---

---

Completely non-aggressive, with nothing about her to invite resentment from others. Hence, a high probability of survival.
Keiko-san's plan was for just those two—arbitrarily assigned the roles currently held by Mayu and me—to escape the mansion.
“A murderer left all alone in the mansion… can’t kill anyone but themselves now, can they?”
You might not be guilty yourself, but you're still at fault for not noticing.
“And now, you can just die.” Hopefully, for both our sakes, several decades from now, of course.
Having received her sentence, Natane-san’s lips twisted even more unattractively than my own unhealthy ones.
Even without killing anyone, without chewing on anyone, without turning them into flesh and blood.
Even without shouldering the sin, she could have returned to everyday life.
Though it seemed the woman herself lacked the internal mechanism to harbor any remorse over such things.
She placed a hand on her cheek and let out a sigh similar to the ones she’d heave when troubled by one of the mistress’s sudden cooking lessons.
“...Well, I suppose that’s how it goes, hmm? There’s no food left in this mansion, after all.”
She’s fixated on food right to the very end, huh. Ah, maybe her verbal tic is contagious. Just kidding, though.
“That was the whole point, so it can’t be helped, can it?”
“Oh dear, this is quite a predicament.”
Her purified spirit smiled without a hint of gloom.
If she had complaints, I would have liked her to direct them to the planner and originator, Keiko-san, but since being the scapegoat was my role, this confrontation could also be called a natural course of events.
Not that she seemed to have any particularly strong opinions to voice.
Still, Yuna could have played this part just fine, but she made a smooth getaway.
Maybe the crucial difference between her and me is simply a matter of efficiency.
However, it’s not like I just take the long way around proving only my incompetence.
Just in case, I had already disabled any means she might have had to kill us at this distance.

Naturally, using up all the handgun bullets was for my own benefit.
“Sorry to keep you waiting… Shall we go?”
I decided to leave with Fushimi, circling around to the front and walking leisurely out the gate.
There was no chance of our host seeing us off.
Just before turning the corner, I looked back. Natane-san’s face was pressed against the iron bars, still gazing intently at something with lingering attachment.
To my eyes, her figure looked like a prisoner, and also like a creature confined in a zoo cage.

***

Leaving the Ooe residence behind, we headed straight for Fushimi’s house.
“It’s,” “a messy,” “house,” “but,” “make yourself,” “at home.”
Under the sun, beneath the ceiling of clouds and blue sky, an overwhelming sense of liberation bestowed upon Fushimi a cheerful smile and some clumsy jokes along the way.
Likewise, a weight lifted from my shoulders, and my breathing felt lighter. A far cry from eight years ago. Back then, my oxygen-starved brain had been working overtime, desperately trying to figure out how to lie and deceive the adults.

At that point, the matter of Natane-san had already mostly faded into the past.
When we arrived at Fushimi’s house, her mother rushed out wearing pajamas, her face colored the same shade of purple as ours had been around the tenth day. Tears flowed like waterfalls, a torrent of emotion caused by both her daughter’s safe return and her drastically changed appearance.
Fushimi’s mother first asked about her daughter’s condition, her gaze shifting to me midway. She looked ready to interrogate me, asking if it was an elopement or a kidnapping, but my withered-leaf-like physique—incapable of adding even a speck of liveliness to a mountainside—apparently disqualified me from even being considered a plausible culprit. That’s a lie, though.
It seemed she had managed to dredge me up from the past without much trouble.
“You… Aren’t you the boy who used to live next door?”
“Ah, yes… It’s been a while.”
She had a good memory, recognizing the face belonging to the boy whose interesting qualities seemed to have been entirely absorbed by his bizarre clothing.
Then, Fushimi’s mother called her husband at work. “Honey, she’s back! It’s Yuyu! Oh, excuse me, could you put Fushimi on the phone…? Ah, honey? She’s here, yes, yes, she’s here, she is! Put her on? Yes, I’ll put her on. Here, Yuyu, let your father hear your voice. He’s crying, you know, at work. I bet his nickname at the office will be Crybaby starting tomorrow.”
Partway through this exchange, Fushimi also started shedding tasteless tears. Between the sobs, her hoarse natural voice, and the phone connection, it seemed unlikely her father could make out the meaning of her words.

