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CONTENTS
Prologue: 'Next to Me (Boku), Next to Me (Watashi)'
Two Sides: 'Your Life Is There'
Epilogue: 'Cocoon of Malice'
Afterword

I'd had enough of extreme, deceptive stories.
I don't want to get involved, and I don't want to get Mayu involved either.
That the value of everyday life is extraordinary—
that's the theme I've consistently been trying to convey from the beginning.

Lying Mii-kun and
Broken Maa-chan 8
The Value of the Everyday is Extraordinary

Prologue: 'Next to Me (Boku), Next to Me (Watashi)'

In the taxi, the radio was broadcasting a news program, one with a truly commendable dedication to prioritizing information above all else, completely devoid of any entertainment value. Being a local-focused program, most of its content was stuff like a housewife in the city who'd gone missing two days ago, or how a train on the So-and-So Line had hit someone, causing major delays. Unfortunately, since we weren't locals, these stories meant little to us. If we kept listening to this drivel, it'd just turn into a lullaby, I figured.

Mayu, who until about fifteen minutes ago had been breathing softly asleep in a non-reserved seat on the Shinkansen, was now awake, though still drowsy, sitting next to me and holding my hand. Her five fingers, twined around my whole hand like tree branches stuck together with sap and crystallized dirt, were slender, cool, smooth, glossy, rounded, soft and squishy... Agh, I'm already out of ways to praise them. For me, who can usually sing Mayu's praises endlessly—longer than Jugemu's full name, so long that by the time I'd finish, you'd think the origin of it all had become a curse—this is quite the pathetic display. I think I can now understand how a rakugo storyteller who declared retirement because he couldn't rattle off the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido must have felt. I still haven't recovered from a break of over a month. My 'lovey-dovey couple spirit' (i.e., overcoming shamelessness) has been thoroughly neutered, seems like. I've been reduced to a tiger with its fangs pulled. I'm well aware of that myself.
That's why I was currently en route from the mainland to the Ryukyu Kingdom, for special training like, say, learning to split waves by kicking a soccer ball in Okinawa. Good grief, about half of this opening has been pure fiction, hasn't it? Makes me suspect my own body's command center, wondering if my right and left brain are just cheap knock-offs.

Mayu's round nail pressed into my thumb, near the second joint. Right there, the wave of my thoughts ran aground on the sandy beach of reality and was smoothed completely flat. I glanced at Mayu. She was staring straight at the driver's seat, maintaining that formal, Noh-mask expression she saves for public. Figuring she hadn't been trying to get my attention, I looked out the window. The number of people out on the main street on this clear early afternoon was a world away from what we'd see in our town.
Today was the first day of a five-day holiday in September. And our current location was a town my feet hadn't touched until thirty minutes ago.
As for why we—who usually spend our holidays 'meaningfully,' either festering or sticking to each other in a bedroom with the curtains drawn tight—were resorting to this mode of transport, well, it's because we were on a trip.

About three weeks had passed since I was discharged from the hospital, and then, as if it were an afterthought, the second semester of my final year of high school began. In the classroom, teachers had already become beings who spoke in alien tongues, the delinquents refused to even try to follow along, and I'd come to the conclusion that, regardless of any preferences, there was no path to higher education for me. So, with nothing better to do, I spent classes training my brain, resting my chin on my desk and swimming in the ocean of my imagination. To the outside world, it just looks like I'm spacing out, but I'm actually hard at work behind the scenes, you know. The so-called 'swan paddling furiously beneath the surface' deal. That's a lie—or rather, an excuse—though. And sometimes, I also kill time by gazing at the back of Nagase's head in the same classroom. Sometimes, Nagase would turn around, even in the middle of class, and our eyes would meet. Her gaze was like... like when you're at nature camp making curry for dinner in groups, mixing the rice and curry roux everyone brought from home to make the final dish... Crap, this is getting seriously incoherent. What I meant to say was, it's *not* like Nagase and I each brought the 'love' and 'comedy' to the table, then blushed and hastily looked away as if we were playing the hero and heroine of some rom-com... or anything like that. I felt like I needed to seriously consider just how many detours I have to take before I'm satisfied with my own explanations. Well, that's a lie, though.

