According

to Miki, the school has a barrier around it.

Apparently

it's designed such that people that aren't related to the school just naturally

avoid it. This applies equally both in the afternoon when students were there

and at nights when they weren't. Although alumni, who had a built-in resistance

to the barrier, could sneak in during the summer to set off fireworks, in

general the more common sense a person had the less likely they were to enter

the school.

So it

made sense that there wouldn't have been any witnesses when Ryuusuke Yamazaki

fell to his death.

The

police didn't find anything resembling a note or a will, so it was determined

that the likelihood that it was a suicide was low. It didn't look like it had

been caused intentionally either, so it was essentially being investigated as a

accidental death. As evidence to support this theory, the fact that the old

fencing had been removed so that it could be replaced was brought up, as this

meant that it was easy for an accident to occur.

How

half-a.s.sed. I'd like to hear one respectable reason for someone to visit

the Building One roof late at night, and an explanation for what exactly he was

trying to do when he took his spill. I didn't want to just fall back on

the explanation that it was just possible because he was a delinquent.

No

matter what the police said, he had been murdered. And by the same guy who

killed Masato, no less.

I was sure of it, despite lacking

a shred of evidence. Any other possibilities were unthinkable.

Was I

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

After

being closed for a week, the school reopened. The day the school opened,

yesterday, it seemed that everyone was spouting unfounded rumors regarding

Yamazaki's death, but by today his death had more or less faded as a topic of

discussion. It had faded from people's interest fast than the latest celebrity

scandal.

It was

just like what happened with Masato. Because he was perceived as a delinquent

who didn't involve himself with them, they didn't have any stake in his death.

If you

turned on your phone, social networking sites would let you instantly get in

touch with huge numbers of people. Between a person you'd never met but had

exchanged messages with on the daily and a delinquent who went to the same

school as you but you'd never talked to, who were you closer to? In order to

survive in our increasingly connected society, the art of apathy was a necessary

one. Treating Masato and Yamazaki as the "other" was comparatively

straightforward. Online or in real life, if somebody was annoying you you could

just block them.

The

cla.s.sroom grew lively as the school day came to a close. As I silently cleaned

the floor, Miki's face greeted me from the window facing the hallway. Ever

since that day, she had never done up her hair, instead leaving it hanging

down.

"See

you later, Kouta."

Saying

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

Since

the day she had kissed me, our relations.h.i.+p had changed. We hadn't walked home

or eaten lunch together once since then.

It

wasn't like we had formally broken up or anything. Our relations.h.i.+p up until

now had simply been an unnatural creation of Miki's. The amount of distance

between us now was entirely appropriate.

I finished my cleaning and made

for home.

How

best to proceed from here? Naturally I wanted to find out who killed

Masato, but what could a layman like myself hope to accomplish?

Once I

reached the front gate, I was greeting by something of a crowd. Were the

news crews here again? Even people who weren't part of the throng were sneaking

glances as they pa.s.sed by. Not wanting to be left out, I stopped to look

as well.

Cowering

in the middle was not a news crew but a girl from another school with an

agonized look on her face. It appeared that the onlookers were at a loss for

what to do, and as to whether or not they should help her.

"...Huh."

Wasn't

that the girl who had been asking around about Masato the other day?

On

account of her hearing my unintentional remark, her eyes met mine. Her face was

deathly pale, and when she saw who I was, her eyes grew wide in

surprise. As a result, the crowd's attention turned to me.

"Kouta...

Hiiragi, right?"

Although

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

"The

Kouta Hiiragi who knew Masato Yahara?"

Sitting

perpendicular from each other, the two of us were the only ones in the

old-fas.h.i.+oned coffee shop aside from a single old man puffing away at a

cigarette. Increasing feeling out of place, I observed the girl as I

sipped at my water.

Apparently

the reason she had been squatting earlier was because she had been a.s.sailed by

a sudden bout of vertigo. Although she looked to be over it now, she was still

trembling nervously.

