He had still not done anything of any real worth.
✦ ✦ ✦
He screamed something, but he couldn’t catch the meaning of his own words. He might have begged for help, but what he think would help him? His scream did not even reach his own ears.
✦ ✦ ✦
He landed awkwardly on his back, and let out a howl of pain.
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Still beside himself with panic, he stared up at the black figure perched on the edge of the roof. Had it saved him? Or just deflected the enemy’s attack?
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"............"
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The setting sun behind it kept him from seeing its expression.
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A strong gust of wind blew its cloak around, but failed to move the figure itself.
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Glumly, it whispered, “He got away...”
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Shinjirou looked around, but the hideously fat man who had raved incomprehensible things at him was nowhere to be seen.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh well. . .at least he won’t go near you again. He knows if he does, there’s surely a risk of crossing paths with me again.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The cloaked figure came towards him. It was shorter than he’d. thought at first.
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But now that he thought about it, the girl who had been waitin g for him was actually this guy in disguise, so of course he was tiny.
✦ ✦ ✦
Then the letter had all just been a ruse to draw out the mysterious blubberball?
✦ ✦ ✦
He stared vacantly up at the cloaked figure.
✦ ✦ ✦
"......" Halfway to him, the cloaked figure bent over and picked something up off of the ground. It was the blubberball’s ear, freshly severed. The cloaked figure tossed it lightly into the air, like he’d picked up a ten-yen coin.
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“How did you get out from under his control? That’s what interests me the most. Although, if I ask, I doubt you’ll know.
✦ ✦ ✦
They’d hardly leave such an obvious clue.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Shinjirou was unable to grasp any meaning from those words.
✦ ✦ ✦
The cloaked figure stopped just in front of him, reached into its cloak, and pulled out not an ear, but a letter.
✦ ✦ ✦
“This is the real letter. You should have it. The meeting is not for today, but for the day after tomorrow. Make sure to be there,”
✦ ✦ ✦
the figure instructed as it handed over the letter to Shinjirou. “I apologize for infringing on your privacy, but will you forgive me? I had no choice.”
✦ ✦ ✦
He took the letter absently, and opened it. It was in the same handwriting, and had the same words. Only the date was different.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What does this mean?” he asked, looking up.
✦ ✦ ✦
But the cloaked figure was gone.
✦ ✦ ✦
There was nothing left but the wind.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Please, Suema-san. Save Jin-niisan..."
✦ ✦ ✦
I couldn’t get Kinukawa Kotoe’s earnest appeal out of my head. And Asukai J in’s strange behavior at the cram school. . .that drawing of the girl who killed herself.
✦ ✦ ✦
I couldn’t forget. Even if it wasn’t someone like me, a recovering abnormal psychological behavior addict, I don’t think anyone else would be able to distance themselves from the matter that easily.
✦ ✦ ✦
Early in the morning the day after Kinukawa Kotoe had made her request, I went to the place where Minahoshi Suiko had killed herself. It was spring vacation, so I thought the place would be empty, but there was quite a crowd around the gates.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s going on?” I wondered.
✦ ✦ ✦
My friend Miyashita Touka had come with me. “You know, new students getting fitted for uniforms, and handing out the ID
✦ ✦ ✦
cards. You know, orientation crap,” she said.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, yeah.” Come to think of it, two years before, we had done the exact same thing. I had completely forgotten.
✦ ✦ ✦
They all looked like they were having fun. That wouldn’t last long. Soon they would be back to the stress of exams, or job hunting, like we were.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Not the mood for checking out a suicide, is it?” Touka said.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What do you think, Suema? You can go home if you like. I gotta swing by the library.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The reason she’d come with me was something about a book she’d forgotten to return. Wanted to get it back early before we had to head to cram school.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nah, I’ll come with you.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Okay then. Ah...” Touka made a face as we reached the gates. “That girl’s here. Dang it!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Mm? Who?” This was unusual. Touka was not the kind of girl who disliked people easily or avoided them. l
✦ ✦ ✦
“Discipline committee president,” she muttered, glumly.
✦ ✦ ✦
I was even more surprised. “Really? Niitoki-san? But she’s so nice!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nah, it’s all me. This and that.” She put her palms together.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Sorry, gotta go!” she yelled, turnng her back and darting off.
✦ ✦ ✦
“B-but. . .?!” I stammered, abandoned.
✦ ✦ ✦
‘Oh well,’ I thought, as I turned back towards the school.
