Chapter 4

Tuesday afternoon, I knocked on Kotomi's front door.

Surprisingly, I was greeted by the strange old man instead of Kotomi. It took getting used to seeing him as opposed to her parents. He was so stiff looking.

"Hello, Tomoya-san, I trust you came here to see Kotomi-san?"
"Uh, yes sir; is she here?"
"I'm afraid Kotomi-san is quite busy at the moment," He looked at the stairs, and then back at me. "Although, she does like you and you could see if she wants to take a break. It would good for her to see you and smile again,"
"Um, do you think you could find out if she could see me? I mean, I don't wanna interrupt, but…"
"Alright then, I'll see if she can come." I noticed him walk up the stairs while I waited next to the door. After a few minutes, I began to worry she was not coming.

Finally, I saw the guardian walk up, Kotomi walking closely behind him. "Come in,"

I hesitantly walked inside. "I'll let you two talk. I've got some work to do." I noticed him distantly smiled as he walked away, and left us alone near the door.

"You've been busy?" I asked.

"Doing research,"

"Huh, that's cool," I said, half-expecting her to begin talking about science again. I tried to hang onto every word, but I'd lose track fairly quickly. Strangely, she never seemed upset by it.

"How about you?"
"Not much. I just got out from school, so I figured I'd check on you."

"That's thoughtful of you."

"It's what friends do for friends." I said, smiling. "Getting used to that old guy?"
She hushed me, and smiled. "What definition of 'used' are you using?"
"Do you feel strange that he's here?"
"A little," she admitted. "But like I said, he's not bad. But, he's distant, and I can't really feel at home with him. At least he cooks better than my housekeeper." I laughed, and looked up at the ceiling.

"What type of research have you been doing?"
"All sorts of things. Though I'm tired, so I might tell you another time."
"Fine with me," I shrugged. We walked down the hallway, and into the kitchen.

"A friend of yours?" A mean old lady walked into the kitchen. She had neat gray hair and a scowl on her face. Obviously, her question was directed to Kotomi.

"Yes," she said. "He's my friend, Tomoya Okazaki."
"Oh," she said, sighing. "Don't get the floor dirty, little boy." She walked off, dust mop in her left hand.

I whispered to Kotomi, "Man, lighten up lady,"

She laughed. "She's always like that to strangers. Except my guardian. If you want to look at it positively, she may be trying to protect me."
I rolled my eyes, and examined the decorations adorning the wall. Old, ancient, and obviously expensive; her parents certainly knew how to live well. Inside, however, I could sense a feeling of loneliness carried in the walls of the house. I wondered how Kotomi managed to not break down emotionally here. My pity for her continued to grow.

"Is there anything else I can do?" I asked after a drawn out moment of silence.

"Hm?"
"I wanna help you. What else I can do to make you feel better?" She looked at me, tears in the corner of her eyes. Yet, a bright smile appeared on her face. She slowly placed her hand on mine, and smiled.

"You've already done more than enough," she smiled. I smiled back, but felt a heart-wrenching feeling inside that I may have caused an emotional lapse. When I noticed the time, I gently decided to make my leave.

"Thanks Kotomi-chan," I said, standing up. "I've got to get going. My… Father will probably be worried."
"Okay," she said, disappointment in her voice, but her smile didn't disappear in the slightest. "Goodbye, Tomoya-kun,"

I smiled, and quietly walked out the door.

I slowly walked down the sidewalk, kicking the occasional rock I saw on the sidewalk. Even considering my visit with Kotomi, today had definitely not been my day.

First, there was Takeshi. He spent the entire day talking about all the girls that had hurt him in some way because of things he said on Monday. After a few minutes, his conversations got irritating.

Then I discovered Kotomi had been busy with intensive research she was conducting. The two times I'd seen her guardian, he didn't tell me what she was up to, and I was a bit too scared to ask him what she might be doing. Even when I'd met her today, she decided not to tell me about what she was investigating.

It had not been a good day at all.

The only bright spot was my grades. I actually got 'B's' on all of the tests I took those past two days. Definitely a bit higher than I normally scored on those tests, but thanks to my partial indifference about grades, I found it difficult to find much enjoyment in my improved academics.

I could have gone home. Sadly, though, home didn't feel any more welcoming than anywhere else I could possibly be. My father never talked much, and when he did, it only reminded me of how empty of a person he had become.

So instead, I just seemed to walk. Walk almost aimlessly down the sidewalk, hoping to find some way or another to get my attention off of this really bad day.

I stopped suddenly, and turned to my side. I looked up at the sign which read, "Furukawa Bakery."
I found it very odd I'd never heard of this place before, and yet, I'd lived so close to it, I realized that it required three tight turns from my house; a route I never took. Curious, I slowly decided to walk into the building.

