I was on my way back home.
......The cries of the higurashi accentuated the already-lonely evening.
...More time had passed than I'd thought.
The orange of the dusky sky was being chased down, little by little, by an indigo color approaching from the east.
Exhausted from the slow climb towards Hinamizawa... without even noticing, I'd gotten off my bicycle and was pushing it uphill.
"............"
I don't understand any of this...
...No one had told me to my face that I'd done something wrong.
...No... In fact, it might have been much easier on me that way.
What happened yesterday... really was just my curiosity.
...It really was no more than a quiet prank... no more than having the courage to cross at a red light as long as you did it with other people.
The storehouse for ritual implements—hallowed ground, only accessible to the family of the priest.
For sure, I'd seen terrifying things that I'd never imagined would be there.
...Thinking on it now, though, it didn't matter what was stored away inside—it didn't make the wrong I had committed any more right.
...What the four of us did... Mion seemed to know about it.
...For some reason, even the police were trying to learn what the four of us did.
Did we do... something so bad......?
Really...
...It doesn't matter how wrong it was.
...I did something wrong.
It was nothing more than that, and yet...
I couldn't accept it. I didn't apologize to Mion or Ooishi-san—all I did was shield myself with ambiguities...
I did something wrong yesterday.
...I set foot into a forbidden storehouse for a little bit of mischief.
I'll forget everything I saw in there.
I won't ever do something like that again, either.
...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
If I apologize like that... would they forgive me...?
The suddenly cool evening air left no room for such sentiment, however, as it mercilessly chilled my feet, urging me to head home as soon as possible...
...In the end, the evening air was correct.
If I trudged along such an isolated road, regrets would pile on top of regrets, but nothing would change.
Let's go home.
I'll go home, go to my room, put on my favorite music or something, and go to bed.
...That might sound plain and boring, but it's probably the strongest I've felt all day.
"............Hoo..."
Now that I've made a decision, there's no point in dawdling in a place like this.
I sat back on my bike.
I pushed hard on the pedals.
I rapidly advanced forward.
I steadily gained speed.
The wind was cutting and mercilessly cold, but it actually felt good, as if it were softly punishing me...
I didn't eat much dinner before excusing myself early and returning to my bedroom.
My mom called me from downstairs.
"Keiichi~
You have a call!
It's from Sonozaki-san!"
Sonozaki?
Was it Mion?
...No, it was Shion.
...I just remembered.
She'd had something she wanted to tell me today.
Ooishi-san had interrupted us, so she didn't get the chance.
...Shion had said she'd call tonight...
"Hello?
...Is that you, Shion?"
"Hello.
Ran into a bit of trouble today, didn't we?"
She said it so plainly that I got a bit annoyed.
...She was the one who left me there and ran.
"Don't say that.
I gave you the signal to run away with me, didn't I?
You just sat there looking dazed, Kei-chan."
"I-I wasn't dazed!
...All of a sudden you left me there, and after that, I had to put up with that Ooishi guy for ages!"
"Don't complain to me about it."
...I-I can't believe she passed it off like that!
She looks just like Mion, and yet inside, she's this different?
...I got a little irritated at myself when I realized I was, somewhere in my mind, hoping for the same reaction I would get from Mion, even though she's a different person.
"...Uh... sorry.
Next time I'll run away first thing and leave you there."
"Hey, it's ladies first. Ahahahahaha!"
Shion laughed refreshingly.
...When I heard her voice, I realized that she wasn't really that angry or anything.
...It was just as she said.
...The cause of my temper was because it was my own fault for not leaving immediately.
...I'll stop blaming it on others.
Blaming it on others would be...
"Anyway... You had something to tell me, right?"
"Oh, yeah.
.........I mean, if you already know, then it's not something that bears repeating.
...Umm...
...Do you already know?"
Shion lowered her voice suddenly, as if she were glancing around.
...I had no idea what I could already know.
"...Sorry, but I have no clue what you're talking about.
At least give me a hint."
"......So that means...
...you don't know."
She seemed to take my stupid-sounding question as evidence.
However, her voice didn't sound disappointed or exasperated in the slightest.
"Actually,
...It's about last night, during the Watanagashi Festival."
My entire body jolted as I was assailed by a terrible feeling...
...I-Is Shion... going to ask the same thing...?!
"Hello?
Kei-chan, are you listening...?"
"...Uh... yeah.
I am.
...What about last night?"
"The four of us... went in there, right?"
...She didn't beat around the bush.
Whether or not I wanted to admit it... that was the actual, honest truth, and I couldn't act like it hadn't happened...
"Then, after that, we walked away together... and then went our separate ways near the stone stairs, right?
