Published at 26th of March 2019 12:07 am

Volume 6, Part 3

"Ah, no no! Sorry! I don't want you to die of course! Ah-uh, Haru-kun neither! I totally think the world of Haru-kun, really!"

She quickly and not quite successfully tried to gloss over her initial statement. Because she said she was fond of Haruaki, I inadvertently replied with the following question:

"Didn't you think about dating Haruaki?"

Kokone widened her eyes, and then smiled sadly.

I immediately realized: Aah... Kokone was perfectly aware of his feelings for her.

"I did!" she said in a cheerful unaffected tone. "But it's no good. Haru-kun knows my past."

"What's with that queer look you're giving me, Hoshii?" Haruaki says to me with a frown as we walk along some godforsaken street.

I recall what he confessed to me the other day.

—I had a crush on Kiri.

—Oh, but you know? I don't have those feelings for her anymore.

—Don't mind me if you want to go out with Kiri, Hoshii! You guys would make a great match.

Did he know that he can't save her? That he would only make her suffer like Daiya has because they know about her past?

Is that why, like Kokone and Daiya, he told me that I should go out with Kokone?

Is that why, like Kokone and Daiya, he has no other choice but to disregard his own feelings?

Although, if I asked him that, he would just evade my question.

Perhaps he doesn't really know either.

"...Haruaki...?" I ask something else instead. "You said that Kokone is broken, didn't you?"

My words seem to have surprised him; he unwittingly stares at me. But after taking a deep breath, he regains his smile.

"Yeah, I did."

"What makes you think so?"

Haruaki puts his hand under his chin and thinks for a few moments.

"If for example, you saw someone drowning before your eyes and you could easily save him, would you do it? Please imagine it and answer me seriously."

I imagine someone drowning in the sea, a boy who is desperately screaming and flailing about. I am carrying a life preserver and could save him without any personal risk.

"Well, sure, I would save him!"

"Why?"

"Huh? Isn't it normal to save someone if you can do it without a problem? There's no deeper reason to it. Well... but if someone died before my eyes, I think I would have regrets. Or even worse, I might end up permanently traumatized."

"Right? It's the same for me."

That's self-evident.

But posing that question suggests—

"Do you want to say that Kokone wouldn't?"

"No, she told me that she would."

"Oh..."

I was caught by surprise. Given the course of our conversation thus far, I was quite sure she would reply differently.

But Haruaki isn't done yet.

"But when I asked her the same question, she first asked the following:" He smiles bitterly. "Who is the person?"

At first, I fail to understand what's wrong with her question, but then I start realizing that something's off about it.

"Normally, you would save that person unconditionally if you can. Because normally, you'd imagine it's someone weak who deserves and needs your help."

Some people might ask the same question as Kokone did without any deeper meaning.

But if Kokone had casually asked that question, Haruaki wouldn't be mentioning it now. He noticed something abnormal.

"But Kiri doesn't just think it's someone who needs her help. She starts by worrying that it might be a trap, set to hurt her. Kiri can't even save someone from drowning until she knows whether it's an enemy or not. Imagine how suspicious she has become of the world. And that ties her hands, even though she would regret letting that person die as much as we would."

Why did he ask her such a question anyway?

Maybe he had guessed to a certain degree that she would answer like that? Maybe he had acquired a certain understanding of Kokone and wanted to confirm it by posing that question?

"Because of the bullying she's encountered, Kiri considers others as enemies by default. That keeps her from making the right decisions. She is drowning in negative feelings, hating her fate and everyone and everything that made her who she is today. Kiri can't escape, and therefore she can't do what she wants; what she's supposed to do. To me—"

Haruaki pauses for a moment.

"To me it seems like she's broken."

I realize upon hearing those words: He still has a crush on Kokone.

After all, Haruaki has a much deeper understanding of the darkness surrounding her than I, even though I have heard about it from her firsthand. There's no way he could acquire such insight without still deeply caring about her.

Haruaki continues with a tinge of resignation.

"As long as Kiri can't put herself first, she won't change."

