Minoru swallowed. Averting his eyes from Olivier’s intense gaze, he shook his head again. “I can’t. I…I can’t just hit somebody.”
I’m afraid that the feeling of it would never leave my hand, the same way that punch won’t leave my left cheek.
“…Gotcha. It’s cool, I didn’t mean to make things weird.” Olivier turned back toward the Professor and bowed again.
“I’m really, really sorry. I’ll be more careful from now on.”
“All right.”
The commander’s answer was short. Her face said that she was resigned to the fact that there was nothing else she could say about the situation.
“Well then, that concludes our discussion of yesterday’s incident. I’m sure Trancer will show up again on another rainy day. We’ll utilize the data we gained from this encounter to its fullest so that he won’t get away next time.”
The meeting moved on to topics like the SFD budget and countermeasures against the mass media, so Minoru was only half listening as he reflected on Olivier’s words.
Something that’s as important to him as his SFD duties.
In other words, there was some circumstance that was equally significant to him as his mission to stop the Ruby Eyes from murdering people.
In all honesty, the weight of this mission still didn’t feel entirely real to Minoru. He was here now only because, in exchange, Chief Himi had agreed to erase all memories of him from other people’s minds once the Third Eye calamity was resolved.
Is there anything so important to me that I would throw away that deal?
Minoru wondered for a moment. It would probably have to be something like Norie’s life, he thought. Did that mean that Olivier’s secret situation was something along those lines? Was there someone so important to him that, for whatever reason, he had to fight Trancer alone for that person?
The only scenario he could come up with to fit that hypothesis would have to be revenge. That had been the case for Yumiko, who had been bent on defeating Igniter after her previous partner, Sanae Ikoma, was left in a coma in room 404 downstairs after a battle with the Ruby Eye.
Stopping at that conjecture for now, Minoru glanced over at Olivier again. However, his downturned expression didn’t reveal any trace of emotion.
“Well, that brings our last meeting for the year to an end. Group dismissed.” No sooner had the Professor finished her brief statement than Olivier stood up and strode quickly toward the elevator, DD following close behind him.
Those two sure are close, Minoru thought vaguely, but he was startled back to reality when the Professor called his name.
“Mikkun, Yukko, I hate to ask, but do you think we could spend another hour or two on that thing from the other day? I have a few more ideas I’d like to try.”
“Certainly. I brought my motorcycle helmet with me today for that exact reason.”
The Professor smiled wryly.
“Don’t you think that’ll just increase the sense of distance between you and Mikkun?”
“Well, I don’t want to skin my nose again, that’s for sure!”
As he watched the pair’s spirited exchange, Minoru searched frantically for a way to explain what had happened. Finally, he raised his right hand nervously.
“So…um…is…is Komura going to be here at all today?”
“Hmm? Komura? Do you mean the older brother or the younger sister?”
“Ah, um…the s-sister.”
“Oh, Hinako? She’s probably in her room. She usually just watches the meetings via relay broadcasting.”
“U-um, Hinako…? I was talking about, er, Ms. Suu Komura…”
At this, the Professor laughed and shrugged. “Oh, sorry, that’s just the nickname I call her. The kanji for her given name is written like ‘hina,’ so I call her Hinako… Wait…come to think of it, Mikkun, have you been introduced to her?”
“No, um… Actually, two days ago, I had a chance to greet her while she was watching my house…”
At this, Yumiko, who had been listening in silence until now, spoke up in a surprised voice. “What? I’m sure she was using her invisibility, though, right? And you still noticed her?”
“Ah, no, I had no idea she was there. I just thought there was an empty car there, so I went to walk around it, and then she called out to me from inside the car…”
“What?!” both Yumiko and the Professor cried out in unison. Then, while the Professor crossed her hands over her lab coat and blinked in undisguised amazement, Yumiko hastily masked her surprise with a tiny frown.
“W…well, that’s a surprise. I can’t imagine Refractor giving away her presence to someone she’d just met,” Yumiko added quickly.
