---

---

But the fact that I could use my arms to rub my hands together or rotate my shoulders proved it was, after all, just a dream. My feet trod the ground of the dream as if it were a continuation of reality. But I couldn't take a step forward.
Only my vision was sharp, rushing ahead, acting entirely on its own.

My older brother was in the room. So was my little sister. The person who would one day become the town's most famous kidnapper was present, too, as was my sister's mother. Everyone was there. At the far end of the table sat my sister's youthful mother and my little sister, who was still too young to even hold chopsticks properly. At a right angle to them, in the seat of honor, sat my father. Closer to me, my brother was kneeling formally in *seiza*. All that was missing was my mother (somehow, I still think of her that way) sitting opposite my father (or what he used to be) to make it a real party, but for some reason, the dream was letting reality intrude just enough to minimize the contradictions. Just as you'd expect from someone who always thinks of himself as lacking imagination, but I suppose it's because my head isn't *completely* empty, I consoled myself. That's a lie, though.

My usual spot was next to my brother. With the future and the dream merging, I could now understand the hidden meaning in that arrangement. My brother and sister were diagonal from each other, completely ignoring one another. They'd been fighting even back then.
"What's wrong?" my sister's mother asked, seeing me standing dazed in the doorway. Unlike her usual, almost mechanical routine, she seemed to find my pointless hesitation odd.
Beside her, my little sister glared up at me. My brother spoke volumes with his back turned, and my father ignored me completely.
"It's... nothing."
Ah, right, this is how I spoke as a child. Always looking down. I didn't learn to look people in the eye when talking until I was old enough to need all ten fingers to show my age.
"Sit down," my sister's mother instructed gently.
I obeyed, entering the room and sliding the *shoji* screen closed. Then, I knelt formally beside my brother. Everyone except my little sister picked up their chopsticks. The fact that the sensation of grasping something was being reproduced felt like a waste of a perfectly good dream.

"*Itadakimasu*."
"...masu."
Only two voices overlapped: my sister's mother and me saying grace. My father had mostly stopped reacting to anything besides the Japanese on the radio or opportunities to toy with people. My brother barely spoke at all. And my little sister was pouting so hard, she probably couldn't have uttered a sound without mastering ventriloquism.

Breakfast. Steaming white rice piled high in the bowl I got for graduating nursery school, thick rolled omelet (*tamagoyaki*), miso soup, and leftover *nikujaga* from yesterday. It was a typical breakfast scene in our house.
Often, I couldn't finish it all, and my sister's mother would polish off my leftovers.

Still slightly agonizing over the line between dream and reality, I picked up some white rice with my chopsticks and brought it to my mouth. ...Yep, what a relief. It wasn't hot, nor did it taste good. This way, I wouldn't have to pretend to be a child with no appetite; I could just go along with the rest of the dream.

I stuffed two or three pieces of the rolled omelet into my mouth—enough to surely choke the small child I was back then—and chewed. In reality, I was so starved I was practically savoring the faint sweetness of my own saliva, so even just pretending to eat was a welcome distraction. Plus, it had that wonderful side effect any teenage girl would kill for: eat all you want and never gain weight. Though, it didn't actually fill my stomach, either.

I poked my chopsticks into the grilled fish. Honestly, I wanted to pretend it was *taiyaki* and take a big bite out of the tail, but if my weird behavior stood out too much, it might affect things later, so I decided to be patient. That's a lie, though.

Still, it felt like I was just consuming lumps of air. It was actually becoming hard to breathe.
Like my drawings, the food existed outside the concepts of 'tasty' or 'gross'.

...Even eating was getting boring, so I decided to indulge in some morbid speculation.
As I put the miso soup bowl to my lips, I sent my eyes darting left and right, checking everyone's faces.

If just one of the people here died right at this moment, how would the future change? My father, especially, was an interesting case. It felt like a question second only to understanding how consciousness first arose in humans in its potential to satisfy my thirst for knowledge. Okay, maybe not *that* interesting.

