Chapter 136

Chapter 4 April IV 1 Despite it still being early afternoon, the interior of “Blue Eyes Empty to All, in the Twilight of Yomi” was shrouded in its usual dusky gloom. “Welcome.” Grandma Amane, waiting to greet customers as always, recognized my face. “Ah, Sou,” she mumbled. “Mei’s in the basement,” she told me in her muffled voice. “You’re a friend, so you don’t need to pay.” The gallery was lined with lots of dolls, mainly the creations of Kirika, who had her studio on the second floor. Paintings dotted the walls, most of which Kirika had made as well. Since my first visit to the gallery three years ago in autumn, some of the pieces on display had changed, but the overall spectacle was more or less the same. The standout pieces were ball-jointed dolls that looked like beautiful young girls, but there were also dolls that looked like androgynous young men and even some that weren’t human—animals and half-beast people… The atmosphere was dark and slightly spooky. I’m sure that most people would hate it, but I’d always been attracted to spaces that seemed to sit in the “shadows” of the real world. I would have been drawn to this place even if Mei Misaki didn’t live here. The music flowing through the speakers never changed. It was usually classical pieces with a lot of strings, but sometimes I would catch a chanson or singing in Japanese. The underlying theme was quiet and dusky… It felt quite appropriate for a dolls’ secret meeting place. There were no visitors other than me. MORE THIS WAY A sign was posted on a wall in the back corner, small enough that it would be easy to overlook. The message was accompanied by an arrow symbol pointing diagonally downward, toward stairs leading to the basement level. This space was narrower than the ground floor—it felt like a catacomb. Plenty of dolls were living down here, too, but it was messier than upstairs. It was less of a display gallery and more of a storeroom. There were completed figures as well as what looked like works in progress, and all sorts of doll parts were sitting everywhere—heads, torsos, limbs, etc. And sitting in a chair beside the round black table that had been placed in the center of the room was— Mei Misaki. “It’s been a while, Sou,” she said, getting up from her chair. “Sorry about last time.” “How are you feeling?” “Fine.” Though her voice was still a little hoarse, her fleeting smile seemed genuine. She was wearing a simple ivory shirt and a black skirt. Vivid crimson embroidery decorated the shirt around the base of her neck. Just then, the music playing throughout the gallery switched to a new song, Fauré’s “Sicilienne.” After a short piano prelude, the main tune came out on a cello. As I stepped smoothly into the room, Mei also walked forward toward me. We stopped about a meter apart and stood facing each other for a moment. Three summers ago, I had been shorter than she was, but now it was the opposite. Mei was as petite and dainty as she had been three years earlier, and I didn’t think she’d gotten any taller, either. Her black hair was cut in a shaggy, short bob. She had pale, bloodless skin like white wax. Recalling our previous encounters on the beach in the shadow of the Raimizaki Lighthouse years ago, it occurred to me that Mei didn’t seem to have changed in the slightest. Somehow, it was as if she, and she alone, existed out of time— That day, her left eye had been covered by a white eye patch. And today, she looked exactly like the image that was burned into my memory. This took me by surprise; over the past two years or so, I’d hardly ever seen her with the eye patch that she used to wear. “Why’s your eye covered?” I asked. “Just because,” Mei answered, her smile quickly vanishing. 