Editing Hyouka:Short Story 4 (section)

=== 5. ===

I returned to room A7 on the second floor, but Ibara was nowhere to be seen. I guess she was searching the surrounding area like she said she was going to do earlier.

A folding chair was set up in the center of the 20 square meter or so room, and Yokote-san was the only one sitting. Danbayashi-san was also there—next to the window—and was almost certainly glaring at me as I entered. But as soon as I looked over, her shoulders relaxed as if she was disappointed.

“I thought you were the girl.”

I lowered my head a bit, half as a greeting and half as an apology for not being Chitanda, but Danbayashi-san didn’t even spare me another glance; she immediately turned to start arguing with Yokote-san.

“Well then Yokote-san. An hour has passed. We’re calling her house now. She might not make it at this point, but if we aren’t even going to consider getting someone else to sing the solo instead, then we have no other option.”

Ever since earlier, Danbayashi-san’s tone has seemingly carried all manners of ill will directed at the “youth of today.” If you took out all of those negative emotions, her upturned eyes genuinely made her look like a fish. It was only understandable though, given the fact that she was battling a time limit.

As usual, Yokote-san remained calm and composed and responded: “I see, but I’m sure she’ll come any second now. How about we give her another hour?”

“Again with that—look, this isn’t the time to be all easygoing. Listen, Yokote-san, I’m going to call her right now, so I’m asking you to please give me her family’s number.”

I see. I didn’t understand why she was trying to get Yokote-san’s approval in order to contact Chitanda, but it looks like she didn’t know the number. The surname Chitanda wasn’t exactly common, so it didn’t seem like it would be too difficult to find it in the phone book, however—wait, hold up a second. If Danbayashi-san was after her phone number, that meant I was going to be in her sights too, doesn’t it?

As I thought this and was about to turn back, it was already far too late. Danbayashi-san spun around to look at me and started to briskly walk closer and closer, her terrifying face creased at the forehead.

“You! You’re that girl’s classmate, right?”

For now, I’ll just correct her.

“I’m not her classmate. I’m in a different class.”

“Who cares?!”

“Well, umm...”

I suppose that no one did—in fact—care.

“Then you must know Chitanda-san’s phone number, right?!”

Now then, I was in a bind. Of course I had gotten each of their numbers since we may have needed to contact each other about the club, but, unsurprisingly, I did not have them committed to memory. I had nothing to hide, so I told her the truth.

“I have the numbers, but I’d have to go back home to get them.”

“Don’t you have a cellphone?”

“No.”

Danbayashi-san responded in a shrill voice.

“You have <i>got</i> to be kidding me!”

But I wasn’t. I should probably say something before she gets too upset, though. I didn’t have time to debate with her, so I put on my best serious expression; I could manage a pretty good one if I put my heart into it.

“Well, I know where Chitanda is: her stomach hurts because she’s so nervous, so she’s resting.”

Danbayashi-san’s jaw dropped. I expected her to be surprised upon her hearing an update about Chitanda, especially since it came out of nowhere. 

“She’ll be here even if you stop looking for her, but I understand: you’re nervous that she won’t make it in time. Don’t worry, I’ll go get her right now.”

Thinking about it logically, my having come into contact with her—especially since I didn’t have a cellphone—was an unlikely story at best, but Danbayashi-san didn’t seem to doubt me. In fact, she seemed relieved; her stern expression melted almost instantaneously.  She replied in a strangely curt manner, “Oh, I see. Well then, I’ll leave it to you,” and turned to leave the waiting room. Maybe she was embarrassed after realizing just how flustered she was only minutes ago.

While I appreciated that she was going to leave without a fight, there was still something I wanted to ask her before I headed out. I called out to her as she reached for the door-handle.

“Umm...”

“Huh?” Startled, she turned to look at me with a surprised expression. “Are you talking to me? There’s more?”

“Well, it's not very important, but...”

As I was speaking, I pulled out the pamphlet I received from the information counter and pointed at the lyrics to the song being sung by Chitanda, “Moon Over Release.”

