I watched someone getmurdered once.

It was back when I was still in kindergarten. Both myparents worked and were away from home a lot, so my grandma usually ended uptaking care of me. My parents married late, which meant that my maternalgrandma, who was a widower in her seventies, was firmly in the "geezer" camp.Having to take care of me probably put a toll on her.

Despite my parents" neglect, though, I was a prettysatisfied kid. In retrospect, that was probably thinks to my grandma workingher a.s.s off. The two of us were as thick as thieves.

On that day, the two of us were looking after the house asalways. I had roped grandma into playing hide-and-seek, forcing her intothe role of seeker. Opening a closet"s aged, poorly-fitted door, I foundand wedged my five-year-old body into a pile of densely packed futons and mutedmyself.

Grandma was having a difficult time finding me and wasnoticeably fl.u.s.tered. Watching her from a crack in the door, I laughedsilently to myself.

Suddenly, the front door could be heard opening.

Thinking that perhaps I had run outside, Grandmahurried to the entrance.

Immediately, I heard a scream. And at the same time,an unfamiliar, threatening voice.

At my young age, all I could do at the unsettlingatmosphere was tremble anxiously.

I could hear two sets of footsteps drawing near, onebelonging to my grandma. Instinctively, I balled myself up among thefutons and held my breath. But at the same time I was a.s.sailed by astrange sense of duty, as if it were my responsibility to observe what wasabout to happen.

I could just barely make out my grandma and the manfrom the cracked door.

"Dammit, the place was s"posed to be empty...! Oy, hurry itup!"

Driven by the man"s angry voice, Grandma opened the chest ofdrawers. She was likely looking for cash or the bankbook, but as she didn"tknow where it was and was panicking, she just opened and closed drawer afterdrawer. All the while, the man was growing gradually more irritated.

After a little longer of this, Grandma handed the man astuffed envelope. It was likely filled with cash.

"No hard feels, grams. Just can"t be lettin" myself getcaught. Blame yourself for being home on the wrong day."

The man took out a sharp object (I think it was apocketknife or a kitchen knife, but in my panic I didn"t pay muchattention to the particulars). In alarm, Grandma screamed somethingincomprehensible. This earned her even more ire from the man, who pinned herarms behind her back.

Grandma screamed.

"Help me... Maa, help me!"

Although a kindergartener like myself would hardly be ableto accomplish anything here, she screamed frantically nonetheless.

But even in the face of my beloved grandma"s bawling, I didn"tleave the closet.

"Maa! Help me! Help me!"

Watching my grandma scream my name over and over, I wantedto remind her, "we"re playing hide-and-seek, so I can"t come out untilyou find me."

The blade swung.

A death wail.

A moan.

A weak, self-derisivelaugh.

Tears.

A pool of blood.

Until it was allover, I kept perfectly still. I was still playing hide-and seek.

I was playing hide-and-seek to this day, unableto return to the real world.

"You"re MasatoYahara, right?"

As I wasputting my indoor shoes in the worn-out shoe rack, a girl called my name. I recognizedthat voice. Having a bad feeling about this, I heaved a sigh.

"...You sure you"vegot the right guy? Kou"s still back in the cla.s.sroom, right?"

"Please don"t try toblow me off."
Miki Kouzuki glared at me with trembling fists.

I"d suspected that she had something she wantedto say to me. Without meeting her eyes, I spoke.

"Is this about tryin"to get me to away from Kou?"

Having the wordsstolen out of her mouth, Kouzuki knit her eyebrows.

"He doesn"t have s.h.i.tfor magic resistance. If I, a magus unaware of my own powers, am aroundhim I"ll be a bad influence and stain him in my attribute. And thatwouldn"t do anyone a lick of good. Something along those lines?"

Kouzuki"s eyeswidened in surprise.

What the h.e.l.l? I thoughther value system was gonna be something more interesting, but it ended up beingsomething even I could come up with.

Rapidly losinginterest, I set my loafers on the floor.

"So I"m amagus, huh. You"re givin" me too much credit. Anyways, everyone would just runaway from me before I could cast a spell on "em anyways."

"Y...you understandmagic?"

"Who knows. I justtranslated what I was sayin" into your gibberish."

"I...if youunderstand that much, please just stay away from Kouta. You said that everyonejust runs away from you, but there"s one exception."

There was no need toclarify who she was talking about.

"Staying away fromhim would be for Kouta"s sake. If he keeps being surrounded by my magic, he"lltake on my attribute. He"ll be able to avoid getting stained in a poorattribute like yours or Matsumi-senpai"s."

"Go f.u.c.k yourself."

I glared at Kouzuki unconsciously. Knowing whatkind of person she was only amplified my rage.

"You"re full ofyourself. Who the f.u.c.k do you think you are, going around babbling about howyou"re going to protect Kou or some s.h.i.t. Did Kou ask for that? He didn"t, didhe."

"...I thought thatwould be for the best-"

"For the best? Prettywords from everyone"s favorite freakshow. Keep your f.u.c.king self-satisfactorybulls.h.i.t in check, wouldja? Is Kou even the one you"re really tryin" toprotect? ...Heh, you can"t even refute it. What you"re tryin" to protect byforce-staining Kou"s a.s.s..."

I spit it out.

"Is your flimsy-a.s.s,brittle little closed world."

