The man in the trench coat with the boyish face suddenly assumed a very serious expression and stood straight up. “You’ve just stolen something very important from me.”
“Oh? What might that be? What is it that’s so important?”
“My heart.”
I’d heard that phrase somewhere before. I couldn’t help but break out laughing. He had the line and the motion down pat, but he was still tiny, with a young boy’s face, so it all looked so funny.
“By the way,” he gestured toward the stage.
“The pollution is not limited to Musashino, nor to Tokyo, nor even to Japan! It’s already spreading out into the whole world!” God was still shouting, oblivious to me and the boy in the trench coat.
“Who is that guy?”
“God.”
He looked surprised at my answer. “You know God?”
“No. I don’t know him.”
“But you’re drawing that old guy— I mean, God—”
“I’m just doing it on my own. I haven’t spoken to him.”
“He won’t get mad?”
“He doesn’t seem to care, actually. I’m sure God is a very tolerant person.”
“May I see?” I nodded happily, and handed him my incomplete sketch. “Wow, this is great! Are you with one of the wall circles? Hmm... but wait. This isn’t a moe type of picture, is it? It’s very good, though. I think I’ve seen it somewhere before. Hmm, are you a student? Maybe at an art school?”
I shook my head. “I’m a student, but not at an art school. At Seimei over there.”
“Do they have an art major over there?”
“They don’t.”
“Your drawing’s too good for you to be a mere student...” He thought for a moment about something that didn’t matter at all, and then suddenly raised his head in surprise. “That’s right. This is Kichijoji. There are a lot of manga authors that live in Kichijoji. That means you must be a manga author, too! Let me shake your hand! And then I’ll never wash it again!”
I hadn’t said a word about being a manga author, but he offered his hand out to me anyway. I looked at it and shrugged.
“I am a manga author, but not a professional one.”
“Does that mean you go to Comiket? What genre? If it’s BL, that’s kind of not my thing. But I really do think that I’ve seen this art style before.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to handle the way he was talking. It was as if he knew something and was playing dumb, waiting for me to say it myself. No, it wasn’t “like” that at all. He was after me from the start. But he wasn’t here to hit on me. He was here for some other reason. My intuition was sharp when it came to those things.
I decided to try and tease him a little.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” He tilted his head in surprise. Every movement he made was overly dramatic.
I sighed audibly. “Where did you see my books? I’d like to know. Tell me. That is, if this isn’t some elaborate pickup attempt.”
“Hmm... the thing is, I really can’t remember. Man, I’m so lame. I’m really feeling lame right now. Sorry, can you at least tell me your pen name? Or even the name of one of your doujinshi. Maybe I’ve read it.”
“My pen name is Ririka Nishizono, or—”
“Yes, I know that.” He was the one who told me to give him my name, but before I could finish he cut me off and grabbed my hand.
The look in his eyes had changed. It was like a sheep instantly transforming into a wolf. And that was what made the smile when he grabbed my hand so scary.
“I thought so. You knew it from the start, didn’t you? You’re very mean.”
“Your book, The Bottom of the Dark Water, is being talked about a lot online. Did you know that?” He rubbed the palm of my hand as he spoke.
“Are you sure it’s online?”
“Of course.”
“Are they talking about how it’s not very good, for instance?”
“Yes. I read it myself, and it wasn’t.” I much preferred to have him tell me that right to my face. Not that I would ever like him. “But it was very interesting. Particularly the third story. That was very good.”
“The third story?” It was pornography about the twisted love between two men. “I thought you weren’t into BL?”
“Correct. But the contents of the story were very interesting. I’ve been hoping I could get a chance to ask you how you came up with it. I mean, most people couldn’t dream up a story like that. Who would ever think of raping your lover’s corpse, then ripping out their tooth with a knife as a memento?”
It was the strangest thing imaginable to be talking about on an afternoon in a park after the rain, and I couldn’t help but twist my lips in a chuckle. “I don’t come up with my ideas.” I softly shook his hand away.
I stood up from the bench and stared into his eyes. He didn’t look away. Was he trying to find out what I was thinking? Or perhaps, trying to keep me from seeing what he was thinking?
“Offer up a sacrifice! Offer up a sacrifice before the world system is complete!” As we stared into each other’s eyes, as if in an intense love scene, God ignored us and kept screaming.
I took a step back from him. “Everything I draw is—” I took back my sketchbook. “Something I see in my dreams.”
And when I told him that, he suddenly sighed. “Anyway, about the code...”
I was uncertain how to handle this sudden change of subject. It was just like earlier. He wasn’t letting me take control of the conversation.
“Did you say... cord? Like earphones?”
“No, no. C. O. D. E. Code.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you’re seeing things in your dreams and putting them into your manga, are those dreams prophetic ones?”
And now we were back to the same subject as before. I was getting all confused. The boy in the trench coat pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“This is a copy of your work, The Bottom of the Dark Water.” He pointed to a very ordinary panel. One of the objects in the background was circled in red pen. “Look here. There’s letters written there, right? In the English alphabet. What do they say?”
