Baka-Tsuki - User contributions [en]

We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-

2017-11-23T00:20:26Z

Kooritsukai:

{{Teaser|English}}

[[Image:We Don't Open Anywhere novel cover1.jpg|300px|thumb|Cover.]]

'''We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-''' (''Bokura wa Dokonimo Hirakanai -There are no facts, only interpretations.-'') is a light novel written by Eiji Mikage. Originally released in 2005 without the subtitle, Mikage rewrote and re-released the novel in 2016 with new illustrations by Yoshitoshi ABe.

==Synopsis==

"I'll protect you with my magic."

The person who spoke those cryptic words to me was none other than our school's preeminent beauty, Miki Kouzuki. When I started going out with her, the world surrounding me suddenly began moving.

"Ahh... '''I''' wanna kill someone."

"Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains to speak of..."

My delinquent best friend, our straight-laced class representative, not to mention me and Miki... As we all start to break, the place we arrived at was—

==Updates==

November 22, 2017: Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and Afterword added

November 16, 2017: Chapter 6 added

November 16, 2017: Character Illustrations, Chapter 1 in-line illustration, and Chapter 4 in-line illustration added.

November 15, 2017: Chapter 5 added

November 14, 2017: Chapters 3 and 4 added

November 13, 2017: Chapter 2 added

November 13, 2017: Table of Contents and Chapter 1 added

November 12, 2017: Teaser Page created

==We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.- by Eiji Mikage==

* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Character Illustrations|Character Illustrations]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents|Table of Contents]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)|Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (III)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (III)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (II)|Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World (II)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (IV) Masato Yahara’s Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (IV) Masato Yahara’s Closed World (II)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (II)|Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World (II)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (V)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (V)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Open World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Open World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Afterword|Afterword]]

== Project Staff ==
=== Translator ===
* [[User:Kooritsukai|Kooritsukai]]

== Publication History ==
* ''Bokura Wa Dokonimo Hirakanai'' ISBN 4840230404, May 2005
* ''Bokura Wa Dokonimo Hirakanai -There are no facts, only interpretations.-'' ISBN 4840230404, November 2016

[[Category:Light novel (English)]]
[[Category:Completed Project]]
[[Category:Oneshot]]
[[Category:Dengeki Bunko]]
[[Category:Mikage Eiji]]

We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-

2017-11-23T00:01:34Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Afterword

2017-11-23T00:00:12Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Afterword

2017-11-23T00:00:00Z

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We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Open World (I)

2017-11-22T23:59:01Z

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (V)

2017-11-22T23:57:40Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (V)

2017-11-22T23:57:20Z

Kooritsukai: Created page with "<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} @font-face {font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"; panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2..."

We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (II)

2017-11-22T23:56:24Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (II)

2017-11-22T23:56:01Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (II)

2017-11-22T23:53:16Z

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (IV) Masato Yahara’s Closed World (II)

2017-11-22T23:52:13Z

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<div class=WordSection1>

An abandoned hospital. A forgotten cemetery. A
tunnel that had fallen into disuse. A sea of trees where the sun’s light
couldn’t reach.

He wasn’t in any such place.

Let’s say it was a completely ordinary
shopping mall out in the sticks. The kind of place that would fill you with
déjà vu the first time you visited it, a mass-produced mall with the same kinds
of stores as any other. But because it’s the most convenient one in the region,
it’s lively in its own way, with money changing hands and people strolling
about.

That kind of place.

Masato Yahara was in such a place.

“Why are you in a place like this, Masato?”

“‘Cuz there’s nothing here.”

“Nothing? It’s pretty lively, isn’t it?”

“Then
go on, try to imagine somewhere with nothing in it. No people. No shops. No
street lights. No streets. Does a place like that seem normal to you? Could ya
stay in a place like that without feeling anything? You couldn’t, could ya. A
place like that’s already special. There’s somethin’ called ‘nothingness’
there. And nothingness has too much of an impact. It’s pretty damn far from
feeling like there’s nothing there.”

“So
it’s like… it’s unnatural?”

“Yeah,
basically. And I can’t stay in a place like that. I stand out too
much against nothingness. I become special. And an incomplete existence
like me can’t stay like that.”

“So
that’s why you’re here?”

“Yup.
Place like this lets me blend into day-to-day life, become homogenized, and not
feel anything. That’s what I mean by ‘there’s nothing here’. ...Let’s
call it ‘nil’ to differentiate it from nothingness. Nil exists in places where I
can exist unconsciously. I’m always right next to you. But nil is folded
up real small, so it penetrates the little holes in our day-to-day life and
makes you forget about it.”

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“What’s
that noise? Does it have something to do with nil?”

“Yeah.
That noise induces nil. As long as it exists, we’re gonna keep getting absorbed
by nil.”

“Is it
bad if that happens?”

“What,
you can’t fuckin’ tell? In nil, even a dead guy like me can exist. Hell, I
can exist just as well as you can. So basically, the kinds of oblivious guys
who live snuggled up in nil are worth the same as if they were dead. It means
their lives have shit for meaning or value.”

“But,
there’s lots of people like that.”

“Exactly.”

“Are
you one of them, Masato?”

“If I’m
not careful, I’ll get engulfed.”

“Is
that why you tried to break free?”

“Basically.
But I fucked up.”

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

What a
grating noise. Every rattle makes me want to run away. It makes me want to
succumb to irritation.

“Masato…
I can’t take it any more. I want to get out.”

“You
could probably actually make it, Kou. In the end, all I was was ordinary.
I couldn’t escape the noise. But you’re different. You’re special,
you’re abnormal. You can definitely make it out. I’m sure of it.”

“But,
what can I do?”

“Don’t
worry.”

Masato
spoke with a kind smile. He’d never smiled like that when he was alive.

“You
already know the way.”

 

I, who was still just barely
“me”, was melting. Melting like an ice cream cone that had been abandoned under
a blazing sun. Halfway between a liquid and a solid, I spread
unceremoniously across the ground and became worthless.

Becoming
worthless like this was no good. I had to find a purpose again.
Otherwise I would stop being human.

Then
someone interrupted my dissolution from within, bringing along a sound that
resembled chains.

Go
ahead, do as you will.

I,
Kouta Hiiragi, am “white”.

I take
on the colors of others.

Go on,
I’m right here!

 

And
thus.

Masato
Yahara is right here.

 

 

From
then on, I acted automatically. I became no more than a machine
carrying out my duty. My field of view, perhaps the very world, became blurry
and unclear. I didn’t know where to focus my sight. I couldn’t
perceive the school grounds, which I should have been intimately
familiar with, as anything but a meaning flabby mass. It was like the world had
been overlaid by a mosaic. I hadn’t lost any of my knowledge, so I
was able to go through the motions of everyday life. Like an NPC moving
according to its programming. But the ground felt unsteady. It felt unnatural
and unsettling, like the soles of my shoes were covered in a powerful gum.

In
accordance with the order that had come from deep within me, I was on
the roof. Against a backdrop of twilight stained in week-old blood, I stepped
solidly on the oddly-dirty concrete and looked down upon the gradually
depopulating townscape. Lined up on the street was a stream of kei cars<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car</ref>, all
being sucked in by the flashiest building in town: the pachinko parlor.

A cheap
end to a cheap world.

An
obsolete townscape like that fit Shuuichi Akiyama perfectly. I wanted to dump
bird shit all over his honors student’s glasses and post pictures of it on
Instagram. It would be satisfying as hell, and I bet it’d get quite the
response.

Now
then, I’m going to thoroughly divulge everything about Shuuichi Akiyama.
I’m going to expose him, enumerate him, crush him piece by piece, and
pulverize him.

“What
did you hope to accomplish by calling me all the way up here, Hiiragi?”

Ignoring
Akiyama’s question, I spoke.

“You
can come in now, Sudou.”

Instead
of looking at the door she was coming through, I gauged Akiyama’s
reaction. He was frantically hiding his emotions, but he couldn’t fully contain
the look of surprise in his eyes.

“You’re
the girl who was with Yahara, aren’t you.”

Not
knowing how much I knew, he gave a fairly safe remark.

“She’s
given me a lot to think about. ...First of all, out with it. Why didn’t you
come forward, even though you were the last one to see Masato?”

Akiyama
gazed reproachfully at Sudou. Following his line of sight, I laid eyes
on her for the first time since she’d arrived. 

Her
long, unevenly-dyed hair was blowing in the wind, and she looked more
dishevelled than before. She was pale again today, too. Her habit of raising
the corners of her mouth was unchanged, but although that made it look like she
was smiling she was actually more frightened than normal.

She was
frightened.

Not of
Akiyama, but of me.

“Your
manner of speaking has become quite haughty, Hiiragi. Are you finally showing
your true colors? ...Well, that’s fine. As for your answer, it’s quite a simple
matter. The reason I didn’t come forward was for her sake.”

That
wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting.

“What
do you mean? What in the world does she have to do with you not coming
forward?”

“Hmph.
It’s something of a delicate matter, so I was hoping not to have to say it, but
now that it’s come to this I suppose I have little choice. Our friend over
there had been seduced by Yahara and was on her way to a hotel with him. I
stayed silent because I would feel bad if I revealed that fact to the world.”

“Didn’t
you think that, just maybe, your testimony would be important to catching the
killer?”

“If I
deemed that to be the case, I would have ignored my qualms and come forward
immediately. My testimony would have been worthless. By no means would it have
helped the investigation whatsoever.”

“Way to
go and decide that on your own. You never know what information might lead to
the killer, right?”

“Quite
so. They say that a butterfly flapping its wings in one hemisphere can cause a
tornado in the other, and the same could of course be said about murder
investigations. But when I weighed that small chance against that young lady’s
privacy, I chose the latter.”

It was
a perfectly reasonable answer. And his voice had been steady throughout, almost
as if he had been expecting the question.

With
that, the reason I had initially suspected Akiyama vanished.

But
that didn’t matter.

I no longer doubted Akiyama.

I had already decided that he was
the killer.

“Christ
you’re obnoxious. Just fucking confess already.”

Taken
aback at my harsh, exasperated words, Akiyama stiffened momentarily.

My
words were simply the result of unintentional candor, but to Akiyama they must
have seemed like a tactic to rattle him, because he shut his mouth and put on a
composed expression.

The
conversation heading in the direction seemed favorable to me, so I made
no effort to correct his misinterpretation.

“Alright,
next question then. When Yamazaki took his little fall, you were at the school,
weren’t you. That’s what she claims.”

After
seemingly glaring at Sudou for an instant, he nodded with an, “Indeed.”

“I was
quite flustered when I found out about the incident. I suppose I can’t blame
you for being suspicious of the fact that I was at the school when Ryuusuke
Yamazaki fell from the roof. Although I was in the parking lot and not on the
roof, I didn’t think that there was anyone who could corroborate my claim. I’m
not proud of it, but I had no choice but to protect myself. I had no idea that
there was somebody who saw me in that parking lot.”

“Apparently
Yamazaki was screaming. Why didn’t you notice anything?”

“That’s
a difficult question to answer. I don’t have much to say beyond that I simply
didn’t notice. I was deep in thought at the time.”

Akiyama
spread his arms exaggeratedly and shook his head.

Irritated
by his affected behavior, I heaved a heavy, antagonistic sigh.

“Well
then, how do we want to do this… Alright, let’s go with that approach. Akiyama,
do you believe in ghosts?”

Akiyama’s
eyes narrowed at my abrupt question.

“What’s
this, all of a sudden? Ghosts? Must I really answer that question?”

“Yeah.”

“...Very
well then. Ghosts, hm. There are no shortage of people who believe in them, so
I can’t just unconditionally write off their potential existence. However, I
find it difficult to put much stock in something so unscientific. And with the
proliferation of digital cameras, pictures and films of ghosts have been
reduced to little more than fabricated entertainment. That is about where I
stand.”

“Makes
sense. You would think that, wouldn’t you. But even if you don’t believe in
them, you wouldn’t exactly go around kicking gravestones, would you? And you’d
still get creeped out by Suicide Forest<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara</ref>, wouldn’t you?”

“But of
course. Anyone would be on edge and seized by fear upon visiting Suicide
Forest.”

“Right,
so scared you wouldn’t have time to be deep in thought.”

I could
hear Akiyama taking a deep breath. He was quick on the uptake and had probably
realized the purpose of my roundabout line of questioning.

“Maybe
it’s not on the same level as Suicide Forest. But a school at night is plenty
creepy. An outrageous, distorted institution that crams a bunch of kids
together and gives them all the same instructions. When night rolls around,
that distortion stands out bright. It creates an atmosphere that pushes people
away, so much so that someone once told me it was a barrier. It’s one thing for
a bunch of people to come together and shoot off fireworks, but there’s no way
one guy’s gonna come to school alone at night and get lost in thought.”

I stared coldly at Akiyama.

“And
you wanna tell me that under those circumstances, you didn’t hear Yamazaki’s
scream?”

After a
slight pause, Akiyama replied.

“...I
didn’t hear it. I’m dumbfounded by my own thickheadedness.”

Even if
forced to admit unseemly things, Akiyama still feigned innocence. I
supposed it was the proper reaction if he wanted to dodge the issue. Suspicious
as he was, this wouldn’t make for proof.

But I
was cornering him bit by bit. I could see in his face that he was
wondering if he had left behind any definitive evidence.

He
probably didn’t realize it, but he was remarkably easy to read.

“Next
up, let’s figure out a way to make someone fall off the roof from down in the
parking lot.”

Akiyama
raised an eyebrow.

“...Does
such a method even exist?”

Sudou
interjected almost reflexively.

“If
it’s a trick you’re looking for, there’s plenty one could use. Just to make
sure, Sudou, but all you saw was that Akiyama was in the parking lot, and not
what he was doing. Is that right?”

“Y...yes…”

 

“As you
can see, the parking lot is pretty far from the roof. But, and you can confirm
this from here, there’s a clear line of sight, so you can easily see what’s
going on up here from down there. And even though they’ve been talking about
putting up a new fence up here for forever, there still isn’t one. There was an
incident, so it makes even more sense now, but this place has been off-limits
for a while. If you’re standing at the edge of the roof, all it’d take is a
little push and down you’d go.”

I revealed what I had been
hiding in my pocket.

“What
is that?”

I
answered Sudou, whose face showed visible signs of relief.

“It’s
the remote for a drone.”

As I
flicked a switch and tilted a lever, the drone I had placed on the roof
ahead of time took off. There was a cord of red yarn attached to its camera,
the other end of which was firmly fastened around the doorknob.

“Sudou,
would you mind not moving for a bit? I’m a beginner at this whole drone
thing, so flying this is a little tough.”

As
instructed, Sudou stiffened her body. I then maneuvered the drone
towards her back. As the yarn drew taught, Sudou received a solid thump to the
back and stumbled a step forwards.

If she
had been on the edge of the roof, she would have certainly fallen.

“I
chose red yarn so it’d be easy to see, but it would be even more feasible with
something stronger like piano wire. If you operated it well, you could easily
use this setup to push Yamazaki and send him off the edge.”

As I
unveiled the trick, Akiyama just stared silently at me.

But his
lips had lost their tension.

“...Fufu.”

Little
by little, his mask was peeling off. I could almost hear the tearing
sound. His hideous true self distorted and expanded, making it impossible for
the mask to stay on. His naked expression laid bare his exclusive true form.

No
matter how hard he tried to conceal it, he could hide it no more.

—Akiyama
was broken.

Ahh… I
was successful.

My goal
of exposing him was steadily coming to fruition.

“Hiiragi,
I’m disappointed in you.”

“How
so?”

I posed my question, still
sneering.

“You
don’t realize it? Your trick is riddled with holes. First of all, operating a
drone like that at night is impossible. Was the sky clear that day? I don’t
remember, but even if it had been possible to make out the drone by moonlight,
it would be far too difficult to maneuver the drone exactly as you wanted. Just
as you yourself were struggling just now. In order to put this trick of yours
into practice, you would need to practice during the day to even have a chance
at pulling it off. But this is a school. If you tried to do that, even on a
holiday, you would be sure to catch someone’s attention. Practicing would be
impossible. And the final nail in your coffin is the noise from the propeller.
It’s inconceivable that, being at the scene of the incident, she would have
heard the scream but not the propeller.”

“Well,
you’re not wrong.”

“And
furthermore, I own nothing resembling a drone. If you look into it, you can
verify that easily.”

Having
trounced my crude trick, his face filled with triumph.

His
triumphant face was so comical, I couldn’t help but let out a scornful
laugh.

“What’s
so funny?”

“Don’t
go jumping to conclusions on me, now. I mean, I wanted to see
what kind of face you’d make, so I let you just to conclusions, but
still. Who the hell said anything about you killing Yamazaki with this trick? I
told you, didn’t I. There’s plenty of tricks one could use.”

“What
do you mean by that?”

“What
was I trying to prove with this experiment? There are certainly ways to
make Yamazaki fall while you’re in the parking lot. But they’re all meaningless
tricks like that one. This isn’t some mystery novel; even if the trick isn’t
exposed, once you’re suspected that’s it for you. The cops’ll take you in on
circumstantial evidence, and once you confess during the interrogation,
nobody’ll care about how elaborate your trick was. The minute you let yourself
fall under suspicion, your plan failed. And you know that just as well as I
do. But you let your misgivings get the best of you, and you ended up at the
school that night.”

The one
I looked at now was not Akiyama but Sudou. Just as I predicted,
her look of relief from earlier had vanished, replaced once more by paleness.

“In
other words, this incident was beyond your expectations.”

I went on, sneering all the
while.

“There
were two points I was trying to make there. The first is that this place
is so dangerous, even a lame trick like my stunt with the drone could
legitimately kill someone. The next is that if someone pushed Yamazaki, even by
accident, he could easily have fallen.”

I slapped Yamazaki’s killer on
the back.

“Isn’t
that right, Sudou?”

“—eep.”

Sudou
had been terrified when she was talking to me. She had been desperately trying
to avoid having me suspect that she was hiding something.

But
there was no way she could hide something like that from the “white” Kouta
Hiiragi.

“Sudou,
you referred to Akiyama as ‘the bespectacled guy’ as if you didn’t know who he
was, right? But given how obsessed with Masato you were, you were looking for
leads regarding his murder, right? The minute you decided to seek out the
truth, it would have been obvious what you needed to look into first. The last
person to interact with Masato, his classmate with the glasses. Shuuichi
Akiyama. It would be absurd for you to look into me before you investigated
him, don’t you think?”

“...Uu,
ah...”

“But
you hid that fact from me. It goes without saying that that was because that
information was inconvenient for you. You thought that if I talked to
Akiyama in any detail, my suspicions about Yamazaki’s killer would turn to
you.”

Perhaps
to keep her from confessing, Akiyama moved between myself and Sudou as if
trying to conceal her. Although she was trying to feign composure, she couldn’t
begin to contain her trembling. What a shy girl she was.

“So in
short, I ordered Sudou to push Yamazaki off the roof. Is that what you want to
say? Why, I didn’t even have a motive for wanting Yamazaki dead.”

“Oh,
but you did. He was complicit in Masato’s death, right? I bet you made
him transport the body.”

That
was probably what had happened. Akiyama’s reactions had already passed surprise
and moved to downright panic. But no matter how obvious it was, he still
frantically tried to keep up appearances.

“...That
delusion of yours likely stems from having seen Yamazaki looking for me the
other day. But we can set your delusions aside for a moment. Now,
hypothetically speaking, let’s say that I did have a motive for wanting him
dead. Even then, how could I induce her to kill? We aren’t even acquaintances,
so there’s no way she would follow such a command. And even if I had convinced
her, don’t you think it a bit odd that I would go out of my way to come to
school at the time of the murder?”

“You
just don’t know when to give up, do you. I just said it; this incident was
beyond your expectations. Sudou never had any intention of killing Yamazaki.
His fall was nothing more than an accident.”

“Your
speculations become more and more preposterous. There are simply too many
coincidences in your theory. Whether or not there was a fence, there’s no way
he’d simply fall.”

“The
first thing we have to figure out is why the two of them were on the roof in
the first place. It’s off-limits, and what’s more, it was late at night. Of
course, the meeting must have been arranged beforehand, but it’s difficult to
imagine Sudou having any reason to meet with Yamazaki directly. The one she was
really on the roof to meet was you, Akiyama.”

Akiyama
scrunched up his face a bit.

“Sudou
was probably pretty surprised when she got to the roof and found out she’d been
tricked. Some happened that was so surprising that she accidentally pushed him
off. ...Now, this is just me guess, but did it perhaps seem like Yamazaki was
going to rape her?”

Sudou
was trembling and holding herself tightly. Based on her behavior, it looked
like my speculation was on the mark.

“I
mean, it’s Yamazaki we’re talking about. He was probably shaking you down for
hush money, so you decided to take advantage of his greed. ‘I can’t get you the
money now, but I can get you a girl instead.’ Something along those lines,
right?”

“I… He
told me that a man was waiting for me on the roof who could tell me about the
murder…”

“Well,
of course you didn’t know about the give-and-take that you were being made a
part of. And after being attacked by Yamazaki, you resisted. And because you
don’t go to this school, and because it was late at night and hard to see, you
probably didn’t realize that there wasn’t a fence. So you pushed Yamazaki away
with all your might, and—”

Splat.

“He
ended up falling to his death.”

“Ah,
ahhhh…”

Sudou
collapsed on the spot.

Her
obsession with Masato hadn’t been the only cause of her poor condition. Even if
it hadn’t been intentional, the sin of murder still weighed heavy on her. That,
combined with the fact that she had to hide it from me, must have put enormous
pressure on her.

Akiyama
gazed at Sudou’s fallen figure, his eyes as cold as if he were looking at
trash.

“Akiyama’s
true objective in calling Sudou to the roof wasn’t to have her kill Yamazaki.
His plan was to become your ally after you had been raped, then to add you as a
partner under the pretext of taking revenge on Yamazaki. Even if he couldn’t
inspire you to want to kill Yamazaki, he was hoping to at least trick you to
the point where he would be able to use you. I can only guess at how he
eventually planned on killing Yamazaki, but plenty of methods would have
worked. For example, he could have given you a lethal poison to give to
Yamazaki but told you it was a sleep medication. He could have told you to
shoot Yamazaki with a model gun, only for the gun he provided to be real. Those
were just off the top of my head, but you get the idea. The moment he made you
his partner, Akiyama’s plan would have been basically put into place. He would
make you kill Yamazaki while he maintained a firm alibi. That was all he
needed. ...And after that, well… Sudou, Akiyama never gave you a way to contact
him, did he?”

Still
sitting on the ground, Sudou nodded.

“Do you
know why? Because it would be a problem for him if it could be proven that you
two ever interacted. All he had to do to avoid suspicion from the police was to
make them think the two of you hadn’t met by the time you were made to kill
Yamazaki.”

“B-but
I myself knew… And if the police caught me, there’s no way I’d be able to keep
silent…”

“All
that means is that he had to kill you before it got to that point. Like, you
killed Yamazaki out of hatred for him raping you, but then you couldn’t bear
the weight of your sins and committed suicide. He probably planned on using
some plausible scenario like that.”

Sudou’s
eyes went wide, and she looked at Akiyama.

Akiyama
no longer took any notice of her.

“Why is
it, I wonder? For some reason, I know exactly how this bastard
thinks. Sudou, why do you think he chose you as an accomplice in the first place?
It’s because you’re the kind of person he wouldn’t mind throwing to the wolves…
Hell, he probably thinks that you deserve to die. After all, you were gonna
sleep with Masato Yahara the first time you met him. After all, men are
creatures who view unchaste women as worthless. That’s why so many serial
killers go after hookers; they barely feel any guilt. I’m sure that’s
why Akiyama thought you’d make an excellent ‘stepping stone’ for him to carry
out justice with.”

Sudou
could no longer bear to even look at Akiyama.

“Your
words are all baseless. You’ve managed to spin quite the tale, especially in
the face of the fact that she wasn’t even raped.”

But his
voice sounded like he lacked the will to even bluff.

“Then
let’s not talk about your plans, and talk about what you actually did instead.
After she killed Yamazaki, your biggest concern was that Sudou would turn
herself in. After she did, all your crimes would be exposed one after another.
You probably wanted to kill her, huh. And to buy time until then, you pretended
to lend a sympathetic ear, lied and said you’d help her, and ordered her not to
tell anyone else. You wouldn’t be able to handle it if any information got out,
after all.”

I glanced at Sudou’s expression
to confirm my theory, but she was staring off into space and no longer
responsive.

“But
Sudou didn’t follow your directions, she came and talked to me before you could
kill her. She wanted to know the truth of the incident so badly she couldn’t
help herself. And you can hardly blame her, after the curse Masato put on her.
That’s something you needed to realize if you were going to use her. But this
is you we’re talking about. You’re probably under the misimpression that
Sudou’s idiocy let me figure out the truth. But that’s completely wrong. After
all, you were the one trying to use her. Your big failure was not realizing
that she would come talk to me despite being told to keep quiet. That was your
mistake.”

Still
grinning, I spit out my next words.

“Get it
now, you incompetent excuse for a class rep?”

“...Me?
Incompetent?”

At that
provocation, Akiyama’s previously controlled expression shifted radically.

Of
course. Questioning his ability to carry out his duty would resonate with him
more than anything else. His pride was far too high to ever admit to his own
failure. To that end, he was even willing to disfigure the truth.

“Impossible.
Every choice I made was correct and proper. I could not possibly have
blundered. This incompetent girl simply stood in my way and made a mess of
everything!”

Unable
to contain his rage, Akiyama foolishly acknowledged everything he’d done. A wry
laugh escaped my lips.

“Nah, that’s
not it. You just weren’t up to snuff. You’re just fundamentally bad at using
others. And you’re definitely no magus. It’s you we’re talking about, after
all. You seem to think that everyone else lives under the same value system you
do. You can only measure with your own scales, so nothing ever goes the way you
plan. Come on, man, not everyone lives in the same damn world as you.”

“You’re
babbling. There only is one world, is there not? Everyone lives in the same
world.”

“You
see a rabbit pounding mochi when you look at the moon, of course you’d
think that. You don’t understand a damn thing about what people are like behind
closed doors. So you can’t understand anything about other people. If you want
to understand people, you have to start by realizing that you can never really
know everything about someone. But you’ll probably never really understand
that, huh.”

In
response to my words, Akiyama knit his eyebrows. But before long, he let out a
laugh that would put any B movie villain to shame.

“What,
did I hurt your feelings or something?”

“Fufu…
It seems I was right after all. Your remarks reveal your dogged insistence on
manipulating others. You really do like manipulating others into doing your
dirty work, don’t you? And you riled up all of our campus’s freaks for sport.
Of course, Masato Yahara was one of them. Depending on how you look at it,
perhaps he was a victim too. You were the ringleader behind this whole
incident, evil in the flesh. So I suppose you learning the truth of this
incident—”

His eyes,
glittering with a dull light like the scales of a fresh fish, turned to me.

“—was
merely a blessing in disguise.”

Ahh,
this guy.

He
really didn’t understand anything.

He
didn’t even realize that his malice far surpassed that of anyone else.

“Why
are you smiling, Hiiragi? It seems you don’t realize the situation you’re in.”

“You’re
the one who doesn’t know what’s going on. Did you really think I just
called you up here to tell you that I knew everything?”

“...Are
you saying you didn’t?”

“I’m
not planning on handing you over to the police. I have no intention of
being so lenient. To be honest, I don’t even give a shit if you’re
really the killer. I just can’t stand you, so I’m going to
completely pulverize you. But even though I’ve already exposed so much,
you haven’t shown a hint of remorse. You just got all defiant and went back to
your little make-believe world. Honestly, I didn’t think you were going
to be this stupid, you fucking jackass.”

I pulled out my phone.

“So now
you’ve left me with no choice but to rely on my last resort.”

I called a certain number. I
had made them promise to come as soon as they received a call from me.

As I
put my phone away, I spread my arms and laughed.

“Now
then, let’s see how much filthy pus you’ve got built up in there.”

Footsteps
rang out from the stairs, and the door to the roof swung open.

“Kusukusu…
kusukusukusu…”

The
girl seemed unable to contain her peculiar laugh, which sounded like it was
coming from a gap in her teeth, in anticipation of what we were about to do.

“Hiiragi,
I’m here!”

Her
bangs were cut diagonally, and her hair was braided in the back. Her childlike
face and short stature contrasted with her large bust, she was a deeply
immoral-looking high schooler.

Twisting
even her malice into innocence, her unsullied mind was that of a saintly fool.

An
“apparatus” I had been keeping in reserve.

Her
rainbow-colored eyes looked like a drainage ditch filled with salad oil, and as
she turned them to Akiyama she raised her voice in disappointment.

“...Ehh…
Like, there’s a sorta boring guy here… Hiiragi, you said there’d be something
interesting up here, but this guy’s just a common old dull red.”

Confused,
Akiyama was clearly panicking.

Up
until now, Akiyama had always planned on retaking the initiative. No matter how
close I got to the truth, all he thought he had to do was eventually
kill me.

But in
spite of how dense he was, he realized. That now that Ririko Matsumi, who had
the power to destroy everything, was here, the situation had changed. That now,
the place he was standing was no longer his stage.

There
was no way someone like him knew of an easy way to control this twisted world,
which was like a candy sculpture halfway through production.

“At
this rate, Akiyama, if I just shove the truth in front of you, you’d
just pervert it to suit your own self-righteousness and escape the violence I’m
trying to cause you. If I want to crush you, I first have to
teach you how to be afraid, or I’m not going to get anywhere. ....Matsumi-senpai.”

“Aye
aye!”

 

Glaring
at Shuuichi Akiyama, I spit out my next words.

“Scan
Shiho Sudou.”

Still
sitting in shock, Sudou raised her head in surprise. She probably hadn’t
expected to be thrust into the spotlight again. But it couldn’t be helped. She
was clearly a member of the supporting cast here.

And
now, she would taking the starring role.

“Sorry,
Shiho Sudou.”

I wasn’t even looking at the
uninteresting girl.

“This
was the real reason I brought you here. Just like how there needs to be
a scene where someone dies at the beginning of any killing game novel, there
needed to be a tutorial for Akiyama here.”

So for
the sake of the story, I need you to fall into despair.

“So I
just have to scan that girl over there? Okey dokey—”

In her
innocence, Matsumi-senpai hadn’t picked up on any of my malice. I simply
tripped her kindness and regressed her from a human to a machine.

“Beep
bibibi, beep beep bibibibibi.”

Her
eyes went out of focus. But she was definitely perceiving Shiho Sudou’s core.

“What?
What’s going on?”

Anyone
watching would no doubt be confused. Even if you didn’t know exactly what she
was doing, it was clear that it was nothing good. Even if you couldn’t tell
what was inside the jack-in-the-box, it definitely wasn’t going to be anything
pleasant.

“Beep bibibi, beep beep bibibibibi. ⸻Scanning
complete.”

“Good
work, Senpai. Now, would you mind verbalizing it for us?”

“Sure!”

Sudou
trembled in fear at Ririko Matsumi’s eccentricity. She had been used by
Akiyama, made to bear his sins, and now I was going to crush her. What a
pitiable girl she was.

I felt guilty.

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

But
those feelings of guilt were drowned out by the auditory hallucinations.

“SHIHO
SUDOU, age sixteen.”

Would
she have known that name, even if I hadn’t told her? I only
half-knew how her scanning even worked.

“A
second-year at the private Sakisei Academy. Lives with her birth mother, her
stepfather, and her older stepbrother. Her house has four bedrooms. Her room,
which is on the second floor, is so messy that there’s nowhere to stand. Her
father is a civil servant, her mother is a housewife, and their family finances
are stable. Her clingy nature makes her disastrously bad at reading the mood,
and she doesn’t have many friends. Her few friends often betray her. She does
not currently have a boyfriend, but she has slept with two men.”

“Huh?
What? What’s going on…?”

Sudou
still didn’t understand what had just been begun. Judging from her pale lips,
all she understood was that it was something terrifying.

“Presuming
that she is involved, she is thoroughly obsessed with Masato Yahara’s incident.
She killed Ryuusuke Yamazaki by pushing him off this roof. She has tried to
kill herself twice before. However, not even her parents showed her any
sympathy. She is lonely. She is lonely. She has a strong inferiority complex in
regards to her looks and academic ability.”

The
things she tried to hide, the things she needed to hide, were being exposed in
front of all of us. 

No
longer able to even speak, Sudou’s eyes were bugging out at Matsumi-senpai as
though she were looking at the Devil.

“She
has both been bullied and bullied others. She strongly desires power. She fears
the strong, yet is jealous of them, and she finds the weak reassuring, yet
despises them. She lacks willpower. She is bad at forming habits. She is not a
morning person. She dislikes using stamps on LINE. She enjoys spending time on
pornographic websites.”

People,
surprisingly, don’t know themselves particularly well. So when a fortuneteller
or a swindler makes surprising inferences from just their personality, they
believe in the illusion that their true nature had been probed into.

But
what Ririko Matsumi does is expose them objectively.

Everyone
wants to believe that they’re special. They want to possess some sort of unique
identity. Some would even go so far as to say that not being special is the
same as being worthless.

But
although this may seem obvious, the vast majority of people aren’t anything
even approaching special. And whether they are or not, they’re too small to
ever change the world. One person can’t save the world, nor can they destroy
it.

And
Shiho Sudou was no exception. What became eminently clear when her true nature
was exposed like this was that she was the kind of common, ordinary person that
you could find anywhere. The reality of it was that she was inferior, not
superior.

 She had been trying to avoid looking straight at
that reality despite becoming gradually aware of it, but now it had been firmly
thrust upon her.

“She
has been coerced a number of times by her NEET brother to have physical
relations. Although she despises him, she relishes the feeling of being
desired. Her father also views her in a sexual light. She is aware that her
mother is jealous of her as a woman. As a result, she doesn’t feel like her
home is somewhere she belongs. She hates her home. She doesn’t feel like her
school is somewhere she belongs. She hates her school. She doesn’t feel like
society is somewhere she belongs. She hates the world for being unkind to her.
She wishes it were kinder to her. She wishes she were held more dearly. But she
doesn’t care. She doesn’t care what happens to her. But she doesn’t want to be
ignored. She wants to be saved. She wants to be saved—”

“Stop
it! Stop it already! Stop, stop, stop!”

Wailing,
Sudou tried to lunge at Matsumi-senpai. But I had anticipated that, and
stopped her by holding her down. She soon stopped resisting and, drained of
strength, collapsed on the spot.

Without
moving, Sudou began crying like an animal.

The
exposed viscera inside her was unsurprisingly grotesque. That was all there was
to it, but that alone was as intense as could be.

“Wah.
Why are you crying? Now I feel all sorry…”

Ririko
Matsumi had no idea how cruel a thing it was to expose somebody to the world.
And she could hardly be blamed for that; to her, being able to see everything
was the only condition she knew.

Looking
down on the sobbing Shiho Sudou, I felt like I understood why she
had been to fixed on on Masato’s incident.

Shiho
Sudou was full of openings. And she didn’t much care what she filled those
holes with. She just needed something that let her believe that her existence
was important.

So she
embroiled herself in a murder investigation, thinking that perhaps she could
play a key role. It was a tragedy, but ironically therein lie the meaning that
she had been seeking. By pursuing the truth behind the incident, she could
escape from the idleness she felt plaguing her life.

It was
no secret that she was full of openings. And regrettably, everyone around her
took advantage of them. Her family did, her classmates did, Masato Yahara did,
Shuuichi Akiyama did, and I did. Without someone to protect them, a
person with such openings had no choice but to used by others.

—Someone
to protect them.

—A
person filled with openings.

It was
an assessment I had heard somewhere before.

But I
wasn’t going to think too deeply about it.

In any
case, Shiho Sudou wouldn’t be able to go back to normal after having her heart
rudely trampled all over like that. Once a person has their existence put into
words and forced upon them, they can no longer flee from their sins. She would
probably end up turning herself in, after which the inquisitive eyes of both
the media and the world would see her as a murderer and violate her by digging
up her past and family circumstances. I didn’t know if she’d be able to
recover from that or not.

Shiho
Sudou’s end was here.

“My
condolences.”

I put my hands together
perfunctorily. 

“Now
then, what’s become of you?”

I turned to face Akiyama. Just as
I expected, his face had gone pale and he was trembling in fear.

He must
have known instinctive what would happen if his insides got exposed.

“...Your
actions cannot help but confirm it. The one who induced Yahara to try to kill
me was you — Kouta Hiiragi.”

I heaved a sigh in exasperation
at his inane comment.

“Are
you still going on about that? In the first place, aren’t you the one
who killed Masato?”

“The
fact that he tried to kill me is beyond a doubt the truth.”

So in
other words, the reason he ended up killing Masato was because Masato tried to
kill him first and he fought back?

...That
makes sense. The last piece of the puzzle slid into place.

 “Okay,
I get it now. What’s manipulating you — no, what’s manipulating all of
us, what’s controlling us, isn’t me. I don’t have that kind of power.”

“What…?”

“The
thing that led us all to this point is Masato.”

Akiyama’s
eyes widened.

“In a
way, we’re victims of the bomb he set off. I got dyed in him, and you
got destroyed by him.”

“...You
say I was destroyed?”

“Wouldja
just fucking notice it already? You’re pretty far off-sync with your ideal
self. Off-sync with your sensible, exemplary self. Think about it. You’ve been
going around killing people you see as evil. Is that really in line with your
ideals? Is a barbaric ideology like that really your idea of justice?”

His
eyes still wide, Akiyama didn’t say a word.

All he
had to do was self-reflect for an instant and he’d know the answer.

There
was no way that’s what his ideals looked like.

“That
what was it that made you like this? Did you really think that killing me and
Yamazaki was the right thing to do? Whose idea was that?”

That’s
right, Shuuichi, remember.

I don’t even need to invoke his
name. Those feelings that you’re fleeing from were your true feelings all
along.

Now
then — tremble in fear.

“Matsumi-senpai.
Scan Shuuichi Akiyama for me, would you?”

And
fall into despair.

“You
got it!”

Ririko
Matsumi was an insane, deadly weapon. It was the Devil’s own magic, and it
could thoroughly drive Akiyama into a corner.

“Beep
bibi, beep bibibi…”

“...Stop
it…”

“Beep
bibibi, beep bibibi…”

“STOP
ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!”

In a
fit of madness, Akiyama lunged at Matsumi-senpai.

“Kyah!”

Returning
to her senses, Matsumi-senpai gave out a shriek. Akiyama was leaning over her
collapsed figure with his fists raised. Her unseemly shriek was only natural.

I drew near Akiyama. Taking no
heed of me, Akiyama was about to continue hitting Matsumi-senpai — continue
hitting the truth that was about to be revealed, but he stopped when he noticed
what I was pressing against him.

“Kouta,
Hiiragi… You’re…”

I was pressing a fruit knife
against the nape of his neck.

“...You
understand, right? I’m dead serious. If you keep getting violent like
this, you’re going to find your neck short a few arteries.”

Although
a moment ago she had been being punched and looked as though she was about to
cry, the fear vanished from Matsumi-senpai’s face in an instant and was
replaced with surprised glee.

“Huh?
What’s going on, what’s going on?”

Her
cheeks lit up in excitement.

“Tanihara’s
supposed to be dead, so why are you him?”

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The
blade still flush with his nape, Akiyama peered into my eyes.

“You’re
not Kouta Hiiragi… Masato Yahara…? No, that’s ridiculous… But now that I think
back, everything you’ve done and said has been just like him. You’re even
putting a knife to me the same way he did.”

“Well,
that’s ‘cause I am Masato Yahara.”

“...Are
you saying that you’re acting as his proxy?”

“Oh,
it’s nothing so half-assed as that. All I have to do is ask, and Kou’ll
give over his body in a heartbeat. I am Masato Yahara himself.”

“Why
would you do something like that!?”

“For
revenge, of course.”

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“That’s
why I didn’t care about exposing your crimes. My true objective, well
that’s—”

 

“—to
trample over Shuuichi Akiyama’s body and spirit, then kill him.”

 

Akiyama
was silent. He knew very well the danger he was in.

After
all, we had both had our moral foundations destroyed by Masato Yahara.

“If I
have her scan you, it’ll definitely destroy your spirit, but that won’t even be
necessary. Just explaining how messed up in the head you are will be plenty.”

I in close to his ear and
whispered.

“You’re
an honors student, and you believe that everything you do is just. That in and
of itself proves that your self-assessment is soft. You spend so much time
preparing escape routes for yourself, arming yourself with ideological
arguments. Even when you committed the grave sin of murder, you couldn’t bear
not justifying it. Even though you normally would have thought it insane, you
had to build up a desire to kill us.”

“...Stop
it...Not another word…”

I had no intention of stopping.

“After
you killed me, you had no choice but to rationalize murder.”

I spat out the phrase that would
finalize his destruction.

 

“You
never really wanted to kill me.”

 

 

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

 

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle.

 

God,
it’s obnoxious.

This
guy’s chains really are louder than anyone else’s.

The
knife was in my hand. Akiyama could no longer resist. There was no reason to
hesitate. One push, and my revenge would be complete. There wasn’t a single
reason to waver. There wasn’t a single thing that could stop me. All I
had to do was slash a shattered man with a knife. It was as simple as that.

I put my strength into the hand
holding the knife.

I just needed to give in to my
desire to kill.

And I
could finally escape from this “nil,” this feeling that I was in a
mass-produced shopping mall!

 

“Noooooooo!”

I could hear footsteps running
towards me, along with a voice I recognized.

But
compared to the voice—

 

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,
rattle, rattle.

 

The
sound of chains was far louder.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
<references />

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|-
| Back to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (II)|Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World (II)]]
| Return to [[We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (II)|Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World (II)]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (II)

2017-11-22T23:48:02Z

We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents

2017-11-22T23:42:04Z

Kooritsukai:

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Contents.png|thumb]]

'''Table of Contents'''

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara’s Closed World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (II)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)|Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (III)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (III)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (II)|Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World (II)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (IV) Masato Yahara’s Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (IV) Masato Yahara’s Closed World (II)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (II)|Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World (II)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (V)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (V)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Open World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Open World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Afterword|Afterword]]

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (III)

2017-11-17T07:50:46Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)

2017-11-17T07:45:28Z

Kooritsukai:

<div class=WordSection1>

I watched someone get
murdered once.

It was back when I was still in kindergarten. Both my
parents worked and were away from home a lot, so my grandma usually ended up
taking care of me. My parents married late, which meant that my maternal
grandma, who was a widower in her seventies, was firmly in the “geezer” camp.
Having to take care of me probably put a toll on her.

Despite my parents’ neglect, though, I was a pretty
satisfied kid. In retrospect, that was probably thinks to my grandma working
her ass off. The two of us were as thick as thieves.

On that day, the two of us were looking after the house as
always. I had roped grandma into playing hide-and-seek, forcing her into
the role of seeker. Opening a closet’s aged, poorly-fitted door, I found
and wedged my five-year-old body into a pile of densely packed futons and muted
myself. 

Grandma was having a difficult time finding me and was
noticeably flustered. Watching her from a crack in the door, I laughed
silently to myself.

Suddenly, the front door could be heard opening.

Thinking that perhaps I had run outside, Grandma
hurried to the entrance.

Immediately, I heard a scream. And at the same time,
an unfamiliar, threatening voice.

At my young age, all I could do at the unsettling
atmosphere was tremble anxiously.

I could hear two sets of footsteps drawing near, one
belonging to my grandma. Instinctively, I balled myself up among the
futons and held my breath. But at the same time I was assailed by a
strange sense of duty, as if it were my responsibility to observe what was
about to happen.

I could just barely make out my grandma and the man
from the cracked door.

“Dammit, the place was s’posed to be empty...! Oy, hurry it
up!”

Driven by the man’s angry voice, Grandma opened the chest of
drawers. She was likely looking for cash or the bankbook, but as she didn’t
know where it was and was panicking, she just opened and closed drawer after
drawer. All the while, the man was growing gradually more irritated. 

After a little longer of this, Grandma handed the man a
stuffed envelope. It was likely filled with cash.

“No hard feels, grams. Just can’t be lettin’ myself get
caught. Blame yourself for being home on the wrong day.”

The man took out a sharp object (I think it was a
pocketknife or a kitchen knife, but in my panic I didn’t pay much
attention to the particulars). In alarm, Grandma screamed something
incomprehensible. This earned her even more ire from the man, who pinned her
arms behind her back.

Grandma screamed.

“Help me... Maa, help me!”

Although a kindergartener like myself would hardly be able
to accomplish anything here, she screamed frantically nonetheless.

But even in the face of my beloved grandma’s bawling, I didn’t
leave the closet.

“Maa! Help me! Help me!”

Watching my grandma scream my name over and over, I wanted
to remind her, “we’re playing hide-and-seek, so I can’t come out until
you find me.”

The blade swung.

A death wail.

A moan.

A weak, self-derisive
laugh.

Tears.

A pool of blood.

Until it was all
over, I kept perfectly still. I was still playing hide-and seek.

I was playing hide-and-seek to this day, unable
to return to the real world.

 

 

“You’re Masato
Yahara, right?”

As I was
putting my indoor shoes in the worn-out shoe rack, a girl called my name. I recognized
that voice. Having a bad feeling about this, I heaved a sigh.

“...You sure you’ve
got the right guy? Kou’s still back in the classroom, right?”

“Please don’t try to
blow me off.” Miki Kouzuki glared at me with trembling fists.

I’d suspected that she had something she wanted
to say to me. Without meeting her eyes, I spoke.

“Is this about tryin’
to get me to away from Kou?”

Having the words
stolen out of her mouth, Kouzuki knit her eyebrows.

“He doesn’t have shit
for magic resistance. If I, a magus unaware of my own powers, am around
him I’ll be a bad influence and stain him in my attribute. And that
wouldn’t do anyone a lick of good. Something along those lines?”

Kouzuki’s eyes
widened in surprise.

What the hell? I thought
her value system was gonna be something more interesting, but it ended up being
something even I could come up with.

Rapidly losing
interest, I set my loafers on the floor.

“So I’m a
magus, huh. You’re givin’ me too much credit. Anyways, everyone would just run
away from me before I could cast a spell on ‘em anyways.”

“Y...you understand
magic?”

“Who knows. I just
translated what I was sayin’ into your gibberish.”

“I...if you
understand that much, please just stay away from Kouta. You said that everyone
just runs away from you, but there’s one exception.”

There was no need to
clarify who she was talking about.

“Staying away from
him would be for Kouta’s sake. If he keeps being surrounded by my magic, he’ll
take on my attribute. He’ll be able to avoid getting stained in a poor
attribute like yours or Matsumi-senpai’s.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I glared at Kouzuki unconsciously. Knowing what
kind of person she was only amplified my rage.

“You’re full of
yourself. Who the fuck do you think you are, going around babbling about how
you’re going to protect Kou or some shit. Did Kou ask for that? He didn’t, did
he.”

“...I thought that
would be for the best-”

“For the best? Pretty
words from everyone’s favorite freakshow. Keep your fucking self-satisfactory
bullshit in check, wouldja? Is Kou even the one you’re really tryin’ to
protect? ...Heh, you can’t even refute it. What you’re tryin’ to protect by
force-staining Kou’s ass...”

I spit it out.

“Is your flimsy-ass,
brittle little closed world.”

It seemed that her
self awareness didn’t extend that far. Her face went white at my words.

I drew close to Kouzuki, who was slowly
shrinking away from me, and lifted her up by the collar of her uniform.

“But by talkin’ to
you like this, I realized that something I don’t need to worry
about. You just aren’t worth my time.”

Fear appeared for the
first time on Kouzuki’s face. ...Nah, that ain’t it. Since the moment she
called out to me, her fists had been trembling from how hard she had tried to
hide her fear. That’s how powerless a person she was.

“He’ll just come to
hold you in contempt, and that’ll be that. Later.”

I didn’t want to so much as look at her any
more. Releasing her collar, I walked away from the shoe rack without
sparing her a second glance.

With all the rumors
swirling around her, I figured she’d have a little more of a backbone in
her. But she was just another person with no faith in their own damn world. She
just wanted Kou in order to reinforce her world.

She was just like all
the others. She gave off the sound of chains.

Her chains were
quieter than others, maybe, but that was all there was to it. She was just
another nobody, far removed from the ideal I strived for.

She was just as much
a nobody as I was.

Chains.

I started seeing the chains when I was in ninth
grade.

In contrast to my
peers, who were grappling with entrance exams and relationship woes, I could
feel myself growing distant.

The contents of their
worries even drove some of them to cut their own wrists, but I couldn’t
see at as any more serious than whether a sand castle was knocked over or not.
After all, even if they wounded themselves they didn’t plan on dying. I
— I, who truly knew death — could tell that those wounds were nothing
more than a tool to highlight the extent of their woes.

Once I became
a complete bystander, simply gazing on them in observation, I noticed
something.

Everything they held
dear was created.

With so much
information flowing down the muddy stream of our world, a simple papier-mâché construction is enough for them all to
implicitly believe it.

They
were being controlled.

Made to
dance in perfect harmony, they were being controlled by fiendish, brutal
chains.

Then, I
became able to see those chains. And from the materialized chains, I
could even hear noise. The rattling noise they made was raucous. The noise was
so raucous it sapped all vitality from me. Once that was finished, I
began losing my ideals as well. Lost in the pursuit of cheap pleasure, I
no longer cared if the world was in color or monochrome, or if it was real or
simply the inside of an image. To that end, I engaged in a string of
unethical activities. Pleasure was all that was real to me, but it was merely
ephemeral, and in the end time simply passed while nothing else changed. My
world was peeled apart by the chains. It was a simple, complete excoriation.

When
I finally managed to regain a grip on my peeled-up world, a thought
suddenly floated to my mind, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I wanna kill someone.

Murder
had taken the color from my world and reduced my reality to the state it was in
today. Ironically, as a consequence of its gravity, it was also what lay just
beyond my outstretched hand. No matter where I reached out towards, I
would run into those homicidal urges. Like a butterfly trapped in a spiderweb, no
matter how much I struggled I couldn’t move. From where I was,
I couldn’t see anything else.

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Wanting
to flee from the chains and the noise, I reached out my hand. This time,
my hand got caught on those homicidal urges. They began controlling me.

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

 

But
even then, I would never have believed it.

That
there could be a person unfettered by those chains.

 

 

“Kusukusu...
you two really are interesting, aren’t you?”

I could tell that the girl, who
had a childish face and and looked somewhat off-balance, was different from the
moment she started speaking to us.

Her
smile seemed like it was free of any influence from the events of the outside
world.

“Whaddya
want?”

Who was
she? Like Kouzuki, was she trying to take advantage of how fragile Kou’s chains
were?

“Oh,
Ririko was just thinking how she wanted to become good friends with Hiiragi!”

She
didn’t react even a little to my display of animosity. And she didn’t give the
sense that she was playing dumb. Humans are creatures bound by fear. Anyone
would react to the presence of violence.

Then
what was wrong with her?

It
seemed that “different” didn’t cut it. She was clearly lacking something
fundamental.

“What’s so interesting about you two are the
call signs you’re giving off.”

She
spoke as if her peculiar words were commonplace. That was something neither I
nor Kouzuki was capable of. This girl didn’t desire salvation, and she had no
doubts in her own world. In actuality, she was basically rejecting interaction
with the rest of mankind.

Inside
a closed world that was like a perfectly sealed-off room, she had no need to
grow.

I’d heard rumors about this.
Rumors about an upperclassman who had been coming and going from a psychiatric
hospital since she enrolled.

“Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?”

“Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course.”

According to the rumors, she lacked
boundaries. Unable to tell where her “self” began and ended, she supposedly saw
everything outside her body as simply parts of herself. She was under the
misapprehension that not just her body but everything she could more or less
freely manipulate was part of her. Although it was a bit more allegorical in my
case, I’d certainly had times where I felt unable to put down my phone,
as if it were a part of my body. But as far as she was concerned, her
unification with her electrical devices was no allegory. To her, using
electrical signals from her brain to move her limbs wasn’t just the same as
using a remote to change the channel on TV, the remote and the television
themselves were just parts of her body.

It was a world beyond comprehension. But
regardless, it was the world she lived in.

A different world from the rest of us.

“Interesting, aren’t they? White and
ultramarine, huh. Aren’t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko
likes white, you know. Makes me want to do something.”

I had no idea what
those colors meant in her code. All I could tell was that they were code
for something else.

I glanced at Kou. Even though he’s
confused, he wouldn’t reject another, even if that person is Matsumi. But even
Kou likely won’t be able to grasp her world.

...Actually, is that really true? This is the
same Kou who’s spent a whole month getting to know me, after all.

“Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?”

“Read me?”

“Oh, that’s right. Most people can’t do
scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!”

Maybe Matsumi, who blurs the boundaries
between electrical devices and her own body, is deluded into thinking she can
fulfil the role of an electrical device herself?

But something quickly makes me realize that
that perception was halfhearted.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

It’s
not a delusion. It’s something far worse. In that instant, Matsumi became an
electrical device.

That’s right. Why didn’t I notice it
sooner?

This chick doesn’t have any chains at all.

The moment I realized that, it felt as
if the false machine noise was causing the world to violently lurch. I
couldn’t keep my footing. The world was slanting simply because I had
become aware of my own change. Unable to remain in place, I began
tumbling. I was rolling. Rolling and rolling. Rolling and rolling and
rolling and rolling.

How did this happen?

...Ah, because I didn’t believe. I didn’t
believe that a person without chains could even exist. That’s why my world was
doing an about-face.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

The sun went out. What illuminated my world in
its place was Matsumi’s eyeball. Within those dead-fish eyes, her pupil was
focusing like the lens of a single-lens reflex camera. Taking on heat, her eyes
began to sear me. It burns! It burns! It burns!

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise pursued me and, as I spun
through space, bored its way into my body. From near and from far, the noise
continued to ring. I had long since lost track of where it was ringing
from. I was becoming to create the noise as well.

The lens was simply floating in space.

Those eyes turned towards me.

“Ah-”

What part of me were they looking at?

They were looking at me burning and tumbling
through space. I’m begging you, don’t expose this hackneyed end of mine.
Those pitiful limitations of mine. Those banal thoughts of mine.

“...don’t.”

I didn’t want to
know.

“Beep bi—”

I didn’t want to
know. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know.

“DON’T!”

As I scream, the floating eyeball lens
vanishes. In that moment, I’m assailed with vertigo and the world goes
black. Once the light returned, I could see Kou looking concerned and
Matsumi pouting.

“You don’t have to shout like that, you
know...”

“Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just
now...?”

“Hold on, hold on. Ririko’s going to put it
into words now.”

Matsumi stopped being human again.

She somehow got information about Kou, and
she’s translating it such that we can understand it as well. A computer turning
binary into letters and images.

“Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her
hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent
approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing
cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen
to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally good
at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others
with-”

“Th... that’s enough! Matsumi-senpai, please
cut it out!”

She returns to being human.

“So? So? How was that? How’d you like my
scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?”

“Senpai, can we go now?”

“Whaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He’s
white, after all! He’s the only one!”

“Sorry, but we got places to be.”

“Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it
can’t be helped then. Ririko guesses she’ll see you later then, Tanihara.”

Not thinking, I stopped in my tracks.

People
read my last name, “谷原,” incorrectly all the time. So
the mistake itself wasn’t particularly notable.

“Huh? Aren’t you Tanihara?”

“It’s read ‘Yahara’, Senpai.”

So in other words, that’s what that meant.

Matsumi’s “scanning” gathers information
visually.

 

We strolled through an abandoned shopping
district, shuttered up as a result of its inability to compete with a large
nearby shopping mall.

I gazed at Kou in
silent shock.

Even when faced with Ririko Matsumi, he didn’t
give up on trying to comprehend her. If we hadn’t gotten lucky, he would have
completely taken her in.

It would be fine if he got invaded by Kouzuki.
He’d be treated as a freak, sure, but at least he’d be able to keep on living.
But Matsumi was no good. If he took in something broken, he’d become broken as
well. It would be like downloading a malicious app.

“Get this through your head. Don’t talk to
that birdbrain again. She’ll be a bad influence on you. Got it?”

Kou nodded. But it wasn’t because he was
convinced, it was because he felt the situation called for it.

I didn’t what his
true intentions were. ...Hell, I didn’t know if he had any intentions in
the first place.

“Masato, did you understand what was going on
with that scanning thing?”

Scanning.

Based on the fact that she got the information
visually, I had a hunch as to what the trick was. But it was tough to
put into words.

I suspected the
reason she was able to guess my name was because she subconsciously knew it
already. Even though the time she spent in the hospital kept her from showing
up at school much, she was still a fellow student of ours. There was plenty of
times she could have run across our names.

The only abnormal part was how she went about
recalling that information.

Normal people quickly forget information they
don’t need. For example, we don’t remember the faces of every person we pass on
the street.

But what if this “scanning” let her pull out
memories from deep in her brain, memories that anyone else would have lost? If
that were the case, then simply having passed us in a hallway would be plenty
for her to know our names.

It then followed that her being able to put
names to faces, as well as dredge up all that information about Kou, was simply
the result of outstanding insight born from her recollection, observational,
and analytic prowess. Of course, she couldn’t do that all the time, but only
when she was in a trance state from putting herself under the self-hypnosis
called “scanning.”

