I watched someone get

murdered once.

It was back when I was still in kindergarten. Both my

parents worked and were away from home a lot, so my grandma usually ended up

taking care of me. My parents married late, which meant that my maternal

grandma, who was a widower in her seventies, was firmly in the "geezer" camp.

Having to take care of me probably put a toll on her.

Despite my parents' neglect, though, I was a pretty

satisfied kid. In retrospect, that was probably thinks to my grandma working

her a.s.s off. The two of us were as thick as thieves.

On that day, the two of us were looking after the house as

always. I had roped grandma into playing hide-and-seek, forcing her into

the role of seeker. Opening a closet's aged, poorly-fitted door, I found

and wedged my five-year-old body into a pile of densely packed futons and muted

myself.

Grandma was having a difficult time finding me and was

noticeably fl.u.s.tered. Watching her from a crack in the door, I laughed

silently to myself.

Suddenly, the front door could be heard opening.

Thinking that perhaps I had run outside, Grandma

hurried to the entrance.

Immediately, I heard a scream. And at the same time,

an unfamiliar, threatening voice.

At my young age, all I could do at the unsettling

atmosphere was tremble anxiously.

I could hear two sets of footsteps drawing near, one

belonging to my grandma. Instinctively, I balled myself up among the

futons and held my breath. But at the same time I was a.s.sailed by a

strange sense of duty, as if it were my responsibility to observe what was

about to happen.

I could just barely make out my grandma and the man

from the cracked door.

"Dammit, the place was s'posed to be empty...! Oy, hurry it

up!"

Driven by the man's angry voice, Grandma opened the chest of

drawers. She was likely looking for cash or the bankbook, but as she didn't

know where it was and was panicking, she just opened and closed drawer after

drawer. All the while, the man was growing gradually more irritated.

After a little longer of this, Grandma handed the man a

stuffed envelope. It was likely filled with cash.

"No hard feels, grams. Just can't be lettin' myself get

caught. Blame yourself for being home on the wrong day."

The man took out a sharp object (I think it was a

pocketknife or a kitchen knife, but in my panic I didn't pay much

attention to the particulars). In alarm, Grandma screamed something

incomprehensible. This earned her even more ire from the man, who pinned her

arms behind her back.

Grandma screamed.

"Help me... Maa, help me!"

Although a kindergartener like myself would hardly be able

to accomplish anything here, she screamed frantically nonetheless.

But even in the face of my beloved grandma's bawling, I didn't

leave the closet.

"Maa! Help me! Help me!"

Watching my grandma scream my name over and over, I wanted

to remind her, "we're playing hide-and-seek, so I can't come out until

you find me."

The blade swung.

A death wail.

A moan.

A weak, self-derisive

laugh.

Tears.

A pool of blood.

Until it was all

over, I kept perfectly still. I was still playing hide-and seek.

I was playing hide-and-seek to this day, unable

to return to the real world.

"You're Masato

Yahara, right?"

As I was

putting my indoor shoes in the worn-out shoe rack, a girl called my name. I recognized

that voice. Having a bad feeling about this, I heaved a sigh.

"...You sure you've

got the right guy? Kou's still back in the cla.s.sroom, right?"

"Please don't try to

blow me off."

Miki Kouzuki glared at me with trembling fists.

I'd suspected that she had something she wanted

to say to me. Without meeting her eyes, I spoke.

"Is this about tryin'

to get me to away from Kou?"

Having the words

stolen out of her mouth, Kouzuki knit her eyebrows.

"He doesn't have s.h.i.+t

for magic resistance. If I, a magus unaware of my own powers, am around

him I'll be a bad influence and stain him in my attribute. And that

wouldn't do anyone a lick of good. Something along those lines?"

Kouzuki's eyes

widened in surprise.

What the h.e.l.l? I thought

her value system was gonna be something more interesting, but it ended up being

something even I could come up with.

Rapidly losing

interest, I set my loafers on the floor.

"So I'm a

magus, huh. You're givin' me too much credit. Anyways, everyone would just run

away from me before I could cast a spell on 'em anyways."

"Y...you understand

magic?"

"Who knows. I just

translated what I was sayin' into your gibberish."

"I...if you

understand that much, please just stay away from Kouta. You said that everyone

just runs away from you, but there's one exception."

There was no need to

clarify who she was talking about.

"Staying away from

him would be for Kouta's sake. If he keeps being surrounded by my magic, he'll

take on my attribute. He'll be able to avoid getting stained in a poor

attribute like yours or Matsumi-senpai's."

"Go f.u.c.k yourself."

I glared at Kouzuki unconsciously. Knowing what

kind of person she was only amplified my rage.

"You're full of

yourself. Who the f.u.c.k do you think you are, going around babbling about how

you're going to protect Kou or some s.h.i.+t. Did Kou ask for that? He didn't, did

he."

"...I thought that

would be for the best-"

"For the best? Pretty

words from everyone's favorite freakshow. Keep your f.u.c.king self-satisfactory

bulls.h.i.+t in check, wouldja? Is Kou even the one you're really tryin' to

protect? ...Heh, you can't even refute it. What you're tryin' to protect by

force-staining Kou's a.s.s..."

I spit it out.

"Is your flimsy-a.s.s,

brittle little closed world."

It seemed that her

self awareness didn't extend that far. Her face went white at my words.

