TOMOYUKI SHIRAI

Born in Chiba Prefecture in 1990. His debut work, 2014's Human Faces are Hard to Eat, was a finalist for the 34th Seishi Yokomizo award. In 2023, he came in first in the Honkaku Mystery Best Ten and won the Honkaku Mystery Award (Novel Category) for The Sacrifice of the Great Detective: The People's Church Murder Case. His other works include The Honest Men, Good Night Human Faced Tumor, Elephant Head, and I'm a Monster, You're a Monster.

*This story contains spoilers related to Magic Mirror by Alice Arisugawa.

1

I don't like getting messages from friends. Did I cause them trouble? Did I say something to upset them? I spend about ten minutes worrying before opening the message. Most of the time, it's just some empty fluff like “How are you doing?” or “What's up?” I exhale, relieved, but as I think of how to reply, I find myself getting more and more angry. Why should I have to tell this fluff-slinging spammeister how I am and what I'm doing? If I said my family home burned down or I was just diagnosed with a terminal disease and knew how long I had until I died, would they be prepared to accept that? As I repeatedly type messages and erase without sending them, I feel silly thinking about it so seriously, so I put my smartphone back in my pocket and sit down with a can of beer and a bag of beer nuts. Eventually, when I get sleepy and go to set the alarm on my phone, I suddenly come to my senses and, with a feeling of liberation, respond with some empty fluff like “Not much, I guess.”

I get like this even with my close friends, so you can imagine what happens when I'm messaged by someone I lost contact with a long time ago. Just what is their purpose in calling me now? Do they need money? Are they trying to sell me something? Oh, come to think of it, the election for the House of Representatives is soon. I remember they posted on Facebook that they got a job at an insurance company. Before I realize, I'm hyperventilating and my armpits are drenched in sweat. Most of the time, I don't even open the message, and sometimes I get so upset I delete the messenger app entirely.

So when I got a message from Eiji Kagami for the first time in four years, my heart immediately began racing.

I first met Eiji six years ago. At the time, I was still attending Togoku University as a full time student, and I was a member of the Mystery Research Society. That name might sound a bit shady, like it's full of annoying guys who will constantly shove occult trivia in your face even though nobody asked, but it was actually a gathering place for fans of mystery novels, with nary a reference to the prophecies of Nostradamus or Apollo moon landing conspiracies to be found. Literature clubs are usually filled with immature college students who don't look like they've advanced past middle school, but the Mystery Research Society was a place where that immaturity was boiled down and refined to a high degree of purity. We only had about five or six members, and that's if you included the “ghost members” who signed their names on the registry but never actually showed up. Although the club was constantly teetering on the brink of being shut down, the members never handed out flyers to new students or posted about club activities on social media, but just sat around killing time by talking shit about the other literary clubs. Of course, it was unlikely any freshmen would be attracted by upperclassmen handing out flyers like characters in Les Mis in the first place. The Society's oral tradition held that some of our esteemed predecessors had once been inspired to share their favorite stories and left hardcover copies of Offerings to the Void all over campus, but one of the freshmen remembered that they were supposed to “contact campus security if you see anyone suspicious” and called the guards, so the only thing that resulted in was an increase in patrols around the club building.

As you'd expect from such a listless society, the relationships between its members were thinner than the oxygen at the top of Mt. Fuji, but strangely enough, Eiji and I got along well. We both liked the sorts of books where people got their heads chopped off and intestines yanked out, and we often lent each other books and exchanged opinions over mixed nuts in the club room.

It had been about four years since I'd last had contact with Eiji. I wondered what he was up to now. Feeling excitement and anxiety mix together like the different nuts in a bag of mixed beer nuts, I cautiously opened the message.

The first thing to catch my eye was a photograph. It was of a left-hand page from a magazine printed on A5 paper, with a headline reading “The Finalists of the 13th Yuho Mystery Award Have Been Decided!” Beneath it were four pairs of novel titles and authors.

“I saw this in a used bookstore. You never told me you wrote a novel!”

My chest ached.

I'd written novels in college. I never told anyone because I was embarrassed about it. While the students around me were busy working part time jobs, getting internships, and doing volunteer work, I spent my time thinking of locked room tricks and logical paths to nonexistent culprits, making myself feel like a waste of space. That feeling never changed, even when I was talking to Eiji, who had the same hobby.

“I'm looking forward to reading it!”

The copy of Shosetsu Yuho Eiji had found in the bookstore was accompanied by an emoji of a face blowing steam from its nose, but unfortunately, that magazine was published last year. The review in the next issue slammed my book as “ridiculous”, “dull”, and “not even a real novel”, and I haven't been able to write a single line since.

A single Google search would reveal the results of the final selection. Eiji would probably learn I'd been eliminated soon enough. After ten minutes of typing and deleting, I sent him a response:

“Thanks. Well, it was just something to kill time. I'll take it easy and do my best.”

Two days later.

I received another message.

“I'm going to Tokyo for a memorial service in November. Want to go get a drink?”

That was when I started to feel like something was wrong.

When we were in college, Eiji had been a real country boy, and I was always the one who had to approach him about food, drinks, and secondhand book stores. Even if he was desperate to go out for drinks, he'd just mumble suggestive things like “I haven't had a drink in a while” or “I don't have anything to do tonight” and hope I asked him.

I guess he'd, as they say, really come out of his shell in the past four years. But they also say a leopard can't change its spots. Was he trying to sell me something after all? Was he about to tell me how he made $10,000 a month just using an app on his phone?

After spending an even 40 minutes thinking about it while repeatedly opening and closing the app, I sent a reply as though I'd just noticed the message.

“Sure. You have a place in mind?”

2

Our meetup for drinks never happened.

Because Eiji's aunt's memorial service was held on a Sunday.

On that evening of the day of November 26th, we went to a multi-course restaurant for a vegetarian meal (it was a Buddhist memorial service and we wanted to be respectful), so it would have been difficult to leave partway through. The following day, the 27th, was Monday. Hard as it is to believe, I am a working adult and I had to go to work. I had hoped he'd stay in Tokyo until Monday night, but a relative who couldn't attend the service due to a bad back wanted to know how it had gone, so Eiji had to be back in Aomori by that evening.

No matter how much we wanted to, it didn't look there was any way we'd be able to make a toast. So I decided to at least get some tea, and we made an appointment to meet near Tokyo Station the morning of the 27th.

I work for a web production company in Nishi-Shinjuku. Most employees from outside the sales department don't come in to work until after noon. In my second year of working for the company, I was in charge of answering the phone for the second production department, but all we ever got were calls from real estate salespeople. Nobody would notice if I slacked off.

10:00 A.M. In the Yaesu Underground Mall, a place only capable adults go, we sat in the corner of a cafe called PINKY PROMISE, which seemed the place where we'd be least likely to be bombarded by solicitations to join an MLM.

“You look well.”

That was where Eiji and I met for the first time in four years.

“The truth is, there's something I want you to see.”

Eiji looked a little nervous. He spoke as though he was reading from a script, then opened the zipper on the side of his Boston bag. He was wearing a sweater with loose sleeves and faded denim jeans. His half-rim glasses were the same as when he was a student.

“Here it is.” He took out a campus notebook, filled with letters the size of rice grains. I instinctively looked away, focusing on removing the straw from its paper wrapping. That book was probably full of SEO strategies that would get you on the first page of Google search results. Should I just leave now, or should I at least listen to his intro? As I hesitated and swished my ice with the straw,

“The old Society notebook. Isn't it nostalgic?”

Eiji flipped through the pages. Comments on the new menu at the school cafeteria, complaints about the required course in first period, insults for the driving school instructor. There were a lot of pointless notes lined up. It looked more like a doodler's notebook than society notes. I remembered I'd given Eiji that notebook when he had to drop out of school for family reasons.

“Do you remember? We all decided on this together.”

The page Eiji was pointing at was labeled in bold letters “Top 10 alibi breaking stories, as chosen by the Togoku University Mystery Research Society!” Written beneath were top ten lists for various different themes, including “locked room murders”, “disappearing people”, “headless bodies”, “guess the culprit stories”, “unique motives”, and “inverted mysteries”.

“The top ranked locked room story is Kazeko Takahashi's The Locked Room of the Dog. You remember, don't you?”

I couldn't help but smile, feeling nostalgic and a little embarrassed.

“I still can't accept that Seiichi Makabe's The Impossible Key only came in third. The Dickson Carr of Japan must be spinning in his grave.”

Even though I was complaining, Eiji grinned at me.

“The top rated alibi breaker was Gaku Akaboshi's Alibi of the Bell. Isn't that part of the Professor Hirosaki series?”

“Yeah, the one with that American kid.”

“There's no way that could be number one. The Clockwork Traveler is so much better.”

“Masaya Sorachi's The Third Railroad came in fourth.”

“Was Sayoko Asai's Red Rain even a guess the criminal story?”

“It had elements of that. Though if it were me, I'd have put Revenge After 1,200 Years.”

“It's definitely the number one guess the culprit story. As expected-”

“Hey,” Eiji said, miming writing with a stirrer. “I've been writing lately. A novel.” “I'm writing. And I got a pay cut for it.”

“Huh?”

The stirrer fell.

After I received that message from Eiji two months ago, I made up my mind. For the first time, someone I knew had learned I had written a novel. It was as good a reason as any. I didn't want to become an old man and still be concerned with pleasing my boss and making excuses for my clients. So I was going to get serious.

