Chapter 9 : June IV

That day, I got back to my grandparents' house in Koike after nine o'clock at night.

Dinnertime was long past.

I'd called on my cell phone to tell them I'd be back late, but I hadn't gotten through; so my grandmother's worry had swelled almost to panic, and I got the feeling that if I'd gotten home even ten minutes later, she would have called the police. She lectured me soundly, but the laudable act of a grandchild saying "I'm sorry, Grandma" calmed her more than I would have expected.

"Where were you lollygagging around at this hour?"

I had thoroughly anticipated the question, and I answered in the most innocent tone I could. "I was at a kid's house. I think we're friends now."

That was all I said. Even if she'd asked more, I wasn't planning to tell her.

Reiko had gotten home before me, and I guess it was natural, but she acted pretty concerned about me, too. They looked as if they were about to hit me with some more questions, but in the end I didn't discuss it in detail that night. I just couldn't summon the energy for it.

I finished my meal in silence and hurried up to the second floor, where I lay down on the futon spread out in my study room/bedroom.

Physically, I was exhausted; but in contrast, my mind was totally sharp. I rested an arm across my forehead and forced my eyes closed. Then, almost automatically, the conversation I'd had with Mei Misaki only hours earlier began to replay in my mind…

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

One person in the class is treated as if they're "not there." Doing that balances the books and the "disasters" for that year brought about by the "extra person,"—that is,, "the casualty" who's snuck into the class—are prevented. At the least, they can be weakened. That was the "talisman" that had been suggested, executed, and proven effective for the last ten years.

At first, they had thought this year nothing would happen, but when they realized that a transfer student—me—was coming after the start of the new semester and they would have "one extra person," the anxiety that this year might take an irregular course spread through the class…And as a result, Mei Misaki was forced to assume the role of the one who's "not there." Starting in May, one month later than usual. And then…

The storyline had entered my mind step-by-step, but I just couldn't accept it as anything real. Even after Mei had finished explaining the broad overview, I still couldn't completely shake my bewilderment.

When I went there, I hadn't intended to doubt what she told me. Not in the slightest. But…even so, I felt some resistance to completely letting go and believing everything she said.

"That's why you should have been let in on it the very first day you came to school, Sakakibara. You should have gone along with everyone else and treated me as if I was 'not there.' Because otherwise the talisman weakens. But then at lunch that day, you just came up and started talking to me."

When Mei mentioned it, I recalled again the scene on that day.

H-hey! Sakakibara!

What are you doing, Sakakibara?

The dismayed sound of Teshigawara's and Kazami's voices. As they watched me hurry over to where Mei sat on the bench in the shade of the trees, the two had thought: "Uh-oh."

No question, they'd thought "Uh-oh" and had panicked because they had to stop me from what I was doing. But then, it had been so sudden that there was nothing they could have done…

Why?

Mei had asked me that then.

Are you sure about this?

And that.

It was only now that I felt I understood what she'd meant, and what the things she'd said next meant.

You should be careful.

You…should be careful. It might have started already.

"If it was such an important 'decision,' why didn't anyone tell me about it sooner?"

I'd said it half to myself, but Mei replied, "They probably couldn't find the right moment. Maybe they thought it was hard to bring up for some reason. I already mentioned this, but I don't think anyone had thought about it that deeply."

"It's because I ran into you in the hospital before any of it had even happened…So I was surprised when I saw you in the classroom. That's why I just went up to you that day. Nobody knew I'd seen you before, so they probably couldn't have anticipated that I would reach out to you that fast."

"…Yeah."

"And after that, I ended up being the only one in class who kept on interacting with you, never knowing what was going on. And that stirred up everyone's anxiety a little bit more every time…"

"That's what it was."

This also explained Yukari Sakuragi's odd reaction during gym that day. In fact, hadn't she been obsessing over whether or not I had heard "something" from Teshigawara and Kazami?

Teshigawara had, in fact, probably tried to tell me "something" during lunch. Yes, I'd spotted Mei right as he was bringing it up by telling me "There's actually something we—" after the three of us had gone toward Building Zero, talking about nothing in particular…

…And then.