2 It was Sunday, April 15, 2:30 in the afternoon. The day before, Mei had sent an e-mail suggesting that we meet here around this time. “I’m worried about certain things,” she wrote. “In situations like these, it’s probably best to meet up and hear what I have to say in person.” “Of course, as long as you’re feeling all right,” was what I’d responded with. A lot was weighing on my mind, too, so I wanted to hear what she had to say… “Sou, this place—this basement room, you don’t mind it, do you?” Mei asked, lightly stroking her eye patch. When I answered in the negative, she smiled faintly, then pointed to an upholstered red armchair near the round table. “All right, you can sit there.” There was a single paperback book covered with a dark-blue book cover on the table. Mei must have been reading before my arrival. Next to it was a white cell phone, which seemed to my eyes like something strange and foreign in that moment, something that did not belong in this room. According to Mei, the dolls were all “empty.” Their bodies and minds were hollow; they possessed the kind of emptiness that led to “death”… She told me that they were always trying to fill the cavities inside them with something. That’s why, she’d claimed, when you gather a bunch of dolls in a space like this, people who step into it often feel as though something is being sucked out of them, as if all sorts of things are being pulled from inside them. That’s why, in her words, “Sakakibara always seemed bothered by this place, no matter how often he came here. He told me that he had gotten used to it, but I could always tell…you know?” She’d never once gotten that sense from me, however. On the contrary, I was at ease down here—or maybe it was more accurate to say that I’d been much less comfortable when Misaki had invited me to her residence on the third floor of the building. I hadn’t been able to settle down the whole time I’d been up there. I thought that was probably—probably because I had a lot in common with the dolls. There was nothing inside me to be sucked out. I was “empty” just like them. Because of that, we probably existed in a comfortable equilibrium… “One week has passed since the start of first semester,” Mei said abruptly from the chair across from the round table where she sat. “How is it? How’s the class?” “Um…” I didn’t immediately answer as I tried to find the right words. “I think it’s going pretty well for now? Everyone’s kind of awkward and on edge, but…well, it’s all calm so far.” “And how are you feeling, having accepted the duty of a ‘non-exister’?” “How am I feeling?” “Are you lonely? Is it starting to get to you?” “Ah, no, I’m totally fine.” There was no falsehood in my answer. “But,” I continued, “there is one issue that’s worrying me a little. So, um, I wanted to ask you about something.” “Ask me?” Mei slowly narrowed her right eye. “About what?” “About what happened three years ago…to the Class 3 of 1998. Actually, I wanted to ask you about it much earlier. But I couldn’t find a good time. And I thought it would be best to meet and talk about it in person, not over e-mail.” Three years ago— Mei Misaki had been a member of Grade 3 Class 3 at North Yomi. So had Koichi Sakakibara, who’d come to Yomiyama for just a single year, his third year of middle school. During that time, the two of them experienced the “phenomenon” firsthand and witnessed the “accidents” as they started. While on summer break, Mei had gone to visit Lakeshore Manor in Hinami where Uncle Teruya lived, thinking she could get some useful information out of him, since he’d experienced the same “phenomenon” in 1987’s Grade 3 Class 3. Mei had actually taken on the role of the “non-exister” as part of the “countermeasures” for 1998… That was the sliver of the story that I’d heard so far. But I didn’t know anything beyond that. Mei had never seemed inclined to reveal any more details to me than that. She didn’t seem keen on talking about it, so I’d figured I shouldn’t try to press her on it… “…So you’ve got two ‘non-existers’ this year?” she asked. As I explained how the “countermeasures” for this school year had turned out like that, Mei lowered her gaze to the table and mumbled, “We were in a similar situation three years ago; that’s true. And come to think of it, I believe we also had a girl named Etou in our class.” “You were a ‘non-exister,’ right, Mei? But the ‘calamity’ started due to unforeseen circumstances, so you added additional ‘countermeasures’ in the emergency…is that correct?” “That’s right. The ‘countermeasure’ failed that year. So another ‘non-exister’ was added—Sakakibara.” “Sakakibara?” “You didn’t hear about it from him?” “No.” Because he—Koichi Sakakibara—had, much like Mei, seemed very reluctant to talk about anything surrounding the “phenomenon” from three years back in any detail. “I see.” Mei slowly blinked her eye. “But you see, even that ultimately didn’t work. The ‘accidents’ didn’t let up, and just before summer vacation, our homeroom teacher died in