✦ ✦ ✦
The new first year students were all happily gathered around the gates, which as anyone who’s ever visited our school would know, are set up with gate checks like those found at a train station. You have to actually run your ID card through it just to get in. It’s completely useless! And here all the new kids were just
✦ ✦ ✦
“oohing” and “aahing” over it! If you looked really closely though, you could see only about half of them were actually excited about it, while the rest seemed pretty darn alarmed by it.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Excuse me, coming through,” I said, pushing my way towards the gates.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Morning, Suema-san,” said the apparently problematic discipline committee president, Niitoki Kei. We’ve known each other since we were first year students.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Morning. You get roped into this just because you’re president?” I asked.
✦ ✦ ✦
She laughed. “I’m not president anymore. But even so...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ah, right, your term’s over. It just seemed like something you’d do...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I mean, you know, the big sister thing.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Pot calling the kettle, Doctor.”
✦ ✦ ✦
We looked at each other and laughed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So what brings you here, Suema-san?”
✦ ✦ ✦
I couldn’t answer. It wasn’t something to tell just anyone about. “Um. . . just, you know, stuff.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That Miyashita-san with you?” she said, suddenly.
✦ ✦ ✦
I was taken aback. “Uh. . .um, well...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“She doesn’t want to talk to me, huh?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yeah. . .what’s going on there? You two don’t seem like you’d rub each other the wrong way...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nah, that’s not it. Just, uh. . .this and that,” Kei said, meaningfully and a little forlornly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Is this about a boy?” I asked, on a hunch.
✦ ✦ ✦
Kei’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. She gave a nervous giggle. “. . .You’re scary sometimes, you know that? Like you can read my mind.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh. . .I didn’t mean to...” I scrambled.
✦ ✦ ✦
But it seemed like she didn’t take it that badly, and she said pretty lightly, “Bingo. Her boyfriend turned me down. No room for doubt. . . just clear and direct.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, the designer guy?”
✦ ✦ ✦
I’d met him. He was. . .well, not a bad guy. . .but that was about the extent of my impression. I think there’s something about your friends’ boyfriends that makes them hard to get to know.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Right, that one,” Kei said, somehow refreshed.
✦ ✦ ✦
She was free now, I realized. She’d let him go. I was impressed. I doubt I would manage my heartbreak so neatly. I bet I’d be dragged around by it for ages, but here Kei had already put it behind her.
✦ ✦ ✦
“If only Touka could be so relaxed about it,”I muttered.
✦ ✦ ✦
Kei laughed. “If only that were all of it. If only that were all.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Eh? There’s more?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I know who that girl really is,” she said, naughtily.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Uh. . .wha?” I asked, but the buzzer on the gate went off.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Sorry,” Kei said, and turned towards the noise.
✦ ✦ ✦
There was a boy standing in front of the gate, looking blank.
✦ ✦ ✦
He had forgotten to run his card through.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s wrong?” Kei asked him.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ah. . .nothing,” he said, like his eyes weren’t focusing.
✦ ✦ ✦
The other kids were starting to cluster around.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You all go on ahead, find your classrooms,” Kei said, loudly.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her manner brooked no questions, and everyone did exactly as they were told. She had more authority than most of the teachers.
✦ ✦ ✦
Kei pulled the boy over to the side. One girl followed him.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s wrong, Anou-kun?” she asked, worriedly, putting her hand on his shoulder. They wore the same uniform. Looked like they were a couple moving up from the same junior high.
✦ ✦ ✦
I don’t know why, but I thought to myself how nice it must be to be a carefree youth. I was a little jealous.
✦ ✦ ✦
“N-no. . . just, um...” Anou-kun stuttered, apparently shaking his head.
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
I knew it was nosy, but I couldn’t stop watching them.
✦ ✦ ✦
"...I just thought, why am I here?” Anou-kun said, like nothing made sense to him.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What do you mean?” Kei asked, puzzled.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I just. . .I feel like I lost something really, really important to come here. I don’t know what...” Anou-kun muttered.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Are you okay?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Anou-kun had a rough time last year,” his girlfriend said.
✦ ✦ ✦
But he just carried on, like he hadn’t even heard her. “I can’t figure out what it is. I haven’t lost anything. I know that. I know that, but. . .I don’t know what it was, but it was really important.
✦ ✦ ✦
The first time I’d found it...” It was like he was delirious.
✦ ✦ ✦
Then tears started pouring down his cheeks.