“C, O, L, A.” It was a thing of soda. I’d modeled it after an image I found online. I had fiddled with it a bit, though.
“No, that’s not right. You can tell, can’t you? You drew the thing.”
“Yes. This says C, O, D, E. What of it?” Then he took out a photograph.
It was evidently taken in a dark room. On the floor, in red paint, I could just barely make out the word “code.”
“Does this have something to do with my work?”
“It was the dying message of a murder victim.”
My dream had become real.
“Who... are you?” I asked. I couldn’t even hear God’s speech anymore.
“You should know who I am without me needing to tell you. I may not look it, after all, but I’m—” He smiled a thin smile and drew closer to me, and whispered into my ear. “I’m the detective in your manga.”
site 33: Yuta Gamon
Monday, February 29th
Eyes, eyes, eyes...
Everyone was looking at me. That’s how it felt.
A suspect in a brutal murder. A crazy man. A psychopath. A murderer. An inhuman piece of shit. That’s what all their eyes seemed to say. I imagined it, and froze.
The rain had been falling all weekend, so I was able to hide my face with an umbrella, but today it had stopped. The sun had set and it was dark, but my heart was pounding fast.
“The keyhole... I have to find the keyhole...”
I was a fugitive.
The cops must have figured out who I was long ago. Even the news said so. They said someone had been seen fleeing from the scene of Dr. Hashigami’s murder.
By now my photo must be all over the internet, and everybody on the streets must be frantically searching for
me. There was no way of knowing when somebody would point me out. It could happen just a few seconds from now.
“The keyhole...” I suddenly saw a condo building that was under construction, and staggered towards it. The workers must have been off for the day, because it was empty.
There was a fence surrounding it, and an ordinary, worn padlock on it. The fence could be opened and closed like an accordion to make an entrance, and the padlock was locking it.
“The keyhole!” I staggered up to it and took the gold tooth key out of my pocket. I plunged it into the padlock’s keyhole. “Fit... Come on, fit...”
Of course, it didn’t fit at all.
“Why... Why won’t it fit?” If I tried to force it, the gold tooth key might shatter or break. I had no choice but to give up and leave.
I kept walking around and looking for keyholes, trying my best to stay out of sight. This key was the one thing that could get me out of this mess. That’s why I had no choice but to cling to it. In my head, I knew that I wasn’t going to find the keyhole that easily. But if I wanted to save myself, I had no choice but to keep looking.
As I walked through the cold, I eventually found myself in front of the Hachiman Shrine. The street was packed with cars, and I could hear angry honking. It felt louder than usual. I carefully looked down the street and saw that the cause was in front of Anyoji Temple, right next to the Hachiman shrine.
It was crowded with people, and there were lights everywhere. I panicked when I realized that they were all with the media. I half-remembered hearing on the afternoon news that Dr. Hashigami’s funeral was going to be held at Anyoji today.
From the sidewalk, I couldn’t see the main building of the temple. To get inside the temple, you had to follow a little path and go through a gate. In front of the gate, I could see a bunch of reporters from different stations with their backs to the temple, talking into cameras with serious expressions on their faces. It was just about time for the evening news, so these were probably live broadcasts.
“Ah... ah...” I couldn’t get any closer. There was no way. If I went inside the temple, they’d put me on TV. And what was I supposed to say to the professor’s family? I couldn’t tell them that I’d found his body, yanked out his tooth, and run away! There was no way I could let the media see me. The police had to have been leaking them information. They must know what I looked like.
I needed to get out of here. I turned around and headed up the way I’d come. I wasn’t sure if I was shaking because of the cold, or something else. My hands were so numb that I couldn’t even feel the pain.
I should just go home.
Don’t let anyone find you. Don’t let anyone suspect you. Don’t look up. Just look down, and drag yourself home.
I felt so pathetic and guilty that I wanted to throw up.
“I’m practically... a criminal.”
Was I going to just drop out of society like this? I hadn’t been to school since the day I’d found the professor’s body. I looked so awful that mom let me stay home without really saying anything. None of my classmates at school would’ve been worried about me. Ryotasu was the only one who’d called a few times, and I’d ignored her. At this rate, I’d turn into a real NEET who never left his room.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. This wasn’t what I wanted.
Why did I go see Dr. Hashigami that day? I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want the people around me to get suspicious, so I held it back.
The tension kept eating away at me. I felt heavy. Just walking was exhausting. The sheer number of cars and people around me was making it hard to breathe.
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I headed down a narrow alleyway. Once you went down an alley around here, you’d find yourself in the residential area that runs along Itsukaichi Street. It was a lot less crowded.
“Keyhole...” I passed in front of an abandoned house. The glass in the front door was cracked. It must have been abandoned a long time. I moved up against the door in the darkness, fumbled for the keyhole, and then pushed the key in.
“Fit... fit!” I forced the key into the keyhole, snot dripping down my nose. And then I remembered...
Shouldn’t I give this key — this tooth — back to Dr. Hashigami’s family? If I did, I’d feel a lot better.
