Boogiepop and Others

by Kouhei Kadono

  The guy in front of me was studying something else. Everyone was only in class for their transcripts; all of them were certain that their test scores were far more important than learning itself. Even the teachers agreed, so they just lectured tediously, never calling on anyone, never asking if there were any questions.

  Why the hell were we even here?

  What had happened to Kamikishiro? Had her cheery exterior been a lie? I thought it was sometimes, but I didn't think she was the sort of girl to just up and run away.

  “For those of you who know no tomorrow.”

  But even so, I was just like the people around me. I knew nothing.

  I hadn't even known that Touka was possessed by this Boogiepop guy.

  I didn't listen to the teacher for the rest of class, and I sure as hell didn't take any notes. For all my complaints, I was even less serious about this than the people taking exams. Without any purpose, I just sat there stewing.

  ***

  That day, Boogiepop wasn't waiting on the roof.

  “............”

  I waited for him a while, but eventually the sun set, and I had to give up and go home.

  ***

  When I climbed up to the roof the next day, Boogiepop was waiting for me, but this time in a girl's school uniform; no strange costume.

  “Hey,” he said, raising his hand. This gesture is how I knew it was him. Otherwise, I would have taken him for Touka.

  “No costume?”

  “Don't need it any more. So she didn't bring it with her.”

  He had explained once before that Touka would unconsciously carry it around with her, but I hadn't ever thought anything of it until now.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The danger is over,” he said flatly.

  “Eh?”

  “Everything's finished, Takeda-kun.”

  “W-wait! That's so...”

  “That's all there is to it. That's the way I'm made. When the danger is gone, I disappear. Like bubbles.”

  “The danger... weren’t you going to save the world? It hasn’t been saved at all!”

  “But my job is finished. What you mean by ’save’ is not my job,” he said, shaking his head quietly.

  “But you said you were going to fight the devil that lives in this school!”

  “I did. I'm not the one that killed it, though...”

  My mouth flapped wordlessly. I couldn't think of anything else to say. “But... but... that’s...”

  “Thank you, Takeda-kun,” Boogiepop suddenly bowed his head. “I enjoyed my time with you. Until now, I had never done anything but fight. You’re the first person I could really call a friend. Perhaps you only spent time with me because I'm part of Miyashita Touka, but I had fun. I mean it.”

  “............”

  I suddenly realized just how much I liked him.

  I'd liked him since we first met in town.

  And not because he had Touka's face.

  Everything I wanted to say but couldn't express... he could and would at the drop of a hat. That's why I liked him so much.

  “Don't go.”

  “Eh?”

  “Don't go anywhere. You’re about the only friend I have. I'd really like to keep meeting you,” I hung my head, almost whispering. I may have been crying.

  Boogiepop made that face again.

  “That's not true, Takeda-kun.”

  “It is!”

  “You simply aren't connecting with the world around you right now.”

  I stopped breathing.

  “Miyashita Touka's worried about you too. Don't let yourself think you're the only one who's worried.”

  “But... but what about you? If you just vanished without anyone the wiser, doesn’t that make you sad?”

  “You're the wiser, aren't you?”

  “But I'm...”

  “I'm afraid you and Miyashita Touka have your job to do, just as I have my duty. You two have to make your own world. You don’t have time to waste belittling yourself,” Boogiepop said curtly.

  There was nothing left for me to say. I hung my head and stuttered, “B-but...”

  When I looked up... there was nobody there.

  Startled, I raced across the roof.

  But there was no sign of him anywhere.

  Just like the first time I saw him, he'd vanished in the wind.

  ***

  When I came down the fire escape, I found Miyashita waiting for me at the bottom.

  I could tell instantly that it wasn't him. When she looked at me, she smiled.

  “You're late, Takeda-sempai!” she said, in a voice that seemed to tumble.

  “Eh...”

  “You told me to wait here? And then you show up late, you big meany.”

  I was taken aback. Then, it hit me.

  ‘She doesn't know anything.’

  ‘She doesn’t even notice that she doesn’t know. Her memories are automatically corrected.’

  That explained it.

  She had automatically created a reason for her to be here.

  “Ah, uh... s-sorry. I bumped into a friend.”

  “On the roof? Were you called out by the school thugs?”

  “Does our school even have any?”

  “Good point,” she laughed.

  Suddenly, I felt a great affection for her. “You got cram school today?”

  “Yeah, at five.”

  “I'll walk you to the station.”

  She looked surprised. “Leave school together?”

  “Hey, I'm on the discipline committee.”

  “You sure?”

  “The gate guards are all my kouhai. They'll let us by.”

  I didn't let her squirm out of it, but we didn't hold hands or anything.

  Niitoki was watching the gate. For some reason, the school's problem child, Kirima Nagi, fresh off from suspension the previous Friday, was standing next to her.

  She was slim and tall, and all the guys said she was as pretty as a model, but she looked a little harsh to me.

  She was the polar opposite of Niitoki, and I was surprised to see them acting so friendly towards one another. When they stood next to each other, they looked like sisters with years between them, or perhaps a mother and child who were closer in age.

  “Oh, sempai,” Niitoki said, smiling despite seeing her classmate Touka standing next to me.

