Antique Shop?BEAR? - Chapter 43
Chapter 43 – Tortoiseshell Sunglasses
“Absolutely, come to the warehouse today.”
The president of the group phoned him in a threatening tone. On the days they gathered at the warehouse, it was either a meeting or a brawl. Previously, there had been a lynch, but he wasn’t involved in that. A few of those who participated had been sent to juvenile detention.
“Okay.”
When he reached the warehouse, a boy from the next class was being beaten to a pulp. His face was familiar to him.
“This guy… What happened?”
“You do it too!”
“Huh…?”
“Don’t ‘huh’ me! Do it too!”
The president kicked him and he tumbled.
“Help… Help me…”
The guy’s nose was bleeding and he was soaked in blood. Even his white shirt was stained with mud and blood.
“What the hell did this guy do?”
“I told him to bring me the money, and he didn’t do it!”
Up close, his nose was crooked and his teeth had been knocked out. It was too much. He clenched his teeth.
“Aiba, you haven’t shown up at all lately! Show me your motivation!”
The guys who were looking at him gleefully started beating not only him but Aiba as well.
“Sucker!”
“Trash!”
“Wimp!”
As Aiba was being kicked and pummeled, he involuntarily struck the sobbing man next to him on the head in a fit of rage. Multiple times. By the time he realized what had happened, the man was out cold.
Aiba was sent flying backward by the president, and he collapsed to the ground.
“You handled it well.”
Shortly after that, he announced that he was leaving the group, they knocked him down so severely that his head was injured. In a daze, he regretted having been a delinquent for all these years, and even regretting was futile, his life was nothing but a waste, and his meaning in life had vanished into oblivion. When he regained consciousness, he found himself in a hospital.
After being discharged from the hospital, he returned to school and learned that the guy who was supposed to be in the class next to him had changed school and was no longer there. The group ceased to exist spontaneously when the president of the group and several others were arrested.
Apparently, that guy didn’t mention Aiba’s name, therefore Aiba was neither expelled nor caught by the police.
He wanted to get down on his knees and apologize to the guy, whose name he didn’t even know, but was unable to do so and graduated and got a job at Kamata Estate Liquidation Company.
?????????
September 5th
Aiba invited Kuma to join him for a light drink. The two toasted at an Izakaya near the sales office.
“You know, ever since I bought that pair of sunglasses, I can see myself.”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
“It’s like I’m reflected in the lenses. It’s me as a high school punk looking at me with dead eyes.”
“Wow.”
“You see, I was a delinquent in school, and I finally came to my senses when I became an adult.”
Kuma listened while eating edamame.
“I don’t know why… it suddenly showed up on my sunglasses. It’s like the past me is manifesting itself and questioning the present me about the issue.”
“Maybe it’s a curse?”
“Huh?”
“Hmmm… All joking aside, the previous owner of that pair of sunglasses was obsessed with the past.”
“Oh… that wealthy man.”
“I don’t know what you did, so I can’t comment casually, but everyone has one or two things in their past they would rather not talk about.”
“Do you have one too, Kuma? Like a past you can’t talk about?”
“Of course I have.”
“Is that enough to land you in prison?”
“Well, I wonder.”
Kuma grinned playfully and took a swig of his beer. Aiba couldn’t imagine that this guy was the kind of character that would get into trouble with the police. He seemed to be a guy who focused on his work diligently.
“Should I tell my marriage partner everything?”
Kuma started laughing. “Are you worried about whether you should tell Hayashi about your past? If I’m going to discuss anything heavy, it should be before we get married. Once you’re married, you’ll be better off hiding it.”
?????????
On his way home from Izakaya, he was waiting for the train on the platform when an announcement was made and he watched the train coming into view. All of a sudden, despite not putting on his sunglasses, he spotted his vacant-eyed self on the tracks at his feet. That guy was holding up his hand in a fluttering motion, beckoning to him. That may be the only way to truly escape the past.
Aiba felt his body waver. His body softly lifted off the ground, and the entire scene in front of him went into slow motion.
Why did… I do that?
The sound of the train’s brakes reverberated in his head.
No matter what I do, I won’t be forgiven.
On the tracks, he waited with his arms outstretched.
Everyone will continue to look down on me.
Once I am over there, there will be no more to worry for.
His own voice resonated in his head. The sound of a train coming in echoed through the platform. On the tracks, his own eyes widened, and his former self gripped Aiba’s leg.
Falling…!
“Aiba!”
Someone seized him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back to the platform. His shirt was stuck around his neck and he couldn’t breathe for a moment and let out a cough.
“What are you doing!”
It was Kuma.
“Oh… me? What was I up to?”
“You almost fell off the platform.”
“Did I drink too much…? That was close…”
The train had stopped in front of him, and he was no longer on the tracks. Once inside the train, he looked out the window. The train had run over him on the tracks and shredded him to bits. No blood had been spilled, but his arms and legs were neatly torn apart, and his face was split in half and blasted to the opposite side of the tracks with the whites of his eyes.
“What are you looking at?”
He was at a loss for words at Kuma’s question. Had I, a high school student, been run over by a train and died?
“Nothing.”
As the train began to move, he quietly glanced out and saw that he had been run over and was scrambling to gather up his limbs and pieces of flesh. Apparently, he was still living on.
Obviously… as long as I’m alive, the past will live on.
As the train went on, it moved further and further away from the station, and he couldn’t see his past self anymore. Not only that, but the vacant eyes of the past him disappeared. Even when he gathered up the courage to put on that pair of sunglasses, he was unable to catch a glimpse of himself. The past him will never die. Even now, he lives on with him.
Aiba handed the candles to Hayashi.
If you want to live, you have to move on.