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After school, Natsuki-san and I were having tea in the school nurse's office. To be precise, we were having water. Mayu wasn't waking up, so while borrowing a bed in the nurse's office for her, I tried calling Natsuki-san.
Luckily, it seems there haven't been any major incidents lately (how sarcastic of me), so she rushed over.
The two of us poured water into cups from the nurse's office and are covering them with our palms. Neither of us makes any move to drink the water.
"It's just a pretext to get an audience with the chief. For someone of my standing to invite you out like it's a date would be presumptuous beyond measure, you see."
Explaining myself vaguely, I look around the nurse's office. The window on the side facing the grounds is open, and the maroon curtains are swaying gently. The breeze feels a little chilly. From the window, other sounds were also flooding in: sound effects and shouts from club activities, and right now, the sound of an airplane slicing through the sky.
The school nurse is absent; normally, the nurse's office should be closed. It shouldn't be convenient for the medicine cabinet or the water heater to be tampered with. But it's wide open. It's either a laid-back school culture or just lax management. Someone like Koibi-sensei would fit right into a nurse's office like this, I think.
The weather outside looked bad this morning, but it seems to be perverse, as it didn't worsen to the point of rain.
"To be spoken of so highly by Mii-san, the infamous older-woman killer, is an honor I scarcely deserve, but I can't help but be wary that you might be plotting something untoward."
"An 'older-woman killer'... sounds like it has a higher rarity value than a dragon slayer or something. Besides, I haven't bagged such grand prey."
"But you have Koibi, don't you?"
"Sensei is... just a good person."
"She just likes younger men."
Evaluating her friend without reservation, Natsuki-san gazes down at the small water surface trembling in her hand. I confirm that Mayu, in the inner room, is still asleep without even turning over, and then I sigh.
Unable to grasp what components that sigh contained, I let it out, long and drawn, as if spitting it away.
"Still, it was unexpected that you'd come all this way."
For Detective Natsuki-san (famous in society for arresting Sugawara + her stunning looks), who is not only busy but also an outsider to the school, to boldly come all the way into the nurse's office.
I had mentioned beforehand that I wouldn't mind getting an explanation over the phone. In fact, I would have preferred that. Incidentally, I still don't have a cell phone contract. This time, I used the green public phone at the school's equipment purchasing counter. My earlier concern about my wallet seems to have been unfounded.
"I was worried about how you were doing, Mii-san." "Huh?... Haaah."
Natsuki-san finally brings the cup in her hand to her lips. Even when her mouth touches the drink, her smile doesn't falter. Her eyes are narrowed too, so much so that if you wanted to thread a needle through them, you'd probably have to pierce through her eyelids—there's barely a slit. If she can make out my face like this, she must be an esper. If I ever get the chance to meet a real psychic, I really hope they'll try playing one of those psychic-training console games. It seems I'm below average when it comes to abilities; no matter how many times I tried, I could never clear that thing. Though I almost got tendonitis.

"Why don't you try meeting Koibi once? That would probably be the most calming thing for you, Mii-san."
While I was lost in thought about psychics, Natsuki-san suggests a visit to Koibi-sensei's home. She just said to meet her, but if I invited Sensei out now, I can easily imagine being turned down with, "Sorry, I'm busy collecting spheres of destruction." Or there's the possibility she's become a severe case, saying something like, "What're you talkin' 'bout? We're already outside the TV, ain't we? Ahh, I wanna go home~, uheheh." Either way, if I want to see her, I'll have to go to Koibi-sensei's house.
"I'll pass."
"Stoic endurance is an act that allows toxins to accumulate in your body and mind, you know."
"I'm not particularly forcing myself. But I think Sensei probably doesn't know anything about people getting murdered or things like that." "Probably not. She's a hikikomori, after all."
"Then, it's better not to meet her. She's surely happier not knowing."
Even if the skin on her thumbs peels off.