If my thought patterns became normal, I'd be hopelessly generic, wouldn't I? Right then, back to the main subject.
So, living like that, it was the second semester of my third year, so before I knew it, club activities had ended, and yet, for some reason, I still had quite a few chances to see Fushimi. The other day, she asked me, "College?" "Where?" "You go?" "Huh?" When I replied, "I'm not going anywhere," she visibly slumped, looking utterly 'dejected.' But after a few seconds, for some reason, she blushed and started fidgeting with her toes on the school hallway floor. I thought I'd answered in perfectly standard Japanese, but I wonder if she read something else into it.

School life went on like that, and no trace of the August incident lingered in sight. I haven't seen Ooe Yuna since then (instead, I get this disgusting feeling that even with distance between us, the timing of our yawns and stuff might still overlap), but since there haven't been any news reports about an unidentified woman in a yukata found dead under strange circumstances, I figure she's probably still alive, somehow.
End of post-incident report.

And then, lying in wait, fully prepared, the most recent memory broke down the door to my mind.
I ended up having to recall a little of what happened on the Shinkansen we took to get here. The duo who were in the seats behind us, especially the girl. I wonder what was up with that girl. She'd spoken, as if guessing wildly, and accurately described parts of Mayu's past that were meant to be kept secret.

The radio finished the news and moved on to a ghost story segment, a little out of season. In this region, there's apparently a tale of someone—or something—that asks, "Is that important to you?" and if you say yes, they snatch it away. Isn't that just some truly sadistic, merely pretentious highway robber?

The taxi turned left onto a road just before a shoe store facing the main street. As we passed by, I casually glanced up at the sign, and the three characters 'SAKURA' jumped out at me. As that information reached my brain, some kind of conversion function kicked in, trying to settle it as '桜' (cherry blossom) or '佐倉' (the name Sakura), but in the end, Mayu snuggling up beside me solved everything. Expressionless, she rubbed her cheek against my upper arm, *suri suri*.

She must have gotten bored, I deduced from experience, so I rubbed her back in return. Mayu just did the *suri suri*, but I gently squeezed her soft cheek up and down, *moni moni*. No change in her expression, but she moved her head left and right in time with my arm, looking quite content. The pang of guilt for using Mayu as an escape from unpleasant memories was a lie, of course (my heart's always like an eel's narrow nest anyway, so it's perpetually suffocating). Hmm... I took in Mayu's overall appearance. Her slightly thin body, which made me imagine what kind of life she'd led while I was hospitalized, was back to normal, and her hair, perhaps having been treated at a salon, was in good, glossy condition. With both our injuries healed and our lives intertwined, we, in our peaceful state, had tied the red string once more. A tight knot on our pinkies. *Kyuu*.

And boy, when it's been a while, the pain feels fresh all over again. It draws stares like crazy in crowded train stations, makes you want to recoil constantly, and really, there aren't many restrictions in daily life as damn inconvenient as this. It's hard to pass through the station ticket gates, and even taking out a wallet requires moving, pulled by the string. And every time I was about to say something like that, Mayu would, as if perfectly timed, gaze at her pinky and narrow her eyes happily, so my freedom of speech would end up being voluntarily suppressed.

So, while I drone on with my lengthy praises for Mayu in the present, please enjoy this flashback.

If I recall correctly, it was the first Sunday in September. It was three days after I returned to Mayu's room.
In the latter half of August this year, I was staying at my usual 'lodging': the hospital. I wonder how many hospitalizations this makes in total. But, not to brag, I've never once been hospitalized for an illness. I've always been hurt by humans, not by unseen pathogens. My body's always in a state of 'thoroughly pummeled ecstasy,' you know.

