Killing Yuki

Chapter 1.6 - A Stranger at the Funeral

Then, Yuki turned to the young chap sitting on the temple's staircase, savoring a puff of his cigarette. This teen reminded him so much of Kazuki, with that obnoxious adolescent aura he radiated. 

The textured preppy hairstyle and untucked undershirt screamed modernity and conceit, which, to a socially awkward bloke like Yuki, meant back off. 

He wasn't someone an introvert could easily manipulate or sweet-talk into handing over a prized possession like a phone.

After examining a few more people, Yuki finally spotted the perfect candidate. A woman in her late thirties stood a foot or two from the urn's final resting place. 

She displayed the most relaxed and unaffected expression among the guests as if she didn't care about the dead. But, this was precisely why Yuki chose her. 

With such a cocky attitude, he could speak candidly to her without having to offer sympathy, which he knew he wasn't good at.

You might expect all women attending a funeral to wear a plain black kimono paired with a juzu around their arms. This lady was different. 

She struck Yuki as oddly out of place, defying age-old traditions with her gaudy attire—an intricately festooned old-fashioned silk ofurisode, complemented by a crimson obi. 

If she could wear that to a kokubetsushiki, there's no telling how she'd look during the shonanoka.

Even stranger, the nonstop sobbing didn't seem to bother her at all. Her deadpan expression, occasionally broken by a presumptuous smirk, would easily get on anyone's nerves. 

Yuki's initial impression was that she was not an immediate family member, most likely just a distant relative or friend who was only there to pay respects. This explained the utter lack of empathy on her face. 

But Yuki had no plans on poking his nose should he managed to connect with her. It wasn't the time for an unwarranted character examination either. 

He badly needed that phone, and he was determined to get it. Gradually, he sidled toward the front while running possible scenarios in his head for how he should approach her. 

He even tried to look her in the eye to see how she'd respond and got nothing. But like a creep sneaking up on his prey, he stayed fixated on her while circling the burial plot. 

Then, something weird about this lady's demeanor caught Yuki's attention. While heads were down, shoulders hunched, and faces tear-streaked, her chin was up as she gazed piercingly at the other side of the plot. 

Yuki turned to where she might be looking and found nothing out of the ordinary, except for a young couple in the front row and the heavily sobbing older lady beside them.

"Is she looking at that woman?" Yuki pondered.

Thanks to their modish outfits, the couple stood out against the backdrop of average townspeople. The husband looked stylish in a double-breasted tieless suit, and the wife donned an embroidered floral maxi dress, which was quite unusual for a non-affluent funeral. 

Also, they gave off the impression of being newlyweds and had just returned from a honeymoon abroad.