After art class the next day.

I've been meaning talk to you about this since yesterday…

Teshigawara had said that to me, but Mochizuki, who'd been with us, had stopped him.

I don't think you can do that anymore.

I felt as if I even understood the nuance behind him saying "anymore" now.

I had already had contact with Mei, so talking to me in a way that might inadvertently acknowledge that "a student named Mei Misaki exists" wouldn't be all right anymore. That was the sort of apprehension Mochizuki must have felt then.

And then their reaction when I'd gone into the secondary library, where Mei was, right after that.

H-hey, Sakaki. You're not really…

S-Sakakibara? What are you…?

And it wasn't just them.

At the root of the conflict/dismay that the class as a whole had shown in all kinds of cases ever since I'd transferred here, there must have been constant anxiety and, after all, fear and dread. Not toward Mei Misaki. Toward the "disasters" for this year that might start because I was interacting with her.

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

"I got a call from Teshigawara on my cell phone out of nowhere, trying to warn me. He told me 'Quit paying attention to things that aren't there. It's dangerous.'"

It had been the week before the midterm exams. When I had run up to the roof of Building C looking for Mei.

"I guess from his point of view, he was making a decisive move to stop me from messing with the talisman anymore."

"Probably."

Mei gave a small nod.

"He told me something else that day, too. He said he'd tell me about what happened twenty-six years ago once June started. But then even after June started, he never told me a word. He said things had changed."

"That was because Sakuragi had died."

"…But why?"

"You interacted with me and violated the 'decision' they'd gone to so much trouble to uphold. I don't think they could help being nervous that the talisman wasn't going to work anymore. But what if nothing had happened in May, despite what you'd done?"

"You mean…if no one had died?"

"Right. If that had happened, that would mean this year was an 'off year' after all. So there wouldn't be any need to keep the talisman going…That's why."

"…I see."

If that had happened, then there wouldn't have been any need to keep things so unnaturally concealed from me anymore. They'd be able to relax and explain the situation. And they'd be able to dump the weird "strategy" of treating one of their classmates as if they were not there…Speaking of which.

"So then when Sakuragi and her mother died like that, that forecast bombed? It made it obvious that this year is an 'on year' and that the 'disasters' had already started, so…"

So Teshigawara had told me "Things are different now than they were when I said that."

…Putting everything together like this, the alienness and doubts that had dug at my heart were clearing bit by bit, but…

"Can I ask you something?"

It was a vague issue that had been nagging at me ever since I first talked to Mei at school.

"It's your name tag."

"…Huh?"

"It looks so dirty and tattered. Why is it like that?"

"Oh…Did I look like a ghost wearing an old name tag?"

Her cheeks softened slightly at the joke.

"I had an unfortunate accident," Mei replied. "I dropped my name tag in the laundry and didn't notice, so it got washed. It's a pain to get a new one, so…"

Urk. That's all it had been?

Collecting myself, I went on to ask one more question. "What about how your desk is the only one in the class that's old? Is there a reason for that?"

"Oh, that," Mei answered with a serious look this time. "That's part of the custom. The student who's 'not there' gets assigned a desk like that. There are still old desks and chairs in the classrooms that we don't use anymore on the second floor of Building Zero. They brought it over from there. Maybe it has some kind of meaning as part of making the talisman work."

"I see. Y'know, I looked at the scratches on that desk."

"You what?"

"The one that says 'who is "the casualty"?' You wrote that, didn't you?"

"…I did." Mei lowered her eyes and nodded. "I know that I'm not 'the casualty.' So then who in our class could it be this year? That's what it means."

"Ah. Oh, but—"

It was then that a kind of mean question slithered into my mind. I voiced it thoughtlessly.

"So you can be sure that you're not 'the casualty,' huh?"

Mei didn't answer.

"Before, didn't you say that the 'memory modification' affected even 'the casualty' themselves? So then how could anyone be sure it's not them?"

