I Was Blackmailed Into Accepting Bullying Using My Childhood Friend as Leverage, But When I Found Out My Friend and Bully Were Together, I Abandoned All Compassion and Swore to Take Revenge with Everything I Had - Chapter 36: The Komada Family, A Funeral March of Collapse

Chapter 36: The Komada Family, A Funeral March of Collapse

After school, I sat on a bench in the park where I used to play with Ken-nii and Sumie, my hands trembling as I tore open the envelope Ken-nii had given me.

Inside was a folded A4-sized letter. As I read it, a sense of despair washed over me, draining the blood from my body.

The contents were devastating.

The letter revealed that my stepfather was currently having an affair with a 27-year-old female employee named Saki Yamaoka at his new job location in Tochigi. He was practically living with her, engaging in an ongoing affair every day.

Recently, he even signed a lease for a one-room apartment where they could live together, while leaving the company housing as a cover.

The details Ken-nii provided were so specific and well-timed that there was no doubt they were true.

But the part about my mother was even more shocking.

It turns out that my mother had been having an affair with my stepfather even while Ken-nii’s real mother was sick and hospitalized.

They had met by chance when my mother, who was someone else’s wife at the time, came to the same establishment where my stepfather was entertaining clients. They hit it off during a casual chat outside the venue, and despite both being married, they pursued a secret affair.

The most disgusting part was that even when Ken-nii’s mother was on her deathbed, my mother and stepfather ignored the call about her passing and instead indulged themselves in a hotel.

Moreover, during the waiting time at Ken-nii’s mother’s cremation, my stepfather met up with my mother, and they spent that time together in a love hotel. He didn’t even show up to collect the ashes.

They left elementary school-aged Ken-nii waiting at the crematorium for hours, and my stepfather never once paid his respects to his wife’s remains or even bowed before the family altar. 

Naturally, no memorial services were held by him either. Each year, it was just Ken-nii and his aunt who carried out the rituals at the Fudo family grave, where a portion of the ashes were buried.

Now that I think about it, neither my stepmother nor I ever attended any memorial services for Ken-nii’s mother, and I never saw anyone else besides Ken-nii and me offering prayers at the altar.

A few months after my mother’s divorce and the death of Ken-nii’s mother, my mother and stepfather decided to get married.

My mother had told me they met at a matchmaking party for divorced singles, so realizing she had lied to me was a shock.

What stunned me even more was discovering why my mother had pursued my stepfather in the first place.

Apparently, my mother had been addicted to hosting clubs even before she remarried and had accumulated quite a bit of debt. When she was dating my stepfather, she lied to him, saying the debt was from paying for her late parent’s medical treatment. She planned to use the life insurance money from Ken-nii’s dying mother to pay off that debt and decided to marry him for that reason.

For a while after their marriage, my mother seemed to cut back on visiting host clubs, partly because of the new family and partly because her favorite host had moved to a club in another town. But recently, she found out that her favorite host had returned to a nearby club…

She started visiting the host club frequently, stealing money from the household to fund her visits. Although the host, being a professional, hadn’t entered into a physical relationship with her, my mother was actively pursuing one. The host, realizing he could use this to his advantage, began enticing her by frequently saying things like, “If you come to the club, maybe we can go to a hotel afterward.”

The letter hinted that it was only a matter of time before this “business relationship” would turn into something physical.

The letter also mentioned Shizuku-chan.

Shizuku-chan had been deceived by that Iketsuki and turned into a sexual plaything for a gang. She was repeatedly assaulted by dozens of men over the course of two days.

I had feared this might have happened, but when I read further, the horror of the situation overwhelmed me, and I dropped the letter in shock.

It said:

[Kotone-san, I warned Shizuku Himeno in the letter I entrusted to you, telling her to ‘Beware of Iketsuki,’ but it seems your childhood friend didn’t believe me, which is truly unfortunate.]

If I had torn up that letter in a fit of anger… If I had read its contents and still couldn’t prevent this from happening… If I had simply left it in the mailbox, and no one had seen it before the incident occurred…

On one hand, I felt relieved that I had made the right choice by handing it directly to her without peeking inside. But just imagining the guilt I would have felt if I had made the wrong decision made my body tremble with fear.

I picked up the fallen letter, and as I continued reading, despair washed over me. Tears of fear and shock began to pour down my face.

[Shizuku Himeno apparently became pregnant with Iketsuki’s child. However, due to the repeated assaults by the gang members, her uterus was severely damaged. After suffering heavy bleeding at home, she was rushed to the hospital, where it was confirmed that the fertilized egg, along with the surrounding tissue, had been expelled from her body.]

