“I’m the one that called you out here, so everything’s on me.” Riko gulped down some awfully sweet looking milk tea and looked up at me with her large eyes.
“Aaaah, that hit the spot. Say, Kii-kun, you got in a fight with Aria, didn’t you?”
“That’s none of your business, is it?”
“Sure it is. You and Aria have to get along well with each other.”
“Why is that?”
“Because if you don’t, it’s no fun for me!”
Riko stuck a fork into the Mont Blanc and smiled at me. It was an expression that meant she was telling the truth.
“Kii-kun, say ‘Ahh.’” Riko brought the fork with the chunk of cake on it next to my face.
“I don’t think so. Stop being so dumb.”
“…‘Butei killing’…” She said it as if she were pulling out a winning card and my eyes reacted accordingly.
“…Did you…find something out?”
“I’ll tell you if you say ‘Ahh.’”
It was so embarrassing, I almost wanted to die, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I took a bite of the Mont Blanc that Riko offered me and gave her a threatening look with my eyes that said, “Now spill it.”
“Hee hee. I found out about this in the files at the Metropolitan Police Department. The thing is, the people who died as a result of ‘Butei killings’ might not have been just the motorcycle-jacking and the carjacking incident.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something called a ‘potential incident’. An incident that was officially categorized as an accident might have actually been caused by the ‘Butei killer’, but nobody knows because of a cover-up.”
“That’s possible?”
“I found such a case in the files. I think the person might have been a victim of the ‘Butei killer.’”
Riko took out a piece of paper that was folded in four quarters from her poche pocket and slowly unfolded it as if she were performing a magic trick. She then showed me what was written on it.
“!”
It felt like the blood in my veins had frozen solid.
December 24, 2008 Boating disaster off the coast of Uraga
Fatalities: Butei Kinichi Tohyama (nineteen years old)
“This name—it’s your brother, isn’t it? I’m thinking the boat was hijacked.”
Riko’s voice sounded like it was coming from far off into the distance.
…The “Butei killer”. What are you? Who are you? Why my brother? Why did you target my brother and me?!
“I like it.”
Riko’s voice was filled with passion, and upon hearing it, I came back to my senses. When I looked her in the eyes, she narrowed them as she gazed at me.
“I like it, Kinji—that look in your eyes. It sends shivers down my spine.” Riko brought the upper half of her body closer to me looking as if she were of deriving a sense of ecstasy. “Je t’aime à croquer. During the entrance exam, I fell in love with your eyes at first sight.”
“…Riko?”
In the course of the exam, I defeated Riko as easily as if she were merely toddler. I wondered if that was what she was referring to.
“Kinji.” In that uncomfortably confined room, Riko was demonstrating animal-like movements. Then out of the blue, she grabbed onto me. It was all so sudden that I was helpless to do anything about it and was pushed down into the couch.
“…Riko?!”
“Kinji, you sure are insensitive to love. It's almost like your purposely trying to be insensitive. Say…you do realize, don’t you? We’re in the middle of an event scene.”
My head was being enveloped by Riko’s two pigtails as well as the rest of her long hair, which was done in dog tails. Her baby face was so close to mine that there were barely five inches between us. Different from that of Aria’s, Riko was giving off a sweet feminine scent like vanilla or almonds. She brought her lips as close to my cheek as possible without actually touching it, and from there, her mouth approached my ear. I’m not sure what her intentions were, but she bit my earlobe. It hurt.
“Say, Kinji. I did go through the trouble of getting us this expensive room… It’s okay if you do the sort of thing that happens in the games…” said Riko in a passionate and sorrowful voice as she pressed her entire body against mine.
R-Riko. Had Riko always been this seductive?
Some of the guys at Inquesta who were more ‘appreciative’ of Riko called her the ‘busty Lolita face’, and with her lying on top of me, I now understood why. She was always dressed up in clothes a little girl would be interested in and had mannerisms of a child, yet the curves in her body were all too well defined, and a very soft body it was at that…
“Kinji, no one will ever find out what takes place in this room. Shirayuki is busy training for SSR, and Aria is going back to England. I heard she’ll be taking a charter plane at seven tonight, so she’s probably at Haneda airport by now. So…how about doing something fun with me? Hee hee.”
It was in part because Riko’s seductiveness was so sudden, but also because her advances were so unexpected, I didn’t have a chance to mentally prepare myself. Before I knew it, the core of my body was heating up and hardening as my blood began to boil. I was in hysteria mode.
“…!”
At that instant, something sparked inside my head. What Riko had just told me and the boating incident that happened in the past melded into a single line, as if they had been brought together with an electromagnet. And that line…led to a terrifying ending that could never be changed once it came to be.
This is bad. Real bad. I have to get moving. Now!
“Sorry about this…!”
In hysteria mode, I slipped my hand in front of Riko’s face and snapped my finger. The second Riko flinched and blinked her eyes…
“It’s about time for good little girls to return home and go to bed, isn’t it?”
“Huh?”
I had Riko’s small body scooped up in my arms, and turning around I laid her down on the couch. I then stood up and dashed out of the room smoothing my bangs upward. It was my hysteria mode hair style…