Seen from the outside, a skilled
fortune-teller would appear to be able to trace the steps of another’s life.
Hell, even I’d be able to guess whether someone’s a virgin or not a good
chunk of the time. But Matsumi was on another level. She was able to come up
with his personality, his familial structure, and even where he lived. It was
practically a superpower.

It was abnormal.

If I told told Kou all this, nothing
good would come of it. It would just end up driving him towards taking her in.

“... not even a little.”

So I dodged the question.

Even if Kou didn’t believe me, he neither
pressed me nor showed signs of dissatisfaction. Ahh, now that I think
about it, there’s something wrong with this guy too.

The light in front of us turned red and we
reflexively stopped.

“Why the hell’d we stop?”

“The light was red, wasn’t it?”

“There ain't any cars here.”

Ahh, I can hear it. I can hear
that noise again.

Just beyond my field of view lay those chains.
Beautiful chains that acted as if they owned us, designed to stop us from
moving.

I couldn’t help
but despise the chains. They bound me and were the cause of everything that
drained color from my world.

...or so I thought.

And because that’s what I thought, I
yearned to be a person without chains. I truly thought I desired
release from those chains. 

But then I met such an unfettered
person.

And what did I feel, upon gazing at
that person?

Fear.

I was scared of
that person without chains. I felt fright. A feeling that implied
unimaginable distance.

There was no chance I could become a
person without chains.

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains’ noise
echoed.

You will never be released.

Shut up.

You will be bound until the day you die.

Shut up!

But you already knew that, right? The
reason these chains will never be torn off is because you yourself have no
desire to tear them off.

I SAID SHUT UP!

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The noise keeps resounding.

The sound of chains. The sound of common
sense. The sound of morals.

And the sound of my desire to kill.

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. 

“Ahh... I wanna kill someone.”

 

 

After parting ways with Kou, I was
unable to muster the urge to return home and inside took the train into the
suburbs. While the area around the station was prosperous in comparison to the
shutter town I had just left, the dust and general atmosphere made it
clear that it was past its prime.

I wandered about
aimlessly. A department store that would likely be demolished in a few years. A
old-fashioned movie theater that looked wholly unfit to bring a date to. A
bookstore that had been repurposed into a shop for otaku goods. The town, which
was connected, bound, and encircled by power lines, stunk of sewage. If you
boiled down all the mud, the sludge, and the coal tar, it seemed like it like
it would make for delicious, piping hot ramen broth.

I sat on a bench
in front of the station and observed the passersby. The people waiting by the
station were like marionettes, each and every one of them glued to their
smartphones. Social networks, forcing them into round-the-clock surface-level
pleasantries. Aggregation sites pushing morals upon them that are neither right
nor wrong. Blogs flooding with comments, not from individuals but from their
very souls. All an horrifying gambit to strengthen the chains. A colossal trap.

The definition of people who would be better
off dead.

Let’s suppose that that definition was “people
who are detrimental to society.” If that’s the case, people who killed
innocents would be better off dead. People whose contributions to society were
outweighed by the harm they cause to others would be better off dead too.
People whose deaths would be rejoiced at rather than wept at and people who
inspire anarchic thoughts, those people would obviously be better off dead.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we just rounded up all those brutes and
left only the good people?

...It probably would. With fewer recessive
genes around, of course humanity’s going to be wiser. If, hypothetically, the
world was in peril and we had to trim the population, you can bet your ass that
the morals around protecting the weak and disadvantaged are going to be the
first to go and there’d be large-scale massacres. ...Well, it doesn’t have to
be something as over-the-top as that. All I’m trying to get at is that
there’s plenty of people who could die and no one would mind.

“Yo.”

I call out to a
passing woman in an immaculately-pressed suit, likely on her way home from the
office.

In that instant, I got the impression
that although she works hard and contributes to society, she frequently
tramples on the feelings of others. Huh, maybe I’m awakening intuitive
powers like Matsumi’s? Or maybe it was just a delusion of mine? I don’t
much care either way. As far as I cared, she was a detriment to society
- someone who was better off dead.

“Are you speaking to me?”

“Yeah, anyone’s fine. There’s plenty of ya
around. Now, a riddle. When’s a door not a door?”

“When it’s ajar... Excuse me, what did you
want?”

“Who ordered you?”

“Huh?”

“Who ordered you to say ‘when it’s ajar’?”

The woman stopped in her tracks, fear
spreading across her face.

“Nobody ordered me to do anything... what’s
going on...”

“That’s right! No one ordered you to do shit,
right? Then why does everyone answer the same fucking way? There’s gotta be
plenty of other reasons why a door wouldn’t a door, right? Then why’s it gotta
be ajar and not a dormant volcano or somethin’?<ref>The original joke here went about as follows:
* Masato: "What kind of pan (bread) can you not eat?"
* OL: "A frying pan?"
* Masato: "Why'd the answer have to be frying pan? Why couldn't it have been A-kyuusenpan (class-A war criminal)?"</ref>”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ah, shut up. This chick’s chains were
particularly noisy. Women tended to have grimmer, sturdier chains than men.

“You’re pissing me off. You want me to fucking
kill you?”

“Wh...what are you talking about? Is there
something wrong with you?”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“Get outta my sight. If you don’t, I’m
gonna fucking kill you.”

Not bothering to hide her repugnance, she
quickly ran off.

Heh. Once I considered what I just
did objectively, I give a strained laugh.

It would seem I’d developed a bug.

Walking around is too much of a pain. After
clenching my teeth and somehow dragging myself to a nearby park, I layed
down on a bench. Overheating to an unbearable degree, my brain forcibly entered
a shutdown state. My consciousness faded away dreamlessly.

 

 

I opened my eyes.

The blue sky flooded into them.

I couldn’t form
thoughts. The sun’s blinding light assaulted my eyes, and the painful stimulus
gradually restored my consciousness.

My back flared up in pain, and I remembered
that I had been sleeping in a park. I reached for a cigarette,
but found to my dismay that my pack was empty. What a fucking joke.

I clutched my
head, slowly recalling the events of yesterday.

There’s something wrong with me.

I was aware of how
desperate I was getting, but I was able to keep a cool head for
now.

But it seemed unlikely that I would be
able to fully get back to normal. Upon learning of the existence of a human
without chains, I stopped be able to brush away my homicidal urges,
which were now simmering to the point of boiling over. I could go mad at
any moment. There was even a part of me that wanted to go mad, knowing that
there was a chance that doing so might grant me the impetus to commit murder.
From that small reason alone, I knew I was past the point of
being able to contain these urges. It was past the level of sexual desire, and
was more akin to a hunger that scalded my throat. There was no chance the urges
would subside.

I would either
kill or go mad.

It could only be one or the other.

 

I decided to
return home briefly. I had no idea what my parents would say at this
point, but if I didn’t they were liable to file a missing person report
out of obligation and a desire to leave a paper trail. And I was out of
money. I knew of a method to solve both those problems at once. A method
I had used often since middle school.

Kicking aside an empty can as I entered
the house, I noted that my parents weren’t home. After fishing through
the shelf where grandma pulled the envelope from before she died, I slipped
two ten-thousand yen<ref>~$180</ref> bills into my wallet.

But where should I go? I had no
destination in mind. But in this state, I couldn’t stay at home, nor
could I go to school.

For a moment, I briefly contemplated
going to school. Thanks to my reputation, at least all the jackasses I wanted
to avoid would stay away from me.

And Kou was there.

Kouta Hiiragi. A man with no firm sense of
self. Generally, people analyze what kind of person they themselves are and
form a sense of self around that. In a certain sense they label themselves.

But Kou doesn’t. As a result, his self doesn’t
settle into any one shape. I dunno what made him like that, but based on
Matsumi’s scanning the cause probably lies with his family circumstances.

Because his self isn’t set, Kou tends to take
on whatever form his partner wants him to. Every time he interacts with
someone, his personality changes little by little. As a result, he’s become
able to truly understand others, and not just on a superficial level. He’ll
probably grow accustomed to Kouzuki’s magic in no time, and he fully
understands my madness as well. He doesn’t resist it, either. That’s why if
he’s careless, he’ll end up understanding Matsumi as well and taking her in.

That reminds me, Matsumi likened Kou’s color
to “white.” I get it, that kinda makes sense. Kou can take on any other
color. That in and of itself is dangerous. That’s why Kouzuki is being all
meddlesome and trying to stain Kou in her color; she’s trying to prevent him
from getting stained in a malicious color like mine.

Being accepted by others feels good. I
learned that for the first time when I met Kou.

Kouzuki’s probably the same. That’s why she
trying to keep him for herself.

I guess I
can’t go to school after all.

It’s dangerous for me because Kou is there.

Kou is the ultimate sympathizer. He would no
doubt accept even me, who’s enveloped in homicidal urges. Upon being accepted
by him, I would stop perceiving myself as abnormal, lose my last bits of
resistance, and eventually take action. I could picture it easily.

I grabbed a pack
of cigarettes from my room and lit one with a shaking hand. The nicotine
settled me down a bit, but the urges were unabated.

I slipped a
butterfly knife into my pocket as a de facto tranquilizer. I could kill
at any time. I could make that call whenever I wanted. Knowing
that somehow helped me preserve my sense of reason up until now. But that bit
just now was simply meaningless. It simply served to rile me up.

A paper-thin line was all that kept me from
using this knife up till now. But that paper-thin line held within it a world
of difference.

But I knew.

As I was now, I was liable to
cross that line.

 

When I came to my senses - when I
truly came to my senses - it was already night.

Once again I found myself wandering
through that deteriorating suburb.

While I knew little about killing time,
I knew quite a bit about killing. All I had to do was
noncommittally indulge myself. My mind simply sought pleasure without applying
any deeper meaning to anything. In other words, I was deteriorating as a
human. I was an animal with intelligence but no use for it. There are a
surprising number of humans who fit that description, so I didn’t lack
for companions. Hip! Hip! Hoorah! Other people were necessary for the pursuit
of pleasure. Transient relationships were best. Human garbage was best. If they
were men, though, they’d sooner or later commit some kind of sexual assault, so
I tried to avoid that. I wasn’t into fucking chicks while they
screamed, and taking risks for something I wasn’t into was right off the
table.

So I looked for women. Chicks who were
into give-and-take relationships. Animals who sought only pleasure like I
did. Some of them got clingy, but their kind feared rejection, so once dealt
with none of them pressed the issue. Once they got hooked on drugs and drowned
in pleasure, any chick would become almost disgustingly docile. Once I
was done with with them, they would without fail use every word and action at
their disposal to wail about how lonely they were or some shit, but I
couldn’t give less of a fuck about their pitiful emotions.

“You’re pretty good.”

One of those women spoke up to me when I
was playing darts at an amusement center. What was her name again? I
think she told me, but I forgot.

“Do you play darts a lot?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Through this meaningless conversation, I
got authorization to step into her territory. It was obnoxious, but a necessary
ritual nonetheless.

The chick wasn’t a so-called “gyaru<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyaru</ref>”. She was
no beauty, but her face was attractive enough to put her on the receiving end
of gossip. She wore a cheap-looking black dress with hideous pink frills. I
could tell from experience that she was available.

The ritual had gone on plenty long enough to
move to the next step.

“Anywhere you wanna head after this?”

“Nah, not really, I guess.”

“Follow me, then.”

Although she no doubt knew what was to follow,
she simply followed me without putting up any opposition.

Where should we do it? The park? Nah, my back
hurts, so a cheap hotel would be better... Such thoughts filled my head as we
boarded the elevator.

Leaving the building, we neared a tunnel
running underneath the railway. Right as I put my hand on her back as a
lip service, I heard an unexpected voice.

“Is that you, Yahara?”

There stood the class representative, carrying
a plastic folder and clearly on his way home from cram school — Shuuichi
Akiyama.

I was planning on
feigning not being able to hear him due to the train passing, but when I
reflexively looked over my shoulder, our eyes met.

“What do you intend to accomplish by not
coming to school. Your friends are worried about you, you know.”

His words were exemplary yet insincere. It was
almost as if someone was making him say them. First of all, did this guy even
think I even had friends?

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, shut up already.

For some reason or another, my earlier
hedonism had been enough to temporarily silence the chains. But in the face of
this man, that was impossible.

His chains were grotesque, grimmer and
sturdier than any other’s.

Feeling an onset of vertigo, I plunged
my hand into my pocket and grasped my knife, my de facto tranquilizer.

“What will come of you continuing to neglect
school? You will simply idle away your days. If you fail to put in the effort
now, many paths will become closed to you, and you will regret it fiercely.
Even you should realize such a simple thing.”

“The fuck are you going on about? Don’t go
judging everything according your values.”

“I believe my values are extremely commonplace
values.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”

And that’s the thing I hate more than
anything else.

“You know it, yet you rebel against it. Don’t
you think you’re acting a little childish?”

Akiyama pushed up the bridge of his glasses.

Maybe what he’s correcting with his glasses
isn’t his eyesight, but him himself? He was extreme enough to harbor such
delusions. He could only see the corrected, beautiful world. Unimportant things
didn’t even enter his view. It’s like he’s forgotten that when he takes off his
glasses, the blurry, hard-to-grasp world in front of him is the real one.

Akiyama’s gaze shifted from me to the girl.
Faced with the honor student Akiyama’s reproachful gaze, she uncomfortably
lifted the corners of her mouth.

“Your girlfriend? Won’t you be imposing on
her, dragging her around at this hour?”

He spoke unaffectedly. He likely doubted that
there was any woman who would willingly spend time around me.

“She ain’t my girlfriend, though.”

“She isn’t?”

“Just some chick I picked up off the
street. We were thinking of going and fucking. Get it?”

“Excuse me?”

At his confusion, the girl gave an embarrassed
smile. Of course he’s not going to be able simply nod and accept something like
that.

Glancing sidelong at Akiyama, I give a
snicker.

Hey, look, he can’t even hide it. Inside that
disgust-filled expression, he’s jealous that I’m getting laid. That
fucker’s so fastidious he probably wouldn’t admit he even had desires like
that.

“You... have quite some nerve, saying such
immoral things so brazenly.”

“Jealous?”

“I’m well aware of how proud of your faults
you are. May I ask you a question, though? How often do you do things like
this?”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, this isn’t good. Shut up. This guy’s
chains just won’t shut up.

“All the fucking time, man. What, you want to
get in on this shit? I can teach you how to. It’s easy, all you gotta do
is lie about your age to register for dating sites. Studying ain’t good for
shit, you feel me? You know, if we all just gave in to our primal desire for
pleasure, we could all just live as happy-ass animals.”

Akiyama just glared at me silently.

“...Um, I just remember something I have to
do, so I’m going to head home, okay?”

“Yeah.”

The girl had lost interest. I still
couldn’t remember her name as I watched her run off.

Akiyama watched her recede far longer than I
did.

“Yahara.”

Akiyama spoke, gazing off into the distance.

“What?”

“I believe it is unwise to indiscreetly give
voice to the thoughts of others. But I see you and I do not share that
opinion.”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

That noise was whispering to me.

Kill.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

It’s time for you to join the world of
killers. That’s the only path left available to you.

Despite being more tightly bound by those unholy
chains than any other, Shuuichi Akiyama was enough of a freak to feel not agony
but comfort from their embrace. There was no human who symbolized the chains as
much as he did. That would make him the ideal sacrifice, no?

“You wanna sermonize? Fine by me. In any case,
let’s head somewhere less crowded.”

“I see; very well. I would rather nobody else
carelessly inserted their voice in our conversation, after all.”

“Yeah, right. Wouldn’t want anyone getting in
the way.”

I didn’t want
anyone to get in the way.

Not until it was all over.

 

Unlike a large city like Tokyo, all you had to
do in the suburb was walk a little and the tall buildings would be replaced by
rice paddies and vacant lots. Past a convenience store with a sprawling parking
lot belying its defunct state lay a similarly-defunct factory. I neither
knew nor cared what the factory had originally produced, but the sensation of
being underground brought about by its oily, metallic odors made it ideal. I
didn’t know what this iron press was designed for either, but when I
laid my hand on it it was icy-cold to the touch.

“I’m surprised that you knew about a place
like this.”

“I told you about all the chicks I
was forcin’ myself on, right? You gotta know about places like this to do shit
like that.”

Akiyama scowled in repugnance.

Honestly, I’m surprised he’d follow me
to a sketchy-ass place like this so easily. Could he not even begin to imagine
himself being in danger? ...Well, he probably couldn’t. That was the kind of
victim I was dealing with here. The kind of guy who was filled with
baseless conviction that he couldn’t possibly get involved with the kind of
incident you see on the news.

He was one of them. Hell, he’d probably even
be shocked at the sight of one of his classmates smoking.

“So? I’m ready to be preached at.”

“Before we start, would you mind turning on a
light? It’s too dark for me to even make out your face. I feel that that would
somewhat defeat the purpose of this conversation.”

Did he really think that being able to see my
face would make his shitty-ass sermon stick?

“I think someone left a lantern here...”

Squinting to look for the electric lantern, I
found it beside a pile of cigarette butts. As I flicked the switch,
Akiyama’s form came dimly into view.

“For you to have lead me this far, I can
assume you have at least some intention of hearing me out?”

I choked back laughter. Akiyama didn’t seem to
consider for a moment the possibility that he might be assaulted, let alone
killed.

I’m sure what’s
floating through his mind is something along the lines of a naive-ass after
school special. The pitiable delinquent, coming from a bad background, finally
finds someone who understands him and, struck by his sincere actions, gets back
on the straight and narrow.

What a nice story. Even I, without an
ounce of cynicism, think it would be nice if we had more of that kind of story.
I’ve seen a lot of delinquents, and most of them are scum through and
through. Defective from their very genes. Deficient in brains, empathy, fear,
and imagination, the lot of them.

But in spite of all that, this guy has enough
faith in his persuasive abilities to follow me all this way. I half
wanted to see what the it was about his speech he was so confident in. Hell,
maybe they’d even be enough to convert me.

“Let me start by asking you something. Are you
happy with the way you’re living right now?”

“As if. I’m always wishing I could
change, you know?”

Even right now.

In any case, I was about to be able to
change. Not that I had any idea what I was going to change into.

“Then why not simply be more diligent? From
what I can see, you certainly aren’t stupid. I mean that, by the way. All it
takes for people to change is to find an objective and to put in the effort
necessary to achieve it. At the moment you’re lapsing into depravity, but if
you take a slightly longer view I have no doubt you can overcome such
temptations.”

I laugh
inappropriately upon hearing that from the most nearsighted man imaginable.

“So you’re saying if I just become a
straight-A student like you, my life’ll open up and become all peaches and
fuckin’ cream?”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be studies.
Anything you find that you can put your all into works. And that’s all it takes
to open up your life. I’m sure there’s some activity you could find yourself
getting engrossed in.”

“There’s nothin’ like that.”

“Are you certain? What about sports, say,
boxing or rugby?”

I wanted to throw
up. Is this guy actually referencing old after school specials, then lumping
all delinquents together in one convenient little category? Faced with such a
blad lack of imagination, I began to doubt if he was even truly a
straight-A student.

“And if you do indeed find something you want
to do, the more paths you have available before you to choose from the better.
As you are right now, paths are vanishing.”

“Dumbass. No one who was willing to work their
ass off just to keep future possibilities open would be in this situation in
the first damn place.”

“You mustn’t give up on yourself. Envision the
future, and stride towards it!”

I hadn’t suspected
his little sermon would fail to resonate with me to this extent. The things he
was saying were ostensibly correct. Perhaps they would have resonated more from
a different mouth.

But the words felt like they had no weight
behind them. They held none of the speaker’s true feelings. It felt like he was
simply reading out of some manual on delinquent correction. The words were
completely those of another.

And on top of that, the sound of chains.

His thoughts and mine were in parallel,
destined to never intersect.

“Those chains of yours. I’ll pass on
being bound by them, thank you very much!”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ahh, I can’t hold it in any more.

I should just kill
him. I can’t bear to listen to any more of this. I should just
kill him. I should just kill him. When I open up his flesh, my
future will open up as well. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. I should just kill him. I don’t want to be here
any more. I’m never coming back here again. I should just kill
him. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. This place is empty; no one will hear him scream. His
death wails will be a hymnal for me alone, a noise sufficient to drown out
those chains. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. I should just kill him. His blood will go flying. I
don’t know how my world will change. But if nothing else, my monochrome world
will be dyed red. I should just kill him. I should just kill him.
I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. 

“Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains
to speak of... What are you talking about, Yahara?”

Looking around, he frowned.

“I’ll tell you, so you can die in
peace.”

“...Yahara?”

“Chains. The preconceived notions that bind
us. That’s a useless definition. They’re essentially rules without order.
Morals, forced upon us. Their noise is annoying. I've always wanted to
escape them. The only way I can escape them is by killing. In other
words, that noise is basically the sound of my desire to kill.”

I pulled the butterfly
knife out of my pocket. With a flick of my wrist, the blade flies out.

“Now I can get out of here!”

My reluctance to kill vanished.

Immediately, my hand was filled with the
sensation of flesh. It was softer than I expected, barely giving me the
sensation I had slashed at all. The experience was lacking.

“Now you can get out of here, hm...”

The red blood dripped loudly.

Now that I think about it, it’s
strange. Even though we constantly have blood flowing through our bodies, we
only ever think about it at times like this. It’s like not being able to see
the forest for the trees. It’s not that our awareness is limited, we’re simply
under the impression that it is.

“—On that point alone, we are of the same
opinion.”

What sentiment did that smile carry? It seemed
similar to the sense of accomplishment a child would display upon digging up an
anthill and earnestly squishing its inhabitants.

“Your life has no value... or rather, you’re
like a vermin that deserves to die.”

Akiyama spoke bluntly, his voice carrying no
inflection.

He pulled out the knife.

As he pulled it out, blood — lifeblood —
poured from my chest.

Releasing my wrist, Akiyama pulled the knife
out from my chest and tossed it aside. Fluids burst out like a stopped had been
uncorked. Red liquid spilled out from my mouth. No matter what it was I was
regurgitating, it wasn’t anything good.

“You thought too little of me. Did you really
believe that I had no idea why you brought me here?”

I knew it. Akiyama
was a deviant.

“You should have realized it as soon as I had
you turn the lantern on. I had you light it so I could make out your
movements.”

Everyone likely, to varying extents, realizes
that they’re bound by something. Even if you couldn’t see the chains, you could
definitely feel them choking you.

But Akiyama was completely unlike that. He had
no doubts in his own world. He never doubted that what he saw as just was what
the rest of the world also saw as just.

Akiyama was too much of an honors student for
his own good, and as a result had never been reproached or criticized by the
adults in his life. So he was under the misapprehension that everything he
did was just.

That was his abnormality.

“I was well aware of your murderous
aspirations. And from our discussion, I could tell that those aspirations were
not something you were capable of escaping from. That is why I judged it
necessary to eliminate you.”

The thoughts Akiyama held were widely held by
society to be just. But nobody’s cogs are aligned perfectly. Perhaps the
misalignment was small at first. Something another could easily notice and
alert him to. But because of how much of an honors student he was, he had
nobody to point it out to him. So that continued twisting into the form Akiyama
desired. And though the misalignment had grown to lethal proportions, even if
someone were to point it out Akiyama was past the point of heeding the words of
others.

Vainglory. There was no man alive better
suited to that word than Akiyama. I should have recognized that.

“You said something about helping me dying in
peace, if I recall? It would appear I am now in a position to offer parting
words to you.”

Looking down on my fallen body, Akiyama dug
his heel into my face.

“I offer you this explanation so that you can
die in peace. Would your world change if you killed someone? I offer you the
answer you sought for so long.”

My vision went dark, gradually fading. My
sense of pain left me as well, the only thing I could feel any more
being a cold sense of emptiness where the knife had stabbed me.

“The answer: it would not. Or perhaps it
would? You weren’t a very good point of reference, after all. After all, you’re
simply vermin. What emotion stirs within you when you kill a cockroach? I’m
sure you feel the same thing anyone does. Nothing but disgust.”

The noise of the world started fading as well.
Great, now I didn’t have to listen to Akiyama babble any more.

I fell into the
void.

Everything disappeared.

All that was left were my thoughts.

For argument’s sake.

For argument’s sake, if I had
successfully killed Akiyama, would my world have changed?

Ahh, I came close enough to tell. I
can picture it as if it were real. Even if I had successfully killed
Akiyama,

My world wouldn’t have changed.

It wouldn’t have changed a bit.

There would simply have been a corpse rolling
around in front of me. And having lost my last thread of salvation, I
would have gone mad.

Thinking about it, such a conclusion wouldn’t
have been half bad.

But even so, I thought.

If by some miracle I survive this, I
would still try to kill Akiyama. I would definitely kill him.

Not to change my world.

Not to erase the sound of chains.

I would kill him
because he pisses me off. I would kill him out of simple hatred.

I would be the
most hackneyed, worthless killer imaginable.

Indeed.

I am, to a degree
that disappoints even me, an unremarkable person.

 

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I can hear them. I
can hear them in my ears, which should no longer be able to hear at all.

I knew. In truth,
I’ve known for a long time. The cacophonous ringing was never the sound of
other people’s chains. It was— 

—the sound of the chains that had always been
wrapped around me.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
<references />

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</noinclude>

We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)

2017-11-17T07:42:10Z

Kooritsukai:

<div class=WordSection1>

I watched someone get
murdered once.

It was back when I was still in kindergarten. Both my
parents worked and were away from home a lot, so my grandma usually ended up
taking care of me. My parents married late, which meant that my maternal
grandma, who was a widower in her seventies, was firmly in the “geezer” camp.
Having to take care of me probably put a toll on her.

Despite my parents’ neglect, though, I was a pretty
satisfied kid. In retrospect, that was probably thinks to my grandma working
her ass off. The two of us were as thick as thieves.

On that day, the two of us were looking after the house as
always. I had roped grandma into playing hide-and-seek, forcing her into
the role of seeker. Opening a closet’s aged, poorly-fitted door, I found
and wedged my five-year-old body into a pile of densely packed futons and muted
myself. 

Grandma was having a difficult time finding me and was
noticeably flustered. Watching her from a crack in the door, I laughed
silently to myself.

Suddenly, the front door could be heard opening.

Thinking that perhaps I had run outside, Grandma
hurried to the entrance.

Immediately, I heard a scream. And at the same time,
an unfamiliar, threatening voice.

At my young age, all I could do at the unsettling
atmosphere was tremble anxiously.

I could hear two sets of footsteps drawing near, one
belonging to my grandma. Instinctively, I balled myself up among the
futons and held my breath. But at the same time I was assailed by a
strange sense of duty, as if it were my responsibility to observe what was
about to happen.

I could just barely make out my grandma and the man
from the cracked door.

“Dammit, the place was s’posed to be empty...! Oy, hurry it
up!”

Driven by the man’s angry voice, Grandma opened the chest of
drawers. She was likely looking for cash or the bankbook, but as she didn’t
know where it was and was panicking, she just opened and closed drawer after
drawer. All the while, the man was growing gradually more irritated. 

After a little longer of this, Grandma handed the man a
stuffed envelope. It was likely filled with cash.

“No hard feels, grams. Just can’t be lettin’ myself get
caught. Blame yourself for being home on the wrong day.”

The man took out a sharp object (I think it was a
pocketknife or a kitchen knife, but in my panic I didn’t pay much
attention to the particulars). In alarm, Grandma screamed something
incomprehensible. This earned her even more ire from the man, who pinned her
arms behind her back.

Grandma screamed.

“Help me... Maa, help me!”

Although a kindergartener like myself would hardly be able
to accomplish anything here, she screamed frantically nonetheless.

But even in the face of my beloved grandma’s bawling, I didn’t
leave the closet.

“Maa! Help me! Help me!”

Watching my grandma scream my name over and over, I wanted
to remind her, “we’re playing hide-and-seek, so I can’t come out until
you find me.”

The blade swung.

A death wail.

A moan.

A weak, self-derisive
laugh.

Tears.

A pool of blood.

Until it was all
over, I kept perfectly still. I was still playing hide-and seek.

I was playing hide-and-seek to this day, unable
to return to the real world.

 

 

“You’re Masato
Yahara, right?”

As I was
putting my indoor shoes in the worn-out shoe rack, a girl called my name. I recognized
that voice. Having a bad feeling about this, I heaved a sigh.

“...You sure you’ve
got the right guy? Kou’s still back in the classroom, right?”

“Please don’t try to
blow me off.” Miki Kouzuki glared at me with trembling fists.

I’d suspected that she had something she wanted
to say to me. Without meeting her eyes, I spoke.

“Is this about tryin’
to get me to away from Kou?”

Having the words
stolen out of her mouth, Kouzuki knit her eyebrows.

“He doesn’t have shit
for magic resistance. If I, a magus unaware of my own powers, am around
him I’ll be a bad influence and stain him in my attribute. And that
wouldn’t do anyone a lick of good. Something along those lines?”

Kouzuki’s eyes
widened in surprise.

What the hell? I thought
her value system was gonna be something more interesting, but it ended up being
something even I could come up with.

Rapidly losing
interest, I set my loafers on the floor.

“So I’m a
magus, huh. You’re givin’ me too much credit. Anyways, everyone would just run
away from me before I could cast a spell on ‘em anyways.”

“Y...you understand
magic?”

“Who knows. I just
translated what I was sayin’ into your gibberish.”

“I...if you
understand that much, please just stay away from Kouta. You said that everyone
just runs away from you, but there’s one exception.”

There was no need to
clarify who she was talking about.

“Staying away from
him would be for Kouta’s sake. If he keeps being surrounded by my magic, he’ll
take on my attribute. He’ll be able to avoid getting stained in a poor
attribute like yours or Matsumi-senpai’s.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I glared at Kouzuki unconsciously. Knowing what
kind of person she was only amplified my rage.

“You’re full of
yourself. Who the fuck do you think you are, going around babbling about how
you’re going to protect Kou or some shit. Did Kou ask for that? He didn’t, did
he.”

“...I thought that
would be for the best-”

“For the best? Pretty
words from everyone’s favorite freakshow. Keep your fucking self-satisfactory
bullshit in check, wouldja? Is Kou even the one you’re really tryin’ to
protect? ...Heh, you can’t even refute it. What you’re tryin’ to protect by
force-staining Kou’s ass...”

I spit it out.

“Is your flimsy-ass,
brittle little closed world.”

It seemed that her
self awareness didn’t extend that far. Her face went white at my words.

I drew close to Kouzuki, who was slowly
shrinking away from me, and lifted her up by the collar of her uniform.

“But by talkin’ to
you like this, I realized that something I don’t need to worry
about. You just aren’t worth my time.”

Fear appeared for the
first time on Kouzuki’s face. ...Nah, that ain’t it. Since the moment she
called out to me, her fists had been trembling from how hard she had tried to
hide her fear. That’s how powerless a person she was.

“He’ll just come to
hold you in contempt, and that’ll be that. Later.”

I didn’t want to so much as look at her any
more. Releasing her collar, I walked away from the shoe rack without
sparing her a second glance.

With all the rumors
swirling around her, I figured she’d have a little more of a backbone in
her. But she was just another person with no faith in their own damn world. She
just wanted Kou in order to reinforce her world.

She was just like all
the others. She gave off the sound of chains.

Her chains were
quieter than others, maybe, but that was all there was to it. She was just
another nobody, far removed from the ideal I strived for.

She was just as much
a nobody as I was.

Chains.

I started seeing the chains when I was in ninth
grade.

In contrast to my
peers, who were grappling with entrance exams and relationship woes, I could
feel myself growing distant.

The contents of their
worries even drove some of them to cut their own wrists, but I couldn’t
see at as any more serious than whether a sand castle was knocked over or not.
After all, even if they wounded themselves they didn’t plan on dying. I
— I, who truly knew death — could tell that those wounds were nothing
more than a tool to highlight the extent of their woes.

Once I became
a complete bystander, simply gazing on them in observation, I noticed
something.

Everything they held
dear was created.

With so much
information flowing down the muddy stream of our world, a simple papier-mâché construction is enough for them all to
implicitly believe it.

They
were being controlled.

Made to
dance in perfect harmony, they were being controlled by fiendish, brutal
chains.

Then, I
became able to see those chains. And from the materialized chains, I
could even hear noise. The rattling noise they made was raucous. The noise was
so raucous it sapped all vitality from me. Once that was finished, I
began losing my ideals as well. Lost in the pursuit of cheap pleasure, I
no longer cared if the world was in color or monochrome, or if it was real or
simply the inside of an image. To that end, I engaged in a string of
unethical activities. Pleasure was all that was real to me, but it was merely
ephemeral, and in the end time simply passed while nothing else changed. My
world was peeled apart by the chains. It was a simple, complete excoriation.

When
I finally managed to regain a grip on my peeled-up world, a thought
suddenly floated to my mind, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I wanna kill someone.

Murder
had taken the color from my world and reduced my reality to the state it was in
today. Ironically, as a consequence of its gravity, it was also what lay just
beyond my outstretched hand. No matter where I reached out towards, I
would run into those homicidal urges. Like a butterfly trapped in a spiderweb, no
matter how much I struggled I couldn’t move. From where I was,
I couldn’t see anything else.

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Wanting
to flee from the chains and the noise, I reached out my hand. This time,
my hand got caught on those homicidal urges. They began controlling me.

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

 

But
even then, I would never have believed it.

That
there could be a person unfettered by those chains.

 

 

“Kusukusu...
you two really are interesting, aren’t you?”

I could tell that the girl, who
had a childish face and and looked somewhat off-balance, was different from the
moment she started speaking to us.

Her
smile seemed like it was free of any influence from the events of the outside
world.

“Whaddya
want?”

Who was
she? Like Kouzuki, was she trying to take advantage of how fragile Kou’s chains
were?

“Oh,
Ririko was just thinking how she wanted to become good friends with Hiiragi!”

She
didn’t react even a little to my display of animosity. And she didn’t give the
sense that she was playing dumb. Humans are creatures bound by fear. Anyone
would react to the presence of violence.

Then
what was wrong with her?

It
seemed that “different” didn’t cut it. She was clearly lacking something
fundamental.

“What’s so interesting about you two are the
call signs you’re giving off.”

She
spoke as if her peculiar words were commonplace. That was something neither I
nor Kouzuki was capable of. This girl didn’t desire salvation, and she had no
doubts in her own world. In actuality, she was basically rejecting interaction
with the rest of mankind.

Inside
a closed world that was like a perfectly sealed-off room, she had no need to
grow.

I’d heard rumors about this.
Rumors about an upperclassman who had been coming and going from a psychiatric
hospital since she enrolled.

“Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?”

“Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course.”

According to the rumors, she lacked
boundaries. Unable to tell where her “self” began and ended, she supposedly saw
everything outside her body as simply parts of herself. She was under the
misapprehension that not just her body but everything she could more or less
freely manipulate was part of her. Although it was a bit more allegorical in my
case, I’d certainly had times where I felt unable to put down my phone,
as if it were a part of my body. But as far as she was concerned, her
unification with her electrical devices was no allegory. To her, using
electrical signals from her brain to move her limbs wasn’t just the same as
using a remote to change the channel on TV, the remote and the television
themselves were just parts of her body.

It was a world beyond comprehension. But
regardless, it was the world she lived in.

A different world from the rest of us.

“Interesting, aren’t they? White and
ultramarine, huh. Aren’t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko
likes white, you know. Makes me want to do something.”

I had no idea what
those colors meant in her code. All I could tell was that they were code
for something else.

I glanced at Kou. Even though he’s
confused, he wouldn’t reject another, even if that person is Matsumi. But even
Kou likely won’t be able to grasp her world.

...Actually, is that really true? This is the
same Kou who’s spent a whole month getting to know me, after all.

“Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?”

“Read me?”

“Oh, that’s right. Most people can’t do
scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!”

Maybe Matsumi, who blurs the boundaries
between electrical devices and her own body, is deluded into thinking she can
fulfil the role of an electrical device herself?

But something quickly makes me realize that
that perception was halfhearted.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

It’s
not a delusion. It’s something far worse. In that instant, Matsumi became an
electrical device.

That’s right. Why didn’t I notice it
sooner?

This chick doesn’t have any chains at all.

The moment I realized that, it felt as
if the false machine noise was causing the world to violently lurch. I
couldn’t keep my footing. The world was slanting simply because I had
become aware of my own change. Unable to remain in place, I began
tumbling. I was rolling. Rolling and rolling. Rolling and rolling and
rolling and rolling.

How did this happen?

...Ah, because I didn’t believe. I didn’t
believe that a person without chains could even exist. That’s why my world was
doing an about-face.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

The sun went out. What illuminated my world in
its place was Matsumi’s eyeball. Within those dead-fish eyes, her pupil was
focusing like the lens of a single-lens reflex camera. Taking on heat, her eyes
began to sear me. It burns! It burns! It burns!

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise pursued me and, as I spun
through space, bored its way into my body. From near and from far, the noise
continued to ring. I had long since lost track of where it was ringing
from. I was becoming to create the noise as well.

The lens was simply floating in space.

Those eyes turned towards me.

“Ah-”

What part of me were they looking at?

They were looking at me burning and tumbling
through space. I’m begging you, don’t expose this hackneyed end of mine.
Those pitiful limitations of mine. Those banal thoughts of mine.

“...don’t.”

I didn’t want to
know.

“Beep bi—”

I didn’t want to
know. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know.

“DON’T!”

As I scream, the floating eyeball lens
vanishes. In that moment, I’m assailed with vertigo and the world goes
black. Once the light returned, I could see Kou looking concerned and
Matsumi pouting.

“You don’t have to shout like that, you
know...”

“Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just
now...?”

“Hold on, hold on. Ririko’s going to put it
into words now.”

Matsumi stopped being human again.

She somehow got information about Kou, and
she’s translating it such that we can understand it as well. A computer turning
binary into letters and images.

“Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her
hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent
approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing
cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen
to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally good
at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others
with-”

“Th... that’s enough! Matsumi-senpai, please
cut it out!”

She returns to being human.

“So? So? How was that? How’d you like my
scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?”

“Senpai, can we go now?”

“Whaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He’s
white, after all! He’s the only one!”

“Sorry, but we got places to be.”

“Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it
can’t be helped then. Ririko guesses she’ll see you later then, Tanihara.”

Not thinking, I stopped in my tracks.

People
read my last name, “谷原,” incorrectly all the time. So
the mistake itself wasn’t particularly notable.

“Huh? Aren’t you Tanihara?”

“It’s read ‘Yahara’, Senpai.”

So in other words, that’s what that meant.

Matsumi’s “scanning” gathers information
visually.

 

We strolled through an abandoned shopping
district, shuttered up as a result of its inability to compete with a large
nearby shopping mall.

I gazed at Kou in
silent shock.

Even when faced with Ririko Matsumi, he didn’t
give up on trying to comprehend her. If we hadn’t gotten lucky, he would have
completely taken her in.

It would be fine if he got invaded by Kouzuki.
He’d be treated as a freak, sure, but at least he’d be able to keep on living.
But Matsumi was no good. If he took in something broken, he’d become broken as
well. It would be like downloading a malicious app.

“Get this through your head. Don’t talk to
that birdbrain again. She’ll be a bad influence on you. Got it?”

Kou nodded. But it wasn’t because he was
convinced, it was because he felt the situation called for it.

I didn’t what his
true intentions were. ...Hell, I didn’t know if he had any intentions in
the first place.

“Masato, did you understand what was going on
with that scanning thing?”

Scanning.

Based on the fact that she got the information
visually, I had a hunch as to what the trick was. But it was tough to
put into words.

I suspected the
reason she was able to guess my name was because she subconsciously knew it
already. Even though the time she spent in the hospital kept her from showing
up at school much, she was still a fellow student of ours. There was plenty of
times she could have run across our names.

The only abnormal part was how she went about
recalling that information.

Normal people quickly forget information they
don’t need. For example, we don’t remember the faces of every person we pass on
the street.

But what if this “scanning” let her pull out
memories from deep in her brain, memories that anyone else would have lost? If
that were the case, then simply having passed us in a hallway would be plenty
for her to know our names.

It then followed that her being able to put
names to faces, as well as dredge up all that information about Kou, was simply
the result of outstanding insight born from her recollection, observational,
and analytic prowess. Of course, she couldn’t do that all the time, but only
when she was in a trance state from putting herself under the self-hypnosis
called “scanning.”

Seen from the outside, a skilled
fortune-teller would appear to be able to trace the steps of another’s life.
Hell, even I’d be able to guess whether someone’s a virgin or not a good
chunk of the time. But Matsumi was on another level. She was able to come up
with his personality, his familial structure, and even where he lived. It was
practically a superpower.

It was abnormal.

If I told told Kou all this, nothing
good would come of it. It would just end up driving him towards taking her in.

“... not even a little.”

So I dodged the question.

Even if Kou didn’t believe me, he neither
pressed me nor showed signs of dissatisfaction. Ahh, now that I think
about it, there’s something wrong with this guy too.

The light in front of us turned red and we
reflexively stopped.

“Why the hell’d we stop?”

“The light was red, wasn’t it?”

“There ain't any cars here.”

Ahh, I can hear it. I can hear
that noise again.

Just beyond my field of view lay those chains.
Beautiful chains that acted as if they owned us, designed to stop us from
moving.

I couldn’t help
but despise the chains. They bound me and were the cause of everything that
drained color from my world.

...or so I thought.

And because that’s what I thought, I
yearned to be a person without chains. I truly thought I desired
release from those chains. 

But then I met such an unfettered
person.

And what did I feel, upon gazing at
that person?

Fear.

I was scared of
that person without chains. I felt fright. A feeling that implied
unimaginable distance.

There was no chance I could become a
person without chains.

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains’ noise
echoed.

You will never be released.

Shut up.

You will be bound until the day you die.

Shut up!

But you already knew that, right? The
reason these chains will never be torn off is because you yourself have no
desire to tear them off.

I SAID SHUT UP!

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The noise keeps resounding.

The sound of chains. The sound of common
sense. The sound of morals.

And the sound of my desire to kill.

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. 

“Ahh... I wanna kill someone.”

 

 

After parting ways with Kou, I was
unable to muster the urge to return home and inside took the train into the
suburbs. While the area around the station was prosperous in comparison to the
shutter town I had just left, the dust and general atmosphere made it
clear that it was past its prime.

I wandered about
aimlessly. A department store that would likely be demolished in a few years. A
old-fashioned movie theater that looked wholly unfit to bring a date to. A
bookstore that had been repurposed into a shop for otaku goods. The town, which
was connected, bound, and encircled by power lines, stunk of sewage. If you
boiled down all the mud, the sludge, and the coal tar, it seemed like it like
it would make for delicious, piping hot ramen broth.

I sat on a bench
in front of the station and observed the passersby. The people waiting by the
station were like marionettes, each and every one of them glued to their
smartphones. Social networks, forcing them into round-the-clock surface-level
pleasantries. Aggregation sites pushing morals upon them that are neither right
nor wrong. Blogs flooding with comments, not from individuals but from their
very souls. All an horrifying gambit to strengthen the chains. A colossal trap.

The definition of people who would be better
off dead.

Let’s suppose that that definition was “people
who are detrimental to society.” If that’s the case, people who killed
innocents would be better off dead. People whose contributions to society were
outweighed by the harm they cause to others would be better off dead too.
People whose deaths would be rejoiced at rather than wept at and people who
inspire anarchic thoughts, those people would obviously be better off dead.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we just rounded up all those brutes and
left only the good people?

...It probably would. With fewer recessive
genes around, of course humanity’s going to be wiser. If, hypothetically, the
world was in peril and we had to trim the population, you can bet your ass that
the morals around protecting the weak and disadvantaged are going to be the
first to go and there’d be large-scale massacres. ...Well, it doesn’t have to
be something as over-the-top as that. All I’m trying to get at is that
there’s plenty of people who could die and no one would mind.

“Yo.”

I call out to a
passing woman in an immaculately-pressed suit, likely on her way home from the
office.

In that instant, I got the impression
that although she works hard and contributes to society, she frequently
tramples on the feelings of others. Huh, maybe I’m awakening intuitive
powers like Matsumi’s? Or maybe it was just a delusion of mine? I don’t
much care either way. As far as I cared, she was a detriment to society
- someone who was better off dead.

“Are you speaking to me?”

“Yeah, anyone’s fine. There’s plenty of ya
around. Now, a riddle. When’s a door not a door?”

“When it’s ajar... Excuse me, what did you
want?”

“Who ordered you?”

“Huh?”

“Who ordered you to say ‘when it’s ajar’?”

The woman stopped in her tracks, fear
spreading across her face.

“Nobody ordered me to do anything... what’s
going on...”

“That’s right! No one ordered you to do shit,
right? Then why does everyone answer the same fucking way? There’s gotta be
plenty of other reasons why a door wouldn’t a door, right? Then why’s it gotta
be ajar and not a dormant volcano or somethin’?<ref>The original joke here went about as follows:
* Masato: "What kind of pan (bread) can you not eat?"
* OL: "A frying pan?"
* Masato: "Why'd the answer have to be frying pan? Why couldn't it have been A-kyuusenpan (class-A war criminal)?"</ref>”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ah, shut up. This chick’s chains were
particularly noisy. Women tended to have grimmer, sturdier chains than men.

“You’re pissing me off. You want me to fucking
kill you?”

“Wh...what are you talking about? Is there
something wrong with you?”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“Get outta my sight. If you don’t, I’m
gonna fucking kill you.”

Not bothering to hide her repugnance, she
quickly ran off.

Heh. Once I considered what I just
did objectively, I give a strained laugh.

It would seem I’d developed a bug.

Walking around is too much of a pain. After
clenching my teeth and somehow dragging myself to a nearby park, I layed
down on a bench. Overheating to an unbearable degree, my brain forcibly entered
a shutdown state. My consciousness faded away dreamlessly.

 

 

I opened my eyes.

The blue sky flooded into them.

I couldn’t form
thoughts. The sun’s blinding light assaulted my eyes, and the painful stimulus
gradually restored my consciousness.

My back flared up in pain, and I remembered
that I had been sleeping in a park. I reached for a cigarette,
but found to my dismay that my pack was empty. What a fucking joke.

I clutched my
head, slowly recalling the events of yesterday.

There’s something wrong with me.

I was aware of how
desperate I was getting, but I was able to keep a cool head for
now.

But it seemed unlikely that I would be
able to fully get back to normal. Upon learning of the existence of a human
without chains, I stopped be able to brush away my homicidal urges,
which were now simmering to the point of boiling over. I could go mad at
any moment. There was even a part of me that wanted to go mad, knowing that
there was a chance that doing so might grant me the impetus to commit murder.
From that small reason alone, I knew I was past the point of
being able to contain these urges. It was past the level of sexual desire, and
was more akin to a hunger that scalded my throat. There was no chance the urges
would subside.

I would either
kill or go mad.

It could only be one or the other.

 

I decided to
return home briefly. I had no idea what my parents would say at this
point, but if I didn’t they were liable to file a missing person report
out of obligation and a desire to leave a paper trail. And I was out of
money. I knew of a method to solve both those problems at once. A method
I had used often since middle school.

Kicking aside an empty can as I entered
the house, I noted that my parents weren’t home. After fishing through
the shelf where grandma pulled the envelope from before she died, I slipped
two ten-thousand yen<ref>~$180</ref> bills into my wallet.

But where should I go? I had no
destination in mind. But in this state, I couldn’t stay at home, nor
could I go to school.

For a moment, I briefly contemplated
going to school. Thanks to my reputation, at least all the jackasses I wanted
to avoid would stay away from me.

And Kou was there.

Kouta Hiiragi. A man with no firm sense of
self. Generally, people analyze what kind of person they themselves are and
form a sense of self around that. In a certain sense they label themselves.

But Kou doesn’t. As a result, his self doesn’t
settle into any one shape. I dunno what made him like that, but based on
Matsumi’s scanning the cause probably lies with his family circumstances.

Because his self isn’t set, Kou tends to take
on whatever form his partner wants him to. Every time he interacts with
someone, his personality changes little by little. As a result, he’s become
able to truly understand others, and not just on a superficial level. He’ll
probably grow accustomed to Kouzuki’s magic in no time, and he fully
understands my madness as well. He doesn’t resist it, either. That’s why if
he’s careless, he’ll end up understanding Matsumi as well and taking her in.

That reminds me, Matsumi likened Kou’s color
to “white.” I get it, that kinda makes sense. Kou can take on any other
color. That in and of itself is dangerous. That’s why Kouzuki is being all
meddlesome and trying to stain Kou in her color; she’s trying to prevent him
from getting stained in a malicious color like mine.

Being accepted by others feels good. I
learned that for the first time when I met Kou.

Kouzuki’s probably the same. That’s why she
trying to keep him for herself.

I guess I
can’t go to school after all.

It’s dangerous for me because Kou is there.

Kou is the ultimate sympathizer. He would no
doubt accept even me, who’s enveloped in homicidal urges. Upon being accepted
by him, I would stop perceiving myself as abnormal, lose my last bits of
resistance, and eventually take action. I could picture it easily.

I grabbed a pack
of cigarettes from my room and lit one with a shaking hand. The nicotine
settled me down a bit, but the urges were unabated.

I slipped a
butterfly knife into my pocket as a de facto tranquilizer. I could kill
at any time. I could make that call whenever I wanted. Knowing
that somehow helped me preserve my sense of reason up until now. But that bit
just now was simply meaningless. It simply served to rile me up.

A paper-thin line was all that kept me from
using this knife up till now. But that paper-thin line held within it a world
of difference.

But I knew.

As I was now, I was liable to
cross that line.

 

When I came to my senses - when I
truly came to my senses - it was already night.

Once again I found myself wandering
through that deteriorating suburb.

While I knew little about killing time,
I knew quite a bit about killing. All I had to do was
noncommittally indulge myself. My mind simply sought pleasure without applying
any deeper meaning to anything. In other words, I was deteriorating as a
human. I was an animal with intelligence but no use for it. There are a
surprising number of humans who fit that description, so I didn’t lack
for companions. Hip! Hip! Hoorah! Other people were necessary for the pursuit
of pleasure. Transient relationships were best. Human garbage was best. If they
were men, though, they’d sooner or later commit some kind of sexual assault, so
I tried to avoid that. I wasn’t into fucking chicks while they
screamed, and taking risks for something I wasn’t into was right off the
table.

So I looked for women. Chicks who were
into give-and-take relationships. Animals who sought only pleasure like I
did. Some of them got clingy, but their kind feared rejection, so once dealt
with none of them pressed the issue. Once they got hooked on drugs and drowned
in pleasure, any chick would become almost disgustingly docile. Once I
was done with with them, they would without fail use every word and action at
their disposal to wail about how lonely they were or some shit, but I
couldn’t give less of a fuck about their pitiful emotions.

“You’re pretty good.”

One of those women spoke up to me when I
was playing darts at an amusement center. What was her name again? I
think she told me, but I forgot.

“Do you play darts a lot?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Through this meaningless conversation, I
got authorization to step into her territory. It was obnoxious, but a necessary
ritual nonetheless.

The chick wasn’t a so-called “gyaru<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyaru</ref>”. She was
no beauty, but her face was attractive enough to put her on the receiving end
of gossip. She wore a cheap-looking black dress with hideous pink frills. I
could tell from experience that she was available.

The ritual had gone on plenty long enough to
move to the next step.

“Anywhere you wanna head after this?”

“Nah, not really, I guess.”

“Follow me, then.”

Although she no doubt knew what was to follow,
she simply followed me without putting up any opposition.

Where should we do it? The park? Nah, my back
hurts, so a cheap hotel would be better... Such thoughts filled my head as we
boarded the elevator.

Leaving the building, we neared a tunnel
running underneath the railway. Right as I put my hand on her back as a
lip service, I heard an unexpected voice.

“Is that you, Yahara?”

There stood the class representative, carrying
a plastic folder and clearly on his way home from cram school — Shuuichi
Akiyama.

I was planning on
feigning not being able to hear him due to the train passing, but when I
reflexively looked over my shoulder, our eyes met.

“What do you intend to accomplish by not
coming to school. Your friends are worried about you, you know.”

His words were exemplary yet insincere. It was
almost as if someone was making him say them. First of all, did this guy even
think I even had friends?

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, shut up already.

For some reason or another, my earlier
hedonism had been enough to temporarily silence the chains. But in the face of
this man, that was impossible.

His chains were grotesque, grimmer and
sturdier than any other’s.

Feeling an onset of vertigo, I plunged
my hand into my pocket and grasped my knife, my de facto tranquilizer.

“What will come of you continuing to neglect
school? You will simply idle away your days. If you fail to put in the effort
now, many paths will become closed to you, and you will regret it fiercely.
Even you should realize such a simple thing.”

“The fuck are you going on about? Don’t go
judging everything according your values.”

“I believe my values are extremely commonplace
values.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”

And that’s the thing I hate more than
anything else.

“You know it, yet you rebel against it. Don’t
you think you’re acting a little childish?”

Akiyama pushed up the bridge of his glasses.

Maybe what he’s correcting with his glasses
isn’t his eyesight, but him himself? He was extreme enough to harbor such
delusions. He could only see the corrected, beautiful world. Unimportant things
didn’t even enter his view. It’s like he’s forgotten that when he takes off his
glasses, the blurry, hard-to-grasp world in front of him is the real one.

Akiyama’s gaze shifted from me to the girl.
Faced with the honor student Akiyama’s reproachful gaze, she uncomfortably
lifted the corners of her mouth.

“Your girlfriend? Won’t you be imposing on
her, dragging her around at this hour?”

He spoke unaffectedly. He likely doubted that
there was any woman who would willingly spend time around me.

“She ain’t my girlfriend, though.”

“She isn’t?”

“Just some chick I picked up off the
street. We were thinking of going and fucking. Get it?”

“Excuse me?”

At his confusion, the girl gave an embarrassed
smile. Of course he’s not going to be able simply nod and accept something like
that.

Glancing sidelong at Akiyama, I give a
snicker.

Hey, look, he can’t even hide it. Inside that
disgust-filled expression, he’s jealous that I’m getting laid. That
fucker’s so fastidious he probably wouldn’t admit he even had desires like
that.

“You... have quite some nerve, saying such
immoral things so brazenly.”

“Jealous?”

“I’m well aware of how proud of your faults
you are. May I ask you a question, though? How often do you do things like
this?”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, this isn’t good. Shut up. This guy’s
chains just won’t shut up.

“All the fucking time, man. What, you want to
get in on this shit? I can teach you how to. It’s easy, all you gotta do
is lie about your age to register for dating sites. Studying ain’t good for
shit, you feel me? You know, if we all just gave in to our primal desire for
pleasure, we could all just live as happy-ass animals.”

Akiyama just glared at me silently.

“...Um, I just remember something I have to
do, so I’m going to head home, okay?”

“Yeah.”

The girl had lost interest. I still
couldn’t remember her name as I watched her run off.

Akiyama watched her recede far longer than I
did.

“Yahara.”

Akiyama spoke, gazing off into the distance.

“What?”

“I believe it is unwise to indiscreetly give
voice to the thoughts of others. But I see you and I do not share that
opinion.”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

That noise was whispering to me.

Kill.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

It’s time for you to join the world of
killers. That’s the only path left available to you.

Despite being more tightly bound by those unholy
chains than any other, Shuuichi Akiyama was enough of a freak to feel not agony
but comfort from their embrace. There was no human who symbolized the chains as
much as he did. That would make him the ideal sacrifice, no?

“You wanna sermonize? Fine by me. In any case,
let’s head somewhere less crowded.”

“I see; very well. I would rather nobody else
carelessly inserted their voice in our conversation, after all.”

“Yeah, right. Wouldn’t want anyone getting in
the way.”

I didn’t want
anyone to get in the way.

Not until it was all over.

 

Unlike a large city like Tokyo, all you had to
do in the suburb was walk a little and the tall buildings would be replaced by
rice paddies and vacant lots. Past a convenience store with a sprawling parking
lot belying its defunct state lay a similarly-defunct factory. I neither
knew nor cared what the factory had originally produced, but the sensation of
being underground brought about by its oily, metallic odors made it ideal. I
didn’t know what this iron press was designed for either, but when I
laid my hand on it it was icy-cold to the touch.

“I’m surprised that you knew about a place
like this.”

“I told you about all the chicks I
was forcin’ myself on, right? You gotta know about places like this to do shit
like that.”

Akiyama scowled in repugnance.

Honestly, I’m surprised he’d follow me
to a sketchy-ass place like this so easily. Could he not even begin to imagine
himself being in danger? ...Well, he probably couldn’t. That was the kind of
victim I was dealing with here. The kind of guy who was filled with
baseless conviction that he couldn’t possibly get involved with the kind of
incident you see on the news.

He was one of them. Hell, he’d probably even
be shocked at the sight of one of his classmates smoking.

“So? I’m ready to be preached at.”

“Before we start, would you mind turning on a
light? It’s too dark for me to even make out your face. I feel that that would
somewhat defeat the purpose of this conversation.”

Did he really think that being able to see my
face would make his shitty-ass sermon stick?

“I think someone left a lantern here...”

Squinting to look for the electric lantern, I
found it beside a pile of cigarette butts. As I flicked the switch,
Akiyama’s form came dimly into view.

