A soft rain was falling outside the classroom windows.
Hiro sat with her chin in her hand, scrolling down as she read U comments out loud to me.
“‘Belle’s not doing any more concerts?’
“‘I want to hear Belle sing again.’
“‘Why won’t she sing anymore?’
“‘Must be scared another concert will get interrupted.’
“‘It’s all the Dragon’s fault.’
“‘Wish they’d unveil him already.’”
I sat with my feet on my chair and my arms around my knees, listening to what people were writing. All of them hurt.
“Let’s forget about the Dragon. We don’t need to know his secrets,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. U isn’t some little class group chat. No one can stop it now.”
Hiro switched to an anonymous message board.
GTFO Beast
Worthless scum
He can die for all I care.
It was a solid stream of merciless, unthinking hatred.
My phone lay on my desk with a video by the Justices playing on it.
“The dangerous Beast is threatening order in U. We are seeking new information about him via the hashtag #UnveilTheBeast.”
I felt like he was being hounded from all directions.
A bearded man was watching some AS streamer making a fuss.
“He’s just some stupid old hermit!”
A girl in glasses was seated on a park bench, watching another AS offer a rebuttal:
“He’s a genius kid gamer!”
A middle schooler had her phone under her desk and was secretly watching a livestream where an AS whispered, “The Beast is actually a mind-blowingly hot chick.”
A guy in a rugby shirt was leaning on a locker room wall, watching a different stream.
“I heard he’s a billionaire.”
An elderly woman and her daughter were at home, watching a livestream on the sofa.
“I’m suing him for the emotional trauma I suffered from fighting him.”
A woman was viewing a gossip video where a reporter confronted Jelinek and his new girlfriend.
“Dating already, are you? I thought the love of your life just died,” the reporter said.
His girlfriend, a plump, dark-skinned woman with curly blond hair, spoke to the waiting mics.
“He’s incredible.”
In another video, his pale, black-haired ex was protesting, her glasses flashing.
“Hey, I’m not dead!”
“She’s still alive?” his current girlfriend asked, surprised.
Jelinek defended himself from a separate window.
“I never said she was the one who died.”
But his ex was exploding with rage. “He’s such a fake! He copied the Beast’s bruises for all his tattoos.”
“She’s lying!” Jelinek insisted, pressing his hand to his forehead.
“He’s a total fraud!”
“Bitter losers like you should just keep their mouths shut,” his new girlfriend said with a shrug.
“What did you call me?!”
Jelinek blocked the camera, his patience gone. “How dare you claim I’m a fraud!”
Fox, the outfielder for the Wildebeests, wasn’t the type to get easily ruffled, so he said nothing. He just kept smiling at his fans, trying to be a good person. He didn’t let occasional criticism put him out of sorts or throw him off. He didn’t subscribe to the belief that baseball was all about racking up good stats. To the contrary, he thought the better his stats, the humbler he should be. Nothing was accomplished alone. The only reason he was here was because of his teammates, fans, opponents, and all the people who loved baseball.
Still, this time, he felt he couldn’t overlook the gossip, or rather the nastiness that was being directed at him. He earnestly believed he needed to communicate his true intentions. The problem was finding the right way to get those intentions across.
In the end, he chose to create a video message.
Having decided to broadcast from his low-key home study, he set up his camera on a tripod and pressed the livestream button.
Dressed in a high-necked undershirt, he took off his team cap and set it on the side table before quietly beginning to speak.
“People think I’m hiding something because I don’t show my skin in public. Lately, some have even been saying that I’m the Beast on U. But I’m no villain, and I’m not violent. I want to be a true hero for children.”
Fox stood slowly and took off his undershirt. The skin of his upper body, the skin he’d kept so closely guarded, was exposed to the camera. Long scars covered his torso. One stretched from beneath his neck to the center of his chest. Another traversed his right side, another crossed above his stomach, and another was over its center. The right side of his torso was dotted with marks where drains had been inserted. He truly was scarred from head to toe.
“Please don’t be shocked. I was seriously ill as a child and required many major surgeries. But it’s thanks to those operations that I’m healthy enough to play baseball,” he said calmly. He placed his hand on his chest.
“To all the kids watching this: Don’t give up on your dreams. I hope this message comes across the right way.”
Fox’s livestream was playing on multiple large screens in U. Although viewers were shocked by the vivid scars, his honesty earned him overwhelmingly positive comments. The ASes of U cheered his gentlemanly performance.
Hiro’s AS was watching with her arms crossed.
“Interesting…”
Fox had been one of her suspects, and now that her guess turned out to be wrong, she was at a loss.
“So who is the Dragon?”
His mermaid attendants were sleeping. Ever since our dance at the castle, Hiro’s AS had been looking after them like a big sister.
Suddenly, someone shouted, “Inexcusable!”
Hiro turned, recognizing the voice.
“Oh, wow…”
An ad was playing on a floating screen. The phrase “You hurt me” was written in various languages. Hiro walked closer on a hunch. A baby was screaming hysterically in the foreground, clutching a teddy bear.
“I won’t take it! I’ll never forgive the people who hurt me! Never!”
“Are you…the ideal housewife lady?” Hiro’s AS asked.
“Huh?”
The baby—that is, Swan—looked up in surprise at having been identified.
“Why are you a baby?” Hiro’s AS pressed.
“The true me is innocent at heart!”
“That’s a lie. I bet you think you can get away with saying whatever awful things you want as long as you have a cute avatar.”
The baby AS responded to this merciless accusation with a wail.
“Wahhh…! Shut up!!”
She abruptly hurled the teddy bear.
“Ack!” Hiro’s AS yelped, flinching.
The baby AS took the opportunity to crawl away at top speed. Hiro’s AS slumped her shoulders. Another of her suspects had just been ruled out.
In central U, large screens crowded the street, Times Square style. They were displaying various images of Belle—I mean, of me. The AS spectators spewed countless comment bubbles:
Is Belle really going to sing again?
That’s just a rumor
I heard she’s gonna hold a surprise concert.
There’s nothing to back that up.
But if it’s true…
I didn’t plan to sing yet. But everyone was so full of expectations and disappointment and hope. I didn’t know how to respond. All I could do was hide my bewildered face behind my scarf.
“……?!”
Sensing a presence nearby, I turned.
I was surrounded by high-level Justices. They’d seized on a brief moment when I was away from Hiro’s AS and the mermaids.
I was brought in for interrogation immediately. They hung up my scarf and cloak and sat me down in a wooden chair. Other than a circle of marble flooring illuminated by a light hanging from the ceiling, my surroundings were dark. I felt like I was on a stage.
Justin was wearing a black suit and tie. He held out the insignia on his right arm to show me.
“Do you know why this light has the power of justice?”
I said nothing. He pulled back the insignia.