5

Why? How?

His shoulders fell dejectedly, and Haruyuki repeated these two words over and over in his mind as he trudged along the twilit road home.

Why is this happening? I just wanted to be Kuroyukihime’s faithful pawn, and now here I am, headed home after practically flying out of that café and away from that “discussion,” which was really more like an argument.

Please! Just let me rewind the last thirty minutes! Haruyuki wished desperately, but even in Brain Burst, where you could basically stop real time, going back in time was not an option.

And even if he could reload the scene like in some adventure game, he was still going to have a hard time quietly agreeing with the idea that Chiyuri was Cyan Pile. He couldn’t even believe it was possible for her to be a Burst Linker, much less that she’d kept it from him for such a long time.

No. It wasn’t that he couldn’t. It was that he didn’t want to.

To be honest, he had no objective basis for being certain Chiyuri wasn’t a Burst Linker. Things had been different when they were little, but this past year or two, he’d hardly ever had deep conversations with Chiyuri. She might not have been in the same league as Kuroyukihime, but the mere fact that Chiyuri was a girl almost made her too mysterious for Haruyuki.

And if he needed to refute the idea that she wouldn’t hide things from him, he could do that, too. Despite the fact that Haruyuki had repeatedly asked her not to discuss the bullying with Takumu, she had clearly done it anyway, all the while covering up her indiscretion.

Now that Haruyuki thought about it, before asking Chiyuri some big favor like directing with him, he had to at least apologize for the sandwich-flipping thing. In order to do that, he had to accept the fact that Chiyuri and Takumu had been talking about him behind his back.

That would take at least a week. Or rather, he just didn’t want to think about it. Maybe he should forget this whole investigation. But if he did, he’d basically be forced to accept the supposition that Chiyuri was Cyan Pile.

What exactly do I want? What do I want to happen with Chiyuri and Takumu, and with Kuroyukihime?

As heavy feet carried Haruyuki through the entrance of his building, his brain smoldered in plumes of smoke accompanied by a burning stench, overloaded as it was with thoughts that were too oppressive for him to handle. He glanced at the clock display at the edge of his vision: 5:30 PM.

Chiyuri was already home, but as Takumu had kendo practice, he was probably still at school. Which meant the two of them wouldn’t be together at one of their apartments chatting privately or anything.

In the elevator, Haruyuki agonized long enough that a warning bell finally sounded. He then pressed the button for the twenty-third floor, where his own apartment was located.

Halfway to his destination, he pressed the button two floors below.

“Goodness! Haru, I haven’t seen you in so long!” Chiyuri’s mother cried the moment she opened the door, beaming, and Haruyuki muttered a vague apology for not stopping by more.

“You’ve gotten so big. How old are you again? Oh, thirteen, of course, just like Chiyuri. You haven’t come to see us at all since you started junior high. I’ve missed you! You can stay awhile today, can’t you? Stay for supper. That girl of mine barely eats anything at all these days, so it’s hardly worth the trouble of making something. And I was just thinking I’d make curry rice, and I know it’s your favorite, Haru. I’ll whip up a whole pile of it, so you make sure and ask for seconds. I’m sure Chiyuri will be delighted, too. She’s always moaning about how you never come over anymore.”

Chiyuri’s mother seemed like she could go on chattering forever, but a sharp voice echoing at the end of the hallway cut her off. “Mom!!”

Looking up, Haruyuki saw Chiyuri—or rather, just her head poking out from the living room—glaring in their direction, her face ablaze. “Quit blabbing!!”

“Yes, yes. This rebellious period, I just hate it. Haru, you make yourself at home.”

Haruyuki watched Chiyuri’s grinning mother wave as she disappeared through the kitchen door halfway down the hall, and then he smiled stiffly. “H-hey.”

Chiyuri glanced at him and jerked her small chin up in a come in sort of way before disappearing back into the living room. Exhaling with a long sigh, Haruyuki took off his shoes and muttered quietly, “Okay, I’m coming in.”