Anyway, that umpteenth hospitalization ended, and I was back at Maa-tan's house.
That night, Mayu, who for once had refused my beckoning to bed, found her eyes glued to the TV I was watching.
"Nyo~, hoho~"
She stopped rolling around on my lap and craned her neck towards the TV screen. Shining on the screen were the night sea and fireworks, and the exterior of a hotel dimly visible in their light. It was a commercial for a tourist spot, one familiar to viewers for over ten years. You could call it recycled. You could also call it old-fashioned. However, in this world, 'learning from the past' isn't a dead phrase, so there's no need to disparage old things. At least here, there was a child who'd get caught even by a fishhook that had already lost its bait.

*Thud.* Mayu slammed the side of her head into my stomach, then, "Mii-kun, I have a li~ttle report for you!" *Schwing!* She raised her right hand, and I dodged just as her nails were about to pierce my throat. Hmm, this kind of exchange feels kinda nostalgic. Like we're that lovey-dovey couple at the dawn of a new day, or something.

"Whatever could it be~?" I had a pretty good idea, but I deliberately dragged it out. Gifting myself the answer. No particular reason.
"Maa-chan, it seems, is in her travel season!"
"Oh-ho." To control the seasons all by herself, just as expected of Maa-chan. Your solar system revolves around just the two of us.
"Hey, hey, let's gooo~. No, we *are* going!" Mayu, getting worked up, turned into a cute little rioter, thrashing about on my lap. In a manga, you could just use sound effects like *Thump! Crash! Wham!* But from the perspective of the person serving as the actual foundation for this brat's tantrum, when a heel comes flying, there's a sickening *thud* of impacted flesh, and when an elbow drops, a dull *crack* that resonates to the bone. All this innocent accompaniment tends to strip away any shred of composure, mental or physical. Any brain cells calmly holding onto some drowsy thought like, 'Yep, this is Maa-tan, alright,' are just poor, tormented things, bullied without any input from the five senses. It's like being the kid who never gets the handouts passed to them from the front... which, in short, was me exactly back in elementary school. For details, please ask Hamana Toue-san, whose whereabouts are unknown. Come to think of it, I still haven't replied to her letter from a year or so ago.

"Grrr, gnawrrrl!" Mayu growled, gnawing on my right arm as if trying to get to the bone. Brushing the hair from her forehead with my fingers, I first replied, "I haven't even said no yet, you know."
"Grrr, grrrind, gnaaw!" Her teeth dug forcefully into my skin. As if savoring the taste, her tongue then roughly licked the surface, which only amplified my goosebumps.
"Hey, let go and talk properly." I poked her forehead with my finger, giving Mayu the 'wait' command. Without changing her upward, reproachful gaze, Mayu released her mouth and adjusted her growls into Japanese.
"Because~, whenever Maa-chan invites Mii-kun on a da~te, he always says no~!" *Whap, whap!* Her open palm voiced her anger by slapping my sides.
"Well, there's school on weekdays, you know."
And on holidays, I don't suggest anything in particular, and we just laze around at home together. In other words, it's just that I hate going to school.

For Mayu, it was a surprisingly normal, student-like desire, so I was currently stroking my chin with an 'Oh-ho,' and treating it as something precious. No, well, it was probably just that she 'rea~lly, rea~lly doesn't like!!' not being connected to Mii-kun by the red string, though.
"Like that matters! Weekday or holiday, a day Maa-chan is with Mii-kun is a day Maa-chan is with Mii-kun, no differe~nce!" Her outstretched index finger shot between my ribs, embedding itself deep into my body. The impact was enough to make my left eyeball feel like it was about to pop out and go tea-picking or something. But I'm used to this much. No interruption to my thoughts. By the way, what was I just thinking about?... Ah, well, yeah, that's a lie.

Putting that aside, Maa-chan was indeed absolutely right about the days of the week. Hmmm, but I had no idea how to make sense of this or where to even begin to compromise. It's like a ladder lottery with no correct answer. You just have to keep tracing it endlessly with your finger.
"Besides, when I try to be next to Mii-kun at school, all those other people get mad and annoying." She glared to her side with a dangerous look in her eyes. Was she picturing all those potato-faced nobodies there? Mayu and I had moved up to the third year and were in different classes, so the reactions of those various people were correct if judged by common societal sense. But humans aren't docile enough to be satisfied by common sense in everything.

