Continuing from "Poison, Part 1" 4/5
https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=12818977
5. So that's why you always failed
This is a story I heard from Kyosuke.
It was December of my first year in high school.
I don't like the cold, so this time of year is always tough. On top of that, now that I'm a high school student, I still can't accept that our uniform involves a skirt. I'd rather wear jeans to school. When I said that, my classmate, Shiho Takano, said something surprisingly granny-like: "You can only dress this cute while you're young."
As we grew more comfortable with each other, Shiho started preaching to me more and more, but I didn't really mind it. Maybe that level of nagging was just right for our relationship.
Before I knew it, dragging my summer-vacation mindset along with me, the end of the second term was approaching, and winter break was just around the corner. That meant final exams were also near, and it felt like more and more kids in class were staring into their notebooks during breaks.
I still didn't fit in with the class, but I was living my days as a high school girl well enough.
Around this time, with final exams just around the corner, the principal came up with an event: burying a time capsule in the schoolyard. It was to commemorate some anniversary of the school's founding. As part of this, we were given a mission to write a "Letter to My Future Self" and put it inside.
We weren't elementary school students anymore; as high schoolers, we were already adults. None of us wanted to write a letter like that. Everyone was unenthusiastic, but the principal and a few teachers were super hyped and taking it way too seriously. It was completely exhausting.
"Hey Chihiro, have you written your time capsule letter yet?"
Asked by Shiho in the classroom, I shook my head.
"Not yet."
"I wrote mine. I couldn't decide what to write, but I figured it's best to write something that'll cheer my future self up if I ever read it, so I made it an encouraging message."
"You're so earnest. The model student."
Right as we were having that exchange, our homeroom teacher, Xavier, called out to me.
"Hey, come here for a sec after school."
"Oh, sure."
What could it be? I tried to remember the last place I smoked a cigarette. Had I been caught again?
After Xavier left, Shiho brought her nose close to my uniform and sniffed.
"What?"
"I figured it was cigarettes again."
"Not today."
At that, Shiho puffed out her cheeks in a pout.
And after school, I sat facing Xavier in the teachers' room. No other teachers were around.
"What is it?"
"Well, there's just something I want to ask you."
Having said that, Xavier seemed to be struggling to find the words. If it was about me, this sounded much more serious than smoking. I grew a little uneasy, wondering if I had done something that bad.
"Ah… well, you see. Have you heard any rumors about drugs at school lately?"
"Drugs?"
That certainly was more serious than cigarettes. Fortunately, though, I had no idea what he was talking about.
"I'm not doing any."
"No, not you, people around you. Well?"
"I dunno. Haven't heard anything."
"I see…"
Xavier crossed his arms and sighed.
"Why ask me?"
"Because you keep your mouth shut. If I ask other students about this stuff, the rumor multiplies by tenfold."
That was probably true. But precisely because I kept my mouth shut, there was also the possibility that I wouldn't sell out my friends. I wasn't foolish enough to point that out to Xavier, though.
"Does it look like someone's doing them?"
"Well, I heard a rumor that some weird kind of drug is going around this area lately. I'm worried it might have spread to our students."
Even though he wasn't in charge of student guidance, Xavier had a habit of roaming arcades and downtown areas alone on weekdays and holidays, preaching to any school students he found and forcing them home. He was a genuinely annoying teacher. I had been caught by him more than once or twice.
"What do you mean by a 'weird kind of drug'?"
Feeling a sense of incongruity at Xavier's vague phrasing, I asked.
"Hm? I don't really know. Haven't seen the real thing either. Just that it doesn't seem to be a regular drug. I heard rumors that it doesn't make you feel good or anything, but that weird things happen."
After saying that, Xavier made a face as if he'd messed up. He seemed to have remembered that I wasn't just tight-lipped, but a student who liked occult things like fortune-telling. He probably thought that by phrasing it in a way that would catch my interest, he had poked a sleeping dog.
"Conversation's over. You can go home now."
With that, he turned away with a huff.
"Kay."
"Your answer is 'yes'."
Released by Xavier, I thought to myself: *Maybe I need to live up to his expectations.*
The next day, I went to see a girl from another class named Yoshinaga.
