Nara-chan no Sekai

Mayu Akkandabe is the nicest girl you’ll ever meet.

Mayu Akkandabe is dead.

And Arashi Haruto is the main suspect.

A war erupts at Tokyo High School, a rift between the people who believe Arashi’s innocence and Arashi’s guilt. 

Arashi must rely on the help of  Nara Yukio, whom he can’t stand to prove his innocence.

Yukio refuses to let Mayu’s murderer escape her grasp, however as the mystery  begins to unfold, Yukio begins to wish she had left it all alone.

Yukio :

Mayu Akkandabe was the most beautiful girl you would ever see. She had startling, green eyes which forever held a sparkle. Her long, blonde hair always fell in precisely the right way. Her pale skin radiated healthiness and her lips were forever smiling.

Until November 3^rd, 2011.

Until just over a week ago when someone ripped everything away from her. The papers say she was murdered, they don’t say that she was pulverized. They don’t say that she had acid thrown in her face. Some of them don’t even say her name. 

To the media she is just a sixteen year old girl who got good grades and looked pretty. A sixteen year old girl who was unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A sixteen year old girl who created a vey popular story for them.

I know it’s not the media that I’m angry at, not really. I’m angry at Mayu’s murderer, I’m so uncontrollably angry but I don’t know what to do about it, which just makes me angrier.

“Come on Yukio, it’s time to go in.” Saki says, jolting me out of my mind and into the present situation.

I look at Saki, my twin sister, who is still managing to look immaculate. Her hair as straight as paper, down to her waist, her make-up swept on effortlessly to create a natural, glowing look and her clothes presses to perfection.

I hold back a small smile, even though we are identical we never look it. I’ve tried my best to look nice but I just couldn’t manage it this morning, my hair’s pulled into a lopsided ponytail. I didn’t even think about putting make up on and my clothes look as if they’ve been living at the bottom of my wardfrobe for the past year.

Saki, who still has a strong grip on my wrist, begins to pull me down to the front row of pews. I focus on my eyes on the floor as we walk, not wanting to catch even a glimpse of the wooden cage in which Mayu rests. 

“What the hell!” Saki cries, I look up, shocked by Saki’s word, does she not realize that we’re in a church, at funeral! “You’re sitting in our seats.”

For one shocking second I think that pearl’s talking to Mayu’s parents-who both look completely lost- before I realize that she’s talking to Aya and Joi, who are sitting next to Mayu’s parent. 

Aya looks up, her curly, green hair falling at all angles around her face which is decorated with tears, “What?” she ask, sounding about as disgusted as I feel embarrassed. 

“You’re sitting in our seats,” Saki repeats, pronouncing every word slowly.

“Saki, we can sit behind them,” I murmur, trying to move to sit in the second row.

“No,” Saki says, hardening her grip on my wrist. “We deserve to sit in the front of row, we ere her best friends.”

“We can move back,” Joi says, standing up and walking towards the second pew. 

“No we cant, we got here first and we were far closer to Mayu than those two,” Aya growls, her hands clenching at her dress.

“Look, you and Aya sit in the front row, I’ll sit behind,” I say to Saki, unsure whether it’s wise to leave her sitting next to Aya but just wanting to sit down and pay my respects to Mayu.

Saki looks like she’s about to protest, but I manage to shake my arm from her grip and get into the second row before any words leave her mouth.

Joi takes a seat next to me, and Saki eventually takes a seat next to Aya. He smiles down at me and I manage a smile back. I don’t know Joi very well, only as the boyfriend of Aya. I can never understand why Aya and Joi are going out; Aya is loud, stubborn and never thinks before she speaks. Whereas Joi is quite, friendly and when he does speak, he always says the right thing. 

“Aya doesn’t mean to be rude,” Joi says suddenly. I smile, knowing how he feels, apologizing for someone you love. I do it all the time for Saki. 

“Nor does Saki. She’s jut upset,” I say.

Joi nods. “We al are, Mayu really was….something else.”

I nod unable to speak, knowing that if I try to, I’ll just end up crying. I distract myself by looking around at all the people who are here to say goodbye. The people in the front rows are mostly family (along with Saki,Aya,Joi and I ) but then the rest of the church is packed with students from our school.

It’s strange, I didn’t even know that Mayu knew half of these people, I knew she was popular but I didn’t realize how well-liked she was. There are people in the back pewas crying, people I know only as ‘The person who sits behind me in History’ are staring aheade with shocked, lost faces.

I always thought that Mayu and I were friends with the same type of people but I’m beginning to wonder if I really knew Mayu’s taste in friends at all. 

***

[CHAPTER 2] 

Arashi :

I sit on my front door step, watching people milling in the front garden of the house where Mayu used to live.

