A certain place fifteen years ago on Kawagoe highway – at Shinra’s apartment.
When Shinra Kishitani was still an elementary school student, he came home one day from school, to see his roommate, Celty Sturluson, standing at the door.
‘Welcome back, Shinra.’
“I’m home! Celty!”
The boy gave a child-like enthusiastic reply to the woman, who had shown her the message she wrote on a notepad.
At first glance, it looked like an exchange between a boy and a woman who would not speak due to certain circumstances, but from the general person’s perspective there was one large unsettling aspect to the scene. The woman was voiceless and headless, only having black shadows spilling out like smoke from where her head would be. But the boy did not have an ounce of fear and lept into the chest of the woman whom he had called Celty..
“Thank goodness! You were at home today too!”
‘Of course I would be.’
“But I didn’t know what to do if you had suddenly left home for Ireland……”
‘What are you saying? Come on now, don’t mess around. Go wash your hands after you take out your correspondence notebook.’
Celty pushed the boy to the washroom while he went through his bag.
‘Don’t forget to gargle too.’
“Ehehe, I know! I’ll even rinse out my nose! So you can praise me mo- oowah-bugh.”
Shinra had proclaimed proudly, but Celty shut the door firmly after giving him another shove with her shadows.
Damn, he’s really fond of me.
How did it get like this……? Has he become as eccentric as his father?
If another kid saw him casually interacting with a headless monster, that could possibly lead him to being bullied.
The moment they saw a headless being like her, bullying the boy would be the least of their concerns, but Celty at this time still did not have a full grasp of human society.
Even so, it’s been a few years since he’s mentioned anything like that.
Did something happen?
Celty picked up the correspondence notebook Shinra had taken out of his bag while pondering over those thoughts. As she did so, a contact form fell out from the pages.
What’s this?
When she picked it up and closely looked at it, what she saw written was:
‘Dear parents and guardians. A notification for parent’s day.’
……Ah, right. There was that sort of event at the elementary school.
I get it……So that’s why Shinra is at it again after so long.
Celty sighed in her mind.
Shinra’s father, Shingen Kishitani, was not a very normal person. But even if he was normal, he was frequently absent from home due to work all year round. He apparently went through a divorce with his wife Kaname as Celty had never once seen Shinra’s biological mother around.
Celty took care of the household tasks substantially like a home helper would, but naturally there was no way she could go to the parent’s day event in place of his mother. Besides, even if his father Shingen was at home, he would only be the cause of Shinra getting bullied if he went, being the oddball that he was.
Celty’s shoulders slumped in defeat thinking about it.
I’m sorry, Shinra. I can’t replace your mother.
But you shouldn’t ever resent your real mom. With her husband the way he was, it was only natural they’d get divorced.
Actually, wait, why should she even marry a weird guy like him?
……Is that what humans call a ‘trick of the imagination?’
‘It’s tough for humans too,’ As Celty sympathized with Shinra’s mother whom she had never met before, she suddenly realized. ‘I’ve never really thought about it before, but why hasn’t Shinra’s mother come to see him at all?’
Divorced or not, a parent was still a parent. The fact that she never came at all to see him either meant she left Shingen on bad terms or there was a unique reason like illness or long distance.
Hmm. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to get close to the son she had with her ex-husband…….. Since she’s his parent, I hope that sad reason isn’t the case.
From what Shingen had told her in fragments, his mother was still alive apparently.
It feels wrong of me to step into personal family matters, but Shinra would probably want his parent to come to the parent’s day event.
Celty was greatly influenced by the ‘parent and child love’ that was depicted in dramas, having learned of human society from television and novels at the time. Because of that, she believed that perhaps the feeling the curious Shinra had for her was due to projecting his wish to meet his parent.
In other words, she still did know.
That not all humans go by the book and the love the boy Shinra Kishitani had for her was something a little off from ordinary people.
In the Japanese style room in Shinra’s apartment.
The traditional Japanese room was Celty’s private room whenever Shingen was away from home, like right now. Shingen’s belongings were tucked away in the closet. Celty recalled there being something like a journal among them, and after she made sure that Shinra was asleep,she looked through it secretly.
I feel bad reading through someone’s journal.