If my brother died in some way *other* than suicide, my sister wouldn't have had to run off into the wilderness to our grandfather's house. Instead, she'd be living in the basement with me, Mayu, and Sugawara... ...... Hard to say if she'd be luckier that way or not.

If my little sister died, my brother wouldn't have killed himself, and then... well, me, Mayu, et cetera. Her luck would definitely get a failing grade in that scenario, I think.

Then, if my sister's mother died, I would have become the final victim of the kidnapping incident.

And if *I* died, my sister's mother would have narrowly escaped death, returned home alive, and might have lived happily ever after with her daughter. That woman probably would have forgiven my sister for what she did, simply because she was her daughter.

Finally, the big one: if my father had died. I wouldn't be Mii-kun. Mayu wouldn't have been deceived. Sugawara and his girlfriend would be one of those sickeningly lovey-dovey couples. The eight victims murdered by the kendo club captain would likely have died from other causes. Nagase Tooru would have had a gloomy elementary school life. The teacher and the liar boy wouldn't have met. And Natsuki-san wouldn't have had to become Geronimo. The possibility of all these different outcomes surged. It wouldn't be perfect, but I couldn't deny that the results sounded pretty good overall. But I also couldn't deny the fact that it was impossible. Well, it's just a fantasy, after all.

Tracing the course of these hypotheticals was a good way to kill time. As the biggest and fastest eater, my father finished first and stood up. He headed out into the passage and back towards his separate room. My brother followed him, leaving about half his rice uneaten without a word of thanks to the person who'd made the meal.
My little sister was still poking at her rolled omelet with a fork. She wouldn't move from that sulky posture until her mother asked if she was going to continue eating. She was surprisingly coddled, really.

"Are you leaving that?" my sister's mother asked, as she always did. My sister corrected her somewhat twisted, distorted, irritated expression into one conveying delight and chirped, "Yep!" Her mother didn't particularly react. Maybe, like her daughter, she was just bad at expressing emotion—looking back now, I felt I could see her differently.

My sister's mother directed the same question to me with just her eyes. Since my proficiency with eyeballs didn't extend beyond basic 'seeing,' I had no choice but to reply verbally, "I'll eat it." And true to my word, I started shoveling the food down. I'd had enough of this feeling, like soaking in a cold bath of a dream that laid my consciousness bare. It was time to prepare for reality. Since actually eating was impossible anyway, I figured I might as well savor the *feeling* of being full.

My sister's mother looked surprised by her stepson suddenly developing a hearty, father-like appetite, even within this fantasy. I'd never seen her make that face before, so it was probably my own invention. It was pretty obvious, after all—I could tell I'd just borrowed the expression from one of Koibi-sensei's facial patterns.

I put my hands together and said, "*Gochisousama*," then unfolded my legs from the *seiza* position—noting they weren't numb at all.

Alright then. Even in this fantasy world, history doesn't change.
I'll go to school like always, day after day, eventually get my head bashed in with my father's metal bat, and end up right here in the present. And my brother will kill himself, my sister will disappear and then reappear, and both Mayu's parents and my parents will live only to be killed by a single little girl.

These nine years I spent with this pseudo-family, and the nine years since I lost my name... I could never say for sure which period was better. At least, not until I die.
I felt neither affirmation nor denial.
• Though there was probably a lie in there somewhere. Some things are best left unsaid.

I washed my face, brushed my teeth, put on my *randoseru* backpack, and headed for the entryway.
My brother had already left, alone. He had no interest in frivolous things like walking to school in a group; he was a solitary, country bad boy. Sneaking out of class, chewing gum in the classroom—he devoted himself day and night to such pocket-sized acts of delinquency. That's a lie, though.
As always, I opened the front door alone.
I turned back and called out "*Ittekimasu*" (I'm leaving) to the empty hallway.
Only ten years later did I realize that someone *had* softly replied, "*Itterasshai*" (Take care).

---

"...I really didn't think I'd be able to sleep."
As my consciousness, still clinging to drowsiness, sluggishly pulled itself upright, that was the first thing I had to say. No matter how soundly one sleeps on a spring morning, today seemed excessive—I kept either falling asleep or being put to sleep just by lying down. Maybe I'm starting to take after Mayu quite a bit.

