Recently, a strange rumor, or rather, a bit of a ghost story, has been spreading among the girls of the second year classes.
It's something about the mysterious Boogiepop.
Boogiepop is short, wears a black cape, and has a tall hat that's sort of like the one Maetel wore in Galaxy Express 999, only narrower. He's an assassin, and he can kill people instantly, without pain. He always does so when you are at your most beautiful, before you start to wither away, before you grow old and ugly.
Nobody knows where he's from, but most people seem to agree that he has something to do with the string of missing high school girls in this area.
Everyone wants to believe that the runaways were killed by an assassin that wanders in the shadows, fleeting as the morning mist... Instead of running off to Tokyo or some other grim reality.
Reality is always rather dreary. When people vanish from it, it's natural to want to connect them to some sort of fantasy, to some other world.
"Hey, Suema, what was the actual case that inspired The Village of Eight Graves?" asked the girl in front of me, Kinoshita Kyoko, looking up from her crossword puzzle.
I was eating my lunch one day short after the end of summer vacation.
"The Tsuyama Thirty," I said without a second's thought.
"Huh, Tsuyama Thirty... Hey, it fits. Thanks."
Everyone eating with us was staring at me.
"How did you know that?"
"You are obsessed."
"Don't be stupid, everyone knows that."
"We don't! Nobody does!"
"There was a book on it out last month," I replied, in a knowing manner as if to brush them off.
"We didn't read it! Why would we?"
"You're a little scary, Kazuko."
Everyone crackled.
"What kind of person can murder someone?" Kyoko asked, suddenly looking up from her crossword again.
"What kind? All kinds."
"I mean, like, who in this class seems likely to?" she said, lowering her voice.
"Oooh, do tell, do tell!" Everyone leaned closer.
"Uhh, someone a little stiff, like they're off in their own little world and are kind of stubborn when it comes to stuff?"
Even as I said it, I knew I might as well be saying her name.
"So... Kirima Nagi?" Yep, first name out; the most notorious student in our class.
She was skipping today, apparently; no sign of her all morning.
"Hmm, well, she's not normal, that's for sure."
Not normal? The Fire Witch is six kinds of crazy!"
"She's skipped two days since the new team started. Wonder if she'll even bother coming tomorrow..."
"She might as well not. Even when she does come, she causes trouble the moment she steps through the gates and gets herself sent right back home."
"Kyahahaha! Sounds like her!"
"So far as killing goes, I hear she actually is."
"How so?"
"You know, one slip and you miss your period..."
"Ah!"
"Then she gets herself suspended before anyone notices and takes care of it..."
"I believe it!"
There was no evidence at all, but that didn't stop them from talking.
Everyone was laughing, though, so I laughed with them.
I didn't hate her like they did.
Sure, she was trouble. But there was something about the way that she looked at people that was pretty cool; the way she didn't seem to care whether you were older or even a teacher, but just looked straight at you.
"She's got no parents, right?"
"Yeah, like, they live abroad or something? You heard she was the top scorer on the entrance exam, right? But she wasn't the speaker at the entrance ceremony. Know why?"
"Why?"
"Her guardian's name isn't Kirima."
"She's illegitimate?"
"Yeah. She just gets money and lives by herself in some apartment."
"No way."
"So, she can do whatever she wants. Bring a different guy home everyday, or like Suema says, 'Start killing.' She could have a mountain of bodies at her place, and no one would ever know."
"In the freezer?"
"All frozen up."
"Thaws them out and cooks them!"
"Ew, gross!"
Everyone laughed again.
I went along with them.
We laughed a bit too loud and Yurihara-san, who was sitting nearby, looked up from her study guide and glared at us. She was the best student in the class... And in the running for top of the school. I'd heard she'd taken practice tests at her cram school, and outscored students from the best schools in town three times running. She was also beautiful... And a little stuck up; meaning that she had no friends in our class. Even though she might've felt a little out of our league, she somehow knew that all it took was a cold glance to quiet us down.
"Maybe Nagi is Boogiepop?" Kyoko said.
"Ew, no. Boogiepop's a beautiful boy."
At the time, that was my first encounter with that name, so I felt myself compelled to ask about it.
"You don't know? But he's a killer!"
"It's not like I know everything."
They filled me in, but I'm into criminal psychology, and this was just some school horror story. God, it was beyond absurd. They made it out to be less of a serial killer and more like crazed monster.
"Hmm... That's kinda scary." Everyone was watching, so I had to pretend to be alarmed.
"Kind of a turn-on, huh? Wonder how he kills them?" With that, they all started babbling away, swooning over this fantasy man of theirs.
Did he strangle them? Run them through with a knife?
They kept suggesting rather time-consuming methods of killing, and I started to get irritated.