It seemed that herself awareness didn"t extend that far. Her face went white at my words.

I drew close to Kouzuki, who was slowlyshrinking away from me, and lifted her up by the collar of her uniform.

"But by talkin" toyou like this, I realized that something I don"t need to worryabout. You just aren"t worth my time."

Fear appeared for thefirst time on Kouzuki"s face. ...Nah, that ain"t it. Since the moment shecalled out to me, her fists had been trembling from how hard she had tried tohide her fear. That"s how powerless a person she was.

"He"ll just come tohold you in contempt, and that"ll be that. Later."

I didn"t want to so much as look at her anymore. Releasing her collar, I walked away from the shoe rack withoutsparing her a second glance.

With all the rumorsswirling around her, I figured she"d have a little more of a backbone inher. But she was just another person with no faith in their own d.a.m.n world. Shejust wanted Kou in order to reinforce her world.

She was just like allthe others. She gave off the sound of chains.

Her chains werequieter than others, maybe, but that was all there was to it. She was justanother n.o.body, far removed from the ideal I strived for.

She was just as mucha n.o.body as I was.

Chains.

I started seeing the chains when I was in ninthgrade.

In contrast to mypeers, who were grappling with entrance exams and relationship woes, I couldfeel myself growing distant.

The contents of theirworries even drove some of them to cut their own wrists, but I couldn"tsee at as any more serious than whether a sand castle was knocked over or not.After all, even if they wounded themselves they didn"t plan on dying. I— I, who truly knew death — could tell that those wounds were nothingmore than a tool to highlight the extent of their woes.

Once I becamea complete bystander, simply gazing on them in observation, I noticedsomething.

Everything they helddear was created.

With so muchinformation flowing down the muddy stream of our world, a simple papier-mâché construction is enough for them all toimplicitly believe it.

Theywere being controlled.

Made todance in perfect harmony, they were being controlled by fiendish, brutalchains.

Then, Ibecame able to see those chains. And from the materialized chains, Icould even hear noise. The rattling noise they made was raucous. The noise wasso raucous it sapped all vitality from me. Once that was finished, Ibegan losing my ideals as well. Lost in the pursuit of cheap pleasure, Ino longer cared if the world was in color or monochrome, or if it was real orsimply the inside of an image. To that end, I engaged in a series ofunethical activities. Pleasure was all that was real to me, but was merelyephemeral, and in the end time simply pa.s.sed while nothing else changed. Myworld was peeled apart by the chains. It was a simple, complete excoriation.

WhenI finally managed to regain a grip on my peeled-up world, a thoughtsuddenly floated to my mind, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I wanna kill someone.

Murderhad taken the color from my world and reduced my reality to the state it was intoday. Ironically, as a consequence of its gravity, it was also what lay justbeyond my outstretched hand. No matter where I reached out towards, Iwould run into those homicidal urges. Like a b.u.t.terfly trapped in a spiderweb, nomatter how much I struggled I couldn"t move. From where I was,I couldn"t see anything else.

Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Wantingto flee from the chains and the noise, I reached out my hand. This time,my hand got caught on those homicidal urges. They began controlling me.

Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Buteven then, I would never have believed it.

Thatthere could be a person unfettered by those chains.

"Kusukusu...you two really are interesting, aren"t you?"

I could tell that the girl, whohad a childish face and and looked somewhat off-balance, was different from themoment she started speaking to us.

Hersmile seemed like it was free of any influence from the events of the outsideworld.

"Whaddyawant?"

Who wasshe? Like Kouzuki, was she trying to take advantage of how fragile Kou"s chainswere?

"Oh,Ririko was just thinking how she wanted to become good friends with Hiiragi!"

Shedidn"t react even a little to my display of animosity. And she didn"t give thesense that she was playing dumb. Humans are creatures bound by fear. Anyonewould react to the presence of violence.

Thenwhat was wrong with her?

Itseemed that "different" didn"t cut it. She was clearly lacking somethingfundamental.

"What"s so interesting about you two are thecall signs you"re giving off."

Shespoke as if her peculiar words were commonplace. That was something neither Inor Kouzuki was capable of. This girl didn"t desire salvation, and she had nodoubts in her own world. In actuality, she was basically rejecting interactionwith the rest of mankind.

Insidea closed world that was like a perfectly sealed-off room, she had no need togrow.

I"d heard rumors about this.Rumors about an uppercla.s.sman who had been coming and going from a psychiatrichospital since she enrolled.

"Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?"

"Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course."

According to the rumors, she lackedboundaries. Unable to tell where her "self" began and ended, she supposedly saweverything outside her body as simply parts of herself. She was under themisapprehension that not just her body but everything she could more or lessfreely manipulate was part of her. Although it was a bit more allegorical in mycase, I"d certainly had times where I felt unable to put down my phone,as if it were a part of my body. But as far as she was concerned, herunification with her electrical devices was no allegory. To her, usingelectrical signals from her brain to move her limbs wasn"t just the same asusing a remote to change the channel on TV, the remote and the televisionthemselves were just parts of her body.

It was a world beyond comprehension. Butregardless, it was the world she lived in.

A different world from the rest of us.

"Interesting, aren"t they? White andultramarine, huh. Aren"t most people orange? But you two are different. Ririkolikes white, you know. Makes me want to do something."

