...There was no way I'd be able to sleep.
When she hung up the phone like that, I realized for the first time what kind of situation I was in, as well as who the only ally who would support me was.
I waited with bated breath for Shion to calm down and call me back.
What would I do if the phone rang while I was sound asleep...?
No matter how long I waited, however, it never rang.
......Exhausted, whenever my mind started to wander, I would jolt awake as though I heard the phone ring.
In the end, I brought the cordless phone with me into my futon and went to sleep with it in my arms.
...Though it still didn't amount to anything...
Morning came, and by that time, I was pretty sure she wasn't calling back.
...That was when a fierce drowsiness assailed me.
"Damn it...!
This is no time for sleep, Keiichi Maebara!"
I slapped myself in the face a few times.
Then, I went to the washroom and washed my face, which was something I usually didn't do.
...That wasn't enough, either, so I even brushed my teeth.
After that, I was finally wide awake.
When Mom saw how strange I was acting, her eyes went wide...
"What's wrong, Keiichi?
Are you going somewhere today?"
"...Yeah.
...To school."
"Keiichi-kun, you don't look so good today.
...Do you have a cold?"
"...I'm not sick, I just didn't get much sleep.
If I space out and start talking nonsense, just humor me..."
"Ahahahaha!
I wonder what kind of nonsense you'll say! I wonder!
...Now I'm looking forward to it. Hau."
I felt utterly shattered, and I still hadn't picked myself back up this morning—and for precisely that reason, Rena's honest smile was a sight for sore eyes.
"Yo.
...What's up, Kei-chan? Rena?
Good morning."
"Whaaat?
Mii-chan, you look like you didn't get much sleep either! Either!"
...Mion had gone home early yesterday with a hangover, but she didn't look too good this morning, either.
Her usual cheerfulness was completely buried in shadow.
"...Yeah.
I went to bed at like, three.
...I'm a little tired."
"Th-Three?! Right after yesterday?!
Hey, now... You can't keep staying up late!
You probably read the first volume of a manga, thought it was interesting, then read the entire series, didn't you?
I understand, I've done that before."
I joked, trying to shake off my sleepiness. I was trying to be considerate.
...However, neither Mion nor Rena smiled—in fact, they didn't even pay attention.
Rena's expression immediately darkened.
"............What?
...Wait... is it about the mayor?
He still hasn't been found?"
"......Nope."
"Hey, wait a minute.
What are you talking about? You can't find the mayor?"
Even the classroom, which was normally bursting with bright, joking voices seemed filled with a different sort of murmur today.
"Good morning, Keiichi-san.
...Have you heard?
It looks like something terrible has happened."
"...I don't really know this mayor person... but he's an old guy, right?
Couldn't he just be wandering around, senile?"
"The mayor is certainly not senile.
He's a sprightly man who can teach both calligraphy and swordsmanship."
"......He probably got lost somewhere, like me."
"...A-A lost Rika!☆
Hau~~~! I wanna take you home with me~~!!"
...Getting lost is only 'kyute' because children like Rika-chan do it.
...A worn-out old man getting lost isn't moe in the slightest!
...While my mind entertained dumb thoughts like that, our teacher arrived.
Everyone rushed to their seats.
"Good morning,
everyone."
Good morning!
The class greeting was normal, but...
...the atmosphere in the room was heavy.
"Some of you may have already heard...
but last night, despite the late hour, the mayor never came home.
Is there anyone here who saw the mayor yesterday?"
...One or two hands went up in the silence, and they told her about having seen him.
...None of it seemed to be vital information, however, and everyone began whispering amongst themselves...
"If anyone has seen the mayor, please tell an adult about it, all right?
...Now then, let's begin class."
After that, the same old lessons began.
The rumors, once quieted, blossomed in flowers again at lunchtime.
...I could hear a few different conversations.
They were mostly related to the mayor's disappearance.
...Summing them all up, I came out with this.
Yesterday evening, the mayor went to a meeting at the shrine's assembly hall.
The meeting ended after the sun had fully set, and everyone left.
The elder's house was a bit far from the center of Hinamizawa.
...It was already late, and Hinamizawa doesn't have a lot of lights outside.
...Nobody saw the mayor after the meeting.
