Time keeps going forward, look where we can turn backwards.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't stumped for a bit. Ouma turned out to be pretty good at riddles, he is a liar though so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

I'm really curious as to what kind of secret he will tell me in his next letter, or if it's some kind of prank he is pulling. It wasn't out of character for him.

I thought of the riddle hard. Wait a second...

Every year our school district provides us with free yearbooks. Ms Yukizome has one for us for every year in the classroom...maybe Ouma left his letter in one of them?

Shouldn't someone have saw him put it there...I haven't seen Ouma in maybe two months...I looked at those yearbooks about a week ago.

Maybe my deduction is just wrong. Still I guess better safe than sorry.

-/-/-/-

"Oh Saihara you're here late did you need help with the homework?" Ms Yukizome asked and I shook my head.

"No...I just needed to pick something up from here" I told her. Technically not a lie. Ms Yukizome stared at me or what I thought was me till she saw the previous two letters clutched tightly in my hand.

"Oh, come on over you won't find it with the other yearbooks" she told me as she headed to the back room and pulled out a box.

"You're in on this?" I asked and she nodded, "well, I wouldn't say in. It was left on my desk one morning with clear instructions from the devil itself Ouma" she told me.

"Do...do you know where he is?" I asked my voice choking up, "yes, I do. I am his teacher" she said not really making eye contact as she grabbed books from the box checking them.

"Can you tell me?" I asked and she laughed, "don't you think he would've told me not to if he bothered to make all this just for you?" She asked.

I sighed, "I just want to see him" I admitted and Ms Yukizome gave me a sad smile.

"Even if he didn't tell me not too I still wouldn't have...it's Ouma's secret to tell Saihara, hear it as he intended" she advised me as she put the books back in the box and handed it over to me.

"Well you can read them in here for an hour or so ok?" She told me, "after that you have to go home it's getting late and I know you didn't do your homework" she teased.

I nodded and sat down in my desk, where it all started and saw Letter Three waiting. Just like letter two the drawings were less prominent. Still it was colored all over with a chess board design.

Dear Saihara~

Oh so Ms Yukizome didn't blab my secrets to the world! See Saihara I told you DICE had ten thousand members all loyal to their supreme leader!

Already huh? I couldn't help smile thinking about the imaginary organization he always claimed to have.

But you're here for the juicy and dirty stuff aren't you? Wanna find some skeletons in my closet eh? Fine.

Inside that box you'll find all my yearbooks up till now. Along with some other things that I kept.

The student body gave me a lot of presents over the years Saihara chan! I'm popular!

I laughed, I doubted that to be honest sometimes it looks like they want to strangle poor Ouma.

So once you've read all the books and seen my gifts read the second page, ok Saihara?

You started this and kept going out of pure curiosity I bet, now it's time to swear your undying loyalty!

See you in a bit :P

I placed the letter down and took out all the yearbooks, some seemed to have weird bulges in them.

I started from the bottom, Kindergarten.

Nothing really stood out there to be honest, it just had squiggly handwriting from everyone one in the class-

Ouma es mi best friend- fom Saihara

I felt my face heat up. Why? Why did I have such bad spelling back then?

I set that one aside and turned over to first grade. Same thing really, just less signatures.

Second grade....

No one likes you.

You're not funny.

Go away!

My heart sank a bit, did they really leave messages like this in his yearbook?

It's customary at our school that we have to share our yearbooks with everyone in our year for signing...

And this is what they had to say for Ouma.

Third grade wasn't much better, I noticed I made no appearances at all in second or first so what was I expecting?

A few more hateful messages.

Fourth grade...

I looked at what they did to his front page in shock. In big letters in permanent ink they wrote one word.

Freak

Underneath was agreements and more insults from the class. I know Ouma can be a handful but...does he really deserve this?

I usually sat next to Ouma. I never left him something hateful in his yearbook. But I never saw what they wrote in his.

Fifth grade was when I lost it. All positive messages were gone except mine which just said have a nice break in the bottom corner.

It was outlined in purple ink.

But the rest was curse words and more and more insults. They even defaced his class photo making a...is that a rope around his neck?

Sixth grade.

I finally knew what those buldges were. A white flower that had been dried was inside the cover page.

The profanity grew and there were several messages telling Ouma to kill himself.

Seventh grade, more flowers. More profanity. More pictures telling Ouma to die.

Eight grade...that yearbook wasn't even a yearbook. It was burned to a crisp. All that layed inside was five flowers from that year.

All the other years were exactly the same, burned, urinated on, full of profanity and hateful messages and even more flowers.

How...how had Ouma survived such harsh bullying?

How had I never notice?

I opened his letter again hoping for answers,

Did you read it Saihara? Did you see all my presents? Sadly you didn't get to see them all.

They also wrote a lot of inspirational messages too on my desk! I used like two hunded clorox wipes at least over the years!

Did you know everyone's favorite game back then Saihara chan? It was called throw rocks and water at Ouma!

They all got high scores no matter how fast I ran. It's ok though! My organization will take them out one day!

Ouma...I'm sorry. I wish I had known about this and stopped it...this was going to far.

Did I tell you about the number of times I tripped and fell down the stairs over the years Shumai?

You probably know so I don't have to explain. Ok detective what do you think?

Did you like what you found out?

It made me feel sick.

Being serious, Saihara...you're one of the only people who ever wrote something nice in my yearbooks. Thanks.

Wow this has been depressing! Let's move on to our next riddle! Then I want you to do something ok?

The one room where it shows exactly as you see yourself as.

Here's a hint: it smells of crap.

The bathroom...I looked over to Ms Yukizome. She was waiting for me to leave.

School had ended hours ago.

I'll have to find the next one tomorrow.

Saihara chan. Take that box and everything that was in it except that letter and burn it.

As for what you read that never leaves us. It dies with the fire. Got it?

I don't care how you get rid of it. I don't want those letters to ever see the light of day again.

Thanks for reading :D

From,
Kokichi Ouma

I took a deep breath and nodded. I will. I will also tell Momota to be nicer along with Harukawa even though I know they didn't leave messages or flowers.

I will make things better for you. I promise.

At least that's what I kept repeating to myself as I saw the sparks of fire dance up in the night sky as those yearbooks and flowers burned.