"Um...

my name is s.h.i.+ho Sudou."

Her

name was unfamiliar.

"This

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

"That's—"

For

some reason she looked away guiltily before going on. "Your name came up

because I was gathering information on Masato Yahara."

Her

words seemed strained, but I didn't think she was lying.

"I came

looking for you because I thought you might know about him, being his friend

and all."

"Even

though you're in such bad shape?"

"...I'm

sorry. I haven't been feeling well lately, and I keep getting these dizzy

spells."

"So

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

Sudou

quietly nodded.

"Why do

you wanna know so bad?"

"...The

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

"That's

a lie."

There's

no way I would fall for such a transparent lie.

"You're

too frantic to chalk it up to mere curiosity, Sudou. You definitely have a more

serious reason for wanting to know about him."

At my

reb.u.t.tal, Sudou paled again.

I then realized something. What

if she knew something about Masato's death? Was that why she was so invested in

the incident?

"Could

you keep what I'm about to tell you a secret? Actually, I was talking to him

just 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?"

Sudou

shook 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, I

normally 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.

The

last time anyone had seen Masato was supposedly on May 25th, when he had

threatened to kill a female company worker. Sudou had met him the day after

that. And if they had been hanging out, it was unlikely that she was mistaken.

"But I

didn'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 split

up... When I think about it like that, I just can't get it out of my head... I

have to find out what happened... I feel like I have to find out what

happened...!"

It

seemed that she too was obsessed with Masato.

The

reason she was willing to go so far was because she was spurred on by doubts as

to whether the truth of the incident would ever come out. It was like the

killer had forcibly stolen a piece of herself. As long as the incident remained

unresolved, she could never reclaim it, which was why she was prowling around

like a zombie.

"I'll

help you as much as I can. But I'll need to ask you a couple things in

return. On that day, did anything about Masato seem off to you? Did he give off

any signs that he was going to get involved in this incident?"

"...No."

"Cut

the lies."

"Eek!"

I replied instantly, and she

froze 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 skinny

and about average height, and he was wearing gla.s.ses."

"So

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

"...I

suppose so."

Then

why didn't he come forward as a witness? Did he also have personal

circ.u.mstances involved, like Sudou did?

"What

was his name?"

"...I

don't know."

Her

reply was clearly evasive.

"What

kind of mood did you get from their conversation?"

"...They

didn't seem to get along. It felt kind of like they both held the other in

contempt or something..."

Masato

would have acted like that towards anyone. That half wasn't useful.

But as

for 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."

Sudou

had said that the spectacled man was probably a cla.s.smate of Masato's. Even if

she was mistaken about that, at the very least that meant that he was an

acquaintance of Masato's of about the same age.

If that

was the case, then their behavior was abnormal. Most would instinctively flinch

at the dangerous atmosphere Masato gave off.

"What

kind 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?

Normally

people didn't give off both of those impressions at once.

"In

what 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 my

attention... Um, he was saying some really respectable things. He was giving

this really sound reasoning with a straight face. I don't know if I'd say that

I found it strange... or that it was annoying... he kind of just gave off this

odd unpleasant vibe. Oh... I'm coming across as weird, aren't I?"

"Don't

worry, you're not."

I

thought it odd that a guy our age would be casually spouting "sound reasoning".

Most adults have little sympathy for stout-hearted public statements. When

faced with sophistry that the speaker themselves doesn't believe, the default

response is generally backlash. And high schoolers despise such shallow adults

despite feeling themselves become more and more like them.

Although

adults have no choice in the matter, anyone our age who would willfully voice

such reasoning must be somewhat distorted.

Ah, yes

— the distortion called an honors student.

"Did

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

Ahh.

The

image of a certain man springs to mind.

"Really

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

I knew that I was jumping

to conclusions. But the answer I had arrived at stuck in my brain like a piece

of gum that had been run over by countless cars.

The

answer.

