“…She did say she doesn’t give up easily, didn’t she? I’m pretty stubborn myself, and Asumin also seems fairly…or I guess, very…stubborn.”
Of course, there was no way he could say no. Sousei sent a reply and was waiting in the corridor when Asumi and Moena showed up. Asumi looked deeply concerned with her brow furrowed. Moena cautioned her about it a few times, saying, “Asumin, wrinkles! You’ll get wrinkles,” but Asumi didn’t seem discouraged in the slightest. On the contrary, she seemed brimming with vitality, almost to the point of overflowing with it.
“Ugh! It feels like we’re up against a brick wall here, huh? I’ve been thinking, and I was wondering if, you know…maybe Miss Hitsujimoto is a germophobe or something!”
“…A germophobe,” Sousei parroted back, overwhelmed by Asumi’s energy. “Huh? Why…?”
“You don’t see it?”
“…Hmmm. I don’t…think so?”
“Because Miss Hitsujimoto doesn’t want anyone to get near her, right?”
“Well… Yeah, she does say that.”
“And she always wears gloves!”
“…She does, yeah.”
“Doesn’t that seem like something a germophobe would do?”
“When you put it like that…”
Sousei pressed his left hand to his chest. Why had he deliberately gone to the trouble of moving his aching left arm to press it against his sore chest? Sousei didn’t really know himself.
…I know why she doesn’t like people getting close to her, and why she wears gloves, but there’s no way I can tell them…
A germophobe.
That could be a plausible excuse as well.
But if he went along with that, he’d definitely be lying to Asumi.
“…Well… I’m not sure. To me, that’s kind of… I can’t really…”
“Doesn’t she just hate people?” Moena blurted out. She had something in her mouth, probably candy or some other kind of snack. “I can’t comprehend it, but apparently there are some people who just generally hate people.”
…That’s probably what it looks like, with the way Hitsujimoto is.
Sousei grimaced. His chest and left arm hurt. It wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t put up with it, but it still hurt.
But that’s not the case…
“She doesn’t hate me, though,” Asumi declared resolutely. “After all, she told me so herself.”
“…Asumin.” Moena’s eyebrows had gone up in the middle. The food in her mouth seemed to be gone. “You do know it’s not easy for someone to say they dislike a person right to their face…right?”
“Huh? So how about you, Moena?”
“Me?”
“Do you actually hate me?”
“There’s no way I could!”
“I knooow. I really like you, too, Moena.”
“…Stop it. It’s embarrassing when you say things like that.” Moena’s cheeks kept getting redder and redder. She was already blushing hard.
Sousei covered the bottom half of his face with his right hand.
Even I feel kind of embarrassed…
Asumi, however, wasn’t embarrassed at all. In fact, her expression was serious.
“If someone said they hated me, I’d just think, ‘Oh, okay. So that’s how it is.’ But when that’s not the case, suspecting someone might hate just makes me feel awful. It’s tiring. I think I’d probably get all depressed. So Miss Hitsujimoto doesn’t hate me. That’s what I think.”
How…?
Sousei looked down, his hand still covering his mouth. He couldn’t look directly at Asumi.
How straightforward can one person be…? But Asumin isn’t entirely wrong. Hitsujimoto doesn’t hate her, nor does she hate people in general…
He couldn’t picture it.
Kuchina Hitsujimoto living a normal student life, surrounded by friends, chatting. Laughing together about all sorts of silly things. Maybe walking around, kidding about with a friend, just like Asumi and Moena did. It wasn’t an easy image to conjure up.
“Asumin,” Moena said, passing her a candy as if telling her to calm down for a moment.
She gave a candy to Sousei as well, but in a different color. He tore off the wrapper, and as he popped the cantaloupe-flavored candy in his mouth, he experienced a pain that was different to that of his wounds.
Melon flavor… It’s sweet… Painfully sweet.
Kuchina probably couldn’t accept a candy offered to her by a friend like this without hesitating.
It would be all right. She wore gloves. It wouldn’t be a problem as long as she didn’t touch anyone with her bare skin.
Sousei could say that sort of thing since he wasn’t the one who had that cheat.
Kuchina was born with the power to take people’s lives just by touching them. Life and death completely separated her from other people.
The wall.
That wall of hers had undoubtedly been there from the start.
Kuchina’s situation was different to Sousei’s. Completely different. But Sousei had also come to possess a cheat, regardless of whether or not he liked it, so he could speculate and make educated guesses.
Kuchina must have also tried to grasp the nature of her cheat, just as Sousei had done. Experimenting was the only way to do that. Even if there were records or knowledge available, the only way to determine the nature and limitations of their cheats was through trial and error.
Sousei had been able to do that through repeatedly dying.
What about Kuchina?
…She’d have no choice but to kill. That was the only way to see what would and wouldn’t kill someone…
Presumably, Kuchina had figured it out through her work.
For example, she grabs their wrist. They die.
She touches the back of their neck. They die.
She skims their earlobe with her fingertips. They die.
As long as she wears gloves and her hands aren’t bare, they won’t die even if she touches them.
They won’t die…probably.
Really?
No matter what?
No matter how many times she touches them?
What if her gloves frayed?
Was the power constant? Unvarying? Not subject to change?
Perhaps, one day, she’d become able to kill someone even while wearing gloves. Who could say that wouldn’t be possible?
It could happen tomorrow. No, it could even happen today.
…That’s scary. It’s terrifying. It’d be impossible. If it were me, I probably wouldn’t be able to leave the house. I’d just shut myself in unless I had work… What sort of a life is that? What would be the point of living? I don’t think I’d be able to… But Hitsujimoto comes to school…
“Sousei? What’s wrong?” Asumi waved a hand in front of his face.
Sousei was taken aback.
“…Ah. No, i-it’s nothing, sorry…”
“But you were making a face like you were really brewing over something…”
Asumi had used a phrase he’d never heard before, and Moena immediately chimed in with, “Do you mean ‘brooding’?”
“Ah, that’s it! Were you brooding over something?”
“…I was deep in thought…I guess?”
“And?”
“…And?”
“Any bright ideas?”
“Nah, not really…”
Sousei groaned. He couldn’t imagine Kuchina would soften her stance. It might be better to convince Asumi that it’d be impossible no matter what they did. Kuchina had told Sousei to stop Asumi. Should he just do what she wanted him to?
I really don’t think I’d be able to persuade her, though…