"Feeling... sick..." That familiar sensation, like some stagnant liquid saturating the space just behind a thin membrane, always accompanied by a grimace. It usually happens after my body's been dragged through a dream. I often don't remember the details, and this time too, I'd failed to save the data. Mind you, actually gaining anything useful from remembering dreams is incredibly difficult, so I had no intention of trying.

"...Hm?"
*Crawling*. A dry, *rustling* sound scraped against the floor and walls. It devoured the ringing in my ears.
"Where is it?" I craned my neck, searching. And then, it appeared *everywhere*. Swarming over the entire surface of the walls, across the whole floor, writhing endlessly through the darkness, seemingly without purpose.

It looked as if the people who had died here had transformed into giant insects.
...Ah, no, that wasn't it. The things were scurrying around *inside my eyeballs*. Like circus animals, put on display inside a round cage.
That's why they were everywhere I looked.

"What is this..."
Just a hallucination? Well then, no harm done. Problem solved... and all hope is lost. Still, it wasn't like I could just fluff my non-existent pillow and go back to sleep.
A hallucination is merely one form of expression. It's just providing visual data regarding the activity of whatever symptoms are currently visiting me.

"The basement... door. It won't budge." I can't get out. No one can get in. ...What am I, an idiot? Why do I feel relieved about that?
Even closing my eyes tightly offered no respite; the hallucinations were *inside*. My fingers, meant for gouging out foreign bodies, had lost their primary means of transport—my arms—and were frustratingly idle.

I wasn't exactly overflowing with energy, and thanks to that, I was able to face this... episode with relative calm. Perhaps because I lacked the physical strength to truly panic, my lonely trauma just sulked by itself, contenting itself with subsurface harassment.
Was it because of that influence? I felt like I might shrink any second. My nails felt like they were peeling off. I was running a fever high enough to rack up some serious utility bills. And soy-sauce-flavored insects, their bodies already chewed to bits, were hopping around inside my mouth, their wings getting in the way.
It felt like my family was on the verge of annihilation all over again.

Such deep-rooted malice.
You can pluck the buds from the seeds you've sown.
But once planted, those seeds can sprout again and again.
I suppose... that's what's happening now.

This is dangerous. It's almost as if my arms were disabled in anticipation of this. There aren't any drops to jump from, either. But people can still manage to suffocate if they have a tongue and strong teeth, or a forehead they can move. Continuing to bash my head against the wall, or even slamming my body against something until I died of shock—those options were available too.

The phantoms in my vision swelled grotesquely. Their insides ruptured, and thin threads extended from the filthy carcasses. The threads formed bundles, passed alongside my optic nerves, and traveled merrily alongside my blood vessels, heading for my brain.
The phantoms were extending their playground into my very brain.

"...No good."
No, I couldn't. I hadn't fulfilled my duty yet.
I couldn't die yet.

So, once again, I escaped into a dream.
I hate basements. My bluffs lose their power here; the falsehood drains away.
With reality still clinging to my heels, I submerged myself in dream once more.

---

Would the feature presentation be different this time? My consciousness was now acting out a scene from the recent past: March 26th, when the bandages still hadn't quite come off Mayu's shoulder. We were in a room in the apartment Mayu and I had moved into, having ignored the school's closing ceremony and arbitrarily started our spring break.

That day, I was lounging back in the living room while Mayu was doing something like a reverse backbend in the bedroom, as we tested out our newly purchased cell phones. Our actions might be a mix of fact and fiction, but the sound of Mayu's voice reaching my ears was real.

"Oooh, I can hear Mii-kun's voice even from this far away! Hey, hey, Miiiiiiiii-kyuuuuuun!" Her voice, dripping with fake cuteness—like sugar and honey mixed together and seasoned with maple syrup—gave my eardrums heartburn.

"Yes, yes, I can hear you," I replied. Though honestly, Mayu was talking so loudly that even without the phone, her 'A+ for effort!' cheerfulness was coming through loud and clear from the bedroom.