But I quickly rejected the idea. If I gave up the key, I was doomed. That was how it felt. If only I could sneak into his house.
The idea suddenly came to me. If it was his key, the most likely place to find the keyhole was in his lab, or in his home. But there was no way I could visit his home right now. Actually, I didn’t even know where it was.
“Why... Why is this happening to me?” No matter how many times I tried to force it in, it wouldn’t fit.
I pressed down on it too hard and my hand slipped. I dropped the key. I quickly fell to the ground and began to search for it. By the time I finally found it and picked it up, I realized that several pedestrians were looking at me suspiciously.
Eyes. Eyes. Eyes.
Their eyes pierced me.
“S-Stop it...” A cold sweat ran down my back. “Don’t look at me...” I hurriedly stood up and ran away. I needed to shut out any information from the outside.
Ignore their gazes. Nobody was staring at me. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.
I kept walking and mumbling to myself. I headed home as fast as I could, being careful to take as many empty streets as possible.
It was dark. It was like I was walking through an endless darkness. I wanted to be alone, but I was afraid of being alone. How long had I been walking? Maybe I wasn’t in the real world anymore.
I suddenly heard a violent flapping of wings from the sky. It was too loud to be crows. I looked up in shock and saw something coming down.
A person? No, this was a devil. I knew that instinctively. He was dressed all in black, and in the darkness, it was hard to make him out. The one thing I could see clearly were two eyes, the crimson color of blood. There was a wicked light within them that was staring straight at me. I could also see two big, symbolic wings on his back.
“A devil...”
The wings were featherless and shiny, and reflected a little of the starlight. I didn’t know why, but I was staring at exactly what I imagined a devil to be.
Terrified, I tried to turn and run away. I screamed... or tried to scream, rather. My voice didn’t come out. A fierce electric numbness ran through my body. It was a hundred, no, a thousand times worse than static electricity. It was like when I was shot with Ryotasu’s Poyaya Gun. The shock raced through my whole body.
I was cold.
A moment ago I’d been surrounded by cold air, but this was a whole different kind of chill. It was like being doused in freezing water. It didn’t feel cold. It felt painful. My body was literally freezing solid. I could feel the sensation fading away from my hands and feet.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move my hands, my feet, my mouth, or even my eyeballs. I could just make out the devil saying something in front of me, but all I heard was the sound of grinding teeth.
The devil brought its face right up in front of me. Its breath was so hot I thought it would burn my cheek. It put a sharp-clawed hand on my chest. It was going to take my heart—
I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. As I watched in helpless despair, the devil laughed a little and ran my body through.
Frozen like a statue, I lost my balance. My body shook, tilted, and fell. I could see the ground getting closer. And when I struck the asphalt, my body shattered into a million pieces—
I leapt up. In fact, I leapt up so hard that I fell out of bed.
I was in my room. I was panting violently because it was hard to breathe. My throat was parched. But I didn’t have the energy to go get any water, so I just lay on the floor for a while in shock.
I looked at the clock, and it was past 9:00 AM. It was light outside. I was late for school. Not that it mattered, since I hadn’t been going lately.
/> I could hear the sounds of helicopters in the distance. They were really loud.
“So it was all a dream, huh?”
Ever since the night of Dr. Hashigami’s murder, I’d been having nightmares. Sometimes I thought things would be so much nicer if it were all just a dream.
I was soaked with sweat. My shirt was damp and clinging to my skin. And wait, it felt really warm near my crotch. I didn’t...
I tried my best to deny it, but when I ran my hand down to my pants...
“Aaah! You peed your pants. That’s so embarrassing! Eeyahaha!”
“Huh?”
I could hear a girl’s voice coming from the Skysensor next to my bed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was the voice of the girl who’d told me to pull out the professor’s tooth!
I quickly clung to the radio. The Zonko strap I’d tied to it slowly shook.
“T-This isn’t a dream, right?!”
“That you peed your pants?”
“Y-You! You! You’re talking to me, right?”
“Don’t worry about me. Just turn on the TV! Something really bad’s happening!”
“I am worried about you! What are you? Because of you, I—”
“Shut up and turn on the TV! Quick!”
There was no room for disagreement. I had no choice but to obey.
I wasn’t even allowed to change before I took the bag with the radio to the living room. Mom must’ve already left because she wasn’t here. I picked up the remote and turned on the TV.
“—The police have just made their announcement! They’ve already found f-fifty-one bodies! Fifty one! And they say they’re going to find more!”
“Huh?!”
The female reporter’s voice was almost a scream. I recognized exactly where she was. It was Inokashira Park. But the park didn’t seem peaceful like it always did. Police officers were running around, and in the distance I could see lots of media people. There were blue tarpaulins everywhere, and you couldn’t see the lake in the park. Something crazy was happening. That much I knew.
“I repeat! Early this morning, at least fifty bodies were discovered in the lake in Inokashira Park! There are believed to be over a hundred more down there as well!”
Occultic;Nine Volume 2 Page 4