Up until he’d been in the third or fourth grade in elementary school, Haruyuki had just said, “I’m home!” as he stepped up into this foyer. The Kurashimas’ was the first place he’d come home to, covered in sweat after playing outside with Chiyuri and Takumu until it got dark. He took a bath, had supper, and even stayed to watch TV before staggering back to his empty apartment two floors up. For Haruyuki, who was already being bullied at school even then, these evenings were the only time he could relax and have fun.

However, that all ended two years earlier. When Takumu told Chiyuri he liked her and Chiyuri talked to Haruyuki about it.

Haruyuki’s blue bear-face slippers were still in the slipper stand in the entryway. He slipped on the faded footwear and timidly pulled open the living room door, but Chiyuri wasn’t there. He wiped his sweaty palms on the pants of his uniform, passed through the apartment, the layout of which he was only too familiar with, and knocked quietly on the door farthest back. Chiyuri’s.

After a brief pause, he heard her short response. “Come in.”

Gulping, he turned the knob.

Stepping into Chiyuri’s room for the first time in two years, he saw that it was still simply decorated, basically the same as it stood in his memory. The desk and the bed were adorned with black and white keynotes, and the curtains were also monotone. It looked a lot like Haruyuki’s room.

However, there were a few changes. First off, something smelled amazing. Also different were the clothes Chiyuri was wearing as she sat on her bed making an ugly face. Naturally, she wasn’t still in her uniform. However, despite the fact that she had always had a boyish look in elementary school, she now wore some kind of soft white sweater with a fluttering pink skirt.

That’s gotta be…like when she goes on a date with Takumu, Haruyuki was thinking absentmindedly when he was unexpectedly, preemptively attacked.

“I called you a million times yesterday.”

“Huh?” Haruyuki uttered idiotically as she glared up at him.

Yesterday? Oh, right. I ran away from Chiyuri and Takumu, and that was that. Whoa! Before I apologize for the sandwich thing, I better apologize for that.

“O-oh, sorry. I had my Neurolinker disconnected the whole day—”

“You could’ve at least e-mailed me. Thanks to you, I went to bed super late!”

“S-sorry…” Apologizing to Chiyuri as she puffed out her cheeks, Haruyuki muttered to himself, I knew it couldn’t be her.

No matter how he looked at it, there was just no way. Her? The Burst Linker Cyan Pile and a level-four warrior to boot? As if. And the icing on the cake, she’s a super hacker who managed to change the Brain Burst program, something no one else has been able to do? No way!

However, that said, it wasn’t going to be easy getting proof. The only way would be to direct with her Neurolinker and search her memory, just like Kuroyukihime had insisted, but how was he supposed to ask her to do something like that with things between them the way they were?

No. Wait, hold up a sec. A thought fluttered through the back of his brain suddenly, and Haruyuki quickly seized on it.

Couldn’t he ask her precisely because things between them were like this? It was a jerkish thing to do to Chiyuri, but it wasn’t like he’d be tricking her. He’d be apologizing wholeheartedly and taking the opportunity to just poke around a little in her memory at the same time.

“Uh, uh, uh, um, Ch-Chiyuri!” Haruyuki shouted with an authentic, violent stutter.

“Wh-what?”

“Uh…I—I…There’s all…The sandwiches and the thing at the gate…I came to apologize. B-b-but, it’s, I have a hard time actually saying stuff like this, so…d-d-direct with me for a minute.”

It wasn’t an act. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and Chiyuri’s mouth dropped open as she stared. The angle of her thick eyebrows passed from surprise to doubt and rose still higher.

No go? I was too pushy. Haruyuki braced himself for a reprimand, but a strange, challenging look came over the face of his childhood friend. This…It was the look he used to see way back when whenever Chiyuri fought with a boy, the look that said, If you think you can take me, go on and try.

“Did you bring a cable?” she asked abruptly, her voice hard, and Haruyuki said, Crap! to himself as he shook his head. “Hmm. Well, fine, all I have is this.”