"With this, we can leap over any pesky obstacles of love trying to separate Mii-kun and Maa-chan, over any annoying people too, and connect even when we're far apart!" *Nyufufu,* went Mayu, sounding extremely pleased with herself. We'd both had cell phones before, so her strange excitement that day had stuck in my memory. Ah, so that's why I'm dreaming about it.

"So radio waves will turn this devastated world into paradise, is that it?"

Looking back from my current dreamlike state, I still couldn't think of any reason why Maa-chan would need to be far away from Mii-kun—a whirlpool of doubt arose then, just as it did now. Just reporting the facts.

"So hey, Mii-kun."
"Hm?"
"It's Maa-chan."
"I know."
"I'm right behind you now."

She declared it in a spooky ghost-story voice. Thinking, *no way,* I turned around—and she was really standing there.
Mayu, phone still glued to her ear, puffed out her cheeks in a show of mock anger. "Not even noticing Maa-chan when she came right up to you... um... you're faithless!"
She raised one hand, stretched, and delivered her indignation in that calming way she had, as if she'd just looked the word up in a dictionary. In reality, her fist had connected squarely with my cheekbone, but here in this fictional scenario, there was no finishing blow—it settled into mere contact.
Still, when *had* she actually arrived? I hadn't heard any footsteps at all.
The door that had been closed was wide open, so she must have come through it... the process just got skipped over for a few seconds. Turning Mayu into some kind of stealthy gang boss—hmm, truly, the stuff of dreams. Skipping over events, editing things conveniently... nice work, dream.

Having sufficiently berated me, Mayu let her cheeks return to normal. Keeping the phone connection active, she spread her arms wide as if being subjected to crucifixion. Then, with a soft *heheh* sound, she looked up at me and smiled blissfully. "Being far away is okay... but being close to Mii-kun is better after all!"

With a tight *squeeze*, Mayu launched into a hug, without confirming the safety of the phone between us. It dug into my spine, a spear of complaint and warning aimed squarely at sappy couples everywhere. That's a lie, though. Physics doesn't apply to the dream version of me.
Therefore, naturally, I had to supplement the sensation of Mayu's body against mine using a combination of everyday experience and imagination.

"*Kyaaan!* It's the real Mii-kun!"
"*Yaan*," I corrected internally. She got the sound wrong.

Up to this point, things had pretty much followed reality. The dream really started intervening after the next time I blinked. I didn't even have time to be impressed—*Wow, I'm even blinking conscientiously in my dream*—before Mayu and I were suddenly sitting on the floor, back-to-back. Neither of us had taken the phones from our ears. Or rather, we *couldn't*.

Threads sprouted not just from our little fingers, but from everywhere, binding our various parts together.
Arms, legs, shoulder blades... The only saving grace was that they weren't erupting from our faces.
Bound fast without rhyme or reason, we couldn't break free. We'd become a living sculpture subtly symbolizing our reality.

"Look at all of Mii-kun and Maa-chan's threads of fate!" Mayu chirped, completely unperturbed.
"I feel like a natto bean," I muttered.
"Maa-chan hates natto. Mii-kun hates it too, right?"
Every time Mayu shifted even slightly, my vision trembled in sync with her movements. And, mysteriously, her voice only seemed to come through the phone.

"This is a dream, so anything goes!" Mayu shouted shrilly—wait... why was she using my *little sister's* voice? Anything might go, but that didn't mean anything *should* go! What's more, she'd just read my thoughts.

"So you know everything that's going on, Maa-chan?"
"Exactly right, Mii-kun."
Ah, her voice was back to normal. ...Come to think of it, how did I even recognize the person back-to-back with me *was* Mayu? My sense of touch had been left behind in reality, after all.