  “Hey,” I grunted.

  “Hmm. So, you're Miyashita Touka,” said Kirima Nagi abruptly, suddenly standing right in front of her.

  “Y-yes...”

  “I'm Kirima. Nice to meet you,” she said, thrusting out her hand. She sounded more like a man.

  “Hey!” I said, butting in, but Touka bobbed her head and took the offered hand.

  Kirima Nagi made a wry smile that reminded me of Boogiepop, and walked on by.

  While we were still stunned, Niitoki said, “Come on now, sempai, Miyashita-san. Run your cards through.”

  We did as we were told and exited the school.

  The road was covered in fallen leaves.

  “These maple leaves look so beautiful when they're falling, but once they've fallen, they're just a mess,” Touka said, walking carefully to avoid getting them stuck to her shoes.

  “Mm, but they're still lovely when they fall.”

  “That your opinion as a designer?”

  “Not really.”

  “I'm jealous of you, you know,” Touka pouted as she suddenly started stomping through the leaves.

  “H-hey...”

  “I've got to take a quiz on idioms today. I hate it.” The leaves squelched beneath her feet as if she were tap dancing.

  “You say that, but-”

  “But I'm still going to college,” she interrupted, still keeping her face turned away from mine, slopping through the leaves. “No matter what you say.”

  “What I say?” I couldn't remember saying anything against it.

  “You went and decided what you were going to do all by yoursel
f. You’re all confident now. Like you're snickering at the rest of us.”

  “That's what... “ I was about to say, ’Everyone else was doing,’ but she looked up at me seriously, and I bit my tongue.

  “That was pretty stressful, you know. I thought it was going to eat me alive. But I'm over that now. Finished with it.”

  She looked up.

  I was surprised.

  She looked just like Boogiepop.

  “To tell you the truth, sempai, I remember standing you up that Sunday.”

  “Eh?”

  “But I wanted to mess with your mind a bit. Sorry,” she said, and bowed her head.

  Her movements were Touka's. There was no hint of Boogiepop.

  (It can't be... )

  Her anxiety had called out Boogiepop?

  Was that the ’devil in the school?’

  Does that mean -- that I had defeated it?

  She had told me of her worries through Boogiepop, and she no longer needed to be afraid. The ’danger’ had passed.

  I stopped in my tracks. My eyes were wide. Touka was staring at her shoes. “They're all dirty now,” she said.

  She giggled then, sheepishly.

  Boogiepop had said he had no dreams. He never laughed.

  “Eh heh heh.”

  I looked at Touka’s pretty, cheerful smile, and thought, Boogiepop can’t do that.

  It's our job to laugh.

  Interlude

  Backing the story up a little...

  Somewhere between day and night, in a dim, gloomy room, a girl lay on her side, without a stitch of clothing on her. She wasn't moving.

  The Manticore stood next to her.

  The room was silent.

  Slowly, elegantly, it stooped over the fallen girl.

  It brushed aside the girl's hair, and kissed her on the forehead.

  It moved down to her nose, then her chin, neck, chest, stomach, and abdomen, licking each of them, leaving a thin blue trail. Everywhere its saliva touched changed color.

  When it had licked the girl all over, the Manticore moved its mouth away.

  The girl's body began to change.

  All over the surface of her skin, snap, snap, thin cracks tore open.

  “............”

  The Manticore watched in silence.

  At last, the girl's body crumbled inwards, like a mud sculpture left in the sun.

  A purple smoke rose into the air.

  The Manticore sucked the smoke into its mouth.

  The smoke rose and rose, but the Manticore never stopped breathing it in, like a fish tank with the plug removed, sucking it all away. Its throat moved, swallowing it down.

  When it had swallowed the last puff, the Manticore ran its tongue over its beautiful, lipstick red lips.

  A drop of liquid slipped from the corner of its mouth and rolled off its chin. This drop of liquefied smoke was the color of blood and flesh.

  There was no other trace of the girl, or of the smoke.

  Oh ho ho!

  Oh ho ho!

  Oh ho ho ho ho ho...!

  In the darkness, the Manticore laughed.

  Her name was ancient Persian, and it meant ’Man-Eater.’

  That delicate laugh bloomed like a morning rose, triumphantly extolling its evil.

  Chapter Two

  The Return of the Fire Witch

  Suema Kazuko

  second year, class D

  1.

  Recently, a strange rumor, or rather, a bit of a ghost story, has been spreading among the girls of the second year classes.

  It's something about the mysterious Boogiepop.

  Boogiepop is short, wears a black cape, and has a tall hat that's sort of like the one Maetel wore in Galaxy Express 999, only narrower. He's an assassin, and he can kill people instantly, without pain. He always does so when you are at your most beautiful, before you start to wither away, before you grow old and ugly.

  Nobody knows where he's from, but most people seem to agree that he has something to do with the string of missing high school girls in the area.

  Everyone wants to believe that the runaways were killed by an assassin that wanders in the shadows, fleeting as the morning mist... instead of running off to Tokyo or some other grim reality.

  Reality is always rather dreary. When people vanish from it, it's natural to want to connect them to some sort of fantasy, to some other world.