But this is to get information on his wife. Forgive me, you creep.
Celty picked up the padlocked journal while bowing to Shingen in her mind apologetically. She inserted her shadows into the keyhole and unlocked the contraption before coming to know of the shocking details within the journal.
What is this……?
On it, several facts were written by Shingen’s handwriting.
‘My wife was not a good mother to my son.’
‘My wife would have abrupt mood swings in front of our son. I do not know if it was a mental illness or an inclination at birth. Even though she would be holding our son while smiling one moment, a few seconds later she would shove him onto the floor with eyes filled with rage and then begin crying like a child moments after the fact.’
‘I was at my limit. Even if my son had become attuned to other people’s moods easily at a young age, however, I couldn’t adapt to my wife like my son could. No, even if I could, my son was always covered in wounds, and I couldn’t bear that.’
‘Because of this, I think my son has grown fond of the Headless Rider.’
‘He doesn’t have to read her expression. He could fawn over her freely without shaking in fear under his mother’s harsh gaze. Having a mother figure like that must be the utmost treasure to a child.’
Celty closed the journal in the middle of reading and put it back into the closet.
So that was what happened……
Shinra had gone through such hardship before I came…….
Celty felt a heat within her heart, which should neither have a pulse or blood circulation, and headed to the bookshelf in the corner of the kitchen, having made a silent resolution to herself.
She will take another look at the handout for parent’s day.
The next week.
It was the fifth class on their curriculum in elementary school. Parents and guardians were lined up at the back of the classroom, making the children restless.
Yet amidst that atmosphere, Shinra, easygoing as ever, asked his friend sitting diagonally in front of him.
“Where are you parents, Shizuo-kun?”
The black-haired boy he called by name, Shizuo Heiwajima, replied uninterestedly.
“They’re over with Kasuka.”
“Ah, that’s right. Kasuka-kun is smart unlike you, so they probably want to see that child of theirs get praised instead.”
“You’re getting me mad.”
Shizuo glared at Shinra, but a commotion inside the classroom dispersed his anger.
“?”
When Shinra and Shizuo glanced over to the person in the hallway, a suspicious figure stood there. The person wore black western clothes similar to that of a mourning dress and had an identical, pitch black sun hat on her head. And to top it off, she wore sunglasses and a mask and had long hair that covered her whole face, making her look utterly questionable. She appeared to have been caught by the staff that was patrolling around just before she entered the classroom and was now surrounded by the instructors.
“Celty……?”
“What did you say?”
Shizuo tilted his head upon hearing a term he was unfamiliar with. Shinra gave him no reply, got up from his seat and walked out into the hallway, not caring that class was still in session.
“Hey, Kishitani. What’s wrong?”
Shinra told the instructor when asked – although it felt more like he addressed the staff in the hallway instead of replying to the teacher.
“Ah, I’m sorry! She’s my family!”
“Eh? She’s your……?”
The group of teachers looked at him with shocked expressions. Shinra added.
“She had throat surgery not too long ago……So she can’t talk right now.”
Hearing that, the teachers quickly bowed their heads to the ‘suspicious person.’
“Our apologies……! Please, enjoy yourself!”
The teachers then assumed she was either Shinra’s mother or older sister. Because they accepted her as ‘family,’ a strange black figure took its place at the back of the classroom.
“……Wait, she’s your family?”
Shinra’s face slightly blushed at Shizuo’s question and nodded happily and cheerfully.
“Yeah!”
Evening – Shinra’s apartment.
“Celty! Thank you!”
Once they got back home, Shinra lept into Celty’s chest and hugged her tight. He did not do it with indecent intentions, but rather in the simplistic way a child would cling to their parent in tears.
‘No, I should be apologizing……I ended up causing you trouble……’
The next moment when Shinra was about to object, another man’s voice came from behind them.
“I can’t believe you, Celty-kun. You are aware that if you had made one slip up using a mannequin’s head to fool everyone, you would have been made out to be a suspicious intruder or even make the headlines as a word record discovery, correct?”
‘Geh! Shingen! You’re back?!’
Celty scrawled her sentences in apparent disgust, to which Shingen answered her proudly.
