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I'll fix Mayu. I can't cure her, but I'll *make* myself fix her.
Because I still haven't lied to Maa-chan enough.
Liar Mii-kun and
Broken Maa-chan
The pillar of our bond is desire

**Chapter 1: Parasitic Murders**
**(Translator Note:** The following section uses the first-person pronoun "私" (watashi), typically female or formal male, contrasting with the narrator's usual "僕" (boku). It might represent a different character's internal thoughts or a stylistic introduction before the main narrative begins.)

When asked what I like about it, I honestly don't know.
If pressed about *when* I started liking it, I'm still pretty stuck.
If asked to rank *how much* I like it, I'm completely stumped.
...I'm stumped.
If asked specifically, "Do you like it enough to dream about it when you nap?" That's embarrassing.
So, "Does that mean you *don't* like it?" Denying that is very easy.
Ever since my music grades for singing my heart out were nothing but Δs, I've hated my own voice.
That's why I fell so easily for anyone who accepted this voice of mine.

**(Narrator's perspective resumes)**

**Mystery**
There isn't a single mystery, but problems are piled high.
**Purpose** **Adventure**
To deal with those problems, I was currently on an adventure.
I never specifically swore I’d never return, but having no particular reason to, I hadn't set foot on this path from my past until now. The dirt path I used to take to elementary school remained unpaved, as always, with green lining the edges of my vision. Though, the number of utility poles had definitely increased.
"‘The wave of modernization is certainly rolling in, hm?’"
The day when all the crops in the fields turn into utility poles isn’t far off. Just kidding, though.
Every time I passed a utility pole, I slapped its trunk with my palm in greeting. No response. If there were, I’d probably get electrocuted, so I had to admire their composure in maintaining silence. Truth or lie, it doesn't matter.
"‘I thought this back then, too, but man, it’s far.’"
Makes sense for a place that didn’t fall into any designated zone for the school walking groups, leaving me reluctantly shoehorned into the nearest one. It took a good fifteen minutes at a child’s pace just to reach the group meeting spot. Even if I left home early, being overtaken en route by my little sister—who got driven to her nursery school by our mother—was an everyday occurrence. Mind you, my emotions were pretty muted back then, so I never uttered a single complaint. Now the screws in my head are so loose I have absolutely no stability, so it’s quite the contrast. Looking back, it seems the consciousness I was granted was warped from the very start. No, it’s not like a person’s psyche starts out as some perfectly smooth, cornerless sphere. Smoothing out those warps *is* psychological growth. Basically, I’m just trying to blame the raw materials for my failed development, huh? Couldn't care less, though.

None of that matters right now.
More importantly...
Far from any neighbors, a lone country house stands on deserted land.
The point is, I was on my way to visit my childhood home—a place for which I felt neither revulsion nor nostalgia.
Aiming to achieve my objective, yet my motive remained vague.
Uncertain if there was any value in it.
Even so, my feet naturally pulled my body and mind forward.
"‘Huh...?’"
For an instant, my consciousness detached itself, drifting about thirty centimeters to my right. Thanks to that, my body nearly collapsed.
"‘Ah... right.’"

3

I realized I hadn’t slept in about two days.

And incidentally, that I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything either.
My legs wobbled again, but I managed to stay upright.
Just kidding, though.
Gritting my teeth, I looked up at the light above, feeling its parched heat wash over my face.
The sun stung my eyes. Blurring. Dazzling.
"‘…A pity. My adventure ends here.’"
April 1st. Fine weather again today.
Lately, my life has been, shall we say, "better than rock bottom."

