-Crash.
The teacup that fell to the floor shattered miserably. The spilled contents soaked the carpet, and steam rose from the hot liquid. The puddle of black tea that escaped the carpet flowed sideways, burning Nagisa's foot. But the pain of a burn was of no concern to her now.
"...Say it again."
Nagisa stared straight ahead, her hand trembling. Mika, soaked to the bone by the pouring rain, sat on a chair, gnawing on her fingernails. Her fingers were already covered in blood, but she couldn't keep her teeth still.
Crunch.
Soon, a nail shattered. Streaming blood dyed her lips red and stained her white teeth. Shattered nail fragments entered her mouth, sticking to her gums and tongue. Ah, only then did Mika stop her hand and teeth.
It was a horrific sight. Just looking at it made phantom pain seem to shoot from one's own fingers. But Nagisa had no leisure to care for her. Because the words that came from Mika's mouth roughly tore through her brain.
"Say it again. What did you say?"
"...Kenji, Kenji has..."
Mika couldn't answer immediately. As if saying this would make it irrevocable, she held her slender neck and gasped for breath. Her bloodied fingers touched her neck, leaving red marks, and dried tear stains left transparent traces on her cheeks.
It was proof of anxiety. Mika burst into tears again, the ones she had held back with difficulty. Keuk, kkeueuk. Suppressed sobs leaked through firmly closed lips. But Nagisa felt just as anxious and impatient, so she slammed her palm on the table with a *bang* and stood up. The fragments of the broken teacup pierced the soles of her feet.
"That Kenji...! That Kenji has disappeared, is that true?"
At that single statement, Mika's sobs intensified. Nagisa forced down the curses that seemed about to burst out and sat back down.
The sharp teacup fragments deeply tore the soles of her feet, causing blood to pour out. The red blood mingled with the similarly red black tea, making it impossible to tell what was what. Nagisa's gaze turned toward that dark red puddle. The light pouring from the ceiling reflected on the puddle, and Nagisa's face floated upon it.
It was a face, utterly distorted and crumpled, showing no trace of dignity.
'Disappeared?'
Nagisa recalled Mika's words and bit her lip.
It was indeed strange. The fact that not a single call or reply had come from him despite considerable time passing was truly unsettling. But Nagisa had forcibly suppressed her anxiety. Because she believed he had his own private life too, and that he would bring news on his own when the time came. But she never dreamed that belief would return like this.
"..."
Ignoring the pain of her teeth digging into her lip, Nagisa desperately racked her brains.
The Trinity district is vast. So vast that one could easily get lost. But this was a developed city, so simply getting lost rarely led to people disappearing or going missing. Unless someone was kidnapped, that is.
However, Trinity was currently in a situation extremely sensitive to the word 'kidnapping.' It was only natural, as it was just a few months ago that a suspicious person from outside kidnapped and injured a Trinity citizen. So, the Tea Party implemented somewhat extreme hardline measures to reduce citizens' anxiety and remind them of safety.
It was a blockade. Until at least the entrance ceremony was held, entering Trinity from outside was nearly impossible unless necessary. Sneaking in was no different. Because even the usually inactive 'Sisterhood' and 'Justice Task Force' were mobilized for the blockade order.
So kidnapping was, at least in current Trinity, impossible.
Then. Then why did Kenji suddenly disappear?
-Crack.
Blood burst from her bitten lip. The blood dripped down her jawline. Ripples formed in the red puddle, and the pouring raindrops fiercely knocked on the window. Mika's sobbing voice mixed into that dreadful noise. Nagisa's gaze turned toward her.
"Mika."
"Keuk... kkeueup..."
"Stop crying and try to speak. Where exactly did Kenji disappear to?"
"I, I don't know. I, huuuu... I don't know either..."
The current time was 5 PM. It was the point when a full 10 hours had passed since Mika started searching for Kenji. Yet she hadn't found him. As if he had never been there from the beginning, he vanished suddenly without leaving any trace.
No, there was one thing he left behind.
Mika took out a smartphone from her bosom. It was a smartphone so damaged that its corners were broken, the screen shattered, making it impossible to tell its original form. But Nagisa instantly recognized who the device belonged to.
"...This is."
"Kenji's, it's Kenji's. It was lying on the street."
