Accordingto Miki, the school has a barrier around it.

Apparentlyit"s designed such that people that aren"t related to the school just naturallyavoid it. This applies equally both in the afternoon when students were thereand at nights when they weren"t. Although alumni, who had a built-in resistanceto the barrier, could sneak in during the summer to set off fireworks, ingeneral the more common sense a person had the less likely they were to enterthe school.

So itmade sense that there wouldn"t have been any witnesses when Ryuusuke Yamazakifell to his death.

Thepolice didn"t find anything resembling a note or a will, so it was determinedthat the likelihood that it was a suicide was low. It didn"t look like it hadbeen caused intentionally either, so it was essentially being investigated as aaccidental death. As evidence to support this theory, the fact that the oldfencing had been removed so that it could be replaced was brought up, as thismeant that it was easy for an accident to occur.

Howhalf-a.s.sed. I"d like to hear one respectable reason for someone to visitthe Building One roof late at night, and an explanation for what exactly he wastrying to do when he took his spill. I didn"t want to just fall back onthe explanation that it was just possible because he was a delinquent.

Nomatter what the police said, he had been murdered. And by the same guy whokilled Masato, no less.

I was sure of it, despite lackinga shred of evidence. Any other possibilities were unthinkable.

Was Idelusional? And even if I was, was there anything wrong with that?

Afterbeing closed for a week, the school reopened. The day the school opened,yesterday, it seemed that everyone was spouting unfounded rumors regardingYamazaki"s death, but by today his death had more or less faded as a topic ofdiscussion. It had faded from people"s interest fast than the latest celebrityscandal.

It wasjust like what happened with Masato. Because he was perceived as a delinquentwho didn"t involve himself with them, they didn"t have any stake in his death.

If youturned on your phone, social networking sites would let you instantly get intouch with huge numbers of people. Between a person you"d never met but hadexchanged messages with on the daily and a delinquent who went to the sameschool as you but you"d never talked to, who were you closer to? In order tosurvive in our increasingly connected society, the art of apathy was a necessaryone. Treating Masato and Yamazaki as the "other" was comparativelystraightforward. Online or in real life, if somebody was annoying you you couldjust block them.

Thecla.s.sroom grew lively as the school day came to a close. As I silently cleanedthe floor, Miki"s face greeted me from the window facing the hallway. Eversince that day, she had never done up her hair, instead leaving it hangingdown.

"Seeyou later, Kouta."

Sayingonly that, she left without waiting for me like before.

Sincethe day she had kissed me, our relationship had changed. We hadn"t walked homeor eaten lunch together once since then.

Itwasn"t like we had formally broken up or anything. Our relationship up untilnow had simply been an unnatural creation of Miki"s. The amount of distancebetween us now was entirely appropriate.

I finished my cleaning and madefor home.

Howbest to proceed from here? Naturally I wanted to find out who killedMasato, but what could a layman like myself hope to accomplish?

Once Ireached the front gate, I was greeting by something of a crowd. Were thenews crews here again? Even people who weren"t part of the throng were sneakingglances as they pa.s.sed by. Not wanting to be left out, I stopped to lookas well.

Coweringin the middle was not a news crew but a girl from another school with anagonized look on her face. It appeared that the onlookers were at a loss forwhat to do, and as to whether or not they should help her.

"...Huh."

Wasn"tthat the girl who had been asking around about Masato the other day?

Onaccount of her hearing my unintentional remark, her eyes met mine. Her face wasdeathly pale, and when she saw who I was, her eyes grew wide insurprise. As a result, the crowd"s attention turned to me.

"Kouta...Hiiragi, right?"

AlthoughI was confused that she knew my name, I nodded.

"TheKouta Hiiragi who knew Masato Yahara?"

Sittingperpendicular from each other, the two of us were the only ones in theold-fashioned coffee shop aside from a single old man puffing away at acigarette. Increasing feeling out of place, I observed the girl as Isipped at my water.

Apparentlythe reason she had been squatting earlier was because she had been a.s.sailed bya sudden bout of vertigo. Although she looked to be over it now, she was stilltrembling nervously.

"Um...my name is Shiho Sudou."

Hername was unfamiliar.

"Thisis the first time we"ve met, right? Why do you know mine?"

"That"s—"

Forsome reason she looked away guiltily before going on. "Your name came upbecause I was gathering information on Masato Yahara."

Herwords seemed strained, but I didn"t think she was lying.

"I camelooking for you because I thought you might know about him, being his friendand all."

"Eventhough you"re in such bad shape?"

"...I"msorry. I haven"t been feeling well lately, and I keep getting these dizzyspells."