“For you to have lead me this far, I can
assume you have at least some intention of hearing me out?”

I choked back laughter. Akiyama didn’t seem to
consider for a moment the possibility that he might be assaulted, let alone
killed.

I’m sure what’s
floating through his mind is something along the lines of a naive-ass after
school special. The pitiable delinquent, coming from a bad background, finally
finds someone who understands him and, struck by his sincere actions, gets back
on the straight and narrow.

What a nice story. Even I, without an
ounce of cynicism, think it would be nice if we had more of that kind of story.
I’ve seen a lot of delinquents, and most of them are scum through and
through. Defective from their very genes. Deficient in brains, empathy, fear,
and imagination, the lot of them.

But in spite of all that, this guy has enough
faith in his persuasive abilities to follow me all this way. I half
wanted to see what the it was about his speech he was so confident in. Hell,
maybe they’d even be enough to convert me.

“Let me start by asking you something. Are you
happy with the way you’re living right now?”

“As if. I’m always wishing I could
change, you know?”

Even right now.

In any case, I was about to be able to
change. Not that I had any idea what I was going to change into.

“Then why not simply be more diligent? From
what I can see, you certainly aren’t stupid. I mean that, by the way. All it
takes for people to change is to find an objective and to put in the effort
necessary to achieve it. At the moment you’re lapsing into depravity, but if
you take a slightly longer view I have no doubt you can overcome such
temptations.”

I laugh
inappropriately upon hearing that from the most nearsighted man imaginable.

“So you’re saying if I just become a
straight-A student like you, my life’ll open up and become all peaches and
fuckin’ cream?”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be studies.
Anything you find that you can put your all into works. And that’s all it takes
to open up your life. I’m sure there’s some activity you could find yourself
getting engrossed in.”

“There’s nothin’ like that.”

“Are you certain? What about sports, say,
boxing or rugby?”

I wanted to throw
up. Is this guy actually referencing old after school specials, then lumping
all delinquents together in one convenient little category? Faced with such a
blad lack of imagination, I began to doubt if he was even truly a
straight-A student.

“And if you do indeed find something you want
to do, the more paths you have available before you to choose from the better.
As you are right now, paths are vanishing.”

“Dumbass. No one who was willing to work their
ass off just to keep future possibilities open would be in this situation in
the first damn place.”

“You mustn’t give up on yourself. Envision the
future, and stride towards it!”

I hadn’t suspected
his little sermon would fail to resonate with me to this extent. The things he
was saying were ostensibly correct. Perhaps they would have resonated more from
a different mouth.

But the words felt like they had no weight
behind them. They held none of the speaker’s true feelings. It felt like he was
simply reading out of some manual on delinquent correction. The words were
completely those of another.

And on top of that, the sound of chains.

His thoughts and mine were in parallel,
destined to never intersect.

“Those chains of yours. I’ll pass on
being bound by them, thank you very much!”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ahh, I can’t hold it in any more.

I should just kill
him. I can’t bear to listen to any more of this. I should just
kill him. I should just kill him. When I open up his flesh, my
future will open up as well. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. I should just kill him. I don’t want to be here
any more. I’m never coming back here again. I should just kill
him. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. This place is empty; no one will hear him scream. His
death wails will be a hymnal for me alone, a noise sufficient to drown out
those chains. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. I should just kill him. His blood will go flying. I
don’t know how my world will change. But if nothing else, my monochrome world
will be dyed red. I should just kill him. I should just kill him.
I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. 

“Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains
to speak of... What are you talking about, Yahara?”

Looking around, he frowned.

“I’ll tell you, so you can die in
peace.”

“...Yahara?”

“Chains. The preconceived notions that bind
us. That’s a useless definition. They’re essentially rules without order.
Morals, forced upon us. Their noise is annoying. I've always wanted to
escape them. The only way I can escape them is by killing. In other
words, that noise is basically the sound of my desire to kill.”

I pulled the butterfly
knife out of my pocket. With a flick of my wrist, the blade flies out.

“Now I can get out of here!”

My reluctance to kill vanished.

Immediately, my hand was filled with the
sensation of flesh. It was softer than I expected, barely giving me the
sensation I had slashed at all. The experience was lacking.

“Now you can get out of here, hm...”

The red blood dripped loudly.

Now that I think about it, it’s
strange. Even though we constantly have blood flowing through our bodies, we
only ever think about it at times like this. It’s like not being able to see
the forest for the trees. It’s not that our awareness is limited, we’re simply
under the impression that it is.

“—On that point alone, we are of the same
opinion.”

What sentiment did that smile carry? It seemed
similar to the sense of accomplishment a child would display upon digging up an
anthill and earnestly squishing its inhabitants.

“Your life has no value... or rather, you’re
like a vermin that deserves to die.”

Akiyama spoke bluntly, his voice carrying no
inflection.

He pulled out the knife.

As he pulled it out, blood — lifeblood —
poured from my chest.

Releasing my wrist, Akiyama pulled the knife
out from my chest and tossed it aside. Fluids burst out like a stopped had been
uncorked. Red liquid spilled out from my mouth. No matter what it was I was
regurgitating, it wasn’t anything good.

“You thought too little of me. Did you really
believe that I had no idea why you brought me here?”

I knew it. Akiyama
was a deviant.

“You should have realized it as soon as I had
you turn the lantern on. I had you light it so I could make out your
movements.”

Everyone likely, to varying extents, realizes
that they’re bound by something. Even if you couldn’t see the chains, you could
definitely feel them choking you.

But Akiyama was completely unlike that. He had
no doubts in his own world. He never doubted that what he saw as just was what
the rest of the world also saw as just.

Akiyama was too much of an honors student for
his own good, and as a result had never been reproached or criticized by the
adults in his life. So he was under the misapprehension that everything he
did was just.

That was his abnormality.

“I was well aware of your murderous
aspirations. And from our discussion, I could tell that those aspirations were
not something you were capable of escaping from. That is why I judged it
necessary to eliminate you.”

The thoughts Akiyama held were widely held by
society to be just. But nobody’s cogs are aligned perfectly. Perhaps the
misalignment was small at first. Something another could easily notice and
alert him to. But because of how much of an honors student he was, he had
nobody to point it out to him. So that continued twisting into the form Akiyama
desired. And though the misalignment had grown to lethal proportions, even if
someone were to point it out Akiyama was past the point of heeding the words of
others.

Vainglory. There was no man alive better
suited to that word than Akiyama. I should have recognized that.

“You said something about helping me dying in
peace, if I recall? It would appear I am now in a position to offer parting
words to you.”

Looking down on my fallen body, Akiyama dug
his heel into my face.

“I offer you this explanation so that you can
die in peace. Would your world change if you killed someone? I offer you the
answer you sought for so long.”

My vision went dark, gradually fading. My
sense of pain left me as well, the only thing I could feel any more
being a cold sense of emptiness where the knife had stabbed me.

“The answer: it would not. Or perhaps it
would? You weren’t a very good point of reference, after all. After all, you’re
simply vermin. What emotion stirs within you when you kill a cockroach? I’m
sure you feel the same thing anyone does. Nothing but disgust.”

The noise of the world started fading as well.
Great, now I didn’t have to listen to Akiyama babble any more.

I fell into the
void.

Everything disappeared.

All that was left were my thoughts.

For argument’s sake.

For argument’s sake, if I had
successfully killed Akiyama, would my world have changed?

Ahh, I came close enough to tell. I
can picture it as if it were real. Even if I had successfully killed
Akiyama,

My world wouldn’t have changed.

It wouldn’t have changed a bit.

There would simply have been a corpse rolling
around in front of me. And having lost my last thread of salvation, I
would have gone mad.

Thinking about it, such a conclusion wouldn’t
have been half bad.

But even so, I thought.

If by some miracle I survive this, I
would still try to kill Akiyama. I would definitely kill him.

Not to change my world.

Not to erase the sound of chains.

I would kill him
because he pisses me off. I would kill him out of simple hatred.

I would be the
most hackneyed, worthless killer imaginable.

Indeed.

I am, to a degree
that disappoints even me, an unremarkable person.

 

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I can hear them. I
can hear them in my ears, which should no longer be able to hear at all.

I knew. In truth,
I’ve known for a long time. The cacophonous ringing was never the sound of
other people’s chains. It was— 

—the sound of the chains that had always been
wrapped around me.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
<references />

{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.2em; border-collapse: collapse;"
|-
| Back to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)]]
| Return to [[We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents

2017-11-17T02:27:52Z

Kooritsukai:

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Contents.png|thumb]]

'''Table of Contents'''

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara’s Closed World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (II)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)|Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (III)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (III)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (II)|Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World (III)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (IV) Masato Yahara’s Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (IV) Masato Yahara’s Closed World (II)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (II)|Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World (II)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (V)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World (V)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Open World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Open World (I)]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Afterword|Afterword]]

We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-

2017-11-17T02:05:29Z

Kooritsukai:

{{Teaser|English}}

[[Image:We Don't Open Anywhere novel cover1.jpg|300px|thumb|Cover.]]

'''We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-''' (''Bokura wa Dokonimo Hirakanai -There are no facts, only interpretations.-'') is a light novel written by Eiji Mikage. Originally released in 2005 without the subtitle, Mikage rewrote and re-released the novel in 2016 with new illustrations by Yoshitoshi ABe.

==Synopsis==

"I'll protect you with my magic."

The person who spoke those cryptic words to me was none other than our school's preeminent beauty, Miki Kouzuki. When I started going out with her, the world surrounding me suddenly began moving.

"Ahh... '''I''' wanna kill someone."

"Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains to speak of..."

My delinquent best friend, our straight-laced class representative, not to mention me and Miki... As we all start to break, the place we arrived at was—

==Updates==

November 16, 2017: Chapter 6 added

November 16, 2017: Character Illustrations, Chapter 1 in-line illustration, and Chapter 4 in-line illustration added.

November 15, 2017: Chapter 5 added

November 14, 2017: Chapters 3 and 4 added

November 13, 2017: Chapter 2 added

November 13, 2017: Table of Contents and Chapter 1 added

November 12, 2017: Teaser Page created

==We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.- by Eiji Mikage==

* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Character Illustrations|Character Illustrations]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents|Table of Contents]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)|Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (III)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (III)]]

== Project Staff ==
=== Translator ===
* [[User:Kooritsukai|Kooritsukai]]

== Publication History ==
* ''Bokura Wa Dokonimo Hirakanai'' ISBN 4840230404, May 2005
* ''Bokura Wa Dokonimo Hirakanai -There are no facts, only interpretations.-'' ISBN 4840230404, November 2016

[[Category:Light novel (English)]]
[[Category:Dengeki Bunko]]
[[Category:Mikage Eiji]]

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (III)

2017-11-17T02:04:00Z

We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-

2017-11-17T02:01:14Z

Kooritsukai:

{{Teaser|English}}

[[Image:We Don't Open Anywhere novel cover1.jpg|300px|thumb|Cover.]]

'''We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-''' (''Bokura wa Dokonimo Hirakanai -There are no facts, only interpretations.-'') is a light novel written by Eiji Mikage. Originally released in 2005 without the subtitle, Mikage rewrote and re-released the novel in 2016 with new illustrations by Yoshitoshi ABe.

==Synopsis==

"I'll protect you with my magic."

The person who spoke those cryptic words to me was none other than our school's preeminent beauty, Miki Kouzuki. When I started going out with her, the world surrounding me suddenly began moving.

"Ahh... '''I''' wanna kill someone."

"Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains to speak of..."

My delinquent best friend, our straight-laced class representative, not to mention me and Miki... As we all start to break, the place we arrived at was—

==Updates==

November 16, 2017: Character Illustrations, Chapter 1 in-line illustration, and Chapter 4 in-line illustration added.

November 15, 2017: Chapter 5 added

November 14, 2017: Chapters 3 and 4 added

November 13, 2017: Chapter 2 added

November 13, 2017: Table of Contents and Chapter 1 added

November 12, 2017: Teaser Page created

==We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.- by Eiji Mikage==

* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Character Illustrations|Character Illustrations]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents|Table of Contents]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)|Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)]]

== Project Staff ==
=== Translator ===
* [[User:Kooritsukai|Kooritsukai]]

== Publication History ==
* ''Bokura Wa Dokonimo Hirakanai'' ISBN 4840230404, May 2005
* ''Bokura Wa Dokonimo Hirakanai -There are no facts, only interpretations.-'' ISBN 4840230404, November 2016

[[Category:Light novel (English)]]
[[Category:Dengeki Bunko]]
[[Category:Mikage Eiji]]

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)

2017-11-17T02:00:10Z

Kooritsukai:

File:We Don't Open Anywhere In-Text Illustration 2.jpg

2017-11-17T01:57:53Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)

2017-11-17T01:53:36Z

Kooritsukai:

<div class=WordSection1>

I watched someone get
murdered once.

It was back when I was still in kindergarten. Both my
parents worked and were away from home a lot, so my grandma usually ended up
taking care of me. My parents married late, which meant that my maternal
grandma, who was a widower in her seventies, was firmly in the “geezer” camp.
Having to take care of me probably put a toll on her.

Despite my parents’ neglect, though, I was a pretty
satisfied kid. In retrospect, that was probably thinks to my grandma working
her ass off. The two of us were as thick as thieves.

On that day, the two of us were looking after the house as
always. I had roped grandma into playing hide-and-seek, forcing her into
the role of seeker. Opening a closet’s aged, poorly-fitted door, I found
and wedged my five-year-old body into a pile of densely packed futons and muted
myself. 

Grandma was having a difficult time finding me and was
noticeably flustered. Watching her from a crack in the door, I laughed
silently to myself.

Suddenly, the front door could be heard opening.

Thinking that perhaps I had run outside, Grandma
hurried to the entrance.

Immediately, I heard a scream. And at the same time,
an unfamiliar, threatening voice.

At my young age, all I could do at the unsettling
atmosphere was tremble anxiously.

I could hear two sets of footsteps drawing near, one
belonging to my grandma. Instinctively, I balled myself up among the
futons and held my breath. But at the same time I was assailed by a
strange sense of duty, as if it were my responsibility to observe what was
about to happen.

I could just barely make out my grandma and the man
from the cracked door.

“Dammit, the place was s’posed to be empty...! Oy, hurry it
up!”

Driven by the man’s angry voice, Grandma opened the chest of
drawers. She was likely looking for cash or the bankbook, but as she didn’t
know where it was and was panicking, she just opened and closed drawer after
drawer. All the while, the man was growing gradually more irritated. 

After a little longer of this, Grandma handed the man a
stuffed envelope. It was likely filled with cash.

“No hard feels, grams. Just can’t be lettin’ myself get
caught. Blame yourself for being home on the wrong day.”

The man took out a sharp object (I think it was a
pocketknife or a kitchen knife, but in my panic I didn’t pay much
attention to the particulars). In alarm, Grandma screamed something
incomprehensible. This earned her even more ire from the man, who pinned her
arms behind her back.

Grandma screamed.

“Help me... Maa, help me!”

Although a kindergartener like myself would hardly be able
to accomplish anything here, she screamed frantically nonetheless.

But even in the face of my beloved grandma’s bawling, I didn’t
leave the closet.

“Maa! Help me! Help me!”

Watching my grandma scream my name over and over, I wanted
to remind her, “we’re playing hide-and-seek, so I can’t come out until
you find me.”

The blade swung.

A death wail.

A moan.

A weak, self-derisive
laugh.

Tears.

A pool of blood.

Until it was all
over, I kept perfectly still. I was still playing hide-and seek.

I was playing hide-and-seek to this day, unable
to return to the real world.

 

 

“You’re Masato
Yahara, right?”

As I was
putting my indoor shoes in the worn-out shoe rack, a girl called my name. I recognized
that voice. Having a bad feeling about this, I heaved a sigh.

“...You sure you’ve
got the right guy? Kou’s still back in the classroom, right?”

“Please don’t try to
blow me off.” Miki Kouzuki glared at me with trembling fists.

I’d suspected that she had something she wanted
to say to me. Without meeting her eyes, I spoke.

“Is this about tryin’
to get me to away from Kou?”

Having the words
stolen out of her mouth, Kouzuki knit her eyebrows.

“He doesn’t have shit
for magic resistance. If I, a magus unaware of my own powers, am around
him I’ll be a bad influence and stain him in my attribute. And that
wouldn’t do anyone a lick of good. Something along those lines?”

Kouzuki’s eyes
widened in surprise.

What the hell? I thought
her value system was gonna be something more interesting, but it ended up being
something even I could come up with.

Rapidly losing
interest, I set my loafers on the floor.

“So I’m a
magus, huh. You’re givin’ me too much credit. Anyways, everyone would just run
away from me before I could cast a spell on ‘em anyways.”

“Y...you understand
magic?”

“Who knows. I just
translated what I was sayin’ into your gibberish.”

“I...if you
understand that much, please just stay away from Kouta. You said that everyone
just runs away from you, but there’s one exception.”

There was no need to
clarify who she was talking about.

“Staying away from
him would be for Kouta’s sake. If he keeps being surrounded by my magic, he’ll
take on my attribute. He’ll be able to avoid getting stained in a poor
attribute like yours or Matsumi-senpai’s.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I glared at Kouzuki unconsciously. Knowing what
kind of person she was only amplified my rage.

“You’re full of
yourself. Who the fuck do you think you are, going around babbling about how
you’re going to protect Kou or some shit. Did Kou ask for that? He didn’t, did
he.”

“...I thought that
would be for the best-”

“For the best? Pretty
words from everyone’s favorite freakshow. Keep your fucking self-satisfactory
bullshit in check, wouldja? Is Kou even the one you’re really tryin’ to
protect? ...Heh, you can’t even refute it. What you’re tryin’ to protect by
force-staining Kou’s ass...”

I spit it out.

“Is your flimsy-ass,
brittle little closed world.”

It seemed that her
self awareness didn’t extend that far. Her face went white at my words.

I drew close to Kouzuki, who was slowly
shrinking away from me, and lifted her up by the collar of her uniform.

“But by talkin’ to
you like this, I realized that something I don’t need to worry
about. You just aren’t worth my time.”

Fear appeared for the
first time on Kouzuki’s face. ...Nah, that ain’t it. Since the moment she
called out to me, her fists had been trembling from how hard she had tried to
hide her fear. That’s how powerless a person she was.

“He’ll just come to
hold you in contempt, and that’ll be that. Later.”

I didn’t want to so much as look at her any
more. Releasing her collar, I walked away from the shoe rack without
sparing her a second glance.

With all the rumors
swirling around her, I figured she’d have a little more of a backbone in
her. But she was just another person with no faith in their own damn world. She
just wanted Kou in order to reinforce her world.

She was just like all
the others. She gave off the sound of chains.

Her chains were
quieter than others, maybe, but that was all there was to it. She was just
another nobody, far removed from the ideal I strived for.

She was just as much
a nobody as I was.

Chains.

I started seeing the chains when I was in ninth
grade.

In contrast to my
peers, who were grappling with entrance exams and relationship woes, I could
feel myself growing distant.

The contents of their
worries even drove some of them to cut their own wrists, but I couldn’t
see at as any more serious than whether a sand castle was knocked over or not.
After all, even if they wounded themselves they didn’t plan on dying. I
— I, who truly knew death — could tell that those wounds were nothing
more than a tool to highlight the extent of their woes.

Once I became
a complete bystander, simply gazing on them in observation, I noticed
something.

Everything they held
dear was created.

With so much
information flowing down the muddy stream of our world, a simple papier-mâché construction is enough for them all to
implicitly believe it.

They
were being controlled.

Made to
dance in perfect harmony, they were being controlled by fiendish, brutal
chains.

Then, I
became able to see those chains. And from the materialized chains, I
could even hear noise. The rattling noise they made was raucous. The noise was
so raucous it sapped all vitality from me. Once that was finished, I
began losing my ideals as well. Lost in the pursuit of cheap pleasure, I
no longer cared if the world was in color or monochrome, or if it was real or
simply the inside of an image. To that end, I engaged in a series of
unethical activities. Pleasure was all that was real to me, but was merely
ephemeral, and in the end time simply passed while nothing else changed. My
world was peeled apart by the chains. It was a simple, complete excoriation.

When
I finally managed to regain a grip on my peeled-up world, a thought
suddenly floated to my mind, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I wanna kill someone.

Murder
had taken the color from my world and reduced my reality to the state it was in
today. Ironically, as a consequence of its gravity, it was also what lay just
beyond my outstretched hand. No matter where I reached out towards, I
would run into those homicidal urges. Like a butterfly trapped in a spiderweb, no
matter how much I struggled I couldn’t move. From where I was,
I couldn’t see anything else.

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Wanting
to flee from the chains and the noise, I reached out my hand. This time,
my hand got caught on those homicidal urges. They began controlling me.

—Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

 

But
even then, I would never have believed it.

That
there could be a person unfettered by those chains.

 

 

“Kusukusu...
you two really are interesting, aren’t you?”

I could tell that the girl, who
had a childish face and and looked somewhat off-balance, was different from the
moment she started speaking to us.

Her
smile seemed like it was free of any influence from the events of the outside
world.

“Whaddya
want?”

Who was
she? Like Kouzuki, was she trying to take advantage of how fragile Kou’s chains
were?

“Oh,
Ririko was just thinking how she wanted to become good friends with Hiiragi!”

She
didn’t react even a little to my display of animosity. And she didn’t give the
sense that she was playing dumb. Humans are creatures bound by fear. Anyone
would react to the presence of violence.

Then
what was wrong with her?

It
seemed that “different” didn’t cut it. She was clearly lacking something
fundamental.

“What’s so interesting about you two are the
call signs you’re giving off.”

She
spoke as if her peculiar words were commonplace. That was something neither I
nor Kouzuki was capable of. This girl didn’t desire salvation, and she had no
doubts in her own world. In actuality, she was basically rejecting interaction
with the rest of mankind.

Inside
a closed world that was like a perfectly sealed-off room, she had no need to
grow.

I’d heard rumors about this.
Rumors about an upperclassman who had been coming and going from a psychiatric
hospital since she enrolled.

“Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?”

“Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course.”

According to the rumors, she lacked
boundaries. Unable to tell where her “self” began and ended, she supposedly saw
everything outside her body as simply parts of herself. She was under the
misapprehension that not just her body but everything she could more or less
freely manipulate was part of her. Although it was a bit more allegorical in my
case, I’d certainly had times where I felt unable to put down my phone,
as if it were a part of my body. But as far as she was concerned, her
unification with her electrical devices was no allegory. To her, using
electrical signals from her brain to move her limbs wasn’t just the same as
using a remote to change the channel on TV, the remote and the television
themselves were just parts of her body.

It was a world beyond comprehension. But
regardless, it was the world she lived in.

A different world from the rest of us.

“Interesting, aren’t they? White and
ultramarine, huh. Aren’t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko
likes white, you know. Makes me want to do something.”

I had no idea what
those colors meant in her code. All I could tell was that they were code
for something else.

I glanced at Kou. Even though he’s
confused, he wouldn’t reject another, even if that person is Matsumi. But even
Kou likely won’t be able to grasp her world.

...Actually, is that really true? This is the
same Kou who’s spent a whole month getting to know me, after all.

“Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?”

“Read me?”

“Oh, that’s right. Most people can’t do
scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!”

Maybe Matsumi, who blurs the boundaries
between electrical devices and her own body, is deluded into thinking she can
fulfil the role of an electrical device herself?

But something quickly makes me realize that
that perception was halfhearted.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

It’s
not a delusion. It’s something far worse. In that instant, Matsumi became an
electrical device.

That’s right. Why didn’t I notice it
sooner?

This chick doesn’t have any chains at all.

The moment I realized that, it felt as
if the false machine noise was causing the world to violently lurch. I
couldn’t keep my footing. The world was slanting simply because I had
become aware of my own change. Unable to remain in place, I began
tumbling. I was rolling. Rolling and rolling. Rolling and rolling and
rolling and rolling.

How did this happen?

...Ah, because I didn’t believe. I didn’t
believe that a person without chains could even exist. That’s why my world was
doing an about-face.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

The sun went out. What illuminated my world in
its place was Matsumi’s eyeball. Within those dead-fish eyes, her pupil was
focusing like the lens of a single-lens reflex camera. Taking on heat, her eyes
began to sear me. It burns! It burns! It burns!

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise pursued me and, as I spun
through space, bored its way into my body. From near and from far, the noise
continued to ring. I had long since lost track of where it was ringing
from. I was becoming to create the noise as well.

The lens was simply floating in space.

Those eyes turned towards me.

“Ah-”

What part of me were they looking at?

They were looking at me burning and tumbling
through space. I’m begging you, don’t expose this hackneyed end of mine.
Those pitiful limitations of mine. Those banal thoughts of mine.

“...don’t.”

I didn’t want to
know.

“Beep bi—”

I didn’t want to
know. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know.

“DON’T!”

As I scream, the floating eyeball lens
vanishes. In that moment, I’m assailed with vertigo and the world goes
black. Once the light returned, I could see Kou looking concerned and
Matsumi pouting.

“You don’t have to shout like that, you
know...”

“Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just
now...?”

“Hold on, hold on. Ririko’s going to put it
into words now.”

Matsumi stopped being human again.

She somehow got information about Kou, and
she’s translating it such that we can understand it as well. A computer turning
binary into letters and images.

“Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her
hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent
approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing
cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen
to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally good
at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others
with-”

“Th... that’s enough! Matsumi-senpai, please
cut it out!”

She returns to being human.

“So? So? How was that? How’d you like my
scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?”

“Senpai, can we go now?”

“Whaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He’s
white, after all! He’s the only one!”

“Sorry, but we got places to be.”

“Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it
can’t be helped then. Ririko guesses she’ll see you later then, Tanihara.”

Not thinking, I stopped in my tracks.

People
read my last name, “谷原,” incorrectly all the time. So
the mistake itself wasn’t particularly notable.

“Huh? Aren’t you Tanihara?”

“It’s read ‘Yahara’, Senpai.”

So in other words, that’s what that meant.

Matsumi’s “scanning” gathers information
visually.

 

We strolled through an abandoned shopping
district, shuttered up as a result of its inability to compete with a large
nearby shopping mall.

I gazed at Kou in
silent shock.

Even when faced with Ririko Matsumi, he didn’t
give up on trying to comprehend her. If we hadn’t gotten lucky, he would have
completely taken her in.

It would be fine if he got invaded by Kouzuki.
He’d be treated as a freak, sure, but at least he’d be able to keep on living.
But Matsumi was no good. If he took in something broken, he’d become broken as
well. It would be like downloading a malicious app.

“Get this through your head. Don’t talk to
that birdbrain again. She’ll be a bad influence on you. Got it?”

Kou nodded. But it wasn’t because he was
convinced, it was because he felt the situation called for it.

I didn’t what his
true intentions were. ...Hell, I didn’t know if he had any intentions in
the first place.

“Masato, did you understand what was going on
with that scanning thing?”

Scanning.

Based on the fact that she got the information
visually, I had a hunch as to what the trick was. But it was tough to
put into words.

I suspected the
reason she was able to guess my name was because she subconsciously knew it
already. Even though the time she spent in the hospital kept her from showing
up at school much, she was still a fellow student of ours. There was plenty of
times she could have run across our names.

The only abnormal part was how she went about
recalling that information.

Normal people quickly forget information they
don’t need. For example, we don’t remember the faces of every person we pass on
the street.

But what if this “scanning” let her pull out
memories from deep in her brain, memories that anyone else would have lost? If
that were the case, then simply having passed us in a hallway would be plenty
for her to know our names.

It then followed that her being able to put
names to faces, as well as dredge up all that information about Kou, was simply
the result of outstanding insight born from her recollection, observational,
and analytic prowess. Of course, she couldn’t do that all the time, but only
when she was in a trance state from putting herself under the self-hypnosis
called “scanning.”

Seen from the outside, a skilled
fortune-teller would appear to be able to trace the steps of another’s life.
Hell, even I’d be able to guess whether someone’s a virgin or not a good
chunk of the time. But Matsumi was on another level. She was able to come up
with his personality, his familial structure, and even where he lived. It was
practically a superpower.

It was abnormal.

If I told told Kou all this, nothing
good would come of it. It would just end up driving him towards taking her in.

“... not even a little.”

So I dodged the question.

Even if Kou didn’t believe me, he neither
pressed me nor showed signs of dissatisfaction. Ahh, now that I think
about it, there’s something wrong with this guy too.

The light in front of us turned red and we
reflexively stopped.

“Why the hell’d we stop?”

“The light was red, wasn’t it?”

“There ain't any cars here.”

Ahh, I can hear it. I can hear
that noise again.

Just beyond my field of view lay those chains.
Beautiful chains that acted as if they owned us, designed to stop us from
moving.

I couldn’t help
but despise the chains. They bound me and were the cause of everything that
drained color from my world.

...or so I thought.

And because that’s what I thought, I
yearned to be a person without chains. I truly thought I desired
release from those chains. 

But then I met such an unfettered
person.

And what did I feel, upon gazing at
that person?

Fear.

I was scared of
that person without chains. I felt fright. A feeling that implied
unimaginable distance.

There was no chance I could become a
person without chains.

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains’ noise
echoed.

You will never be released.

Shut up.

You will be bound until the day you die.

Shut up!

But you already knew that, right? The
reason these chains will never be torn off is because you yourself have no
desire to tear them off.

I SAID SHUT UP!

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The noise keeps resounding.

The sound of chains. The sound of common
sense. The sound of morals.

And the sound of my desire to kill.

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. 

“Ahh... I wanna kill someone.”

 

 

After parting ways with Kou, I was
unable to muster the urge to return home and inside took the train into the
suburbs. While the area around the station was prosperous in comparison to the
shutter town I had just left, the dust and general atmosphere made it
clear that it was past its prime.

I wandered about
aimlessly. A department store that would likely be demolished in a few years. A
old-fashioned movie theater that looked wholly unfit to bring a date to. A
bookstore that had been repurposed into a shop for otaku goods. The town, which
was connected, bound, and encircled by power lines, stunk of sewage. If you
boiled down all the mud, the sludge, and the coal tar, it seemed like it like
it would make for delicious, piping hot ramen broth.

I sat on a bench
in front of the station and observed the passersby. The people waiting by the
station were like marionettes, each and every one of them glued to their
smartphones. Social networks, forcing them into round-the-clock surface-level
pleasantries. Aggregation sites pushing morals upon them that are neither right
nor wrong. Blogs flooding with comments, not from individuals but from their
very souls. All an horrifying gambit to strengthen the chains. A colossal trap.

The definition of people who would be better
off dead.

Let’s suppose that that definition was “people
who are detrimental to society.” If that’s the case, people who killed
innocents would be better off dead. People whose contributions to society were
outweighed by the harm they cause to others would be better off dead too.
People whose deaths would be rejoiced at rather than wept at and people who
inspire anarchic thoughts, those people would obviously be better off dead.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we just rounded up all those brutes and
left only the good people?

...It probably would. With fewer recessive
genes around, of course humanity’s going to be wiser. If, hypothetically, the
world was in peril and we had to trim the population, you can bet your ass that
the morals around protecting the weak and disadvantaged are going to be the
first to go and there’d be large-scale massacres. ...Well, it doesn’t have to
be something as over-the-top as that. All I’m trying to get at is that
there’s plenty of people who could die and no one would mind.

“Yo.”

I call out to a
passing woman in an immaculately-pressed suit, likely on her way home from the
office.

In that instant, I got the impression
that although she works hard and contributes to society, she frequently
tramples on the feelings of others. Huh, maybe I’m awakening intuitive
powers like Matsumi’s? Or maybe it was just a delusion of mine? I don’t
much care either way. As far as I cared, she was a detriment to society
- someone who was better off dead.

“Are you speaking to me?”

“Yeah, anyone’s fine. There’s plenty of ya
around. Now, a riddle. When’s a door not a door?”

“When it’s ajar... Excuse me, what did you
want?”

“Who ordered you?”

“Huh?”

“Who ordered you to say ‘when it’s ajar’?”

The woman stopped in her tracks, fear
spreading across her face.

“Nobody ordered me to do anything... what’s
going on...”

“That’s right! No one ordered you to do shit,
right? Then why does everyone answer the same fucking way? There’s gotta be
plenty of other reasons why a door wouldn’t a door, right? Then why’s it gotta
be ajar and not a dormant volcano or somethin’?<ref>The original joke here went about as follows:
* Masato: "What kind of pan (bread) can you not eat?"
* OL: "A frying pan?"
* Masato: "Why'd the answer have to be frying pan? Why couldn't it have been A-kyuusenpan (class-A war criminal)?"</ref>”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ah, shut up. This chick’s chains were
particularly noisy. Women tended to have grimmer, sturdier chains than men.

“You’re pissing me off. You want me to fucking
kill you?”

“Wh...what are you talking about? Is there
something wrong with you?”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“Get outta my sight. If you don’t, I’m
gonna fucking kill you.”

Not bothering to hide her repugnance, she
quickly ran off.

Heh. Once I considered what I just
did objectively, I give a strained laugh.

It would seem I’d developed a bug.

Walking around is too much of a pain. After
clenching my teeth and somehow dragging myself to a nearby park, I layed
down on a bench. Overheating to an unbearable degree, my brain forcibly entered
a shutdown state. My consciousness faded away dreamlessly.

 

 

I opened my eyes.

The blue sky flooded into them.

I couldn’t form
thoughts. The sun’s blinding light assaulted my eyes, and the painful stimulus
gradually restored my consciousness.

My back flared up in pain, and I remembered
that I had been sleeping in a park. I reached for a cigarette,
but found to my dismay that my pack was empty. What a fucking joke.

I clutched my
head, slowly recalling the events of yesterday.

There’s something wrong with me.

I was aware of how
desperate I was getting, but I was able to keep a cool head for
now.

But it seemed unlikely that I would be
able to fully get back to normal. Upon learning of the existence of a human
without chains, I stopped be able to brush away my homicidal urges,
which were now simmering to the point of boiling over. I could go mad at
any moment. There was even a part of me that wanted to go mad, knowing that
there was a chance that doing so might grant me the impetus to commit murder.
From that small reason alone, I knew I was past the point of
being able to contain these urges. It was past the level of sexual desire, and
was more akin to a hunger that scalded my throat. There was no chance the urges
would subside.

I would either
kill or go mad.

It could only be one or the other.

 

I decided to
return home briefly. I had no idea what my parents would say at this
point, but if I didn’t they were liable to file a missing person report
out of obligation and a desire to leave a paper trail. And I was out of
money. I knew of a method to solve both those problems at once. A method
I had used often since middle school.

Kicking aside an empty can as I entered
the house, I noted that my parents weren’t home. After fishing through
the shelf where grandma pulled the envelope from before she died, I slipped
two ten-thousand yen<ref>~$180</ref> bills into my wallet.

But where should I go? I had no
destination in mind. But in this state, I couldn’t stay at home, nor
could I go to school.

For a moment, I briefly contemplated
going to school. Thanks to my reputation, at least all the jackasses I wanted
to avoid would stay away from me.

And Kou was there.

Kouta Hiiragi. A man with no firm sense of
self. Generally, people analyze what kind of person they themselves are and
form a sense of self around that. In a certain sense they label themselves.

But Kou doesn’t. As a result, his self doesn’t
settle into any one shape. I dunno what made him like that, but based on
Matsumi’s scanning the cause probably lies with his family circumstances.

Because his self isn’t set, Kou tends to take
on whatever form his partner wants him to. Every time he interacts with
someone, his personality changes little by little. As a result, he’s become
able to truly understand others, and not just on a superficial level. He’ll
probably grow accustomed to Kouzuki’s magic in no time, and he fully
understands my madness as well. He doesn’t resist it, either. That’s why if
he’s careless, he’ll end up understanding Matsumi as well and taking her in.

That reminds me, Matsumi likened Kou’s color
to “white.” I get it, that kinda makes sense. Kou can take on any other
color. That in and of itself is dangerous. That’s why Kouzuki is being all
meddlesome and trying to stain Kou in her color; she’s trying to prevent him
from getting stained in a malicious color like mine.

Being accepted by others feels good. I
learned that for the first time when I met Kou.

Kouzuki’s probably the same. That’s why she
trying to keep him for herself.

I guess I
can’t go to school after all.

It’s dangerous for me because Kou is there.

Kou is the ultimate sympathizer. He would no
doubt accept even me, who’s enveloped in homicidal urges. Upon being accepted
by him, I would stop perceiving myself as abnormal, lose my last bits of
resistance, and eventually take action. I could picture it easily.

I grabbed a pack
of cigarettes from my room and lit one with a shaking hand. The nicotine
settled me down a bit, but the urges were unabated.

I slipped a
butterfly knife into my pocket as a de facto tranquilizer. I could kill
at any time. I could make that call whenever I wanted. Knowing
that somehow helped me preserve my sense of reason up until now. But that bit
just now was simply meaningless. It simply served to rile me up.

A paper-thin line was all that kept me from
using this knife up till now. But that paper-thin line held within it a world
of difference.

But I knew.

As I was now, I was liable to
cross that line.

 

When I came to my senses - when I
truly came to my senses - it was already night.

Once again I found myself wandering
through that deteriorating suburb.

While I knew little about killing time,
I knew quite a bit about killing. All I had to do was
noncommittally indulge myself. My mind simply sought pleasure without applying
any deeper meaning to anything. In other words, I was deteriorating as a
human. I was an animal with intelligence but no use for it. There are a
surprising number of humans who fit that description, so I didn’t lack
for companions. Hip! Hip! Hoorah! Other people were necessary for the pursuit
of pleasure. Transient relationships were best. Human garbage was best. If they
were men, though, they’d sooner or later commit some kind of sexual assault, so
I tried to avoid that. I wasn’t into fucking chicks while they
screamed, and taking risks for something I wasn’t into was right off the
table.

So I looked for women. Chicks who were
into give-and-take relationships. Animals who sought only pleasure like I
did. Some of them got clingy, but their kind feared rejection, so once dealt
with none of them pressed the issue. Once they got hooked on drugs and drowned
in pleasure, any chick would become almost disgustingly docile. Once I
was done with with them, they would without fail use every word and action at
their disposal to wail about how lonely they were or some shit, but I
couldn’t give less of a fuck about their pitiful emotions.

“You’re pretty good.”

One of those women spoke up to me when I
was playing darts at an amusement center. What was her name again? I
think she told me, but I forgot.

“Do you play darts a lot?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Through this meaningless conversation, I
got authorization to step into her territory. It was obnoxious, but a necessary
ritual nonetheless.

The chick wasn’t a so-called “gyaru<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyaru</ref>”. She was
no beauty, but her face was attractive enough to put her on the receiving end
of gossip. She wore a cheap-looking black dress with hideous pink frills. I
could tell from experience that she was available.

The ritual had gone on plenty long enough to
move to the next step.

“Anywhere you wanna head after this?”

“Nah, not really, I guess.”

“Follow me, then.”

Although she no doubt knew what was to follow,
she simply followed me without putting up any opposition.

Where should we do it? The park? Nah, my back
hurts, so a cheap hotel would be better... Such thoughts filled my head as we
boarded the elevator.

Leaving the building, we neared a tunnel
running underneath the railway. Right as I put my hand on her back as a
lip service, I heard an unexpected voice.

“Is that you, Yahara?”

There stood the class representative, carrying
a plastic folder and clearly on his way home from cram school — Shuuichi
Akiyama.

I was planning on
feigning not being able to hear him due to the train passing, but when I
reflexively looked over my shoulder, our eyes met.

“What do you intend to accomplish by not
coming to school. Your friends are worried about you, you know.”

His words were exemplary yet insincere. It was
almost as if someone was making him say them. First of all, did this guy even
think I even had friends?

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, shut up already.

For some reason or another, my earlier
hedonism had been enough to temporarily silence the chains. But in the face of
this man, that was impossible.

His chains were grotesque, grimmer and
sturdier than any other’s.

Feeling an onset of vertigo, I plunged
my hand into my pocket and grasped my knife, my de facto tranquilizer.

“What will come of you continuing to neglect
school? You will simply idle away your days. If you fail to put in the effort
now, many paths will become closed to you, and you will regret it fiercely.
Even you should realize such a simple thing.”

“The fuck are you going on about? Don’t go
judging everything according your values.”

“I believe my values are extremely commonplace
values.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”

And that’s the thing I hate more than
anything else.

“You know it, yet you rebel against it. Don’t
you think you’re acting a little childish?”

Akiyama pushed up the bridge of his glasses.

Maybe what he’s correcting with his glasses
isn’t his eyesight, but him himself? He was extreme enough to harbor such
delusions. He could only see the corrected, beautiful world. Unimportant things
didn’t even enter his view. It’s like he’s forgotten that when he takes off his
glasses, the blurry, hard-to-grasp world in front of him is the real one.

Akiyama’s gaze shifted from me to the girl.
Faced with the honor student Akiyama’s reproachful gaze, she uncomfortably
lifted the corners of her mouth.

“Your girlfriend? Won’t you be imposing on
her, dragging her around at this hour?”

He spoke unaffectedly. He likely doubted that
there was any woman who would willingly spend time around me.

“She ain’t my girlfriend, though.”

“She isn’t?”

“Just some chick I picked up off the
street. We were thinking of going and fucking. Get it?”

“Excuse me?”

At his confusion, the girl gave an embarrassed
smile. Of course he’s not going to be able simply nod and accept something like
that.

Glancing sidelong at Akiyama, I give a
snicker.

Hey, look, he can’t even hide it. Inside that
disgust-filled expression, he’s jealous that I’m getting laid. That
fucker’s so fastidious he probably wouldn’t admit he even had desires like
that.

“You... have quite some nerve, saying such
immoral things so brazenly.”

“Jealous?”

“I’m well aware of how proud of your faults
you are. May I ask you a question, though? How often do you do things like
this?”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, this isn’t good. Shut up. This guy’s
chains just won’t shut up.

“All the fucking time, man. What, you want to
get in on this shit? I can teach you how to. It’s easy, all you gotta do
is lie about your age to register for dating sites. Studying ain’t good for
shit, you feel me? You know, if we all just gave in to our primal desire for
pleasure, we could all just live as happy-ass animals.”

Akiyama just glared at me silently.

“...Um, I just remember something I have to
do, so I’m going to head home, okay?”

“Yeah.”

The girl had lost interest. I still
couldn’t remember her name as I watched her run off.

Akiyama watched her recede far longer than I
did.

“Yahara.”

Akiyama spoke, gazing off into the distance.

“What?”

“I believe it is unwise to indiscreetly give
voice to the thoughts of others. But I see you and I do not share that
opinion.”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

That noise was whispering to me.

Kill.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

It’s time for you to join the world of
killers. That’s the only path left available to you.

Despite being more tightly bound by those unholy
chains than any other, Shuuichi Akiyama was enough of a freak to feel not agony
but comfort from their embrace. There was no human who symbolized the chains as
much as he did. That would make him the ideal sacrifice, no?

“You wanna sermonize? Fine by me. In any case,
let’s head somewhere less crowded.”

“I see; very well. I would rather nobody else
carelessly inserted their voice in our conversation, after all.”

“Yeah, right. Wouldn’t want anyone getting in
the way.”

I didn’t want
anyone to get in the way.

Not until it was all over.

 

Unlike a large city like Tokyo, all you had to
do in the suburb was walk a little and the tall buildings would be replaced by
rice paddies and vacant lots. Past a convenience store with a sprawling parking
lot belying its defunct state lay a similarly-defunct factory. I neither
knew nor cared what the factory had originally produced, but the sensation of
being underground brought about by its oily, metallic odors made it ideal. I
didn’t know what this iron press was designed for either, but when I
laid my hand on it it was icy-cold to the touch.

“I’m surprised that you knew about a place
like this.”

“I told you about all the chicks I
was forcin’ myself on, right? You gotta know about places like this to do shit
like that.”

Akiyama scowled in repugnance.

Honestly, I’m surprised he’d follow me
to a sketchy-ass place like this so easily. Could he not even begin to imagine
himself being in danger? ...Well, he probably couldn’t. That was the kind of
victim I was dealing with here. The kind of guy who was filled with
baseless conviction that he couldn’t possibly get involved with the kind of
incident you see on the news.

He was one of them. Hell, he’d probably even
be shocked at the sight of one of his classmates smoking.

“So? I’m ready to be preached at.”

“Before we start, would you mind turning on a
light? It’s too dark for me to even make out your face. I feel that that would
somewhat defeat the purpose of this conversation.”

Did he really think that being able to see my
face would make his shitty-ass sermon stick?

“I think someone left a lantern here...”

Squinting to look for the electric lantern, I
found it beside a pile of cigarette butts. As I flicked the switch,
Akiyama’s form came dimly into view.

“For you to have lead me this far, I can
assume you have at least some intention of hearing me out?”

I choked back laughter. Akiyama didn’t seem to
consider for a moment the possibility that he might be assaulted, let alone
killed.

I’m sure what’s
floating through his mind is something along the lines of a naive-ass after
school special. The pitiable delinquent, coming from a bad background, finally
finds someone who understands him and, struck by his sincere actions, gets back
on the straight and narrow.

What a nice story. Even I, without an
ounce of cynicism, think it would be nice if we had more of that kind of story.
I’ve seen a lot of delinquents, and most of them are scum through and
through. Defective from their very genes. Deficient in brains, empathy, fear,
and imagination, the lot of them.

But in spite of all that, this guy has enough
faith in his persuasive abilities to follow me all this way. I half
wanted to see what the it was about his speech he was so confident in. Hell,
maybe they’d even be enough to convert me.

“Let me start by asking you something. Are you
happy with the way you’re living right now?”

“As if. I’m always wishing I could
change, you know?”

Even right now.

In any case, I was about to be able to
change. Not that I had any idea what I was going to change into.

“Then why not simply be more diligent? From
what I can see, you certainly aren’t stupid. I mean that, by the way. All it
takes for people to change is to find an objective and to put in the effort
necessary to achieve it. At the moment you’re lapsing into depravity, but if
you take a slightly longer view I have no doubt you can overcome such
temptations.”

I laugh
inappropriately upon hearing that from the most nearsighted man imaginable.

“So you’re saying if I just become a
straight-A student like you, my life’ll open up and become all peaches and
fuckin’ cream?”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be studies.
Anything you find that you can put your all into works. And that’s all it takes
to open up your life. I’m sure there’s some activity you could find yourself
getting engrossed in.”

“There’s nothin’ like that.”

“Are you certain? What about sports, say,
boxing or rugby?”

I wanted to throw
up. Is this guy actually referencing old after school specials, then lumping
all delinquents together in one convenient little category? Faced with such a
blad lack of imagination, I began to doubt if he was even truly a
straight-A student.

“And if you do indeed find something you want
to do, the more paths you have available before you to choose from the better.
As you are right now, paths are vanishing.”

“Dumbass. No one who was willing to work their
ass off just to keep future possibilities open would be in this situation in
the first damn place.”

“You mustn’t give up on yourself. Envision the
future, and stride towards it!”

I hadn’t suspected
his little sermon would fail to resonate with me to this extent. The things he
was saying were ostensibly correct. Perhaps they would have resonated more from
a different mouth.

But the words felt like they had no weight
behind them. They held none of the speaker’s true feelings. It felt like he was
simply reading out of some manual on delinquent correction. The words were
completely those of another.

And on top of that, the sound of chains.

His thoughts and mine were in parallel,
destined to never intersect.

“Those chains of yours. I’ll pass on
being bound by them, thank you very much!”

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ahh, I can’t hold it in any more.

I should just kill
him. I can’t bear to listen to any more of this. I should just
kill him. I should just kill him. When I open up his flesh, my
future will open up as well. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. I should just kill him. I don’t want to be here
any more. I’m never coming back here again. I should just kill
him. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. This place is empty; no one will hear him scream. His
death wails will be a hymnal for me alone, a noise sufficient to drown out
those chains. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. I should just kill him. His blood will go flying. I
don’t know how my world will change. But if nothing else, my monochrome world
will be dyed red. I should just kill him. I should just kill him.
I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. 

“Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains
to speak of... What are you talking about, Yahara?”

Looking around, he frowned.

“I’ll tell you, so you can die in
peace.”

“...Yahara?”

“Chains. The preconceived notions that bind
us. That’s a useless definition. They’re essentially rules without order.
Morals, forced upon us. Their noise is annoying. I've always wanted to
escape them. The only way I can escape them is by killing. In other
words, that noise is basically the sound of my desire to kill.”

I pulled the butterfly
knife out of my pocket. With a flick of my wrist, the blade flies out.

“Now I can get out of here!”

My reluctance to kill vanished.

Immediately, my hand was filled with the
sensation of flesh. It was softer than I expected, barely giving me the
sensation I had slashed at all. The experience was lacking.

“Now you can get out of here, hm...”

The red blood dripped loudly.

Now that I think about it, it’s
strange. Even though we constantly have blood flowing through our bodies, we
only ever think about it at times like this. It’s like not being able to see
the forest for the trees. It’s not that our awareness is limited, we’re simply
under the impression that it is.

“—On that point alone, we are of the same
opinion.”

What sentiment did that smile carry? It seemed
similar to the sense of accomplishment a child would display upon digging up an
anthill and earnestly squishing its inhabitants.

“Your life has no value... or rather, you’re
like a vermin that deserves to die.”

Akiyama spoke bluntly, his voice carrying no
inflection.

He pulled out the knife.

As he pulled it out, blood — lifeblood —
poured from my chest.

Releasing my wrist, Akiyama pulled the knife
out from my chest and tossed it aside. Fluids burst out like a stopped had been
uncorked. Red liquid spilled out from my mouth. No matter what it was I was
regurgitating, it wasn’t anything good.

“You thought too little of me. Did you really
believe that I had no idea why you brought me here?”

I knew it. Akiyama
was a deviant.

“You should have realized it as soon as I had
you turn the lantern on. I had you light it so I could make out your
movements.”

Everyone likely, to varying extents, realizes
that they’re bound by something. Even if you couldn’t see the chains, you could
definitely feel them choking you.

But Akiyama was completely unlike that. He had
no doubts in his own world. He never doubted that what he saw as just was what
the rest of the world also saw as just.

Akiyama was too much of an honors student for
his own good, and as a result had never been reproached or criticized by the
adults in his life. So he was under the misapprehension that everything he
did was just.

That was his abnormality.

“I was well aware of your murderous
aspirations. And from our discussion, I could tell that those aspirations were
not something you were capable of escaping from. That is why I judged it
necessary to eliminate you.”

The thoughts Akiyama held were widely held by
society to be just. But nobody’s cogs are aligned perfectly. Perhaps the
misalignment was small at first. Something another could easily notice and
alert him to. But because of how much of an honors student he was, he had
nobody to point it out to him. So that continued twisting into the form Akiyama
desired. And though the misalignment had grown to lethal proportions, even if
someone were to point it out Akiyama was past the point of heeding the words of
others.

Vainglory. There was no man alive better
suited to that word than Akiyama. I should have recognized that.

“You said something about helping me dying in
peace, if I recall? It would appear I am now in a position to offer parting
words to you.”

Looking down on my fallen body, Akiyama dug
his heel into my face.

“I offer you this explanation so that you can
die in peace. Would your world change if you killed someone? I offer you the
answer you sought for so long.”

My vision went dark, gradually fading. My
sense of pain left me as well, the only thing I could feel any more
being a cold sense of emptiness where the knife had stabbed me.

“The answer: it would not. Or perhaps it
would? You weren’t a very good point of reference, after all. After all, you’re
simply vermin. What emotion stirs within you when you kill a cockroach? I’m
sure you feel the same thing anyone does. Nothing but disgust.”

The noise of the world started fading as well.
Great, now I didn’t have to listen to Akiyama babble any more.

I fell into the
void.

Everything disappeared.

All that was left were my thoughts.

For argument’s sake.

For argument’s sake, if I had
successfully killed Akiyama, would my world have changed?

Ahh, I came close enough to tell. I
can picture it as if it were real. Even if I had successfully killed
Akiyama,

My world wouldn’t have changed.

It wouldn’t have changed a bit.

There would simply have been a corpse rolling
around in front of me. And having lost my last thread of salvation, I
would have gone mad.

Thinking about it, such a conclusion wouldn’t
have been half bad.

But even so, I thought.

If by some miracle I survive this, I
would still try to kill Akiyama. I would definitely kill him.

Not to change my world.

Not to erase the sound of chains.

I would kill him
because he pisses me off. I would kill him out of simple hatred.

I would be the
most hackneyed, worthless killer imaginable.

Indeed.

I am, to a degree
that disappoints even me, an unremarkable person.

 

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I can hear them. I
can hear them in my ears, which should no longer be able to hear at all.

I knew. In truth,
I’ve known for a long time. The cacophonous ringing was never the sound of
other people’s chains. It was— 

—the sound of the chains that had always been
wrapped around me.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
<references />

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|-
| Back to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)]]
| Return to [[We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

We Don't Open Anywhere: Character Illustrations

2017-11-17T01:51:12Z

Kooritsukai:

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Miki.jpg|700px]]

'''Miki Kouzuki'''

"I’ll protect you with my magic."

“Oh right, I guess it would be pretty confusing to be told out of the blue that you’re being protected, huh!”

“But you know, I couldn’t just leave you on your own like that."

"You basically don’t have any, after all.”

“Magic resistance, that is.”

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Kouta.jpg|700px]]

'''Kouta Hiiragi'''

Protect.

Let’s suppose for a moment that magic really was something capable of protecting me.

Let’s suppose it’s something that could enrich my life.

Even if that’s the case, there’s something I can’t tell Miki.

I couldn’t really care less.

''I couldn’t care less what happens to me.''

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Masato.jpg|700px]]

'''Masato Yahara'''

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains’ noise echoed.

''You will never be released.''

Shut up.

''You will be bound until the day you die.''

Shut up!

''But you already knew that, right? ''

''The reason these chains will never be torn off''

''is because you yourself have no desire to tear them off.''

'''I''' SAID SHUT UP!

—Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“Ahh... '''I''' wanna kill someone.”

We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-

2017-11-17T01:49:55Z

Kooritsukai:

{{Teaser|English}}

[[Image:We Don't Open Anywhere novel cover1.jpg|300px|thumb|Cover.]]

'''We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-''' (''Bokura wa Dokonimo Hirakanai -There are no facts, only interpretations.-'') is a light novel written by Eiji Mikage. Originally released in 2005 without the subtitle, Mikage rewrote and re-released the novel in 2016 with new illustrations by Yoshitoshi ABe.

==Synopsis==

"I'll protect you with my magic."

The person who spoke those cryptic words to me was none other than our school's preeminent beauty, Miki Kouzuki. When I started going out with her, the world surrounding me suddenly began moving.

"Ahh... '''I''' wanna kill someone."

"Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains to speak of..."

My delinquent best friend, our straight-laced class representative, not to mention me and Miki... As we all start to break, the place we arrived at was—

==Updates==

November 16, 2017: Character Illustrations and Chapter 1 in-line illustration added.

November 15, 2017: Chapter 5 added

November 14, 2017: Chapters 3 and 4 added

November 13, 2017: Chapter 2 added

November 13, 2017: Table of Contents and Chapter 1 added

November 12, 2017: Teaser Page created

==We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.- by Eiji Mikage==

* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Character Illustrations|Character Illustrations]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents|Table of Contents]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)]]
* [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)|Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)]]

== Project Staff ==
=== Translator ===
* [[User:Kooritsukai|Kooritsukai]]

== Publication History ==
* ''Bokura Wa Dokonimo Hirakanai'' ISBN 4840230404, May 2005
* ''Bokura Wa Dokonimo Hirakanai -There are no facts, only interpretations.-'' ISBN 4840230404, November 2016

[[Category:Light novel (English)]]
[[Category:Dengeki Bunko]]
[[Category:Mikage Eiji]]

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)

2017-11-17T01:49:15Z

Kooritsukai:

<div class=WordSection1>

“I’ll protect you with my magic.”

As the 18th of May was becoming part of my
normal high school routine, those words changed my world.

The shoe rack was so old it clearly needed
replacing and was held together in several places with shoddily-placed packing
tape. I had gotten used to its musty odor over the past month, and as I took in
the moldy smell, the hand picking up my loafers stopped in midair.

“Ex...cuse me?”

Although we had never spoken before, I could
tell from the graceful-looking girl’s sailor uniform and red ribbon that she
was a fellow first-year. While her chestnut hair was done up with a red hair
band on the back of her head, it felt too short to truly call a ponytail. Her
features were reminiscent of a movie star, with a petite face, wide eyes, and
skin so white it seemed practically transparent. In contrast with my rather
unassuming stature, she was graced with such appeal that any who glimpsed her
around school would have practically no choice but to turn their head. She was
without a doubt the most gorgeous person I had met in my life.

“Oh right, I guess it would be pretty
confusing to be told out of the blue that you’re being protected, huh!”

With a smirk, the girl I had just met began
slapping my shoulder in an overly-familiar manner. Even given our lack of
closeness, between her looks and her behavior I suspected that the majority of
people would feel comfortable around her.

“But you know, I couldn’t just leave you on
your own like that. You basically don’t have any, after all.”

Her face grew serious as she said the
following.

“Magic resistance, that is.”

That’s not a phrase you hear every day.