She was a girl I had grown somewhat close to after various events in the spring. She had been suspended after getting mixed up with delinquents from another school and getting caught with drugs. Since coming back, she seemed to have turned over a new leaf and was pouring herself into her studies. Since she was smart to begin with, it looked like she was going to leave me far behind in the second-term grades.
"A weird drug?"
"Yeah. I was wondering if you'd heard any rumors."
"No idea. Besides, I don't do that kind of stuff anymore."
"Yeah, I know that, but—"
"Oh, come to think of it, was it that thing Jun-chan mentioned?"
"Jun-chan is that delinquent friend of yours, right?"
"Don't put it like that. We were childhood friends. We're still friends, even if we keep a bit of distance from each other now."
"My bad, my bad. So what did Jun-chan say?"
"Well, she said there's a drug that changes your dreams."
"Changes your dreams?"
"Yeah. Apparently it's like water, doesn't sound bad for your body at all, and just by drinking it, you can have a little trip like that."
"Huh."
My interest was piqued after all.
"Where do you get it?"
"What was it again… I think they sell it in the alleys of Shiramachi or something. Oh, yeah, yeah. Apparently you can buy it for a thousand yen."
"That's cheap."
I could probably buy that with my allowance.
"Are you interested in drugs?"
"No, not really."
"You should stay away from them. Drugs never bring anything good. Absolutely."
Hearing that from someone with actual experience made me think, *Yeah, I suppose so.* But I asked myself, *If it's just like water, wouldn't it be fine?* At that, the bad side of me exhaled a puff of cigarette smoke and said, *"It cannot be helped."* It was a strange phrase, but I decided to interpret it favorably.
The very next day was the ceremony for burying the time capsule. In the end, I handed in a blank sheet for my letter to my future self. I didn't particularly have anything to say to myself. I live the way I want to live, and I'm sure in the future I'll still be living the way I want to live.
As I watched a giant silver sphere stuffed with everyone's letters being buried in the corner of the schoolyard, I felt no particular sentiment.
That day after school, I intended to go straight home and study for exams, but instead I ended up wandering aimlessly around town until I found myself sucked into a general store. It was what you call running away from reality.
Inside that general store, I ran into an unexpected person. Maizaki Kyoko was standing in cat-patterned stationery, gazing intently at it in her school uniform. Middle school kids around her were whispering to each other, saying things like, "Isn't she a model?" and "Her legs are so long."
Maizaki Kyoko was taller than me, slender, and suited short hair. But more than her figure, the eerie, brilliant sparkle of her slanted, dark-pupiled eyes left an impression. It was a kind of beauty you wouldn't easily find if you searched for it in this non-metropolitan area.
That Maizaki Kyoko noticed me and called out.
"My, Yamanaka-san. Are you all done studying for your exams, too?"
Right off the bat, she was being sarcastic. Truly a detestable creature.
"Yep. All that's left is to write my name so I don't mess up the answer sheet."
"Oh, so that's why you always failed."
"Shut up."
Even so, our relationship had actually improved. When we first met, things were much more prickly. Maizaki Kyoko had constantly picked fights with me, and I had tried to respond harshly. But last month, when I was invited to Kyoko's birthday party, I learned about the hidden suffering of someone who was always calm, collected, and cool, and that changed how I interacted with her a bit.
At the time, I had rejected the hand she offered as if out of pity. But now I had a feeling that perhaps it was just her clumsy way of expressing a desire to become friends.
She was a dangerous person to let your guard down around, but I was an adult. I could deal with her accordingly. That's what I had thought.
"Kyoko. What did you write in the time capsule?"
It was meant as sarcasm. Maizaki Kyoko writing a letter to her future self! No matter the content, it had to be embarrassing. As I grinned, Kyoko answered nonchalantly.
"I wrote a tanka poem."
"A tanka?"
Huh. Things were getting a bit suspicious. It sounded kind of cool. Cooler than my blank sheet.
"What about you?"
"I… it doesn't matter, does it?"
Suddenly, I felt like I couldn't bring myself to admit that I'd turned in a blank paper.
"What kind of tanka is it?"
Kyoko gave a "fufu" laugh, held up the cat stationery, and smoothly traced something like characters on it with her finger.
"In cursive, connected all the way through. Except for the very last character, leaving it out."