I mean, that kind of thing doesn't have a one-millimeter connection to Maa-chan's version of common sense.
"It's because it's during class, you know." Even if I said something like, 'Just let her,' the diligent girl in the next seat would probably object. Besides, she's not really the type of girl liked by other girls.
Even back in the lower grades of elementary school, it seems she was bullied by girls and teased by boys because she was always clinging to Mii-kun. My, oh my, lovey-dovey couples face persecution in every era, it seems. But why is that? Why do lovey-dovey couples provoke hostility in onlookers? Is it because, underpinned by the instinct for species preservation, people feel a sense of crisis about loneliness? Even though it's perfectly possible to live alone.

Strictly speaking, I feel like Maa-chan too has been living alone since that incident.
"So, with thaaat, Maa-chan absolutely *has* to go on a honeymoon soon!"
Mhm, mhm, Mayu reached her own conclusion to the conversation. Everyone has a time machine in their heart, which is why it's perfectly natural for Mayu's conversations and thoughts to be totally unhinged. That's not a lie, but man, is it troublesome.
"Are you being a Mr. No-Good?"
"-cha~an."
Oh, dear.
She transformed into some other character. Maa-chan instantly shrunk to chibi size... Let's just leave that lie be.

I glanced at the desk calendar. Hmm, there's a five-day holiday this September.
"Alright then, in about... two weeks, maybe? There's a long break then, so shall we go on a trip or something?"
In the spirit of 'family service,' I threw out the suggestion.
"Nyaan!" This time she broke through the species barrier. She jumped up and hugged my neck with all her might, making my unstable head wobble back and forth like crazy. "Kya-ho~!" She was so overly cheerful, it reminded me of a roller coaster. And not as a passenger, but as the ride itself. Way too much shaking.
While feeling like I was about to vomit something more substantial than just my voice, I asked, "So, where should we go?"
"Well the~n, tomorrow let's go shopping for clothes! Maa-chan will pick ou~t all of Mii-kun's clothes too!! After all, it's a wife's duty to make sure her husband isn't embarrassing! Nyoho! Fuhaha, I'm a wife, kyaa~! And then, and then, buy a big me too—ah, let's buy a hat too! Should we buy new shoes? Yes, let's! A total change! Shuffle Mii-kun! And Maa-chan! We'll be all new and spiffy for our trip! When we get there, nyupu nyufu! Um, we'll do lots of things, you kno~w! Like, koudabaa~! And nyubaa~! And shabaaa~! Fuzzy and empty-headed, this world is Treasure Isla~nd!!"

Mayu, scattering her dreams around like throwing a box full of marbles and letting its colorful contents fall out. Every time she jumped, she added a gesture like she was tearing off my head and holding it up, and the coniferous tree of my worry seemed about to turn color not with autumn, but with blood, at the thought that finding employment as a disembodied head would be difficult.
...Please make this a lie, quickly.
We haven't even set off on our journey yet, but Maa-chan's consciousness is already going over two hundred kilometers per hour, it seems.

Our daily life with Mayu was hardly going to swallow a conclusion like, 'It's all just a journey of the mind, after all.' And so, here we were in reality, having drifted along the 'river' of the road in a taxi, arriving in front of the hotel.

The clock I saw just before getting out of the taxi showed it was a little before two-thirty.
At the hotel entrance, which had a small shrine set up beside it, I looked up at its exterior before being sucked in by the automatic doors. It was a hotel with an exterior so ambiguous it was hard to tell if it was a business hotel that had sprouted a few extra frills or a luxury hotel that had been stripped bare. An awkward place. For some reason, there was a pachinko parlor on the premises. Its entrance was right there too.