My fifteen years of life up until this point
had left me woefully unprepared to respond to such a ridiculous proclamation,
so I had no choice but to stare dumbfounded at the one who voiced it.

To make matters worse, I’m shy. While my
friend Masato would disagree with that assessment, the fact that I had no idea
how to interact with people when meeting them for the first time was
indisputable. In any case, my head was still spinning as I futilely tried to
think of an appropriate response. 

To that, the girl mumbled something to the
effect of “yup, he didn’t even realize how low his magic resistance is,”
reaffirming her assessment of the situation.

In the face of such strange conduct, I finally
remembered the name of the character standing in front of me.

“Are you by any chance Miki Kouzuki?”

“The one and only!”

That I knew her name was unlikely to come as a
surprise to Kouzuki. It was only natural. She was famous, after all.

She was simply that attractive. Like many
beauties before her, as soon as she enrolled she caught the attention of male
students throughout the school. However, before long the ranks of suitors
quietly receded.

The cause was the circulation of a particular
rumor.

The rumor that the girl was delusional — a
self-proclaimed magus.

“So what’s this ‘magic resistance’?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s your
resistance against magic. How immune to magic you are. I wonder how you got that
way, though. Maybe there’s something strange with your astral body?”

Oh look, she started saying something
undecipherable.

“...And what on earth is magic?”

“Huh? Hiiragi, you haven’t heard of magic?
Haven’t you ever played a video game?”

Somehow or other it seemed she knew my name as
well.

“No, what I’m asking is—”

What is the real-world concept that you’re
referring to as “magic”?

...Or, that was what I was going to ask, but I
stopped myself mid-sentence. If the rumors that she believed herself to be a
magus were true, asking that question would cause the conversation to quickly
grow awkward. After all, that phrasing would be virtually the same as rejecting
the concept of magic outright. After thinking for a moment, I decided to ask a
different question.

“Who exactly can use magic? Are you able to?”

“Oh, anyone can use magic. Whether or not they
realize it, everyone uses magic all the time. Obviously, I’m no exception.”

“I don’t recall ever using magic, though…”

“Like I said, you just don’t realize it. In
our world, even really strong magicians sometimes don’t realize their own
abilities.”

“Is that... so…”

It seems she was… the real deal. It felt like
it would take some time before I could figure out how to interact with her.

“Yup. Just as I suspected, Hiiragi, you have a
talent for magic.”

I had no idea what the basis for that
assessment was, but as she said it, the corners of her mouth turned upwards
happily. 

“Didn’t you just say that I had no magic
resistance or something?”

“That’s exactly why you’re talented! There
isn’t a direct causal relationship, but it’s really easy for a person like that
to become a magus if they spend time around another magus.”

“Huh…”

“Even an unenthusiastic response like that is
okey-dokey! I get the feeling you have no idea what I’m talking about, but
that’s fine! I’ll teach you magic, starting from some super-basic runes! Once
you start getting some hands-on experience, you should start picking it up like
that!”

I still had no idea how to respond, so for the
time being I just set the loafers I had been holding for some time on the
floor.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t properly
introduced myself yet, huh. I’m Miki Kouzuki from class 1-3. Nice to meet you~”

“...I’m Kouta Hiiragi from class 1-2.”

“Oh, I know. Nice to meet you!”

With a carefree smile, Kouzuki presented her
hand.

When I naturally responded in kind, Kouzuki
clasped my hand tightly as if refusing to let it escape. Between the sensation
of her soft hand against mine and her charming smile, I could feel my heart
pounding in my chest.

You could hardly blame me, right? If not for
her comments about magic and such, Kouzuki’s beauty would be sure to make her
popular even within her own sex.

“...Is it ok if I go now, Kouzuki?”

“Oh, that won’t do. Please, call me by my
first name. A nickname would do too.”

I’d never before called a woman by either
their first name or a nickname. Was my first time going to be taken in this
girl who I’d met through the conversational equivalent of a fender-bender?

...It was, wasn’t it. I was the type of person
who tended to go with the flow.

“Given names are similar to incantations, you
see. Calling someone by their last name generates magic too. If we do that,
we’ll be cursed to never quite be friends. With me so far?”

I was in fact not with her. All I was picking
up was she didn’t want me to call her by her last name. But that would have to
be good enough.

“Miki, then?”

“Hmm… it still feels a bit off… but I guess
it just barely passes muster. As for you, Kouta, I guess you’d probably be
opposed to having a girl suddenly talk to you too familiarly. We can get to
that point gradually.”

It seemed she was capable of at least that
level of forethought.

“Now then, could you give me your phone number
and LINE ID?"

As instructed, I exchange contact information
with her. Under normal circumstances, this might look like something to be
envious of. But while it might seem that way on the surface, it’s a different
matter when the other party is the kind of troublemaker who would call
themselves a magus. That’s the conclusion I arrived at.

While putting on a pretense of indifference,
Kouzuki asked me this without taking her eyes from the phone screen:

“Kouta, you think of yourself as pretty
normal, right?”

Of course.

“Because you aren’t. Magic aside, even now you
seem out of place.”

“I mean, people say that I’m unambitious…”

“This is on a whole ‘nother level, though.”

I had no intention of getting any more
involved than I already was, so this line of discussion held no interest for
me. After I registered the user with the handle “Magus” as a friend on LINE, I
assumed that the conversation had reached its conclusion, so I finished putting
on my loafers.

“Umm, can I leave now?”

“Oh, hold on a sec. I left my bag in the
classroom, so let me go grab it real quick.”

As my mouth hung open like a dunce, Kouzuki
flashed a mischievous smile.

“I’m leaving with you, of course. Didn’t I
just say that I would protect you?”

As she said that, she nudged my shoulder
innocently.

And that was how my first time going home from
school with a girl, which I had been eagerly looking forward to since the
moment I enrolled, was stolen by a self-proclaimed magus.

 

 

The following day, Friday the 19th.

It was morning, just before homeroom. I leaned
back in my chair, exhausted from my unusual experience the day before. Getting
to know new people always tends to wear me out, but when that person happened
to not only be a beautiful, high-spirited girl but also a self-proclaimed magus
I suspect nearly anyone would be drained afterwards.

As I lifted my head from my desk, I could see
chalk dust falling from the rim of the blackboard and fluttering throughout the
classroom. It gets cleaned every day, so it’s probably just my imagination, but
this ancient, not-up-to-code building seemed oddly dark and dusty.

I recounted the previous day’s strange events
to my friend, who was sitting in the seat in front of me with his head on his
desk. After halfheartedly listening to my tale, he said this once I finished.

“Normally ya’d just
assume she has the hots for ya, Kou.”

With his eyes half-closed, Masato Yahara
lazily gave me a blunt response. Blunt as it was, though, it seemed he had
taken interest in my story. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have even bothered
replying.

At our traditionalist high school, Masato’s bleached
brown hair and perm were in clear violation of the dress code. And his
transgressions didn’t stop there; he also regularly smoked and shoplifted. On
looks alone it wouldn’t be strange if he were a member of a certain well-known
idol group, but his attitude revealed a level of delinquency such that none of
the other students would dare get near him.

“But Miki isn’t exactly normal, right?”

“You ain’t wrong; that chick’s fucked up in
the head. You sure she’s not just gonna kill you as some ritual sacrifice?”

He laughed cynically. But I was used to this
personality of his.

“Kill me? It’s not like she’s you or
anything.”

“I don’t fuckin’ get it. She’s gotta
have some ulterior motive. If she was normal, I could chalk it up to a
sad attempt to get your attention, but that’s not necessarily the case with
her. Whatever she wants to do to you, it might be something completely out of
left field.”

Masato jabbed me with his thumb.

“But even though you get the same feeling,
you’re not going to be able to turn her down, are ya?”

I couldn’t deny it. I was non-confrontational
by nature, after all.

“Hey, may as well make the best of it, right?
Hell, if nothing else, you’ll be able to spend your adult life bragging that you
spent your high school days hanging out with a hot chick.”

As it didn’t directly affect him, Masato’s
advice might seem rather irresponsible.

However, he was rarely off the mark when it
came to stuff like this. He had a good head on his shoulders, and his hunches
tended to be astute. Although most of what came out of his mouth was extreme, if
you ignored his generally dubious manner of speaking what you were left with
was fairly insightful.

A sacrifice, huh.

It was scary how plausible that seemed.

As I buried my head in my arms, Masato
suddenly dropped his gaze from me, and muttered,

“Ahh… I wanna kill someone.”

This was something of a catchphrase of his.
Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, he would murmur this as if he
were remembering something. Although it wasn’t exactly a praiseworthy habit, if
I paid him any heed it would likely just drive a rift between us.

“Still, for her to make a move on you without
even knowing you… looks like our girl Miki Kouzuki’s oddity puts the rumors to
shame. Just talking about magic is one thing, but the kind of person
who’d graduate to actually doing something ain’t exactly a dime a
dozen.”

“You know, the two of you are weird in oddly
similar ways.”

“Kouzuki and I are?”

Masato frowned, then pondered for a moment.
But before long, he replied with an uncharacteristically serious expression.

“Nah, we aren’t.”

“You’re not?”

“We just aren’t. In fact, we’d probably get
along like cats and dogs.”

I didn’t quite follow, but given Masato’s
intuitive prowess I had no reason to doubt him.

As our conversation wound down, the morning
bell began to ring. Although our school had a bell that signaled that homeroom
would begin shortly, I’d never seen it have much effect on the other classes.
Until the moment the homeroom teacher walked in the door, the students would
generally continue chatting and milling about.

But our class was different.

“Everyone, note that the bell has rung. I
would appreciate it if you took your seats.”

The class representative, Shuuichi Akiyama,
issued an order. Although the rest of the class balked at the prospect of
accepting direction from a fellow student, they didn’t feel it was an issue
worth fighting over and quickly fell in line. That was simply how our class
operated.

Masato hated that arrangement from the bottom
of his heart.

“Hell, if it gets down to it, our relationship
might become like mine and that fucker’s.”

“Like yours and the class rep’s? No way.”

Masato and Akiyama were on poor terms.
Although delinquents and honor students seldom got along well, it was common
for the two groups to intentionally avoid interacting and to simply ignore the
other.

But these two were constantly at each other's
throats, making their disdain for the other clear.

 

Let’s turn the clock back a month to April
19th for a moment. Much like today, Akiyama took it upon himself to act in the
teacher’s stead, to which Masato vehemently resisted. Slamming his desk to
drive his point home, Masato declared, in a voice dripping with contempt:

“You make me fuckin’ sick.”

I, along with the rest of the class, froze. To
be completely honest, the rest of us also found something about Akiyama a
little bit off-putting. However, his actions were objectively exemplary, so
nobody could find a reason to reproach him. We had no legitimate reason to be
cautious around him.

But Masato simply gave voice to his revulsion,
offering no reasoning. I would be lying if I said I didn’t find it a little
refreshing, but Masato had clearly taken it too far.

Normally, an honor student like Akiyama would
be unused to such violent outbursts. I was certain that Akiyama would be
frightened and atrophy in the face of such a verbal blow.

Which is why I was more surprised by Akiyama’s
response than by Masato’s outburst.

“And what of it, may I ask?”

Rather than falter, Akiyama struck back
defiantly. I was half concerned that Masato would lose his temper and the
argument would devolve into a fistfight.

But instead of leaping at Akiyama, Masato just
muttered “go figure” to himself with a disdainful look on his face. Unlike the
rest of us, it seemed he anticipated Akiyama’s response. Glaring at Akiyama
with eyes that gave the sense they were gazing at filth, Masato ended his
tirade with “You’re beyond help,” and returned to his seat without causing any
more commotion. Fortunately, things hadn’t gotten out of hand.

For his part, although he said no more,
Akiyama was able to clearly convey his contempt for the delinquent Masato. But
because Masato didn’t press the issue further, neither did he.

From that point on, their relationship had
been akin to a lit powder keg.

“Akiyama and I are like opposites.”

Casting a sidelong glance at Akiyama, Masato
smiled contemptuously.

“In what way?”

“Y’know, one of us desires chains, the other
rejects them.”

I tilted my head in puzzlement.

“Don’t worry about it. Hell, don’t even think
about it. No good’ll come of you overworking that poor brain of yours.”

“Are you calling me stupid?”

“Stupid is as stupid does, Kou. Just try to
empty out that head of yours.”

“You’re awful.”

Although he says that, I know he doesn’t
actually hate me. I’m so used to it that it doesn’t even bother me anymore.

“Well, for now, you should probably figure out
how to dodge Kouzuki’s weird-ass solicitations. You know she’s probably gonna
come after you again, right?”

 

Just as Masato predicted, Miki made her way to
our classroom just as the fourth period ended. Entering an unfamiliar classroom is
often cause for nervousness, but I didn’t pick up on any whatsoever from Miki.

“Welp, let’s get going!”

Grasping my hand, Miki gave it a tug. I didn’t
need an explanation to see that she had no intention of letting me refuse.

I could feel the collective gaze of my
classmates boring down on me. I couldn’t blame them. Her reputation as an
eccentric aside, Miki Kouzuki was widely hailed as the cutest girl in our
school. Yet someone like that was calling my name and grasping my hand, even
though I had no notable characteristics to my name other than my relationship
with Masato. 

“H...hold on a second!”

If I put myself at her mercy, I would no doubt
find myself the victim of my peers’ boundless curiosity. My peaceful life would
be shattered.

Planting myself in place, I stopped Miki.

“Don’t get all rebellious with me, Kouta! I’m
doing this whole bodyguard thing for free, you know. The least you could do is
be a little more obedient.”

“At least explain what you’re planning on
doing with me!”

“I called for you during lunch, so isn’t it
obvious that we’re going to eat together? Use your head! It’s because you’re
like that that you don’t have any magic resistance.”

For some reason, she scolded me in earnest.

I felt that I should be the one scolding her
for her audacity and lack of common sense, but I suspected that my rebuttal
would fall on deaf ears. I could almost picture it.

Releasing my hand for a moment, Miki pulled
out two picturesque yellow lunchboxes and displayed them to me proudly.

“Behold, two lunchboxes made personally by my
cute self! Consider yourself lucky!”

“Well, I guess it would be hard to argue that
you aren’t cute...”

Upon hearing this, Miki put both hands on her
cheeks and displayed a bashful expression.

“He called me cute! C’mon, I promise they
taste good.”

She pounded on my back exuberantly. She was
making a racket, and her acting sucks. Given her reaction, she must be completely
used to being called cute.

“Let’s go to the courtyard!”

I could no longer muster the energy to resist
Miki, who had begun pulling me along once more. My classmates’ inquisitive eyes
were no doubt still on me, but... oh, whatever. Peace at any price, right?

Masato, who was watching us out of the corner
of his eye, made no move to lend me assistance, instead just putting on the
same cynical grin as always and gently waving me goodbye.

 

Although it was, in fact, a courtyard, it wasn’t
the type of place you could easily envision students gathering or eating lunch
at. It was simply a poorly-maintained lawn with a few apologetic-looking
shrubs, without even so much as a bench to its name. As a result, the two of us
were alone aside from the occasional passerby.

Ours was a rural public high school that often
used tradition as an excuse to avoid change and fundamentally rejected the idea
of a vibrant adolescence. Both the courtyard and the old-fashioned building
served to bore us into submission.

The clearest symbol of that was the uniforms.
Despite being widely regarded as unfashionable by the students, our school
still used black gakuran<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_school_uniform#Gakuran</ref> and black sailor uniforms of old.

Clearly in a bubbly mood, Miki laid a sheet
she had brought on the unkempt lawn and took a seat. I followed suit.

“Is eating lunch together part of my becoming
a magus too?”

“Yeah, pretty much. That’s about right.”

By eating her homemade lunch, I could become a
magus.

When I put it like that, the causal
relationship felt a little dubious. I unconsciously let out a sigh.

“Are you going to make me eat lizard tails or
something?”

“What are you talking about? This isn’t a
Witches’ Sabbath or anything like that, you know.”

I wanted to ask what exactly a Witches’
Sabbath was, but I realized that if I got hung up on everything she said
our conversation would go nowhere.

“Of course, I don’t really expect you to
believe me when I say that eating lunch together will help you become a magus.”

Pouting a little, Miki passed me one of the
boxes. Upon opening the lid, I found... well, to be frank, everything inside
looks perfectly innocuous. Nothing inside seemed to be magic-related, nor did
anything seem like it was made with a loved one in mind. It was, all in all, an
extremely normal lunch.

How anticlimactic.

“Hey, let me guess what you’re thinking right
now!”

Miki brought her face close to mine as if
investigating something.

“Be my guest.”

“You’re thrilled at the prospect of eating a
cute girl’s homemade lunch!”

“What? That’s completely off. I was just
thinking how anticlimactic it was.”

“You’re awful!”

Although now that she mentioned it, eating a
girl’s homemade lunch was a part of adolescence I had been looking forward to.
Miki had stolen yet another of my firsts.

“But being able to speak your mind like that is
a step in the right direction! Keep it up, keep it up!”

For some reason, I was being encouraged.

Her wide eyes gazed straight into mine as she
spoke. That was probably how she truly felt.

If that’s how seriously she was taking this, I
felt that I should do my part to understand this whole magic thing.

“In that case, I’ll ask you... you see, I’m a
little confused. I don’t really understand what you mean when you say ‘magic’.
After all, even though you sometimes borrow their terminology, your magic isn’t
exactly like the stuff you’d find in fantasy novels, right?”

The whole time I was talking, Miki continued
watching me with those large round eyes of hers. Feeling uncomfortable, I
dropped my gaze.

“I don’t really understand it, but I can’t
just unconditionally accept it. At this rate, I might not ever be able to use
magic.”

Miki was listening to me earnestly.

Upon hearing my denial of magic, would she
take offence?

But Miki’s disposition didn’t sour. She
quietly pierced a piece of freezer-aisle karaage with her fork.

“You know, I’ve been dragging you around and
saying some pretty confusing things. I’m the reason you’re so confused. I have
at least that much self-awareness.”

My eyes still downcast, she spoke again.

“Do you hate me for that?”

In response, I quickly shook my head.

“I mean, you’re doing it all with good
intentions, right?”

Miki’s eyes widened slightly as if in
surprise.

“You understood that?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though I was saying cryptic things, like
that I’d protect you from magic or that I’d be your bodyguard?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no way I was really conveying my good
intentions by doing stuff like that...”

This time it was my turn to be surprised.

“So, you did realize you were being
cryptic...”

If she realized how odd she was being,
couldn’t she have just acted more normally in the first place? If she was
afraid that I would come to hate her, wouldn’t it make sense to try getting to
know me more normally?

“Well, ‘cuz... it’s like this. I had to take a
gamble. The way I saw it, you were really in danger; someone else could have
done you in with magic in the blink of an eye. That’s why I was in such a rush
– I had to, like, get really close to you as quick as possible so you’d trust
me.”

“And that’s why you were walking home with me
and making me lunch and stuff?”

“Yup. But you see, I knew you wouldn’t reject
me. Given your lack of magic resistance, I was confident I could get away with
a little bit of coercion.”

“You mean people without magic resistance are
back at rejection?”

“Hmm... it’s not like that’s a rule or
anything, but that’s generally how it turns out. Once the two of us have a
strong bond of mutual trust, by that point you’ll already be a splendid magus.
Once you get to that point, you’ll be able to protect yourself from other
people’s magic.”

There was no way that was the whole truth.

However, I was pretty sure Miki wasn’t saying
it halfheartedly. I could tell how serious and earnest she was being.

Although I still wasn’t fully clear as to what
Miki’s brand of magic entailed, I got the feeling that it had a strongly
grounded concept. If that was the case, I had to deal with it as sincerely as
possible.

“You really are Kouta, aren’t you.”

Peering at my face, Miki laughed happily.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing... Hey, that’s right! We still
haven’t eaten yet!”

I was puzzled, but we wouldn’t make any
progress if I questioned every little thing she did or said. So I did as
prompted and began to eat my lunch.

The lunch had a notably brown hue, and an
ordinary pair of chopsticks was bundled along with it. Looking at it, it was
obvious the creator wasn’t used to cooking. And most of the items were
store-bought. Well, it looked edible, if nothing else.

“Oh no... this is terrible...”

Miki, who was sitting beside me and picking at
the same assortment of side dishes, clutched the sides of her head.

“I... think it’s pretty average, don’t you?”

“...Sorry. I messed up. You see, I’m actually
pretty handy, and I can do most things pretty well. But this is... man, these
carrots are too firm... and half of this is undercooked... Oh geez, I’m really
sorry.”

“Couldn’t you use magic to make it better?”

“Excuse me? Are you just trying to pick a
fight with me like that? You’re picking a fight, aren’t you?”

Grabbing my shoulder, she started shaking me
back and forth. My head rattled from side to side. Miki seemed to find this
amusing, and with a grin on her face refused to stop.

“You two look like you’re having a blast, for
a couple of freshman shitstains.”

With a start, Miki turned to face the source
of the malice-filled voice.

Sauntering towards us was a third year with
long blond hair and dark roots. Although his fashion sense immediately outed
him as a delinquent, his degeneracy didn’t seem nearly as refined as Masato’s.
I quickly discerned that what set him off was seeing an unassuming guy like me
eating lunch with a world-class girl like Miki.

The long-haired blond, who by now was beside
us, looked down at Miki with the vulgar eyes of a small-time brute.

“Now that I look atcha up close, you’re
hella fuckin’ hot.”

“...Thank you.”

“Hey, wanna go for a drive with me next
Sunday? I just got my license, so I wanna hit the road.”

“I appreciate your kind invitation.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m busy that day.”

Putting on a sweetly smile, Miki
diplomatically declined. I was impressed that someone as audacious as her could
respond like that.

Although the long-haired blond initially
narrowed his eyes in irritation, as he continued casting his viscous gaze at
Miki, a crude smile began to slowly dance around his lips.

“Man, normally this is where I’d back
off, but... You’re so damn hot I just can’t. I think I’ve
fallen for ya already. Fuck, man, you gotta go out with me!”

Upon hearing this, Miki’s poker face broke
down for the first time, and she grimaced.

“C’mon, you can’t just leave a guy hangin’
like that! ...Oh, that reminds me. You mind if I switch topics for a
sec? You wouldn’t think a guy like me would give a shit, but I actually
can’t fuckin’ stand people who disrespect public morals. I’m always thinkin’
about how I wanna stamp guys like that out. It’s like, uh, one of those
world peace-type things.”

Although he was clearly violating several
school regulations himself, he continued his speech.

“So the other day, right, I see these
two second-years named Takahashi and Shinjou gettin’ it on after class. Man, my
sense of justice flared up like you wouldn’t fucking believe. The campus is
sacred, ya know, you can’t just go dirty it up by having sex here! And I’m
like, I can’t just sit here and watch this. So I was thinkin’,
the best thing to do would be to get them to break up. That shit’s what they
call an illicit sexual relationship, man. So I brought over a couple of
my buddies and we broke them up. But chicks are like, they can’t bear it if
they don’t have a boyfriend, right? I felt super bad for her. Me and my
buddies were worried Shinjou’d be all lonely, so to prevent that we decided to
take turns being her lover. Well, until we got bored of her body, at least.”

This was bad. I may have called him a
small-time brute, but it looked like I had underestimated his deviancy. 

And unfortunately, I was a far cry from some
protagonist who could easily take down a small fry; I was Student A, who was at
his wit’s end at the mere sight of a delinquent.

“I’m like a demon who uphold the public
morals. Looks like I might have to do the same thing here, huh.”

“Well... the two of us weren’t doing anything
untoward.”

Although her reply was stout-hearted, Miki’s
voice was trembling. It seemed that she too could do nothing but tremble, no
matter how unrefined this delinquent’s brand of violence was.

“I guess you’re right. Well, I
can let off the hook for becoming my lover this time. But ya gotta at least
spend an evening with me. If you don’t, I get the feeling that your
boyfriend there won’t be able to make it to school anymore... So, let me ask
again.”

Having established just how dangerous he was,
the long-haired blond asked again.

“You’ll go for a drive with me, won’tcha?”

“...If you insist.”

Miki answered him expressionlessly.

When I looked at her face, she was smiling.

“Don’t worry about me, Kouta. I’m a magus, I’m
sure I can manage.”

There’s no way that was true. If she could use
magic to do something about this situation, she would have done so already. And
there’s no way she would be trembling so much.

“Oh yeah, I should clear it with your
boyfriend. We all good?”

“I’m thinking.”

Frowning, I crossed my arms.

“By the way, is it really true that you want
to make friends with Miki?”

“Hah?”

“I understand the desire to fulfill your
sexual desires, I really do. I understand how strongly a person would want to
have sex with a cute girl. But... if we compare how much you do want to how much Miki doesn’t want to, Miki’s desire not to is stronger.
That’s the way I see it. So I’d really rather you didn’t.”

For some reason, the long-haired blond seemed
taken aback.

“The fuck is this kid talking about?”

You asked “we all good?”, so I answered.
That’s all there is to it...

It was clearly my job to stop him. Although I
had only just met Miki, she was taking action on my behalf. But if I tried to
oppose him with violence, I would just be met in kind and thoroughly
outclassed. I had to consider retribution, as well. So what options did I have
left?

For some reason, Masato’s catchphrase sprung
to mind.

I wanna
kill someone.

 

“Ryuusuke Yamazaki.”

I then heard a voice that belonged to the same
person the catchphrase did. Although he wasn’t raising his voice, I could hear
it from somewhere above me.

When I looked up, I could see Masato staring
at us expressionlessly from the second-floor hallway window.

Masato pointed at me and spoke succinctly.

“He’s with me.”

Succinct as it was, that was sufficient for
the blond, who was apparently named Yamazaki, to display an uncomfortable look
on his face.

“...Hey, Yahara. Didn’t know this
capybara-lookin’ kid was a friend of yours. It’s not like I was tryin’
to pick a fight with a buddy of yours or anythin’.”

“Uh huh.”

With a bored look on his face, Masato wandered
away from the window.

Yamazaki was a vicious delinquent who casually
terrorized the rest of the student body. But in spite of this, he seemed unable
to turn on Masato despite the latter being a first-year.

It seemed I had unintentionally made friends
in high places.

Scratching his head and frowning, Yamazaki
whispered in my ear.

“If Masato’s sticking up for you, does that
mean you’re the ‘manager’ I’ve heard so much about? Are you in the
middle of ‘stocking up’?”

I had no
idea what he was talking about.

“Well, no
skin off my back. If you get any cute girls in, send ‘em my way, wouldja?”

Giving my
back a firm thump, Yamazaki quickly strode off.

I turned
to face Miki.

“Kouta.”

Rather
than being relieved, Miki stared intently at my face. I had never seen her look
this scared.

“I thought
I understood, but you really are... Kouta, aren’t you. You really just see
things the way they are.”

That’s...
unlike her previous statements about “magic resistance,” that’s a little easier
to understand.

“Look, I
know he saved us this time around. And I’m sorry, but there’s something I have
to say.”

Miki
peered into my eyes.

“Please
don’t spend any more time around that guy. I’d like you to also avoid that
Yamazaki guy from just now, and a second-year named Matsumi too.”

I had no
intention of breaking ties with Masato, so for now I just nodded.

But as if
picking up on my noncommittal response, Miki heaved a heavy sigh.

“I really
do need to protect you.”



Protect.

Let’s
suppose for a moment that magic really was something capable of protecting me.
Let’s suppose it’s something that could enrich my life.

Even if
that’s the case, there’s something I can’t tell Miki.

I couldn’t
really care less.

I
couldn’t care less what happens to me.





I can’t
really remember how I got to know Masato. We sat near each other in class, and
before I knew it we were regularly chatting.

But I
didn’t spend time with him outside of school. We never hung out together, and
we didn’t chat on the phone. If we got put into different classes, it’s
entirely possible we would stop interacting altogether. Barring that, even not
sitting near each other might be enough to put a halt to our conversations.

But once,
I think it was about two weeks ago? He called me to a park near my home at one
in the morning.

Masato
wouldn’t tell me, so I didn’t know what was going on, but when I got there I
was startled by how haggard he seemed. I got the impression that it didn’t
matter who, he just needed someone to talk to.

Atop a
rusting jungle gym with an out-of-order sign plastered on it, the two of us
held a rather aimless conversation. After glancing at the “no balls allowed”
sign, the out-of-order vending machine, and the rather unenticing public
restroom for the dozenth time, Masato gave an obviously fake laugh and quipped,
“This fucking place is less a park and more of a cesspit.”

Atop the
jungle gym, Masato took a drag from his cigarette as he toyed with a butterfly
knife. Although he was a minor, he was no stranger to cigarettes, beer, and
occasionally even harder drugs. However, he never offered me any. And even when
he was engaging in such antisocial practices, he showed not a glimpse of
enjoyment but the same bored expression as always.

The moon
was so full that night I thought it might perhaps be a supermoon<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermoon</ref>, and its
illumination was clearly making Masato uncomfortable.

“Kou,
whaddya see when you look up at the moon?”

I answered
automatically.

“A
rabbit.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit</ref>”

“You’re
just saying that ‘cause everyone else does, right? Let’s be real, it doesn’t
even look that much like a fucking rabbit.”

He was
totally right. Looking back up at the moon again, I completely agreed.

“So what
do you see?”

I
generally tried to avoid answering questions like this, as I inevitably got
mocked for my lack of imagination.

“To be
blunt, the moon doesn’t look like much of anything to me.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“I mean, I
can’t really see the craters as anything but craters.”

But rather
than mock me for my entirely mockable answer, Masato looked almost impressed.

“Huh, so
that’s your angle.”

Seeming
pleased, he lit another cigarette.

“Makes
sense. Hell, if anything it’s weirder to assign meaning to shit like that.”

I wasn’t
sure what he was so pleased about.

To fill
the lull in the conversation, I asked a question of little import.

“Masato,
why do you act like a delinquent?”

“You’re a
cheeky little bastard. Normally if you asked a delinquent that, they’d beat you
senseless.”

But Masato
gave me a serious answer.

“I
just didn’t know a way to resist it.”

It wasn’t
a very concrete answer. But I could tell that Masato himself didn’t have
anything firmer.

The
conversation died down again, so I asked the next question that came to mind as
I gazed upwards.

“What does
the moon look like to you, Masato?”

Furrowing
his brow, Masato tossed his cigarette aside.

“Whenever I
look up, I get uneasy. Even though I know I can’t reach
it, I wanna smash it. So on bright nights like these, I always
just look at my feet.”

He put a
new cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

“Feels
like there’s a monster baring its fangs above me.”

Wrenching
his face in despair, Masato whispered as if he were spitting out a mouthful of
blood.

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere In-Text Illustration 1.jpg|900px]]

“Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.”

 

 

“It’s been
a while since we walked home together, Masato.”

We hadn’t
planned it ahead of time. But our houses were in the same direction, and we
were both in the so-called going home club, so we occasionally found ourselves
walking together. The reason it had been so long was due to a certain magus
attaching herself to my hip.

By the
way, the magus in question had been invited somewhere today by her friend
Sayuri, who apparently wouldn’t take no for an answer. Although I was surprised
that Miki was able to make friends at all in the face of her blatant audacity,
it turned out she was actually on good terms with most of the girls in her
class. Of course, this was self-reported, so I had no way of confirming whether
it was true or not.

By the
way, when I expressed my surprise at the size of her friend group, Miki got
rather indignant. She then went on an incomprehensible lecture about how
maintaining the unstable bonds of female friendship was part of magic’s
wheelhouse or something. Well, her communication skills were exceptional, so
perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all.

“You’re
thinking about that chick again, aren’tcha. You’re fucking engrossed.”

“Kinda.”

“You’re
supposed to deny it, man, I’m just fucking with you.”

After
letting him know that I had, in fact, been thinking about her, Masato gave off
a sigh while smirking. 

“Go figure.”

Without
breaking his smirk, Masato continued.

“Ya know,
that magus freak told me to stay away from you the other day.”

“Really?
Miki did?”

Masato’s
eyes reflected their assent.

“I told
you, right? Kouzuki and I will never get along. She fucking hates me.”

That
reminded me. Miki had told me to stop spending time with Masato.

“Are you
sure you didn’t just make fun of magic or something?”

“I
might’ve.”

“C’mon!”

“But this
and that don’t have jack shit to do with each other. She just can’t stand the
two of us being around each other.”

The word
“jealousy” sprung to mind, but Miki had really just been one-sidedly meddling
in my affairs.

All she
could think about was magic.

“I guess
you being around me gets in the way of her plan to make me into a magus?”

“That’s
pretty much on the mark.”

I was
surprised at Masato’s matter-of-fact answer.

“Wait, do
you understand what she means by ‘magic’? Is that why you can tell why she
hates you?”

Masato’s
brows furrowed.

“Hmm...
it’s not like I understand it per se. But us not being able to see
eye-to-eye shakes out to about the same thing.”

“I’m not
sure I follow.”

“I
mean, you’re starting to get an idea of what her magic is, right? She’s been
dragging you around for two damn weeks now.”

“...Sort
of.”

“Vaguely” was about the level my understanding
capped out at.

It was just like translating English into
Japanese; coming up with a word to describe magic was difficult. But I could
tell by now that it wasn’t “sorcery” or “witchcraft”.

As far as I could tell, the kind of magic Miki
was talking about generally referred to something along the lines of
“imposition of notions.”

But it wasn’t just brainwashing, where you
could impose things forcibly. Things like daily habits and cultural norms,
where they took root before you even noticed, were also included in her
definition of magic. Miki’s vision of a magus was likely someone who could
freely manipulate the notions of others. When she said I didn’t have any magic
resistance, what she meant was that I was in danger because my notions would
change so readily.

But I couldn’t understand what made people
without magic resistance better at becoming magi. I didn’t see why spend time
around Masato would keep me from becoming one, either. I felt like there was
still quite a bit to magic that I didn’t understand.

“Quit thinkin’.”

Speaking rudely, Masato lightly jabbed my
solar plexus.

“No
good’ll come of a dumbass thinking too hard.”

“Surely there’s a kinder way to put that.”

Masato tilted his head with a playful look on
his face. But just as I was thinking that, his expression grew grave.

“Honestly, some of the stuff Kouzuki’s talkin’
about has merit. Even I’d rather you go be a happy-go-lucky magus freak
than a homicidal delinquent.”

“What? I mean, I’d really rather not become
either...”

I responded with a light-hearted joke, but
Masato’s intense expression didn’t fade.

“Well, if you don’t think about it too much
you can probably stay just the way you are.”

“Kusukusu...kusukusukusu...”

We heard a peculiar laugh that sounded as if
someone were exhaling through a gap in their teeth.

The two of us turned our heads. Behind us
stood a short girl. Her jet-black hair hung down in braids in the back, with
her bangs were cut at a diagonal slant. I could infer from her sailor uniform’s
green ribbon that she was a second-year. While that meant that she was older
than us, her childlike face gave off a very different impression. That,
combined with her innocent expression, would have led me to believe in an
instant if I were told she was a grade-schooler. Upon closer inspection,
though, her bust was large enough to leave a thoroughly immoral impression.

But her most notable characteristic was her
peculiar eyes. Although they were as just as black as her hair, they seemed
somehow out of focus and were oddly reminiscent of a rainbow.

“You two are quite interesting.”

There was nobody else around, so it seemed the
unfamiliar upperclassman was addressing us.

“Hello.”

With the expression of a pleased child, she
gave a quick bow. I returned the greeting.

“...Masato, do you know her?”

Pulling a wry face, Masato shook his head.

“Kusukusu... you really are
interesting!”

Her smile was innocent. But it was strange. In
fact, it was so innocent, it was unsettling.

“Whaddya want?”

Masato spit out the question in his usual
aggressive manner, but the upperclassman showed no sign of fear. Nor did she
even seem to mind. It seemed like she was a bit slow when it came to
interpreting other people’s emotions.

“Oh, Ririko was just thinking how she wanted
to become good friends with Hiiragi!”

It seemed she knew my last name.

Although she had called us “interesting,” I
quickly realized that she was paying little attention to us. Her gaze seemed to
be drifting all over.

“What did you find so interesting? Our conversation?”

“Yes. Aaaand no.”

Her voice dripped with saccharine. But it
wasn’t the type of flirtatious saccharine that Miki occasionally put on for
play.

It was like a child’s. Not just that, but her
behavior and expressions were like those of a child as well.

“What’s so interesting about you two are the
call signs you’re giving off.”

“...Call signs?”

“Yup. Call signs.”

Although I parroted her words back at her, no
explanation was forthcoming. It felt as though she thought her manner of
speaking were the most natural thing in the world.

As if striking upon something, Masato suddenly
asked her a question.

“Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?”

“Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course.”

Without any questions as to how Masato knew
her name, the upperclassman named Ririko Matsumi nodded.

“Masato, who is she?”

“Her name gets around. You can guess why,
right?”

Indeed. If this was representative of her
standard behavior, it was no surprise that people would have heard of her.

Oh, right. Now I think about it, “Matsumi” was
also on the list of people Miki told me to stay away from. And on top of that,
I vaguely remembered hearing rumors about her somewhere.

“Interesting, aren’t they? White and
ultramarine, huh. Aren’t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko
likes white, you know. Makes her want to do something.”

Unable to contain her excitement,
Matsumi-senpai continued.

“Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?”

“Read me?”

I parroted her words again.

“Oh, that’s right. Most people can’t do
scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!”

Puffing up her chest proudly, she spread her
hands as if to say “here I go!”

In a flash, her innocent expression vanished.

It was replaced with something inhuman, almost
mannequin-like.

A strange voice. A voice that couldn’t quite
be said to be coming from her throat. The noise sounded exactly like that of a
machine, but it was clearly emanating from her half-open mouth.

As if being infiltrated by darkness, her eyes
slowly lost their light. They lost their focus and seemed to stop perceiving
altogether. But I could tell. Even though they were out of focus, they were
holding me tight in their gaze and refusing to let go. As if I were afflicted
with paralysis, I was unable to so much as wiggle a fingertip.

What was going on?

Still frozen in shock, I could see Masato out
of the corner of my eye. Although Masato despised other people showing weakness
around him, he was simply staring speechless.

Everything about this was abnormal.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

As if it were travelling not through my
eardrums but through my bones, I could feel the noise resound within my body. I
couldn’t tell where it was coming from anymore. Coming not from in front of
me, nor behind me, nor beside me or above me, that mechanical noise simply
wrapped around me and continued resonating.

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise rang in concert with my very cells.
My entire body trembled with stinging pain, almost as if I were being scalded.

I still couldn’t move my legs. I couldn’t move
at all. It had transformed from paralysis into sheer violence. A paralysis so
strong it felt as though my body were bound with electric cables. Cables that
both bound me and tore me to pieces. They exposed me, comprehended me, bound up
my insides and scattered them.

While exposing my everything, those eyes
continued holding me. Capturing everything, yet reflecting nothing. Eyes that
were both jet-black and snow white.

“Scanning complete.”

As Matsumi-senpai said that, the scenery
returned and the world began turning once more. Of course, I knew that the
scenery had never left. The only thing that had changed was me. For just that
moment, the “me” who was able to perceive that scenery was changed.

Only a few seconds should have passed. But
those seconds felt so dense that I would have believed if I was told that hours
or even days had passed.

A breath.

Good... I took a breath.

I can still breathe.

“Well then, next up is...”

The innocent girl’s eyes turned to Masato.

“Ah—”

Masato’s eyes were wide open. I had never seen
him like this before.

Matsumi-senpai’s eyes, which by now had
returned to their original color, steadily became black and white again.

“...don’t.”

“Beep bi—”

“DON’T!!”

Masato screamed.

In response to his ragged breathing and scared
demeanor, Matsumi-senpai lips began to quiver.

“You don’t have to shout like that, you
know...”

Despite being the source of Masato’s terror,
she simply pouted, seemingly as indifferent as ever to the emotions of others.

“Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just
now...?”

“Hold on, hold on. Ririko’s going to put it
into words now.”

Matsumi-senpai stood still, her mouth hanging
lazily half-open.

She stayed in that state for a little while,
not so much as moving a muscle.

“Kouta Hiiragi, age fifteen.”

Still expressionless, her mouth began moving,
and like a machine began speaking.

“Lives with his parents and younger sister.
Lives in a room with a skylight on the second floor of an old single-family
home. Has many friends, but no close friends. Values emotional distance. Has
recently begun courting a member of the opposite sex. Virgin. Gets tired when
conversing with others. Largely apathetic towards himself.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. But
as she went on, it became clear that she was talking about me.

“Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her
hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent
approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing
cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen
to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally good
at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others
with-”

“Th... that’s enough! Matsumi-senpai, please
cut it out!”

I raised my voice, almost to a scream, and
Matsumi-senpai, whose eyes had been open this whole time, finally blinked. Her
expression began coming back.

“So? So? How was that? How’d you like my
scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?”

She looked like a proud kindergartener asking how
good her crayon drawing was. Knowing that it would make her happy, I decided to
humor her and nodded vigorously.

I didn’t want to listen to this anymore.

I didn’t want to learn anything about myself.

“Senpai, can we go now?”

For some reason, Masato seemed exhausted.

“Whaaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He’s
white, after all! He’s the only one!”

“Sorry, but we got places to be.”

“Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it
can’t be helped then.”

Matsumi-senpai’s shoulders slumped.

“Ririko guesses she’ll see you later then,
Tanihara.”

His lips pursed, Masato scowled at
Matsumi-senpai.

“Huh? Aren’t you Tanihara?”

“It’s read ‘Yahara’<ref>Masato's last name, 谷原, can be read as either 'Yahara' or 'Tanihara'</ref>, Senpai.”

“You’re kidding! Ririko wonders why she made
that mistake... Ririko wonders if it’s because the scanning stopped partway?
Oh, by the way! Ririko doesn’t normally make that kind of mistake! Ririko's
normally always right!”

Waving both her hands, Matsumi-senpai gave an
odd excuse. 

But neither of us could muster the energy for
a rebuttal, so we simply turned and walked away.

 

Walking in silence, we passed through a
deserted shopping district, with almost half the stores shuttered up. I felt
like my feet couldn’t quite reach the ground. I was filled with an unpleasant
floating sensation.

What exactly was that “scanning”?
Wasn’t that magic? And a foul magic at that, one that overturned every value I
once held.

It felt like the world was shaking. Although
there was no heat haze to speak of, I was having difficulty telling exactly
where the ground was. It was as if I should have able to fly, but for some
absurd reason the cracked concrete was shackling me to the earth.

Perhaps it was a childish delusion. But...
that’s right. Ririko Matsumi had no such restrictions. And perhaps she was so
absurd a person as to truly believe she could fly.

“Kou.”

Breaking the silence, Masato spoke.

“Get this through your head. Don’t talk to
that birdbrain ever again. She’ll be a bad influence on you, got it?”

I wasn’t sure what harm a simple conversation
could do, but Masato looked dead serious, so I just responded with a firm nod.

Honestly, I was surprised that Masato would
show such concern for me. He reminded me of Miki.

“Masato, did you understand what was going on
with that scanning thing?”

“... not even a little.”

I see. So he had “not even a little” desire to
explain it to me, huh.

But even knowing that, I didn’t feel the need
to press the issue. If he didn’t want to tell me, it wasn’t like I could make
him.

The traffic light in front of us turned red.

We stopped.

“Fuck.”

Masato spit out a small expletive and began
chewing on his lip.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why the hell’d we stop?”

“The light
was red, wasn’t it?”

“There’s
no cars here.”

I looked
both ways to verify his statement. Indeed, there were no automobiles in sight.

“...Then
do you want to cross?”

“That’s
not what I’m talking about... that’s not what I’m fucking talking about. I’m
asking why I stopped.”

I was
perplexed. What was Masato so irritated about?

“Well, red
means stop, so obviously we’d stop, right?”

“Right.
Even though we coulda crossed, we stopped just because that’s how it works.”

Masato
began scratching at his head, almost as if he were trying to plug up his ears.

“Masato,
is something the matter? Is it because of that upperclassman?”

“...Yeah, I
guess. There’s something wrong with me right now. There’d have to be for me to
talk to you like this, huh.”

The light
turned green.

“Masato,
let’s go.”

“Right...”

As he
began walking, I could see Masato’s expression surpass irritation and shift to
rage. He was scratching at himself to an abnormal degree. The expression he was
giving made it seem as if his entire body were swarming with caterpillars and
they were digging under his skin to lay eggs.

With no
change in demeanor, Masato spoke.

“Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.”

I could
tell.

We were
past the point of no return.

 

 

The day
after our encounter with Ririko Matsumi, Masato didn’t show up at school.

That
wasn’t too strange in and of itself. Masato had skipped school twice in that
past for little to no reason. But given the state he had been in yesterday, I
couldn’t help but be concerned.

I
wanna kill someone.

He was
just saying it like he always did, right?

“Good
morning, Kouta.”

I heard a
voice I was now fairly used to. I turned my head and responded.

“Good
morning, Miki.”

“...Yahara
isn’t here today, huh.”

Her voice
lacked its usual pluck. Her expression also seemed somewhat gloomy.

“What’s
wrong? You seem out of sorts.”

“You can
tell?”

Giving a
weak smile, Miki heaved a sigh.

‘You can
tell?’, huh.

It was
obvious that she was wearing her lack of energy on her face to elicit my
concern. But I kept that to myself and simply nodded.

“Would you
mind coming to the courtyard with me, Kouta?”

“Right
now?”

There
wasn’t that much time left before class began.

“Yeah...
there’s something I want to talk to you about, and I’d rather not be
overheard.”

In other
words, it was a matter of some importance. That was what Miki was trying to
convey. She was extraordinarily skilled at conveying her intentions to others.

So I put
on an obedient expression.

 

The sky
was overcast and it looked liable to start raining at any moment, so the
courtyard was unpleasantly chilly. The scent of earth mingled with the
humidity, and I felt as though I might choke.

Regardless
of the fact that she herself was the one who called us here, Miki simply hung
her head in silence. It created an oddly docile atmosphere.

“Miki,
what was it you wanted to talk about?”

Although I
tried to break the ice, Miki still just cast her eyes down. Realizing that I
should wait for her to speak, I did just that.

“...I’m
really just a bother, aren’t I.”

That was
the first thing that came out of her mouth.

“I’m not
blind. I can at least tell that I’m a bother...”

“Um...
what’s this, all of a sudden?”

Even if
Miki had realized that she was being bothersome, she had gone to some lengths
to feign airheadedness and conceal it.

“I spent
all day yesterday thinking about how I could deal with this without having to
do something wrong.”

I wasn’t
sure what brought about this abrupt change of heart. All I knew was that I
shouldn’t point out the fact that it was a change of heart. If I did,
Miki would become difficult to deal with.

Miki’s
eyes grew watery, and she seemed to put herself on guard.

As far as
I was concerned, that was much more worrying than the actual words coming out
of her mouth.

“What do
you mean by something ‘wrong’?”

“Pushing
magic on you would be wrong. I know that people laugh at me and call me
delusional. But even so, I was trying to forcibly push my value system on you.”

I didn’t
really care about that. And Miki should have known that.

“But, you
know... even though I knew what I was doing was wrong, I couldn’t bear watching
you turn into an insane magus! I just couldn’t!”

Her eyes
still moist, she spoke with conviction.

I couldn’t
say anything. As I still didn’t fully comprehend magic, I couldn’t understand
what Miki was saying. But that aside, in the face of Miki’s staunch
earnestness, I felt it would be improper to interject, so I couldn’t say
anything.

“So I’ve
been thinking.”

Miki took
my right hand and embraced it in hers. My heart began pounding at the
unexpected feel of her touch. Miki peered at me with teary eyes.

It felt
very intentional. She was intentionally manipulating my heartrate. But in her
eyes, I could see her slyness tinged with indecision.

Closing
her eyes for the first time in some time, Miki let out a long sigh. I could
feel her grip on my hand tighten ever-so-slightly.

...How
strange. I felt a warmth other than simple body heat transfer from her hands to
mine. If she told me that it was part of her magic, I wouldn’t doubt it for a
second.

Miki
opened her eyes again.

They were
filled with resolution.

They
seemed to be entreating me.

“Kouta...
do you think you could fall for me?”

Her
unexpected question left me speechless.

“Or is
that impossible, I wonder...”

It was,
quite clearly, a confession.

Perhaps to
an outsider, confessing in this situation might seem completely natural. But as
the party in question, I could tell how unhealthy it was.

After all,
Miki was simply trying to protect me. It wasn’t as if she held any romantic
feelings towards me. I understood that much.

“Am I...
no good?”

“Th...
that’s not it at all! You’re extremely charming, Miki!”

Reflexively,
I gave Miki the exact response she was looking for.

Of course,
it was true that she was charming. Her looks would make her at home in any idol
group, and although she was selfish, she had a timidly side to her that obsessively
took the needs of the others into consideration as well.

But that
was nothing more than an objective observation. What did I personally think of
her?

To begin
with...

Under what
circumstances would I fall for a girl?

“Do you
think you could fall for me?”

“That’s...”

Even
though I knew what answer she was looking for, I couldn’t bring myself to say
it.

“...Kouta,
you’re a guy, right?”

“Well,
yes.”

“Even if
you only want me for my body, if that’s enough to get you to fall for me,
I’m... okay with that.”

Miki’s
eyes then widened.

“S...sorry!
I said something really weird! But... I really do want you to fall for me! Even
if that’s what it takes!”

I couldn’t
comprehend it. I couldn’t comprehend why she would go to such lengths.

...No,
that’s not true. For the sake of magic, she would go to any lengths. She felt
the need to do something about me and my lack of magic resistance. Even if it
meant sacrificing her own chastity, she had to protect the notion of magic.

Miki
wouldn’t be Miki if she didn’t abide by her magic.

But even
recognizing that, I was still uneasy. Although I couldn’t put it to words,
there was something that didn’t sit right with me.

There was
one thing I was sure of, though. Regardless of how it looked, Miki sought me.
Knowing that, how could I turn down her confession?

The answer
was simple. I couldn’t.

“I will
fall for you. So you don’t have to say weird stuff like that anymore.”

Miki’s
eyes widened, and she stared straight at me. 

“So you
mean we’re going out now?”

“Yup.”

“You’re
okay with this? I’m going to be your first girlfriend, right? Are you okay with
it being me? You can’t take it back, you know that, right? You know you’ll take
on my attribute, right?”

“Like I
said, I’m fine with that.”

Before my eyes, Miki’s expression brightened.

“Really?
You’re really okay with this? ...Yay. Yay!”

The teary
expression she had been displaying up until a moment ago vanished like it had
never been there, and she broke into a radiant smile. Seeing it, I was
convinced I had made the right decision and was filled with relief.

I was fine
with this.

“Yay!
Thanks so much, Kouta! I look forward to our continued times together!”

Miki
merrily shook my hand up and down.

My
discomfort didn’t fade, but there was one thing I knew for sure. From now on,
Miki and I would spend a great deal more time together. Little by little, we
would stop holding back around each other. My days would be fulfilling, and I
might even earn the jealousy of my peers. That was the shape my life would take
from now on.

I
recognized this, and accepted it without resistance.

Just
according to Miki’s script.

 

 

A week had
passed since Miki’s confession. Unsurprisingly, we had grown a good deal
closer, but Miki hardly behaved as if we were lovers and instead treated me
much the same as before. So I did the same.

But Miki
the object of no small amount of attention. The fact that we were dating
quickly became public and rapidly circulated throughout the school. Even if the
way we treated each other didn’t change, the way the people around us reacted
did. Feeling cramped by the way the people around me forced their definitions
onto us, even my awareness of our relationship began to gradually shift. Before
long, pressure from the peanut gallery would likely transform us into a
conventional boyfriend and girlfriend.

I see. So
Miki formally asked me out knowing that this would happen.

“Well
then, I look forward to another week together!”

“Yup. See
you later.”

As we
parted at the usual street, Miki exaggeratedly waved me goodbye. I smiled at
her and returned the wave.

 Miki and I had made plans to spend the day at
her house on the Sunday of next week. Although she had said that her parents
would be out of the house, I harbored no improper expectations. Or did I? What
did I want to become of my relationship with Miki?

Honestly, there was something I was much more
concerned about than our relationship.

Masato.

Masato still hadn’t shown up at school. He
wasn’t returning my calls, and my LINE messages to him were marked unread.
Dropping out of school would have been in-character for him, so his
non-attendance wasn’t strange in and of itself. But based on his demeanor from
the last time we talked, I was concerned something bad had happened to him.

“You aren’t with Tanihara today?”

Right, after we met the owner of that voice,
Masato started acting strangely. The first time she showed up, his gears began
coming undone.

With a childish smile, Ririko Matsumi ignored
my stiff expression and spoke in a lively voice.

“Hello, Hiiragi!”

“...Hello. But Senpai, his name is Yahara, not
Tanihara.”

“Ah, right. It was, wasn’t it.”

Matsumi-senpai laughed, as if she were pleased
about something.

“Do you live in this direction as well,
Senpai?”

“Nope, Ririko chased after you because she wanted
to chat! You seemed like you were having fun talking to Kouzuki, so Ririko
decided not to interrupt you. Admirable of me, huh?”

It seemed
she had decided to follow me.

“Mhm. You
really are an interesting color, Hiiragi. But you’re a little yellower than you
were before. I wonder if that’s Kouzuki’s fault? Was it because you were
flirting with her, maybe? I don’t like it. I’d really rather you stayed white.”

As always,
she was off in her own world.

“Is Miki
not an interesting color? After all, she’s quite the character.”

“Hmm.
Having a bit of pink in you is rare and all, but I think I’ve seen a color like
that before. Anyways, it’s not much to look at.”

Perhaps
Miki was less of a character than I thought? I wasn’t really sure what to make
of this whole call sign business.

“Ririko
wanted to chat with Yahara as well, but she hasn’t seen him at all since
then...”

“I haven’t
seen him either. I don’t even know what he’s up to these days.”

For some
reason, Matsumi-senpai tilted her head at those words.

“You don’t
know what he’s up to? Even though you’re his friend? You don’t have awful
reception, do you?”

“Reception?”

“Yeah,
reception. ...Haven’t you heard of reception?”

I was of
course familiar with the word, but the context Matsumi-senpai was using it in
eluded me.

“Then do
you want Ririko to look into it for you? She had to stop scanning him partway
through, but... Ririko has pretty high fidelity, you see, so she thinks it’ll
be okay! She can find Yahara!”

“You can
find... you mean you know where he is?”

“Of course
Ririko does! Ririko isn’t a child, you know!”

Apparently
to Matsumi-senpai, not being able to do this reception thing was on the same
level as not being able to ride a bike.

“Ah... but
you don’t get reception, Hiiragi? Umm... don’t worry! Ririko has times when she
can’t really get a sense for it, either! Don’t let it get you down!”

For some
reason I was being cheered up.

“Here,
Ririko will go over the basics. See, there are these things floating around in
the air, right? Ririko doesn’t really know what they’re called... Particles?
Electrons? Wi-Fi? Anyways, you have to catch a bunch of them on your body.
It’ll feel like they’re sticking to your skin, you know? Next, they’ll go like,
bzzzt, and you’ll start seeing a faint picture, and you have to focus on that
picture reaaal carefully. But you already knew that, right?”

There was
no way I could have known that, but I kept my comments to myself.

“But see,
the next part’s the tricky bit. Finding the picture you want’s tough, right?
When Ririko does it, she flies way up high. Ririko’s really good at flying, so
she can look out over the whole city. Then, it’ll be something related to the
information you want — so in this case, that
would be something related to Yahara. Once you find that, the reception is
complete!”

“...Did you say ‘flying’?”

There were countless faults to pick with her explanation, so
I chose the one I found most concerning.

“...? Flying in the sky, you know?”

It seemed my question fell on deaf ears. Apparently to
Matsumi-senpai, being able to fly was just as obvious as being able to breathe.

“Alrighty, let’s see if we can get reception.”

As soon as she said that, it was like a switch flipped.

Those eyes again.

Those jet-black eyes, dripping with viscosity, appeared
before me again.

“...Bzz bzz...bzz...bzzt...bzz...”

Noise filtered through her half-open mouth. Occasionally her
shoulders would tremble slightly, as if she were convulsing.

Ah, this person’s broken.

That was what I thought of her inner workings.

The first thing I was confident in was the fact that her
value system didn’t operate according to the same logic as the rest of
humanity’s. She had a culture all her own. Similar to worshippers in a cult,
she put her faith in nonsensical theories. She was closed off from the rest of
the world, much too far away for any to reach. She lived in a lonely little
world.

But in spite of that, her noise easily reached my ears.

An encroachment by her closed world.

Perhaps the sounds I initially thought meaningless were a
kind of language. After all, the noise had a certain regularity to it. It
wasn’t nonsensical. The sound of “Bzz bzz bzz...bzzt bzzt...bzz” reverberated
through my skin and sunk into my pores. Aggressively so. Forcefully so. It
stung like a box cutter. In the face of such a blade, no doubt anyone would
flee in pain.

But I couldn’t run from it. I didn’t know how to.

So instead, I tried to understand Ririko Matsumi.

The noise was touching me.

The noise was touching me.

I had to clearly envision it. I had to translate her world
into an image I could comprehend.

