When I was called out of the classroom by Mr. Ikezawa, it was during the second class, and he pushed open the classroom door and told me in a very stiff tone.

"Rurishi, come to my office and ask you a few questions. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info”

I nervously came to Mr. Ikezawa's office, but he just waited for me inside and then led me into another room.

"Your name is Ruriki, right?"

The man who spoke was a man in a police uniform, in his mid-forties, with brown glasses and a very thin face, and I felt that he looked like a lemur.

"You're in the same class as Kimi, aren't you?"

"-Hmm."

"What were you doing on the day she had the accident?"

"It's like a game of hide and seek..."

"Why use 'as if', can't you be sure of your own behavior?"

"I have 'intermittent amnesia,' and I don't have an complete memory of what it was like that day."

"Is there a doctor who can prove your illness?"

The other party crossed his hands and squinted his eyes to ask me, from his appearance, tone, especially the way he asked, I was very disgusted, but Ji Mei was stoned to death by a fallen cabinet, and it is understandable that the police are so harsh, so I feel much better when I think about it.

I explained that Dr. Morinan of the neurology department of the municipal shimrock hospital was my attending doctor, and the lemur-like officer seemed to soften his tone a little, and he nodded and asked.

"Ruriki, do you know how Kimi died?"

"-Uh, I don't know."

--I don't know at all, I was already lying in the hospital when I was conscious, but then again, maybe I'm the only one in the world who knows what happened that night. But the bad thing is that I lost my memory of that part.

So the police told me the cause of Kimi's death and the results of the autopsy.

The cause of Ji Mei's death was not the cabinet, the cabinet fell after her death, and the forensic autopsy results showed that the direct cause of death was sudden death caused by cardiac paralysis, which was simply scared to death.

――Can people really be scared to death? ――What did Kimi see at that time that her heart couldn't bear at all?

"Liulixi-san, your memory is very important to our investigation, what stage can you recall now?"

"Jin Chuan found me and Shui Jing while playing hide and seek, and we were hiding behind the cabinet in the storage room at that time, and we can only recall this place so far... I don't know what happened after that. ”

"How many of you are playing?"

“......？”

I hesitated for a moment, the numbers seven and eight were swinging in my head, I remember that when I went back to school, there were eight of us, but Ji Mei disappeared halfway, is this situation not known to the police, should I say it? Will he believe my nonsense? But in the end, Shui Jing, didn't they say that Ji Mei found it, she was standing on the podium, and everyone saw her, so it should be okay for me to omit the missing part of her, and after hesitating, I made a decision.

"Eight!"

I replied.

Hearing this, the lemur in front of him immediately frowned, and he leaned forward to lean towards me.

"Liulixi-san, I want you to be honest, how many are there?"

"Eight."

"But your classmates told me -- it's seven."

- I really messed up the matter, but I still confessed everything I knew, so I confessed to the disappearance of Ji Mei before I played hide and seek, so that it was consistent with the situation that the police had.

"Kimi disappeared when she came out of the girls' bathroom, right?"

"-yes! Taken away by 'that'. ”

I don't think it can be called "missing", it should be led away by "who", as if Kimi went to another space at that moment.

"That? Do you mean people? ”

The lemur officer looked at me in amazement, and only used "that" instead when he couldn't say what he perceived.

But I just answered "yes", why did I pull out "that", I really regretted it, I felt as if I was making things more complicated -

"What kind of person is it?"

"I don't know."

"Man or woman?"

"I don't know."

“......？”

The officer looked at me in disbelief.

"Ruriki, answer the questions well, don't talk nonsense."

Mr. Ikezawa was always by the side, after all, considering that the students would be a little uneasy to be questioned alone, I could see that Mr. Ikesawa was very dissatisfied with my performance, and he pulled his face and scolded softly.

"In other words, you saw a person who didn't know 'whether it was a man or a woman' walked down the corner of the stairs with Kimi, right? ... Well, got it. ”

Officer Lemur took notes in his notebook, and then he whispered a few words to Mr. Ikezawa, then nodded to each other, looked at me and asked

"Do you remember what time it was when you came out of the girls' bathroom?"