I had no idea whatthose colors meant in her code. All I could tell was that they were codefor something else.

I glanced at Kou. Even though he"sconfused, he wouldn"t reject another, even if that person is Matsumi. But evenKou likely won"t be able to grasp her world.

...Actually, is that really true? This is thesame Kou who"s spent a whole month getting to know me, after all.

"Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?"

"Read me?"

"Oh, that"s right. Most people can"t doscanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!"

Maybe Matsumi, who blurs the boundariesbetween electrical devices and her own body, is deluded into thinking she canfulfil the role of an electrical device herself?

But something quickly makes me realize thatthat perception was halfhearted.

"Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep."

It"snot a delusion. It"s something far worse. In that instant, Matsumi became anelectrical device.

That"s right. Why didn"t I notice itsooner?

This chick doesn"t have any chains at all.

The moment I realized that, it felt asif the false machine noise was causing the world to violently lurch. Icouldn"t keep my footing. The world was slanting simply because I hadbecome aware of my own change. Unable to remain in place, I begantumbling. I was rolling. Rolling and rolling. Rolling and rolling androlling and rolling.

How did this happen?

...Ah, because I didn"t believe. I didn"tbelieve that a person without chains could even exist. That"s why my world wasdoing an about-face.

"Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep."

The sun went out. What illuminated my world inits place was Matsumi"s eyeball. Within those dead-fish eyes, her pupil wasfocusing like the lens of a single-lens reflex camera. Taking on heat, her eyesbegan to sear me. It burns! It burns! It burns!

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise pursued me and, as I spunthrough s.p.a.ce, bored its way into my body. From near and from far, the noisecontinued to ring. I had long since lost track of where it was ringingfrom. I was becoming to create the noise as well.

The lens was simply floating in s.p.a.ce.

Those eyes turned towards me.

"Ah-"

What part of me were they looking at?

They were looking at me burning and tumblingthrough s.p.a.ce. I"m begging you, don"t expose this hackneyed end of mine.Those pitiful limitations of mine. Those ba.n.a.l thoughts of mine.

"...don"t."

I didn"t want toknow.

"Beep bi—"

I didn"t want toknow. I didn"t want to know. I didn"t want to know.

"DON"T!"

As I scream, the floating eyeball lensvanishes. In that moment, I"m a.s.sailed with vertigo and the world goesblack. Once the light returned, I could see Kou looking concerned andMatsumi pouting.

"You don"t have to shout like that, youknow..."

"Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that justnow...?"

"Hold on, hold on. Ririko"s going to put itinto words now."

Matsumi stopped being human again.

She somehow got information about Kou, andshe"s translating it such that we can understand it as well. A computer turningbinary into letters and images.

"Unconsciously rejects his mother due to herhysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parentapproaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killingcats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listento anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwashing. Versatile. Abnormally goodat understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards otherswith-"

"Th... that"s enough! Matsumi-senpai, pleasecut it out!"

She returns to being human.

"So? So? How was that? How"d you like myscanning? Did Ririko get that all right?"

"Senpai, can we go now?"

"Whaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He"swhite, after all! He"s the only one!"

"Sorry, but we got places to be."

"Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses itcan"t be helped then. Ririko guesses she"ll see you later then, Tanihara."

Not thinking, I stopped in my tracks.

Peopleread my last name, "谷原," incorrectly all the time. Sothe mistake itself wasn"t particularly notable.

"Huh? Aren"t you Tanihara?"

"It"s read "Yahara", Senpai."

So in other words, that"s what that meant.

Matsumi"s "scanning" gathers informationvisually.

We strolled through an abandoned shoppingdistrict, shuttered up as a result of its inability to compete with a largenearby shopping mall.

I gazed at Kou insilent shock.

Even when faced with Ririko Matsumi, he didn"tgive up on trying to comprehend her. If we hadn"t gotten lucky, he would havecompletely taken her in.

It would be fine if he got invaded by Kouzuki.He"d be treated as a freak, sure, but at least he"d be able to keep on living.But Matsumi was no good. If he took in something broken, he"d become broken aswell. It would be like downloading a malicious app.

"Get this through your head. Don"t talk tothat birdbrain again. She"ll be a bad influence on you. Got it?"

Kou nodded. But it wasn"t because he wasconvinced, it was because he felt the situation called for it.

I didn"t what histrue intentions were. ...h.e.l.l, I didn"t know if he had any intentions inthe first place.

"Masato, did you understand what was going onwith that scanning thing?"

Scanning.

Based on the fact that she got the informationvisually, I had a hunch as to what the trick was. But it was tough toput into words.

I suspected thereason she was able to guess my name was because she subconsciously knew italready. Even though the time she spent in the hospital kept her from showingup at school much, she was still a fellow student of ours. There was plenty oftimes she could have run across our names.

The only abnormal part was how she went aboutrecalling that information.

Normal people quickly forget information theydon"t need. For example, we don"t remember the faces of every person we pa.s.s onthe street.

But what if this "scanning" let her pull outmemories from deep in her brain, memories that anyone else would have lost? Ifthat were the case, then simply having pa.s.sed us in a hallway would be plentyfor her to know our names.

It then followed that her being able to putnames to faces, as well as dredge up all that information about Kou, was simplythe result of outstanding insight born from her recollection, observational,and a.n.a.lytic prowess. Of course, she couldn"t do that all the time, but onlywhen she was in a trance state from putting herself under the self-hypnosiscalled "scanning."

