“Hmm?” The hamster looked on the skinny side. Maybe it hadn’t been fed properly. “There, there...” He offered it a curious finger. The hamster didn’t react immediately, but it eventually approached the finger, nose twitching. Its cute button eyes were pale and cloudy. Was it blind?
“What are you doing?!” The old man exploded from behind. He sounded so angry that it caused Seiya to flinch. Frightened of the voice, perhaps, the hamster withdrew swiftly into its nest.
“G-Get away from there!” The old man charged.
“But I wasn’t—”
“G-G-Get away!” The old man tried to shove Seiya, but he was so weak that it was the old man who was sent flying instead. “Urgh...” He hit the ground hard. Seiya tried to help him up, but the old man slapped his hand away. “G-G-Get away from me!”
“Look, I’m sorry for barging in,” Seiya tried to apologize. “But you don’t have to be so—”
“G-Get out!”
“Guh...” Seiya grunted. The man had started throwing his manga and magazines. Seiya shielded his face with his arms, running out of the hut.
“G-G-Get out! Get lost! You... you h-h-hoodlum!”
“What’s the big deal?” Seiya protested. “It’s just a hamster!”
“G-Get out!”
“Okay, I’m sorry! But—”
“Get out!”
“Urgh...” The old man wouldn’t budge. Left with no other choice, Seiya just shrugged and walked away. For heaven’s sake. What’s he so angry about? None of this makes any sense, especially those weird tricks he did...
Forget you, then. If I put out an eviction order and you try to resist it, I won’t help you. I’ll toss you out on your ass like the mad old squatter you are. Seiya stopped outside the hut and turned around. He thought the man might be trying to follow him, but he hadn’t; he had started talking to the hamster, as if he’d forgotten that Seiya was ever there.
“Was it scary? Are you okay now? Are you hungry?” Seiya could only hear snippets, but that was roughly what it sounded like; the old man’s voice was overflowing with love and care.
All that, for just a hamster? What’s that old man thinking? He tried to be dismissive, but Seiya still felt a strange chill up his spine, and found himself walking swiftly away.
“Absolutely pathetic...” Seiya whispered to himself, once he’d gotten some distance from the hut. He didn’t know who that old man was. He didn’t want to know. All those bizarre tricks, the way he treasured that hamster... Seiya couldn’t muster any interest about any of it. He just found it pitiful; pitiful and ugly.
The man had lived there for decades just to end up like that. To let that be the way your life ended... If he left that touched-in-the-head old man there, he’d eventually freeze to death in winter or get heatstroke in summer and die, one or the other. Neither ending was how any man should go out.
That’s what people call “one of life’s losers,” Seiya thought. Gives me chills... like I’m going to catch bad luck just from being near him. I want to forget that old man as soon as possible. These were the unvarnished feelings of Kanie Seiya, 17-year-old boy.
Ugh, seriously... that was unsettling. He found those thoughts entering his mind as he kept walking, when he caught sight of that tapir again. It was down the path, just past a brick building, at a fork in the road. That little round tapir that resembled a piglet...
That’s right. It was following that tapir through the hall of mirrors that led me here... Seiya tried to follow it again, but the tapir got further away.
He continued to follow it, anyway. Wait, tapir. The tapir didn’t wait, though. It just got further and further away.
That’s when he heard a voice nearby. “Seiya-kun?”
“Sento?” The next thing he knew, it was Sento at the fork in the road. The tapir was nowhere to be seen.
“Where have you been? I’ve been searching everywhere.” There was anger in Isuzu’s voice.
“What,” Seiya asked, “are you mad at me?”
“Yes. I thought you had been in some kind of accident. Don’t you realize how worried I was?”
“Oh, calm down. I was only gone for fifteen minutes.”
“What are you talking about?” Isuzu demanded coldly. “It’s been four hours.”
“What?” It was then that Seiya realized it: night was falling around them. Since they were in a mountain valley, the sun set early, and the sky was already a dusky indigo. “That can’t be,” he protested. “I was just—”
Confused, he took out his smartphone. It was already 6:30. “Ugh...” he groaned. “What’s going on here?”
Seeing him so confused, Isuzu’s expression turned concerned. “Did you fall and wind up unconscious? It might have affected your memories.”
“No. I didn’t fall, and I’m not hurt. I was chasing that tapir...”
“A tapir?” she questioned. “You mean, the animal?”
“A tapir,” he confirmed. “Before we got separated, I think I said it was a cat. But it wasn’t a cat; it was a tapir.”
“Seiya-kun... are you certain you’re all right?”
“I’m totally fine! ...I mean, to be honest, I’m actually not sure right now. The point is, there was a tapir. That’s pretty unusual, right?”
“I suppose... that is unusual,” Isuzu admitted.
“Most people would follow it, wouldn’t they?”
“I’m not sure most would, but it wouldn’t be unusual to do so,” she agreed.
“Then I came to this weird theater,” he went on, “and I met this old man.”
“Old man?”
“I think he was homeless... well, he was a squatter technically, I guess. That old man... he performed for me, and... um...” Seiya trailed off. Now that he was saying it out loud, he realized how crazy it sounded. Even though it was only a few minutes ago, it already felt like the distant past.
“You can explain later,” Isuzu told him firmly. “For now, we should find our way out.”
“R-Right...” he agreed. They were on an abandoned property, which meant there was no lighting, and things were getting darker and darker by the minute. Once the sun set completely, they’d be lost in the ruins.
“I told Handa-san to go back,” Isuzu told him. “She’s waiting at her office, and she’ll come and pick us up if we call her.”
“I see... I’ve made a lot of trouble, I guess,” Seiya said.
“I don’t mind. I’m just glad that you’re safe.”
“I didn’t mean for you. I meant for Handa-san.”
“......” Isuzu’s typically sour expression became even more dangerous. “You’re a louse, you know.”
“Heh. You expect a man of my greatness to apologize to you?”
“I spent four hours searching around these ruins for you,” she told him acerbically.
“Then you must have gotten a good view of the property. Anyway, let’s hurry.” Seiya began to walk, heading for the ruined amusement park’s entrance.