“Hahaha, the shin in Shingen is the same shin in shinshutsukibotsu – which is to appear in unexpected places at unexpected times. It’s not strange that I am present, correct?”
‘The kanji is different though. But more importantly, you were at the parent’s day event?’
“Indeed. Except I was stopped at the gate. So how did you manage to get into the school!?”
The man wearing an odd outfit with a white gas mask yelled. Ignoring him, Celty gently padded Shinra’s head as he clung to her.
‘I’m sorry I took your mother’s role. I must have embarrassed you.’
“No, not at all. I don’t really remember anything about mom anyway.”
‘Ahh……I see. You don’t need to remember those bad things anyway.’
“Bad things?”
Shinra tilted his head, confused. Celty hastily wrote on her notebook.
‘Ah……It’s……Sorry. It was nothing.’
After Shingen cocked his head, wondering what was so strange about her behavior, he seemed to have come to a realization and asked Celty.
“Celty-kun. Could it be that you……are you referring to when his mother would have her mood swings and slam Shinra onto the ground!?”
‘Idiot! Who would say that where the person himself could hear about it!?’
Celty panicked, but Shingen paid no heed to what she said and yelled, trembling in fear.
“You-……You-you-you, you read it, didn’t you?! You did?! What have you done?! Dammit……To open up my padlocked journal and read my novel, are you heartless?! You monster!”
‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that……’
After she wrote that much on her notepad, she suddenly realized what Shingen had said and asked him.
‘Eh? Novel?’
“Yes, indeed! It was a story I was writing with Shinra and you as the models; I wrote in that journal with the intention of receiving a mountain of light novel awards for it!”
‘Then that was a fictional story!?’
“I wouldn’t have been with an emotionally unstable woman in the first place!”
‘The-then why did you get a divorce?’
When that question popped up, Shingen averted his gaze behind his gas mask and replied, speaking more ambiguous than ever before.
“One assumption I have, even though I say it did not affected Shinra whatsoever, could be me putting all our living expenses into an antique, but it doesn’t matter anymore, right? It’s in the past……”
‘No, there’s no excuse for it!’
After Shingen had fled from the apartment miserably, Celty wrote on the notepad exhaustedly.
‘I’m not sure about your mother, but are you happy with the father you got?’
“I suppose so. I mean, I can’t choose my parents. I can’t really say.”
‘That’s a philosophical stance to take.’
“But I can choose my wife.”
‘?’
Celty did not understand the meaning behind Shinra’s statement, but she did not dwell on it too much and decided to return to the main topic.
‘Still, that parents and guardians visit was nerve wracking for the observers too.’
“No, it’s not parents and guardians visitation day.”
‘Ahh, do you mean it was mother’s visitation day, then?’
Celty wrote that in question, but Shinra shook his head left and right and yelled.
“It’s because I’m going to marry you! It was fiancee visitation day!”
‘H-hey! You’re too young to say that!’
After Celty wrote those characters a little rushed, she gently pushed against Shinra’s head with her fist.
“……Can I take this prodding against my head as our kiss for our engagement?”
‘Yeah, sure. And I’ll make sure our kiss is even rougher when we get married.’
Celty figured it was just a child’s joke and made a suitable response.
Unaware that the small jest would serve as their first kiss several years later.
This is a story of the past.
A story of a twisted past.
Just as the city of Ikebukuro has a past, naturally so do people. And the past is inevitably connected to the future.
While occasionally veering off into a complicated path.
A few days later, Shinra was seen heading to school from his apartment. And there were sets of eyes watching from inside a parked car on the side of the road.
“Ah, I’m so glad to see he’s doing well. I just hope he doesn’t turn out twisted like Shingen.”
“Mama, who is that?”
The girl, roughly four or five years old, asked her mother in the driver’s seat while pressing both her hands and forehead against the window.
“That’s Shinra. Shinra Kishitani.”
The young looking woman picked up her sunglasses, and after looking at Shinra running off with a smile she then turned to her daughter in the passenger’s seat with that same expression.
“He’s your older brother, so make sure you remember him, okay? Kazane.”
And so the past weaves into the future.
Following the footsteps of a girl named Kazane Kinomiya – Shinra Kishitani’s sister of a different father.
