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I know this person. She's a detective, the one who caught the culprit of that heinous murder case a few years ago. She's apparently in her thirties, but you wouldn't know it at all; she boasts a teenage appearance. With a beaming smile, a smile more suited to customer service than even mine, she placed a katsudon, two onigiri, a chiffon cake, and an oniman on the counter. I wondered if she was buying for friends too, as I put the large amount of lunch into a bag.
"Are you acquainted with the high school student who just left?"
The detective was still smiling. Silently, she seemed to be waiting for my reply.
"Ah, um, they just moved in, next door. I'm, well, their neighbor... Uh, that's all."
I handed her the full bag and received two thousand-yen bills. After tapping away at the register, when I gave the detective her change, she grabbed my hand, money and all. *What, what, what's going on?* I thought, my eyes widening.
Even as she gripped my hand as if to say, "I'm not letting go," her smile was gentle. But I pondered the meaning of a detective grabbing my hand and tried to imagine what crime I could have committed. ...Gluttony?
"Is that so, neighbor-san? Please be good friends with those kids, okay?"
"Huh? Um. Is something wrong? Is it a case?"
"No, not really. It's just that a lot happened in the past. By the way, what time does your shift end today?"
"Eh?"
I faltered at the unexpected question. And she just kept smiling. It seemed she had no intention of continuing until I properly answered. I looked up at the round clock hanging on the wall behind me.
"I finish around six, but..."
"I see, six o'clock. Well then, around that time, someone will come here, so please be good friends with them too."
"Huh?"
She released my hand and, with a "Well then, excuse me," she departed briskly. *What was that all about?* I tilted my head, watching the automatic doors close. Then, the manager, who had been restocking products, scolded me for chatting at length with a customer about personal matters, so I straightened my posture and stood there blankly, mouth shut, for about ten minutes.
After that, I probably stood there blankly with my mouth half-open. Not much difference.

And then, at six o'clock that day, a man who supposedly had business with me actually showed up. It was the man who had left in the afternoon, as if chasing after the boy from next door. *Hmm, the scent of a case again,* I thought, furrowing my brow. While I was doing that, the young man placed two bottles of Pocari Sweat, *thump, thump,* on the counter and then looked at me as if peering into my eyes.
"Do you know it? The song that's playing right now."
Pointing at the ceiling, the young man asked with a blank expression. Drawn by his finger, I looked up at the ceiling, and my attention turned to the song playing. It was a song by a female singer that had been playing occasionally recently.
(...but, you know.)
But I didn't know its name. When I started living alone, I didn't buy a TV, so I'm out of touch with the world.
"This song has a piano accompaniment, doesn't it? Someone I know is playing it. No, honestly, it's such a mystery how that connection came about, it's so unbelievable it almost sounds like a lie, you know?"
*What's this, bragging about a friend? But why so suddenly?* I wondered, brushing my bangs aside with my hand.

"So, let's go on a date now."
Without any particular smile, and with no connection to what came before or after, he asked me out on a date.
Unable to keep up with the uniquely paced conversation, it felt like my arteries were twisting and turning.
I'm someone with nothing particular to do, to the point where I worry every day about how to kill time after work. And since he's an acquaintance of that detective, I figured he probably wasn't *that* suspicious a person, and besides, more than anything...
"I've met you before, haven't I?"
"Have you now? Oh, are you perhaps hitting on me? A girl hitting on a guy, huh."
"Ugh, what a terribly unfunny joke."
The young man standing next to me widened his eyes exaggeratedly, somewhat artificially. Yes, because he looked familiar, I felt a vague sense of reassurance, which is why I'd readily followed this young man. I have no sense of danger, but I'm always like this. An old boyfriend once told me I was "drifty." Like a jellyfish?

"But it gets completely dark by six, doesn't it? It's winter, huh."
The young man blatantly changed the subject. Indeed, outside wasn't just dim; the moon was out, stars were twinkling, and we were enveloped in the winter night sky. Unable to perceive that the world is round, tiny me gazed at the endlessly spreading sky, and after being moved by how truly boundless it was, I shivered from the cold, my upper body trembling.
The date spot the young man led me to was a place that, when chosen in winter, gives you a strange feeling. It was the rooftop of a department store. Even if the night view was beautiful, it was chilling to both body and soul. The mood, if anything, leaned towards the negative. As if mocking my thick clothes, a whistling cold wind blew, cutting at my cheeks. It wouldn't be surprising if welts, like cat scratches, remained on my skin; things filled with pain were flying about. Something unseen hurts people. It was a little like words.

