30: The Pitiful Rabbit
That day.
The day Kouki got this hypnosis (Experiments) app was the day of the high school entrance ceremony.
In a fourth-floor classroom with a view of cherry blossom trees from the window, I was thinking about my upcoming high school life.
I was pretending to be cool on the surface, but I was actually excited because my friends Tanuki and Misato were in the same class.
“What club are you going to join?”
“I’m fine with it,” Ryugo answered Miri’s question, still half-asleep. “I did track and field in middle school, but I found it boring.”
“Hmm. I haven’t really thought about it either. What about you, Kōki?”
“Me neither.”
As they continued their inconsequential conversation, the door suddenly creaked open.
The noise made everyone in the room go quiet.
Poking her head inside timidly was a beautiful girl with delicate features—Madoka Enka.
Some people have the power to change the atmosphere with their mere presence, and she was certainly one of them.
Her graceful demeanor calmed the restless students down, giving them the same tense feeling as if they were sitting in the audience of a stage play.
“Good morning,” Enka greeted the class, her gaze sweeping over the room.
The moment her eyes met Ryugo’s, Kōki felt a chill run down his spine when he saw her lips curl up slightly, as if she was subtly delighted.
He sensed something ominous.
“…Tch.”
The audible click of someone’s tongue could only have come from Aira.
In terms of physical appearance alone, she was prettier than Enka… but she was absolutely lacking in charisma.
Her violent nature was still somewhat restrained at this point, but it wouldn’t be long before her true colors would show.
“Now then, let’s decide on the class president and vice president,” the homeroom teacher announced.
No one was eager to take on these roles, but Kōki and Enka raised their hands.
“Which one do you want? Class president?”
“I’m fine with being vice president.”
Since he was only after the extra credit points, he didn’t mind giving up the presidency. If she wanted it, he’d let her have it.
Once that was settled, it was time for the menial tasks.
They were ordered to fetch paper from the staff room to use for things like the duty roster, so Kōki and Enka headed out into the corridor.
“Nice to work with you.”
“Yeah, you too.”
As he shook Enka’s hand, Kōki tried to recall where he had seen her face before.
That’s right. She was the girl he had bumped into on the day of the entrance exam. If he remembered correctly, Ryugo had saved her from being harassed… but she didn’t seem to remember him.
“Do you remember when my friend helped you out before?” Enka asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah. But the raccoon doesn’t seem to.”
“Raccoon?”
“Watanuki. That’s the nickname of the guy who helped you. Watanuki, without the ‘wa’, makes ‘tanuki’—raccoon.”
“Hee… that’s cute. Do you think he’d get mad if I called him that?”
“I’d advise against it. We use it among close friends, but some people might take it as an insult.”
“Ah, I see. There are people who would do that. I don’t want him to think I’m using it in a bad way, so I’ll make sure to ask him.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“But still, ‘raccoon’. That’s funny.”
Contrary to her first impression, she laughed cheerfully, coming across as a normal, happy-go-lucky girl.
The previous smile that sent chills down my spine must have been a misconception. The more I thought about it, the more cheerful and genuine it seemed.
When I asked for “large paper” in the staff room, I was told it was in the storage room. The door in the back left seemed to be it.
“Well then, Koki-kun. I’ll take this back to the classroom, so please get that.”
“Yeah.”
Koki opened the storage room door, watching as Madoka left the staff room with a cardboard box full of paper bundles.
“Excuse me.”
As he entered, uttering a disclaimer to no one in particular,
“…huh?”
Before his eyes was a girl in a bunny suit.
She sat on a folding chair with her arms crossed, her crimson eyes glaring at him.
Her appearance was so unreal, so elaborate that he doubted it was real. It was as if she were the epitome of beauty, imitating a human.
Seeing something that shouldn’t have been there, Koki’s mind went blank.
It was the first time in his life that his thoughts had stopped.
“Now, let’s start the experiment!!”
A sudden scream.
Before he knew it, the surrounding space had turned white.
A void that seemed to stretch on forever.
Surrounded by overly fancy foreign objects, he just stood there trembling with confusion and fear.
“Welcome.”
The one who spoke in an arrogant tone was the bunny girl from before.
“My name is Miss Bunny Suit. The one with a hundred names. You have been chosen as the subject of our experiments.”
She calmly repeated her explanation to the utterly confused Koki.
“There is a human in your class who received the Experiments app from a being other than me. That person will surely threaten your peace. Find them as soon as possible, and either delete the app or destroy the smartphone it’s downloaded on. This is , in your words, a ‘game’ of sorts.”
“W-what the hell… why do I have to do something like that all of a sudden?”