However, because he would have been hungry, he wouldn't have taken any side trips—he would have gone straight home.
...However, no matter how long his family waited...
...he never returned.
Some thought there might have been an accident.
...They left no stone unturned—they searched from the irrigation channels to the water wells, and even in the rice paddies, but they didn't find him.
Of course... there was a limit to how far they could search in the middle of the night.
The police were going to wait for daylight, then have the young men of the town help search.
If after all that they still didn't find him, they were apparently even going to go looking in the mountains.
Even now, at this moment, the adults were probably all searching for him...
...The more they searched in vain...
...and the more time passed...
...the only thing that came to mind was...
...the curse.
The rumors of Onikakushi—of the 'demoning away.'
...Had he become this year's sacrifice to Oyashiro-sama's curse, which had recently been occurring every year...?
That scary possibility, which everybody thought about but nobody could say aloud, was slowly but surely spreading throughout the village...
Was he demoned away... and offered as a sacrifice to quell Oyashiro-sama's anger...?
My classmates were whispering to each other that the curse didn't happen this year, so there shouldn't have been any sacrifices.
...I, on the other hand... I knew.
The curse did happen again this year, and there were two people that died.
...This may sound strange, but... I hadn't exactly thought the elder would be the one to go missing.
My reason was clear.
...Shion and I should have been a higher priority than him.
The four of us were thieves that broke the taboo and set foot into the sacred ritual storehouse.
If Tomitake-san and Takano-san had suffered mysterious deaths... then it should have been my and Shion's turn next......
"...This time should have been Shion and me... eh?"
...I laughed painfully to myself.
I'd yelled at Shion over the phone that I didn't want to end up in such a terrifying situation, but...
now that someone other than me had disappeared, I could only think that I should have been the first to go.
......Onigafuchi, the bottomless swamp said to have been the place where they drowned sacrifices long ago.
...Just as it ran through my thoughts, the villagers must have also considered the swamp.
Maybe police divers were plumbing its depths even now...
...They probably wouldn't find anyone.
...Not a single missing person had ever been found.
They'd always suspected Onigafuchi, but not once have they ever turned up a corpse from it.
...After all, it was a devilish, bottomless swamp from which no one who sinks can ever return...
...I could hear someone telling their friend that in the classroom...
"...Now that you mention it, Satoshi-san... he left around this time last year, didn't he?"
Huh?
Satoshi?
......I've heard that name before.
...He was... right, he disappeared because of last year's curse.
The conversation was happening in the seat next to me, so I could hear it clearly.
"...Didn't we search the whole village like this for Satoshi-san, too?"
"We didn't find him, either.
...Hmm... What did we decide that was?
...A demoning away, right?"
"Yeah.
I heard he withdrew all his savings and ran away from home.
Someone from the police said there was someone who saw him get on the bullet train at Nagoya Station!"
.........Ran away, huh?
I wasn't that interested in the reason, which seemed understandable in this case.
Everyone else who disappeared had their own reasons too.
Either they were still on the run because they were criminals, or they were a corpse that couldn't be found.
...It's not like any of them suddenly disappeared into thin air for no reason.
But,
they disappeared.
...Someone disappeared whenever the curse took a life, as if by design.
They may have had various understandable reasons, but they still disappeared.
.........From that point of view, it really might have been a demoning away this time.
The mayor's disappearance was the first such incident without a clear reason behind it.
...Of course, coming to that realization didn't help to resolve anything...
"...It looks like I messed up the seasoning today.
Ehehe... Sorry."
Normally, Rena's lunch would have been devoured immediately, but today there was still a ton left.
...That wasn't because Rena's lunch didn't taste good or anything, though...
"Th-That isn't the case.
Your lunch today is as delicious as always!"
Satoko dips her chopsticks into Rena's bento box and pulls bits of food out one after the other.
"Yes, delicious indeed!
Today in particular, in fact!
Chomp chomp!!"
"Ahahaha... Huh? You know those are pumpkin croquettes, right?
Are you okay?"
"......Nggh...... ...Y-Yes!
If it's your pumpkin, then it's delicious!"
...Did Satoko dislike pumpkin?
Regardless, she forced herself to smile and shoved more into her mouth.
