A pale-skinned college student with shoulder-length black hair and tired eyes, Ayane stood in a room in the local police station.
The room was quiet and had a wooden desk with a chair on both sides. On the wall behind the desk, there was a clock that ticked every minute; it was kind of peaceful, and she desperately needed that peace after what she had seen.
She was asked to come in after everything that had happened earlier that night...but currently she stood there in that room all alone, she nervously looked at the clock since she didn't have her phone with her. The cops had taken it for some reason… It was 2 a.m.
"Mom must be worried why I'm not home by now…"
She muttered to herself, then the door opened. A middle-aged man entered the room. He had short black hair, and just from one look at his face, it was obvious that he was tired and annoyed, but at the same time, he was used to all of this.
"Take a seat," he said, prompting her to snap out of her daze and sit down on the chair in front of her.
"Alright, so, I'm Detective Kazuma Mori," the man said as he took a seat across from her. "You're not in any trouble, kid. I just want to know about what happened out there. If you feel uncomfortable at any time, you can tell me. Okay?"
The Detective said to Ayane in a firm voice while placing a glass of water in front of her on the table. Ayane just looked at the man nervously and immediately grabbed the glass with her hands, shaking, nearly spilling it. Kazuma raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
"What's your name?"
"Uh—Ayane Fujimoto," she said.
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen,"
"Student, or do you work somewhere?"
"I'm a university student," she replied
"Who do you live with?" Kazuma asked.
"Uhm- I live with my mom," she replied.
"Okay so, tell me everything you saw outside that building," Kazuma said, nodding.
Ayane looked down at her hands which were shaking uncontrollably, Kazuma noticed and leaned forward slightly
"Hey kid, you okay?"
Ayane, hearing this slightly nodded and with tears slowly dropping from her eyes and with pain in her voice started describing what she saw...
"I had gone out of home for a walk, I know it was late but I thought it was safe because everyone would be outside tonight—it was Christmas eve. I live around 10 minutes away from that mall. I was going back home when a man..."
After saying this Ayane just stopped, as if she wasn't in that room at all. Just staring blankly at her reflection in the glass of water she held. This continued for an entire minute until the detective had to call out to her to make sure she was alright.
"Hey, you there?"
Ayane immediately snapped back out of her daze and replied with her voice trembling as if the words themselves were afraid to come out, "Yeah... yeah. he was there, on the ground right in front of me. I saw him fall from above. There was blood, blood everywhere, too much blood… His coat was stained with it. The snow, it was also stained with blood. His eyes, they were looking at me. Right into mine... Please, I didn't do anything. I didn't even know him."
Ayane's voice cracked as she spoke, and she started sobbing uncontrollably. She took a sip of water from the glass and continued on...
The detective wasn't even surprised when he heard Ayane's description of everything she saw until he heard what she said next.
"There was this book, some type of diary? He was clutching that book close to his chest... It was as if that book was the most important thing in his life… He had a faint smile on his face, but his eyes, they were terrified."
After hearing her mention a book, Kazuma's eyes flicked up — sharp, alert — but his tone didn't change one bit. He spoke to Ayane
"Hey, you're not in any trouble, okay? Everything will be fine. Go back home now. Your mom's waiting for you."
Hearing the detective's words, Ayane stood up with her hands still shaking uncontrollably but the tears had stopped, she wasn't sure when they had though. She stared at the glass of water for a moment, then gently put it back on the table and walked out.
After Ayane had walked out of the room, the detective sighed to himself. "Poor kid", he muttered to himself, "Imagined the book, probably. It happens a lot in cases like these..." He leaned back, rubbing his temple. "Still... weird it's not in the footage."
Outside the room, Ayane was walking through the dark hallway which led to the reception area of the station, her sobbing had already stopped, but there were still some thoughts and feelings lingering
"Maybe I could have saved him?"
"Why did he do it?"
"Was his life really that shit?"
Ayane was thinking of that when another officer came up to her and handed her phone to her without saying a word. She nodded her head slightly and took her phone from the officer's hands and walked out of the police station.
After exiting the Police station, Ayane felt a cool breeze around her; it was cold and still lightly snowing. She couldn't stop thinking of that man, even though she didn't know his name, she remembered him clearly. The snow, stained with his blood. Images of his body were replaying in her mind. Ayane removed her phone from her coat's pocket, and the first thing she saw when she turned it on was messages and a few missed calls from her mother
"Where are you?"
"Sweetheart, I had a call from the cops. Is everything okay???"
"Do you need me to come pick you up?????"
Her mother had already been informed of the events which happened earlier that night by the cops.
Ayane sighed and texted her back
"It's fine. I'll be back home in 30 minutes."
After typing this and clicking the send button, Ayane put her phone back in her coat's pocket and wrapped her arms around herself. Her coat should've been enough for the cold, but somehow, she felt it wasn't. She then started to walk back home on the sidewalks; the streets were mostly empty except for the occasional taxis and cars. On her walk back home, Ayane kept on thinking about the diary and subconsciously memorizing what it looked like...a black leather cover. Her thoughts kept spiraling, looping over that same scene over and over again. She gritted her teeth
"Fuck this," she muttered. "It wasn't my fault. I didn't even know him."
Sometimes, no matter how far you walk, things have a way of following you.
And Ayane had a feeling in the back of her mind that this wouldn't be the last time she saw that book.