As I flipped through a magazine from the convenience store nearest to my office, I discovered a new writer's award, with a deadline of the end of October. The Gold Arrow Award, sponsored by Hakuyusha. It was a gateway to success for mystery writers, having produced a number of winners who went on to have long and distinguished careers. The only drawback was that the prize money was low, but the royalties would make up for that.

Rummaging through old folders on my computer, I managed to find a full length alibi novel I'd written on 300 pages of manuscript paper in university and abandoned. The Gold Arrow Award had a minimum page requirement of 350 pages. I was sure I could manage 50 pages.

A month later, I'd abused my sick days and vacation days until my whiteboard was dented, and had pushed off all the presentation materials the department manager had asked me to prepare onto a junior colleague, saying I was “busy”, and somehow, I'd managed to prepare a 371 page finished novel.

When I read it back, I thought it was good. The plot was clever and the trick was cleverer. But the writing had a few rough patches.

I wished I had another day to revise it, but I didn't have any paid leave left. And so, I'd been forced to turn to my last resort.

The next day, I left work and called out to my coworker, Goda, who was smoking a Marlboro in the smoking section of the convenience store across the street. Goda was browsing Tinder on his company phone.

“I'll leave everything up to you tomorrow,” I said, removing the card from around my neck and, with a declaration of “Just swipe it,” shoving it in Goda's pocket. Goda shot me a glance through bangs that looked like dried seaweed and said

“I want an S. Lunch from Sushi Hide.”

He swiped the screen with tan fingers. A woman holding a Shih Tzu disappeared to the left.

The reason the curly-banged ape didn't change his expression was: Until recently, he'd been seconded to a major ad agency, and by holding its business card and listing it in his profile, he was able to match with women from Aoyama and Roppongi who may as well have had the YSL logo stamped on their surgically reformed noses. However, he was actually a shabby salesman from a production company, so his words and actions were much shallower than his persona. Therefore, his dates often doubted his identity. They would look through his phone while he was in the shower and even follow him around. So what did he do? In order to avoid being found out, he went to the ad agency he was seconded to and pretended he worked there. The 30 minute round trip was a small price to pay to get two or three more love hotel visits out of each girlfriend.

However, if he left his seat empty too often, the sales manager, who had a slight mohawk, might have noticed what he was doing. When that happened, he would hand his employee ID card to a colleague ahead of time and have them swipe the card reader on his behalf. As long as there was a record that he had come into work, mohawk couldn't find fault with him. He was a man who would probably be stabbed in his bed someday, but I had a few milligrams of respect for his initiative.

That day, though, I was the one to hand my employee ID card to him.

I printed out the 371 pages of manuscript paper at the convenience store and began revising them. I turned off my phone to completely immerse myself in the story. I spent the next eleven hours making markings and corrections without eating or drinking. When I flipped over the final sheet of paper, I had emptied three pens and orange sunlight was pouring in through the window.

My stomach growled. I hadn't eaten since that morning. As I peeled a banana, I turned on my smartphone.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Notifications rang out one after another.

I looked at the screen, and my blood ran cold. My call history was lined up. There was the client I was in charge of. There were the names of my senior in the second production department, the department manager, and even a company executive. I hesitantly called the department manager back, and he told me that a client had complained about an omission on the website for the new adhesive released yesterday. A correction was needed urgently, but he couldn't get in touch with the person in charge. When the manager checked the attendance record, the employee had signed into the office, but was nowhere to be seen. What was going on?

“So I'm looking at pay cuts for the next three months.”

I downed my entire iced coffee in one gulp and slammed the plastic cup down on the tray. I wiped my wet hands with a paper napkin.

“Did you at least make the deadline?”

Eiji's eyelids were twitching like he was simultaneously laughing and crying. He probably didn't know whether to laugh or sympathize with me.

“I pulled it off somehow.”

“Well, that's fine then. You'll get them back when you win the award.”

He grabbed his paper cup and struck a fighting pose. He was trying to encourage me in his own way. He put his mouth to the hot coffee and said

“Hot!”

Then immediately dropped the cup. The coffee spilled on the way down. A brown puddle spread across the floor.

“Sorry.”

As he reached for a napkin, he knocked over my iced coffee. Luckily, its contents were still in my stomach, but the plastic cup rolled across the floor to stop against the bag of a salaryman two seats away.

“Mina, number seven.”

A man in a vest who looked like the cafe's manager gave instructions to a staff girl. A young waitress with curly hair ran over and started wiping the floor with paper towels. The salaryman two seats away glared at Eiji, then went back to working on his Excel spreadsheets as though nothing had happened.

By the time the floor was once again sparkling clean, Eiji had hunched up his shoulders like a scolded child.

Just when I'd thought our conversation about my pay cut had lightened the mood, we had been returned to square one. At that point, I had no choice but to cut through with brute force.

“So how are things with you?” I asked bluntly. “It's been four years since you dropped out of college, right? What have you been up to lately?”

In the summer of his third year of college, Eiji dropped out and returned to his hometown of Aomori City.

The trigger was the sudden death of his mother. His father had already died, in an accident when Eiji was in elementary school. From the day we'd met, Eiji had already seemed to be struggling financially, relying on scholarships and taking on credit card debt to make ends meet. He'd received a small inheritance, but he had no idea how he was going to pay tuition for next semester.

No.

That isn't strictly true. There was a way that Eiji could have stayed at university.

Eiji was a twin. His older twin brother was named Koichi. They were identical, perfectly alike in face, height, and build. They'd both gone to Togoku University in Sendai after graduating from a high school in Aomori, but they had different academic focuses, with older brother Koichi being enrolled in the Faculty of Economics and younger brother Eiji enrolled in the Faculty of Letters.

What had the brothers said to one another after their mother's death? I imagine that the timid Eiji was unilaterally abused, but I have no way of knowing for sure. All I know is that the older brother, Koichi, stayed and finished university, and Eiji returned to Aomori.

For the remaining two years, until the day I graduated, every time I saw Koichi I had to force down ugly emotions. Why was Eiji the only one to have his university life taken from him? I grew to hate the sound of cheerful laughter echoing off the cafeteria walls.

“I remember you worked at a food factory?”

I remembered him saying on our way back from the Mystery Research Society's farewell party that he was going to work in the factory of a local candy manufacturer.

“I quit. I worked there for two years, but after the accident...”

I couldn't help but look at him.

“No, it wasn't me.” His eyelashes fluttered for a moment. He looked sad. “There was another man there my age. He also liked books. Though he preferred romance stories. He was a real oddball; he'd actually read the complete works of Kouichi Rindo.”

A guy the same age as us read that? He was odd.

“He was the one who had the accident. While he was cleaning the belt, he forgot to turn off the cutter, and he got caught in the machine.”

“You don't mean...”

“No, it was just the cookie dough cutter. He lived, but he was injured.” He grabbed his own index finger. “The factory reopened the next day, but I couldn't go near the line. Every time I entered the factory, I felt like I could still see the blood. Just hearing the sound of the belt made me freeze up. I asked for a half month's leave, and I never returned.”

He smiled awkwardly, as though someone was physically holding up his cheeks. I regretted bringing up our jobs so casually.

“What about your brother?” I changed the subject. “Is he doing well where he is?”

“Yeah. He seems to be doing good.” Finally, he showed me a natural smile. “He graduated and got a job at a pharmaceutical company in Osaka, but before I knew it, he'd started his own company. It's called Medical Porter Japan.”

“What does that do?”

“They import pharmaceuticals from overseas. I hear their main products are baldness treatments, cures for erectile dysfunction, anesthetics for use in cosmetic surgery, and anti-inflammatory drugs.”

“Is that okay?”

Because it sounded really suspicious.

“Apparently it's legal if you go through the proper channels.”

He scratched the back of his neck as though he wasn't sure.

“That guy is so arrogant. He acts like a big shot CEO, always wearing a flashy pink tie and smoking cigars. He never visits, and even though he grew up eating Tsugaru apples, now he speaks in this obnoxious fake Kansai dialect. Yesterday was the third anniversary of our aunt's death, and the monk scolded him for wearing this big, flashy ring.”

He made a circle the size of a golf ball with his thumb and index finger. Seriously?

“But, well, it's thanks to him that I don't have money problems anymore. He even paid back the two years of tuition I spend on college, so I really shouldn't complain.”

Ding! My smartphone went off. It was an inquiry about an expense settlement from the General Affairs Department.

“Is the time I have here correct?”

Eiji also took out his phone and said it was 11:30. If I wasn't back at my desk by 12, I could take another pay cut.

“Shall we go now?”

We each paid our half of the bill and left the cafe. We went up the elevator, said

“See you.”

And parted ways in front of the ticket gate of the Yaesu Central Exit of Tokyo Station.

I quickly made my way down the passageway to the Marunouchi side. It was nice to see Eiji again after so long, and it was a shame that we'd only had time to catch up on our lives. If we had another chance, I'd like to talk about meaningless things like we did in college. I'd try to get in touch with him again – That's what I was thinking when...

“Hot!”

A deep voice hit my ears.

A man in a tour jacket was juggling a small can of coffee. It looked like the vending machine's heating pump was too strong.

I passed the eagle (or maybe it was a hawk?) on the back of the man's jacket, took a few more steps, then stopped.

Just a few minutes ago, Eiji had also tried to drink hot coffee, said “Hot!”, and dropped the cup. I'd made the completely reasonable-seeming assumption that the coffee was too hot and he'd dropped it.

But that was 30, maybe even 40 minutes after we'd entered the cafe. Surely the coffee should have cooled a bit by then.

Maybe I'd just lost track of time cheerily talking about my failure. But that wasn't Eiji's only mistake. As he'd gone to grab a napkin, he knocked over my iced coffee. The plastic cup had rolled across the floor and hit the salaryman two seats over's bag.