It was a world where everything - the earth, the sea, the
sky - was made of electrical cords. Cords of all lengths and sizes, wriggling
like snakes, ferociously binding all of mankind. In that world, the cords were
gleefully torturing me. The cords were forcibly invading my throat, my
nostrils, my urethra, and my toenails and making them their own. It hurt. Stop
it. I’m human!

Having envisioned enough, I shook my head vigorously and
drove away the translated world.

“Ah...! Haa...haa...”

That was dangerous. If I had dove any deeper, Matsumi-senpai
would have disassembled me and I’d have been taken over by her image. If that
happened, I knew I wouldn’t be able to return to normal.

Ah, I see. That’s why both Miki and Masato told me to stay
away from Matsumi-senpai.

“...Bzz...bzz......huh?”

Color returned to Matsumi-senpai’s eyes.

Taking a deep breath to calm my heart, I asked her.

“What happened?”

“Well... For some reason, Ririko couldn’t get any reception.
How odd... even if the scanning stopped halfway, she should have enough
information to get reception...”

She looked rather sad.

“Ririko wonders if she’s become awful at reception...”

She couldn’t get reception.

Matsumi-senpai’s proclamations were becoming less and less
coherent. And yet her words filled me with a strange sense of dread.

“Does that happen often?”

“Not at all lately! Really! Th- that’s why this is so odd! It’s not
Ririko’s fault... probably...!”

Her head bobbed about like a child giving an excuse. It was
hard to believe that she had simply failed. I could sense that her noise just
now had had a proper regularity to it.

“If the fault doesn’t lie with you, might there be some
problem on Masato’s side that’s making the reception fail?”

“Ah, Ririko sees. That’s probably it. Maybe Yahara’s
information was overwritten since Ririko scanned him the other day.”

“His information was overwritten? Is that a thing that can
happen?”

“Sometimes. You know the saying ‘people can change,’ right?
So call signs themselves can change too.”

If Masato’s value system changed in such a span, could that
have something to do with his inattendance?

What could he have done to make himself change so
drastically?

Ahh... I wanna kill someone.

“...Ah.”

No, let’s not be hasty. Even if, hypothetically, it was the
result of Masato fulfilling that wish of his, could that really change a man
with as strong of homicidal urges as him? ...Ahh, it might. Such a transient
desire being put into a definite form could be said to be a change in and of
itself.

“Hiiragi, you’ve been quiet for a while now. What’s up?”

It was right in front of me.

I understood it now.

Her scanning wasn’t some fantastical delusion, nor was her
reception.

“Senpai, would you mind telling me Masato’s information from
back when you scanned him?”

“Ririko doesn’t mind, but... the scanning was only half
done, remember? It might be buggy. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I nodded.

“You got it. Let me just translate it into Japanese.”

As she said that, she stiffened down to her fingertips. By
now I was used to this unblinking visage of hers.

Acclimatization. Was I acclimating again?

“Masato Tanihara, age 16.”

Once again, Matsumi-senpai mistook Masato’s surname for
“Tanihara”. Perhaps in importing the data, Masato’s name had been
misinterpreted.

“Both parents are alive but neither parent interferes with
him. No siblings. Rejects others. Regards almost all other humans with
contempt. Afflicted with auditory hallucinations. Can hear the noise more
clearly when around people he dislikes. For example, Shuuichi Akiyama. Is
perplexed as to why he does not hear the noise from Ririko Matsumi. Believes that
he wants to kill someone. Believes that he wants to kill someone. Wants to kill
someone. Wants to kill someone. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill—”

“Th-that’s enough!”

Something was clearly amiss, so I shook Matsumi-senpai by the
shoulders. But like a broken record, she just kept saying “wants to kill.”

“Wants to kill... ah... aHh... wants to ahHH! Ah! Ahh! Stop!
Make it stop!”

“S... Senpai!”

“It’s filthy! Masato Tanihara is filthy! Why can’t he just
go crazy!?”

It was obvious from her exclamations that Matsumi-senpai was
in agony. Her eyes no longer seemed mechanical, nor did they seem human.

They simply expressed pain.

“Wh... why...”

Those painful eyes stared straight at me.

“How can you stand to be around someone like him...?”

Seeing Matsumi-senpai like this, I felt like I could
understand her a little better.

She was certainly operating under a different logical
framework then the rest of us. But the person underneath all that was still
human. If she forced herself to emulate something abnormal like that, her
condition would quickly take a turn for the worse. An error would occur.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Letting out a shrill scream, she collapsed to the ground.
Flopping around like an eel, she began vomiting.

“Senpai!”

Matsumi-senpai was writhing in a pool of her own vomit and
convulsing erratically. A strange yellow fluid began oozing out of her tear
glands. After convulsing a little longer, she eventually stopped moving altogether.
She reminded me of a lizard tail that remained moving even after being severed.

“A... are you alright?”

I put some space between us before calling out to her,
slightly alarmed by her bizarre behavior. She didn’t respond, but I could tell
that she was at least breathing. After hesitantly approaching her, I felt her
wrist. Her pulse was accelerated, but not to the point where it seemed she
would be in danger.

I called for an ambulance, and while looking after her,
considered the question I had just been posed.

“How can I stand to be around him, huh?”

I would never say it out loud, let alone around
Matsumi-senpai or Masato, but Masato was alone. His classmates were a given,
but even his family held him at an arm’s length. The more someone got to know
him, the more they would realize that his madness was the real deal. 

The reason I was
around him... was simply because I couldn’t leave, nothing more.

But...

“I’m probably the
only person in the world like that.”

 

 

The week came and
went, and Masato was still nowhere to be seen. Although I searched for him in
my own way, I couldn’t so much as find a clue.

Matsumi-senpai was
still recuperating from her hospitalization and hadn’t shown up at school
either. There was something she had mentioned that I couldn’t get out of my
mind that I wanted to ask her about, but her absence made that impossible.

What caught my
attention was a name that had come up in the scanning’s translation.

The name “Shuuichi
Akiyama.”

 

“You seem really
restless today, Kouta.”

Miki remarked with a
concerned frown.

“...Do I?”

“Yeah. It’s like
you’re only half here.”

True to his diligent
nature, Akiyama was always the first person to show up for class.

But as far as today
went, Akiyama had yet to show up at school.

The man who Masato
hated so intensely that his name came up in the scanning had yet to show up at
school.

I was probably
overthinking it. Even Akiyama could get sick, and it wasn’t inconceivable that
he might simply oversleep.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

There’s no way.

There’s no way that’s
the case.

“You really
aren’t paying any attention. You’ve been glancing over at the door for
forever.”

Having this called to
my attention, I apologize to Miki.

“...You’re worried
about Yahara, right? You’re looking over at the door because you’re hoping
he’ll show up.”

She was half right.
But right now, I was hoping for Akiyama to show up even more.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

Anyone in the class
would probably have heard him say it at least once. But despite their fear of
him, most simply wrote it off as edgy nonsense.

But I knew better.

Every time he said
it, Masato meant it.

It was a phrase
designed to encourage a man who found himself unable to cross that line.
Masato, who so disgusted Matsumi-senpai, who put Miki on such guard, was the
real deal.

That’s right — I had
been able to grasp Masato for quite some time.

Suddenly, the bell
rang. But Akiyama’s usual command to take our seats wasn’t forthcoming.

“Now that you mention
it, it doesn’t look like the class rep’s here today, huh.”

I froze at Miki’s
words, but she was looking at the clock, not at me.

“Welp, I should be
heading back now. Let’s give it our all today!”

As a result, she
didn’t notice my change and cheerfully stood up and left.

The other side of my
conversation now gone, I closed myself away in my heart. But I myself wasn’t
there. Inside my heart were other people. Countless other people.

And among them, the
one with the largest presence was that man I had been grasping onto.

Although he was
grinning, he didn’t seem the least bit pleased. The words that sprung forth
from that pained smile were much what one would expect.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

 

I hadn’t realized it
was possible to so anxiously await a homeroom teacher’s arrival. Based on his
personality, if Akiyama was sick or running late, he would no doubt have
contacted the school to inform them. Once the teacher arrived, all of my
uneasiness would be put to rest.

But they still
weren’t here. It had already been ten minutes since the bell had rung. 

Time seemed to be violently slowing down, and my heart was beating so
loudly I could hear it echo in my ears. As if the second hand was putting on
airs, the minutes refused to pass.

Another ten minutes
passed, and the teacher still hadn’t shown up.

The classes on either
side of mine were still raucous. Did that mean that our homeroom teacher wasn’t
the only one who had yet to show up? Did the staff meeting run over? And if it
had, why?

I was so confident in
my ill premonition that it gave me chills. Upon holding my head in my hands, I
finally heard footsteps.

The door to the
classroom swung open. But the homeroom teacher didn’t enter alone. For some
reason, the principle was accompanying them.

Both of them wore
very intentional grave expressions, almost as if they knew they had to.

“Erm... I have a very
serious announcement to make to all of you, so please make sure you remain
calm.”

The principal began
speaking.

“Just now, we
received contact from the police... And be assured, we are all just as alarmed
as you are...”

I already knew the
answer. I knew quite clearly what the principal was about to say. So I couldn’t
muster up nearly as much shock at the word “homicide” as my classmates did.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
<references />

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|-
| Back to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents|Table of Contents]]
| Return to [[We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

File:We Don't Open Anywhere In-Text Illustration 1.jpg

2017-11-17T01:39:25Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Character Illustrations

2017-11-17T01:32:32Z

Kooritsukai: Created page with "700px '''Miki Kouzuki''' "I’ll protect you with my magic." “Oh right, I guess it would be pretty confusing to be told out of th..."

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Miki.jpg|700px]]

'''Miki Kouzuki'''

"I’ll protect you with my magic."

“Oh right, I guess it would be pretty confusing to be told out of the blue that you’re being protected, huh!”

“But you know, I couldn’t just leave you on your own like that."

"You basically don’t have any, after all.”

“Magic resistance, that is.”

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Kouta.jpg|700px]]

'''Kouta Hiiragi'''

Protect.

Let’s suppose for a moment that magic really was something capable of protecting me.

Let’s suppose it’s something that could enrich my life.

Even if that’s the case, there’s something I can’t tell Miki.

I couldn’t really care less.

''I couldn’t care less what happens to me.''

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Masato.jpg|700px]]

'''Masato Yahara'''

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains’ noise echoed.

''You will never be released.''

Shut up.

''You will be bound until the day you die.''

Shut up!

''But you already knew that, right? ''

''The reason these chains will never be torn off''

''is because you yourself have no desire to tear them off.''

'''I''' SAID SHUT UP!

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“Ahh... '''I''' wanna kill someone.”

File:We Don't Open Anywhere Masato.jpg

2017-11-17T01:22:14Z

Kooritsukai:

File:We Don't Open Anywhere Kouta.jpg

2017-11-17T01:21:58Z

Kooritsukai:

File:We Don't Open Anywhere Miki.jpg

2017-11-17T01:21:17Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents

2017-11-16T01:41:36Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-

2017-11-16T01:24:46Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents

2017-11-16T01:23:53Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Shuuichi Akiyama's Closed World (I)

2017-11-16T01:21:44Z

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)

2017-11-16T01:17:01Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)

2017-11-15T02:17:28Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents

2017-11-15T02:15:47Z

Kooritsukai:

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Contents.png|thumb]]

'''Table of Contents'''

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [II]]]

Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World [Ⅰ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅲ]

Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅳ] Masato Yahara’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅴ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Open World [Ⅰ]

Afterword

We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents

2017-11-15T02:15:02Z

Kooritsukai:

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Contents.png|thumb]]

'''Table of Contents'''

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [II]]]

Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World [Ⅰ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅲ]

Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅳ] Masato Yahara’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅴ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Open World [Ⅰ]

Afterword

We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-

2017-11-15T02:14:02Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (II)

2017-11-15T02:12:03Z

We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)

2017-11-15T02:06:50Z

We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)

2017-11-14T03:01:19Z

Kooritsukai:

<div class=WordSection1>

I watched someone get
murdered once.

It was back when I was still in kindergarten. Both my
parents worked and were away from home a lot, so my grandma usually ended up
taking care of me. My parents married late, which meant that my maternal
grandma, who was a widower in her seventies, was firmly in the “geezer” camp.
Having to take care of me probably put a toll on her.

Despite my parents’ neglect, though, I was a pretty
satisfied kid. In retrospect, that was probably thinks to my grandma working
her ass off. The two of us were as thick as thieves.

On that day, the two of us were looking after the house as
always. I had roped grandma into playing hide-and-seek, forcing her into
the role of seeker. Opening a closet’s aged, poorly-fitted door, I found
and wedged my five-year-old body into a pile of densely packed futons and muted
myself. 

Grandma was having a difficult time finding me and was
noticeably flustered. Watching her from a crack in the door, I laughed
silently to myself.

Suddenly, the front door could be heard opening.

Thinking that perhaps I had run outside, Grandma
hurried to the entrance.

Immediately, I heard a scream. And at the same time,
an unfamiliar, threatening voice.

At my young age, all I could do at the unsettling
atmosphere was tremble anxiously.

I could hear two sets of footsteps drawing near, one
belonging to my grandma. Instinctively, I balled myself up among the
futons and held my breath. But at the same time I was assailed by a
strange sense of duty, as if it were my responsibility to observe what was
about to happen.

I could just barely make out my grandma and the man
from the cracked door.

“Dammit, the place was s’posed to be empty...! Oy, hurry it
up!”

Driven by the man’s angry voice, Grandma opened the chest of
drawers. She was likely looking for cash or the bankbook, but as she didn’t
know where it was and was panicking, she just opened and closed drawer after
drawer. All the while, the man was growing gradually more irritated. 

After a little longer of this, Grandma handed the man a
stuffed envelope. It was likely filled with cash.

“No hard feels, grams. Just can’t be lettin’ myself get
caught. Blame yourself for being home on the wrong day.”

The man took out a sharp object (I think it was a
pocketknife or a kitchen knife, but in my panic I didn’t pay much
attention to the particulars). In alarm, Grandma screamed something
incomprehensible. This earned her even more ire from the man, who pinned her
arms behind her back.

Grandma screamed.

“Help me... Maa, help me!”

Although a kindergartener like myself would hardly be able
to accomplish anything here, she screamed frantically nonetheless.

But even in the face of my beloved grandma’s bawling, I didn’t
leave the closet.

“Maa! Help me! Help me!”

Watching my grandma scream my name over and over, I wanted
to remind her, “we’re playing hide-and-seek, so I can’t come out until
you find me.”

The blade swung.

A death wail.

A moan.

A weak, self-derisive
laugh.

Tears.

A pool of blood.

Until it was all
over, I kept perfectly still. I was still playing hide-and seek.

I was playing hide-and-seek to this day, unable
to return to the real world.

 

 

“You’re Masato
Yahara, right?”

As I was
putting my indoor shoes in the worn-out shoe rack, a girl called my name. I recognized
that voice. Having a bad feeling about this, I heaved a sigh.

“...You sure you’ve
got the right guy? Kou’s still back in the classroom, right?”

“Please don’t try to
blow me off.” Miki Kouzuki glared at me with trembling fists.

I’d suspected that she had something she wanted
to say to me. Without meeting her eyes, I spoke.

“Is this about tryin’
to get me to away from Kou?”

Having the words
stolen out of her mouth, Kouzuki knit her eyebrows.

“He doesn’t have shit
for magic resistance. If I, a magus unaware of my own powers, am around
him I’ll be a bad influence and stain him in my attribute. And that
wouldn’t do anyone a lick of good. Something along those lines?”

Kouzuki’s eyes
widened in surprise.

What the hell? I thought
her value system was gonna be something more interesting, but it ended up being
something even I could come up with.

Rapidly losing
interest, I set my loafers on the floor.

“So I’m a
magus, huh. You’re givin’ me too much credit. Anyways, everyone would just run
away from me before I could cast a spell on ‘em anyways.”

“Y...you understand
magic?”

“Who knows. I just
translated what I was sayin’ into your gibberish.”

“I...if you
understand that much, please just stay away from Kouta. You said that everyone
just runs away from you, but there’s one exception.”

There was no need to
clarify who she was talking about.

“Staying away from
him would be for Kouta’s sake. If he keeps being surrounded by my magic, he’ll
take on my attribute. He’ll be able to avoid getting stained in a poor
attribute like yours or Matsumi-senpai’s.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I glared at Kouzuki unconsciously. Knowing what
kind of person she was only amplified my rage.

“You’re full of
yourself. Who the fuck do you think you are, going around babbling about how
you’re going to protect Kou or some shit. Did Kou ask for that? He didn’t, did
he.”

“...I thought that
would be for the best-”

“For the best? Pretty
words from everyone’s favorite freakshow. Keep your fucking self-satisfactory
bullshit in check, wouldja? Is Kou even the one you’re really tryin’ to
protect? ...Heh, you can’t even refute it. What you’re tryin’ to protect by
force-staining Kou’s ass...”

I spit it out.

“Is your flimsy-ass,
brittle little closed world.”

It seemed that her
self awareness didn’t extend that far. Her face went white at my words.

I drew close to Kouzuki, who was slowly
shrinking away from me, and lifted her up by the collar of her uniform.

“But by talkin’ to
you like this, I realized that something I don’t need to worry
about. You just aren’t worth my time.”

Fear appeared for the
first time on Kouzuki’s face. ...Nah, that ain’t it. Since the moment she
called out to me, her fists had been trembling from how hard she had tried to
hide her fear. That’s how powerless a person she was.

“He’ll just come to
hold you in contempt, and that’ll be that. Later.”

I didn’t want to so much as look at her any
more. Releasing her collar, I walked away from the shoe rack without
sparing her a second glance.

With all the rumors
swirling around her, I figured she’d have a little more of a backbone in
her. But she was just another person with no faith in their own damn world. She
just wanted Kou in order to reinforce her world.

She was just like all
the others. She gave off the sound of chains.

Her chains were
quieter than others, maybe, but that was all there was to it. She was just
another nobody, far removed from the ideal I strived for.

She was just as much
a nobody as I was.

Chains.

I started seeing the chains when I was in ninth
grade.

In contrast to my
peers, who were grappling with entrance exams and relationship woes, I could
feel myself growing distant.

The contents of their
worries even drove some of them to cut their own wrists, but I couldn’t
see at as any more serious than whether a sand castle was knocked over or not.
After all, even if they wounded themselves they didn’t plan on dying. I
— I, who truly knew death — could tell that those wounds were nothing
more than a tool to highlight the extent of their woes.

Once I became
a complete bystander, simply gazing on them in observation, I noticed
something.

Everything they held
dear was created.

With so much
information flowing down the muddy stream of our world, a simple papier-mâché construction is enough for them all to
implicitly believe it.

They
were being controlled.

Made to
dance in perfect harmony, they were being controlled by fiendish, brutal
chains.

Then, I
became able to see those chains. And from the materialized chains, I
could even hear noise. The rattling noise they made was raucous. The noise was
so raucous it sapped all vitality from me. Once that was finished, I
began losing my ideals as well. Lost in the pursuit of cheap pleasure, I
no longer cared if the world was in color or monochrome, or if it was real or
simply the inside of an image. To that end, I engaged in a series of
unethical activities. Pleasure was all that was real to me, but was merely
ephemeral, and in the end time simply passed while nothing else changed. My
world was peeled apart by the chains. It was a simple, complete excoriation.

When
I finally managed to regain a grip on my peeled-up world, a thought
suddenly floated to my mind, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I wanna kill someone.

Murder
had taken the color from my world and reduced my reality to the state it was in
today. Ironically, as a consequence of its gravity, it was also what lay just
beyond my outstretched hand. No matter where I reached out towards, I
would run into those homicidal urges. Like a butterfly trapped in a spiderweb, no
matter how much I struggled I couldn’t move. From where I was,
I couldn’t see anything else.

Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Wanting
to flee from the chains and the noise, I reached out my hand. This time,
my hand got caught on those homicidal urges. They began controlling me.

Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

 

But
even then, I would never have believed it.

That
there could be a person unfettered by those chains.

 

 

“Kusukusu...
you two really are interesting, aren’t you?”

I could tell that the girl, who
had a childish face and and looked somewhat off-balance, was different from the
moment she started speaking to us.

Her
smile seemed like it was free of any influence from the events of the outside
world.

“Whaddya
want?”

Who was
she? Like Kouzuki, was she trying to take advantage of how fragile Kou’s chains
were?

“Oh,
Ririko was just thinking how she wanted to become good friends with Hiiragi!”

She
didn’t react even a little to my display of animosity. And she didn’t give the
sense that she was playing dumb. Humans are creatures bound by fear. Anyone
would react to the presence of violence.

Then
what was wrong with her?

It
seemed that “different” didn’t cut it. She was clearly lacking something
fundamental.

“What’s so interesting about you two are the
call signs you’re giving off.”

She
spoke as if her peculiar words were commonplace. That was something neither I
nor Kouzuki was capable of. This girl didn’t desire salvation, and she had no
doubts in her own world. In actuality, she was basically rejecting interaction
with the rest of mankind.

Inside
a closed world that was like a perfectly sealed-off room, she had no need to
grow.

I’d heard rumors about this.
Rumors about an upperclassman who had been coming and going from a psychiatric
hospital since she enrolled.

“Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?”

“Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course.”

According to the rumors, she lacked
boundaries. Unable to tell where her “self” began and ended, she supposedly saw
everything outside her body as simply parts of herself. She was under the
misapprehension that not just her body but everything she could more or less
freely manipulate was part of her. Although it was a bit more allegorical in my
case, I’d certainly had times where I felt unable to put down my phone,
as if it were a part of my body. But as far as she was concerned, her
unification with her electrical devices was no allegory. To her, using
electrical signals from her brain to move her limbs wasn’t just the same as
using a remote to change the channel on TV, the remote and the television
themselves were just parts of her body.

It was a world beyond comprehension. But
regardless, it was the world she lived in.

A different world from the rest of us.

“Interesting, aren’t they? White and
ultramarine, huh. Aren’t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko
likes white, you know. Makes me want to do something.”

I had no idea what
those colors meant in her code. All I could tell was that they were code
for something else.

I glanced at Kou. Even though he’s
confused, he wouldn’t reject another, even if that person is Matsumi. But even
Kou likely won’t be able to grasp her world.

...Actually, is that really true? This is the
same Kou who’s spent a whole month getting to know me, after all.

“Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?”

“Read me?”

“Oh, that’s right. Most people can’t do
scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!”

Maybe Matsumi, who blurs the boundaries
between electrical devices and her own body, is deluded into thinking she can
fulfil the role of an electrical device herself?

But something quickly makes me realize that
that perception was halfhearted.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

It’s
not a delusion. It’s something far worse. In that instant, Matsumi became an
electrical device.

That’s right. Why didn’t I notice it
sooner?

This chick doesn’t have any chains at all.

The moment I realized that, it felt as
if the false machine noise was causing the world to violently lurch. I
couldn’t keep my footing. The world was slanting simply because I had
become aware of my own change. Unable to remain in place, I began
tumbling. I was rolling. Rolling and rolling. Rolling and rolling and
rolling and rolling.

How did this happen?

...Ah, because I didn’t believe. I didn’t
believe that a person without chains could even exist. That’s why my world was
doing an about-face.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

The sun went out. What illuminated my world in
its place was Matsumi’s eyeball. Within those dead-fish eyes, her pupil was
focusing like the lens of a single-lens reflex camera. Taking on heat, her eyes
began to sear me. It burns! It burns! It burns!

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise pursued me and, as I spun
through space, bored its way into my body. From near and from far, the noise
continued to ring. I had long since lost track of where it was ringing
from. I was becoming to create the noise as well.

The lens was simply floating in space.

Those eyes turned towards me.

“Ah-”

What part of me were they looking at?

They were looking at me burning and tumbling
through space. I’m begging you, don’t expose this hackneyed end of mine.
Those pitiful limitations of mine. Those banal thoughts of mine.

“...don’t.”

I didn’t want to
know.

“Beep bi—”

I didn’t want to
know. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know.

“DON’T!”

As I scream, the floating eyeball lens
vanishes. In that moment, I’m assailed with vertigo and the world goes
black. Once the light returned, I could see Kou looking concerned and
Matsumi pouting.

“You don’t have to shout like that, you
know...”

“Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just
now...?”

“Hold on, hold on. Ririko’s going to put it
into words now.”

Matsumi stopped being human again.

She somehow got information about Kou, and
she’s translating it such that we can understand it as well. A computer turning
binary into letters and images.

“Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her
hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent
approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing
cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen
to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally good
at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others
with-”

“Th... that’s enough! Matsumi-senpai, please
cut it out!”

She returns to being human.

“So? So? How was that? How’d you like my
scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?”

“Senpai, can we go now?”

“Whaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He’s
white, after all! He’s the only one!”

“Sorry, but we got places to be.”

“Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it
can’t be helped then. Ririko guesses she’ll see you later then, Tanihara.”

Not thinking, I stopped in my tracks.

People
read my last name, “谷原,” incorrectly all the time. So
the mistake itself wasn’t particularly notable.

“Huh? Aren’t you Tanihara?”

“It’s read ‘Yahara’, Senpai.”

So in other words, that’s what that meant.

Matsumi’s “scanning” gathers information
visually.

 

We strolled through an abandoned shopping
district, shuttered up as a result of its inability to compete with a large
nearby shopping mall.

I gazed at Kou in
silent shock.

Even when faced with Ririko Matsumi, he didn’t
give up on trying to comprehend her. If we hadn’t gotten lucky, he would have
completely taken her in.

It would be fine if he got invaded by Kouzuki.
He’d be treated as a freak, sure, but at least he’d be able to keep on living.
But Matsumi was no good. If he took in something broken, he’d become broken as
well. It would be like downloading a malicious app.

“Get this through your head. Don’t talk to
that birdbrain again. She’ll be a bad influence on you. Got it?”

Kou nodded. But it wasn’t because he was
convinced, it was because he felt the situation called for it.

I didn’t what his
true intentions were. ...Hell, I didn’t know if he had any intentions in
the first place.

“Masato, did you understand what was going on
with that scanning thing?”

Scanning.

Based on the fact that she got the information
visually, I had a hunch as to what the trick was. But it was tough to
put into words.

I suspected the
reason she was able to guess my name was because she subconsciously knew it
already. Even though the time she spent in the hospital kept her from showing
up at school much, she was still a fellow student of ours. There was plenty of
times she could have run across our names.

The only abnormal part was how she went about
recalling that information.

Normal people quickly forget information they
don’t need. For example, we don’t remember the faces of every person we pass on
the street.

But what if this “scanning” let her pull out
memories from deep in her brain, memories that anyone else would have lost? If
that were the case, then simply having passed us in a hallway would be plenty
for her to know our names.

It then followed that her being able to put
names to faces, as well as dredge up all that information about Kou, was simply
the result of outstanding insight born from her recollection, observational,
and analytic prowess. Of course, she couldn’t do that all the time, but only
when she was in a trance state from putting herself under the self-hypnosis
called “scanning.”

Seen from the outside, a skilled
fortune-teller would appear to be able to trace the steps of another’s life.
Hell, even I’d be able to guess whether someone’s a virgin or not a good
chunk of the time. But Matsumi was on another level. She was able to come up
with his personality, his familial structure, and even where he lived. It was
practically a superpower.

It was abnormal.

If I told told Kou all this, nothing
good would come of it. It would just end up driving him towards taking her in.

“... not even a little.”

So I dodged the question.

Even if Kou didn’t believe me, he neither
pressed me nor showed signs of dissatisfaction. Ahh, now that I think
about it, there’s something wrong with this guy too.

The light in front of us turned red and we
reflexively stopped.

“Why the hell’d we stop?”

“The light was red, wasn’t it?”

“There ain't any cars here.”

Ahh, I can hear it. I can hear
that noise again.

Just beyond my field of view lay those chains.
Beautiful chains that acted as if they owned us, designed to stop us from
moving.

I couldn’t help
but despise the chains. They bound me and were the cause of everything that
drained color from my world.

...or so I thought.

And because that’s what I thought, I
yearned to be a person without chains. I truly thought I desired
release from those chains. 

But then I met such an unfettered
person.

And what did I feel, upon gazing at
that person?

Fear.

I was scared of
that person without chains. I felt fright. A feeling that implied
unimaginable distance.

There was no chance I could become a
person without chains.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains’ noise
echoed.

You will never be released.

Shut up.

You will be bound until the day you die.

Shut up!

But you already knew that, right? The
reason these chains will never be torn off is because you yourself have no
desire to tear them off.

I SAID SHUT UP!

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The noise keeps resounding.

The sound of chains. The sound of common
sense. The sound of morals.

And the sound of my desire to kill.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. 

“Ahh... I wanna kill someone.”

 

 

After parting ways with Kou, I was
unable to muster the urge to return home and inside took the train into the
suburbs. While the area around the station was prosperous in comparison to the
shutter town I had just left, the dust and general atmosphere made it
clear that it was past its prime.

I wandered about
aimlessly. A department store that would likely be demolished in a few years. A
old-fashioned movie theater that looked wholly unfit to bring a date to. A
bookstore that had been repurposed into a shop for otaku goods. The town, which
was connected, bound, and encircled by power lines, stunk of sewage. If you
boiled down all the mud, the sludge, and the coal tar, it seemed like it like
it would make for delicious, piping hot ramen broth.

I sat on a bench
in front of the station and observed the passersby. The people waiting by the
station were like marionettes, each and every one of them glued to their
smartphones. Social networks, forcing them into round-the-clock surface-level
pleasantries. Aggregation sites pushing morals upon them that are neither right
nor wrong. Blogs flooding with comments, not from individuals but from their
very souls. All an horrifying gambit to strengthen the chains. A colossal trap.

The definition of people who would be better
off dead.

Let’s suppose that that definition was “people
who are detrimental to society.” If that’s the case, people who killed
innocents would be better off dead. People whose contributions to society were
outweighed by the harm they cause to others would be better off dead too.
People whose deaths would be rejoiced at rather than wept at and people who
inspire anarchic thoughts, those people would obviously be better off dead.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we just rounded up all those brutes and
left only the good people?

...It probably would. With fewer recessive
genes around, of course humanity’s going to be wiser. If, hypothetically, the
world was in peril and we had to trim the population, you can bet your ass that
the morals around protecting the weak and disadvantaged are going to be the
first to go and there’d be large-scale massacres. ...Well, it doesn’t have to
be something as over-the-top as that. All I’m trying to get at is that
there’s plenty of people who could die and no one would mind.

“Yo.”

I call out to a
passing woman in an immaculately-pressed suit, likely on her way home from the
office.

In that instant, I got the impression
that although she works hard and contributes to society, she frequently
tramples on the feelings of others. Huh, maybe I’m awakening intuitive
powers like Matsumi’s? Or maybe it was just a delusion of mine? I don’t
much care either way. As far as I cared, she was a detriment to society
- someone who was better off dead.

“Are you speaking to me?”

“Yeah, anyone’s fine. There’s plenty of ya
around. Now, a riddle. When’s a door not a door?”

“When it’s ajar... Excuse me, what did you
want?”

“Who ordered you?”

“Huh?”

“Who ordered you to say ‘when it’s ajar’?”

The woman stopped in her tracks, fear
spreading across her face.

“Nobody ordered me to do anything... what’s
going on...”

“That’s right! No one ordered you to do shit,
right? Then why does everyone answer the same fucking way? There’s gotta be
plenty of other reasons why a door wouldn’t a door, right? Then why’s it gotta
be ajar and not a dormant volcano or somethin’?<ref>The original joke here went about as follows:
* Masato: "What kind of pan (bread) can you not eat?"
* OL: "A frying pan?"
* Masato: "Why'd the answer have to be frying pan? Why couldn't it have been A-kyuusenpan (class-A war criminal)?"</ref>”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ah, shut up. This chick’s chains were
particularly noisy. Women tended to have grimmer, sturdier chains than men.

“You’re pissing me off. You want me to fucking
kill you?”

“Wh...what are you talking about? Is there
something wrong with you?”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“Get outta my sight. If you don’t, I’m
gonna fucking kill you.”

Not bothering to hide her repugnance, she
quickly ran off.

Heh. Once I considered what I just
did objectively, I give a strained laugh.

It would seem I’d developed a bug.

Walking around is too much of a pain. After
clenching my teeth and somehow dragging myself to a nearby park, I layed
down on a bench. Overheating to an unbearable degree, my brain forcibly entered
a shutdown state. My consciousness faded away dreamlessly.

 

 

I opened my eyes.

The blue sky flooded into them.

I couldn’t form
thoughts. The sun’s blinding light assaulted my eyes, and the painful stimulus
gradually restored my consciousness.

My back flared up in pain, and I remembered
that I had been sleeping in a park. I reached for a cigarette,
but found to my dismay that my pack was empty. What a fucking joke.

I clutched my
head, slowly recalling the events of yesterday.

There’s something wrong with me.

I was aware of how
desperate I was getting, but I was able to keep a cool head for
now.

But it seemed unlikely that I would be
able to fully get back to normal. Upon learning of the existence of a human
without chains, I stopped be able to brush away my homicidal urges,
which were now simmering to the point of boiling over. I could go mad at
any moment. There was even a part of me that wanted to go mad, knowing that
there was a chance that doing so might grant me the impetus to commit murder.
From that small reason alone, I knew I was past the point of
being able to contain these urges. It was past the level of sexual desire, and
was more akin to a hunger that scalded my throat. There was no chance the urges
would subside.

I would either
kill or go mad.

It could only be one or the other.

 

I decided to
return home briefly. I had no idea what my parents would say at this
point, but if I didn’t they were liable to file a missing person report
out of obligation and a desire to leave a paper trail. And I was out of
money. I knew of a method to solve both those problems at once. A method
I had used often since middle school.

Kicking aside an empty can as I entered
the house, I noted that my parents weren’t home. After fishing through
the shelf where grandma pulled the envelope from before she died, I slipped
two ten-thousand yen<ref>~$180</ref> bills into my wallet.

But where should I go? I had no
destination in mind. But in this state, I couldn’t stay at home, nor
could I go to school.

For a moment, I briefly contemplated
going to school. Thanks to my reputation, at least all the jackasses I wanted
to avoid would stay away from me.

And Kou was there.

Kouta Hiiragi. A man with no firm sense of
self. Generally, people analyze what kind of person they themselves are and
form a sense of self around that. In a certain sense they label themselves.

But Kou doesn’t. As a result, his self doesn’t
settle into any one shape. I dunno what made him like that, but based on
Matsumi’s scanning the cause probably lies with his family circumstances.

Because his self isn’t set, Kou tends to take
on whatever form his partner wants him to. Every time he interacts with
someone, his personality changes little by little. As a result, he’s become
able to truly understand others, and not just on a superficial level. He’ll
probably grow accustomed to Kouzuki’s magic in no time, and he fully
understands my madness as well. He doesn’t resist it, either. That’s why if
he’s careless, he’ll end up understanding Matsumi as well and taking her in.

That reminds me, Matsumi likened Kou’s color
to “white.” I get it, that kinda makes sense. Kou can take on any other
color. That in and of itself is dangerous. That’s why Kouzuki is being all
meddlesome and trying to stain Kou in her color; she’s trying to prevent him
from getting stained in a malicious color like mine.

Being accepted by others feels good. I
learned that for the first time when I met Kou.

Kouzuki’s probably the same. That’s why she
trying to keep him for herself.

I guess I
can’t go to school after all.

It’s dangerous for me because Kou is there.

Kou is the ultimate sympathizer. He would no
doubt accept even me, who’s enveloped in homicidal urges. Upon being accepted
by him, I would stop perceiving myself as abnormal, lose my last bits of
resistance, and eventually take action. I could picture it easily.

I grabbed a pack
of cigarettes from my room and lit one with a shaking hand. The nicotine
settled me down a bit, but the urges were unabated.

I slipped a
butterfly knife into my pocket as a de facto tranquilizer. I could kill
at any time. I could make that call whenever I wanted. Knowing
that somehow helped me preserve my sense of reason up until now. But that bit
just now was simply meaningless. It simply served to rile me up.

A paper-thin line was all that kept me from
using this knife up till now. But that paper-thin line held within it a world
of difference.

But I knew.

As I was now, I was liable to
cross that line.

 

When I came to my senses - when I
truly came to my senses - it was already night.

Once again I found myself wandering
through that deteriorating suburb.

While I knew little about killing time,
I knew quite a bit about killing. All I had to do was
noncommittally indulge myself. My mind simply sought pleasure without applying
any deeper meaning to anything. In other words, I was deteriorating as a
human. I was an animal with intelligence but no use for it. There are a
surprising number of humans who fit that description, so I didn’t lack
for companions. Hip! Hip! Hoorah! Other people were necessary for the pursuit
of pleasure. Transient relationships were best. Human garbage was best. If they
were men, though, they’d sooner or later commit some kind of sexual assault, so
I tried to avoid that. I wasn’t into fucking chicks while they
screamed, and taking risks for something I wasn’t into was right off the
table.

So I looked for women. Chicks who were
into give-and-take relationships. Animals who sought only pleasure like I
did. Some of them got clingy, but their kind feared rejection, so once dealt
with none of them pressed the issue. Once they got hooked on drugs and drowned
in pleasure, any chick would become almost disgustingly docile. Once I
was done with with them, they would without fail use every word and action at
their disposal to wail about how lonely they were or some shit, but I
couldn’t give less of a fuck about their pitiful emotions.

“You’re pretty good.”

One of those women spoke up to me when I
was playing darts at an amusement center. What was her name again? I
think she told me, but I forgot.

“Do you play darts a lot?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Through this meaningless conversation, I
got authorization to step into her territory. It was obnoxious, but a necessary
ritual nonetheless.

The chick wasn’t a so-called “gyaru<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyaru</ref>”. She was
no beauty, but her face was attractive enough to put her on the receiving end
of gossip. She wore a cheap-looking black dress with hideous pink frills. I
could tell from experience that she was available.

The ritual had gone on plenty long enough to
move to the next step.

“Anywhere you wanna head after this?”

“Nah, not really, I guess.”

“Follow me, then.”

Although she no doubt knew what was to follow,
she simply followed me without putting up any opposition.

Where should we do it? The park? Nah, my back
hurts, so a cheap hotel would be better... Such thoughts filled my head as we
boarded the elevator.

Leaving the building, we neared a tunnel
running underneath the railway. Right as I put my hand on her back as a
lip service, I heard an unexpected voice.

“Is that you, Yahara?”

There stood the class representative, carrying
a plastic folder and clearly on his way home from cram school — Shuuichi
Akiyama.

I was planning on
feigning not being able to hear him due to the train passing, but when I
reflexively looked over my shoulder, our eyes met.

“What do you intend to accomplish by not
coming to school. Your friends are worried about you, you know.”

His words were exemplary yet insincere. It was
almost as if someone was making him say them. First of all, did this guy even
think I even had friends?

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, shut up already.

For some reason or another, my earlier
hedonism had been enough to temporarily silence the chains. But in the face of
this man, that was impossible.

His chains were grotesque, grimmer and
sturdier than any other’s.

Feeling an onset of vertigo, I plunged
my hand into my pocket and grasped my knife, my de facto tranquilizer.

“What will come of you continuing to neglect
school? You will simply idle away your days. If you fail to put in the effort
now, many paths will become closed to you, and you will regret it fiercely.
Even you should realize such a simple thing.”

“The fuck are you going on about? Don’t go
judging everything according your values.”

“I believe my values are extremely commonplace
values.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”

And that’s the thing I hate more than
anything else.

“You know it, yet you rebel against it. Don’t
you think you’re acting a little childish?”

Akiyama pushed up the bridge of his glasses.

Maybe what he’s correcting with his glasses
isn’t his eyesight, but him himself? He was extreme enough to harbor such
delusions. He could only see the corrected, beautiful world. Unimportant things
didn’t even enter his view. It’s like he’s forgotten that when he takes off his
glasses, the blurry, hard-to-grasp world in front of him is the real one.

Akiyama’s gaze shifted from me to the girl.
Faced with the honor student Akiyama’s reproachful gaze, she uncomfortably
lifted the corners of her mouth.

“Your girlfriend? Won’t you be imposing on
her, dragging her around at this hour?”

He spoke unaffectedly. He likely doubted that
there was any woman who would willingly spend time around me.

“She ain’t my girlfriend, though.”

“She isn’t?”

“Just some chick I picked up off the
street. We were thinking of going and fucking. Get it?”

“Excuse me?”

At his confusion, the girl gave an embarrassed
smile. Of course he’s not going to be able simply nod and accept something like
that.

Glancing sidelong at Akiyama, I give a
snicker.

Hey, look, he can’t even hide it. Inside that
disgust-filled expression, he’s jealous that I’m getting laid. That
fucker’s so fastidious he probably wouldn’t admit he even had desires like
that.

“You... have quite some nerve, saying such
immoral things so brazenly.”

“Jealous?”

“I’m well aware of how proud of your faults
you are. May I ask you a question, though? How often do you do things like
this?”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, this isn’t good. Shut up. This guy’s
chains just won’t shut up.

“All the fucking time, man. What, you want to
get in on this shit? I can teach you how to. It’s easy, all you gotta do
is lie about your age to register for dating sites. Studying ain’t good for
shit, you feel me? You know, if we all just gave in to our primal desire for
pleasure, we could all just live as happy-ass animals.”

Akiyama just glared at me silently.

“...Um, I just remember something I have to
do, so I’m going to head home, okay?”

“Yeah.”

The girl had lost interest. I still
couldn’t remember her name as I watched her run off.

Akiyama watched her recede far longer than I
did.

“Yahara.”

Akiyama spoke, gazing off into the distance.

“What?”

“I believe it is unwise to indiscreetly give
voice to the thoughts of others. But I see you and I do not share that
opinion.”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

That noise was whispering to me.

Kill.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

It’s time for you to join the world of
killers. That’s the only path left available to you.

Despite being more tightly bound by those unholy
chains than any other, Shuuichi Akiyama was enough of a freak to feel not agony
but comfort from their embrace. There was no human who symbolized the chains as
much as he did. That would make him the ideal sacrifice, no?

“You wanna sermonize? Fine by me. In any case,
let’s head somewhere less crowded.”

“I see; very well. I would rather nobody else
carelessly inserted their voice in our conversation, after all.”

“Yeah, right. Wouldn’t want anyone getting in
the way.”

I didn’t want
anyone to get in the way.

Not until it was all over.

 

Unlike a large city like Tokyo, all you had to
do in the suburb was walk a little and the tall buildings would be replaced by
rice paddies and vacant lots. Past a convenience store with a sprawling parking
lot belying its defunct state lay a similarly-defunct factory. I neither
knew nor cared what the factory had originally produced, but the sensation of
being underground brought about by its oily, metallic odors made it ideal. I
didn’t know what this iron press was designed for either, but when I
laid my hand on it it was icy-cold to the touch.

“I’m surprised that you knew about a place
like this.”

“I told you about all the chicks I
was forcin’ myself on, right? You gotta know about places like this to do shit
like that.”

Akiyama scowled in repugnance.

Honestly, I’m surprised he’d follow me
to a sketchy-ass place like this so easily. Could he not even begin to imagine
himself being in danger? ...Well, he probably couldn’t. That was the kind of
victim I was dealing with here. The kind of guy who was filled with
baseless conviction that he couldn’t possibly get involved with the kind of
incident you see on the news.

He was one of them. Hell, he’d probably even
be shocked at the sight of one of his classmates smoking.

“So? I’m ready to be preached at.”

“Before we start, would you mind turning on a
light? It’s too dark for me to even make out your face. I feel that that would
somewhat defeat the purpose of this conversation.”

Did he really think that being able to see my
face would make his shitty-ass sermon stick?

“I think someone left a lantern here...”

Squinting to look for the electric lantern, I
found it beside a pile of cigarette butts. As I flicked the switch,
Akiyama’s form came dimly into view.

“For you to have lead me this far, I can
assume you have at least some intention of hearing me out?”

I choked back laughter. Akiyama didn’t seem to
consider for a moment the possibility that he might be assaulted, let alone
killed.

I’m sure what’s
floating through his mind is something along the lines of a naive-ass after
school special. The pitiable delinquent, coming from a bad background, finally
finds someone who understands him and, struck by his sincere actions, gets back
on the straight and narrow.

What a nice story. Even I, without an
ounce of cynicism, think it would be nice if we had more of that kind of story.
I’ve seen a lot of delinquents, and most of them are scum through and
through. Defective from their very genes. Deficient in brains, empathy, fear,
and imagination, the lot of them.

But in spite of all that, this guy has enough
faith in his persuasive abilities to follow me all this way. I half
wanted to see what the it was about his speech he was so confident in. Hell,
maybe they’d even be enough to convert me.

“Let me start by asking you something. Are you
happy with the way you’re living right now?”

“As if. I’m always wishing I could
change, you know?”

Even right now.

In any case, I was about to be able to
change. Not that I had any idea what I was going to change into.

“Then why not simply be more diligent? From
what I can see, you certainly aren’t stupid. I mean that, by the way. All it
takes for people to change is to find an objective and to put in the effort
necessary to achieve it. At the moment you’re lapsing into depravity, but if
you take a slightly longer view I have no doubt you can overcome such
temptations.”

I laugh
inappropriately upon hearing that from the most nearsighted man imaginable.

“So you’re saying if I just become a
straight-A student like you, my life’ll open up and become all peaches and
fuckin’ cream?”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be studies.
Anything you find that you can put your all into works. And that’s all it takes
to open up your life. I’m sure there’s some activity you could find yourself
getting engrossed in.”

“There’s nothin’ like that.”

“Are you certain? What about sports, say,
boxing or rugby?”

I wanted to throw
up. Is this guy actually referencing old after school specials, then lumping
all delinquents together in one convenient little category? Faced with such a
blad lack of imagination, I began to doubt if he was even truly a
straight-A student.

“And if you do indeed find something you want
to do, the more paths you have available before you to choose from the better.
As you are right now, paths are vanishing.”

“Dumbass. No one who was willing to work their
ass off just to keep future possibilities open would be in this situation in
the first damn place.”

“You mustn’t give up on yourself. Envision the
future, and stride towards it!”

I hadn’t suspected
his little sermon would fail to resonate with me to this extent. The things he
was saying were ostensibly correct. Perhaps they would have resonated more from
a different mouth.

But the words felt like they had no weight
behind them. They held none of the speaker’s true feelings. It felt like he was
simply reading out of some manual on delinquent correction. The words were
completely those of another.

And on top of that, the sound of chains.

His thoughts and mine were in parallel,
destined to never intersect.

“Those chains of yours. I’ll pass on
being bound by them, thank you very much!”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ahh, I can’t hold it in any more.

I should just kill
him. I can’t bear to listen to any more of this. I should just
kill him. I should just kill him. When I open up his flesh, my
future will open up as well. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. I should just kill him. I don’t want to be here
any more. I’m never coming back here again. I should just kill
him. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. This place is empty; no one will hear him scream. His
death wails will be a hymnal for me alone, a noise sufficient to drown out
those chains. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. I should just kill him. His blood will go flying. I
don’t know how my world will change. But if nothing else, my monochrome world
will be dyed red. I should just kill him. I should just kill him.
I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. 

“Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains
to speak of... What are you talking about, Yahara?”

Looking around, he frowned.

“I’ll tell you, so you can die in
peace.”

“...Yahara?”

“Chains. The preconceived notions that bind
us. That’s a useless definition. They’re essentially rules without order.
Morals, forced upon us. Their noise is annoying. I've always wanted to
escape them. The only way I can escape them is by killing. In other
words, that noise is basically the sound of my desire to kill.”

I pulled the butterfly
knife out of my pocket. With a flick of my wrist, the blade flies out.

“Now I can get out of here!”

My reluctance to kill vanished.

Immediately, my hand was filled with the
sensation of flesh. It was softer than I expected, barely giving me the
sensation I had slashed at all. The experience was lacking.

“Now you can get out of here, hm...”

The red blood dripped loudly.

Now that I think about it, it’s
strange. Even though we constantly have blood flowing through our bodies, we
only ever think about it at times like this. It’s like not being able to see
the forest for the trees. It’s not that our awareness is limited, we’re simply
under the impression that it is.

“—On that point alone, we are of the same
opinion.”

What sentiment did that smile carry? It seemed
similar to the sense of accomplishment a child would display upon digging up an
anthill and earnestly squishing its inhabitants.

“Your life has no value... or rather, you’re
like a vermin that deserves to die.”

Akiyama spoke bluntly, his voice carrying no
inflection.

He pulled out the knife.

As he pulled it out, blood — lifeblood —
poured from my chest.

Releasing my wrist, Akiyama pulled the knife
out from my chest and tossed it aside. Fluids burst out like a stopped had been
uncorked. Red liquid spilled out from my mouth. No matter what it was I was
regurgitating, it wasn’t anything good.

“You thought too little of me. Did you really
believe that I had no idea why you brought me here?”

I knew it. Akiyama
was a deviant.

“You should have realized it as soon as I had
you turn the lantern on. I had you light it so I could make out your
movements.”

Everyone likely, to varying extents, realizes
that they’re bound by something. Even if you couldn’t see the chains, you could
definitely feel them choking you.

But Akiyama was completely unlike that. He had
no doubts in his own world. He never doubted that what he saw as just was what
the rest of the world also saw as just.

Akiyama was too much of an honors student for
his own good, and as a result had never been reproached or criticized by the
adults in his life. So he was under the misapprehension that everything he
did was just.

That was his abnormality.

“I was well aware of your murderous
aspirations. And from our discussion, I could tell that those aspirations were
not something you were capable of escaping from. That is why I judged it
necessary to eliminate you.”

The thoughts Akiyama held were widely held by
society to be just. But nobody’s cogs are aligned perfectly. Perhaps the
misalignment was small at first. Something another could easily notice and
alert him to. But because of how much of an honors student he was, he had
nobody to point it out to him. So that continued twisting into the form Akiyama
desired. And though the misalignment had grown to lethal proportions, even if
someone were to point it out Akiyama was past the point of heeding the words of
others.

Vainglory. There was no man alive better
suited to that word than Akiyama. I should have recognized that.

“You said something about helping me dying in
peace, if I recall? It would appear I am now in a position to offer parting
words to you.”

Looking down on my fallen body, Akiyama dug
his heel into my face.

“I offer you this explanation so that you can
die in peace. Would your world change if you killed someone? I offer you the
answer you sought for so long.”

My vision went dark, gradually fading. My
sense of pain left me as well, the only thing I could feel any more
being a cold sense of emptiness where the knife had stabbed me.

“The answer: it would not. Or perhaps it
would? You weren’t a very good point of reference, after all. After all, you’re
simply vermin. What emotion stirs within you when you kill a cockroach? I’m
sure you feel the same thing anyone does. Nothing but disgust.”

The noise of the world started fading as well.
Great, now I didn’t have to listen to Akiyama babble any more.

I fell into the
void.

Everything disappeared.

All that was left were my thoughts.

For argument’s sake.

For argument’s sake, if I had
successfully killed Akiyama, would my world have changed?

Ahh, I came close enough to tell. I
can picture it as if it were real. Even if I had successfully killed
Akiyama,

My world wouldn’t have changed.

It wouldn’t have changed a bit.

There would simply have been a corpse rolling
around in front of me. And having lost my last thread of salvation, I
would have gone mad.

Thinking about it, such a conclusion wouldn’t
have been half bad.

But even so, I thought.

If by some miracle I survive this, I
would still try to kill Akiyama. I would definitely kill him.

Not to change my world.

Not to erase the sound of chains.

I would kill him
because he pisses me off. I would kill him out of simple hatred.

I would be the
most hackneyed, worthless killer imaginable.

Indeed.

I am, to a degree
that disappoints even me, an unremarkable person.

 

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I can hear them. I
can hear them in my ears, which should no longer be able to hear at all.

I knew. In truth,
I’ve known for a long time. The cacophonous ringing was never the sound of
other people’s chains. It was— 

—the sound of the chains that had always been
wrapped around me.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
<references />

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| Back to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)]]
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| Forward to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)|Miki Kouzuki's Closed World (I)]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents

2017-11-14T02:57:54Z

Kooritsukai:

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Contents.png|thumb]]

'''Table of Contents'''

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World [Ⅰ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World [Ⅰ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅲ]

Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅳ] Masato Yahara’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅴ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Open World [Ⅰ]

Afterword

We Don't Open Anywhere: Table of Contents

2017-11-14T02:57:35Z

Kooritsukai:

[[File:We Don't Open Anywhere Contents.png|thumb]]

'''Table of Contents'''

[[We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)|Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

[[Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara’s Closed World [Ⅰ]]]

Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World [Ⅰ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World [Ⅰ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅲ]

Miki Kouzuki’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅳ] Masato Yahara’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Shuuichi Akiyama’s Closed World [Ⅱ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Closed World [Ⅴ]

Kouta Hiiragi’s Open World [Ⅰ]

Afterword

We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-

2017-11-14T02:57:03Z

Kooritsukai:

We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)

2017-11-14T02:55:55Z

<div class=WordSection1>

I watched someone get
murdered once.

It was back when I was still in kindergarten. Both my
parents worked and were away from home a lot, so my grandma usually ended up
taking care of me. My parents married late, which meant that my maternal
grandma, who was a widower in her seventies, was firmly in the “geezer” camp.
Having to take care of me probably put a toll on her.

Despite my parents’ neglect, though, I was a pretty
satisfied kid. In retrospect, that was probably thinks to my grandma working
her ass off. The two of us were as thick as thieves.

On that day, the two of us were looking after the house as
always. I had roped grandma into playing hide-and-seek, forcing her into
the role of seeker. Opening a closet’s aged, poorly-fitted door, I found
and wedged my five-year-old body into a pile of densely packed futons and muted
myself. 

Grandma was having a difficult time finding me and was
noticeably flustered. Watching her from a crack in the door, I laughed
silently to myself.

Suddenly, the front door could be heard opening.

Thinking that perhaps I had run outside, Grandma
hurried to the entrance.

Immediately, I heard a scream. And at the same time,
an unfamiliar, threatening voice.

At my young age, all I could do at the unsettling
atmosphere was tremble anxiously.

I could hear two sets of footsteps drawing near, one
belonging to my grandma. Instinctively, I balled myself up among the
futons and held my breath. But at the same time I was assailed by a
strange sense of duty, as if it were my responsibility to observe what was
about to happen.

I could just barely make out my grandma and the man
from the cracked door.

“Dammit, the place was s’posed to be empty...! Oy, hurry it
up!”

Driven by the man’s angry voice, Grandma opened the chest of
drawers. She was likely looking for cash or the bankbook, but as she didn’t
know where it was and was panicking, she just opened and closed drawer after
drawer. All the while, the man was growing gradually more irritated. 

After a little longer of this, Grandma handed the man a
stuffed envelope. It was likely filled with cash.

“No hard feels, grams. Just can’t be lettin’ myself get
caught. Blame yourself for being home on the wrong day.”

The man took out a sharp object (I think it was a
pocketknife or a kitchen knife, but in my panic I didn’t pay much
attention to the particulars). In alarm, Grandma screamed something
incomprehensible. This earned her even more ire from the man, who pinned her
arms behind her back.

Grandma screamed.

“Help me... Maa, help me!”

Although a kindergartener like myself would hardly be able
to accomplish anything here, she screamed frantically nonetheless.

But even in the face of my beloved grandma’s bawling, I didn’t
leave the closet.

“Maa! Help me! Help me!”

Watching my grandma scream my name over and over, I wanted
to remind her, “we’re playing hide-and-seek, so I can’t come out until
you find me.”

The blade swung.

A death wail.

A moan.

A weak, self-derisive
laugh.

Tears.

A pool of blood.

Until it was all
over, I kept perfectly still. I was still playing hide-and seek.

I was playing hide-and-seek to this day, unable
to return to the real world.

 

 

“You’re Masato
Yahara, right?”

As I was
putting my indoor shoes in the worn-out shoe rack, a girl called my name. I recognized
that voice. Having a bad feeling about this, I heaved a sigh.

“...You sure you’ve
got the right guy? Kou’s still back in the classroom, right?”

“Please don’t try to
blow me off.” Miki Kouzuki glared at me with trembling fists.

I’d suspected that she had something she wanted
to say to me. Without meeting her eyes, I spoke.

“Is this about tryin’
to get me to away from Kou?”

Having the words
stolen out of her mouth, Kouzuki knit her eyebrows.

“He doesn’t have shit
for magic resistance. If I, a magus unaware of my own powers, am around
him I’ll be a bad influence and stain him in my attribute. And that
wouldn’t do anyone a lick of good. Something along those lines?”

Kouzuki’s eyes
widened in surprise.

What the hell? I thought
her value system was gonna be something more interesting, but it ended up being
something even I could come up with.

Rapidly losing
interest, I set my loafers on the floor.

“So I’m a
magus, huh. You’re givin’ me too much credit. Anyways, everyone would just run
away from me before I could cast a spell on ‘em anyways.”

“Y...you understand
magic?”

“Who knows. I just
translated what I was sayin’ into your gibberish.”

“I...if you
understand that much, please just stay away from Kouta. You said that everyone
just runs away from you, but there’s one exception.”

There was no need to
clarify who she was talking about.

