site 15: Sarai Hashigami

Thursday, February 18th

There was a certain pitch and rhythm achievable by the human voice that could induce sleep in others.

Professor Takaoka, the man currently giving a lecture to fifty or so students, was most likely unaware of this. But still, he was better than anyone else at this school when it came to putting people to sleep.

I thought about that as I looked around the lecture hall. There were a lot of students lying face-down on their desks. About 60% of them were asleep.

It was the last lecture of the year, and next week finals began. Passing those finals was supposed to be every student’s top priority, so it was fair to call the whole lot of them slackers.

Professor Takaoka was ignoring them and continuing his lecture on economics. It was a boring class. I’d realized it when I’d heard his first lecture in the course about a year ago.

Right after the school year had started, I’d been annoyed that even after making it into the School of Science and Engineering, I still had to take classes on unrelated subjects. But that was the system, and there was no helping it.

Over the course of the last year, I’d taken a few more classes than I should, so I’d earned quite a few credits.

I’d heard that in your second and third years, you spent a lot of time doing experiments with your seminar class. So Dad had told me that even if it meant doing some extra work, I should take a lot of credits my first year.

It felt like the professor was occasionally glancing in my direction, which made it hard to relax. In the past hour, he’d looked at me no less than sixteen times. Over the past year of taking his lectures, I’d gotten the feeling that he wasn’t the type to look at people when he talked, so it felt strange.

I thought that perhaps there was something stuck on my face, but since the other students were all ignoring me, that didn’t seem to be the case. Either way, it was upsetting me, so I decided to pretend I wasn’t listening and look down at the smartphone in my hand.

I groaned a little without even realizing I was doing it. I tried to analyze my own mental state to see where this frustration was coming from.

Was it Professor Takaoka’s rude glances? Was it frustration at my own stupidity for asking Dad for advice on my class schedule a year ago? Or—

Was it because of the affiliate blog I was looking at on my smartphone?

The LCD screen was displaying a blog called Kirikiri Basara. I commented there often under the nickname “Sarai.” I could’ve used my full name, Sarai Hashigami, but there were idiots out there who knew nothing about internet decency, and who would try to show up in your real life. I didn’t want them showing up at my doorstep, so I just used a nickname.

All the stories on Kirikiri Basara were extremely stupid, but the sheer illogic of them all pissed me off, and I spent a lot of time giving the idiots there scientific lectures.

But now...

They were saying I’d lost. How could anyone be that stupid? But even the site admin was joining in. If I’d known this was going to happen, I never would’ve called into Myu Aikawa’s program. I hadn’t intended to in the first place. The people at Kirikiri Basara had provoked me.

I tapped my phone to open the comment entry box on Kirikiri Basara. I’d decided to write back at the people who were insulting me.

“Wow.” A male student next to me, whose name I didn’t know, watched the movements of my fingers with a stupid look on his face. I glared at him as I adjusted my glasses, and he grinned feebly before he looked away.

He was probably surprised at how fast I was typing, but I wasn’t here to show off.

I’d been using my smartphone for five or six years now. I’d gotten used to flick input. There was no way I could go back to the Japanese-style phones I’d used in elementary school. Not that I had any intention of trying.

I looked back at the screen and continued typing my response. If I walked them through this logically, step by step, it was probably going to take a long time. But I didn’t care.

I was trying to explain things to the kind of useless idiots who believed in occult things like fortune-telling. I couldn’t help but make it long.

But idiots wouldn’t read a long post. This was a dilemma. It was hard, dealing with idiots.

The only sound in the big lecture hall was Professor Takaoka’s voice.

I resisted the urge to shout, and instead I deleted the entire comment instead of uploading it. I’d been like this ever since my argument with Myu Aikawa two days ago. I’d write something, then delete it, then write something else and delete it again. I hadn’t managed to post a single comment.

It felt like no matter what I wrote now, it would come off like an excuse. No matter how right I was, it felt like they’d just make fun of me. If I could just meet them in person for a debate, I could shut them up within a minute—

“You there.” Professor Takaoka was talking to someone from his podium.

The boy next to me was still staring at me. The girl sitting in front turned backward to look at me. I could hear the other students chuckling, too.

I looked up and saw that Professor Takaoka was pointing at me. “Is my lecture so boring that you feel the need to play with your phone?”