But her voice was distinctive, so it must have been incredibly easy to tell she was alright.
Afterward, Fushimi’s mother frantically prepared some simple liquid food and served it to her daughter, and incidentally, to me as well. Having been cut off from meals more times than I could count on my fingers and toes, physiological tears streamed down Fushimi’s cheeks with every swallow. As for me, concerns about the rightness or wrongness of my upcoming objective cast a shadow, preventing my appetite from straightforwardly kicking into high gear. Well, that’s a lie, though. My body wouldn’t have been able to handle a large amount of food anyway.
While we were eating, her father, having left work early, arrived like a wolf speeding down a country lane in violation of the speed limit. His sedan screeched to a halt in the barren front yard. He kicked the door open from the inside with genuine force and rushed towards us, looking impatient even with running. He wore an expression suggesting he regretted not just driving straight *through* the garden to reach his daughter sooner. Watching him, I felt a strong sense of empathy, thinking, “Men really are wolves,” which goes without saying is a lie, but still, were these the parents who brandished the ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ approach to education?

This was pure speculation on my part, but perhaps rather than being *left behind*, Yuyu had been forced to stay home as a result of some overprotective, meddlesome line of thought like: “Our daughter? On a plane? That’s dangerous! Absolutely not!”

The father embraced his daughter with careful hands. He gently combed his fingers through her lusterless hair and cherished her cheeks—cheeks belonging to someone who had refused to bathe since nearly drowning after falling asleep in the bath two days prior.
I was subjected to a unique form of torture: having to watch this several-minute reunion without disturbing them in the slightest.
Afterward, though still not entirely calm, he decided, “Let’s go to the hospital,” and carried his seventeen-year-old daughter in his arms like a princess.
Just as he was about to leave the room to become the wolf in the family sedan once more, he noticed me, having turned into an unimpressive statue. Fushimi’s father’s eyes darted around.
“You’re… Right, you’re the Amano’s son, aren’t you?”
Surprised that both parents remembered me despite only having simple neighborhood interactions during my childhood, I lowered my head and replied, “Yes.”
He looked me up and down, then lowered his eyes, perhaps sensing the same smell emanating from me as from his daughter.
“I see, you went through a lot too… Hey, your arms! Look at your arms! They’re in terrible shape! You need to go to the hospital too!”
A perfectly nice person was showing me perfectly normal concern. I recoiled and bumped the back of my head on the glass door.
Getting Fushimi to the hospital was, of course, the top priority.
After that, her parents, acceding to their daughter’s request, took me to a different hospital as well.

And so, supported by a nurse from the hospital entrance, I finally arrived at the room.
Finally, I had made it back to Mayu.

***

5
Mayu was so unchanged, I almost suspected this was all a dream sequence about to end.
Torn pieces of drawing paper littered the bed. Ink leaked from the red pen she gripped, staining her middle finger, but she paid it no mind. Her head was bowed, her mouth moving gloomily.
The only difference, if you were playing spot-the-difference, was that her hair had grown a little longer. It probably wouldn’t be long before she needed a trip to the hairdresser.
Koibi-sensei’s arm, which had been lifting a flower vase, froze in mid-air as she stared at me in the doorway.
Sensei’s face, too, was strangely pale. It probably wasn’t because Mayu had scribbled on her with a blue pen.
“You…” Sensei’s lips quivered with irritation. “…Argh, honestly! ‘What happened to you?!’ ‘What have you been doing?!’ ‘Are you an idiot?!’ I can’t even decide which one to yell first!”
She slammed the vase back onto the shelf, then stomped her slippered foot on the floor as if performing a sumo wrestler’s *shiko* ritual. Then, she slipped and fell. Her hand slapped against the shelf she tried to grab onto, and she landed with a dull thud, unable to break her fall.
“Oww…”
Hitting her backside hard, Sensei squeezed one eye shut and clenched her teeth.
“Are you okay?”
“You should probably say that to your reflection in the mirror. And what’s with that outfit? Think every day’s a festival?”
Dusting off her backside, she returned to a standing position and shot back a retort that could have been either concern or abuse.
“Please, just… pretend you don’t notice the yukata…” On the thirteenth day, I’d lost the energy to retrieve my change of clothes from the washing machine and had given up.