From the inside, it was obviously small. Not a very flashy, or large at all operation, but the bakery had a homey, feel good feeling that went for it. I imagined this as a place people would go to if they felt stressed and needed to calm down, and relax from the stress of life.

In that case, it would be me who fit those criteria.

I noticed several containers filled with bread that looked delicious. Suddenly feeling incredibly hungry, I looked up to the man behind the baked goods.

He was a tall, rather young looking guy. He had a baseball bat leaning against his shoulder, and a cigarette sticking out of his mouth. Something about his grin look seemed rather scary yet at the same time comforting. I guessed like his bark being worse than his bite.

"You look rather young to be coming here on your own. Or, are you one of Nagisa's friends that's come to visit her?"
"Huh…."
"Never mind. If you were one of Nagisa's friends, I'd be the first to know about it." He grinned. "Alright, we're about to close up shop for the evening, so make your selection quick."
I examined all of the various goods they had for sale. I liked the look of everything and take it all. However, as my eyes slowly began to set on one of the colorful pieces of bread, he grabbed my right arm.
"It may look scrumptious on the outside, but trust me; all of the bread on this side of the restaurant are complete and utter disasters." He pointed me towards a tray filled with donuts. "Trust me, those over there taste MUCH better than these ever could."
"In that case, can I have one of those?"
"Sure can," he took one out of the container, and handed it to me. "That'll be one hundred yen." Searching my pocket, I gave him a 100 yen coin. Before I could turn around to leave, a woman walked through the door at the back of the room-who I quickly labeled as his wife- began speaking to the man.
"So Akio-san, are we ready to close up shop?"
"Almost dear," he grinned. "This kid was just buying a donut before he left."
I noticed a young girl, with strands of hair sticking up from the center of her head, shyly standing next to the woman. She looked slightly taller, and probably would look more mature than me if it wasn't for the fact she looked so shy and thin too thin. I had to guess she was about a year older than me. At that moment, 'Akio's' wife looked down at me with a warm friendly smile.

"Well hello there, now what would your name be?"
"Tomoya Okazaki, ma'am."
"Aw, that's a lovely name indeed. Thank you for coming to the shop." She looked down at her daughter. "Now Nagisa-chan, do you want to introduce yourself?"
She quickly darted back behind her mother, but after a few seconds, then she slowly walked up to me. Before I could say a word, she suddenly began speaking in a rather friendly voice. "My name is Nagisa Furukawa," she returned to her position beside her mother fairly quickly. I waved to her, causing her to smile slightly, and return the gesture.

"Alright, alright, you've had your fun, kid, but now it's time for us to close up shop. Enjoy that donut!" I nodded to both of them, and walked out the door.

As I stood on the sidewalk, the wind blowing my hair in various directions, I smiled at the image of the girl, Nagisa Furukawa, smiling as I waved to her. I could tell her parents were even warmer than Kotomi's had been, Kotomi's had been friendly but I always felt they did not fully understand me. I felt somehow that the Furukawa's would understand me easily.

"Wow, and I thought Kotomi was shy! That Nagisa's is as shy as she was, though for different reasons I think,"

I slowly continued to bite into the donut, slowly grinning as I realized how tasty the pastry really was. I began to walk down the sidewalk again, this time heading back home.

I definitely didn't want to be there. But, at that point, there was nowhere else I could really think of going.

After a few minutes, I walked inside my home. I quickly noticed my dad was asleep on the couch. I noticed the smell of alcohol wasn't very noticeable on his breath that day. More than likely, this was probably because he had decided not to drink himself to sleep today, which I found slightly relieving, glad I didn't have to deal with my almost always delirious father.

As I walked upstairs to my room, I continued to think about my father. On the inside, I loved him with all of my heart. And yet, because of his complete desire to slowly lose and kill himself with alcohol and gambling he became uncaring, and the indifference he showed to me on a daily basis only became worse. The sorrow he felt at my mom's death was made even worse by his drinking. I slowly felt myself losing any respect I used to have for him. I didn't want to stop loving him, but the way he'd brush me off, seeming to not care about anything I did, and the way he'd occasionally ignore me if he wasn't in a good mood, all made me grow increasingly unsettled. I wondered, considering his reaction to my mother's death, I thought of the possibility that he never cared about me at all, and only cared about my mother before and after my birth. If he did care, under all his depression and states of drunkenness, I couldn't tell.

I quickly realized I didn't have any homework due the next day, so I decided to begin looking out the window. Again, the chilly wind seemed to freeze my neck, but my mind was so lost in my thoughts, I barely noticed.

I leaned my neck down against the open window, and sighed.

"What am I gonna do now?"

I stuck yet another news article onto my wall.

Ever since yesterday, I had made a commitment to find all the evidence I could that would potentially lead me to figuring out the identity of the ones who planned my parents' death. At that point, I hadn't found out much, but collecting now eleven different news articles from various newspapers did help me to figure out exactly what was being said about the incidents. It also gave me confidence that I would be able to conduct such a huge research project.

