---

---

"Hey, hey, don't go picking fights. Yes, sorry about that."
I grabbed Touki by her upper body and pulled her back to the seat beside me. Ignoring Touki, who scowled and said, "What do you think you're doing?", the boy in the seat in front, who looked quite startled, and the unresponsive old hag... I mean, girl, I first tried to calm the situation.
"Good grief... I'm not used to trouble, so I wish you'd stop sticking your hand into bonfires."
Touki snorted, "Hmph," scoffing at my reasoning.
"It's because Luigi isn't paying attention to me. I'm bored."
"You want me to?" Disgustingly enough, my voice sounded cheerful as I said it.
"Mm! ...Actually, no. Luigi, you always try to hit on me right away."
"I'm getting impatient." Because you're growing day by day, about to reach your 'peak.'
It's only natural for a man—Hokuto, if you will—to hope for some sweet dreams before that.
"You know, Luigi, the one thing I could never figure out about you was that you were that kind of person."
"That's because I declared it before you could sense it."
"Ah, that's right..."
Touki turned her face to the window, gazing outside with a distant look, as if recalling a far-off day.
"Luigi, it's amazing you still have a few friends, isn't it?"
"Absolutely," I agreed profoundly, as if it were someone else's problem.
Still, about that old lady—or rather, the girl in the front seat.
If Touki's intuition sized her up like that, then it's probably correct, I think. She always has that way of exposing people's true nature without any process. She's a girl with that kind of ability.
She might make a detective, but probably not the protagonist of a mystery novel.
Well, an over-the-hill high school girl like that is none of my business, though.
Setting that aside, I settled deep into my seat. And Yukippe and Mikarin, I wonder... I strained my ears.
...Mikarin is demanding consolation money from Yukippe. She's saying she needs time to heal her wounds, but she can't get that time because it would be taken up by part-time jobs and stuff, so if she had a lot of money upfront, she could use that time for healing, therefore Yukippe should pay her for the pain he caused.
Mikariiin! You could be a character in this novel!
And Yukippe, at least argue back a little. Never mind "Japanese people who can't say no," you're just completely silent! That's how it is, though. When men find out their girlfriend is cheating, they usually try to break up first, but women tend to demand something extra on top of that. Women are the tougher ones.
It's a strange way to put it, but men are the more fainthearted ones.
It made a bit of sense why it was always women who依頼 infidelity investigations.
...Ah, forgive my late introduction, but I am Hanasaki Tarou.
Today, too, I'm on my way to a hotel for work.
A peaceful detective specializing in infidelity investigations and finding lost pets, one who doesn't eagerly await murders.

---
Shiina Kouji
2:00 PM

I had a habit of pondering the process of how things ended up this way.
About twenty years ago, even in the middle of my wedding ceremony with my wife, whose belly wasn't yet showing, all I could think was, why am I sitting here so quietly in the most conspicuous seat, dressed up in these fine clothes? I was so lost in thought that the clumsy emcee teased me, asking if I was drowning in happiness; apparently, to an outsider, I looked like I had completely surrendered my facial muscles to a sea of contemplation. My wife, already aware of my tendency to overthink, just chuckled lightly at the emcee's words. In the end, I had proposed because I'd fallen in love with the woman beside me, which then led me to wonder why I'd fallen in love with her, and I ended up having to dredge through my entire life up to that point. My grandmother, who died when I was five, and my whole family made an appearance in my head; if I were to say that even at a joyous occasion I became overly celebratory, perhaps that would serve as a punchline.