"Sobasically, in spite of your condition, you want to find out about Masato?"

Sudouquietly nodded.

"Why doyou wanna know so bad?"

"...Themurder happened pretty near me, so I kind of got caught up in my curiosity—"

"That"sa lie."

There"sno way I would fall for such a transparent lie.

"You"retoo frantic to chalk it up to mere curiosity, Sudou. You definitely have a moreserious reason for wanting to know about him."

At myreb.u.t.tal, Sudou paled again.

I then realized something. Whatif she knew something about Masato"s death? Was that why she was so invested inthe incident?

"Couldyou keep what I"m about to tell you a secret? Actually, I was talking to himjust before his estimated time of death. It was a Friday, the 26th. And, um...we actually weren"t just chatting, I was hanging out with him."

"What?If you were hanging out with him, does that mean you were a friend of his?"

Sudoushook her head.

"I...well... Masato Yahara kind of... picked me up or something along those lines,and we were messing around. That was the first time I had met him. Um, Inormally don"t do stuff like that! But I kind of had a lot going on that day,so..."

I didn"t care about her excuses.But her testimony was important.

Thelast time anyone had seen Masato was supposedly on May 25th, when he hadthreatened to kill a female company worker. Sudou had met him the day afterthat. And if they had been hanging out, it was unlikely that she was mistaken.

"But Ididn"t want it to get out that he picked me up and we were messing around,so... I couldn"t tell anyone. But the fact that he was killed after we splitup... When I think about it like that, I just can"t get it out of my head... Ihave to find out what happened... I feel like I have to find out whathappened...!"

Itseemed that she too was obsessed with Masato.

Thereason she was willing to go so far was because she was spurred on by doubts asto whether the truth of the incident would ever come out. It was like thekiller had forcibly stolen a piece of herself. As long as the incident remainedunresolved, she could never reclaim it, which was why she was prowling aroundlike a zombie.

"I"llhelp you as much as I can. But I"ll need to ask you a couple things inreturn. On that day, did anything about Masato seem off to you? Did he give offany signs that he was going to get involved in this incident?"

"...No."

"Cutthe lies."

"Eek!"

I replied instantly, and shefroze in fear. For a moment she simply pressed her lips together and trembled,but at my continued gaze she eventually gave up on her silence. She faltered,but spoke nonetheless.

"...Actually,right before Masato Yahara and I split up, we ran into an acquaintance of his.From what they were talking about, I think they were cla.s.smates. He was skinnyand about average height, and he was wearing gla.s.ses."

"Sojust like you, he saw Masato after that lady that testified did, right?"

"...Isuppose so."

Thenwhy didn"t he come forward as a witness? Did he also have personalcirc.u.mstances involved, like Sudou did?

"Whatwas his name?"

"...Idon"t know."

Herreply was clearly evasive.

"Whatkind of mood did you get from their conversation?"

"...Theydidn"t seem to get along. It felt kind of like they both held the other incontempt or something..."

Masatowould have acted like that towards anyone. That half wasn"t useful.

But asfor the other party...?

"Wait,the person Masato was talking to also acted like they held Masato in contempt?He was actively antagonistic to Masato?"

"Well...that"s what it looked like to me, at least."

Sudouhad said that the spectacled man was probably a cla.s.smate of Masato"s. Even ifshe was mistaken about that, at the very least that meant that he was anacquaintance of Masato"s of about the same age.

If thatwas the case, then their behavior was abnormal. Most would instinctively flinchat the dangerous atmosphere Masato gave off.

"Whatkind of impression did the bespectacled guy give off?"

"Well...He seemed smart, and really diligent. But he was also a little bit creepy."

"Diligent,and creepy?

Normallypeople didn"t give off both of those impressions at once.

"Inwhat way? For example, did he seem like he was looking down on others?"

"Yeah...He kind of gave off that impression. But that wasn"t what caught myattention... Um, he was saying some really respectable things. He was givingthis really sound reasoning with a straight face. I don"t know if I"d say thatI found it strange... or that it was annoying... he kind of just gave off thisodd unpleasant vibe. Oh... I"m coming across as weird, aren"t I?"

"Don"tworry, you"re not."

Ithought it odd that a guy our age would be casually spouting "sound reasoning".Most adults have little sympathy for stout-hearted public statements. Whenfaced with sophistry that the speaker themselves doesn"t believe, the defaultresponse is generally backlash. And high schoolers despise such shallow adultsdespite feeling themselves become more and more like them.

Althoughadults have no choice in the matter, anyone our age who would willfully voicesuch reasoning must be somewhat distorted.

Ah, yes— the distortion called an honors student.

"Didthat person... speak really formally?[1]"

Ahh.