“Because it has already begun. This is the only way to protect yourself from that enemy. Of course, there is a reward. Eternal ownership of the app and the right to have one wish granted. What do you think? Isn’t that a wonderful proposition? I’m not asking you to kill each other. You can always decline if you really don’t want to. There’s no time limit either.”
“A game… what’s in it for you?”
“I’m interested in humans. But even watching them gets boring after a while. So I thought I’d stir up the water tank and watch the fish panic.”
“Oh, how distasteful…”
“Hurry up and decide. Humans think too slowly.”
“I’m hesitant because you’re so suspicious…”
She seemed to be speaking in a more vulgar manner.
It was still an attractive proposal.
Besides, it sounded interesting. An app that could manipulate people. I wanted to see how it would affect the world.
“Alright. I’ll do it.”
◇
“So that’s how you met that strange woman.”
After hearing the story, Ryugo said.
“Once I saw that the effects were real, Bunny Suit’s words became more believable. That’s when I started secretly using the app to search for other owners, without telling you guys…”
“Aren’t you going to elaborate on that?”
“I’ll skip that part. Besides, the problem starts here.”
As Misato listened to the story, she rested her chin on her hand and pondered.
“Enka too… at that time…?”
“No. At that point, the difference in our levels was clear.”
“So how did you figure out it was Enka?”
“I checked her phone.”
“Huh?”
“You can’t bring your phone to PE class. So I skipped out and checked each person individually.”
“But it’s locked, right?”
“Surprisingly, many people don’t set a passcode. For those who did, I had them show me how to unlock it using ‘commands.’ I instructed them to do it as unconsciously as possible. And Enka was the only one who didn’t ‘t follow along.”
“That’s too forceful…”
“Of course I considered destroying her phone during the next PE class.”
Ryugo shrugged and said in disbelief, “What would you have done if you were wrong?”
“Well, I took too much time. Enka must have used ‘commands’ to have the other students patrolling the area find me, and they chased me around. And then we both realized the other had the app.”
“You should have planned it out a little better.”
“I figured I could just destroy it on the spot if I got caught.”
“Muscle-brained glasses…”
As I listened to their conversation, a question suddenly came to mind.
From Noble mtl dot com
“Wait. Isn’t it possible that Enka gave the app to someone else, like Kokki? What would you do then? You’d have to start searching all over again.”
“That’s not a problem. Bunny Suit, explain it to him.”
Summoned, Bunny Suit gracefully descended the stairs.
Her hair danced softly, and rabbits blew trumpets. I don’t know what the point of this performance was, but it was noisy and I wanted her to stop.
“I’ll answer that question for you.”
Her unnecessarily condescending tone rated on me, but I swallowed my words.
“This Experiment cannot be freely transferred to others. If that were possible, the original completion condition would no longer be met.”
“Then why?”
“The other party committed a rule violation. In exchange, we were allowed to break one rule ourselves.”
“Violation? So does Enka have someone like you too?”
“I’ll tell you about that later. For now, listen to the story. Otherwise, we’ll keep getting sidetracked.”
“Ugh… well, I guess…”
I shut my mouth.
Honestly, I had a lot of questions, but there was a time and place for everything. If I kept digressing, by the time I got back on track I’d have forgotten the original conversation.
“Even though I was wary of Enka, I avoided actively fighting her. My level still wasn’t high enough. Even though she was making it easier for Aira and the others to bully me, I could only resist weakly.
But I guess I was reaching my breaking point. That day, Enka seemed to have decided to eliminate me.”
“That day?”
“Right before I got locked in the cleaning closet, me and Makoto had a standoff with Seiji.”
“No way I’d forget that.”
“Misato was behind us, cheering, ‘Do it! Raccoon!'”
“Huh?”
Was that Misato’s voice back then? No, maybe I just didn’t recognize it because my memories were erased?
My chest started to feel tight.
How could I have forgotten something like that?
“Man, I feel so freaking sick now that I think my memory really was erased… Misato, I think I’m gonna puke.”
“Tanuki…”
“I’m also getting dizzy and I have a headache…”
“You’re overheated.”
“Ugu… bleeeuuugh.”
Ryugo couldn’t hold it in any longer and snatched a trumpet from a nearby rabbit, then proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach into the bell of the instrument.
Everyone around him recoiled in disgust as Ryugo finished puking and handed the now-fetid trumpet back to its owner.
The rabbit kicked at him in anger over having his instrument defiled.
And the bunny suit stared at him blankly.
“Eww…”
“II didn’t want to get puke on the floor…”
“That’s no excuse to puke in an instrument.”
“Is this considered a malicious act?”
“Anything that happens in this space doesn’t count. So your level is fine. But you should still apologize to the rabbit.”
“My apologies…”
The rabbit continued to kick at him.
It seemed he hadn’t been forgiven.