Bending over, Chiyuri opened the drawer under her bed and pulled out an off-white XSB cable a mere thirty centimeters or so long.

“Th-that’s short! You…So you and Taku always…?” he asked unthinkingly, and as soon as the words were out, she started yelling.

“Y-you jerk!! Taku has one that’s a meter long. This is the one that came with my Neurolinker when I bought it, the one to connect to a computer!!”

“O-oh…”

Because the super-high-speed transfer protocol extra serial bus required a high-grade cable with serious shielding, the cables that came with the devices were, without exception, short. Even so, thirty centimeters was a bit much. This manufacturer was exceptionally stingy.

Thoughts of escape ran through his mind as Chiyuri pushed the cable, about as long as a cat’s tail, at him.

She snorted lightly and rolled her small body over on the bed. “If you wanna do it, do it.” She snapped her eyes shut and turned her face away.

The cable in his hand was like a live wire, and Haruyuki said nervously, “Uh, um…if it’s okay, maybe you could sit on that chair and not turn around…?”

No answer. Sprawled on the sheets, Chiyuri didn’t look like she planned on budging any time soon.

Again, he seriously considered just fleeing, but he had already done that with Kuroyukihime today. If he ran away again now, the situation would be irreparable.

“O-okay.”

Haruyuki mustered his courage and shuffled over to the bed, where Chiyuri was stretched out, and then took off his slippers. Ever so gently, he rested a knee upon the white and gray striped sheets. The sturdy pipe frame squealed in protest at the extra weight, which was several times greater than its usual load.

On all fours, seventy centimeters to Chiyuri’s right, Haruyuki first plugged one end of the cable into the external connection terminal on the back right-hand side of his own Neurolinker. Then, tilting his head at an unnatural angle, he grabbed the other end and stretched it out. However, the Neurolinker terminal on Chiyuri, lying there with her eyes closed, was still about a light-year away.

Aaaugh, crap. I should’ve come up from the left. Should I pull back and go around? No, I don’t have that much left in me, he told himself. But there was absolutely no way he could go over Chiyuri to get to the other side of her.

About to descend into full-blown panic mode, Haruyuki moved just his upper body into an extremely unbalanced position and tried to force their necks closer together. A smell like milk wafted up from Chiyuri’s body, and his equilibrium became suspect.

His left knee slipped abruptly. On the verge of crushing Chiyuri’s slim body with his enormous bulk, his left hand shot out and just barely broke his fall.

Now, however, he was on the brink of crisis. His left knee was in between Chiyuri’s legs, which were sprawled out, his left hand had made contact right next to her cheek, and he was just barely holding himself up. Whooaaaaaa! Whaaaaat! The needle on his panic meter swung over into the red zone when Chiyuri’s eyes popped open, too close, not more than ten centimeters away.

Haruyuki couldn’t read the emotion in her large brown eyes. Of course, there was anger and annoyance. But it seemed more like something she had been holding back for a very long time than a consequence of Haruyuki’s current rude conduct.

Unable to face those eyes any longer, Haruyuki moved his right hand and inserted the plug into her neck. The direct-connect warning that appeared hid her face momentarily, which gave him a mere second, but he managed somehow to compose his thoughts. He blinked several times, shifted his eyes from her face, and fixed his gaze on the thin collarbone peeking out from the neck of her white sweater.

“Uh…I…I came because I have to apologize for the day before yesterday.” Although there was some awkwardness in the words he put together in neurospeak, they were both able to hear his think speech without any problems. “I ruined that lunch you went to the trouble of making me…I’m really sorry.”

And while he was sincerely apologizing, Haruyuki moved a finger on his right hand outside Chiyuri’s field of view and opened the storage icon. In the window that opened up, which covered nearly half of Chiyuri’s actual face, there was a folder with Chiyuri’s ID name on it, next to the folder showing the physical memory area of his own Neurolinker.

