Volume 1
Final Chapter Part
2
Translator : PolterGlast
"Why do you want
to die, Hikaru?"
Hikaru had said it was
because he had no future. Did that mean he had no reason to live? But having no
reason to live doesn't directly lead to a reason to die. Even if someone
thought about dying that way, humans would end up just living out of inertia.
At least, that's what I've seen in the stories I've read so far.
"Because the
reason to die seemed more rewarding to me than the reason to live."
Hikaru slowly took a
step forward. As he did, the shadow that had fallen on his face moved smoothly,
and his well-defined eyes disappeared into the darkness.
"You're really
going to die, you know?"
I didn't intend to
tell him not to. Even so, my voice was shaking.
"Of course,"
Hikaru replied as if it were nothing.
"Then, there's
one last thing I want to ask you."
"What is
it?"
"Why me?"
I squeezed out the
words.
Hikaru tilted his
head, not understanding the question.
"Huh? About
what?"
"Why did you
invite me to this game?"
On August 24th, when
our escape began, a strange game started at the same time. From August 24th to
August 31st, Hikaru and I would take turns killing someone we wanted to kill.
Hikaru had killed four
people so far, and I hadn't killed anyone.
"What did you
want to do, Hikaru? Hey, tell me―"
It's time to answer
the question. The end isn't far away. Summer is almost over.
"Why did you fall
in love with me?"
Certainly, the year
and a month since I met Hikaru was more special than any other moment in the previous
seventeen years, and it might have been the same for him.
However, Hikaru had
told Serina, "I like Yorunagi Rin," even before that.
It seemed certain that
was the reason I was invited to this game. I was convinced of that as I watched
Hikaru's eyes widen slightly.
I closed my lips
tightly and stared at Hikaru.
"Because you
weren't the happiest."
A cold air ran through
my chest. His beautiful face was expressionless, and his voice lacked its usual
warmth.
I gulped, strained my
legs, and waited for Hikaru's next words.
"Even with your
lively friends, even with your fancy group, you still have those gloomy eyes
that look like they've gathered all the unhappiness in the world."
Hikaru slowly
approached me and entered into the shade where I was.
"Yes, these
'eyes'. I can still vividly remember the day of the entrance ceremony. When our
eyes met, I was captivated by that color. It's like a love story to say that I
fell in love with your eyes."
This meant that Hikaru
had known me as early as the spring before I entered high school. I was quietly
surprised by this newly disclosed information.
Hikaru placed his hand
on my cheek and urged me to look up. I did as I was told and met the eyes of
the tall Hikaru.
"I thought you
were like the bottom of the deep sea. And I was irresistibly drawn to it. What
caused the 'deep sea' misfortune that dwelt in those eyes?"
"......Misfortune?"
"Yes. I wanted to
kill anyone who made you unhappy. Nothing else mattered."
Hikaru spoke calmly.
It sounded like he was reading a document.
"Really, nothing
else matters."
After saying that, he
paused for a moment, relaxed his shoulders, and smiled gently.
"That's why, I
didn't kill my mother."
"......"
It felt like I had
been hit on the head.
My brain couldn't keep
up with the sudden information.
"......What do
you mean?" I asked.
"I didn't kill my
stepfather either. My parents are currently on a trip to Okinawa, and I was
told that my biological father died a long time ago."
"Hey, what are
you talking about?"
"So killing Goto
was my first murder," Hikaru continued without answering my question.
"I was surprised. I didn't know that killing someone could be so mentally
draining."
"Wait, wait, I
don't understand."
Unable to comprehend
the situation, I said quickly in confusion. I understood the meaning of his
words, but it didn't connect with reality at all.
"You're saying
you didn't kill your mother, but the nail..."
I remembered the red
nail that Hikaru had given me in the bicycle shed.
Hikaru said,
"Ah," as if remembering.
"That was my
nail. A toenail. I pulled it off myself using pliers."
A shiver ran down my
spine. I was so confused I felt like crying.
"I don't
understand at all. Explain it more clearly."
I glared at Hikaru. He
lowered his eyebrows as if to soothe a child.
"Then let me
explain it in order."
Hikaru said in a calm
voice. I nodded fearfully.
"First of all, I
didn't kill my parents. I lied, saying that I killed my mother, to lure you
into this game."
"To lure me into
this game?"
When I repeated that,
Hikaru nodded with a smile.
"That's right, my
goal was to 'kill the person Rin wants to kill'."
Hikaru turned his back
to me and walked away, then turned around again when he entered the sunlight.