an awful way, right there in the classroom…” She let out a sigh and shook her head slowly. My heart ached a little. It obviously made sense that she wouldn’t want to keep revisiting that affair. “That’s why,” Mei continued, staring into my eyes, “I don’t think there’s much point to selecting two ‘non-existers’ as a ‘countermeasure.’” After she said that, she tilted her head slightly. “Hmm, but…well, there isn’t any precedent for having two ‘non-existers’ from the start of first semester, so I guess we shouldn’t make any assumptions.” “So why did the ‘accidents’ stop three years ago, then? I’ve heard that you all stayed together as a class during a trip in August and that some terrible incident took place while you were there, but…from September on, no one died, right?” “Ah, about that—” She bit her tongue and shook her head more forcefully than she had before. Is she trying to indicate that she doesn’t want to talk about it? How many times have I tried asking this question before? But whenever I do, she always acts the same way. “Have you asked Mr. Chibiki? About his opinion on this year’s ‘countermeasures’?” Mei inquired. This time, it was I who shook my head. “He’s away on leave for a while. The secondary library is apparently opening in May.” “Oh, really? I’m sure he’s exhausted.” Mei sighed again, and then we heard a muffled voice from the stairwell. It was Grandma Amane. “I made tea. Come on up here, the both of you.” 3 The CD that was playing had looped, so the sound of “Sicilienne” was once again filling the shop. We were drinking hot green tea that Grandma Amane had set out for us after we relocated to the sofa on the first floor. The drink was tastier than I expected. Before I knew it, I found my surprisingly frigid body steadily warming up. “So what are these ‘things’ you’re worried about? You mentioned something earlier,” Mei said abruptly. “Hazumi is the other one, the extra ‘non-exister’?” She was exactly right. Mei’s insight was just as sharp as it had been three summers ago. “She…how do I put this…she seems a little unreliable.” “How so?” “Uhhh…” I couldn’t find a good way of putting it in the moment, so I briefly changed the subject. “Mei, what was it like when you were a ‘non-exister’?” “Huh?” “You asked me the same thing earlier, but…was it lonely? Did it get to you?” She answered me flatly. “No, nothing like that. Just like you, I was fine. I accepted the role because I thought I would probably be okay with it.” “Ah…but—” “I’ve always liked being alone, so it was pretty easy, actually.” “And did you only have to follow the guidelines for ‘non-existers’ during school?” “That was the rule, apparently.” Mei wrapped her cup in both hands and slurped up a mouthful of tea. “But I spent most of my time outside of class as a ‘non-exister,’ too. It was simpler like that and easier to keep straight. I didn’t have any close friends in my class anyway,” she said, smiling faintly. She really didn’t seem bothered by it. “What about Sakakibara?” I asked without thinking. “Weren’t you friends with him?” “He was… Yes. We had kind of a special situation.” Mei smiled faintly again. At the word special, I felt a momentary pang in my chest that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but I kept quiet and nodded. “How about you, Sou?” Mei asked me. “Do you switch between school and the rest of your life without issue?” “Switch…? Yeah, I guess so. I’m trying to do a good job one way or another, but it sure is a pain… I feel like there’s a chance I might get confused and do something careless. So I’m trying not to have too much contact with my classmates, even outside of school.” “Do you have any good friends in your class?” “I’m not like you,” I answered deliberately. I meant it as a joke. “Hmm. I see,” she responded, staring me directly in the face as she folded her arms gently across her chest. “Sou, you’ve totally grown up, haven’t you? In these two and a half years since coming to Yomiyama.” “Ah…no, I don’t—” Grown up? I guess I have, maybe? Unlike before, I was doing okay going to school and interacting with other people while I was there. I even had a number of friends, and things were going pretty well with the people in the Akazawa household. But can this really be called “growth”? My sense was that my core personhood hadn’t really changed much. That feeling was especially strong when I