“Which part is Chitanda going to be singing?”

Danbayashi-san’s brow furrowed once more.

“Huh? Why would you want to know something like that?”

I had assumed that she would simply tell me if I asked her nonchalantly enough, but instead she raised her defenses and countered with a question of her own.

“Well you see—” I spoke slowly so I could come up with a good excuse. “I want to take a picture of her when she’s singing her solo for our club’s records. I’ve have to get the timing just right. I was going to ask Chitanda herself, but it looks like I might not get the chance.”

I wonder if that sounded a bit too forced.

“Oh, that’s why? Uh, sure.”

It looks like she bought it. Danbayashi-san’s finger started to move over the lyrics.

“Hmm… right here.”



<i>Ah, I pray once more. I, too, strive</i>

<i>to live in the unrestricted skies. </i>



“This part is sung with the chest, so it has a full sound and looks emotional. It’d probably be better if you took a video though.”

As she said that, she started studying me carefully. Of course, I didn’t have anything like a DSLR or camcorder on me. Her expression started to harden; she must have been getting suspicious, so I quickly took the initiative.

“Thank you very much. I’ll go ahead and tell Ibara.”

Of course Ibara didn’t have a camera either, but Danbayashi-san couldn’t have known that for sure.

“Hmm… that’s a good idea. Well then, I’m going to return to the hall and tell everyone that we found her. I’ll leave the rest to you.”

After Danbayashi-san left the room and the door closed with a heavy thud behind her, the only two people left were Yokote-san and I. Since there were only two of us in a room that was meant to hold ten or so people, the empty space around me felt terribly strange and uncomfortable.

Yokote-san sat deeply rooted in her folding chair, and her hands rested on top of her lap. She hadn’t moved an inch in the hour I spent with Satoshi; she was so still, I started to wonder if she really had taken root in her metal chair—not moving an inch since I’d left.

At this moment, however, her calm, gentle eyes were fixed intently on me, as if silently demanding to know what was going on.

I approached her and stood right in front of that gaze. I then lowered my head respectfully.

“I haven’t introduced myself yet. My name is Oreki Houtarou. I’m in the same grade as Chitanda-san, as well as in the same club.”

Yokote-san avoided eye contact for a split second, but then quickly formed an almost imperceptible smile as she lowered her head in return.

“I’m so pleased to meet you. My name is Atsuko Yokote. Forgive me for not standing up to greet you; my knees are not what they used to be.”

“Of course, I don’t hold that against you.”

“Thank you.”

It was a polite exchange, but in the end, our warm words were just temporary pleasantries. Yokote-san’s eyes narrowed and her voice stiffened slightly as well, almost as if taking on an accusatory tone.

“Oreki-san. You mentioned that you know where the Chitandas’ daughter is, didn’t you? Was that really true?”

I responded without hesitation: “No, it was a lie.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again, as if at a loss for words. She stared at me fixedly, and then finally muttered, “A lie...”

“I needed Danbayashi-san to leave, so I lied to her.”

“Oh? Why would you do something like that?”

Although she was clearly perplexed by the fact that I had lied, it seemed like she wasn’t reproaching me for doing it. It was most likely because she couldn’t bring herself to criticize me for lying.

“I did it because there’s something I’d like to ask you, Yokote-san.”

“Me? What is it?”

I briefly glanced down at my watch and saw that it was nearing 4:20; there was little time left. This wasn’t the time to be beating around the bush. Besides, “if I have to do it, I’ll do it quickly.” My mantra meant that I needed to get right to the point.

“You said that you rode the bus with Chitanda all the way to the cultural center and came with her to this very room, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Accusing someone always requires a good deal of courage. I didn’t have much, however, so I continued while avoiding her gaze.

“You’re lying.”

Yokote’s expression froze.

What Satoshi said had truth to it; there was no use in using brute force to search for Chitanda. I had to find another method and, of course, the simplest one would be to just ask the person who knew.