"But even if I
told you, 'I'll kill anyone you want me to, so tell me who you want me to
kill,' you would never name anyone, would you? In fact, you seemed to have an
aversion to murder."
That's obvious. Most
people would have an aversion to murder.
"That's why, I
decided to start by pretending that I had already committed murder. I read a
psychology book a long time ago, and I thought that by showing that I had
already crossed the line, would lower your threshold for murder. You know, like
how if someone else crosses a dangerous bridge first, you think it's okay for
you to cross it too? Something like that."
This dizzying
sensation, was it due to the heat or to the incomprehensible situation I was
in? Hikaru seemed to be trying to explain everything, but my brain couldn't
process the information well.
"I also decided
to make us take turns killing others to lead you to murder. It's kind of like
group psychology, but well, it doesn't really matter now."
Hikaru cleared his
throat lightly and continued.
"However, there
was one problem here - under that rule, I had to kill someone too. I was in
trouble because I didn't particularly want to kill anyone. I could just kill
someone randomly, but there was a high risk of being caught. So, I decided to
just pretend to kill someone and lie about it."
My head was gradually
regaining its composure.
"So that's why
you chose your parents," I said.
"As expected of
you, Rin, you're quick to adapt to the situation," Hikaru smiled happily.
"That's right, I chose my parents because I knew they were going on a trip
and wouldn't be back for a while."
Hikaru continued.
"The most
troublesome part this time was thinking of a motive for murder. I'm not
interested in anyone but you, so it was really hard to think of a reason to
hate someone I didn't care about. That's why, my mother was the best choice. I
had told you about my mother, so you could freely think of various reasons for
killing her. You have a rich imagination after all."
Hikaru asked, “Do you
understand up to here?” I nodded my head slightly and said, “Yeah".
Ignoring the sound of
the cicadas, I focused on Hikaru's story.
"I won't go into
detail about killing my stepfather because it's the same reason. I chose my
biological father because he lived in Tokyo and I had already heard from my
mother that he was already dead. ...By the way, if we hadn't gone to Tokyo, I
would have killed Sasaki."
"Why?"
Surprised by the name
of my former classmate that suddenly came out of his mouth, my voice choked.
"I thought I
could easily make up a reason to hate Sasaki. It's common in mystery stories
for there to be darkness even between close friends. Rin, you've read those
kinds of things, right?"
Hikaru smiled.
"And that guy,
he's Rin's stalker. When he came to your house, didn't you wonder how he knew
your address?"
"Huh...?"
"You're too slow,
it worries me," Hikaru said with a laugh. "But don't worry, I've
already taken care of him. I'll tell you
the details later."
What did he mean by
'taken care of'? If he was a stalker, did Sasaki intend to harm me?
While I was trying to
piece together my thoughts, Hikaru opened his mouth again.
"After my
biological father, I chose Goto. I thought that Rin would come up with her own
reasons for killing him, just as you did with my family. After all, students
usually don't like their teachers."
That might be true. As
an inept student, I had mistakenly thought of teachers as reliable and helpful
figures to someone as accomplished as Hikaru. By nature, for a teenager, pompous
adults are nothing more than annoying presences.
"At first, I was
thinking of just pretending to kill him the same way I did with my parents, but
I changed my mind and decided to dispose of him because he was one of the
reasons why Rin had stopped going to school. When you chose Goto, I was
wondering what to do, but you conveniently agreed that we should do it
together.."
"When did you
kill Sasaki?"
When I said this,
Hikaru replied, "I was just about to tell you." Though he had only
said "taken care of" before, it was clear he had killed him.
"Actually, I was
going to kill him secretly the day after I killed Goto. It was my turn that
day, after all. But there was one miscalculation – I never thought I would get
a fever. Killing is so draining mentally."
Hikaru covered his
eyes with his right hand and turned his body toward the tracks, looking up at
the sky. He froze for a few seconds and then looked at me again.
"But by the time
my fever went down, I seemed to have developed a tolerance. Maybe it's closer
to numbness. Early in the morning on the 30th, I killed Sasaki while he was
jogging. I hit him from behind with a stone. The reason was mostly personal.
Well, to put it simply, he was a love rival."
Hikaru smiled shyly.
Looking at him like this, he seemed like just an ordinary high school boy in
love.
Unfortunately, he was
insane.
"And then there's
Mitsuya Serina. You can probably guess without me having to explain it."
After Hikaru said
that, I felt a strange stirring in my chest. With a sense of dread, I asked
quickly.
"Did you only
kill three people?"
Was my hunch correct?
Hikaru slowly shook his head.
