Chapter 22 Chapter One

For me, Shinshu is my hometown with two meanings.I was born in Komoro in 1929, which is the literal "hometown". After graduating from a university in Tokyo, I worked as a company employee.But I was born to like to travel, and it can bring practical benefits, so I wanted to make travel a career, and I wrote a manuscript of the hotel where I stayed in Lake Nojiri in Shinshu and sent it to a travel magazine in order to win an award.Fortunately, I got my wish, and have since started my full-time writing career as a "travel writer".In other words, Shinshu is the hometown that raised me.

Therefore, I have an inseparable relationship with Shinshu. However, deep in my heart, there is also a deep hatred for Shinshu.No, rather than Shinshu, I hate Komoro who raised me. Since I was dubbed a "travel writer", I have been traveling all over Japan, including Shinshu a few times, but Komoro has never been there. I want to write about this reason.No, I don't think I want to, but I must write it out! Because I want to write out this heavy past before starting my new life. I am the second son of the owner of a hotel called "Morning" in Komoro City.Just like the name of the hotel opened by my family, the mountains of Asama can be seen clearly from here.The morning scenery there is especially wonderful, so there are also a lot of tourists who come to stay there every year.

My brother Ryutaro is 10 years older than me, so in my memory there has never been an argument between brothers, let alone a fight or something like that.My parents also had a clear preference for my gentle, intelligent older brother.In these parts, however, I was notoriously a naughty one, so I often gave my father a lot of trouble.In addition, my brother and I are 10 years apart, so I didn't feel jealous of my brother. When I was in the local high school, my brother had already graduated from college.He succeeded his father, who died two years ago, as the owner of the "Morning" Hotel.Therefore, during the three years in college, I have been supported by my brother, and I have never worried about money.

These three years have been ordinary and boring three years.Except for a few small adventures, there is no "performance" worth talking about in my memory.I just remember that the last day of my three years in high school was a very cold day. It's March, but there's still snow on the surrounding hilltops, and the ponds are still frozen in the early morning. There are also fewer tourists.Only when it was very late three days ago did a pair of traveling companions who were in a hurry come.It was written in the accommodation register that they were a couple named K from Tokyo.But I don't see them as a "couple".The man is forty-five or sixteen years old, and the woman is only twenty-seven or eight years old. They look like a couple hiding out to have an affair.

Of course, our family owned a hotel, and only I was interested in seeing what the relationship was like between them, while my brother and mother never cared about the personal affairs of their guests. They spend money like water.At that time, there was no second guest in the hotel, so they booked all four rooms on the second floor at once, and they also said that they wanted to eat the brandy melons grown in the greenhouse in the middle of winter.Talking about throwing out 10,000 yen casually, I thought to myself, maybe the two of them are the gangsters who robbed the bank!And I also imagined that the travel bags they kept in the safe room must be full of bundles of banknotes.

I told my brother Ryutaro about this idea and asked him if he wanted to call the police.But my brother just laughed it off.When there are few customers in winter, it is really rare to meet such generous guests. That afternoon, another young woman came to the hotel.She is in her mid-twenties and looks very pretty, like a popular S.E actress nowadays.Since all the rooms on the second floor were occupied by the couple, she had to live on the first floor.However, her beauty unfortunately led to a tragedy. The man who lived on the second floor had nothing to do with the later female guest and pestered her endlessly.Sometimes the elder brother really couldn't stand it and would come forward to help the female guest and dissuade the man.

At that time, my brother was still single, and he also took a fancy to the female guest.Because the elder brother protected the female guest on the first floor, the man dissatisfied and even beat him.The woman he was with was also in a hysterical fit, making a scene and causing chaos. The sickly mother was trembling with fright.I saw that my brother was no match for that man, so I advised him not to mind this kind of business.But the gentle and refined man had no fear at that time, and he yelled at the man, which surprised me a lot.Thinking about it now, my brother may have lost his mind at the time.

In the middle of the night that day, tragedy happened suddenly. I think it was 3 o'clock in the morning.I had already fallen asleep, but a sudden burst of "split, blah, blah" woke me up.When I opened my eyes, the room was filled with thick smoke.I hurriedly jumped out of the window in my pajamas, but the entire hotel was in flames. And there is almost no smoke, and all you see is flames. Soon two fire trucks arrived and started fighting the fire.But at this point the fire was gaining momentum, and fire trucks were doing little to help. It was not until dawn that the fire gradually extinguished, and three bodies were found from the ruins.It was impossible to recognize who it was because it was burnt.But judging from where they were found, the three bodies were my mother, brother and the female guest who lived on the first floor.But the man and woman did not know where they fled.Perhaps the woman was jealous of her accomplice getting close to the new female guest, so she set it on purpose; the man had to take her away when he saw this.

My mother and brother died, and I was an orphan.I sold my hotel homestead and decided to go to Tokyo.Since then, I have never been in the mood to go back to Xiaozhuo. Fortunately, the money from selling the homestead was enough to last me until I graduated from college. When my family's hotel burned down, five other hotels and shops connected to my house were also engulfed in the fire.There have been many gossips about this.The most serious thing is that my brother wanted to get his hands on the female guest on the first floor, and when he refused, he set fire to retaliate. I never went back to Xiaomoro, nor did I write about that incident.The reason why I want to write this time is that 10 years have passed since the incident, and I can calm down and recall the pain.

How many years later will I not return to Xiaomoro?I kept asking myself in my heart. Kawauchi Kojiro