I was fired from my job as Mii-kun on March 30th, the second day of spring break.
As always, my cooking was harshly criticized—"Mmm, Mii-kun’s cooking kinda lacks that human touch, y’know~"—and Mayu, using the pretext that she needed to rest both arms, would demand things like, "Mii-kun, help me chaaange~" "Heyyy, hold me, hold me, princess carry meee~. Nyu? Moving? Meaning? Uhm, well then, let’s go round and round the room, okay~?" "School? Nooo way! Leaving Maa-chan all alone—Mii-kun wouldn’t dreeeam of it! Nya? Maa-chan go to school too? Nyaa~" …Looking back, I puzzle over the differences, thinking, *Huh, that was surprisingly normal, wasn’t it?* That day, just an extension of the same old routine—days so demanding they felt like they’d smooth out every wrinkle on my body—held nothing but trouble hidden deep inside.

"Mii-kun."
"Hmm?"
There were no particular signs. We just went shopping like usual. We bought some *aburaage* at the supermarket, a nice fresh daikon radish, about three containers of perky-fresh yogurt. Then, because Mayu was gazing at some yellow flowers being sold on the main street, I asked, "Want some flowers?" "If Mii-kun gives them to me, I’d be happy," she replied, so I bought them with my own money and gave them to her. After returning to the apartment,
"Just wanted to call your name~"
"Mmhmm."
"Mii-kun’s cheeks are so squishy-squishy~"
"Hey now."
We were just having a casual exchange like that while lounging on the sofa. Mayu had left the hospital before the wounds inflicted by my little sister had fully healed and moved into a separate room in the apartment building. Since the lock and chain had been destroyed during my sister's attack, we had to pay for repairs upon moving out.
We moved up one floor, but the room's interior wasn't much different. All the furniture and personal belongings were moved over; the only change was that the cooking utensils and detergents were now neatly organized. Though that too seemed likely to revert to its former chaotic state within a month.
Anyway, we were still the same old idiot couple. Today, tomorrow, and the day after.
...Or that was the plan, anyway.

The trouble started during that peaceful time, as we were grabbing and squishing each other’s cheeks, when something that couldn’t read the room started flashing brightly.
Mayu's gaze was suddenly captured by the TV, which had been left on but largely ignored. Driven by some pointless competitiveness, I desperately tried to win back Mayu’s attention, but quickly gave up and followed her lead, watching the TV program. What was on was an educational program for children. And when I say ‘for children,’ I’m definitely not implying it was ‘for Mayu’ or anything—not that I knew who I was making excuses to—as the program continued.

Apparently, it featured paintings and was hosted by a sharp-featured man who looked like boxer shorts might spill out of his ears at any moment, and a woman whose face seemed locked in a perpetual Cold War. It politely and thoroughly introduced the landscapes of the great master Takuya Hikazaki and the portraits by Yuuji Shirakaba, a man who monopolized the title of ‘genius.’ Just kidding, though.
The hosts were a tanned, cheerful ‘onii-san’ type who looked like he subsisted solely on croissants and cinnamon tea, and an ‘onee-san’ type who looked like she’d casually reply, ‘War? Oh, I learned about that in my middle school textbook!’ Accompanied by bizarrely cheerful background music that felt like a saw grating on your nerves, these two introduced a drawing of the local riverbank by Takuya Hikazaki (age 6) and a picture by Yuuji Shirakaba (also age 6) that filled the entire sheet of paper, depicting his family happily walking hand-in-hand. The onii-san and onee-san lavished suspicious amounts of praise on these works, thoroughly committed to their professional roles. Hmm, perhaps my description was a bit over the top. But it’s definitely true that the onee-san had the stern face of someone important who founded the Kamakura Shogunate. Horse riding seemed like it would suit her as a hobby (or rather, as a mode of transport).