Besides, if I meet her directly, maybe... yeah, well, that's right, I can't deny the possibility of *that* happening. Natsuki-san is a detective, and she's probably skilled at protecting herself, so I think she'd be fine, though.
Still, I really didn't want to meet like this.
"Natsūki-san." "Yes, it's the woman with a name that sounds like a knock-off sporting goods brand, what is it?"
Natsuki-san doesn't flinch. This person's smile has a kind of reassuring power, or it disarms your wariness; it acts like a softener on the heart of whoever she's facing. That's precisely why I find it hard to trust her completely.
When facing people, your heart should be hard, cold, and strong. I recall seeing such a sentence written on the back of some DVD case.
"Nagase is dead." *Murdered.* "What should I do?"
*Is that something to ask someone else?* I retort to myself, yet I still ask. Because I don't know. Just how many equations that I'll never be able to solve in my lifetime do you think exist in this world?
"Please have sympathy and compassion. I won't ask any more of you than that, Mii-san."
Natsuki-san stands up from her seat. Still holding her cup, she approaches me and places a hand on my shoulder. She adjusts her eye level by bending her knees, staring at me head-on as if glaring.
"Absolutely do not try to take any independent action against the culprit. Understood?"
"...What a waste, using such a rare, serious expression in the wrong place. I won't do anything, even if Nagase is dead." "I came here today precisely to hammer that point home."
Is it a side effect of always having conversations where I just let what people say go in one ear and out the other? Even now, Natsuki-san doesn't seem to be taking my words into account in the slightest when she speaks.
"From your perspective, Mii-san, it might be hard to trust us, but we intend to do our jobs with utmost effort."
As she speaks, her fingers dig into my shoulder, establishing an impromptu system of control as if trying to guide my will. My right shoulder feels particularly heavy, like a sign of being possessed by one of those vengeful spirits you hear about. Not that it matters, but are ghosts something that are definitely born after death?
If not everyone can become one, what are the conditions? Is it believing in spirits, or is it only those who dutifully paid taxes or something to the netherworld while alive that can escape complete nothingness?
When I was really little, I read a short manga where the ghost of a murderer was the protagonist. Ever since then, I've been interested in the existence of ghosts. I'm focused on the "rules" aspect.

Just as a child grows into an age to be called a young adult, if it were confirmed that living beings reach ghosthood after death, would people stop fearing death?
Their own death, and someone else's death. Would they say that happiness cannot be obstructed?
But I digress. The opponent I should be facing now was this Woman Detective.
If I were to defy the ace detective Geronimo-san here, I strongly sensed an atmosphere suggesting she'd roughly put me to bed on one of the spare nurse's office beds! So I quickly decided to be deferential.
"Alright, I promise."
This case, no matter what happens. I will do nothing.
It was a resolution made while experiencing the illusion of something stabbing me sharply in the gut.
A bitter fluid seeps from the gums next to my molars.
"It's not a lie, though." "Such an addendum only lessens its credibility, so it's not needed." *Squeeze.* My cheeks were pulled. As if caught up in Natsuki-san's Smile Project, both my cheeks were yanked upwards. From the side, it probably looked like a hand-tame flying squirrel was attached to my cheeks, adorning my face.

"I'm leaving now," I say, pulling away from Natsuki-san as if escaping, and head towards the bed. The edge of the curtain is swaying, and my eyes follow it like a cat's. I wonder if the source of this wind is a ghost. Every time I venture into the city and see those tedious lines of people, I think about it. By frantically running to dash through the crowds, the ghost's heat intensifies, and by the time it reaches me standing outside the river of people, it has become a steamy temperature. I'm always having such delusions, but before I knew it, I was carrying Mayu on my back. All my actions towards Mayu are already ingrained in my entire being, huh.
Come to think of it... there was something I wanted to tell Natsuki-san... Oh well. I forgot.