Seen from the outside, a skilledfortune-teller would appear to be able to trace the steps of another"s life.h.e.l.l, even I"d be able to guess whether someone"s a virgin or not a goodchunk of the time. But Matsumi was on another level. She was able to come upwith his personality, his familial structure, and even where he lived. It waspractically a superpower.

It was abnormal.

If I told told Kou all this, nothinggood would come of it. It would just end up driving him towards taking her in.

"... not even a little."

So I dodged the question.

Even if Kou didn"t believe me, he neitherpressed me nor showed signs of dissatisfaction. Ahh, now that I thinkabout it, there"s something wrong with this guy too.

The light in front of us turned red and wereflexively stopped.

"Why the h.e.l.l"d we stop?"

"The light was red, wasn"t it?"

"There ain"t any cars here."

Ahh, I can hear it. I can hearthat noise again.

Just beyond my field of view lay those chains.Beautiful chains that acted as if they owned us, designed to stop us frommoving.

I couldn"t helpbut despise the chains. They bound me and were the cause of everything thatdrained color from my world.

...or so I thought.

And because that"s what I thought, Iyearned to be a person without chains. I truly thought I desiredrelease from those chains.

But then I met such an unfetteredperson.

And what did I feel, upon gazing atthat person?

Fear.

I was scared ofthat person without chains. I felt fright. A feeling that impliedunimaginable distance.

There was no chance I could become aperson without chains.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains" noiseechoed.

You will never be released.

Shut up.

You will be bound until the day you die.

Shut up!

But you already knew that, right? Thereason these chains will never be torn off is because you yourself have nodesire to tear them off.

I SAID SHUT UP!

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The noise keeps resounding.

The sound of chains. The sound of commonsense. The sound of morals.

And the sound of my desire to kill.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

"Ahh... I wanna kill someone."

After parting ways with Kou, I wasunable to muster the urge to return home and inside took the train into thesuburbs. While the area around the station was prosperous in comparison to theshutter town I had just left, the dust and general atmosphere made itclear that it was past its prime.

I wandered aboutaimlessly. A department store that would likely be demolished in a few years. Aold-fashioned movie theater that looked wholly unfit to bring a date to. Abookstore that had been repurposed into a shop for otaku goods. The town, whichwas connected, bound, and encircled by power lines, stunk of sewage. If youboiled down all the mud, the sludge, and the coal tar, it seemed like it likeit would make for delicious, piping hot ramen broth.

I sat on a benchin front of the station and observed the pa.s.sersby. The people waiting by thestation were like marionettes, each and every one of them glued to theirsmartphones. Social networks, forcing them into round-the-clock surface-levelpleasantries. Aggregation sites pushing morals upon them that are neither rightnor wrong. Blogs flooding with comments, not from individuals but from theirvery souls. All an horrifying gambit to strengthen the chains. A colossal trap.

The definition of people who would be betteroff dead.

Let"s suppose that that definition was "peoplewho are detrimental to society." If that"s the case, people who killedinnocents would be better off dead. People whose contributions to society wereoutweighed by the harm they cause to others would be better off dead too.People whose deaths would be rejoiced at rather than wept at and people whoinspire anarchic thoughts, those people would obviously be better off dead.Wouldn"t the world be a better place if we just rounded up all those brutes andleft only the good people?

...It probably would. With fewer recessivegenes around, of course humanity"s going to be wiser. If, hypothetically, theworld was in peril and we had to trim the population, you can bet your a.s.s thatthe morals around protecting the weak and disadvantaged are going to be thefirst to go and there"d be large-scale ma.s.sacres. ...Well, it doesn"t have tobe something as over-the-top as that. All I"m trying to get at is thatthere"s plenty of people who could die and no one would mind.

"Yo."

I call out to apa.s.sing woman in an immaculately-pressed suit, likely on her way home from theoffice.

In that instant, I got the impressionthat although she works hard and contributes to society, she frequentlytramples on the feelings of others. Huh, maybe I"m awakening intuitivepowers like Matsumi"s? Or maybe it was just a delusion of mine? I don"tmuch care either way. As far as I cared, she was a detriment to society- someone who was better off dead.

"Are you speaking to me?"

"Yeah, anyone"s fine. There"s plenty of yaaround. Now, a riddle. When"s a door not a door?"

"When it"s ajar... Excuse me, what did youwant?"

"Who ordered you?"

"Huh?"

"Who ordered you to say "when it"s ajar"?"

The woman stopped in her tracks, fearspreading across her face.

"n.o.body ordered me to do anything... what"sgoing on..."

"That"s right! No one ordered you to do s.h.i.t,right? Then why does everyone answer the same f.u.c.king way? There"s gotta beplenty of other reasons why a door wouldn"t a door, right? Then why"s it gottabe ajar and not a dormant volcano or somethin"?[1]"

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ah, shut up. This chick"s chains wereparticularly noisy. Women tended to have grimmer, st.u.r.dier chains than men.

"You"re p.i.s.sing me off. You want me to f.u.c.kingkill you?"

"Wh...what are you talking about? Is theresomething wrong with you?"

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

"Get outta my sight. If you don"t, I"mgonna f.u.c.king kill you."

Not bothering to hide her repugnance, shequickly ran off.