We'd roughly chosen a travel destination and randomly searched for a hotel, and this is where we were led. Whose will was at play here, and what kind of fate awaited us... My challenge, however, wasn't particularly starting. It was strange how I was standing there, shoulders relaxed, baselessly optimistic that, surely, this time I wouldn't get dragged into some gory incident. Is it because I'm away from *that* town? Well, I'm not a detective, so it's not like a murder case is going to happen every time I go on a trip. Violence might be running rampant in certain corners of the world, but maybe most people live their lives cherishing peace. If that weren't the case, humanity would have already perished. Well, not that I'd mind if it did perish, mind you. That's not entirely a lie.

"Well, shall we go in?" "Mhm." She nodded simply, but an undeniable happiness softened the corners of Mayu's eyes. We didn't have any particular plans like visiting tourist spots, so for her to be this happy just from taking a trip out of town, it almost made me feel bad for how easily pleased she was, in a sense. Well, it's not like I'm the one who paid for it, though.

This feels like a rehearsal for a bright and fun gigolo life, I thought, spurred by a twinge of anxiety.
This time, we'd only booked one room. M-meaning, with Maa-chan, in the same room, spending the... oh, wait, that's no different from usual at all. Yep. No need to get all flustered now.

A slight doubt remained as to whether this was the reaction of a healthy male high school student, but as we passed through the automatic doors, only *that* got caught, and Mayu and I were able to enter the hotel, carrying only our anticipation.
Immediately upon entering, there was a tourist information counter straight ahead. Ignoring that, we turned left and passed through another set of automatic doors. This time, there was a hotel information counter on the left. It didn't look like the front desk.

At that counter, I approached a bored-looking young woman who was staring at the operating escalator with dull eyes and asked; she explained that the front desk was on the third floor. Mayu's jealousy-claws started visibly growing, getting desperate to add a few joints to my fingers, so I left without even a proper thank you. Maa-chan gets angry right away if Mii-kun plays 'magnets' with other women.

Then, near the escalator, I squished Mayu's cheeks, *uni uni*, and spent about five minutes calming her anger down. I brushed past her "Huh? What was that?" with a joke, and once she started showing cheeks puffed out with a "Mmph" from regained composure, it meant we were in the safe zone. Every time we have this exchange, I'm reminded of pumping air into a bicycle tire. Oh, by the way, Mayu still can't ride a bicycle.
We tried practicing quite often, on holidays and such. How should I put it... It was like she was running a marathon on her own two feet while declaring, "I'm practicing the bicycle!" Of course, objectively speaking, her words and actions were inconsistent, but she herself completely believed it and would run off.

Mayu's incomplete cycling, like a wingless airplane trying to fly, lacking something essential. It's probably one of the countless impossibilities that flood the world like so many constellations, but I don't have the right to say, "Let's give up." After all, the colossal idiot who stole what was precious to her and, as a bonus, shattered her heart, is my 'so-and-so,' you see. Ah, guilt, yes, yes...

Making "whee~" sounds mimicking the escalator, we went up to the second, then the third floor. Incidentally, there was a wedding hall on the second floor, and I'll report that Mayu's eyes were gleaming at it.

After getting off the escalator, we passed in front of a coffee shop to our destination spreading out beyond. A checkpoint, in a way. Near the front desk, a group of foreign tourists could be seen. Among them were some individuals boasting impressive biceps. I mused, imagining the scene, that Mayu could probably still manage even if she were dangled by two or three of those guys like a string of dried persimmons.

"I'll go check us in, so wait there," I said, pointing to an empty bench. Mayu said, "No way. I'm going with you," and entwined her pinky with mine. I detached her finger, which was like a snake constricting its prey, and tried to stop her by mimicking Mayu's usual whiny-brat voice, "No-o-o-o-o." Before Mayu could even protest, I was assaulted by shame. Look, even Mayu was blinking and staring up at me. Taking advantage of the confusion, I unlinked our pinkies, sat Mayu down on the corner of the bench, and hurried to the front desk.

If I took Mayu with me and she piped up from the side while I was writing our names and address, saying things like, "Mii-kun's name is Mii-kun, right? Who's *that*?" I'd be in trouble, wouldn't I? We'd never run out of things to argue about, like how much of it is the surname. Mhm, though that point is a lie.

