I’d been unconscious apparently, though I didn’t know for how long. Seconds? Hours? I squinted and looked around. I still saw the same ceiling. But I didn’t see a person near me anymore. I didn’t see that little shadow either.
I heard Yukari’s voice, coming from somewhere or other.
“Well, the song goes like: ‘His power is in your hand.’ What it’s saying is, it’s not the robot’s fault. It’s not your fault, either. The responsibility lies with the one holding the remote—in this case, I guess that would be the programmer—or maybe it’s just a bug?”
Then I heard the girl’s voice, shouting. “Wh-what kind of nonsense are you spouting? I mean, what the actual hell? Why don’t I hurt? Why aren’t I bleeding? How can I still talk? W-wait, wait a second. What are you planning to do to me with those?”
“Calm down. There’s nothing to be scared of. With these I can fix that bug we found in you just like that. It’s okay. I mean haven’t done this before, but I’m pretty sure I can do it. So don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. It’s not going to hurt, okay?”
“Wha—d-don’t, you nutjob! What makes you think that’ll fit in there? D-don’t—you—n-no—no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no don’t no no no no no no no no no no no! No no no…”
“Just be quiet already, will you?”
The girl’s voice stopped abruptly, and my lights went out again.
✦ ✦ ✦
When I opened my eyes once more, my head was in Yukari’s lap for some reason.
Meanwhile, Yukari had the mannequin arm in her hands, and she was moving her head around looking at it. “Oh! What do I do? It’s so far gone already. Oh, no. Oh, no! This is going to be useless now too…”
Then she caught my eyes looking at hers, and she opened hers wide, hid the mannequin arm behind her back for some reason, and smiled. “Oh! Oh! Um… It’s okay, Gaku-chan. You’ll be okay. I promise I’ll fix you right up. Yeah. I have done this once before, and this is going to be a lot simpler than with Ten-chan. So relax and take a nap for me, okay?”
Yukari’s hand stretched out and gently closed my eyelids, as if tenderly stroking them. I was immediately surrounded in darkness and couldn’t open my eyes again on my own.
Hey, didn’t that girl say I shouldn’t go back to sleep? I thought back to earlier. She said if I went back to sleep I wouldn’t wake up again because of the anesthetic. I tried to tell Yukari that, but I couldn’t will my eyes or mouth to move. I felt as if my head was being stroked. An intense sleepiness came over me that I just couldn’t resist.
My consciousness began to drift away again, sucked into that same dark. Just before I lost it, I thought I heard Yukari say something like, “Are you going to get mad at me like Ten-chan did? Are you going to hate me too? I hope you don’t, Gaku-chan. That would hurt… But I have to do this, Gaku-chan. Because you’re my precious friend.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Maybe the girl was just bluffing, or maybe I was already dreaming at that point. In any case, I did wake up again. This time, I was in my bed at home. I looked at the clock and it was nighttime. According to my family, I’d come home in the afternoon saying I felt bad and went straight to bed. I, myself, didn’t have any memory of this.
My grandma said that a middle-aged man had visited while I was asleep. He said he was a detective. When he heard that I was asleep, he just left, after asking her to tell me not to worry because the Tokyo Ripper had turned themselves in. My grandma was confused about why he would come to tell me that, but I managed to gloss over it.
That left me sitting in my bed, looking at my left hand, while recalling that mannequin arm that still remained in my fuzzy memory. I made a fist. I opened it. Nothing felt off. There naturally wasn’t any scar from a cut or trace of treatment.
In that case…I had to be overthinking this.
It must have been a dream.
Then I heard my cell phone ring.
Since I’d just received it recently, Yukari’s number was the only one I had a ringtone for. (I’m actually not so good with gadgets, so it was Yukari herself who set the ringtone for me.) So I hesitantly—and I mean really hesitantly—answered the phone.
I was so relieved things were fine. And I was even more relieved when I heard Yukari’s soothing voice the moment I picked up.
“Hello? Gaku-chan?”
“Uh-huh. Yukari… Yukari? Are you okay? You’re not hurt or anything, are you?”
“Huh? Oh—oh—what are you talking about? I’m fine, of course, but—Gaku-chan, how about you? Are you okay? Like, um…don’t read too much into this, but your left hand…”
“Oh, I feel totally fine.”
Through the phone, I could hear her sighing with her entire body. It felt kind of funny to me. I thought she was smarter than me, but she was oblivious in some ways. Falteringly, she asked, “By the way, Gaku-chan…do you remember anything about today?”
“That’s a good question, actually. Apparently I came home in the afternoon and was sleeping until now, but I don’t remember anything. I just have this feeling that I was having a wicked scary dream…”
“Really? Huh. Oh, yeah, that’s good!”
“It’s good? Were you listening to me, Yukari? I just said I can’t remember anything and I was having a nightmare!”
“Oh! Um, yeah, that’s true. Okay, Gaku-chan, you’d better get a good night’s sleep, then. Once you get some rest, those nightmares will disappear. You can probably wait until tomorrow to get your left hand checked. So, take care…”
She was trying to end the conversation, but I stopped her. I said casually, “Wait one second. Before you hang up…there’s one question I want to ask you.”
“Uh-huh?”
“I lost something—my cell phone. Do you know where it is?”
The other end of the line was quiet. After an awkward silence, she piped up, “Your cell phone? Uh, no. Wh-where could it be? I wonder—Oh! Oh! I wonder—”
As she went on in a panic, trying to smooth things over, I sighed dramatically. “Why don’t you admit it, Marii Yukari? I remember what happened. I know it’s late, but let’s meet up now anyway, okay? We ought to talk.”
Yukari eventually answered, “…Okay.”
“Cool. How ’bout in front of school?”
Once we wrapped up, I took a long look at my left hand which I had been holding to my ear all this time. The current time showed faintly through the skin of my palm, and then disappeared.
My arm looked normal again.
To my eyes, my arm looked perfectly, comprehensively normal. There was no sign that it had recently rung or shown the current time.
I changed my sweat-drenched shirt and went to the school grounds, finding Yukari already there.