"Suicide Note"
—To my most, most, most beloved Ichiko.
When you see this white paper, I'm probably already asleep.
Deeply asleep, unable to bother your life anymore.
I once thought love could be pursued with persistence, that loving you was a grand celebration.
Like fireworks under the starry sky, brief, yet dazzling and brilliant.
I'm probably sick, maybe I've been a little abnormal for a long time, constantly causing you trouble, I can actually feel all this.
I don't want to make you sad, don't want to make you heartbroken, don't want to interfere with your life, so I listened to you and slowly became well-behaved.
I thought this way I could get your concern, get your affection, but the result was finding you drifting further and further away from me.
I mustered the courage to confess to you, wanting to hide myself within your eyes, but only then did I realize it was just unrequited love.
Recalling my childhood, you pulled me out of the darkness, so I hid it from everyone and secretly gave you my chains.
From then on, I had a reason, my eyes filled with only you.
But I know you don't like me. Your eyes shimmer with starlight unrelated to me. Those moments I longed to share are just insignificant interludes in your eyes.
I disturbed your life, like an uninvited wind, disrupting your peaceful every day.
I once thought a passionate heart could move you, but I didn't know my obsession was just a burden in your life.
As time passed, I didn't know if you were avoiding me, or if you were resistant from the start.
I'm not stupid, I can feel your perfunctory attitude, your avoidance.
But you hoped I was a little fool, so I would always rely on you.
Even though I was very careful, the result I didn't want still happened before my eyes.
Your father is back, you also have your fiancé, you also have your work, friends, Teacher, relatives, you have your own life, and I am not that inseparable part.
I… maybe I'm just a passerby.
After all, I can't give you anything, except standing uselessly in place, watching you.
Immersed in a role-play, using various methods to prove how much I care about you.
But what I got in return was still avoidance.
I can never let go of the happiness I felt when facing you alone in the past, but thinking carefully, I am ultimately suited to be alone.
That way, no one will be hurt.
When it really came time to leave, there was a feeling of emptiness, clearly with uneasiness lurking in my heart, yet afraid of regretting it.
I can actually give up many things, but I still can't give up the one-sided chance to meet you.
I had wondered if I was important in your eyes, but a fight we had last summer, a marriage certificate that arrived from afar now, and your rejection, made me understand that all of this was my wishful thinking.
Of course, I don't blame you, it's just that I… was too cowardly.
I want to go back to where we first met, and then hide far away, so I won't meet you, and my chains won't make you feel pain.
I like the way you are shy and at a loss.
The way your eyes are talking but you don't know what they're saying.
The way you look like you're about to blow up the whole world when I wake you up late at night.
The way you feel helpless towards me but can't bear to let me go.
The way you'll be filled with joy in your next life when you meet a more well-behaved me.
The way you are in my dreams.
Good night.
—Your little (crossed out).
—Haruko.
...
In the living room, the silence was so deep you could hear a pin drop. The Doctors in the bathroom were still trying hard to rescue Haruko from the god of death.
Ichiko held the suicide note, large teardrops hitting the paper one after another.
The wrenching pain in her heart had reached its peak, her mind filled with scene after scene recalled alongside the content of the suicide note.
It was suffocating like a tidal wave.
So, Haruko wasn't oblivious; she had long since felt her own avoidance of her.
It was just that she had never shown it, pretending to listen to her words and thinking she could keep her.
It's no wonder she asked that question on the bridge.
What was laughable was that she had actually thought Haruko's yandere tendencies were getting better and better.
In fact, she had been suppressing herself, acting so abnormally, simply because she had once said she preferred a more well-behaved her.
Even in the final signature, the four characters "Your Haruko", she had crossed out the originally written two characters "Your".
Yes, separated by death.
Haruko no longer belongs to me, does she?
Hahahahaha...
Ichiko, oh Ichiko, Haruko becoming like this is clearly your own doing!
What news of a father, what marriage certificate, clearly it was just someone she had never met, yet she actually listened to that Murasaki's nonsense because she craved that little bit of fatherly love and the feeling of family.
Isn't Haruko a crucial family member!
If she hadn't gone to find that Murasaki, if she had listened to Inari and ended things earlier and come back sooner, or even come back with Haruko directly from the police station.
Even if it was just one minute earlier, ten seconds.
Would the outcome have been different?
"I harmed Haruko."
Ichiko clutched the suicide note tightly in her hand, her voice pained and hoarse.
Leaning against the sofa with her eyes closed, she didn't know if she was reminiscing or regretting.
Even the usually talkative Inari fell silent.
He sat next to Ichiko, reading the suicide note with her. Although he couldn't read the whole thing, he understood the general process.
Emotional breakdown due to a fight, and then knowing about the existence of the marriage certificate and fiancé, thinking Ichiko didn't want her and didn't care about her, she chose to leave alone.
Inari felt a lump in his throat. His mind couldn't help but flash back to the image of that petite figure in the coffee shop, sweetly calling him Mister and smiling.
But after just a short while of not watching over her, he didn't expect things to change so drastically.
Could he blame Ichiko?
Haruko herself had some split personality tendencies and would overthink.
If anyone was to blame, it was that marriage certificate, that guy Murasaki, that was the final straw that broke the camel's back.
He just didn't expect that even though Haruko and Ichiko had only grown up together and had no blood relation.
Their bond of kinship was actually this heavy.
"What an incredibly stupid idiot."
You're not really unwanted. Since you like this Young Master so much, just say so, it's not like this Young Master can't afford to raise you.
Inari sighed softly with a voice only he could hear, then glanced sideways towards the bathroom, turning his head away with a heavy heart.
He didn't want to see Haruko covered in red.
In his ears, Ichiko's helpless and confused voice sounded, "Inari, what do you think I should do in the future?"
Without Haruko.
Haruko could even be said to have left because of her.
Ichiko had never noticed before, but a large part of her motivation to live also stemmed from Haruko!
Inari got up, hiding his weakness in his heart, and said in a deep voice, "Don't give up, let's listen to what the Doctors say first."
Just then, a female Doctor in her 40s walked out of the bathroom.
Inari patted Ichiko's shoulder. The latter didn't even have time to wipe away her tears.
Holding onto that last, last glimmer of hope in despair, she asked, "Do… Doctor, how is the situation?"
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