Mentally scrambling for a way to smoothly explain what had happened from that point to the experiment and Suu’s departure, Minoru continued cautiously:
“So…then, um, well. I didn’t know that she’d been watching over my house while I was out on missions, and, ah, one thing led to another, and so I ended up inviting her in for dinner…?”
“Ah, well, I’m sure that didn’t go well.”
Professor Riri nodded sagely, a rueful smile on her small face. “I’m sure it got awkward there, right? I’m sorry. That’s why I’ve been putting off introducing you to her. But see, Hinako has her reasons for—”
“Oh, ah, th-that’s not it, exactly… She, um, she did come in and have dinner with my sister and me, so…”
“HUH?!”
Once again, the two voices rang out at the same time, albeit with slightly different tones.
“Wait a second, Utsugi. If she ate dinner at your house…does that mean she deactivated her ability…?”
When Minoru nodded affirmation to Yumiko’s dumbfounded question, both of the girls lapsed into stunned silence for several long moments. Finally, the Professor spoke up, her voice a bit low. “But Mikkun…besides Hinako’s ability, refraction, she has…other circumstances that predate her Third Eye…”
Uncertain whether it was all right to talk about it, Minoru chose his words carefully. “You mean…about sight lines, right?”
“What? Hinako told you that much…?”
“Yes…” The surprise on their faces continued to escalate. At this rate, Minoru realized he would never get through his explanation, so he took a deep breath and finished the report in one go. “So then, Komura wanted to see if her refraction power and my isolation power could be related and said she thought maybe I’d be able to bring someone into my shell if I couldn’t see them… So, uh, we ended up testing it out in my room. And when we did that, um, I don’t know why exactly, but it may have somehow succeeded on the first try? And then Komura recorded a sound that she heard inside my shell, and she said she’d bring it in for you to investigate, Professor, so she told me I should explain what happened. So, um…there you have it.”
He had gotten increasingly flustered and incoherent by the end, but Minoru had somehow managed to say everything he needed to, so he took in a long, deep breath as he wiped the sweat from his brow with the cuff of his shirt.
The ensuing silence was at least five seconds long.
Finally, the Professor raised her right hand slowly, extended her index finger, and pushed it down repeatedly as if buzzing in on an imaginary button. “W…wait a minute. Let me make sure I’ve got this right first. Mikkun, you said it ‘succeeded,’ right? Does that mean you were able to bring Hinako—Refractor—into your protective shell? And on the first try, too?”
“Err…” Suddenly, Minoru hesitated, getting the feeling that confirming this would set a series of events into motion that he wasn’t at all sure would be favorable. But it was too late to take it back now. Slowly, reluctantly, he nodded. “…Yes, I…I guess you could put it that way…”
Another long silence settled over the western side of the spacious fifth-floor room. Finally, the Professor dropped her hand back to her side and groaned. “Geez…I can’t believe it! Did it succeed because you couldn’t see Hinako, o
r was there some other factor? We’ll have to run lots of experiments…” Still mumbling to herself, she started to pace back and forth in front of the monitor. Looking away, Minoru nervously turned his gaze toward Yumiko, who was still sitting in a folding chair with her legs crossed.
Still in her black school blazer despite the fact that winter vacation was well under way, Yumiko maintained the same expression of surprise for a while, even when Minoru’s eyes met hers. Then, blinking suddenly as if she’d just realized something, she turned to face straight ahead. From this angle, her expression almost looked crestfallen. She suddenly squeezed her eyes shut as if something had frightened her. Her hands, clenched in her lap, trembled slightly.
However, her visible reaction told Minoru next to nothing about what she was actually thinking. Within seconds, she had straightened up, opened her eyes, and turned toward him with a smile.
“Well, that’s a relief! I guess I won’t be scraping up my nose today after all!” she said lightly, briskly clapping her hands and turning to the Professor. “That being the case, I suppose I can tap out and let Komura take over as your lab rat, yes?”