...Everyone knew.
Nobody's lunch tasted very good today.
Satoko kept shoveling it down, repeating her remark on how good it was.
"...If it's that good, then I guess I've gotta have some, too. Satoko's gonna eat it all if we let her."
"I-It's just so good, so I would certainly like it if Keiichi-san were to eat some as well...!"
"Well, sometimes I have to show my adult generosity, right?
Okay, don't hold back on my account!
Eat enough for the both of us today!"
"Fu... fuwaaaaahhhh...!!"
...She really, really hated pumpkin, didn't she?
That made it all the more touching to see Satoko's own brand of generosity.
...I grabbed her head and started stroking it.
...Satoko, in a somewhat exaggerated fashion, was bawling, tears streaming down her face.
"No way.
...You'll never grow up if you give away such good food.
Rena, you eat too.
I only have leftover vegetable stew, but it tastes great after having sat overnight."
"...Yeah!
The daikon radish has such a pretty color going through it. It looks delicious.
I guess I'll have some, then~"
Rena reached out with her chopsticks, ...and at last, the usual lunchtime atmosphere began to return.
That was only at our desks, however.
...The dark tales of Oyashiro-sama's curse, which had recurred for five years in a row, didn't cease.
The whole classroom remained stuck in this somber mood...
...Oyashiro-sama's curse had happened for five years straight.
Everyone had wanted the previous year to be the last.
...What was Oyashiro-sama's curse, anyway?
They were going to build a dam in Hinamizawa.
The people building it were bad.
So they were cursed.
...I would admit that much.
...Still, the dam project was frozen years ago, wasn't it?
So why was the curse stubbornly persisting...?
I hit myself on the cheeks to perk myself back up.
Everyone was trying so hard to brighten the mood—I couldn't go straight back to thinking about the curse like that...!
I forced the grim story out of my head.
...Driving Oyashiro-sama's curse out of my thoughts was actually a good idea.
...In the end, that meant I would also be driving away the most terrifying thought of all—that I could be the curse's next target...
"...Mion's taking a while, isn't she?
How long does it take to wash your hands?"
Mion had said she was going to wash her hands and left, and she hadn't come back yet.
"...Ahahaha.
She's probably taking a little afternoon nap somewhere.
...I think she was up pretty late last night looking for the mayor, after all."
...I smiled wryly and let out a sigh.
...Today was no good.
However much we tried to lighten the mood, things always came back to the mayor.
...It was just a no-good day.
...I had just transferred here recently, so the shock of a curse happening five years running was... an unimaginably big one.
......Maybe I do need to appreciate that.
"...When Mii-chan was really little, the mayor would always spoil her.
When she was going through her prankster phase... he loved her like his own daughter.
...She's told me that often."
......I see.
...Mion was in shock, too.
Someone disappearing at all because of a curse was a very scary thing.
...If the sacrifice was someone you knew, though... then the shock must be a hundred times worse.
Satoko, as if she'd come to the same conclusion, bit her lower lip and looked downward...
"Oh, Rika-chan is taking a while, too.
Maybe they're taking a nice afternoon nap together?"
"...Rika wasn't out that late.
...As soon as she yawned, everyone gathered around her and started saying 'good night, good night!'"
Now that she mentioned it, there were a lot of old people rubbing their prayer beads in fervent gratitude towards Rika-chan during the festival, too...
An image of the indulgent elderly came to mind.
...Had Rika-chan discovered a way to get herself to be pampered like that...???
"...Is there a reason the old people treat Rika-chan like an idol?
Is she their ideal image of a granddaughter or something?"
"Ahahahaha!
I don't know anything about that~!
But, b-b-b-but, I want to see Rika-chan yawning~~~!!
...It's probably all like, fwaahh~...
...Hau~~~!! I wanna take her home~~~!!!"
"......I don't personally think it's that cute.
...It's more of a 'gwahh,' and she opens her mouth really wide so you can see the back of her throat...?"
"R-R-R-R-Rika-chan's giant yawn~~~! Hau~~~~!!!!"
Rena's handy at times like these...
I finally managed a heartfelt laugh.
...Oh, right.
I'm on day duty today, aren't I?
I need to go water the flower garden.
