Chapter 2: Sleepover

Saturday, 19 April, 20XX - Part 2

“Yui!”

She was soaking wet. Water dripped from her chin. She had come over with only the clothes on her back. She didn’t even have an umbrella with her.

I stepped aside and she stepped in. I closed the door. A puddle of water formed at her feet.

“Why…how? I don’t understand,” I said.

She put on a brave smile and said, “He got drunk again. More than usual. So…”

She was smiling, but her voice was shaking.

This was the first time a classmate other than Chisato had come to visit me. And no one had ever come over in the middle of the night.

It was also the first time that Yui openly admitted that she was being abused at home.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. One thing at a time.

“Wait a moment.”

I went to the closet and got her a towel.

“Here, use this to dry yourself. Go take a shower, otherwise you will catch a cold. I’ll find some spare clothes for you.”

“Mh…thanks.”

Yui accepted the towel with a nod of gratitude, then went to the bathroom.

I went back to my room and found a spare set of pajamas.

“Yui! I put some pajamas outside. They are mine, but they are freshly washed. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Thanks!” she yelled from the shower.

A little while later, at 4am, we sat across each other at the dining table. There was a lot to discuss.

“Did you run away from home?”

Yui nodded. “Kind of.”

She explained her situation.

Just like the rumors said, her parents abused her at home. Her father left with another woman when she was in primary school, and her mother remarried when she was just starting junior high. According to Yui, her mother had terrible taste in men, and her step-father was just as much as scumbag as her biological father. He liked to drink and whenever things weren’t going well at work (which was becoming more and more common these days), he took it out on her.

“I remind my mother of my father. We have the same eyes. So she just ignores it when he beats me.” She wiped her tears. “I thought parents were supposed to love their children. Does she really hate me that much?”

I pursed my lips. It was a cruel truth that some people were rotten to the core.

After Yui had cried herself to exhaustion, she fell asleep on the sofa.

Saturday, 19 April, 20XX - Part 3

“Haruto! You’re really good at cooking!”

Yui was sitting at the dining table, devouring the breakfast I had made her.

Thick cut toast with jam, a sweet egg roll, finished off with a bowl of miso soup.

It was the simple sort of breakfast anyone could make, and yet she radiated happiness when I served it.

What kind of food has she been eating at home?

“I usually just go to the convenience store for meals on weekends,” she said.

“That sounds rough. In that case, eat as much as you want.”

“Really? As long as it’s no trouble.”

“Not at all.”

I made her a second serving.

After she was thoroughly stuffed, we discussed the real matter at hand.

“Here’s the reply I got from the email address.”

I handed her my phone.

She gingerly took my phone into her hands and scrolled through the brief email exchange.

“They really want you to leave the city, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“They even replied in Japanese.”

“That doesn’t mean they are Japanese,” I said. “These days, there are lots of translation apps that can translate with perfect grammatical accuracy.”

“That’s true…” Yui leaned back in her chair. “I wonder why only you got a reply. Is there something special about you? Something you’re not telling me?”

I shrugged. “I’m a normal person. I don’t think there’s anything special about me.”

“No, Haruto. You are special.”

“What do you mean?”

She looked at me with a determined gleam in her eyes.

“You are kind. No one would open their door and make breakfast like this for a classmate who showed up in the middle of the night without warning. This isn’t normal kindness. This is special.”

Hearing her praise me like this made me feel strangely self-conscious. No one had praised me like this before.

“Anyway, what do you think about the messages?” I asked in an attempt to change the topic.

Yui rested her chin on the palm of her hand. She gazed thoughtfully at my phone.

“If this really is the first reply anyone has ever gotten, then this is extremely important information. It seems that whoever wrote this really wants to help you.”

Yui was right. Knowing something like this is in advance was life saving. But –

“How do we know that this isn’t all a prank?”

“We don’t know. But…I want to believe that this is true.” Her expression grew dark. “This entire world can go to hell if it means my parents will go to hell with them.”

She closed her eyes and took a breath. She clapped her hands together.

“Anyway, Haruto. I know I asked you before. Do you wanna go on a journey together?”

“Just the two of us?”

“Yup, just the two of us.”

Yui was a good friend, someone I spent a lot of time with. I didn’t mind going on a journey with her. It wasn’t as if there was anything keeping me tied down to this place, other than the prospect of missing classes and therefore not graduating from high school. But if the world truly was going to end, then graduating high school was meaningless.

“That sounds good. Let’s go on a journey before the end of the world.”

Yui gave me an odd look.

“Haruto, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“It’s easy for me to go on a journey because my parents are scumbags. If I run away, they won’t report it to the police. Actually, they’ll be glad that I’m gone. But, Haruto, you look like you come from a good family. Will your parents allow you to skip school like this?”

I smiled gently. I’m pretty sure it was a sad smile.

Yui looked around. “Where are your parents? I was going to apologize to them for intruding like this…”

I suppose the cat was out of the bag.