That was strange. I’d come to the conclusion that Professor Takaoka was the kind of person who wouldn’t interrupt a lecture no matter how many students slept or did other things. Was I wrong? No, that was impossible.

So maybe he had it out for me for some reason? And this was his way of getting at me? “Let’s see if you were paying attention. Point out the central issues here.”

He motioned towards the blackboard. On the board was written a summary of Keynesian economic theory.

I sighed and stood up. “First, in a situation of underemployment where involuntary employment exists, national income and the level of employment are decided by effective demand, which is the sum of consumption and investment. Second, an increase in investment can result in a gain in income greater than the investment itself. Third, interest is the price one is paid for a loss of liquidity, and the interest rate is to be adjusted to achieve a balance between the demand for highly liquid cash assets and the supply of currency.”

“Mm... Mmmh?”

“The inevitable result of these three propositions is that the government should enact policies to stimulate investment and consumption demand—”

Professor Takaoka started to cough like there was something in his throat.

The answer I’d given was word-for-word out of an encyclopedia. I was only interested in science and engineering, and didn’t see much point in seriously studying economics. A copy-and-paste job was good enough for me.

But the professor seemed astonished at my answer. It was pretty funny. It was stupid, actually.

“What is it?”

“No, if you were listening, that’s fine.” He backed down a lot easier than I thought he would. Now it was my turn to be surprised.

“Even if you think it’s fine, I don’t.”

Professor Takaoka’s eyes went wide when I spoke. I could hear the other students’ laughter change to murmurs of confusion. They probably hadn’t thought I’d say anything back to him.

“Why only come after me? There are other students sleeping or playing with their phones who are being much more obvious than I am.” For example, some were wearing flashier clothes, or sitting in more visible locations. I’d deliberately chosen to sit in the part of the room that made me least likely to be noticed.

“I just happened to see you playing with your phone. That’s all.” I didn’t miss the tone of annoyance in his voice.

“I don’t know why, but you seem slightly irritated. For example, there were signs of it when the lecture started. It’s safe to assume that it’s the result of a series of small irregularities that occurred before the lecture began.”

“What did you say?” He seemed confused as I pointed this out.

But I kept talking anyway. “You’re always very particular about your appearance, but today you’re wearing the same necktie as yesterday. This is likely because you were running short on time, and had no choice but to grab the closest one available. As for why I know what kind of necktie you were wearing yesterday, that’s not really a serious issue. I happened to see you then. And when I did, I remember I laughed at your terrible taste in neckties. I was actually astonished to see you wearing the same awful tie two days in a row.”

“Grr... Now listen, you...” His face was flush with anger, but he hesitated for a moment as he thought about whether it was right for a teacher to scream at one of his students.

I kept talking before he could finish making his decision. “The necktie indicates that you were almost late for the lecture. You even forgot the atomic watch you always wear, the one with the leather strap. Three times during the lecture you’ve looked at your left arm, expecting to find it.”

The professor looked at his left arm in shock. Of course, the watch wasn’t there.

“Since you were in such a hurry this morning, professor, you didn’t eat breakfast. That’s caused your blood sugar levels to drop. The effects of this are obvious. Sixty-four minutes into the lecture, your stress levels began to rapidly rise. That was just when you decided to relieve your stress by hassling me.” I could tell the other students were listening to me in shock.

I didn’t care about them, nor was I interested in making a speech like this, but whenever you wanted to explain something logically, it always ended up taking a long time. It wasn’t like any of them were paying attention to the lecture anyway. None of them would care if I wasted a few more minutes.

“So the question then becomes, why did you oversleep this morning? By the way, when I saw you yesterday, it wasn’t on campus, it was in front of Kichijoji Station. You were heading with a group of friends into Harmonica Alley. This was at 9:19 PM.”

The students were murmuring to themselves.

I shrugged my shoulders a little. “I have no particular interest in your drinking habits. It wasn’t like you were drinking during lecture, after all. It’s not a problem. But because you drank too much, you overslept, and you were almost late for lecture. I’m very nearly certain of this.”

The professor had a bitter look on his face, but he didn’t say anything. It was safe to assume that I was right.