While it's true that in this world, results are everything, that doesn't mean the process is worthless. There's nothing more interesting, I believe, than looking back on the path that led to a conclusion. Would it count as a hobby? By tracing the process, whether it's someone else's or my own, you realize, surprisingly, how each and every action you thought was utterly trivial was working like the proverbial wind that makes the coopers rich. It makes you aware that people don't create meaningless things.
That's why, even now, I'm cowering at the sound of knocking on the door, wondering how things ended up this way—though my usual dazed expression was, as one might expect, horribly taut with cold sweat and tension.
To think that I, a week ago, could never have imagined finding myself in the midst of such an extraordinary situation: alone in a hotel room I hadn't paid for, used by someone whose identity I barely knew, with someone knocking on the door outside, a cell phone I didn't own buzzing away, and what's more, a bag full of cash lying on the floor in the middle of the afternoon. What meaning could this time, exposed to such agitation, possibly bring later on? And what had accumulated to bring about this state of affairs?
While trying to ensure no sign of my presence reached outside the door, my feet couldn't stop their anxious pacing within the room. I stepped on bath towels and men's clothing strewn on the floor, glanced at the cell phone on the bed, searching for any solution that might be casually lying around, exploring as much as I could. However, my current actions were truly limited, unable to escape my usual reaction of just standing there and watching things unfold. I was good at analyzing how things had been up to now, but I was inept at applying that to what I should do next. In this situation, I recalled how back in school—an environment now hazy in my memory—I would review but neglect to prepare for new lessons, and I lamented my foolishness.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. I should have been able to just walk in and out of the room door normally and leave this place, but then some guy suddenly appeared outside the door, persistently saying, "I've brought your......" and wouldn't leave, forcing me into this predicament. Nobody could have planned for this, surely. The occupant of this room, '1701,' surely wouldn't want to have invited this situation either, I imagined, looking down at the wads of cash peeking out from under my feet.
What's with the guy outside? Room service? Who the hell called for that in this room?
Well, it must be the person staying in this room, but what on earth is going on?
The ringing of the cell phone echoed terribly in my head, inducing a headache and nausea. I moved towards the edge of the bed where it lay, thinking of turning it off, but hesitated to reach out, fearing I might sow more seeds of suspicion. But it was so loud. The volume was set too high. Is the person in this room hard of hearing?
Cursing my own mind for thinking about such trivial things, I covered my ears and, for a moment, closed my eyes to the process. What mattered was the present, the future I should advance towards without hesitation.