Lying on the street. At those words, Nagisa's breath momentarily stopped.
"...How did you find it?"
"A lo, location tracker."
"What?"
"Yes, yes, when I bought this for him before, I secretly put one in. I found it with that..."
Mika said with her head lowered. In fact, she only realized Kenji had disappeared thanks to that location tracker. As usual, she woke up in the morning and checked his location, but the place marked on the tracker wasn't the kindergarten but some alley.
The moment she checked, she rushed out of the house. Disregarding the pouring rain, Mika ran toward the marked location. But all she found upon arrival was his broken smartphone. She found nothing else.
What that meant, Mika couldn't know. No, she didn't want to know.
She searched frantically, madly. With just the single thought that she had to find Kenji, she scoured the Trinity district thoroughly. In the process, she destroyed everything that stood in her way. But she couldn't find even a single piece of Kenji's clothing or a strand of his hair.
At that point, Mika lost her reason. Tears poured out as if her tear ducts were broken, and her throat, which had been screaming Kenji's name, became so hoarse it only produced metallic sounds. Her footsteps lost strength. She no longer knew where to go, having lost her destination too.
And so, the place she unconsciously found was Nagisa's house.
"Wh, what do we do? Nagisa... Kenji, what about Kenji? You're smarter than me. So, so you know a way to find Kenji, right? Huh? Right?"
Mika spoke, having even forgotten Nagisa's nickname. Nagisa's light grayish-brown eyes turned toward her.
The sight of the girl, looking as if she would break if poked—no, already broken—had the power to make one's chest ache just by looking. But she wasn't the only one breaking. Nagisa, not even thinking to wipe the blood streaming from her lip, racked her brains.
She tried to continue thinking as positively as possible, but her intelligent brain and excellent imagination led her thoughts in a negative direction. What if Gehenna's leadership, holding a grudge from the previous incident, kidnapped him? Or revenge? If not that, then someone's request?
The terrible endpoint of the chain of questions, linked one after another, was something she didn't even want to imagine.
'Murder'.
-Grind.
Nagisa clenched her teeth hard enough to shatter. The digging teeth pressed on her gums, causing blood to flow. At that fishy, bitter taste, her distorted mind returned slightly. But that didn't improve the situation.
"...Ptooey."
Nagisa spat the blood pooled in her mouth into the blood puddle and looked at Mika. She was trembling her topaz-colored eyes with anxiety and had started gnawing on her bloodied fingers again. The wound where the skin was torn revealed red blood vessels and white bones clearly.
"...Stop that."
Nagisa said, letting out a deep sigh. But Mika didn't stop her mouth.
It was a kind of defense mechanism. If she didn't bite her hand right now, if this terrible pain didn't continue, her thoughts would stretch to a bad place and she felt she'd go insane.
Had she already gone insane? She couldn't know. She didn't want to think. Mika just, just thought of Kenji's smiling face and crunched her fingers. Fortunately, her fingers didn't break off or bones shatter, but her nails and skin were a mess.
But continued pain tends to become familiar. Mika's brain no longer allowed further pain. Biting, crushing, breaking, tearing. The pain faded and her thoughts accelerated. They weren't thoughts in the right direction.
-Crunch.
Teeth and finger bones collided. That was the last pain Mika felt. Her brain recognized it as such, and because Nagisa grabbed and pulled her hand away. Nagisa frowned as she looked at Mika's reddened hand. It was an uncharacteristically fierce expression.
"I said stop."
"...Ah."
A sigh escaped Mika's mouth.
It was a sigh of realization.
"...First, Mika, you should go to the hospital. I'll start making inquiries about Kenji right now."
I see.
"Even though we haven't officially enrolled yet, we're still Tea Party affiliated officers, so if I ask the Sisterhood, we might get information."
Right, that's it.
"Even if not that, using our own authority could enable an active investigation. We could also commission a PMC or private investigation agency to look into it privately. There are many methods. So Mika, first get treatmentㅡ"
"It's because of you."
An angry voice shot from Mika's mouth. Nagisa's voice stopped abruptly. She only rolled her eyes to look at Mika.
"...What did you say?"
"Because of you, Kenji disappeared."
"...Mika."
"You and Seia, because you two fought! Kenji got tired of it and abandoned us! Because of you!"
