Ex7. Lovers Who Cannibalize Each Other

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/66/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

A few days after the Shirogane sisters had fallen, Ellis and Miyako occupied a room in a certain hotel.

Ellis sat cross-legged on the bed, peering with frank curiosity at the device Chigusa had given her—a thing called a “smartphone.”
Miyako sat in a chair, watching the news on television with an air of boredom.
The story, of course, was the continuing murders.
The scale had grown too large to call them murders any longer, and every station, day after day, ran little else.
Talk had even begun that the police could no longer cope, and that the Self-Defense Forces might be called out.
Not that it would matter who came. The two of them had no intention of stopping.

“Hey, Miyako. There’s something I wanna ask about Sister.”
“Did something happen with Chii-chan?”

Miyako set her mug of green tea on the table and twisted in her chair toward Ellis.
Ellis, apparently tired of fiddling with the phone, tossed it onto the bed.

“She’s off seeing her parents right now, yeah? I grew up in the Discard District, so I barely remember mine and never really brought it up. But I was wondering if Sister had some kind of problem with hers.”

The reason only Ellis and Miyako were there was that Chigusa had gone to reunite with her parents.
At first both of them had said they would come along; she had turned them down, gently.
This was a tangle she had to erase herself, she had said.
Her expression had clouded in a way that was rare for her.
Miyako answered Ellis’s question by leaning back in her chair and letting out a long sigh.

“I didn’t see it firsthand, so I don’t know the details. Chii-chan was abandoned by her mother at eight and raised by her father after that. But that father was mentally unstable, and apparently he used to hit her a lot.”
“Trash. We should kill him.”
“Same opinion. But Chii-chan says she wants to settle it herself, so I think that choice ought to be respected.”

Respecting Chigusa’s will.
Ellis understood that well enough. Even so, she could not forgive the existence of a man who had hurt her beloved Sister.

She spoke with a sulky look.

“Father or not, he’s still a guy, right? The Sister we know now would probably just think, ‘Who cares.’”
“Well, Chii-chan became a vampire by a different path than we did. The way she changed is probably different too.”
“So Sister can kill men without mercy because that’s the kind of person she was to begin with?”
“I don’t think all of it was what Chii-chan wanted. But I do think she was treated badly enough that swearing to wipe them out is more than justified.”

Miyako had witnessed a certain portion of that with her own eyes.
Whenever she remembered it, she remembered as well that she had failed to stop it—that she had, if anything, been complicit—and her chest grew tight.
Seeing her frown, Ellis hurriedly changed the subject.

“S-so, um. How are your parents doing, Miyako?”
“Haven’t seen them in a long time. We kept in touch, at least. I wonder how they are. They must have heard I went missing. I hope they haven’t gotten so depressed they made themselves sick.”
“Then shouldn’t you go see them soon?”
“Mm, but I’d have to kill my dad, and then I’d have to make my mom fall, right? That sounds like more of a hassle than you’d think… Ah, but once I start remembering, I do want to make Mom fall. She’s getting on a bit, but she looks like she’d feel good to hold.”

Imagining herself holding her own mother, Miyako’s cheeks colored faintly.
Guiding the woman who had given birth to her toward the heights of pleasure had, by now, become a proper way of returning the favor.

“I don’t really remember falling anyone that much older than me…”
“It’s pretty good. Their desire’s strong, so they go along with it eagerly. Once you teach the body once, they’ll open up on their own even if the charm hasn’t finished.”
“Huh. Better than someone who’s weirdly hung up on being untouched and fights you the whole time, maybe. I’ll nibble a little next time.”

The Demi-Vamps were steadily expanding their influence even now.
Ellis and Miyako took part in that quiet invasion as a matter of course; making a woman fall simply because they had spotted her on the street was an everyday affair.
Ellis had said “next time,” but the thing would likely be done by tomorrow.
Women’s wariness had increased, though, and it was no longer as easy as it had once been to lure someone into an alley.
Lately they more often used their shadows to unlock a door, forced their way into a house, and poured in magical power by force.
Ellis rather liked the forcefulness, for what it was worth.