was chatting with Mei like this. I had overtaken her in height these past three years, but that was only an outward difference, and internally I was the same as ever… When we’d met, Mei had been both taller and more mature than I was and had seemed more thoughtful about the future. That dynamic hadn’t changed much now. So certainly, I was… “I don’t think you need to worry too much about Hazumi—about the ‘second non-exister.’” Whether she knew what I was thinking or not, Mei finally spoke. “Not even if, for instance, she started to hate the idea of ‘not existing’ and eventually decided to abandon the role.” “Not even then?” “I think it’ll be all right.” “Will it?” “As long as you at least maintain your role as a ‘non-exister,’ it will.” She pressed her lips together and stroked her eye patch in a diagonal motion with the middle finger of her left hand. “By designating someone as the ‘non-exister,’ we can account for a ‘casualty’ appearing in the class and keep the roster at its original number. That way, balance is maintained. That’s the original meaning of the ‘countermeasures’—they’re a charm. As long as you do your job, the class should still be protected from ‘accidents.’” “Right.” I nodded meekly. As long as Mei thinks it’s all right. Yeah, if she says so, it will definitely be all right. On that summer day three years ago, she swooped in and rescued me from the chaotic situation I was stuck in. The things she says are always correct. She’s been right before. So she must be this time, too… “However,” Mei continued, “once Hazumi abandons her role, she will revert to ‘existing.’ If that happens, you’ll have to be diligent about playing the role of the ‘non-exister’ around her as well. You should be careful about that.” “Yes.” Although we were fellow “non-existers” at the moment, I’d still decided to make it a policy not to interact with her during school. Seems like my hunch wasn’t that far off the mark. Just then, a tune that was in a totally different register than the music playing throughout the gallery rang out. “Ah…” Mei let loose a yelp. Flustered in a way that I had rarely seen, she stretched a hand out toward the cell phone that was sitting atop her paperback on the edge of the table. Her ringtone? She glanced at the display. “Sorry, just a second…,” she told me, standing up from the sofa, putting the phone to her ear, and answering. “Yes?” Without a moment’s hesitation, she sped toward the door and stepped outside. I watched her go. “Do you need some more tea?” Grandma Amane asked me. “Oh, I’m fine. Thank you, it was delicious.” I wonder who called her? A high school friend? Or maybe Kirika? Now that I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t really know anything that had happened in Mei’s life after she’d graduated middle school and started at a public high school. Aside from the fact that she was still in the art club anyway. I didn’t know what kind of friends she had or if she had a “special someone” like a boyfriend…nothing. When she came back inside after two or three minutes, Mei apologized again, then sat back down on the sofa. I tried to catch a glimpse of her expression, but it looked to me like nothing had really changed from earlier. “You’re currently living alone, right, Sou?” she asked, placing the cell phone back on top of the book where it had been before. “Uh, yes.” I was a little flustered, but I explained, “I am, but the Akazawa house is right next door, and I’m relying on my aunt for meals and laundry just like I always have.” “And the place you’re living also belongs to the Akazawas?” “Natsuhiko…the second son owns the apartment building, and they just so happened to have a room open, so…” “Hmm…” Mei mumbled quietly, “Akazawa, huh…?” She tapped her forehead with a fingertip and tilted her head, but soon she looked back at me and asked, “Could I come and visit sometime soon?” “Huh?” I was getting increasingly anxious. “Ummm, well…” “You have that doll that Sakaki used to have, don’t you?” “Uh, yeah.” “I want to see that, too. Okay?” As I was struggling to give her a clear “yes” or “no” answer… “We’d better be wrapping it up for today,” Mei announced, standing. “If anything happens, I’ll e-mail you. Or I’ll call if it’s urgent.” “Okay. Um, Mei?” Suddenly, I got the urge to confirm something. “What?” “Do you still hate cell phones, like you used to?” “Mm…” I glanced down at the thing on the table as she answered, “Yes, I do still think they’re awful devices.” After that, just as I was leaving— The moment I opened the door and stepped outside alone…I turned to look behind me. In the dusky, gloomy gallery, Mei was standing beside the sofa where she had been seated, watching me leave. And what’s more— With her left hand, she slowly removed the eye patch covering her left eye. I tried to determine what color it was beneath the patch. But I couldn’t make it out in the low light. 