Chapter 4

It was quite late and our investigation, after that incident with Mr. Kurozaki, had not progressed much. I was a little worried about Ryu, but I think I stressed for nothing, he continued to be the same idiot he always was, sometimes I'm even impressed, how can there be someone so clueless?-Hey, Souta! I am tired. (Ryusaki)

-I am too, okay!! (Souta)

Damn it, it's just until we're here, I haven't got any clear leads, plus the interrogation at the trial is tomorrow. However, it's already got quite dark, we won't be able to find any more clues now.-I'm going home. You should go too Ryu, it's getting pretty late. (Souta)

That's it... that's the end, that's where I've come. I separated from Ryu and went towards my house, when I arrived my mother was waiting for me very worried.

-So son, how was it? (Yoko)

-It was okay mom. (Souta)

-Do you think you'll make it tomorrow? (Yoko)

-I don't know, it's too complicated for me to say anything. (Souta)

-SOUTA! Regardless of tomorrow's result, I believe you, no matter what they say, I know you would never do such a thing. (Yoko)

Damn... if you talk like that, it looks like I won't be able to exonerate myself tomorrow. Stop crying idiot mom, because if you keep crying I won't be able to hold back my tears.

-I'm going to take a shower, I need to rest a little. (Souta)

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!After calming down by taking a shower, Souta puts on his pajamas and goes back to the kitchen to talk to his mother more calmly. He opens the door to enter.

-Thank you aunt, more please! (Ryusaki)

-Well, well, you really don't eat a lot. Here take a little more. Ah Souta have you finished taking a shower? (Yoko)

-Yooohh Souta, what are you doing, come eat too, your mother makes great rice. (Ryusaki)

-Ryu... what are you doing here? (Souta)

-Souta! Is this something to talk to someone who has been helping you so far?! Sorry about my son's language. (Yoko)

-No... actually I don't care. (Ryusaki)

-Mom, stop defending him. Ryu how the hell did you get here, I never told you where I lived before. (Souta)

-Ahhhh, actually it wasn't difficult, I just followed you, as I saw you entering this house I entered too. (Ryusaki)

-WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO BREAK IN MY HOME! (Souta)

At that moment Souta's mother hits him with a wooden spoon.

-Don't talk like that to your friend! Impressive, responding like that right away with the person who knows how to get you out of this mess. (Yoko)

-Wait... do you know how to exonerate me? (Souta)

Ryu just smiled and waved his hands at Souta.

-Ryuuu... I always thought you were just any imbecile, who would imagine you would be my savior angel. So if you found a way to get me out of this mess, let me know soon. (Souta)

-So... (Ryusaki)

-No, no, no. Ryu must be tired from helping you all day, later you talk, now he's going to take a shower so he can sleep later. (Yoko)

-Actually I didn't even bring anything with me so I don't have any clothes to change. (Ryusaki)-Don't worry, Souta lend you his pajamas for you. (Yoko)

-A pair of pajamas from Souta... I understand... in that case I can't refuse, opportunities like this only appear once in a lifetime. (Ryusaki)

-Why do I feel a little uncomfortable after hearing this? (Souta)

Souta's mother gave a change of clothes to Ryusaki who took them and headed towards the bathroom, when he got there Souta was waiting for him.

-I know I was quite surprised by all this that happened, but I think you were also not imagining that you would end up sleeping here. That's why I think you'd better let your parents know, they must be worried. (Souta)

-Oh don't worry, that won't happen. (Ryusaki)

-Your all relaxed way annoys me man, you might think not, but they certainly... (Souta)

-Not. I think you don't understand. There's no one waiting for me at home. (Ryusaki)

After he said that I couldn't say anything else. He ended up closing the bathroom door and starting to shower. I don't know anything about him and it looks like he doesn't want to tell me anything either. Who is this guy using the shower in my house? Why would he agree to help a stranger get rid of an accusation? This doesn't smell good to me. I cannot completely trust this person. He's hiding something.After Ryu showers he enters my room.-Your bed is this one, I hope you don't mind sleeping on the floor. (Souta)

-I don't care much. But by the way it's actually pretty big. (Ryusaki)

-Which? (Souta)

-Your room, it's very spacious. (Ryusaki)

-I think it's a normal size for a bedroom. Changing the subject, what was your big plan to get me out of this mess? (Souta)

-Humhumhum, tomorrow is the big day, where we will have to argue against our rival and convince the judge that you are innocent. In this situation what is the most important thing we need? (Ryusaki)

-Hmmmm... I think it's the evidence we were looking for. (Souta)

-Wrong. Although I don't like it very much, we need first of all in a game to know its rules in order to be able to play it. So before entering that trial, we need to memorize your rules. (Ryusaki)

Ryu takes a book from his backpack and puts it on the desk in my room.

-Uoohhhhh, it's huge. (Souta)

-This book contains all the laws of Japan, we need to memorize it by tomorrow. (Ryusaki)

-Wait, wait, even if we started reading now, we wouldn't be able to finish until tomorrow. Look at the size of this, it must be over a thousand pages. It would take days to finish it. (Souta)

-Don't worry, I can read it. (Ryusaki)

-Have you already started reading it and stopped somewhere? (Souta)

-Not this will be the first time. (Ryusaki)

-Like I said, look at the size of this thing, no normal person would be able to read until tomorrow. (Souta)

-Souta, if I told you that adding up all the comedy books I've read, I would be about 14 years old in hours read, would you believe me? (Ryusaki)

-14 years? I think it's unlikely, you're 18 now, discounting at least 3 years from when you were little and couldn't even read. Besides, you spend about 8 average hours sleeping and 6 hours at school, you have already lost more than half of your day, that would be 8 to 9 years spent on obligations. So you would be lying if you said you read around 14 years ago. (Souta)