I drew close to Kouzuki, who was slowly

shrinking away from me, and lifted her up by the collar of her uniform.

"But by talkin' to

you like this, I realized that something I don't need to worry

about. You just aren't worth my time."

Fear appeared for the

first time on Kouzuki's face. ...Nah, that ain't it. Since the moment she

called out to me, her fists had been trembling from how hard she had tried to

hide her fear. That's how powerless a person she was.

"He'll just come to

hold you in contempt, and that'll be that. Later."

I didn't want to so much as look at her any

more. Releasing her collar, I walked away from the shoe rack without

sparing her a second glance.

With all the rumors

swirling around her, I figured she'd have a little more of a backbone in

her. But she was just another person with no faith in their own d.a.m.n world. She

just wanted Kou in order to reinforce her world.

She was just like all

the others. She gave off the sound of chains.

Her chains were

quieter than others, maybe, but that was all there was to it. She was just

another n.o.body, far removed from the ideal I strived for.

She was just as much

a n.o.body as I was.

Chains.

I started seeing the chains when I was in ninth

grade.

In contrast to my

peers, who were grappling with entrance exams and relations.h.i.+p woes, I could

feel myself growing distant.

The contents of their

worries even drove some of them to cut their own wrists, but I couldn't

see at as any more serious than whether a sand castle was knocked over or not.

After all, even if they wounded themselves they didn't plan on dying. I

— I, who truly knew death — could tell that those wounds were nothing

more than a tool to highlight the extent of their woes.

Once I became

a complete bystander, simply gazing on them in observation, I noticed

something.

Everything they held

dear was created.

With so much

information flowing down the muddy stream of our world, a simple papier-mâché construction is enough for them all to

implicitly believe it.

They

were being controlled.

Made to

dance in perfect harmony, they were being controlled by fiendish, brutal

chains.

Then, I

became able to see those chains. And from the materialized chains, I

could even hear noise. The rattling noise they made was raucous. The noise was

so raucous it sapped all vitality from me. Once that was finished, I

began losing my ideals as well. Lost in the pursuit of cheap pleasure, I

no longer cared if the world was in color or monochrome, or if it was real or

simply the inside of an image. To that end, I engaged in a series of

unethical activities. Pleasure was all that was real to me, but was merely

ephemeral, and in the end time simply pa.s.sed while nothing else changed. My

world was peeled apart by the chains. It was a simple, complete excoriation.

When

I finally managed to regain a grip on my peeled-up world, a thought

suddenly floated to my mind, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I wanna kill someone.

Murder

had taken the color from my world and reduced my reality to the state it was in

today. Ironically, as a consequence of its gravity, it was also what lay just

beyond my outstretched hand. No matter where I reached out towards, I

would run into those homicidal urges. Like a b.u.t.terfly trapped in a spiderweb, no

matter how much I struggled I couldn't move. From where I was,

I couldn't see anything else.

Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Wanting

to flee from the chains and the noise, I reached out my hand. This time,

my hand got caught on those homicidal urges. They began controlling me.

Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle.

But

even then, I would never have believed it.

That

there could be a person unfettered by those chains.

"Kusukusu...

you two really are interesting, aren't you?"

I could tell that the girl, who

had a childish face and and looked somewhat off-balance, was different from the

moment she started speaking to us.

Her

smile seemed like it was free of any influence from the events of the outside

world.

"Whaddya

want?"

Who was

she? Like Kouzuki, was she trying to take advantage of how fragile Kou's chains

were?

"Oh,

Ririko was just thinking how she wanted to become good friends with Hiiragi!"

She

didn't react even a little to my display of animosity. And she didn't give the

sense that she was playing dumb. Humans are creatures bound by fear. Anyone

would react to the presence of violence.

Then

what was wrong with her?

It

seemed that "different" didn't cut it. She was clearly lacking something

fundamental.

"What's so interesting about you two are the

call signs you're giving off."

She

spoke as if her peculiar words were commonplace. That was something neither I

nor Kouzuki was capable of. This girl didn't desire salvation, and she had no

doubts in her own world. In actuality, she was basically rejecting interaction

with the rest of mankind.

Inside

a closed world that was like a perfectly sealed-off room, she had no need to

grow.

I'd heard rumors about this.

Rumors about an uppercla.s.sman who had been coming and going from a psychiatric

hospital since she enrolled.

"Hey, are you that Ririko Matsumi chick?"

"Oh, yes. Ririko is Ririko, of course."

According to the rumors, she lacked

boundaries. Unable to tell where her "self" began and ended, she supposedly saw

everything outside her body as simply parts of herself. She was under the

misapprehension that not just her body but everything she could more or less

freely manipulate was part of her. Although it was a bit more allegorical in my

case, I'd certainly had times where I felt unable to put down my phone,

as if it were a part of my body. But as far as she was concerned, her

unification with her electrical devices was no allegory. To her, using

electrical signals from her brain to move her limbs wasn't just the same as

using a remote to change the channel on TV, the remote and the television

themselves were just parts of her body.

It was a world beyond comprehension. But

regardless, it was the world she lived in.

A different world from the rest of us.

"Interesting, aren't they? White and

ultramarine, huh. Aren't most people orange? But you two are different. Ririko

likes white, you know. Makes me want to do something."

I had no idea what

those colors meant in her code. All I could tell was that they were code

for something else.

