“Pant... pant... pant... Man, I’ve got the worst luck. I just get back, and the elevator is getting repaired. My heart’s pounding like a drum! Maybe I’m just getting old!” I said, pretending to catch my breath even though I wasn’t exhausted at all. To tell the truth, four flights of stairs was nothing. Compared to the way Inspector Zenigata ran from the bottom floor of the castle all the way to the top, this was nothing at all.
...But none of the other detectives reacted to my joke.
“...?”
Sure, normally they’d just look at me coldly or get annoyed, but today there wasn’t even that kind of a reaction. Only silence. I could see the staff and investigators scattered across the room, but nobody said anything. They just kept at their work. This was the first time they’d completely and totally ignored me.
“What’s wrong? Has there been some new development in the Inokashira case?”
Nobody answered.
“Hmm? Hello? Can you hear me?” I said to someone nearby, but there was no response. Not even the slightest twitch. Everybody was ignoring me completely.
That was strange... I’d worked pretty hard to establish a position as the guy in the department that everybody beat up on. Maybe it was just my imagination, but everyone seemed really tense...
There was a strange air that hung over the whole floor. I decided to take the hint and stop messing around. “Did something happen?” I asked. No answer. Nobody even looked at me.
“...Oh, dear.” I tried waving my hand in front of one of my co-workers’ faces, but I got ignored. Then I tried talking to someone sitting a bit away, but he didn’t even look up at me.
What was going on here? Had I done something to make them hate me this much? I mean sure, sometimes I would blow off investigations to go hit up card shops. But I’d done my job as a detective, or at least, I’d thought I had.
“Oh!”
And then, Shinoyama and Kozaki came up the stairs, back from their investigations. Just like usual, the two of them were working together. At this point, I was willing to take even their sarcasm.
I walked over to them desperately. “Hey, listen to me, Shinoyama! Everybody’s being mean to me!”
“I’m so tired... How come the elevator’s being repaired?”
“You’ve got that right.”
“What do you want for lunch, Kozaki?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Oh, I’m hungry,” I said, raising my hand. “Want to go somewhere?” This was perfect. I’d just found a restaurant with really good prices, and I’d been meaning to go back. “I just found this great place near here a week ago. The food is great, but it’s in an out-of-the-way place, so it doesn’t get crowded at lunch.”
And what was even better, they didn’t even care if you had an after-lunch cigarette, which was unusual for lunch places. Both of them were heavy smokers, so it was perfect for them. I didn’t like cigarette smoke, so I’d always avoided going to lunch with them, but on a day like this I was willing to ignore it.
“I recommend the motsunabe stew,” I said. “It’s gotten a little warmer lately, so you might break into a sweat, though. And also—”
But...
“I guess I can skip lunch today.”
“Yeah... Sorry.”
“Huh? Um, excuse me?!” I spread out my hands wide and yelled, but they just slowly walked right past me. “...Come on, now.”
Even these two were ignoring me? That’s going a little too far.
And then I finally realized that they weren’t wearing their beat-up old suits, but dark, black ones. Their neckties were black too, which meant...
“Why are you guys in mourning clothes?”
They didn’t answer.
“Did you just get back from somebody’s funeral?”
They didn’t even look at me.
“Listen. I don’t know what you’re so mad about, but—”
They couldn’t hear me.
“That bastard, making us do all this crap...” Kozaki took off his jacket and slammed it down on the back of his chair. For some reason, he looked so frustrated—and he was crying. Shinoyama was quiet; he didn’t blame him or agree. He just looked down with a serious expression on his face.
The two of them were clearly different than usual. What was going on here? And why were both of them glaring at my seat at my desk? It was almost like...
“...Huh?”
...And then suddenly, intuitively, I realized.
A certain possibility came to my mind. It was just a possibility, but if I assumed it was true, everything made sense... Not that that made it any better. More than anything, it was so crazy that even I couldn’t believe it.
“Um, I’m gonna go do some questioning,” I said softly, then fled the station to clear my head.
Of course, nobody responded.
“And... I was right.” I took a sip from my warm canned coffee as I stared at the giant UDX screen from atop the overpass.
I’d tried several ways to see if my hypothesis was right. First, I went to my usual spot at the trading card corner at Gamers. Then to the café restaurant “Backstage Pass,” where I was basically a regular. Then the Sega arcade. I tried them all, and they all came back with the same, unshakable result.
To be honest, I was surprised. But strangely, I didn’t feel angry or sad. If I did feel anything, it was... Yeah. Disappointment. “It” had happened, and for a while, I hadn’t even noticed. I was disappointed in my own stupidity.
“Man, what a screw-up. I can’t believe I’m dead. So I guess that means I only weigh twenty-one grams?” In 1970, American doctor Duncan MacDougall had announced that he’d proved a soul weighed twenty-one grams. I guess that meant I’d lost a lot of weight.
I sighed, tasting a bitterness that felt like defeat. Nearby, a group of otaku were leaning up against the railings just like I was and sharing what they’d bought with each other. I watched them out of the corner of my eye as I tried to decide what I needed to do next.
I was still in a bit of a state of shock, reasonably enough. Not only did I not have any kind of plan at all, my head was completely blank.
With nothing else to do, I decided to take my mind off it by looking at the giant UDX TV. The text on the screen said, “More Victims in Inokashira Mass Suicide Case Announced,” and a list of names was scrolling down it. I’d looked a moment ago, and sure enough, my name was there.
“Sheesh...” I’d come all the way to Akihabara because I wanted to shut the case out of my mind, too. But there was probably no way to do that in Tokyo right now.
The announcer on the huge screen was reading from the list of names, oblivious to my problems. They were already announcing the list of people who’d been identified today. Yuta Gamon’s name was on the list, too. It was possible they’d ID’d over two hundred people now.
“...In the end, I guess I couldn’t stop it.”
I’d just been forced to watch as ‘their’ plan went forward. I thought of how stupid I’d been and tore at my hair.
“They forced me to dance with Nicola Tesla’s ghost, and I never even realized it. I guess I’m just too old for this.”