"So, about this date... I don't really have any topics to liven things up."
Gulping down the Pocari he bought at the convenience store, the young man bluntly stated. From the flow of conversation, I could tell he didn't have much business with *me* specifically. Considering what the detective said during the day...
"Is it about my neighbors?"
"Yes. You live next door to those kids, right?"
The young man nodded, as if to say, "Your quick understanding is a help." I wondered what kind of acquaintance he was to those kids. In the first place, to be acquainted with that detective too, he must be a well-connected man. Despite his gloomy aura.
"Those kids ran away from their parents and came here."
"Oh? Lovers eloping?"
"No, no, they're siblings."
The young man denied it, waving his left hand side to side, "Nope, nope." Oh, they were siblings. I see. I tried to compare them, wondering if they looked that much alike, but I didn't remember the girl's face very well.
And it felt like some serious topic was about to begin, and I wanted to ask what he was thinking, burdening *me* with such a heavy subject. Without someone to support me, I can't carry anything heavy.

"They probably just started living in that apartment without permission. A high schooler and a middle schooler wouldn't be able to sign a rental contract without a guardian, right? ...But still, that apartment building really has some kind of fate connected to it."
The young man got a distant look in his eyes. In front of us, a tall fence loomed, almost like a suicide deterrent. I vaguely stared at the lights of the building on the other side. A large advertisement for mobile phones was plastered there.
"So, you mean, don't tell other people about this?"
*Does the detective know? She must know, right? But she's not warning them? What a pain. Maybe because the police are like that, all those murders started happening in town... Or maybe not.*
"That's part of it, yes."
"Part of it means there's something else?"
"No, I just said that, but there's nothing particular."
His nonchalant replies, in contrast to the winter wind, felt weightless. What a man of light words.
It was as if every voice he uttered was fake.

"What are those kids to you and the detective? Relatives or something?"
"Well... there was a time we lived together. Ever since then, we've sort of kept in touch, or rather... shallowly and broadly? And, continued? Something like that."
He rattled off words quickly and vaguely. It sounded as if he was embarrassed to express that they were close, trying to obscure it. That was a little funny, and I laughed just a tiny bit.
However, my smile was hidden by the darkness and the hair falling over my face, so no one saw it.

"Well, if they ran away to find happiness, then it's not so bad to support them, I guess."
The young man said. The fact that he immediately started drinking his Pocari after that showed he was embarrassed. His words were light, yet his attitude was exceedingly easy to read. That imbalance gave the disjointed impression of a beautiful doll performing a strange dance. And since the strange dance part felt like an afterthought, it was all the more tragic.
"But they can't live there forever. They'll be found out if a prospective tenant comes for a viewing, and people in other rooms might gossip and tell the landlord. Ah, even if *I* don't say anything, that is."
"That can't be helped then, they'll just have to give up."
The young man shrugged his shoulders. As if to insist, *It's not like I'm serious about those kids, you know.*
It was like watching a child stubbornly telling a lie; I felt like I was looking at a younger brother.
No, I actually do have a younger brother.
Putting that aside, this young man was surely popular with older women.

"Have you talked to the neighbor on the other side?"
"Pardon?"
"Because, there's another neighbor, isn't there?"
Those high school kids weren't in a corner room. If anything, *I* was. The young man widened his eyes, as if he hadn't imagined such a question. "Ah—" he said, pressing the Pocari cap against his temple, seemingly thinking about it just now. What, was he planning to only tell me?
"Hmm... Well now. About that, I don't really know myself."
He evaded the question with a tone that seemed to imitate someone. It was a pain, so I didn't press further and let it slide.
"I understand about those kids. I won't say anything in particular and just act normal."
"Thanks, I'm glad you're so understanding."
"So, is your business with me over?"
If it was over, I wanted to leave the rooftop. Sniffling loudly in front of someone—even I felt a bit hesitant about that. If he teased me like, "Are you a kid?" or something my parents would say, I'd shrink.

"What are you saying? This is a date, you know. How about we grab a meal together after this?"
It was an exchange of lines that seemed to lack any real feeling. When I replied with just a look, the young man showed open bewilderment, as if lost for words. It was an air of, "I'm more perplexed by your face than your attitude." What was that about?
"...Ah, well then, how have you been lately? Doing well?"
"What's the point of small talk? ...Hmm, well, I'm fine. Healthy, same as ever."
Figuring it would be odd not to answer when asked, I ended up replying. This part wasn't much different from the automatic tasks of a convenience store clerk. Interacting with people had become that sort of thing for me.