Theimage of a certain man springs to mind.

"Reallyformally? Um, I think so, probably..."

I knew that I was jumpingto conclusions. But the answer I had arrived at stuck in my brain like a pieceof gum that had been run over by countless cars.

Theanswer.

—ShuuichiAkiyama killed Masato Yahara.

—ShuuichiAkiyama killed Masato Yahara.

—ShuuichiAkiyama killed Masato Yahara.

Thatinfinitely-repeating thought resounded in my mind, creating a fissure in myhead when I could bear it no longer. Something that felt like it wasboiling flowed out, bubbling with heat and viscous to the touch.

"—aaAAAA!"

Flickering.Lights. Flickering. Lights. It broke. My lines of sight crossed and split theworld in two. Flickering. "I"ll kill you." A red stain that expandedwithout limit. Or perhaps it was ultramarine. A hue stained in nothing butblack. The ultramarine expanded. The despair expanded.

Forsome reason, something metallic was twining around my body. It clicked andclacked as it pressed down painfully on my body. But more than painful, it wasunpleasant. Click clack, clickity clackity.

"—Kou,can you hear me?"

Yeah.

"I[2]"could hear him.

Iwouldn"t ever forget him.

"Areyou alright? D...did something happen?"

I returned to my senses.

Sudouwas gazing at me with a little bit of worry and a lot of discomfort in hereyes.

"It"snothing."

Somehowstuffing "that" back into my head, I turned my focus to the person infront of me.

"Moreimportantly, why didn"t you tell anyone about the bespectacled guy? You had tohave had a reason, right?"

Eventhough she had said so much already, she seemed to be taken by an oddhesitation. She was hiding something from me.

"I... Iwas scared... I saw him."

"Startfrom your main point."

"Ah,I"m sorry... You just seemed kind of scary there for a moment... Another personfrom your school died the other day, right? A guy named Yamazaki. It turns out,I was actually at your school the night he died."

"At theschool? Even if you went to the school late at night, you wouldn"t expect tofind any clues, would you?"

"Umm, Iwanted to check out Masato Yahara"s seat and belongings and stuff. But that"snot important... What I"m trying to say is, the bespectacled guy was at yourschool that night."

Thebespectacled guy — Shuuichi Akiyama was at the school the night Yamazaki waskilled?

Andalthough I wouldn"t have thought the two to have any common ground, I myselfsaw Yamazaki call Akiyama over for some reason.

"Youdidn"t see the moment he pushed him off or anything, did you?"

"Ofcourse not... You see, the thing I"m worried about is that the bespectacled guymight have seen me. After all, he never testified to the police about Masato"sdeath or about that Yamazaki guy"s death! Doesn"t that basically mean that..."

"Isee. So you"re saying that the bespectacled guy was involved in both incidents.And if he is the killer, you"re worried that he might come after you to sealyour lips, given that you were a witness to both of them."

Sudounodded rapidly.

"Whatshould I do... What should I do..."

Sudou,whose complexion still hadn"t improved, scratched at her head.

Herbest option at this point would be to simply forget about Masato and not getany more involved than she already was. But that would be inconvenient for me,so I kept my mouth shut.

Afterall — if I used her correctly, I could definitely get to the bottomof all this.

"Iactually have a hunch as to who the bespectacled guy is. Maybe I shouldgo ask him why he was on the roof when Yamazaki died."

"Ah,wait a second! That"s not right!"

"Notright? What isn"t?"

"Whenthis Yamazaki fell, he wasn"t on the roof. He was in a parking lot near thecampus."

We leftthe coffee shop and headed back to the school to check out the parking lot shehad seen the bespectacled guy at.

Sudou"sface was so white that it looked like her blood had just straight-up forgottenthat it was supposed to flow, but I pretended not to notice andcontinued listening to her.

Backwhen Sudou had been trespa.s.sing on the school, she had heard someone shout"Gyah!" at pretty much the same time she spotted the bespectacled guy in theparking lot. Despite her misgivings, she headed towards the location of thescream and found Yamazaki"s corpse with its head split open. Baffled and terrified,she fled the scene without calling for help. Due to having her hands full withfleeing, she didn"t have time to look for the bespectacled guy again.

Thatwas her testimony.

"Whatkind of scream did it seem like?"

"Huh?Um... a normal scream, I guess."

Unableto contain my irritation, I followed up. "What do you mean by normal?"

"Well...normal is like... they were scared, so they raised their voice, you know? Idon"t remember anything too specific, really. I was pretty frantic."

Shewasn"t going to be of much use. Based on the texture of the scream, it wouldhave been possible to discern if it was an accident or a murder.