“Staying away from
him would be for Kouta’s sake. If he keeps being surrounded by my magic, he’ll
take on my attribute. He’ll be able to avoid getting stained in a poor
attribute like yours or Matsumi-senpai’s.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I glared at Kouzuki unconsciously. Knowing what
kind of person she was only amplified my rage.

“You’re full of
yourself. Who the fuck do you think you are, going around babbling about how
you’re going to protect Kou or some shit. Did Kou ask for that? He didn’t, did
he.”

“...I thought that
would be for the best-”

“For the best? Pretty
words from everyone’s favorite freakshow. Keep your fucking self-satisfactory
bullshit in check, wouldja? Is Kou even the one you’re really tryin’ to
protect? ...Heh, you can’t even refute it. What you’re tryin’ to protect by
force-staining Kou’s ass...”

I spit it out.

“Is your flimsy-ass,
brittle little closed world.”

It seemed that her
self awareness didn’t extend that far. Her face went white at my words.

I drew close to Kouzuki, who was slowly
shrinking away from me, and lifted her up by the collar of her uniform.

“But by talkin’ to
you like this, I realized that something I don’t need to worry
about. You just aren’t worth my time.”

Fear appeared for the
first time on Kouzuki’s face. ...Nah, that ain’t it. Since the moment she
called out to me, her fists had been trembling from how hard she had tried to
hide her fear. That’s how powerless a person she was.

“He’ll just come to
hold you in contempt, and that’ll be that. Later.”

I didn’t want to so much as look at her any
more. Releasing her collar, I walked away from the shoe rack without
sparing her a second glance.

With all the rumors
swirling around her, I figured she’d have a little more of a backbone in
her. But she was just another person with no faith in their own damn world. She
just wanted Kou in order to reinforce her world.

She was just like all
the others. She gave off the sound of chains.

Her chains were
quieter than others, maybe, but that was all there was to it. She was just
another nobody, far removed from the ideal I strived for.

She was just as much
a nobody as I was.

Chains.

I started seeing the chains when I was in ninth
grade.

In contrast to my
peers, who were grappling with entrance exams and relationship woes, I could
feel myself growing distant.

The contents of their
worries even drove some of them to cut their own wrists, but I couldn’t
see at as any more serious than whether a sand castle was knocked over or not.
After all, even if they wounded themselves they didn’t plan on dying. I
— I, who truly knew death — could tell that those wounds were nothing
more than a tool to highlight the extent of their woes.

Once I became
a complete bystander, simply gazing on them in observation, I noticed
something.

Everything they held
dear was created.

With so much
information flowing down the muddy stream of our world, a simple papier-mâché construction is enough for them all to
implicitly believe it.

They
were being controlled.

Made to
dance in perfect harmony, they were being controlled by fiendish, brutal
chains.

Then, I
became able to see those chains. And from the materialized chains, I
could even hear noise. The rattling noise they made was raucous. The noise was
so raucous it sapped all vitality from me. Once that was finished, I
began losing my ideals as well. Lost in the pursuit of cheap pleasure, I
no longer cared if the world was in color or monochrome, or if it was real or
simply the inside of an image. To that end, I engaged in a series of
unethical activities. Pleasure was all that was real to me, but was merely
ephemeral, and in the end time simply passed while nothing else changed. My
world was peeled apart by the chains. It was a simple, complete excoriation.

When
I finally managed to regain a grip on my peeled-up world, a thought
suddenly floated to my mind, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I wanna kill someone.

Murder
had taken the color from my world and reduced my reality to the state it was in
today. Ironically, as a consequence of its gravity, it was also what lay just
beyond my outstretched hand. No matter where I reached out towards, I
would run into those homicidal urges. Like a butterfly trapped in a spiderweb, no
matter how much I struggled I couldn’t move. From where I was,
I couldn’t see anything else.

Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Wanting
to flee from the chains and the noise, I reached out my hand. This time,
my hand got caught on those homicidal urges. They began controlling me.

Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

 

But
even then, I would never have believed it.

That
there could be a person unfettered by those chains.

 

 

“Kusukusu...
you two really are interesting, aren’t you?”

I could tell that the girl, who
had a childish face and and looked somewhat off-balance, was different from the
moment she started speaking to us.

Her
smile seemed like it was free of any influence from the events of the outside
world.

“Whaddya
want?”

Who was
she? Like Kouzuki, was she trying to take advantage of how fragile Kou’s chains
were?

“Oh,
Ririko was just thinking how she wanted to become good friends with Hiiragi!”

She
didn’t react even a little to my display of animosity. And she didn’t give the
sense that she was playing dumb. Humans are creatures bound by fear. Anyone
would react to the presence of violence.

Then
what was wrong with her?

It
seemed that “different” didn’t cut it. She was clearly lacking something
fundamental.

“What’s so interesting about you two are the
call signs you’re giving off.”

She
spoke as if her peculiar words were commonplace. That was something neither I
nor Kouzuki was capable of. This girl didn’t desire salvation, and she had no
doubts in her own world. In actuality, she was basically rejecting interaction
with the rest of mankind.

Inside
a closed world that was like a perfectly sealed-off room, she had no need to
grow.

I’d heard rumors about this.
Rumors about an upperclassman who had been coming and going from a psychiatric
hospital since she enrolled.

“Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?”

“Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course.”

According to the rumors, she lacked
boundaries. Unable to tell where her “self” began and ended, she supposedly saw
everything outside her body as simply parts of herself. She was under the
misapprehension that not just her body but everything she could more or less
freely manipulate was part of her. Although it was a bit more allegorical in my
case, I’d certainly had times where I felt unable to put down my phone,
as if it were a part of my body. But as far as she was concerned, her
unification with her electrical devices was no allegory. To her, using
electrical signals from her brain to move her limbs wasn’t just the same as
using a remote to change the channel on TV, the remote and the television
themselves were just parts of her body.

It was a world beyond comprehension. But
regardless, it was the world she lived in.

A different world from the rest of us.

“Interesting, aren’t they? White and
ultramarine, huh. Aren’t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko
likes white, you know. Makes me want to do something.”

I had no idea what
those colors meant in her code. All I could tell was that they were code
for something else.

I glanced at Kou. Even though he’s
confused, he wouldn’t reject another, even if that person is Matsumi. But even
Kou likely won’t be able to grasp her world.

...Actually, is that really true? This is the
same Kou who’s spent a whole month getting to know me, after all.

“Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?”

“Read me?”

“Oh, that’s right. Most people can’t do
scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!”

Maybe Matsumi, who blurs the boundaries
between electrical devices and her own body, is deluded into thinking she can
fulfil the role of an electrical device herself?

But something quickly makes me realize that
that perception was halfhearted.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

It’s
not a delusion. It’s something far worse. In that instant, Matsumi became an
electrical device.

That’s right. Why didn’t I notice it
sooner?

This chick doesn’t have any chains at all.

The moment I realized that, it felt as
if the false machine noise was causing the world to violently lurch. I
couldn’t keep my footing. The world was slanting simply because I had
become aware of my own change. Unable to remain in place, I began
tumbling. I was rolling. Rolling and rolling. Rolling and rolling and
rolling and rolling.

How did this happen?

...Ah, because I didn’t believe. I didn’t
believe that a person without chains could even exist. That’s why my world was
doing an about-face.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

The sun went out. What illuminated my world in
its place was Matsumi’s eyeball. Within those dead-fish eyes, her pupil was
focusing like the lens of a single-lens reflex camera. Taking on heat, her eyes
began to sear me. It burns! It burns! It burns!

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise pursued me and, as I spun
through space, bored its way into my body. From near and from far, the noise
continued to ring. I had long since lost track of where it was ringing
from. I was becoming to create the noise as well.

The lens was simply floating in space.

Those eyes turned towards me.

“Ah-”

What part of me were they looking at?

They were looking at me burning and tumbling
through space. I’m begging you, don’t expose this hackneyed end of mine.
Those pitiful limitations of mine. Those banal thoughts of mine.

“...don’t.”

I didn’t want to
know.

“Beep bi—”

I didn’t want to
know. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know.

“DON’T!”

As I scream, the floating eyeball lens
vanishes. In that moment, I’m assailed with vertigo and the world goes
black. Once the light returned, I could see Kou looking concerned and
Matsumi pouting.

“You don’t have to shout like that, you
know...”

“Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just
now...?”

“Hold on, hold on. Ririko’s going to put it
into words now.”

Matsumi stopped being human again.

She somehow got information about Kou, and
she’s translating it such that we can understand it as well. A computer turning
binary into letters and images.

“Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her
hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent
approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing
cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen
to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally good
at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others
with-”

“Th... that’s enough! Matsumi-senpai, please
cut it out!”

She returns to being human.

“So? So? How was that? How’d you like my
scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?”

“Senpai, can we go now?”

“Whaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He’s
white, after all! He’s the only one!”

“Sorry, but we got places to be.”

“Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it
can’t be helped then. Ririko guesses she’ll see you later then, Tanihara.”

Not thinking, I stopped in my tracks.

People
read my last name, “谷原,” incorrectly all the time. So
the mistake itself wasn’t particularly notable.

“Huh? Aren’t you Tanihara?”

“It’s read ‘Yahara’, Senpai.”

So in other words, that’s what that meant.

Matsumi’s “scanning” gathers information
visually.

 

We strolled through an abandoned shopping
district, shuttered up as a result of its inability to compete with a large
nearby shopping mall.

I gazed at Kou in
silent shock.

Even when faced with Ririko Matsumi, he didn’t
give up on trying to comprehend her. If we hadn’t gotten lucky, he would have
completely taken her in.

It would be fine if he got invaded by Kouzuki.
He’d be treated as a freak, sure, but at least he’d be able to keep on living.
But Matsumi was no good. If he took in something broken, he’d become broken as
well. It would be like downloading a malicious app.

“Get this through your head. Don’t talk to
that birdbrain again. She’ll be a bad influence on you. Got it?”

Kou nodded. But it wasn’t because he was
convinced, it was because he felt the situation called for it.

I didn’t what his
true intentions were. ...Hell, I didn’t know if he had any intentions in
the first place.

“Masato, did you understand what was going on
with that scanning thing?”

Scanning.

Based on the fact that she got the information
visually, I had a hunch as to what the trick was. But it was tough to
put into words.

I suspected the
reason she was able to guess my name was because she subconsciously knew it
already. Even though the time she spent in the hospital kept her from showing
up at school much, she was still a fellow student of ours. There was plenty of
times she could have run across our names.

The only abnormal part was how she went about
recalling that information.

Normal people quickly forget information they
don’t need. For example, we don’t remember the faces of every person we pass on
the street.

But what if this “scanning” let her pull out
memories from deep in her brain, memories that anyone else would have lost? If
that were the case, then simply having passed us in a hallway would be plenty
for her to know our names.

It then followed that her being able to put
names to faces, as well as dredge up all that information about Kou, was simply
the result of outstanding insight born from her recollection, observational,
and analytic prowess. Of course, she couldn’t do that all the time, but only
when she was in a trance state from putting herself under the self-hypnosis
called “scanning.”

Seen from the outside, a skilled
fortune-teller would appear to be able to trace the steps of another’s life.
Hell, even I’d be able to guess whether someone’s a virgin or not a good
chunk of the time. But Matsumi was on another level. She was able to come up
with his personality, his familial structure, and even where he lived. It was
practically a superpower.

It was abnormal.

If I told told Kou all this, nothing
good would come of it. It would just end up driving him towards taking her in.

“... not even a little.”

So I dodged the question.

Even if Kou didn’t believe me, he neither
pressed me nor showed signs of dissatisfaction. Ahh, now that I think
about it, there’s something wrong with this guy too.

The light in front of us turned red and we
reflexively stopped.

“Why the hell’d we stop?”

“The light was red, wasn’t it?”

“There ain't any cars here.”

Ahh, I can hear it. I can hear
that noise again.

Just beyond my field of view lay those chains.
Beautiful chains that acted as if they owned us, designed to stop us from
moving.

I couldn’t help
but despise the chains. They bound me and were the cause of everything that
drained color from my world.

...or so I thought.

And because that’s what I thought, I
yearned to be a person without chains. I truly thought I desired
release from those chains. 

But then I met such an unfettered
person.

And what did I feel, upon gazing at
that person?

Fear.

I was scared of
that person without chains. I felt fright. A feeling that implied
unimaginable distance.

There was no chance I could become a
person without chains.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains’ noise
echoed.

You will never be released.

Shut up.

You will be bound until the day you die.

Shut up!

But you already knew that, right? The
reason these chains will never be torn off is because you yourself have no
desire to tear them off.

I SAID SHUT UP!

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The noise keeps resounding.

The sound of chains. The sound of common
sense. The sound of morals.

And the sound of my desire to kill.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. 

“Ahh... I wanna kill someone.”

 

 

After parting ways with Kou, I was
unable to muster the urge to return home and inside took the train into the
suburbs. While the area around the station was prosperous in comparison to the
shutter town I had just left, the dust and general atmosphere made it
clear that it was past its prime.

I wandered about
aimlessly. A department store that would likely be demolished in a few years. A
old-fashioned movie theater that looked wholly unfit to bring a date to. A
bookstore that had been repurposed into a shop for otaku goods. The town, which
was connected, bound, and encircled by power lines, stunk of sewage. If you
boiled down all the mud, the sludge, and the coal tar, it seemed like it like
it would make for delicious, piping hot ramen broth.

I sat on a bench
in front of the station and observed the passersby. The people waiting by the
station were like marionettes, each and every one of them glued to their
smartphones. Social networks, forcing them into round-the-clock surface-level
pleasantries. Aggregation sites pushing morals upon them that are neither right
nor wrong. Blogs flooding with comments, not from individuals but from their
very souls. All an horrifying gambit to strengthen the chains. A colossal trap.

The definition of people who would be better
off dead.

Let’s suppose that that definition was “people
who are detrimental to society.” If that’s the case, people who killed
innocents would be better off dead. People whose contributions to society were
outweighed by the harm they cause to others would be better off dead too.
People whose deaths would be rejoiced at rather than wept at and people who
inspire anarchic thoughts, those people would obviously be better off dead.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we just rounded up all those brutes and
left only the good people?

...It probably would. With fewer recessive
genes around, of course humanity’s going to be wiser. If, hypothetically, the
world was in peril and we had to trim the population, you can bet your ass that
the morals around protecting the weak and disadvantaged are going to be the
first to go and there’d be large-scale massacres. ...Well, it doesn’t have to
be something as over-the-top as that. All I’m trying to get at is that
there’s plenty of people who could die and no one would mind.

“Yo.”

I call out to a
passing woman in an immaculately-pressed suit, likely on her way home from the
office.

In that instant, I got the impression
that although she works hard and contributes to society, she frequently
tramples on the feelings of others. Huh, maybe I’m awakening intuitive
powers like Matsumi’s? Or maybe it was just a delusion of mine? I don’t
much care either way. As far as I cared, she was a detriment to society
- someone who was better off dead.

“Are you speaking to me?”

“Yeah, anyone’s fine. There’s plenty of ya
around. Now, a riddle. When’s a door not a door?”

“When it’s ajar... Excuse me, what did you
want?”

“Who ordered you?”

“Huh?”

“Who ordered you to say ‘when it’s ajar’?”

The woman stopped in her tracks, fear
spreading across her face.

“Nobody ordered me to do anything... what’s
going on...”

“That’s right! No one ordered you to do shit,
right? Then why does everyone answer the same fucking way? There’s gotta be
plenty of other reasons why a door wouldn’t a door, right? Then why’s it gotta
be ajar and not a dormant volcano or somethin’?<ref>The original joke here went about as follows:
* Masato: "What kind of pan (bread) can you not eat?"
* OL: "A frying pan?"
* Masato: "Why'd the answer have to be frying pan? Why couldn't it have been A-kyuusenpan (class-A war criminal)?"</ref>”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ah, shut up. This chick’s chains were
particularly noisy. Women tended to have grimmer, sturdier chains than men.

“You’re pissing me off. You want me to fucking
kill you?”

“Wh...what are you talking about? Is there
something wrong with you?”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

“Get outta my sight. If you don’t, I’m
gonna fucking kill you.”

Not bothering to hide her repugnance, she
quickly ran off.

Heh. Once I considered what I just
did objectively, I give a strained laugh.

It would seem I’d developed a bug.

Walking around is too much of a pain. After
clenching my teeth and somehow dragging myself to a nearby park, I layed
down on a bench. Overheating to an unbearable degree, my brain forcibly entered
a shutdown state. My consciousness faded away dreamlessly.

 

 

I opened my eyes.

The blue sky flooded into them.

I couldn’t form
thoughts. The sun’s blinding light assaulted my eyes, and the painful stimulus
gradually restored my consciousness.

My back flared up in pain, and I remembered
that I had been sleeping in a park. I reached for a cigarette,
but found to my dismay that my pack was empty. What a fucking joke.

I clutched my
head, slowly recalling the events of yesterday.

There’s something wrong with me.

I was aware of how
desperate I was getting, but I was able to keep a cool head for
now.

But it seemed unlikely that I would be
able to fully get back to normal. Upon learning of the existence of a human
without chains, I stopped be able to brush away my homicidal urges,
which were now simmering to the point of boiling over. I could go mad at
any moment. There was even a part of me that wanted to go mad, knowing that
there was a chance that doing so might grant me the impetus to commit murder.
From that small reason alone, I knew I was past the point of
being able to contain these urges. It was past the level of sexual desire, and
was more akin to a hunger that scalded my throat. There was no chance the urges
would subside.

I would either
kill or go mad.

It could only be one or the other.

 

I decided to
return home briefly. I had no idea what my parents would say at this
point, but if I didn’t they were liable to file a missing person report
out of obligation and a desire to leave a paper trail. And I was out of
money. I knew of a method to solve both those problems at once. A method
I had used often since middle school.

Kicking aside an empty can as I entered
the house, I noted that my parents weren’t home. After fishing through
the shelf where grandma pulled the envelope from before she died, I slipped
two ten-thousand yen<ref>~$180</ref> bills into my wallet.

But where should I go? I had no
destination in mind. But in this state, I couldn’t stay at home, nor
could I go to school.

For a moment, I briefly contemplated
going to school. Thanks to my reputation, at least all the jackasses I wanted
to avoid would stay away from me.

And Kou was there.

Kouta Hiiragi. A man with no firm sense of
self. Generally, people analyze what kind of person they themselves are and
form a sense of self around that. In a certain sense they label themselves.

But Kou doesn’t. As a result, his self doesn’t
settle into any one shape. I dunno what made him like that, but based on
Matsumi’s scanning the cause probably lies with his family circumstances.

Because his self isn’t set, Kou tends to take
on whatever form his partner wants him to. Every time he interacts with
someone, his personality changes little by little. As a result, he’s become
able to truly understand others, and not just on a superficial level. He’ll
probably grow accustomed to Kouzuki’s magic in no time, and he fully
understands my madness as well. He doesn’t resist it, either. That’s why if
he’s careless, he’ll end up understanding Matsumi as well and taking her in.

That reminds me, Matsumi likened Kou’s color
to “white.” I get it, that kinda makes sense. Kou can take on any other
color. That in and of itself is dangerous. That’s why Kouzuki is being all
meddlesome and trying to stain Kou in her color; she’s trying to prevent him
from getting stained in a malicious color like mine.

Being accepted by others feels good. I
learned that for the first time when I met Kou.

Kouzuki’s probably the same. That’s why she
trying to keep him for herself.

I guess I
can’t go to school after all.

It’s dangerous for me because Kou is there.

Kou is the ultimate sympathizer. He would no
doubt accept even me, who’s enveloped in homicidal urges. Upon being accepted
by him, I would stop perceiving myself as abnormal, lose my last bits of
resistance, and eventually take action. I could picture it easily.

I grabbed a pack
of cigarettes from my room and lit one with a shaking hand. The nicotine
settled me down a bit, but the urges were unabated.

I slipped a
butterfly knife into my pocket as a de facto tranquilizer. I could kill
at any time. I could make that call whenever I wanted. Knowing
that somehow helped me preserve my sense of reason up until now. But that bit
just now was simply meaningless. It simply served to rile me up.

A paper-thin line was all that kept me from
using this knife up till now. But that paper-thin line held within it a world
of difference.

But I knew.

As I was now, I was liable to
cross that line.

 

When I came to my senses - when I
truly came to my senses - it was already night.

Once again I found myself wandering
through that deteriorating suburb.

While I knew little about killing time,
I knew quite a bit about killing. All I had to do was
noncommittally indulge myself. My mind simply sought pleasure without applying
any deeper meaning to anything. In other words, I was deteriorating as a
human. I was an animal with intelligence but no use for it. There are a
surprising number of humans who fit that description, so I didn’t lack
for companions. Hip! Hip! Hoorah! Other people were necessary for the pursuit
of pleasure. Transient relationships were best. Human garbage was best. If they
were men, though, they’d sooner or later commit some kind of sexual assault, so
I tried to avoid that. I wasn’t into fucking chicks while they
screamed, and taking risks for something I wasn’t into was right off the
table.

So I looked for women. Chicks who were
into give-and-take relationships. Animals who sought only pleasure like I
did. Some of them got clingy, but their kind feared rejection, so once dealt
with none of them pressed the issue. Once they got hooked on drugs and drowned
in pleasure, any chick would become almost disgustingly docile. Once I
was done with with them, they would without fail use every word and action at
their disposal to wail about how lonely they were or some shit, but I
couldn’t give less of a fuck about their pitiful emotions.

“You’re pretty good.”

One of those women spoke up to me when I
was playing darts at an amusement center. What was her name again? I
think she told me, but I forgot.

“Do you play darts a lot?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Through this meaningless conversation, I
got authorization to step into her territory. It was obnoxious, but a necessary
ritual nonetheless.

The chick wasn’t a so-called “gyaru<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyaru</ref>”. She was
no beauty, but her face was attractive enough to put her on the receiving end
of gossip. She wore a cheap-looking black dress with hideous pink frills. I
could tell from experience that she was available.

The ritual had gone on plenty long enough to
move to the next step.

“Anywhere you wanna head after this?”

“Nah, not really, I guess.”

“Follow me, then.”

Although she no doubt knew what was to follow,
she simply followed me without putting up any opposition.

Where should we do it? The park? Nah, my back
hurts, so a cheap hotel would be better... Such thoughts filled my head as we
boarded the elevator.

Leaving the building, we neared a tunnel
running underneath the railway. Right as I put my hand on her back as a
lip service, I heard an unexpected voice.

“Is that you, Yahara?”

There stood the class representative, carrying
a plastic folder and clearly on his way home from cram school — Shuuichi
Akiyama.

I was planning on
feigning not being able to hear him due to the train passing, but when I
reflexively looked over my shoulder, our eyes met.

“What do you intend to accomplish by not
coming to school. Your friends are worried about you, you know.”

His words were exemplary yet insincere. It was
almost as if someone was making him say them. First of all, did this guy even
think I even had friends?

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, shut up already.

For some reason or another, my earlier
hedonism had been enough to temporarily silence the chains. But in the face of
this man, that was impossible.

His chains were grotesque, grimmer and
sturdier than any other’s.

Feeling an onset of vertigo, I plunged
my hand into my pocket and grasped my knife, my de facto tranquilizer.

“What will come of you continuing to neglect
school? You will simply idle away your days. If you fail to put in the effort
now, many paths will become closed to you, and you will regret it fiercely.
Even you should realize such a simple thing.”

“The fuck are you going on about? Don’t go
judging everything according your values.”

“I believe my values are extremely commonplace
values.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”

And that’s the thing I hate more than
anything else.

“You know it, yet you rebel against it. Don’t
you think you’re acting a little childish?”

Akiyama pushed up the bridge of his glasses.

Maybe what he’s correcting with his glasses
isn’t his eyesight, but him himself? He was extreme enough to harbor such
delusions. He could only see the corrected, beautiful world. Unimportant things
didn’t even enter his view. It’s like he’s forgotten that when he takes off his
glasses, the blurry, hard-to-grasp world in front of him is the real one.

Akiyama’s gaze shifted from me to the girl.
Faced with the honor student Akiyama’s reproachful gaze, she uncomfortably
lifted the corners of her mouth.

“Your girlfriend? Won’t you be imposing on
her, dragging her around at this hour?”

He spoke unaffectedly. He likely doubted that
there was any woman who would willingly spend time around me.

“She ain’t my girlfriend, though.”

“She isn’t?”

“Just some chick I picked up off the
street. We were thinking of going and fucking. Get it?”

“Excuse me?”

At his confusion, the girl gave an embarrassed
smile. Of course he’s not going to be able simply nod and accept something like
that.

Glancing sidelong at Akiyama, I give a
snicker.

Hey, look, he can’t even hide it. Inside that
disgust-filled expression, he’s jealous that I’m getting laid. That
fucker’s so fastidious he probably wouldn’t admit he even had desires like
that.

“You... have quite some nerve, saying such
immoral things so brazenly.”

“Jealous?”

“I’m well aware of how proud of your faults
you are. May I ask you a question, though? How often do you do things like
this?”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, this isn’t good. Shut up. This guy’s
chains just won’t shut up.

“All the fucking time, man. What, you want to
get in on this shit? I can teach you how to. It’s easy, all you gotta do
is lie about your age to register for dating sites. Studying ain’t good for
shit, you feel me? You know, if we all just gave in to our primal desire for
pleasure, we could all just live as happy-ass animals.”

Akiyama just glared at me silently.

“...Um, I just remember something I have to
do, so I’m going to head home, okay?”

“Yeah.”

The girl had lost interest. I still
couldn’t remember her name as I watched her run off.

Akiyama watched her recede far longer than I
did.

“Yahara.”

Akiyama spoke, gazing off into the distance.

“What?”

“I believe it is unwise to indiscreetly give
voice to the thoughts of others. But I see you and I do not share that
opinion.”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle.

That noise was whispering to me.

Kill.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

It’s time for you to join the world of
killers. That’s the only path left available to you.

Despite being more tightly bound by those unholy
chains than any other, Shuuichi Akiyama was enough of a freak to feel not agony
but comfort from their embrace. There was no human who symbolized the chains as
much as he did. That would make him the ideal sacrifice, no?

“You wanna sermonize? Fine by me. In any case,
let’s head somewhere less crowded.”

“I see; very well. I would rather nobody else
carelessly inserted their voice in our conversation, after all.”

“Yeah, right. Wouldn’t want anyone getting in
the way.”

I didn’t want
anyone to get in the way.

Not until it was all over.

 

Unlike a large city like Tokyo, all you had to
do in the suburb was walk a little and the tall buildings would be replaced by
rice paddies and vacant lots. Past a convenience store with a sprawling parking
lot belying its defunct state lay a similarly-defunct factory. I neither
knew nor cared what the factory had originally produced, but the sensation of
being underground brought about by its oily, metallic odors made it ideal. I
didn’t know what this iron press was designed for either, but when I
laid my hand on it it was icy-cold to the touch.

“I’m surprised that you knew about a place
like this.”

“I told you about all the chicks I
was forcin’ myself on, right? You gotta know about places like this to do shit
like that.”

Akiyama scowled in repugnance.

Honestly, I’m surprised he’d follow me
to a sketchy-ass place like this so easily. Could he not even begin to imagine
himself being in danger? ...Well, he probably couldn’t. That was the kind of
victim I was dealing with here. The kind of guy who was filled with
baseless conviction that he couldn’t possibly get involved with the kind of
incident you see on the news.

He was one of them. Hell, he’d probably even
be shocked at the sight of one of his classmates smoking.

“So? I’m ready to be preached at.”

“Before we start, would you mind turning on a
light? It’s too dark for me to even make out your face. I feel that that would
somewhat defeat the purpose of this conversation.”

Did he really think that being able to see my
face would make his shitty-ass sermon stick?

“I think someone left a lantern here...”

Squinting to look for the electric lantern, I
found it beside a pile of cigarette butts. As I flicked the switch,
Akiyama’s form came dimly into view.

“For you to have lead me this far, I can
assume you have at least some intention of hearing me out?”

I choked back laughter. Akiyama didn’t seem to
consider for a moment the possibility that he might be assaulted, let alone
killed.

I’m sure what’s
floating through his mind is something along the lines of a naive-ass after
school special. The pitiable delinquent, coming from a bad background, finally
finds someone who understands him and, struck by his sincere actions, gets back
on the straight and narrow.

What a nice story. Even I, without an
ounce of cynicism, think it would be nice if we had more of that kind of story.
I’ve seen a lot of delinquents, and most of them are scum through and
through. Defective from their very genes. Deficient in brains, empathy, fear,
and imagination, the lot of them.

But in spite of all that, this guy has enough
faith in his persuasive abilities to follow me all this way. I half
wanted to see what the it was about his speech he was so confident in. Hell,
maybe they’d even be enough to convert me.

“Let me start by asking you something. Are you
happy with the way you’re living right now?”

“As if. I’m always wishing I could
change, you know?”

Even right now.

In any case, I was about to be able to
change. Not that I had any idea what I was going to change into.

“Then why not simply be more diligent? From
what I can see, you certainly aren’t stupid. I mean that, by the way. All it
takes for people to change is to find an objective and to put in the effort
necessary to achieve it. At the moment you’re lapsing into depravity, but if
you take a slightly longer view I have no doubt you can overcome such
temptations.”

I laugh
inappropriately upon hearing that from the most nearsighted man imaginable.

“So you’re saying if I just become a
straight-A student like you, my life’ll open up and become all peaches and
fuckin’ cream?”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be studies.
Anything you find that you can put your all into works. And that’s all it takes
to open up your life. I’m sure there’s some activity you could find yourself
getting engrossed in.”

“There’s nothin’ like that.”

“Are you certain? What about sports, say,
boxing or rugby?”

I wanted to throw
up. Is this guy actually referencing old after school specials, then lumping
all delinquents together in one convenient little category? Faced with such a
blad lack of imagination, I began to doubt if he was even truly a
straight-A student.

“And if you do indeed find something you want
to do, the more paths you have available before you to choose from the better.
As you are right now, paths are vanishing.”

“Dumbass. No one who was willing to work their
ass off just to keep future possibilities open would be in this situation in
the first damn place.”

“You mustn’t give up on yourself. Envision the
future, and stride towards it!”

I hadn’t suspected
his little sermon would fail to resonate with me to this extent. The things he
was saying were ostensibly correct. Perhaps they would have resonated more from
a different mouth.

But the words felt like they had no weight
behind them. They held none of the speaker’s true feelings. It felt like he was
simply reading out of some manual on delinquent correction. The words were
completely those of another.

And on top of that, the sound of chains.

His thoughts and mine were in parallel,
destined to never intersect.

“Those chains of yours. I’ll pass on
being bound by them, thank you very much!”

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,
rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ahh, I can’t hold it in any more.

I should just kill
him. I can’t bear to listen to any more of this. I should just
kill him. I should just kill him. When I open up his flesh, my
future will open up as well. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. I should just kill him. I don’t want to be here
any more. I’m never coming back here again. I should just kill
him. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. This place is empty; no one will hear him scream. His
death wails will be a hymnal for me alone, a noise sufficient to drown out
those chains. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I
should just kill him. I should just kill him. His blood will go flying. I
don’t know how my world will change. But if nothing else, my monochrome world
will be dyed red. I should just kill him. I should just kill him.
I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I should
just kill him. 

“Chains? I’m not sure I see any chains
to speak of... What are you talking about, Yahara?”

Looking around, he frowned.

“I’ll tell you, so you can die in
peace.”

“...Yahara?”

“Chains. The preconceived notions that bind
us. That’s a useless definition. They’re essentially rules without order.
Morals, forced upon us. Their noise is annoying. I've always wanted to
escape them. The only way I can escape them is by killing. In other
words, that noise is basically the sound of my desire to kill.”

I pulled the butterfly
knife out of my pocket. With a flick of my wrist, the blade flies out.

“Now I can get out of here!”

My reluctance to kill vanished.

Immediately, my hand was filled with the
sensation of flesh. It was softer than I expected, barely giving me the
sensation I had slashed at all. The experience was lacking.

“Now you can get out of here, hm...”

The red blood dripped loudly.

Now that I think about it, it’s
strange. Even though we constantly have blood flowing through our bodies, we
only ever think about it at times like this. It’s like not being able to see
the forest for the trees. It’s not that our awareness is limited, we’re simply
under the impression that it is.

“—On that point alone, we are of the same
opinion.”

What sentiment did that smile carry? It seemed
similar to the sense of accomplishment a child would display upon digging up an
anthill and earnestly squishing its inhabitants.

“Your life has no value... or rather, you’re
like a vermin that deserves to die.”

Akiyama spoke bluntly, his voice carrying no
inflection.

He pulled out the knife.

As he pulled it out, blood — lifeblood —
poured from my chest.

Releasing my wrist, Akiyama pulled the knife
out from my chest and tossed it aside. Fluids burst out like a stopped had been
uncorked. Red liquid spilled out from my mouth. No matter what it was I was
regurgitating, it wasn’t anything good.

“You thought too little of me. Did you really
believe that I had no idea why you brought me here?”

I knew it. Akiyama
was a deviant.

“You should have realized it as soon as I had
you turn the lantern on. I had you light it so I could make out your
movements.”

Everyone likely, to varying extents, realizes
that they’re bound by something. Even if you couldn’t see the chains, you could
definitely feel them choking you.

But Akiyama was completely unlike that. He had
no doubts in his own world. He never doubted that what he saw as just was what
the rest of the world also saw as just.

Akiyama was too much of an honors student for
his own good, and as a result had never been reproached or criticized by the
adults in his life. So he was under the misapprehension that everything he
did was just.

That was his abnormality.

“I was well aware of your murderous
aspirations. And from our discussion, I could tell that those aspirations were
not something you were capable of escaping from. That is why I judged it
necessary to eliminate you.”

The thoughts Akiyama held were widely held by
society to be just. But nobody’s cogs are aligned perfectly. Perhaps the
misalignment was small at first. Something another could easily notice and
alert him to. But because of how much of an honors student he was, he had
nobody to point it out to him. So that continued twisting into the form Akiyama
desired. And though the misalignment had grown to lethal proportions, even if
someone were to point it out Akiyama was past the point of heeding the words of
others.

Vainglory. There was no man alive better
suited to that word than Akiyama. I should have recognized that.

“You said something about helping me dying in
peace, if I recall? It would appear I am now in a position to offer parting
words to you.”

Looking down on my fallen body, Akiyama dug
his heel into my face.

“I offer you this explanation so that you can
die in peace. Would your world change if you killed someone? I offer you the
answer you sought for so long.”

My vision went dark, gradually fading. My
sense of pain left me as well, the only thing I could feel any more
being a cold sense of emptiness where the knife had stabbed me.

“The answer: it would not. Or perhaps it
would? You weren’t a very good point of reference, after all. After all, you’re
simply vermin. What emotion stirs within you when you kill a cockroach? I’m
sure you feel the same thing anyone does. Nothing but disgust.”

The noise of the world started fading as well.
Great, now I didn’t have to listen to Akiyama babble any more.

I fell into the
void.

Everything disappeared.

All that was left were my thoughts.

For argument’s sake.

For argument’s sake, if I had
successfully killed Akiyama, would my world have changed?

Ahh, I came close enough to tell. I
can picture it as if it were real. Even if I had successfully killed
Akiyama,

My world wouldn’t have changed.

It wouldn’t have changed a bit.

There would simply have been a corpse rolling
around in front of me. And having lost my last thread of salvation, I
would have gone mad.

Thinking about it, such a conclusion wouldn’t
have been half bad.

But even so, I thought.

If by some miracle I survive this, I
would still try to kill Akiyama. I would definitely kill him.

Not to change my world.

Not to erase the sound of chains.

I would kill him
because he pisses me off. I would kill him out of simple hatred.

I would be the
most hackneyed, worthless killer imaginable.

Indeed.

I am, to a degree
that disappoints even me, an ordinary human.

 

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I can hear them. I
can hear them in my ears, which should no longer be able to hear at all.

I knew. In truth,
I’ve known for a long time. The cacophonous ringing was never the sound of
other people’s chains. It was— 

—the sound of the chains that had always been
wrapped around me.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
<references />

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</noinclude>

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)

2017-11-13T12:01:14Z

Kooritsukai:

<div class=WordSection1>

“I’ll protect you with my magic.”

As the 18th of May was becoming part of my
normal high school routine, those words changed my world.

The shoe rack was so old it clearly needed
replacing and was held together in several places with shoddily-placed packing
tape. I had gotten used to its musty odor over the past month, and as I took in
the moldy smell the hand picking up my loafers stopped in midair.

“Ex...cuse me?”

Although we had never spoken before, I could
tell from the graceful-looking girl’s sailor uniform and red ribbon that she
was a fellow first-year. While her chestnut hair was done up with a red hair
band on the back of her head, it felt too short to truly call a ponytail. Her
features were reminiscent of a movie star, with a petite face, wide eyes, and
skin so white it seemed practically transparent. In contrast with my rather
unassuming stature, she was graced with such appeal that any who glimpsed her
around school would have practically no choice but to turn their head. She was
without a doubt the most gorgeous person I had met in my life.

“Oh right, I guess it would be pretty
confusing to be told out of the blue that you’re being protected, huh!”

With a smirk, the girl I had just met began
slapping my shoulder in an overly-familiar manner. Even given our lack of
closeness, between her looks and her behavior I suspected that the majority of
people would feel comfortable around her.

“But you know, I couldn’t just leave you on
your own like that. You basically don’t have any, after all.”

Her face grew serious as she said the
following.

“Magic resistance, that is.”

That’s not a phrase you hear every day.

My fifteen years of life up until this point
had left me woefully unprepared to respond to such a ridiculous proclamation,
so I had no choice but to stare dumbfounded at the one who voiced it.

To make matters worse, I’m shy. While my
friend Masato would disagree with that assessment, the fact that I had no idea
how to interact with people when meeting them for the first time was
indisputable. In any case, my head was still spinning as I futilely tried to
think of an appropriate response. 

To that, the girl mumbled something to the
effect of “yup, he didn’t even realize how low his magic resistance is,”
reaffirming her assessment of the situation.

In the face of such strange conduct, I finally
remembered the name of the character standing in front of me.

“Are you by any chance Miki Kouzuki?”

“The one and only!”

That I knew her name was unlikely to come as a
surprise to Kouzuki. It was only natural. She was famous, after all.

She was simply that attractive. Like many
beauties before her, as soon as she enrolled she caught the attention of male
students throughout the school. However, before long the ranks of suitors
quietly receded.

The cause was the circulation of a particular
rumor.

The rumor that the girl was delusional — a
self-proclaimed magus.

“So what’s this ‘magic resistance’?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s your
resistance against magic. How immune to magic you are. I wonder how you got that
way, though. Maybe there’s something strange with your astral body?”

Oh look, she started saying something
undecipherable.

“...And what on earth is magic?”

“Huh? Hiiragi, you haven’t heard of magic?
Haven’t you ever played a video game?”

Somehow or other it seemed she knew my name as
well.

“No, what I’m asking is—”

What is the real-world concept that you’re
referring to as “magic”?

...Or, that was what I was going to ask, but I
stopped myself mid-sentence. If the rumors that she believed herself to be a
magus were true, asking that question would cause the conversation to quickly
grow awkward. After all, that phrasing would be virtually the same as rejecting
the concept of magic outright. After thinking for a moment, I decided to ask a
different question.

“Who exactly can use magic? Are you able to?”

“Oh, anyone can use magic. Whether or not they
realize it, everyone uses magic all the time. Obviously, I’m no exception.”

“I don’t recall ever using magic, though…”

“Like I said, you just don’t realize it. In
our world, even really strong magi sometimes don’t realize their own
abilities.”

“Is that... so…”

It seems she was… the real deal. It felt like
it would take some time before I could figure out how to interact with her.

“Yup. Just as I suspected, Hiiragi, you have a
talent for magic.”

I had no idea what the basis for that
assessment was, but as she said it the corners of her mouth turned upwards
happily. 

“Didn’t you just say that I had no magic
resistance or something?”

“That’s exactly why you’re talented! There
isn’t a direct causal relationship, but it’s really easy for a person like that
to become a magus if they spend time around another magus.”

“Huh…”

“Even an unenthusiastic response like that is
okey-dokey! I get the feeling you have no idea what I’m talking about, but
that’s fine! I’ll teach you magic, starting from some super-basic runes! Once
you start getting some hands-on experience, you should start picking it up like
that!”

I still had no idea how to respond, so for the
time being I just set the loafers I had been holding for some time on the
floor.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t properly
introduced myself yet, huh. I’m Miki Kouzuki from class 1-3. Nice to meet you~”

“...I’m Kouta Hiiragi from class 1-2.”

“Oh, I know. Nice to meet you!”

With a carefree smile, Kouzuki presented her
hand.

When I naturally responded in kind, Kouzuki
clasped my hand tightly as if refusing to let it escape. Between the sensation
of her soft hand against mine and her charming smile, I could feel my heart
pounding in my chest.

You could hardly blame me, right? If not for
her comments about magic and such, Kouzuki’s beauty would be sure to make her
popular even within her own sex.

“...Is it ok if I go now, Kouzuki?”

“Oh, that won’t do. Please, call me by my
first name. A nickname would do too.”

I’d never before called a woman by either
their first name or a nickname. Was my first time going to be taken in this
girl who I’d met through the conversational equivalent of a fender-bender?

...It was, wasn’t it. I was the type of person
who tended to go with the flow.

“Given names are similar to incantations, you
see. Calling someone by their last name generates magic too. If we do that,
we’ll be cursed to never quite be friends. With me so far?”

I was in fact not with her. All I was picking
up was she didn’t want me to call her by her last name. But that would have to
be good enough.

“Miki, then?”

“Hmm… it still feels a bit off… but I guess
it just barely passes muster. As for you, Kouta, I guess you’d probably be
opposed to having a girl suddenly talk to you too familiarly. We can get to
that point gradually.”

It seemed she was capable of at least that
level of forethought.

“Now then, could you give me your phone number
and LINE ID?"

As instructed, I exchange contact information
with her. Under normal circumstances, this might look like something to be
envious of. But while it might seem that way on the surface, it’s a different
matter when the other party is the kind of troublemaker who would call
themselves a magus. That’s the conclusion I arrived at.

While putting on pretense of indifference,
Kouzuki asked me this without taking her eyes from the phone screen:

“Kouta, you think of yourself as pretty
normal, right?”

Of course.

“Because you aren’t. Magic aside, even now you
seem out of place.”

“I mean, people say that I’m unambitious…”

“This is on a whole ‘nother level, though.”

I had no intention of getting any more
involved than I already was, so this line of discussion held no interest for
me. After I registered the user with the handle “Magus” as a friend on LINE, I
assumed that the conversation had reached its conclusion, so I finished putting
on my loafers.

“Umm, can I leave now?”

“Oh, hold on a sec. I left my bag in the
classroom, so let me go grab it real quick.”

As my mouth hung open like a dunce, Kouzuki
flashed a mischievous smile.

“I’m leaving with you, of course. Didn’t I
just say that I would protect you?”

As she said that, she nudged my shoulder
innocently.

And that was how my first time going home from
school with a girl, which I had been eagerly looking forward to since the
moment I enrolled, was stolen by a self-proclaimed magus.

 

 

The following day, Friday the 19th.

It was morning, just before homeroom. I leaned
back in my chair, exhausted from my unusual experience the day before. Getting
to know new people always tends to wear me out, but when that person happened
to not only be a beautiful, high-spirited girl but also a self-proclaimed magus
I suspect nearly anyone would be drained afterwards.

As I lifted my head from my desk, I could see
chalk dust falling from the rim of the blackboard and fluttering throughout the
classroom. It gets cleaned every day, so it’s probably just my imagination, but
this ancient, not-up-to-code building seemed oddly dark and dusty.

I recounted the previous day’s strange events
to my friend, who was sitting in the seat in front of me with his head on his
desk. After halfheartedly listening to my tale, he said this once I finished.

“Normally ya’d just
assume she has the hots for ya, Kou.”

With his eyes half-closed, Masato Yahara
lazily gave me a blunt response. Blunt as it was, though, it seemed he had
taken interest in my story. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have even bothered
replying.

At our traditionalist high school, Masato’s bleached
brown hair and perm were in clear violation of the dress code. And his
transgressions didn’t stop there; he also regularly smoked and shoplifted. On
looks alone it wouldn’t be strange if he were a member of a certain well-known
idol group, but his attitude revealed a level of delinquency such that none of
the other student would dare get near him.

“But Miki isn’t exactly normal, right?”

“You ain’t wrong; that chick’s fucked up in
the head. You sure she’s not just gonna kill you as some ritual sacrifice?”

He laughed cynically. But I was used to this
personality of his.

“Kill me? It’s not like she’s you or
anything.”

“I don’t fuckin’ get it. She’s gotta
have some ulterior motive. If she was normal, I could chalk it up to a
sad attempt to get your attention, but that’s not necessarily the case with
her. Whatever she wants to do to you, it might be something completely out of
left field.”

Masato jabbed me with his thumb.

“But even though you get the same feeling,
you’re not going to be able to turn her down, are ya.”

I couldn’t deny it. I was non-confrontational
by nature, after all.

“Hey, may as well make the best of it, right?
Hell, if nothing else, you’ll be able spend your adult life bragging that you
spent your high school days hanging out with a hot chick.”

As it didn’t directly affect him, Masato’s
advice might seem rather irresponsible.

However, he was rarely off the mark when it
came to stuff like this. He had a good head on his shoulders, and his hunches
tended to be astute. Although most what came out of his mouth was extreme, if
you ignored his generally dubious manner of speaking what you were left with
was fairly insightful.

A sacrifice, huh.

It was scary how plausible that seemed.

As I buried my head in my arms, Masato
suddenly dropped his gaze from me, and muttered,

“Ahh… I wanna kill someone.”

This was something of a catchphrase of his.
Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, he would murmur this as if he
were remembering something. Although it wasn’t exactly a praiseworthy habit, if
I paid him any heed it would likely just drive a rift between us.

“Still, for her to make a move on you without
even knowing you… looks like our girl Miki Kouzuki’s oddity puts the rumors to
shame. Just talking about magic’s one thing, but the kind of person
who’d graduate to actually doing something ain’t exactly a dime a
dozen.”

“You know, the two of you are weird in oddly
similar ways.”

“Kouzuki and I are?”

Masato frowned, then pondered for a moment.
But before long, he replied with an uncharacteristically serious expression.

“Nah, we aren’t.”

“You’re not?”

“We just aren’t. In fact, we’d probably get
along like cats and dogs.”

I didn’t quite follow, but given Masato’s
intuitive prowess I had no reason to doubt him.

As our conversation wound down, the morning
bell began to ring. Although our school had a bell that signaled that homeroom
would begin shortly, I’d never seen it have much effect on the other classes.
Until the moment the homeroom teacher walked in the door, the students would
generally continue chatting and milling about.

But our class was different.

“Everyone, note that the bell has rung. I
would appreciate it if you took your seats.”

The class representative, Shuuichi Akiyama,
issued an order. Although the rest of the class balked at the prospect of
accepting direction from a fellow student, they didn’t feel it was an issue
worth fighting over and quickly fell in line. That was simply how our class
operated.

Masato hated that arrangement from the bottom
of his heart.

“Hell, if it gets down to it, our relationship
might become like mine and that fucker’s.”

“Like yours and the class rep’s? No way.”

Masato and Akiyama were on poor terms.
Although delinquents and honor students seldom got along well, it was common
for the two groups to intentionally avoid interacting and to simply ignore the
other.

But these two were constantly at each other's
throats, making their disdain for the other clear.

 

Let’s turn the clock back a month to April
19th for a moment. Much like today, Akiyama took it upon himself to act in the
teacher’s stead, to which Masato vehemently resisted. Slamming his desk to
drive his point home, Masato declared, in a voice dripping with contempt:

“You make me fuckin’ sick.”

I, along with the rest of the class, froze. To
be completely honest, the rest of us also found something about Akiyama a
little bit off-putting. However, his actions were objectively exemplary, so
nobody could find reason to reproach him. We had no legitimate reason to be
cautious around him.

But Masato simply gave voice to his revulsion,
offering no reasoning. I would be lying if I said I didn’t find it a little
refreshing, but Masato had clearly taken it too far.

Normally, an honor student like Akiyama would
be unused to such violent outbursts. I was certain that Akiyama would be
frightened and atrophy in the face of such a verbal blow.

Which is why I was more surprised by Akiyama’s
response than by Masato’s outburst.

“And what of it, may I ask?”

Rather than falter, Akiyama struck back
defiantly. I was half concerned that Masato would lose his temper and the
argument would devolve into a fistfight.

But instead of leaping at Akiyama, Masato just
muttered “go figure” to himself with a disdainful look on his face. Unlike the
rest of us, it seemed he anticipated Akiyama’s response. Glaring at Akiyama
with eyes that gave the sense they were gazing at filth, Masato ended his
tirade with “You’re beyond help,” and returned to his seat without causing any
more commotion. Fortunately, things hadn’t gotten out of hand.

For his part, although he said no more,
Akiyama was able to clearly convey his contempt for the delinquent Masato. But
because Masato didn’t press the issue further, neither did he.

From that point on, their relationship had
been akin to a lit powder keg.

“Akiyama and I are like opposites.”

Casting a sidelong glance at Akiyama, Masato
smiled contemptuously.

“In what way?”

“Y’know, one of us desires chains, the other
rejects them.”

I tilted my head in puzzlement.

“Don’t worry about it. Hell, don’t even think
about it. No good’ll come of you overworking that poor brain of yours.”

“Are you calling me stupid?”

“Stupid is as stupid does, Kou. Just try to
empty out that head of yours.”

“You’re awful.”

Although he says that, I know he doesn’t
actually hate me. I’m so used to it that it doesn’t even bother me anymore.

“Well, for now you should probably figure out
how to dodge Kouzuki’s weird-ass solicitations. You know she’s probably gonna
come after you again, right?”

 

Just as Masato predicted, Miki made her way to
our classroom just as fourth period ended. Entering an unfamiliar classroom is
often cause for nervousness, but I didn’t pick up on any whatsoever from Miki.

“Welp, let’s get going!”

Grasping my hand, Miki gave it a tug. I didn’t
need an explanation to see that she had no intention of letting me refuse.

I could feel the collective gaze of my
classmates boring down on me. I couldn’t blame them. Her reputation as an
eccentric aside, Miki Kouzuki was widely hailed as the cutest girl in our
school. Yet someone like that was calling my name and grasping my hand, even
though I had no notable characteristics to my name other than my relationship
with Masato. 

“H...hold on a second!”

If I put myself at her mercy, I would no doubt
find myself the victim of my peers’ boundless curiosity. My peaceful life would
be shattered.

Planting myself in place, I stopped Miki.

“Don’t get all rebellious with me, Kouta! I’m
doing this whole bodyguard thing for free, you know. The least you could do is
be a little more obedient.”

“At least explain what you’re planning on
doing with me!”

“I called for you during lunch, so isn’t it
obvious that we’re going to eat together? Use your head! It’s because you’re
like that that you don’t have any magic resistance.”

For some reason, she scolded me in earnest.

I felt that I should be the one scolding her
for her audacity and lack of common sense, but I suspected that my rebuttal
would fall on deaf ears. I could almost picture it.

Releasing my hand for a moment, Miki pulled
out two picturesque yellow lunchboxes and displayed them to me proudly.

“Behold, two lunchboxes made personally by my
cute self! Consider yourself lucky!”

“Well, I guess it would be hard to argue that
you aren’t cute...”

Upon hearing this, Miki put both hands on her
cheeks and displayed a bashful expression.

“He called me cute! C’mon, I promise they
taste good.”

She pounded on my back exuberantly. She’s
making a racket, and her acting sucks. Given her reaction, she must be completely
used to being called cute.

“Let’s go to the courtyard!”

I could no longer muster the energy to resist
Miki, who had begun pulling me along once more. My classmates’ inquisitive eyes
were no doubt still on me, but... oh, whatever. Peace at any price, right?

Masato, who was watching us out of the corner
of his eye, made no move to lend me assistance, instead just putting on the
same cynical grin as always and gently waving me goodbye.

 

Although it was in fact a courtyard, it wasn’t
the type of place you could easily envision students gathering or eating lunch
at. It was simply a poorly-maintained lawn with a few apologetic-looking
shrubs, without even so much as a bench to its name. As a result, the two of us
were alone aside from the occasional passerby.

Ours was a rural public high school that often
used tradition as an excuse to avoid change and fundamentally rejected the idea
of a vibrant adolescence. Both the courtyard and the old-fashioned building
served to bore us into submission.

The clearest symbol of that was the uniforms.
Despite being widely regarded as unfashionable by the students, our school
still used black gakuran<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_school_uniform#Gakuran</ref> and black sailor uniforms of old.

Clearly in a bubbly mood, Miki laid a sheet
she had brought on the unkempt lawn and took a seat. I followed suit.

“Is eating lunch together part of my becoming
a magus too?”

“Yeah, pretty much. That’s about right.”

By eating her homemade lunch, I could become a
magus.

When I put it like that, the causal
relationship felt a little dubious. I unconsciously let out a sigh.

“Are you going to make me eat lizard tails or
something?”

“What are you talking about? This isn’t a
Witches’ Sabbath or anything like that, you know.”

I wanted to ask what exactly a Witches’
Sabbath was, but I realized that if I got hung up on everything she said
our conversation would go nowhere.

“Of course, I don’t really expect you to
believe me when I say that eating lunch together will help you become a magus.”

Pouting a little, Miki passed me one of the
boxes. Upon opening the lid, I found... well, to be frank, everything inside
looks perfectly innocuous. Nothing inside seemed to be magic-related, nor did
anything seem like it was made with a loved one in mind. It was, all in all, an
extremely normal lunch.

How anticlimactic.

“Hey, let me guess what you’re thinking right
now!”

Miki brought her face close to mine as if
investigating something.

“Be my guest.”

“You’re thrilled at the prospect of eating a
cute girl’s homemade lunch!”

“What? That’s completely off. I was just
thinking how anticlimactic it was.”

“You’re awful!”

Although now that she mentioned it, eating a
girl’s homemade lunch was a part of adolescence I had been looking forward to.
Miki had stolen yet another of my firsts.

“But being able to speak your mind like that is
a step in the right direction! Keep it up, keep it up!”

For some reason, I was being encouraged.

Her wide eyes gazed straight into mine as she
spoke. That was probably how she truly felt.

If that’s how seriously she was taking this, I
felt that I should do my part to understand this whole magic thing.

“In that case, I’ll ask you... you see, I’m a
little confused. I don’t really understand what you mean when you say ‘magic’.
After all, even though you sometimes borrow their terminology, your magic isn’t
exactly like the stuff you’d find in fantasy novels, right?”

The whole time I was talking, Miki continued
watching me with those large round eyes of hers. Feeling uncomfortable, I
dropped my gaze.

“I don’t really understand it, but I can’t
just unconditionally accept it. At this rate, I might not ever be able to use
magic.”

Miki was listening to me earnestly.

Upon hearing my denial of magic, would she
take offence?

But Miki’s disposition didn’t sour. She
quietly pierced a piece of freezer-aisle karaage with her fork.

“You know, I’ve been dragging you around and
saying some pretty confusing things. I’m the reason you’re so confused. I have
at least that much self-awareness.”

My eyes still downcast, she spoke again.

“Do you hate me for that?”

In response, I quickly shook my head.

“I mean, you’re doing it all with good
intentions, right?”

Miki’s eyes widened slightly as if in
surprise.

“You understood that?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though I was saying cryptic things, like
that I’d protect you from magic or that I’d be your bodyguard?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no way I was really conveying my good
intentions by doing stuff like that...”

This time it was my turn to be surprised.

“So, you did realize you were being
cryptic...”

If she realized how odd she was being,
couldn’t she have just acted more normally in the first place? If she was
afraid that I would come to hate her, wouldn’t it make sense to try getting to
know me more normally?

“Well, ‘cuz... it’s like this. I had to take a
gamble. The way I saw it, you were really in danger; someone else could have
done you in with magic in the blink of an eye. That’s why I was in such a rush
– I had to, like, get really close to you as quick as possible so you’d trust
me.”

“And that’s why you were walking home with me
and making me lunch and stuff?”

“Yup. But you see, I knew you wouldn’t reject
me. Given your lack of magic resistance, I was confident I could get away with
a little bit of coercion.”

“You mean people without magic resistance are
back at rejection?”

“Hmm... it’s not like that’s a rule or
anything, but that’s generally how it turns out. Once the two of us have a
strong bond of mutual trust, by that point you’ll already be a splendid magus.
Once you get to that point, you’ll be able to protect yourself from other
people’s magic.”

There was no way that was the whole truth.

However, I was pretty sure Miki wasn’t saying
it halfheartedly. I could tell how serious and earnest she was being.

Although I still wasn’t fully clear as to what
Miki’s brand of magic entailed, I got the feeling that it had a strongly
grounded concept. If that was the case, I had to deal with it as sincerely as
possible.

“You really are Kouta, aren’t you.”

Peering at my face, Miki laughed happily.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing... Hey, that’s right! We still
haven’t eaten yet!”

I was puzzled, but we wouldn’t make any
progress if I questioned every little thing she did or said. So I did as
prompted and began to eat my lunch.

