One thing does grab my attention, though—a laptop on the glass table between the two sofas. It probably belongs to the director. The screen is open and shows a desktop. I peer at it and see it’s still logged in to his account.
“……”
His email is open and shows prominently on the screen. Behind it are sub-windows meant for composing new messages. In fact, no other programs are open. The whole screen is full of windows related to the email program—and every single one of them has text in it.
“What’s up? You look troubled. Something wrong?”
As I begin to move, Abaddon floats over to me. He puts his face next to mine and glances at the screen with me. Then he looks between me and the laptop a few times.
“Don’t tell me you’re put off just from seeing a dead body.”
I might have been once, before I met Abaddon. Now, though, this is an everyday occurrence. No different from peeking into an alley and seeing a stray cat. I’m not sure that’s a healthy attitude, but if I let every little thing shock me, I won’t make it through a week.
“……”
A mouse rests next to the laptop. I pull down my sleeve, so it sits between my hand and the device. Then, ignoring my partner’s banter, I move the cursor around and look at the text in the smaller windows. Every single one has the exact same message in it.
It’s a suicide note.
It looks like he addressed it to a number of different people. They’re only drafts; none of them have a destination. Instead, the subject lines contain names of people and organizations—likely who they’re intended for.
One of them is meant for us. The subject line reads, “To SC Industries.” My name and my neighbor’s name are both written in the message, so there can be no doubt.
The message is as follows:
To Miss Kareki and Mr. Sasaki of SC Industries,
I am sorry things turned out like this so soon after we began to work together.
My incompetence is to blame for everything.
I have no apprehensions about taking my own life. But if I have one regret, it’s that I wasn’t able to be present for the moment Miss Kareki’s talents bloomed.
I will pray from the afterlife that her future is bright.
Regards,
Kuga
As I read it, my neighbor calls out, “Is there something on the laptop, Miss Kareki?”
“Just something I’m a little curious about.”
“…Curious?”
Everyone comes over to me, and I move out of the way, gesturing for them to take my spot.
Kihouin and Rolling scramble over, followed by Futarishizuka, Robot Girl, and the facility manager. After a few moments, my senpai speak up.
“Is this…? My goodness! Could this be this a suicide note addressed to us?”
“This can’t beee! I can’t believe he reeeally did this…!”
Kihouin gingerly gazes at the display, her face tense. Next to her, Rolling is crying. It seems the director was well-loved by his subordinates. He certainly wasn’t disliked, at least.
Even so, something about this note bothers me. I’m no doctor, so I can’t examine the corpse. I can’t tell if the rope matches the mark on his neck, or when rigor mortis set in, or any of that other stuff you hear people talk about in detective fiction.
But there’s something off about this suicide note.
“I feel like something’s off about Mr. Kuga’s suicide,” I say to my neighbor casually.
“What on earth?! Do you mean to say it might not be a suicide?!” exclaims Kihouin.
Rolling joins in. “Wh-what do you mean, Karekiii?”
My two senpai are instantly interested in my remark, despite the fact I was clearly talking to my neighbor. His response is subdued, perhaps out of consideration for the two of them.
“Can you explain your reasoning?” he asks.
“Look at this message here.”
I bring up the email to SC Industries and wiggle the cursor around some of the text to show where I’m looking.
“You mean the suicide note for us?” he asks. “Or I suppose it’s more like an apology.”
“That’s what it feels like to me, too. And it’s written out to the company on the business card you gave him. But I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Kuga really wrote these messages.”
“…What are you getting at?”
“If you remember, Mr. Kuga has used boku to refer to himself in every email conversation we’ve ever had with him. There hasn’t been a single exception. But in this note, he uses watashi.”
Once everyone’s attention is on the text, I highlight some of it—a short sentence near the middle.
“Are you sure he’s not just being more formal?” my neighbor asks.
In Japanese, a man can refer to himself in various ways. Boku isn’t exactly rude, but watashi is certainly more formal.
In response, I bring several other sub-windows into the foreground. “Well, this message here basically says the same thing, but he uses boku instead. And in this one, he uses ore. It really seems like he’s consciously making a distinction about how to refer to himself.”
In all the messages going to people outside the company, he uses boku. In messages to coworkers, he uses ore—a rougher and less formal pronoun.
“Yet he only breaks the pattern in the message to us. That’s what’s suspicious.”
“It hasn’t been long since we met him. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I agree that’s likely, but it still bothers me.”
I let go of the mouse and move away from the laptop. I can’t explain why this bothers me so much, but it does. My neighbor is right—we did essentially just meet him. Maybe he forgot to stay in character for a moment. I have no way to prove otherwise.
But after hearing our conversation, the others begin to respond.
“Karekiii! Wait, wait, waaait. That’s it!” exclaims Rolling in her high-pitched child’s voice. She sounds hysterical as she reaches for the mouse and pulls up one of the windows. She grasps the device barehanded and starts clicking. She’s going to leave fingerprints; I bet the police will be angry.
“Seeee? Look at the message for me and Kihooo!”
“What about it?” I ask.
“Whenever Mr. Kuga emails us, he uses oira insteeead! Even in text messages, he usually uses oira. But thiiis message says ore!” Rolling’s face has gone pale. Combined with her poorly enunciated child’s voice, it gives her words a strange intensity.
Kihouin is back in character, too. The fact they’re able to keep it up even now is proof that it’s become part of them. They’re the real deal.
“You may be right,” I say. “If he’d just used watashi for all of them it could make sense, but choosing ore when he’s never even used it before seems odd. And using a rough pronoun like that in a formal suicide note is even weirder.”
“Karekiii, you don’t meeean…,” says Rolling.
“There could be other reasons, though. If Mr. Kuga was distressed enough to consider suicide, perhaps he wasn’t composed enough to think any of this through. But if that isn’t the case, it’s possible someone else wrote these letters.”
“W-wait just one minute, Miss Kareki! Doesn’t that mean…?”
“Or it could be that Mr. Kuga wrote these specifically to imply someone else was involved. In either case, he probably didn’t intend to wind up like this.”
From my point of view, I’m just pointing out the facts.
But at that moment, I hear everyone around me gasp.