26: At the Shopping Mall
Three days later.
When it was time to meet, Ryugo visited the shopping mall again.
The fountain square he was aiming for was a little further in from the entrance.
There were few people since it was a weekday afternoon.
Skipping out on school left me with a slight twinge of guilt, but the excitement of the unusual atmosphere outweighed it.
I walked down the nearly empty hallway, heading for my destination.
As I entered the wide expanse, the cold air from the air conditioning eased slightly.
I stopped in front of the refreshing fountain and looked around.
“The person on the phone said they’d be here, but…”
I couldn’t see anyone matching the description.
They hadn’t given me any specifics after that, just saying, “You’ll know them when you see them.” Were they expecting me to be wearing some kind of strange costume?
“There’s an old man over there, and an exhausted office lady…”
I scanned my surroundings.
“And…a panda?”
I spotted a suspiciously costumed panda standing behind a pillar.
It was likely occupied, but it remained motionless, facing me.
“Surely that’s not them…?”
I hoped it was the wrong person, but…
Slowly, the panda took a step toward me.
Its empty eyes, framed by black-rimmed glasses, pierced me with their gaze.
The panda took another step, then another, and another. It wasn’t a mistake, a misunderstanding, or a case of mistaken identity. It was coming straight for me.
“Hey, wait…”
The panda broke into a run, closing the distance between us.
Despite its clumsy appearance, it moved with the agility of an athlete. Its vacant smile gave it an overwhelming aura.
“W-wait! I’m supposed to meet you—!”
“—Tanuki-kun!”
Suddenly, a girl’s hand pulled me from behind.
Slender, delicate fingers. The soft sensation of her palm. It was slightly red and warm, as if she’d been exposed to the summer heat.
I turned around, my eyes wide.
“Madoka!? What are you—?”
“We can talk later! Let’s get out of here!”
Before I could respond, she led me through the shopping mall.
Passersby turned their heads in surprise, their faces a mixture of shock and curiosity. It wasn’t just a man and woman running; there was a panda chasing after us. Their reactions were understandable.
But running at full speed in a costume was reckless. Before we’d even gone fifty meters, the panda was nowhere to be seen.
Ryugo and I ran all the way to the back of the mall and exited through the automatic doors.
“Whew…huff…”
I put my hands on my knees and tried to catch my breath.
Madoka, standing next to me, was also drenched in sweat, but she couldn’t hide her smile.
“Tanuki-kun, that was close.”
“Were you the one on the phone…?”
“Hm? Yes, I was. We should rest for a bit and then move on. It’d be troublesome if they found us again.”
“Oh, yeah…right…”
We could talk about the details later.
But I was relieved. She might have known about my situation. I could trust her completely.
Was that arrogant attitude she had on the phone just to hide her true nature? In fact, I had no idea about it at all.
“This way.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have something to show you.”
I followed Enka, who spoke confidently, half-convinced.
We left the residential area, and the crowd gradually thinned out. Still, she didn’t stop, and we finally came to a place where there were no people in sight.
Around us were small private fields, a dried-up river with overgrown weeds, and a corrugated iron factory.
“Hey, Enka. Who’s that in the panda costume?”
“An enemy.”
“You mean the one you said was getting in my way?”
“Yeah… Yeah, that’s right. He came at this timing, so maybe Raccoon-kun was being followed the whole time.”
“In that outfit?”
“Maybe there was a show at the shopping mall, and he stole it from there? Before, there was a children’s anime character doing all sorts of things.”
“Yeah, I think so… But…”
Something was bothering me.
Why was that panda watching me?
◆
Misato watched Ryugo and Enka run away from the second floor of the fountain square. Thanks to the open space, she had a clear view of everything.
The panda noticed Enka’s approach and started to run. But it was too late, and he seemed to have lost them.
The panda chased after them with unsteady steps. But in that outfit, it would be difficult to follow them.
Eventually, it slowed down as if it had given up and stopped.
“What the heck is… that…”
What was the panda’s purpose in approaching Ryugo?
It didn’t matter.
The order was to report what happened here.
I was made to come here even though I had to leave work early, but I didn’t get any contact even though the incident passed right in front of me.
“Huh?”
At that moment, the panda put its hand on its head and took it off.
“Wha…?”
Misato couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw what was inside.
She hurriedly went down to the first floor by escalator, ignoring the people around her, and called out to the boy who was taking off his costume.
“Koki!?”
“Huh… Why is Misato here?”
The boy with the gentle face and glasses was Koki, who had been transferred by Aira and the others before.
And a friend of mine.
“Why are you here… or rather, why are you in a costume!?”