“Nn…” Continue reading →

Ex6-5. Iconoclasm

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/65/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Even after the monitor went dark, it took several hours for Shuri to settle.
Her father was dead. “Settle” meant only that she could hold a conversation again.
The whole time, Chigusa stayed beside her and comforted her without a single complaint.

“You… you used to be human, didn’t you…”

It had been so long since anyone had spoken that Chigusa needed a few seconds to realize the words were for her.

“… Yes. That’s right.”
“Why? How can you do something this cruel?”

Chigusa tilted her head. “Hate?”

“One man died. What about that is cruel?”

She did not need to say it at this late date, but she meant it.
A man dying was a smaller matter than kicking a stone at the roadside.

“…!? You—you—!”

Shuri sat up hard from the floor and seized Chigusa by the chest.
Resistance would have been easy. Chigusa did nothing, and took the anger.

“He’s dead! My father! Precious family, bound by blood! And that isn’t cruel!? Don’t screw with me, don’t screw with me, don’t screw with me!”
“I’m sorry. I truly don’t understand.”
“That’s why you’re a monster!”
“Fufu. So I was a monster even before this body. Ah. I see. That’s why—no one would accept me. That reason. That logic.”

For the first time, Shuri felt she was seeing Chigusa’s bare face.
A dry laugh, self-mocking, as if she had given up on everything.
Empty—Shuri understood, without being told, that there had been nothing in that life.

“Shuri. Never mind human or Demi-Vamp… why do you think it’s sad, just because a father died?”
“Are you… serious?”
“Yes. I am. Is a father that valuable? He’s only one man among men. Well—in my case I don’t really understand mothers either.”

There Shuri realized her anger had been spinning in empty air.
The person who had made this mad world had not known a family’s “true love.”

“… Haha… hahaha, ahahaha! I see. That’s it. You were just talking as if you knew, when you didn’t!”

Chigusa suddenly looked pitiable and small.
This was, in short, spite on a grand scale.
What she had never been able to have overflowed in the world; she could not accept that, so she would break it—so Shuri concluded.

“There’s no love in the world you make. Love you can’t feel unless you join bodies isn’t love!”
“What is a child born of her parents’ sex saying?”
“That isn’t the result. They joined because they loved each other. They didn’t love each other because they joined! It’s ridiculous, you talking about a world full of love when you don’t even know that!”
“I see. Perhaps people who were blessed with others can’t understand. But—I don’t think so.”

Chigusa’s calm did not break.
She was not performing. She did not care that Shuri denied her.
She did not deny that loving families existed.
The Lengland house, for example, who had become Demi-Vamps in the other world.
They had loved one another even before they stopped being human, and they had not carried hidden friction like the Shiroganes.
Even so, they were far closer now than they had been then.
Parent and child, and that child’s child: three of them, and they were spreading happiness by bearing still more children.

“There are families who couldn’t love, and families who held distorted affection, and those people will be saved by becoming Demi-Vamps. Like Senri.”
“Senri has not been saved!”
“Well, you can ask her later. And even if there were a family that already loved one another, they can obtain still more happiness by becoming Demi-Vamps.”
“Even if it costs a father?”

Remembering how her beloved father had died, tears rose in Shuri’s eyes.

“Yes. Even subtracting that, it’s a plus. Overwhelmingly.”

Even seeing the tears, Chigusa answered with a smile.

“There’s nothing that surpasses life!”
“I agree. I want to treat everyone’s lives as valuable. That’s why I got angry when my companions were hurt, isn’t it?”
“That’s—”

Shuri started to argue and stopped.
It was probably useless.
If the values themselves never met, more debate was waste.
Monster or human had nothing to do with it. At the root, she and Chigusa thought differently.
The value of life, too.
To Chigusa, men were not recognized as beings that possessed life at all.
Death was not tragedy. Killing was not crime. Of course.
She might even think she had cleansed the world of filth—that it was justice.