I glanced at Kou. Even though he's

confused, he wouldn't reject another, even if that person is Matsumi. But even

Kou likely won't be able to grasp her world.

...Actually, is that really true? This is the

same Kou who's spent a whole month getting to know me, after all.

"Hey, hey, can Ririko read you?"

"Read me?"

"Oh, that's right. Most people can't do

scanning. But, but, you see, Ririko can do scanning!"

Maybe Matsumi, who blurs the boundaries

between electrical devices and her own body, is deluded into thinking she can

fulfil the role of an electrical device herself?

But something quickly makes me realize that

that perception was halfhearted.

"Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep."

It's

not a delusion. It's something far worse. In that instant, Matsumi became an

electrical device.

That's right. Why didn't I notice it

sooner?

This chick doesn't have any chains at all.

The moment I realized that, it felt as

if the false machine noise was causing the world to violently lurch. I

couldn't keep my footing. The world was slanting simply because I had

become aware of my own change. Unable to remain in place, I began

tumbling. I was rolling. Rolling and rolling. Rolling and rolling and

rolling and rolling.

How did this happen?

...Ah, because I didn't believe. I didn't

believe that a person without chains could even exist. That's why my world was

doing an about-face.

"Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep."

The sun went out. What illuminated my world in

its place was Matsumi's eyeball. Within those dead-fish eyes, her pupil was

focusing like the lens of a single-lens reflex camera. Taking on heat, her eyes

began to sear me. It burns! It burns! It burns!

Beep bibibi, bip bip bibeep.

The noise pursued me and, as I spun

through s.p.a.ce, bored its way into my body. From near and from far, the noise

continued to ring. I had long since lost track of where it was ringing

from. I was becoming to create the noise as well.

The lens was simply floating in s.p.a.ce.

Those eyes turned towards me.

"Ah-"

What part of me were they looking at?

They were looking at me burning and tumbling

through s.p.a.ce. I'm begging you, don't expose this hackneyed end of mine.

Those pitiful limitations of mine. Those ba.n.a.l thoughts of mine.

"...don't."

I didn't want to

know.

"Beep bi—"

I didn't want to

know. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to know.

"DON'T!"

As I scream, the floating eyeball lens

vanishes. In that moment, I'm a.s.sailed with vertigo and the world goes

black. Once the light returned, I could see Kou looking concerned and

Matsumi pouting.

"You don't have to shout like that, you

know..."

"Excuse me, Matsumi-senpai, what was that just

now...?"

"Hold on, hold on. Ririko's going to put it

into words now."

Matsumi stopped being human again.

She somehow got information about Kou, and

she's translating it such that we can understand it as well. A computer turning

binary into letters and images.

"Unconsciously rejects his mother due to her

hysterical temperament. Receives mixed messages from his father. Neither parent

approaches parenting with any degree of consistency. His sister enjoys killing

cats. Has been ordered by his family to deal with the cat corpses. Will listen

to anything he is told. Susceptible to brainwas.h.i.+ng. Versatile. Abnormally good

at understanding the value systems of others. Has no self, so regards others

with-"

"Th... that's enough! Matsumi-senpai, please

cut it out!"

She returns to being human.

"So? So? How was that? How'd you like my

scanning? Did Ririko get that all right?"

"Senpai, can we go now?"

"Whaat? But Ririko wanted to chat more! He's

white, after all! He's the only one!"

"Sorry, but we got places to be."

"Ririko understands... Well, Ririko guesses it

can't be helped then. Ririko guesses she'll see you later then, Tanihara."

Not thinking, I stopped in my tracks.

People

read my last name, "谷原," incorrectly all the time. So

the mistake itself wasn't particularly notable.

"Huh? Aren't you Tanihara?"

"It's read 'Yahara', Senpai."

So in other words, that's what that meant.

Matsumi's "scanning" gathers information

visually.

We strolled through an abandoned shopping

district, shuttered up as a result of its inability to compete with a large

nearby shopping mall.

I gazed at Kou in

silent shock.

Even when faced with Ririko Matsumi, he didn't

give up on trying to comprehend her. If we hadn't gotten lucky, he would have

completely taken her in.

It would be fine if he got invaded by Kouzuki.

He'd be treated as a freak, sure, but at least he'd be able to keep on living.

But Matsumi was no good. If he took in something broken, he'd become broken as

well. It would be like downloading a malicious app.

"Get this through your head. Don't talk to

that birdbrain again. She'll be a bad influence on you. Got it?"

Kou nodded. But it wasn't because he was

convinced, it was because he felt the situation called for it.

I didn't what his

true intentions were. ...h.e.l.l, I didn't know if he had any intentions in

the first place.

"Masato, did you understand what was going on

with that scanning thing?"

Scanning.

Based on the fact that she got the information

visually, I had a hunch as to what the trick was. But it was tough to

put into words.

I suspected the

reason she was able to guess my name was because she subconsciously knew it

already. Even though the time she spent in the hospital kept her from showing

up at school much, she was still a fellow student of ours. There was plenty of

times she could have run across our names.

The only abnormal part was how she went about

recalling that information.

Normal people quickly forget information they

don't need. For example, we don't remember the faces of every person we pa.s.s on

the street.

But what if this "scanning" let her pull out

memories from deep in her brain, memories that anyone else would have lost? If

that were the case, then simply having pa.s.sed us in a hallway would be plenty

for her to know our names.

