*** Visit for more information. CHAPTER 1 "This one's full of corpses." I was fed up with all of this. I sighed again, bringing today's total to who-kno ws-how-many. "I suppose the idea is that killing people off in all sorts of hideous ways will attract readers. Honestly, though, that sort of meaningless cruelty just strike s me as bad taste." "So, how do you want them to be killed off?" "As long as there's a clear relationship between the killer's actions and motive s, anything's fine. I just can't stand those stories where everybody gets killed off on a whim or whatever." "I see," said Mitsuki. She was fed up, too. I wasn't sure whether her ire was directed at me and my vie ws on literature, or at the person who wrote the narrative that was full of corp ses. Either way, a pall descended over us. It wasn't showing any signs of leavin g, either. "What a pain." I tossed the papers I had in hand on the table. Since they weren't bound togethe r, a number of the papers slid off the table and gently fluttered to the ground. I didn't particularly care to pick them up. "Akihito, show some respect to that wastepaper. Our predecessors put their heart s and souls into it." "When you call it 'wastepaper', I can't bring myself to care a bit, no matter ho w many souls are in it." I let out a strained chuckle at Mitsuki's admonishment as I picked up the papers . Wednesday, April 11th - lunch break. That's the literature club for you. The club issued a quarterly magazine called "Lady of the Night". This year's spr ing issue would be our 200th, and in commemoration of that, we figured that we o ught to do something special for this issue. We talked it over with the other cl ub members and our staff advisor, and in the end, decided that we would make thi s issue a commemorative issue. As such, we would look through all our past issue s - which meant we had to excavate them from the mountains of cardboard boxes la ying around the club room - and select only the finest stories from them for inc lusion. And that's how Mitsuki, the club president, and I, the vice-president, ended up hard at work selecting stories from our past issues. Unlike the regular classrooms, the literature club's room had long tables and fo lding chairs. Old copies of "Lady of the Night" and other papers occupied a good
two tables' worth of space. I looked over a new set of papers. What an unproduc tive thing to be doing. Not just the act of having just two of us attempt to get a grasp on more than a thousand stories, though that was awful in and of itself . The fact of the matter was that some of the writings didn't even seem to flow logically and coherently. _That_ was unproductive. So, for the time being, I jud ged them on how well-organized they were, and on how good their prose was. Ever ything else was a secondary concern. Incidentally, our club had three other memb ers in it, too, but they were all weird in one way or another, so it didn't real ly matter whether or not they were there. ...Come to think of it, if they had be en around, they might've actually slowed us down. "And here we have a mystery with slipshod sci-fi tricks everywhere and nary a cr iminal motive in sight." "If you got that much out of it, just toss it away." I sighed. Mitsuki cocked her head, dramatically. "I was under the impression that mysteries and young-adult novels were our best bet. Or do you mean to say that anything interesting goes? Even violent action s tories and horror stories?" "Just use your discretion for that sort of stuff." "If you say so," said Mitsuki. Then, she handed me a stack of papers. "This one's a fairytale, but it's fairly interesting." "Oh? What's it called?" "Little Red Riding Hood Sans Hood" "Who the hell is she, then!?" I retorted reflexively. Little Red Riding Hood without her hood? The hood is her only distinguishing feature. Something must be wrong with her. Well, then again ... depending on how you look at it, the lack of a hood might be a new distingui shing feature unto itself. Either way, I had just one thing to say. "Are you taking this seriously?" "I am. This is my first time selecting stories for 'Lady of the Night', though, so I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet." Mitsuki suddenly looked serious. Oh... I get it. I shouldn't have said that. It's not like I was any better, anyw ay. Sure, we were judging the stories on the quality of their organization and p rose, but our evaluation of those qualities was subjective to begin with. Those were awfully vague parameters. It was an impartial selection only in name. In al l honesty, we were just picking out the stories we liked. "Sorry about that," I apologized. I had gone too far. After that, I stuffed my cheeks with my lunch: a cutlet sand wich from the school store. Of course, I still had to keep flipping through the papers with my free hand while I chewed. We should've realized how tough this wo uld be when we realized that we wouldn't be able to get it all done during club