But ifhe was screaming, it probably wasn"t suicide.

"Iguess the bespectacled guy might not be the killer after all... I mean, youcan"t really make somebody fall from where he was."

Thisparking lot was indeed quite far from the Building One roof, where Yamazaki hadfallen from. But there was a clear view of that roof here, and although thelights were unreliable they would indeed have let you seen the fall from here.

"If ourbespectacled friend isn"t the killer, why didn"t he give his eyewitnessaccount? Unless he ran away in fear like you did, it would make sense for himto report it."

"Maybehe just didn"t notice the scream? Like, if he was deep in thought orsomething."

Well,that example aside it was conceivable that there were some circ.u.mstances thatkept him from noticing. a.s.suming that he was related to the incident justbecause he was at the school was too simplistic.

Butthe killer was Shuuichi Akiyama.

I had already decided that.

Wasthere a way to make somebody fall while you were down here? In mysteries, yousometimes saw timed traps that used ice, but... no, if the method was timed,there wouldn"t have been any reason for him to come all the way out to thisparking lot. If he was at home with his family, it would make for a betteralibi.

Sothere must have been some reason why Akiyama had to be here.

"Iguess it really is impossible... Which means that he won"t really come afterme..."

As Iremained silent, Sudou spoke as if to rea.s.sure herself.

I tried to put up with it out ofsympathy for the fact that she had gotten involved in a murder case, but Iwas at my limit. She was getting under my skin. Her insecurity and indecisivepersonality played a large role in that, but they weren"t the only things abouther that made me uncomfortable.

"...Sudou.Would you mind if I took some of your time tomorrow?"

"Hm?Why? I...I don"t really have any more reason to spend time with you..."

"Youwant to know the whole story about Masato"s murder, don"t you?"

"O...ofcourse..."

Shegave a cautious affirmation.

I grinned and responded.

"If youcome again tomorrow, I"ll explain everything."

Sudou"seyes went wide. There was no doubt that she was possessed by Masato. If Iphrased it like that, no matter how fishy she thought it sounded she would beunable to refuse.

Nowthen, the sacrifice was secured.

I had a pretty good handle on theanswer. I wasn"t the protagonist of a detective novel, nor was I apoliceman who needed evidence before he could issue an arrest. I had nointerest in elegant tricks, and I had no need for proof.

Buteven so, I knew the truth. With the materials I had, Icould use this "apparatus" to find out the truth whenever I wanted.

Anyways.

Myobjective had never been to find the truth anyways.

Afterpromising to meet tomorrow and parting ways with Sudou, I headed forhome. In the shutter town where I had last spoken with Masato, signs ofuniformed students had all but vanished. In fact, despite the time there were nopa.s.sersby whatsoever. It was like a ghost town. I stood still under theflickering, near-dead street lights, and the air around me swarmed with bugs.

—Ahh, Icould finally reach it.

Anominous sense of exaltation bubbled up within me. I could feel a painfulburning sensation deep within my eyes. My heart was pulsing violently, as if Ihad just ran with all my strength. An impetus. Right now, I was beinga.s.sailed by some manner of impetus. Had I always had this inside me?

Thatimpetus became like a large wall closing in on me. After being thoroughlycrushed and scattered to the winds, I sought a means of reformation. Ifaced the impetus and became one with it.

I wanted to escape. Iwanted to get out. Unable to bear it any more, I began running. Ignoringall the red lights, I ran. The impetus resembled l.u.s.t, and I lostmy ability to ignore it. Cracks formed all along my body, I shattered,and it leaked out.

Theworld turned on its head. Everything was upside down.

Impetus.IMPETUS. I-M-P-E-T-U-S. Guns were built to shoot people, simply waiting for areason to have their triggers pulled. Waiting and waiting for their moment toburst into action, intoxicating us with their sweet temptations.

When?When was it that this impetus took root within me?

Wheredid it come from?

"Huff...huff..."

Havingbeen running for no reason, the pain in my feet and my labored breathing causedme to stop once more. Because I stopped, it caught up. My impetus caughtup with me.

When itdid, I could hear it.

I could hear it. I couldhear the sound of metal. Where was it ringing from? It sounded like it wascoming from everywhere in the world. It was the first time I had heardit, yet the sound was strangely nostalgic.

Thesound that had always bound me. The sound that had always bound Masato Yahara.

—Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Thesound — resembled that of chains.

People don"t need reasons to continue likingor disliking things. Once you"re attached to something, you don"t just keep likingit, your affection often ends up growing.

I couldn"t stophating Shuuichi Akiyama. His looks, his tone of voice, his personality, Iinterpreted everything about him in the least favorable way, distorting myperception.

