Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 5 Chapter 1 (section)

==1.04 Daisuke Part 2==

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Gaping open.

It was as if a hole was opened up.

The same feeling as if the very center of his heart fell off.

Since he had no center, he was able to stand the pain.

Since he had no center, he didn't want to do anything.

Since he had no center – he didn't have any sense of reality every day.

"…"

The voices of insects could be heard outside the class of Shiou Elementary School.

The voices of insects and giggles surrounded Daisuke holding his backpack.

Reflected in his eyes was the space opened up in the exact middle of the class.

As if reflecting his heart, that was the only missing thing in the scene.

—This morning, when Daisuke arrived at school, his desk was gone.

"Horrible… who did that? That's bullying."

"It's bullying, bullying."

His male classmates were laughing enjoyably in their seats by the window. It was the same group that always teased Daisuke. Only these comrades were laughing, and the other boys and girls pretended not to see anything.

"I wonder who did it… What do you say, Tsumura?"

"U-umm… Kusuriya-kun…"

Another boy from the same class, Tsumura Mitsuki, hesitatingly called to Daisuke. He hanged his head as if to shrink further his already small body.

"I… umm… sorr…"

Ignoring Mitsuki, Daisuke turned around in place. As he walked toward the entrance, his legs were caught up. Another laughter rose as the boys looked at Daisuke stumbling to the floor.

"…"

A dull pain ran through his knees. He apparently grazed them. 

Yet Daisuke bit his lips as he stood up, grabbed his backpack and left the class. He kept going and passed through the corridor, climbing up the stairs.

Daisuke came to the school rooftop. Leaning against the wall next to the entrance, he sat down on the floor. Textbooks fell out of his dropped backpack, but he didn't even turn to look at those.

He didn't come to the roof to think.

He just didn't have any other place to go to.

Daisuke had no place he belonged to–anywhere.

"So stupid…"

He pouted and mumbled while hugging his knees. He didn't know if he was speaking about his classmate who hid his desk or about himself who just left the class without doing anything.

If he resisted even a little bit, perhaps they would stop teasing him.

But that was all.

The fact that Daisuke was all alone in the class wouldn't change. The facts that he was unsociable and that he had no father wouldn't change.

Thinking that, he didn't feel like resisting at all.

—Several hours later.

After Daisuke burned time by taking a nap and scribbling in his textbooks, the bell rang.

School was over.

Since he hadn't eaten lunch he was hungry. He estimated the time it would take the children to leave school and left the roof.

On the way he dropped by his classroom.

Apparently everyone had gone home. The vacant space in the center of the empty classroom was filled.

"…"

Perhaps someone brought it back or perhaps their homeroom teacher scolded the students and made them return it, but anyway Daisuke's desk returned to its previous spot. He left the classroom.

He replaced his shoes at the shoe rack, leaving the school building.

When he did he heard some voices speaking from nearby.

"You're a traitor, Tsumura!"

"B…But…"

"I don't even want to hear it, you stinking traitor!"

Tsumura Mitsuki was surrounded by his classmates, hit in his stomach and cowered.

''What, is he getting bullied as well—''

Daisuke ignored it and tried heading toward the main gate.

"Why did you return Kusuriya's desk!"

Daisuke stopped in place.

For the first time, what welled up inside him—

"…"

Was anger.

It was fine if Tsumura Mitsuki was ordered to hide Daisuke's desk against his will, but he probably couldn't bear it and returned it. Either way if he was bullied he wouldn't help him.

But Daisuke hated that what caused them to persecute Mitsuki was himself.

He could ignore everything that was done to him, but – having another person's peaceful life be destroyed because of him made him feel bad.

"…Stop that."

Daisuke said, heading towards the group of boys.

"Hey, it's Kusuriya."

"What, were you still in school?"

"Come here. Let's play with both of them."

One of them approached Daisuke and tried pulling his arm.

"…"

Daisuke shook it off.

"Ouch! What the heck? Do you want to go at it?"

He thrust him away.

"…"

"Wow…"

He pushed him back.

The boys looked at Daisuke with surprised faces. But their faces distorted more and more with anger.

—Later, even he wasn't sure how he faced his opponents.

