The Tenth Year of Silence —The Reason I Killed That Child—
In the seaside town of Kirigasaki, where an old shopping street and a new residential area sit side by side, the abduction of a girl ten years ago has faded into memory as something long finished. Chitose Yakumo, a quiet second-year high school student, cannot help but seek reasons behind unexplained events that once struck his own family. One day, Naoto Minazuki, the foster father of the abducted girl Mio Minazuki, whose body was later found, visits Chitose and bows his head, saying the police
The Tenth Year of Silence —The Reason I Killed That Child— - The Sunken Motive —The Night a Ten-Year Lie Collapses
The morning light through Naoto's apartment window was far stronger than usual.
The fog had lifted.
Yagumo Chitose sat on the floor of the six-mat room, staring at the forty-seven notebooks spread out before him. A5-sized college notebooks. Every cover was yellowed, every corner worn thin, and several had cracked spines. Ten years of obsession filled every inch of the floor.
Maps and photographs plastered the walls. Red string connected countless locations. Mio's school route, the old Hamaki-so, the fishing port, the shopping district. And at the center of all those threads, always, was Mio.
Chitose pressed gently on his left wrist. Beneath the bandage, the wound pulsed faintly. The injury he'd sustained at the old Hamaki-so still hadn't fully closed. But the pain no longer hindered him. The pain was proof that he was still here, still fighting.
"I'm going to reread everything from the first notebook."
He picked up the oldest notebook.
On the cover, in Naoto's handwriting: "June 4, 2008." The day after Mio disappeared. Back when the police were still genuinely investigating. The day Naoto had begun knocking on doors, on his own two feet, with his own words.
The smell of miso soup drifted in from the kitchen. Naoto was making breakfast in silence. The knife tapping against the cutting board rang out in steady rhythm. That sound alone marked the passage of time in this room.
Chitose turned the page.
On the first page, in Naoto's trembling hand, was written:
"I will find Mio. I will find her no matter what. Even if the police give up, I won't."
Just three lines. But those three lines contained this man's entire decade. Chitose traced the words with his fingertip. The ink had bled slightly. Naoto's hand must have been shaking when he wrote them.
"Eat."
Naoto set down miso soup and white rice. Chitose closed the notebook and accepted it.
"Thank you for the meal."
He sipped the soup. The scent of dashi passed through his nose. The only ingredients were seaweed and tofu. Unadorned — the taste of a man living alone.
Naoto sat across from Chitose and sipped his own soup. No conversation passed between them. But the silence was no longer the heavy, suffocating thing it had once been. The time they'd spent together had begun to create something between them that transcended words.
After the meal, Chitose turned back to the notebooks.
From the first volume, in order. Page by page, word by word, not missing a single character.
Naoto's records of his interviews were astonishingly detailed. Whom he'd asked, when, where, what they'd said. The person's expression, the tone of their voice, even the length of their silences — all documented with precision.
"Mimura Masayo at the Kissaten Shio-machi. Mio used to stop by on her way home from school. She keeps repeating that she 'forgot' what she saw on the day of the incident. Her eyes were darting. She's hiding something."
"Chida Genzo at the Marusen greengrocer. The place where he says he saw Mio doesn't match the police testimony records. He told me one thing. Did he tell the police something different? Why?"
Chitose wrote his own notes in the margins.
That was when it happened.
His finger stopped on a certain page.
"Fishery Cooperative Worker Registry."
The heading. Beneath it, the names of twenty-three men lined up in faded ink. The registry Naoto had desperately compiled ten years ago. The same one Naoto had handed him directly in EP5.
Chitose traced each name with his finger, one by one.
Then he noticed something — a scribble in Naoto's handwriting beside one of the names.
"This man quit the cooperative after the incident."
Chitose held his breath.
He turned the page. Beside another name, the same note.
"This one quit after the incident too."
Another page.
"Resigned after the incident. Whereabouts unknown."
Chitose looked up.
"Naoto-san."
Naoto turned at the sound of his voice.
"There are several people on this registry who quit the cooperative after the incident. You noticed that, didn't you."
Naoto nodded without a word.
"...Yeah. The ones who quit — they all knew something. And because they knew, they disappeared."
Naoto's voice was low and heavy.
"Ten years ago, I went to see every single person on this registry. But some had already moved away, and I couldn't find them. The ones I did find just kept insisting they knew nothing."
Chitose compared the registry against the former reporter's handwritten notes.
The reporter's memo read:
"Discrepancy between police statement and scene conditions. A Board of Education official was present at the scene."
Board of Education.
Kurahashi Seiichi.
Chitose opened another page of the notebook. There was a record Naoto had compiled of the period when Kurahashi Seiichi had been employed by the Board of Education.
"Kurahashi Seiichi. Board of Education, Student Guidance Division. Employment period: 2005 to 2010."
Beside it, Chitose wrote out another piece of information.
The Hamagawa Redevelopment Basic Plan.
A redevelopment plan for Hamazaki Ginza-dori drafted in 2019. But its predecessor plan had been in motion long before that. Naoto's notebooks contained fragmentary records of the earlier plan's progress.
"2007: The predecessor plan for Hamagawa redevelopment is first raised in the city council."
"2008: The plan accelerates rapidly. A local briefing is held, but no substantive discussion takes place."
Chitose traced the two dates with his finger.
The period when Kurahashi Seiichi was at the Board of Education.
The period when the redevelopment plan began to move.
They overlapped completely.
"...Something's wrong."
The words slipped from Chitose's mouth.