“I don’t think we can understand each other with words. But I’ll say this. You’re wrong.”
“You’ll come to think it’s right soon enough.”
“I won’t become like Senri.”
“Is that so. Then why not assert it in front of her? Ellis, Senri, you can come in. We aren’t particularly occupied.”

Chigusa called toward the entrance. The door opened, and one girl appeared.

“Senri…”
“Yoo-hoo, Sis. You doing okay?” Continue reading →

Ex6-4. Sister Complex

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/64/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

When Chigusa’s mouth left her, Shuri fell back on the bed, her chest rising and falling hard.
What she had been given was a sensation she had never known in her life, one that could only be called abnormal.
Her heart refused. Her body would not.
That, more than anything, was humiliating. She hid her wet eyes with her arm and clenched her teeth with all her strength.

“Pride is a hindrance, isn’t it. I think that is one of the reasons people cannot be happy. If you would only accept it, it would be easier.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Chigusa stroked Shuri’s cheek with a fingertip.

“… I will not become what you want.”

Shuri glared at her.
Her will to fight had not yet gone.
She was still overwhelmingly at a disadvantage. She was thinking of killing Chigusa if a gap opened. Chigusa had allowed for that much.

“You already understand that you cannot win. Where does the strength to keep resisting come from?”
“You wouldn’t know… I have something I have to protect!”
“Ahaha. A line out of a boys’ manga. The world is not so simply divided into good and evil. I already told you why I resorted to force.”

Chigusa pinned her down and, with her shadows, stripped the clothes from her in an instant.
Shuri found herself in lace underthings the vampires had likely prepared. Training had left her abdomen and limbs as tight as an athlete’s.
Chigusa, similarly dressed, looked her over. Shuri grimaced.

“My companions were hurt. What I ought to protect was hurt. Therefore I punish. What about that is evil?”
“A murdering monster wouldn’t understand an explanation.”
“And a vampire-killer would?”

Shuri turned her face away.
Talk would only run parallel. All Chigusa could do, she said, was teach Shuri’s body what a Demi-Vamp was.
Shuri called it wrong—between women, like this.
“You get used to it,” Chigusa whispered. “Used. To. It.”

What followed was not a fight. Chigusa used her shadows and her mouth to force sensation into a body that had only ever been trained to endure pain. Shuri’s pride held; her voice did not. She had never been taught this. Compared with Senri, who lived on the internet, she had neither knowledge nor experience.

When their eyes met at close range, Shuri’s body would not move.
For an instant she thought, unforgivably, that the red eyes were beautiful, and her face burned.
“To drive a girl this dear into a fight for her life. There are some inhuman people in the world.”

The gentleness of the voice undid her caution for a second. That was enough.
Chigusa kissed her. The rest of the night was a lesson in what a human body could be made to feel, and Shuri, still insisting she would not fall, lost consciousness with the Mark moved to her throat.

Continue reading →

Ex6-3. The Game Begins

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/63/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Yes… yes, please do that. Yes, for now—though I think it’s only a matter of time until we’re found.”

While they waited for the train at the station, Shuri was on the phone the whole time with the main house.
Even Senri beside her could faintly hear a thick male voice.

“I understand, but at present protecting my sister is all I can manage… Dispatch someone here? From the branch family? But are they all right on that side?”

The sight of family bowing and scraping to a superior was not something one wanted to watch.
Still less when the person on the other end was so high-handed.
Her sister was working this hard to protect her—how could they scold her in a situation like this.
They were just sitting somewhere safe looking important anyway, Senri thought venomously, warming her hands on a hot lemon tea she had bought at the station.

“I intend to do everything I can. Yes, what they’ll try next is a complete unknown, so depending on the case even the main house’s location might be—!? I-I’m sorry. That was a thoughtless remark. Yes, I pray for your safety. That’s all.”

At the end Shuri spoke with her head bowed, and hung up.
Then she looked at the screen and let out a long breath.
White vapor drifted through the dim station concourse.

“Good work, Sis.”
“Ahaha… it’s a strange thing, getting tired just from talking. I really can’t stand people who look down on you unconditionally.”
“Nobody likes that. They shouldn’t come after us. The vampires should just go to the main house.”
“If they overheard that it would be a disaster.”
“You think they’re bugging us?”
“They might. Well, I agree with you, Senri.”

