Chapter 8

In the stark light of day, I found myself adrift in a sea of bodies crammed into a room transformed into a makeshift gallery. The space was alive with vibrantly painted canvases, but their beauty was lost on me as a sense of suffocation gripped my chest. The crowded room, the pressing mass of people, triggered memories of being pursued by relentless reporters, their cameras and microphones like predators in a chase. Here, though the blinding flashes of professional cameras were absent, smartphones loomed in their place, their screens like accusing eyes, their owners' judgemental gazes and murmured speculations forming a cacophony around me.

Below me lay a middle school girl, her body sprawled on the floor, eyes wide with shock. Her long ponytail splayed out, touching the cold ground, as she lay on her back. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip in a mix of fear and anger, and then her hand rose and struck my face with a force that left a stinging imprint, though the pain was nothing compared to the accusatory stares piercing me from all sides.

"Pervert!" she cried out, her voice cutting through the murmur of the crowd.

At that moment, my mind seemed to short-circuit. I couldn't fathom how I had ended up falling onto her, this girl who struck a chord of familiarity within me, yet whose face I couldn't place in the jigsaw of my memory. The world spun around me in a dizzying whirl, my balance and sanity teetering on the edge. As the crowd's harsh words rained down upon me, their hands grabbing and pulling me away, a name floated through the chaos, latching onto my consciousness, a key that might unlock the mystery of the girl and this moment that felt like a surreal collapse of my reality.

"He touched Miura-san!"

"Maki, are you all right?"

The utterance of that name was like turning a key in a lock, one that opened the door to a revelation so staggering it sent my world reeling. In that singular moment, the pieces of a perplexing puzzle clicked into place. The girl, whose presence had caused such a commotion, was Mio's younger sister, now intricately woven into my life as Papa's stepdaughter.

As Maki lay beneath my gaze, it was as though I was peering directly into Mio's eyes once again. At that moment, a floodgate of memories, which I had believed to be permanently sealed away, burst open. Visions of Papa, an amalgam of different times and expressions, paraded through my mind with haunting clarity. Each image, each recollection, churned a growing wave of nausea within me.

Overwhelmed by this deluge of the past, I found myself unable to withstand the intensity of the emotions and memories resurfacing. In a desperate escape bid, I turned and fled the scene as if I were a guilty fugitive.

As if it was planned, the incident unleashed a digital maelstrom; photos and videos captured by onlookers flooded the internet, each uploader eager to harvest clicks and reactions like modern-day gold prospectors. I was branded a 'weird blonde-haired pervert', a label that spread like wildfire, while our club was suddenly stigmatized as a 'cursed club', leaving only Nanase and me remaining.

Maybe I don't belong here…

Even as I witnessed Nanase's relentless efforts bear fruit, with Inoue and Asakura bolstering the ranks of our once-dwindling club, I found myself disengaged like a ship anchored in a distant bay. I reverted to my old ways, sinking back into the shadowy world of men who sought pleasure in exchange for money. I thought of this return to the night as a way to detach myself from everybody else. Yet, in this murky phase of my life, I encountered Hasegawa – a peculiar presence who latched onto my existence with unexpected tenacity.

At first, I saw him as an enigma to me, with his motives as obscure as his sudden intrusion into my life by joining the club. When I learned about his relationship with Maki, I braced myself for sabotage, convinced he was seeking vengeance on behalf of his girlfriend. But as time unfurled, our paths intertwined in unexpected ways, and a bond, strange and unforeseen, began to form between us.

"I love you, senpai!"

In a scene that could have been lifted straight from the climactic moment of a romantic drama, with an audience of onlookers encircling us, that was when I learned that Hasegawa's interest in me stemmed from a reason so bizarre, that it bordered on madness.

But a haunting thought whispered in my mind: Love? I don't have it anymore…

This notion, bleak and barren, might have been an unconscious incantation to me, a self-imposed edict to forge ahead, to steer clear of the entanglements of unnecessary attachment. But, steeped in irony, even as I clung to this mantra, I found myself ensnared, unable to untangle my consciousness from the enduring shadow of Papa.