CH 101

Vanishing Objects

Translated by LyraDhani

Edited by LyraDhani

When Tsugumi returned to Chidori with Azalea, Yukitaka was no longer there.

“No Yukitaka, huh? Did he say anything strange to you while you were waiting?”

When Tsugumi asked this question while looking around, Chidori gave a small smile and shook her head.

“No, because Amari-kun left right after that. …Um, Tsugumi. Perhaps the person behind you is…”

“Ah, let me introduce him to you. He’s Azalea Lake, a distant relative that Mebuki-senpai mentioned. He wanted to meet Chidori, so I brought him here.”

Saying this, Tsugumi pulled Azalea’s hand, who was standing diagonally behind him and brought him out in front of Chidori. Azalea, who stepped in front of him, gave a friendly smile and greeted Chidori, holding out his right hand.

“Nice to meet you, Nanase Chidori-san. It is a pleasure to meet you. Actually, I’ve heard a lot about you from Kei.”

“It’s nice to meet you too. Um, what did Kei-senpai say about me?”

Chidori shyly squeezed Azalea’s hand back and asked him so with an anxious expression. …Probably, she was wondering what Mebuki had been talking about.

–It was an open secret within the school that she was a Magical Girl, but not many details were known about her. Since it was that Mebuki, she would not have told him anything other than what was safe to talk about, but she was still worried.

Despite their concerns, Azalea began to speak in a perfectly normal manner.

“–As I recall, you are interested in foreign literature, aren’t you, Chidori-san? If you like, I can lend you a book I brought in.”

“Eh, really!?”

Chidori’s face lit up at Azalea’s words, and she asked happily.

“Yes. I don’t know what kind of books you like, so I will bring you a list next time. I speak English, German, and Italian to a certain extent, so if you have any phrases you don’t understand, please feel free to ask me.”

“Wow, thank you! I’m glad to hear you say that, because there were many things I didn’t understand when I studied languages on my own.”

Staring at Chidori, who was smiling and talking to Azalea as she said this, Tsugumi let out a small sigh. The Magical Girl thing was a groundless fear, but this was a complicated one.

It was heartwarming that Chidori was honestly happy, but he felt a little lonely when she got excited about a story he couldn’t keep up with.

While Chidori and Azalea were talking congenially about their favorite genres of books, Tsugumi stared at his watch.

–There were only 30 minutes left until the screening of the movie they were going to see. Considering the time it would take to get around and buy tickets, it was time to get moving.

“I’m sorry, Chidori. It’s time to go.”

When she heard this, Chidori looked at her watch with a startled expression.

“Ah, it’s true. –Thank you for talking with me today, Lake-kun. May I speak to you again at school?”

“Yes, with pleasure. –Where are you going after this?”

“I’m going to the movies with my Tsugumi. And you, Lake-kun?”

“I think I’ll just go home. And I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused Nanase-kun…”

Seeing Azalea’s shoulders slumped, Chidori’s expression clouded with pity, and Tsugumi suddenly said something that came to mind.

“–If Azalea is okay with it, why don’t we go to the movies together like this?”

“Eh?”

“If you don’t like it, that’s fine. I heard it’s a romantic movie.”

Azalea blinked in surprise at his sudden invitation, but Tsugumi tried to make it up to him. Thinking about it, there was no way that a normal high school boy would like to watch romantic movies. Even Azalea would be annoyed if he were invited.

But Azalea, contrary to his expectations, smiled happily.

“Is it okay? –Fufu. Actually, this is my first time watching a movie in a theater.”

Seeing Azalea laughing like that, Tsugumi exhaled with a sense of relief.

“I see. Then it’s time to move–Chidori? What’s wrong?”

When Tsugumi turned his head toward Chidori, Chidori’s eyes wandered in the shaken wind, and she lightly crossed the fingers of her hands and twirled her thumbs in a circular motion. When Tsugumi asked this, Chidori opened her mouth with a troubled smile.

“No, um, don’t worry about it… I just thought it would be a little embarrassing to watch a romantic movie with a boy.”

“You were originally going to see the movie with me, so what’s the big deal now?”

When Tsugumi told her this in dismay, Chidori opened her mouth with a miffed look.

“Because Tsugumi is not Tsugumi. Oh, it’s not that I don’t like you, Lake-kun!”

When Chidori said this in a flustered tone, Azalea burst out laughing.