The reason the cup had rolled so far was because it was empty. Even the ice had melted away. So it must have been over 20 minutes since we'd sat down.

That meant there was only one possibility.

Eiji had been acting.

He'd pretended the coffee was hot and dropped the cup on purpose.

The strange feeling I'd had when I read Eiji's message two months ago came back. Why had Eiji contacted me? Why was he acting the way that he was?

3

I attended a regular meeting with a stationery manufacturer regarding the operations of their online shop, and after giving a hearty nod at their head of PR's explanation of the wondrous effects yogurt was having on his bowel movements, I went to a noodle stand for some soba with grated daikon, then returned to the office.

The moment I returned to the second production department's floor, I felt everyone's eyes on me. Did I get noodle broth on my shirt? I instinctively checked my reflection in the window.

“Oi.”

The department head beckoned for me with a frown. Two executives were next to him. What was going on?

“The police called us. They want to talk to you.”

My blood froze.

Would the police have come all this way for one instance of false clocking in? If they arrested salarymen for that, wouldn't the entire Shinbashi and Otemachi districts be wiped out?

Steadying my trembling hands, I called the number on the sticky note I was given. A man answered immediately.

“We're about ten minutes from your company. I'm sure you'll be able to see us. Please come over.”

It seemed he was serious. I wanted to reply that I had plans, but I didn't want to make him wait until I was done with work.

I stood in front of the schedule on the whiteboard for a while, then wrote “Investigation” and left the office.

When I entered the coffee shop he'd designated, two men got up at the same time.

“Nebukawa, Kanagawa Prefectural Police.”

The man with long sideburns handed me his business card. He was from the Criminal Affairs Department, Investigation Division One, and his rank was Inspector. At first he looked more like the villain from a direct-to-video movie, but Nebukawa's expression softened into a kindly, donkey-esque face that looked more like the public relations officer of a local bank.

“This is-”

Speaking softly, he tried to introduce the man with no side burns at his side.

“There's no need to introduce yourselves,” I said, raising my voice to regain control of the conversation. “I'm a good citizen. I separate my recycling and I pay for my pension. It's true, I had a coworker swipe my ID card once, but-”

“We're investigating a murder that took place in a villa on Miura Beach.”

What?

“Do you know Mr. Eiji Kagami?”

Nebukawa asked, even though he must have already known the answer.

“We were in the same club in university. You don't mean Eiji's involved with the case?”

“Please don't worry. Mr. Eiji is safe. The victim was a Mr. Hisashi Nonoshima. A man in his fifties.”

“Then why did you come to me?”

“Four years ago, Mr. Nonoshima was married to Mr. Eiji's mother, Mrs. Yuri Kagami. Although it was only brief, there was a period of time when Mr. Nonoshima and Mr. Eiji were legally father and son.”

Four years ago was when Eiji's mother died and he was forced to drop out of school. Was this Nonoshima person involved in that string of misfortunes? If so, then Eiji would certainly have a motive.

“Do you think Eiji killed him?”

“You met with Mr. Eiji on the 27th, didn't you?”

He answered all my questions with more questions.

At his urging, I explained how he'd invited me to meet him because he was in Tokyo for a memorial service, and how we'd met in a cafe in the Yaesu Underground Mall at 10:00 A.M., and parted ways in front of the ticket gate at the Yaesu Central Exit of Tokyo Station just after 11:30.

“And how was Mr. Eiji that day? Was anything about him out of the ordinary?”

“Nothing at all...”

That wasn't true. Eiji had been acting strange that day. But if I said that carelessly, Eiji could wind up being subjected to unnecessary suspicion.

“We never assume anything from a single testimony. We always verify.”

Nebukawa spoke as though he'd noticed my hesitation. The waiter brought me my iced coffee, so I slowly inserted the straw as I formulated my reply.

“Well, he did seem a bit nervous.”

That wasn't a lie.

“Did you ever notice anything unnatural while you were talking?”

The other man interjected. If Nebukawa was a local banker, this man worked in foreign exchange. Even though he was a civil servant, he was wearing a flashy jacket like you'd see on a foreign celebrity. I was certain his social media feed was full of tweets about his trips to saunas and retweets of gravure idols' selfies.

“Yes, for example, maybe your memories and Mr. Eiji's were contradictory, or maybe Mr. Eiji had forgotten something he should have known well.”

My mystery reader senses were tingling. Eiji had an identical twin. The police may have suspected the twins had swapped.

“The Eiji I met was the real one.”

The man showed me a sly smile.

“And you know this because...”

“You can tell at a glance. Koichi and Eiji might be twins, but the way they move and speak is completely different.”

“They could have practiced imitating each other.”

“You know we were in the Mystery Research Society. Eiji brought the Society's notebook with him that day. Inside were the society's top ten lists for different mystery types.”

“And?”

“When I said that The Clockwork Traveler was better than The Alibi of the Bell, which had come in first in the alibi breaking list, Eiji immediately started talking about The Third Railroad, which came in fourth. He couldn't have done that if he hadn't known that The Clockwork Traveler was also written by Masaya Sorachi. That was definitely my old friend, the mystery lover Eiji Kagami.”

I was convinced. That man had also known that Seiichi Makabe was called the Dickson Carr of Japan, and that an American boy was the key to solving Gaku Akaboshi's The Alibi of the Bell. That was definitely the real Eiji.

Nebukawa winked at the gravure-loving man next to him and said,

“Just one more thing. We've been asking this to everyone we meet, so don't worry. Where were you between 3:20 and 4:00 P.M. on the 27th?”

That must have been Nonoshima's time of death. I checked my schedule from two days ago on my smartphone.

“I returned to the office at 12:00 and worked diligently. I think I was writing estimates at my desk. Ask my coworkers.”

Nebukawa wrote down my phone number in his notebook, then said

“Thank you for your cooperation. If you remember anything else, please, don't hesitate to call.”

He pointed to his business card with the tip of his pen.

November 27th, 4:07 P.M.

A man on his bicycle heading towards Miurakaigan Station called 110 to report that he'd seen what looked like blood flowing under the door of a house with a shingled roof.

A police officer from the Miurakaigan Station police box visited the home facing Route 134 and found a man collapsed in the entryway. The man had been repeatedly hit in the head with a blunt metal object, likely a wrench of some kind, and was confirmed dead on the scene.

A writer from a true crime magazine had written that the victim, Hisashi Nonoshima, had been in significant financial trouble in the past, but a majority of online news articles simply reprinted the police's official announcement verbatim.

I didn't want to believe it. But I did. I was certain.

Hisashi Nonoshima had been killed by Koichi and Eiji.

Eiji knew, at minimum, that Nonoshima would be killed that day. That was why he invited me to corroborate his movements.

If you thought about it, I was the best possible person to testify on his behalf. If the witness had been a relative or a close friend, people would have suspected them of lying to protect the suspect. But a complete stranger couldn't have testified as to whether the person they'd met was Eiji or Koichi. So an old friend from college he hadn't seen in four years was ideal. We weren't close enough that I'd lie to the police to protect them, but I could confirm that it was him. He'd probably spilled the cold coffee to make people remember that we were there together.

The more sense Eiji's actions made, the angrier I got. Although he hadn't tried to sell me anything, there was no doubt I had been used all the same. Koichi and Eiji must have performed some sort of alibi trick. That meant the two of them had concluded that, even if they involved me, there was no risk of their trick being broken. They'd underestimated me.

I regained my composure and returned to my desk, but I couldn't focus on work at all. Someone was dead, I couldn't sit there writing proposals. The moment the clock showed 6:00, I scribbled that I was clocking out and left the office.

I headed to Tokyo Station on the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line, passed through the passageway towards Yaesu, and made my way through the throngs of people to the underground mall.

The cafe PINKY PROMISE was bustling with customers, fresh off work and already drunk. It looked like a completely different place than the cozy cafe I'd visited the morning of two days ago. I envied the people who had jobs that let them drink at that hour, but when I saw a girl in a job hunter's suit pouring dark beer for an older man, I felt ashamed of my thoughtlessness.

I looked around the cafe and clicked my tongue. I wanted to get a drink, but there were no open seats. I looked over to the seat in the back where Eiji had been, ready to pray, when I heard,

“Ah.”

A familiar looking man was eating curry alone. His foreign celebrity's jacket was folded in half and hanging on the back of the chair across from him.

“What a coincidence.”

I tried to escape, but it was too late. The gravure lover put down his spoon.

“Well, I just wanted to see where I'd been the day before yesterday again, so...”

I blurted out what sounded an awful lot like an excuse. The man stared at me for a moment, then looked around the restaurant and took the jacket from the chair across from him, saying “If you would.”

He was a detective. This was an interrogation. I instinctively backed away, but I was also still angry about having been tricked.

“Excuse me, then.”

I sat cross-legged and asked the server for a Corona.

“Um, there's something I want to ask you.”

“And what would that be?”

“The police suspect the Kagami brothers, right? But they can't get an arrest warrant because they can't break their alibis.”

“I can't reveal details of the investigation.”

The man answered bluntly and took a familiar sip from a paper cup. The coffee appeared to have gone cold. Maybe he just had a sensitive tongue.

“Then I'll just go ahead and start saying things. If you think anything I say could be of help, please feel free to share what I say with the other investigators.”

“I'll think about it.”

“I think Eiji created an alibi for the brothers by playing two roles.”

The man took a rude, noisy slurp of his coffee.