Heh. Once I considered what I justdid objectively, I give a strained laugh.

It would seem I"d developed a bug.

Walking around is too much of a pain. Afterclenching my teeth and somehow dragging myself to a nearby park, I layeddown on a bench. Overheating to an unbearable degree, my brain forcibly entereda shutdown state. My consciousness faded away dreamlessly.

I opened my eyes.

The blue sky flooded into them.

I couldn"t formthoughts. The sun"s blinding light a.s.saulted my eyes, and the painful stimulusgradually restored my consciousness.

My back flared up in pain, and I rememberedthat I had been sleeping in a park. I reached for a cigarette,but found to my dismay that my pack was empty. What a f.u.c.king joke.

I clutched myhead, slowly recalling the events of yesterday.

There"s something wrong with me.

I was aware of howdesperate I was getting, but I was able to keep a cool head fornow.

But it seemed unlikely that I would beable to fully get back to normal. Upon learning of the existence of a humanwithout chains, I stopped be able to brush away my homicidal urges,which were now simmering to the point of boiling over. I could go mad atany moment. There was even a part of me that wanted to go mad, knowing thatthere was a chance that doing so might grant me the impetus to commit murder.From that small reason alone, I knew I was past the point ofbeing able to contain these urges. It was past the level of s.e.xual desire, andwas more akin to a hunger that scalded my throat. There was no chance the urgeswould subside.

I would eitherkill or go mad.

It could only be one or the other.

I decided toreturn home briefly. I had no idea what my parents would say at thispoint, but if I didn"t they were liable to file a missing person reportout of obligation and a desire to leave a paper trail. And I was out ofmoney. I knew of a method to solve both those problems at once. A methodI had used often since middle school.

Kicking aside an empty can as I enteredthe house, I noted that my parents weren"t home. After fishing throughthe shelf where grandma pulled the envelope from before she died, I slippedtwo ten-thousand yen[2] bills into my wallet.

But where should I go? I had nodestination in mind. But in this state, I couldn"t stay at home, norcould I go to school.

For a moment, I briefly contemplatedgoing to school. Thanks to my reputation, at least all the jacka.s.ses I wantedto avoid would stay away from me.

And Kou was there.

Kouta Hiiragi. A man with no firm sense ofself. Generally, people a.n.a.lyze what kind of person they themselves are andform a sense of self around that. In a certain sense they label themselves.

But Kou doesn"t. As a result, his self doesn"tsettle into any one shape. I dunno what made him like that, but based onMatsumi"s scanning the cause probably lies with his family circ.u.mstances.

Because his self isn"t set, Kou tends to takeon whatever form his partner wants him to. Every time he interacts withsomeone, his personality changes little by little. As a result, he"s becomeable to truly understand others, and not just on a superficial level. He"llprobably grow accustomed to Kouzuki"s magic in no time, and he fullyunderstands my madness as well. He doesn"t resist it, either. That"s why ifhe"s careless, he"ll end up understanding Matsumi as well and taking her in.

That reminds me, Matsumi likened Kou"s colorto "white." I get it, that kinda makes sense. Kou can take on any othercolor. That in and of itself is dangerous. That"s why Kouzuki is being allmeddlesome and trying to stain Kou in her color; she"s trying to prevent himfrom getting stained in a malicious color like mine.

Being accepted by others feels good. Ilearned that for the first time when I met Kou.

Kouzuki"s probably the same. That"s why shetrying to keep him for herself.

I guess Ican"t go to school after all.

It"s dangerous for me because Kou is there.

Kou is the ultimate sympathizer. He would nodoubt accept even me, who"s enveloped in homicidal urges. Upon being acceptedby him, I would stop perceiving myself as abnormal, lose my last bits ofresistance, and eventually take action. I could picture it easily.

I grabbed a packof cigarettes from my room and lit one with a shaking hand. The nicotinesettled me down a bit, but the urges were unabated.

I slipped ab.u.t.terfly knife into my pocket as a de facto tranquilizer. I could killat any time. I could make that call whenever I wanted. Knowingthat somehow helped me preserve my sense of reason up until now. But that bitjust now was simply meaningless. It simply served to rile me up.

A paper-thin line was all that kept me fromusing this knife up till now. But that paper-thin line held within it a worldof difference.

But I knew.

As I was now, I was liable tocross that line.

When I came to my senses - when Itruly came to my senses - it was already night.

Once again I found myself wanderingthrough that deteriorating suburb.

While I knew little about killing time,I knew quite a bit about killing. All I had to do wasnoncommittally indulge myself. My mind simply sought pleasure without applyingany deeper meaning to anything. In other words, I was deteriorating as ahuman. I was an animal with intelligence but no use for it. There are asurprising number of humans who fit that description, so I didn"t lackfor companions. Hip! Hip! Hoorah! Other people were necessary for the pursuitof pleasure. Transient relationships were best. Human garbage was best. If theywere men, though, they"d sooner or later commit some kind of s.e.xual a.s.sault, soI tried to avoid that. I wasn"t into f.u.c.king chicks while theyscreamed, and taking risks for something I wasn"t into was right off thetable.