I'm sure Haruaki is hoping that things are different for her sake. Not that he wants to date Kokone, but that her relationship with Daiya could resume. He is wishing for her to become happy with the man she loves and loves her back.

When I arrive at this conclusion, a new thought crosses my mind.

—Putting one's happiness above anything else.

Haruaki said that she needs to become able to do that.

But is he capable of that himself?

Is there a solution?

What are the proper relationships for these three people?

If only they could turn back time, that would be outstanding.

But even if they used a 'box' that could grant any 'wish', that's impossible.

What they need is to build a new, ideal...or at least stable, set of relationships.

But I still fail to see a solution, and I'm sure they don't either.

I don't see a goal we can strive for, so there's nothing I can work toward.

The one thing I know is that as long as Daiya's 'Shadow of Sin and Punishment' exists, they can't move forward.

Aah, but that's not an excuse. I'm not trying to fool myself anymore.

I act only for Maria's sake, and not for my friends Daiya, Kokone and Haruaki. I'm not going to crush the 'Shadow of Sin and Punishment' for their sake; I'm only doing it in order to save Maria.

Saving them is out of my hands. I can only pray that the final outcome of my efforts will happen to make them happy as well.

But I do pray profoundly for such an outcome.

I pray, hoping that my prayers will lead the way to a novel solution.

"I hope you're okay with that, Haruaki..."

"......Mm?"

Apparently, he accidentally heard my whispers.

"Nothing."

I've rearranged my thoughts.

I'm calm now.

I should focus on what's within my grasp.

That is, squashing Daiya's distorted 'wish'.

Right—I'm a being that crushes others' 'wishes'.

"Haruaki, what should we do next?" I ask, having settled my priorities.

"Hm...I guess the safest choice would be: wait for the 'Wish-Crushing Cinema' to end."

"Probably, yeah."

But neither of us feels confident. We know all too well that Daiya expects us to play the waiting game. Therefore, he will definitely go on the offensive to destroy the 'Wish-Crushing Cinema' with his native cunning and his 'box'.

Time is getting short, so he may choose desperate measures. He will try to hunt me down with the 'Shadow of Sin and Punishment'. He will activate the thousand [servants] who he used before when searching for me and Maria.

Being hunted by a thousand people was a terrifying experience. I felt as if the entire world were persecuting me.

But his next [order] won't be anything as harmless as a scare tactic. In the worst case, he might [order] them to kill the one he believes to be the 'owner'. He might try to kill me. He might use his thousand [servants] for a direct attack.

It comes as no surprise that I'm trembling.

They say a cornered rat will bite, but Daiya couldn't be less rat-like. I may have cornered him, but he's a lion. One small slip and he might turn the tables at the very last moment and crush me to death in his jaws.

"What should we do..."

"Hm...no, I guess our only option is to hide. He can't attack if he can't find you, right?" Haruaki says. He's correct. "I mean, it's almost impossible to find someone who's hiding within two hours, even with a thousand searchers. They can't leverage the Internet properly either, at least in such a brief span of time... And if we hide, we'll hide together with Kiri, okay? We don't know when Daiyan will start to wonder if she's the 'owner'. ...Ooh! I was just rattling on, but that might be a great idea, actually! I think we'll be OK if we hide where she is right now!"

As an aside, Kokone is currently hiding in the dorm of a baseball club, thanks to a friend of a friend of Haruaki's who's got some mutual baseball interests. Until a bit earlier, Haruaki was there himself.

We brought her there after hearing the details about the 'Shadow of Sin and Punishment' from Yuuri-san. We thought that it would be harder for the [servants] to find her if she hid with a casual acquaintance rather than being on the move. Daiya doesn't know about that connection, let alone the location of that dorm.

Indeed, we should have no problem holding out there for two hours.

However, in that case—

"Daiya won't let us stay hidden." He won't let such a situation come to pass. "He will do something to lure us out. Should he use Maria to threaten me again, I'll have no choice but to play along."

"Uh, I see..."

"...mm? But..." I say, as an idea pops into my head midsentence, "...yes, we just have to make sure he can't threaten us...?"