It was sophistry. A statement so nonsensical that even a passing bastard would snort and dismiss it, not even worth being called nonsense. Words that Mika would never have said normally, wouldn't have even thought of, forcibly broke through her red lips. But Mika sincerely believed that Kenji's disappearance was Nagisa and Seia's fault.
Loss had that much power to break a person. Especially if the lost person was more precious than anyone. That power doubled, making one lose reason and not hesitate to tear someone down.
"If only you two weren't here! Kenji wouldn't have abandoned me! It's all because of you!"
The scream filled with resentment from a miserable-looking, yet pitiful and beautiful girl, was just as deeply appealing.
Mika's gem-like amber eyes no longer shone beautifully. A shadow that would never disappear took root within them, and madness, anger, sadness, loss, pain, and sorrow grew that root.
"...Ha."
But the wounded girl, on the verge of collapse, wasn't just Mika. Looking at Mika's utterly distorted expression, Nagisa let go of the last bit of reason she was barely holding onto.
"Isn't it rather your fault?"
The stain of loss she had desperately hidden surfaced. No matter how mature and intelligent she was, she was still an immature girl. Losing someone was her first time, and she had no leisure to get used to sudden loss.
Truthfully, she wanted to cry too. She wanted to wail at the sky and curse God.
She wanted to tear out her chest. Because it seemed like that might relieve even a little of this immediately felt pain, she wanted to destroy her heart with anything—a knife, a gun, anything.
She wanted to crush her head. She wanted to erase the negative thoughts that kept rising.
But she didn't. She tried her best to maintain reason and not collapse.
Because Mika had broken. At least someone had to think rationally, and Nagisa was prepared to willingly take that role. But that resolve was so weak it would crumble if someone poked it with a finger. Perhaps it was only natural. She was just a child. No matter how desperately such a girl struggled, it couldn't help but be weaker than an earthworm wriggling.
Nagisa ground her teeth and glared at Mika as if to kill her.
"Haven't you considered that Kenji ran away because of your obsession?"
"What?"
"That location tracker you mentioned earlier. Haven't you considered that Kenji found it, got scared, and ran away to avoid you? Ah, of course you haven't. You've always been stubborn and never cared what happens to people around you."
Mika's mouth closed. But her eyes blazed fiercely.
Who's getting angry at who? Disgusting bitch.
Nagisa thought so and twisted the corner of her mouth.
"Ha, I wonder how dumbfounded Kenji would be if he saw this situation. The person who caused the problem is angry, and the person who was harmed is having the responsibility shifted onto them. I don't think even a hollow laugh would come out if it were me?"
Mika quietly listened to Nagisa's words without refuting, biting her lip. But that was brief. Tears began to pour again from her tear ducts, which she thought had dried up. The chain of emotions that went from anxiety to sadness, sadness to realization, realization to anger, soon returned to sadness again.
The emotions of a broken person were so unstable.
"Huek, haaaaaaaaaaang!!!"
I hate it. Just, just everything. I hate myself, who can only blame others. I hate Nagisa, who says nasty things. I hate Seia, who doesn't answer calls. I hate Kenji, who suddenly disappeared. I despise whatever took him away enough to want to kill it.
Nagisa felt the same emotions. The sorrowful crying was contagious and reached its tentacles to Nagisa too. She sobbed small sobs as if resenting the world, then soon, gasping for breath, vomited all her emotions out.
The happiness she felt at the graduation ceremony, as if she could fly through the sky, was no more. It was only natural, as the girl who grew with 'love' had lost 'love.'
"Kkeueueuk..."
As she lowered her head, the scent of forget-me-nots wafted strongly. The floral scent that was only fragrant when first smelled now felt more wretched than anything. It hurts. Terribly. But she didn't want to discard the last trace Kenji left.
"Kenji... huek... Kenji..."
Mika took off the hairpin and carefully cupped it in her hand. Though her hand was covered in red bloodstains, the blue petals remained untainted, preserving their form. As if that symbolized herself left alone, Mika brought the hairpin in her hand to her heart.
But the emptiness, as if completely hollowed out, wasn't filled.
Only then did both Mika and Nagisa feel it.
That they could no longer be happy.
The two of them thought so.