Dead End

I was taking a shower after arriving home, I was trying to relax a bit but the worry about what would happen next was tormenting me. Will the police clear the school in a hurry so we can have classes tomorrow? Will they try to hid that death? Will Arata make a visit soon? I stayed silent, listening to the water falling.

Thinking about this won’t help, I’m just wasting water.

Feeling more tired than rested, I left the bathroom.

After I entered my bedroom, I went straight to bed.

“The open window revealed one of the tricks used by the killer, but how did the killer leave that body there? He killed that guy earlier, right?”, Mei asked, she was sitting in one of the corners of the room.

That’s a really good question, but I don’t want to fill my mind with questions now, I need to sleep.

“I have a better question. What a girl like you is doing this late inside the room of a boy who lives alone?”

“How the killer opened all those doors without making a sound?”

Are you going to ignore me again!?

The “ignore game” could be played by two, so I turned off the lights and tried to sleep. I was so tired it wasn’t something difficult to do.

When I opened my eyes at morning, Mei wasn’t in the room. At least my broken mind didn’t create some stupid situation with Mei in my bed.

I turned off the alarm and because of what happened I turned the TV on. After checking a bunch of channels, I didn’t find any news about the murder that happened last night.

So the police is hiding it again?

If they did that, I’ll have school today like any normal day, so I turned off the TV and continued with my mourning routine.

“Good morning.”, Mei greeted me like nothing had happened yesterday, or not… “It was very cold of you to let me in the dark yesterday.”

“Sorry about that.”

“You basically kicked me out, so I went to sleep.”, she said while reading a manga in the sofa.

“Did you return to your home?”

Mei laughed because of something she had read, ignoring me.

Every time I make a question like this one she does that!

I was getting something to eat when the doorbell ringed.

“I’m going!”, I yelled.

Opening the door, Arata was there.

As I expected.

“I brought something for us to eat! Let’s have breakfast together so I can make some questions to you.”

“Sure.”

We already had started to eat when Arata showed me a photo.

“Do you know the guy in this photo?”

“No, it’s the first time I see him. Why the question?”

“Tomoya Daiichi, third year. He was found dead yesterday night.”

So it was him. Now… Should I admit that I went to school yesterday night but not say that I saw the body?

“He disappeared during the summer break.”, Arata continued.

“Huh? During the summer break?”

“His body was found inside the lake in the city park. He was probably killed on the same day as Hayato.”

What? Inside the lake? The same day as Hayato? And what about the body in the school!?

“Maybe he witnessed Hayato’s murder?”, I said trying to not make Arata think that I’m hiding something.

“That was we thought. Still, this is the first body you didn’t find before anyone else.”

“Is that something good or bad?”

“Both. Now some people are saying you killed him and hid the body so you could act sad because of Hayato’s death.”

“That’s absurd!”

“Please, don’t get nervous. It’s our job to create theories and make questions.”, Arata finished his tea. “Well, I have to go. There’s a lot of work to do.”

“Going already? You didn’t eat much.”

“I have some extra snacks with me, so don’t worry.”, Arata opened the front door to leave. “Just keep with your life and nothing bad will happen, but if you need help with anything, please, call me. And I see you later!”, he closed the door.

“Now, can you explain to me what is happening? How can he come here to talk about a death we didn’t knew about and say nothing about a decapitated body in the school?”, Mei said.

“That’s what I want to know.”

“We saw the other detective we don’t know the name entering the school! He wouldn’t miss that!”

“Yes. He wouldn’t miss that, unless...”

“Unless?”

“He is working with the killer.”

“What?”

“No, forget it. This idea is just stupid. Let’s go to school and see how is the situation right now.”

A hot summer morning, the sound of cicadas and the voices of the students chattering. It was another normal summer morning.

“I don’t know what to think anymore...”, I said.

“The police hiding the murder is the only plausible option.”, Mei said.

“Still… Would that detective just let me go after what he did that night?”

“You have a point...”

“I know I said earlier that he may be working with the killer, but it’s really hard to even think about this being a possibility. I’m just at a loss.”

“Akira can probably answer that, but...”

“He’ll question me about not calling the police when I found the body. And how much can I really trust him? He never talked with me about some events, so he is still hiding things from me.”

I was acting alone during those past nights, so I’ll have to finish this alone.

With me distracted with the mysterious events, the classes went by very slowly. I didn’t hear a single comment from anyone about another murder, not even about the guy recently found in the lake. The only thing in the other students’ minds, including my friends, were the tests tomorrow. But instead of studying for them, I was once again jumping the school gate after 10:00 PM.