Takano-san and Tomitake-san went to the stream, and you stayed there, Kei-chan.
I went over to see some relatives."
"...Yeah.
Why do you ask?"
"......We won't make any progress if we keep asking each other questions... so let me ask this question first.
Okay?"
"You mean... did I see Tomitake-san and Takano-san last night?"
"......Huh?
...Oh, yes.
...Did you see the two of them after that?"
...I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised.
...This is the third time I've been asked this question today.
Why?
Why?
What the hell was going on?!
"W-Why?!
Why are you asking me that?!"
"No, Kei-chan!
I'm asking the question.
Please answer me."
"D-Did you, Shion?
If you answer first, then I'll answer...!"
My shabby response betrayed how scared and small I felt now... after everything that had happened today.
Shion didn't say anything for a few moments.
...Just as I was beginning to think I'd really put my foot in my mouth with that response, she finally answered me.
"Of course, I didn't see them.
My relatives were with me, and they can vouch for that."
"...I didn't see them either.
People can vouch for me, too—like Mion, Rena, and everyone else."
Now that we knew our answers matched, she let out a sigh that sounded more relieved than anything else...
"Thank you for answering me honestly.
...Okay, then... I'll tell you.
...Apparently, last night, Takano-san and Tomitake-san died."
"......Sorry, Shion.
...What was that you just said?"
"Apparently, last night, Takano-san and Tomitake-san died.
Takano-san was found burned to death.
Tomitake-san was... well, it looked like a suicide.
...I found out this morning.
...I heard my dad talking to a relative on the phone about it..."
Late last night.
A police car on its way back from festival security duty had discovered Tomitake-san lying in the middle of the road heading towards Okinomiya.
He had... clawed out his throat,
and died.
"W-What? He... clawed out his own throat?
Th-That bright, cheerful Tomitake-san committed suicide?!
That can't possibly be right!!"
"The police did an autopsy!
He did it with his own fingernails!
He scratched at his throat so hard that he ruptured his blood vessels and bled out!
He died in a pool of his own blood, that's what they said!!"
"I've never heard of such an insane suicide!!
You can't just... scratch open your own throat like that!!"
I realized I was yelling too loudly, so I lowered the force I was putting into my voice...
I didn't want my parents to hear me, so I switched to the cordless phone and ran up to my own room.
"...Sorry for yelling.
...So?
Was Takano-san... was that a suicide too?"
"In her case... it's a little unclear......"
Takano-san's body was found in the mountains of Gifu Prefecture.
Employees at a rest stop nearby reported to the police late that night that they could see flames in the mountains.
The firefighters dispatched there were the first ones to find her.
An autopsy concluded that it was the burned corpse of a half-naked female.
They initially considered the body beyond recognition, but directly after, there was a request for a dental comparison from the ×× prefectural police station in Okinomiya, and the results concluded that it was Miyo Takano.
The cause of death wasn't confirmed, but it was highly likely to have been a homicide, since she was in her undergarments, and her clothes were nowhere in the area.
"...The oil drum had fallen over, so it's also possible she burned herself to death."
"I-It couldn't possibly have been suicide!!
If you're going to die, there are plenty of easier ways, aren't there?!
This is... this can't be suicide!!"
"That's what I think!
It's unthinkable that Tomitake-san would kill himself, too!"
After the two us rattled on at each other, there was a silence as we paused to catch our breaths.
...And as we calmed our nerves...
right then, I understood what Shion's story actually meant...
"...I think it will end up being Oyashiro-sama's curse.
We all did more than enough to deserve it, after all."
"D-Deserve...? Y-You've gotta be kidding!!
It's not like I...!!"
Shion wanted to see it with me! I just went along with her!!
...I tried to say that, but I fell silent.
...Nothing would come of me blaming others.
...It didn't matter how much everyone else encouraged me... I could have put my foot down.
I lost to my own half-assed sense of adventure and agreed to go in with them
......
Yes, it was my fault, and no one else's...
"......Shion.
...Last night, when we snuck into the ritual storehouse, did you predict things would turn out this way...?"
"...Of course not.
I mean, I thought it was pretty risky... but I never even dreamed something like this could happen."
Shion's words were probably her true feelings.
...She knew she could get in trouble if we were caught, but that was the thrill of this little adventure.
...It was the same for me.
"Besides that, Kei-chan.
...Think about it for a moment.
...Didn't Oyashiro-sama's curse turn out a little strange this year?"
...It was already plenty strange, seeing as how Tomitake-san and Takano-san died like that.
Given all that, what could possibly be stranger...?
"I mean that they found two corpses.
...Remember what I said?
Every other year, one person would die, and one person would disappear.
...This year is the first time two people have been found dead."