“Hmm? Ah, right, yes…”
“Well, then! I’ll be heading back to my room. I’m still a high school student, after all, so I ought to study once in a while! Great work today, everyone,” Yumiko said smoothly, and she stood up and walked toward the elevator without another glance at Minoru. There was the tap of footsteps, and the elevator doors creaked open, then shut.
After a few moments, the Professor let out a long sigh. Minoru, having blankly watched Yumiko leave without thinking to say good-bye, snapped out of his daze and turned around. Meeting his eyes, the elementary school–aged commander smiled somewhat bitterly.
“See, this is why I’m not qualified to be a leader.”
“H…huh?”
“I can recite the digits of pi for eternity, but when it comes to the human heart, I can’t predict what they’re going to do even if it’s just one second into the future. I guess no amount of research and secondhand information can replace life experience…”
“Um…what do you…?” Minoru tilted his head. In response, the Professor hoisted herself onto the edge of her desk and sat there, still smiling wanly, as she asked him an unusual question.
“Hey, Mikkun, have you ever been in love?”
At first, Minoru thought she was joking, and he opened his mouth to make some light joke in response, but he closed it when he realized he was meant to answer seriously. Waiting a moment, he slowly shook his head from side to side.
“No…I don’t think so.”
He had adored his late sister, Wakaba, and deeply admired his stepsister, Norie, but of course, that wasn’t romantic love. There was a girl from the Yoshiki High School track and field club, Tomomi Minowa, who he went on morning jogs with from time to time, but if he was asked whether he was in love with her, he couldn’t see himself saying anything other than no.
“I see.” The Professor inclined her head slightly at Minoru’s answer. “Neither have I. More accurately, I do seem to remember having some interest in a boy in my class up until three months ago, but once I received a Third Eye and my speculation powers, I forfeited those feelings.”
“Wh…why is that? It’s not as though your feelings for someone caused the trauma that fuels your Third Eye’s power, right…?”
“Yes, that’s true. But I got carried away with the thrill of having an intellect that no ten-year-old should have by rights. I wanted to come up with the answers for everything, even things I didn’t need— No, that I shouldn’t have thought about. The result is that I’ve lost the chance to find within myself any real answers about the hearts of others…”
Minoru could only half follow the meaning of the Professor’s muttered words. Looking at the pigtailed girl as she sat on the edge of her desk, still wearing a white lab coat over her jeans and sweater, he opened his mouth slowly. “Um…in other words, is that because you learned the ‘meaning of life,’ like you mentioned before…? Since you managed to come up with the answer to such a hard question, now it’s pointless to try to understand how something like love works, or…?”
“I guess. Well, it’s not so much that it’s pointless as that I just can’t bring myself to want to know the answer, I think. Or…I want to know, but my interest is only scientific, a matter of data. I figured I could at least hear about your experiences, but I guess I’m out of luck, huh, Mikkun?” She grinned, and Minoru ducked his head apologetically.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more useful. But…what made you bring that up all of a sudden?”
“Well, I’m trying to figure out which I should prioritize—learning more about your ability or the mental health of the SFD’s members.”
“S-sorry? Mental health…?”
“Yeah. But I already know the answer. Mikkun, I’m changing your mission for the evening. We’re going to put off the experiments for now. Instead, I need you to go to Yukko’s room on the fourth floor and buzz in on the intercom.”
Thrown off by the unexpected order, Minoru automatically repeated it. “B-buzz in…? Should I just come back here once I’ve done that?”
“Uh, no. What is this, ding-dong-dash? No, once you press it… Well, good luck, anyway. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
3
Following the Professor’s vague instructions, Minoru took the elevator down one story to the residential floor.
Walking eastward down the old-fashioned outside corridor, Minoru passed by the room that would be given to him if he decided to move here temporarily, room 403, and stopped in front of room 404, where Yumiko and her currently comatose partner, Shooter (Sanae Ikoma), lived.