Mayu was silently engrossed in this program. Her hand slipped from my cheek, slowly lowering to the floor. The reason Maa-chan would be captivated by a broadcast featuring actual people.
I had a pretty good idea why, but just in case, I asked, "Enjoying it?" I was finding it amusing in a different sense, but Maa-chan is a straightforward kid. In various, complex, and difficult ways.
"Mm-mm," she gave a vague, distracted denial, her gaze still fixed on the screen. She seemed to have forgotten to blink, making me concerned her eyes would dry out. Unworthy as I am, I considered licking the surface of her eyeballs for her, but refrained, thinking it might interfere with her TV viewing. Just kidding, though.
"How nostalgic~" Mayu began, diving into memories without any warm-up stretches. I decided I'd better play along.
"Ahh, yeah, it is," I preemptively lied.
Mayu looked away from the TV and peered into my eyes.
"Does Mii-kun remember too?"
"Yeah, the day we drew pictures, right?" I replied, spinning a lie like it was a word association game.
And... bullseye.
"Yeah, yeah! We went sweet potato digging on a kindergarten field trip, and we drew pictures then too, right?"
"Right," I agreed. Though I went to nursery school, not kindergarten.
Mayu rolled around on top of me, wriggling. While fulfilling my duty as a cushion, I had the vaguely foolish worry that if this topic dragged on, my flimsy knowledge would be exposed and Maa-chan would get upset.
Mayu stopped rolling and stared at me. Her face wasn't quite smiling.
"What picture did Mii-kun draw again?"
"Hmm?" A detailed cross-section of a sweet potato… no, that wouldn’t work. I had to consider *Mii-kun’s* personality, not mine. Hmmm… *I drew Maa-chan.* No, if I’d done that, Mayu would probably remember. A nude portrait modeled after the potato-digging helper lady? My present self would probably get strangled for that.
"Sorry, it was a long time ago, so I’ve forgotten a bit."
Since staying silent too long and revealing my hesitation wouldn't be smart, I opted to feign honesty here. Mayu seemed to have forgotten too, so I probably wouldn’t get too much flak for it.
"Hm! …You don’t remember the one *I* drew either?"
Mayu asked a second question, tinged with suspicion. Apparently, she was testing my memory. Great. Unless it’s multiple choice, getting the right answer is practically impossible.
"…Yeah. I’m just doing my best living in the present with Maa-chan, you know. So sometimes… you know."
Decided to try and prevent further damage with an excuse that wasn't entirely a lie. Mayu pursed her lips, mulling over my unsatisfactory excuse, but eventually averted her gaze, absorbed the information from the TV again, and then broke into a wide grin.
"I’m gonna draw too!"
Mayu declared triumphantly. Had she decided to let my memory lapse slide? With a barefoot dash around the room that deserved a ‘De-de-de!’ or ‘Chara-charachara!’ sound effect, she gathered supplies: a discolored sketchbook with a warped cover, and black and red felt-tip pens. Incidentally, I, still enthusiastically tethered by the white thread on her pinky finger, accompanied her.
**(Translator Note:** The "white thread" might be a specific reference or metaphor needing further context from previous volumes.)

Mayu slid up to the desk and opened the unused sketchbook.
"Okay, what should I draw~?"
She uncapped the black pen, raised her fist high, and began the game. Mayu looked at me, her smiling eyes narrowed to lines, asking for input on her subject. Hmm. I’ll follow the nursery school teacher’s example here.
"Why don’t you draw something Maa-chan likes?"
As soon as I offered that advice, Mayu’s reaction was predictable. A pleased, satisfied smile spread across her face.
"The thing Maa-chan likes is, obvi, Mii-kun!" Yep.
"What does Mii-kun like?" she prompted forcefully with a grin.
"It’s Maa-chan, obviously and absolutely!" I was forced to say.
If I’d messed up by one syllable there, like saying "Yuu-chan," the characters for life and death might have swapped places. But, by some twist of fate, I didn't misspeak, so rather than upsetting Mayu, I actually improved her mood.
"Okay then, Mii-kun will draw Maa-chan, and Maa-chan will draw Mii-kun, okay?"
"Let’s do it!" So I wasn’t just observing, I was forced to participate too, huh.
I took the remaining red pen. I borrowed a sheet from the sketchbook, propped my chin on my hand, and let my right hand dangle there. It’s nothing to brag about, but my art grade was never a 1. Then again, I never scored a high of 5 either. And the mediocre 3 was also unfamiliar territory for me. When the curriculum involved a lot of drawing, I got a 2; when crafts were the main focus, I got a 4. That had been the norm for me since middle school. My clay modeling and wire crafts were well-received, but when it came to painting, it was a disaster. The art teacher declared—"This might be unbecoming of an educator, but this is hopeless. There’s just nothing there"—a completely blunt dismissal. I once showed a finished painting to my aunt too, but apparently, it "derailed from the issue of good or bad and just went rogue." After that, I just made her worry unnecessarily.

