“But we’re, like, breathing right now!” Gamon seemed to have no intention whatsoever of admitting he was dead. He was getting angry and argumentative. “I’m speaking! I’m sitting in a chair! Can ghosts do that?”
They can. What would Gamon say if I told him that? I had no intention of doing so, of course.
Over the course of my twenty-three-year life, I’d seen lots of things that weren’t of this world. Most people would call it a sixth sense. When I’d brought it up a moment ago, Sarai had clearly looked upset, so I’d let the subject drop. But the reason I was still calm, compared to Gamon, was that my sixth sense had shown me all kinds of things over the years. And in fact, the strange state we found ourselves in now wasn’t that unusual to me.
“‘The world you’re seeing now is real. It’s not a dream.’ —How could you prove that statement to be true, you think?” Sarai posed me a strangely philosophical question.
Dr. Hashigami had asked me that question once. What did I say to him then? I couldn’t remember clearly.
Gamon snorted. “That’s easy. Just pinch your cheek.”
Immediately afterwards, Narusawa grinned and demonstrated by pinching him hard on the cheek.
“Owww! That hurts, Ryotasu! No!”
“You’re not dreaming, huh? ☆” she said, smiling.
“Oh, right! That’s right! See? Pain means it’s not a dream.”
Sarai sighed and shook his head. “What if it’s a dream where you feel pain? This is no different than being uncertain if you’re alive or dead. It’s not something you can figure out on your own.”
Huh? This feeling... Was Sarai starting to get emotional, too?
“Listen...” Gamon had been trying to force himself to be energetic and positive. Now he didn’t try to hide his frustration at being shut down. “If you want to play that game, then you can’t prove whether we’re alive or dead regardless of the list.”
Sarai didn’t say anything. He was nervous, too. Who knew it was so hard to prove that you were alive? I’d lived my whole life without ever thinking about it.
“Okay! I vote we go with Sumikaze’s conspiracy theory!” Gamon yelled.
“You know, just going with the theory you want to believe is the same as not thinking at all.”
“So what, Sarai? You want to tell me that you’re dead?”
“Of course not!”
“Then...”
Just as Sarai and Gamon were about to get into a fight, though...
“Hey, hey, Gamotan!”
...Narusawa started to spin around Gamon in a circle. I was too stunned to speak. It wasn’t just me. Sarai and Gamon were both frozen, too. Oblivious, Narusawa danced around the café in a manner that was slow and relaxed, if not beautiful, before finally pointing a finger at Gamon.
“Now... now! Now is the chance for frozen yogurt!”
“Huh?” Even Gamon didn’t seem to know what she meant.
“Your blog is a thing for turning weird stuff into frozen yogurt, right?”
“...?”
“Which means, Gamonosuke, that you need to write an article about this and try to earn me that frozen yogurt! ♪”
Hmm? So that was it.
“Th-That’s right... Kirikiri Basara!” Gamon figured out what she was saying at the exact same time I did. “We make this into a ridiculous article like the ones in Mumuu! It’s so stupid that occult fans are sure to jump on it!”
Gamon excitedly grabbed his laptop off the table. “This might be the first livestreaming ghost experience in history! If we upload it in real time like that thing with Kisaragi Station, it’s a great chance to get some huge access numbers!”
“Kisaragi Station” was an urban legend about a fictional train stop; you sometimes saw it on social networking sites. It had originally gotten its start on 2channel. By uploading in real time a series of messages claiming to be from a man who’d gotten lost in a station that shouldn’t exist, it led readers to believe it was a real story... At least, that was how it was supposed to work.
...Since I worked at Mumuu, I knew all about it.
“If this works, I can finally make that affiliate money! Way to go, Ryotasu! You’re really earning that Number-One Basara Girl title!”
“Hehe! ☆ I got a compliment! ☆ I did a great job!” Ryotasu started to spin around the café happily.
“So maybe the title should be ‘I suddenly became a ghost. AMA.’ Or maybe, ‘The NEET God changed classes into a ghost? Lol.’ No, maybe something more straightforward, like ‘I’ve been caught up in the 256 incident.’”