I shuffled forward, feeling my consciousness and vision flicker, arriving beside Mayu’s bed.
Sensei didn’t hide her grimace at the sight of my deformed arms, looking like they couldn’t keep up with a growth spurt.
“Um, I know you probably have a lecture and other things to say…”
“Nope, skipping the words and going straight to punching.”
“……Before that, Sensei, could you check inside my clothes for a second?”
After a moment of speechlessness, Sensei’s eyes widened into dots. “Hmph!” she exclaimed, then muttered, “Don’t be misleading.” Apparently, she thought I was asking *her* to let *me* check *her* clothes. My adolescent passions weren’t burning hot enough to ignite the flames of lust in such an extreme situation. Besides, I’d already used up all the fuel for that kiln just trying to stay alive.
Sensei’s hands rummaged inside my yukata with rough movements, as if to hide her embarrassment. Her fingers snagged on my stomach here and there, until she successfully salvaged something, exclaiming, “There’s something here!” She held it up to examine it.
“That’s it. Please.”

Following my instruction, Sensei’s hand pulled back out.
In it was a folded piece of drawing paper, considerably more wrinkled now.
“Give that to Mayu…”
“Alright, alright. Oh, excuse me, could I get an ambulance? I need to take this idiot here to the hospital right away.”
Sensei called out the order to a nurse who was leaving the room to return to her duties.
Then she unfolded the drawing paper, glanced briefly at what was drawn there, and placed it on Mayu’s lap.
*Alright, how about this?*
“Ah…”
“This is…”
*How much value will be placed on my life-risking endeavor?*
I leaned forward, watching intently.
My eyes, urged on by impatience, felt like they might spill onto the floor.
The hair on Mayu’s forehead stirred faintly.
She placed the pen on the sheet and picked up the drawing paper.
Before she could comment on the contents, Mayu’s tear ducts gave way.
“Is this… the picture I drew…?”
Her hand crushed the edge of the paper, and her expression became solely focused on crying.
Sensei looked back and forth between my face and Mayu’s. But right now, I focused on Mayu.
“That’s right,” I interjected from the side.
“That’s the face of Mii-kun that Maa-chan drew while looking right at him.”
“…Mmm, oh yeah! That’s right, Mii-kun *did* look like this!”
As if her personality had swapped with someone else’s, Mayu chirped with wild delight.
The day Sugawara and Mayu were kidnapped by Dad.
That day, we had an art class and drew portraits of each other.
Since Mayu and I were in the same class and sat near each other, I somehow remembered what her drawing looked like.
I remembered it when I saw the picture of the golden egg back at the mansion.
The deciding factor, luckily, was Keiko-san's obsession with the Amano family; the picture had still been kept.
For some reason, it was displayed in Touka's room, so I helped myself to it as a souvenir of my stay.
…It should be about time now.

***

E
Before anyone else in the room, I say the name.

One step forward. Struggle one more time, and—
“Mii-kun?”
Huh? Did she just beat me to the punch?
This time, there was no need for a vase or a stun gun to fall to the floor, but still.
“...It’s Mii-kun.”
Her eyes focused completely on me.
Uninstall and reinstall completed without a hitch.
And then, as if I’d caught a cold from her, my vision became impaired.
Things in front and to the sides became slightly harder to see.
“Mii-kun… Did you lose weight?”
Perhaps because someone else was present, her expression was blank, but her tone held a hint of envy as she commented on my appearance.
“Hahahaa.”
My breathing grew ragged. My tongue felt hot, and I panted like a dog, driven by a frantic impulse. I realized my vision, warping like the number 2, was twisting because of this unbearable ecstasy.
It felt like something wonderful was tearing through me from the inside, making my ears ring.
*She called me Mii-kun.*
*I became Mii-kun.*
*I got myself back.*
Breaking my arms, skipping school, breaking a person, making ‘Boku’ disappear… I guess I wasn’t worthy of Mayu unless I lost that much.
But Maa-chan would probably fill the hole I’d left right away.
“Awe… some…”
I tried to hum declaration that I was feeling absolutely 'high,' but my travel fatigue got in the way.
My knees buckled, and I pitched forward.
My stomach was full from eating Mayu’s heart, so following the three basic desires, it was time for a nap.
Footsteps vibrated—probably Sensei’s—rushing towards me. I wasn’t a corpse *yet*, so I hoped she’d adjust her speed enough not to step over me. Just kidding, though, Sensei would be fine.
Just in case, she and I were buddies.
But, you know. Is there really that much difference in cleanliness between my relationship with Mayu and my relationship with Sensei?
Humans can only ever act for their own sake, after all.
Selflessness is impossible. No matter how you struggle, not if you presuppose the existence of a heart.
Desire is built into the foundation of all actions.
Me, Mayu, of course Sensei too, Fushimi, Natsuki-san too.
…But, you *can* help people for your own sake.
The moment you consciously consider someone important—for your own sake—desire puts on the mask of virtue.
And by learning the art of viewing desire from an angle where it looks beautiful, people build bonds.
Me too? Mayu too?
…Ah, I see. So whether one has their desires laid bare or possesses the blue tarp needed to cover them up—that's what creates the clear difference between Mayu and me, and everyone else.
Lying down, the energy previously used to keep my legs working seemed to return, allowing me one last youthful proclamation. I pondered what I should shout out with gusto, shattering the hospital’s peace—praise? Scorn? Apology? Good night?

