Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 1st Episode 04 (section)

===Part 7===

Silver light flooded through the window.

Who was it who opened the window?

A cold wind blew through the spotless private room devoid of any signs of life.

Closing the door behind her, Ichinokuro Arisu entered the room.

It was a certain general hospital in Akamaki City.

Even within the hospital, one could tell that this room was special at a glance. In addition to the high-class bed, there was also a bookshelf, a television and even a nurse call line.

“Hello, Mari.”

Arisu approached the bed.

Having entered the room since who knows when, a single butterfly fluttered above Arisu’s head. It was a morpho butterfly with wings shimmering in silvery brilliance.

There was no one else in the room.

—It had been exactly one year since Mari left this world.

“I’ll leave the flowers here, okay.”

She placed the bouquet of flowers into the water pitcher atop the basin.

She tried putting on a smiling face, but she failed to do so.

That the water pitcher was not a flower vase, it was only when the boy who lived with her—when Kusuriya Daisuke ridiculed her, that she realised it for the first time.

On this day one year ago, Arisu had visited this room just like today carrying a bouquet of flowers.

—Good morning!

Having expected a warm welcome from Mari as always, she was greeted by a wordless Mari however.

To the stunned Arisu, the attending doctor pronounced to her that Mari had taken her last breath without anyone knowing—.

Arisu was dressed in mourning clothes as she gazed at the empty bed.

The one year death anniversary held by the Hanashiro family was an exceedingly muted event. Apart from her relatives, the only other mourner of the same generation as Mari was Arisu.

“Mari…”

A plaster adorned her clenched fist. It was an injury she sustained from the fight against the matured Mushi the other day.

Even now, I am still fighting so as to figure out what were you really thinking—.

Arisu muttered in her heart. Instead, what came out of her mouth was a question directed to her close friend. The only indication of the fact that Mari stayed in this room was the bookshelf lined to the brim with books. That was a request by her family, to leave the room as it was.

“Why… why didn’t you tell me anything…?”

She felt a presence approach behind her.

“If you’re done here, then let’s go.”

Arisu did not even need to turn around to know who it was. It was Kusuriya Daisuke who she knew very well, a Mushitsuki that had fought together with her.

“But, don’t worry. I will definitely find out is it, what your real wish is, Mari…”

Saying so, Arisu turned around with a smile on her face.

What was Mari thinking when she entrusted the morpho butterfly to Arisu.

She would definitely find that out.

Mari’s true dream—.

“Can’t you even wait for a bit? Boys without patience are not popular, you know.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you who is acting sentimentally out of character—”

“''Arisu upper~!''”

Along with a dull thud, the door to the empty room was closed.

A breeze blew from the window, causing the book at the corner to collapse. The pages of the book—“Potion of Magic”, flapped gently in the wind.

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To be continued

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