Holmes of Kyoto: Volume 17 [Parts 1 to 2] by Mai Mochizuki

Author:Mai Mochizuki
Language: eng
Format: epub

“Kiyotaka, Aoi, thank you for your advice the other day,” said Tomoka Asai, lowering her head. She was sitting in front of the counter, while Holmes and I stood inside. Komatsu was peeking at us from a seat at the end of the counter, feigning ignorance.

Holmes and I shook our heads. “It was nothing.”

Tomoka had been on the verge of tears when she came to Kura the other day to ask Holmes to investigate her fiancé. She no longer gave off that vibe, but her expression wasn’t cheerful either. She seemed confused.

“Did the two of you clear up the misunderstanding?” Holmes asked with a smile.

“Oh, yes.” Tomoka gave an awkward nod. “I broke down crying and asked him, ‘Do you want to break off the engagement? If so, just tell me. I don’t want the person I love to suffer.’ He started crying too and told me the truth.”

I gulped.

“What did he say?” Holmes asked softly.

“Apparently Atsuko called him out on the day before my birthday, and she kept telling him things like, ‘You’re not good enough for Tomoka’ and ‘You should back off.’” Tomoka lowered her gaze and paused for a moment before continuing. “He knows I look up to Atsuko as my mother figure in Kyoto, so he thought that maybe he really should back off. That’s why he distanced himself from me.”

It was understandable. If I were in Sada’s position—say, if Ueda, who was like a father to Holmes, told me, “Sorry, but I don’t think you’re a good match for Kiyotaka after all. Could you quietly leave him for his own sake?”—I would definitely be conflicted.

As I was empathizing with Sada and making myself depressed, Tomoka said in a soft voice, “But he also said, ‘I still love you, so I couldn’t break up with you.’”

I related to those words as well. When you truly love someone, you can’t make that decision easily, no matter what anyone tells you.

“I see,” said Holmes. “Now that you know why he was avoiding you, you don’t have any more ill feelings, do you?”

Tomoka nodded. “But now there’s something else bothering me. Why did Atsuko say that to him? She was so supportive of us at first.”

“How so?”

She looked up at the ceiling as she searched her memory. “I met Yutaka through volunteer work. I thought he was a wonderful person: cheerful, kind, and a good leader.”

I, too, had been doing volunteer work with her fiancé, Yutaka Sada. Like she said, he was a bright person with the ability to bring people together.

“As we continued to work together, I fell in love with him. I told Atsuko about it, and she said she wanted to see him, so we went to eat at the Italian restaurant he runs in Kita-ku. When she saw him, she said, ‘He’s not handsome, but he’s a good person. I think you’ll be happy marrying someone like him, so do your best.’ Her words made me ecstatic. Atsuko is a strict but accurate judge of character.

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