“You two really get along. I envy you.”

“Even Lake-kun is making fun of me like that.”

Seeing Chidori’s cheeks puffed out as if he was unfaithful, Tsugumi smiled a little.

–You seem somewhat depressed lately, but this seems to be working.

He hadn’t been able to pay much attention to Chidori because he had his hands full with Sakura-oneechan, but for a while now, Chidori had seemed to be troubled by something. Lately, even when she was smiling, there was an air of being somewhat overwhelmed, but he didn’t see any sign of that in Chidori now.

It’s worth going out together, he thought, as he walked to the movie theater.

◆　◆　◆

It was a long walk. Wrapped in the cool, air-conditioned air, Tsugumi wiped the sweat from his forehead. It seemed that July sunshine was toxic to the body.

After purchasing tickets and securing their seats, Tsugumi and the others looked at the movie poster and talked about trivial things. In the midst of all this, Chidori glanced at her watch, then approached Tsugumi and spoke to him in a small voice.

“Hey, Tsugumi. I’m going to the restroom for a while.”

“I understand. I’ll get you a drink in the meantime.”

“Really? Then I’ll ask you to do it for me.”

After saying so, Chidori walked to the restroom at the back of the movie theater.

–It was already fifteen minutes since Chidori had left her seat. Tsugumi opened his mouth worriedly, looking at his watch.

“…It’s taking quite a long time. Did something happen?”

After buying the drinks, the two were quietly waiting for Chidori to return, but she didn’t come back. Almost fifteen minutes had passed, and the movie would start in a few minutes. He tried to call her on the phone, but there was no sign of a connection probably because the signal was bad.

“Sorry, Azalea. Can I ask you to wait here? I’m going to ask the receptionist to take a look inside.”

Tsugumi told Azalea this and asked the female staff at the reception desk to check on her sister, since she had not come out of the bathroom for an extended period of time.

…Chidori would be embarrassed and angry if she heard about this, but it couldn’t be helped at this point.

Then he and the female staff member headed to the entrance of the restroom, and Tsugumi stopped just before the entrance. As expected, he couldn’t go any further.

“Then, let’s take a look. …Oh, why is this thing here?”

Tsugumi looked beyond the woman’s line of sight. He noticed a small sign painted ‘No Trespassing’ in the middle of the road.

“Was it perhaps being cleaned?”

“No, I don’t think it’s supposed to be cleaned at this time of day…”

The female staff member looked puzzled and moved the sign to the side. At that moment, a girl of junior high school age came running from across the street with an impatient look.

“Excuse me!! Please help me!!”

The girl raised her voice, clung to the staff in front of her while trembling, and began to speak in a tearful voice.

“Excuse me! My friend didn’t come out of the bathroom for about 20 minutes! I thought she might have fallen down, so I got worried. I didn’t see anyone around, so I climbed up and looked from above, but no one was in there! There’s only a broken cell phone and a white jacket! Rio–where is my friend?”

“Um, please calm down, customer!”

The female staff tried to calm the girl down, but she just cried and squirmed, and she didn’t seem to calm down.

Tsugumi, who was watching the situation from the side, noticed something in the girl’s words that stuck in his mind.

“White jacket?”

–Today, Chidori should have been wearing a white jacket.

Chidori didn’t come out of the bathroom. A white jacket that had fallen off. The strange coincidence sent a chill down his spine.

Tsugumi approached the crying girl, grabbed her by the shoulders, and asked.

“Hey, tell me something. Did your friend wear a white jacket, too?”

The girl’s eyes widened in surprise, startled by the sudden grab on her shoulder. Tears were falling from her wide-open eyes. The girl was at a loss for words but answered Tsugumi’s question.

“Uh, no. She was wearing a black hoodie…”

“Yes, thank you.”

After confirming the girl’s words, Tsugumi quickly slipped past them and entered the women’s restroom without hesitation. From behind, a voice shouted, “Sir! Please wait!” but there was no time to worry about that.

Tsugumi suppressed his impatience and manipulated a thread to unlock the private room. Slowly, with a prayer, he opened the door.

–The private room was empty, just as the girl had said it would be.

“Chidori, why…”

Tsugumi stared at the fallen object, muttering this in dismay.

Two cell phones, their screens destroyed and sinking into the water, and a white jacket dotted with red stains – exactly the same as the one Chidori was wearing – were on the floor.