At a loss for words, Mei shut her mouth and blinked her right eye to hide her discomfort. I do believe that was the first time I'd ever seen her react like that.

"I'm telling you…"

When at last she began to speak, Mei shut her mouth once again.

It was then that the door to the room opened. Mei's mother entered. The doll maker of "Studio M," Kirika.

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

She must have been working in the studio on the second floor until that very moment. Kirika's wardrobe had a rough look. She wore black jeans with a black shirt just like Mei, and a marigold-colored bandanna over her hair.

She was tall for a woman, and since she wasn't wearing any makeup, the fundamental attractiveness of her features was easy to see. She had a certain resemblance to Mei, certainly, but she seemed to be cloaked in an air far colder than Mei's; I can't say why. When we'd spoken on the phone, the whisper of uneasiness I'd detected in her responses had projected a different image.

At first, she looked at me as if she'd beheld some mythical beast.

"This is my friend Sakakibara. He's the one who called."

When Mei introduced me, her mother let out an "Oh," and her expression changed. She had been doll-like and expressionless up to that point, but then pretty much in the space of a second, an unnaturally broad smile came over her face.

"Welcome to our home! I'm sorry you have to see me like this." As she spoke, she pulled the bandanna off her head. "This is a rare sight, my daughter bringing a friend over. It's Sakakibara, right?"

"Uh, yes."

"She never tells me how school's going. Are you a friend from class? Or maybe the art club?"

Art club? Was Mei in the art club? So then she and Mochizuki had been…

"Sakakibara is also a visitor at the gallery downstairs. He happened across it and came in, and I guess he really liked it. We've been talking about dolls all day."

Mei spoke to her own mother in a stilted way. It sounded completely routine, not as though it was something special she was doing for this moment.

"You don't say!" Kirika's smile became even more buddy-buddy. "That's unusual for a boy. Have you always liked dolls?"

"Yeah, I guess," I replied, feeling beyond tense. "Oh, but, uh, this was the first time I'd ever seen dolls like you have here up close…So, um, I was really surprised."

"Surprised?"

"Uh, I mean, I don't really know how to explain…"

In the overly air-conditioned room, in a complete reversal from earlier, sweat was threatening to break out all over my body.

"Um, the dolls here—did you make them in the studio on the second floor, Kirika? I mean, ma'am?"

"That's right, I did. Which of the little darlings did you like best?"

When she asked me that, the first thing that came to mind was the doll of the little girl in the coffin, resting in the back of the basement display room, but…

"Oh, um…"

I was far too self-conscious to just up and tell her that, and I let my voice fade away. It probably would have seemed pretty comical to a bystander.

"You should get home soon, Sakakibara," Mei cut in then, thankfully.

"Oh…yeah."

"I'll walk him part of the way," she informed her mother, then got up from the sofa. "Sakakibara just moved here from Tokyo in April. He doesn't know his way around yet."

"Did you really?"

The smile that had been there a moment before vanished from Kirika's face. It was the same doll-like expressionlessness she'd worn when she came into the room. Still, her voice retained its friendly silkiness.

"You come over whenever you like."

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

I walked side by side with Mei down the darkened streets, where night had fallen completely. Mei was on the left and I was on the right. That way, the eye that wasn't a "doll's eye" could see me easily.

A warm, wet wind was blowing, bringing the promise of the rainy season. It was sodden with humidity and should have felt clinging. But right now I found it strangely pleasant.

"Is it always like that?" I asked, breaking the silence that had drawn on into an awkward tension.

Mei returned the question curtly. "What?"

"How you are with your mom. You talk so politely to her…like how you would talk to a stranger."

"Is that weird?"

"I don't know if I'd call it weird, but I guess I was just wondering if that's how mothers and daughters talk to each other."

"I think it's usually different." Her reaction was incredibly dry. "That woman and I have always been like that. What's it like in your family? How does a mother talk to her son?"

"My family doesn't have a mother."

All I knew of how mothers are supposed to behave with their children, therefore, was information I'd gathered from the outside.

"What? I didn't know that."