The lunch had a notably brown hue, and an
ordinary pair of chopsticks were bundled along with it. Looking at it, it was
obvious the creator wasn’t used to cooking. And most of the items were
store-bought. Well, it looked edible, if nothing else.

“Oh no... this is terrible...”

Miki, who was sitting beside me and picking at
the same assortment of side dishes, clutched the sides of her head.

“I... think it’s pretty average, don’t you?”

“...Sorry. I messed up. You see, I’m actually
pretty handy, and I can do most things pretty well. But this is... man, these
carrots are too firm... and half of this is undercooked... Oh geez, I’m really
sorry.”

“Couldn’t you use magic to make it better?”

“Excuse me? Are you just trying to pick a
fight with me like that? You’re picking a fight, aren’t you?”

Grabbing my shoulder, she started shaking me
back and forth. My head rattled from side to side. Miki seemed to find this
amusing, and with a grin on her face refused to stop.

“You two look like you’re having a blast, for
a couple of freshman shitstains.”

With a start, Miki turned to face the source
of the malice-filled voice.

Sauntering towards us was a third year with
long blond hair and dark roots. Although his fashion sense immediately outed
him as a delinquent, his degeneracy didn’t seem nearly as refined as Masato’s.
I quickly discerned that what set him off was seeing an unassuming guy like me
eating lunch with a world-class girl like Miki.

The long-haired blond, who by now was beside
us, looked down at Miki with the vulgar eyes of a small-time brute.

“Now that I look atcha up close, you’re
hella fuckin’ hot.”

“...Thank you.”

“Hey, wanna go for a drive with me next
Sunday? I just got my license, so I wanna hit the road.”

“I appreciate your kind invitation.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m busy that day.”

Putting on a sweetly smile, Miki
diplomatically declined. I was impressed that someone as audacious as her could
respond like that.

Although the long-haired blond initially
narrowed his eyes in irritation, as he continued casting his viscous gaze at
Miki, a crude smile began to slowly dance around his lips.

“Man, normally this is where I’d back
off, but... You’re so damn hot I just can’t. I think I’ve
fallen for ya already. Fuck, man, you gotta go out with me!”

Upon hearing this, Miki’s poker face broke
down for the first time, and she grimaced.

“C’mon, you can’t just leave a guy hangin’
like that! ...Oh, that reminds me. You mind if I switch topics for a
sec? You wouldn’t think a guy like me would give a shit, but I actually
can’t fuckin’ stand people who disrespect public morals. I’m always thinkin’
about how I wanna stamp guys like that out. It’s like, uh, one of those
world peace-type things.”

Although he was clearly violating several
school regulations himself, he continued his speech.

“So the other day, right, I see these
two second-years named Takahashi and Shinjou gettin’ it on after class. Man, my
sense of justice flared up like you wouldn’t fucking believe. The campus is
sacred, ya know, you can’t just go dirty it up by having sex here! And I’m
like, I can’t just sit here and watch this. So I was thinkin’,
the best thing to do would be to get them to break up. That shit’s what they
call an illicit sexual relationship, man. So I brought over a couple of
my buddies and we broke them up. But chicks are like, they can’t bear it if
they don’t have a boyfriend, right? I felt super bad for her. Me and my
buddies were worried Shinjou’d be all lonely, so to prevent that we decided to
take turns being her lover. Well, until we got bored of her body, at least.”

This was bad. I may have called him a
small-time brute, but it looked like I had underestimated his deviancy. 

And unfortunately, I was a far cry from some
protagonist who could easily take down a small fry; I was Student A, who was at
his wit’s end at the mere sight of a delinquent.

“I’m like a demon who uphold the public
morals. Looks like I might have to do the same thing here, huh.”

“Well... the two of us weren’t doing anything
untoward.”

Although her reply was stout-hearted, Miki’s
voice was trembling. It seemed that she too could do nothing but tremble, no
matter how unrefined this delinquent’s brand of violence was.

“I guess you’re right. Well, I
can let off the hook for becoming my lover this time. But ya gotta at least
spend an evening with me. If you don’t, I get the feeling that your
boyfriend there won’t be able to make it to school any more... So, let me ask
again.”

Having established just how dangerous he was,
the long-haired blond asked again.

“You’ll go for a drive with me, won’tcha?”

“...If you insist.”

Miki answered him expressionlessly.

When I looked at her face, she was smiling.

“Don’t worry about me, Kouta. I’m a magus, I’m
sure I can manage.”

There’s no way that was true. If she could use
magic to do something about this situation, she would have done so already. And
there’s no way she would be trembling so much.

“Oh yeah, I should clear it with your
boyfriend. We all good?”

“I’m thinking.”

Frowning, I crossed my arms.

“By the way, is it really true that you want
to make friends with Miki?”

“Hah?”

“I understand the desire to fulfill your
sexual desires, I really do. I understand how strongly a person would want to
have sex with a cute girl. But... if we compare how much you do want to
to how much Miki doesn’t want to, Miki’s desire not to is stronger.
That’s the way I see it. So I’d really rather you didn’t.”

For some reason, the long-haired blond seemed
taken aback.

“The fuck is this kid talking about?”

You asked “we all good?”, so I answered.
That’s all there is to it...

It was clearly my job to stop him. Although I
had only just met Miki, she was taking action on my behalf. But if I tried to
oppose him with violence, I would just be met in kind and thoroughly
outclassed. I had to consider retribution, as well. So what options did I have
left?

For some reason, Masato’s catchphrase sprung
to mind.

I wanna
kill someone.

 

“Ryuusuke Yamazaki.”

I then heard a voice that belonged to the same
person the catchphrase did. Although he wasn’t raising his voice, I could hear
it from somewhere above me.

When I looked up, I could see Masato staring
at us expressionlessly from the second-floor hallway window.

Masato pointed at me and spoke succinctly.

“He’s with me.”

Succinct as it was, that was sufficient for
the blond, who was apparently named Yamazaki, to display an uncomfortable look
on his face.

“...Hey, Yahara. Didn’t know this
capybara-lookin’ kid was a friend of yours. It’s not like I was tryin’
to pick a fight with a buddy of yours or nothin’.”

“Uh huh.”

With a bored look on his face, Masato wandered
away from the window.

Yamazaki was a vicious delinquent who casually
terrorized the rest of the student body. But in spite of this, he seemed unable
to turn on Masato despite the latter being a first-year.

It seemed I had unintentionally made friends
in high places.

Scratching his head and frowning, Yamazaki
whispered in my ear.

“If Masato’s sticking up for you, does that
mean you’re the ‘manager’ I’ve heard so much about? Are you in the
middle of ‘stocking up’?”

I had no
idea what he was talking about.

“Well, no
skin off my back. If you get any cute girls in, send ‘em my way, wouldja?”

Giving my
back a firm thump, Yamazaki quickly strode off.

I turned
to face Miki.

“Kouta.”

Rather
than being relieved, Miki stared intently at my face. I had never seen her look
this scared.

“I thought
I understood, but you really are... Kouta, aren’t you. You’re really just see
things the way they are.”

That’s...
unlike her previous statements about “magic resistance,” that’s a little easier
to understand.

“Look, I
know he saved us this time around. And I’m sorry, but there’s something I have
to say.”

Miki
peered into my eyes.

“Please
don’t spend any more time around that guy. I’d like you to also avoid that
Yamazaki guy from just now, and a second-year named Matsumi too.”

I had no
intention of breaking ties with Masato, so for now I just nodded.

But as if
picking up on my noncommittal response, Miki heaved a heavy sigh.

“I really
do need to protect you.”



Protect.

Let’s
suppose for a moment that magic really was something capable of protecting me.
Let’s suppose it’s something that could enrich my life.

Even if
that’s the case, there’s something I can’t tell Miki.

I couldn’t
really care less.

I
couldn’t care less what happens to me.





I can’t
really remember how I got to know Masato. We sat near each other in class, and
before I knew it we were regularly chatting.

But I
didn’t spend time with him outside of school. We never hung out together, and
we didn’t chat on the phone. If we got put into different classes, it’s
entirely possible we would stop interacting altogether. Barring that, even not
sitting near each other might be enough to put a halt to our conversations.

But once,
I think it was about two weeks ago? He called me to a park near my home at one
in the morning.

Masato
wouldn’t tell me, so I didn’t know what was going on, but when I got there I
was startled by how haggard he seemed. I got the impression that it didn’t
matter who, he just needed someone to talk to.

Atop a
rusting jungle gym with an out-of-order sign plastered on it, the two of us
held a rather aimless conversation. After glancing at the “no balls allowed”
sign, the out-of-order vending machine, and the rather unenticing public
restroom for the dozenth time, Masato gave an obviously fake laugh and quipped,
“This fucking place is less a park and more of a cesspit.”

Atop the
jungle gym, Masato took a drag from his cigarette as he toyed with a butterfly
knife. Although he was a minor, he was no stranger to cigarettes, beer, and
occasionally even harder drugs. However, he never offered me any. And even when
he was engaging in such antisocial practices, he showed not a glimpse of
enjoyment but the same bored expression as always.

The moon
was so full that night I thought it might perhaps be a supermoon<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermoon</ref>, and its
illumination was clearly making Masato uncomfortable.

“Kou,
whaddya see what you look up at the moon?”

I answered
automatically.

“A
rabbit.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit</ref>”

“You’re
just saying that ‘cause everyone else does, right? Let’s be real, it doesn’t
even look that much like a fucking rabbit.”

He was
totally right. Looking back up at the moon again, I completely agreed.

“So what
do you see?”

I
generally tried to avoid answering questions like this, as I inevitably got
mocked for my lack of imagination.

“To be
blunt, the moon doesn’t look like much of anything to me.” 
 “Whaddya mean?”

“I mean, I
can’t really see the craters as anything but craters.”

But rather
than mock me for my entirely mockable answer, Masato looked almost impressed.

“Huh, so
that’s your angle.”

Seeming
pleased, he lit another cigarette.

“Makes
sense. Hell, if anything it’s weirder to assign meaning to shit like that.”

I wasn’t
sure what he was so pleased about.

To fill
the lull in the conversation, I asked a question of little import.

“Masato,
why do you act like a delinquent?”

“You’re a
cheeky little bastard. Normally if you asked a delinquent that, they’d beat you
senseless.”

But Masato
gave me a serious answer.

“I
just didn’t know a way to resist it.”

It wasn’t
a very concrete answer. But I could tell that Masato himself didn’t have
anything firmer.

The
conversation died down again, so I asked the next question that came to mind as
I gazed upwards.

“What does
the moon look like to you, Masato?”

Furrowing
his brow, Masato tossed his cigarette aside.

“Whenever I
look up, I get uneasy. Even though I know I can’t reach
it, I wanna smash it. So on bright nights like these, I always
just look at my feet.”

He put a
new cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

“Feels
like there’s a monster baring its fangs above me.”

Wrenching
his face in despair, Masato whispered as if he were spitting out a mouthful of
blood.

“Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.”





“It’s been
a while since we walked home together, Masato.”

We hadn’t
planned it ahead of time. But our houses were in the same direction, and we
were both in the so-called going home club, so we occasionally found ourselves
walking together. The reason it had been so long was due to a certain magus
attaching herself to my hip.

By the
way, the magus in question had been invited somewhere today by her friend
Sayuri, who apparently wouldn’t take no for an answer. Although I was surprised
that Miki was able to make friends at all in the face of her blatant audacity,
it turned out she was actually on good terms with most of the girls in her
class. Of course, this was self-reported, so I had no way of confirming whether
it was true or not.

By the
way, when I expressed my surprise at the size of her friend group, Miki got
rather indignant. She then went on an incomprehensible lecture about how
maintaining the unstable bonds of female friendship was part of magic’s
wheelhouse or something. Well, her communication skills were exceptional, so
perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all.

“You’re
thinking about that chick again, aren’tcha. You’re fucking engrossed.”

“Kinda.”

“You’re
supposed to deny it, man, I’m just fucking with you.”

After
letting him know that I had, in fact, been thinking about her, Masato gave off
a sigh while smirking. 

“Go figure.”

Without
breaking his smirk, Masato continued.

“Ya know,
that magus freak told me to stay away from you the other day.”

“Really?
Miki did?”

Masato’s
eyes reflected their assent.

“I told
you, right? Kouzuki and I will never get along. She fucking hates me.”

That
reminded me. Miki had told me to stop spending time with Masato.

“Are you
sure you didn’t just make fun of magic or something?”

“I
might’ve.”

“C’mon!”

“But this
and that don’t have jack shit to do with each other. She just can’t stand the
two of us being around each other.”

The word
“jealousy” sprung to mind, but Miki had really just been one-sidedly meddling
in my affairs.

All she
could think about was magic.

“I guess
you being around me gets in the way of her plan to make me into a magus?”

“That’s
pretty much on the mark.”

I was
surprised at Masato’s matter-of-fact answer.

“Wait, do
you understand what she means by ‘magic’? Is that why you can tell why she
hates you?”

Masato’s
brows furrowed.

“Hmm...
it’s not like I understand it per se. But us not being able to see
eye-to-eye shakes out to about the same thing.”

“I’m not
sure I follow.”

 “I
mean, you’re starting to get an idea of what her magic is, right? She’s been
dragging you around for two damn weeks now.”

“...Sort
of.”

“Vaguely” was about the level my understanding
capped out at.

It was just like translating English into
Japanese; coming up with a word to describe magic was difficult. But I could
tell by now that it wasn’t “sorcery” or “witchcraft”.

As far as I could tell, the kind of magic Miki
was talking about generally referred to something along the lines of
“imposition of notions.”

But it wasn’t just brainwashing, where you
could impose things forcibly. Things like daily habits and cultural norms,
where they took root before you even noticed, were also included in her
definition of magic. Miki’s vision of a magus was likely someone who could
freely manipulate the notions of others. When she said I didn’t have any magic
resistance, what she meant was that I was in danger because my notions would
change so readily.

But I couldn’t understand what made people
without magic resistance better at becoming magi. I didn’t see why spend time
around Masato would keep me from becoming one, either. I felt like there was
still quite a bit to magic that I didn’t understand.

“Quit thinkin’.”

Speaking rudely, Masato lightly jabbed my
solar plexus.

 “No
good’ll come of a dumbass thinking too hard.”

“Surely there’s a kinder way to put that.”

Masato tilted his head with a playful look on
his face. But just as I was thinking that, his expression grew grave.

“Honestly, some of the stuff Kouzuki’s talkin’
about has merit. Even I’d rather you go be a happy-go-lucky magus freak
than a homicidal delinquent.”

“What? I mean, I’d really rather not become
either...”

I responded with a light-hearted joke, but
Masato’s intense expression didn’t fade.

“Well, if you don’t think about it too much
you can probably stay just the way you are.”

“Kusukusu...kusukusukusu...”

We heard a peculiar laugh that sounded as if
someone were exhaling through a gap in their teeth.

The two of us turned our heads. Behind us
stood a short girl. Her jet-black hair hung down in braids in the back, with
her bangs were cut at a diagonal slant. I could infer from her sailor uniform’s
green ribbon that she was a second-year. While that meant that she was older
than us, her childlike face gave off a very different impression. That,
combined with her innocent expression, would have led me to believe in an
instant if I were told she was a grade-schooler. Upon closer inspection,
though, her bust was large enough to leave a thoroughly immoral impression.

But her most notable characteristic was her
peculiar eyes. Although they were as just as black as her hair, they seemed
somehow out of focus and were oddly reminiscent of a rainbow.

“You two are quite interesting.”

There was nobody else around, so it seemed the
unfamiliar upperclassman was addressing us.

“Hello.”

With the expression of a pleased child, she
gave a quick bow. I returned the greeting.

“...Masato, do you know her?”

Pulling a wry face, Masato shook his head.

“Kusukusu... you really are
interesting!”

Her smile was innocent. But it was strange. In
fact, it was so innocent it was unsettling.

“Whaddya want?”

Masato spit out the question in his usual
aggressive manner, but the upperclassman showed no sign of fear. Nor did she
even seem to mind. It seemed like she was a bit slow when it came to
interpreting other people’s emotions.

“Oh, Ririko was just thinking how she wanted
to become good friends with Hiiragi!”

It seemed she knew my last name.

Although she had called us “interesting,” I
quickly realized that she was paying little attention to us. Her gaze seemed to
be drifting all over.

“What did you find so interesting? Our conversation?”

“Yes. Aaaand no.”

Her voice dripped with saccharine. But it
wasn’t the type of flirtatious saccharine that Miki occasionally put on for
play.

It was like a child’s. Not just that, but her
behavior and expressions were like those of a child as well.

“What’s so interesting about you two are the
call signs you’re giving off.”

“...Call signs?”

“Yup. Call signs.”

Although I parroted her words back at her, no
explanation was forthcoming. It felt as though she thought her manner of
speaking were the most natural thing in the world.

As if striking upon something, Masato suddenly
asked her a question.

“Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?”

“Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course.”

Without any questions as to how Masato knew
her name, the upperclassman named Ririko Matsumi nodded.

“Masato, who is she?”

“Her name gets around. You can guess why,
right?”

Indeed. If this was representative of her
standard behavior, it was no surprise that people would have heard of her.

Oh, right. Now I think about it, “Matsumi” was
also on the list of people Miki told me to stay away from. And on top of that,
I vaguely remembered hearing rumors about her somewhere.

“Interesting, aren’t they? White and
ultramarine, huh. Aren’t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko
likes white, you know. Makes her want to do something.”

Unable to contain her excitement,
Matsumi-senpai continued.

“Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?”

“Read me?”

I parroted her words again.

“Oh, that’s right. Most people can’t do
scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!”

Puffing up her chest proudly, she spread her
hands as if to say “here I go!”

In a flash, her innocent expression vanished.

It was replaced with something inhuman, almost
mannequin-like.

A strange voice. A voice that couldn’t quite
be said to be coming from her throat. The noise sounded exactly like that of a
machine, but it was clearly emanating from her half-open mouth.

As if being infiltrated by darkness, her eyes
slowly lost their light. They lost their focus and seemed to stop perceiving
altogether. But I could tell. Even though they were out of focus, they were
holding me tight in their gaze and refusing to let go. As if I were afflicted
with paralysis, I was unable to so much as wiggle a fingertip.

What was going on?

Still frozen in shock, I could see Masato out
of the corner of my eye. Although Masato despised other people showing weakness
around him, he was simply staring speechless.

Everything about this was abnormal.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

As if it were travelling not through my
eardrums but through my bones, I could feel the noise resound within my body. I
couldn’t tell where it was coming from any more. Coming not from in front of
me, nor behind me, nor beside me or above me, that mechanical noise simply
wrapped around me and continued resonating.

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise rang in concert with my very cells.
My entire body trembled with stinging pain, almost as if I were being scalded.

I still couldn’t move my legs. I couldn’t move
at all. It had transformed from paralysis into sheer violence. A paralysis so
strong it felt as though my body were bound with electric cables. Cables that
both bound me and tore me to pieces. They exposed me, comprehended me, bound up
my insides and scattered them.

While exposing my everything, those eyes
continued holding me. Capturing everything, yet reflecting nothing. Eyes that
were both jet-black and snow white.

“Scanning complete.”

As Matsumi-senpai said that, the scenery
returned and the world began turning once more. Of course, I knew that the
scenery had never left. The only thing that had changed was me. For just that
moment, the “me” who was able to perceive that scenery was changed.

Only a few seconds should have passed. But
those seconds felt so dense that I would have believed if I was told that hours
or even days had passed.

A breath.

Good... I took a breath.

I can still breathe.

“Well then, next up is...”

The innocent girl’s eyes turned to Masato.

“Ah—”

Masato’s eyes were wide open. I had never seen
him like this before.

Matsumi-senpai’s eyes, which had by now
returned to their original color, steady became black and white again.

“...don’t.”

“Beep bi—”

“DON’T!!”

Masato screamed.

In response to his ragged breathing and scared
demeanor, Matsumi-senpai lips began to quiver.

“You don’t have to shout like that, you
know...”

Despite being the source of Masato’s terror,
she simply pouted, seemingly as indifferent as ever to the emotions of others.

“Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just
now...?”

“Hold on, hold on. Ririko’s going to put it
into words now.”

Matsumi-senpai stood still, her mouth hanging
lazily half-open.

She stayed in that state for a little while,
not so much as moving a muscle.

“Kouta Hiiragi, age fifteen.”

Still expressionless, her mouth began moving,
and like a machine began speaking.

“Lives with his parents and younger sister.
Lives in a room with a skylight on the second floor of an old single-family
home. Has many friends, but no close friends. Values emotional distance. Has
recently begun courting a member of the opposite sex. Virgin. Gets tired when
conversing with others. Largely apathetic towards himself.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. But
as she went on, it became clear that she was talking about me.

“Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her
hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent
approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing
cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen
to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally good
at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others
with-”

“Th... that’s enough! Matsumi-senpai, please
cut it out!”

I raised my voice, almost to a scream, and
Matsumi-senpai, whose eyes had been open this whole time, finally blinked. Her
expression began coming back.

“So? So? How was that? How’d you like my
scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?”

She looked like a proud kindergartener asking how
good her crayon drawing was. Knowing that it would make her happy, I decided to
humor her and nodded vigorously.

I didn’t want to listen to this anymore.

I didn’t want to learn anything about myself.

“Senpai, can we go now?”

For some reason, Masato seemed exhausted.

“Whaaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He’s
white, after all! He’s the only one!”

“Sorry, but we got places to be.”

“Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it
can’t be helped then.”

Matsumi-senpai’s shoulders slumped.

“Ririko guesses she’ll see you later then,
Tanihara.”

His lips pursed, Masato scowled at
Matsumi-senpai.

“Huh? Aren’t you Tanihara?”

“It’s read ‘Yahara’<ref>Masato's last name, 谷原, can be read as either 'Yahara' or 'Tanihara'</ref>, Senpai.”

“You’re kidding! Ririko wonders why she made
that mistake... Ririko wonders if it’s because the scanning stopped partway?
Oh, by the way! Ririko doesn’t normally make that kind of mistake! Ririko’s
normally always right!”

Waving both her hands, Matsumi-senpai gave an
odd excuse. 

But neither of us could muster the energy for
a rebuttal, so we simply turned and walked away.

 

Walking in silence, we passed through a
deserted shopping district, with almost half the stores shuttered up. I felt
like my feet couldn’t quite reach the ground. I was filled with an unpleasant
floating sensation.

What exactly was that “scanning”?
Wasn’t that magic? And a foul magic at that, one that overturned every value I
once held.

It felt like the world was shaking. Although
there was no heat haze to speak of, I was having difficulty telling exactly
where the ground was. It was as if I should have able to fly, but for some
absurd reason the cracked concrete was shackling me to the earth.

Perhaps it was a childish delusion. But...
that’s right. Ririko Matsumi had no such restrictions. And perhaps she was so
absurd a person as to truly believe she could fly.

“Kou.”

Breaking the silence, Masato spoke.

“Get this through your head. Don’t talk to
that birdbrain ever again. She’ll be a bad influence on you, got it?”

I wasn’t sure what harm a simple conversation
could do, but Masato looked dead serious, so I just responded with a firm nod.

Honestly, I was surprised that Masato would
show such concern for me. He reminded me of Miki.

“Masato, did you understand what was going on
with that scanning thing?”

“... not even a little.”

I see. So he had “not even a little” desire to
explain it to me, huh.

But even knowing that, I didn’t feel the need
to press the issue. If he didn’t want to tell me, it wasn’t like I could make
him.

The traffic light in front of us turned red.

We stopped.

“Fuck.”

Masato spit out a small expletive and began
chewing on his lip.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why the hell’d we stop?”

“The light
was red, wasn’t it?”

“There’s
no cars here.”

I looked
both ways to verify his statement. Indeed, there were no automobiles in sight.

“...Then
do you want to cross?”

“That’s
not what I’m talking about... that’s not what I’m fucking talking about. I’m
asking why I stopped.”

I was
perplexed. What was Masato so irritated about?

“Well, red
means stop, so obviously we’d stop, right?”

“Right.
Even though we coulda crossed, we stopped just because that’s how it works.”

Masato
began scratching at his head, almost as if he were trying to plug up his ears.

“Masato,
is something the matter? Is it because of that upperclassman?”

“...Yeah, I
guess. There’s something wrong with me right now. There’d have to be for me to
talk to you like this, huh.”

The light
turned green.

“Masato,
let’s go.”

“Right...”

As he
began walking, I could see Masato’s expression surpass irritation and shift to
rage. He was scratching at himself to an abnormal degree. The expression he was
giving made it seem is if his entire body were swarming with caterpillars and
they were digging under his skin to lay eggs.

With no
change in demeanor, Masato spoke.

“Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.”

I could
tell.

We were
past the point of no return.

 

 

The day
after our encounter with Ririko Matsumi, Masato didn’t show up at school.

That
wasn’t too strange in and of itself. Masato had skipped school twice in that
past for little to no reason. But given the state he had been in yesterday, I
couldn’t help but be concerned.

I
wanna kill someone.

He was
just saying it like he always did, right?

“Good
morning, Kouta.”

I heard a
voice I was now fairly used to. I turned my head and responded.

“Good
morning, Miki.”

“...Yahara
isn’t here today, huh.”

Her voice
lacked its usual pluck. Her expression also seemed somewhat gloomy.

“What’s
wrong? You seem out of sorts.”

“You can
tell?”

Giving a
weak smile, Miki heaved a sigh.

‘You can
tell?’, huh.

It was
obvious that she was wearing her lack of energy on her face to elicit my
concern. But I kept that to myself and simply nodded.

“Would you
mind coming to the courtyard with me, Kouta?”

“Right
now?”

There
wasn’t that much time left before class began.

“Yeah...
there’s something I want to talk to you about, and I’d rather not be
overheard.”

In other
words, it was a matter of some importance. That was what Miki was trying to
convey. She was extraordinarily skilled at conveying her intentions to others.

So I put
on an obedient expression.

 

The sky
was overcast and it looked liable to start raining at any moment, so the
courtyard was unpleasantly chilly. The scent of earth mingled with the
humidity, and I felt as though I might choke.

Regardless
of the fact that she herself was the one who called us here, Miki simply hung
her head in silence. It created an oddly docile atmosphere.

“Miki,
what was it you wanted to talk about?”

Although I
tried to break the ice, Miki still just cast her eyes down. Realizing that I
should wait for her to speak, I did just that.

“...I’m
really just a bother, aren’t I.”

That was
the first thing that came out of her mouth.

“I’m not
blind. I can at least tell that I’m a bother...”

“Um...
what’s this, all of a sudden?”

Even if
Miki had realized that she was being bothersome, she had gone to some lengths
to feign airheadedness and conceal it.

“I spent
all day yesterday thinking about how I could deal with this without having to
do something wrong.”

I wasn’t
sure what brought about this abrupt change of heart. All I knew was that I
shouldn’t point out the fact that it was a change of heart. If I did,
Miki would become difficult to deal with.

Miki’s
eyes grew watery, and she seemed to put herself on guard.

As far as
I was concerned, that was much more worrying than the actual words coming out
of her mouth.

“What do
you mean by something ‘wrong’?”

“Pushing
magic on you would be wrong. I know that people laugh at me and call me
delusional. But even so, I was trying to forcibly push my value system on you.”

I didn’t
really care about that. And Miki should have known that.

“But, you
know... even though I knew what I was doing was wrong, I couldn’t bear watching
you turn into an insane magus! I just couldn’t!”

Her eyes
still moist, she spoke with conviction.

I couldn’t
say anything. As I still didn’t fully comprehend magic, I couldn’t understand
what Miki was saying. But that aside, in the face of Miki’s staunch
earnestness, I felt it would be improper to interject, so I couldn’t say
anything.

“So I’ve
been thinking.”

Miki took
my right hand and embraced it in hers. My heart began pounding at the
unexpected feel of her touch. Miki peered at me with teary eyes.

It felt
very intentional. She was intentionally manipulating my heartrate. But in her
eyes, I could see her slyness tinged with indecision.

Closing
her eyes for the first time in some time, Miki let out a long sigh. I could
feel her grip on my hand tighten ever-so-slightly.

...How
strange. I felt a warmth other than simple body heat transfer from her hands to
mine. If she told me that it was part of her magic, I wouldn’t doubt it for a
second.

Miki
opened her eyes again.

They were
filled with resolution.

They
seemed to be entreating me.

“Kouta...
do you think you could fall for me?”

Her
unexpected question left me speechless.

“Or is
that impossible, I wonder...”

It was,
quite clearly, a confession.

Perhaps to
an outsider, confessing in this situation might seem completely natural. But as
the party in question, I could tell how unhealthy it was.

After all,
Miki was simply trying to protect me. It wasn’t as if she held any romantic
feelings towards me. I understood that much.

“Am I...
no good?”

“Th...
that’s not it at all! You’re extremely charming, Miki!”

Reflexively,
I gave Miki the exact response she was looking for.

Of course,
it was true that she was charming. Her looks would make her at home in any idol
group, and although she was selfish, she had a timidly side to her that obsessively
took the needs of the others into consideration as well.

But that
was nothing more than an objective observation. What did I personally think of
her?

To begin
with...

Under what
circumstances would I fall for a girl?

“Do you
think you could fall for me?”

“That’s...”

Even
though I knew what answer she was looking for, I couldn’t bring myself to say
it.

“...Kouta,
you’re a guy, right?”

“Well,
yes.”

“Even if
you only want me for my body, if that’s enough to get you to fall for me,
I’m... okay with that.”

Miki’s
eyes then widened.

“S...sorry!
I said something really weird! But... I really do want you to fall for me! Even
if that’s what it takes!”

I couldn’t
comprehend it. I couldn’t comprehend why she would go to such lengths.

...No,
that’s not true. For the sake of magic, she would go to any lengths. She felt
the need to do something about me and my lack of magic resistance. Even if it
meant sacrificing her own chastity, she had to protect the notion of magic.

Miki
wouldn’t be Miki if she didn’t abide by her magic.

But even
recognizing that, I was still uneasy. Although I couldn’t put it to words,
there was something that didn’t sit right with me.

There was
one thing I was sure of, though. Regardless of how it looked, Miki sought me.
Knowing that, how could I turn down her confession?

The answer
was simple. I couldn’t.

“I will
fall for you. So you don’t have to say weird stuff like that anymore.”

Miki’s
eyes widened, and she stared straight at me. 

“So you
mean we’re going out now?”

“Yup.”

“You’re
okay with this? I’m going to be your first girlfriend, right? Are you okay with
it being me? You can’t take it back, you know that, right? You know you’ll take
on my attribute, right?”

“Like I
said, I’m fine with that.” 
 Before my eyes, Miki’s expression brightened.

“Really?
You’re really okay with this? ...Yay. Yay!”

The teary
expression she had been displaying up until a moment ago vanished like it had
never been there, and she broke into a radiant smile. Seeing it, I was
convinced I had made the right decision and was filled with relief.

I was fine
with this.

“Yay!
Thanks so much, Kouta! I look forward to our continued times together!”

Miki
merrily shook my hand up and down.

My
discomfort didn’t fade, but there was one thing I knew for sure. From now on,
Miki and I would spend a great deal more time together. Little by little, we
would stop holding back around each other. My days would be fulfilling, and I
might even earn the jealousy of my peers. That was the shape my life would take
from now on.

I
recognized this, and accepted it without resistance.

Just
according to Miki’s script.

 

 

A week had
passed since Miki’s confession. Unsurprisingly, we had grown a good deal
closer, but Miki hardly behaved as if we were lovers and instead treated me
much the same as before. So I did the same.

But Miki
the object of no small amount of attention. The fact that we were dating
quickly became public and rapidly circulated throughout the school. Even if the
way we treated each other didn’t change, the way the people around us reacted
did. Feeling cramped by the way the people around me forced their definitions
onto us, even my awareness of our relationship began to gradually shift. Before
long, pressure from the peanut gallery would likely transform us into a
conventional boyfriend and girlfriend.

I see. So
Miki formally asked me out knowing that this would happen.

“Well
then, I look forward to another week together!”

“Yup. See
you later.”

As we
parted at the usual street, Miki exaggeratedly waved me goodbye. I smiled at
her and returned the wave.

 Miki and I had made plans to spend the day at
her house on the Sunday of next week. Although she had said that her parents
would be out of the house, I harbored no improper expectations. Or did I? What
did I want to become of my relationship with Miki?

Honestly, there was something I was much more
concerned about than our relationship.

Masato.

Masato still hadn’t shown up at school. He
wasn’t returning my calls, and my LINE messages to him were marked unread.
Dropping out of school would have been in-character for him, so his
non-attendance wasn’t strange in and of itself. But based on his demeanor from
the last time we talked, I was concerned something bad had happened to him.

“You aren’t with Tanihara today?”

Right, after we met the owner of that voice,
Masato started acting strangely. The first time she showed up, his gears began
coming undone.

With a childish smile, Ririko Matsumi ignored
my stiff expression and spoke in a lively voice.

“Hello, Hiiragi!”

“...Hello. But Senpai, his name is Yahara, not
Tanihara.”

“Ah, right. It was, wasn’t it.”

Matsumi-senpai laughed, as if she were pleased
about something.

“Do you live in this direction as well,
Senpai?”

“Nope, Ririko chased after you because she wanted
to chat! You seemed like you were having fun talking to Kouzuki, so Ririko
decided not to interrupt you. Admirable of me, huh?”

It seemed
she had decided to follow me.

 “Mhm. You
really are an interesting color, Hiiragi. But you’re a little yellower than you
were before. I wonder if that’s Kouzuki’s fault? Was it because you were
flirting with her, maybe? I don’t like it. I’d really rather you stayed white.”

As always,
she was off in her own world.

“Is Miki
not an interesting color? After all, she’s quite the character.”

“Hmm.
Having a bit of pink in you is rare and all, but I think I’ve seen a color like
that before. Anyways, it’s not much to look at.”

Perhaps
Miki was less of a character than I thought? I wasn’t really sure what to make
of this whole call sign business.

“Ririko
wanted to chat with Yahara as well, but she hasn’t seen him at all since
then...”

“I haven’t
seen him either. I don’t even know what he’s up to these days.”

For some
reason, Matsumi-senpai tilted her head at those words.

“You don’t
know what he’s up to? Even though you’re his friend? You don’t have awful
reception, do you?”

“Reception?”

“Yeah,
reception. ...Haven’t you heard of reception?”

I was of
course familiar with the word, but the context Matsumi-senpai was using it in
eluded me.

“Then do
you want Ririko to look into it for you? She had to stop scanning him partway
through, but... Ririko has pretty high fidelity, you see, so she thinks it’ll
be okay! She can find Yahara!”

“You can
find... you mean you know where he is?”

“Of course
Ririko does! Ririko isn’t a child, you know!”

Apparently
to Matsumi-senpai, not being able to do this reception thing was on the same
level as not being able to ride a bike.

“Ah... but
you don’t get reception, Hiiragi? Umm... don’t worry! Ririko has times when she
can’t really get a sense for it, either! Don’t let it get you down!”

For some
reason I was being cheered up.

“Here,
Ririko will go over the basics. See, there are these things floating around in
the air, right? Ririko doesn’t really know what they’re called... Particles?
Electrons? Wi-Fi? Anyways, you have to catch a bunch of them on your body.
It’ll feel like they’re sticking to your skin, you know? Next, they’ll go like,
bzzzt, and you’ll start seeing a faint picture, and you have to focus on that
picture reaaal carefully. But you already knew that, right?”

There was
no way I could have known that, but I kept my comments to myself.

“But see,
the next part’s the tricky bit. Finding the picture you want’s tough, right?
When Ririko does it, she flies way up high. Ririko’s really good at flying, so
she can look out over the whole city. Then, it’ll be something related to the
information you want — so in this case, that
would be something related to Yahara. Once you find that, the reception is
complete!”

“...Did you say ‘flying’?”

There were countless faults to pick with her explanation, so
I chose the one I found most concerning.

“...? Flying in the sky, you know?”

It seemed my question fell on deaf ears. Apparently to
Matsumi-senpai, being able to fly was just as obvious as being able to breathe.

“Alrighty, let’s see if we can get reception.”

As soon as she said that, it was like a switch flipped.

Those eyes again.

Those jet-black eyes, dripping with viscosity, appeared
before me again.

“...Bzz bzz...bzz...bzzt...bzz...”

Noise filtered through her half-open mouth. Occasionally her
shoulders would tremble slightly, as if she were convulsing.

Ah, this person’s broken.

That was what I thought of her inner workings.

The first thing I was confident in was the fact that her
value system didn’t operate according to the same logic as the rest of
humanity’s. She had a culture all her own. Similar to worshippers in a cult,
she put her faith in nonsensical theories. She was closed off from the rest of
the world, much too far away for any to reach. She lived in a lonely little
world.

But in spite of that, her noise easily reached my ears.

An encroachment by her closed world.

Perhaps the sounds I initially thought meaningless were a
kind of language. After all, the noise had a certain regularity to it. It
wasn’t nonsensical. The sound of “Bzz bzz bzz...bzzt bzzt...bzz” reverberated
through my skin and sunk into my pores. Aggressively so. Forcefully so. It
stung like a box cutter. In the face of such a blade, no doubt anyone would
flee in pain.

But I couldn’t run from it. I didn’t know how to.

So instead, I tried to understand Ririko Matsumi.

The noise was touching me.

The noise was touching me.

I had to clearly envision it. I had to translate her world
into an image I could comprehend.

It was a world where everything - the earth, the sea, the
sky - was made of electrical cords. Cords of all lengths and sizes, wriggling
like snakes, ferociously binding all of mankind. In that world, the cords were
gleefully torturing me. The cords were forcibly invading my throat, my
nostrils, my urethra, and my toenails and making them their own. It hurt. Stop
it. I’m human!

Having envisioned enough, I shook my head vigorously and
drove away the translated world.

“Ah...! Haa...haa...”

That was dangerous. If I had dove any deeper, Matsumi-senpai
would have disassembled me and I’d have been taken over by her image. If that
happened, I knew I wouldn’t be able to return to normal.

Ah, I see. That’s why both Miki and Masato told me to stay
away from Matsumi-senpai.

“...Bzz...bzz......huh?”

Color returned to Matsumi-senpai’s eyes.

Taking a deep breath to calm my heart, I asked her.

“What happened?”

“Well... For some reason, Ririko couldn’t get any reception.
How odd... even if the scanning stopped halfway, she should have enough
information to get reception...”

She looked rather sad.

“Ririko wonders if she’s become awful at reception...”

She couldn’t get reception.

Matsumi-senpai’s proclamations were becoming less and less
coherent. And yet her words filled me with a strange sense of dread.

“Does that happen often?”

“Not at all lately! Really! Th- that’s why this is so odd! It’s not
Ririko’s fault... probably...!”

Her head bobbed about like a child giving an excuse. It was
hard to believe that she had simply failed. I could sense that her noise just
now had had a proper regularity to it.

“If the fault doesn’t lie with you, might there be some
problem on Masato’s side that’s making the reception fail?”

“Ah, Ririko sees. That’s probably it. Maybe Yahara’s
information was overwritten since Ririko scanned him the other day.”

“His information was overwritten? Is that a thing that can
happen?”

“Sometimes. You know the saying ‘people can change,’ right?
So call signs themselves can change too.”

If Masato’s value system changed in such a span, could that
have something to do with his inattendance?

What could he have done to make himself change so
drastically?

Ahh... I wanna kill someone.

“...Ah.”

No, let’s not be hasty. Even if, hypothetically, it was the
result of Masato fulfilling that wish of his, could that really change a man
with as strong of homicidal urges as him? ...Ahh, it might. Such a transient
desire being put into a definite form could be said to be a change in and of
itself.

“Hiiragi, you’ve been quiet for a while now. What’s up?”

It was right in front of me.

I understood it now.

Her scanning wasn’t some fantastical delusion, nor was her
reception.

“Senpai, would you mind telling me Masato’s information from
back when you scanned him?”

“Ririko doesn’t mind, but... the scanning was only half
done, remember? It might be buggy. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I nodded.

“You got it. Let me just translate it into Japanese.”

As she said that, she stiffened down to her fingertips. By
now I was used to this unblinking visage of hers.

Acclimatization. Was I acclimating again?

“Masato Tanihara, age 16.”

Once again, Matsumi-senpai mistook Masato’s surname for
“Tanihara”. Perhaps in importing the data, Masato’s name had been
misinterpreted.

“Both parents are alive but neither parent interferes with
him. No siblings. Rejects others. Regards almost all other humans with
contempt. Afflicted with auditory hallucinations. Can hear the noise more
clearly when around people he dislikes. For example, Shuuichi Akiyama. Is
perplexed as to why he does not hear the noise from Ririko Matsumi. Believes that
he wants to kill someone. Believes that he wants to kill someone. Wants to kill
someone. Wants to kill someone. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill—”

“Th-that’s enough!”

Something was clearly amiss, so I shook Matsumi-senpai by the
shoulders. But like a broken record, she just kept saying “wants to kill.”

“Wants to kill... ah... aHh... wants to ahHH! Ah! Ahh! Stop!
Make it stop!”

“S... Senpai!”

“It’s filthy! Masato Tanihara is filthy! Why can’t he just
go crazy!?”

It was obvious from her exclamations that Matsumi-senpai was
in agony. Her eyes no longer seemed mechanical, nor did they seem human.

They simply expressed pain.

“Wh... why...”

Those painful eyes stared straight at me.

“How can you stand to be around someone like him...?”

Seeing Matsumi-senpai like this, I felt like I could
understand her a little better.

She was certainly operating under a different logical
framework then the rest of us. But the person underneath all that was still
human. If she forced herself to emulate something abnormal like that, her
condition would quickly take a turn for the worse. An error would occur.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Letting out a shrill scream, she collapsed to the ground.
Flopping around like an eel, she began vomiting.

“Senpai!”

Matsumi-senpai was writhing in a pool of her own vomit and
convulsing erratically. A strange yellow fluid began oozing out of her tear
glands. After convulsing a little longer, she eventually stopped moving altogether.
She reminded me of a lizard tail that remained moving even after being severed.

“A... are you alright?”

I put some space between us before calling out to her,
slightly alarmed by her bizarre behavior. She didn’t respond, but I could tell
that she was at least breathing. After hesitantly approaching her, I felt her
wrist. Her pulse was accelerated, but not to the point where it seemed she
would be in danger.

I called for an ambulance, and while looking after her,
considered the question I had just been posed.

“How can I stand to be around him, huh?”

I would never say it out loud, let alone around
Matsumi-senpai or Masato, but Masato was alone. His classmates were a given,
but even his family held him at an arm’s length. The more someone got to know
him, the more they would realize that his madness was the real deal. 

The reason I was
around him... was simply because I couldn’t leave, nothing more.

But...

“I’m probably the
only person in the world like that.”

 

 

The week came and
went, and Masato was still nowhere to be seen. Although I searched for him in
my own way, I couldn’t so much as find a clue.

Matsumi-senpai was
still recuperating from her hospitalization and hadn’t shown up at school
either. There was something she had mentioned that I couldn’t get out of my
mind that I wanted to ask her about, but her absence made that impossible.

What caught my
attention was a name that had come up in the scanning’s translation.

The name “Shuuichi
Akiyama.”

 

“You seem really
restless today, Kouta.”

Miki remarked with a
concerned frown.

“...Do I?”

“Yeah. It’s like
you’re only half here.”

True to his diligent
nature, Akiyama was always the first person to show up for class.

But as far as today
went, Akiyama had yet to show up at school.

The man who Masato
hated so intensely that his name came up in the scanning had yet to show up at
school.

I was probably
overthinking it. Even Akiyama could get sick, and it wasn’t inconceivable that
he might simply oversleep.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

There’s no way.

There’s no way that’s
the case.

“You really
aren’t paying any attention. You’ve been glancing over at the door for
forever.”

Having this called to
my attention, I apologize to Miki.

“...You’re worried
about Yahara, right? You’re looking over at the door because you’re hoping
he’ll show up.”

She was half right.
But right now, I was hoping for Akiyama to show up even more.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

Anyone in the class
would probably have heard him say it at least once. But despite their fear of
him, most simply wrote it off as edgy nonsense.

But I knew better.

Every time he said
it, Masato meant it.

It was a phrase
designed to encourage a man who found himself unable to cross that line.
Masato, who so disgusted Matsumi-senpai, who put Miki on such guard, was the
real deal.

That’s right — I had
been able to grasp Masato for quite some time.

Suddenly, the bell
rang. But Akiyama’s usual command to take our seats wasn’t forthcoming.

“Now that you mention
it, it doesn’t look like the class rep’s here today, huh.”

I froze at Miki’s
words, but she was looking at the clock, not at me.

“Welp, I should be
heading back now. Let’s give it our all today!”

As a result, she
didn’t notice my change and cheerfully stood up and left.

The other side of my
conversation now gone, I closed myself away in my heart. But I myself wasn’t
there. Inside my heart were other people. Countless other people.

And among them, the
one with the largest presence was that man I had been grasping onto.

Although he was
grinning, he didn’t seem the least bit pleased. The words that sprung forth
from that pained smile were much what one would expect.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

 

I hadn’t realized it
was possible to so anxiously await a homeroom teacher’s arrival. Based on his
personality, if Akiyama was sick or running late, he would no doubt have
contacted the school to inform them. Once the teacher arrived, all of my
uneasiness would be put to rest.

But they still
weren’t here. It had already been ten minutes since the bell had rung. 

Time seemed to be violently slowing down, and my heart was beating so
loudly I could hear it echo in my ears. As if the second hand was putting on
airs, the minutes refused to pass.

Another ten minutes
passed, and the teacher still hadn’t shown up.

The classes on either
side of mine were still raucous. Did that mean that our homeroom teacher wasn’t
the only one who had yet to show up? Did the staff meeting run over? And if it
had, why?

I was so confident in
my ill premonition that it gave me chills. Upon holding my head in my hands, I
finally heard footsteps.

The door to the
classroom swung open. But the homeroom teacher didn’t enter alone. For some
reason, the principle was accompanying them.

Both of them wore
very intentional grave expressions, almost as if they knew they had to.

“Erm... I have a very
serious announcement to make to all of you, so please make sure you remain
calm.”

The principal began
speaking.

“Just now, we
received contact from the police... And be assured, we are all just as alarmed
as you are...”

I already knew the
answer. I knew quite clearly what the principal was about to say. So I couldn’t
muster up nearly as much shock at the word “homicide” as my classmates did.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
<references />

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| Return to [[We Don't Open Anywhere -There are no facts, only interpretations.-|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[We Don't Open Anywhere: Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)|Masato Yahara's Closed World (I)]]
|-
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</noinclude>

We Don't Open Anywhere: Kouta Hiiragi's Closed World (I)

2017-11-13T12:00:04Z

Kooritsukai: /* Translator's Notes */

<div class=WordSection1>

“I’ll protect you with my magic.”

As the 18th of May was becoming part of my
normal high school routine, those words changed my world.

The shoe rack was so old it clearly needed
replacing and was held together in several places with shoddily-placed packing
tape. I had gotten used to its musty odor over the past month, and as I took in
the moldy smell the hand picking up my loafers stopped in midair.

“Ex...cuse me?”

Although we had never spoken before, I could
tell from the graceful-looking girl’s sailor uniform and red ribbon that she
was a fellow first-year. While her chestnut hair was done up with a red hair
band on the back of her head, it felt too short to truly call a ponytail. Her
features were reminiscent of a movie star, with a petite face, wide eyes, and
skin so white it seemed practically transparent. In contrast with my rather
unassuming stature, she was graced with such appeal that any who glimpsed her
around school would have practically no choice but to turn their head. She was
without a doubt the most gorgeous person I had met in my life.

“Oh right, I guess it would be pretty
confusing to be told out of the blue that you’re being protected, huh!”

With a smirk, the girl I had just met began
slapping my shoulder in an overly-familiar manner. Even given our lack of
closeness, between her looks and her behavior I suspected that the majority of
people would feel comfortable around her.

“But you know, I couldn’t just leave you on
your own like that. You basically don’t have any, after all.”

Her face grew serious as she said the
following.

“Magic resistance, that is.”

That’s not a phrase you hear every day.

My fifteen years of life up until this point
had left me woefully unprepared to respond to such a ridiculous proclamation,
so I had no choice but to stare dumbfounded at the one who voiced it.

To make matters worse, I’m shy. While my
friend Masato would disagree with that assessment, the fact that I had no idea
how to interact with people when meeting them for the first time was
indisputable. In any case, my head was still spinning as I futilely tried to
think of an appropriate response. 

To that, the girl mumbled something to the
effect of “yup, he didn’t even realize how low his magic resistance is,”
reaffirming her assessment of the situation.

In the face of such strange conduct, I finally
remembered the name of the character standing in front of me.

“Are you by any chance Miki Kouzuki?”

“The one and only!”

That I knew her name was unlikely to come as a
surprise to Kouzuki. It was only natural. She was famous, after all.

She was simply that attractive. Like many
beauties before her, as soon as she enrolled she caught the attention of male
students throughout the school. However, before long the ranks of suitors
quietly receded.

The cause was the circulation of a particular
rumor.

The rumor that the girl was delusional — a
self-proclaimed magus.

“So what’s this ‘magic resistance’?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s your
resistance against magic. How immune to magic you are. I wonder how you got that
way, though. Maybe there’s something strange with your astral body?”

Oh look, she started saying something
undecipherable.

“...And what on earth is magic?”

“Huh? Hiiragi, you haven’t heard of magic?
Haven’t you ever played a video game?”

Somehow or other it seemed she knew my name as
well.

“No, what I’m asking is—”

What is the real-world concept that you’re
referring to as “magic”?

...Or, that was what I was going to ask, but I
stopped myself mid-sentence. If the rumors that she believed herself to be a
magus were true, asking that question would cause the conversation to quickly
grow awkward. After all, that phrasing would be virtually the same as rejecting
the concept of magic outright. After thinking for a moment, I decided to ask a
different question.

“Who exactly can use magic? Are you able to?”

“Oh, anyone can use magic. Whether or not they
realize it, everyone uses magic all the time. Obviously, I’m no exception.”

“I don’t recall ever using magic, though…”

“Like I said, you just don’t realize it. In
our world, even really strong magi sometimes don’t realize their own
abilities.”

“Is that... so…”

It seems she was… the real deal. It felt like
it would take some time before I could figure out how to interact with her.

“Yup. Just as I suspected, Hiiragi, you have a
talent for magic.”

I had no idea what the basis for that
assessment was, but as she said it the corners of her mouth turned upwards
happily. 

“Didn’t you just say that I had no magic
resistance or something?”

“That’s exactly why you’re talented! There
isn’t a direct causal relationship, but it’s really easy for a person like that
to become a magus if they spend time around another magus.”

“Huh…”

“Even an unenthusiastic response like that is
okey-dokey! I get the feeling you have no idea what I’m talking about, but
that’s fine! I’ll teach you magic, starting from some super-basic runes! Once
you start getting some hands-on experience, you should start picking it up like
that!”

I still had no idea how to respond, so for the
time being I just set the loafers I had been holding for some time on the
floor.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t properly
introduced myself yet, huh. I’m Miki Kouzuki from class 1-3. Nice to meet you~”

“...I’m Kouta Hiiragi from class 1-2.”

“Oh, I know. Nice to meet you!”

With a carefree smile, Kouzuki presented her
hand.

When I naturally responded in kind, Kouzuki
clasped my hand tightly as if refusing to let it escape. Between the sensation
of her soft hand against mine and her charming smile, I could feel my heart
pounding in my chest.

You could hardly blame me, right? If not for
her comments about magic and such, Kouzuki’s beauty would be sure to make her
popular even within her own sex.

“...Is it ok if I go now, Kouzuki?”

“Oh, that won’t do. Please, call me by my
first name. A nickname would do too.”

I’d never before called a woman by either
their first name or a nickname. Was my first time going to be taken in this
girl who I’d met through the conversational equivalent of a fender-bender?

...It was, wasn’t it. I was the type of person
who tended to go with the flow.

“Given names are similar to incantations, you
see. Calling someone by their last name generates magic too. If we do that,
we’ll be cursed to never quite be friends. With me so far?”

I was in fact not with her. All I was picking
up was she didn’t want me to call her by her last name. But that would have to
be good enough.

“Miki, then?”

“Hmm… it still feels a bit off… but I guess
it just barely passes muster. As for you, Kouta, I guess you’d probably be
opposed to having a girl suddenly talk to you too familiarly. We can get to
that point gradually.”

It seemed she was capable of at least that
level of forethought.

“Now then, could you give me your phone number
and LINE ID?"

As instructed, I exchange contact information
with her. Under normal circumstances, this might look like something to be
envious of. But while it might seem that way on the surface, it’s a different
matter when the other party is the kind of troublemaker who would call
themselves a magus. That’s the conclusion I arrived at.

While putting on pretense of indifference,
Kouzuki asked me this without taking her eyes from the phone screen:

“Kouta, you think of yourself as pretty
normal, right?”

Of course.

“Because you aren’t. Magic aside, even now you
seem out of place.”

“I mean, people say that I’m unambitious…”

“This is on a whole ‘nother level, though.”

I had no intention of getting any more
involved than I already was, so this line of discussion held no interest for
me. After I registered the user with the handle “Magus” as a friend on LINE, I
assumed that the conversation had reached its conclusion, so I finished putting
on my loafers.

“Umm, can I leave now?”

“Oh, hold on a sec. I left my bag in the
classroom, so let me go grab it real quick.”

As my mouth hung open like a dunce, Kouzuki
flashed a mischievous smile.

“I’m leaving with you, of course. Didn’t I
just say that I would protect you?”

As she said that, she nudged my shoulder
innocently.

And that was how my first time going home from
school with a girl, which I had been eagerly looking forward to since the
moment I enrolled, was stolen by a self-proclaimed magus.

 

 

The following day, Friday the 19th.

It was morning, just before homeroom. I leaned
back in my chair, exhausted from my unusual experience the day before. Getting
to know new people always tends to wear me out, but when that person happened
to not only be a beautiful, high-spirited girl but also a self-proclaimed magus
I suspect nearly anyone would be drained afterwards.

As I lifted my head from my desk, I could see
chalk dust falling from the rim of the blackboard and fluttering throughout the
classroom. It gets cleaned every day, so it’s probably just my imagination, but
this ancient, not-up-to-code building seemed oddly dark and dusty.

I recounted the previous day’s strange events
to my friend, who was sitting in the seat in front of me with his head on his
desk. After halfheartedly listening to my tale, he said this once I finished.

“Normally ya’d just
assume she has the hots for ya, Kou.”

With his eyes half-closed, Masato Yahara
lazily gave me a blunt response. Blunt as it was, though, it seemed he had
taken interest in my story. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have even bothered
replying.

At our traditionalist high school, Masato’s bleached
brown hair and perm were in clear violation of the dress code. And his
transgressions didn’t stop there; he also regularly smoked and shoplifted. On
looks alone it wouldn’t be strange if he were a member of a certain well-known
idol group, but his attitude revealed a level of delinquency such that none of
the other student would dare get near him.

“But Miki isn’t exactly normal, right?”

“You ain’t wrong; that chick’s fucked up in
the head. You sure she’s not just gonna kill you as some ritual sacrifice?”

He laughed cynically. But I was used to this
personality of his.

“Kill me? It’s not like she’s you or
anything.”

“I don’t fuckin’ get it. She’s gotta
have some ulterior motive. If she was normal, I could chalk it up to a
sad attempt to get your attention, but that’s not necessarily the case with
her. Whatever she wants to do to you, it might be something completely out of
left field.”

Masato jabbed me with his thumb.

“But even though you get the same feeling,
you’re not going to be able to turn her down, are ya.”

I couldn’t deny it. I was non-confrontational
by nature, after all.

“Hey, may as well make the best of it, right?
Hell, if nothing else, you’ll be able spend your adult life bragging that you
spent your high school days hanging out with a hot chick.”

As it didn’t directly affect him, Masato’s
advice might seem rather irresponsible.

However, he was rarely off the mark when it
came to stuff like this. He had a good head on his shoulders, and his hunches
tended to be astute. Although most what came out of his mouth was extreme, if
you ignored his generally dubious manner of speaking what you were left with
was fairly insightful.

A sacrifice, huh.

It was scary how plausible that seemed.

As I buried my head in my arms, Masato
suddenly dropped his gaze from me, and muttered,

“Ahh… I wanna kill someone.”

This was something of a catchphrase of his.
Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, he would murmur this as if he
were remembering something. Although it wasn’t exactly a praiseworthy habit, if
I paid him any heed it would likely just drive a rift between us.

“Still, for her to make a move on you without
even knowing you… looks like our girl Miki Kouzuki’s oddity puts the rumors to
shame. Just talking about magic’s one thing, but the kind of person
who’d graduate to actually doing something ain’t exactly a dime a
dozen.”

“You know, the two of you are weird in oddly
similar ways.”

“Kouzuki and I are?”

Masato frowned, then pondered for a moment.
But before long, he replied with an uncharacteristically serious expression.

“Nah, we aren’t.”

“You’re not?”

“We just aren’t. In fact, we’d probably get
along like cats and dogs.”

I didn’t quite follow, but given Masato’s
intuitive prowess I had no reason to doubt him.