Daisuke was just used to being beaten, and didn't have much of the feeling known as fear. But it appeared like his opponents weren't so.

When he returned one blow, the other party immediately held his head and cowered. As he did the other boys also grew scared of Daisuke and didn't want to come close to him. He could remember that at the point two of them started crying the others immediately ran away. Yet their wounds were much lighter than Daisuke's and one boy was also unhurt.

"…Ouch…"

No matter how used he was to it, pain still hurt. He wiped off his nosebleed roughly with his sleeve, picking up the dropped backpack. He wanted to leave just like that but Mitsuki hurriedly rushed to him.

"A-are you fine, Kusuriya-kun?"

"…"

"Umm… T-thank you!"

"I didn't really—"

"You're so strong! Why didn't you do anything until now?"

Mitsuki stubbornly clung to Daisuke ever since they exited the school premises. The entire time on their way back he directed a gaze full of respect toward him. Daisuke felt creeped out and couldn't return his gaze.

"How nice that you're strong… Since I'm a weakling I'll get bullied again…"

Mitsuki hanged his head while saying this and Daisuke spoke to him bluntly.

"If they try doing anything to you then I'll do something. They only got carried away because I wasn't doing anything…"

"Really?"

Being faced with a truly happy-looking smile, Daisuke could only mutter "uh".

Daisuke didn't feel like trying to save him but rather some sense of responsibility. But apparently Mitsuki didn't think that way. He made the mistake of thinking he was a nice person.

Separating from Mitsuki, Daisuke tried climbing up the stairs to his apartment.

Suddenly feeling he was being watched, he turned around to the road.

"…?"

It was his imagination.

As Daisuke turned to look behind he could see a granular object reflecting the setting sun's light. 

It was a scale glowing in purple.

Tilting his head, Daisuke climbed up the stairs.

He heard a voice. "Falling behind on rent… until after the 10<sup>th</sup>…" and it kept going.

When he reached the end of the stairs there was a middle-aged woman in front of his house. She was familiar to him. She was supposed to be the apartment's landlady. 

Meanwhile, Daisuke's mother was lowering her head in the entryway. She was recently always busy with her job and seemed to become increasingly fragile.

Noticing his presence, the landlady left some words to his mother and departed.

"I'm home."

"Welcome back."

Daisuke's mother leaked a tired sigh and entered the house. She was brooding and didn't even look at his face. She apparently hadn't even noticed he was injured.

"…"

Daisuke also entered and closed the door.

It was a cramped apartment that only had a living room and bedrooms. That was the house his mother, his sister, as well as Daisuke himself lived in.

—He didn't like that house much.

Even before it was cramped, his mother always seemed pained whenever she was home. Probably tired, she would only sigh and seldom ever looked at Daisuke's face. There were also times when he spoke up to her and she was so absent-minded she didn't hear him.

Nothing changed regardless if Daisuke was there or not. That was the same as in school. No, if the cause for his mother's sighs was also him, then—

When he was at home he ended up with a lot of unnecessary thoughts.

Daisuke hated that.

"I'm hooome! Ah! Daisuke, you're back!"

As he put his backpack in the bedroom, a voice called to him from the door.

"Jeez! I thought of going back with you, but you weren't anywhere – kyaaa!"

Opening the sliding screen and flying into the bedroom, the girl raised a scream as if the world ended.

—Daisuke's sister, Chiharu, was an idiot.

She would clamor exaggeratedly at every little thing. Just like a protagonist acting on the stage.

She was bright and carefree to the extent he doubted if they were really related by blood.

"Daisuke, y-you're injured! Come here! Your sister will disinfect you!"

"It's fine, it doesn't hurt anymore. Stop it."

"Please be quiet. You'll bother our neighbors." Their mother called towards the scuffling kids while in front of the sink.

"Why are you hurt? Who did this? …It couldn't be El – some kind of mature woman or…?"

"Hah? No, umm… I fell."

"Really? What if – no! Daisuke's a strong kid!"

"…Who are you saying this to, stupid."

"Ah, no, umm, just talking to myself. I just wanted to shout a bit. It's just that, really."

While putting band-aids on Daisuke's cheeks, Chiharu desperately denied.

