I found it. Once I identified the time, all I had to do was rewind and play it.
The movie screen showed... a small room and a microphone. And an audio console covered with buttons and instruments. It was the same thing I’d seen when I touched the booth’s microphone a moment ago. These were the memories of when Yuta Gamon’s father, Koresuke Gamon, was still alive.
There was a mirror in front of him, and I could see his reflection. He was sitting in front of the microphone, reading from what seemed to be a script. He looked like a very kind man. He looked very plain, not at all like my image of a pro radio DJ. Outside the window, a young Yuta Gamon was staring at him, eyes shining.
But then I realized something was strange. Something was different from when I’d used my psychometry on the microphone before.
What was it?
I stared at the image on the projector, carefully observing it.
“What’s this?” There was a window in the studio facing outside, and reflected in it was another stream of images.
An image leaking out from a leaking image? That had never happened before. A warning bell rang in my mind. But the memories wanted to speak to me. I had to see them.
I went deeper within the memories.
The new memory was at roughly the same point in time as what I’d just seen in the recording studio. But this was completely different.
It was a fairly large room, like some kind of meeting hall. In a corner of the hall was a pile of backpacks and bags. The radio must have been lying on the pile, because my field of vision was tilted.
The room had no windows and was dimly lit. The only source of light was a ritual fire from the back of the room. At first I couldn’t tell because of the dark, but there were more people in the room than I’d thought. Everyone was wearing eerie masks and shaking their bodies from side to side.
Was this... a ritual?
And then...
Someone ran up to the man in white robes who was sitting closest to the fire. The man who ran up was the only one not wearing a mask. It was the man I’d just seen in the DJ booth: Koresuke Gamon. He grabbed the man in white by the collar and violently lifted him up. But then all the others wearing the masks rose and charged, piling on him.
Suddenly, the screen began to flicker. By the time I realized something was wrong, my mind had been pulled back to reality.
“Gaahh!” My heart felt like it was being squeezed like a dishrag. I couldn’t even breathe. I just held my chest and endured the pain.
I had to catch my breath, I thought. But it was beyond a level I could control. All the blood vessels in my body were on fire, and the flames threatened to burn my body to ash. The pain overwhelmed me, and I started to pass out. And just when I thought I was done for...
“Hey! Wake up!” Gamon grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me violently.
It was enough to barely wake me up. I grit my teeth to endure the pain. My tote bag was right next to me. There were painkiller capsules inside. If I took some...
I rummaged through the tote bag with shaking fingers. Gamon helped me.
“This?” He found the pill case I was looking for. I nodded and he took out a capsule from the case.
I put it in my mouth and desperately swallowed it, then closed my eyes. I tensed up my body for a while and endured the pain. Gamon took out a bottle of mineral water from my bag and offered it to me, so I took a sip.
After fifteen minutes or so, the pain stopped.
“Hahh... hahh...” That was close. I was lucky that I’d survived.
“Are you okay now?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I caught my breath and took another sip of water.
I’d been using my psychometry constantly since I’d gone back to being an investigator. It had taken a bigger toll on me than I’d thought. If I didn’t cut back on using my power, I’d be in real danger.
“Kizaki, are you sick?” Gamon asked. He’d been watching over me the whole time, trying to see if there was anything he could do to help.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s got nothing to do with you.” I stood up from my chair. I looked at my phone and saw that I’d missed a call from Shinoyama. Maybe something had happened. It was time to go back to the station. “If I ever want to contact you in the future, what do I do?”
“Hmm, go to Café☆Blue Moon. Sarai and Toko are there, too.” He seemed to know a lot of people.
“Are they like you?”
“There’s no other useless NEET like me out there. Sorry.”
“That’s not what I meant. Do they still have their memories of when they were alive and are living out their normal lives?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“What are they like?”
“One’s an editor at Mumuu. Then there’s Basara Girls One and Two, I guess. Also, the son of Dr. Hashigami. He’s smart, and he loves to prove people wrong, but that’s all he’s good for. Oh, and he’s in college.”
“Answer me seriously.”
“I am answering you seriously. Everything I just said is true. If you come, you’ll understand.”
It sounded like a bunch of weirdos. Then...
“Are any of your friends a detective?”
“A detective? Oh, come to think of it, there was a weird detective in a trench coat I talked to a little after I died.”
“What? Is that true?!” I grabbed Gamon without thinking. “What’s his name?! Was it Moritsuka?”
Gamon nodded, a little scared.
“Where is he now?!”
“I-I don’t know. I only ever met him once.”
Oh wow... So Moritsuka was in the same state Gamon was in. Then, would I someday be able to speak to him, like I could speak to Gamon?
“I’m sorry for grabbing you. Moritsuka was the person in charge of this case before me. If you see him, tell him about me.”
“I-I don’t know if I’ll see him again.”
“Please.”
Gamon nodded a little. “Oh, don’t forget about the interview,” he said. “A Japanese FBI High School (Hot) Girl Psychometer is sure to pull in a lot of hits.”
Hits. I wished he’d stop calling me that long title.
Then suddenly, Gamon sighed deeply and started reading the letters on the walls with a sad expression. On the surface, he seemed to be doing well, but maybe it was just an act. He’d seen his own body yesterday. It would make sense.
“Yuta Gamon. I’m glad I got to talk to you,” I said. “I want to believe that there’s a reason we met like this.”
It was because of the hint that Moritsuka had left me. If he had left it for me, there had to be a reason. If I could gain information from the 256 people who’d died, maybe it would help me solve the case.
Or maybe I was just hallucinating. If I was, Shinoyama would notice and send me to the hospital. But if that happened, then fine. For now, I would just do what I could.
“Maybe it’s irresponsible to say this, but... there are things you can do because of who you are now. Thank you for your help. If I need something, I’ll come to you.”
There was nothing else I could say to him. Gamon and I could speak to one another, but we weren’t the same. There was a cold, unbridgeable difference that separated us.
The living, and the dead. Even if the line was a thin one, the places we stood were very far apart. And he could never go back to where I was.
That’s why I parted with him then.