“Are we really going to stay here until we finish searching everything?”

“I really want to end this as soon as possible.”

“But we have tests tomorrow!”

“I know… Let’s see how much time I’ll need to search one of the three areas left.”

“Understood. So where we start?”

“Let’s start with southeast. If I see it took too much time, we go home after finishing it.”

I was repeating the strategy we used for the southwest area.

“I have to say… The amount of gardens here is really something.”, I said halfway through the searching.

“Is it nice, no? All this green everywhere. And the flowers are the pride of the gardening club!”

“It’s very nice when I don’t need excavate the entire schoolyard.”

“Eh? You are not making that many holes.”

“It’s easy for you to say that, you’re just watching me.”

I was opening a hole between some flowers near the gate when I heard someone opening it.

“It’s the detective, what we do?”, Mei whispered.

“Ignore him, we’re not killing anyone.”

The detective entered the school, closing the gate behind him without locking it.

“It’s a great night for digging some holes, isn’t that right, Souma?”, the detective said while approaching me.

“Oh, detective. Are you having a good night?”, I said without looking at him, just continuing what I was doing.

“Yes, thanks for asking.”, he said sarcastically. “So, what are you doing?”

“Sakura said she helped Mei hid something in the school. She and Mei were part of the gardening club, so I imagined they must have buried whatever it was.”

The detective stayed silent for a moment, like if he was thinking about something. “Oh… That thing you said in the car.”, he finally said.

“Did the police found what she hid? Maybe I’m just wasting my time here.”

“No. And we have no idea what it was.”

“Is that so? In that case, I’m helping you.”

Mei was just watching our conversation, but she couldn’t hide her worry.

“Well, I can’t argue about this. So, can I stay here and watch?”, the detective asked.

“Be my guest.”

The detective leaned on a nearby tree and lit a cigarette.

“I didn’t know he smoked.”, Mei whispered.

I couldn't keep a conversation with her right now, so I continued to do my search.

If I make a question to him, would he answer it? I think I should try.

“Is the police hiding the last death to avoid causing panic in the school?”, I asked after thinking a while on the best way to question him.

“Huh? Oh, are you speaking about the boy in the lake? Yes, it’s something like that.”

The boy in the lake? And the decapitated body from yesterday?

But asking about the last night would be a bad idea, so I didn’t do it. We just stayed in silence, him smoking while watching me and I searching for the buried object.

In the end, I found nothing in this area.

“What time is it?”, I said while getting my phone.

“11:23 PM.”, the detective said.

“It’s that late already?”, I said while looking in the direction of the back of the school. “Maybe I really should leave the other areas for another day...”

“Let’s go home. We have tests tomorrow!”, Mei said.

“So are you stopping for tonight? A wise decision.”

The detective went to the gate and opened it, waiting for me to leave.

“Thank you. And have a good night.”, I said to him while leaving the school.

“Can’t wait to see what you’ll find.”, he said.

He continued to watch me until he couldn’t see me anymore.

“My back is killing me...”, I complained.

“Let’s rest so tomorrow we can achieve some good grades!”, Mei said.

While this wasn’t true some weeks ago, I wasn’t really caring about my grades. I was worried about the fact I was taking too long to just look for the hidden object.

Can I end this tomorrow?

The next morning was a different one, it was raining.

“It seems the rain won’t stop.”, Mei said.

“It’s just a drizzle.”

I left the house with Mei after finishing the mourning routine. The rain wasn’t strong so the umbrella I got was enough to protect me. Mei had one too.

Where did she get that?

The school wasn’t lively as yesterday, probably because of the tests happening today. And when the tests begun, the rain got stronger and stronger.

I remember reading about this that night!

The rain poured down while I continued to curse myself for not remembering what I had studied before the summer break.

When the lunch break started, we had no option besides eating in the classroom.

“The weather report did said it would rain today, but I didn’t expect this.”, Hina said.

But when the classes ended, the rain had stopped already.

“I think I’ll pass… somehow.”, I said while returning home.

“Oh? I was sure you would fail.”, Mei said.

“You have no faith in me, isn’t this true?”

At night, we left the house at the same time as yesterday. The sky was pitch black with no visible stars, but every now and then it would be illuminated by lightnings.

“I think we should stay home today. The gardens are probably soaked and digging them won’t be a pleasant experience.”, Mei said.

“Digging them is never something pleasant. And I really want to end this”

In the school, I checked one garden and it was really soaked.