"She died right after I was born. So it's always been just me and my dad…And my dad had to go abroad for a year this spring, so all of a sudden I had to come here. I'm freeloading with my mom's family in Koike. So all of a sudden, my family's twice as big."

"…I see."

Mei walked several paces with her mouth shut, and then said, "My mother and I can't help it. I'm one of her dolls, see. Exactly the same as the little darlings in the gallery."

She didn't sound obviously sad or despondent or anything like that. Her tone was detached, like always. Still, I was a little taken aback and the word "No…" escaped my lips.

"That can't be…You're her daughter, and you're alive."

She was nothing like a doll. Before I could tell her that, Mei replied, "I'm alive, but I'm not the real thing."

Naturally, I couldn't help being flummoxed by that.

Not the real thing? Meaning—

What? I wanted to ask, but the words stuck in my throat and I swallowed them, hard. Because it seemed wrong to trespass that far. So I nudged the conversation back to "our problem" a little.

"Does your mom know about that stuff we talked about today? About what's been going on in class since May?"

"Not a thing," Mei replied promptly. "We're not allowed to tell our families, anyway. Even if we could, I don't think I could talk about it."

"Would your mom be mad if she found out? About the crazy thing the class is doing to you?"

"I'm not sure. It might bother her a little. But she's not the kind of person who'd get mad and complain to the school, either."

"What about how you're out of school so much? You didn't come today, either…You were at home, weren't you? She doesn't say anything to you about that?"

"You can chalk that up to her being the hands-off type. Maybe it's more indifference than just hands-off. She's shut away in her studio basically all afternoon, anyway. It's like she forgets about everything else when she's got a doll or a painting in front of her."

"So she's not worried, then." I stole a glance at Mei's face, in profile beside me. "Not even right now…"

"Now? Why now?"

"What I'm saying is, you're walking home the first boy who's ever come over to your house, and it's dark already, so…like that."

"I dunno. That stuff doesn't really bother her, either. She's told me before 'That's because I trust you,' but I don't know if that's true. It could just be that's what she wants to believe."

She stole a glance back at me, then, but she quickly turned her eye ahead again and went on, "Just…aside from one thing."

"One thing?"

…I wonder what.

I looked at Mei's face in profile again. She nodded, "Yup," then blinked slowly, as if to say she didn't want to talk about it, and suddenly sped up her stride.

I called out pretty loudly, "Hey, Misaki!" trying to stop her. "Now that I've heard your explanation, I feel like I have a pretty good idea about 'the secret of third-year Class 3,' but…are you okay with that?"

"What are you talking about?"

Again, her question came back harshly.

"I mean, how you have to act, for this talisman…"

"Nothing I can do about it."

This time, Mei's pace slowed suddenly.

"Someone has to be the one who's 'not there,' after all. It just happened to be me."

Her tone was just the same as always, but somehow I found her words hard to accept. She said "there's nothing I can do about it," but it didn't seem as though she had very strong feelings about "doing it for everyone's benefit," for instance. I also didn't get the impression "self-sacrifice" or "devotion" really jibed with her behavior…

"You mean you'd have been fine with whatever?" I tried. "Like, you were never very attached to hanging out with the kids in class or to your connection with them?"

Was that why she could be so detached even when she alone out of the class was being treated as if she didn't exist?

"Connections with people and connecting with people…It's true, I'm not very good at that stuff."

After she said that, Mei was silent for the briefest of moments.

"How should I put it? I kind of wonder whether these things that everyone seems to want are so important. They seem a little unsettling sometimes…Ah, but maybe the bigger issue in this case is that—"

"What?"

"Suppose they hadn't picked me to be 'not there' and they'd picked someone else instead. Then I would have had to stand next to everyone and go along with them and treat that kid like they didn't exist. Isn't it way better to be cast out by everyone than having to do that? Don't you think?"

"Hm-m-m…"

I could only give her an ambiguous nod. Mei moved suddenly away from me. I hurried after her and saw that ahead on the left, beside the road, there was a small playground. Mei was heading into it all alone, her feet seeming to glide beneath her.