Without a doubt, Yokote-san had lied about Chitanda’s arrival. She knew something, and getting it out of her would be much faster than searching around every cafe and bookstore in Kamiyama City.

Her hands stiffened, as if succumbing to nervous tension while they rested on top of her lap. I’d be able to keep our conversation short if only she’d come clean right away, but that was probably wishful thinking. After all, I haven’t done anything to earn her trust.

As I expected, she started to feign ignorance as she talked.

“What are you talking about?”

Abandoning my sliver of hope that this might end quickly, I tried to goad it out of her once more.

“I want to resolve this as quickly as I can, so would you please take back your statement claiming you rode the bus with Chitanda?”

“But that’s the truth. How could you possibly say something like that; don’t you think you’re being a little rude?”

My emotions grew unsteady as I encountered this resistance head-on. Negotiation and persuasion were never my strong suits. If I had the opportunity, I would’ve pushed it all on Satoshi or Chitanda and returned to my quiet school life. In the end, however, I was the only one here. Not only that, I was pressed for time. I balled my hands into fists and summoned up as much courage as I could.

“I’m sorry. I run the risk of repeating myself at this point, but it’s essentially impossible that you came with Chitanda to this room.”

“How about you explain why.”

“Of course. The logic itself is incredibly straightforward.”

I pointed towards the door at the front of the waiting room.

“It’s because of that.”

“The door?”

“No. I’m talking about the umbrella stand, of course.”

Next to the door was an unstable umbrella stand, and only a single black umbrella stuck out from it. I had accidentally gotten my foot caught on it when I entered last time and toppled it over as a result. In picking it back up, my hand got wet.

“It didn’t rain near my house, but—since the umbrella was wet—I can only assume that it rained in Jinde.”

“I believe I already said this.”

“Yes, I heard. That and how Chitanda had a crimson umbrella while she waited for the bus. But look: that umbrella of hers is nowhere to be found. It has been cloudy in this area since the morning, but when you supposedly arrived with Chitanda at 1:30, it had become sunny. After coming all the way here once, I have a hard time imagining her taking the umbrella somewhere else. That means that Chitanda didn’t come here at all, which then means I am not the only one to have lied today.”

Yokote-san placed a hand on her cheek. “How could you possibly come to that conclusion solely because her umbrella isn’t here? This isn’t the only umbrella stand in the building, you know.”

“Of course there are also some in the entrance way downstairs. Performers were expressly asked to use the ones in the waiting rooms whenever possible, though.”

“As much as possible—”

It wasn’t like you could follow every rule perfectly; actually, even <i>knowing</i> each and every rule was unlikely. I was, of course, fully aware of this.

“Well, had Chitanda come here alone, it would’ve been entirely possible for her to have used a different umbrella stand due to not knowing about the rule. But that wasn’t the case, was it? I tried to imagine it—a scenario where you and Chitanda came to this room together, but where only you followed the rules while Chitanda ignored them—and it seems impossible. It only makes sense that people grouped together do the same things. Not only that, but Chitanda’s the type of person to know and follow all of the rules.”

Yokote-san didn’t respond, and the feeling that she still wouldn’t tell me what really happened still persisted, so I eased up and changed my approach.

“Even with this, I don’t have enough evidence to prove that Chitanda hasn’t been here. Had Chitanda actually arrived and then decided to return home for whatever reason, she may have decided not to come back and take her umbrella with her. It’s much easier to find evidence of someone being somewhere than <i>not</i> being there.”

“I suppose so.”

I took a small breath and examined her out of the corner of my eye.

“By the way, you’ve been in this room since you got here, correct?”

I suddenly decided to change the subject.

“Even though the rest of the choir members are in the hall?”

Yokote-san’s brow furrowed with displeasure.

“I’m not breaking any rules.”

“Of course not. But something has been bugging me. Ever since I arrived, you’ve been saying something weird to Danbayashi-san every time she’s mentioned Chitanda’s absence: ‘I’m sure she’ll come any second now.’“

“Was my wording strange?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think that phrase itself is strange.”