Maybe this is really a bad idea…

But before I could think better about doing this or not, the rain restarted.

“Oh, it’s falling hard.”, Mei commented.

To protect ourselves from the rain, we sat at the entrance of the first building. And while we observed the falling rain, we chatted a lot about pointless things.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the real Mei would do if we had a situation like this one... Would we talk a lot too? But imagining this filled my heart with regret.

I met Mei for the first time during the first day of middle school, she was in the same class as me. And like probably every other boy, I was captivated by her. But I didn’t know how to start a conversation, how to make friends, so I never really tried to talk with her. And as the days passed, I saw how massive the gap between us was. Mei was not only beautiful, she always had people around her, she had a cheerful personality, she was always shining, a strong and unreachable light.

It was impossible to approach her. That what I thought, so I just continued with my life, not even thinking about her.

I don’t know what happened, but during the seventh grade, me and Mei started to greet each other every day.

‘Good morning’, ‘hello’, ‘see you later’. Those simple words always made me happier. It never went beyond that, but I was satisfied.

Yet, why did I never try to be her friend? Why I always stay in the same place, waiting for the people to come after me? I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t know what should I do. How do I make a friend?

Even in high school nothing has changed. Mei and I were once again in the same class, but I never thought in breaking the barrier between us.

Why did we started to greet each other? When that happened? It was Mei who started doing this, right? I can’t imagine me taking the initiative.

Because I’m a coward.

I never tried to change and now I would never have the opportunity to do that again. Mei is dead.

I hate myself.

The rain finally stopped.

“Let’s go home.”, the fake Mei said.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Another night ended without any result.

Like if the sky was reflecting my melancholy, it was raining once again and I decided to skip school.

Both Hina and Naoto sent me messages asking me if I was alright and I replied saying that everything was fine.

The time passed and the Sun appeared in time for the twilight.

“I think we can’t search today too.”, Mei said.

“Yeah, it’s probably even worse than yesterday.”

I used that Sunday to do housework.

The hot Sun was back along with the chants of the cicadas and my mood was better.

During the night, I went to school.

“Two areas to go.”, Mei said.

“Yeah. Let’s start with northwest.”

The search was smooth. No one appeared, nothing special happened. And that means I have found nothing.

“Tomorrow we’ll finish it.”, Mei said.

“Yeah, we’ll finally end this.”

While I was happy with the approaching end, part of me was concerned. We already looked in most parts of the school and the hidden object was still missing. Will I really find it tomorrow? With this in mind, it was hard for me to fall asleep and when that finally happened, the nightmares were endless.

It was another sunny day and the worst day to go to school. I just wanted the night to arrive so I could finally end the search, so the day went by very slowly.

When night finally arrived, I couldn’t wait for much longer, so I went to school two hours earlier than the previous days.

“It’s time to finally find out what you hid, Mei.”

The fake Mei only smiled and we started our search.

I started with a huge grass area with trees and some flowers. Then I went to a small flower bed. And another one after. And another.

The time was passing, only half of the final area to go and I started to feel uneasy.

Where it is? Please, be here!

Nothing.

And here!?

Still nothing.

Was I wrong?

I started to lose hope.

“This is the last spot.”, Mei said.

“It must be here, right?”

The spot was another small flower bed.

“Those plants seems to be old...”, I said with a weak voice.

In despair I started to dig like crazy, but it was useless.

“It isn’t here either...”, Mei said.

“Why? I was certain about this. Mei being a member of the gardening club, she and Sakura hiding something… The object being somewhere in the school’s gardens matched that perfectly… Was I too naive?”, I fell in my knees.

“Don’t give up yet! Maybe we missed something!”

“Missed something? We searched the buildings and now I finished searching the schoolyard...”

“It can be somewhere else!”

“Where? With all that rain, if it’s a paper, it already got destroyed. It needs to be inside something… like a box… a buried box...”

“Please, don’t lose hope. Even if we don’t find anything, the police we’ll find the killer!”

“So I couldn’t do anything after all? Coming here, looking for any leads to find the killer, it was all useless?”

“Please, let’s at least do one final checking. You don’t need to dig everything again, just look for the most suspicious places. And during the lunch break, we’ll search other places in the schoolyard! So, please!”

“I understand. One more try. If I find nothing, it’s the end for me.”

I returned home, with a feeling of complete defeat.

If I can’t really find anything hidden, is there any other thing I could do?

I looked to the stars, but there was no answer there.