"That's wonderful. I, on the other hand, might be a bit under the weather; my right arm has been aching unbearably lately."
"Hmm, is that so?"
"It strangely aches around this time of year, I wonder why."
With the Pocari in his left hand, he wiped the back of his right hand. The fact that he hadn't used his right arm at all since a while ago might be because it was hurting. He even held the Pocari bottle between his feet to open the cap, like it was a two-step process. He could have just asked me, standing right beside him, to open it. But I understood the feeling. I could comprehend the sentiment that made him unable to say it.
"You know, your face looks more mature than when I last saw you."
"You think so? Well, even so, I do have five or six wives. Of course I'd mature," he said, his mouth moving in a "ha ha ha" without any expression. He seemed to be joking, yet an undeniable fatigue oozed from his face. I could somehow sense from his profile that he was having a hard time with women.

"Damn it, I never thought my future self would actually end up suffering. It's belated, but I'm pissed off at my past self's irresponsibility."
He started blaming himself for some reason. Criticizing his past self as if it were someone else. He was a strange guy.
"Still, it's cold."
The young man muttered, cradling his right arm. I completely agreed, which made it hard to understand why he'd chosen the rooftop as our destination. As if sensing my question, the young man laughed dryly, "Well, ha ha ha."
"I love high places, because I'm an idiot."
"You're full of lies."
"Yes."
"It's true, you know. I've always been in high places, since way back."
Saying that, the young man pressed his forehead against the fence. He peered straight down, as if surveying it. Surveying for what, you ask? That would be, of course, to climb over this tall fence, and then...
I felt dizzy and stumbled backward. I don't know what he thought of that gesture, but the young man tilted his head.

"Shall we head back now?"
"...Yeah, I guess. My nose is running like crazy."
Unable to hold it in any longer, I sniffled loudly. The young man glanced at me with dark eyes.
They held no light, yet there was nothing murky about them. They were like polished night.
With that same gaze, the young man opened his lips magnanimously, as if filled with deep emotion.
"But, for both of us, how should I put it..."
*It's amazing we've managed to stay alive this long, isn't it?* He praised, unsaid.
The young man and I were alike, somewhere. Especially in how, upon hearing "rooftop," we seemed to associate it with jumping off.

My life ended five or six years ago. Even though it ended, it continues.
Surely, only such people...
...cling to a happiness that can only be born from within "unhappiness."
...become happy in a "backward-looking" way.
Was it because such thoughts overflowed within me?
I found myself asking the young man before me.
"Have you been happy lately?"

The young man stopped moving for a moment, as if slightly taken aback. As if his heart had been tapped, *thump, thump.*
But then he immediately smiled and affirmed vehemently, as if convincing even himself. "Isn't it obvious? I have the world's best wife at home. Is there any greater happiness than that?"
"Whoa, he's bragging about his wife~"
It was so exaggerated, it sounded somewhat like a lie. But I didn't question its truth or falsehood; I just vaguely thought.
About the first time I met this young man.
Yes, that was, if I recall correctly, when he was peeking into the women's restroom at a hotel from the entrance. ...Hmm, was that somehow different?
"...Well then, stay well from now on."
"You too. Don't go killing yourself."
When I warned him, just like that time, the young man showed the same teary-smile-like expression he had back then.
"Goodbye, Yamana-san."
[.......]

The young man gave a short wave and walked away from me.
It was like a foreign object other than the wind had gently tapped my forehead. Such was his parting greeting.
"This is the first time I'm going down from here without jumping, ahh, so comfortable..."
As I watched the young man's straight, outstretched back and his retreating figure, muttering something or other to himself, I replayed his last words in my mind. The harsh wind entered my mouth, and my voice was lost; only the words floated unreliably in the air, like scraps of paper.
*"Yamana-san," he'd said.*
"...I guess he really was an acquaintance of my sister's, huh."
I had no memory of telling him my surname, so that was the only thing I could think of. My sister, who was treated like a madwoman by our family, thrown into a hospital, and finally committed suicide. And I, whose boyfriend was murdered, had resolved to commit suicide, but then an old guy came in through the hotel window, and various other twists and turns happened, and I gave up on it—that woman.

"My sister jumped from a place like this, didn't she."
Through the fence, I looked down at the cityscape spreading below my feet. Car headlights raced along the roads like living creatures, and people, everything, were much smaller than what I usually see. My sister, too, surely.
"It's just... too much."
My sister, whom I had always looked up to; how small she must have become when she fell.
No matter how I look at it, it can never be "considerably" okay.
The young man said he was happy. Who did he make unhappy? In contrast, I am unhappy. Who became happy? Now that the "everyone" in "everyone is happy" is gone, we can't just surround ourselves with happiness and pretend not to see the unhappiness we've driven to the outside. We're forced to look at it, whether we like it or not.
The moment we become happy, we see with our own eyes the unhappiness we've sown.
Even in a town with a murderer.
Even in a town where people are no longer killed.

