There was Minori-san, who, at the end of the day, was dedicated to keeping me safe. And I couldn’t forget...
“..................”
Uhhh.
Well.
I liked Hikaru-san’s.......... I liked Hikaru-san. Pretty much. I guess.
In any event, images of each of their smiling faces flashed through my mind (yes, including Hikaru-san’s taunting grin). It tore me up inside to think they might be suffering. It hurt so bad.
“Brace yourself, Kanou Shinichi,” I told myself, and clenched my fists. You’re the only one who can help them. The only one who can save them. If you abandon them to this plague, you’ll be forever doomed to know you’re a coward, a weakling, a yellow-bellied, lily-livered scaredy-cat!
............
“Pfft, yeah, right,” I mumbled, even as I put my hand on the doorknob. The whole fired-up-hero thing didn’t really work for me. “If nothing else... I can stay in here, but I guess Myusel won’t be around to bring me my food. I’d just starve to death.”
So I could come out now, or I could come out days from now. And if I waited until I was weak with hunger, it would be too late. I had to move while I still had the energy and the stamina. If I acted now, there might be something I could do for the girls (plus Hikaru-san).
I steeled myself, opened the door, and walked out into the hallway.
Outside my room, it was dead silent.
Our mansion was a pretty big place. So big that even with all of us in there, there were still plenty of rooms we didn’t use. My family’s house in Japan was a four-bedroom home, and it probably would have fit in here several times over.
As big as this place was, though, it never felt oppressively quiet. There were always people around, and if you listened closely enough, you could almost always hear someone in another room. It felt very lived-in. Even when I snuck to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I knew there were people there.
But now... Now, I couldn’t sense anyone at all from the hallway. It was like walking through an abandoned building. It wasn’t dark—there were electric lights and a few lamps for good measure—but it was unnaturally quiet, and I thought I felt a chill.
I’d never been in a house quite like this before. I swallowed in spite of myself. Come to think of it, it had been quite a while since I’d left my room for anything except a midnight bath.
Look to the right. Look to the left. Then I closed the door behind me, deciding to go to Hikaru-san’s room. He was the first to drop out of contact, and his room was right next to mine—both good reasons to start there, but the truth is, I really picked it because Myusel was there.
Myusel carried the spare keys for each of our rooms. As long as Hikaru-san hadn’t locked his door from the inside (like I had done while I was being a shut-in), Myusel wouldn’t have had any trouble getting in. If they’d both collapsed from illness, at least his door ought to be open. And if I could actually join forces with Myusel, we would be able to get into the other rooms.
The thoughts raced through my head. For some reason, it scared me not to have sound logic for whatever I was doing. Otherwise, I was afraid I would make a wrong move, and end up looking back and wishing I had done something differently. Of course, if I was so worried about regret, I suppose one could suggest that I shouldn’t have shut myself up in my room to begin with.
But anyway...
As I walked along, I found myself trying not to breathe. In this too-quiet house, the sound of my own breath seemed weirdly loud. And if there were an airborne pathogen hanging around, it might be best not to breathe too deep, or anyway, so I thought.
Just to be safe, I held a tissue that I had grabbed from my room over my mouth. I seemed to remember that tissues had first been mass-produced during World War I, to be used as filters in gas masks, but that after the war they were turned into a general consumer item. I also seemed to recall, though, that it was questionable how much they actually kept viruses or bacteria from getting into your mouth.
Before long, I was standing in front of Hikaru-san’s room. The door was open, sure enough, but only slightly ajar. It wasn’t locked.
I decided to see if anyone was in there before I burst in. “Myusel? Hikaru-san?” But there was no response.
I got up my nerve and put a hand on the door. That hesitation I felt must have come from the fear. What if I opened the door and discovered the worst? But when I really thought about it, I wasn’t even sure what “the worst” would be. If Myusel and Hikaru-san really were out cold in there, I would be glad I had found them sooner rather than later. But they wouldn’t have both just dropped dead... I didn’t think.
Right?
After a lengthy pause, I nudged open the door and peeked inside.
“Wha...?”
The room was... empty.
Not empty of stuff, I mean. The closet was still full, and the sewing machine, bed, and desk were all still there. Hikaru-san’s laptop, which had put itself into sleep mode, was open on the desk, and a half-drunk cup of tea sat beside it, but Hikaru-san himself was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Myusel, who had supposedly come in here.
Had Hikaru-san had to leave his room urgently for some reason? And then maybe Myusel had shown up, discovered he wasn’t there, and went off looking for him?
“But what