hours after school. "Goodness. This ought to be recognized as a new form of torture," grumbled Mitsu ki. Mitsuki tossed the issue of "Lady of the Night" she was working on onto the tabl e. She leaned back in her chair and blankly stared at the ceiling. As the laws of nature would have it, the way she bent against the back of the chair made the prominences on her chest even more prominent. My gaze was drawn to her. That wa s really something. I don't think I'll ever understand what some people see in f lat chests. Then again, I don't understand why big boobs are the number-one prio rity for some people, either. "Hey, Akihito." Mitsuki slowly sat up straight and looked straight at me with her white eyes. It was like she was looking at a pile of dog crap on the side of the road. I knew I had to stand firm, then and there. "Yeah, what?" I replied. My gaze never left her chest. If I had looked away, she would surely have interp reted that as an admission of guilt. To avoid that, I had no choice but to keep on staring at her chest. "You're being lewd." "But I've been working so hard!" I drooped my shoulders in jest. It didn't seem like Mitsuki wanted to reprimand me any further. That said something about how close our relationship was. Nase Mitsuki. She was a second-year in high school. Her family owned quite a bit of land in the area. The first thing I should mention about her is the way she perpetually exudes elegance. She was the spitting image of a young lady from hig h society. Her pale skin was as smooth as china. She had big, round eyes and plu mp, rosy lips. Her sleek, lustrous, black hair fell to her hips. It was angelic. She was a beautiful girl, of the friend's-hot-big-sister type. Eventually, she was to be the heir to her family's empire; but for now, as a second-year in high school, she was the president of the literature club. There was a neverending f low of people knocking at the club room's door, all of them enchanted by Mitsuki 's gorgeous figure and her voluptuous breasts. I wasn't going to let those vagr ants pollute our literature. As the fellow in charge of receiving visitors, I ma de sure to get those reprobates to leave with all due haste. I was a total gentl eman about it, of course. You know what? Let me correct that. I firmly denied al l comers to the club, using language that you wouldn't even hear out of a thuggi sh little middle-schooler. A complaint wafted forth from Mitsuki's beautiful lips: "...If only we had some new members, this would be a lot easier." That was all thanks to this commemorative issue. If we hadn't decided to do tha t, we wouldn't have been wasting our time with this mountain of papers. "We promised not to talk about that, didn't we? We agreed that we'd get this don e with just a few efficient people." "That's the problem. As of now, we're just 'few'; not 'efficient'."
I was at a loss for words. That was all I had going for me: efficiency. And now I don't even have that? Wha t a cruel way of putting it. Just then, the alarm I had set on my phone went off . I pulled my phone out and shut the alarm off. I didn't want to make a huge dea l out of it, but I knew that I had to leave the club room. "I'll be right back." "You're dumping all this work on me?" Mitsuki looked up from her papers and glared at me, with her eyes narrowed. As I stood up, I replied. "Of course not. I'll catch up after school." "I don't want your excuses. Tell me why you need to leave," she demanded. She had a fearsome look on her face. I wasn't going to be able to get out of th is one scot-free with a joke or two. Seeing as I had no other choice, I devised a desperate excuse. "Well, it's a natural-ish phenomenon. You know, _that_." "...What do you mean 'ish'? Besides, if you experience 'natural phenomena' whene ver an alarm goes off, you should really get that checked out." What a mess. Well, she wasn't wrong. Even Pavlov's dogs would be surprised if I were really c onditioned to experience a 'natural phenomenon' whenever an alarm went off. By t he way - Pavlov's dogs were given food whenever a bell rang. Then, whenever the bell rang, the dogs would start slobbering even if there wasn't any food. Such w as life at the Pavlov residence. Well, whatever. That's not the point. As things stood, I didn't have the luxury to pick and choose my excuses. I had to get out of the club room and away from M itsuki as quickly as possible. "Either way, I'm about to burst, so I'm heading out. You don't want to see me ha ve an accident, do you?" "......" It goes without saying that I felt a contemptuous gaze from behind me. That was fine. Just a few seconds later, I became certain that I had made the right decis ion. For, you see, the moment I stepped out of the club room, I felt someone els e staring at me from somewhere. It's a good thing I had put some distance betwee n me and Mitsuki. For the time being, I decided to adopt a wait-and-see attitude . I started meandering in the general direction of the restroom. I was sure I w as being followed. I checked my surroundings, stretching as I did so, so as to a void tipping off my pursuer. I glimpsed a small girl hiding in the shadows of the stairwell. She was staring at me. I think that she thought she had hidden herself from me. If so, she was u nderestimating my spidey-sense. I suspected that she had gotten herself new redrimmed glasses on account of entering high school. It was those red-rimmed glass es that tipped me off. She thought she could hide from me - I, who can identify anyone by their glasses! A terrible mistake on her part.
