Before Murder's Examination
"Hey, Akagawa."
"Shiki...?"
My body, which had been barely holding together, gave out. I braced my trembling arms against the floor and somehow kept myself from collapsing completely. The world spun. Cold sweat poured down my skin as though I'd been thrown into freefall dozens of times, and I couldn't stop the dry heaves that kept rising in my throat.
Even in a situation where it felt like my skull might split open at any moment, the one thing that kept my mind anchored was Shiki.
But this wasn't the Shiki I knew. Something was fundamentally different. It wasn't just the tone of voice or the cadence of speech.
Still, my ability mercilessly fed me emotions I had no desire to feel. It had swept across the entire school without restraint, hammering every accumulated sentiment—right down to petty complaints about dinner side dishes—straight into my brain. If I let my concentration slip even once, I would be finished. A broken wreck. Every possible human feeling was flooding in like pages spitting out of a printer.
"What's wrong? Are you okay...? You never told me it was this bad, Shiki."
Only after my stomach finally emptied itself could I lift my head. Shiki's face was twisted with something like concern.
"You're not Shiki, are you?"
"Well, it's both yes and no. I figured you'd catch on quickly. More importantly..."
It doesn't seem like he can hear it right now.
That was a veiled reference to my secret. The ability to read emotions. With every nerve in my body already stretched taut, my power was poised to go berserk again at the slightest provocation.
But how could this be? I had moved to Mifune City when I entered middle school. The times I'd used my ability, directly or indirectly, had all been when I was much younger. Since arriving here, I had been careful never to draw attention.
No one knowing was the way it had to be. It had to stay that way.
"That expression says you're wondering how I found out. I'll tell you. The Ryougi family. Ever heard of them?"
I shook my head.
"The Ryougi family is the yakuza clan that runs this whole district. Saying it out loud sounds ridiculous, but yeah. That's the one."
Shiki scratched the back of his head. I'd never seen that gesture before. The usual Shiki would never have done something so casual.
It felt almost... boyish.
"When the family learned you were interested in Shiki, they ran a background check on you. That's when they noticed the oddities."
"Right after graduating elementary school, you left your family and came all the way to Mifune City to live alone."
"Correct."
Shiki clapped several times. The gesture felt awkward. Shiki had never been the type to express emotion so openly.
"Digging deeper, it seems your hometown had a weird little kid who kept sticking his nose into everyone's business, right?"
It was over. I'd been marked. Tomorrow they'd probably find my body under some riverbank. The fifth corpse discovered. Something like that.
"Pushing me away like this... isn't that a bit cruel?"
Another failure. I couldn't even tell where it had gone wrong. Was it the moment I had arbitrarily read Shiki's emotions? Or had it started that rainy day at school when we'd first spoken?
Any normal person who heard someone they'd been getting along with say, Actually, I've known all your secrets this whole time and just pretended I didn't, would obviously become furious. That much was obvious.
"Wait, hold on! Why are you interpreting it like that?"
"What?"
I was the one caught off guard this time.
"I approached you after learning your secret without permission. I thought I'd be removed as a risk factor?"
"...You sound more like a yakuza's kid than I do."
Shiki pressed a hand to his forehead, muttering to himself about how far off his predictions had been.
Most of what Shiki said after that sounded unbelievable, like something ripped straight out of a fantasy novel.
Shiki explained that "Shiki" was split into two personalities—式 and 織. The one I usually interacted with was 式. The current "Shiki" (織) was essentially the embodiment of Shiki's murderous impulses. Originally, this personality was supposed to remain isolated until graduation, after which Shiki would inherit the role of Ryougi family boss. But my existence had created a rift between the two sides.
The story was so absurd that I unconsciously pinched my own cheek. The sharp sting of pain confirmed that this was, in fact, reality.
"Did you follow all that?"
"...Then, Shiki. So, um..."
"You're asking about the other me, right?"
"Yeah. Shiki doesn't hate me, does she?"
"Shiki" stared at me blankly for a moment, then gave a small nod.
"Really? Then I'm relieved. Thank you for telling me, 'Shiki.'"
"You're a strange one, you know that? After hearing everything I just said, that's seriously the only thought that comes to mind?"
It felt too embarrassing to answer honestly, so I simply smiled. "Shiki" smiled back. The expression looked bizarre on that face, yet somehow completely natural. It made me hope that the other Shiki might one day smile like that too. A small, quiet wish took root in my chest.
The conversation reached a natural lull, and my body had recovered enough to function again. A new question occurred to me.
"So do the two of you ever fight?"
"How would that even work when it's one body? Whatever we do, both sides want it. There's no real conflict. And even if something happens, the one in control of the body is always Shiki."
"Then the fact that you're here right now instead of her... it means Shiki allowed it?"
"That's right. She's anxious. Because of you. But she doesn't have the courage to say it herself, so I came out in her place."
There were still more questions I wanted to ask, but Shiki seemed to have decided the explanation was finished. Declaring that everything important had already been said, the figure walked confidently toward the door leading off the rooftop.
"You do know what a murderous impulse is, right?"
Those meaningful words lingered in the air long after the door had closed.
"Why did you go out of your way to tell me about my past?"
"Because it's unfair for you to be the only one who gets to know someone else's secrets."
"..."