“On the day of the murder, both brothers had arranged to meet someone near Tokyo Station. However, on the day of, only the younger brother, Eiji, was there. After parting ways with his mystery-obsessed friend, Eiji quickly changed into a suit with a pink tie and a flashy ring and ran off to meet his older brother's appointment. While Eiji was creating the alibi for his brother, Koichi killed Hisashi Nonoshima at Miura Beach.”

The man put down his cup, covered his mouth with both hands, and coughed. He wiped his lips with a napkin, then suddenly looked straight at me.

“Are you a mystery writer?”

My heart skipped a beat.

“No, I'm not.”

Not yet.

“I see. Please forgive me. I lost myself for a moment. There's no such thing as the will of God, but if my mind had been a bit less clear, I might have felt that there was something more than coincidence in our meeting here today.”

“So, my reasoning is-”

“Wrong.” The man put down his napkin. “It's wrong.”

Huh?

“Didn't your teachers ever tell you to read the problem carefully before answering? You and Eiji Kagami were at PINKY PROMISE together from 10:00 to 11:30 in the morning. Hisashi Nonoshima was killed between 3:20 and 4:00 P.M. Eiji had more than enough time to go to Miura Beach after parting ways with you. That isn't an alibi. You were so eager to announce the clever conclusion you came up with that you neglected to check the basic facts.”

The man suddenly burst out laughing.

“I've lost my mind. I can't think straight without a partner who will announce shallow, irrelevant conclusions with a straight face.” He brushed his graying hair aside. “Do you have time after this? Let's go out for drinks somewhere a little quieter. I'll pay for it. I'll even pay the cab fare.”

He looked superficially calm, but his tone was uncompromising.

What was he doing?

“Let me correct one more misconception. I'm not a detective. No detective in all the Kanagawa Prefectural Police would ever be as shameless as me. I'm a civilian assisting with the investigation.”

He handed me a business card. It said that his name was Hideo Himura, an associate professor from the Department of Sociology at Eito University.

4

A young man came running. His breaths came heavy as his Chesterfield coat fluttered behind him. Shin-Osaka Station, on the JR side, third floor. Himura had just passed through the ticket gate of the Midosuji Line, passed through Arde Shin-Osaka, and was going to the up escalator.

A man pushing a stroller turned off to the right. A middle school girl in a sailor fuku shifted her school bag from one shoulder to the other. The man ran through the crowd, ignoring them all.

“There is currently a water leak in the main concourse due to a fault in the drainage pipe. Please walk with caution. We apologize for the inconvenience...”

Himura quickly hunched his shoulders. He thought he could hear heavy breathing...

“AAH!”

...Followed by the sound of a cane rolling on the floor. A woman of about seventy had been pushed over and fallen on her bottom. The man also lost his balance and collapsed, lungs wheezing empty. He bumped shoulder-first into Himura and fell to his hands and knees with a grunt of pain.

“Excuse me.”

That was all the man said to Himura before he ran off in the direction of the north exit. He probably could have caught him if he ran at full tilt, but that wasn't what Himura needed to do right now.

“Are you alright, ma'am?”

He called out to the woman who had been pushed over. She appeared to have injured her lower back, and couldn't get up on her own. He restrained her with both hands to stop her from forcing herself and called out for the station's staff.

“I repeat, there is a water leak in the main concourse due to a fault in the drainage pipe...”

Himura's words were drowned out by the flat announcement.

5

“The last person to see the victim alive was a part-time worker at a convenience store 750 meters from the house where the crime took place. His testimony is confirmed by security camera footage. Hisashi Nonoshima entered the store at 3:08 P.M., bought a small-sized bottle of Nikka Black whiskey, a plastic water bottle, some store brand mixed beer nuts, and some Jackie Calpas smoked sausages, then left at 3:10.”

Himura spoke smoothly and clearly as he rolled the ice in his glass.

He was a university professor, after all. His lecture was so long and complex I kept waiting for him to bite his tongue, but he went through it easily. It was strange, the way the jacket that made him look like a frivolous nouveau riche punk in an underground cafe suddenly made him look intelligent and composed in the dim light of a bar. The university professors you see on TV nowadays all dress like villains out of manga, but compared to them, he looked a lot better... Okay, a little better.

“The body was found lying face down in the villa's entryway. A plastic bag was found between the body and the shoe rack, with the alcohol and snacks he'd purchased at the convenience store still inside. The killer attacked Nonoshima as he was returning from the store and forced their way into the entryway. We believe they killed him by repeatedly striking him in the head. There were lacerations on his brain, but the direct cause of death was blood loss.”

While I pretended to take notes on my smartphone, I googled the name written on the associate professor's business card. The only hits I got were his university's official website and a web portal for his papers. It looked like he'd never appeared on TV and didn't have a website. He supposedly assisted with criminal investigations as part of his fieldwork, but of course, there was no information on that.

“Hey, detective. You listening?”

Himura tapped his finger on the counter. I hastily nodded.

“The culprit attacked him while he was on the way back from buying alcohol, right? What a nasty guy.”

“All murderers are nasty.”

He said that with a straight face and then asked the bow-tied bartender for an ashtray. Apparently, he'd walked all the way down Showa-dori street to this bar in Nihonbashi just to get his nicotine fix. At the table behind him, an old man with a pot belly was cutting a cigar.

“It's about a ten minute walk from the convenience store to the crime scene. If he left the convenience store at 3:10 and went straight home without making any detours, he wouldn't have arrived home until 3:20. The call saying blood was coming from under the door came in at 4:07, so the crime must have taken place between those two times.”

The killer planted blood outside the house because he wanted the body to be found as soon as possible, which would narrow down the potential range of time when the crime could have occurred. That stank. It smelled of an alibi trick.

“And at that time, Koichi and Eiji...”

“Koichi had returned to Osaka, where his company is headquartered. Eiji was on the Tohoku Shinkansen en route back to Aomori. Neither of them could have killed Nonoshima in Miura Beach. They have alibis... it seems.”

As expected. If they didn't have alibis, I couldn't have broken them. It was exactly as I'd hoped.

Himura lit a Camel.

“Do you have any questions about the crime scene? If not, let's move on.”

He suddenly said something like a real teacher.

“Oh, that's right.” Nikka Black, water, beer nuts, and Calpas. I looked back over my notes as though they were my own shopping list. “Nonoshima had been in financial trouble in the past, right? It didn't sound like he was rich, and yet he owned a villa in Miura Beach?”

“That building belongs to his partner, Futaba Hanawa, 62. She runs a chain of four izakaya restaurants in the Keihanshin area, and has even appeared in magazines and on TV as a skilled manager.”

I'd seen “President Hanawa” on variety shows before. She always wore impossible amounts of makeup and a wide brimmed hat that I'd otherwise only ever seen on the queen of England.

“Nonoshima spent about a third of each year at that villa. He seemed to enjoy life: Fishing, surfing, and occasionally inviting friends over for parties.”

He probably posted pictures of himself making toasts with glasses of tequila on Instagram and tagged them with hashtags like “#Blessed #BestFriendsInTheWorld #MyBestLife”.

“They didn't find any fingerprints?”

“None except those of Nonoshima and Hanawa, the two who lived there. If the culprit was someone other than her, they would have worn gloves.”

“Any clues whatsoever? Like a missing snack, or the name 'Mr. Nikka' written in blood?”

“Take this seriously,” he scolded me. “There was a small amount of blood on the kitchen faucet and a mug. It's still being analyzed, but it's probably the victim's.”

“Did Nonoshima drink water from the mug?” While bleeding from the head?

“It was the killer who drank the water. After killing Nonoshima, they poured water into the mug and drank it. The blood was transferred from their gloves.”

If you beat someone so badly they died of blood loss, you'd definitely be out of breath afterwards. You'd be thirsty, too. The killer must have needed that drink of water.

“So the killer's saliva was on the mug.”

“The killer isn't stupid. The rim of the mug was rinsed with water.”

Himura wiped some water off of his own glass.

“Tell me more about the victim.”

“Hisashi Nonoshima was 55 when he died, and was originally from the town of Minakami in Gunma Prefecture. After graduating from a commercial high school in Takasaki, he worked as a cabaret club bouncer for a few years, but quit after racking up enough customer complaints. Afterwards, he wandered the country's entertainment districts from Susukino to Nakasu, making ends meet by working as scouts for the nightlife industry and sales clerks at information centers for adult entertainment. He was extremely vain, always wearing imitations of brand name watches and wallets and claiming he owned the apartment buildings he lived in. Whenever he met up with local friends, he would always pretend to be rich, but in reality he was constantly in debt.”

In other words, he was the sort of person you wanted to avoid.

“Five years ago, Nonoshima met Yuri Kagami at a karaoke bar in Aomori City, and they became romantically involved.”

That was the name I'd heard from Inspector Nebukawa.

“She was Eiji's mother, right?”

The flame of his cigarette flickered up and down.

“Twelve years ago, Yuri's husband died in an accident, leaving her to work office jobs and in construction both to raise her two sons alone. Even after the twins left for Sendai to attend university, she lived frugally, trying to send them as much each month as possible. Nonoshima approached Yuri and pressured her into a relationship by offering to pay her living expenses.”

I had a bad feeling about this.

“Nonoshima wanted the land Yuri had inherited from her husband. They got married after only two months of dating, and Nonoshima immediately mortgaged the 6,600 square meters of land to pay off his debts. By the time Yuri received the notice of seizure, Nonoshima had vanished. Forged divorce papers had been sent to the local government. Yuri began to suffer from depression and panic attacks, and hanged herself three weeks later.”

And so, the twins were left behind, one to finish university, and the other to get a job in a factory.

