Chapter 77: Sudden death

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Translator: Soafp

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“Where is this…?”

I instinctively looked around.

A thin trail of smoke quietly rose from the incense burner.

Between the white funeral flowers, I could see long wooden memorial plaques bearing the names of the senders.

(Th-this can't be…)

At the very center of the altar was a framed funeral portrait.

The moment I saw the face in the photograph, my hands began trembling uncontrollably.

The girl in the picture wore an innocent smile.

—It was her, with that vivid red hair.

(Kokoa-san's funeral…?)

Why?

I should have saved her from both the lightning strike and the train.

The strength drained from my legs.

As I staggered, someone beside me quickly caught my body.

“Are you alright, Fukagawa-san…?”

It was Kokoa-san's manager.

Dressed in black mourning clothes, her eyes were swollen red.

My thoughts were a complete mess.

Even so, I couldn't stop myself from asking.

“What in the world happened to Kokoa-san…?”

The instant the words left my mouth, I realized how insensitive they sounded at a funeral.

But the manager visibly panicked instead.

“Th-that's the thing… I-I don't know either. It had nothing to do with me. It's true, please believe me.”

She didn't scold me for being rude.

If anything, she sounded like she was hiding something shameful.

If this had been illness or an accident, she wouldn't react like this.

The moment that thought crossed my mind—

“What the hell do you think this place is!?”

The man shouting at us with clenched fists was the chief mourner.

Brown hair. Greenish eyes. Tall and slender, with skin pale as death.

A white man speaking broken Japanese.

“If it weren't for you people, Miyoko would never have died!!”

At his furious shout, everyone nearby turned to look.

The manager glanced nervously around and hurriedly tried to calm him in a low voice.

“B-Burn-san, please calm down.”

“How the hell am I supposed to calm down!? You people practically killed Miyoko!! That's why I kept telling her not to become an idol!!”

“Regarding this incident, we are truly… deeply regretful.”

“Regretful!? You think you can smooth everything over with one word!?”

Tears welled in the man's green eyes as he glared at us.

“That's not true. Our agency is currently considering the maximum possible compensation, and in various forms—”

“Hah!? Who the hell said anything about money!?”

“Ah, no, that was insensitive of me. I apologize.”

“Then explain it already!! Why did my Miyoko have to die from methamphetamine!?”

At those words, my breath caught in my throat.

Did he just say methamphetamine?

As in… illegal drugs?

“Y-you seem to be misunderstanding, but our agency had absolutely no involvement.”

“There's no damn way! Fine, let's say your story is true—that Miyoko somehow got meth on her own, injected herself, and accidentally overdosed. Then where did she get it!? Why hasn't that route turned up anywhere!?”

At last, the outline of the situation started becoming clear.

“Someone forcibly injected Miyoko with meth! And in a quantity way beyond a lethal dose!!”

“W-with all due respect, the police determined there was no foul play, and the investigation has already been closed…”

“That's exactly why I'm asking if you people covered it up!!”

“Our agency simply doesn't possess that kind of influence—”

Kokoa-san's father finally grabbed the manager by the collar.

“You think I don't know!? About the shady people backing your agency!”

“We are nothing more than a small talent agency—”

“That's bullshit!! Tell me the truth about everything!!”

As their argument grew more heated—

My vision suddenly warped.

The next instant, I was staring at the familiar ceiling of my own room.

“Ren-kun, what's wrong?”

“Ren, are you okay?”

Airi and Nodoka looked down at me with concern.

Right… last night, the three of us had fallen asleep together in my room.

“…Did you have another nightmare, Ren-kun?”

“Huh? nightmare… you mean that ability of Ren's?”

“When the lightning strike happened, he was suffering like this too.”

I silently nodded.

Then I got out of bed and sat down at my desk.

I had to write down the dream before I forgot it.

The two of them moved beside me and quietly watched as my pen raced across the page.

“…For now, this is about everything I saw in the dream.”

Everything had happened so suddenly in the nightmare that I'd had no chance to investigate further.

Nodoka's eyes widened as she looked at the notebook.

“M-methamphetamine? That's a seriously dangerous word.”

“Would this count as another landmine-type situation, I wonder?”

