But catching a goldfish wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
After watching Sota fail three times in silence, Fukuda finally squatted next to Kurosawa, looking frustrated.
“Things like this have a trick to them. Haven’t you ever tried?”
“Um…”
The truth was, he had never tried. He had done air rifle shooting with a cork in the end once, but goldfish were tricky to keep at home, so he had never attempted it. Last time, when he participated in the festival with Yuka, he had no choice but to take home the one given to him as a present by a random uncle.
“Look,”
Fukuda picked up a paper scoop and carefully brought it toward the goldfish.
He tilted it, moved it horizontally, and quickly scooped up the goldfish and dropped it into the container he was holding. The goldfish flailed in surprise at the sudden movement but couldn’t jump out.
“Impressive!”
Nanami exclaimed in a slightly excited voice next to him.
“Well… I used to come to festivals with Dad when I was a kid.”
That goldfish, too, went into a plastic bag like the one that Sota had received.
Kurosawa held the string tied to the bag and lifted the red goldfish up to eye level.
The goldfish looked right at Kurosawa, only to lose interest and swim around aimlessly.
“Hey, Kurosawa. Next time you come, wear a yukata.”
Nanami said to Kurosawa.
“Don’t you think you’d look like a Japanese doll? So cute.”
Had her impression of Kurosawa shifted to “cute” now? Sota chuckled lightly at Nanami’s enthusiasm.
“Alright, let’s move quickly then. If we’re late, all the good spots will be taken.”
With that, Nanami eagerly walked ahead, her earlier sulkiness completely gone.
The rest of the group followed behind.
Sota thought Kurosawa, holding the goldfish in one hand, walked a bit lighter than usual.
Was it just his imagination?
*
“…”
However, as they followed Nanami, Kurosawa suddenly stopped.
Seeing Kurosawa staring at him made Sota flustered, but thankfully, this time Kurosawa wasn’t just staring in silence.
“…Bathroom.”
“Uh, do you want to go to the bathroom?”
Before Sota could respond to that awkward question, Nanami reacted first.
Indeed, usually Kurosawa didn’t care much about these things. But today, the kids kept giving her things to put in her mouth, and it was natural for her to want to go.
“Hey, Sota. I’ll take you. You know where it is, right?”
“Yeah, I checked earlier.”
“…You’ll be okay?”
Yuka asked.
For a moment, Nanami’s gaze flickered.
Although there was Shii and Fukuda among their group, for some reason, Nanami didn’t like leaving Yuka and Sota alone together.
“…Which way to the bathroom?”
Finally, Fukuda sighed deeply and asked.
“Oh, over there…”
“I’ll go for you.”
He said, sounding somewhat annoyed, but Fukuda grabbed Kurosawa’s wrist and pulled her along.
Looking back at Sota and the group, Kurosawa obediently followed Fukuda.
“…They’ll be fine, right?”
“If it’s Fukuda, it should be the safest option.”
With Nanami’s comment, the rest of the kids, except for Shii who didn’t know Fukuda well, nodded along.
“First, let’s grab some spots, and if they don’t show up, we’ll contact them to come back.”
Sota nodded at that.
*
Even if it wasn’t a particularly famous festival, the unique lively atmosphere that the word ‘festival’ brings always attracts many people.
And in crowded places, bathroom lines tend to get long.
Thanks to Kurosawa and Fukuda, they had to wait in front of the bathroom for quite a while.
Nevertheless, it didn’t take as long as he had thought. After a few minutes of waiting while holding Kurosawa’s goldfish, Kurosawa came out of the bathroom as expressionless as ever.
She does go to the bathroom after all, Fukuda thought absentmindedly.
Handing back the goldfish to Kurosawa, the two walked silently.
Fukuda walked in front, while Kurosawa followed a bit behind.
It was probably because it felt a bit obstructive to walk through overwhelmingly crowded areas that Fukuda chose a side path he had seen on the way.
Although it was a side path, it wasn’t really one that went deep into the mountains, just another shallow trail along the river in the park.
There were streetlights, and of course, people passing through, but—
“Hey.”
In that less crowded area, someone spoke up.
It wasn’t a familiar voice, but something about the tone made it feel like it was someone Fukuda or Kurosawa knew.
“…Oh, it’s you guys.”
Fukuda muttered, seeming annoyed.
It was the three kids who had been mocking Kurosawa and hiding a knife up their sleeves.
Back then, he had been filthy with blood after getting crumpled in a fight thanks to them, but he didn’t want to do that here.
Even though Fukuda rarely showed good expressions, it was a festival after all.
He’d enjoyed himself, just floating around with those close to him, so it wasn’t that he hadn’t had fun at all.
“Can’t we just pass by without bumping into each other today? You guys seemed to be having fun.”
The three weren’t just girls.
Seeing the pretty burly boy hanging around them, it seemed they had probably gotten boyfriends.
Fukuda sized up the boys’ physiques and thought, This could be a bit risky.
Even Fukuda couldn’t ignore the difference in their builds. If three beefy guys and a few girls rushed in, he wasn’t sure he’d come out unscathed.
Although he was brusque with others, Fukuda was not without feelings. Rather, it was because he had feelings that he could act like this.
He could feel danger, and he could feel fear.
“…Hey, Kurosawa.”