It then followed that her being able to put

names to faces, as well as dredge up all that information about Kou, was simply

the result of outstanding insight born from her recollection, observational,

and a.n.a.lytic prowess. Of course, she couldn't do that all the time, but only

when she was in a trance state from putting herself under the self-hypnosis

called "scanning."

Seen from the outside, a skilled

fortune-teller would appear to be able to trace the steps of another's life.

h.e.l.l, even I'd be able to guess whether someone's a virgin or not a good

chunk of the time. But Matsumi was on another level. She was able to come up

with his personality, his familial structure, and even where he lived. It was

practically a superpower.

It was abnormal.

If I told told Kou all this, nothing

good would come of it. It would just end up driving him towards taking her in.

"... not even a little."

So I dodged the question.

Even if Kou didn't believe me, he neither

pressed me nor showed signs of dissatisfaction. Ahh, now that I think

about it, there's something wrong with this guy too.

The light in front of us turned red and we

reflexively stopped.

"Why the h.e.l.l'd we stop?"

"The light was red, wasn't it?"

"There ain't any cars here."

Ahh, I can hear it. I can hear

that noise again.

Just beyond my field of view lay those chains.

Beautiful chains that acted as if they owned us, designed to stop us from

moving.

I couldn't help

but despise the chains. They bound me and were the cause of everything that

drained color from my world.

...or so I thought.

And because that's what I thought, I

yearned to be a person without chains. I truly thought I desired

release from those chains.

But then I met such an unfettered

person.

And what did I feel, upon gazing at

that person?

Fear.

I was scared of

that person without chains. I felt fright. A feeling that implied

unimaginable distance.

There was no chance I could become a

person without chains.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

As if flaunting themselves, the chains' noise

echoed.

You will never be released.

Shut up.

You will be bound until the day you die.

Shut up!

But you already knew that, right? The

reason these chains will never be torn off is because you yourself have no

desire to tear them off.

I SAID SHUT UP!

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

The noise keeps resounding.

The sound of chains. The sound of common

sense. The sound of morals.

And the sound of my desire to kill.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

"Ahh... I wanna kill someone."

After parting ways with Kou, I was

unable to muster the urge to return home and inside took the train into the

suburbs. While the area around the station was prosperous in comparison to the

shutter town I had just left, the dust and general atmosphere made it

clear that it was past its prime.

I wandered about

aimlessly. A department store that would likely be demolished in a few years. A

old-fas.h.i.+oned movie theater that looked wholly unfit to bring a date to. A

bookstore that had been repurposed into a shop for otaku goods. The town, which

was connected, bound, and encircled by power lines, stunk of sewage. If you

boiled down all the mud, the sludge, and the coal tar, it seemed like it like

it would make for delicious, piping hot ramen broth.

I sat on a bench

in front of the station and observed the pa.s.sersby. The people waiting by the

station were like marionettes, each and every one of them glued to their

smartphones. Social networks, forcing them into round-the-clock surface-level

pleasantries. Aggregation sites pus.h.i.+ng morals upon them that are neither right

nor wrong. Blogs flooding with comments, not from individuals but from their

very souls. All an horrifying gambit to strengthen the chains. A colossal trap.

The definition of people who would be better

off dead.

Let's suppose that that definition was "people

who are detrimental to society." If that's the case, people who killed

innocents would be better off dead. People whose contributions to society were

outweighed by the harm they cause to others would be better off dead too.

People whose deaths would be rejoiced at rather than wept at and people who

inspire anarchic thoughts, those people would obviously be better off dead.

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we just rounded up all those brutes and

left only the good people?

...It probably would. With fewer recessive

genes around, of course humanity's going to be wiser. If, hypothetically, the

world was in peril and we had to trim the population, you can bet your a.s.s that

the morals around protecting the weak and disadvantaged are going to be the

first to go and there'd be large-scale ma.s.sacres. ...Well, it doesn't have to

be something as over-the-top as that. All I'm trying to get at is that

there's plenty of people who could die and no one would mind.

"Yo."

I call out to a

pa.s.sing woman in an immaculately-pressed suit, likely on her way home from the

office.

In that instant, I got the impression

that although she works hard and contributes to society, she frequently

tramples on the feelings of others. Huh, maybe I'm awakening intuitive

powers like Matsumi's? Or maybe it was just a delusion of mine? I don't

much care either way. As far as I cared, she was a detriment to society

- someone who was better off dead.

"Are you speaking to me?"

"Yeah, anyone's fine. There's plenty of ya

around. Now, a riddle. When's a door not a door?"

"When it's ajar... Excuse me, what did you

want?"

"Who ordered you?"

"Huh?"

"Who ordered you to say 'when it's ajar'?"

The woman stopped in her tracks, fear

spreading across her face.

"n.o.body ordered me to do anything... what's

going on..."

"That's right! No one ordered you to do s.h.i.+t,

right? Then why does everyone answer the same f.u.c.king way? There's gotta be

plenty of other reasons why a door wouldn't a door, right? Then why's it gotta

be ajar and not a dormant volcano or somethin'?[1]"

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ah, shut up. This chick's chains were

particularly noisy. Women tended to have grimmer, st.u.r.dier chains than men.

"You're p.i.s.sing me off. You want me to f.u.c.king

kill you?"