So I looked for women. Chicks who wereinto give-and-take relationships. Animals who sought only pleasure like Idid. Some of them got clingy, but their kind feared rejection, so once dealtwith none of them pressed the issue. Once they got hooked on drugs and drownedin pleasure, any chick would become almost disgustingly docile. Once Iwas done with with them, they would without fail use every word and action attheir disposal to wail about how lonely they were or some s.h.i.t, but Icouldn"t give less of a f.u.c.k about their pitiful emotions.

"You"re pretty good."

One of those women spoke up to me when Iwas playing darts at an amus.e.m.e.nt center. What was her name again? Ithink she told me, but I forgot.

"Do you play darts a lot?"

"Somethin" like that."

Through this meaningless conversation, Igot authorization to step into her territory. It was obnoxious, but a necessaryritual nonetheless.

The chick wasn"t a so-called "gyaru[3]". She wasno beauty, but her face was attractive enough to put her on the receiving endof gossip. She wore a cheap-looking black dress with hideous pink frills. Icould tell from experience that she was available.

The ritual had gone on plenty long enough tomove to the next step.

"Anywhere you wanna head after this?"

"Nah, not really, I guess."

"Follow me, then."

Although she no doubt knew what was to follow,she simply followed me without putting up any opposition.

Where should we do it? The park? Nah, my backhurts, so a cheap hotel would be better... Such thoughts filled my head as weboarded the elevator.

Leaving the building, we neared a tunnelrunning underneath the railway. Right as I put my hand on her back as alip service, I heard an unexpected voice.

"Is that you, Yahara?"

There stood the cla.s.s representative, carryinga plastic folder and clearly on his way home from cram school — ShuuichiAkiyama.

I was planning onfeigning not being able to hear him due to the train pa.s.sing, but when Ireflexively looked over my shoulder, our eyes met.

"What do you intend to accomplish by notcoming to school. Your friends are worried about you, you know."

His words were exemplary yet insincere. It wasalmost as if someone was making him say them. First of all, did this guy eventhink I even had friends?

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, shut up already.

For some reason or another, my earlierhedonism had been enough to temporarily silence the chains. But in the face ofthis man, that was impossible.

His chains were grotesque, grimmer andst.u.r.dier than any other"s.

Feeling an onset of vertigo, I plungedmy hand into my pocket and grasped my knife, my de facto tranquilizer.

"What will come of you continuing to neglectschool? You will simply idle away your days. If you fail to put in the effortnow, many paths will become closed to you, and you will regret it fiercely.Even you should realize such a simple thing."

"The f.u.c.k are you going on about? Don"t gojudging everything according your values."

"I believe my values are extremely commonplacevalues."

"Don"t I f.u.c.king know it."

And that"s the thing I hate more thananything else.

"You know it, yet you rebel against it. Don"tyou think you"re acting a little childish?"

Akiyama pushed up the bridge of his gla.s.ses.

Maybe what he"s correcting with his gla.s.sesisn"t his eyesight, but him himself? He was extreme enough to harbor suchdelusions. He could only see the corrected, beautiful world. Unimportant thingsdidn"t even enter his view. It"s like he"s forgotten that when he takes off hisgla.s.ses, the blurry, hard-to-grasp world in front of him is the real one.

Akiyama"s gaze shifted from me to the girl.Faced with the honor student Akiyama"s reproachful gaze, she uncomfortablylifted the corners of her mouth.

"Your girlfriend? Won"t you be imposing onher, dragging her around at this hour?"

He spoke unaffectedly. He likely doubted thatthere was any woman who would willingly spend time around me.

"She ain"t my girlfriend, though."

"She isn"t?"

"Just some chick I picked up off thestreet. We were thinking of going and f.u.c.king. Get it?"

"Excuse me?"

At his confusion, the girl gave an embarra.s.sedsmile. Of course he"s not going to be able simply nod and accept something likethat.

Glancing sidelong at Akiyama, I give asnicker.

Hey, look, he can"t even hide it. Inside thatdisgust-filled expression, he"s jealous that I"m getting laid. Thatf.u.c.ker"s so fastidious he probably wouldn"t admit he even had desires likethat.

"You... have quite some nerve, saying suchimmoral things so brazenly."

"Jealous?"

"I"m well aware of how proud of your faultsyou are. May I ask you a question, though? How often do you do things likethis?"

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, this isn"t good. Shut up. This guy"schains just won"t shut up.

"All the f.u.c.king time, man. What, you want toget in on this s.h.i.t? I can teach you how to. It"s easy, all you gotta dois lie about your age to register for dating sites. Studying ain"t good fors.h.i.t, you feel me? You know, if we all just gave in to our primal desire forpleasure, we could all just live as happy-a.s.s animals."

Akiyama just glared at me silently.

"...Um, I just remember something I have todo, so I"m going to head home, okay?"

"Yeah."

The girl had lost interest. I stillcouldn"t remember her name as I watched her run off.

Akiyama watched her recede far longer than Idid.

"Yahara."

Akiyama spoke, gazing off into the distance.

"What?"

"I believe it is unwise to indiscreetly givevoice to the thoughts of others. But I see you and I do not share thatopinion."

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle.

That noise was whispering to me.

Kill.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

It"s time for you to join the world ofkillers. That"s the only path left available to you.

Despite being more tightly bound by those unholychains than any other, Shuuichi Akiyama was enough of a freak to feel not agonybut comfort from their embrace. There was no human who symbolized the chains asmuch as he did. That would make him the ideal sacrifice, no?

