"I'm sorry I can't let you continue to carry me through the rest of my days. I have to leave first. Please live well..."
That was a sentence Aki Tomoya could not forget.
He seemed to understand Mrs. Kobayashi's abnormal behavior.
Not taking the body back meant she couldn't accept this reality.
Just as Mrs. Kobayashi wrote in her will, she hoped her daughter could take the body back for her and then bury their ashes together.
She also apologized to her husband for always being a burden to their daughter working in Osaka.
"However, this was a deception! Along with Mr. Kobayashi's will, there was the murderer's mockery!"
Aki Tomoya's sudden anger startled Sakamoto Makoto beside him and the two people from San Cheng Class on the other side.
"In the will, Mr. Kobayashi said he didn't blame anyone, only himself. He had no idea how the beast he trusted treated his body!"
He finished reading Mr. Kobayashi's will, and his heart was filled with regret.
The old man knew that continuing to drag on would only create a huge burden for his family, and he wouldn't live much longer anyway.
The will constantly expressed apologies to his family, to the Doctor who treated him, and even to the person who killed him.
However, in the unsigned letter placed in the mailbox along with the will, the murderer boasted about their first crime, explaining how they deceived a seriously ill old man, gained his trust, and induced him to give up his life.
Comparing the two letters made Aki Tomoya extremely angry.
He handed those two letters to Nishi-Musashino Police Station.
And if he could find these things, the police could too. They were still watching Mrs. Kobayashi now, just fearing she might lose hope and attempt suicide again.
It was infuriating to think why such a beast existed?
However, precisely because it was a first crime, such scum would inevitably leave flaws.
And honestly, this guy was too arrogant.
People who could have contact with the patient were nothing more than caregivers, Doctors, or other patients, and one more, pharmaceutical representatives.
The police quickly identified the suspect.
Before Mr. Kobayashi disappeared from the hospital, a pharmaceutical representative had frequent contact with him.
After the police came knocking, that guy, in a moment of guilt, jumped off the balcony of his apartment. He fractured both legs and had internal abdominal bleeding. He was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment and was also placed under guard.
Mrs. Kobayashi came to UDI for the second time, accompanied by her daughter and people from the funeral home they had contacted, ready to take the body for cremation.
"I also thought about giving up once, complaining privately, how great it would be if he died. But when I heard him say, why not just die, we had a big fight over it. After I went back, I was scared of my own thoughts..."
Mrs. Kobayashi said to her daughter beside her, looking at her husband's quiet, unawakening face.
"After hearing he died, I actually felt relieved at the time, and even thought, 'Great, he's finally dead'... It's awful, right? So I thought I couldn't forgive myself like that, and I might as well go be with him."
She was too tired, truly too tired. Mr. Kobayashi's death actually made her feel relieved.
But at the same time, a sense of guilt followed.
"You're so mean, Kenji. Was it because you thought of this that you told me to live well? Just die, don't try to be cool at the end. How great it would have been if I were by your side then..."
She had already read that will. The guilt lessened a lot. Her thoughts, following what her husband said in the letter, were that after he died, many people could relax. He didn't want to be a burden while alive, and he didn't want to continue to burden the living after he died.
Thinking this way, she felt much better.
Given a reason to live by the deceased, Mrs. Kobayashi's choked-up appearance made people's hearts feel complicated.
"Mom, stop talking!"
"Let's go back together, my dear..."
The body was transported by the funeral home staff, ready for cremation.
Mrs. Kobayashi and her daughter, who had returned from Osaka, thanked the people at UDI, thanking them for restoring the body so they could see it intact one last time.
"I think Mr. Kobayashi tried very hard to live. At the end of writing his will, he was still worried about Mrs. Kobayashi."
But precisely because he didn't want to continue being a burden to others, Kobayashi, Kenji, gave up his life. The reason that pharmaceutical representative was able to instigate successfully was also because Mr. Kobayashi was tired and felt he was burdening others, so he let others kill him.
Even though that pharmaceutical representative said that the person who decided to die was Mr. Kobayashi himself, it couldn't hide her ugly and twisted heart. She was later prosecuted by the prosecution who had gathered evidence, and the pharmaceutical company behind the medical representative was also sued by Mr. Kobayashi's two surviving family members.
...
On Sunday, his day off, Aki Tomoya slowly simplified and recounted what he had seen and heard at UDI. It just so happened that someone asked him out, so he could share his feelings with someone else.
"Senior, it's surprising enough that you asked me out. I didn't expect you to be interested in what I do at the forensic institute."
"I want to gather material, and I'm interested in all sorts of things. It's surprising that you would come out."
The two were surprised by each other.
One was surprised by the person who asked him out, and the other was shocked by the person who agreed.
Kasumigaoka Utaha just tried contacting him and didn't expect to actually get Aki Tomoya to come out and hear about forensic medicine from him.
"After hearing what you said, I've already thought of the title for my next book, 'Forensic Taki', The Testimony of the Silent, Their Listener..."
"Stop! That kind of light novel won't sell!"
Aki Tomoya quickly interrupted.
Leaving aside the title, would Japanese otaku like this kind of genre?
Could corpses be their wives?
Would they still need Eriri to moe-fy the corpses...
"Who said I'm sending it to Undead River? I can send it to a popular fiction publisher."
Kasumigaoka Utaha, of course, knew that if she actually wrote it, it would likely bomb, and Machida Sonoko would probably not agree.
So, it's fine to create an alias and browse around the popular fiction publishers.
"Are you saying you're actually thinking of changing genres?"
"I've made enough money. In my opinion, creating an alias to play around with is fine. Even if it's not successful, as long as the pen name Kasumi Shiko still has influence, that's enough."
Go play around?
Aki Tomoya twitched the corner of his mouth, thinking to himself, she'd better not be discouraged.
"So, what kind of mood are you in that you would invite me out and tell me all of this?"
"...Because after thinking it over, besides Machida-san and Eriri, the only person who understands what I mean is Aki-kun. If I told Eriri about this, she would definitely yell about whether I've gone crazy. And it's even less possible with Machida-san. As for Kudo, she doesn't quite understand this sort of thing yet."
"...I think if you write an opening and send it in, it's highly likely to be rejected."
"I haven't even written it yet, and you haven't even read it. How do you know?"
=
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