A certain place fifteen years ago on Kawagoe highway – at Shinra’s apartment.
When Shinra Kishitani was still an elementary school student, he came home one day from school, to see his roommate, Celty Sturluson, standing at the door.
‘Welcome back, Shinra.’
“I’m home! Celty!”
The boy gave a child-like enthusiastic reply to the woman, who had shown her the message she wrote on a notepad.
At first glance, it looked like an exchange between a boy and a woman who would not speak due to certain circumstances, but from the general person’s perspective there was one large unsettling aspect to the scene. The woman was voiceless and headless, only having black shadows spilling out like smoke from where her head would be. But the boy did not have an ounce of fear and lept into the chest of the woman whom he had called Celty..
“Thank goodness! You were at home today too!”
‘Of course I would be.’
“But I didn’t know what to do if you had suddenly left home for Ireland……”
‘What are you saying? Come on now, don’t mess around. Go wash your hands after you take out your correspondence notebook.’
Celty pushed the boy to the washroom while he went through his bag.
‘Don’t forget to gargle too.’
“Ehehe, I know! I’ll even rinse out my nose! So you can praise me mo- oowah-bugh.”
Shinra had proclaimed proudly, but Celty shut the door firmly after giving him another shove with her shadows.
Damn, he’s really fond of me.
How did it get like this……? Has he become as eccentric as his father?
If another kid saw him casually interacting with a headless monster, that could possibly lead him to being bullied.
The moment they saw a headless being like her, bullying the boy would be the least of their concerns, but Celty at this time still did not have a full grasp of human society.
Even so, it’s been a few years since he’s mentioned anything like that.
Did something happen?
Celty picked up the correspondence notebook Shinra had taken out of his bag while pondering over those thoughts. As she did so, a contact form fell out from the pages.
What’s this?
When she picked it up and closely looked at it, what she saw written was:
‘Dear parents and guardians. A notification for parent’s day.’
……Ah, right. There was that sort of event at the elementary school.
I get it……So that’s why Shinra is at it again after so long.
Celty sighed in her mind.
Shinra’s father, Shingen Kishitani, was not a very normal person. But even if he was normal, he was frequently absent from home due to work all year round. He apparently went through a divorce with his wife Kaname as Celty had never once seen Shinra’s biological mother around.
Celty took care of the household tasks substantially like a home helper would, but naturally there was no way she could go to the parent’s day event in place of his mother. Besides, even if his father Shingen was at home, he would only be the cause of Shinra getting bullied if he went, being the oddball that he was.
Celty’s shoulders slumped in defeat thinking about it.
I’m sorry, Shinra. I can’t replace your mother.
But you shouldn’t ever resent your real mom. With her husband the way he was, it was only natural they’d get divorced.
Actually, wait, why should she even marry a weird guy like him?
……Is that what humans call a ‘trick of the imagination?’
‘It’s tough for humans too,’ As Celty sympathized with Shinra’s mother whom she had never met before, she suddenly realized. ‘I’ve never really thought about it before, but why hasn’t Shinra’s mother come to see him at all?’
Divorced or not, a parent was still a parent. The fact that she never came at all to see him either meant she left Shingen on bad terms or there was a unique reason like illness or long distance.
Hmm. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to get close to the son she had with her ex-husband…….. Since she’s his parent, I hope that sad reason isn’t the case.
From what Shingen had told her in fragments, his mother was still alive apparently.
It feels wrong of me to step into personal family matters, but Shinra would probably want his parent to come to the parent’s day event.
Celty was greatly influenced by the ‘parent and child love’ that was depicted in dramas, having learned of human society from television and novels at the time. Because of that, she believed that perhaps the feeling the curious Shinra had for her was due to projecting his wish to meet his parent.
In other words, she still did know.
That not all humans go by the book and the love the boy Shinra Kishitani had for her was something a little off from ordinary people.
In the Japanese style room in Shinra’s apartment.
The traditional Japanese room was Celty’s private room whenever Shingen was away from home, like right now. Shingen’s belongings were tucked away in the closet. Celty recalled there being something like a journal among them, and after she made sure that Shinra was asleep,she looked through it secretly.
I feel bad reading through someone’s journal.