4 “Hey, Sou!” A familiar greeting from the mouth of a familiar guy. “I just couldn’t seem to get a hold of you, so I decided to barge in.” It was Nobuyuki Yagisawa. He was about a head taller than I was, with a lanky build. He was wearing bleached, distressed jeans and a red hoodie, and his hair was as disheveled as always. The whole getup made him look pretty shady, especially with his round, lightly tinted glasses. That was generally how I would describe him, actually—a very suspicious-looking middle schooler. Apparently, he was obsessed with fashion, but I just didn’t get it, even after he explained it to me. Personally, I thought that if he ditched the lenses, styled his hair normally, and maybe shaved the scraggly tuft growing out of his chin, he would be a pretty conventionally attractive guy. After leaving the gallery in Misaki, I’d dropped by the bookstore for a little while before returning to the Freuden Tobii. I’d just put my bike back in storage and stepped into the building’s entrance hall when Yagisawa had approached me. “You came out here just to visit me?” I asked incredulously. “Well, yeah.” It took twenty or thirty minutes on the bus to get here from where he lived. I wondered if he’d had something else to do if I wasn’t home, seeing as he’d come late on a Sunday without prior notice. “Okay, come on in!” A voice crackled over the intercom set beside the auto-locking inner doors. Hmm? That voice… “I asked Akazawa to let me in,” Yagisawa explained. “I called her and asked if you were here. And then she went and looked in your room… You seemed to be out, but she said that if you weren’t back by the time I got here, you probably wouldn’t be gone too much later and that I could wait for you. She said she could give me a place to wait.” “Give you a place to wait…” I guess that means in Izumi’s room? I didn’t know that she and Yagisawa were such close friends. Well, it’s none of my business, is it? “Sou just got home,” he announced to the intercom. Izumi responded, “Ah, okay then…” “All right,” I jumped in. “Since you came all the way out here, want to come up?” “Yeah,” Yagisawa answered, stroking his sparse goatee as he broke into an innocent smile. 5 “Must be nice, living in a room like this all by yourself,” Yagisawa remarked, looking around at my empty one-bedroom after taking the seat I offered him at the table. “You said that Mr. Akazawa owns the whole apartment building?” “Yeah. The family home where I’ve been staying is being renovated—they started this month. So they’re letting me live here while that’s happening.” “Must be nice,” he repeated earnestly. “My place is a dump, and I’ve got tons of siblings. If I turn my music up a little, or put on a CD, or try to play my guitar, my mom or my sister comes to yell at me right away. On top of that, I can’t find any quiet to read a book because my brothers are always stomping around making a ruckus, and if I want to rent a movie, the TV is never even free… There’s nowhere comfortable, you know?” “I think a lively home sounds nice, though.” I was halfway telling the truth with that answer. The thought of a normal environment, with parents and older sisters and little brothers all together under a single roof did inspire a bit of jealousy in me. I opened the mini fridge I’d brought down from Izumi’s older brother’s room the day before and took out two cans of juice. I handed one to Yagisawa as I sat down in my own chair. “So?” I fixed my eyes on his face. “What brings you here again so suddenly?” “We haven’t really had a proper chat since school started, have we? I understand your thinking, but things feel a little distant between us.” “Do they?” “They do. We’re supposed to be comrades here.” Of course, I understood exactly what Yagisawa meant by comrades. He was saying that we were more than simple Grade 3 classmates. Nevertheless— “Well, that’s