—Shuuichi

Akiyama killed Masato Yahara.

—Shuuichi

Akiyama killed Masato Yahara.

—Shuuichi

Akiyama killed Masato Yahara.

That

infinitely-repeating thought resounded in my mind, creating a fissure in my

head when I could bear it no longer. Something that felt like it was

boiling flowed out, bubbling with heat and viscous to the touch.

"—aaAAAA!"

Flickering.

Lights. Flickering. Lights. It broke. My lines of sight crossed and split the

world in two. Flickering. "I'll kill you." A red stain that expanded

without limit. Or perhaps it was ultramarine. A hue stained in nothing but

black. The ultramarine expanded. The despair expanded.

For

some reason, something metallic was twining around my body. It clicked and

clacked as it pressed down painfully on my body. But more than painful, it was

unpleasant. Click clack, clickity clackity.

"—Kou,

can you hear me?"

Yeah.

"I[2]"

could hear him.

I

wouldn't ever forget him.

"Are

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

I returned to my senses.

Sudou

was gazing at me with a little bit of worry and a lot of discomfort in her

eyes.

"It's

nothing."

Somehow

stuffing "that" back into my head, I turned my focus to the person in

front of me.

"More

importantly, why didn't you tell anyone about the bespectacled guy? You had to

have had a reason, right?"

Even

though she had said so much already, she seemed to be taken by an odd

hesitation. She was hiding something from me.

"I... I

was scared... I saw him."

"Start

from your main point."

"Ah,

I'm sorry... You just seemed kind of scary there for a moment... Another person

from 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 the

school? Even if you went to the school late at night, you wouldn't expect to

find any clues, would you?"

"Umm, I

wanted to check out Masato Yahara's seat and belongings and stuff. But that's

not important... What I'm trying to say is, the bespectacled guy was at your

school that night."

The

bespectacled guy — Shuuichi Akiyama was at the school the night Yamazaki was

killed?

And

although I wouldn't have thought the two to have any common ground, I myself

saw Yamazaki call Akiyama over for some reason.

"You

didn't see the moment he pushed him off or anything, did you?"

"Of

course not... You see, the thing I'm worried about is that the bespectacled guy

might have seen me. After all, he never testified to the police about Masato's

death or about that Yamazaki guy's death! Doesn't that basically mean that..."

"I

see. 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 seal

your lips, given that you were a witness to both of them."

Sudou

nodded rapidly.

"What

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

Sudou,

whose complexion still hadn't improved, scratched at her head.

Her

best option at this point would be to simply forget about Masato and not get

any more involved than she already was. But that would be inconvenient for me,

so I kept my mouth shut.

After

all — if I used her correctly, I could definitely get to the bottom

of all this.

"I

actually have a hunch as to who the bespectacled guy is. Maybe I should

go ask him why he was on the roof when Yamazaki died."

"Ah,

wait a second! That's not right!"

"Not

right? What isn't?"

"When

this Yamazaki fell, he wasn't on the roof. He was in a parking lot near the

campus."

We left

the coffee shop and headed back to the school to check out the parking lot she

had seen the bespectacled guy at.

Sudou's

face was so white that it looked like her blood had just straight-up forgotten

that it was supposed to flow, but I pretended not to notice and

continued listening to her.

Back

when 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 the

parking lot. Despite her misgivings, she headed towards the location of the

scream 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 with

fleeing, she didn't have time to look for the bespectacled guy again.

That

was her testimony.

"What

kind of scream did it seem like?"

"Huh?

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

Unable

to 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? I

don't remember anything too specific, really. I was pretty frantic."

She

wasn't going to be of much use. Based on the texture of the scream, it would

have been possible to discern if it was an accident or a murder.

But if

he was screaming, it probably wasn't suicide.

"I

guess the bespectacled guy might not be the killer after all... I mean, you

can't really make somebody fall from where he was."