Right now, finding myself in an unplanned situation, the only thing I could do was pick up the shoes filled with cash and get out of this room. That was it. That was my limit. It wasn't the best solution, and it meant ignoring the purpose for which I came here, but my brain cells probably didn't have eyes in the front. I couldn't see the path to achieving my goal. It was like knowing the name of a station in a distant city but being told to actually go there alone by transferring trains—impossible. It was pathetic how I was all talk and no action.
Moreover, even though my head was supposed to be big and spacious, I didn't have the composure to calmly think about what kind of situation I was in right now. I was truly wasting space.
If possible, I wanted to retrieve the body right here. My eyes went to the closed bathroom, but I gave up, thinking it would be too conspicuous to carry. Could I fold it up and put it in the bag with the cash? I considered it, hesitated, but concluded it wouldn't fit even if I emptied everything out. Besides, it seemed I was very short on time. For now, I should retreat; even if it was discovered, as long as I wasn't at the scene, things shouldn't get too complicated.
Ever since losing a family member six months ago, my life had become filled with a profound sense of desolation. A family breakdown, perhaps? But now, my thoughts were compressed by the imminent terror, and I couldn't properly reflect on the process.
At any rate, I secured the shoes with a trembling right hand. The shoes, stuffed with bundles of bills, weren't just heavy on my arm; they tried to drag down my spirits with their gravity. My stomach ached. I'd started experiencing chronic pain around March of this year, and my family suspected I had an ulcer. I regretted, as if only now, not having gone to a doctor, my reclusiveness having taken its toll. Grabbing the shoes, I moved, dragging them across the floor.
I retrieved this room's card key, stuffed it into my trouser pocket, and now, now, now...
Where to? I'd managed to flee to a corner of the room like a cat, but what was I supposed to do with someone knocking at the only exit? Besides, if I just ran away like this, wouldn't my life be over in the near future anyway? Such anxieties made my stomach ache more and more. I felt like crying. I was fifty-three this year.
Realizing that opportunities to wear an expression as if I bore all the world's misfortunes—more so than when my stomach ached or some part of my body cramped up—were rare, just as I was about to break down crying, "What the hell is going onnnn?!"
Something moved at the edge of my vision, somewhere near the back of my eyeball. "Hih!" I let out a small, frightened gasp, but my head moved, knowing I couldn't miss it. White. A white creature. A cat. A cat was crossing outside the window.
I jumped as if reacting to an insect and rushed to the window, forgetting all about keeping quiet.
Opening the window, which was stiff as if rusted, I stuck my head out. The air changed, and for a moment, it felt pleasant.
The white, long-tailed cat, undaunted by the height of the seventeenth floor, was leisurely walking along the ledge outside the window. For a cat, it was plenty wide, but a human would barely be able to place their feet there and move by clinging to the wall.
This is it! My mind, which had flashed with this idea, had no room for doubt right now. Now that a leaf had finally floated into my hand, I wouldn't hesitate; I'd grab that straw and pull it toward me over the water's surface. That would naturally guide my hands into the act of struggling, after all.