true, but circumstances are what they are,” I answered as calmly as possible. “I don’t think that we can be friends, not like before, even when we’re not at school. “A year is a long time, you know. If we let our guards down and inadvertently say something to each other during class… I mean, I want to eliminate that risk.” “I heard all this earlier, about your policy.” “Well, don’t call me distant, then,” I appealed to him, my expression earnest. “Now that we know this is an ‘on year,’ we’ve all got to make our best efforts. Right?” “Ah…I guess that’s true—” “By the way,” I interjected, “why on earth did you volunteer as a candidate for class representative?” “Will it be weird? If I’m a rep?” “I honestly did a double take when I heard.” “Hmm, I can see that.” Yagisawa raked his fingers through his long hair. “I was so optimistic that this year was going to be an ‘off year,’ but once we realized that it was going to be an ‘on year,’ you know, something about my frame of mind just changed.” “Meaning what?” “I’ve never once been class rep, so I figured I’d give it a try now. Worse comes to worst, this could be the last year of my life, after all.” “So you’ve swung abruptly over to pessimism, huh?” I responded, filled with a complicated mix of feelings. “It’s not set in stone that the ‘countermeasures’ will fail and the ‘accidents’ will start. And even if they do happen, that doesn’t mean you’re going to die.” “Well, yeah, that’s true, but…” Exactly at that moment, the sound of someone knocking on the door of <E-9> echoed through the room. I answered, “Yes?” as it swung open. “Mind if I come in?” Stepping inside was none other than Izumi Akazawa. “Or are you in the middle of a boys-only secret meeting?” “No, no, come on in.” This wasn’t even his apartment, but Yagisawa stood up from his chair and invited her in. “We had these upstairs, so I brought some over,” Izumi told us, setting a white paper bag on the table. “Refreshments!” Inside the bag were three large cream puffs. “Whoa! Don’t mind if I do!” Yagisawa immediately reached out to grab one. When he’d already snarfed down about half of it, he abruptly stopped, then mumbled, “Class representative…she was a rep in Class 3 fourteen years ago, too…” Izumi, who hadn’t been privy to our previous conversation, tilted her head in confusion. “Fourteen years ago? I see.” At the same time, I immediately understood. “A girl was class rep for Grade 3 Class 3 in 1987. She was your aunt, isn’t that right, Yagisawa?” “Yeah.” He hung his head and nodded. “That’s why I thought I’d volunteer. Though, logically, something like that shouldn’t mean anything.” “What are you talking about?” Izumi asked, looking back and forth between the two of us. “Yagisawa’s aunt was in Grade 3 Class 3 at North Yomi fourteen years ago? Then maybe she knew your…she knew Teruya Sakaki?” “Right,” I answered. “They were classmates in ’87. My uncle Teruya and Yagisawa’s aunt.” Not long after I’d met Yagisawa in our first year of middle school, I’d realized this point in common between us. Both of our relatives—my uncle, his aunt—were former members of the same Class 3 at our school. As “comrades,” they’d witnessed the “phenomenon” and the “accidents” it caused firsthand. Uncle Teruya, my mother’s brother, had been seriously injured in the so-called “tragedy of ’87” but managed to survive. Before the start of summer vacation, he had moved out of Yomiyama City and transferred schools. In doing so, he’d escaped from the “accidents.” On the other hand, Yagisawa’s aunt, his father’s sister, who was classmates with Teruya, had died of a sudden illness partway through the second semester. Ever since we’d confirmed this, a camaraderie of sorts had developed between Yagisawa and me. What if we end up in Class 3 when we’re in third grade…? We’d always discussed the possibility, even way back in our first year of middle school, but we never thought it would actually turn out like this. Back then, I don’t think even I’d really been able to fully comprehend the reality of the situation. “She was pretty, you know. Risa,” Yagisawa remarked. Her full name was Risa Yagisawa. “It happened fourteen years ago, so I’d just been born. Naturally, I don’t have any memories of her to speak of. But when I look at old photos of her, I can see she was really pretty…” Izumi shot a quick glance over at the