"Leaving it out, what's that supposed to mean?"
"Just a little game."
Kyoko laughed happily. At a glance, it was the smile of a bewitching beauty looking down on someone, but the longer you hung out with her, the more you realized it was just a genuinely happy smile. Though, going full circle, maybe I was just being fooled.
"Lately, my fortune-telling has been bringing up bad results."
"Bad, like what?"
"My own destiny. It's wavering. Between life and death."
Kyoko's face was serious. Her voice was quiet, as if she were simply stating a fact.
"It might have something to do with the catastrophe quietly progressing in this town."
At the time, when people talked about catastrophes, Nostradamus's Great Prophecies were all the rage, so it was a common word in occult circles. Hearing it come out of Kyoko's mouth gave me a strange feeling.
"You said something like that before, too. What on earth is that?"
"Who knows, I don't know either. The future is unknown even to me. But I tried a little spell. That's what the tanka is."
"A spell?"
"Yes. I pasted a button battery onto paper, applied a certain chemical, and then wrote the tanka using ink mixed with another chemical. It's designed to ignite if the final character connects to the previous one in a single stroke."
Suddenly hearing the word "ignite" made me think I'd misheard, but she apparently meant it seriously.
"I didn't connect the final character. But I cast a spell on it. That when my life comes to an end, those characters will connect, completing my death poem."
"You put that into the time capsule?"
"Yes. I previously had the principal show me the size of the capsule and the estimated total volume of letters, and I calculated it. It was a pretty large capsule, so by the time the oxygen runs out, most of the letters should have burned away."
Kyoko smiled. Did she think she was making a mischievous kid's smile? To me, it looked demonic.
"What on earth are you doing?!"
"Everyone didn't want to write those things anyway. I have no interest in other people's futures continuing after my death. I'd rather it all burn and vanish without a trace."
"Do you really think that spell of yours is going to work?"
"Yes. I believe it. So right now, that time capsule is in a state where the future that continues and the future that perishes are overlapping. It's wavering, along with my destiny."
Ah, right. She was this kind of person. This girl was. I pressed my forehead and sighed.
"Come to think of it, Yamanaka-san. It seems you were asking Yoshinaga-san about something yesterday."
Taken aback by the sudden change of topic, before I could ask how she knew, I answered.
"Just asking a bit about drugs."
"Oh, how interesting. Won't you tell me, too?"
I stared intently at Kyoko. *Should I drag her into this?* I thought. The very next moment, the thought arose: *Don't, nothing good will come of it.*
As I deliberated, the mischievous-looking version of myself inside my head puffed on a kiseru pipe and said once more, *"It cannot be helped."*
The ring to it was somehow amusing, so I muttered aloud, "It cannot be helped."
At that, Kyoko said, "Oh, a historical drama. I watch that, too."
*Damn.* So that's why it was stuck in my head?
It was the catchphrase of a warlord played by a famous actor. I felt embarrassed.
"You'll tell me, won't you?"
There was no help for it. That was probably what the phrase meant anyway. I told Kyoko what I knew.
"Let's go check it out. To Shiramachi, tonight."
Kyoko was unusually enthusiastic, making that proposal.
"I heard about it, too. Apparently some person wearing a weird mask is selling them."
"You knew about it?"
"I was a little interested, but it's scary going alone. If Yamanaka-san is with me, I'll feel safe."
Kyoko mimicked the motion of swinging a kendo wooden sword.
"I'm not bringing a wooden sword. If you walk around with something like that, you'll get picked up by the cops instantly."
"It was a joke. But I'm counting on you."
Before I knew it, as a result of such an exchange, I found myself exploring nighttime Shiramachi with Maizaki Kyoko. I thought I should probably be at home studying diligently for exams, but maybe I had accepted Kyoko's proposal precisely to escape from that.
*Hah. Oh well, it can't be helped. That's just how it is.*
That night, we met up by the fountain in front of the station and joined forces. It was already close to 12, so even the fountain meeting spot had scarce shadows of people.
I wore my usual jeans and a red Japanese souvenir jacket. Kyoko wore a gray and white checkered coat. Wearing such mature clothes, combined with her looks, she looked just like a celebrity. For a brief second, I felt intimidated, wondering if I should have worn something a little better.