At this point, he could say that the possibility that Chiyuri was Cyan Pile was essentially zero. If she was, then she would have already known that Haruyuki was Kuroyukihime’s subordinate, Silver Crow, and she wouldn’t have let him direct with her in the first place.

Or maybe she’d lain down on the bed like that on purpose, a strategy to get Haruyuki to give up on directing on his own? Maybe right now, Chiyuri was surprised and panicking inside.

Ashamed of himself for suspecting this girl he had been friends with for more than ten years, Haruyuki gently nudged his cursor to the physical memory folder in Chiyuri’s Neurolinker.

“B-but I was just kinda shocked.” The words came pouring out, perhaps to cover up his feelings of guilt. “You and Takumu…When I imagine you talking about those guys, I can’t even handle it. I know you’re always thinking of stuff for me, but…but I—”

I wanted at least you and Takumu to not pity me. Because we’re friends. The three of us, at least…I wanted us to be in the same place.

Although it’s probably already too late for that.

Haruyuki stiffened his finger and clicked the folder.

At the same time that a differently colored, semitransparent window popped open, Chiyuri’s voice resonated in both his head and his ears. “Haru…you’re misunderstanding.”

Her speech was clumsy, like she hadn’t used neurospeak before. The small lips in front of him moved, and she continued, “I didn’t say anything to Taku. How could I? I promised you I’d stay quiet about it. All Taku knew about the sandwiches was that I was talking about maybe making a lunch for you, too, when I went to his kendo tournament that time.”

“What…”

Haruyuki automatically turned eyes that were preoccupied with checking the new window to meet Chiyuri’s. The fierceness there suddenly softened, and her eyelashes lowered almost as if somehow yearning for something long gone.

“How many years has it been since you shared this much about yourself, Haru…?” She turned her gaze away from Haruyuki, who was speechless, and murmured, “I’m…I’m terrible, too. I’m a coward. You’re…For a long time, such a long time, things have been so terrible for you, but the only thing I did was pretend I didn’t see, even though I did. The truth is, if I had wanted to, there were so many things I could’ve done. I could’ve told the teacher, I could’ve written to the student council, I could’ve gone and asked Taku and he would’ve taken them all on. But I couldn’t…I thought you would get mad at me and hate me…I was scared we’d stop being us.”

Haruyuki held his breath and stared as drops of clear water built up on the long eyelashes along the edges of her sharp, single-lined eyelids. Even though he had only two days earlier knocked her sandwiches away and made her cry—and they had fought and cried and made each other cry countless times up to that point—he felt like these tears were somehow different from all the others that he’d seen before.

“But Haru, you’re terrible, too.” Closing her eyes tightly, Chiyuri continued with trembling lips. “You said nothing would ever change. That we would still be friends. Two years ago…when I talked to you about Taku…you said that if I said no, Taku wouldn’t hang out with us anymore. But you promised that even if Taku and I were dating, you would always be our friend. I…I just didn’t want anything to change. I wanted it always to be the three of us…”

Me, too. Haruyuki very nearly gave voice to this thought but managed to hold it back.

But almost as if she had heard it anyway, Chiyuri popped her eyes open, and she looked directly at Haruyuki as she wiped away the droplets. “That’s it…so why?! Why are you leaning on her now?! You tell me not to do anything, so why are you fawning all over her and getting her to help you?! You’re terrible…It’s so frustrating. I spent all these years worrying about what to do, and she—In a single day, she goes and fixes everything. And almost like you’re…like you’re hers…”

Her. Kuroyukihime.

Having her come up now so unexpectedly, Haruyuki practically forgot about peeking inside Chiyuri’s memory and shook his head as if convulsing. “N-no, that’s not it. It’s not like I asked her. She’s the vice president of the student council, so she just took care of the bullying for me—”

“Then why is she parading you around like you’re her pet or something?! And why are you all small behind her like you’re her servant?!”

“No…it’s not like that!” Shaking his head fiercely once again, Haruyuki found himself wanting to ask what on earth he was trying to do here.