bookshelf that stood against the wall. She seemed interested in the photo on top of it— Following her gaze, Yagisawa also turned his head to look at the bookshelf. Naturally, his eyes also came to rest on the problem picture. I was already bracing myself. Can I let him see it? Can I let him realize the truth? “What’s…?” He left his chair and looked closely at the photo. “Hey, Sou, what’s this photo?” The photograph was of the 1987 Class 3 students who’d temporarily “escaped” to Lakeshore Manor in Hinami over summer vacation. Aside from Teruya, there were four students in the picture. Among them was a girl standing to the far right and holding her long hair down so the wind wouldn’t mess it up. Her surname was Yagisawa. I’d always been aware of that. “I never found the right time to break this to you, but…” Then I told Yagisawa what I knew. Fourteen years earlier, summer break. Teruya had invited his friends to Lakeshore Manor, which was outside of Yomiyama City and therefore “out of range” of the “calamity.” There, they’d found a temporary reprieve from the horror of the “accidents.” And the photograph they all took together during that trip was here with me… “Why?” Yagisawa asked with a sulky frown. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this until now?” “Well, I…,” I began, averting my eyes from him. “After their trip to the lake, Teruya ended up surviving because he ran away from Yomiyama. But everyone else went back after summer break was over, and your aunt lost her life. I think that Teruya probably felt awful, right up until when he died three years ago, about the fact that he was the only one who escaped and lived. I think he always blamed himself—so…” “So it was hard to talk about?” “Mm-hmm.” I nodded slightly. “Sorry.” “You don’t need to apologize, Sou.” At that point, Izumi cut in decisively. “You have your own reasons, and it’s sad for you to remember that your beloved uncle is gone… You don’t want to bring the memories back too often, right? Of what happened three years ago. But you would have to remember no matter what if you explained the photo, right?” I couldn’t really say anything in response. After a little while, Yagisawa remarked, “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” He smiled cheerfully. “Even if it was just during summer vacation, I’m glad they could find a chance to relax. Risa looks so happy in this photo—doesn’t she, Sou?” “Uh, yeah.” “I’d like to go sometime, too, to this Lakeshore Manor place.” “Uh…” Despite his enthusiasm, I just couldn’t bring myself to confirm Yagisawa’s request. 6 “Yagisawa, I’m looking forward to working with you, okay?” Izumi said, trying to dispel the delicate silence that had filled the room. “I’m a countermeasures officer, and you’re a class representative. Let’s do our best to make sure that our ‘countermeasures’ go well this year so that everyone can graduate safely.” “Y-yeah.” Yagisawa seemed quite overwhelmed. “Now that you bring it up, I don’t really have any idea how I’m supposed to do that, though.” “Generally speaking, what we can do is pay very close attention to Sou and Hazumi, to make sure they keep acting invisible.” “I know what I’m supposed to do,” I interjected. “I’m being very careful.” “I think you’re probably fine, Sou. But if we’re going to have a problem, it’s definitely going to be with Hazumi.” “Yeah, she’s right.” Yagisawa nodded, placing a fingertip on the bridge of his glasses. “I’m also a little bit worried about Hazumi. Say, Sou?” He turned to me. “Don’t you think you’re a little cold toward her?” “Am I?” “You weren’t aware of it?” “I’m not really trying to be.” “No, no. But I mean, as far as I can tell, you’re not being particularly friendly, either. But the two of you are fellow ‘non-existers.’ I wonder if it would be better to spend more time together during breaks and stuff, even at school.” After I reemphasized my policy of avoidance and the logic behind it, Yagisawa crossed his arms. “Mm-hmm… I understand your reasoning, but you know, I wonder if she’ll be all right? The way I see it, Hazumi probably—” “It’s fine.” I spoke more decisively than necessary, in order to cut off the next thing Yagisawa was about to say. I recalled my conversation earlier in the day with Mei Misaki at the “Blue Eyes…” gallery. “It’ll be fine. I know she’ll do great, no matter what happens. I’ll make sure of it.”