"On August 31st,
Ueno Miu."
My mind went blank.
Was this shock or despair?
I slowly shook my
head, suppressing the emotions that were welling up. Now was the time to focus
my thoughts. I could be surprised or sad after I heard the whole story from
Hikaru.
"I wasn't
originally planning to do it, but I decided to do it since I happened to meet
her."
Hikaru said it
casually, as if he were stopping by a convenience store.
"After you parted
ways with her and entered the supermarket, I strangled her to death in a back
alley. I covered her body with a plastic sheet, but I think it's probably been
found by now."
He said he wanted to
kill the people who made me unhappy. I wondered if he had been killing people
without my knowledge.
But fortunately, my
dreadful speculation did not come true a second time.
Hikaru continued.
"I killed these
four people. I thought about killing the Naruse siblings too, and I even tried
to curry favor with the younger sister, but it was unnecessary. ―Because it
wasn't them who created those "eyes" of yours. The same goes for Iida
and Nakano. Well, I could have killed them too, but if I killed too many
people, someone would find out."
For Hikaru, killing
someone was probably like choosing a drink from a vending machine. With the
same ease of pressing a button, he could take someone's life.
"Finally, I'll
tell you the real reason I started this game."
"To kill the
person I want to kill?"
"Yes. But that's
just a rough explanation of the purpose, and it's a little different from the
real reason."
"Hee, so what's
the real reason?"
My heart raced at the
question that went straight to the core.
Hikaru took a breath
and then spoke.
"To get you to
say, 'I want to kill Mitsuya Serina', that was the purpose. The cause of your
unhappiness ― the cause of your <Eye of the Deep Sea> is Mitsuya Serina
after all."
Before I became too
frightened, I blurted out, "Then why did you make me choose two other
people? Serina alone would have been enough."
"That's right.
But even if I told you, 'You can kill anyone you want,' you would never say the
name Mitsuya Serina, would you? For some reason, you had a misconception that
you shouldn't hate her. ―So, I told you, 'You can kill anyone, three people,'
and gradually pushed you into a corner."
During our getaway, he
seemed to have skillfully manipulated my psychology. He was practically a con
artist.
"On the surface,
it's a 'murder game'. Rin, you like this kind of bad taste, don't you? You
seemed to resist it at first, but now you've gone completely insane."
"......It's
because you drove me this way."
"Haha, that's
right."
Hikaru lowered his
gaze and looked at me again.
"The four people
I killed were Goto, Sasaki, Mitsuya Serina, and Ueno Miu. The one I wanted to
kill was Mitsuya Serina, and the rest were just extras."
"Because-",
Hikaru continued.
"It was her who made
you unhappy, who made you lonely, ― who created that 'deep sea' in your eyes,
wasn't it?"
Killing Mitsuya Serina
was Hikaru's true purpose.
"......Why?"
Why would he want to
do such a thing? What was the point of all the killing? Was it for me? But I
hardly had anything to do with Serina anymore, and it was only half a year
until she graduated. That should have been enough time to endure.
"I've always
planned to die," Hikaru said in a strangely cheerful voice. His voice,
which felt somehow refreshing, sent a chill down my spine.
"When I met you
that summer, I thought, 'Since I'm going to die anyway, I might as well
eliminate the cause of your unhappiness before I die'," Hikaru smiled.
"I don't want
that."
"I know you
wouldn't, because you don't want anything."
The expression on his
face suddenly vanished. His hollow expression was the same one I had seen that
summer.
"You didn't
expect anything from this world. You mistook yourself for a demon lost in the
human world and had been blaming yourself all along. I wanted to save
you."
Hikaru squinted his
eyes against the setting sun but continued to look at me intently.
"I did all the
killing this time. Your life is not over. You'll graduate from high school, go
to university, make friends, make a lover, and live your life."
His voice trailed off.
All I could hear was the sound of cicadas and the rustling of trees.
"Liar."
My throat trembled,
and the word spilled from my lips.
For a moment, the
sound of the cicadas ceased.
After a brief silence,
they began to chirp again weakly, as if remembering.
"Hikaru, you
don't care about me at all, do you?"
"Say whatever you
want."
"You're selfish.
Can you imagine how I feel right now?"
I rattled off the
words quickly. Before Hikaru could say anything, I opened my mouth again.
"You said that
you killed Serina for my sake, now you would die, too, and I'm supposed to just
go on living? That's too selfish."
I glared at Hikaru's
vacant eyes. Hikaru remained expressionless.
