14. Stopped Clock

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/16/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

No human being is completed alone.
Though innate gifts matter, it is one’s surroundings that ultimately shape one’s character.

First love.
The first betrayal.
A mother who abandoned her.
A father unstable in his emotions.
Classmates brimming with malice.
And me, pretending to be her ally.

Through all those days, the profoundly self-loathing personality called Chigusa Hinata was completed.

“—In other words, I, too, was an accomplice in killing that girl.”

With a self-mocking smile, I said this to the friend who listened earnestly to my story.
Yet she did not open her mouth; she merely listened.
Because the one answering was not her, but Reese: a bipedal black-cat doll that moved by itself atop the table.

“… You take too much upon yourself, Miyako.”

Reese spoke in a girl’s voice.
The one manipulating the doll—my friend—was Leia Hersig.
She was a witch who lived in the royal castle, and the very person responsible for summoning us to this world.
By “this world,” I mean that this is another world.
In this extraordinary world, where magic exists as though it had sprung from manga or anime, we were summoned as “saviors” possessed of powerful magical ability.
I do not understand the theory very well, but apparently people from other worlds can wield tremendous power when they come here.

“But Chigusa really did die before our eyes.”

The girl I had once cherished like a little sister was somehow slammed into the floor and torn apart the very moment she arrived in this other world.
Already confused after being surrounded without warning by glowing magic circles and sent to an unfamiliar world, several students and I were thrown into still greater confusion by the foul-smelling corpse lying close at hand.

“And … I could not even mourn her.”
“That was the kingdom’s failure. I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.”

The body was immediately taken away, and I later heard that it had been discarded at the dumping ground.
I was devastated.
Since coming to this world, we had been treated like heroes.
Anything we asked for was given to us.
In fact, the other students had surrounded themselves with several women in lavish rooms and demanded great quantities of jewels, indulging in every luxury.
… Only the perpetrators enjoyed such happiness, while the victim was thrown away like rubbish.
I could not accept such injustice.

“Even so, does Miyako really need to live so frugally? You should ask for more, and forget the things you dislike.”
“I can’t.”

And besides, how could a room with a canopy bed be called frugal?
The other students’ rooms were apparently still more luxurious, but if I wanted the same, I would be made to live near them whether I liked it or not.
Part of why I chose this room was to put as much distance as possible between them and me.

“If you do not, Miyako will only break.”

Leia said it as though casting me aside.
But her words did not reach my heart.

“That is all right. If no one else will repent for Ms. Hinata’s death, then I should bear every sin.”
“That is exactly what I mean by taking on too much.”

The doll’s soft hand stroked the head I had bowed.
Even as I enjoyed the feeling, I continued reproaching myself: it was wrong that I alone should feel any comfort.

◇◇◇

 

Miyako Mikage, twenty-four years old.
After graduating from university, I returned to my hometown and took a job as a high-school teacher.
There, I was reunited with the girl I had once cherished like a little sister—Chigusa Hinata.

I was eight when the eldest daughter was born into the Hinata family, our next-door neighbors.
Our families were close even then, and I still clearly remember holding Ms. Hinata when she was a baby.
She smiled at me like an angel.
In that instant, I was captivated by her.

After that, I began visiting the Hinatas often, spending whole days with her on holidays.
Having spent so much time together, she grew very attached to me. By the time she could speak, she had begun calling me “Mya-nee.”
I called her “Chii-chan” too, and doted on her terribly.
But I cannot call her Chii-chan now. I have no right to.
She is Ms. Hinata, and I am Ms. Mikage.

Once Ms. Hinata entered elementary school, her route happened to overlap with my middle-school route, and we began walking to school together every day.
Of course, holding hands without a trace of embarrassment.
On the way, Ms. Hinata told me absolutely everything that had happened at school.
I only listened, but I loved those moments so much that I wished they would never end.
But in truth … as summer approached in her first year, her stories gradually began to contain more lies.
After the happy summer holiday had ended, autumn passed, and winter came—nothing she told me contained any truth at all.
Knowing that, I went on listening to Ms. Hinata with a smile.
I was happy just to hear her speak.