My elementary school art grades weren't bad, though. There was that one time during a partner portrait lesson when I got paired with the leftover girl who was being bullied and she just found me creepy, but other than that, there weren’t any real problems, I think.
"Oh, by the way, y’know, next time~"
"Hm? Next time?"
But that heartwarming moment lasted all of two seconds.
From the moment Mayu, chatting cheerfully, touched the pen tip to the blank paper.
That was the turning point towards ugliness.
Trifles. The moment Mayu’s vitality unwound, the trigger for the story that would drag me into petty affairs.
Misono Mayu began to spontaneously fall apart.
"…Mii-kun… of… Mii-kun?"
I would later realize that her first utterance served as both the trigger and the priming water.
"Hm? Maa-chan?"
"Draw Mii-kun. Mii-kun? Mii-kun."
Confusion began to erupt in Mayu’s eyes, and I was several steps too slow to stop it.
"Mii-kun… face? Mii-kun’s… face, face, what’s it like? Mii-kun… I know him… which one… who… which…" Her expression clouded. Her eyes lost focus.
"Mayu? Hey." The hand I placed on her shoulder to shake her was brushed aside.
"Don’t bother me! I… Mii-kun… is… so… Mii-kun is… who…"
The black pen slipped from her fingertips. It fell, hitting the floor with a dry sound and leaving a small black dot. After watching the entire sequence—the slender pen losing its balance, falling with a light *clink*, and coming to rest on the floor—I finally looked back at Mayu.
She wasn't doing anything requiring effort, like pressing her hands to her temples in anguish; she was just slumped forward onto the desk. Her arms hung limply; if you splashed red paint around, it would be impossible not to mistake her for a corpse.
"Mayu, what’s wrong? Mayu?"
I wedged my fingers between Mayu’s shoulder and the desk and lifted her body. I braced myself, wondering if the seizures that usually only occurred in darkness had started encroaching on the daytime, but the symptoms were clearly different. Mayu didn’t scream. Her eyes didn’t roll back, she didn’t vomit, there was no violent teeth-grinding, no self-harm, none of it.
"Mii-kun is… this… this." She brought both hands up to my cheeks.
Her slightly overgrown nails dug into my cheeks. *Ah, I need to cut those later,* I thought, using the inappropriate worry as an outlet for the stinging pain, suppressing my panic.
"Wrong," she denied me. "I can’t remember," she denied Mii-kun. "Wrong." Only denial. "I can’t remember." Denial. "Wrong."
It was simply the most straightforwardly worst kind of aftereffect: being tormented by a rift in her memory.
Was this the result of the lump of Mayu’s trauma thawing slightly in a different direction and leaking out?
And I had forgotten, in the course of our daily lives, that even the slightest amount of that poison could be lethal.
All because of my foolish thinking, based on the standard of a fool like myself.
Mayu gripped the pen again with her whole palm and drew a single line on the blank paper. Having drawn it, her hand stopped there.
"Mii-kun is… after this… after this after this after this after this…" *What should I add to make it Mii-kun?*
"Maa-chan." I called her name, put my arm around her shoulder, held her.
This time, she didn’t resist.

3

This time, no joy welled up either.
...And just like that, Mayu simply lost her sense of self.
Everything falls apart over such a trivial snag.
There’s no way someone with no room left for it could possibly grow.
Incidentally, I lost Mii-kun too. That part, I brought on myself.