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

There was a tiny sandy area in a corner of the empty park, and beside it stood two iron bars at different heights. Mei grabbed onto the taller of these—though higher, it was still a low bar meant for children—and lightly flipped herself over it, then rotated and landed solidly on the ground. In the dusky light of the streetlamp, the silhouette of her black shirt and black jeans seemed to flutter and dance.

Struck momentarily dumb, I chased after Mei, into the park.

Leaning back on the bar and arching her back, she let out an "Ah-h-h." It was a fed-up sigh unlike anything I'd heard from her up till now. That's how it sounded.

I walked up to the other bar without a word, and matched Mei's pose. She seemed to have been waiting for that.

"By the way, Sakakibara—"

The gaze of her right eye, unobscured by her eye patch, arrested me.

"There's still something important we haven't talked about."

"Yeah?"

"Come on. How you've become the same as me now."

"Oh…"

Right. There was that.

The things that had happened at school today, that had given me a personal experience of the decision that the class had enacted on Mei. From my perspective, of course, it was a huge issue.

"You can probably pretty much imagine why they did it."

Even so…

Not to sound craven, but I could honestly say that I hadn't gotten my thoughts that far ordered yet. Maybe she guessed that, because Mei started to tell a story, her attitude like someone lecturing a thickheaded student.

"Mizuno's sister died and Takabayashi died, so there are already two 'deaths of June.' So there's no more doubting that this is an 'on year.' I'm sure everyone came to the natural conclusion that the talisman wasn't working because you talked to me. Even the people who only half-believed it before couldn't half-believe it anymore."

I couldn't answer.

"So then, what should they do? If they let it go on, the 'disasters' might keep on coming. More people would die. They say that once it starts, it won't stop. But there must be some way to stop it. Even if it can't be stopped, maybe there's a way the 'disasters' can be weakened. That's how people normally think."

I spread both my arms out to grip the bar I was leaning back against. My palms were pretty sweaty and they slipped against the metal. Mei went on talking.

"They probably considered two strategies there."

"Two?"

"Yeah. One would be to pull you into line now, at least, and do everything they could to keep treating me like I'm 'not there.' But that might be too weak. Even if it had some effect, you could hardly call it a decisive blow."

I see—at last, I was getting the idea.

The moment Ms. Mizuno's death had become known, the kind of discussion Mei was talking about had been held. That had been last Thursday. After I'd been released by the detectives from the Yomiyama P.D., I'd gone back to the classroom, but there'd been no one there. It was the period for our extended homeroom. In order to have the discussion without my finding out, they'd gone to a conference room in Building S, like Mochizuki had told me.

"Then the other of the two methods was…"

When I said that, Mei nodded quietly and picked up where I'd left off. "Raise the number of people who are 'not there' to two."

"…Huh."

"They figured that by doing that, maybe they'd be able to strengthen the effect of the talisman. As for who suggested it…Maybe it was the tactical officer, Akazawa. From the very beginning, she's seemed like—how should I put it?—a hard-liner about this issue."

I could believe that Izumi Akazawa's being chosen as the new class representative for the girls that day might have had an effect on other developments in the class.

"At any rate, they talked about the 'strategy' going forward and decided to do that. And then today, you became the same as me."

That gathering this morning had been held to confirm the "additional countermeasures" they were going to carry out starting today, and it had been held in secret from me. When he'd gotten news of Ikuo Takabayashi's death over the weekend—

"But look."

Even so, I still couldn't completely accept it.

"That kind of thing…There's no guarantee it'll have any effect. And yet they'd go that far anyway?"

"I told you, everyone is desperate."

Mei's words were forceful.

"In May and June, four people actually died. If things go on like that, they could be next, or their parents or siblings. If you think about it in concrete terms, it's not so crazy."

"Yeah…"

…That was true.