"I'm the Maa-chan imagined by the fake Mii-kun," she explained, "so while my memories are *pah-fect*, for some reason I have this personality and an overall soft finish."
"Well, well. Looks like my imagination is finally showing its true potential."
"I'm using lots of kanji, too! Mufufu."
"Well, I *am* the base program, so naturally I know more kanji than the real Maa-chan," I conceded. "I've even got Level 3 Kanji Kentei certification, for some reason."
"Okay then! Let's duet [REDACTED]'s [REDACTED], while Maa-chan's still in this intelligence-doped state!"
"No way in hell!" I retorted. "I'd rather die vomiting in agony!"

Glancing down, I noticed the threads extending from near my lungs and heart were turning crimson, starting from the roots. Was I being forcibly transfused or something?

"Heeey, heeeeey, Miiiiii Kuuuuuun."
"What is it?" The cheerful Maa-chan persona was back, deliberately drawing out my name.

"Why didn't Maa-chan notice Mii-kun was in the same class, I wonder?" the artificial Mayu asked, engaging in psychological self-harm with such a pleasant-sounding line.

"Because Mii-kun particles were mixed in the air, floating all around," I answered, pointlessly taxing my brain to come up with a useless reply. I could hear Mayu humming dismissively over the phone. Apparently, she wasn't going to accept anything but a serious answer.

Having no choice, I answered, pretending to be casual. "You didn't notice because I wasn't there. That's all."

"Mmm, well, guess that's right..." For just a split second, her voice took on a staticy quality, like Fushimi Yuyu's. Then, like sleep-talk emerging clear as spring water, her words shook my skull.
"But you know... Maa-chan thinks..."
"Which means *I'm* thinking that, right?"
"The dream~" she countered, this time adopting Nagase's style of speech.

Then Mayu's voice returned once more.
"You know, Maa-chan thinks... that even if she *had* noticed the fake Mii-kun, the real, true Maa-chan... she would have just kept letting herself be deceived anyway."

"You think so?" My internal 'That's a lie, though' was practically bouncing off the walls of my mind, so there was no need to add it.
"It's not a lie!" she insisted.
...Why couldn't *I* read *her* mind?

"Maa-chan doesn't have any other choice, see? All her other possibilities... they were all broken."

"...Is that so." The dream was telling me things that were convenient for me to hear.
Self-praise, putting on a play for myself, self-deprecation, self-admonition...

"Thanks for doing that for me, Mii-kun."
"...Haha. If the real Mayu said something like that, I don't know if I'd be deeply moved or moved to tears..."
"Which is it?"
"Whichever it might be, I'm fighting reality right now precisely so things *don't* end up that way."

"To fulfill the dreams of my boyhood!" That's a lie, though.
Eighteen is an awkward age, isn't it? Neither boy nor man.

"*Kyaa!* Mii-kun, you're so self-centered!"
"Well, if you said that to me in reality, my cheeks would probably cramp up."
My sense of touch is still offline right now, but I imagine the flesh of my cheeks might as well be water.

"And so, what I ultimately want to say is..." Mayu (the non-Maa-chan version) added.
"Yes, yes?"
"There's no replacement available for the Acting Assistant Mii-kun-in-Training, so I wanted to advise you to please take care of your body."

"...Any chance of dropping the 'in-training' part of that title anytime soon?"
"More like, nobody else *wants* the job. Probably."
".........Maybe so."

With that final, resigned agreement, the voice connection to the dream world was severed.
It seemed awakening was imminent; my eyeballs' usual function was being swallowed by whiteness.
So, at the last moment, before being evicted, I directed one final thought into the ether.
I slammed my self-satisfied gratitude down onto the dream construct.
*Thanks for letting yourself be deceived. Sort of.*
*Nyahaha, don't worry 'bout it~*

---

And then, I woke up.
Reality stood blocking my path like a three-way mirror, forcing me to face it.

My stomach wasn't rumbling loudly enough to serve as an alarm clock, but it was certainly making a racket. If I didn't get some water soon, I might actually die of dehydration. However, the chills and other symptoms seemed to have dissipated somewhat—perhaps they'd escaped through my nostrils. Maybe it had all just been due to lack of sleep? I scoffed inwardly at the source of those eyeball-fixated phantoms.