After three seconds of deliberation, I settled on bragging.
“Aaaah... Whaaat a great trip!”
My mood plummeted from its peak, and I lost consciousness.
Starting tomorrow, it looked like I could have good dreams again.

***

Therefore,

**Chapter 7: The Sepia Labyrinth**

I *was* appetite. Though wealthy from birth, I craved ever more.
I demanded everything. I spent every day adding more.
At twenty-two, that too reached a dead end.
Just when I gave birth to my first child.
When I came into close contact with life and death.

There is no meaning in living long.
Value lies in the process of prolonging life; the result is merely tasteless and odorless.
Because death ties up the end.
Death, which cannot even accompany us, is hateful.
I want even death to have proper meaning.
I do not want to be something vague.

***

Let's extract just one detail from the current situation: Misono Mayu, clad in her school uniform more than a month later, stands beside my hospital bed, having just finished hulling strawberries. Not much entertainment value there, though.
After collapsing and being taken to another hospital, it was determined that both my arms were fractured, so naturally, I was admitted. I was also diagnosed with malnutrition, so being pumped full of IV fluids was also, well, common sense.
And Mayu feeding me strawberries with a “Mii-kun, open wide~” also somehow qualifies as routine. Happily ever after, happily ever after. That's a lie, though.
Outside, the cherry blossoms had scattered in the wind and rain, and the clear May skies were beginning to peek out, awakening from hibernation. Just walking down the hall made my cheeks sting from the sunlight, and I broke into a light sweat. It overlapped with my memories of the season I spent in the other hospital, causing my memories to square themselves and proliferate endlessly. Just kidding, though.

At this hospital, I'd been assigned a private room. Mayu had insisted, "Mii-kun is fine alone in one room!" While I couldn't grasp her reasoning, her justification was strangely convincing, so I was forced into private-room living. Since I was shielded from public view, Mayu could be Maa-chan to her heart's content.
Perhaps because my serious injuries were neglected for so long, my arm bones apparently aren't healing correctly. There was a high probability they'd heal improperly—perhaps ending up different lengths, making people mistake me for a tennis player—and impede various movements, so I underwent surgery immediately. As a result, it seems a full recovery has already retreated from my arms' future.
However, if I completely lost the use of my arms, I wouldn't be able to carry Mayu on my back, tuck her in, or pat her head, so I absolutely had to be treated. Therefore, that's a lie, though.
Also, once I started eating again, my physical condition rapidly deteriorated. I even caught a cold. What a mess.
“My hand got dirty. Mii-kun, wipey-wipey for me~”
Mayu held out her faintly red palm to me. “Okay, okay,” I said, leaning forward and sticking out my tongue. Then I licked it clean. It seemed Maa-chan had forgotten her handkerchief and tissues, so this was first aid.

Mayu’s red hand triggered a sense of déjà vu. Forcing the dizziness down with my eyelids, I focused on cleaning the juice-stained area. The surface of a strawberry resembles blood more than an apple does. Or so it feels.
Mmm, Mayu’s hand is delicious. Especially since I’d been deprived of sweets recently.
To avoid having my dignity questioned, I focused on lapping her hand clean, channeling my inner dog.