Mayu, Mayu, my beautiful Mayu. I used to tell her over and over how beautiful I thought she was, she never believed me, she always used to compare herself to the evil twins. She was so modest, she never thought too highly of herself or too lowly of anyone else. 

We were neighbor for her whole life, we were also best friends until the twins moved in on the other side of her. she got to know them and suddenly everyone lived her, suddenly every one of the pathetic people at my school could see what I had always seen in her. And then we began drifting apart. 

At first Mayu tried to include me, she would still make time for me, still treat me as though I was special, but slowly the gap between us grew bigger. We stopped seeing each other at school, we didn’t have the same friends or the same hobbies. 

Eventually we just stopped seeing each other all together, I was only eight. We didn’t speak for years, not even to say ‘Hi’ when we passed each other on the street.

Then at the beginning of Summer, Mayu began to talk to me again. At first I didn’t want to talk to her, she’d abandoned me and I had my own friends, but she was so nice, it was impossible not to like her. Eventually we were as close as we ever had been. I don’t know why she suddenly wanted to talk to me again, only that something must have gone wrong with the twins. 

Over the Summer we began to grow closer and closer, we could talk to each other about everything, then one day our relationship shifted. It was a late, warm evening and we were in my garden listening to the radio when one of her favourite songs came on, she pulled me into a dance. At first we were joking around, laughing and falling all over the place but then it turned more serious.

That was only two months ago. 

Slowly I stand up, I’m already wearing a shirt and tie, I have been since this morning, trying to make up my mind whether or not to attend the funeral. I chickened out of that but now there’s the wake, that’s just next door, I feel pathetic not being there. I wonder if Mayu would want me there, I know her family certainly doesn’t, they made that pretty clear on the that of her murder. 

I look at the house and I know that I have to do, I have to pay my respects to my lost lover.

I take my time walking out of my front garden , to the next house. I pause at the gate, wondering what I’m going to do when I actually get inside the house. I want to turn back but it’s to late now, people have begun to notice me, if I leave now it will just be brandishing me as guilty. 

So I hold my head high, open the gate and walk straight trough the garden without one look at the people staring at me. I walk into the house and bump straight into my mother, “Sorry…” she mumbles before glancing up and seeing me. “Arashi! What on Earth are you doing here?”

“I’m here to pay my respects,” I mutter, acting bored, even though it hurts to know that even my own mother doesn’t want me there.

“You have to leave, now, before your father sees you,” Mum says, taking my arm and trying to tug me towards the door. 

Luckily for me, I’m about a head taller and twice as wide as her so it would take a lot more than a simple tug for her to move me. 

I shake her hand off my arm and begin to walk away. “Arashi, please don’t cause any trouble.” I ignore her and continue to walk towards he back of the house to the living room, knowing that that’s where Mayu’s parents are going to be. I have to find them and tell them, tell them something, I just don’t know what yet.

Just before reaching the living room I have the bad luck to bump into my father. I duck my head away and try to swivel past him but he’s to quick for me. He grabs me by the scruff of my shirt and slams me against the closest wall. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he hisses. 

I struggle against his grip, to no avail. “Let go.” 

“No. I’m taking you home right now,” my father says, keeping a low but menacing tone.

“No, I need to pay my respects,” I argue back, ignoring the shocked looks being sent our way by the onlookers. I wonder why they don’t do anything, surely they can tell I’m in pain. Then I remember, I’m public enemy number one. Of course no one’s going to help me, the majority of them probably want to help my father beat me up. 

I look up into my father’s eyes and realize that there is nothing I can say to make him let go of me. He will never willingly let me walk into that living room. I know I can’t overpower him so I do all I can think of.

And spit in his face. 

The reaction is just as I imagined, my father’s grip loosens drastically enough to allow me to break free, though it only just gives me enough time to run to the living room. I’m sure many of the onlookers would’ve made a grab for me but they all seemed too stunned to move.

I lunge into the living room, closely followed by my father, who no longer wants to create a scene, not in front of the grieving parents.

The living room falls silent, everyone is focused on me. “I’m so sorry… I tried to stop him,” my dad says, breaking the shock barrier that kept the room silent, holding back everyone’s words from me. 

Suddenly I am overpowered by the screaming and shrieking voice, hurling all sorts of insult at me. I ignore them and walk to the sofa upon which Mayu’s mother, Mayu’s grandma and the less-scary of the twins sit. All three are silent. 

I open my mouth three times before any sound comes out, “Mayu was a beautiful girl, I will dearly miss her and I’ll never forget her.” I stop, hoping to get at least a small, merciful response off of Mayu’s mother.

The room slowly falls silent again, everyone waiting for the reply, hoping that I’m going to be cursed  out of the house for ever more. 

But Mrs. Kaguya as Mayu’s mother doesn’t do that, she doesn’t even ask me to leave, no, she hits me exactly on my sore spot with just one word. “Murderer.”