I just realized, I've assumed that Shio has been officially designated as a "Missing Person", but from what we've seen, the only person putting up fliers and looking for Shio is Asahi (her brother, probably). In the pre-serialization oneshot, she was on the police missing persons' website, but the actual series has so many discrepancies with the original work that it's probably best to treat them as separate stories.
That seems to indicate then that her parents haven't reported her missing, either because they don't care about her, or because they're dead. In chapters 5 and 6, Asahi's flashbacks show him handing Shio to a woman (probably their mother), who takes her and flees from the house (name on the door says Kobe). Before she leaves, she promises to return for him. He then returns inside to confront "a demon". Shio's flashbacks show her living along with her mother, who insists that she never leave the house, and is always either faceless or angry in her memory.
Thus we can sort of reconstruct events to say that Shio's father was a violent man. Shio's mother took her and left, but Asahi stayed behind as a sacrifice (it's clear he knows he's going to be beaten if he stays, but he's more worried about Shio). Later on, Shio's mother's mental state degenerated, probably due to fear and worry that her husband would come after her. In this scenario, there is a plausible case to be made that her mother is dead, due to domestic abuse, and her father is dead as well, or locked up, or simply doesn't care to look for her. Asahi is clearly living on the streets, and his pathological distrust of adults indicates that he either couldn't get the police to help, or that he didn't even try asking for their help.
The person who Satou chopped up and disposed of is probably her aunt. For one thing, Shouko knows where Satou lives, and thinks of it as the place where she lives with her aunt - Shouko knew Satou before Satou acquired Shio, so it would make sense that the place she thinks of as Satou's home is the place where she lived with her aunt. In chapter 2, there is a scene where the narrator says, "This happiness-filled castle built for two is all thanks to one person's sacrifice" and the scene cuts to the garbage bags in the bloody room. Satou's flashbacks and hallucinations of her aunt tend to be of a woman with bandages covering her face and neck, which shows that she suffered violence from someone. It would be far more difficult to murder someone and move into their apartment than it would be to murder someone you live with and continue to live there. In the first case, the landlord and neighbors might be suspicious, acquaintances of the former resident would be suspicious, and if the person were reported as missing, the police would show up and be very curious why a stranger was living in the home of a missing person. If you already lived there and were known as a relative of the missing person, it would be easier to avoid suspicion and talk your way out of any problems. The main problem with this assessment is that mail from Satou's workplace is returned, which would seems to indicate that her registered address has changed at some point.
So I believe that some incident occurred that involved Shio running away from her mother, Shio's father killing her mother, Satou killing her aunt, and Satou kidnapping/rescuing Shio. The initial connection between Satou and Shio is the main mystery in this scenario. It could have been random chance, that Satou happened upon Shio when they were both in desperate and confused states and they clung to each other. It could be that Satou or Satou's aunt had some relationship with Shio's father or mother, in which case this whole mess would be a convoluted chain of domestic violence.
Of course, this is all speculation on the partial evidence available. The author could easily introduce new characters or complications that would render this all meaningless. Some or all of the hints so far could be mere distractions meant to mislead us. But I think the prominent role of psychotically obsessive love is consistent with a setup involving interconnected chains of domestic abuse.
last edited at Oct 9, 2016 7:11AM
