Published at 31st of August 2019 12:56 am

Volume 1, Part II: The First Homicide Inquiry - III

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Before anyone could grow comfortable or complacent with it, winter vacation ends. The only special thing that happened during that time was that I made the customary visit to the shrine on New Year’s with Shiki, but other than that, there was nothing else of note.

As the third term starts, Shiki starts to isolate herself even more. Even I could tell she was trying to stay away from other people as much as pos-

sible. After school, she likes to look out the window when everyone else has left, but it would always be Shiki that waits, just like today. I keep her

company, even though she hasn’t said that she wants me to. She needs it, I think.

The winter evenings come earlier, and the sunset that heralds it bathes

the classroom in a deep red light. The bright light makes the shadows that play across the classroom’s walls even darker, and Shiki’s shadow is no

exception. She leans against the window before she begins to talk. “Say, Kokutō. Did I ever tell you that I hate people?”

“Not really.” I reply with the tone that implies skepticism at where this topic is going.

“Well, congratulations, now you know. Shiki’s a misanthrope, been one since she was a kid. See, when you’re a kid, you don’t know nothing yet, right? You think every random Joe you meet on the street loves ya, just like that. I mean, you love yourself, so it’s common sense that they must like you too, right?”

“I suppose. When you’re a kid, you still trust everyone. When you’re a kid, you’re scared of ghosts. When you grow up, you get scared of other people.”

“Right. But that ignorance is what’s really important, Kokutō. It never occurs to you that your best friend could be a murderer, or that your neigh- bor could be killing puppies in his spare time. You don’t suspect. And since you don’t know anything, other people will accept you. And no matter how fake that is, it’s important, since you’ll be able to love other people too. People can only express the emotions they know, after all.”

The sunset paints her face red, and her eyes acquire that peculiar gaze of hers, reminiscent of the kind of casual, perhaps feigned disdain of a predator hiding its intentions from its prey. Right now, I can’t tell which Shiki she currently is. Maybe it doesn’t even matter.

“But it was different for me. Since the day I was born, Shiki had me inside of her, so she already knew of other people. I didn’t love her, and so she learned that it was possible for people not to love. Ever since she was a kid, she learned how ugly people can be on the inside, and so she couldn’t love other people. In time, that tempered to rejection, and then disinterest.”

And that’s how I grew to dislike people, her eyes seemed to conclude. “But weren’t you lonely like that?” I muse.

“Why would I be? Shiki has me, doesn’t she? She was isolated from soci- ety, sure, but alone? Never.” She tries her best to look like she really means it. “But lately,” she continues, “Shiki has been acting kinda weird. She’s been trying harder and harder to deny her abnormality. Denial is what I do. She’s only supposed to affirm.” Shiki laughs bitterly at their private joke, her sinister smile betraying the brutality beneath.

“Kokutō, have you ever wanted to kill someone?”

At that moment, the sun shone in a peculiar way, making her face take on a deep, crimson, almost blood-stained look, and it made my heart jump.

“Not really, no. Probably the furthest I’ve ever thought in that vein is wanting to punch someone.”

“I see. But for me, that desire is all I have,” she declares, as her voice echoes across the empty classroom, now lit by a burning red sun.

“What do you mean?”

“All the things that Shiki really wants to do, all the things she holds back, I welcome with open arms. It’s my sole meaning and purpose, and it doesn’t make me unhappy at all to know that. And that’s why Shiki has

always tried to suppress me. She always tries to kill the black stain in her that’s called Shiki. I’ve killed myself, over and over and over again. I told

you, right? ‘People can only express the emotions they know?’ Well, the only emotion I’ve ever experienced…is murder.”

She finally stands up from the windowsill, and without making so much as a sound, draws closer to me, and in that moment, I feel fear, genuine fear, in my heart.

“And that’s why, Kokutō, Shiki’s definition of murder,” she pauses and leans close to my ear, her murmur as audible as a shout, “is killing me. She kills anything that makes me want to come out.”

And with her prankster smile grimly signaling the end of the conversa- tion, Shiki leaves the classroom.