“A loser like him deserved to die.”

“I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.” He still sounded completely calm. “We don't know what Nonoshima's been doing for the three years since then. He appears to have moved to Osaka at some point and started a relationship with Futaba Hanawa, who he met in a nightclub in Umeda.”

She was the famous and capable president of Gorgeous Hat. Of course, he only wanted her money.

“Hanawa is passionate about charitable work, and this spring she launched a new in-house project: Hanawa Food Bank, which delivers surplus food from stores directly to poor families. The non-profit organization that was commissioned to carry out the work was Dreamscape, and one of its supporters was Koichi Kagami, the head of a pharmaceutical import agency.”

The dots were starting to connect.

The company Koichi founded, Medical Porter Japan, imported drugs to treat hair loss and E.D., as well as anesthetics for cosmetic surgery and anti-inflammatories. When Eiji had told me about it, it sounded shady as all get out, but hearing that Koichi was also supporting a non-profit changed my impression of him.

Four years ago, when his mother died, Koichi had forced his younger brother to take the brunt of the consequences. I'd hated him for it at the time, but he must have been living in regret ever since. That's why he'd paid back his brother's scholarship, supported him through life, and even started donating money to a non-profit that supported young people in similar circumstances to his own. How ironic it was that those activities led to his reunion with the man who drove his mother to her grave.

“Last June, a general meeting for Dreamscape was held in a rented conference room in Dojima. It seems that was where Koichi was reunited with Hisashi Nonoshima, who was there as Futaba Hanawa's partner. Nobody has testified to seeing them talk at any point, but there's no way Koichi wouldn't have recognized the man who did that to his mother.”

Himura raised his glass and wiped the circle of water droplets with his finger.

“About six months later, Nonoshima was murdered.”

I remembered how tense Eiji had looked when we met in the cafe of the underground mall.

“Please tell me everything Koichi and Eiji did on the day of the incident.”

“The day before, November 26th, the brothers traveled to Tokyo for the third anniversary of their aunt's death, visiting Sokei-ji Temple in Yotsuya. After their father had died when they were very young, their aunt from Tokyo took a major role in raising the two of them.”

“After eating at a multi-course restaurant, Koichi said goodbye to his relatives and went to a business hotel in Nihonbashi. He checked in at 9:15 P.M. and checked out the following day, the 27th, at 10:35 A.M. Koichi later visited a gallery in Otemachi run by an acquaintance of his. This was at 11:15. After chatting for about ten minutes, he left the gallery and went straight to Tokyo Station. He apparently boarded the Nozomi 227, which departed at 12:00 on the dot, and rode it to Shin-Osaka. If that statement is correct, Koichi would have arrived in Shin-Osaka at 2:30 P.M. We're still checking the station's security camera footage. A person of similar build to Koichi was seen, but we still have no conclusive evidence.”

Himura recited it all from memory. I scrambled to type everything into my smartphone.

“At 2:50 P.M., someone who looked like Koichi visited Suzaku Bank's Shin-Osaka branch, a ten minute walk from the north exit of Shin-Osaka Station. He took a land title from a safe deposit box, put it in his bag, and left the bank. He said he bought the land as an investment. He was planning to ask for a loan from a credit union, so he needed the title on hand.”

“That smells fishy.”

“Your Johnnie Walker?”

“What? No, it's an alibi trick.”

Koichi had visited the gallery right before leaving Tokyo, and the bank as soon as he arrived in Osaka. It all felt contrived.

“It's hard to imagine it wasn't him who visited Suzaku Bank. He was clearly visible on the security camera, and the security guard remembered him.” His voice got a bit stiff. “But...”

“But?”

“It takes three steps to open a safe deposit box at Suzaku Bank: scanning the cash card, entering the PIN, and finger vein authentication. The security guard said Koichi had a lot of trouble with that.”

“That smells bad,” I snorted. “That smells worse than a row of ginkgo trees in mid-autumn. Wasn't that actually the younger brother, Eiji?”

“Even if he lent his brother his card and told him his PIN, you can't fake a finger vein authentication. Even twins have different vein patterns. And you can't make a mold and fake it like you can with fingerprints.”

“They first took the scan of his veins when he initially signed up for the safe deposit box, right? Maybe Koichi and Eiji had switched places at that time.”

“Koichi first used the box last December, and hasn't updated the data since. He reunited with his stepfather at the Dreamscape general meeting in June this year, six months later. It would be odd of him to prepare a trap before his prey appeared.”

That made sense.

“Koichi took out the title deed and left the bank after about five minutes. He said he went back to his home in Esaka via the Midosuji Line, but we haven't been able to verify that. But even if he immediately jumped on the Shinkansen at Shin-Osaka Station, it would have taken him over two hours to reach Shin-Yokohama. Even if he jumped on the Nozomi 30 departing at 3:06, he wouldn't have arrived at Shin-Yokohama Station until 5:14. He couldn't have killed someone at Miura Beach between 3:20 and 4:00.”

Unfortunately, it looked like Koichi's alibi was solid. Then...

“What about Eiji?”

“He went to Tokyo on the 26th for the third anniversary of his aunt's death, just like his brother. Apparently, he stayed the night in a capsule hotel in Otemachi, but there's no record of that. However, it does appear that he met up with a friend at a cafe in the Yaesu Underground Mall at 10:00 A.M. on the 27th.”

Himura looked at me. Yes, that was me, thank you.

“After parting ways with that friend after 11:30, he took care of some errands there at the station, then took the 2:20 P.M. Tohoku Shinkansen Hayabusa 27 to Aomori.”

“Some errands?”

That sounded suspicious.

“According to him, he bought a limited edition stuffed animal at Character Street in Ichibangai and picked out some sweets for his relatives at the souvenir shop by the ticket gate. We're still checking the security camera footage, but we haven't found anyone we can identify as Eiji.”

“He claims he got on the Hayabusa 27, which arrived at Shin-Aomori Station at 5:30 P.M. After getting off there, he got into his car, which he'd parked in the lot, and went to visit his cousin's house in the former Namioka Town area. He arrived exactly one hour later, at 6:30 P.M.”

He had told me that a relative with a bad back wanted to hear how the service went.

“Namioka is exactly halfway between the Aomori City center and the Hirosaki City center. It's about a 30 minute drive from Shin-Aomori station. The cousin who lived there confirmed that Eiji arrived at 6:30.”

“It takes about three hours to travel from Tokyo Station to Shin-Aomori Station. If Eiji killed Nonoshima at Miura Beach at 3:20, there's no way he could have been in Namioka at 6:30 no matter how hard he tried.”

“That's a relative's testimony. It stinks.”

“Like the last train at the end of the year.”

“Like a hobby shop in midsummer.”

Compared to his brother's alibi, which was confirmed by cutting edge technology, this was solidly unreliable.

“Eiji and his cousin must have agreed on a story ahead of time. He got him to lie and say he arrived at 6:30, thus giving him an alibi that he'd come straight away on the Hayabusa.”

“The cousin got a sweet potato pudding that was only sold at Tokyo Station from Eiji. The expiration date on the label confirmed it was sold at the souvenir shop after 11:00 A.M. on the 27th.”

“But the police didn't interview him that day, did they? It was bought then, but not delivered until later.”

“There actually is another witness. A colleague of Eiji's from his days working in the food factory lives in an apartment diagonally across from his cousin's house.”

The cookie factory?

“A friend invited him out for sardine ramen, so he left the house just after 7:00 P.M. That was when he ran into Eiji, who had just left his cousin's house.”

Himura was smiling.

“He's a bit like you. He loves novels and apparently submitted his own work for a publisher's award. Although he appears to prefer romance to gore.”

Could he have been the man who'd read the complete works of Kouichi Rindo?

“Eiji told him about how he'd seen a friend for the first time in a long time in Tokyo. He also told him about how he'd applied to Hakuyusha's Gold Arrow Award, and how he'd been caught skipping work and gotten a pay cut.”

That guy, making funny stories out of other people's misfortunes... But that aside, it did seem unlikely that Eiji's one-time coworker from the cookie factory was also in on the rapidly-expanding conspiracy. And there was no way Eiji could have known about my pay cut before that day, so there's no way they could have coordinated that story in advance.

But if that was the case, then both Koichi and Eiji had alibis.

“You look like you've already given up. You'll never become a professional author like that.” Seeing me silent, Himura spurred me on. “Think about it. How were the Kagami brothers able to create an alibi?”

I took a deep breath, about to respond, when something occurred to me.

“Wait a minute. The reason the police looked into the Kagami brothers is because they have a motive, right? But they both have alibis. Nonoshima appears to have had financial trouble, so there must be other people who'd want to smash his head in when they saw he was living it up on Miura Beach. But you seem convinced the Kagami brothers are the culprits.”

“Do I?”

“You wouldn't have invited me to drink in a place like this otherwise.”

Himura laughed out loud.

“You're right. I do think one of them killed Nonoshima.”

“Why?”

“Because I bumped into that guy in Osaka.”

A-HHEM!

A strange sound suddenly rang out. The pot bellied old man with the cigar behind Himura had cleared his throat.

“A little after 2:30 P.M. on the 27th, I was walking in Shin-Osaka Station, going from the Midosuji subway line to the JR line. Just as I was making my way to the up escalator, a man who looked like he was panicking ran towards me. He bumped into an elderly woman and knocked her down. The man fell to his hands and knees, but he got right back up and ran away. The woman suffered a compression fracture in her lumbar vertebrae and is still in a hospital in Umeda as we speak.”

“So that man was Koichi Kagami.”

“I don't know, but it was one of the twins.”

