The Incident

***

"Hey, let's go eat lunch somewhere."

Since we were secluded anyways, I didn't think that was a bad idea.

"Well... the rooftop is mostly unlocked here even though it is supposed to be locked so we can go there." I took the liberty to propose the only place I knew to eat lunch.

I knew about the rooftop because I was alone from the start in this school and I was trying to find a place to eat lunch alone away from my classmates. I was originally thinking of eating lunch on the topmost stairs but found out that the rooftop was actually unlocked so I thought 'Why not?' Since then, I started eating my lunch on the rooftop. Sometimes when the door was locked so I would just eat it while sitting on the stairs.

"The rooftop is unlocked! Let's go then!" Her eyes were sparkling.

"Why are you getting so excited?"

"I always wanted to go to the rooftop like they do in anime but never got the chance because it was always closed."

"Hmmm... so you watch anime. Didn't seem like the type though."

"What do you mean by that?" She made a pouting face. "I do watch anime, not too much though. Anyways, let's go!" She was too excited for this.

"I hope the rooftop is open though."

"It will be fine." We walked out of the classroom.

The rooftop was open. Slight air was blowing. It was not too hot. We sat in the shadow of the wall to eat lunch. I was thinking that she didn't ask me about my sister or the WeTube thing. Just as I was thinking that-

"Hey, so your parents are WeTubers?" She asked. Quite a coincidence, I guess.

"Y-yeah," I answered hesitantly. "But I hate it now."

"But why? Isn't that really cool? I would love to make videos on WeTube for one."

"There is not a single cool thing about that," I said in a low voice with my face downwards.

"Why do you hate it so much though?"

I started telling her about the incident which made this mess of everything.

I had a sister, a cheerful airhead. Her name was Ayumi. We would play every day with each other and also appear in the videos of Mom and Dad. Since everyone in school hated me, she was the only one who I played with. I loved her. My sister joined cram school when she started going to high school. She would come home late because of that. Almost everyone here knew about us because of the channel.

One day, she didn't come back on time. We all thought that she might be getting late because of study so we waited but she didn't come home. After 2 hours from her normal time, we called the cram school and found out that she had already left. We all were just about to go and find her but suddenly we received a call.  They told us that Ayumi had been... kidnapped. They demanded 100k yen for leaving her. They probably got to know about us from our channel. Of course, my parents agreed at once.

They told us about the place and time. My parents went there at the time with the money but... I don't know why they did this. There was no one at the place... just a c-corpse. The corpse of my sister.

"If only we had tried to get her back, there should have been something that I would have been able to do back then. The channel took away my sister from me. And now it is even getting my parents insulted like that. Just how am I supposed to love something like that again?!"

Yeah, I knew it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was pushing back the fact that this was such illogical reasoning because...

"But how is that the channel's fault?" She struck directly at that spot. " I mean sure, They could have found out about your family by the channel but I don't think that is all there is to a kidnapping. And from your talk, it seems like you were handling the criticism easily before. It's like you are pushing some guilt on the channel to run away from reality."

She said what I didn't want to hear. In truth, I hated myself. For not doing anything, for not being able to save her. For not being there when she needed me. I just pushed that hate on the channel. I know I couldn't have done anything but I hated that I didn't even try to do anything. I just... waited. I don't know what kind of expression I was making because she suddenly said to me:

"You can cry here, you know"

Just as I heard this tears started going down my eyes, and I cried and cried as memories started flowing through my mind. Now that I think, this was the first time I cried over my sister's death.

I felt super embarrassed once I stopped crying.

"You are pretty perceptive for an airhead." A futile effort to hide my embarrassment.

"Rude! Also, why am I an airhead."

"Uhh... you just give off those vibes sometimes." It did feel like she didn't even knew what she did in class and how much she helped me today.

"What? That's so stupid"

"Also... T-thanks for everything." I said in a slight voice being totally embarrassed.

"Huh? For what?" Looks like I was right about her being an airhead.

We then started eating lunch. However, she still had more punches to deliver today.

"Hey, why don't we make a WeTube channel too."

"W-what?" I asked while slightly choking on the food I was eating. "Just where did this suddenly come from?"

"Well... I thought you might be able to love it again and I kinda want to try this too."

"I don't have anything against that now, but are you sure? It isn't easy."

"We will see that later." I was sure it was just a whim but it ended up being quite serious.

That day we left school together. I am walking ahead and she is behind me. After walking quite some distance she was still just behind me.

"Uhhh... Your home is this way right?" I got curious and asked.

"Yeah." Yeah, of course just why would she stalk me?

I can't believe coincidences like these can happen in real life.

"H-hey, is this the new house you guys moved into?"

"Yeah, I guess we are neighbors from now on," she said cheerfully.

The house next to us was empty for quite some time now. It's not surprising that I didn't knew someone had moved there since I was spending almost all day in my room. But to think it was Kayo-san who moved here. Life does play some weird games.

"I guess so," I replied.

We both went inside our houses.