Around then, I began hearing her parents argue and her weep at night in the Hinata home.
With nowhere left for her at home or school, naturally she tried to cling to me.
I—or rather, the Mikage family—welcomed her gladly. We treated Ms. Hinata like true family, and she in turn came to love us as true family—and then we left town.
I think it was shortly after she entered the second grade of elementary school.
I think my parents meant it as a way to make one last memory.
They never intended to make that child a real member of the family.
But the half-hearted kindness of wishing she had even a small refuge, of wanting to help her … only hurt her more.

—It was the first betrayal Ms. Hinata experienced.

It was the seed, the origin, and the root cause.
Everything … was surely a tragedy that began because of me.
At parting, the light vanished from her eyes, her expression disappeared, and she did not shed even a tear—perhaps because despair beyond what a child could bear had come upon her all at once.
Even so, I left the town where she remained.
I waved broadly at her expressionless face, as though staging a cheerful farewell.
Though I knew. Though I understood. I pretended not to see.

After we moved, my life in high school went perfectly well.
Before long, though, my parents somehow obtained information about the Hinata family.

“I hear the Hinatas divorced. Apparently the wife’s affair was the cause.”
“It seems the husband somehow managed to retain custody of Chigusa.”

After another short interval, my father told me this:

“They looked into Chigusa’s father … and apparently he was not that husband.”

After that, no further news of the Hinata family reached us.
It was probably too miserable.
And once the news stopped, I forgot about Ms. Hinata completely and lived as an ordinary high-school girl.
I entered university straight from high school, made new friends, tried part-time work, joined an easygoing club—and after graduating, I returned to that town.
“Come to think of it, there was a child I used to call Chii-chan. I wonder whether she is well,” I thought, absurdly.
But at the high school where I found work, I learned the truth.

“I heard violence from her father left her blind in her left eye. And she still lives with him. I don’t get it.”
“See, she’s missing that finger? Some boys repeatedly stabbed it with carving knives when she was in elementary school. Hinata cried so much—she was really loud. It was funny, though.”
“You mean that creepy-looking face? That was middle school, I think. They made her hang herself just to see what would happen. She passed out and convulsed, and the aftereffects supposedly left her face paralysed.”
“No one could ever date someone with a face like that. I wonder whether boys can abuse anyone as long as they have a body. Maybe we should cut her hair really short next time—short enough to mistake her for a boy.”
“I bet most students around here have seen footage of the abuse she suffered. Going to school after that takes an incredible mentality. I could never do it.”

At first I thought it was a joke. Surely nothing like that could be true.
I convinced myself of that—yes, just like every other teacher at that high school, I kept looking away.
Though I could see it, though I knew it was all true, I never reached out my hand.
But once I became her homeroom teacher, I could not keep doing that.
I met Ms. Hinata again in a second-year class assigned to me for the first time.
No trace of the adorable girl from those days remained.
This was beyond mere growing up; she had been so thoroughly broken that her body, mind, and very self had been erased.

“I look forward to working with you, Ms. Mikage.”
“Yes, likewise, Ms. Hinata.”

I treated her as though she were a stranger.
At that time—perhaps Ms. Hinata felt as desperate as she had when I left town.
Though I had betrayed her twice, I was still desperately trying to “handle things well” so that the students’ abnormal violence would not turn toward me. I had not the slightest room left to think of anyone else.

One day, exhausted when I returned to my room, I whimsically pulled an old photo album from the back of the closet.
There were countless pictures of Ms. Hinata and me laughing happily, and they allowed me to recall, if only faintly, how deeply I had cared for her then.
From the following day on, I began trying to protect Ms. Hinata.
A week later, after school, students assaulted me in front of Ms. Hinata.
Their cheerful voices echoed through the classroom.
I had never seen them look so happy in lessons or homeroom.
As I cried out, Ms. Hinata silently watched this outcast—me.
The next day, they assaulted me again, and Ms. Hinata silently watched.
The day after that, and the day after that, they kept threatening me with recorded footage and coercing me.
Sometimes Ms. Hinata was abused alongside me; at other times she was simply beaten before my eyes.
It was a space of irredeemable madness.
This was the final consequence of peer pressure: given the excuse that “our friends are doing it too,” people can kill without hesitation.
And I, too, was gradually swallowed by that atmosphere.