Mayu had come straight from school today. She'd apparently gone in just for the morning to check her class assignment after moving up to the third year. The result was easy enough to guess from her first words upon entering.
“It’s not faaair that only Mii-kun gets to quit school!!” That was Mayu’s opening line as she burst into the room.
“…Huh?” It felt like someone had poured chili oil into my sleeping ears, making my brain boil in addition to the spring warmth.
“Because~ Mii-kun’s name isn’t on the class list paper.”
Mayu grumbled this, pouting as she jumped onto the bed.
Had my various misdeeds been exposed, resulting in forced expulsion? Or had my uncle and his family cut ties? Was it a printing error? Mayu’s failing eyesight? A boy leaping through time? Various speculations ignored the traffic signals and passed haphazardly through my mind. Acknowledging them silently, I took the printout with my foot and looked it over. “…Ah, I see.”
It wasn’t some dark conspiracy by persons unknown, nor had I unknowingly greeted the cherry blossom season for the third time as a second-year student. Mayu simply hadn’t registered my name. It was listed right there at the very beginning, plain as day.
“It’s hard to explain in detail, but it looks like you and I are in different classes, Maa-chan.”
“Whaaat?” Her eyebrows shot up in protest. Then she swore in a low mumble, “I’ll protest tomorrow.” I made sure to pointedly *not* hear that part. Right now, I could feign helplessness due to my injuries. It served as a convenient cloak for my actual powerlessness.
Unlike her usual visits, today had begun with this exchange.
After wiping my hand clean (without any actual cleaning effect), Mayu patted my head with that same palm and smiled.
“I have a preseeent for Mii-kun today too~”
Mayu announced the start of the now customary event during my hospitalization. Unlike the other printouts, she pulled a neatly folded piece of drawing paper from her bag and spread it open on my lap with a “Ta-daa!”
The unfolded paper showed the face of ten-year-old Sugawara, drawn filling the entire page.
“Heeheehee, I can draw it now without even looking at Mii-kun himself.”
She put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest proudly. Her nose tilted up smugly, her posture perfectly ready to accept praise.
Every day since I’d been hospitalized, Mayu would bring a portrait she’d drawn at the apartment as a get-well gift. Her art style, established nine years ago, had neither evolved nor decayed, allowing her to mass-produce these bittersweet pictures. The first time she announced, “I drew Mii-kun!” while patting my head, the sight and the feel on my skin reminded me of my visit to the Ooe house, nearly causing me to break out in a cold sweat. Though my emotional reports tend to include false declarations.

But it was a fact that Mayu had taken a step forward—direction unclear—trampling over her trauma to achieve this evolution. Though one could also argue that simply, her thought circuits had been rewired.
“So Mii-kun’s face is always floating around in Maa-chan’s heart (in portrait style), huh?” The drawing *is* black and white, after all.

Having her memories completely affirmed, Mayu, for whom those memories were everything, felt like dancing. She flung herself at me, expressing her emotions through high-speed cheek-rubbing comparable to starting a fire with Boy Scout methods, and head-patting delivered with enough force to potentially foster baldness and construct walls of terror. A part of me momentarily experienced the arrival of early summer.
“Okay! To celebrate Mii-kun’s next頑張り, let’s peel his favorite apple! Let’s eat-eat together, Maa-chan and Mii-kun, okay?” (*Note: 頑張り (ganbari) means effort/perseverance. Left untranslated as it's unclear what specific "effort" Mayu expects.*)
She picked up fruits one after another from the basket on the shelf. Lately, Mayu had been consistently cheerful, feeding me as if giving treats to a docile pond fish. It seemed she derived a new kind of pleasure from nursing me like a pet.
She held the fruit knife, peeling away the glossy skin to expose the flesh beneath.
Watching her and waiting idly, I reflected a little on recent events.

A week had passed since my second confinement at my family home ended.
During our stay at the Ooe residence, Fushimi’s parents, having returned from their trip abroad, had apparently been in a huge panic over their daughter’s absence. They had reportedly considered various speculations: kidnapping, running away, traveling, even murder. Since there was no note, they dismissed the runaway theory. Since her wallet, cell phone, and bankbook were still in her room, traveling was ruled out. This left only the most disturbing possibilities, so they decided to rely on the police. However, the police never launched a full-scale investigation, and in the end, we had to escape on our own.
After hearing the whole story from their daughter, Fushimi’s parents came to see me, conveying their dilemma: should they thank me for saving her or be angry for involving her in danger? Since I was used to this sort of thing, I offered to absorb their anger, but somehow, they ended up thanking me instead. Apparently, they prioritized the fact that their daughter was alive and well right now. Since *I* wasn't used to *that*, I was a little bewildered.
They also said this:
“Besides, you see… Our daughter told us something…”
“Yes…?”
“She declared that if we bullied her hero, she’d cut ties with us completely. When the subject came up, she got quite distraught…”
My first reaction was to point out, *That doesn’t sound like a hero at all.*
Sounds exactly like a bullied kid, doesn’t he? If anything, Fushimi’s the hero here. That’s a lie, though.