As our conversation wound down, the morning
bell began to ring. Although our school had a bell that signaled that homeroom
would begin shortly, I’d never seen it have much effect on the other classes.
Until the moment the homeroom teacher walked in the door, the students would
generally continue chatting and milling about.

But our class was different.

“Everyone, note that the bell has rung. I
would appreciate it if you took your seats.”

The class representative, Shuuichi Akiyama,
issued an order. Although the rest of the class balked at the prospect of
accepting direction from a fellow student, they didn’t feel it was an issue
worth fighting over and quickly fell in line. That was simply how our class
operated.

Masato hated that arrangement from the bottom
of his heart.

“Hell, if it gets down to it, our relationship
might become like mine and that fucker’s.”

“Like yours and the class rep’s? No way.”

Masato and Akiyama were on poor terms.
Although delinquents and honor students seldom got along well, it was common
for the two groups to intentionally avoid interacting and to simply ignore the
other.

But these two were constantly at each other's
throats, making their disdain for the other clear.

 

Let’s turn the clock back a month to April
19th for a moment. Much like today, Akiyama took it upon himself to act in the
teacher’s stead, to which Masato vehemently resisted. Slamming his desk to
drive his point home, Masato declared, in a voice dripping with contempt:

“You make me fuckin’ sick.”

I, along with the rest of the class, froze. To
be completely honest, the rest of us also found something about Akiyama a
little bit off-putting. However, his actions were objectively exemplary, so
nobody could find reason to reproach him. We had no legitimate reason to be
cautious around him.

But Masato simply gave voice to his revulsion,
offering no reasoning. I would be lying if I said I didn’t find it a little
refreshing, but Masato had clearly taken it too far.

Normally, an honor student like Akiyama would
be unused to such violent outbursts. I was certain that Akiyama would be
frightened and atrophy in the face of such a verbal blow.

Which is why I was more surprised by Akiyama’s
response than by Masato’s outburst.

“And what of it, may I ask?”

Rather than falter, Akiyama struck back
defiantly. I was half concerned that Masato would lose his temper and the
argument would devolve into a fistfight.

But instead of leaping at Akiyama, Masato just
muttered “go figure” to himself with a disdainful look on his face. Unlike the
rest of us, it seemed he anticipated Akiyama’s response. Glaring at Akiyama
with eyes that gave the sense they were gazing at filth, Masato ended his
tirade with “You’re beyond help,” and returned to his seat without causing any
more commotion. Fortunately, things hadn’t gotten out of hand.

For his part, although he said no more,
Akiyama was able to clearly convey his contempt for the delinquent Masato. But
because Masato didn’t press the issue further, neither did he.

From that point on, their relationship had
been akin to a lit powder keg.

“Akiyama and I are like opposites.”

Casting a sidelong glance at Akiyama, Masato
smiled contemptuously.

“In what way?”

“Y’know, one of us desires chains, the other
rejects them.”

I tilted my head in puzzlement.

“Don’t worry about it. Hell, don’t even think
about it. No good’ll come of you overworking that poor brain of yours.”

“Are you calling me stupid?”

“Stupid is as stupid does, Kou. Just try to
empty out that head of yours.”

“You’re awful.”

Although he says that, I know he doesn’t
actually hate me. I’m so used to it that it doesn’t even bother me anymore.

“Well, for now you should probably figure out
how to dodge Kouzuki’s weird-ass solicitations. You know she’s probably gonna
come after you again, right?”

 

Just as Masato predicted, Miki made her way to
our classroom just as fourth period ended. Entering an unfamiliar classroom is
often cause for nervousness, but I didn’t pick up on any whatsoever from Miki.

“Welp, let’s get going!”

Grasping my hand, Miki gave it a tug. I didn’t
need an explanation to see that she had no intention of letting me refuse.

I could feel the collective gaze of my
classmates boring down on me. I couldn’t blame them. Her reputation as an
eccentric aside, Miki Kouzuki was widely hailed as the cutest girl in our
school. Yet someone like that was calling my name and grasping my hand, even
though I had no notable characteristics to my name other than my relationship
with Masato. 

“H...hold on a second!”

If I put myself at her mercy, I would no doubt
find myself the victim of my peers’ boundless curiosity. My peaceful life would
be shattered.

Planting myself in place, I stopped Miki.

“Don’t get all rebellious with me, Kouta! I’m
doing this whole bodyguard thing for free, you know. The least you could do is
be a little more obedient.”

“At least explain what you’re planning on
doing with me!”

“I called for you during lunch, so isn’t it
obvious that we’re going to eat together? Use your head! It’s because you’re
like that that you don’t have any magic resistance.”

For some reason, she scolded me in earnest.

I felt that I should be the one scolding her
for her audacity and lack of common sense, but I suspected that my rebuttal
would fall on deaf ears. I could almost picture it.

Releasing my hand for a moment, Miki pulled
out two picturesque yellow lunchboxes and displayed them to me proudly.

“Behold, two lunchboxes made personally by my
cute self! Consider yourself lucky!”

“Well, I guess it would be hard to argue that
you aren’t cute...”

Upon hearing this, Miki put both hands on her
cheeks and displayed a bashful expression.

“He called me cute! C’mon, I promise they
taste good.”

She pounded on my back exuberantly. She’s
making a racket, and her acting sucks. Given her reaction, she must be completely
used to being called cute.

“Let’s go to the courtyard!”

I could no longer muster the energy to resist
Miki, who had begun pulling me along once more. My classmates’ inquisitive eyes
were no doubt still on me, but... oh, whatever. Peace at any price, right?

Masato, who was watching us out of the corner
of his eye, made no move to lend me assistance, instead just putting on the
same cynical grin as always and gently waving me goodbye.

 

Although it was in fact a courtyard, it wasn’t
the type of place you could easily envision students gathering or eating lunch
at. It was simply a poorly-maintained lawn with a few apologetic-looking
shrubs, without even so much as a bench to its name. As a result, the two of us
were alone aside from the occasional passerby.

Ours was a rural public high school that often
used tradition as an excuse to avoid change and fundamentally rejected the idea
of a vibrant adolescence. Both the courtyard and the old-fashioned building
served to bore us into submission.

The clearest symbol of that was the uniforms.
Despite being widely regarded as unfashionable by the students, our school
still used black gakuran<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_school_uniform#Gakuran</ref> and black sailor uniforms of old.

Clearly in a bubbly mood, Miki laid a sheet
she had brought on the unkempt lawn and took a seat. I followed suit.

“Is eating lunch together part of my becoming
a magus too?”

“Yeah, pretty much. That’s about right.”

By eating her homemade lunch, I could become a
magus.

When I put it like that, the causal
relationship felt a little dubious. I unconsciously let out a sigh.

“Are you going to make me eat lizard tails or
something?”

“What are you talking about? This isn’t a
Witches’ Sabbath or anything like that, you know.”

I wanted to ask what exactly a Witches’
Sabbath was, but I realized that if I got hung up on everything she said
our conversation would go nowhere.

“Of course, I don’t really expect you to
believe me when I say that eating lunch together will help you become a magus.”

Pouting a little, Miki passed me one of the
boxes. Upon opening the lid, I found... well, to be frank, everything inside
looks perfectly innocuous. Nothing inside seemed to be magic-related, nor did
anything seem like it was made with a loved one in mind. It was, all in all, an
extremely normal lunch.

How anticlimactic.

“Hey, let me guess what you’re thinking right
now!”

Miki brought her face close to mine as if
investigating something.

“Be my guest.”

“You’re thrilled at the prospect of eating a
cute girl’s homemade lunch!”

“What? That’s completely off. I was just
thinking how anticlimactic it was.”

“You’re awful!”

Although now that she mentioned it, eating a
girl’s homemade lunch was a part of adolescence I had been looking forward to.
Miki had stolen yet another of my firsts.

“But being able to speak your mind like that is
a step in the right direction! Keep it up, keep it up!”

For some reason, I was being encouraged.

Her wide eyes gazed straight into mine as she
spoke. That was probably how she truly felt.

If that’s how seriously she was taking this, I
felt that I should do my part to understand this whole magic thing.

“In that case, I’ll ask you... you see, I’m a
little confused. I don’t really understand what you mean when you say ‘magic’.
After all, even though you sometimes borrow their terminology, your magic isn’t
exactly like the stuff you’d find in fantasy novels, right?”

The whole time I was talking, Miki continued
watching me with those large round eyes of hers. Feeling uncomfortable, I
dropped my gaze.

“I don’t really understand it, but I can’t
just unconditionally accept it. At this rate, I might not ever be able to use
magic.”

Miki was listening to me earnestly.

Upon hearing my denial of magic, would she
take offence?

But Miki’s disposition didn’t sour. She
quietly pierced a piece of freezer-aisle karaage with her fork.

“You know, I’ve been dragging you around and
saying some pretty confusing things. I’m the reason you’re so confused. I have
at least that much self-awareness.”

My eyes still downcast, she spoke again.

“Do you hate me for that?”

In response, I quickly shook my head.

“I mean, you’re doing it all with good
intentions, right?”

Miki’s eyes widened slightly as if in
surprise.

“You understood that?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though I was saying cryptic things, like
that I’d protect you from magic or that I’d be your bodyguard?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no way I was really conveying my good
intentions by doing stuff like that...”

This time it was my turn to be surprised.

“So, you did realize you were being
cryptic...”

If she realized how odd she was being,
couldn’t she have just acted more normally in the first place? If she was
afraid that I would come to hate her, wouldn’t it make sense to try getting to
know me more normally?

“Well, ‘cuz... it’s like this. I had to take a
gamble. The way I saw it, you were really in danger; someone else could have
done you in with magic in the blink of an eye. That’s why I was in such a rush
– I had to, like, get really close to you as quick as possible so you’d trust
me.”

“And that’s why you were walking home with me
and making me lunch and stuff?”

“Yup. But you see, I knew you wouldn’t reject
me. Given your lack of magic resistance, I was confident I could get away with
a little bit of coercion.”

“You mean people without magic resistance are
back at rejection?”

“Hmm... it’s not like that’s a rule or
anything, but that’s generally how it turns out. Once the two of us have a
strong bond of mutual trust, by that point you’ll already be a splendid magus.
Once you get to that point, you’ll be able to protect yourself from other
people’s magic.”

There was no way that was the whole truth.

However, I was pretty sure Miki wasn’t saying
it halfheartedly. I could tell how serious and earnest she was being.

Although I still wasn’t fully clear as to what
Miki’s brand of magic entailed, I got the feeling that it had a strongly
grounded concept. If that was the case, I had to deal with it as sincerely as
possible.

“You really are Kouta, aren’t you.”

Peering at my face, Miki laughed happily.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing... Hey, that’s right! We still
haven’t eaten yet!”

I was puzzled, but we wouldn’t make any
progress if I questioned every little thing she did or said. So I did as
prompted and began to eat my lunch.

The lunch had a notably brown hue, and an
ordinary pair of chopsticks were bundled along with it. Looking at it, it was
obvious the creator wasn’t used to cooking. And most of the items were
store-bought. Well, it looked edible, if nothing else.

“Oh no... this is terrible...”

Miki, who was sitting beside me and picking at
the same assortment of side dishes, clutched the sides of her head.

“I... think it’s pretty average, don’t you?”

“...Sorry. I messed up. You see, I’m actually
pretty handy, and I can do most things pretty well. But this is... man, these
carrots are too firm... and half of this is undercooked... Oh geez, I’m really
sorry.”

“Couldn’t you use magic to make it better?”

“Excuse me? Are you just trying to pick a
fight with me like that? You’re picking a fight, aren’t you?”

Grabbing my shoulder, she started shaking me
back and forth. My head rattled from side to side. Miki seemed to find this
amusing, and with a grin on her face refused to stop.

“You two look like you’re having a blast, for
a couple of freshman shitstains.”

With a start, Miki turned to face the source
of the malice-filled voice.

Sauntering towards us was a third year with
long blond hair and dark roots. Although his fashion sense immediately outed
him as a delinquent, his degeneracy didn’t seem nearly as refined as Masato’s.
I quickly discerned that what set him off was seeing an unassuming guy like me
eating lunch with a world-class girl like Miki.

The long-haired blond, who by now was beside
us, looked down at Miki with the vulgar eyes of a small-time brute.

“Now that I look atcha up close, you’re
hella fuckin’ hot.”

“...Thank you.”

“Hey, wanna go for a drive with me next
Sunday? I just got my license, so I wanna hit the road.”

“I appreciate your kind invitation.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m busy that day.”

Putting on a sweetly smile, Miki
diplomatically declined. I was impressed that someone as audacious as her could
respond like that.

Although the long-haired blond initially
narrowed his eyes in irritation, as he continued casting his viscous gaze at
Miki, a crude smile began to slowly dance around his lips.

“Man, normally this is where I’d back
off, but... You’re so damn hot I just can’t. I think I’ve
fallen for ya already. Fuck, man, you gotta go out with me!”

Upon hearing this, Miki’s poker face broke
down for the first time, and she grimaced.

“C’mon, you can’t just leave a guy hangin’
like that! ...Oh, that reminds me. You mind if I switch topics for a
sec? You wouldn’t think a guy like me would give a shit, but I actually
can’t fuckin’ stand people who disrespect public morals. I’m always thinkin’
about how I wanna stamp guys like that out. It’s like, uh, one of those
world peace-type things.”

Although he was clearly violating several
school regulations himself, he continued his speech.

“So the other day, right, I see these
two second-years named Takahashi and Shinjou gettin’ it on after class. Man, my
sense of justice flared up like you wouldn’t fucking believe. The campus is
sacred, ya know, you can’t just go dirty it up by having sex here! And I’m
like, I can’t just sit here and watch this. So I was thinkin’,
the best thing to do would be to get them to break up. That shit’s what they
call an illicit sexual relationship, man. So I brought over a couple of
my buddies and we broke them up. But chicks are like, they can’t bear it if
they don’t have a boyfriend, right? I felt super bad for her. Me and my
buddies were worried Shinjou’d be all lonely, so to prevent that we decided to
take turns being her lover. Well, until we got bored of her body, at least.”

This was bad. I may have called him a
small-time brute, but it looked like I had underestimated his deviancy. 

And unfortunately, I was a far cry from some
protagonist who could easily take down a small fry; I was Student A, who was at
his wit’s end at the mere sight of a delinquent.

“I’m like a demon who uphold the public
morals. Looks like I might have to do the same thing here, huh.”

“Well... the two of us weren’t doing anything
untoward.”

Although her reply was stout-hearted, Miki’s
voice was trembling. It seemed that she too could do nothing but tremble, no
matter how unrefined this delinquent’s brand of violence was.

“I guess you’re right. Well, I
can let off the hook for becoming my lover this time. But ya gotta at least
spend an evening with me. If you don’t, I get the feeling that your
boyfriend there won’t be able to make it to school any more... So, let me ask
again.”

Having established just how dangerous he was,
the long-haired blond asked again.

“You’ll go for a drive with me, won’tcha?”

“...If you insist.”

Miki answered him expressionlessly.

When I looked at her face, she was smiling.

“Don’t worry about me, Kouta. I’m a magus, I’m
sure I can manage.”

There’s no way that was true. If she could use
magic to do something about this situation, she would have done so already. And
there’s no way she would be trembling so much.

“Oh yeah, I should clear it with your
boyfriend. We all good?”

“I’m thinking.”

Frowning, I crossed my arms.

“By the way, is it really true that you want
to make friends with Miki?”

“Hah?”

“I understand the desire to fulfill your
sexual desires, I really do. I understand how strongly a person would want to
have sex with a cute girl. But... if we compare how much you do want to
to how much Miki doesn’t want to, Miki’s desire not to is stronger.
That’s the way I see it. So I’d really rather you didn’t.”

For some reason, the long-haired blond seemed
taken aback.

“The fuck is this kid talking about?”

You asked “we all good?”, so I answered.
That’s all there is to it...

It was clearly my job to stop him. Although I
had only just met Miki, she was taking action on my behalf. But if I tried to
oppose him with violence, I would just be met in kind and thoroughly
outclassed. I had to consider retribution, as well. So what options did I have
left?

For some reason, Masato’s catchphrase sprung
to mind.

I wanna
kill someone.

 

“Ryuusuke Yamazaki.”

I then heard a voice that belonged to the same
person the catchphrase did. Although he wasn’t raising his voice, I could hear
it from somewhere above me.

When I looked up, I could see Masato staring
at us expressionlessly from the second-floor hallway window.

Masato pointed at me and spoke succinctly.

“He’s with me.”

Succinct as it was, that was sufficient for
the blond, who was apparently named Yamazaki, to display an uncomfortable look
on his face.

“...Hey, Yahara. Didn’t know this
capybara-lookin’ kid was a friend of yours. It’s not like I was tryin’
to pick a fight with a buddy of yours or nothin’.”

“Uh huh.”

With a bored look on his face, Masato wandered
away from the window.

Yamazaki was a vicious delinquent who casually
terrorized the rest of the student body. But in spite of this, he seemed unable
to turn on Masato despite the latter being a first-year.

It seemed I had unintentionally made friends
in high places.

Scratching his head and frowning, Yamazaki
whispered in my ear.

“If Masato’s sticking up for you, does that
mean you’re the ‘manager’ I’ve heard so much about? Are you in the
middle of ‘stocking up’?”

I had no
idea what he was talking about.

“Well, no
skin off my back. If you get any cute girls in, send ‘em my way, wouldja?”

Giving my
back a firm thump, Yamazaki quickly strode off.

I turned
to face Miki.

“Kouta.”

Rather
than being relieved, Miki stared intently at my face. I had never seen her look
this scared.

“I thought
I understood, but you really are... Kouta, aren’t you. You’re really just see
things the way they are.”

That’s...
unlike her previous statements about “magic resistance,” that’s a little easier
to understand.

“Look, I
know he saved us this time around. And I’m sorry, but there’s something I have
to say.”

Miki
peered into my eyes.

“Please
don’t spend any more time around that guy. I’d like you to also avoid that
Yamazaki guy from just now, and a second-year named Matsumi too.”

I had no
intention of breaking ties with Masato, so for now I just nodded.

But as if
picking up on my noncommittal response, Miki heaved a heavy sigh.

“I really
do need to protect you.”



Protect.

Let’s
suppose for a moment that magic really was something capable of protecting me.
Let’s suppose it’s something that could enrich my life.

Even if
that’s the case, there’s something I can’t tell Miki.

I couldn’t
really care less.

I
couldn’t care less what happens to me.





I can’t
really remember how I got to know Masato. We sat near each other in class, and
before I knew it we were regularly chatting.

But I
didn’t spend time with him outside of school. We never hung out together, and
we didn’t chat on the phone. If we got put into different classes, it’s
entirely possible we would stop interacting altogether. Barring that, even not
sitting near each other might be enough to put a halt to our conversations.

But once,
I think it was about two weeks ago? He called me to a park near my home at one
in the morning.

Masato
wouldn’t tell me, so I didn’t know what was going on, but when I got there I
was startled by how haggard he seemed. I got the impression that it didn’t
matter who, he just needed someone to talk to.

Atop a
rusting jungle gym with an out-of-order sign plastered on it, the two of us
held a rather aimless conversation. After glancing at the “no balls allowed”
sign, the out-of-order vending machine, and the rather unenticing public
restroom for the dozenth time, Masato gave an obviously fake laugh and quipped,
“This fucking place is less a park and more of a cesspit.”

Atop the
jungle gym, Masato took a drag from his cigarette as he toyed with a butterfly
knife. Although he was a minor, he was no stranger to cigarettes, beer, and
occasionally even harder drugs. However, he never offered me any. And even when
he was engaging in such antisocial practices, he showed not a glimpse of
enjoyment but the same bored expression as always.

The moon
was so full that night I thought it might perhaps be a supermoon<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermoon</ref>, and its
illumination was clearly making Masato uncomfortable.

“Kou,
whaddya see what you look up at the moon?”

I answered
automatically.

“A
rabbit.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit</ref>”

“You’re
just saying that ‘cause everyone else does, right? Let’s be real, it doesn’t
even look that much like a fucking rabbit.”

He was
totally right. Looking back up at the moon again, I completely agreed.

“So what
do you see?”

I
generally tried to avoid answering questions like this, as I inevitably got
mocked for my lack of imagination.

“To be
blunt, the moon doesn’t look like much of anything to me.” 
 “Whaddya mean?”

“I mean, I
can’t really see the craters as anything but craters.”

But rather
than mock me for my entirely mockable answer, Masato looked almost impressed.

“Huh, so
that’s your angle.”

Seeming
pleased, he lit another cigarette.

“Makes
sense. Hell, if anything it’s weirder to assign meaning to shit like that.”

I wasn’t
sure what he was so pleased about.

To fill
the lull in the conversation, I asked a question of little import.

“Masato,
why do you act like a delinquent?”

“You’re a
cheeky little bastard. Normally if you asked a delinquent that, they’d beat you
senseless.”

But Masato
gave me a serious answer.

“I
just didn’t know a way to resist it.”

It wasn’t
a very concrete answer. But I could tell that Masato himself didn’t have
anything firmer.

The
conversation died down again, so I asked the next question that came to mind as
I gazed upwards.

“What does
the moon look like to you, Masato?”

Furrowing
his brow, Masato tossed his cigarette aside.

“Whenever I
look up, I get uneasy. Even though I know I can’t reach
it, I wanna smash it. So on bright nights like these, I always
just look at my feet.”

He put a
new cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

“Feels
like there’s a monster baring its fangs above me.”

Wrenching
his face in despair, Masato whispered as if he were spitting out a mouthful of
blood.

“Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.”





“It’s been
a while since we walked home together, Masato.”

We hadn’t
planned it ahead of time. But our houses were in the same direction, and we
were both in the so-called going home club, so we occasionally found ourselves
walking together. The reason it had been so long was due to a certain magus
attaching herself to my hip.

By the
way, the magus in question had been invited somewhere today by her friend
Sayuri, who apparently wouldn’t take no for an answer. Although I was surprised
that Miki was able to make friends at all in the face of her blatant audacity,
it turned out she was actually on good terms with most of the girls in her
class. Of course, this was self-reported, so I had no way of confirming whether
it was true or not.

By the
way, when I expressed my surprise at the size of her friend group, Miki got
rather indignant. She then went on an incomprehensible lecture about how
maintaining the unstable bonds of female friendship was part of magic’s
wheelhouse or something. Well, her communication skills were exceptional, so
perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all.

“You’re
thinking about that chick again, aren’tcha. You’re fucking engrossed.”

“Kinda.”

“You’re
supposed to deny it, man, I’m just fucking with you.”

After
letting him know that I had, in fact, been thinking about her, Masato gave off
a sigh while smirking. 

“Go figure.”

Without
breaking his smirk, Masato continued.

“Ya know,
that magus freak told me to stay away from you the other day.”

“Really?
Miki did?”

Masato’s
eyes reflected their assent.

“I told
you, right? Kouzuki and I will never get along. She fucking hates me.”

That
reminded me. Miki had told me to stop spending time with Masato.

“Are you
sure you didn’t just make fun of magic or something?”

“I
might’ve.”

“C’mon!”

“But this
and that don’t have jack shit to do with each other. She just can’t stand the
two of us being around each other.”

The word
“jealousy” sprung to mind, but Miki had really just been one-sidedly meddling
in my affairs.

All she
could think about was magic.

“I guess
you being around me gets in the way of her plan to make me into a magus?”

“That’s
pretty much on the mark.”

I was
surprised at Masato’s matter-of-fact answer.

“Wait, do
you understand what she means by ‘magic’? Is that why you can tell why she
hates you?”

Masato’s
brows furrowed.

“Hmm...
it’s not like I understand it per se. But us not being able to see
eye-to-eye shakes out to about the same thing.”

“I’m not
sure I follow.”

 “I
mean, you’re starting to get an idea of what her magic is, right? She’s been
dragging you around for two damn weeks now.”

“...Sort
of.”

“Vaguely” was about the level my understanding
capped out at.

It was just like translating English into
Japanese; coming up with a word to describe magic was difficult. But I could
tell by now that it wasn’t “sorcery” or “witchcraft”.

As far as I could tell, the kind of magic Miki
was talking about generally referred to something along the lines of
“imposition of notions.”

But it wasn’t just brainwashing, where you
could impose things forcibly. Things like daily habits and cultural norms,
where they took root before you even noticed, were also included in her
definition of magic. Miki’s vision of a magus was likely someone who could
freely manipulate the notions of others. When she said I didn’t have any magic
resistance, what she meant was that I was in danger because my notions would
change so readily.

But I couldn’t understand what made people
without magic resistance better at becoming magi. I didn’t see why spend time
around Masato would keep me from becoming one, either. I felt like there was
still quite a bit to magic that I didn’t understand.

“Quit thinkin’.”

Speaking rudely, Masato lightly jabbed my
solar plexus.

 “No
good’ll come of a dumbass thinking too hard.”

“Surely there’s a kinder way to put that.”

Masato tilted his head with a playful look on
his face. But just as I was thinking that, his expression grew grave.

“Honestly, some of the stuff Kouzuki’s talkin’
about has merit. Even I’d rather you go be a happy-go-lucky magus freak
than a homicidal delinquent.”

“What? I mean, I’d really rather not become
either...”

I responded with a light-hearted joke, but
Masato’s intense expression didn’t fade.

“Well, if you don’t think about it too much
you can probably stay just the way you are.”

“Kusukusu...kusukusukusu...”

We heard a peculiar laugh that sounded as if
someone were exhaling through a gap in their teeth.

The two of us turned our heads. Behind us
stood a short girl. Her jet-black hair hung down in braids in the back, with
her bangs were cut at a diagonal slant. I could infer from her sailor uniform’s
green ribbon that she was a second-year. While that meant that she was older
than us, her childlike face gave off a very different impression. That,
combined with her innocent expression, would have led me to believe in an
instant if I were told she was a grade-schooler. Upon closer inspection,
though, her bust was large enough to leave a thoroughly immoral impression.

But her most notable characteristic was her
peculiar eyes. Although they were as just as black as her hair, they seemed
somehow out of focus and were oddly reminiscent of a rainbow.

“You two are quite interesting.”

There was nobody else around, so it seemed the
unfamiliar upperclassman was addressing us.

“Hello.”

With the expression of a pleased child, she
gave a quick bow. I returned the greeting.

“...Masato, do you know her?”

Pulling a wry face, Masato shook his head.

“Kusukusu... you really are
interesting!”

Her smile was innocent. But it was strange. In
fact, it was so innocent it was unsettling.

“Whaddya want?”

Masato spit out the question in his usual
aggressive manner, but the upperclassman showed no sign of fear. Nor did she
even seem to mind. It seemed like she was a bit slow when it came to
interpreting other people’s emotions.

“Oh, Ririko was just thinking how she wanted
to become good friends with Hiiragi!”

It seemed she knew my last name.

Although she had called us “interesting,” I
quickly realized that she was paying little attention to us. Her gaze seemed to
be drifting all over.

“What did you find so interesting? Our conversation?”

“Yes. Aaaand no.”

Her voice dripped with saccharine. But it
wasn’t the type of flirtatious saccharine that Miki occasionally put on for
play.

It was like a child’s. Not just that, but her
behavior and expressions were like those of a child as well.

“What’s so interesting about you two are the
call signs you’re giving off.”

“...Call signs?”

“Yup. Call signs.”

Although I parroted her words back at her, no
explanation was forthcoming. It felt as though she thought her manner of
speaking were the most natural thing in the world.

As if striking upon something, Masato suddenly
asked her a question.

“Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?”

“Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course.”

Without any questions as to how Masato knew
her name, the upperclassman named Ririko Matsumi nodded.

“Masato, who is she?”

“Her name gets around. You can guess why,
right?”

Indeed. If this was representative of her
standard behavior, it was no surprise that people would have heard of her.

Oh, right. Now I think about it, “Matsumi” was
also on the list of people Miki told me to stay away from. And on top of that,
I vaguely remembered hearing rumors about her somewhere.

“Interesting, aren’t they? White and
ultramarine, huh. Aren’t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko
likes white, you know. Makes her want to do something.”

Unable to contain her excitement,
Matsumi-senpai continued.

“Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?”

“Read me?”

I parroted her words again.

“Oh, that’s right. Most people can’t do
scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!”

Puffing up her chest proudly, she spread her
hands as if to say “here I go!”

In a flash, her innocent expression vanished.

It was replaced with something inhuman, almost
mannequin-like.

A strange voice. A voice that couldn’t quite
be said to be coming from her throat. The noise sounded exactly like that of a
machine, but it was clearly emanating from her half-open mouth.

As if being infiltrated by darkness, her eyes
slowly lost their light. They lost their focus and seemed to stop perceiving
altogether. But I could tell. Even though they were out of focus, they were
holding me tight in their gaze and refusing to let go. As if I were afflicted
with paralysis, I was unable to so much as wiggle a fingertip.

What was going on?

Still frozen in shock, I could see Masato out
of the corner of my eye. Although Masato despised other people showing weakness
around him, he was simply staring speechless.

Everything about this was abnormal.

“Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.”

As if it were travelling not through my
eardrums but through my bones, I could feel the noise resound within my body. I
couldn’t tell where it was coming from any more. Coming not from in front of
me, nor behind me, nor beside me or above me, that mechanical noise simply
wrapped around me and continued resonating.

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise rang in concert with my very cells.
My entire body trembled with stinging pain, almost as if I were being scalded.

I still couldn’t move my legs. I couldn’t move
at all. It had transformed from paralysis into sheer violence. A paralysis so
strong it felt as though my body were bound with electric cables. Cables that
both bound me and tore me to pieces. They exposed me, comprehended me, bound up
my insides and scattered them.

While exposing my everything, those eyes
continued holding me. Capturing everything, yet reflecting nothing. Eyes that
were both jet-black and snow white.

“Scanning complete.”

As Matsumi-senpai said that, the scenery
returned and the world began turning once more. Of course, I knew that the
scenery had never left. The only thing that had changed was me. For just that
moment, the “me” who was able to perceive that scenery was changed.

Only a few seconds should have passed. But
those seconds felt so dense that I would have believed if I was told that hours
or even days had passed.

A breath.

Good... I took a breath.

I can still breathe.

“Well then, next up is...”

The innocent girl’s eyes turned to Masato.

“Ah—”

Masato’s eyes were wide open. I had never seen
him like this before.

Matsumi-senpai’s eyes, which had by now
returned to their original color, steady became black and white again.

“...don’t.”

“Beep bi—”

“DON’T!!”

Masato screamed.

In response to his ragged breathing and scared
demeanor, Matsumi-senpai lips began to quiver.

“You don’t have to shout like that, you
know...”

Despite being the source of Masato’s terror,
she simply pouted, seemingly as indifferent as ever to the emotions of others.

“Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just
now...?”

“Hold on, hold on. Ririko’s going to put it
into words now.”

Matsumi-senpai stood still, her mouth hanging
lazily half-open.

She stayed in that state for a little while,
not so much as moving a muscle.

“Kouta Hiiragi, age fifteen.”

Still expressionless, her mouth began moving,
and like a machine began speaking.

“Lives with his parents and younger sister.
Lives in a room with a skylight on the second floor of an old single-family
home. Has many friends, but no close friends. Values emotional distance. Has
recently begun courting a member of the opposite sex. Virgin. Gets tired when
conversing with others. Largely apathetic towards himself.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. But
as she went on, it became clear that she was talking about me.

“Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her
hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent
approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing
cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen
to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally good
at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others
with-”

“Th... that’s enough! Matsumi-senpai, please
cut it out!”

I raised my voice, almost to a scream, and
Matsumi-senpai, whose eyes had been open this whole time, finally blinked. Her
expression began coming back.

“So? So? How was that? How’d you like my
scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?”

She looked like a proud kindergartener asking how
good her crayon drawing was. Knowing that it would make her happy, I decided to
humor her and nodded vigorously.

I didn’t want to listen to this anymore.

I didn’t want to learn anything about myself.

“Senpai, can we go now?”

For some reason, Masato seemed exhausted.

“Whaaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He’s
white, after all! He’s the only one!”

“Sorry, but we got places to be.”

“Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it
can’t be helped then.”

Matsumi-senpai’s shoulders slumped.

“Ririko guesses she’ll see you later then,
Tanihara.”

His lips pursed, Masato scowled at
Matsumi-senpai.

“Huh? Aren’t you Tanihara?”

“It’s read ‘Yahara’<ref>Masato's last name, 谷原, can be read as either 'Yahara' or 'Tanihara'</ref>, Senpai.”

“You’re kidding! Ririko wonders why she made
that mistake... Ririko wonders if it’s because the scanning stopped partway?
Oh, by the way! Ririko doesn’t normally make that kind of mistake! Ririko’s
normally always right!”

Waving both her hands, Matsumi-senpai gave an
odd excuse. 

But neither of us could muster the energy for
a rebuttal, so we simply turned and walked away.

 

Walking in silence, we passed through a
deserted shopping district, with almost half the stores shuttered up. I felt
like my feet couldn’t quite reach the ground. I was filled with an unpleasant
floating sensation.

What exactly was that “scanning”?
Wasn’t that magic? And a foul magic at that, one that overturned every value I
once held.

It felt like the world was shaking. Although
there was no heat haze to speak of, I was having difficulty telling exactly
where the ground was. It was as if I should have able to fly, but for some
absurd reason the cracked concrete was shackling me to the earth.

Perhaps it was a childish delusion. But...
that’s right. Ririko Matsumi had no such restrictions. And perhaps she was so
absurd a person as to truly believe she could fly.

“Kou.”

Breaking the silence, Masato spoke.

“Get this through your head. Don’t talk to
that birdbrain ever again. She’ll be a bad influence on you, got it?”

I wasn’t sure what harm a simple conversation
could do, but Masato looked dead serious, so I just responded with a firm nod.

Honestly, I was surprised that Masato would
show such concern for me. He reminded me of Miki.

“Masato, did you understand what was going on
with that scanning thing?”

“... not even a little.”

I see. So he had “not even a little” desire to
explain it to me, huh.

But even knowing that, I didn’t feel the need
to press the issue. If he didn’t want to tell me, it wasn’t like I could make
him.

The traffic light in front of us turned red.

We stopped.

“Fuck.”

Masato spit out a small expletive and began
chewing on his lip.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why the hell’d we stop?”

“The light
was red, wasn’t it?”

“There’s
no cars here.”

I looked
both ways to verify his statement. Indeed, there were no automobiles in sight.

“...Then
do you want to cross?”

“That’s
not what I’m talking about... that’s not what I’m fucking talking about. I’m
asking why I stopped.”

I was
perplexed. What was Masato so irritated about?

“Well, red
means stop, so obviously we’d stop, right?”

“Right.
Even though we coulda crossed, we stopped just because that’s how it works.”

Masato
began scratching at his head, almost as if he were trying to plug up his ears.

“Masato,
is something the matter? Is it because of that upperclassman?”

“...Yeah, I
guess. There’s something wrong with me right now. There’d have to be for me to
talk to you like this, huh.”

The light
turned green.

“Masato,
let’s go.”

“Right...”

As he
began walking, I could see Masato’s expression surpass irritation and shift to
rage. He was scratching at himself to an abnormal degree. The expression he was
giving made it seem is if his entire body were swarming with caterpillars and
they were digging under his skin to lay eggs.

With no
change in demeanor, Masato spoke.

“Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.”

I could
tell.

We were
past the point of no return.

 

 

The day
after our encounter with Ririko Matsumi, Masato didn’t show up at school.

That
wasn’t too strange in and of itself. Masato had skipped school twice in that
past for little to no reason. But given the state he had been in yesterday, I
couldn’t help but be concerned.

I
wanna kill someone.

He was
just saying it like he always did, right?

“Good
morning, Kouta.”

I heard a
voice I was now fairly used to. I turned my head and responded.

“Good
morning, Miki.”

“...Yahara
isn’t here today, huh.”

Her voice
lacked its usual pluck. Her expression also seemed somewhat gloomy.

“What’s
wrong? You seem out of sorts.”

“You can
tell?”

Giving a
weak smile, Miki heaved a sigh.

‘You can
tell?’, huh.

It was
obvious that she was wearing her lack of energy on her face to elicit my
concern. But I kept that to myself and simply nodded.

“Would you
mind coming to the courtyard with me, Kouta?”

“Right
now?”

There
wasn’t that much time left before class began.

“Yeah...
there’s something I want to talk to you about, and I’d rather not be
overheard.”

In other
words, it was a matter of some importance. That was what Miki was trying to
convey. She was extraordinarily skilled at conveying her intentions to others.

So I put
on an obedient expression.

 

The sky
was overcast and it looked liable to start raining at any moment, so the
courtyard was unpleasantly chilly. The scent of earth mingled with the
humidity, and I felt as though I might choke.

Regardless
of the fact that she herself was the one who called us here, Miki simply hung
her head in silence. It created an oddly docile atmosphere.

“Miki,
what was it you wanted to talk about?”

Although I
tried to break the ice, Miki still just cast her eyes down. Realizing that I
should wait for her to speak, I did just that.

“...I’m
really just a bother, aren’t I.”

That was
the first thing that came out of her mouth.

“I’m not
blind. I can at least tell that I’m a bother...”

“Um...
what’s this, all of a sudden?”

Even if
Miki had realized that she was being bothersome, she had gone to some lengths
to feign airheadedness and conceal it.

“I spent
all day yesterday thinking about how I could deal with this without having to
do something wrong.”

I wasn’t
sure what brought about this abrupt change of heart. All I knew was that I
shouldn’t point out the fact that it was a change of heart. If I did,
Miki would become difficult to deal with.

Miki’s
eyes grew watery, and she seemed to put herself on guard.

As far as
I was concerned, that was much more worrying than the actual words coming out
of her mouth.

“What do
you mean by something ‘wrong’?”

“Pushing
magic on you would be wrong. I know that people laugh at me and call me
delusional. But even so, I was trying to forcibly push my value system on you.”

I didn’t
really care about that. And Miki should have known that.

“But, you
know... even though I knew what I was doing was wrong, I couldn’t bear watching
you turn into an insane magus! I just couldn’t!”

Her eyes
still moist, she spoke with conviction.

I couldn’t
say anything. As I still didn’t fully comprehend magic, I couldn’t understand
what Miki was saying. But that aside, in the face of Miki’s staunch
earnestness, I felt it would be improper to interject, so I couldn’t say
anything.

“So I’ve
been thinking.”

Miki took
my right hand and embraced it in hers. My heart began pounding at the
unexpected feel of her touch. Miki peered at me with teary eyes.

It felt
very intentional. She was intentionally manipulating my heartrate. But in her
eyes, I could see her slyness tinged with indecision.

Closing
her eyes for the first time in some time, Miki let out a long sigh. I could
feel her grip on my hand tighten ever-so-slightly.

...How
strange. I felt a warmth other than simple body heat transfer from her hands to
mine. If she told me that it was part of her magic, I wouldn’t doubt it for a
second.

Miki
opened her eyes again.

They were
filled with resolution.

They
seemed to be entreating me.

“Kouta...
do you think you could fall for me?”

Her
unexpected question left me speechless.

“Or is
that impossible, I wonder...”

It was,
quite clearly, a confession.

Perhaps to
an outsider, confessing in this situation might seem completely natural. But as
the party in question, I could tell how unhealthy it was.

After all,
Miki was simply trying to protect me. It wasn’t as if she held any romantic
feelings towards me. I understood that much.

“Am I...
no good?”

“Th...
that’s not it at all! You’re extremely charming, Miki!”

Reflexively,
I gave Miki the exact response she was looking for.

Of course,
it was true that she was charming. Her looks would make her at home in any idol
group, and although she was selfish, she had a timidly side to her that obsessively
took the needs of the others into consideration as well.

But that
was nothing more than an objective observation. What did I personally think of
her?

To begin
with...

Under what
circumstances would I fall for a girl?

“Do you
think you could fall for me?”

“That’s...”

Even
though I knew what answer she was looking for, I couldn’t bring myself to say
it.

“...Kouta,
you’re a guy, right?”

“Well,
yes.”

“Even if
you only want me for my body, if that’s enough to get you to fall for me,
I’m... okay with that.”

Miki’s
eyes then widened.

“S...sorry!
I said something really weird! But... I really do want you to fall for me! Even
if that’s what it takes!”

I couldn’t
comprehend it. I couldn’t comprehend why she would go to such lengths.

...No,
that’s not true. For the sake of magic, she would go to any lengths. She felt
the need to do something about me and my lack of magic resistance. Even if it
meant sacrificing her own chastity, she had to protect the notion of magic.

Miki
wouldn’t be Miki if she didn’t abide by her magic.

But even
recognizing that, I was still uneasy. Although I couldn’t put it to words,
there was something that didn’t sit right with me.

There was
one thing I was sure of, though. Regardless of how it looked, Miki sought me.
Knowing that, how could I turn down her confession?

The answer
was simple. I couldn’t.

“I will
fall for you. So you don’t have to say weird stuff like that anymore.”

Miki’s
eyes widened, and she stared straight at me. 

“So you
mean we’re going out now?”

“Yup.”

“You’re
okay with this? I’m going to be your first girlfriend, right? Are you okay with
it being me? You can’t take it back, you know that, right? You know you’ll take
on my attribute, right?”

“Like I
said, I’m fine with that.” 
 Before my eyes, Miki’s expression brightened.

“Really?
You’re really okay with this? ...Yay. Yay!”

The teary
expression she had been displaying up until a moment ago vanished like it had
never been there, and she broke into a radiant smile. Seeing it, I was
convinced I had made the right decision and was filled with relief.

I was fine
with this.

“Yay!
Thanks so much, Kouta! I look forward to our continued times together!”

Miki
merrily shook my hand up and down.

My
discomfort didn’t fade, but there was one thing I knew for sure. From now on,
Miki and I would spend a great deal more time together. Little by little, we
would stop holding back around each other. My days would be fulfilling, and I
might even earn the jealousy of my peers. That was the shape my life would take
from now on.

I
recognized this, and accepted it without resistance.

Just
according to Miki’s script.

 

 

A week had
passed since Miki’s confession. Unsurprisingly, we had grown a good deal
closer, but Miki hardly behaved as if we were lovers and instead treated me
much the same as before. So I did the same.

But Miki
the object of no small amount of attention. The fact that we were dating
quickly became public and rapidly circulated throughout the school. Even if the
way we treated each other didn’t change, the way the people around us reacted
did. Feeling cramped by the way the people around me forced their definitions
onto us, even my awareness of our relationship began to gradually shift. Before
long, pressure from the peanut gallery would likely transform us into a
conventional boyfriend and girlfriend.

I see. So
Miki formally asked me out knowing that this would happen.

“Well
then, I look forward to another week together!”

“Yup. See
you later.”

As we
parted at the usual street, Miki exaggeratedly waved me goodbye. I smiled at
her and returned the wave.

 Miki and I had made plans to spend the day at
her house on the Sunday of next week. Although she had said that her parents
would be out of the house, I harbored no improper expectations. Or did I? What
did I want to become of my relationship with Miki?

Honestly, there was something I was much more
concerned about than our relationship.

Masato.

Masato still hadn’t shown up at school. He
wasn’t returning my calls, and my LINE messages to him were marked unread.
Dropping out of school would have been in-character for him, so his
non-attendance wasn’t strange in and of itself. But based on his demeanor from
the last time we talked, I was concerned something bad had happened to him.

“You aren’t with Tanihara today?”

Right, after we met the owner of that voice,
Masato started acting strangely. The first time she showed up, his gears began
coming undone.

With a childish smile, Ririko Matsumi ignored
my stiff expression and spoke in a lively voice.

“Hello, Hiiragi!”

“...Hello. But Senpai, his name is Yahara, not
Tanihara.”

“Ah, right. It was, wasn’t it.”

Matsumi-senpai laughed, as if she were pleased
about something.

“Do you live in this direction as well,
Senpai?”

“Nope, Ririko chased after you because she wanted
to chat! You seemed like you were having fun talking to Kouzuki, so Ririko
decided not to interrupt you. Admirable of me, huh?”

It seemed
she had decided to follow me.

 “Mhm. You
really are an interesting color, Hiiragi. But you’re a little yellower than you
were before. I wonder if that’s Kouzuki’s fault? Was it because you were
flirting with her, maybe? I don’t like it. I’d really rather you stayed white.”

As always,
she was off in her own world.

“Is Miki
not an interesting color? After all, she’s quite the character.”

“Hmm.
Having a bit of pink in you is rare and all, but I think I’ve seen a color like
that before. Anyways, it’s not much to look at.”

Perhaps
Miki was less of a character than I thought? I wasn’t really sure what to make
of this whole call sign business.

“Ririko
wanted to chat with Yahara as well, but she hasn’t seen him at all since
then...”

“I haven’t
seen him either. I don’t even know what he’s up to these days.”

For some
reason, Matsumi-senpai tilted her head at those words.

“You don’t
know what he’s up to? Even though you’re his friend? You don’t have awful
reception, do you?”

“Reception?”

“Yeah,
reception. ...Haven’t you heard of reception?”

I was of
course familiar with the word, but the context Matsumi-senpai was using it in
eluded me.

“Then do
you want Ririko to look into it for you? She had to stop scanning him partway
through, but... Ririko has pretty high fidelity, you see, so she thinks it’ll
be okay! She can find Yahara!”

“You can
find... you mean you know where he is?”

“Of course
Ririko does! Ririko isn’t a child, you know!”

Apparently
to Matsumi-senpai, not being able to do this reception thing was on the same
level as not being able to ride a bike.

“Ah... but
you don’t get reception, Hiiragi? Umm... don’t worry! Ririko has times when she
can’t really get a sense for it, either! Don’t let it get you down!”

For some
reason I was being cheered up.

“Here,
Ririko will go over the basics. See, there are these things floating around in
the air, right? Ririko doesn’t really know what they’re called... Particles?
Electrons? Wi-Fi? Anyways, you have to catch a bunch of them on your body.
It’ll feel like they’re sticking to your skin, you know? Next, they’ll go like,
bzzzt, and you’ll start seeing a faint picture, and you have to focus on that
picture reaaal carefully. But you already knew that, right?”

There was
no way I could have known that, but I kept my comments to myself.

“But see,
the next part’s the tricky bit. Finding the picture you want’s tough, right?
When Ririko does it, she flies way up high. Ririko’s really good at flying, so
she can look out over the whole city. Then, it’ll be something related to the
information you want — so in this case, that
would be something related to Yahara. Once you find that, the reception is
complete!”

“...Did you say ‘flying’?”

There were countless faults to pick with her explanation, so
I chose the one I found most concerning.

“...? Flying in the sky, you know?”

It seemed my question fell on deaf ears. Apparently to
Matsumi-senpai, being able to fly was just as obvious as being able to breathe.

“Alrighty, let’s see if we can get reception.”

As soon as she said that, it was like a switch flipped.

Those eyes again.

Those jet-black eyes, dripping with viscosity, appeared
before me again.

“...Bzz bzz...bzz...bzzt...bzz...”

Noise filtered through her half-open mouth. Occasionally her
shoulders would tremble slightly, as if she were convulsing.

Ah, this person’s broken.

That was what I thought of her inner workings.

The first thing I was confident in was the fact that her
value system didn’t operate according to the same logic as the rest of
humanity’s. She had a culture all her own. Similar to worshippers in a cult,
she put her faith in nonsensical theories. She was closed off from the rest of
the world, much too far away for any to reach. She lived in a lonely little
world.

But in spite of that, her noise easily reached my ears.

An encroachment by her closed world.

Perhaps the sounds I initially thought meaningless were a
kind of language. After all, the noise had a certain regularity to it. It
wasn’t nonsensical. The sound of “Bzz bzz bzz...bzzt bzzt...bzz” reverberated
through my skin and sunk into my pores. Aggressively so. Forcefully so. It
stung like a box cutter. In the face of such a blade, no doubt anyone would
flee in pain.

But I couldn’t run from it. I didn’t know how to.

So instead, I tried to understand Ririko Matsumi.

The noise was touching me.

The noise was touching me.

I had to clearly envision it. I had to translate her world
into an image I could comprehend.

It was a world where everything - the earth, the sea, the
sky - was made of electrical cords. Cords of all lengths and sizes, wriggling
like snakes, ferociously binding all of mankind. In that world, the cords were
gleefully torturing me. The cords were forcibly invading my throat, my
nostrils, my urethra, and my toenails and making them their own. It hurt. Stop
it. I’m human!

Having envisioned enough, I shook my head vigorously and
drove away the translated world.

“Ah...! Haa...haa...”

That was dangerous. If I had dove any deeper, Matsumi-senpai
would have disassembled me and I’d have been taken over by her image. If that
happened, I knew I wouldn’t be able to return to normal.

Ah, I see. That’s why both Miki and Masato told me to stay
away from Matsumi-senpai.

“...Bzz...bzz......huh?”

Color returned to Matsumi-senpai’s eyes.

Taking a deep breath to calm my heart, I asked her.

“What happened?”

“Well... For some reason, Ririko couldn’t get any reception.
How odd... even if the scanning stopped halfway, she should have enough
information to get reception...”

She looked rather sad.

“Ririko wonders if she’s become awful at reception...”

She couldn’t get reception.

Matsumi-senpai’s proclamations were becoming less and less
coherent. And yet her words filled me with a strange sense of dread.

“Does that happen often?”

“Not at all lately! Really! Th- that’s why this is so odd! It’s not
Ririko’s fault... probably...!”

Her head bobbed about like a child giving an excuse. It was
hard to believe that she had simply failed. I could sense that her noise just
now had had a proper regularity to it.

“If the fault doesn’t lie with you, might there be some
problem on Masato’s side that’s making the reception fail?”

“Ah, Ririko sees. That’s probably it. Maybe Yahara’s
information was overwritten since Ririko scanned him the other day.”

“His information was overwritten? Is that a thing that can
happen?”

“Sometimes. You know the saying ‘people can change,’ right?
So call signs themselves can change too.”

If Masato’s value system changed in such a span, could that
have something to do with his inattendance?

What could he have done to make himself change so
drastically?

Ahh... I wanna kill someone.

“...Ah.”

No, let’s not be hasty. Even if, hypothetically, it was the
result of Masato fulfilling that wish of his, could that really change a man
with as strong of homicidal urges as him? ...Ahh, it might. Such a transient
desire being put into a definite form could be said to be a change in and of
itself.

“Hiiragi, you’ve been quiet for a while now. What’s up?”

It was right in front of me.

I understood it now.

Her scanning wasn’t some fantastical delusion, nor was her
reception.

“Senpai, would you mind telling me Masato’s information from
back when you scanned him?”

“Ririko doesn’t mind, but... the scanning was only half
done, remember? It might be buggy. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I nodded.

“You got it. Let me just translate it into Japanese.”

As she said that, she stiffened down to her fingertips. By
now I was used to this unblinking visage of hers.

Acclimatization. Was I acclimating again?

“Masato Tanihara, age 16.”

Once again, Matsumi-senpai mistook Masato’s surname for
“Tanihara”. Perhaps in importing the data, Masato’s name had been
misinterpreted.

“Both parents are alive but neither parent interferes with
him. No siblings. Rejects others. Regards almost all other humans with
contempt. Afflicted with auditory hallucinations. Can hear the noise more
clearly when around people he dislikes. For example, Shuuichi Akiyama. Is
perplexed as to why he does not hear the noise from Ririko Matsumi. Believes that
he wants to kill someone. Believes that he wants to kill someone. Wants to kill
someone. Wants to kill someone. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill.
Wants to kill. Wants to kill. Wants to kill—”

“Th-that’s enough!”

Something was clearly amiss, so I shook Matsumi-senpai by the
shoulders. But like a broken record, she just kept saying “wants to kill.”

“Wants to kill... ah... aHh... wants to ahHH! Ah! Ahh! Stop!
Make it stop!”

“S... Senpai!”

“It’s filthy! Masato Tanihara is filthy! Why can’t he just
go crazy!?”

It was obvious from her exclamations that Matsumi-senpai was
in agony. Her eyes no longer seemed mechanical, nor did they seem human.

They simply expressed pain.

“Wh... why...”

Those painful eyes stared straight at me.

“How can you stand to be around someone like him...?”

Seeing Matsumi-senpai like this, I felt like I could
understand her a little better.

She was certainly operating under a different logical
framework then the rest of us. But the person underneath all that was still
human. If she forced herself to emulate something abnormal like that, her
condition would quickly take a turn for the worse. An error would occur.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Letting out a shrill scream, she collapsed to the ground.
Flopping around like an eel, she began vomiting.

“Senpai!”

Matsumi-senpai was writhing in a pool of her own vomit and
convulsing erratically. A strange yellow fluid began oozing out of her tear
glands. After convulsing a little longer, she eventually stopped moving altogether.
She reminded me of a lizard tail that remained moving even after being severed.

“A... are you alright?”

I put some space between us before calling out to her,
slightly alarmed by her bizarre behavior. She didn’t respond, but I could tell
that she was at least breathing. After hesitantly approaching her, I felt her
wrist. Her pulse was accelerated, but not to the point where it seemed she
would be in danger.

I called for an ambulance, and while looking after her,
considered the question I had just been posed.

“How can I stand to be around him, huh?”

I would never say it out loud, let alone around
Matsumi-senpai or Masato, but Masato was alone. His classmates were a given,
but even his family held him at an arm’s length. The more someone got to know
him, the more they would realize that his madness was the real deal. 

The reason I was
around him... was simply because I couldn’t leave, nothing more.

But...

“I’m probably the
only person in the world like that.”

 

 

The week came and
went, and Masato was still nowhere to be seen. Although I searched for him in
my own way, I couldn’t so much as find a clue.

Matsumi-senpai was
still recuperating from her hospitalization and hadn’t shown up at school
either. There was something she had mentioned that I couldn’t get out of my
mind that I wanted to ask her about, but her absence made that impossible.

What caught my
attention was a name that had come up in the scanning’s translation.

The name “Shuuichi
Akiyama.”

 

“You seem really
restless today, Kouta.”

Miki remarked with a
concerned frown.

“...Do I?”

“Yeah. It’s like
you’re only half here.”

True to his diligent
nature, Akiyama was always the first person to show up for class.

But as far as today
went, Akiyama had yet to show up at school.

The man who Masato
hated so intensely that his name came up in the scanning had yet to show up at
school.

I was probably
overthinking it. Even Akiyama could get sick, and it wasn’t inconceivable that
he might simply oversleep.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

There’s no way.

There’s no way that’s
the case.

“You really
aren’t paying any attention. You’ve been glancing over at the door for
forever.”

Having this called to
my attention, I apologize to Miki.

“...You’re worried
about Yahara, right? You’re looking over at the door because you’re hoping
he’ll show up.”

She was half right.
But right now, I was hoping for Akiyama to show up even more.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

Anyone in the class
would probably have heard him say it at least once. But despite their fear of
him, most simply wrote it off as edgy nonsense.

But I knew better.

Every time he said
it, Masato meant it.

It was a phrase
designed to encourage a man who found himself unable to cross that line.
Masato, who so disgusted Matsumi-senpai, who put Miki on such guard, was the
real deal.

That’s right — I had
been able to grasp Masato for quite some time.

Suddenly, the bell
rang. But Akiyama’s usual command to take our seats wasn’t forthcoming.

“Now that you mention
it, it doesn’t look like the class rep’s here today, huh.”

I froze at Miki’s
words, but she was looking at the clock, not at me.

“Welp, I should be
heading back now. Let’s give it our all today!”

As a result, she
didn’t notice my change and cheerfully stood up and left.

The other side of my
conversation now gone, I closed myself away in my heart. But I myself wasn’t
there. Inside my heart were other people. Countless other people.

And among them, the
one with the largest presence was that man I had been grasping onto.

Although he was
grinning, he didn’t seem the least bit pleased. The words that sprung forth
from that pained smile were much what one would expect.

Ahh... I
wanna kill someone.

 

I hadn’t realized it
was possible to so anxiously await a homeroom teacher’s arrival. Based on his
personality, if Akiyama was sick or running late, he would no doubt have
contacted the school to inform them. Once the teacher arrived, all of my
uneasiness would be put to rest.

But they still
weren’t here. It had already been ten minutes since the bell had rung. 

Time seemed to be violently slowing down, and my heart was beating so
loudly I could hear it echo in my ears. As if the second hand was putting on
airs, the minutes refused to pass.

Another ten minutes
passed, and the teacher still hadn’t shown up.

The classes on either
side of mine were still raucous. Did that mean that our homeroom teacher wasn’t
the only one who had yet to show up? Did the staff meeting run over? And if it
had, why?

I was so confident in
my ill premonition that it gave me chills. Upon holding my head in my hands, I
finally heard footsteps.

The door to the
classroom swung open. But the homeroom teacher didn’t enter alone. For some
reason, the principle was accompanying them.

Both of them wore
very intentional grave expressions, almost as if they knew they had to.

“Erm... I have a very
serious announcement to make to all of you, so please make sure you remain
calm.”

The principal began
speaking.

“Just now, we
received contact from the police... And be assured, we are all just as alarmed
as you are...”

I already knew the
answer. I knew quite clearly what the principal was about to say. So I couldn’t
muster up nearly as much shock at the sentence “one of our students has been
murdered” as my classmates did.

</div>

==Translator's Notes and References==
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