How precise.

“A police officer from Yodogawa Police Station tracked the man down and found that he'd gone to the Shin-Osaka branch of Suzaku Bank, where he'd just opened a safe deposit box. However, when he visited the apartment in Esaka, for some reason, someone had already been there.”

“The Kanagawa Prefectural Police?”

“Yes. Inspector Nebukawa, who you've already met, was questioning him about the murder that happened at Miura Beach.”

I'd been curious why a professor from a university in Kyoto was sticking his nose into a case that had happened in Miura, but now I saw the connection.

“Even so, why do you think the Kagami brothers killed Nonoshima? Just because they pushed over an old woman in the concourse of Shin-Osaka Station, that doesn't mean they killed someone in Miura Beach.”

“Obviously. But there was something I noticed. After knocking the woman over, the man who appears to have been Koichi stumbled and bumped into my shoulder. When he did, my hand touched his coat. I noticed it was a bit damp.”

So?

“It was sunny all over Kansai that day. There are no fountains anywhere in Shin-Osaka Station, and there's no reason he wouldn't have dried his hands after washing them in a public restroom. Why was his coat wet?”

Himura flicked at the water droplets on his glass.

“In addition, there was a water leak near the east ticket gate of the main concourse. An old drainage pipe in the ceiling had broken, apparently. It was mostly likely water dripping from the ceiling that had soaked Koichi's coat.”

“However, that raises another question. The main concourse and the Shinkansen concourse of Shin-Osaka Station are separate. If Koichi had arrived on the Nozomi 227 as he said, he wouldn't have passed the leakage.”

I see. So Koichi got off the Nozomi at some point and changed to a regular train to come to Shin-Osaka. But why?

“What has Koichi said about this?”

“He admits that he bumped into the woman, but he denies ever setting foot in the main concourse. He says I must have been mistaken about his coat being wet.”

His breath made a ripple in his Johnnie Walker. He didn't seem convinced.

“This is just a hunch, but... Do you think it was Koichi who bumped into you?”

“Why are you asking me? I'm not his friend.” Himura looked down at his glass for a second. “But, well, if you'll let me say something irresponsible and blame the alcohol afterwards, I do think it was Koichi.”

“Why is that?”

“When he bumped into me, he landed awkwardly on one of his hands. A few minutes later, the man who appeared in Suzaku Bank had a hard time with the safe deposit box. I thought he may have hurt his hand when he fell.”

He gave the counter a few quick strokes as though he were sharpening a blade.

“And indeed, when I met Koichi in a coffee shop in Esaka yesterday, he had the index finger of his right hand in a brace and a large compress on the kneecap of his left leg. He must have hurt both when he ran into me. I haven't met Eiji yet, but the Kanagawa Prefectural Police have, and they tell me he doesn't appear to be injured.”

It was hard to believe he'd have applied a brace and a compress just to make the story add up. And even if an uninjured man could pretend to be injured, it's hard for an injured man to pretend to be uninjured.

“But enough about me. Tell me your ideas.”

Himura split the cherries in half and popped one in his mouth. I said “Okay,” and looked down at my smartphone.

I didn't want to doubt my friend. But while Koichi's actions were somewhat logical, Eiji's were clearly unnatural. After parting ways with me just after 11:30 A.M., he'd stayed at Tokyo Station for almost three hours before boarding the 2:20 P.M. Hayabusa. It didn't seem likely he'd actually spent all that time shopping. It was more likely he'd bought some quick souvenirs and then gone straight to Miura Beach.

I did a quick search on a transfer app. Maybe he took the JR Tokaido Main Line bound for Atami, which departed Tokyo Station at 12:06, got off at Yokohama Station at 12:32, and changed to the Keikyu Main Line Limited Express bound for Keikyu Kurihama, departing at 12:39. After arriving at the final stop at Keikyu Kurihama Station at 1:17 P.M., he could have then changed to the Keikyu Kurihama Line Limited Express bound for Misakiguchi departing at 1:18 P.M. and arrived at Miurakaigan Station at 1:27 P.M. Nonoshima was killed between 3:20 and 4:00 P.M., so he had more than enough time.

The problem was what came afterwards. At 6:30 P.M., Eiji visited his cousin in the former Namioka Town area in Aomori Prefecture. Even if he hopped on the Keikyu Kurihama Line express train leaving Miurakaigan Station at 3:41, transferred to the Tokaido Main Line at Yokohama Station, and arrived in Tokyo Station at 5:07 P.M., and made it to the Tohoku Shinkansen Hayabusa 39 departing at 5:20, he wouldn't arrive at Shin-Aomori Station until 8:40 P.M., far too late for the 6:30 P.M. deadline.

What if he drove, then? I returned to the home screen and opened the map app. If he took the Shuto Expressway's Bayshore Route from Miura to Tokyo Station, it would take an hour and 10 minutes. Even assuming no delays, it would still take an hour. If he got in the car at 3:30 P.M., he'd arrive at Tokyo Station at 4:30. That was about 30 minutes faster than the train. However, when I checked the timetable, the next train to Shin-Aomori was the Hayabusa 39 departing at 5:20 – the same train as before. That didn't change the result.

In that case, better to fly. If he took off from Haneda Airport and arrived in Aomori Airport, that would cut his travel time considerably.

I tapped the airplane icon on the transfer app and tried searching again. Get on the Keikyu Kurihama Line Limited Express at Miurakaigan Station at 3:41 and get off at Keikyu Kamata Station at 4:44. Get on the Keikyu Airport Line Express bound for Haneda Airport terminals 1 and 2 departing at 4:49 and get off on the last stop at 5:02. I'd thought that was it, but the only flight from Haneda to Aomori was JAL 149, which didn't depart until 6:40 and arrived at Aomori Airport at 8:00 P.M., so it still completely failed to arrive by 6:30 P.M.

“Instead of checking the timetables, you just use an app. Alibi breaking has become so soulless these days.”

Himura muttered, looking forward. I followed his gaze and saw two people reflected in the black glass behind the counter. A gentleman biting into a cherry, and a small, unrefined man hunched over a smartphone. A mirror painted in jet – a black mirror.

“If I were a mystery writer from the Showa era, I'd haunt you.”

The criminologist in the mirror spat out a seed, looking deeply dismotivated.

“Don't make fun of me.” I took a sip from my shot glass, letting Johnnie Walker soak my innards. “Eiji's alibi is supported by his visit to his cousin in Namioka at 6:30. So we have to assume there was some kind of scheme behind it.”

“'Some kind of scheme', eh? That's the sort of thing a grade schooler could figure out.”

“To be more specific, there was a swap, obviously. It was his brother Koichi who visited the cousin, pretending to be Eiji.”

I stopped Himura from saying anything else and opened the map app. I displayed the area around Shin-Osaka Station and looked up the route from there to Aomori.

“At 2:50 P.M., Koichi set up the alibi of the safe deposit box at the Shin-Osaka Branch of Suzaku Bank, then immediately departed for Itami Airport. He jumped into a car prepared in advance and headed north on Hanshin Expressway Route 11, the Ikeda Route. If he caught flight JAL 2157, departing at 4:30 P.M., he would have arrived in Aomori Airport at 5:55 P.M. If he drove fast, he could arrive at the cousin's house at 6:30. That's how Koichi set up an alibi for Eiji, and while he was doing that, Eiji killed Nonoshima.”

“Are you serious?”

“The reason Koichi had been dressing so conspicuously lately was to make the switch easier. The more conspicuous the differences, the easier it is to impersonate someone. That's why Koichi started smoking cigars and wore a pink tie and that ring.”

So how about it? Changed your mind about me yet? Trying to hold down the corners of my mouth, I looked in the mirror and saw that Himura was puffing purple cigarette smoke, looking even surlier than usual.

“Did you already forget? After Eiji left his cousin's house, he spoke to his ex-coworker who liked romance novels. Eiji told him about your pay cut. If that was actually Koichi, how did he know about your failure?”

“He...” There must have been a way. “After we parted ways at Tokyo Station, Eiji must have called or emailed his brother and told him.

“He went out of his way to tell him about a friend skipping work? There's no way they could have predicted that the romance novel loving young man would be eating ramen that day. So there's no way they could have prepared a story for him.”

No good.

But I was sure I was getting close to the truth. In that case...

“It was actually the other way around.” The man in the mirror slammed his hand on the counter. “It was the younger brother, Eiji, who appeared at Suzaku Bank Shin-Osaka Branch wearing a pink tie and a ring. After leaving the bank, he boarded JAL 2157 at Itami Airport and arrived at his cousin's house at 6:30 P.M. He was able to tell the man who likes romance novels about my story because he was the real Eiji. And so Eiji was able to create an alibi for Koichi while Koichi killed Nonoshima.”

“My cats learn faster than you,” Himura said coldly before crushing out his cigarette and putting it away. “You're making the same mistake you were earlier. If that was Eiji pretending to be Koichi, then how was he able to open the safe deposit box?”

I grabbed the counter to stop myself from falling off of the stool. The old man with the cigar coughed. Again.

“In the end, you just insist on them switching places. I was hoping you'd come up with something really outlandish.”

Himura was merciless. I guessed he was the same way when he taught. I sighed and took a sip of the Johnnie Walker left at the bottom of my glass.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I think it's strange to expect that of a mere aspiring writer. I like mysteries, but tricks don't just pop into my head like that,” I said, snapping my fingers. “All the people like that are already professionals. You don't know any actual mystery fans, do you?”

Himura's lips twitched.

“If you say that, then I'll ask you something as a university professor. Why do you want to be a writer?”