"Wh...what are you talking about? Is there

something wrong with you?"

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

"Get outta my sight. If you don't, I'm

gonna f.u.c.king kill you."

Not bothering to hide her repugnance, she

quickly ran off.

Heh. Once I considered what I just

did objectively, I give a strained laugh.

It would seem I'd developed a bug.

Walking around is too much of a pain. After

clenching my teeth and somehow dragging myself to a nearby park, I layed

down on a bench. Overheating to an unbearable degree, my brain forcibly entered

a shutdown state. My consciousness faded away dreamlessly.

I opened my eyes.

The blue sky flooded into them.

I couldn't form

thoughts. The sun's blinding light a.s.saulted my eyes, and the painful stimulus

gradually restored my consciousness.

My back flared up in pain, and I remembered

that I had been sleeping in a park. I reached for a cigarette,

but found to my dismay that my pack was empty. What a f.u.c.king joke.

I clutched my

head, slowly recalling the events of yesterday.

There's something wrong with me.

I was aware of how

desperate I was getting, but I was able to keep a cool head for

now.

But it seemed unlikely that I would be

able to fully get back to normal. Upon learning of the existence of a human

without chains, I stopped be able to brush away my homicidal urges,

which were now simmering to the point of boiling over. I could go mad at

any moment. There was even a part of me that wanted to go mad, knowing that

there was a chance that doing so might grant me the impetus to commit murder.

From that small reason alone, I knew I was past the point of

being able to contain these urges. It was past the level of s.e.xual desire, and

was more akin to a hunger that scalded my throat. There was no chance the urges

would subside.

I would either

kill or go mad.

It could only be one or the other.

I decided to

return home briefly. I had no idea what my parents would say at this

point, but if I didn't they were liable to file a missing person report

out of obligation and a desire to leave a paper trail. And I was out of

money. I knew of a method to solve both those problems at once. A method

I had used often since middle school.

Kicking aside an empty can as I entered

the house, I noted that my parents weren't home. After fis.h.i.+ng through

the shelf where grandma pulled the envelope from before she died, I slipped

two ten-thousand yen[2] bills into my wallet.

But where should I go? I had no

destination in mind. But in this state, I couldn't stay at home, nor

could I go to school.

For a moment, I briefly contemplated

going to school. Thanks to my reputation, at least all the jacka.s.ses I wanted

to avoid would stay away from me.

And Kou was there.

Kouta Hiiragi. A man with no firm sense of

self. Generally, people a.n.a.lyze what kind of person they themselves are and

form a sense of self around that. In a certain sense they label themselves.

But Kou doesn't. As a result, his self doesn't

settle into any one shape. I dunno what made him like that, but based on

Matsumi's scanning the cause probably lies with his family circ.u.mstances.

Because his self isn't set, Kou tends to take

on whatever form his partner wants him to. Every time he interacts with

someone, his personality changes little by little. As a result, he's become

able to truly understand others, and not just on a superficial level. He'll

probably grow accustomed to Kouzuki's magic in no time, and he fully

understands my madness as well. He doesn't resist it, either. That's why if

he's careless, he'll end up understanding Matsumi as well and taking her in.

That reminds me, Matsumi likened Kou's color

to "white." I get it, that kinda makes sense. Kou can take on any other

color. That in and of itself is dangerous. That's why Kouzuki is being all

meddlesome and trying to stain Kou in her color; she's trying to prevent him

from getting stained in a malicious color like mine.

Being accepted by others feels good. I

learned that for the first time when I met Kou.

Kouzuki's probably the same. That's why she

trying to keep him for herself.

I guess I

can't go to school after all.

It's dangerous for me because Kou is there.

Kou is the ultimate sympathizer. He would no

doubt accept even me, who's enveloped in homicidal urges. Upon being accepted

by him, I would stop perceiving myself as abnormal, lose my last bits of

resistance, and eventually take action. I could picture it easily.

I grabbed a pack

of cigarettes from my room and lit one with a shaking hand. The nicotine

settled me down a bit, but the urges were unabated.

I slipped a

b.u.t.terfly knife into my pocket as a de facto tranquilizer. I could kill

at any time. I could make that call whenever I wanted. Knowing

that somehow helped me preserve my sense of reason up until now. But that bit

just now was simply meaningless. It simply served to rile me up.

A paper-thin line was all that kept me from

using this knife up till now. But that paper-thin line held within it a world

of difference.

But I knew.

As I was now, I was liable to

cross that line.

When I came to my senses - when I

truly came to my senses - it was already night.

Once again I found myself wandering

through that deteriorating suburb.

While I knew little about killing time,

I knew quite a bit about killing. All I had to do was

noncommittally indulge myself. My mind simply sought pleasure without applying

any deeper meaning to anything. In other words, I was deteriorating as a

human. I was an animal with intelligence but no use for it. There are a

surprising number of humans who fit that description, so I didn't lack

for companions. Hip! Hip! Hoorah! Other people were necessary for the pursuit

of pleasure. Transient relations.h.i.+ps were best. Human garbage was best. If they

were men, though, they'd sooner or later commit some kind of s.e.xual a.s.sault, so

I tried to avoid that. I wasn't into f.u.c.king chicks while they

screamed, and taking risks for something I wasn't into was right off the

table.