This

parking lot was indeed quite far from the Building One roof, where Yamazaki had

fallen from. But there was a clear view of that roof here, and although the

lights were unreliable they would indeed have let you seen the fall from here.

"If our

bespectacled friend isn't the killer, why didn't he give his eyewitness

account? Unless he ran away in fear like you did, it would make sense for him

to report it."

"Maybe

he just didn't notice the scream? Like, if he was deep in thought or

something."

Well,

that example aside it was conceivable that there were some circ.u.mstances that

kept him from noticing. a.s.suming that he was related to the incident just

because he was at the school was too simplistic.

But

the killer was Shuuichi Akiyama.

I had already decided that.

Was

there a way to make somebody fall while you were down here? In mysteries, you

sometimes 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 this

parking lot. If he was at home with his family, it would make for a better

alibi.

So

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

"I

guess it really is impossible... Which means that he won't really come after

me..."

As I

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

I tried to put up with it out of

sympathy for the fact that she had gotten involved in a murder case, but I

was at my limit. She was getting under my skin. Her insecurity and indecisive

personality played a large role in that, but they weren't the only things about

her 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..."

"You

want to know the whole story about Masato's murder, don't you?"

"O...of

course..."

She

gave a cautious affirmation.

I grinned and responded.

"If you

come again tomorrow, I'll explain everything."

Sudou's

eyes went wide. There was no doubt that she was possessed by Masato. If I

phrased it like that, no matter how fishy she thought it sounded she would be

unable to refuse.

Now

then, the sacrifice was secured.

I had a pretty good handle on the

answer. I wasn't the protagonist of a detective novel, nor was I a

policeman who needed evidence before he could issue an arrest. I had no

interest in elegant tricks, and I had no need for proof.

But

even so, I knew the truth. With the materials I had, I

could use this "apparatus" to find out the truth whenever I wanted.

Anyways.

My

objective had never been to find the truth anyways.

After

promising to meet tomorrow and parting ways with Sudou, I headed for

home. In the shutter town where I had last spoken with Masato, signs of

uniformed students had all but vanished. In fact, despite the time there were no

pa.s.sersby whatsoever. It was like a ghost town. I stood still under the

flickering, near-dead street lights, and the air around me swarmed with bugs.

—Ahh, I

could finally reach it.

An

ominous sense of exaltation bubbled up within me. I could feel a painful

burning sensation deep within my eyes. My heart was pulsing violently, as if I

had just ran with all my strength. An impetus. Right now, I was being

a.s.sailed by some manner of impetus. Had I always had this inside me?

That

impetus became like a large wall closing in on me. After being thoroughly

crushed and scattered to the winds, I sought a means of reformation. I

faced the impetus and became one with it.

I wanted to escape. I

wanted to get out. Unable to bear it any more, I began running. Ignoring

all the red lights, I ran. The impetus resembled l.u.s.t, and I lost

my ability to ignore it. Cracks formed all along my body, I shattered,

and it leaked out.

The

world 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 a

reason to have their triggers pulled. Waiting and waiting for their moment to

burst into action, intoxicating us with their sweet temptations.

When?

When was it that this impetus took root within me?

Where

did it come from?

"Huff...huff..."

Having

been running for no reason, the pain in my feet and my labored breathing caused

me to stop once more. Because I stopped, it caught up. My impetus caught

up with me.

When it

did, I could hear it.

I could hear it. I could

hear the sound of metal. Where was it ringing from? It sounded like it was

coming from everywhere in the world. It was the first time I had heard

it, yet the sound was strangely nostalgic.

The

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

—Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The

sound — resembled that of chains.

People don't need reasons to continue liking

or disliking things. Once you're attached to something, you don't just keep liking

it, your affection often ends up growing.

I couldn't stop

hating Shuuichi Akiyama. His looks, his tone of voice, his personality, I

interpreted everything about him in the least favorable way, distorting my

perception.

I, who was

supposed to be ambivalent towards all other people, learned something for the

first time.