"Let's go."
Suddenly, Kyoko grabbed my arm, trying to walk arm-in-arm.
I shook her off in silence.
"Honestly, you're such a stingy person."
What was stingy about that?
We walked side by side toward the downtown area. Passing through a street lined with karaoke joints for students, we entered a zone crawling with drunks. From around here was Shiramachi. I sometimes walked through here during the day, but at this hour, it was a space far removed from high schoolers.
"Well, well, well. Hey girls, you're beauties. Why don't you come have a drink with us old guys?"
We ignored the annoying calls of the drunks and kept walking.
"This is my first time doing nightlife like this. I'm having fun being with Yamanaka-san."
"Liar."
"It's true."
"If the teachers catch us, we're done for. Walk properly and pay more attention."
I was treating Kyoko harsher than usual, but I realized myself that half of it was to hide my embarrassment. Walking through town with such a beautiful friend probably satisfies your vanity, regardless of gender. That feeling definitely existed inside me, too. It made my heart race and brought an inexplicable tension over me.
It reminded me of walking through town like this with Yoko. Without any pressure, fooling around, and laughing as we walked. I suddenly felt a nostalgic fondness for those days.
As we carefully strolled through the nighttime entertainment district, Kyoko suddenly stopped.
"There they are."
Her gaze was directed down a narrow alley beside an izakaya. I stepped in front of Kyoko and strained my eyes.
Several large containers were stacked along the building, and behind them was a figure. They were wearing something like a mask over their face.
"Hello?"
I called out in a small voice, testing the waters.
The figure was standing, facing this way. I stepped into the alley and approached.
"Are you the person selling them for a thousand yen?"
The figure wore a black cloak. They looked shady just by appearance. On their face was a mask—or rather, a white, flat-surfaced mask. Black, wave-like borders were drawn on it. It was an eerie mask that radiated an unknown malice.
The masked figure pulled a small bottle out from under their cloak.
Was that it?
I tried to take a thousand-yen bill out of my wallet in my pocket, but before I could, Maizaki Kyoko thrust two thousand-yen bills toward the mask.
"Two portions, please?"
The mask took a step forward, accepted the thousand-yen bills from Kyoko's hand, and in exchange, held out two small bottles, one in each hand. They remained completely silent.
We nodded and accepted them.
The transaction was over. It was surprisingly anticlimactic. Was that it? Drug dealing might actually be this simple.
I was interested in the masked figure, but for now, today's objective was achieved, so let's head back before getting dragged into anything weird. Just as I thought that, Kyoko spoke to the mask.
"Are you a member of the Whale Theater Troupe, I wonder?"
A theater troupe? Come to think of it, I had seen flyers and signs for them a few times. Theater signs featuring someone wearing a white mask. But the mask in front of us looked a bit different from that.
"Or perhaps you're a member of the Poison Drinking Society?"
Deep in the dark alley, the mask swayed slightly.
"What on earth is that?"
I gave the hem of Kyoko's clothes a little tug.
"My father, who worked as a ship's doctor, mentioned it when he was in Japan. That eccentric father of mine. He said there's a weird gathering in this town called the Poison Drinking Society. An aesthetic society where people hide their faces behind masks and drink poison. I wonder if this has anything to do with that group."
Kyoko held up the small bottle she had just bought from the mask. I looked at my small bottle, too; it was filled with a transparent liquid. Hearing the word "poison," just holding it made me feel uneasy.
"I'm interested in both, you know. I saw a performance by the Whale Theater Troupe once last year. Was the title *The Metamorphosis*? It was a strange, captivating story, like something you'd see in a dream. I've wanted to meet the scriptwriter who wrote that. I heard the scriptwriter is the troupe leader. I also like the name Whale Theater Troupe. I've heard the leader always wears a mask. Isn't that you?"
At Kyoko's words, the mask seemed to be trembling slightly.
Was it laughing?
The moment I thought that, an eerie sound came from the mask.
*«Are you interested in the Poison Drinking Society?»*
I felt a chill for a second, but immediately realized it was a voice processed through a voice changer. Were they hiding one under the mask?
Kyoko looked surprised, too, but quickly recovered her expression and asked…