So I looked for women. Chicks who were

into give-and-take relations.h.i.+ps. Animals who sought only pleasure like I

did. Some of them got clingy, but their kind feared rejection, so once dealt

with none of them pressed the issue. Once they got hooked on drugs and drowned

in pleasure, any chick would become almost disgustingly docile. Once I

was done with with them, they would without fail use every word and action at

their disposal to wail about how lonely they were or some s.h.i.+t, but I

couldn't give less of a f.u.c.k about their pitiful emotions.

"You're pretty good."

One of those women spoke up to me when I

was playing darts at an amus.e.m.e.nt center. What was her name again? I

think she told me, but I forgot.

"Do you play darts a lot?"

"Somethin' like that."

Through this meaningless conversation, I

got authorization to step into her territory. It was obnoxious, but a necessary

ritual nonetheless.

The chick wasn't a so-called "gyaru[3]". She was

no beauty, but her face was attractive enough to put her on the receiving end

of gossip. She wore a cheap-looking black dress with hideous pink frills. I

could tell from experience that she was available.

The ritual had gone on plenty long enough to

move to the next step.

"Anywhere you wanna head after this?"

"Nah, not really, I guess."

"Follow me, then."

Although she no doubt knew what was to follow,

she simply followed me without putting up any opposition.

Where should we do it? The park? Nah, my back

hurts, so a cheap hotel would be better... Such thoughts filled my head as we

boarded the elevator.

Leaving the building, we neared a tunnel

running underneath the railway. Right as I put my hand on her back as a

lip service, I heard an unexpected voice.

"Is that you, Yahara?"

There stood the cla.s.s representative, carrying

a plastic folder and clearly on his way home from cram school — Shuuichi

Akiyama.

I was planning on

feigning not being able to hear him due to the train pa.s.sing, but when I

reflexively looked over my shoulder, our eyes met.

"What do you intend to accomplish by not

coming to school. Your friends are worried about you, you know."

His words were exemplary yet insincere. It was

almost as if someone was making him say them. First of all, did this guy even

think I even had friends?

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, shut up already.

For some reason or another, my earlier

hedonism had been enough to temporarily silence the chains. But in the face of

this man, that was impossible.

His chains were grotesque, grimmer and

st.u.r.dier than any other's.

Feeling an onset of vertigo, I plunged

my hand into my pocket and grasped my knife, my de facto tranquilizer.

"What will come of you continuing to neglect

school? You will simply idle away your days. If you fail to put in the effort

now, many paths will become closed to you, and you will regret it fiercely.

Even you should realize such a simple thing."

"The f.u.c.k are you going on about? Don't go

judging everything according your values."

"I believe my values are extremely commonplace

values."

"Don't I f.u.c.king know it."

And that's the thing I hate more than

anything else.

"You know it, yet you rebel against it. Don't

you think you're acting a little childish?"

Akiyama pushed up the bridge of his gla.s.ses.

Maybe what he's correcting with his gla.s.ses

isn't his eyesight, but him himself? He was extreme enough to harbor such

delusions. He could only see the corrected, beautiful world. Unimportant things

didn't even enter his view. It's like he's forgotten that when he takes off his

gla.s.ses, the blurry, hard-to-grasp world in front of him is the real one.

Akiyama's gaze s.h.i.+fted from me to the girl.

Faced with the honor student Akiyama's reproachful gaze, she uncomfortably

lifted the corners of her mouth.

"Your girlfriend? Won't you be imposing on

her, dragging her around at this hour?"

He spoke unaffectedly. He likely doubted that

there was any woman who would willingly spend time around me.

"She ain't my girlfriend, though."

"She isn't?"

"Just some chick I picked up off the

street. We were thinking of going and f.u.c.king. Get it?"

"Excuse me?"

At his confusion, the girl gave an embarra.s.sed

smile. Of course he's not going to be able simply nod and accept something like

that.

Glancing sidelong at Akiyama, I give a

snicker.

Hey, look, he can't even hide it. Inside that

disgust-filled expression, he's jealous that I'm getting laid. That

f.u.c.ker's so fastidious he probably wouldn't admit he even had desires like

that.

"You... have quite some nerve, saying such

immoral things so brazenly."

"Jealous?"

"I'm well aware of how proud of your faults

you are. May I ask you a question, though? How often do you do things like

this?"

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Oh, this isn't good. Shut up. This guy's

chains just won't shut up.

"All the f.u.c.king time, man. What, you want to

get in on this s.h.i.+t? I can teach you how to. It's easy, all you gotta do

is lie about your age to register for dating sites. Studying ain't good for

s.h.i.+t, you feel me? You know, if we all just gave in to our primal desire for

pleasure, we could all just live as happy-a.s.s animals."

Akiyama just glared at me silently.

"...Um, I just remember something I have to

do, so I'm going to head home, okay?"

"Yeah."

The girl had lost interest. I still

couldn't remember her name as I watched her run off.

Akiyama watched her recede far longer than I

did.

"Yahara."

Akiyama spoke, gazing off into the distance.

"What?"

"I believe it is unwise to indiscreetly give

voice to the thoughts of others. But I see you and I do not share that

opinion."

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle.

That noise was whispering to me.

Kill.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

It's time for you to join the world of

killers. That's the only path left available to you.

Despite being more tightly bound by those unholy

chains than any other, Shuuichi Akiyama was enough of a freak to feel not agony

but comfort from their embrace. There was no human who symbolized the chains as

much as he did. That would make him the ideal sacrifice, no?

