.At nearly one o'clock in the morning, Ikeda, who was soaked in cold sweat, ran back home. He was in a state of disbelief along the way. He didn't calm down a little until he saw the familiar door of his house.
There was a light in the room, and it seemed that my father had returned drunk.
He tiptoed into the house and tentatively said, "I'm back."
No one responded, only the sound of his own heavy breathing.
Ikeda came to the bright room and opened the door halfway. What he saw made him relieved. His father was lying drunkenly and fell asleep on the kotatsu, with several empty wine bottles scattered around him.
"I came home in the middle of the night and found that my son was not there, but he still slept nonchalantly." Ikeda helped his father turn off the lights, close the door, and murmured in a low voice.
He went to take a shower and returned to his room. Although he was lying on his bed, he was not sleepy at all. Whenever I close my eyes, the corpse hanging from the rope and Matsuo's miserable face will appear again and again.
Until it was dark outside, Ikeda still stared at the ceiling with his bloodshot eyes.
He thought about it all night, but couldn't figure anything out. All he got was confusion in his mind, a splitting headache, and a terrible feeling of being listless.
Why did Matsuo "commit suicide"? And he had to hang himself in the teacher's office. What's the point? What's going on with that weird bookstore? Who is the bookstore owner? Why was I assigned to steal something from Matsuo's office at midnight? Could it be that Matsuo's death had something to do with him
After tossing and turning for a while, Ikeda looked at the clock. It was almost time to get ready for school. Although he was very tired, he did not dare to ask for leave. Maybe it was because of a guilty conscience. Ikeda felt that it would be suspicious for him to be absent from work on the day when the body was found in school.
He caught the bus today, so he didn't pass Tianyi's bookstore. In fact, even if he chooses to walk to school, Ikeda also knows that the bookstore owner will not open the door so early. Judging from his virtue, he is the kind of person who will never climb out of bed before ten o'clock in the morning, so even passing by the bookstore is in vain.
The situation at the school was pretty much what Ikeda had imagined. The guy on the night shift found the body around four o'clock. He didn't even call an ambulance, but called the police directly. Matsuo's appearance probably made it very clear that "I don't have a body." Saved" fact.
At dawn, the police had sealed off the entire third floor of the teaching building. The investigation and evidence collection work was proceeding slowly, and many teachers and even students were questioned. Ikeda was not asked, perhaps because his appearance was too inconspicuous, or perhaps because he gave the impression of being introverted and difficult to talk to.
The students had been whispering all morning, and the topic of discussion was of course Matsuo's death; the teachers seemed absent-minded in their lectures, so they just ignored the classroom discipline.
"Ah... Matsuo, that is really the worst person! A mean and wretched middle-aged uncle, he is still unmarried in his forties, he is usually very rude to some female teachers, I heard that he is still unmarried. There are female students who have been "harassed" by him. But this guy doesn't leave any evidence when he does bad things, has a good relationship with the school board, and is very good at flattering parents, so the principal can't fire him, so everyone has to do it every day Watch him come to school and wander around in an unsightly manner with the face of a villain.
It's great that this kind of person can commit suicide. He has finally done something good for the world. Hey, officer, don't look at me like that. I'm such a straightforward person. I just say what no one wants to say. The facts are just told. "
It was Kurosawa-sensei who said this to the police. A Chinese language teacher who has passed menopause and is approaching retirement age, a hot-blooded aunt who speaks freely. It's difficult to rise to the leadership level with such a "personality", but this type of person will never be disliked by colleagues or students, except for Matsuo...
If Matsuo is compared to greasy dirty water, Kurosawa is like boiling hot oil. The snobbish Matsuo can skillfully use two forms of groveling and arrogance in front of different people, but when he meets Aunt Kurosawa, he has no choice but to hide away. The truth is very simple: if you compare a villain with an ordinary person, he is just a nuisance; if you compare a villain with an upright person, he is nothing but scum.
The testimonies collected by the police will naturally be screened and analyzed, but everyone seems to have recognized Matsuo's character. In short, it gives people the feeling that he deserves to die.
But precisely because of this, the problem becomes more complicated and confusing.
Would a person like this commit suicide? And he obviously lives alone, why would he sneak into the school in the middle of the night to "commit suicide"? Can't you hang yourself at home
It was almost noon, and the school finally announced that classes would be suspended for half a day, and students could go back after lunch.