March 31st.
Mayu sat up in the hospital bed, staring down with vacant eyes at the blanket covering only the lower half of her body. Her bangs hung over her forehead, emphasizing her pallor.
Mayu was shedding tears, completely disconnected from the act of crying itself.
The sketchbook lay destroyed, its blank pages scattered overlapping on the bed.
Inappropriately enough, the composition itself looked like a painting.
"Oh my, what happened? She’s been like this since yesterday?"
Dr. Sakashita Koibi asked, standing beside me and observing Mayu with a frown. I nodded.
"Food?"
"She won’t eat on her own, so I had to force-feed her."
"I see."
The doctor approached the bed and waved a hand in front of Mayu’s eyes. No reaction. Next, she shook Mayu’s shoulder. She just swayed.
"What a state," the doctor muttered, then added, "This kid’s in bad shape. She doesn’t even react when I touch her."
The doctor murmured this, her hand still on Mayu’s shoulder. Normally, she’d definitely react somehow—shove my hand away or slap me. She’s unresponsive, just like back when my old man misjudged things and broke her.
"Why did this happen?"
"Mayu tried to draw a portrait of Mii-kun… and it seems like the connection between her memories and the present failed."
Making her remember Mii-kun means making her face reality.
I failed precisely because I thought I fully understood that I absolutely shouldn't make her do that.
"Careless," she admonished me, stepping back from Mayu. Then she stuck her hands in her lab coat pockets.
The doctor was wearing her familiar lab coat today. Not because she’d returned to work, though. She was still thoroughly enjoying a life that required neither calendars, umbrellas, nor, apparently, footwear. When I asked why she was wearing the lab coat, she explained, "It was the only formal-ish clothing I had handy." I wondered briefly what she usually wore.
"So, why’d you call me here? Treatment… that’s impossible, you know. I’m not some unlicensed doctor, so I don’t have miraculous skills." She added the joke without seeming amused herself. "But if things stay like this, Misono could very well die from debilitation. She’s not the type to seek change or take action herself."
"I know. I wanted to ask you to look after Mayu."
"Hm? Aren’t you going to do it?"
"I… need to go do something to fix Mayu… I *want* to… something… like that." Besides, I’m probably the only one impulsive enough.
"Fix Misono… Right." The doctor lowered her eyes slightly. Then, "Can you do it? Do you have some method in mind?" she asked, voicing her doubt.
"I plan to go to Mayu’s old house or somewhere, and look for something, some way to catch her attention."
"Hmm. So the plan is to make Misono forget about the Mii-kun she’s currently groping for in the dark?"
"Yeah, basically."
The doctor put a hand to her chin and nodded grandly.
"That’s a pretty backward game of Dragon Quest you’re playing."
*Seems like she’s completely switched from being a manga person to a game person lately.*
"I plan on checking some places I have in mind, so I probably won’t be back for a while."
"Okay, got it. I’ll talk to the hospital staff too," the doctor agreed.
*Though I thought the message was ‘Don’t show your face around here.’ Has the statute of limitations run out, or is its application temporarily suspended due to the emergency?*
Either way, I owe this person nothing but gratitude. Which is genuinely rare for me.
"Sorry for calling you out while you were holed up."
"No, no," the doctor waved a hand dismissively, responding casually to my thanks.
"I’ll contact you periodically by cell phone."
Then, leaving the doctor in the room, just as I stepped over the threshold between the hallway and the door…
A faint sound spun a thread that wrapped around my neck. And made me turn back.
Mayu was coughing, her face expressionless.
Apparently, tears had trickled into her nose or mouth, and she couldn't clear it herself. The doctor wiped her face with a handkerchief and laid her down as a precaution, so no more tears would flow in.
Mayu stared at the ceiling, her blinking drastically reduced, nothing obstructing her view, nothing sprouting within her.
...
I went out into the hallway. I deliberately said nothing, and smothered the nascent cry of emotion that rose in my heart.
The steel tower visible from the window, and the clusters of fields, some parts now slightly more converted to houses than before. To my right spread the lobby, still the same gathering spot with its TV and non-smoking area. Several patients were chatting, cigarettes and vegetable juice in hand.
"…-san, huh."
**(Translator Note:** The narrator seems to be vaguely recalling someone he met at the hospital before, likely Nagase Tooru based on the following lines.)
The name that rolled around in my mouth was an uncertain voice, too quiet to reach my own ears.
I still remembered that the woman I met here had inflicted a small wound upon my mind.
Back then, I was a boy. Now, what am I worth?
No. I shook my head, brushing aside the stray thoughts.
Self-affirmation, soul-searching—I don’t need any of it.
I left the hospital and started walking, all to return Mayu to normal.
*But what do I mean by ‘normal’?*
"*Well, obviously,*" a voice seemed to say. "*It means your precious Maa-chan, doesn’t it?*"
"… Hmmm… Ahahahaha! Haah, haah, Aahahahaha!"
While waiting at a traffic light.
I found my own conceit hilarious.
If there were anything else this amusing, the muscles in my cheeks wouldn’t be able to stand my daily life.
Just kidding, though. All of it, completely, incomparably amusing.
I'll fix Mayu. I can't cure her, but I'll *make* myself fix her.
Because I still haven't lied to Maa-chan enough.