I pass in front of Natsuki-san, who is sitting there as composedly as a school nurse, saying, "Excuse me for leaving first." In response, Natsuki-san cautioned with a smile, "You two take care as well, Mii-san."
Nodding at the kind policewoman's gentle warning, I leave the nurse's office. In contrast to the clamor of the students from the sports clubs on the grounds, the school hallway, fairly close to the staff room, is beyond the reach of sounds from cultural clubs.
Something like the sound of a refrigerator running in the middle of the night was audible at the end of the hallway to the left. The overall atmosphere felt deflated. The temperature was distinctly different from the nurse's office.
"Even if she hadn't hammered it in, I wouldn't have done anything anyway."
I mean, I submitted a resolution for "nail-less construction" as my free research project for this summer vacation. Just a phantom, though.
I walk unsteadily down the school hallway with listless, soft footsteps. Ahh, Mayu is so soft. Perhaps because it's the first time I've sat in a chair all day since the long holiday ended, I feel the softness of her thighs I'm touching even more. A hymn to Maa-chan is a hymn to happiness. No matter how happy those lovey-dovey couples out there are, they don't know the pain of the red string connecting us beneath the skin. Just like ordinary people's love, y'know. I'm truly envious, I am.

"...Ah, I remember now. There was something I wanted to consult her about. That's why I called."
Before Natsuki-san arrived by car, I had planned what I was going to talk about, but I skipped just that, colored the time with idle chat, and ended up forgetting it completely.
I forgot to tell her that the culprit who murdered Nagase had called me. But since I was just told not to stick my neck out and not to do anything, I decided to keep quiet and go home as instructed.
Besides, disrupting the repeating everyday is strictly forbidden, right? Even from a health perspective. Everyone has to get along and have fun.
...See, just as I thought. Honest people aren't useful to the world at all, y'know.
*'It's about Nagase, uh, Tooru, you see.'*
*'Ah, I killed her. Ahh... well, it's, uh, a sorry business for you, isn't it.'*
*'But I had my own circumstances, and according to them, I had no choice but to kill her. If it's between someone else's situation and my own convenience, prioritizing myself is normal, after all.'*
*'Still, I felt I had an obligation to explain to you about Nagase Tooru's final moments, so I called. First, I gouged out one of her eyeballs...'* Her eyeballs were taken, her hair was wrapped around her wrist, her right hand made a declaration of independence, her legs set off on a journey, her organs became a necklace, her tongue was split into eight pieces, and her fingers—the pinky was where the thumb should be, the thumb where the middle finger should be, the middle finger where the ring finger should be, and the index finger was also like a ring finger, like bigamy—but that was all on her right hand; only her left hand was without a single scratch. *'That's how I handled it. I don't think I missed anything in the explanation.'*
*'She seemed surprised when she learned she was targeted because she was your girlfriend. Then, after that, her resentment towards you went full throttle. Well, yeah, if your right middle finger becomes your ring finger, you'd get angry at the cause, so I don't think you need to worry about it too much. But she was so noisy, so I cut her tongue vertically a bit to shut her up. Then, at the very end, she did a complete turnaround, crying 'Tooru, help me!' and reached out for you. It seems she trusted you one way or another, so maybe you don't need to feel down after all, huh?'*
*'So then, I dumped the body outside so it'd be clear Nagase Tooru was dead. Were you surprised that your girlfriend looked like a dead frog or earthworm in summer? If you don't show some reaction, it feels like, you know, a waste of effort. Just like how she used to be exposed to the open air in the old days.'* It's *ex-*.
*'Anyway, to get to the main point, I wanted to consult you on who I should kill next.'*
*'Sakashita Koibi? Amano XX-ne? Kamiyashiro Natsuki? Fushimi Yuyu? Nagase Kazuki? Ah, I can't think of any other names right now.'*
The fact that no one similar to me was among them was an accurate selection.