"...That may be true... but that's not a huge deal, is it?"
"It is, Kei-chan.
...Think about it harder.
Listen.
If two people died because of Oyashiro-sama's curse,
then in order to quell Oyashiro-sama's anger, two people would need to be sacrificed."
"...Is that how it works...?
So what?
Tomitake-san and Takano-san died, so now two people are going to go missing this year...?"
...I don't understand why, but...
...When I said that, I felt my spine freeze.
"...I don't think anyone's been confirmed missing yet.
...I think that those two people,
...have yet to disappear..."
Shion, like me...was obviously getting the same feeling crawling down her back.
"Two people... have yet to
disappear......?"
Shion didn't answer.
I couldn't say any more than that, either.
...A chill crept in through my clothes and tried to wrap into a fist around my heart... cold hands, feeling about on my chest...
"............"
Neither of us could say anything.
Tomitake-san opened the lock, and he died. Takano-san exposed the ritual storehouse, and she died.
...If two more people were to be sacrificed...
Then... they would be... none other than the ones who entered with them... none other than us...
".........No.
...This has... got to be a joke."
I wanted so much for her to pass this off as a joke, even now.
...That, though, was such an incredibly difficult and selfish request.
If Tomitake-san and Takano-san had died in a common way like a car accident, I could tell myself it was coincidence.
...Instead... he clawed out his own throat... and she burned to death, drowned in oil, in the mountains...
...The two deaths were so out-of-the-ordinary... that I couldn't possibly dismiss it as mere coincidence.
It was as if... in exchange for sneaking into the ritual storehouse,
there must be someone punishing us... some sort of cruel will working behind the scenes.
...Even so... I still didn't want to accept that terrifying truth.
...If I did, then I would have to acknowledge that a horrible crisis was growing near for Shion and I...
...That's why I argued against it.
...I argued, knowing I was running away.
"I... In the first place... it's not even in the newspaper, is it?!
Such a monstrous incident would be all over the newspapers and television!!
Magazine writers would flood the village, too, thinking it'd make for an interesting story...!!"
"Of course it's not getting reported by the media.
...That's how it was in the past, too."
When the incidents occurred for the third year in a row, there were some third-rate magazines that sniffed out the story and ran issues full of gossip columns about Hinamizawa.
Fearing that the region would develop a negative stigma, they negotiated with the prefecture and the police.
...Since last year, it became a big conspiracy, where no information about the incidents was allowed to be leaked to the media...
"I hear the elders and the top brass from the Sonozaki family put all the pressure they could on the police."
"Then you mean... their deaths... are going to be dealt with in total secrecy?!"
"That's how it is.
...Of course, the police are investigating it.
That's being performed in secret too, though, so I hear the investigation itself is very restricted in what it can and can't do.
You could essentially say they're interfering with a police investigation."
...This story was unbelievable.
...People died... and yet they don't publicize it and deal with everything in secret...
"If we break it down further...
it means that no matter who dies on the night of Watanagashi, it won't go public."
"...Th-That's the biggest pile of bullshit I've ever heard...!"
"Kei-chan.
...Before, I said how the villagers could be the ones carrying out Oyashiro-sama's curse.
...That's what I mean.
...At some point, a tradition was created here in Hinamizawa...
where every year, you're allowed to kill someone on the night of Watanagashi under the guise of it being Oyashiro-sama's curse."
When someone dies on the night of Watanagashi... it turns into the curse of Oyashiro-sama.
The curse turns into the serial murder incidents.
...In order to avoid exacerbating the negative stigma surrounding Hinamizawa... those incidents are dealt with in secret...
"That's insane!!
Dead and missing people turn up every year!!
However bad the stigma gets, the police have to draw the line somewhere, don't they?!"
"...You could say the incidents happening every year is mysterious, but the police can get the job done when they need to.
After all, the incidents always get resolved individually.
...It doesn't end up being a 'string of incidents,' you know?
It just so happens that something unfortunate happens on the night of Watanagashi every year.
...That's all it turns into."
Most of the criminals responsible for the original dismemberment were arrested.
The last one managed to get and stay away... but the events were totally exposed and elucidated, so it was, in essence, resolved.
The dam-supporting couple who died in an accident on the second year—that was an accidental death, plain and simple.
...They made a lot of investigations into the possibility of it having been a homicide, but they didn't turn up anything.
It ended up as an accident.
It was resolved.
On the third year, the priest fell ill and passed away.
There were doctors present at the hospital at his deathbed, and they all had trustworthy medical certificates.
They even did an autopsy.
It concluded that it wasn't a homicide.
...That was resolved, too.
On the fourth year, the sister-in-law of the dam-supporting couple was murdered.