“Well...” The sudden question took me aback, but the answer was right there. “Because writers have dreams.”

“Dreams?”

“You don't need to suck up to the boss, and you don't have to bow down to the clients. If you become a best selling author, you can drive a Benz and live in a high-rise apartment.”

Himura gave a quick half-laugh, put a Camel in his mouth, and immediately took it out.

“Let me give you some advice as an elder.”

“What?”

“You will never be a writer.”

Huh?

“You should face the life in front of you before you start dreaming about best sellers. Nothing good comes from half-hearted work. You'll just get another pay cut, and that high-rise will get further and further away.”

That guy looked sober, but he must have been pretty drunk.

“That's awfully provocative of you. I'll have you know I didn't get that pay cut for slacking off.”

I guess being treated like a kid was pretty annoying. It wasn't a good argument, but I made it anyway.

“Oh? And what did you get the pay cut for?”

“At the company, we have a system where you record your time at work by holding your employee ID card over a card reader. I really wanted some time to revise my work, so I gave my ID card to a coworker and asked him to swipe it. And they found out.”

“Yeah, okay,” Himura waved his hand as though shooing away a bug. “You weren't disciplined for slacking, but for breaking the rules to do it. That's typical of a Japanese company...”

Suddenly, Himura stopped.

He was staring at the mirror in front of him. As though he were being drawn into it, he said,

“It can't be... I see. So that's it.”

The colorless reflection gently stroked its lips with its index finger.

“So that's why the killer took a drink from a mug right after killing someone.”

6

Shk shk shk. The sound of the bartender shaving ice filled the air.

Himura left the bar with his smartphone in one hand, and on the landing of the stairs he made a phone call, probably to that inspector from the Kanagawa Prefectural Police.

Exactly an hour later, Himura returned to the bar wearing the face of a new employee who just wanted to go home already.

“So the mystery is solved.”

If he left like this, I'd be devastated. I tapped the cushion of his stool.

“Take a seat.”

Himura sighed into his palms, obediently sat down, and asked the bartender for some hot water.

“So it was Eiji who did it after all.”

“It's true he was an accomplice, but he wasn't the one who committed the murder. If he gets indicted, he'll probably escape with a suspended sentence.”

“So the main culprit is...”

“His brother, Koichi.”

The bartender said “Here you go” and set down a mug. Himura wrapped it in both hands and locked eyes with my reflection in the mirror.

“I was wondering from the start why the culprit drank water from the mug at the crime scene after killing Nonoshima. Killing someone is thirsty work, I grant that. I can understand why they couldn't resist taking a drink. But the killer isn't stupid. He wore gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, and he even rinsed the mug afterwards to avoid leaving his saliva behind. If he was smart enough to do that, why did he use the mug at the crime scene? The plastic bag lying right next to the body contained a plastic water bottle alongside alcohol and snacks. He could have drank that, and if he took the bottle with him, there wouldn't be any risk of leaving evidence. So why did he need to go into the kitchen and use the victim's mug?”

He was making sense so far.

“So why did the culprit go to the kitchen and drink water from a mug? It's simple: He couldn't drink bottled water.”

I instinctively crossed my arms. He was just rephrasing the question. Why couldn't the culprit drink bottled water?

“Did the culprit have an allergy to plastic? Or maybe he had a grudge against the company that made that specific brand of water.”

“Don't interrupt me with your nonsense. He killed a man, there was no time to think of trivial things like that. The reason he didn't drink the bottled water was because he physically couldn't, in short, because he couldn't open the bottle.”

“Excuse me,” Himura said to the bartender as he picked up an empty whiskey bottle off the counter.

“To open a bottle, you need to hold it in one hand and twist the cap with the other. The culprit couldn't do that. Because one of his hands was injured.”

I see. The dots were connecting.

“Koichi's finger was injured.”

When he bumped into that woman in the concourse of Shin-Osaka Station, Koichi landed awkwardly. The next day, he'd had his index finger in a brace.

“That's true, but it's not that simple. It was just after 2:30 P.M. when I passed a man who looked like Koichi at Shin-Osaka Station. Even if he hopped on the Tokaido Shinkansen immediately after I lost sight of him, he couldn't have arrived at the villa in Miura Beach between 3:20 and 4:00.”

I was confused.

The fact that the culprit had drank water from the mug indicated that he was Koichi. But that same Koichi had an alibi. What did that mean?

“Don't just think about it logically. Try using your imagination.” Himura splayed his right hand. “Koichi had a brace on the index finger of his right hand. Humans have five fingers. If he held the bottle with his remaining four fingers, he could still open the cap with his left hand.”

“Then why couldn't he open the bottle?”

“Because it wasn't just one finger. His entire hand was unusable.”

The bones in his palm had shattered, as though he'd been run over by a car. But no, if he'd had an injury like that, there's no way he could have hidden it. Out of all the characters who'd appeared in this story thus far, Koichi was the only one with an injury on his hand.

“When Koichi killed Nonoshima, one of his hands was disabled. But it was only temporary, and the next day all but his index finger were back to normal. That isn't natural. So it was most likely induced artificially. That is,” he mimed the action of pressing down on the plunger of a syringe, “anesthesia. The killer injected localized anesthetic into his right hand.”

Now that he mentioned it, Koichi's company, Medical Porter Japan, did import anesthetics for use in cosmetic surgery. But...

“Why did he do that?”

“Because it hurt, of course. What the killer did was so extraordinarily painful that there was no way he could have done it without anesthetic.”

Chp, chp, chp. The sound of the bartender chipping ice filled the room.

No... No way...

“He cut off his own finger.”

It felt like the air temperature in the room had dropped by five degrees.

7

“November 27th – the day of the incident. Koichi went to a gallery run by an acquaintance, and Eiji had coffee with a friend from university, then they both met up at Tokyo Station. Koichi went somewhere private – probably a bathroom stall – and injected his hand with anesthesia. They both boarded the same Tokaido Shinkansen train and met in the onboard toilet. There, Koichi cut off his right index finger, right at the base.”

BAM! The bartender's paring knife hit the cutting board.

“I-I don't think cutting off a finger is as easy as you make it sound.”

“That's true. Considering what they did afterwards, they also would have needed to specifically make a single clean, straight cut with a sharp blade. Koichi started smoking cigars around that time. This is just a baseless guess, but I think he used a cigar cutter.”

I couldn't help but look at the old man behind him, but I quickly looked away. The old man had one in his hand. Put the head of the cigar into the round hole and cut it vertically with the cutter... That was it.

“The severed finger was wrapped in plastic and placed in a container full of ice packs. They placed gauze on the cut and tied it tightly with thread. They did the same thing to the wound on his right hand, then he put on gloves to hide the fact that he was missing his finger.”

“After the two of them had done that, they left the bathroom and parted ways as though nothing had happened. Koichi got off at Shin-Yokohama Station and headed for Miura Beach. Eiji stayed on the train, his brother's finger in hand, and headed to Osaka. Before arriving, he changed clothes and disguised himself as his brother, and he was the one to arrive at Shin-Osaka Station and go to Suzaku Bank.”

“The reason Eiji's coat was wet when we bumped into each other was because he had the container of ice packs in his pocket. Just like water droplets forming on the surface of a glass of ice, the outside of the container holding the finger was wet. That's what had soaked through his coat.”

Himura stroked his glass. A single drop of water ran down like a thread.

“When Eiji arrived at Suzaku Bank, he headed to the safe deposit box as though nothing was wrong. He took his brother's finger out of the container and held it up to the finger vein authentication sensor. The security guard testified that Koichi had some trouble opening the box, but that isn't strange. After all, he was holding a severed finger to the sensor.”

“Would that really work?”

“It would. A finger vein scanner works by shining an infrared light on the finger. Hemoglobin absorbs infrared light, so the veins appear as shadows. That's what the sensor reads. If the bleeding is stopped, even a severed finger can open a safe. So while Eiji was creating an alibi in Osaka, Koichi killed Nonoshima at Miura Beach.”

Himura recalled the moment he realized the truth. It was when I'd been explaining why I got my pay cut – when I lent my ID card to a coworker and had him swipe the card reader for me so I could pretend to have come into work.

What Koichi had done was no different than what I'd done. The only difference was that instead of a card, he'd lent his accomplice a finger.

“Koichi's original plan was probably to ring the intercom and get Nonoshima to open the door. But Nonoshima had gone to the convenience store, so he decided to attack him right as he returned home. It was tricky having to kill him with only one hand, but he must have figured he could do it if he caught him off guard and swung a blunt object down on his head.”

“After the crime, he could get his finger back from his brother and have it reattached at a hospital. And if Eiji flew back from Itami Airport to Aomori, he could secure his own alibi.”

“Koichi took his finger to a hospital? Wouldn't that have been suspicious?”

“He didn't have to tell them he cut it himself. He could have just said he had an accident at a factory. If he showed them a fake insurance card, it was unlikely they'd ever find out. There's probably a scar where it was cut, but nobody can see it because it's covered by that huge ring.”

My memory started tingling again. The reason Eiji quit his job at the factory was because his coworker who liked romance novels got in an accident. He'd forgotten to turn off the cookie cutter while cleaning the belt. Perhaps that man had also had his finger cut off and needed to have it surgically reattached.

There were a lot of things pointing to Himura's theory being true.

All that was left was time. Feeling the way I did when I revised my manuscript, I opened the transfer app.

If they were both on the Nozomi 227, which left Tokyo Station at 12:00, they'd have arrived at Shin-Yokohama Station at 12:17. Koichi had seventeen minutes to cut off his finger. If he was prepared, that was enough time.