"You wanna sermonize? Fine by me. In any case,

let's head somewhere less crowded."

"I see; very well. I would rather n.o.body else

carelessly inserted their voice in our conversation, after all."

"Yeah, right. Wouldn't want anyone getting in

the way."

I didn't want

anyone to get in the way.

Not until it was all over.

Unlike a large city like Tokyo, all you had to

do in the suburb was walk a little and the tall buildings would be replaced by

rice paddies and vacant lots. Past a convenience store with a sprawling parking

lot belying its defunct state lay a similarly-defunct factory. I neither

knew nor cared what the factory had originally produced, but the sensation of

being underground brought about by its oily, metallic odors made it ideal. I

didn't know what this iron press was designed for either, but when I

laid my hand on it it was icy-cold to the touch.

"I'm surprised that you knew about a place

like this."

"I told you about all the chicks I

was forcin' myself on, right? You gotta know about places like this to do s.h.i.+t

like that."

Akiyama scowled in repugnance.

Honestly, I'm surprised he'd follow me

to a sketchy-a.s.s place like this so easily. Could he not even begin to imagine

himself being in danger? ...Well, he probably couldn't. That was the kind of

victim I was dealing with here. The kind of guy who was filled with

baseless conviction that he couldn't possibly get involved with the kind of

incident you see on the news.

He was one of them. h.e.l.l, he'd probably even

be shocked at the sight of one of his cla.s.smates smoking.

"So? I'm ready to be preached at."

"Before we start, would you mind turning on a

light? It's too dark for me to even make out your face. I feel that that would

somewhat defeat the purpose of this conversation."

Did he really think that being able to see my

face would make his s.h.i.+tty-a.s.s sermon stick?

"I think someone left a lantern here..."

Squinting to look for the electric lantern, I

found it beside a pile of cigarette b.u.t.ts. As I flicked the switch,

Akiyama's form came dimly into view.

"For you to have lead me this far, I can

a.s.sume you have at least some intention of hearing me out?"

I choked back laughter. Akiyama didn't seem to

consider for a moment the possibility that he might be a.s.saulted, let alone

killed.

I'm sure what's

floating through his mind is something along the lines of a naive-a.s.s after

school special. The pitiable delinquent, coming from a bad background, finally

finds someone who understands him and, struck by his sincere actions, gets back

on the straight and narrow.

What a nice story. Even I, without an

ounce of cynicism, think it would be nice if we had more of that kind of story.

I've seen a lot of delinquents, and most of them are sc.u.m through and

through. Defective from their very genes. Deficient in brains, empathy, fear,

and imagination, the lot of them.

But in spite of all that, this guy has enough

faith in his persuasive abilities to follow me all this way. I half

wanted to see what the it was about his speech he was so confident in. h.e.l.l,

maybe they'd even be enough to convert me.

"Let me start by asking you something. Are you

happy with the way you're living right now?"

"As if. I'm always wis.h.i.+ng I could

change, you know?"

Even right now.

In any case, I was about to be able to

change. Not that I had any idea what I was going to change into.

"Then why not simply be more diligent? From

what I can see, you certainly aren't stupid. I mean that, by the way. All it

takes for people to change is to find an objective and to put in the effort

necessary to achieve it. At the moment you're lapsing into depravity, but if

you take a slightly longer view I have no doubt you can overcome such

temptations."

I laugh

inappropriately upon hearing that from the most nearsighted man imaginable.

"So you're saying if I just become a

straight-A student like you, my life'll open up and become all peaches and

f.u.c.kin' cream?"

"It doesn't necessarily have to be studies.

Anything you find that you can put your all into works. And that's all it takes

to open up your life. I'm sure there's some activity you could find yourself

getting engrossed in."

"There's nothin' like that."

"Are you certain? What about sports, say,

boxing or rugby?"

I wanted to throw

up. Is this guy actually referencing old after school specials, then lumping

all delinquents together in one convenient little category? Faced with such a

blad lack of imagination, I began to doubt if he was even truly a

straight-A student.

"And if you do indeed find something you want

to do, the more paths you have available before you to choose from the better.

As you are right now, paths are vanis.h.i.+ng."

"Dumba.s.s. No one who was willing to work their

a.s.s off just to keep future possibilities open would be in this situation in

the first d.a.m.n place."

"You mustn't give up on yourself. Envision the

future, and stride towards it!"

I hadn't suspected

his little sermon would fail to resonate with me to this extent. The things he

was saying were ostensibly correct. Perhaps they would have resonated more from

a different mouth.

But the words felt like they had no weight

behind them. They held none of the speaker's true feelings. It felt like he was

simply reading out of some manual on delinquent correction. The words were

completely those of another.

And on top of that, the sound of chains.

His thoughts and mine were in parallel,

destined to never intersect.

"Those chains of yours. I'll pa.s.s on

being bound by them, thank you very much!"

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle,

rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

Ahh, I can't hold it in any more.

I should just kill

him. I can't bear to listen to any more of this. I should just

kill him. I should just kill him. When I open up his flesh, my

future will open up as well. I should just kill him. I should

just kill him. I should just kill him. I don't want to be here

any more. I'm never coming back here again. I should just kill

him. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I

should just kill him. This place is empty; no one will hear him scream. His

death wails will be a hymnal for me alone, a noise sufficient to drown out

those chains. I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I

should just kill him. I should just kill him. His blood will go flying. I

don't know how my world will change. But if nothing else, my monochrome world

will be dyed red. I should just kill him. I should just kill him.