His sister was acting a bit strange recently.

She started tagging along with Daisuke more than the usual and at times she'd act as if she was talking to someone when alone. It seemed that she herself hasn't noticed it, but it was her habit to say "it's just that, really" when she was lying.

"Also, you can't call your big sister stupid. —I'll go back with you starting tomorrow so it'll be fine. C'mon, don't do that anymore."

"I told you I just fell. So annoying!"

"I'm not annoying! It's normal!"

[[File:Mushi Uta 5 p135.jpg|thumb]]

Chiharu seemed to be eager to meddle in Daisuke's business.

For him it was more unbearable than anything else. It was obviously also embarrassing. 

"It's not normal at all."

Chiharu was probably the one and only being in the world around Daisuke right now.

—A person who needed him when he had no one else.

Chiharu was very kind towards him, probably out of her duty as an older sister to protect her brother.

She was too kind.

Chiharu didn't play with her friends – because she recently became excessively worried about Daisuke.

By prioritizing Daisuke over everything else, the world around Chiharu isolated her.

She detached herself little by little from the place she belonged to for his sake.

And she herself hasn't noticed that.

"Don't follow me on the way to school or back from it anymore."

Daisuke said coldly, causing Chiharu to make a lonely face. It made his chest prickle, but he didn't let it show on his face. 

—Daisuke's sister, Chiharu, was stupid.

Since she was stupid, she needed to find another place.

Daisuke shouldn't be there, he thought.

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These were memories from five years ago.

The memories from before Daisuke became all alone and left that cheap apartment.

"Uh—"

He was in the backstreet of a town he didn't know the name of.

Sleeping in the corner of the empty alley, Kusuriya Daisuke opened his eyelids. He removed the SEPB's coat he had used to stave off the cold and stood up.

He intended on a nap but at he apparently ended up actually falling asleep at some point.

"I slept too much… shit."

He clicked his tongue, wearing his coat again. Confirming there was no one nearby, he started running.

But his legs kicking the ground suddenly lost their strength. Apparently his fatigue was not gone with just a little sleep.

—Ever since learning of Chiharu's disappearance at 'URBAN', Daisuke kept running toward a certain place.

He had no idea how many dozens of kilometers he had run. This nap was his first time to sleep ever since the day before yesterday when he had arrived at Nishito City and until now. His joints raised screams and he also accumulated quite a lot of fatigue.

Where was Daisuke heading to?

Except for him none knew the answer.

"Kh—"

Once again exerting power in his knees he stood up.

He had crushed the goggles that had the function to inform the Special Environmental Preservation Bureau of his location by his own hands.

It shouldn't be easy to grasp Daisuke's whereabouts. As to not be caught by the SEPB's search network that thoroughly encompassed the whole country, he chose to not rely on any public transit and to keep running through empty roads. 

He couldn't allow himself to be discovered by the Central Headquarters as they would consider him an obstacle and obstruct him.

He couldn’t involve the East Central Branch he belonged to either. 

That's why he decided on his own accord to cut all contact with the SEPB.

"If I don't hurry, she'll get there first…"

Clenching his teeth, Daisuke raised his face. He started running again.

—Dreaming of the past was no coincidence. 

He knew that his older sister, Chiharu, had gone missing.

That was why Daisuke had to hurry.

He didn't know where Chiharu was now and what she was doing.

But, because of that—

He had no time.

Although he knew that only the worst situation possible might be waiting for him there, Daisuke had to go.

"I have to somehow get there before…"

 Would he be able to accomplish his objective all by himself?

—Such thoughts crossed his mind.

Daisuke knew the true identity of the despair waiting for him in the place he was headed to. He was the only one to know it.

If he could borrow the power of the East Central Branch—

"No…"

He threw away these naïve thoughts.

The current East Central Branch ''wouldn't be enough''. He was the only one to know that, too.

"I'm fine alone. This time I will definitely—"

Until now he always fought on his own.

And he would keep fighting alone.

"This time…!"

The checkered beetle landed on his body.

Without minding his own exhaustion…

Not even caring the waste of his dream…

Fusing with his Mushi, Daisuke ran on the ground heading to a certain direction.