Koichi got off the Shinkansen at Shin-Yokohama Station and headed for Miura Beach. He couldn't drive with one hand, so he'd have had no choice but to take the train. If he took the 12:29 Yokohama Line Rapid bound for Sakuragicho and transferred to the Keikyu Main Line Limited Express bound for Misakiguchi at Yokohama Station, he'd arrive at Miurakaigan Station at 1:47. Nonoshima was killed between 3:20 and 4:00 P.M. He would have even had time to give himself a second dose of anesthetic along the way.

Meanwhile, Eiji got off the Nozomi 227 when it arrived at Shin-Osaka Station at 2:30. A person who looked like Koichi appeared at Suzaku Bank at 2:50, so there were no problems here either. Afterwards, he opened the safe deposit box and gave his brother an alibi, then met up with him somewhere.

“Huh?”

I'd done a Google search for finger reattachment surgery. Something seemed odd.

“What's the matter? Is your ever-so-smart smartphone not happy with my conclusion?”

“Well...” I hesitated for a few seconds, then showed him my phone's screen. “It says here that a finger can only be reattached after eight hours, even if it's kept in good condition.”

“I know.”

“He had to take the finger out of the container to open the safe deposit box, so it must have deteriorated a bit. I think we can probably knock that down to six or seven hours.”

“Probably.”

“Koichi cut off his finger between 12:00 and 12:17. So it can only have been reattached before 7:00 P.M. If he wanted to be safe, he'd have been sure to go by 6:00.”

“That's right.”

Himura was completely unfazed, but I was gradually growing sure of my conclusion.

“The problem is when the younger brother returned the finger to the older brother. Like, what if Eiji left the finger in a coin locker at Shin-Osaka Station and Koichi retrieved it? If Koichi finished the crime quickly and took the Keikyu Kurihama Line express train from Miurakaigan station at 3:41, it would arrive in Shin-Yokohama at 4:49. Even if he jumped on the Nozomi 241 at 4:58, he still wouldn't arrive in Shin-Osaka until 7:06. That's too late to get the surgery no matter how much he rushed.”

“That makes sense.”

“So what if Eiji went back to Kanto so he could return the finger himself? If he left Suzaku Bank and jumped right on the Nozomi 30 leaving Shin-Osaka Station at 3:06, he'd arrive in Shin-Yokohama at 5:14. So he hands off the finger to Koichi, who'd just returned from Miura Beach. If Koichi rushed straight to the nearest hospital, he could have gotten the surgery within six hours of amputation, and there's a good chance the finger would be reattached.”

“However, this creates a problem for Eiji. If he didn't get off the Nozomi 30 at Shin-Yokohama Station and rode it to Tokyo Station, he'd arrive at 5:33 P.M. That's a bad connection; the next train to Aomori is the Hayabusa 41, which doesn't depart until 6:20. It arrives at Shin-Aomori Station at 9:37 P.M. There's no way he could have visited his cousin at 6:30. The same is true for air travel. Even if he drove from Shin-Yokohama Station to Haneda Airport, the next flight to Aomori would have been JAL 149, which departs at 6:40 P.M. It arrived at Aomori Airport at 8:00 P.M., also too late to make it by 6:30.”

“Thanks for the verification. You raise a valid argument.”

“I thought so.”

“I was talking to your phone.” He took a slow sip of warm water. “Koichi and Eiji must have spent hours wracking their brains over that exact problem. But they found the answer. They came up with a way to secure their alibis and still hand over the finger before the time limit.”

He said that suggestively, then suddenly looked off into the distance.

“Did you hear about a murder that happened in a villa on Lake Yogo?”

I didn't recall. In the first place, I'd never even heard of Lake Yogo.

“If you haven't, that's fine.” Himura put down his mug. “It's simple. They had the Shinkansen take it.”

I still didn't understand.

“They decided ahead of time which car the container would be left in. Maybe they stooped down pretending to pick up some litter and taped it to the bottom of a seat. If they set up the container while the Nozomi was stopped at Shin-Osaka Station, it would take the finger up to Shin-Yokohama Station over the next two hours. There, Koichi could pick it up and rush to a hospital.”

I frantically tapped at my phone. If Eiji set up the container on the Nozomi 30, which left Shin-Osaka Station at 3:06 P.M., Koichi could have retrieved it at Shin-Yokohama at 5:14. There would be absolutely no problems with the time taken to reattach it. If Eiji drove from Shin-Osaka Station to Itami Airport, he could catch flight JAL 2157, departing at 4:30 P.M. It would arrive at Aomori Airport at 5:55 P.M., so if he went straight to Namioka, he'd make it in time for 6:30. There were no problems at all.

“Barkeep, here.”

Himura gestured with one finger that he was ready to pay. The bartender nodded at us and ran his pen across the bill.

I stared into the black mirror in front of me.

The man in the mirror looked exactly like me. But he was missing one thing. Color.

It was just like Koichi and Eiji. The older brother graduated from university, got a job, and started his own company. The younger brother dropped out, returned to the countryside, and couldn't hold down a job. They looked identical, but one lived a bright, colorful life, the other a colorless one.

The trick they'd pulled took advantage of the fact that they were twins. It should have worked even if their roles were reversed. Koichi could have forced Eiji to cut off his finger.

But Koichi was the one to take the losing lottery.

He must have regretted it all his life. He'd trapped his younger brother in a world with no color. That was why he'd paid back his brother's scholarship, supported a non-profit supporting poor families, and even took on the burden of sacrificing a finger to avenge their mother.

“Will that be all, then?” Himura's words brought me back to reality. “I've talked enough for one day. Please don't tell anyone about this.” He put his card back in his wallet.

If I were my normal self, I would have given him a thank you and immediately left. But at that moment, I was enveloped in a senseless sense of elation, as though I'd wandered into another world.

“Excuse me,” I said, tapping my smartphone. “I was of some help to you, wasn't I?” I'd actually opened the messenger app myself. “If another incident happens around here, can you please contact me?”

Himura gave me a rude glance, and,

“Don't get carried away. You're just a lousy salaryman who just so happened to have used your ID to fake your attendance record. Your little transfer app was more useful than you were.”

As he put the box of Camels in his pocket, he added coldly:

“I was just thinking how grateful I am to have a real friend.”

8

The intercom went off.

When I opened the door, a man in a suit was standing there. Was he a policeman? No, he was wearing a hat with the JR logo on it. He was a Shinkansen conductor.

As I stood there, the man handed me a wooden box and said “Please, take this.” What was it? I reflexively opened the lid.

“Whoa!”

I almost dropped the box. It contained a bug I'd never seen before... like a fat, pale leech. It wasn't moving. It looked like it was dead.

What was that? I cautiously drew my eyes closer, and my breath hitched. The bug's body was torn apart, exposing white bones.

It wasn't a bug.

It was a human finger.

Ding! The notification sound of my smartphone synced with the shaking of my body. I opened my eyes to find myself in a familiar six tatami room. A can of beer lying on its side. Beer nuts. I tapped the screen with sweaty fingers to see I'd received an email about someone updating their social media account.

I yawned and opened my laptop. The colorless man across from me had tears in his eyes. After finishing my overtime, I'd returned home and opened up Word to start a new project, but swiftly fallen to the temptation of a cold beer. A Shinkansen conductor bringing me a severed finger was a pretty simple dream. A writer had once written a hit horror novel based on their nightmare, but a story like this seemed unlikely to blow up on social media.

December 1st – Two days after I'd gone drinking with that associate professor. Koichi and Eiji were both arrested by the Kanagawa Prefectural Police.

Police investigators looked into every general hospital in Yokohama and discovered that the finger reattachment surgery had been performed at a hospital in Kohoku Ward on the evening of the 27th. An inquiry to the Health Insurance Claims Review and Reimbursement Services confirmed that the man who'd gotten it had used a forged insurance card. Detectives showed the doctor multiple photos, and the doctor selected Koichi's.

Himura's name didn't appear in any of the news articles online, but it was clear he'd led the case to it's resolution.

You will never be a writer.

As I was deleting the row of letters I'd left when I passed out on my keyboard, I heard that man's voice from somewhere.

You should face the life in front of you before you start dreaming about best sellers.

I was angry at the time, but now, his words were just sober reality. Himura was right on the mark.

I was depressed about my job and didn't want to believe it would be the rest of my life, so I wrote a novel solely to distract myself. There are limits to the stories a guy like that can write.

Suddenly, I remembered the first time I'd ever written a novel. It was the spring of my third year of high school. I could see now that it was terrible. A professional writer would have died before letting another living soul see it. Of course it hadn't won any awards.

But it had been fun.

With each stroke of the keys, the words spinning in my head wove together into a story. At the time, I was completely engrossed in those feelings. Mercedes-Benzes and high-rise apartments had been the furthest things from my mind.

I wanted to feel that way again.

I closed my eyes and let my imagination run wild.

I heard a knock on the door. What was there? A corpse, obviously. And not just any corpse. A corpse missing something. What? Its fingers? Boring. Its head. A headless corpse. Why didn't it have a head? There must have been a truly gruesome reason. What was it?

What if the corpse was food? A corpse from the human meat factory. The head had been chopped off beforehand because seeing the face would make people lose their appetites. That was good. No, that was great.

I opened my eyes. My hands stopped just as they were about to hit the keys.

What was the point of this?

It was stupid. It was boring. It wouldn't make for a good novel. It would just be criticized, same as the last one.

“...Hehehehe.”

Who cared about shit like that?

The “Ding!” of a notification sounded, but I started writing my novel anyway.