Certainly, Yumiko’s response when she had left the fifth floor a little while ago had been out of character for her. In fact, Minoru didn’t think he’d ever seen such a distinct smile on her face. But what had caused the issue—and why the Professor had sent him here—was utterly unclear to him.
Of course, he couldn’t imagine Yumiko was satisfied with the fact that after their experiment with his protective shell had failed so many times, it succeeded on the first attempt as soon as he tried it with Suu. But since the reason it had worked was probably Suu’s invisibility, he didn’t see any point in getting hung up on it.
So what does the Professor want me to talk to Yumiko about? Still at a loss, Minoru timidly pushed the buzzer on her door.
Ding-dong. The old-fashioned chime rang out loudly, but it wasn’t until at least ten seconds after the sound had died away that a curt voice emitted from the speaker.
“Yes?”
“Ah, um, it’s Utsugi…”
“…What is it?”
“Well, I…um…,” Minoru stammered, unable to come up with a reason for his visit right away. The only instructions the Professor had given him beyond this point were “good luck.” And Minoru wasn’t feeling very lucky, since he still hadn’t figured out why he was here at room 404.
As he stood hesitating, he heard a small sigh from the speaker, and the door unlocked with a click. Hanging back in the dim light behind the slightly opened door, Yumiko was still in her uniform. “Well? What do you want?”
Wilting under her glare, Minoru opened and shut his mouth a few times before settling on explaining the situation honestly. “Um, well…the Professor sent me here to talk to you.”
Inhaling deeply, Accelerator let out a rapid stream of words that was true to her code name. “I see. Well, you’ve already accomplished that, then, haven’t you? Go back to the Professor and tell her for me that I said there isn’t a problem. See you later.”
As soon as she finished her statement, Yumiko moved to close the door. Panicking, Minoru automatically took a half step back. When he did, the light that he’d been blocking from the north side of the hallway flooded into the darkness of the half-closed doorway. And that was when he noticed.
Yumiko’s eyelids were red and puffy, and there were traces
of still-wet tears on her cheeks.
Without thinking, Minoru reached out and grabbed the edge of the door that she was trying to shut, firmly holding it open. At the same time, Yumiko, apparently realizing what he’d seen, quickly turned her face away, covering her eyes with her free hand. Her voice cracked sharply in the dry winter air.
“What are you doing? I said I’m fine! Just go back upstairs!”
“B-but…”
“I said go away! Leave me alone!” she shouted, but her voice was trembling. Apparently giving up, she let go of the doorknob and gave a loud sniffle, rubbing her eyes furiously. “…I’m sure you’re getting the wrong idea about this,” she said finally.
“Huh…?”
“And I’d rather not let you continue to misunderstand.”
“Huh?”
“Come in, then. I’ll give you the briefest explanation possible.”
This time when he entered, she ushered him into a room partway down the hall. The room was about thirty square meters, with a writing desk, a single bed, and a large beanbag cushion. It appeared that this was Yumiko’s room, though the decor was exceedingly plain. With a small dresser, plain horizon-blue curtains, and not a single poster or photo to be found on the walls, the room gave little evidence that it was home to a teenage girl. The one exception was a large, possibly deerlike stuffed animal lying on the bed, but its goofy face and black nose gave Minoru no clues as to what it was supposed to be.
“Is that stuffed animal a…reindeer…?” Standing by the bed, unsure of what to do next, Minoru ventured what seemed like a safe question. Yumiko glanced over, her eyes staying on the mysterious creature as she answered.
“It’s a pronghorn. Also known as a pronghorn antelope or a prong buck.”
“Pronghorn… Where does it live?”
“Midwestern America. It’s the fastest herbivore alive,” Yumiko explained shortly, then pointed at the beanbag cushion on the floor. “Sit there.”
As Minoru gingerly settled into the round cushion, Yumiko sat on the bed and pulled the stuffed pronghorn over to her, hugging it on her lap. She remained silent for a while and Minoru stole an upward glance at her.