There was no more time to hesitate. I leaned out of the window from my shoulders, grabbed the frame, and pulled my body outside. "Hiee!" A short scream escaped me the moment I looked down, and blood drained from my forehead like an amoeba. Whoa, the sensation I get when my ears ring spread across my entire face. It was unbearably unpleasant that my consciousness didn't fade, that the terror wouldn't leave the front of my face. Enough, it's okay to kiss this terror goodbye, I thought, steeling my arms, where the flesh seemed to squirm and writhe, placed my foot on the window frame, and pushed my upper body completely outside. Desperately clinging to the far side of the open window with both hands, I strained to pull my body upwards, like a snake slithering up a wall. Careful movements were good, but my back felt like it would fold in three before I finished.
"Ah!" The bag containing the cash snagged on something on the way and I dropped it inside the room, right below the window. My left fingertips grasped at empty air, and I watched the shoes fall with a soft thud. I should go back for them, I thought, extending my leg back into the room, but perhaps I was panicking, as my hand nearly slipped from the window. "Owahhwahhwaaah! Hih, hih, hihhihhih!" I ended up in a sort of reverse bridge position, with the window frame as the fulcrum.
Blood rushed from me, sweat poured out, and my time stopped for an instant. My liver didn't just shrink at the thought of falling headfirst onto the road below; it felt like it was being shredded by stress, and I really was about to cry.
My heart pounded violently, like a long-distance runner leading the pack, out of sync with my breathing. It was a rash action. This was a whole different ball game from jumping over the closed school gate to sneak onto the grounds.
If I thrashed about, I'd fall. "I'm gonna fall, I'm gonna fall, I tell you!" Screams tumbled from my mouth one after another, as if I were putting on a one-man show. There was no turning back now. Or rather, I had a feeling that if I did turn back, this would just repeat itself. I decided to give up on everything here and prioritize escaping from this place, no matter what. The sound of someone still knocking on the door forced that choice upon me.
Entrusting my fate to my sweaty hands, I maneuvered my lower body past the window. Exhaling continuously, I carefully placed the soles of both feet on the ledge. My hands were still gripping the far side of the window; if it suddenly broke off the frame with a crack, I'd probably be reported on local radio as a suicide jumper who'd spread-eagled magnificently.
No thank you to that. My desired causes of death are old age or illness.
Clinging to the wall, I couldn't help but recall those times during elementary school cleaning hours when I'd jokingly play ninja. Praying that this wouldn't accelerate into a slideshow of my life, I continued the screening of memories over the tension.
The electronic tone of the cell phone, which had been silent for a bit, started ringing out again. Truly annoying.
Every time the gentle autumn breeze, tinged with lingering summer heat, caressed the back of my neck, goosebumps rose like the first cries of chicks. Like a flock of crows carrying a person away, it tried to snatch my hands from the window into the void. I desperately held on, gritting my teeth.
Consciously turning my face, which wanted to look down, towards the wall in front of me, I deliberated whether to move left or right. Actually, left was a dead end. Of course, this was the room at the very end of the hall. But as if to mock me for merely feigning such caution when I simply lacked the courage to move my feet, the next problem came walking.
The cat from earlier, having turned back from the dead end, was now at my feet—hey, you, traffic morals, please observe them!
"Don't be absurd! Don't be absurd!" My monologue doubled as a scream. An old guy, fifty-three this year, extremely out of shape, acrophobic, and a smoker, whose physical age was rapidly declining—this method of movement was tantamount to being sentenced to death. On top of that, the cat just walked right over my feet.
The cat, as if to say, "What the hell are *you*?" glared up at me while walking unhurriedly. If I had the composure, I'd have loved to kick it and give it a taste of hell, but in reality, all I could do was hold my breath and watch its movements. Was I forgetting to breathe? My chest was gradually getting heavy, swelling up.
The cat hopped nimbly, with a movement more natural than playing with a golf ball in its own garden. And then it went into the room I had just been in.
Watching it go, I let out a huge sigh of relief from my shoulders.
For some reason, I left the window open for the cat to come and go.
Was it because I remembered my son liked cats?
To be honest, as a father who hadn't exactly watched over his son's growth constantly, who had lived a life far removed from putting family first, it was hard for me to say I fully understood my son.
But that much, I remembered.
And when I remembered my son, inevitably, memories that left still-raw wounds in my heart followed.
The face of my son on his deathbed, who had battled illness but faced life to the very end without a single complaint, resurfaced.
My eyesight rapidly worsened, losing its contours, but the strength in my fingertips, conversely, gathered from the base of my arms as if drawn by a line. I can move. My frozen lower body, on the contrary, urged me to move, as if saying, "Not yet? Not yet?"
Carefully sliding the soles of my feet onto the ledge, I began to advance along a path about the width of two clenched fists.
A nameless path, as perilous as crossing a steel beam. Just like the time I was spending right now.
I'm in an outrageous position (in a double sense), but I can still live.
So that one day, I can look back and think that even today was a precious part of the process, my feet don't stop their crab-like shuffle.