I should just kill him. I should just kill him. I should

just kill him.

"Chains? I'm not sure I see any chains

to speak of... What are you talking about, Yahara?"

Looking around, he frowned.

"I'll tell you, so you can die in

peace."

"...Yahara?"

"Chains. The preconceived notions that bind

us. That's a useless definition. They're essentially rules without order.

Morals, forced upon us. Their noise is annoying. I've always wanted to

escape them. The only way I can escape them is by killing. In other

words, that noise is basically the sound of my desire to kill."

I pulled the b.u.t.terfly

knife out of my pocket. With a flick of my wrist, the blade flies out.

"Now I can get out of here!"

My reluctance to kill vanished.

Immediately, my hand was filled with the

sensation of flesh. It was softer than I expected, barely giving me the

sensation I had slashed at all. The experience was lacking.

"Now you can get out of here, hm..."

The red blood dripped loudly.

Now that I think about it, it's

strange. Even though we constantly have blood flowing through our bodies, we

only ever think about it at times like this. It's like not being able to see

the forest for the trees. It's not that our awareness is limited, we're simply

under the impression that it is.

"—On that point alone, we are of the same

opinion."

What sentiment did that smile carry? It seemed

similar to the sense of accomplishment a child would display upon digging up an

anthill and earnestly squis.h.i.+ng its inhabitants.

"Your life has no value... or rather, you're

like a vermin that deserves to die."

Akiyama spoke bluntly, his voice carrying no

inflection.

He pulled out the knife.

As he pulled it out, blood — lifeblood —

poured from my chest.

Releasing my wrist, Akiyama pulled the knife

out from my chest and tossed it aside. Fluids burst out like a stopped had been

uncorked. Red liquid spilled out from my mouth. No matter what it was I was

regurgitating, it wasn't anything good.

"You thought too little of me. Did you really

believe that I had no idea why you brought me here?"

I knew it. Akiyama

was a deviant.

"You should have realized it as soon as I had

you turn the lantern on. I had you light it so I could make out your

movements."

Everyone likely, to varying extents, realizes

that they're bound by something. Even if you couldn't see the chains, you could

definitely feel them choking you.

But Akiyama was completely unlike that. He had

no doubts in his own world. He never doubted that what he saw as just was what

the rest of the world also saw as just.

Akiyama was too much of an honors student for

his own good, and as a result had never been reproached or criticized by the

adults in his life. So he was under the misapprehension that everything he

did was just.

That was his abnormality.

"I was well aware of your murderous

aspirations. And from our discussion, I could tell that those aspirations were

not something you were capable of escaping from. That is why I judged it

necessary to eliminate you."

The thoughts Akiyama held were widely held by

society to be just. But n.o.body's cogs are aligned perfectly. Perhaps the

misalignment was small at first. Something another could easily notice and

alert him to. But because of how much of an honors student he was, he had

n.o.body to point it out to him. So that continued twisting into the form Akiyama

desired. And though the misalignment had grown to lethal proportions, even if

someone were to point it out Akiyama was past the point of heeding the words of

others.

Vainglory. There was no man alive better

suited to that word than Akiyama. I should have recognized that.

"You said something about helping me dying in

peace, if I recall? It would appear I am now in a position to offer parting

words to you."

Looking down on my fallen body, Akiyama dug

his heel into my face.

"I offer you this explanation so that you can

die in peace. Would your world change if you killed someone? I offer you the

answer you sought for so long."

My vision went dark, gradually fading. My

sense of pain left me as well, the only thing I could feel any more

being a cold sense of emptiness where the knife had stabbed me.

"The answer: it would not. Or perhaps it

would? You weren't a very good point of reference, after all. After all, you're

simply vermin. What emotion stirs within you when you kill a c.o.c.kroach? I'm

sure you feel the same thing anyone does. Nothing but disgust."

The noise of the world started fading as well.

Great, now I didn't have to listen to Akiyama babble any more.

I fell into the

void.

Everything disappeared.

All that was left were my thoughts.

For argument's sake.

For argument's sake, if I had

successfully killed Akiyama, would my world have changed?

Ahh, I came close enough to tell. I

can picture it as if it were real. Even if I had successfully killed

Akiyama,

My world wouldn't have changed.

It wouldn't have changed a bit.

There would simply have been a corpse rolling

around in front of me. And having lost my last thread of salvation, I

would have gone mad.

Thinking about it, such a conclusion wouldn't

have been half bad.

But even so, I thought.

If by some miracle I survive this, I

would still try to kill Akiyama. I would definitely kill him.

Not to change my world.

Not to erase the sound of chains.

I would kill him

because he p.i.s.ses me off. I would kill him out of simple hatred.

I would be the

most hackneyed, worthless killer imaginable.

Indeed.

I am, to a degree

that disappoints even me, an unremarkable person.

Rattle, rattle. Rattle, rattle.

I can hear them. I

can hear them in my ears, which should no longer be able to hear at all.

I knew. In truth,

I've known for a long time. The cacophonous ringing was never the sound of

other people's chains. It was—

—the sound of the chains that had always been

wrapped around me.