*'I plan to kill them all eventually, but I'm curious about the order, or rather, how the hierarchy of preference is established in your mind.'*
*'If you don't have any guidelines, I'll just decide based on my mood, is that okay?'*
"...Who are you?" Only then did I realize I was speaking.
What on earth had I been talking about right before that?
*'I am someone who once looked up to your father as 'Sensei'.'*
The call ended there. It was the night of the day I returned from the trip. For about thirty hours after receiving that call, my memory is hazy, and I couldn't recall any of my actions, but when my muddled consciousness cleared, Mayu was by my side, so I felt relieved. That was the only impression that emerged.
Am I strange somehow? Even if I don't have feelings for the dead person, is it odd to care about the safety of those who are currently alive? No, that can't be right. So I'm fine, I'm normal. Even if I were abnormal, I'm not normal anyway, so that would be more correct.
Abnormal.
Just how many corpses do you think I've gazed upon up until now? You remember the number I've handled, don't you? I've even toyed with them more than once. For someone like me to confess to a corpse, that itself... The dead Nagase isn't Nagase; she's flesh in the shape of Nagase. I wouldn't go so far as to throw her in the trash can, though. She probably wouldn't fit, anyway.

And then, tonight. At Mayu's apartment, the phone rang again. I jumped up on the sofa, the pit of my stomach tightening as if a knife had been thrust into my back. The sound is merciless; whether it's a call from my aunt, a sales pitch, or the grotesque murderer, it summons us with a steady rhythm. My own breath, as I prepared to answer, was ragged, as if in defiance.
...Or rather, night. I realize that sometime, it had become night, the light from outside the window gone. I am slowly, sluggishly drawn towards the phone. The sweat is terrible. It's night sweat! There's no way it's a liquid born from my heart. Right now, I wasn't lying.
Aah, enough, the phone is so loud. If it keeps making that much noise, Mayu will wake up.
"Yes, hello. Misono residence." "Ah, hey there. Remember me?" *Click.* Silence spreads through the room as if dust were scattering. But that too is fleeting, and the phone rings again.
*'How mea—'* *Click.* My palms are quite slick with sweat. It feels disgusting. My whole body is hot as if boiling; what's agitating me so much? It feels like my blood is burning bright red.
This feverish feeling I've had since morning... could it be a sign of new PSI abilities? That's a lie, though.
But, if psychic powers were to awaken in me... Let's see, I'd want the ability to attack through the phone. How about a Stand ability that turns the radio waves reaching the opponent into a weapon?
The phone rings again. This too is an attack for me. And incidentally, it's also harsh on Mayu's peaceful sleep. The ringing of a phone, if you listen to it for too long, it feels like you'll go crazy, right? I've kind of felt like I've been touched in the head from the start, so conversely, I might even blurt out, "I've returned to sanity!"
*'First, the outer mo—'* I had slammed the receiver down to hang up. ...... Tut tut, bad form, I have to treat things with care. It's not even my thing, anyway. ...Oh, it's finally stopped ringing.
I won! Chapter one, complete... almost. "Muuu." From the bedroom, Mayu came out at a trot, *tette-tte*, as if stumbling forward. I guess the phone's ringing was jarring to her ears after all. Come to think of it, on our trip last week, the cell phone in the next room was so noisy, you know... It felt like such a distant memory that I'd have to recount it like an old grandma's tale.
A wall, so high you can't see the top even if you look up. Just a few days ago, it was completed. The last time such a dramatic rift was created was since the day I lost most of my family.
"A caaaww?" Mayu, with sleepy eyes and a tongue that couldn't quite form words, tries to confirm what woke her. "It was a wrong number."
The call was a mistake. I was a mistake. Answering it was a mistake. A dream phone call, so full of mistakes that its very existence in this world without being lost seemed like a miracle.
Mayu, not trusting my explanation at all, goes "sniff sniff" at the receiver that had been put back. "Muu, the smell of a woman sneaking up on Mii-kun." "If she came oozing out of the receiver like slimy minced meat, it'd probably smell awful, wouldn't it." Imagining it reminded me of a different corpse, and I felt like throwing up.