The garden is right outside the teacher's lounge, too, so they can immediately tell if you don't do it right.
"I-I-I-I think Satoko-chan is kyute, not only R-Rika-chan~!!
Giaaant~~yaaaawn~~!!!"
"Gh-Gh-Gh, gheehehhhh~~~...!!
Can't... breathe......"
"H-Hau~~!!
I got a glimpse! It was so kyute!!
Satoko-chan's is kyute too! I'm gonna take you home~~!!!!"
...Rena was strangling Satoko. I don't think that counts as yawning...
...You know, Rena is...
......
I can't say it out loud... but she's a notorious... [censored], isn't she... (sweat)
Hearing Satoko make a weird noise like a chicken being strangled was kind of hilarious, and I couldn't help but laugh.
At some point, the classroom had erupted into laughter too.
...Maybe Rena was doing it on purpose.
Even if she wasn't, this nonsense was a welcome sight.
Anyway.
...Let's get over to the flowers while I still have time.
Slowly and quietly, lest I destroy the room's newfound peace, I left the classroom.
The watering can was hanging up outside the kitchen.
This building had originally been an all-male forestry service building, so there was apparently nothing so thoughtful as a garden here before.
When they decided to have a school share the space, they built one there as a modest gesture of appreciation.
But, well, the flower bed... it was a little... longer than you'd expect.
It went all around.
It went all over the place.
It was so big one would need to refill the watering can five or six times to get it all done.
I was doing this together with a kid who was also, thankfully, on day duty today...
She was in the lowest grade, though, and a full size smaller than even Rika-chan.
I couldn't make a kid who would struggle just to lift the full watering can help me with this...
......If you were placed on day duty with someone who liked this sort of thing, they'd do it all for you, so it'd be cake.
"No point in blaming her.
...I give up. I'll just get started."
Watering can in hand, just as I was about to leave the building, the old man from the forestry office addressed me.
"Sonny, there's a vegetable garden behind the warehouse, right?
It's all just about dried up.
Water that too, would you?"
"Oh, you mean that curry vegetable garden?
The one with the potatoes and carrots, and other things that are only ingredients for curry?"
It's definitely the personal garden of our curry-loving teacher, but...
Making students responsible for its upkeep is getting them involved in her personal affairs.
I couldn't say that to his face, though, so I gave up and decided to carry out my day duties.
The sunlight out front was strong.
...The great chorus of cicadas was strongly underlining how nothing was different today than yesterday.
I passed by the classroom... and I don't know how it happened, but Rena and Satoko were in the middle of a huge melee.
While I was gone, the kids had arranged all the desks in a circle, forming a ring, while everyone was cheering them on.
......Yeah. That's how it should be.
Once school ended, we would need to return to reality, where talk of the elder's disappearance would once again be all over the place.
I wanted everyone to forget about everything and have fun, just like yesterday, if only while they were at school.
In that sense, Satoko's whirling elbow and Rena's backwards flying spin-kick made for a pleasant sight.
...Even if, as a result, they flipped over my desk...
Agh, that's my pencil box!!
...Guh...... I'll just let it happen today.
I set to work, hastily watering everything, wanting nothing more than to be done as soon as possible.
That should about do it!
No sooner had I thought that than I remembered that I had to water the teacher's curry vegetable garden too.
"...That's such a pain... but I have a feeling that it'll come back to bite me if I don't."
I gave up, filled the can with water again, and headed behind the warehouse.
This was a place students didn't like to go—it was always damp here, and you couldn't discard the possibility of slugs and pill bugs being around.
So when I ran across her in a place like that, I was surprised.
"Whoa!!
Oh... it's Rika-chan.
...Don't scare me like that..."
Rika-chan was just standing there like a puppet... devoid of life...
...I was the only one who was startled here.
Rika-chan didn't even seem to react to my appearance.
".........Rika-chan...?"
...Finally, she noticed me.
...Her expression was clearly abnormal.
...There was red under her eyes... stained with tears and dirt.
...There were blades of grass stuck in her hair, too, and her clothes looked as though she'd fallen to the ground.
"Rika-chan...?!
Are you... are you hurt?
Did you fall...?!"
"......*hic*
...N-No.