[As a result of the trauma, Shizuku Himeno will never be able to conceive again.]

Someone once said that the ability to bear a child is a sacred gift, something men can never experience.

And now, Shizuku-chan has lost that? A 17-year-old girl, not even an adult yet, will never be able to have her own child for the rest of her life?

As a young woman close in age to her, I can’t help but feel sympathy for Shizuku-chan’s situation. But in the end, these were the consequences of her own actions.

She chose to date the person who bullied her childhood friend, Ken-nii, engaged in irresponsible sexual behavior, got pregnant, dismissed Ken-nii’s final act of kindness, and was ultimately betrayed by the man she thought was her lover.

Maybe Ken-nii had the power or the means to stop it, but who could really blame him for what happened?

If there is anyone who could, it would probably be Ken-nii’s late mother…

And as for me, the letter included a small note of praise for not making the wrong choice, for the decision I agonized over. Tears started to flow uncontrollably as I read those words…

And so, the Komada family fell apart…

Because I avoided making the worst choice, a path forward was made available to me. The letter mentioned that I could always seek financial support for my living expenses and education through his family lawyer, Mifune-san.

However, it was made clear that there would be no further contact, meetings, or any relationship with me from now on.

After reading the letter, I told my mother about my stepfather’s affair. Her facade of being a good wife was just an act, and she was actually thrilled to hear that her husband was cheating.

Now, she could freely visit her favorite host and spent her days neglecting household chores, using the family credit card to fund her escapades. 

She even started maxing out my stepfather’s other credit cards without his permission.

A few days later, when my stepfather called, I bluntly told him that I knew about his affair with Saki Yamaoka. 

He responded with words full of anger and resentment toward Ken-nii before abruptly hanging up.

Not long after that, their divorce was finalized.

My mother had spent a ridiculous amount of money on her host obsession, but since she hadn’t engaged in a physical relationship and remained a “customer,” the court ruled that it didn’t count as infidelity. As a result, she managed to extract a hefty amount of alimony from my stepfather.

Unable to pay both the alimony and the debts my mother had accumulated, my stepfather, shamelessly and desperately, asked Ken-nii for financial help.

Ken-nii coldly responded with, “Who are you?” and refused. 

Left with no other options, my stepfather was forced to sell the house, which still had a mortgage, and even that wasn’t enough, so he eventually turned to loan sharks.

My former stepfather ended up having a child with his affair partner, which forced him to report the affair to his company. 

The discomfort of the situation and the damage to his reputation as a salesperson led both him and his affair partner to resign from the company they had worked at for decades.

After their resignation, he struggled to find stable employment and couldn’t even marry his pregnant partner. Their savings quickly dried up, and they eventually declared bankruptcy.

However, the pressure from loan sharks didn’t stop, and while moving from place to place, he eventually abandoned his pregnant partner and disappeared, cutting off all contact.

Rumors suggest he might have been taken overseas by some shady group…

As for my mother, she used my custody as leverage to secure a generous amount of alimony and property division money, which she used to rent a small apartment.

However, she rarely came home, spending her days obsessed with various men and host clubs. Eventually, she ran out of money, fell into debt, and ended up being forced to work at a shady brothel that specializes in older women, practically held captive to pay off her debts.

She tried to return to the apartment once, seemingly intending to force me to take her place with the clients, but luckily, I had already left. After a dramatic chase with the brothel staff who followed her to the apartment, she too disappeared without a trace, just like my former stepfather.

In a way, they were a fitting pair.

As for me, I narrowly escaped a similar fate. I’m now preparing to enter university next year and will soon become an adult. For now, I’m living alone in one of the apartments provided by the company Ancient Japan, arranged by Mifune-san.

I didn’t want to burden anyone with my living expenses or tuition, so I took on several part-time jobs to support myself. When I get home, I study hard, aiming to earn a scholarship that would waive my tuition fees.

Naturally, I’ve grown distant from my friends, and of course, I don’t have a boyfriend. 

I failed to see the true nature of my family, neglected the stepbrother I should have trusted, and ended up driving him away, only to be abandoned myself. 

To make things worse, my former best friend, who had always had feelings for Ken-nii, became his stepsister, and she only stayed close to me to maintain a connection with him. Now, even she has turned her back on me.

In this lonely situation, I feel like I don’t need friends or a lover…

Sometimes, I find myself thinking about the letter from Ken-nii, framed on my desk. I pick it up and run my fingers over it as I read it again… My fingers pause as they trace the last line of the letter.

…I will begin my final revenge…

Komada Family & Kotone Komada Arc – END