They were speaking ill of people who had been spoken of ill enough already, but there were reasons they deserved it.
While thinking it was not very admirable, they spent the ten minutes until the train arrived warming to complaints about the main house.
Perhaps because of that, the fear from when they had left the house had eased, enough that it even felt a little like a trip.
But that was only because they had not actually seen a vampire yet, and it did not feel real.
It was better than wearing themselves down.
They ought to laugh while they still could. In a cornered situation, it was not only the body that was ground away. The heart was no exception.

Continue reading →

Ex6-2. Hide-and-Seek Doesn’t Suit Me

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/62/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

At midnight, Shuri came home from meeting the victim, looking thoroughly worn down.
The meeting had apparently been far away.
She unlocked the door in a sluggish way, took the knob, and slipped inside.

“Welcome home, Sis.”

The one who greeted Shuri was her younger sister, Senri.
Seeing her smile with her teeth showing, Shuri very nearly cried, to her own surprise.
That was how heavy the day’s events had been.

“I’m hooome!”
“Whoa!?”

As she said it, Shuri collapsed into a hug against her sister.
Senri, who had little strength, nearly went over, but managed to catch her and hold her ground.
“Geez, you’re hopeless, Sis,” she laughed.
But their mother, who should have gone with her, was not there.

“Huh? Where’s Mom?”
“Nn… she’s gone to report to headquarters. She told me there was nothing more I could do, so I should go home.”

Perhaps embarrassed after all, Shuri pulled away from Senri with her cheeks flushed.
Fatigue still sat heavy on her face.
Seeing her sister like that, Senri asked with worry.

“How was it? The woman, I mean. The victim.”
“…”

There was no answer.
Something had happened, but she seemed not to want Senri to hear it if she could help it.
Shuri took off her shoes and went up into the house still carrying her heavy bag and coat.
When Senri took the luggage of her own accord, Shuri said a small “Thanks.”
That said, Senri was already involved, if only indirectly.
Keeping silent would be against decency—Shuri let out a sigh, then began to speak.

“I’ll say this first: it wasn’t Mom and I who met her. We had a stand-in speak with her, and we listened to the whole conversation.”
“You never know what she’d do. I think that’s better.”
“Yes. Well, it was wasted effort in the end. First the conclusion: the woman was already no longer human.”
“…?”

She said it so matter-of-factly that Senri could not even manage a proper shock.

“Th-then she really had become a vampire? And she showed herself in front of you like it was nothing!?”
“That’s about the size of it. Precisely speaking, she called herself a Demi-Vamp, not a vampire.”
“She called herself…”

Senri could not quite grasp the situation.
An enemy who might as well have been a natural predator, possessing the power of exorcism, was right in front of her—why would a vampire name herself?
They kept talking as they moved to the living room.
Dinner Senri had made was laid out on the table.
Their mother and Shuri had often been out late before, so despite appearances Senri could cook reasonably well.

“She was so shamelessly open about everything that Mom and I were both stunned. I’d heard vampires were weak to light, but she sat in a bright restaurant looking perfectly fine.”
“Maybe that’s because of the ‘Demi’ part?”
“We didn’t ask that far, but probably. She’d become a Demi-Vamp, and that much stronger against light.”
“But half would mean her power is half too, right?”
“I wish it had been…”

Shuri sank deep into a dining chair, let out a long breath, and reached for the TV remote.
A news program came on.
A male reporter with a grave face was gripping a microphone in front of some family restaurant.
The interior was draped in vinyl sheeting, so they could not see inside, but it was clear that an abnormal atmosphere hung over the surroundings.

“That was the place. Where we talked with the victim.”
“Ehh!? But something’s happening there, isn’t it?”
“—Even after the conversation had settled, we couldn’t believe what she’d said. From our eyes she was certainly an unsettling presence, but only in a subtle way. We couldn’t say for certain she wasn’t human.”