"You wanna sermonize? Fine by me. In any case,let"s head somewhere less crowded."

"I see; very well. I would rather n.o.body elsecarelessly inserted their voice in our conversation, after all."

"Yeah, right. Wouldn"t want anyone getting inthe way."

I didn"t wantanyone to get in the way.

Not until it was all over.

Unlike a large city like Tokyo, all you had todo in the suburb was walk a little and the tall buildings would be replaced byrice paddies and vacant lots. Past a convenience store with a sprawling parkinglot belying its defunct state lay a similarly-defunct factory. I neitherknew nor cared what the factory had originally produced, but the sensation ofbeing underground brought about by its oily, metallic odors made it ideal. Ididn"t know what this iron press was designed for either, but when Ilaid my hand on it it was icy-cold to the touch.

"I"m surprised that you knew about a placelike this."

"I told you about all the chicks Iwas forcin" myself on, right? You gotta know about places like this to do s.h.i.tlike that."

Akiyama scowled in repugnance.

Honestly, I"m surprised he"d follow meto a sketchy-a.s.s place like this so easily. Could he not even begin to imaginehimself being in danger? ...Well, he probably couldn"t. That was the kind ofvictim I was dealing with here. The kind of guy who was filled withbaseless conviction that he couldn"t possibly get involved with the kind ofincident you see on the news.

He was one of them. h.e.l.l, he"d probably evenbe shocked at the sight of one of his cla.s.smates smoking.

"So? I"m ready to be preached at."

"Before we start, would you mind turning on alight? It"s too dark for me to even make out your face. I feel that that wouldsomewhat defeat the purpose of this conversation."

Did he really think that being able to see myface would make his s.h.i.tty-a.s.s sermon stick?

"I think someone left a lantern here..."

Squinting to look for the electric lantern, Ifound it beside a pile of cigarette b.u.t.ts. As I flicked the switch,Akiyama"s form came dimly into view.

"For you to have lead me this far, I cana.s.sume you have at least some intention of hearing me out?"

I choked back laughter. Akiyama didn"t seem toconsider for a moment the possibility that he might be a.s.saulted, let alonekilled.

I"m sure what"sfloating through his mind is something along the lines of a naive-a.s.s afterschool special. The pitiable delinquent, coming from a bad background, finallyfinds someone who understands him and, struck by his sincere actions, gets backon the straight and narrow.

What a nice story. Even I, without anounce of cynicism, think it would be nice if we had more of that kind of story.I"ve seen a lot of delinquents, and most of them are sc.u.m through andthrough. Defective from their very genes. Deficient in brains, empathy, fear,and imagination, the lot of them.

But in spite of all that, this guy has enoughfaith in his persuasive abilities to follow me all this way. I halfwanted to see what the it was about his speech he was so confident in. h.e.l.l,maybe they"d even be enough to convert me.

"Let me start by asking you something. Are youhappy with the way you"re living right now?"

"As if. I"m always wishing I couldchange, you know?"

Even right now.

In any case, I was about to be able tochange. Not that I had any idea what I was going to change into.

"Then why not simply be more diligent? Fromwhat I can see, you certainly aren"t stupid. I mean that, by the way. All ittakes for people to change is to find an objective and to put in the effortnecessary to achieve it. At the moment you"re lapsing into depravity, but ifyou take a slightly longer view I have no doubt you can overcome suchtemptations."

I laughinappropriately upon hearing that from the most nearsighted man imaginable.

"So you"re saying if I just become astraight-A student like you, my life"ll open up and become all peaches andf.u.c.kin" cream?"

"It doesn"t necessarily have to be studies.Anything you find that you can put your all into works. And that"s all it takesto open up your life. I"m sure there"s some activity you could find yourselfgetting engrossed in."

"There"s nothin" like that."

"Are you certain? What about sports, say,boxing or rugby?"

I wanted to throwup. Is this guy actually referencing old after school specials, then lumpingall delinquents together in one convenient little category? Faced with such ablad lack of imagination, I began to doubt if he was even truly astraight-A student.

"And if you do indeed find something you wantto do, the more paths you have available before you to choose from the better.As you are right now, paths are vanishing."

"Dumba.s.s. No one who was willing to work theira.s.s off just to keep future possibilities open would be in this situation inthe first d.a.m.n place."

"You mustn"t give up on yourself. Envision thefuture, and stride towards it!"

I hadn"t suspectedhis little sermon would fail to resonate with me to this extent. The things hewas saying were ostensibly correct. Perhaps they would have resonated more froma different mouth.

But the words felt like they had no weightbehind them. They held none of the speaker"s true feelings. It felt like he wassimply reading out of some manual on delinquent correction. The words werecompletely those of another.

And on top of that, the sound of chains.

His thoughts and mine were in parallel,destined to never intersect.

"Those chains of yours. I"ll pa.s.s onbeing bound by them, thank you very much!"

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ahh, I can"t hold it in any more.

I should just killhim. I can"t bear to listen to any more of this. I should justkill him. I should just kill him. When I open up his flesh, myfuture will open up as well. I should just kill him. I shouldjust kill him. I should just kill him. I don"t want to be hereany more. I"m never coming back here again. I should just killhim. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. Ishould just kill him. This place is empty; no one will hear him scream. Hisdeath wails will be a hymnal for me alone, a noise sufficient to drown outthose chains. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. Ishould just kill him. I should just kill him. His blood will go flying. Idon"t know how my world will change. But if nothing else, my monochrome worldwill be dyed red. I should just kill him. I should just kill him.I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I shouldjust kill him.