“Then I don’t see...”

“However, you said more: ‘She’ll come any second, just give her an hour.’ Why one hour? Why not say ‘just a little longer’ or ‘some more time?’ You specifically mentioned one hour. I only heard you mention it twice, but apparently you even said it once before I came; Danbayashi-san said something along those lines. Instead of 30 minutes or 2 hours, why did you say one hour?”

I’d considered that maybe it was just a thing that Yokote-san says in her normal speech, but I had another theory; thanks to information provided by Satoshi, I was able to have complete confidence in my hypothesis. The one hour she kept mentioning—made me aware of something important. 

“You were referring to the bus.”

While Yokote-san’s expression didn’t change, I got the impression that her shoulders suddenly stiffened.

I took out the timetable that Satoshi had retrieved for me.

“This is the bus timetable. In order to get this, my friend had to bike over here like a madman. It’s a good thing he didn’t hurt himself. According to this, there are a limited number of buses connecting Jinde and the cultural center, and they’re an hour apart. This is why you specifically said to wait one hour, isn’t it?”

I watched Yokote-san as she averted her gaze. I was right.

“By saying ‘wait one hour,’ you essentially meant ‘wait until the next bus arrives.’ Chitanda must be on the next one. That’s what you were hoping for as you calmed the panicking Danbayashi-san.”

Yet 3 hours had passed, and Chitanda still hadn’t shown up. I was impressed by Yokote-san’s calm and collected outward appearance, but she was probably starting to panic on the inside.

Based on our conversation thus far, Chitanda’s possible locations were quite limited.

“Chitanda is still in Jinde, am I correct?”

This sentence was the deciding blow. Yokote-san’s gaze started to dart around, exuding confusion and unease, but she finally drew a short breath. 

“That’s correct. The Chitandas’ daughter never came here. I’ve been lying this entire time.”



A kind smile returned to her face once more as she started to speak.

“Just as you mentioned, it rained in Jinde this morning,” said Yokote-san as she continued. “I was telling the truth when I said the Chitandas’ daughter and I waited under our black and crimson umbrellas. I wasn’t lying when I said we rode the bus together, either. There was hardly anyone else in it, so we sat near each other.

“I noticed while we were waiting for the bus that she didn’t look well. After we got on the bus and I got a closer look, it was all the clearer that her face was terribly pale. I asked her what was wrong, but the poor thing repeatedly tried to assure me that she was completely fine. However, all of a sudden, as I was wishing there was something I could do for her, she pressed the button to stop the bus.”

I suppressed my impatience and remained silent. Not only might there be more information to glean, but I thought that silently listening was the least I could do for someone willing to tell me her story. Most importantly, though, I was concerned about Chitanda’s strange appearance. I had never seen her with a pale expression like the one she had described.

“I called out to the child as she was about to get off the bus—she looked like she was about to say something, but instead she bowed her head and hurried away without saying a single word. I thought about chasing after her, but I didn’t want to stick my nose where it didn’t belong, so I stayed on the bus without doing a thing.”

It looked like she had finished with her story, so I asked a question.

“Did Chitanda look sick?”

Her response was simply, “I wonder if she was...”

It was a silly question. In the event she was sick but still didn’t want to give up on singing the solo, she could’ve simply gone to the cultural center and explained her situation to everyone—or maybe she could’ve returned home to focus on getting better until just before her appearance. Whatever it was, she didn’t have to get off the bus like she was escaping from something.

The reason Chitanda got off the bus early—the reason behind her pale face—likely had nothing to do with her health. This was my hypothesis, so I decided to jump straight into the matter.

“At which stop did Chitanda get off? Do you have any idea where she went after that?”

Yokote-san looked at me coldly as I asked her this.

“What will you do if I tell you?”

“Search for her, of course.”

“It’s no use.”

She sat up straight and said so resolutely.

