The inside and outside of Inokashira Park were very different.
Outside, there were still many signs of life. The media and gawkers were still camping out from morning till night, waiting for some new piece of information.
But inside the park, everything was different. Things were returning to their natural state of calm.
There were several heavily armored cars inside the park that seemed to belong to the Self-Defense Forces. There were over a dozen police officers wandering around the grounds, but they were all in a relaxed and easygoing mode.
Until a few days ago, this place had looked like something out of a natural disaster, but now that seemed like a dream. All the bodies had been dragged up and moved to another location, and the rumor was that the police were going to end their investigation soon.
But the area around the lake was still covered with blue tarp, and nobody was allowed in. If they had tried to hide was going on here, there’d be no end of media people trying to sneak in and take photographs.
The sky was still filled with helicopters. I’d gotten used to the noise.
I couldn’t help but laugh. This bench was supposed to be off-limits too, but nobody came over to stop me. I could see everyone, but nobody was looking at me. Everyone was treating me like I wasn’t there.
Was this how the invisible man felt? No one could see him, but in exchange he could see everyone, in any way he liked.
It felt like I’d been cut off from the world.
No, it wasn’t just a feeling. I was dead. I had been cut off from the world.
I knew, or thought I knew, how I had died. I’d sunk to “the bottom of the deep water” here at Inokashira Lake.
I hadn’t wanted to die here, but I clearly remembered that moment. My first feeling was...
Sadness, that I wouldn’t get to touch any cute boys anymore.
It was a feeling that didn’t matter at all. Of course, it didn’t really matter whether I could touch them or not. If I could draw them, that was enough for me.
And now that I was dead, I felt free in a lot of ways. When I was alive, I’d thought that there were many limits on what I could do. Now, I felt so free.
Two men wearing suits, who looked like detectives, passed by me. I’d been watching this park for a while, but the detective I’d seen before, the one in the trench coat who looked like a young boy, had yet to show himself.
The detective in the manga I’d drawn. This was where I’d met him. Sometimes I’d see people in trench coats and hope that they were him. I hadn’t fallen in love or anything like that, but I did want to talk to him again.
But if I hadn’t seen him, maybe he wasn’t part of the local station.
Or perhaps...
Had he sunk to the bottom of the deep water, too?
“There’s no time left! You must act now!”
“Oh?”
I heard a creaky old voice I recognized from the other side of the tarps. I stood up and went outside the tarp.
I looked around and quickly found the source of the voice.
In the middle of the space surrounded by the media and the gawkers, “God” was screaming to no one in particular.
“The experimenters have at last destroyed the samples! You’re next!” His voice was creaky but carried far. Nothing had changed since the last time I’d seen him. “Don’t think that they’re the last! Their conspiracy has only begun! If you don’t act now, something terrible will happen!”
It was a desperate message, but everyone was ignoring it. It looked like everyone recognized he was there, unlike how they treated me.
“Nicola Tesla’s experiment continues here, now, in Musashino! Two monsters are brainwashing the people, and the masters of the monsters are the enemies of humanity!”
I walked over to God, who was continuing his speech. I got so close that I could almost feel the spittle flying from his mouth. Up close, I could see his skin was dry from the sun, and parts along his wrinkles seemed to be decaying. His breath was so awful, I thought I’d throw up. He definitely didn’t brush his teeth.
It was strange. Even in death, I could still smell things.
“Hello, God. Can you see me?”
God ignored me completely. “The wireless power transmission project is not dead!” He was still screaming, not realizing that there was someone right in front of him.
Spittle was flying everywhere. But it didn’t feel dirty to me. His eyeballs were shaking a little as they poked out from their deep-set sockets.
He was blind, wasn’t he? So even gods went blind. If that was the case, who would it be who found me?
The Lord of Hell?
“The devil’s experiment has revived from the pit of death! Disaster will befall not one or two hundred, but all life on Earth! What are you doing? Look with your eyes, and know! Learn of them and their terrible plan!”