Undoubtedly, my guardian had figured out about my plan, but didn't seem to change his demeanor at all. Either he was completely innocent, or somehow my investigations fit into an investigation he was conducting of his own.

So far, I'd discovered several papers which told me basically what I'd already heard. Apparently, the public consensus, at least, was that the crash was an accident. However; two articles featured interviews from two different scientists who had both worked with my parents.

The interviews didn't reveal much, but they did explain the reason as to why my parents left in the first place.

Both stated that my parents had received a phone call from a scientist which the article did not reveal which stated that they had discovered a huge breakthrough in their research on alternate dimensions. In a rush to find out what, my parents immediately set up a flight, and for some reason waited to the day they were leaving to tell me about their sudden errand.

My parents were both enthusiastic about their work on alternate dimensions. They felt that at some point in the formation of the universe, pocket dimensions, small areas of space and time that exist outside of the main universe began to form which might contain life, and even, alternate worlds. The thought always intrigued me, and it was definitely a topic I could spend hours on end just thinking about. "My own little world," I mumbled to myself.

However, with the plane crash, the project had officially been put on hiatus until further notice. The official consensus seemed the hiatus was purely for mourning purposes although their deaths seemed to have taken it's on toll on the other scientists. My parents, however, were not the only scientists I'd encountered and even though they played a huge part in the research, they were not the bosses; I met one of them once. She was a formidable and harsh feeling woman who made my guardian look cuddly and the housekeeper a good cook.

However, because of their deaths, this more than likely meant the project was being shut down.

My mind traced back to work I had to do at that moment. Since I'd collected as many news articles on the subject that I could find, the next step was obviously to search the internet. However, thinking about the interviews conducted which mentioned the project my parents were working on, I realized it might be a good idea to search their old room first.

Remembering how my parents had occasionally worked on lab notes for their equipment in their room, I was confidant I'd find something inside their room that might help me in my investigation.

I searched their room on a slow methodic basis doing one area at a time collecting information and storing it especially anything I do not understand. I had shuffled through various drawers, oddly not finding anything about the trip at all. Clearly, whatever urgent trip they were on required them to bring almost all of their research. There were notes of a sort using 'Geek' notation as my father called it. But much of it was old, dated months or even years ago.

In my searches I found a lone file package under their bed partially covered by several pieces of clothes that had been pushed under the bed. Curious, I jumped on the bed, and quickly opened it. As I did this, I began to remember seeing them keep their thesis notes in the file.

A few seconds later, I realized that the file was sadly empty. My mind came up with various possibilities. Were they in such a rush, they didn't bother taking the file with them? Or had my guardian taken the notes and given them to one of his co-workers? While both theories could have been true, I slowly walked back to my room, hoping to find more conclusive evidence on the internet.

Now, obviously, the internet was a rather shady place to search for ANY type of information, but I felt I might find something interesting on the web that wouldn't be on the newspapers.

After a few minutes of really fast searching, I failed to come up with any new information. This initially discouraged me, but I quickly decided to press on.

When I looked deeper into some of the search results, I discovered a few conspiracy theories of what might have happened, most of them involving the theory that my parents' death was actually a planned suicide.

The very thought disgusted me.

In addition, there was a theory very similar to mine, and then one regarding the research on alternate dimensions being a hoax, and that there was a deeper meaning to the plane crash.

Still, I failed to find anything that even resembled cold hard facts that might help me in discovering the identity of my parents' killer.

Just before I began to close the internet taps I'd put up, I noticed a peculiar web page. Curious, I quickly clicked the web page. When I did, a screen of white text against a black background popped up formatted as if it would be in the comments section on a blog post, and after reading the words, I was barely able to keep myself from collapsing from shock.

"The Ichinoses never had a chance. Now, they're dead. And why are they dead? Simple, because of me." After a few seconds of regaining my composure, I printed out the words on a sheet of paper so that I could hold it for safe keeping.

I looked for a homepage to see if I could identify the poster, but this was strangely the only page on the domain. Scared, after the page was printed, I stuffed it into one of my folders in my backpack.

It might have been a hoax, but I considered the worst possible conclusion, and no others; whoever posted that message was the one who probably killed my parents.

While I was looking for more information about my parents' death, the post disturbed me to such a degree, I jumped onto my bed, grasping my pillow against my chest as I lay in a fetal position on my bed. This was one of those times where I wished Tomoya were here. However, he wasn't.

In fact, anyone who was willing to encourage me would have been welcome to try. However, none of them were here, and the only person who was here I didn't feel could comfort me.

I was alone.

Tears rushed out of my eyes as I started to I fall asleep. But as the early evening twilight consumed me, one thought stuck out in my mind.

"Who could be so cruel..?"