“You have been reacting much more lately, Teacher. Aren’t you enjoying it more than you expected?”

One of the boys said that to me.
I was so dazed that no normal judgment remained, and I nodded before I knew it.

“I knew it. Then we’re comrades. And if we’re comrades, Teacher, you have to do your part to Hinata too.”

With those words, they pulled me to my feet by my hair.
Below my gaze, Ms. Hinata lay on the floor, expressionless, staring into empty space.
My lungs trembling, the corners of my mouth rising, I lifted my foot—and stamped down hard on her stomach.
For some reason, the repeated grunts Ms. Hinata gave, like an animal being hurt, seemed amusing.
The students roared with laughter as they watched.
I imitated them and cackled too, intoxicated by the pleasure of being steeped in the same atmosphere, stomping on her, striking her, and throwing her down again and again.

When I returned to my room, I looked into the mirror, saw the ugly thing in human shape reflected there, and vomited everything in my stomach.
The vomit was mixed with stomach acid, lunch, and something white.
Seeing it made me vomit again.

 

◇◇◇

 

I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.
I am trash. I am trash. I am trash.

 

◇◇◇

 

It happened on the first day I went out into the castle town after arriving in this other world.
Unable to bear watching me sink ever deeper, Leia made a suggestion through Reese.

“Miyako needs a break. Do not worry about money; go into town and enjoy yourself to your heart’s content!”

The wallet she gave me was stuffed to a ridiculous thickness with banknotes I had never seen before.
There really was no need to worry about money.
But I could not bring myself to go out and have fun.
This being another world, even the smell of the air filling the streets differed from what I was accustomed to.
That scent seemed to embody the extraordinary, and when I thought I would never have to return to that nightmare of a school, I felt a little saved.
In that sense, perhaps simply walking around would be a change of pace.
But—I always had violent thoughts in my head.
I had heard that this world was far less safe than Japan, so I deliberately walked down narrow alleys, imagining that perhaps some sudden attacker would kill me.
As I continued along unfamiliar roads through an unfamiliar town, I found a certain place and stopped before it.

“A church …?”

There was no cross, but from the shape of the building, it seemed to be something close to one.
Fearfully, I reached for the door and stepped inside.
It appeared to be a chapel, with a statue of a goddess enshrined within.
I walked to the statue, but as I tensed my arms to pray, I shook my head.
Forgiveness from God—no, even if God forgave me, it would mean nothing when I could not forgive myself.
In the first place, this was not something I should be forgiven for.
My wrongdoing was wrongdoing, and I ought to bear it forever, for the rest of my life.
Thinking that, I turned on my heel.
My footsteps clicked through the broad, high-ceilinged chapel as I started toward the exit.
Then I heard a door at the back open.
I stopped and looked back. There—

“… Why?”

—stood Ms. Hinata, whom I believed dead, dressed in a pure white nun’s habit.
Was she merely someone who resembled her? In another world, had I happened to find someone similar?
The questions rising in me were instantly swept away by her first words.

“Could it be Ms. Mikage …? You came here too!”

Ah … Ms. Hinata was smiling.
How many years had it been since I had seen that smile?
My chest hurt.
It hurt enough to make me want her to kill me.
I had no right for that smile—to be turned on me.
Before I knew it, tears were running down my cheeks.
I do not need tears of self-justification. There is no point in showing how sorry I am!
Though I told myself that, I could not stop crying.
And then Ms. Hinata approached me—filthy me, me who was a lump of filth—and, impossibly—

“Please do not cry. You are much lovelier when you smile, Ms. Mikage.”

… She embraced me gently.