This was what it meant to hate someone.

"Hiiragi."

So when he called out to me during the break

after first period, I wanted to let out a groan. He seemed to talking to

me an awful lot lately.

Although I let my resentment show on my

face, Akiyama paid it no need.

"I apologize for bothering so many times, but

I had another question relating to Yahara that I wanted to ask you."

That was fundamentally the only business

Akiyama had with me. Although recently, it seemed like he was merely using it

as a pretext to measure something about me.

"This line of inquiry may seem a little

peculiar, but please bear with me. Hiiragi, have you ever felt that you were

being manipulated?"

I wasn't sure what

he 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 any

slight change in my emotions.

 "Let me put a little more straightforwardly.

Hmm... Let's suppose that across a person's life, there are several junctures

where crucial choices are laid out for them. Of course, their choice is left to

their own will. But even if they don't perceive it immediately, they will

always be left with a nagging doubt. Was that truly my own will? Or was I

simply induced to choose what I did?"

"...I'm not quite sure what you're

getting at."

"For instance, choosing which high school

entrance exams to take. Although you are of course the one who makes the final

decision, your family, your friends, and your middle school teachers all

influence that decision as well. There's no way to tell the extent to which

your true desires were reflected in your decision. You could say that, to a

certain extent, the influence of your surroundings lead you to whatever school

you ended up attending. And the number of times in a person's life where their

decisions are influenced by others in this manner are countless."

"Would you mind putting it a little more

simply?"

"No problem. Have you considered that Yahara's

actions may have been brought about by a third party's intervention? The

circ.u.mstances are of course complicated, but it is possible that somebody exerted

a great deal of influence over him. If that influence was wielded

intentionally, he could very well be said to have been manipulated."

"...What exactly are you saying?"

To my disgust, Akiyama was no longer making

any effort to conceal his observation and was staring straight at me. It was

unsettling.

"What I'm trying to say is this. There is a

real possibility that Yahara's death was brought about as a result of somebody's

manipulation."

"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't

been attending school, correct? He wasn't emotionally stable. In that unstable

state, it would have been relatively easy to induce him to take certain

actions. At worst, if the person manipulating him was somebody close to him

they made have even taken steps to create that instability. Of course, no

normal person would be capable of such a thing. But for someone specialized in

manipulation, such a thing might not be unthinkable."

—Wait, what did he just say?

If anyone but Akiyama had said it, I

could have written it off. But because it was none other than Akiyama, there

was no way I could let that sentence slide.

He wasn't emotionally stable.

That

might be speculation due to Masato's absence from school. But it wasn't. The

certainty in his words could only be the result of firsthand experience.

Ahh, I

was certain of it. Akiyama had run into Masato after he'd stopped coming to

school. I was certain that the bespectacled guy Sudou had been referring

to was Akiyama.

But he

was keeping silent about having seen Masato. He hadn't breathed a word. And

such an action couldn't possibly mesh with an honors student's sense of duty.

Which

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

"Hiiragi,

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

Akiyama

asked his question while concealing his animosity behind a mask of a smile. He

acted as if my response was exactly in accordance with his expectations.

The two

of us didn't mesh with each other. We stared at each other with distrustful

eyes filled with naked hostility. Ahh... good grief, we truly are locked away

in our closed worlds. We're looking at the same things, but interpreting them

completely differently.

What's

the next stage this man has prepared?

Who

does he plan on killing next?

"Akiyama."

I suddenly recall a conversation I

once had at a park in the dead of night. What pattern did he see in the

moon?

Feels like there's a monster baring its

fangs above me.

"Akiyama, what do you see when you look at the

moon?"

Akiyama

answered with a puzzled look on his face.

"At the

moon? I see a rabbit pounding mochi, isn't that obvious?"

Of

course. 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 common

sense.

I responded without thinking.

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

The

same jeer someone else had used before.

—Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I could no longer get that noise

out of my ears.