Well, anyway. Let me be totally honest. Ever since that day, Kuriyama Mirai has been stalking me. It's kind of like that one urban legend. You know, "The call is coming from inside the house!" Granted, we weren't so close as to be calling one another, b ut after three days of her shenanigans, I guess I got used to her, or maybe just mentally prepared for her. "What a pain," I muttered. I started walking again, acting as if nothing had happened. After a little while , I had a feeling that I was about to be sneak-attacked, so I spun around. I gue ss her reflex mustn't have been fast enough. Half of her body was sticking out f rom behind one of the columns in the hallway. Geez. She _really_ looked like sus picious. Even more frighteningly, she didn't even try to re-hide herself more ca refully. She just stood there, stock-still. "Well, that sure must have been my imagination," I loudly said to myself. I kept on walking down the hall. A little while later, I turned around again, on ly to find her standing there motionless, with both hands against the wall. Fran kly, her entire body was on view. She was looking straight at me, her eyes unmov ing, much like a wax effigy. She was so bad at this, it was terrifying. From my point of view, a girl who looks good in glasses looks quadratically cuter than a girl who doesn't. And she still managed to inspire fear in me... that must be t he work of the devil. I walked a bit farther down the hall and turned around again. She had stopped wi th one foot in the air. Don't tell me that she thinks I can only see moving obje cts. What am I, a frog? This time, I posed as though I was going to start walkin g again, but instead looked over my shoulder. She was standing there in a forwar d-leaning pose. And she was still as stationary as a statue. Holycrapholycraphol ycrap. Are we playing Red Light Green Light now?! Is this a test? Is she trying to see how long I can go without commenting on her !? "......" A minute passed with our eyes locked on one another. I couldn't figure out what the hell she was thinking. Anyway, the point of the matter is that she was at po int blank range. If I were to affront her, this whole situation would end up the same way as it did on the roof the other day. Bad End. Much as I would've like d to consider the school building a safe place during school hours, I simply cou ldn't. Not after having seen all of the bizarre things she'd done over the past few days. I glanced away from her, so as to make my way to a place with fewer people. And then. She threw open the door of a nearby supply closet and leapt into it to hide. She must've gotten her foot caught in a bucket or something, judging from the awful clatter that followed. She fell back into the hall, covered in brooms and mops and things of that ilk. In a situation like that, your typical adolescent male might try to look up her skirt. I, on the other hand, would not. No, I was far more concerned about her red-rimmed glasses - had they fallen off? Did something fall on them and break them? Seeing that they were unharmed, I felt a kind of subtle delight slowly welling up within me. That was no time to be laughing out of relief, of course. I knew that she didn't want to hear me say it, but I said
it anyway. "Are you okay?" She slowly lifted her upper body off the ground. As she adjusted her glasses, she replied, "Oh, Kanbara. What a coincidence." "Coincidence, my foot! If 'it was a coincidence' was a good enough explanation o f why you just fell out of a supply closet, 'What a coincidence!' would be the m otto of trespassers everywhere!" "This is unpleasant." She scorned my clever reply yet again. Using a lens-cleaning cloth, she wiped th e smudges off her glasses. Cleaning your glasses at a time like this? That takes serious guts. I stood there silently for a while, watching her silently clean her glasses. It didn't look like she was going to be done any time soon. Somehow , I ended up realizing what she was up to. I prodded at her: "I don't think you'll find any good excuses hidden in those gl asses." "W-w-w-w-w-what? I w-wasn't looking for an e-e-excuse." "Just look at you! You look as shifty as anything!" "Because you confubbled me!" she pouted. She was playing the victim now. I had no idea why she was mad at me. I must say, though, a girl in glasses looking sullen makes for a pretty picture. While tho se thoughts were running through my head, she cocked her head. "Are you listening to what I'm saying?" asked she. "Yeah, yeah, I am. The hidden potential of glasses and all that, right?" "I never said anything about that! I was talking about whether or not I should t hink up a good excuse!" "Oh... right. So, have you come up with anything good?" "U-u-um. S-s-s-see you l-later!" And with that, she ran off like the wind. I saw her off with a snigger. Sure, sh e acts like a stooge, but once you get to know her, she's pretty cute. I was abo ut to head back to the clubroom, when I noticed the entrails of the supply close t out of the corner of my eye. Seeing as the culprit had already escaped, it dev olved upon me to clean up her mess. I sighed mightily. The hallway was empty, so no-one heard me.