When Kuroyukihime had insisted Chiyuri was Cyan Pile, he’d stubbornly fought her, and now Chiyuri was blaming Kuroyukihime and he was earnestly denying that. The situation was like a jigsaw puzzle stirred up in a mixer, and he had no idea what piece to put where anymore. Lowering his voice, he repeated, “It’s not like that. I mean, I…I don’t hate it or anything—”

“Well, I do!!” Chiyuri interrupted, shouting so loudly she could probably be heard on the other side of her door. “Ever since we started junior high, you’ve been so cold, Haru. You never walk home with me, you give me this annoyed look whenever I talk to you at school, and, I mean, you never come over anymore. That never happened when we were in elementary school.”

“That’s…that’s just how it is. You already—I mean, you have a boyfriend.”

“And you’re the one who told me to get him! You’re the one who said that that way, you and Taku and I could always be together!! Was that a lie?!”

“It wasn’t a lie! It wasn’t a lie, but…we can’t be little kids forever!!” Haruyuki yelled, clutching the sheets on either side of Chiyuri’s face. “Back then, it didn’t bother me, walking together with you and Taku. Going to get a burger together was totally no big deal! But…I can’t anymore. It’s too hard! Taku gets cooler and cooler, and you…you’re cute, and then standing there next to you guys is me looking like this! Just being in the same place as you guys makes me want to dig a hole and crawl right into it!”

He had never before confessed his own inferiority complex so honestly to Chiyuri—no, to anyone. Although he was certain he would regret it and the mere memory would make him squirm so hard, he’d bore a hole into the ground. Haruyuki couldn’t manage to stop his thoughts.

If he were to try and say the same things using his mouth, the words would probably get stuck and never make it out. But they were directing and using neurospeak, and Haruyuki’s thoughts were a raging stream pouring into Chiyuri’s brain.

“I mean, it’s the same for you! Taku gets to walk along holding hands with you, but I don’t! Really, you’re the one who chose Taku! What I said had nothing to do with that!!”

Twenty centimeters below Haruyuki, Chiyuri opened her eyes wide as she took in this monologue.

A film of saline once again covered her light eyes. Screwing up her face, lips trembling violently, a voice like a whisper slipped out of her. “Do you really think that? Do you really believe someone’s value is totally decided by how they look? You always do this. You always just decide things on your own like this. Why do you hate yourself so much? Why do you have to be so critical of yourself?”

“Of course I hate myself,” Haruyuki replied, almost groaning. “And if I were someone else, I’d definitely hate me, too. I’m fat, I sweat all the time, I’m spineless…There isn’t a single thing about me a person could like. Being with me…just looking at me, I hate it.”

“But there are things. I know so many things to like about you. I know so many good things I can’t even count them using both hands!” Chiyuri continued, heaving with sobs just like when they were kids. “When it was snack time, you always gave me the biggest one, and that time I lost the charm I had on my backpack, you stayed out late looking for it for me, and you always fix my Neurolinker for me right away whenever it does something weird, and you have all these great things about you that no one else has. It doesn’t matter how you look. I-if that time two years ago, you had…” Chiyuri looked like she was swallowing something back suddenly and then smiled sadly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that, should I? I…I was afraid it wouldn’t just be the kids at school you pulled away from, it would be me and Taku, too. So I just did like you said.”

Haruyuki felt the back of his throat close up tightly but managed somehow to squeeze out a thought. “You didn’t actually…for me…? So that Taku and I could stay friends…?”

“Because you always looked like you were having the most fun when you were fooling around with Taku. And I used to have the most fun watching the two of you. I didn’t want that time together to change. That’s all I was thinking. But…I guess it’s impossible, huh? Everything changes; you can’t stop people’s feelings.” Chiyuri suddenly lifted both arms and wrapped them around Haruyuki’s large body, squeezing tightly.

Frozen, Haruyuki was confronted with an extremely close, tearstained, smiling face.