Yes: even if she had not named herself, they had the “eyes.” They should have been able to tell at a glance that she was not human.
But perhaps because she was a Demi-Vamp, neither Shuri nor their mother could be sure the woman in front of them was a monster until they saw what came next.

“So she ran out of patience with us for not believing, I suppose. She said it herself. ‘Then I’ll show you my power.’”

Senri swallowed hard.
A tension far stronger than when she had listened to Saya filled the room.

“To tell the truth, I didn’t see anything. Right before it happened, Mom grabbed me on instinct and blocked my view. But I heard the sounds. The women’s screams in the restaurant—and the sound of blood scattering and striking the floor.”
“People… died?”
“Mom said a black whirl appeared all of a sudden and went into every man in the restaurant. Right after that, the heads of the men who had taken in the shadows all burst.”

—And so the tragedy now on the news had taken place.
Eighteen dead, all instant. Their heads had been blown away so thoroughly that identification was difficult, and the smell of blood hung over the area around the scene.
With this, humans would finally notice.
That this whole series of crimes was not the work of human hands.

“Looking back, they had never tried to hide their crimes. The men who were killed sometimes had their limbs torn off, sometimes were stuck on park poles like objects, as if the corpses were being used to play.”
“So there was no need to hide?”
“They have that much confidence in their power, I suppose.”
“…Sis, can you beat something like that?”

At Senri’s question, Shuri silently shook her head. Continue reading →

Ex6-1. The Exorcist Sister and the Incompetent Little Sister

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/61/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

In a dim room, the clatter of a keyboard went on without pause.
The girl responsible wore a shapeless red padded coat and sat hunched, locked in a staring contest with three monitors in a row.
Her long black hair was a tangle. Thick black-framed glasses sat on her nose. Now and then a little laugh slipped out of her: “Nihihi.”

“When everybody moves just the way I want, yeah, that’s fun. Nih.”

She was still muttering that unsettling aside when a knock sounded at the door.
Almost in the same instant, without waiting for an answer, someone walked in.
The girl, who had been in such a good mood, let out an obvious “Haaah,” and glared at her sister, who was trespassing as usual.

“Sis… how many times do I have to tell you there’s no point knocking if you come in at the same time?”
“Oh, what does it matter? We’re sisters.”
“Ever heard of courtesy even among intimates?”
“Other houses are other houses. Ours is ours. So? How’s it going, Senri?”

The older sister—Shuri—ignored her younger sister Senri Shirogane’s protest as if it were nothing and asked with shameless composure.
She had come to Senri unusually meek, saying she had a favor to ask. Senri had agreed, and this was the result.
Out in the world, Shuri passed for a bright, kind person of character. Senri would have stated, without hesitation, that this was not the case.

“Tyrant, aren’t you. How did our sister even grow up like this.”
“Never mind that—just tell me! Are the vampire rumors actually spreading?”
“They are. I used every board and every social network, wrote copy that would bite depending on the venue, and posted at the right moment! A stunt like that would be impossible without a brain like mine.”

Ordinary methods would never make anyone believe the nonsense that a string of mass murders was the work of vampires.
Not even as rumor or urban legend.
But if you impersonated a crowd and flooded every channel in a short span, a few people would start to believe.
Then you deepened their conviction and turned them into new sources of spread.
By repeating that, Senri had succeeded, on her own, in circulating the vampire rumor.

“Yes, yes, very impressive. And you’ve covered your tracks?”

Shuri, who was hopeless with machines, had no idea what was impressive and let it slide.
Senri, of course, pursed her lips in dissatisfaction.

“Praise me more. It was a lot of work, you know?”
“You’re so capable. There, there.”

As she said it, Shuri ruffled Senri’s hair in a teasing way.
The hand was batted away at once.

“People with no knowledge always look down on advanced technique. Honestly. Anyway, I’m routing it through overseas servers so it won’t lead back. But do we even need to go that far? Even if you’re right and the culprit this time is a vampire, I’ve never heard of a vampire who uses the net.”
“Just in case. So you don’t get pulled into danger, Senri.”
“Sis…”

Senri was moved, in spite of herself, that her sister worried about her.
The feeling did not last.