“But why take your frustration out on me, then? During the sixty-four minutes before you called on me, our eyes met sixteen times. The first time, you made two glances at me, for a full total of seventeen times, but we can disregard that. Averaged out, our eyes met once every four minutes. There are around fifty students in this lecture hall. I represent only one-fiftieth of the total number of students, but you looked at me no fewer than sixteen times. I haven’t done the exact math, but the odds of that seem far too low for it to be a coincidence.”

“It’s a coincidence. A meaningless number.” The professor was mumbling in a tiny voice as he looked away from me.

“You just put your left hand into your pocket, didn’t you?”

“Wh-What?” It seemed he’d only realized that after I’d pointed it out to him.

“When a person is caught off-guard, they’ll try to protect their left side, where their heart is. You may think that’s meaningless, but from a psychological perspective, it’s not. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert at psychology, but I’m told that when someone tries to hide the fact that they’re lying, they attempt to protect their left side, where their heart is found. Of course, that’s just one theory among many.” But what was important here wasn’t the psychological reasoning. “More importantly, did you realize that during the entire lecture, you’ve been putting your left hand into your pocket to touch something inside of it?”

The professor said nothing.

“There’s no bulge in your pocket, so I’m sure it’s paper. A memo or something. Did you see the list of seminars for the next year that was handed out yesterday? Most of the popular teachers’ seminars are already full. But what about yours?”

I could see the color draining from his face. It was probably due to his mental state.

“If you’re concerned about your popularity, try not to get so frustrated. And certainly don’t attempt to take your frustration out on a student. It’s embarrassing.”

“I... I don’t understand what you’re getting at. And I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to speak this way to your elder. Students these days... Enough.” The professor shrugged and turned away from me, then began writing more text on the blackboard.

I guess in the end, he never admitted to it. But there was no way it was a coincidence that he’d come after me. He hadn’t said it, but I knew.

It was because I was Isayuki Hashigami’s son, wasn’t it? He didn’t have it out for me, personally. When he looked at me, he didn’t see me, he saw Isayuki Hashigami.

The reason was the memo in his left pocket. It was a list of next year’s seminar classes. The popular seminars were already flooded with requests, and in some cases you couldn’t get in at all.

That didn’t seem to be the case for Takaoka’s seminar, but it certainly was for Hashigami’s. All the students, not just me, knew that Takaoka had it out for Isayuki Hashigami.

Isayuki Hashigami was on TV all the time, and everyone knew who he was. It was easy to think of him as a bit of a playboy. Professor Takaoka, by contrast, was a very dull man. He probably didn’t like that. But it was a mistake to try and take his frustrations out on me.

The silence of the classroom and the stares of the other students were starting to annoy me. The lecture wasn’t over, but I got my things together and left. I may not get credit for the class, but I didn’t care. One single lost credit wasn’t going to hurt me.

I left Building #3, where the lecture hall was located. Outside, it was drizzling, and the air was so cold that I shivered. The rain had started late last night, and showed no signs of letting up today.

I put up my umbrella and ran across the courtyard called the Atrio. The area was filled with greenery centered around a big keyaki tree, and it was typical on sunny days to see students sitting here and talking.

But thanks to the weather, there was nobody here today, and the deserted atmosphere made it feel hard to breathe. I headed for the bulletin board at the side of the courtyard.

Seimei University, the school I attended, was about fifteen minutes’ walk from Kichijoji Station. There were fourteen classroom buildings, a cutting-edge information library, a gym, a track, a student building, a café, and other buildings scattered about the campus. In addition to the four departments and ten specialties in Seimei University’s School of Science and Engineering, there were also attached elementary, middle, and high schools. The name “Seimei Academy” encompassed all of these schools together.

Exams started next week at the university. The bulletin boards were filled with notices about the exams and next year’s seminars. I went through each of them to see if they had anything to do with me.

“Oh...” My eyes stopped when I saw a paper with a certain name on it.

It was a notice that Professor Hashigami’s seminar for the day was canceled. Jeez... Talk about irony.

I wasn’t in that seminar myself.

Isayuki Hashigami...

The country’s leading occult researcher, and a man who was on TV all the time. A professor at the Seimei University School of Science and Engineering. And... my dad.

How long had it been since I’d last talked to him? We lived in the same house, but I barely even saw him anymore. He was busy with work— TV work, not his university job— and was spending less and less time at home.