I slid up to a free front desk clerk and said, "I have a reservation under Edase... XX, and Misono Mayu." *Guwoah.* It was a pain like having saltwater sprayed from an atomizer onto a raw, pink wound. If this is how it is, I wonder if I'll be able to handle the upcoming job hunting interviews. The emerging outline of a future where I become Maa-chan's personal 'cuddle-rocker'—a.k.a. her kept man—was intensely unpleasant. Truthfully, I should have just used a fake name like usual, but I only realized that after I'd already gone through the effort of making the hotel reservation, like now. Damn, I really wanted to try using a name like 'Makoto' to reflect my personality. Or so went the lie I just came up with.

The clerk, a man with salt-and-pepper slicked-back hair, started searching for my and Mayu's names with a business smile. Then he offered me a ballpoint pen and a registration form for our names and such, saying, "If you please." This sucks, I thought. It was the kind of task that made me feel like I'd been given one more trick question than my classmates on a school exam. Write it down. Stare right at it. A concoction of revulsion and nausea, seeping from my fingertips, gave its first wail, and my stomach felt like its walls were being worn thin, like the slice of ham in a ham sandwich.

The most effective torture for me would be to have someone read out the lyrics of a love song nearby.
Putting the problematic items off for later, I wrote down the address. Incidentally, when I asked the tenant, Mayu, for her apartment's address, she just said, "I dunno~," so I had to go out of my way to look it up. For the phone number, I also put down the one for the apartment. Come to think of it, maybe I should buy a cell phone soon, since I lost mine back in April. Ah, I made a promise, too. With Anzu-chan, who came to visit me with my older brother Kouta-kun while I was hospitalized in the summer. She called me a 'liar' about five times. It was so fitting it felt more like a compliment. That, of course, is a lie, though. Apparently, she'd tried calling my phone many times. Since I'd acted all cool and given her the number, this is a bit awkward. Therefore, I decided to go to a cell phone shop when I get back from this trip, and with that settled, I finished filling out the various parts of the form.

Okay, I've written Mayu's name. I've also managed my surname. All that's left are two hiragana characters.
As I was scratching my cheek with the pen, thinking, 'This is a pain,' someone's presence intruded unceremoniously next to me.
"I have a reservation under Hanasaki Tarou and Hanasaki Touki."

I recognized the voice that announced itself to the clerk at the next counter. I glanced sideways.
...Ah, just as I thought.
One of the pair who had been sitting in the seats behind us on the Shinkansen ride here. The man who the girl with him had called 'Luigi.' That's probably a nickname. Other than the fact that he was wearing an absurdly large green hat, he looked like a perfectly ordinary young man, but well, you can't judge a book by its cover. The nickname probably comes from him being able to shoot fireballs from his palm like some hidden talent, I bet. Or maybe he's obsessed with the hallucination of growing giant by constantly eating mushrooms. For the sake of maintaining peace and order within the hotel, I'll declare that last bit of speculation a lie.

But why do we have to run into each other like this? I'd had a bad feeling ever since we interacted on the train. I can only hope this is pure 'fate' and not an inevitability brought about by someone's will. When I glanced behind me, that girl was, as expected, standing right in front of Mayu, pestering her. On the Shinkansen too, that girl had started talking to us from the seat behind.

Huh?
On one hand, I 'don't want to get involved' with these people, but on the other, I also 'want to understand' the situation. To be precise, it's more about the girl with Luigi.

"Excuse me, do you have a moment?" I spoke to Luigi, my voice laced with a dual motive.
Hanatarou, aka Luigi, reacted dutifully to my voice, pausing his writing and turning around. He seemed to remember my face from our brief exchange, giving a small nod and an "Ah, hello."
"My companion caused you some trouble on the Shinkansen, didn't she?"
"Huh?"
"No, no, not at all. Actually, I was hoping you could write my name here for me."
Luigi stiffened at the unexpected request. Only his eyes moved, darting suspiciously, not ceasing their observation of me. After freezing for about five seconds, he tilted his head strangely, "Name...? Yours?" then muttered to himself, "Well, I guess it's fine."