---
Yamana Misato
(Suicide Aspirant)
2:00 PM

I was aware that jumping to my death was the most "me" way to die.
The view from the hotel window was the wall of a prep school and dingy-colored asphalt. A drab townscape that wouldn't offer any picturesque contrast even if I splattered into peperoncino upon impact. The city, viewed from the height of the seventeenth floor, was blurred, yet its filthiness was still far too conspicuous.
I checked in yesterday and will go home tomorrow. I'd unilaterally informed my parents of this, then hopped on the bullet train to come here. I think it has something to do with the fact that two years ago, when I had just started university, I visited here on a summer trip with my boyfriend. The fact that I'm using a twin room despite being alone is probably due to some unconscious fixation, my heart, smooth-surfaced like a mirror, completed its detached analysis.
I wonder if my suicide note has blown away, I thought, pulling my head back from the window and looking around. On the small table, a blue cable for connecting to the internet and a white, rectangularly folded piece of paper were neatly arranged.
It's okay, I thought with a little sigh of relief, and once again, I leaned my body out the window.
I'd eaten a luxurious beef curry that cost over a thousand yen for lunch, and it should be about digested by now. It was about time I made up my mind to jump and commit suicide. Mentally, I'd already overtaken elevators and plummeted to the ground about twenty times since yesterday, yet somehow, I was still alive.
Ever since my boyfriend was brutally murdered a year ago, my life had become full of disconnected dots. I couldn't connect the days into lines; it was ephemeral, decadent. The fact that it didn't include any reckless hedonism made it all the more painful.
My boyfriend was the fifth victim in a serial murder case that became a hot topic last year, a rarity not just in our prefecture but throughout Japan. He attended a university in the neighboring prefecture, and after attending his sixth-period lecture, he took a late-night train back to our town and was murdered just after passing the station's bus terminal. It was late at night, in the countryside, a station where foot traffic was so sparse you'd mistake it for a depopulated area, yet they managed to tamper with the body so much in such a short time, even with some people around. His eyeballs, optic nerves severed, were swapped and reinserted. His nose, too, had its nostrils carved open towards his brow, and in the center of his forehead, flesh had been gouged out to resemble lips. It was like a painting depicting an inverted face; the half-drunk man who found him apparently vomited immediately and felt much better for it.
Since that day, I've been living my days as if I've lost sensation in half my body. My brain has shriveled up, and as if abandoning the memories of a life without him, my hole-ridden recollections have become fragments of a ruin.
The option of checking into a mental hospital like my older sister wasn't one I had. She was eight years my senior and had been taken to the hospital when I was in elementary school, after half-killing our younger brother. Years ago, she committed suicide by jumping from that hospital. She'd spent days destroying the fence on the off-limits rooftop, deliberately.
It seems people are constituted in such a way that suicide while remaining conscious is impossible without exerting a tremendous amount of effort. My sister had put that much effort into the preparations alone.
If she could muster that much effort, she should have used it to live. When I complained about my sister's nature to the young female doctor who came to our house to apologize, she said, "I'm sorry I couldn't help her with that," bowing her head while crying. I don't usually trust people who cry easily, but she acted so matter-of-factly, as if unaware she was crying, that I thought she was actually trustworthy.
...Well, it's about time I put myself in the same condition as him. It's unclear if there's an afterlife, and it's strange to say that ghosts are "living" somewhere in this world... but if he "is there," then I first have to put myself in the same condition to find out. I've always thought so, and today, I finally put it into action.

How much time did it take for someone like me, inherently lazy and passionless, to finally get moving? This lack of motivation, I really feel I should learn a little from my friends. My friend is the type who, when she's fanatically into something, can focus on that one thing with frightening intensity. And before you know it, she's gathered information and even developed the ability to act. The sad thing is that it's never useful to society and, if anything, only leads to trouble. She's a real waste, in many ways. I lamented, feeling like her guardian.
I check to make sure no one is passing by below. I don't want to kill anyone right before I die. He used to watch the serial murder cases on the news and detest them with all the detachment he could muster. That's why I hate murderers too. If anyone I'd been close to up until now turned out to be like that, I'd turn my back on them and cut ties.
"Alright, alright, alright."
I fix the soles of my feet to the carpet and swing my body back and forth like a pendulum. With this momentum, heeyah, I just need to jump from the open window in the same way one dives into a pool. It's not difficult. A deep driving sound, *guon-guon*, like something powering up, coursed through my muscles and bones. Just as he once said, "There was nothing that required as much resolve as when I tried to grab the beautiful girl in front of me by her breasts from behind."
Now, seeking my next place, diiive... Stop.
I temporarily halt my wind-up and cling to the window.
A cat came walking along the ledge below the window with a prim expression. It swished its long, pure white tail as if showing it off, advancing with an intrepid gait, unafraid of falling to the left. It glanced up at me and glared, as if to say, "Who the hell d'ya think *nyou* are?" Its eyes held a forward-looking hostility, as if constantly challenging everything in the world.
"...Right."
I'm intimidated by the cat. Something shrinks at the side of my lungs. It deflates and flows constrictedly into my stomach.
I slowly turned my head, watching the cat intently until it passed by.
Hah, the tension leaves my shoulders. The heat that had accumulated in my corners and the soles of my feet evaporates.
I got to see a lovely kitty at the end, so I guess I'll jump now.
With my twenty-first resolve, I finally felt like I could jump.

