Chapter 11
It was a short time after February had begun.
Shiki had left something behind at school. The item was a mirror.
I thought even someone like Shiki could make that kind of mistake. I slipped the mirror into my bag and headed for the staff room. My business was simple. I wanted to return the item Shiki had forgotten, but I didn’t know where she lived.
The teacher gave me the address from the student directory without any suspicion. Using the mirror as an excuse, I successfully located Shiki’s house.
The Ryougi family estate lay just outside the nearest station. The distance was short, but the road wasn’t suited for walking. The moment I stepped off the train, friendly clumps of grass greeted me.
Now I understood why Shiki always came to school by car. There weren’t even fences along the path, so I had to stay alert for passing vehicles.
I walked along the bamboo-lined road that felt like a mountain trail until I reached a massive gate. It was an imposing entrance that seemed to date back to the Edo period.
I seriously considered shouting something like “Pardon me!” but fortunately an intercom was mounted beside the pillar. I pressed the bell, stated my business, and a man in a black suit appeared.
He looked to be in his thirties, yet something about his aura made him seem older. He was less like a person and more like a ghost.
He told me he was responsible for attending to Shiki. Thinking back, he was the same man who had offered me an umbrella on that rainy day.
The man who introduced himself as Akitaka treated even a student like me with extreme politeness and respect.
Unfortunately, I learned that Shiki was out. When the butler suggested I wait inside, I declined. I didn’t have the nerve to sit casually in a house where my background had already been investigated.
The sun was setting. It was time to head home. At least I now knew where she lived. That alone was enough to satisfy me.
I had intended to leave the mirror with the butler, but he said the young lady wished to receive it in person.
The city streets were crowded with people. The clock showed nine. My stomach, which had eaten nothing since lunch, was complaining loudly. I stepped into the nearest family restaurant and had a meal.
After finishing, I leaned against the wall and checked the time. It was already eleven. If I wanted to get home, I needed to start moving. I bought a train ticket and waited on the platform.
Suddenly I thought that Shiki might have returned by now.
Relying on that baseless hunch, I turned my steps back toward the Ryougi estate. Tomorrow was the weekend anyway. I didn’t have school, and I lived alone. There was no real problem with what I was doing.
I hummed the tune as I walked the lonely path in the middle of the night. In the dead silence where no other presence could be felt, my own actions—returning to Shiki’s house—were something even I couldn’t understand.
The night air pierced through my somewhat thick clothes. White breaths puffed from my mouth.
I advanced along the road that had no streetlights, relying only on moonlight.
For some reason the path felt endlessly long.
The words I had blurted out to Shiki on the rooftop came back to me. I had kicked my futon countless times after getting home that day. After going to school while worrying about every little thing, Shiki’s attitude remained completely unchanged.
It was a relief, yet somehow bitter.
Next time I would come up with a better plan…
I was in the middle of thinking that when something appeared ahead of me.
“.........”
My feet stopped moving. I couldn’t even think of taking another step. The moment I saw the scene a few meters away, my mind simply ceased to function.
A pure-white kimono gleaming under the moonlight. But it was gradually growing cloudy. Red stains were spreading. The thing right beside her was scooping up more of that crimson liquid.
Shiki remained utterly still. The thing next to her was a human corpse—the last thing I ever wanted to see.
My head had gone so completely blank that my thoughts became strangely flexible instead. I had imagined Shiki standing beside a corpse countless times. It was something that was bound to happen eventually.
The corpse had been killed only moments ago. The proof was the blood still spurting out like a fountain. A horizontal cut across the throat. A vertical cut that bisected the torso. A cross-shaped wound remained on the body.
Every time blood gushed out, the corpse seemed to shrivel. It was like squeezing a water balloon with your hand. It was no longer a normal body. Internal organs had spilled onto the ground, and the lump of meat that had poured out every fluid was saturated with a single color that exhausted anyone who looked at it.
You could feel no emotion from a corpse. A corpse could not speak.
But Shiki could. She slowly turned her head and looked at me. Our eyes met.
The red liquid covered one-third of her face. Shiki extended her tongue and licked it. It looked like a butterfly sipping nectar from a flower.
That smile was more bewitching and intense than any smile I had ever seen.
The next day, I was being questioned at the police station. An officer who had found me standing dazed at the murder scene had taken me straight there to give a statement.
After being protected for an hour, I finally came back to my senses. To be precise, I was able to hold a simple conversation. Everywhere I looked was red. The color of the police officer’s clothes, both my hands, even the mirror—everything was red, red, red.
Not a single drop of blood had stained my clothes, yet throughout the entire interrogation I wanted nothing more than to change.
Once my statement was roughly finished, I was allowed to ride in a police car back home. The detective in charge of the case happened to be Mikiya’s cousin. Mikiya would probably hear about this incident soon, and I was slightly curious what his reaction would be.
The officers knew I was a minor and tried to call a guardian, but that was also waived thanks to Mikiya’s cousin. It seemed he had noticed that I didn’t get along with my family.
“Be careful. You’re incredibly lucky to have survived. Even if it’s later, if you remember the culprit’s face, come back to the station. With your testimony we can arrest the perpetrator immediately.”
The highly dutiful detective added one more thing as an afterthought.
“If you’re not all right, I might get scolded by Mikiya.”
The moment I entered the house I threw myself onto the bed. I slept and slept without thinking about anything.
When I returned to class after several days, Shiki was not there.
“Akagawa. I heard from my brother. You went through something like that…”
“I’m fine. I don’t really remember it clearly anymore. I’m just a little tired.”
“I see… Still, my brother says they’ll catch the culprit soon.”
I couldn’t simply smile. Even though I was convinced the killer wasn’t Shiki, I still harbored doubts. The question remained: What if it was ‘SHIKI’ and not Shiki?
“That’s… really good to hear.”
“Yeah. It really is.”
I needed proof. Proof that she—Ryougi Shiki—was not the culprit. But Shiki had stopped coming to school. I heard she had been absent ever since the week the murder occurred.
What should I do? No method to prove her innocence came to mind. At this point it was closer to denial of reality. Every clue and every circumstance pointed to her as the murderer. I refused to believe it.
“Do you have something on your mind? If there’s anything I can help with, I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Mikiya. What’s the easiest way to prove someone’s innocence?”
Even though my question came out of nowhere, Mikiya thought about it seriously before answering.
“First you’d have to gather evidence. Create an alibi…”
That was impossible right now. I needed the surest and fastest method.
“If that doesn’t work, maybe just stay by that person’s side all day?”
“What?”
“If you stick to them twenty-four seven, it’s like with drug addicts. If they don’t get their fix for even one day, they start having withdrawal symptoms, right? So if you monitor them constantly, you’ll notice immediately.”
Mikiyaemon. There were no limits to what he could come up with. This was exactly the method I wanted. The perfect solution that satisfied both desire and practicality. I felt like crying.
“…Of course it does infringe on human rights and various other things, so it’s not exactly a good method.”
I roughly ignored the words that followed.
“Thanks, Mikiyaemon. You really are the best friend ever.”
“Akagawa… that smile of yours looks suspicious.”