This is undoubtedly good news for Ikeda. He can't wait to rush to the bookstore. There are too many questions that need to be answered. However, he finished his lunch calmly in the cafeteria and left one after another with most of the people.
Ikeda told himself that he must be very cautious and not do anything unusual. Even if no one would pay attention to him, he must be as careful as possible.
He walked for an hour and returned home. He seemed very calm all the way and didn't even glance in when he passed Tianyi's bookstore.
"I'm back." After Ikeda said this, he closed the door and sat on the porch to change his shoes.
He walked into the living room. His father was smoking a cigarette and sitting in the kotatsu watching TV. When he heard Ikeda opening the door, he said without looking back: "Did you skip school when you came back so early?"
Ikeda also sat next to the kotatsu and took out his homework from his school bag, "Ms. Matsuo committed suicide in school last night, so classes are suspended in the afternoon."
Dad frowned slightly after hearing this: "Ah... that guy must be your class teacher. I still remember him. He came to visit my home once last year. He walked in with that disgusting look in his eyes and put on a stern expression when he spoke to me. With an arrogant expression, what is that guy?" He took a puff of cigarette: "How did you die? Jumped from the school rooftop? Or hung yourself or something?"
Ikeda looked numb and pushed up his thick glasses: "He was hanged. I heard that he sneaked into the school at night and did it in his office. I don't know the specific circumstances."
"Oh, right." Ikeda's father reached for the remote control on the table. He burped as soon as he moved, and a smell of alcohol rushed out of his mouth, but Ikeda didn't pay much attention to it. He was used to it anyway.
"Maybe this will make the news." Dad switched several channels, found a channel that was showing news and stopped.
"The New Year is approaching, and the security situation in Hokkaido this year is still on a downward trend at the end of the year. Compared with other regions in the prefecture, it is once again ranked last. In addition to frequent burglaries, violent crimes have also increased. A police spokesperson declined to comment on this data. In response, today our reporter and several experts we invited will come together... "
The news is still the same as before, broadcasting some depressing news, and then calling in a few so-called experts to express some unhelpful hindsight opinions.
"If something about your school makes the news, maybe you will appear on TV." Dad said and turned up the volume of the TV.
Ikeda just replied nonchalantly; "I don't remember any reporters coming this morning."
Time passed quickly. Ikeda sat there and did homework for two hours. His father drank a few cups, stared at the boring news and fell asleep again.
After packing up his things and turning off the TV, Ikeda returned to his room and took out a pen from under his pillow. This was taken out from Matsuo's desk last night, an ordinary pen.
This pen reminded Ikeda that everything last night was not a dream, not a hallucination, not an imagination, but a fact that really happened.
December 11, four o'clock in the afternoon.
Ikeda came to Tianyi's bookstore again. When he opened the door and entered the house, he saw almost the same scene as yesterday.
But today, Tianyi did not ignore Ikeda. He directly put down the book and coffee in his hands and took the lead in saying, "Come here and sit wherever you like."
Ikeda walked to Tianyi's desk and found that there was no chair or anything like that. The only sofa chair in the room was occupied by the owner of the bookstore, so he could only respond: "I'd better stand. .”
Tianyi opened the drawer at hand, took out a black-covered book and put it on the table: "All the secrets of Miura Kazuya are in this." He pressed his hand on the book with no intention of taking it away: " Where are the things you fetched?"
Ikeda asked back: "Since you also have my book in your hand, you must already know that I have accomplished what you told me, so why bother to ask more." As he said this, he put Matsuo's pen on Tianyi's desk. .
Tianyi yawned with a look of disdain: "It's just because I know more than you think, so I can't show you Miura's book yet."
"You want to regret it?!" Ikeda raised his voice, shocked and angry.
But Tianyi quickly extinguished his emotions: "The reason why you want to read this book is to take revenge on Miura, to vent the resentment accumulated from being bullied by him in the past two years, well... maybe you are preparing to All the grievances in this short life have been poured out on Miura. It doesn’t matter, I support you very much, but I think you may have more urgent things to do at this stage." He changed the subject: "This morning, I am with you. There is a policeman in the school. He is very good, and can even be said to be very smart. At five o'clock in the morning, he was the first policeman to arrive at the scene of Matsuo's suicide. He immediately discovered the suspicion and took the correct action. Judgment - Matsuo was killed."
Ikeda's face was ashen and he took a step back involuntarily: "What did you say..."