"Hang up, hang up!" Mayu repeatedly lifts and slams the receiver down, *gacha-gacha*. Perhaps because her "injury" is ongoing, she seems to have no qualms about continuing the same action. "Uuh, *gatchan gatchan*." I've had similar experiences. Yesterday, when I tried to drink water after waking up, I just spaced out for several minutes, continuing to pour water into the cup. After I realized it, the water spilling out, *dara daradara*, felt like such a waste.
"Gachanko!" Mayu delivers the finishing blow to the telephone. ...Or rather, the very fact that there's a telephone set up in Mayu's apartment feels full of incongruities now that I think about it. Was she ordered by her grandparents to have one, or was she perhaps hoping, 'Maybe Mii-kun will call'?
"...Hmmmm?" Mayu, still wearing her slightly wrinkled uniform, cranes her neck, looking around outside the window, inside the room, and at her own attire. "What's wrong?" "Did I not go to school today?" "Hmm?" Confiscation of the question mark. I'm the one who gets it first. If you fall asleep before going to school and wake up after coming home, then yeah, your memory of the time you were at school would be gone. But since she's changed into her uniform, she's wondering about that. Is this what it feels like to have time blown away?
"Actually, you didn't go," I try lying for some reason. Then Mayu, going "Puff puff!" gets angry while slamming her fist into my cheek. "Why didn't you wake Maa-chan up!!" *Because you'd get even angrier than you are now.* "I was enjoying Maa-chan's sleeping face all day long!" For some reason, I try piling on another lie. No, it's true I can enjoy it, though; I can keep it up for about two nights without a problem. "Mmph, Mii-kun's lack of consideration needs some serious re-education, it does!" Since she's just woken up and her consciousness has cleared, Mayu, overflowing with energy, hops up and down, *pyoko pyoko*, between words. Come to think of it, one of Mayu's dreams is to become taller than me, but so far, there seems to be no sign of it coming true. Even though she drinks milk and sleeps a lot.

"So, who was that phone call from just now? It wasn't some cat burglar, was it?"
Mayu resolutely suspects me. Though her tone is overflowing with childishness, her right hand is severe. She forcibly gathers the flesh and skin near my heart and pinches it. "No, the caller was a guy."
"Hmmmm." Mayu folds her arms. It seems she's struggling because it contradicts her suspicions. Isn't there an option for her to just take my words at face value? No way there is, if she knows my personality. No, but, I don't really lie to Mayu much, except for the fatal ones.
"Twirl-twirl, *pikeeen*!" A tiny lightbulb above Mayu's head spun horizontally and lit up. Complete with self-made sound effects.
"The truth is not always one!" "Stop that." Picking a fight with boy detectives is— "Which means, based on Maa-chan's deduction, the cat burglar isn't necessarily female!"
Oh, Maa-tan has come up with an answer that makes sense in her head. Give me a break. Being pounced on by a tomcat is fine if it's a fish or a card key. What's so fun about messing with someone like me? Really.
"Maa-tan is very angry about various things!" "Ugaah," she cries, raising both hands as if to intimidate. Far from intimidating, it's a Mii-kun-attracting gesture. If she did that out in a grassy field or something, wild Mii-kuns would probably swarm like house mites, bringing their homes with them. If that happened... would Maa-chan be pleased, and everything would be settled peacefully?
As expected of Misono Mayu, strong against contradictions in matters. This child is forcibly held together by a chain of contradictions, after all.

Meanwhile, Mayu, who had shouted, groaned, "Muuu." She folds her outstretched arms. Then she rubs her own stomach, *nade-nade*. "Maa-chan is hungry!" She's slightly changed the target of her anger. She's complaining of hunger, but even if I make dinner, she'll critique it with things like, "Mii-kun's cooking is one hundred percent kindness, and there's absolutely no other flavor, is there?" and only Mayu's dissatisfaction will grow.
