The Lying Counselor’s Eloquent Reasoning - Epilogue - Part 1
From the following day, as she had declared, Tomomi stopped going to Uroma’s place. Inwardly though, she was flooded with regret and guilt. Her decision to quit had been too one-sided, and she had let her emotions get the better of her. It was true that it would be better to quit a job where there was not much to do except spend most of the time talking to an annoying man, and when the occasional clients arrived, they were sometimes abused and sometimes strangled. Even so, quitting the job in such a way may be a bad idea… Even the childishly mental Tomomi had the discretion of a high school student.
And Akane, Tomomi’s closest friend, immediately detected something unusual about her.
“Tomomi, have you been feeling down lately? What’s going on?”
“Actually, it’s…”
Tomomi told her, in all honesty, that she had escaped from her part-time job. Originally, she should have been just frank to her.
“Oh, was that the part-time job you had again?”
For some reason, Akane reacted as if this was her first time hearing about Uroma.
“We talked about this before, right? I told you about Uroma, the strange person who always wears a white coat even though he’s not a doctor.”
“Well, if I were to hear about such a person once, I don’t think I would be able to forget it.”
Akane’s reaction was still that she hadn’t heard of it. It was odd. How could she have forgotten about Uroma? Even though we have spoken about him several times.
Tomomi felt some sort of discomfort in her heart, and upon returning home from school that day, she asked her mother about Uroma. As with Akane, she was sure that they had several conversations about him.
“Oh? Did you used to work for someone like that?”
Her mother didn’t have any recollection of Uroma either. Tomomi was astonished.
“How could you forget! He was the one who cured my skin color!”
“I-Is that right?”
Her mother was simply bewildered. She really didn’t seem to recall anything about Uroma.
Could it be that everyone who has ever sought for counseling is also…? Feeling increasingly agitated, Tomomi made a visit to a house near the Hoshiyume Sakura Kindergarten after school the next day. There was supposed to be an old man living there, Ishikawa Tetsuo, whom Uroma had described as having auditory hyperesthesia.
When Tomomi went there, Tetsuo was right on his way out of the front door of the house. She immediately called out to him, “Hello, Mr. Ishikawa” but,
“Huh? Sis, how do you know about me?”
He seemed to have forgotten all about Tomomi.
“I mean, we met in Dr. Uroma’s counseling room, didn’t we?”
“Counseling room? What’s that? I didn’t visit that place, did I?”
“Eh??”
Is this the same person? Even though he had caused such a ruckus when he showed up at Uroma’s place. Tomomi was still in disbelief.
Then, a group of elementary school students, apparently on their way to school, passed in front of them. When they saw Tomomi and him, they waved to them, saying, “Bye, grandpa, bye, sister.”
Then Tetsuo responded with a smile. “Oh, be careful on your way home.”
Tomomi was startled.
“Didn’t you used to hate children, grandpa?”
“Ah, I used to, but not anymore.”
“So the noise from the kindergarten near your house doesn’t bother you anymore?”
“Well, you get used to it, I guess. When you hear it day in and day out.”
Tetsuo said it as if it was obvious, and then asked Tomomi again strangely, “So how do you know about me?”. However, Tomomi was unsure of what to say and could only leave him swiftly.
I can’t believe that even the clients themselves have forgotten about doctor…
Tomomi was incredulous, but on her way home, she happened to spot Kikuchi Nobuko. She was in a small bookstore on the side of the road, and seemed to be browsing through some books. Tomomi promptly walked into the store and approached her. She noticed that all she had in her hands were books on parent-child dependency and toxic parents.
“Mrs. Kikuchi, you’re really paying attention to what Dr. Uroma told you.”
Tomomi approached Nobuko, but,
“Who are you? What are you saying to me out of the blue?”
Nobuko only glanced at Tomomi suspiciously. Tomomi was indeed puzzled. This person doesn’t seem to retain the memory of coming for counseling at Uroma’s place either…
After that, Tomomi went to Kiyokawa Sayuri’s place. She was right in front of the apartment building. Before her eyes, there was a moving truck, and she was discussing something with the workers. It appeared that she was moving out of the apartment here.
“Um, Ms. Kiyokawa, do you remember me?”
“Eh… excuse me, who are you?”
Sayuri hardly seemed to recognize Tomomi’s face at all.
“You know, we figured it out together with the doctor that time, didn’t we? That Mr. Hirose passed away from epilepsy.”
“That time? I’m positive that he died from epileptic seizure, but how do you know about it?”
“Eh…”
Tomomi could no longer express any comments back. After all, she too has forgotten about Uroma and herself. With that, she left the place as if she were fleeing.