“If you’re that worried, maybe you just shouldn’t have used me in the first place?”
“…”

The pointed remark silenced Shuri.
She seemed to think for a moment, and then—

“……Fufufu.”

She began to laugh, slowly and on purpose.

“Fufufu. Fufu. Fufufufufu.”

She kept up the theatrical laughter, patted Senri’s back a few times, and walked out of the room.
Apparently she had found nothing to say and was trying to paper it over.

“Fufufufufu…”

The laugh receded down the hall.
Watching her sister’s retreating back, Senri clutched her head and let out a long breath.
Shuri’s high-handed behavior was nothing new. No one understood better than Senri that getting angry was a waste.
There was nothing to do but give up.

“Well, it’s not like I’m not having fun, so whatever.”

She said it, and resumed her staring contest with the displays.
Later, when she started to leave the room for the bathroom, a bottle of juice was waiting outside the door.
Shuri’s idea of thanks, apparently.
“I’m cheap, getting happy over just this,” Senri thought, with a wry smile.

Continue reading →

Ex5. A Farce Like This, Once in a While

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/60/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

At some point it had become my daily habit to kill time in the park on the way home from cram school.
I would sit on a bench lit only dimly by a streetlamp that drew moths and gnats, and read, or else prepare for the next day’s lessons.
I did not think of it as pain. I did not think of it as loneliness, either.
Being at home was the greater pain. That was why I waited here for as much time as I could make pass.

My parents got along very badly.
I had never seen them when they were on good terms, so I assumed it had been that way since before I was born.
Every time they fought they would say they were going to divorce, but they did not seem to mean it.
They had, they said, a duty not to divorce until I could stand on my own.
I had been born.
Therefore I had to be raised properly.
That, apparently, was what the two of them believed.
Perhaps because I grew up in that environment, I never felt anything I could call love from my parents, and I never loved anyone myself.

I had a fair number of friends, at school and at cram school alike. The smile I had learned in order to manage my parents’ moods was, by itself, enough to draw people in.
I looked up at the streetlamp without quite meaning to.
I was a Moth Trap. They were those insects.
It was not a question of which was uglier, or which was more foolish.
Parents had a duty to raise their children. Human beings had a habit of approaching anyone who looked kindly. That was all.
So long as there was no feeling in my smile, the people who gathered around it were not coming for my character. They were only reflexively approaching a face that looked kind.
There was no affection in it.
So I felt none for them, either.

I killed time on the bench that day as well.
But on a certain day, someone was there before me.
A woman in a suit that suited her well, with short black hair.
Her face looked severe. She was not the sort one approached easily.
Still, that bench was one of the few territories I had, and I felt no urge to look for somewhere else.

“What?”

When I watched her from a little distance, she spoke in a low voice.
It was frightening enough that my resolve to ignore her and sit down anyway withered at once.
Even so, I had nowhere else to go.

“Do you want to sit?”
“ . . . Yes. I always kill time here.”
“Ah. So that’s how it is. Then I’m the one in the way. Sorry.”

She started to stand. I stopped her on impulse.

“No! I mean—it isn’t as if it belongs to me. So . . . you can stay sitting, miss.”
“No? Then I’ll take you at your word.”

She let herself down again and sat.
Then she crossed her legs and began a staring contest with her phone.
I left a person’s width of space and sat on the same bench.
A little unsettled, I opened the paperback I had been reading.
I could not concentrate. The woman had begun muttering under her breath, her brow furrowed.
Before I knew it I was looking at her, and she suddenly lifted her face and looked at me.
She burst out laughing, and I laughed too, without meaning to.
Our voices carried through the park at night.
At that time we did not even know each other’s names yet.

