After that, my spirit broke and I stopped going to school.
A cheap, run-down four-and-a-half-mat apartment that a relative rented to me out of pity.
Near the messy mattress, empty convenience store bento boxes and empty juice cans are scattered carelessly.
If I go out during the day, I might run into Fujisaki or my classmates.
That is why I only go out at night. Just to the convenience store.
This dirty room where day and night are flipped is my whole world.
“I’m tired… Would I be at ease if I died?”
I only think about things like that.
While sleeping on the messy mattress, the intercom rang.
“……Ah, gasp.”
My heart jumps. Could Fujisaki have come over with his friends…
Should I pretend no one is home…? I was thinking that, but…
“……Kurokawa-kun, are you there…?”
What I heard through the door was the clear, elegant voice of an adult woman… Who on earth is it?
When I peeked through the door scope with fear, what stood on the other side was…
A white blouse with an open collar and a black tight skirt with a slit.
She was an adult woman with glossy black hair tied back with a yellow ribbon, staring at the door with sorrowful eyes.
I have seen her before.
–Fujisaki’s mother, Misako Fujisaki.
Why did that guy’s mother come here?
I have no idea what she wants.
“……What do you want?”
When I opened the door while glaring at her with caution, Misako’s face turned apologetic, and she immediately bent at the waist and began to apologize.
“Ah… Ah, Ren-kun…! I am truly, truly sorry for what my son did…!”
Furthermore, she dropped both knees to the floor, pressed her forehead against it, and started to dogeza.
“……Eh?”
“Last night, I heard that child talking with someone else on his smartphone about bullying you. I was worried, so after my son went to sleep, I checked his smartphone which he kept up all night with… There were many videos of him bullying you. And for the first time, I understood how terrible things my son, Tetsuya, did to you. After my husband passed away, I got caught up in the company work I took over from him and could not notice how my son was doing. As a result, my son did terrible things to you. This is all the sin of me, the mother… I’m sorry!”
Fujisaki’s mother, Misako, shakes her shoulders violently but does not raise her face.
Dark, murky emotions raced through my mind.
Fujisaki, because of you, your mother is doing dogeza.
The one who is at fault is Fujisaki, not Misako.
“……Please raise your head.”
However, I deliberately replied with a cold voice.
Misako raised her face, wet with tears, as if frightened.
Seen up close, she was a beauty, so youthful that it was hard to believe she was in her late 30s, and full of sex appeal.
When I stared at her, perhaps out of guilt, she shook her long eyelashes and let her gaze wander.
“The one I want to apologize is not you, it’s Fujisaki.”
“Yes. But… that child”
Even if told by such a kind-looking mother, Fujisaki probably will not apologize.
“I understand that my son should apologize but that child flatly refused, saying ‘I won’t go’ at least please… accept this.”
With trembling hands, Misako took a thick envelope from her bag. Even without looking inside, I could tell a lot of money was in it. She probably came to hand it to me as “compensation.”
I know she has no bad intentions.
However, it only feels to me like she came to pay money to settle her son’s sins.
It is true that I have no money.
However, what I want this time is not money.
It is a heartfelt apology.
Ignoring the envelope, I slowly squatted down in front of Misako, who remained kneeling on the floor.
A sweet, elegant, and nice scent unique to an adult woman reaches me.
She is extremely beautiful.
It is really unfair.
That the mother of Fujisaki, who has such a bad personality, is such a beautiful woman and a female president.
“Misako-san… Do you really think you did wrong? Do you intend to make amends for your son’s sins?”
“……Eh?”
Misako looks up at me with moist eyes.
“I don’t need money… It would be good if you brought Fujisaki and made him apologize.”
Saying that, I pointed to the Buddhist altar.
“I understand, I will definitely bring Tetsuya and make him apologize. Please let even just me apologize first.”
Saying that, Misako came into the room and put her hands together in prayer at the Buddhist altar.
However, even after waiting three days, Tetsuya did not come to apologize.
Instead of that, when I woke up and looked outside this morning…
“You snitched, remember this.”
was written on the door in red paint.