He’d always been something of a show-off, and he was a good conversationalist. You could tell how popular he was from the sheer number of students that wanted to take his classes.

There were so many that even the middle school kids at Seimei were talking about it. I’d actually heard the rumors when I was in middle school myself, so I knew that for a fact.

So when I’d heard he’d declared his belief in the occult, at first, I’d thought he was just doing it to show off. I was annoyed, but didn’t really think much else of it. But once I’d understood that he was going on TV and really trying to prove that the occult was real, I became disgusted with him as a scientist.

Prove the existence of the occult scientifically? That was impossible. You’d have to be an idiot to try.

Did he know how many people had tried it in the past? Every one of them had failed and become a laughingstock in the scientific community. I didn’t want to admit that my dad could be so stupid.

Not that I had any idea what brought this on. I’d respected my dad as a scientist. I’d come this far because I wanted to do the same research he did. That’s why I’d felt betrayed.

—Please, Sarai. You need to talk to your dad. Now.

I remembered the sorrow in Myu Aikawa’s words. I gripped the handle of my umbrella tighter.

Just standing here, it felt like the cold from the asphalt was climbing up my legs. My wet toes were starting to go numb. I should just go home. I didn’t even want to think about my dad. I wasn’t scheduled to work at my part-time job today, so I could get some hot menchi-katsu at Meat Satou before I got home.

Suddenly, I heard the faint sound of clinking metal. And then I realized that there was a brilliant blue covering the right side of my field of vision.

A woman carrying an umbrella was standing right next to me. The blue was her umbrella and I couldn’t see her face because of it.

I hadn’t noticed her at all, so my heart rate accelerated in shock. I was just barely able to keep from flinching away.

I didn’t want to embarrass myself like I did on the stream. I adjusted my glasses and calmed myself down as I took a look at her.

She was looking at the bulletin board like I was... maybe. But I couldn’t understand why she would stand so close. Did she realize that the water was dripping off her umbrella and onto my shoulder?

I couldn’t see her face, but it was obvious enough from the shape of her body, and the fluffy coat and muffler she was wearing, that she was a woman. She stood tall, like a statue.

Did I know her? I’d been going to this academy since elementary school, so I knew a lot of the other students. I didn’t consider any of them my friends, but if I passed by them on campus, I could at least say hello.

I heard the clinking sound again. There was a distinctive golden necklace shining on her chest. Three small bars hung down from an upside-down triangle shape, and whenever they struck each other, they made a small, pleasant noise.

A triangle and three bars.

Three was recognized as an important number worldwide. For instance, there was the concept of the Christian Trinity. Some people said it was a holy number.

And hers was upside-down... There was a mark like an eyeball on the upside-down triangle. It was one I’d seen somewhere before. But I couldn’t immediately remember where. It seemed like something that was really famous, though.

As I was thinking about it, the woman shifted her umbrella’s position. Suddenly, I couldn’t look away from her. She was a very beautiful woman.

Her long black hair was just the slightest bit curly, and her eyes were sad beneath her long eyelashes. Her lips seemed soft. Everything about her looked glossy, as if she were wet.

I thought that she might have been standing in the rain without an umbrella for a long time, but since her clothes weren’t wet, maybe I was just imagining it. Either way, I’d never been so struck by a girl like this in my life. I was shocked to see how much I was freaking out.

My heart rate refused to slow down. My sympathetic nerves were on fire. It was clear that this woman was the cause.

She seemed older than me, but I didn’t recognize her face. When I realized that, I suddenly felt extremely embarrassed. It was like I was a tiny little child next to her.

I quickly turned to go, and my eyes met with hers. I almost forgot to breathe.

“Looks like it’s canceled, huh?” she whispered in a calm voice, totally unlike the idiot girls my age.

I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me, or to herself, so I wasn’t sure if I should respond.

“Did the devil eat him? Or—” She sounded just the slightest bit excited, and just the slightest bit mischievous.

And just the slightest bit teasing.

“Or is it about to eat him?” I thought I heard her whisper in my ear.

Her voice was so soft that it seemed like it would be drowned out by the tiny drizzle of rain. But I could hear it clearly.

She winked at me as I stood there in shock, and walked away, spinning her umbrella. All I could do was watch.

“Eaten by a devil? What does that mean?” By the time I was finally able to speak, the blue umbrella was gone.