Continue reading →

Ex4. The Story of How She Came to See What Right Love Is

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/59/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Ahhhh, I’m wiped.”
“Good work. Today was rough too, wasn’t it.”
“Yeah. It was rough. Praise me. And then spoil meee …”

Saying so, Ririka crumpled to the floor just inside the front door.
Her hair, dyed a bright brown, fanned across the boards the way hair does in a horror film.
Then she reached, pleading, toward the fiancé she lived with.
Toshiya took that hand with a wry smile and pulled her up.
The time was half past eleven at night.
Four and a half hours had already passed since the esthetic salon where Ririka worked had closed.
She had left the shop a little after eleven. Even allowing for work after closing, it was late.

“If my salary were higher, I wouldn’t have to make you push yourself like this.”
“I started it because I wanted to. It can’t be helped.”

After vocational school, she had been drawn in by a full two-day weekend, two months’ bonus, and the treatment of a regular employee. That had been the beginning of her bad luck.
The commission was high and the base pay was low, so the bonus came to barely a sparrow’s tear, and the two-day weekend had been honored only at first.
Now a schedule hard enough to demand ten days on without a blink was wearing down Ririka’s body and heart.

“All right, Toshiya!”

Ririka, who until then had been a limp heap of exhaustion, suddenly straightened her back, put force into her eyes, and spoke fiercely.

“Hug me!”

In short, she only wanted to be spoiled.
When Toshiya held her gently, she poured complaint after complaint into his chest, as if she would never run out.
Coworkers. The manager. Customers. Impossible quotas, and the company products she had been made to buy because she had failed to meet them.
This is ridiculous, this is ridiculous, she muttered, patting his chest.
Once it had been about once a month. Lately it was about once a week that she dropped into this clinging mode.
That was how much stress had piled up.
Able to do nothing but hold her and rub her back, Toshiya privately lamented how pathetic he was.

When she had been spoiled enough, Ririka sat at the table and fell on the meal Toshiya had prepared.
After eating she soaked in the bath, did her skin care, made ready for tomorrow, and got into bed.
When she woke she went to work again, and when she came home there was a meal—the same loop, day after day, until one had the illusion that the same day was stretching on forever.
Ririka dreamed of going independent someday, and she had wanted to study for that, but if this state of things continued, even that would be out of reach.
Or—perhaps that, too, was the point.
Ambition is not always convenient for the head of the pack.
With a head gone vague from fatigue, Ririka carried millet rice to her mouth and looked at the television.

“That’s unusual. You’re watching the news. Don’t you usually put on that late-night comedy thing?”
“Today’s Thursday. That’s Wednesdays.”
“Ah … was it? Heheh. Not good, not good. On a shift system you completely lose track of the days. Still, it’s unusual for you to watch the news, isn’t it? Did something happen?”
“Another murder in the neighborhood. And this time it’s three people.”
“Ugh. They found some at the school the other day too, right? Same culprit?”
“That was two before this. And there was one before that—two students killed near the park.”
“Wow, it’s increasing … so that’s six? And only men? Some kind of psychopath?”

Lately this town had been noisy, one way or another.
A corpse found at the school with the limbs torn off. A corpse split clean in two by something sharp.
None of it was a crime an ordinary person could have committed.
The police seemed to be investigating on the theory that some special tool had been used, but so far there were no useful witnesses, and no progress.
And now, in the midst of that, a third killing.

“I saw police on my way home too. They’re really throwing people at it, aren’t they?”
“A crime that bold, and they still haven’t found a face or a shape for the culprit. Of course the police are desperate.”
“And if something happens in the middle of that—”
“They’ll get even more desperate.”
“Well, more police means the town gets safer. I’m grateful, I am.”
“… Don’t say that outside, all right?”
“I know. I’ll have you know that at work I pass for serious, reliable Ririka-san.”
“That’s right, you did. When we started going out I thought you were a serious girl.”
“Nfufu. I’m a character actress, that’s what I am.”

For the two of them, the incidents on television were someone else’s affair.
Ririka seemed genuinely glad that the town’s safety would improve, and Toshiya had been wondering, until today, whether he ought to start walking her home—but her pleasure at the increase in police officers read, gently, as a refusal, and he chose not to say it.
That was all.
One flower among the many that colored an ordinary life.
That they themselves might be drawn in was something they had not imagined.

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