“Wah-wah! Gamotan! Gamotan! You’re grinning! Grin, grin, grin, grin! ♪” Ryotasu was pretending to be a cat and jumping around the room. Since I was having fun now too, I decided to just ignore her.
“Where would you like to begin?” I asked, “Maybe some of my best stories? Or how I get my information? Or perhaps—”
And then the editor for Mumuu chuckled.
“Sorry, I’m not here for an interview. I came here to talk to you for personal reasons.”
P-Personal reasons? Did older girls have a thing for me? I mean, I was pretty average looking, but lately a lot of younger girls had been into me. So this was a little surprising.
An older woman, huh? I’d never really considered the possibility, but the editor was cute, even if she was a little plain. I could see it working, especially since we likely had similar hobbies.
“Gamon, stop grinning. Miss Sumikaze is here to talk about the 256 incident.” Sarai’s cold words brought me back to reality.
“...She wants to talk to me about the 256 incident?” I could understand if she wanted to talk about Dr. Hashigami, but why the 256 incident? Maybe she wanted to get the opinion of the guy who ran Kirikiri Basara? But we weren’t that well-known or important yet...
“Oh, right! Speaking of the 256 incident, the weirdest thing happened.” This was something I knew an editor from Mumuu would love to hear. “One of the victims had the exact same name as me. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.”
“............”
“I never really thought about it, but maybe my name’s a lot more common than I thought it was. It really had me scared for a second, though! Ahaha!”
I was laughing, but...
“Someone with the same name...?” Sarai wasn’t laughing. That wasn’t unusual, but...
“That’s right! The exact same name. It was enough to terrify even me. Even though I’m the admin of an occult blog, you know? Haha! Hahaha... Huh?”
Why was the air suddenly so cold? And why wasn’t everyone reacting like I thought they would?
I’d expected Sarai to look at me like I was an idiot, like he always did. But instead he was making eye contact with the Mumuu editor, Toko Sumikaze.
“Um... what’s going on, guys?”
Toko’s smile vanished as she spoke. “It might not be somebody else.”
“...What?”
“You’re not the only one. My name was on the list on the news, and so was Sarai’s.”
“...Huh?” For a moment, I didn’t understand what she was saying.
Um...
It wasn’t just me?
Toko was on the list, too? And so was Sarai?
“I’m sorry... what?”
I looked towards Sarai for help, and he nodded back. “Sorry. My name’s not as common as yours.”
How?
How could he just admit it like that?
I’d come to Blue Moon to talk to Ryotasu and Sarai so that I could prove I was alive.
“Then that means that you two are dead, too! That doesn’t make sense! Since when did you believe in the occult, Sarai?” I snapped at them.
I didn’t regret it.