But this is to get information on his wife. Forgive me, you creep.
Celty picked up the padlocked journal while bowing to Shingen in her mind apologetically. She inserted her shadows into the keyhole and unlocked the contraption before coming to know of the shocking details within the journal.
What is this……?
On it, several facts were written by Shingen’s handwriting.
‘My wife was not a good mother to my son.’
‘My wife would have abrupt mood swings in front of our son. I do not know if it was a mental illness or an inclination at birth. Even though she would be holding our son while smiling one moment, a few seconds later she would shove him onto the floor with eyes filled with rage and then begin crying like a child moments after the fact.’
‘I was at my limit. Even if my son had become attuned to other people’s moods easily at a young age, however, I couldn’t adapt to my wife like my son could. No, even if I could, my son was always covered in wounds, and I couldn’t bear that.’
‘Because of this, I think my son has grown fond of the Headless Rider.’
‘He doesn’t have to read her expression. He could fawn over her freely without shaking in fear under his mother’s harsh gaze. Having a mother figure like that must be the utmost treasure to a child.’
Celty closed the journal in the middle of reading and put it back into the closet.
So that was what happened……
Shinra had gone through such hardship before I came…….
Celty felt a heat within her heart, which should neither have a pulse or blood circulation, and headed to the bookshelf in the corner of the kitchen, having made a silent resolution to herself.
She will take another look at the handout for parent’s day.
The next week.
It was the fifth class on their curriculum in elementary school. Parents and guardians were lined up at the back of the classroom, making the children restless.
Yet amidst that atmosphere, Shinra, easygoing as ever, asked his friend sitting diagonally in front of him.
“Where are you parents, Shizuo-kun?”
The black-haired boy he called by name, Shizuo Heiwajima, replied uninterestedly.
“They’re over with Kasuka.”
“Ah, that’s right. Kasuka-kun is smart unlike you, so they probably want to see that child of theirs get praised instead.”
“You’re getting me mad.”
Shizuo glared at Shinra, but a commotion inside the classroom dispersed his anger.
“?”
When Shinra and Shizuo glanced over to the person in the hallway, a suspicious figure stood there. The person wore black western clothes similar to that of a mourning dress and had an identical, pitch black sun hat on her head. And to top it off, she wore sunglasses and a mask and had long hair that covered her whole face, making her look utterly questionable. She appeared to have been caught by the staff that was patrolling around just before she entered the classroom and was now surrounded by the instructors.
“Celty……?”
“What did you say?”
Shizuo tilted his head upon hearing a term he was unfamiliar with. Shinra gave him no reply, got up from his seat and walked out into the hallway, not caring that class was still in session.
“Hey, Kishitani. What’s wrong?”
Shinra told the instructor when asked – although it felt more like he addressed the staff in the hallway instead of replying to the teacher.
“Ah, I’m sorry! She’s my family!”
“Eh? She’s your……?”
The group of teachers looked at him with shocked expressions. Shinra added.
“She had throat surgery not too long ago……So she can’t talk right now.”
Hearing that, the teachers quickly bowed their heads to the ‘suspicious person.’
“Our apologies……! Please, enjoy yourself!”
The teachers then assumed she was either Shinra’s mother or older sister. Because they accepted her as ‘family,’ a strange black figure took its place at the back of the classroom.
“……Wait, she’s your family?”
Shinra’s face slightly blushed at Shizuo’s question and nodded happily and cheerfully.
“Yeah!”
Evening – Shinra’s apartment.
“Celty! Thank you!”
Once they got back home, Shinra lept into Celty’s chest and hugged her tight. He did not do it with indecent intentions, but rather in the simplistic way a child would cling to their parent in tears.
‘No, I should be apologizing……I ended up causing you trouble……’
The next moment when Shinra was about to object, another man’s voice came from behind them.
“I can’t believe you, Celty-kun. You are aware that if you had made one slip up using a mannequin’s head to fool everyone, you would have been made out to be a suspicious intruder or even make the headlines as a word record discovery, correct?”
‘Geh! Shingen! You’re back?!’
Celty scrawled her sentences in apparent disgust, to which Shingen answered her proudly.