...That isn't it,"
Rika-chan said in the brightest voice she could manage as she rubbed her eyes...
She didn't look anywhere near normal, though.
"What happened?
You weren't sleeping on the storehouse roof... and then fell off or anything, did you...?"
"......Don't worry about me.
I have something I want to ask you, Keiichi."
...Rika-chan walked over and clung to me.
At first, I thought she was playing a trick on me.
...Eventually, however... I realized it was so that I wouldn't run from the question she was about to ask...
I shuddered.
"What...
...what do you want from me?"
She looked straight into my eyes.
Her upturned eyes... bored right into me.
...It was as though they were trying to pull the answer out of my own eyes, without actually asking me the question.
It was scary... so I averted my eyes from hers...
"......Keiichi.
Did you... do something bad on the night of the festival...?"
My body gave a jolt from its very core.
...Rika-chan, who was clinging to me, might have felt my shiver.
A nervous tingle crawled up from my feet... and after going up my back and freezing my entire body... it made its way into my brain...
"......Keiichi.
Do you really not remember?"
"............"
My head... began to throb...
...I don't... I don't understand anything.
Mion asked me,
Ooishi-san asked me,
Shion asked me,
...and now Rika-chan was asking me...
We thought nobody knew... about what we did last night, but...
In fact, everyone knew...?!
They all knew... and they came to ask me.
Again, and again... until I admitted it.
...When I thought about it... it was pretty clear the whole thing was out in the open.
...After all... don't Tomitake-san and Takano-san's deaths prove it?
"......Keiichi?"
...I... how should I respond?
We never should have entered the forbidden storehouse... and even though I regretted it so much, was she saying it wasn't enough...?
...However... I had all but decided what I was going to say.
"I... I'm not exactly a good kid, you know?
...I've done lots of bad things, so I can't remember anything specific."
Just as I had with all the others... I evaded the question.
Rika-chan... stared up at me with innocent eyes.
...Her eyes were so painful that I had to look away.
After a few moments of mutual silence, Rika-chan released me.
"...I'm sorry for asking you something strange.
Please forget about it..."
she said, smiling her usual smile.
...Then, tap tap tap tap... she went running off, as if nothing had happened.
...As she retreated in silence, I could feel her accusing me...
............
.........
"...Ri... Rika-chan...!"
If she didn't hear my voice, then I was going to give up.
...However, she heard it.
...Rika-chan swiveled around and waited for me to continue.
...I was the one who had questions now.
Still... asking any of them could just be... a half-assed way of admitting what I did...
"...Hey, Rika-chan."
"......What is it?"
...If everyone knows anyway... then I should be able... to at least ask this, right?
Why is everyone asking me about the night of the festival?
...That evening...
...Had I done something... that wrong...?
I felt plenty sorry about it... and I only looked, anyway...
I didn't break anything, or steal anything.
...Really!
...Still... Tomitake-san... and Takano-san... they died so miserably.
...Since those two had come to such an end... there's obviously no way 'it' would forgive only me...
"............"
Rika-chan cutely tilted her head in confusion... and waited for me to say something.
......If I were to admit to what happened that night, though... she might suddenly do a one-eighty, as if flipping a switch.
...That would make sense.
...Rika-chan... was the shrine maiden...
She was the least likely to forgive me for breaking the taboo, wasn't she?
Upon reflection, wouldn't telling her... be more terrifying than telling Mion or Ooishi-san...?
"............"
...Rika-chan could just give up and leave, couldn't she?
...She didn't.
...She only, she only... was quietly, quietly waiting... for me to say it myself.
...Say it, Keiichi Maebara.
...If you really are sorry... then you should say so.
Of course... it's normal to hesitate, given the crazy way Tomitake-san and Takano-san died.
...A pulping machine called 'chaos' was grinding up my brain...
...The juice wrung out of it... turned into big droplets of sweat... which began to fall...
"......Keiichi."
Rika-chan suddenly straightened up... trying to pat me on the head.
"......I don't really understand what you're worried about, Keiichi."
...I had nothing to say to that.
...I lowered my head a little so that Rika-chan's palm could reach it.
...She petted me, kind of like one would a cat.
"......Do you know about the big storehouse a little way behind the shrine grounds?