Haruaki tilts his head. "Hm? What do you mean? It's up to him if he wants to threaten us or not, no?"

"We just have to do this."

I take out my cell phone and turn it off.

"...? Uh, how does that keep him from threatening us?"

"You can only threaten someone if you can get in touch with him. No matter how much you want to order someone to do something, you simply can't as long as you can't reach him, right?"

"Hm? Well, yeah, but if Daiyan were about to harm Maria-chan, she would be in danger whether or not he reached you, wouldn't she? Aren't you just ignoring the risk she's in by covering your ears?"

"But Daiya doesn't actually want to harm Maria, right? That's only a pretext to lure me out! If he can't make that threat to begin with, there's no point in laying hands on her."

"...I see."

"Therefore, I'll hide as you suggested, and then I'll arrange things so that Daiya can't get a message to us. Once I've done that..."

"...Daiyan will no longer be able to call you out and you can hide and wait! ...Er, that means that Kiri and I also have to turn off our cells. He could also try to use us to reach you, after all. All right! I'm going to e-mail Kiri to turn hers off, then I'll also turn off my phone."

Haruaki starts composing an e-mail.

I suddenly wonder if I should have realized this sooner. Maybe that would have made our lives a lot easier?

...No, not really.

That strategy would have worked if I'd been on my own, but back then I had to protect Maria. I couldn't just bury my head in the sand without putting her at risk.

Ironically, this method only works because of Maria's absence, and because I'm just as cornered as Daiya.

"Okay. Let's join Kokone ASAP before the [servants] find us."

"Gotcha! Then let's—" he suddenly breaks off.

"Haruaki?"

Haruaki is frozen, staring at his cell phone.

"...Did Daiya already send you a message?"

He ignores my question and pokes at his cell phone with look of deadly seriousness. He loads his 1seg[1] TV app and stares at the screen.

...Why would he suddenly want to watch TV?

He seems to be unable to find what he's looking for, so he switches to his browser and starts a web search.

"What's wrong, Haruaki?"

"...Kiri sent me an e-mail and told me to turn on the TV. Whatever it was, it was only on for a few seconds anyway. She must be pretty confused, too."

He falls silent again, but after a few moments he finds what he was looking for and raises his head.

"...Hoshii. Looks like we were a hair too late," Haruaki says as he holds out his cell phone.

It's displaying a news program from a video site; the weather forecast, to be exact, broadcast live with a city in the background.

"——Huh..."

However, there is something quite inappropriate in that forecast.

A naked woman. A skinny, fifty year old brunette is crawling on all fours and barking. There's something written in large letters with a permanent marker on her body below her pendulous breasts, but it's hard to make out because of what she's doing.

"Come to the cinema!"

It's only displayed for an instant, though; the camera pans away instantly and the show moves back to the studio. The video ends there.

"...Hoshii, can we really keep ignoring Daiyan if he's even willing to use the TV to threaten you? ...We can't, can we?"

"Yeah... we can't."

Let's pretend Daiya ordered one of his [servants] to announce on TV that Maria Otonashi will be killed if I don't come to the cinema. In that case, he wouldn't care if the message reached me or not, because he could carry out his threat on the assumption that I saw his message.

I can't ignore that risk.

If I keep ignoring him, he might just escalate his tactics. He might even make his [servants] do something that would ruin my everyday life forever.

Right now, I'm considering the worst case scenario: Daiya might harm Maria.

Now that I've learned of his tactics, I can no longer feign ignorance. Even threats that don't reach me have an impact.

"Tch!"

Now, it's actually much worse if I don't receive his messages. Since there's no point in keeping my cell phone turned off, I switch it back on.

As if by magic, I immediately receive a call.

I flip open my cell and take a look.

"Kasumi Mogi"

"Found youuu!"

I haven't picked up the call yet.

The ring tone that's still playing confirms it, but there's an unfamiliar sound accompanying the ring tone.

Screetch screech screech screech.

The sound of wheels.

The sound of a wheelchair.

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