“Hahaha, the shin in Shingen is the same shin in shinshutsukibotsu – which is to appear in unexpected places at unexpected times. It’s not strange that I am present, correct?”
‘The kanji is different though. But more importantly, you were at the parent’s day event?’
“Indeed. Except I was stopped at the gate. So how did you manage to get into the school!?”
The man wearing an odd outfit with a white gas mask yelled. Ignoring him, Celty gently padded Shinra’s head as he clung to her.
‘I’m sorry I took your mother’s role. I must have embarrassed you.’
“No, not at all. I don’t really remember anything about mom anyway.”
‘Ahh……I see. You don’t need to remember those bad things anyway.’
“Bad things?”
Shinra tilted his head, confused. Celty hastily wrote on her notebook.
‘Ah……It’s……Sorry. It was nothing.’
After Shingen cocked his head, wondering what was so strange about her behavior, he seemed to have come to a realization and asked Celty.
“Celty-kun. Could it be that you……are you referring to when his mother would have her mood swings and slam Shinra onto the ground!?”
‘Idiot! Who would say that where the person himself could hear about it!?’
Celty panicked, but Shingen paid no heed to what she said and yelled, trembling in fear.
“You-……You-you-you, you read it, didn’t you?! You did?! What have you done?! Dammit……To open up my padlocked journal and read my novel, are you heartless?! You monster!”
‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that……’
After she wrote that much on her notepad, she suddenly realized what Shingen had said and asked him.
‘Eh? Novel?’
“Yes, indeed! It was a story I was writing with Shinra and you as the models; I wrote in that journal with the intention of receiving a mountain of light novel awards for it!”
‘Then that was a fictional story!?’
“I wouldn’t have been with an emotionally unstable woman in the first place!”
‘The-then why did you get a divorce?’
When that question popped up, Shingen averted his gaze behind his gas mask and replied, speaking more ambiguous than ever before.
“One assumption I have, even though I say it did not affected Shinra whatsoever, could be me putting all our living expenses into an antique, but it doesn’t matter anymore, right? It’s in the past……”
‘No, there’s no excuse for it!’
After Shingen had fled from the apartment miserably, Celty wrote on the notepad exhaustedly.
‘I’m not sure about your mother, but are you happy with the father you got?’
“I suppose so. I mean, I can’t choose my parents. I can’t really say.”
‘That’s a philosophical stance to take.’
“But I can choose my wife.”
‘?’
Celty did not understand the meaning behind Shinra’s statement, but she did not dwell on it too much and decided to return to the main topic.
‘Still, that parents and guardians visit was nerve wracking for the observers too.’
“No, it’s not parents and guardians visitation day.”
‘Ahh, do you mean it was mother’s visitation day, then?’
Celty wrote that in question, but Shinra shook his head left and right and yelled.
“It’s because I’m going to marry you! It was fiancee visitation day!”
‘H-hey! You’re too young to say that!’
After Celty wrote those characters a little rushed, she gently pushed against Shinra’s head with her fist.
“……Can I take this prodding against my head as our kiss for our engagement?”
‘Yeah, sure. And I’ll make sure our kiss is even rougher when we get married.’
Celty figured it was just a child’s joke and made a suitable response.
Unaware that the small jest would serve as their first kiss several years later.
This is a story of the past.
A story of a twisted past.
Just as the city of Ikebukuro has a past, naturally so do people. And the past is inevitably connected to the future.
While occasionally veering off into a complicated path.
A few days later, Shinra was seen heading to school from his apartment. And there were sets of eyes watching from inside a parked car on the side of the road.
“Ah, I’m so glad to see he’s doing well. I just hope he doesn’t turn out twisted like Shingen.”
“Mama, who is that?”
The girl, roughly four or five years old, asked her mother in the driver’s seat while pressing both her hands and forehead against the window.
“That’s Shinra. Shinra Kishitani.”
The young looking woman picked up her sunglasses, and after looking at Shinra running off with a smile she then turned to her daughter in the passenger’s seat with that same expression.
“He’s your older brother, so make sure you remember him, okay? Kazane.”
And so the past weaves into the future.
Following the footsteps of a girl named Kazane Kinomiya – Shinra Kishitani’s sister of a different father.