Gamon started to mumble as he tapped away at his keyboard. He was working so hard on his article, it was like he’d forgotten we existed. “No, I need to think about this more. There are lots of aggregator articles on this, so I need something that’ll really stand out. I could attract a lot of trolls. They’re everywhere.”
“Trolls? Fee-fi-fo-fum?”
“No, maybe it would be better if there were trolls?”
Sarai watched him a bit before sighing a little. “Does he just have no idea how much danger he’s in?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to think about it? I said a lot of things, but I basically feel the same way. If this is a dream, I want to wake up.”
“That’s just more reason to get a firm understanding of what’s going on here.”
It seemed like Sarai’s personality was as serious as he seemed to be. For some reason, when I looked at him he seemed really young. It was strange, since I’d only been out of college a year myself.
I’d known Dr. Hashigami for a pretty long time, but I didn’t know his son Sarai that well at all. This was probably our first real conversation... but for some reason, it didn’t feel that way. Was it because Dr. Hashigami used to talk about his son a lot?
“My son’s a smart boy, but he’s very stubborn. A lack of flexibility is a flaw in a scientist.”
I’d also heard that Sarai was insistent that the afterlife wasn’t real and that he’d gotten into lots of fights with his father. That’s why it was a little surprising to me that he’d brought up his dad at all.
“About what you were saying before... Dr. Hashigami’s list. If you’re looking into it, I’d like to help.”
“...Journalism?”
“That’s part of it. I know it might not be appropriate, but...” Looking at Gamon had triggered my editor’s soul. I chuckled and shrugged. “But in a way, I’m a part of this, too. I’m pretty close to both of these incidents. Dr. Hashigami did a lot for me. If he left this list because he wanted us to know something, I want to help in any way I can.”
Sarai fell silent for a minute before adjusting his glasses with his fingers and turning to me. “The first thing we need to do is finish decoding the list he left for us. Then we need to match it with the list of the suicides from the 256 incident and see if they really are related. If we learn something, I’ll contact you.”
“Alright. Thanks.”
What would the editor-in-chief say if I told him about this? He’d want to make a huge series about it in Mumuu. But for Sarai’s sake, it seemed better to avoid that... I had more pressing matters to deal with, anyway.
“By the way, Sarai, did you go see your corpse?” I wasn’t sure if that expression made any sense, but there was no other way to put it.
Sarai’s expression was as serious as ever as he shook his head. “No. Not yet.”
Gamon... from the look of it, hadn’t done so either.
“There can’t be that many places you can store 256 corpses. Given the size of the case, we could probably find out by asking the police or city hall.” Or maybe it had already been broadcast. If nothing else, the media should know.
Sarai didn’t argue. Gamon seemed unlikely to help, so I gave up on him. From now on, Sarai and I would work together to try to get clear proof.
“I want to know if my corpse is there as soon as possible.” That would be the fastest way to know if I really was dead. If I saw my own body, that would prove it. If I didn’t, I couldn’t be sure. “I know some people in the media I can ask. That is, if I can talk to them.” I laughed a little, but Sarai nodded expressionlessly.
If I was a ghost, come to think of it, then I would’ve died on the night of the 256 incident, between February 29th and March 1st. Who had I talked to since then? I searched my memories and only came up with one name.
“Hey, Sarai, Gamon. You guys know Miyuu, right?” When she’d called me about the Kotoribako, I remembered her mentioning that they were there. “What’s she doing now?”
“I haven’t seen her lately. She was in the hospital for a while, but I heard she left.”
Then she was back home?
“Oh, but... That’s right.” Sarai gasped and covered his mouth with his hand. “We’ve talked with Aikawa a lot since March started. That means there’s a chance she’s dead, too...”
“I’ll make time to go see her,” I said.
Who else had I talked to, besides Miyuu? What about the rest of Mumuu’s editorial department? I’d showed up at the office and talked to everyone on the morning the incident had been on the news. We’d all watched it on the TV, and I’d talked to everyone... No, that conversation had been really strange.
Thinking back, had they even heard me? Had they even seen me? I had to figure that out, too... I need to figure out exactly who might be dead, and who might not be.
For now, I decided to call Miyuu.