Editing A Simple Survey:Volume1 End3 (section)

===Part 3===

“I saw something alarming.”

Anzai was eating in the university cafeteria. Unlike the family restaurant or coffee shop, the cafeteria was directly attached to one of the university buildings. As one would expect given that most of the students used the more distant coffee shop and such, the cafeteria food was not very good.

Anzai was putting up with the poor flavor to save some money when Kozue suddenly placed a bowl of tanuki udon on the table and spoke to him. It seemed the other three were not with her.

“?”

He picked up some mysterious pasta with chopsticks, brought it to his mouth, and frowned. He then raised his head once more. It really did seem Kozue was speaking to him.

“I saw something alarming.”

“Did you see a professor sleeping with one of the women in the university office?” he replied.

“It goes beyond that. It was…um…hm…How should I put it? At any rate, it goes beyond that. I am sure it goes well beyond the bounds of your imagination. However, that is not your fault. It is not your imagination that is the problem. It is how extreme a phenomenon this was. To be blunt, I do not think I can accurately explain it in words.”

(If you can’t explain it in words, why have you been trying to do just that?)

As he thought, Anzai filled his mouth with pasta that was orange but had a flavor you would never get from a ketchup-type sauce.

“What did you see?”

“I just told you that I cannot explain it. Or rather, I could put it in words, but it would sound too clichéd to get across the essence of what it was.”

“Was it a crime? An object? A phenomenon? A person?”

Not even Anzai was sure what basis those categories came from. However, it seemed to help Kozue. Rather than saying what it was, she could use the process of elimination by saying what it was not.

“It was not a crime. At the very least, I do not think there was anything illegal about it.”

“Then was it a scandal involving someone famous or a surprising phenomenon like a dog standing up on two legs?”

“Oh!! That is exactly it. If I had to choose one of those, it was a surprising phenomenon!!”

“…Why did you say that is ‘exactly it’ if you also have to qualify that you are only choosing that ‘if you have to choose one’? That just gives me a sense of chaos.”

“A dog standing on two legs would not be a problem. Something normal doing something abnormal is merely surprising. But what do you call it when something abnormal does something abnormal?”

“You’re getting a little too poetic. My understanding can’t keep up.”

“Yes. Yes, that is right. But it is not your fault. To repeat myself, it is simply that what I saw was too absurd. There is nothing wrong with your imagination.”

She was denying it, but Anzai still had a feeling she was blaming him. Also, his lunch break did not last forever, so he had to ignore the taste and finish off his meal for the nutrition and feeling of fullness.

Since he wanted to focus on his food, he tried to get a quick answer out of Kozue.

“So what exactly was it?”

“I do not know.”

“Can’t you at least give me a hint? I can’t get anywhere without a starting point.”

“But I am not sure I can express it in words.”

“How about you start by working to sum it up in 1000 words?”

“How many pages of manuscript paper is that?”

“Two and a half.”

“Two and a half, hm?”

“But I don’t think anyone actually writes manuscripts using that anymore.”

“This is not a book report, so I cannot explain it in that many words.”

“Okay, what about 100 words?”

“That is less.”

“Go all out and do it in 50 words.”

“And that is even less.”

“25 words?”

“I saw a fairy over there. How many was that?”

(Ehh?)

Before Anzai could utter his surprise out loud, Kozue seemed to sense it from his expression.

Unlike a UFO nut, she seemed perfectly aware that she was saying something that went against common knowledge. Kozue’s face was beet red, but her tone of voice when she spoke next made it sound like she wanted any objections to be directed to the fairy she had seen.

“I-I saw it, so it cannot be helped! I was not trying to see that!! And yet it rudely crossed by before me, so it truly cannot be helped!! In fact, why did I have to see something like that!?”

“Ehh?”

“You finally said it, you monster!! You came at me straight on while I was trying to create a defensive line of words!!”

“But…a fairy? Ehh?”

“I took a picture with my phone.”

“That I’d like to see.”

However, the picture visible on Kozue’s cell phone was so out of focus it was impossible to even make out the background to tell where the photo had been taken. If Anzai had been told the photo was meant for a Rorschach test, he would have believed it.

“…Ehh?”

“Now I know just how much it hurts to hesitate in shock and then have someone deny it happened! But it cannot be helped. It only happened for an instant. I feel I reacted quite quickly in order to immediately pull out my cell phone, change it to camera mode, and press the shutter button in that time.”

But what was this fairy she was talking about?

What exactly did it look like?

“It was about – here we go – this tall. About as tall as these chopsticks.”

“I see, I see.”

“It was a girl…I think. Due to the size difference, I am not sure our standards apply, but its face looked like that of a 10 year old.”

“Hmm…”

“It was wearing green clothes.”

“…”

“It did not have dragonfly-like wings, but it was definitely a fairy. It just gave that impression. If you showed it to 100 people, all of them would call it a fairy.”

“…Zzz.”

“Sigh.”

Kozue broke apart the chopsticks, grabbed a green onion from her hot tanuki udon, and threw it at Anzai’s sleeping forehead.

“Geshburumaverfehhhh!! Hot…Hot!?”

“You shouted buruma amid all that, didn’t you?”

But no matter what one said, people in the 21st century simply would not believe that someone had seen a fairy. The time for that had passed. It was the same as how spirit photographs had faded away once easily-edited digital photos rose in popularity. It was the same as how people had no problem openly discussing the Kuchisake-Onna with people. It just seemed wrong to get too caught up in that kind of thing. It all seemed so old and passed its expiration date.

For those reasons, Anzai Kyousuke’s belief in what Kozue was saying was at 0%.

With 100% as the max, it was at 0%.

That is quite important, so remember it.

Yes.

For now, it was at 0%.