The criminal was an abnormal man with a history of regular psychostimulant usage.
He confessed that he thought Oyashiro-sama's curse was so interesting he wanted to try it out.
The criminal died of an accident while imprisoned, so this incident was essentially resolved as well.
...That's right.
None of the incidents had any relation to another, and each was independently resolved...
"So then why does an unfortunate coincidence occur every year on the night of Watanagashi?
...You can try and say it's a string of related incidents, but they're not related.
...Yet, every year, someone always dies, and someone always disappears!"
The story Takano-san told me on the day before during the setup... now that the curse really had occurred this year, I couldn't just laugh it off.
"......Then... ...does that mean... ...it'll come for us too...?
Just like how one person dies and one disappears every year... are you saying we'll be... taken along with Tomitake-san and Takano-san and erased too...?!"
...My lips had, at some point, become completely dry... and just saying that was... difficult.
Shion didn't respond.
...Her silence, however, was the clearest form of confirmation she could give me.
"...We... I mean, sure, we went somewhere we shouldn't have...
...but we were just looking, right?
We didn't steal anything or take anything out... and we didn't tell anyone that we looked, right...?"
I was already regretting having committed such a wrong...
Even so... was it really so bad... that Tomitake-san and Takano-san deserved such cruel deaths?!
"...Besides, I didn't care about anything I saw in there at all!
Takano-san was the only one getting so happy over it, wasn't she?!
Takano-san was the only one at fault!!
I don't have anything to do with this!!
I'm not interested, I'm not involved, I don't give a shit about what was in there!!!"
I knew saying so wouldn't solve anything.
I could feel myself, my cold self in the innermost depths of my heart, disgusted at my pointless howling.
...However... my emotions had broken through the dam, and I couldn't stop them anymore.
"I didn't have any interest in any of this from the start, damn it!!!
All I wanted to do was watch Rika-chan's performance!!
You were the one who pulled me away from that, weren't you, Shion?!?!
I don't give a rat's ass whether those two were trying to steal something or try to meet up secretly or whatever!!!
That's right! You're the one who made me go in there in the first place, Shion!!
You were all, 'Kei-chan, you need to see what's inside,' and you convinced me and then pulled me in!!!
Why the hell did you do that?!?!
I didn't have anything to do with this!!!
What will you do?
What are you going to do, damn it?!
How are you going to take responsibility for this?!?!
Huh?!
Hey, are you listeni......... agh!"
Click.
Without any warning, the phone cut off with the soft sound of a receiver being slammed down.
...Shion was just as terrified as I was...... I just said some really self-centered things...
My riled-up emotions disappeared as if they'd never existed, and in their place surged waves of deep regret at having run my mouth so irresponsibly.
I could try to call out Shion's name from beyond the disconnected phone... but it was too late.
.........What have I...
......done?
...Shion was only trying to tell me as much as she could about this 'thing' about to descend upon us...
...As for me, I... could only whine like a child about it...
I went to call her back, but then remembered she lived in Okinomiya.
...I didn't know her phone number.
.........Since I had declared to Mion that I hadn't seen Shion last night, I couldn't just call Mion and ask her for Shion's phone number... I was too scared.
...I couldn't even call her back...!
I was stricken with hopeless regret...
......I returned the receiver to its stand, and I simply prayed... that Shion would call me back again.
Please, Shion......
......Calm down... and call me again......!
Ring ring ring ring ring...
"H-Hello, this is Maebara!!"
I swept up the receiver as though it wouldn't go through if I didn't grab it at that exact moment.
"Is this the Maebara residence?
Excuse me for the late call...
I'm Kimiyoshi.
Is this the head of the household?"
It was the voice of a girl who clearly wasn't Shion.
...All my hopes rushed out of me.
"No, it isn't.
...If you need Dad, I'll go call him."
I went to put the receiver back down, but the caller stopped me hurriedly.
"Oh, no no, if he's busy, then it's fine.
...This may be a strange question, but... is my old man paying you a visit?"
"...No, nobody's here at the moment."
"I see!
Again, I apologize for calling you so late at night.
Goodbye......"
Clack.
...I don't know who that was, but what if Shion tried to call while I was on the phone?! ...I thought, bubbling with egotistic anger.
Hey, wait......
Give it a break, Keiichi Maebara.
...These are the selfish emotions that made Shion mad at me, aren't they...?
...The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought that Shion...
...had given up hope in the short time since we had our conversation, and didn't want to call anymore...
Calm yourself, Keiichi Maebara...
...If Shion does call again, then first, apologize in a calm voice...
...If you do that, then Shion should understand...
............
However... no matter how long I waited...
...The phone didn't ring again that night...