If you supposed that every month a "sacrifice" would be taken at random from the people related to third-year Class 3, it could even be Mei next, or me. It could be Kirika—Mei's mother, whom I'd just met—or it could be my grandparents. It didn't seem possible, but could it even get my dad, away in India? I could picture it in my mind, but I still just didn't have the sense of immediacy that Mei was talking about.

"Do you think it's illogical?" she asked me.

Instantly, I replied, "Yeah, I do."

"How about if you think about it like this?"

Mei leaned her back away from the bar and turned to face me. Without so much as holding down her hair as the wind scattered it, she said, "There may not be any guarantee…But if there's even the slightest chance that this strategy will put a stop to the 'disasters,' isn't that good enough? I always thought so, and that's why I agreed to be the one who's 'not there.'"

I couldn't say anything.

"It's not like there's anyone in the class who's my 'best friend,' as everyone likes to call them. What Mr. Kubodera said about 'needing to overcome the suffering together' and 'graduating as a class' feels totally creepy and totally fake, it's true…But it's sad when people die. Even if I won't feel the sadness directly, there are plenty of other people who will."

Incapable of responding, I fixed my eyes on the movement of Mei's lips.

"We don't know yet if these 'additional countermeasures' will be effective. But if the two of us stop existing, maybe that'll put a stop to any further calamities. Maybe nobody will have to be sad because someone died. If there's even a whisper of a chance that's true, I think it's all right."

As I listened to Mei talk, the words Mochizuki had spoken to me on Saturday came to mind.

Just tell yourself that it's for everyone's benefit. Please.

But I couldn't care less about pretty ideals like that. Even the way Mei was explaining it now, the phrase "for everyone's benefit" carried still another nuance. I could sense that, and plus—

If I were to roll over now and accept that I would be treated as if I were "not there"…

If I did that, how would that affect our—my and Mei's—relationship, I wondered.

We'd be able to interact without having to worry about what anyone else thought, as the two fellow "non-existers" in the class.

At any rate, we would have to be completely "nonexistent" to everyone. Which meant, from our perspective, that everyone else in the class besides us would become "not there"…

And right then, I thought maybe that would be okay, too.

It came alongside a faint bewilderment, a faint regret, and a faint fidgetiness whose true shape not even I could really grasp.

We left the park and went up the road along the levee on the Yomiyama River, the round moon in the night sky tingeing the spaces between the clouds…Finally, at the foot of the bridge that crossed the river, we parted ways.

"Thanks. Take care going home," I told her. "If you believe the stuff you told me today, you're just as close to 'death' as Sakuragi and Ms. Mizuno were. So…"

"You're the one who needs to be careful, Sakakibara," she answered unflappably, then stroked the tip of her right middle finger diagonally across the eye patch that covered her left eye. "I'll be fine."

How could she say that with such certainty? Something about it seemed odd, and I narrowed my eyes. As I did so, Mei dropped her hand from her eye patch and reached it out to me.

"I look forward to not existing with you tomorrow. Sa. Ka. Ki. Ba. Ra."

She shook my hand lightly. Her hand felt surprisingly cold…But my own body felt a growing heat, as if fired up by the sensation.

She spun around and walked off down the street we'd come by. I could only see her from the back so I can't say for certain, but I thought I saw her hands pull the eye patch from her left eye then.

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

I had at some point sunk into sleep, but I was jerked out of it.

The cell phone I had tossed to one side of my bed was vibrating, flashing a tiny green light. Who could that be? It was pretty late at night. Could Teshigawara want something? Or maybe…

I sprawled on my stomach and stretched a hand out for the phone.

"Heya."

At the very first word, I knew who my caller was. I absently muttered "What do you want?" which he heard.

"Now, now, I shouldn't need a reason!"

My father, Yosuke, was calling from his scorching foreign land. It had been a long time since he'd last called, I thought, but what timing…

"I bet India is hot. Is it night there?"

"I just had curry for dinner. How are you doing?"

"Physically, I'm fine."

My father probably didn't know yet about the string of deaths among my classmates and their families. I probably ought to tell him. But then I'd have to mention the things I'd heard from Mei today, too, and…

After some thought, I decided not to.