"Chains? I"m not sure I see any chainsto speak of... What are you talking about, Yahara?"

Looking around, he frowned.

"I"ll tell you, so you can die inpeace."

"...Yahara?"

"Chains. The preconceived notions that bindus. That"s a useless definition. They"re essentially rules without order.Morals, forced upon us. Their noise is annoying. I"ve always wanted toescape them. The only way I can escape them is by killing. In otherwords, that noise is basically the sound of my desire to kill."

I pulled the b.u.t.terflyknife out of my pocket. With a flick of my wrist, the blade flies out.

"Now I can get out of here!"

My reluctance to kill vanished.

Immediately, my hand was filled with thesensation of flesh. It was softer than I expected, barely giving me thesensation I had slashed at all. The experience was lacking.

"Now you can get out of here, hm..."

The red blood dripped loudly.

Now that I think about it, it"sstrange. Even though we constantly have blood flowing through our bodies, weonly ever think about it at times like this. It"s like not being able to seethe forest for the trees. It"s not that our awareness is limited, we"re simplyunder the impression that it is.

"—On that point alone, we are of the sameopinion."

What sentiment did that smile carry? It seemedsimilar to the sense of accomplishment a child would display upon digging up ananthill and earnestly squishing its inhabitants.

"Your life has no value... or rather, you"relike a vermin that deserves to die."

Akiyama spoke bluntly, his voice carrying noinflection.

He pulled out the knife.

As he pulled it out, blood — lifeblood —poured from my chest.

Releasing my wrist, Akiyama pulled the knifeout from my chest and tossed it aside. Fluids burst out like a stopped had beenuncorked. Red liquid spilled out from my mouth. No matter what it was I wasregurgitating, it wasn"t anything good.

"You thought too little of me. Did you reallybelieve that I had no idea why you brought me here?"

I knew it. Akiyamawas a deviant.

"You should have realized it as soon as I hadyou turn the lantern on. I had you light it so I could make out yourmovements."

Everyone likely, to varying extents, realizesthat they"re bound by something. Even if you couldn"t see the chains, you coulddefinitely feel them choking you.

But Akiyama was completely unlike that. He hadno doubts in his own world. He never doubted that what he saw as just was whatthe rest of the world also saw as just.

Akiyama was too much of an honors student forhis own good, and as a result had never been reproached or criticized by theadults in his life. So he was under the misapprehension that everything hedid was just.

That was his abnormality.

"I was well aware of your murderousaspirations. And from our discussion, I could tell that those aspirations werenot something you were capable of escaping from. That is why I judged itnecessary to eliminate you."

The thoughts Akiyama held were widely held bysociety to be just. But n.o.body"s cogs are aligned perfectly. Perhaps themisalignment was small at first. Something another could easily notice andalert him to. But because of how much of an honors student he was, he hadn.o.body to point it out to him. So that continued twisting into the form Akiyamadesired. And though the misalignment had grown to lethal proportions, even ifsomeone were to point it out Akiyama was past the point of heeding the words ofothers.

Vainglory. There was no man alive bettersuited to that word than Akiyama. I should have recognized that.

"You said something about helping me dying inpeace, if I recall? It would appear I am now in a position to offer partingwords to you."

Looking down on my fallen body, Akiyama dughis heel into my face.

"I offer you this explanation so that you candie in peace. Would your world change if you killed someone? I offer you theanswer you sought for so long."

My vision went dark, gradually fading. Mysense of pain left me as well, the only thing I could feel any morebeing a cold sense of emptiness where the knife had stabbed me.

"The answer: it would not. Or perhaps itwould? You weren"t a very good point of reference, after all. After all, you"resimply vermin. What emotion stirs within you when you kill a c.o.c.kroach? I"msure you feel the same thing anyone does. Nothing but disgust."

The noise of the world started fading as well.Great, now I didn"t have to listen to Akiyama babble any more.

I fell into thevoid.

Everything disappeared.

All that was left were my thoughts.

For argument"s sake.

For argument"s sake, if I hadsuccessfully killed Akiyama, would my world have changed?

Ahh, I came close enough to tell. Ican picture it as if it were real. Even if I had successfully killedAkiyama,

My world wouldn"t have changed.

It wouldn"t have changed a bit.

There would simply have been a corpse rollingaround in front of me. And having lost my last thread of salvation, Iwould have gone mad.

Thinking about it, such a conclusion wouldn"thave been half bad.

But even so, I thought.

If by some miracle I survive this, Iwould still try to kill Akiyama. I would definitely kill him.

Not to change my world.

Not to erase the sound of chains.

I would kill himbecause he p.i.s.ses me off. I would kill him out of simple hatred.

I would be themost hackneyed, worthless killer imaginable.

Indeed.

I am, to a degreethat disappoints even me, an unremarkable person.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I can hear them. Ican hear them in my ears, which should no longer be able to hear at all.

I knew. In truth,I"ve known for a long time. The cacophonous ringing was never the sound ofother people"s chains. It was—

—the sound of the chains that had always beenwrapped around me.