Interlude – A Fragment of Memory I

I was never good at anything. I was average in sports and had average grades in school. And during my early school life, I kept trying to get attention by doing stupid things with the other kids, until I realized I didn’t had any friends. I was just a clown... I didn’t had anything to be proud of. No, I had something… Someone to be proud of: My little sister.

The first day I saw her in the arms of my mother, my four years old self decided to be the best old brother ever. And that felling only grew stronger with the years when I saw I would never achieve anything special in my life.

My sister proved to be different. She was very smart, always staying in the top of her class. She surely had a bright future awaiting for her.

With time, I stopped being the stupid kid and started to grow distant from everyone else. I closed myself into games, anime and other hobbies. The only thing keeping me still going forward was my sister.

My family doesn’t have a lot of money and my parents worked really hard everyday to raise us. That’s why I wanted to stop with the studies after high school, so I could work and help my family. I wanted to make sure my sister could go to any school she wanted to.

One day when I was in the 7th grade, a boy from my class was reading a manga I knew. And for some reason, I started to talk with him about it. After that, we started to talk every day and for the first time in my life, I made a true friend.

Souma seemed to be like me, but I was wrong. The more time I spent with him, the more I could see how different we were. I distanced myself from everyone because I wanted to, but Souma just didn’t know how to approach people. His grades were average because he didn’t like to study, yet he was really smart. While he stays silent and distant from strange people, he loves to talk with his friends. Souma was a good person, always helping anyone who asked for his help... If he interacted better with strangers, he would probably make a lot of friends.

Even with a friend my life didn’t really change. I was happier, but it was very rare for me to visit Souma or even go somewhere with him. We would mostly be together in the school, using the internet to keep in touch outside of it. Still, staying with him meant I started to be friends with his few other friends.

After I entered high school, my resolve only got stronger. But… That summer happened.

That Friday I studied until 8:20 PM with my friends in the school. To tell the truth, I wanted to go home a lot earlier, but I stayed there until I couldn’t stand that anymore just to not leave Souma alone.

After I was about to leave the building, I decided to go to the toilet first and stayed there some time before finally returning home.

The news of what had happened with Mei was too much for my brain to process, but it was obvious that the police saw me as a suspect. I thought I couldn’t do anything about that besides leaving the adults to find the real murderer, so I chose to ignore it and keep with my life. But that was a bit difficult to do, because Souma was really affected by that event and even my sister said I had to help my friend.

Summer break arrived suddenly and the situation was even worse. I could see some men watching the house and some detectives came to speak with me in more than one occasion.

Souma seemed to be doing better with one of the detectives acting like a father for him or that’s what he told me while we played a game together.

Still, I just tried to ignore the police. I knew I was innocent and everything would be resolved in the end.

When the summer break was nearing its end, someone sent me a message asking something and I replied. After that, the person asked to talk with me in person.

“Brother, where are you going at this hour?”, my sister asked when I was about to leave my house.

“Souma asked me to help him with something. I’ll be back soon, so wait for me! We’ll watch that movie together like I promised you.”

“It’s already dark! You should stay here!”

“Hey, just be a good girl and wait for me.”

“Oh? Are you going somewhere?”, my mother asked after seeing me at the door.

“I’ll return soon. And I’m with my phone, so I’ll call if anything happens.”, I said to her while showing my phone.

“Please, take care, the criminal is still out there.”

“I know. So, see you later.”

“I’m waiting for you, brother!”

“Sure!”

And that was the last time we spoke.