“You’re already somewhere I can’t reach, aren’t you? To be honest, when I saw you and Kuroyukihime at the gates before, I thought maybe…you were hers then. And I hated it. Because I know that I know you a million times better than she does. But…if she has the power to change you…”

Caught up in a serious maelstrom of confusion, Haruyuki could only listen to what Chiyuri was saying. Her body pressed up against his hadn’t changed at all from those long, long ago days, still small and warm.

“But please, quit with the attitude. Quit acting like her follower. If you’re going to do it, then do it. Be her boyfriend. And give everyone at school a heart attack.”

If I hugged Chiyuri back right now, what would happen?

For just a moment, Haruyuki seriously entertained the idea. Of course, he didn’t actually move his body, but the fingers on his right hand twitched, betraying his thoughts.

The holo cursor moved in sync with this movement and happened to hit the icon for the installed applications folder in the window showing the contents of the internal memory in Chiyuri’s Neurolinker. After the tiniest lag, a new window opened silently.

Unconsciously checking each of the apps shown one by one, Haruyuki murmured in his physical voice just as unconsciously, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry, Chiyu. I…I didn’t even think that you would be worrying about stuff or struggling. Which is exactly why I’m no good.”

“That’s right. I do worry, and Taku has stuff he worries about, too, and probably…even her…She does, too. Everyone’s the same; no one’s any different from you, Haru.” He felt the warmth of Chiyuri’s voice and her small hands in his bones.

What is wrong with me? Haruyuki wondered in his head. Suspecting for even an instant that she was a Burst Linker and hiding it from me.

He saw at a glance that, in fact, there was no icon patterned after that flaming B in her application folder. Just in case, he went through each of her installed programs, but they were all things like off-the-shelf mail programs and media players, and simple games. He didn’t find a single thing that came from anywhere suspicious.

So Chiyuri’s not Cyan Pile or anything after all, he said to himself as he opened the properties on a few of her apps, when suddenly something felt off. The program wasn’t the problem. It was—The reaction time as he clicked and moved around the screen was slightly slower than before.

If it were a wireless signal through their cheap home server, that’d be one thing, but he was directing with Chiyuri’s Neurolinker through a high-grade (although short) cable. There shouldn’t have been a response lag he could feel. The only reason for such a lag to occur would be if a large part of Chiyuri’s Neurolinker transmission bandwidth was being monopolized by some other circuit.

Increasingly suspicious, Haruyuki opened a network status window.

Chiyuri’s Neurolinker was currently connected to three routes: the global net, the Kurashimas’ home net, and the direct link with Haruyuki. The only one of these that should have been having this kind of packet exchange was the one with Haruyuki.

But when he checked the routes, he very nearly cried out loud. A large quantity of packets was being sent on the global net. The local sender was an unknown program installed incredibly deep in the folder. The receiver on the global side was unknown. That would mean—

There’s a back door!!

Someone had hacked Chiyuri’s Neurolinker and was secretly connecting to the outside. And more than that, that someone was right now, this very instant, stealing information from Chiyuri’s vision and hearing.

That bastard!!

Very close to screaming, Haruyuki moved his finger to try and delete the problem app. But he stopped on the verge of dropping the icon he had dragged over into the trash.

The someone connected through this back door right now was Cyan Pile. Whoever Cyan Pile was, he or she hadn’t managed to change Brain Burst; using Chiyuri’s Neurolinker as a stepladder would, without a doubt, make it possible to erase one’s existence from the matching list.

In other words, if he identified where the packets were going, he could discover Cyan Pile’s true identity. But to pursue whoever it was without making that player suspicious would be nearly impossible. The only time it would be even remotely doable was during a fight. In which case, he had to hide the fact that someone had noticed this back door until the next attack came.

Exhaling quietly, Haruyuki closed all the windows. “Thanks, Chiyu,” he murmured, and he gently pulled his body away.

The quietly sobbing Chiyuri also lowered her arms and nodded, smiling.

Returning her smile awkwardly, Haruyuki reached out with his left hand and pulled the plug from Chiyuri’s Neurolinker.