Even if I told him a simplified version, it probably wouldn't come across very well, and if I wanted to give him the full explanation, that would take too much time. And besides, supposedly there was that rule that "you can't even tell your family."

Then maybe you're not actually supposed to know.

The last time I'd run into Mei in the basement display room of "Twilight of Yomi," she'd told me something similar.

If you found out, then maybe…

What had she meant by that?

That if "I never found out about it," the "risk of death" was ever so slightly lower or something? That was something to consider, too.

I decided to avoid any very complex topics on this international phone call and tried approaching my father from a different angle.

"Hey, this might sound strange."

"What's that? You in love?"

"Cut it out. It's nothing that stupid."

"Oho. So sorry."

"Did Mom ever tell you any memories she had from middle school?"

"Say what?"

I got the impression that my dad was pretty gobsmacked on the other end of the call.

"Why're you asking that again, out of the blue?"

"Mom went to the same middle school I'm going to here. North Yomi Middle School. Do the words 'third-year Class 3' mean anything to you?"

"Uh-h-h…" My dad mumbled frowningly, then was silent for several seconds. However, the answer he gave me after all that came down to one word: "Nope."

"Nothing at all?"

"Well, I mean, she probably did tell me stories about middle school, but then if you're asking me to retell them now…Was Ritsuko in third-year Class 3, then?"

Hm-m-m…I guess this was the memory power of a man over fifty.

"By the way, Koichi."

This time my dad asked me the question.

"It's two months you've been there now, so how does Yomiyama seem, a year and a half later? Not much different?"

"Mrrm…" I cocked my head, the phone still pressed to my ear. "A year and a half later? But this is the first time I've been here since starting middle school."

"Eh? That doesn't seem right…"

There was a kksh of interference and my father's voice crackled.

I held the phone away from my ear for a second. Oh right, I recalled, this room's got terrible reception. I checked the bars on the edge of the screen. There was just barely one bar, but the interference was getting worse and worse. Ksshkksh, kkkshkshkkssh…

"…Hm-m?"

I made out my father's voice through the snapping interference.

"Oh, right. You're right. I must be remembering wrong about…"

His tone sounded as if he had just then remembered something. But the rest was obscured by interference and grew increasingly unclear. In the end, the call dropped completely.

I gazed down at the zero bars on the LCD screen for a little bit, then lazily set the phone down beside my pillow.

All at once, brrr, a shudder ran through me like a powerful chill. My whole body…no, not just my physical body. The same shudder went through my mind, too.

…I'm scared.

One beat later, the words came.

I'm scared. Terrified. It was these feelings that had made me shudder.

The saga concerning third-year Class 3 that I had heard from Mei Misaki today—it was because of that. It hadn't been so bad as I was listening or for a little while after, but now, all of a sudden…There was a time lag, like the sore muscles that came after exercise.

I felt as if the translucent gauze that had been obscuring the reality of events behind a kind of tenuousness had abruptly disappeared. Laid bare, touched by shades of the utmost reality, terror assaulted me…

Third-year Class 3 is the closest to death.

We've drawn nearer to "death."

If they let it go on, the 'disasters' might keep on coming.

They say that once it starts, it won't stop…

If everything Mei said was true and, on top of that, if the "additional countermeasures" that had begun today weren't effective…

That meant someone else would get dragged to their death.

It could be me—there was that chance, of course. (God, it's a little late for that…)

There were thirty students in third-year Class 3. Twenty-eight, minus Sakuragi and Takabayashi. For convenience's sake, say the targets were limited only to the students in the class. Then there was, simplistically speaking, a one-in-twenty-eight chance that this very night, I could…

The tragedy of Yukari Sakuragi that I had witnessed and Ms. Mizuno's elevator accident that I had heard over the phone as it was happening…They tangled and melted into one another and became a somber, crookedly shaped net spreading over my heart like a spiderweb.

There in the middle of it…

The scratches on Mei's desk in the classroom flitted suddenly, in tight close-up, through my brain.

Who is "the casualty"—?