“Excuse me, could you tell me what that was about?”
Koharu Miura keenly sensed the crux of the matter and quickly interjected before the others moved on from the topic.
“Eh……?”
The group was in the middle of a conversation, and Koharu Miura’s sudden interruption left them stunned.
In their eyes, the quiet and soft-spoken girl had suddenly undergone a shift in presence.
—She had become quite serious.
“What do you mean, what was it about?”
“I mean about ALISA. You said something happened after you came back from lunch?”
“……That.”
The girl who had introduced herself as Maki, the leader whom Koharu Miura had met briefly in the rest room earlier, replied.
“We were planning to go eat together at noon yesterday.”
Maki recalled the scene from yesterday. “But ALISA said she would eat a bit later, so we didn’t press her and went ahead to eat.”
“And after ALISA returned by herself, her condition was a little off?”
“—She was even almost late,” the girl next to her added helplessly.
“…..”
As soon as the girls started talking about Arisa Kiyono, they immediately fell into a complaining mode.
After asking a few more questions, Koharu Miura obtained the answers she wanted and backed out with a laugh.
Her friends were still asking the band members about topics that interested them, while Koharu Miura stood to the side, stroking her chin.
According to what they said, Arisa Kiyono had shown no abnormalities until before noon yesterday, but she became absentminded “after she finished eating.”
—It was just as she had guessed. They had gone to eat in the Shopping Street of Sakuragicho, so Arisa Kiyono must have gone there as well.
Then……
It was obvious. Had something happened on the streets of Sakuragicho?
Koharu Miura’s serious expression was rather out of place among the cheerful girls, but fortunately, no one seemed to notice.
—Koharu Miura’s serious expression did not go entirely unnoticed.
Someone was watching her.
—Off to the side of Koharu Miura.
The last girl she had seen in the rest room, known as Mayumi, was hiding on the periphery of the crowd, stealing glances at Koharu Miura’s profile.
—Then, when Koharu Miura’s gaze showed signs of shifting, Mayumi quickly looked away.
She turned and hid within the crowd, preventing Koharu Miura from capturing her figure.
“It looks like we won’t be able to see the rehearsal today.”
After talking until she was tired, Yui Hori tugged on Mio Sato’s hand, her tone regretful. “Since that’s the case, us hanging around here is just bothering them, and we’re about to head out anyway.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame.”
Mio Sato sighed, looking disappointed but understanding that it could not be helped. “Shall we go?”
“Eh…… but I haven’t seen anything yet,” Yuzuki Yasuda complained.
“Hmm…… we should probably head back,” Koharu Miura said, wanting to leave as soon as possible. She replied offhandedly while her eyes searched the surroundings for something.
“Well, thank you all for your hard work. We will be taking our leave now.”
A moment later, Koharu Miura and her friends bowed politely to the group.
At the very moment she turned to leave the rest room, she deliberately slowed her pace, acting as if she were adjusting the strap of her shoulder bag.
Amid the chaos of everyone heading out and the noise masking her subtle movements, she took a fleeting look at the girl in the corner.
Their gazes met for a brief moment in the air.
The girl’s look of extreme anxiety was keenly captured by Koharu.
“She knows the truth.”
“Or rather, she knows exactly what Arisa went through during that lost time yesterday afternoon.”
……
As they walked out of the iron gate of the Livehouse, the late autumn sunset had already withdrawn its final rays, leaving the sky in a stifling, dark purple.
“Ugh, what a waste of time,” Yui stretched and complained to her brother. “If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have come.”
“No one could have predicted something like this,” Yui’s brother replied calmly.
He glanced back at the increasingly illuminated Livehouse, his tone meaningful. “But you high schoolers really shouldn’t frequent places like that. The atmosphere…… it feels like everyone is hiding a mountain of anger.”
“Yeah, I felt it too,” Mio Sato patted her chest in lingering fear. “Especially that first girl, her eyes were so fierce. Koharu, are you okay? You’ve looked pale this whole time.”
Koharu returned to her senses, putting on a slightly exhausted smile. “I’m fine. I just…… feel a bit bad for everyone. After all, it was my idea to come.”
“Don’t be sorry! We wanted to see it too,” Yui said generously, wrapping her arm around Koharu. “Since we missed the rehearsal, let’s go treat ourselves to that extra-large parfait to make up for it!”
Amidst the laughter and chatter, Koharu followed her friends toward the Shopping Street, her mind elsewhere.
But in her thoughts, the sight of that idol in the corner—hesitant, struggling, wanting to speak but not daring to—was like a red-hot nail, stuck firmly in her consciousness.
“No, I can’t just leave like this.”
Koharu made a quick calculation in her heart.
“Arisa’s disappearance is definitely not just a simple case of feeling unwell. If even her companions are starting to harbor these destructive, misguided notions, it means the System Malice has completely surrounded her social connections. If I don’t pry that girl’s mouth open, Arisa will truly be buried by this kind of lonely execution.”
She stopped at the entrance of the Shopping Street.
“Um…… why don’t you guys go ahead and grab a table?” Koharu suddenly clutched her stomach, putting on a troubled and embarrassed expression. “I…… I need to use the rest room. I think the cold wind inside the Livehouse made my stomach a bit upset.”
“Eh? Is it bad? Do you want me to come with you?” Yui asked with immediate concern.
“No, no! I’ll be right back. I know there’s a convenience store around here.”
Koharu waved her hand shyly, her acting reaching its peak. “Go wait for me at the shop, I want to eat the green tea flavor one!”
“Alright, be quick then.”
Watching the figures of her friends and Yui’s brother vanish into the busy crowds of the Shopping Street, the smile on Koharu Miura’s face vanished instantly.
Without a moment of hesitation, she swung around and, before the night had completely swallowed the street, ran like crazy back toward the dark rear entrance of the Livehouse.
“Please, don’t leave too quickly.”
Her heart hammered violently against her ribcage.
She was gambling.
Gambling that the hesitant girl, after finishing such a disjointed practice session, would choose to leave alone.
Gambling that in the face of Arisa’s desperate situation, that girl still possessed one last shred of softness called “Humanity.”
In this dating game that had been turned into a shell of its former self by her intervention as an outsider, she, this “Green Tea” butterfly, was attempting to grasp at a straw that might not even exist—the “truth”—amidst a raging storm.
“Arisa…… wait for me.”
The figure of Koharu Miura completely disappeared into the complex shadows of Sakuragicho.
The night air in Sakuragicho carried a damp, salty scent.
Panting, Koharu hid behind a utility pole diagonally across from the Livehouse’s rear entrance, her body pressed tightly against the cold metal.
Her lungs ached from the intense running, but she dared not let out too loud a breath, keeping her eyes glued to the heavy iron door where staff occasionally entered and exited.
About 10 minutes passed.
Several band members walked away together from the front entrance, laughing and joking.
Koharu waited patiently, knowing that the girl was timid and would likely take the quieter, less-trafficked rear exit.
Finally.
With a dull sound of turning hinges on the iron door, the girl in the beige long coat, wearing a wide mask and hat, stepped out cautiously.
She did not walk with the other members; her hands were tightly gripping the straps of her instrument case, and she appeared exceptionally anxious.
It was the very girl, the idol, who had caught Koharu’s attention.
She looked around to confirm no one was nearby, then lowered her head and hurried into an alleyway that led in the opposite direction of the station.
Koharu adjusted her breathing, suppressed the impatience in her heart, and followed her without making a sound.