And that’s how it was. End flashback. Okay, back to full color.
"Adjusting." I pressed my fingers against my eyelids, pushing on my eyeballs to restore my sense of color. After rubbing them thoroughly, I opened my eyes. Spread before me was a landscape utterly devoid of Shangri-La, Paradise, happiness, or any sense of freedom. Apparently, my vision had returned to normal. This smooth recovery made my steps lighter. Just kidding, though.
Yesterday, I visited the place where Mayu’s family home used to be and Sugawara’s house. The results were disastrous, though. Mayu’s house was long gone, replaced by an apartment building. When I ran into Sugawara’s mother and gave my name, she yelled at me and promptly turned me away. From the lines she spat out along with her saliva, it seemed the kidnapping incident was being blamed on me. Also, apparently, the fact that her son was a murderer and that the neighbors looked askance at them were all causally linked to me. Faced with a fierce self-assertion almost un-Japanese in its intensity, even my will to counterattack was swallowed by the torrent of words, leaving me no choice but to beat a dejected retreat. Just kidding, though.
Well, actually, I was rejected so thoroughly I didn’t even have time to deploy my only weapon: bluffing.
So today, it was my old house’s turn. There’s a chance something might remain from the kidnapping—bags or clothes that Sugawara or Mayu had. If I dangle those items—things with no monetary value—in front of Mayu, maybe her focus will shift, maybe she’ll say something like, "Ah, that’s Mii-kun’s *randoseru*~" … And so, unable to tell if I’m grasping at reality or illusion, I continue down this errant path.
**(Translator Note:** *Randoseru* is a firm-sided backpack typically used by Japanese elementary school students.)

Passing a compact ENT clinic, I paused on the bridge crossing a river overflowing with sticky green water. It wasn’t because of any official decree forbidding passage. Below, sunlight reflected off the river where, occasionally, the dark brown back of a fish would surface. It was the kind of idyllic scene perfect for a granddaughter, led by her grandfather, to point and exclaim, "Look, fish!" with shining eyes. Even I found myself whistling, overcome with nostalgia. Never mind the fact that I was actually *in* my hometown.

But still, I wasn’t particularly depressed. Strange, considering Mayu was in crisis. Unlike Maa-chan.
Ah, and also, Mii-kun’s continued existence is in danger too.
The reason my vision and everything else felt so unusually clear was probably because two or three switches near my brain had flipped on, exceeding their usual range. It’s like first aid. But the backlash from this is intense. There have even been times when it snapped back forcibly the other way, developing into a situation where my sense of balance and views on life and death collapsed.