My consciousness drifted away from the suffocating dark below, slipping back to the park as it had been yesterday.
The sky glimmered with a pale, uncertain light, not the darkness I remembered—perhaps memory playing a trick. Along the horizon's silver edge, the foreign girl appeared, seated on the wooden bench, and my heart lurched in my chest.
She sat in silence, hands folded with a stillness that seemed almost sacred. Her face reflected the sky's pallor, skin so pale it bordered on transparent, as if the light did not touch her but slipped through, leaving her untouched by the world.
I couldn't see her eyes.
Agony welled in my chest, constricting until I felt I might collapse, unable to bear the weight pressing in from all sides.
Her golden hair shimmered beneath an unnatural white radiance, a light that did not belong to this world. Still, I moved toward her and the bench, compelled by something I could not name.
But the path beneath my feet twisted, winding in impossible directions, never bringing me closer. It rose into a staircase that dragged me downward with every step, each movement draining me until even moving became torment.
She noticed my struggle.
Her face turned towards me slowly.
I tried to call out to her, my mouth moving soundlessly.
How could you?
How could you make a promise… and then leave?
Why didn't you take me with you?
Heat surged beneath my skin, burning my face red. My ears rang so violently that it drowned out thought, grief flooding every corner of my being.
"You traitor!" I screamed, my voice breaking apart as the words tore through my throat like the ocean's salt.
"Who are you calling a traitor, Mr. Taka Yoshi?"
I staggered back, the world tilting, and crashed hard against the unyielding pavement.
The horizon rippled, its edges dissolving as if the world itself were melting.
Silver light, bench, sky—everything warped, smearing as wet paint dragged across cold glass.
Then, without warning,
I was seated across from Detective Yaguchi once again.
"What?" I let out a weak cry, my voice trembling.
Detective Yaguchi frowned.
"Who are you calling a traitor? You just muttered it under your breath."
My gaze had never left the floor, fixed and unseeing.
A chill crept through me, slow and relentless.
My lips quivered, teeth chattering so violently the sound echoed inside my skull.
"I need a new shirt," I rasped, voice barely more than a whisper.
"Mr. Taka Yoshi, honesty won't be punished here." He leaned back slightly. "So tell me honestly. Who is the traitor?"
"My body," I answered. "It betrayed me earlier."
His eyes sharpened at that.
Silence descended, thick and absolute.
The stain on my uniform had begun to sour, the odor slowly escaping like something trapped too long inside a sealed jar.
Yet Detective Yaguchi remained perfectly still aside from the constant tapping against his knee.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Even his breathing arrived in measured intervals, each one fading beneath the oppressive hush of the room.
A bitter irony, given the ruin I had become.
"No rush, Mr.Taka Yoshi, we can take a small break after you tell me."
His words sent a ringing through my ears. My hands, clenched together, grew impossibly heavy, as if shackles had been fastened—chains of cold iron dragging against the floor.
The room reeled, the floor pitching beneath me like a vessel caught in a silent, churning storm. Walls bent at impossible angles, distorting any sense of safety or balance. My gaze clung to the detective, wary of the secrets lurking behind his measured eyes.
The cruel revelation was that Alison never made it home by nightfall. Words failed me, my fears too vast to shape. I longed to sprint back into Nagatoro, scour every street and shadow, and tear up every inch of pavement in search of her. To demand why the night had stolen her from the day.
The ache pressed heavier than any chain, outweighing every accusation and every silent stare. I could not keep avoiding the detective, not if I wanted to do right by Alison.
"We made a promise
I aimed for calm, for devotion, but my voice trembled, quivering like clouds on the verge of rain.
"To support one another in the new semester. Start an art club."
I waited for another question, or for Masato to move, but nothing came.
I glanced toward him, but Masato was lost in his own world, his face hollow, eyes emptied of all light.
"You are choosing your words carefully.
The detective let the pen fall into his lap. Silence thickened, pressing against my temples, the air turning viscous. Every breath felt heavy with anticipation, and a metallic tang coated my tongue. Every sound sharpened—the hum of fluorescent lights, the distant shudder of a fan, the uneven cadence of my own shallow breathing.
