az: R&R as usual. There's a need to close this chapter before I totally forget about it.
Letting go : Afterwards
Written by Izzu alias honou-no-izumi
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The funeral ceremony as well as the wake before that; had been done very moderately. Ainosuke had not planned to make it so big; he never did the one before so big as well. And it's not like he had invited all of their remaining relatives for the ceremonies. The brothers had never been so close to them after all.
So this time, aside from himself... he was accompanied by Kato-san, Sayama-sensei and Masaki. Shimada-san was still hospitalized and Miruku-san could not attend the wake, despite she had finally regained consciousness. It had caused her distress when hearing about Oyasan as well.
Yet, he hadn't minded it. Ohuchi-san had paid them a visit during the last day of the wake, and the ceremony after that went off well. There were some other old acquaintances paying their last respects, it rather surprised him a bit. It had felt as if their old lives were just something from a separate lifetime, so it was slightly startling to have those old memories resurface again after all that had happened lately.
Surprisingly, even when he had not mentioned about it; Kato-san told him not to worry about the funeral expenses. It seemed, Miyamoto-san... who had been detained at the hospital before being sent to prison later; had told him about his brother's immense wealth. He had said, that it was the Plan D... the last plan that he had entrusted to him should he die. Right after Plan C had been executed. It was a plan that was solely intended for Ainosuke. It seemed that even before he had joined the criminal group that used to be headed by Kokusho Akira and Komukai Noriko, his brother have had some investment placed and that he had accumulated a lot of money. Not counting the amount of money acquired through his criminal acts, his brother still had a huge sum of money. And all of it had been entrusted under Ainosuke's name, he just couldn't believe it.
Just how many plans had his brother made?
xxx
He ended up finding out about it, several days later.
The police have returned his brother's laptop to him, after checking out the files inside it. It seemed Kokusho had not bothered putting back the lock on the computer, the moment she had escaped from prison. So when they had retrieved the laptop, their jobs had been made easier. They've already started cleaning up the remaining traces of his brother's criminal activities, as well as tracking his underlings' whereabouts. There was nothing much that Ainosuke could do to help, so he had spent the days afterwards in-between schooling and funeral preparation. He had to arrange for the family tombstone to be modified as well as to correct the information on his brother's death certificate.
So when he had received the laptop from the police, Ainosuke had been taken by surprise. But Kato had told him, that aside from his criminal plans; there were many other personal datas being stored in the computer. That was why it was decided that the laptop would be returned to Ainosuke.
The moment when he had opened the laptop, he was greeted with a surprise of its own. His brother's desktop was fairly neat and it was adorned with a simple picture as its wallpaper. A picture of him with his brother, taken during their birthdays two years ago.
Ainosuke felt a painful tug in his heart as he stared at the picture. Both of their smiling faces had been so sincere, so happy... how he had wished to return to those happy days. When everything had been ordinary... but he knew that it wasn't possible anymore.
He clicked open a folder where his brother had stored all of his plans. It was so elaborate, the way his brother had managed to think up every possible way of how his plan could have proceed accordingly, while allowing himself to place many hints for him to follow and pick up the trail. It seemed that his brother had intended to get him involved with his plan, even if that placed his position as his opponent. Ainosuke wondered if his brother donating his left-eye cornea had any part in his plans. He used to mention about it. That it was just an experiment to see if one act of selflessness could convince him to stop his plans. It didn't. But he doubted that was all there was. His brother had his own unique way of thinking.
Ainosuke tried his best not exclaim aloud as he read some of the plans that had been made but not executed. Plans that were not executed due to changes of plans whenever something happened that could effect the flow if his brother's plans.
Things like how should the plan proceed, had he not told Fukuchi-san the truth about the case; how some of the serial bombing plans could have been done should it not be necessary to have to kill Fukuchi-san. His brother appeared to have considered many things. He had made a lot of backup plans. To call him a genius seemed like an understatement by itself!
Ainosuke closed the folder as he take a look at the other things inside the computer. It seemed to be a normal computer after all, he'd find the time later to delete that folder containing all of the criminal plans The police should have got all they needed earlier so this wouldn't matter. Ainosuke stopped scrolling as he found a folder named specifically after him. He frowned.
There were several document files inside that folder, all of them encrypted. It seemed that his brother had even anticipated that anyone could have taken this computer from him, that even if they had manage to bypass his initial firewalls; they would never be able to read anything on this folder. He really did not want anyone to get their hand into these files... at all cost. He wondered what was so personal about it.
He tried several combination of what password his brother could have used but none worked. He almost given up before suddenly an unexpected line of thought crossed his mind. What if the password was something only known to both of them, but seemed such a strange choice of word to be used because of the fact that it was too easily cracked? Ainosuke typed in the word as unsuspectingly, he managed to unlock the security placed on the files. He opened one of the document files as he read a very long letter addressed to him by his brother that he never intended to give him. He cried as some of the content of the letter touched him deeply, answering some of the questions left unanswered.
Ainosuke took a glance towards the rest of the documents as it revealed to be old albums from the old times, a copy of his brother's will as well as some other nostalgic mementos.
He sighed as he closed the laptop. Ainosuke turned his glance towards the old family picture that he always kept on the table.
It was hard, but he knew that he needed to learn to let go and move on. Then again, he knew that his brother would continue watching him from heaven. He should be able to continue living, even without him by his side.
Ainosuke smiled weakly. He'd better get himself checked. Miruku-san would finally be allowed to go home tomorrow, and certainly she'd like to pay her respects to both Oyasan and brother.
He shouldn't show this sad face in front of the family grave...