Forcing my lower body, listless from lack of salt, to cooperate, I stood up again. My eyes seemed to be adjusting to the dark; I could now make out the distance to the surrounding walls more clearly than before.

I decided it was time to properly investigate the door lock.

I stood beside the entrance door. I placed the sole of my right foot against the side of the doorknob. My left foot was just for balance—the so-called supporting leg. Then, hopping forward slightly on my left foot, I gripped the doorknob with the base of my right toes and applied a twisting motion. All that remained was to sweep my foot to the right and push the door open.
I paused for a second, then executed the move. The door protested with some awkward creaking, but ultimately, it splendidly consented to connect the basement with the world above.
"...Huh?"
The follow-through from kicking the door open sent me off balance, and I stumbled back against the wall with a surprised grunt. I hadn't actually expected it to open. Had it been unlocked the whole time? Or maybe... maybe my old man had clutched the key tight and taken it to his grave? ...Come to think of it, I don't have any memory of attending his funeral. Maybe one was never even held? Hmm. Did bashing my head too much finally break my memory?

"Ah, whatever." For now, I should just be glad the ventilation had improved. *Sigh*. So much for being a shut-in, huh?

Muttering complaints about my imminent return to society, I stepped outside the basement. I left the door wide open—for ventilation, naturally. Both of those reasons were lies, by the way.

The surface under my bare feet changed from hard floor to the kind of carpet that makes you itch. Or so I judged, based purely on past experience. If, hypothetically, the unpleasant texture underfoot turned out to be a walkway made from continually flattened rabbit corpses, I'd probably be either appalled or impressed by the sheer effort and perseverance involved, before unreservedly crushing them further as I walked on. Mayu probably would too.

"Right then," I murmured.
To be called Mii-kun again.
To become Mii-kun again.
Is that how I'll get myself back?
Even if that path is far removed from being the 'best' or most 'optimal' one.

Beyond the door stretched the stairway to Zarathustra.
......Nah, just kidding. This house isn't that special. It was just your average staircase, designed with a sharp curve and a deliberately narrow width, intended solely for the purpose of leading back upstairs.
Darkness had taken up residence there, too. When I'd emerged this way long ago, it had been overflowing with light, so much that I'd had to crouch down, covering my eyes for nearly a minute. Ah, nostalgia. Even this dusty air has the taste of reminiscence. That's a lie, though.

Had the power still not been restored? Or had all the residents been wiped out, leaving no one with the manpower to flip a switch? Either way, I needed to be careful. Especially where I put my feet.
If I tumbled down the stairs in my current condition, unless I somehow managed to execute a continuous backward somersault, I'd inevitably meet my end through either indignant rage or pure agony. Honestly, what a pain. At this rate, I might even start feeling nostalgic for life on crutches.
Not that I actually want to start a passionate love affair with my crutches or anything, so you don't need to puff out your cheeks, Maa-chan," I clarified for the benefit of the imaginary Misono Mayu in my head. Joking aside, though, if I actually *did* start waxing poetic about crutches in front of the real Mayu, she'd probably get spectacularly jealous. A true paragon of possessiveness, that one. That's a lie, though.

I started up the stairs carefully, making sure to follow the 'OKASHI' safety rules. My memory of the specifics was hazy, but I think what they taught us in elementary school was 'O-sanai (Don't Push), Ka-kenai (Don't Run), Shi...' hmm, maybe 'Noranai (Don't Ride)?' It definitely wasn't 'O-re no Ka-achan Sha-kureteru (My Mom Has a Protruding Chin),' anyway. ...No, wait. I think that was for fire evacuations. This mindset, while perhaps effective for fire drills, wasn't exactly suited for preventing surprise attacks from villains lurking upstairs.

These stairs curved to the right. And the curve was sharp. In other words, even if I looked up, it was impossible to spot any thugs or other assailants lying in wait on the steps above to launch a surprise attack. The passage was only wide enough for one person, so I couldn't even hug the left wall to reduce the blind spots. And in this gloom, heading upwards became all the more terrifying.
Terrifying because of the sheer probability that someone—or something—aiming for me might be dangling just out of sight, right above my head.