"You say things
like, 'It's for your sake,' but you don't really care about me. You only care
about yourself. ―Because if you really cared about me, you would have just
killed Serina on your own without involving me."
I crossed the boundary
between light and shadow and stepped into the sunlight where Hikaru was. Then
Hikaru, whose expressionless face had been like a mask, changed and smiled like
a child.
"You figured it
out?"
"It was obvious.
I thought you were going to tell me yourself."
When I said that,
Hikaru laughed quite merrily, "Ha-ha-ha."
"So, what did you
really want to do?"
"I started this
game for myself. It started because of my uncontrollable possessiveness."
"Possessiveness,"
I repeated.
"I don't have
even a shred of desire to 'take away' your unhappiness," Hikaru took a
small breath and said with a tearful smile.
"My true goal was
to replace the cause of your unhappiness, 'Mitsuya Serina', with 'Natsuno
Hikaru'."
"Replace?"
"From the first
time I saw you, there was always a <deep sea> in your eyes. It gradually
disappeared as you became friends with Mitsuya Serina and others, but it
revived after a certain winter day. You know why, right?"
It was because that
photo was taken and I was alone again.
In contrast to me
earlier, Hikaru spoke slowly.
As he spoke, he walked
past me into the shade. I turned my body and followed him with my eyes.
"The reason why
you have such dark eyes, such beautiful eyes ― as deep as the deep ocean. The
reason why you had to have those eyes. That was Mitsuya Serina."
The <deep sea>
is made up of loneliness. Hikaru said this in a clear tone of voice.
"So, by killing
Mitsuya Serina and taking away the cause of your loneliness, and by dying
myself, I could overwrite the cause of your loneliness with Natsuno
Hikaru."
It's true that if
Hikaru died, I would be alone again. It's not impossible that I would meet
someone I get along with even better than him in the future, but that would be
an astronomical probability.
"I see, you
thought this through," I said.
"Maybe it's the power
of love."
Hikaru said so
seriously that I couldn't help but laugh out loud, even though it was
inappropriate. I apologized and made a serious expression again. Hikaru shook
his head gently with a kind expression.
We looked at each
other again. Feeling a little strange, I burst out laughing, and Hikaru laughed
along with me.
"I liked your
<deep sea>-like eyes, Rin. I thought it would be enough if the cause of
that <deep sea> was just me. I thought you could just live hating
me."
The sound of cicadas
flying by.
"I loved you,
Rin."
His confession wasn't
seeking an answer. I simply nodded and said, "Un."
I wished this
abandoned station didn't have a roof. He would have looked lovely standing
under the blue sky with the green trees in the background.
Summer suited Hikaru
well. The contrast of his white skin and black hair, bathed in the bright
sunlight, made his presence even more pronounced in the vivid summer hues. He
was dazzling, an object of admiration, and even the time that was heading
towards its end was beautiful. That was Natsuno Hikaru for me.
"Let's put an end
to this getaway stuff," he said, taking a knife from his backpack.
The silver blade,
peeking out of its sheath, reflected the summer sunlight, and a bullet-like
gleam stimulated my pupils. I understood without being told what he was about
to do.
He would be gone soon.
"Use this one
instead."
I took the knife I
hadn't used yesterday from my own backpack and offered it to Hikaru.
"Why?"
Hikaru asked as he took it.
"That one is the
one you used to stab Serina."
"So what?"
"Jealousy."
"......Haha, how
cute."
"I know. I'm
cute."
We embraced each other
again. We hugged tightly, as if exchanging body heat, confirming each other's
existence.
After a while, we
separated with reluctance.
"Hey, were those
movies and books you said you liked, were they all lies to get closer to
me?" I asked.
"That's not
true," Hikaru said firmly.
"I'm glad to hear
that."
When I smiled, Hikaru
softened his expression.
"For me, Rin was
special. You were my Masaki."
Hikaru spoke as if
savoring the past days. I didn't want to forget a single word, and I burned it
into my mind along with his image.
Hikaru sat on a bench
in the station and looked at me.
"Are you not
going to stop me?"
"What, are you
testing me?"
I smiled. Sometimes he
would say things to test me.
"I won't stop
you. It's your choice. If you want to do it, then that's what's right for
you."
"That's so like
you, Rin," Hikaru whispered and distanced himself from me. "I loved
you, Rin."
Hikaru's voice was
warm like the setting sun, and he spoke straight to me. It was a voice so
gentle it made me want to cry, a voice that had supported my heart throughout
this summer's escape.
"It was fun.
Thank you," When I said this, Hikaru smiled one last time and then pulled
the knife from its sheath.
♢
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