"Can we get your expert opinion?" Kyoko asked teasingly, suddenly turning to me.
"Sure... Poison gas."
"Ew, like Sarin?" They all said at once.
"Nah, hydrocyanic acid gas. It's colorless and invisible, but very poisonous, and it kills you instantly. You can spray it on someone, and it vanishes quickly, leaving no evidence. The body isn't even dirty. Smells like peaches."
"Huh...?" Everyone was staring at me, slightly creeped out.
'Oops,' I thought.
I'd done it again. I knew full well that this kind of knowledge wouldn't interest them.
At this point, the class lady killer, Kimura-kun, came over and said, "What's up?"
Everyone replied, "Nothing..."
Apparently, the Boogiepop stories were being kept secret from the boys.
A myth only the girls knew. It seemed I was the last one in class to hear about it.
I always am.
"..."
That depressed me a little, so I only half-listened to their conversation, nodding when it seemed appropriate.
My interest in criminal and abnormal psychology stems from a personal experience I had.
Five years ago, in seventh grade, I was almost killed.
There was a serial killer hiding in our town, and he killed himself just when the police were about to catch him.
The killer took sexual pleasure in killing, which is freaky enough, but among the notes that he left behind was one with my address and a detailed account of the route that I took to school.
Had he not killed himself, it turns out that I would've been his next victim.
The police investigated my family to see if they had any connection to the killer, just to be certain. Of course, we'd never even seen him before. My parents tried to keep it a secret from me, but I found out when the police started questioning me directly.
I would be lying if I said it wasn't a shock.
But more powerful than the shock was the unreal feeling that it gave me.
My life had been in the hands of someone with no connection to me at all. I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea, which is exactly how I got interested in that sort of thing to begin with.
I never told my friends why.
I knew they would look at me directly if I did. "The psycho killed her," they would say, which is more than a good enough reason to put me on the bullied list. It was a bit too harsh of a truth to laugh off.
But just being interested in that sort of thing was enough to make me different, and the class tends to treat me like Doctor Murder, but it's a far cry from being bullied.
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After lunch, we all went off to our fifth period classrooms.
Even though I was in the Science program, my next class was Modern Japanese, a subject that automatically got on my nerves. Our school let you choose between Science and Humanities concentrations in your second year, but even so, we had to complete one course from the other program during our second year. An absurd requirement, if you ask me.
A friend from another class who was also forced to take Japanese walked across the covered walkway with me.
Usually, there were three of us, but Niitoki-san was at a meeting for the discipline committee today.
As we walked, the PA came on that said, "... Miyashita Touka, second year, class C. Please, return to the infirmary at once. Miyashita Touka, second year, class C..."
"Huh, wonder where Touka went?" the girl next to me asked. She was in the same class.
"She was in the infirmary?"
"Yeah, she got sick at the start of fourth bell..."
"Faking it?"
"Hmm... She is dating a senior."
"Skipping out for a date?"
"Maybe. But dating is against the rules, so don't tell Niitoki-san," she said, putting her finger in front of her lips.
I grimaced back at her.
"I would never."
"They're probably on the roof or something now..." she said, glancing out the window.
Suddenly, she let out a piercing shriek.
Startled, I asked, "Wh-what?"
"Th-th-th-there!" She pointed out the window, her finger trembling.
"What?"
"Boogiepop! On the roof!"
"Eh?" I stuck my head out the window.
But there was nothing.
"Nothing there."
"There was! I saw it! It moved away!"
"You sure it wasn't somebody else? Miyashita-san?"
"I don't think so! It had a black hat on! Like a pipe!" she said, still in a panic.
Clearly, she was seeing things, but nobody believes that when it happens to them. Reverse psychology was more effective. If I pretended to believe her, she would start listening to me.
"Okay. Let's go see," I said, and she spun to stare at me in horror.
"Huh?"
"If Boogiepop is real, then I want to see him."
"No! Don't! It's dangerous!"
"Don't worry. Go ahead, I'll meet you in class."
I headed to the roof.
I ran up almost all of the stairs, and I was pretty out of breath by the time that I reached the door.
But the door to the roof was locked. Oh, right; they had belatedly sealed it off after someone had thrown themselves off.
I peered out the window. I could see most of the roof, but there was nobody there.
When I got down the stairs, she was waiting for me, looking worried.
"Wh-what happened?"
"Nothing there."
"Really?"
"Yep. I looked everywhere."
"Huh. I guess I must have imagined it..." she said, relieved.
"I guess," I replied, surprised to find myself disappointed.
As we headed to class, it occurred to me that there was a fire escape at the back of the roof, and if someone had gone down that, I wouldn't have been able to see them. But it was too late to go check now.
Nothing like that happened again, and our peaceful, safe lives dragged on.