The Two Lunatics Head for the Rooftop

“This is the place.”

Mio stopped in front of the door leading to the rooftop.

After school.

Top floor of the main school building.

A place students normally weren’t allowed to enter.

The door was locked.

And yet, Mio casually pulled out a ring of keys as though this were perfectly normal.

“President.”

“What?”

“Where did you get that key?”

“I was entrusted with it.”

“Um… by who?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Mio smiled sweetly.

“I’ll pass.”

“Wise decision.”

She slid the key into the lock.

Click.

Unlocked.

But Mio didn’t open the door.

Instead, she carefully peered through the small window, checking the rooftop outside.

“Where did you see her at lunch?”

“Over there.”

Itsuki pointed several meters away at an angle.

“Outside the fence.”

“Is she there?”

“No.”

“Check again.”

“She’s not there.”

They went through the exact same exchange one more time before Mio finally opened the door.

The type who looks both ways before crossing a bridge.

Also known as—

a scaredy-cat.

“Let’s go.”

Mio gulped audibly, then took one step forward.

Itsuki did not call her a scaredy-cat.

He’d made that mistake before.

She’d gotten extremely angry.

Wind rushed in.

White sunlight.

The water tower.

The fence.

And beyond it—

the place where the girl in the white dress had been standing.

Nothing.

Itsuki looked all around the rooftop.

Not a shadow.

Not a trace.

“…She’s not here.”

“Are you sure?”

Mio was standing very, very far away, watching him through her camera.

“Check one more time.”

She still didn’t look convinced.

“Why don’t you use that fancy machine of yours?”

Itsuki pointed toward the thermal camera sitting on the equipment cart.

“No way. That’s for self-defense.”

“Boop.”

Itsuki walked over to the cart and switched on the thermal camera.

Pssssshhh!

Clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter!

Smoke.

Followed by an absurdly violent side-to-side dance.

The camera gradually slowed down.

Then stopped completely.

As Mio very deliberately looked away, Itsuki followed her gaze and muttered,

“One hundred thousand yen.”

Once upon a time, he had seen it.

A receipt sitting on the desk in that cluttered club room.

A receipt with an outrageous number printed on it.

“It was defective from the start. You know how fragile precision equipment is.”

“…”

“…”

Her eyes wandered.

His did not.

“Okay. One cafeteria lunch. Deal?”

“And I’m still making you handle the skirt-lifting part.”

“…A painful sacrifice.”

Mio looked like she had just bitten into something horribly bitter.

Itsuki answered her with the brightest smile imaginable.

He could picture it perfectly.

Mio, eyes gleaming with madness, enthusiastically modifying the thermal camera.

“Let’s search somewhere else.”

Mio turned away and started walking.

Itsuki followed a step behind.

And then—

the back of his neck went cold.

It wasn’t the wind.

It felt like someone had leaned close and breathed against his skin.

The ground vanished from beneath his feet.

He couldn’t understand what was happening.

Sky.

Wind.

The sickening sensation of his stomach rising.

And—

the lingering touch of a palm against his back.

By the time he realized what was happening, the ground was right there beneath him.

Itsuki sucked in a sharp breath.

The rooftop floor was under his shoes.

Mio stood in front of him, staring with a puzzled expression.

He turned around.

Beyond the fence.

The exact place where the girl in the white dress had stood that afternoon.

Nothing was there.

And yet—

something deep inside his chest turned cold a beat too late.

“Kusunoki?”

Mio leaned in, peering curiously at his face.

“…It’s nothing.”

Without thinking, Itsuki looked away.

Ah.

She’s going to ask about that.

What a pain.

That was what he expected.

But—

“I see.”

That was all she said.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

Mio started walking ahead of him.

Itsuki nodded a beat later.

He didn’t look back again.

Only the coldness in his chest remained.