-Yes, you're right, no normal person could read all this. But I wasn't totally "lying" when I said I read for 14 years. I haven't really spent 14 years of my life reading. However the sum of all my books read, it would take 14 years for a normal person to read them. (Ryusaki)

-I still did not get it. What do you mean by that? (Souta)

-I find it easier to explain my technique to make you understand. If you were to describe the method of how people read, you would say that they read word for word until they form a sentence that describes something. Correct? (Ryusaki)

-Yes, that's what everyone does. (Souta)

-Partly right. Tell me Souta, which do you think is faster, your brain imagining the word or you reading the word? (Ryusaki)

-I think it would be the first option, it's almost instantaneous. (Souta)

-Exactly! Although people don't realize it, it's a huge process to read just one word. The first step is to use your eyes, many don't know this, but they don't "make you see actually", who does this is your brain, as well as the other senses, who does everything is your brain. Well, going back to the first step, the light reflected from an object travels until it reaches your eyes, which capture this light, process it into signals and forward them to your brain that makes you see the image. This process seems instantaneous, however, it takes about thousandths to complete. (Ryusaki)

-I think I've heard about it, that thing about us seeing the past of things. (Souta)

-Yes, as it is not an instant action, we ended up seeing what it was milliseconds ago. Well, after we see a word with our brain, it needs to be decoded. Words are nothing more than codes in symbols, so our brain takes a little time to understand what it means, although most do not notice, as it has become something common for everyone to do, this becomes clearer when we observe a child who is starting to learn to read, she starts reading syllable by syllable, until she puts it together into a word and after that she wonders what that word would be, until she finally realizes what it means. (Ryusaki)-OK. The way you said it actually sounds like a much more complicated process than I imagined, but what does your brain imagining being faster than reading have to do with this situation after all? (Souta)

-That's where I put my technique into practice, I don't actually read all the words in a sentence, if the sentence has a total of 10 words, I end up reading two of them. (Ryusaki)

-But what's the point of you reading just two? So you won't understand the meaning of the sentence. (Souta)

-Very well, let's go to the last step that I use to read, so you will understand what I'm talking about. In the middle of the sentences there are key words that govern the others, that is, it is through these words that the others are placed. Therefore, the others act as a bridge to comfort the reader's brain to understand what is happening in the sentence, so they do nothing less than make everything chewed and easy for the reader to read and understand. So I eliminate that bridge and read just the key words and create my own bridge in my brain. (Ryusaki)

-I still did not get it. (Souta)

-I'll give you the example, "There was a girl named Maria, she was 15 years old, she noticed that she needed something and left home to buy it." the words "girl" and "buy" so that I could imagine her, since if the book called her a girl she must be between 9 and 17 years old, plus if you have to buy it was because the girl was probably in need of some thing, so she went out to buy it. I still wouldn't know her name though, but knowing her name doesn't add to anything in this story, so I didn't miss a thing. (Ryusaki)

-So what you're telling me is that as you read these two words you automatically create the sentence in which they fit? (Souta)

-Exactly. (Ryusaki)

-But what if you make a mistake in the assembly of the sentence? (Souta)

-That's hardly going to happen. Humans have a very similar way of reasoning, even though most have a different personality, the main lines of reasoning are very similar, this is due to several factors, from the method of education to our brains being formed by the same components. So as the mode of reasoning has its similarity, writers have to let the words flow in a way that accommodates that mode of reasoning, that is, it has to have the way everyone thinks in their book. This may sound strange, but unconsciously all readers do this, because it's a method to make your book more pleasing to the public, you'll never see a writer write the sentence I quoted as an example of Maria like that "Maria the girl saw that she needed and went to buy, left home, she was 15 years old." (Ryusaki)

-I don't know why, but hearing that sentence gave me a bit of a headache. (Souta)

-Exactly, that's why most sentences follow a flow, to please the reader. If you know the line of reasoning that most people use you will be able to form any sentence with just the key words. The only hard part is finding them. (Ryusaki)

-That's right, when you're reading you won't know what those words are. (Souta)

-This also fits the previous method of writing, to please the reader's brain, they are usually at a certain average distance from each other, that is, by finding the first one, I will know where the others are located. Even if I do this and I can't find the keyword, when I build the sentence I'll realize it wasn't her, so I just look at the previous word or the one that comes after which will be one of the two. (Ryusaki)

-Now I understand, but looking at how much this way of reading goes by, I don't know if it's easier and faster than usual. (Souta)

-Easier isn't, but it's definitely faster. Watch. (Ryusaki)

Ryu opened that huge book and began to read passing his index finger on each word, as soon as he found the right word he opened his pinky, at that time I saw his technique in practice, he was reading at an absurd speed, his pinky stuck in one word then his indicate was dropped down by one word, then the process was repeated, until he had read an entire page that size in 30 seconds, it didn't take long for him to switch pages. I was just watching and admiring it, when I realized Ryu had already read 12 pages in 3 minutes.

-Wow! This is amazing. You really got to read all of this. (Souta)

-Yes, I read and memorized every rule of those pages read. (Ryusaki)

-I still can't believe it, even seeing it. (Souta)

Ryusaki gets up from his chair and starts leading Souta out of the room.

-Hey, what are you doing? (Souta)

-You know, reading and imagining the sentence at the same time is something quite tiring and requires a lot of concentration, so you'd better stay outside while I read the book. (Ryusaki)

-Wait, this is my room. Who do you think... (Souta)

-Good evening. (Ryusaki)

Ryusaki closes the door leaving Souta out of his own room.

-Damn, this Ryu. (Souta)

Now I can't do anything else. Everything is in Ryu's hands so I can be saved from tomorrow.