Fukuda slightly turned his head toward Kurosawa.
“When I start running, you run too.”
Having sensed something strange already, the people on the street had been subtly backing away. There were a lot of police at festivals. How long would it take for them to get here?
This wasn’t a popular street lined with stalls, but there was no way to pull off something flashy in a place where people were watching… That was a little comforting, but also a bit inappropriate.
Kurosawa was tilting her head in confusion.
The distance was pretty short. Fukuda thought he was way more excited than he should be. If that weren’t the case, he shouldn’t have noticed something like this.
“…Run!”
Fukuda shouted and turned to sprint back. Of course, he didn’t forget to grab Kurosawa’s wrist in the process.
But, the stride didn’t last long.
Thud.
Suddenly, something flew into Fukuda’s abdomen.
The dull impact wasn’t as painful as he thought. No, perhaps it hurt so much that the pain was dulled.
But he couldn’t help the energy draining from his body.
“Oh, right…”
It wasn’t just coming from one side.
It wasn’t just a coincidence they were running into each other.
The girls with their boyfriends, that made sense. So naturally, they thought that they had come to this festival together.
…Why hadn’t he thought that the boys might have come to the festival and that the girls would follow? Or even if he had thought about it, what meaning would that have now?
If that wasn’t the case, they could have just met here at the festival.
“One, two… Hey, we’re short! Aren’t we missing one? That doesn’t make a pair.”
Fukuda could barely keep himself from falling when he heard that voice in his ear.
“Last time, one person was fine, right?”
“Hey, what strange thing did you hear? That was the yakuza’s daughter. You have no idea how terrified I was when I saw her name.”
“Right. Didn’t enjoy it at all. She was too much trouble.”
“Oh, was that what you said?”
The boy who punched Fukuda in the belly scratched his head.
“What… are you talking about?”
Fukuda found himself asking without realizing it.
For some reason, he thought of his friend Yuuki’s face.
The friend who had been found by the people searching for him after leaving home.
He had been covered in blood, they said. After getting beaten to a pulp, he had barely been discovered by someone who knew Yuuki’s father.
At that time, they couldn’t chase after the culprit because they had to rush Yuuki to the hospital.
Fukuda felt like he might throw up. He didn’t know if it was because of the punch he’d taken in the gut or the fact that he happened to know those boys.
Kurosawa was just standing quietly without saying a word.
He couldn’t tell what the atmosphere was like, but it probably wasn’t very different from when Mako came around… it couldn’t be that different, could it?
“…Yakuza? Daughter?”
“Huh? Oh. You don’t have to know about that. But, how about coming to play with us at the festival? I know some fun ways to enjoy it. You might not know how to have fun, but you could probably do something.”
“…Shut up…”
When Fukuda muttered, the boy raised his hand.
And—
Thud.
“Hey, what’s with you? You trying to protect your friend or something?”
Kurosawa pushed her way between Fukuda and the boy.
Fukuda barely managed to regain his footing after getting punched, but Kurosawa fell backward and sat on the ground.
In that moment, Fukuda took another hit on the head and staggered.
The goldfish inside the plastic bag glimmered vividly under the streetlight.
“They were having their fun as girls after all.”
The boy said this while grabbing Kurosawa by the wrist. The bag holding the goldfish swayed precariously.
Perhaps wanting to torment Kurosawa, the boy lifted her arm high and reached for the goldfish bag with the other hand.
“Kurosawa!”
Fukuda quickly got back up. But the boy’s hands were already on the bag.
At that moment, Kurosawa raised her other hand and tightly grabbed the boy’s wrist.
It seemed like she might have scratched him with her nails.
“Hey, that hurts!”
The boy yelled and shook off Kurosawa’s hand, slapping her with the back of his hand.
Kurosawa staggered again, and her strength drained away. The bag slipped from her hand and arched through the air, landing with a plop on the ground.
The bag burst, water spilled everywhere, and the red fish jumped wildly.
“What the hell are we going to do now? I’ll catch it again—”
The boy couldn’t finish his playful sentence.
A crimson line appeared on his cheek.
The wound formed along that line, as if the skin was peeling from the outside like a punctured puppet.
Blood trickled down the line.
“Uh?”
The boy belatedly brought his hand up to his cheek.
Blood flowed between his fingers where he couldn’t stop it.
“Wha—AH!?”
The boy screamed, and his friends stood frozen, not grasping what was happening.
Fukuda wasn’t exactly in the loop either.
However—
Like hair standing on end due to static electricity, he saw Kurosawa’s hair slowly rise.
He felt an odd sense. Something felt wrong, as if his instincts were warning him that he shouldn’t be here.
The boy’s hand bore another thin line, and again blood flowed down. Now the others seemed to realize that Kurosawa was something else entirely.
Fukuda couldn’t tell what expression Kurosawa was making, but she was definitely wearing a very frightening expression.
By the time the tips of Kurosawa’s hair began to look like sharpened blades—
“Wait, stop! Kurosawa!”
He heard the frantic voice of Yuka rushing toward them.
My site has received a lot of DMCA notices, lol. From now on, I will update the MTL on https://darkmtl.com/.
The site is fast and lightweight because there are no ads yet. However, the theme is different from Cybor-TL, so take some time to familiarize yourself.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.