The wrongness seeped beyond the room. Injustice coiled around me, constricting. It was not guilt, but the sensation of being dissected by eyes that had already chosen me as their answer, never caring for the question.
A blink, and memory surfaced: sunlight glinting off Alison's empty desk, turning it into an island adrift in a restless sea. Her absence became a vacuum, drawing every gaze toward us—toward me, as if my presence alone explained the emptiness. Resentment thickened the air, jealousy pooling in the corners and clinging to my skin like a film left by every sidelong glance and half-swallowed whisper.
The detective's gaze remained fixed, sharp as shattered glass. In the silence, I saw my classmates' faces and the ease with which the story could be rewritten to cast me as the villain. Blame would settle like dust, finding the nearest surface. That was the cruelty: Alison was gone, and the world needed a reason. Truth was irrelevant. Only the shape of the answer mattered.
I forced down a swallow; the words I needed turned to stone in my throat. The room shrank around me, walls pressing in, ceiling lowering, the lights above buzzing with feverish intensity. Each breath thickened, syrupy and suffocating. I wondered if I would ever breathe freely again, or if suspicion and pain were now the only air left to me. So I did the only thing left. The fear broke into grief.
I shattered. Sobs tore free, raw and animal, ripped from a throat burned by grief. My chest heaved, each breath a desperate gasp, as if drowning beneath a relentless tide. There was no dignity, only ruin. Somewhere beneath it all, I accepted what had not yet been spoken.
My throat burned with fury, my head throbbing with a new sickness that fed on the last memory that I had of her in that moment, the feeling we had shared briefly, the hug, her warmth on a cold night.
Somewhere, a reverb of the detective's voice rang, but I was merely sinking down a drain with waves crashing down with me. The sound felt distant, as if grief had pulled me under.
"Mr.Taka Yoshi, hold yourself together.
A hand clamped down on my shoulder, shaking me with a force that rocked me back and forth—a fresh wave I could barely breathe through.
Masato's voice followed.
"Man, hold it together. Everything's fine. They're gonna find her. It's gonna be fine—c'mon, Yoshi, deep breaths."
His other hand found mine, fingers white from how tightly I'd been gripping them, but I recoiled at his touch.
"No," I started, but the word broke off in a hiccup.
My eyes opened. Through a veil of tears, the world unfolded—alien, warped, unrecognizable. The numbness gave way to a colder fear as the scene came into focus.
The ground gleamed slick and black, like spilled oil, mirroring a sky hemorrhaging crimson—a wounded world bleeding above me.
Cruelty sliced through my thoughts—my mind shattering, shards glittering with memory and regret. The vision offered no mercy, only the question. Would I ever grieve, or was peace forever lost to me?
On the black dirt before me lay a body, female and innocent, and beside her a creature I recognized, its eyes all I could see. A striking, familiar Golden Green that held the depth between worlds.
Its many tails moved in a stillness that suggested deep thought.
I felt, though the thought was out of reach, that we both knew of a tragedy.
However, while I stood in grief, the eyes of Golden Green stared with relief.
Masato brought me back. I could see Hiro standing up, as if on the verge of catching me as I fell, his stance tense before my chair. Their voices reached me first, then the room, and the sudden return made the panic feel even sharper.
"Man, try to hold it together for Alison's sake. She's out there somewhere; it's all just a misunderstanding…"
"No, you idiot…" I say weakly
"Mr.Taka Yoshi, please enough with this act-the distress won't solve…
"She's dead!
I cry out.
The detective's eyes went from stern to a release, as he went from sitting forward to lying further back against his chair.
But it wasn't his eyes that gave it away. I had seen it earlier in his eyes and from how he spoke when we started.
"Yoshi, don't think like that. A-Alison is probably, She's probably taken a bus to Osaka, you know how she can-"
I stood, my hand signaling Masato to stop speaking, as I walked toward the door—not to leave, but to find a place where I could let it all sink in without my world collapsing.
The corner of the room seemed as if it might offer some temporary peace.
From behind me, I could hear Hiro quietly ask.
"Is she?" I felt his eyes on me, my back tensing in response.
"Alison is dead…"
Only I hoped I hadn't sounded like a confession of guilt but more like grief.