"I didn't see the exact time at that time, it was about seven o'clock."

"Hmm-that's it, Ruri-ki-san, I can tell you a situation here, your classmates found you and Kimi lying in the storage room at 8:45, and they immediately called the police, but the result of forensic verification is that Kimi's death time is around 7:30, which means that she died an hour ago, but the body was found with you in that storeroom, so we pay special attention to the clues you provide, which is directly related to the murderer's modus operandi-"

It turns out that this is the case, no wonder Shui Jing They want to say "seven", if the police have determined the time of Ji Mei's death, then the Ji Mei they saw on the podium later will undoubtedly become an "impossible" is the fact, I feel that my back is getting colder and colder.

"Excuse me... Was Kimi wearing shoes when she died? I asked.

"Dressed... What's wrong? ”

"-Oh, just asking."

I've always felt that if I had something to do with "that", I wouldn't wear shoes.

"Be careful... Be careful..."

-- The voice in my heart rang in my ears again.

After returning to the classroom, before the second class was over, Shui Jing immediately threw a small note-

"I heard that the police came to you for questioning, and I was worried about you..."

I'll give her back—

"Well, I know the cause of Kimi's death."

When Shui Jing saw the note, she turned her head and glared at me, sticking out her tongue.

"I also learned about this later, so I'm afraid what we saw on the podium was not Kimi..."

We continued to throw in little notes.

"Who's that?"

"I don't know!"

"Didn't Jin Chuan see two people wearing girls' school uniforms on the podium?"

"Kanegawa was dazzled, and both Momoi and Koiko said that there was only one wearing a girls' uniform, but they weren't sure who it was, because it was too dark to see clearly."

――Did Kanegawa look dazzled at that time? I remember that the horror in his eyes when he saw me and Shui Jing together was not faked, at that time, the "wrong number" caused a lot of fear to him, maybe Ji Mei, who was already dead at that time, was standing with "that"...

It was time for lunch break again, and I went to the principal's office again.

This time, the uncle's door was locked, and he was still there, and I seemed to feel like I hadn't seen him for a long time.

The last time I saw him was when he came to our house for dinner after the memorial service at the beginning of spring, and when I talked about it, something suddenly flashed through my mind about my uncle, and it was my father who told me.

That happened when Uncle had just become the principal of Shaojian School, that is, ten years ago.

It had been raining that day, the sky was overcast, making people feel wet and cold, and when it was time for the uncle to go home after school, the residence was not far from the school, and the uncle walked back with an umbrella.

There were very few people on the road that day, maybe because of the rain, people who didn't need to go out were hiding at home, the uncle didn't care too much, just holding an umbrella and bowing his head to hurry, he wanted to go back quickly, because the shoes were already wet, and it was very uncomfortable to wear shoes that absorbed the rain, and at that time Flawless looked forward to whether there were passers-by, just thinking about going home immediately and taking off the shoes and putting his feet in the hot basin.

It was at this time that Uncle found that there was no one on the road.

However, as he walked, he heard the sound of treading water behind him..."Click-"

Uncle didn't look back, because he saw a pair of women's feet and a dress attached to his calf between his body and his arm holding the umbrella...

He speculated that there was a woman behind him who had not opened an umbrella and was drenched.

Uncle never believed in ghosts or anything like that, but at that time he was scared for no reason, the surroundings were too quiet, there was no one on the whole road, and on both sides of the road were houses that were silent in the rain.

- Why didn't this woman have an umbrella?

He thought and hurried to his feet, and the sound of "popping and popping" behind him also increased...

It felt like he was chasing him, and Uncle still looked at the gap between his elbow and his body - the same as before.

Or let her go first.

Uncle thought about it, so he stopped and waited on the side of the road.

Suddenly, the woman leaned into the umbrella and said something to him—

"Your child made a mistake."

But at that time, the uncle had no children, until two weeks later, the illegitimate son who claimed to be the uncle came to him, and his mother also came, confirming that the uncle's child was undoubtedly the same, and he was placed in Shaojian Middle School for the first year of high school.

Afterwards, the uncle has been haunted by the woman who got into the umbrella, and he also has an indescribable terrible feeling about that day.