"The period when Kurahashi Seiichi was at the Board of Education and the period when the predecessor redevelopment plan started moving overlap perfectly. Kurahashi isn't just the one who carried out a cover-up. He was deeply involved in the plan itself from the very beginning."
Naoto stared at Chitose's face.
"...I see."
Naoto's voice trembled.
"That man was working for this plan from the start."
Chitose began drawing a diagram in his notebook.
Kurahashi Seiichi. Board of Education. Redevelopment plan. Old Fishery Cooperative. Kasuya Kousan.
He connected them with lines.
"Kurahashi was involved in the land rights for the redevelopment plan while he was at the Board of Education. There was some kind of illicit land transaction between the old Fishery Cooperative and Kasuya Kousan. And Mio-san happened to witness it."
Chitose wrote Mio's name at the center of the diagram.
"What Mio-san said — 'I saw something amazing' — was three days before she disappeared. She also said, 'If I tell, Papa will be in trouble.' Papa — Naoto-san — would be in trouble. That was the illicit land deal involving the old Fishery Cooperative, which Naoto-san's older brother — Mio-san's biological father — was involved in."
Chitose's voice quickened slightly.
"Mio-san learned something she shouldn't have. So she was silenced."
The room fell dead silent.
Naoto closed his eyes. Deep wrinkles carved into his face. The faint sound of teeth grinding was audible.
"...Yeah."
Naoto forced the words out.
"That child died because of me."
Chitose said nothing.
Naoto slowly opened his eyes. His dark pupils, holding a sunken light, fixed on Chitose.
"Yagumo. There's something I haven't told you."
Naoto's voice resonated low and heavy.
"My brother — Mio's biological father — was involved in the old Fishery Cooperative's illicit land deal. And he was trying to expose it."
Chitose held his breath.
"My brother and his wife died in an accident. Their car went off a cliff. The police called it an accident. But I still doubt whether that accident was really an accident."
Naoto's hands clenched on his knees. His knuckles went white.
"My brother was preparing to blow the whistle. He was gathering evidence. But before he could bring it to light, he died."
Naoto exhaled deeply once.
"Mio was still nursing. I took her in. Partly it was to carry on my brother's will. The things my brother tried to protect — I would protect them. That's what I thought."
Naoto's voice began to shake.
"But in the end, I dragged that child into the incident. Instead of carrying on my brother's will, I let those bastards take my brother's daughter, just like they took him."
Naoto hung his head.
"If I hadn't taken her in. If I hadn't tried to carry on my brother's will. That child might still be alive today."
Naoto's shoulders trembled in small, convulsive movements.
Ten years of regret, carried alone, now crumbled audibly in this room.
Chitose watched Naoto's shaking shoulders and thought:
(This man has been blaming himself for ten years.)
(Not just for failing to protect Mio. But for taking her in at all.)
(And still, he never gave up. He kept carving ten years of obsession into forty-seven notebooks.)
Chitose spoke slowly.
"Naoto-san."
Naoto didn't look up.
"Because you took Mio-san in, she was able to know your love. Because you were there, Mio-san was happy for ten years. No one can deny that."
Chitose's voice was calm. But there was a definite heat in his words.
"Mio-san said, 'If I tell, Papa will be in trouble.' She was trying to protect you. That's proof that she treasured you from the bottom of her heart."
Naoto's shoulders stopped moving.
"Mio-san kept a secret from you. But that wasn't because she didn't trust you. It was because she loved you."
Naoto slowly raised his head.
His eyes were wet with tears.
"...Yeah."
Naoto spoke, his voice shaking.
"That child, right to the very end, thought of me..."
He couldn't finish.
Instead, he bowed his head — deep, deep.
Chitose watched Naoto's bowed head and quietly, but with absolute certainty, resolved himself.
(I will reveal the truth.)
(I won't let this man's ten years be wasted.)
(I won't let Mio-san's death be meaningless.)
That was when it happened.
A knock came at the apartment door.
Chitose and Naoto looked up at the same time.
"Chitose, I know you're in there. Open up."
Saya's voice came from beyond the door.
Chitose stood and opened it.
The sight of Saya standing there left him momentarily speechless.
Her light brown curls were messier than usual. She was breathing hard, shoulders heaving. A faint sheen of sweat on her forehead. On her right wrist, a faded blue bracelet. Mio's keepsake.
But what caught Chitose's eye even more was the massive stack of papers she held in both arms.
"Saya-san, what is that—"
"Let me in. I have something to tell you."
She pushed past him without waiting for a reply.
Naoto looked at her in surprise.
"Kozuki... what are you doing here?"
Saya set the stack of papers on the floor.
"I've been helping Chitose's investigation from behind the scenes this whole time. Even when I was told to distance myself from my family, I couldn't give up."
Her voice was fast, overflowing with emotion. Her bangs swayed with the force of her words.
"These are the old contact notebooks and evacuation drill records from Hamazaki Second Elementary School. I gathered them myself. There were old documents left in the library storage."
She held the papers out to Chitose.
He took them and turned the pages.
The contact notebooks recorded attendance and dismissal times for the students of that era in fine detail. The evacuation drill records listed drill dates and participating students, organized by class.
"Saya-san, this is—"
"You remember the blank pages in Mio's diary, right? I wanted to know what Mio was like at school during that blank period, no matter what."
Her tone grew stronger.
"So I contacted the kids who were in Mio's class back then. And several of them said the same thing."
She paused for a breath, then continued.
"Mio-chan stayed at school late on specific days. Even after dismissal time, she was in the classroom."
Chitose compared the contact notebook records ag
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