It was a shame that God had abandoned me, but I felt a little satisfied. It wouldn’t do for God to just answer anybody who asked a question. He’d seem much less mystical. He should be like a little boy, always selfish and only concerned with himself.
“Farewell, God.” I gave my goodbyes and walked past the circle of people watching God from a distance.
I went back to the bench where I’d been sitting and opened the sketchbook in my hands, beginning to draw nothing in particular. If I could, I wanted to draw the corpse of a boy that had just floated up from the bottom of the lake.
It would be very cruel, and very sensual.
If only another body would come up from the lake, I wished to myself as I began to draw.
“Even as a ghost, you don’t change, huh?”
Suddenly, I heard a voice speaking to me.
I looked up from my sketchbook, a little surprised. “Oh, you’re...”
It was the cute little boy I’d met before who had called himself Sagami.
His skin was so white you could almost see through it, and his limbs were so wonderfully delicate that I shivered. I couldn’t help but get naughty thoughts. I would have loved to see his corpse.
The boy sat down next to me without asking and began to spread out a series of brightly colored cards on his lap. I took a moment to enjoy the contrast they made with his white skin as I began to resume my drawing.
The boy looked at me as if challenging me. “You’re boring, aren’t you?”
“Am I? You always look like you’re having fun, don’t you?”
“I’m not like normal people. That’s why.”
“I see.”
His innocent arrogance was so cute.
“I really am amazing. I’m one of the chosen people!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“The chosen people?” I stopped my sketching as I heard this unfamiliar word. The boy must have been pleased with my reaction, because he grinned and continued.
“I was a winner from the moment I was born. My parents are super rich, so I got this special treatment.”
“What kind of treatment?”
“I don’t die.”
“What a coincidence. I’m immortal, too.”
After all, I was already dead. I’d never heard of any creature dying twice. Now that I was already dead, I would probably never die.
“It’s not like being a ghost. No, maybe it is? Do you know what scandium is? Well, I’m sure you don’t. But if you inject yourself with it, you can go on living even if you die.”
“A ghost, huh?”
“Then we are the same.”
The boy and I looked at each other and exchanged a smile.
Scandium. A word I’d never heard before. If what the boy was saying was true, was that flowing through my veins right now?
“How do you get it?”
“They sell it.”
“At the pharmacy?”
“No way. At a place called the Hachifukushin Circle.”
“Can I get some, too?”
“No way. You have to be chosen, like me.”
“That’s a shame,” I said, hoping to make the boy feel special. “Then you’re a ghost now?”
“No, no. Were you listening? I’m alive.”
Hmm. So right now, we were communicating between the living and the dead.
“I died in that lake, you know,” I said.
“So what?”
“Remember what you said? That I was a ghost. If you can see me, doesn’t that mean it’s natural to think that you’re a ghost, too?”
The boy’s eyes went wide as if he was surprised. He hadn’t thought of that, it seemed.
“But you’re alive, and you can see and talk to ghosts. Amazing, huh?”
The boy fell silent. I wanted to kiss him all over his pouty face.
“Hey, is it rough being able to see ghosts?”
“Rough?”
“I mean, there’s a lot more people who have died in the past than are alive now, right? So shouldn’t the town be filled with dead people? What kind of people do you see? Samurai? Soldiers?” I asked, being deliberately mean.
I smiled softly and spoke in a gentle voice. I wanted to tease him.
“Is that poor girl you stuffed into the Kotoribako standing right next to you, glaring at you angrily?”
“There’s nothing like that.”
“I see. How boring. It’s a shame, since you can see me.” The boy stared at me. I glanced at him and returned to my sketching.
Inokashira Park was busier than it usually was. The boy said he was alive, but the media on the other side of the blue tarp were ignoring him just like they were ignoring me. He sat next to me, tilting his head to the left and right as he whispered to himself.
“So there are some ghosts you can see, and some you can’t. What does that mean?”