“That child is the successor of the Chitanda estate; she understands her responsibilities. Her getting off of the bus was simply a moment of hesitation. I’m confident beyond a doubt that she will arrive in time. It would behoove you to refrain from doing anything unnecessary and to have some faith in your friend.”

I nodded.

“Yeah, I’m sure she’ll make it in time, too.”

Yokote-san sat there with a blank expression, looking as if all of previous ferocity had been sucked out of her.

“Then why did you say you were going to search for her?”

That much was obvious from the very start.

“It’s probably hard on her, after all.”

“It’s hard on her?”

“Can’t you see it?”

I had no idea about anything when it came to the topic of succession, but one thing I was certain of was how strong Chitanda’s sense of responsibility was. If she had truly gotten off the bus and disappeared, there had to have been a serious reason behind it. I didn’t want to dismiss that reason as just being a “moment of hesitation.”

Of course, as Yokote-san had mentioned, she would almost certainly show up before her time to go on stage. But her appearance would be the end result of the conflict—a conflict within her to smother and bury her reasons for escaping with a pale face, completely bound by her sense of responsibility. To me, it sounded like she was saying that she wanted to run away, but she had to go. She <i>had</i> to go. Doesn’t that seem unbearably hard on her?

Whenever I feel pushed into a corner like that, seeing someone come to pull me out always makes me happy. In that sense, finding her was more necessary than Yokote-san could know.

Instead of saying all of that, though, I compressed it all into a single short sentence:

“I mean, that’s what friends do.”

She stared silently at me. It looked as if she was trying to judge how much of what I said she could believe, but there wasn’t any reason the both of us should be on edge.

“After all, isn’t the reason you’re waiting here because you want to greet Chitanda when she returns?”

Yokote-san looked taken aback.

“You want to meet her here, we want to go meet her in Jinde—don’t you think we have the same goal? How about it? Won’t you tell me where she got off?”

“Who is the ‘we’ that wants to find her in Jinde?”

Hm? Oh, yeah.

“Ibara is worried after all. It’d probably be better if she came along, or even if met Chitanda on her own. The only thing is, she’s out searching right now, so it might be difficult to contact her. There’s no time, so I’m not even sure if I should try. Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“No.”

For some reason, Yokote-san placed her hand over her mouth and looked somewhat happy. She then returned her hand to her lap and continued with confidence.

“I understand. You do have a point. I’ve also begun to feel a little restless, even though I know she’ll come. I’ll tell you what I know.”

I nodded.

“That child got off at the South Jinde bus stop. If you were to head there from here and follow the bus route on the right hand side of the mountain ridge, you should be able to see a single storehouse with plastered walls. If she were looking for a place to hide, it would most certainly be there.”

Yokote-san said she saw Chitanda off as she left the bus. The bus would’ve likely departed soon after that.

I had no idea how far the storehouse was from the main road, but if it was on the mountain ridge, then it was likely some distance away. She probably only had enough time to see where Chitanda started to go before the bus pulled away. Even though she only saw so little, Yokote-san seemed to have no doubts, so I continued to harbor some doubts.

“Did you see her go there?”

Yokote-san shook her head. “I did not, however I know she did even without having seen it for myself.”

Her expression was soft, as if recalling a blissful moment from her past.

“It belongs to my family, but we don’t use it anymore. When she was young, that child often went there to hide from others.”

I thought that Yokote-san was a close neighbor, but if Chitanda used that storehouse as her hideaway, then she must have been more than just a good neighbor.

“Yokote-san, are you related to Chitanda?”

“I’m her aunt. Today, there should be some people from the Chitanda household about. You mustn’t head straight for the storehouse as there may be prying eyes. First, search for the home surrounded by hedges next to the storehouse. There will be a nameplate that reads “Yokote.” Once you go past the hedges, circle around to the back of the storehouse. There won’t be anyone home, but if someone asks why you’re there, you can tell them I asked you to retrieve something that I forgot before coming. That’s all, so please hurry.”

She quickly raised her hand and pointed at the metal door.