Chapter 14:

Back to the Present (Part 4)

Hunted

Tachibana Reiko

If someone told me that I would be involved in a murder I would have laughed in their faces, but here I am 10 years later, still undetected after hiding the victim’s body. Never would I ever think I would witness a crime let alone be a part of one!

After graduating it was Daisuke’s brilliant idea to leave, it was his brilliant idea for us to all lose contact with each other, and as the stupid, idiots we are, we just went along with it, after protesting of course but Daisuke can be very convincing when he wants to be, heck he should quit his day job and become a lawyer if he isn’t already!

I may give him a hard time but the truth is I miss him, he was like the older brother I never had and wished I did, he was always there for me in both lectures and just when I wanted to talk. I miss Emi, she wasn’t just my best friend she was my girl, my wing-woman, my protector and my biggest cheerleader.

And then there’s the person I miss the most, Kaz. My first love, my first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first everything. I miss him so much and haven’t spent a day without thinking about him. I can’t go a minute without wondering where he might be and what he might be doing if he’s okay and if he’s taken up smoking again. I wonder what they’re all doing now.

In these 10 years, I wondered if Kaz ever went with someone else, has he met someone? Has he got a girlfriend? Fiancé? Wife? I wouldn’t be completely sad if I find out he’s taken, honest. I just want him to be happy, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing I just want him happy and whoever he’s with to keep him happy.

If you’re wondering about me, then I’m single, I’m single and a writer now. I’m the only one who didn’t move, I stayed in Matsukawa, I don’t know if this was the wrong move or not and if this was against Daisuke’s rules, but I couldn’t just up and leave like the rest of them, I lived here, I was raised here, I have my own house here.

Anyways like I said I’m a writer, I work for the Matsukawa Gazette and it’s a small institution but it’s still something I love, I’ve always loved writing and now I get to do it for a living as a part of researching a few things as well that happens in the area, if it’s something worth telling I’m there, if not then I don’t bother, but sometimes that doesn’t matter especially when it comes to the gossip column of the magazine.

As great as life sounds, I’m pretty fucking lonely, I was always a loner ever since I was a child, I didn’t have friends and I kept to myself mostly, but during University I found out what it was like to be included, to be invited, to have friends, and to feel welcome.

I want to contact them, I want to meet up with them and hear their voices again, but I’m afraid they wouldn’t want to talk to me. I wonder if they even remember me, I would be crushed if I found out they forgot about me. The only thing keeping me the company is my work which is what I do all day, every day. I go to work and I come back home and then I go to work the next day.

But all this changed a few weeks ago when I got a text message a few weeks ago, I was at work and sat down in my office, my phone pinged and thinking it might be my boss I looked at it but what I saw staring back at me in text form shock me to my very core, the message read the following;

‘I know what you did 10 years ago’

‘Remember that one eventful Winter afternoon, back in 2011?’

‘I am coming for you’

Did someone see us?

Did we drop something?

What went wrong?

What are we going to do?

These questions have been flooding my mind for weeks, and there is nothing I can do about it because he knows who I am.

He knows where I live.

He knows everything about me, about all of us.

Now we’re all being Hunted.

Before I could react in any other way another message popped up, but this time from another number.