It stores the implements we use for rituals."
...My breath literally stopped.
...Rika-chan, though, wasn't acting in a coercive way at all.
"......Apparently, on the night of a festival, a cat snuck into the storehouse."
"A... cat...?"
"......Yes.
A cat.
Meow, meow."
Rika-chan knew.
...She realized I was in fear.
...I could tell she was desperately trying to choose the right words so that she wouldn't scare me.
"...The cat always wanted to explore inside the storehouse, but...
...I was mean to it, and never let it go inside.
......So, on the night of the festival...
...the cat couldn't hold itself back any longer, and went inside."
The cat...
...It was clearly supposed to be Takano-san.
...Or, wait... was it... supposed to be me...?
"......Inside... there were actually lots of things that scared the cat."
Rika-chan made a cute gesture like a ghost was coming out to frighten me.
"......The cat was both terrified and amazed.
......It ran away as fast as it could, clatter clatter, shiver shiver, meow meow. It was terrible."
"Th...... This cat... who are you saying it was?"
"......The cat is a cat.
Meow, meow."
Rika-chan still avoided saying it.
...The cat, though, was without a doubt... me.
"Rika-chan...
...Please... tell me.
The cat... what should it do now?"
...Maybe it was a desperate question to ask.
...I had sort of admitted to being the cat.
"......The cat is just a cat, so it can just keep meowing and everything will be fine."
"E-Everything will be fine... that's stupid...!"
"......Shouldn't it just keep meowing?"
Geez... Rika-chan and I have put together an entire conversation... using 'cat' as a codeword.
I didn't say it directly... but...
I had already admitted it.
I didn't want to end up like those two.
...I didn't want to be... a sacrifice, like Shion said.
......That's what I thought... so I stubbornly remained silent.
...But now... that's enough......
"...It can't just keep... meowing.
...The dog saw the cat... making mischief and sneaking inside."
"......The dog."
"...That's right.
...It was the dog.
...It keeps coming to the cat... and trying to get it to say that it snuck inside."
"............"
After I said that, Rika-chan's expression clouded over.
...She was trying to hide it, but I'd already noticed her eyes darkening.
"...Rika-chan......"
The silence was frightening... so I spurred her on.
...At that point, Rika-chan grinned.
"......It's all right.
I'll protect the cat."
...Huh?
...I thought for a moment... that I had misheard those words, so dependable they were.
"......The cat is really scared... but it really isn't all that bad.
I think all of the dogs are just misunderstanding."
"Eh...? It's not all that bad...?"
"......The cat is worrying too much.
I'll do something about it for sure."
Rika-chan will... do something about it...?
...I don't even know left from right at the moment... so Rika-chan didn't look all that dependable.
"...It might be hard, but I'll do my best.
Go for it, yay!"
She clenched her fist and stuck it in the air.
...Rika-chan said that the cat can just keep meowing.
...She said to leave it all to her.
...I-Is that... really all it took... to resolve this whole thing...?!
"Will you... really be all right... Rika-chan?"
"...If I don't do my best, then something bad could happen to the dogs, too."
.........I had no idea what Rika-chan was talking about anymore.
She had been talking to me under the assumption that I was aware of certain things.
...So at first, I understood her.
...Around the middle, though, I stopped understanding anything.
...However, one thing I did know was......
to not worry, and to leave it to her...
Rika-chan straightened up once again, patted me on the head, and smiled.
......I was so moved... by that reassuring feeling... that I couldn't help but start to cry...
"...I'm so... rry...
...The cat... it really was... just a little bit of mischief.
...It didn't think... any of this would......"
"......It's too much of a scaredy-cat.
...That's why it should never have seen the storehouse."
...She was right.
...It was far too shocking for someone to see based on a little bit of interest alone...
...That's why they made it so difficult to look at in the first place, wasn't it...?
"Rika-chan.
......What will happen... to the cat?
...Two of the cats that snuck in... well... that night, they......"
...
...I'd heard Tomitake-san and Takano-san's deaths were being kept a secret.
...Rika-chan might not have known about it.
"............Tomitake and Takano?"
I gave a start at the sudden mention of actual names.
...Though it's weird to do that at this point.
"......You should forget about them."