---
Tanetorii Hibiki
(University Student)
2:20 PM
In the hallway.

I absolutely despise mushrooms.
...No, it's just... I feel like I have to say it. Why, though? Precognition?
Thus, I transmuted my brain's disconnected delusions into an affirmation of psychic powers and clutched my cell phone. I smeared fingerprints and grime all over the silver rectangle, adding a layer of sweat for good measure. I'll admit it, I'm clearly nervous right now. My feet, as if asserting their agitation, wandered restlessly around the hotel, a place I rarely used in my daily university life, and the soft drinks I kept buying from the vending machine sloshed unpleasantly in my stomach. I'd be in my room, lie down with my phone by the bed → unable to bear the silence, turn on the TV → ultimately unable to bear sitting still to watch it, and go out of the room. Then I'd buy a juice from the vending machine, and now here I am, having consumed so much liquid I'm worried I might turn into a jellyfish. Has it really only been thirty minutes since I checked in? Was time always this dense, this viscous a substance? My university life had so much time it flowed like hot water, true to that expression, yet it was as if the washbasin had been unceremoniously overturned, and already half of it was gone.

Or getting killed, or something.
But I digress.
I flip open my cell phone. No new calls. Just like usual, the wallpaper I'd set was stuck to the screen. But really, what kind of taste do I have? It's an image of the local specialty, sweetfish, flopping around energetically on a bamboo basket. Though I guess it's better than Anjou-san, who inhabits... or rather, lives on the second floor of my apartment building. I operate the phone and look at my email history. Then, I check for new messages. How many times has it been now? I feel like my fingers are moving ahead of my thoughts. Of course, there are no unread emails.
I reread the last email I received yesterday. I meticulously check the specified hotel location, date, and time, then let out a heavy sigh. My stomach lining feels like a mesh, and my entire insides are numb, as if fluid is leaking through the gaps. I wanted to squat down on the spot and hold my head.
When was the last time I was this nervous? The university interview...? No, I got in through a recommendation. Then, uh... my first day living alone, maybe. Along with the elation and anticipation, I also harbored a suffocating anxiety, being from the countryside and all. I hear things have gotten pretty dangerous back there recently, too. People getting
And so, well, what I'm doing like this is...
I was waiting for a girl to come to the hotel. She's a first-year student from the same university. Different faculty, different year, different everything, but somehow we met, and there was probably something fateful, you know, various things... probably. And up until now, we've been pretty good friends, but yesterday, I got an email asking if I wanted to go on a date. It's just that the meeting place is a hotel, you see...
No, I doubted it. Of course, I was suspicious. I even flipped over the cell phone that received the email and checked the back for some reason. And yet, despite my doubts, here I am, naturally. Today, I've come to the seventeenth floor of the hotel to enjoy the night view, woo-hoo! That's the idea. In the dimly lit hallway, like an insect drawn to a faint light, I can't tear myself away from the front of the vending machine. I belatedly recall my parents lecturing me, saying, "You're twenty now, so learn to be calm." Parents really do understand their children well. However, they probably wouldn't give me a detailed, step-by-step guide on what to do while waiting for a girl, so I can't rely on them.
Even if I wanted to consult someone, my friends at university are all guys with no luck with women. I get along okay with the residents of my prefab-hut-like apartment building, but the female tenants are a choice selection of oddballs. Like Anjou-san. The high-school-student-like couple who just passed by me (my body was stiff as a statue in front of the vending machine) – I mean, society's really going downhill, isn't it? High schoolers staying in the same room. And what's more, the girl is cute. I only glanced at her, but she was on a level like Anjou-san multiplied by two hundred, maybe? For the record, the girl I'm waiting for is more like Anjou-san multiplied by eighty. There's quite a difference.
But she's pretty enough, and has a good personality. She's lively, and there are parts of her that still feel like a high school girl, but that's also part of her charm.