“Airi, stop blaming literally everything on landmine girls…”

Now it was obvious.

An abnormally strong chain of causality was dragging Kokoa-san toward death.

After the lightning accident and the train accident, now this—methamphetamine.

“But honestly, I'm starting to think something else. It sounds ridiculous, but maybe the job of being an idol itself is driving Kokoa-san toward death.”

The drug issue was still unclear, but the previous two incidents had definitely been deeply tied to her idol work.

Of course, maybe it was all just coincidence.

Still, Kokoa-san spent most of her time working as an idol.

“That theory makes some sense. But rather than the profession itself, maybe it's the situation Miyoko-san is currently in that's dangerous. She's becoming popular, but her agency is too small to properly handle it, and she's taking the full force of jealousy from the other members.”

“And in your dream, didn't Kokoa-san's father say the agency might have some shady organization behind it? Maybe once we look into it, it'll turn out to be a seriously dangerous agency.”

Come to think of it, I'd been so focused on saving Kokoa-san's life that I'd never really investigated the agency she belonged to.

I hadn't even known she was still only a third-year middle school student.

“But that's still only her father's claim. It's not confirmed fact. We should probably hire a detective to investigate.”

“The same detective who found evidence about my father?”

“Yeah. That detective definitely knows what he's doing.”

Considering the underground casino had connections to organized crime, he probably had experience investigating underworld-related cases too.

…Even now, infiltrating a place like that felt unbelievably reckless.

Nodoka tilted her head.

“But do you think it's true? That Kokoa-san was forcibly injected with meth?”

“That's still only her father's claim too.”

From the manager's wording in the dream, the police apparently believed Kokoa-san had taken the drugs herself and died of acute intoxication.

Maybe her father simply couldn't accept such a hopeless ending for his daughter.

“Still, it's hard for me to believe someone as cheerful and energetic as Kokoa-san would willingly touch drugs.”

“Oh, Ren-kun. Acting cheerful and actually being mentally healthy aren't necessarily related, are they? Maybe she was only pretending to be happy on the surface.”

“…That's true.”

When we visited Kokoa-san's apartment before, the room had been an absolute mess.

If that wasn't because she was busy, but because of mental issues instead, then that changed things.

“Ren-kun, you still don't know when this nightmare takes place, right?”

“Yeah. Everyone was in mourning clothes, so I couldn't even tell the season.”

“What about air conditioning?”

“Hm… I'm not completely sure, but it didn't feel like the AC was running. At least, it didn't feel like summer.”

“Then there's a good chance this doesn't happen during this summer vacation.”

So maybe we still had some time.

Even so, we barely had any clues for how to prevent it.

Unlike with Airi, we couldn't just charge in recklessly.

Kokoa-san and I were only connected as idol and sponsor.

With Airi, we at least went to the same school.

But Kokoa-san was different.

“Ren, don't you think your goal for now should just be getting closer to Kokoa-san?”

“Huh? Why?”

“If she's really taking the drugs herself, then if you get closer to her, maybe you'll learn why. Then maybe we can stop her. And if someone's forcing her to take them, then the culprit is probably someone close to her, right? So if you get closer to Kokoa-san, you can also investigate suspicious people around her.”

Nodoka was right.

With Airi too, it was only because we became close that we learned why she'd wanted to kill herself.

But…

“How exactly am I supposed to get close to her?”

She was an idol.

Even if I was treated specially, I was still just a sponsor.

Not a friend.

“Huh? Why are you asking me? How should I know? What is this, some new form of bullying?”

“……”

Right.

Nodoka had originally been a loner introvert.

Airi snorted confidently.

“Nodoka-san, the answer's obvious.”

“You're a loner too, Senpai.”

“I'm voluntarily a loner.”

“You're still a loner.”

“Details aside.”

Including me, there wasn't a single extrovert in this room.

For some reason, that suddenly struck me as strange.

Maybe that was exactly why the three of us had ended up in this… relationship-like situation.

Come to think of it, Kokoa-san also didn't seem to have many close friends, and she was pretty unusual herself.

Maybe that actually worked in our favor.

“When it comes to the classic way for a man and woman to grow closer, there's only one answer.”

“One answer?”

Airi grinned and replied:

“A date.”