Thp...... my spine... froze again.
"Fo... Forget...?"
"......Yes.
It won't do you any good to remember those two, Keiichi.
......The more you think about it, the scarier it will get.
So you should forget about them as soon as possible."
She said something so enormously terrifying... without letting the smile on her face waver at all.
"......I don't know where you heard about it from, but you should forget everything. Make your mind as clean as a scrubbed bathtub."
"F-Forget? ...Rika-chan... you know, don't you?!
You know... how those two died......!!!"
"......No matter how they died, it has nothing to do with you, Keiichi,"
Rika declared this in a flat voice.
...Nothing to do with me.
...So forget about it.
......The girl before me... she was innocent and lovable... and even seemed trustworthy... but suddenly she took on another dimension.
......Don't get involved with their deaths.
......I'll help you, Keiichi.
Those two contradictory statements... twisted and distorted my image of the girl in front of me.
"...Wh-What about Shion...?
...What'll... happen to her......?"
It might have been dangerous to mention Shion's name, but...
...I couldn't stop myself from asking.
...Rika-chan saw through everything anyway.
...There was no way I was going to fool her or keep anything from her at this point...
"......The younger of the sister cats?
Meow, meow."
"Y-Yeah.
...The little sister cat."
Rika-chan appeared to think upon this for a moment.
...It was hard for me to endure even this momentary silence.
"......The big sister cat is angry.
The little sister cat did something bad, so she's really mad."
"The big sister cat......"
...That could only mean Mion...
...I recall being questioned by her yesterday.
"......Keiichi.
...The big sister cat is not in a good mood at all.
...I think we should leave her alone for a while."
Not in a good mood... Those words sent a shiver through me...
...Mion... was mad.
She was mad... that we entered the ritual storehouse...
"......Let's stop having club from now on."
"Huh?
...Wh-Why...?!"
"......I think we should leave her alone."
Rika-chan ended her sentence with such force that I couldn't say anything in response.
...Hey, Keiichi Maebara.
...Don't disobey Rika-chan right now.
......She's the only one... who said she'll help me right now...
I'll leave things to her, just as she said to.
...I mean, she even said... that the cat should just keep meowing...
...I'll forget everything... like she said.
I'll leave everything to her.
......I'll forget everything—about Takano-san and Tomitake-san, and what I did that night...!
Just then, we heard a bell, far away, marking the end of our lunch break.
"I... guess we should go back to class..."
"......Keiichi."
As if she had noticed how miserable I was, about to leave everything to her and flee the scene... Rika-chan called out to stop me.
".........If the misunderstanding dog comes to try and bite the cat, please tell me, okay?"
The misunderstanding dog...
...She put it in such a cute-sounding way... but the true meaning behind those words... was an eerie one.
"......Who is... the misunderstanding dog?"
"......The dog that bit the mayor.
......I don't know why it did that.
If it was going to bite anyone, it would have been the trickster cat first."
...The flow of blood in my body... felt like it completely stopped for a moment.
......Rika-chan had admitted it.
...The sacrifices of that terrible calamity...
...she admitted that if they were to happen again, it would be Shion or I.
This... I didn't know what was true about the girl standing before me...
...My suspicion gave way to fear... and nearly began to change into anger...
Was she... a savior who would protect me...
...or a stranger... trying to capture and kill me for the sake of a horrible tradition?
...I had no idea what was true......
"......I'm sorry.
......The cat is already scared... and I said something to scare it even more.
...I'm really sorry."
Rika-chan bowed so quickly it looked like her head had been pulled downward.
...Still... she was right. I was cowering.
...I could distinctly feel my body shaking violently.
So when Rika-chan reached her hand out to pat me on the head... I pulled away without thinking...
"............"
"...Ah... I'm s—..."
Rika-chan made a very sad face... but I just couldn't bring myself to put out my head for her again...
That day, Rika-chan said she wasn't feeling up for club activities, so she suggested we don't bother.
There's always vetoes when someone doesn't feel up to it.
...Rena and the others seemed really disappointed...
...The big sister cat is not in a good mood.
I remembered Rika-chan's words... and quietly stole a glance at Mion's expression.
If I could forget the way she questioned me yesterday though, her behavior was the same as it always was...