I, who wassupposed to be ambivalent towards all other people, learned something for thefirst time.

This was what it meant to hate someone.

"Hiiragi."

So when he called out to me during the breakafter first period, I wanted to let out a groan. He seemed to talking tome an awful lot lately.

Although I let my resentment show on myface, Akiyama paid it no need.

"I apologize for bothering so many times, butI had another question relating to Yahara that I wanted to ask you."

That was fundamentally the only businessAkiyama had with me. Although recently, it seemed like he was merely using itas a pretext to measure something about me.

"This line of inquiry may seem a littlepeculiar, but please bear with me. Hiiragi, have you ever felt that you werebeing manipulated?"

I wasn"t sure whathe was asking about, and I wasn"t sure why he was asking it.

Akiyama was putting on an air of nonchalance,but something deep within his eyes was burning dimly, refusing to overlook anyslight change in my emotions.

 "Let me put a little more straightforwardly.Hmm... Let"s suppose that across a person"s life, there are several junctureswhere crucial choices are laid out for them. Of course, their choice is left totheir own will. But even if they don"t perceive it immediately, they willalways be left with a nagging doubt. Was that truly my own will? Or was Isimply induced to choose what I did?"

"...I"m not quite sure what you"regetting at."

"For instance, choosing which high schoolentrance exams to take. Although you are of course the one who makes the finaldecision, your family, your friends, and your middle school teachers allinfluence that decision as well. There"s no way to tell the extent to whichyour true desires were reflected in your decision. You could say that, to acertain extent, the influence of your surroundings lead you to whatever schoolyou ended up attending. And the number of times in a person"s life where theirdecisions are influenced by others in this manner are countless."

"Would you mind putting it a little moresimply?"

"No problem. Have you considered that Yahara"sactions may have been brought about by a third party"s intervention? Thecirc.u.mstances are of course complicated, but it is possible that somebody exerteda great deal of influence over him. If that influence was wieldedintentionally, he could very well be said to have been manipulated."

"...What exactly are you saying?"

To my disgust, Akiyama was no longer makingany effort to conceal his observation and was staring straight at me. It wasunsettling.

"What I"m trying to say is this. There is areal possibility that Yahara"s death was brought about as a result of somebody"smanipulation."

"Almost like magic, huh."

Akiyama didn"t notice my sarcasm.

"I agree. But upon thinking it over again,something else caught my attention. In the days before he died, Yahara hadn"tbeen attending school, correct? He wasn"t emotionally stable. In that unstablestate, it would have been relatively easy to induce him to take certainactions. At worst, if the person manipulating him was somebody close to himthey made have even taken steps to create that instability. Of course, nonormal person would be capable of such a thing. But for someone specialized inmanipulation, such a thing might not be unthinkable."

—Wait, what did he just say?

If anyone but Akiyama had said it, Icould have written it off. But because it was none other than Akiyama, therewas no way I could let that sentence slide.

He wasn"t emotionally stable.

Thatmight be speculation due to Masato"s absence from school. But it wasn"t. Thecertainty in his words could only be the result of firsthand experience.

Ahh, Iwas certain of it. Akiyama had run into Masato after he"d stopped coming toschool. I was certain that the bespectacled guy Sudou had been referringto was Akiyama.

But hewas keeping silent about having seen Masato. He hadn"t breathed a word. Andsuch an action couldn"t possibly mesh with an honors student"s sense of duty.

Whichmeant that he had to have a reason for doing so.

"Hiiragi,is something the matter? You appear to be trembling."

Akiyamaasked his question while concealing his animosity behind a mask of a smile. Heacted as if my response was exactly in accordance with his expectations.

The twoof us didn"t mesh with each other. We stared at each other with distrustfuleyes filled with naked hostility. Ahh... good grief, we truly are locked awayin our closed worlds. We"re looking at the same things, but interpreting themcompletely differently.

What"sthe next stage this man has prepared?

Whodoes he plan on killing next?

"Akiyama."

I suddenly recall a conversation Ionce had at a park in the dead of night. What pattern did he see in themoon?

Feels like there"s a monster baring itsfangs above me.

"Akiyama, what do you see when you look at themoon?"

Akiyamaanswered with a puzzled look on his face.

"At themoon? I see a rabbit pounding mochi, isn"t that obvious?"

Ofcourse. Akiyama could answer like that without a shred of doubt in his mind.Out of the infinite possible interpretations, he applied the one that hewed to commonsense.

I responded without thinking.

"You make me f.u.c.kin" sick."

Thesame jeer someone else had used before.

—Rattle,rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I could no longer get that noiseout of my ears.