In that case. Uhm... yeah, it's about time, I guess. If I suggest it, it'll be perfect.
"Shall we go out to eat?" Because it was like that "yesterday" too.
"Nyaa~" Mayu pounces on the suggestion. Mayu links arms with me and eagerly re-ties the string on our pinky fingers. It's less "lovey-dovey" and more like the string is dangling loosely, sloppily. I wonder if this thing's reached the end of its life too.
Nagase.
Watching this scene, what comes and goes in my mind is an irrelevant feeling for "her."
It sends ripples across the water surface flickering at the bottom of my heart, trying to make me peer into the water.
But I block it by closing my eyes, and then I abandon the search.
Lately, that action has been functioning like a substitute for self-hypnosis.
Firmly, with my eyelids, I sever various things.
Quietly, quietly, I exhale the feelings that couldn't be contained.
Even if you hadn't died, I could have gone on living.

"I wanna see your room, Tooru-ssu. How 'bout it-ssu?"
Well, fine, but there's nothing there. Just so you know, that's not me being modest or anything.
After school, I warn Nagase, who wants to come to my room. It was so I could argue, "Didn't I tell you so beforehand?" when she later commented, "That was boring-ssu, wasn't it."
"If there's really nothing at all, then it's not a room-ssu. I'm sure there's something that feels like Tooru's room-ssu."
When I told her, "Well, there's a futon, at least," conveying the correct information without any deliberate embellishment, Nagase's cheeks turned bright red, and she got angry, exclaiming, "How shameless-ssu!" She reacted just as I expected, so I was a little happy.
When I took Nagase to my aunt and uncle's house, my aunt, who came out to greet us, made a suspicious face. It felt like I'd managed to bring out a somewhat nostalgic atmosphere. Afterwards, my aunt labeled me an "adolescent brat" and teased me with her words. For some reason, Nagase joined in too. But when my aunt asked, "Is she your girlfriend?" Nagase immediately blushed and looked shy. Watching the still innocent Nagase made the tip of my nose feel itchy too.
On the way up to my room on the second floor, Nagase, walking behind me, calls out.
"How many girls have you had in your room before, Tooru-ssu?"
You're the second. The first one, it was more like she barged in, though.
"...So I'm not the first-ssu?"
The first time was when I was in elementary school. Even when I said that, Nagase pouted a little. At that point, I reflected on my words and actions, wondering if I should have just lied as usual. At the same time, I remembered Touē, and I fell into the illusion of treading the space between autumn and summer.
Well, come in. I invite Nagase into my own room, which could easily be mistaken for a storage closet. "Wooow," Nagase said playfully, entering with light steps, only to find herself at a loss for where to direct her momentum in a room with nothing noteworthy. She sent a sidelong glance my way as if asking for help, so I tried pulling the light cord. "......Ooooh, the light is so sparkly-ssu~" She forcibly digested her expectations with the same pushiness as someone forcing down rice without any side dishes, and for the time being, she settled down. We sit side-by-side in the center of the room, not facing each other. As I thought, I couldn't help but recall the day Touē came to this room. Meaning, the development where Nagase would then hug me or thrust her hand into my shirt, getting us kicked out of a shonen manga magazine... seemed unlikely to happen.
Nagase, sitting with her legs relaxed, looks around the room again. A study desk, textbooks she just brought home, and a futon, just as reported beforehand. With these four elements, would Nagase appreciate my daily struggle of having to resist the phenomenon of my room turning into a storage closet? "Are you in training or something, Tooru-ssu?"
She declared such a thing with a straight face. She also seemed to be lamenting, "Living so cut off from the mundane world, how can you tell so many lies-ssu?" As for me, I felt like strongly refuting it, and also like nodding in agreement that she had a point. In any case, I decided to request a correction only for the part of her assessment that didn't apply to me. I'm not cut off from the mundane world at all, I tell ya.