Case 11: The Melancholy of the Planet (4)

The refreshing sound of a bell chimes in my surroundings, as if to wash my soul.

“Please wake up. It’s morning.”

At the sound of that voice, I realized that my left shoulder was aching inexplicably. At some point, I laid down on the hard floor using my left arm as my pillow. At the same time, my body was cold and I sniffled.

When I woke up, I saw that the grated door was already thrown open. The chirping of birds was comforting to my ears, and I stood up, as if enticed. I staggered outside the shrine. My eyes squinted at the pouring sunlight, and I breathed the clean mountain air into my lungs as much as possible.

“Did something interesting happen?” Sako asked with his hands still in his pockets.

“…Who knows.” I merely answered. I felt like it was all a dream, to the point where I couldn’t answer anything else besides that.

Hmmm, Sako smiled.

“It seems you got the answer you were looking for. Well then, shall we look forward to another 250 years?”

A sarcastic wrinkle was etched on his mouth as he looked back at the earthenware pot in the shrine. I, too, gazed at the black earthenware pot in the light of the morning sun. Even though I was with it for a single night, it felt like we had walked together for a thousand years, and I thought I’d pat it one last time before I left, when—

“Well then, please take this.”

I turned around, and Sako handed me out a piece of paper. I opened it to see some sort of URL beginning with ‘www’ written on it.

“What is this?”

“Your reward, of course.”

“No, I asked you how I would get Yoishi to…”

“And this is the answer. Or rather -- it’s something connected to the answer.”

After that, Sako told me even more incomprehensible things.

“I did a lot of research, and in all likelihood, Kurimoto-kun is probably correct.”

“…Huh?”

“I also believe it’s impossible to save Yoishi Mitsurugi-kun. However – that condition is only true, in the possibility that you are excluded. Whatever it is, it’s not words. Nor an item. Time is also a requirement. The one who abandons everything will eventually gain the most precious thing – but it is an old mythological theory.”

“Oi, I don’t understand what you mean.”

When I complained, Sako peered into my face and his cheeks contorted into a smirk.

“You know, this world is -- really, reaaaaally full of idiots, Yamada-kun.”

“…Huh?”

“It’s overflowing with garbage people who can only think of themselves, who can only think in a radius of about fifty centimeters, who live only in the present and curse everything they don't understand as trivial, boring and not worth existing.”

“A-are you talking about me??”

“…Eh? No, no, no, not at all.”

Sako chuckled as he clapped my shoulders.

“You might be a fool, but you’re not an idiot. Kurimoto-kun often asks you if you’re an idiot. That is a statement that can never be directed at a real idiot, and an idiot will usually never realize or imagine that they are an idiot to begin with. But I digress. Anyway, the only thing that can save Yoishi Mitsurugi is a person who can give up everything for the sake of others. Well, I have never seen a person who can do such a thing for a stranger. Well, that's right. If forced, I’d have to say someone like Jesus of Nazareth. Well, that's just folklore, and in any case, it's a mad story.”

When he finished talking as he pleased, Sako chuckled.

“I'll take you to the station,” he said, and with a plop, he pushed me from behind and started walking towards the entrance to the shrine.

After passing through the large Torii gate, the black wagon and men dressed in black that I had seen when I arrived were waiting for me. They deftly carried the earthenware pot back into the car and gestured me inside as well. I got in, and the wagon once again rocked along the mountain road. I thought they’d take me back to Musashino, but for some reason, I alone was dropped off at Okutama station. From what I understood, they had to take that earthenware pot somewhere from that point on.

“I think it’s better if you don’t know where that is.”

Sako gave me a creepy smile, and I complied in disgust. I was already completely exhausted anyway. I thought I’d go to sleep while on the Chuo Line and go home, but I was strangely curious about the piece of paper Sako had handed me, so I took out my mobile phone in the train and tried to access it for the time being.

I thought I wouldn’t be able to access it unless I was on a computer, but it seemed to be a website compatible with my flip phone. I managed to see it, but—

…Huh?

When I scanned through every corner of that site and understood the purpose and meaning of the page—

I ended up discovering a new darkness inside the darkness that was Yoishi Mitsurugi.

“Hey, how the hell is this a hint? That bastard.”

I was physically exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep at all with the new mystery that had appeared in front of me matched together with my anger towards Sako. In the end, I finally reached Mitaka station at last without even a wink of sleep. I staggered and dragged my heavy feet towards the station exit, going against the flow of commuters. I finished descending the stairs and made my way to the roundabout in front of the station, when I saw a familiar shadow.

“Welcome back.”

Long black hair and a black blazer uniform. It was Yoishi Mitsurugi, with a white scarf wrapped around her neck.

“A…Ah, I’m back.”

I merely answered mechanically, but I was strangely happy with the conversation. Welcome back. I’m back. What nice words.

Afterwards, we silently headed through the station roundabout in the direction of Koumei institute.

“You going to school now?”

“It’s bothersome.”

“………….”

“I really don’t feel like going, but...”

“But you’ll go, right? That’s admirable.”

Yoishi sunk into silence when I said that.

We continued to walk without exchanging a word.

But from time to time, I felt Yoishi sneaking a look at me. I somehow understood that she was trying to ask me something, and yet couldn’t. I wouldn’t speak of it until she asked me herself. That floaty, ticklish sensation in my stomach was fun for some reason.

“…What…?”

At last, Yoishi asked with a voice that was seemingly scattered by the wind.

“What did the earthenware pot…?”

“…Hm?”

“What did it ask?”

“Do you want to know?”

“…I’ll hear you out, just because.”

I tried to stop myself from bursting into laughter—

And answered her after a pause.

“It asked: Was it alright to have been born?”

Yoishi stopped in her tracks, and looked at me.

And I stopped as well.

“Surprised, right? I might have been dreaming, but it asked me that probably before dawn. That was the question it had spent 250 years refining and developing.”

Then, what did you answer?

The moment Yoishi looked at me as if to ask that question—

I realized it.

No—I had a feeling I realized it.

The reason Sako told me about that site.

And why I unexpectedly said those words to that earthenware pot.

…No, wait. I should probably think about it some more. I’m known to jump to wrong conclusions, and I was too tired to come up with the answer right now.

So, for now - I turned to Yoishi, smiled as hard as I could and said:

“What I answered -- is a secret between it and me.”