Where in hell had the clone gone? Shuuji waited at the vacation house until the following morning, but the clone didn’t come back. He did have money, so he could stay in a hotel or something, and he wasn’t likely to be troubled for meals either. He wasn’t a child, there was no need to be so worried just because Shuuji didn’t know where he was for one single night. But even as he repeated those things to himself, Shuuji didn’t get a wink of sleep.

– – –

The instant Shuuji got out of the taxi in front of Koutarou’s condo, something unexpected happened.

“Oh, it’s you, hold on.”

Someone called his name, in a re-enactment of the other day, and Shuuji came to a surprised halt. Koutarou’s colleague, whom he’d come across by chance that once, was across the street. The man stopped Shuuji with a shout and then rushed across the street towards him.

“Great. We met again.”

The man flashed a happy smile, but of course, he had no way of knowing that Shuuji wasn’t prepared for any such attitude.

“Uh..”

“There’s something I wanted to give you. I really should have asked for your contact information the other day.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” the man said, taking a manila envelope from his inside jacket pocket and offering it to Shuuji.

“They told me to dispose of Seno’s personal effects, but just throwing everything out kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, you know,” he said, apparently assuming Shuuji would understand, and Shuuji nodded in response. Even if they weren’t particularly close, he was a colleague who’d worked with Koutarou for years. Shuuji probably couldn’t just dismiss him out of hand.

“I mean, I say personal effects, but it’s just some research papers and office supplies, so it’s not any personal mementos, but everybody’s been taking his stuff little by little, so I thought I should give these to you, at least. I thought I’d hand them over if we ever met again, so I’ve been walking around with them, looks like it was the right choice.”

The man smiled triumphantly. Concerned about what the man had gone through so much to give him, Shuuji took a peek in the envelope right on the spot.

– – –

When the train got into Saitama, nostalgic scenes gradually spread themselves before him. He didn’t even have that many good memories here, but just the fact that it was his hometown had a certain longing for the past swelling up inside him.

He got off the train at the closest station and headed for his alma mater on foot. He didn’t plan on going onto school grounds, only to follow the route there.

Along the way, he passed some students clad in the uniform he himself had worn. It was getting late, so they must have been headed home.

He’d walked a little bit from the station when he approached the bank of a river. A trail followed along the embankment. This was the first time he’d walked this road without his uniform on. Feeling strangely restless, he looked around carefully as he walked, so as not to miss anything.

“Ah–”

Annoyed by the volume of his unconscious shout, Shuuji slapped his hand over his mouth.

He’d come all this way, but he hadn’t really thought the clone would be here. But the man sitting on the riverbank watching the river flow past couldn’t be anyone else. He was wearing a hat Shuuji had never seen before – when had he bought that? – but there was no way Shuuji could mistake Koutarou.

“Koutarou.”

The name he’d sealed away, the name he couldn’t say, flowed from his mouth easily, and he called to that figure he loved so much.

He hadn’t been calling him Koutarou because he wasn’t the real Koutarou. Shuuji had made the distinction, had decided that he was a different person. But that too came to an end today. The fact that he’d been running around trying not to lose Koutarou for a second time was proof that he’d already accepted that the clone was Koutarou, even if they weren’t exactly the same.