I, whose boyfriend was murdered, am already over.
I'm over, but there is today, and there is tomorrow.
The happiness of the past forces the future to continue.
The town is the same; no matter how much unhappiness there was in the past.
Even if there was a gruesome kidnapping incident, even if there was a horrific murder case.
There has been a "before," and there will be an "after."
I watched this scene from the rooftop, seriously considered jumping from here, but ultimately had to give up, thinking I could never climb such a high fence. So now, like the young man who just left, I have no choice but to walk on my own two feet, without flying through the sky, and go down.
However.
In the everyday life that is a prolonged ending, there is never any light.
And yet, mornings when I feel the sunlight is dazzling still come.
Perhaps the town won't change tomorrow either.
Just as the me of "before" will continue to be the me of "after."

The next day, when I went to my part-time job, the manager uncharacteristically said to me, "Thanks for your hard work today, too."
I also indirectly heard that the older female clerk had quit yesterday, and the store's management was finally in real trouble. In other words, these were words of misfortune, born from the circumstance of having to let employees go.
I, who absorb the unhappiness of others that I had long forgotten, and exhale happiness.
Uncharacteristically, I replied crisply, "Yes."
Tomorrow surely won't be a good day either.
But, I can get through even days like that.

Afterword
Even after fifteen years, Lord Oz was an understanding person.
No, I'm talking about the remake of that.
When I'm writing, I feel a texture. An image of a sheer cliff face or the surface of an iron plate comes to mind, and the sensation of touching it arises. When I think I'm writing good sentences, an image of touching something like a blue cloth with white, streak-like lines comes up. Conversely, when I feel I'm writing choppy, disjointed sentences, I get a texture like touching a hangnail on my finger. This texture isn't felt with my fingertips, but in the back of my eyes, so it's surely an illusion born somewhere in the brain, but it can also serve as a reference when writing novels. However, if it's all just the image of blue cloth, I worry that the writing might lack a hook.
It ends up feeling too fluffy.
The overall images I felt while writing were like this:
* Mii-Maa (Lying Mii-kun and Broken Maa-chan) -> The image of gripping something like a brown wooden stick in my palm.
* Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko -> The image of stroking the armrest of a sofa I'm sitting on. Also, the image of stepping on a carpet that feels a little prickly underfoot.
* Tamako-san to Kashiwa-kun -> The image of touching an assembly of small, black, somewhat incomprehensible squares with my fingertips. The color of burnt grilled fish.
* Hanasaku Taro -> The image of touching the side of a dress shirt. Smooth.
* Boku no Shou규모 na Kiseki (My Small Miracle) -> The image of stroking the surface of a plastic umbrella.
* Roppyaku Rokujuu Yen no Jijou (The 660 Yen Affair) -> The image of strongly gripping something like bicycle handlebars.
* Baka ga Zenra de Yattekuru (An Idiot Comes Stark Naked) -> The image of stroking something like the green stone statue that was on the cover.
* Bocchies -> Secret. Only for this one did something completely different come to mind.

I think everyone experiences this sort of thing... but what do you reckon? In any case, with this, it's complete. Thank you for sticking with me this far.
This year, one thing ended right at the start of the New Year, but I'll keep doing my best from now on.
To the readers who have been with me for over three years since my debut work, and to the editors and Hidari-san, I offer my thanks. Also, thanks to my father, who gets indignant saying, "There's a cast member's name missing from the live-action movie's end credits," and to my mother, who looked at a picture of my back and said, "I think this person's a man." Yep, thanks.
Iruma Hitoma
(Illustrator) Hidari

It's Iru*ku*ma Hitoma. Who, you ask? You can tell by looking, it's still "*Ku*ma." Why are you dressed like that? There's no meaning to it. Shaaa!!!!
(Both the illustration and text were made by my father.)

(Illustrator: Hidari)
A Gemini living in Yokohama City. A freelance illustrator mainly working on card games, magazine pinups, etc. I live like a hermit, out of touch with trends.

Lying Mii-kun and Broken Maa-chan 10
The End of the End is the Beginning
Iruma Hitoma
Dengeki Bunko
Published March 28, 2013
© 2011 HITOMA IRUMA / ASCII MEDIA WORKS
This e-book was produced based on the following:
Dengeki Bunko "Lying Mii-kun and Broken Maa-chan 10: The End of the End is the Beginning"
First Edition Published January 5, 2011
Publisher: Satoshi Gunji
Publishing: KADOKAWA Corporation
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