ask for help, no one replied.

Having given up on everything, he closed

his eyes and trembled due to the oncoming death.

I'm

scared, I don't want to die.

His eyes grew hot and tears welled up in

his eyes.

So

vexing.

Not rewarded for

everything and dying by myself.

Water droplets quietly flowed down his

cheeks and dropped down to the carpet in the room.

At that moment, the door was kicked open

with great force.

"Y, you are?!"

Standing before the entrance where the

hinges were about to come off was a woman with blue pair of eyes and long hair.

"Wow, I'm glad you're still alive.

You're lucky, this place is not burning that much yet."

The woman doesn't answer his question and

just approached him without minding the flaming fire. Then, she bent her knees

in front of Ringo, took a survival knife out of her waist pouch, and broke his

restraints with a practiced move.

"You have a face that says that you

didn't know what's going on."

The woman said so with a fearless smile

while facing the boy whose face was soggy with tears.

The woman's smile was shining much brighter

than the raging fire.

"I received a request and come to

help you. Nice to meet you, Ringo-kun!"

Four figures were surrounding the mahjong

table.

"Suuankou!1"

One of them was Secret, who had just shouted

cheerfully. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Ringo felt that she was

strangely good at Chinese pronunciation.

She was wearing the flashy work clothes

today.

"Ahーfucking

brute!"

The man who doesn't hide his frustration

was that man, the host as well the informant. When he was seen in the early

afternoon sunlight, he looked like he was in his mid-twenties.

The stream of smoke that puffed out from that

man’s cigarette was swayed by the wind and went up.

"Nico, your face gave it away.

Right?"

The two middle-aged uncles who answered

"Rightー" to Secret and sat in front of her were

people who they met when they wandered around the Doya District.

It seemed that the host aka the informant was

called Nico. Nico was probably his professional name as a host, because although

he was quite tall, he can only be seen as an Asian.

(Who are these old men?)

Ringo frowned at the situation of the

mahjong game. He had bad dreams lately, so he was a little short of sleep.

The pink-haired Nico and Secret had opened

a carless garage at the roadside because they had a plan to talk about work.

Mahjong requires four members, but Ringo

refused to participate because he doesn't know the rules. Therefore, as a

stopgap measure, they gathered the mahjong-loving old men who were walking

around the place.

"Ringo-kun can learn the rules in an

instant, so you should do it〜.

You can memorize hundreds of patterns of

the winning method, can't you?"

Secret, who was forlorn, murmured

dissatisfiedly as she bid farewell to the uncles who were leaving. They were

going to see horse racing.

"What the hell is that? Does this

cherry-boy have the Memorization Bread2?"

I feel like I've just

heard a lot of bad words, but I will ignore them.

"That's not it, Nico. Ringo-kun has

an instantaneous memory skill. Once he sees something, he'll never forget it."

"It's not a skill. Mine is just a

case of hyperthymesia."

"Hoーu, that

sure sounds like a convenient syndrome."

"Yeah, well..."

In fact, it was a very useful special ability.

It was all thanks to this hyperthymesia

that he was able to enroll at the prestigious school as the top student, as

well as being able to recite the damage amount of the Grand Lou Hostess Bar.

Secret received a request from someone to

‘protect Eigo Hayashiki's life and return him to the normal society’, and while

the difficulty and the high risk of the job were worrying, she said that as he

was under her care, she found his hyperthymesia useful.

Even if that ability had helped him so

much, he was also condemned by the people around him for being unfair in terms

of studying.

"It's because of Ringo-kun's special ability

that we managed to escape from Mizari, you know. Well, physically, he's still a

long way off, though."

Putting her elbows on the mahjong table,

Secret smiled like a naughty child. She urged Ringo to sit on the chair next to

her.

He was tired of standing during the

mahjong game, so he tried to sit down, but he immediately froze and stopped

moving.

"What the hell?"

"...It's, myalgia (muscular pain)."

Nico made a dubious look at the unexpected

reply.

"I don't know the exact reason, but

it seems that Mizari has targeted us, so I made him train him every day just in

case of emergency."

"What 'training'? You practically forced

me to run 10 kilometers and do muscle building every day!"

"Isn't that good? After all the

danger that we've been through, we need to be ready for the next attack."

"How did you get away from that

mentally ill woman? What did you guys do?"

Perhaps it was a compliment, but it

doesn't convey well because the wording was too disturbing.

"It's easy. I used that child's thanatophobia."

"What the hell is that?"

"A phobia of death, right?"

Ringo looked it up at the dictionary in

his brain and pulled out the answer. Secret responded with a "Yep!"

while pointing at him to show that he had answered correctly.

"I don't know what happened to her in

the past, but Mizari is extremely afraid of dying. That child is so strong that

she rarely gets into a pinch, but if you bring her closer to death, she will freak

out."

If

she's so afraid of death, why did she become a hitman? Ringo thought.

But that woman's every move was out of the

ordinary, and there must be circumstances that he couldn’t understand.

"Hoーh. If I'm

about to be butchered next time, I wonder if I should use that thanasomething.

Ahーright, this is a request for you. It seems urgent."

"Come to think of it, we need to talk

about work, huh?"

"Did you two seriously forget about that...?"

Crestfallen, Ringo’s shoulders sagged.

"... Okay, I'll take care of it.

Fufu, seems like this is going to be fun."

While Ringo was showing a tired look,

Secret, who received the piece of paper, started pondering with an evil look on

her face.

***

Notes:

1 a winning hand of four concealed pungs. Sorry, I’m not familiar with it. ↩

2 a gadget in Dor*emon that resembles a typical, single-loaf of plain bread. It allows the user to memorize any contents 'printed' on it.

↩

Previous chapter | Novel page | Next chapter