“I had an appointment with Raccoon. But I didn’t want him to see my face. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. Instead, I was used. I wonder if he overheard me or if he was following me from the beginning .”
As he said that, Koki took out his smartphone. The screen showed a map of the surroundings, with a red dot blinking.
Koki started walking while looking at it.
“Are you traveling by foot?”
“Huh? Wh-wh-what? What’s going on?”
“This isn’t the time to talk. We have to go after them now…”
“I just met my friend after a long time, you can’t be serious!? Or rather…”
“This isn’t the time to argue.”
Kouki looked at him with the same righteous eyes he had before he transferred schools.
“The tanuki is in danger.”
◆
“Where is this…?”
In front of Ryugo was a small, dilapidated factory.
It looked like it hadn’t been used by anyone, and even the sign had been removed.
Beyond the wide-open entrance, the interior was empty, with discarded machinery lying around.
He took out his smartphone to check his location and read the GPS data.
Good. If worse comes to worst, this should help.
As he stepped inside, he grimaced at the slightly dusty air.
“You wanted to show me something here…?”
“Un. I think Tanuki-kun will be surprised too.”
“I see…”
Ryugo responded half-heartedly as he reached for the pocketknife hidden in his pocket.
Was the voice he had heard really Enka’s?
Was it possible that she had been manipulated and was leading Ryugo into a trap?
After all, if Enka had the hypnosis app, it meant that she could have silenced Aira that day.
He had already taken precautions, but for now, he would keep quiet and observe how things unfolded.
He didn’t want to think about it, but if she intended to do something, he would have to fight back.
“Tanuki-kun, do you remember? The day of our high school entrance exams. The day we first met.”
“Huh? Sorry, I don’t remember.”
“Oh, I see…”
Enka’s eyebrows drooped sadly.
That day, he had stayed up all night studying and was sleep-deprived. On top of that, he had been so preoccupied with the exam content that he probably wouldn’t have remembered anyone he met.
With a steady clack, clack sound, Enka continued speaking.
“I was being harassed by some delinquents. Then Tanuki-kun appeared out of nowhere and saved me. It’s a cliché story, but I was really touched.”
“Ah! I remember! Yeah, yeah, that’s right.”
He was pretty sure he had been on his way to the exam with Kouki and… He had a memory of getting angry at someone and punching them…
“Wait?”
Who was…? He couldn’t remember the name.
That was strange. Kouki was the only one who had been with him that day.
There should have been another person next to him, but they had vanished.
That was…
“Gah… Ah…!”
Suddenly, a piercing headache struck him.
The more I tried to access my hazy memories, the more the pain intensified, as if it were trying to uproot my very consciousness.
An image surfaced in my mind—my brain was bound by a chain of thorns. Every time my brain struggled, the thorns dug deeper, sending excruciating pain coursing through me.
The more I struggled, the worse the pain became, but I couldn’t stop.
“Tanuki-kun, what’s wrong? Does your head hurt?”
I glanced at Madoka, who was peering at me with concern, and a possibility occurred to me.
…Has my memory been erased?
The hypnosis app is capable of erasing someone’s memories through ‘commands.’
However, the app doesn’t work on its owner.
So what if it was used before I became the owner?
If my memories were erased in the past, but the ‘command’s’ effect weakened once I became the owner, could that be why I’m trying to remember them now?
“If it’s too painful, should I call an ambulance?”
“No… I’m okay…”
“Are you sure? You shouldn’t push yourself.”
“The pain’s subsided quite a bit. I’m fine now.”
“I see. We’re almost there.”
She led me by the hand to the back of the factory.
The ceiling was covered in a web of beams, pipes, and light fixtures with their bulbs removed.
Piles of iron rods littered the floor, their purpose unknown.
A rusty sign hung on the wall, its four characters—’Safety First’—faded with time.
Ryugo’s gaze fell upon the center of the room.
Amidst the desolate space filled with nothing but rugged steel frames, a single object stood out of place, an anomaly.
Something covered by a blue tarp.
Something concealed.
Something roughly the size of a human.
It was about chest height and as wide and deep as an outstretched arm.
It looked as if a person sitting in a chair had been covered with the tarp.
As that thought crossed my mind, a chill ran down my spine. Even in the summer heat, it lingered with an eerie coldness.
“What… is that…?”
“This? This is…”
Madoka reached for the blue tarp and smiled broadly.
She pulled it off with a flourish, sending dust flying as the object beneath was revealed.
“Haruyoshi-kun’s”
What emerged was a…
“Corpse.”
It was the lifeless body of my familiar classmate, a knife protruding from his heart.