The day after, I try to pretend as if nothing happened. I go about the motions as usual, and of course this includes inviting Shiki to eat lunch together.

“Wanna grab a bite with me?”

“What…in the…” Her face betrays surprise, a face I’ve yet to see her put on until now, and yet with her voice wavering, she reluctantly accepts, perhaps to preserve routine more than anything.

Shiki always liked going to the roof, and so we head there. We climb the stairs, with Shiki choosing to remain silent, but I knew her pointed stare of

surprise and anger is boring a hole in my back. I know the reason why she’s mad. Even I could read between the lines of what Shiki said yesterday. But

it’s not like she hasn’t unconsciously been sending signals for me to back off, and I just take it as business as usual.

When I open the door to the roof, we find that we’re all alone. It seems that we’re the only ones that want to eat lunch under the cold late-January sky.

“Man, it’s cold,” I say. “Wanna go somewhere else?”

“I’m alright. If you want to eat somewhere else, however, then you are welcome to do so.”

As always, her sarcasm-drenched politeness doesn’t really bother me. We sit beside the wall to avoid the chill of the wind, with me already having finished two sandwiches. Shiki hasn’t even touched hers.

“Why are you even talking to me?” Shiki murmured something almost inaudible even in this deserted rooftop, and it was so sudden I wasn’t able to hear it clearly.

“You said something, Shiki?”

“I said, why are you so thoughtless?” she says while fixing me with the same angry glare she had on earlier.

“Oh, come on. I’ve been called ‘honest to a fault’ many times before, but never ‘thoughtless.’”

“Then everyone’s been going easy on you,” she says, sounding con- vinced. Shiki finally breaks open the wrapping on her egg sandwich; the sound of the crunching plastic seal echoed in the empty rooftop. The noise was fitting somehow. Shiki sits silently now while eating her sandwich in small, deliberate chunks, and as I’m already done, I’m just sort of idling. I can practically feel the wave of angered expectation she’s generating, so I try to break it by starting the conversation that had been in the air since I asked her to eat lunch with me.

“Shiki, I’m sure you’re a little mad at me…” “A little?!”

Her eyes stare needle point daggers at me. It’s what I get for just saying what comes to mind, but this subject needed to be broached sooner or later anyway.

“God, you’re annoying,” Shikisighs. “I have no idea why you still choose to associate yourself with me after all that I’ve shown you and all that Shiki

said to you yesterday.”

“I don’t know why either,” I shrug lightly. “Being with you is kinda fun, but if you asked me why, I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“Kokutō, you do understand that I’m abnormal, right?”

There’s nothing I can do but nod. Her split personality (or whatever it is) obviously makes her some variety of odd. “Of course I do.”

“Then why aren’t you getting it? I’m not someone you can just walk up to everyday and expect to hang out normally with.”

“Does it really matter if you’re normal or not?”

That statement made for Shiki’s second surprised face of the day. She looks at me straight and unmoving, so much that I thought that she might have even stopped breathing.

“But…I can’t be anything like you,” Shiki says. She brushes a hand on her hair, making the sleeve of her kimono slide down to reveal a bandage wrapped around her slender right arm, just around the elbow. It looks like it’s only been recently applied.

“Shiki, that wound-“

Abruptly, Shiki stands up before I can finish my sentence. She avoids

looking at me, deliberately staring at some far off place.

“If Shiki’s words aren’t getting through to you, then allow me to eluci- date on them,” she says. “If this goes on, I will kill you.”

Now it was my turn to be surprised. I could muster no reply. Without even throwing away the plastic wrapping of her egg sandwich, Shikileaves the roof and returns to the classroom. Left alone, I clean up the trash we both left behind.

“Now I’ve really done it. It’s just like Gakuto said.” It was all I could end up saying to myself. Because just like Gakuto said, I might really be an idiot. I couldn’t bring myself to hate Shiki, even after what she said. In fact, I think my mind just cleared up on the matter. At this point, there’s only one reason why I like being with Shiki.

“I’ve become crazy a long time ago.” If only I had realized it sooner.

If only I had realized that I like Shiki Ryōgi so much, that I can laugh at being told about my eventual murder.

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