  “Hey, Suema, what was the actual case that inspired The Village of Eight Graves?” asked the girl in front of me, Kinoshita Kyoko, looking up from her crossword puzzle. I was eating my lunch one day shortly after the end of summer vacation.

  “The Tsuyama Thirty,” I said, without a second's thought.

  “Hunh, Tsuyama Thirty... hey, it fits. Thanks.”

  Everyone eating with us was staring at me. “How did you know that?”

  “You are obsessed.”

  “Don't be stupid, everyone knows that.”

  “We don't! Nobody does!”

  “There was a book on it out last month,” I replied, in a knowing manner as if to brush them off.

  “We didn't read it! Why would we?”

  “You're a little scary, Kazuko.”

  Everyone cackled.

  “What kind of person can murder someone?” Kyoko asked, suddenly looking up from her crossword again.

  “What kind? All kinds.”

  “I mean, like, who in this class seems likely to?” she said, lowering her voice.

  “Oooh, do tell, do tell!” Everyone leaned closer.

  “Uhhh, someone a little stiff, like they're off in their own little world and are kinda stubborn when it comes to stuff?” Even as I said it, I knew I might as well be saying her name.

  “So... Kirima Nagi?” Yep, first name out; the most notorious student in our class. She was skipping today, apparently; no sign of her all morning.

  “Hmm, well, she's not normal, that's for sure.”

  “Not normal? The Fire Witch is six kinds of crazy!”

  “She’s skipped two days since the new term started. Wonder if she’11 even bother coming tomorrow...”

  “She might as well not. Even when she does come, she causes trouble the moment she steps through the gates and gets herself sent right back home.”

  “Kya ha ha! Sounds like her!”

  “So far as killing goes, I hear she actually is.”

  “How so?”

  “You know, one slip and you miss your period...”

  “Ah!”

  “Then she gets herself suspended before anyone notices and takes care of it...”

  “I believe it!”

  There was no evidence at all, but that didn't stop them from talking.

  Everyone was laughing, though, so I laughed with them.

  I didn’t hate her like they did.

  Sure, she was trouble. But there was something about the way that she looked at people that was pretty cool; the way she didn't seem to care whether you were older or even a teacher, but just looked straight at you.

  “She's got no parents, right?”

  “Yeah, like, they live abroad or something? You heard she was the top scorer on the entrance exam, right? But she wasn't the speaker at the entrance ceremony. Know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Her guardian's name isn't Kirima.”

  “She's illegitimate?”

  “Yeah. She just gets money and lives by herself in some apartment.”

  “No way...”

  “So, she can do whatever she wants. Bring a different guy home every day, or like Suema says, ’Start killing.’ She could have a mountain of bodies at her place, and no one would ever know.”

  “In the freezer?”

  “All frozen up.”

  “Thaws them out and cooks them!”

  “Ew, gross!”

  Everyone laughed again.

  I went along with them.

  We laughed a bit too loud and Yurihara-san, who was sitting nearby, looked up from her s
tudy guide and glared at us. She was the best student in the class... and in the running for top of the school. I'd heard she'd taken practice tests at her cram school, and outscored students from the best schools in town three times running. She was also beautiful... and a little stuck up; meaning that she had no friends in our class. Even though she might've felt a little out of our league, she somehow knew that all it took was a cold glance to quiet us down.

  “Maybe Nagi is Boogiepop?” Kyoko said.

  “Ew, no. Boogiepop's a beautiful boy.”

  At the time, that was my first encounter with that name, so I felt myself compelled to ask about it.

  “You don't know? But he's a killer!”

  “It's not like I know everything.”

  They filled me in, but I'm into criminal psychology, and this was just some school horror story. God, it was beyond absurd. They made it out to be less of a serial killer and more like some crazed monster.

  “Hmm... that's kinda scary.” Everyone was watching, so I had to pretend to be alarmed.

  “Kind of a turn-on, huh? Wonder how he kills them?” With that, they all started babbling away, swooning over this fantasy man of theirs.

  Did he strangle them? Run them through with a knife? They kept suggesting rather time-consuming methods of killing, and I started to get irritated.

  “Can we get your expert opinion?” Kyoko asked teasingly, suddenly turning to me.

  “Sure... poison gas.”

  “Ew, like Sarin?” They all said at once.

  “Nah, hydrocyanic acid gas. It's colorless and invisible, but very poisonous, and it kills you instantly. You can spray it on someone, and it vanishes quickly, leaving no evidence. The body isn't even dirty. Smells like peaches.”

  “Hunh...?” Everyone was staring at me, slightly creeped out. ‘Oops,’ I thought.

  I'd done it again. I knew full well this kind of knowledge wouldn't interest them.

  At this point, the class lady killer, Kimura-kun, came over and said, “What's up?” Everyone replied, “Nothing... “ Apparently the Boogiepop stories were being kept secret from the boys.

  A myth only the girls knew. It seemed I was the last one in class to hear about it.

  I always am.

  “............”

  That depressed me a little, so I only half listened to their conversation, nodding when it seemed appropriate.

  My interest in criminal and abnormal psychology stems from a personal experience I had.