Volume 5 - CH 1.7

Ding, dong, ding, dong, ding, dong.

The bell signaling dinner rang. The solemn sound echoed slowly until it eventually faded.

After hours of waiting, we made our move. As we exited the room for the guardians on the first floor of the dormitory, we were greeted by complete silence.

There were no students in the hallway. The dormitory was almost entirely deserted.

“During dinner, a representative from each floor calls the students to the dining hall,” Mayuzumi said. “They will be gone for about an hour and a half. They are not allowed to eat in their own rooms. Let’s just hope that the girls went with the rest of the students.”

Mayuzumi headed for the fifth floor. It was possible that some students were not feeling well and stayed behind, but there was no sound. We proceeded through the dormitory, just as we had done during class earlier today.

Darkness had settled outside. Thick shadows fell on the raven statue by the railing.

Mayuzumi approached the first door and produced a key—presumably provided by the headmaster—from her pouch. She inserted the gilded key into the keyhole.

“Apparently most of the rooms on the fifth floor are unoccupied. This is Kotori-kun’s room.”

Click.

The key turned. As the door opened, I saw moonlight pouring in through the window. The dim room seemed gray. It reminded me of the bathtub.

The room was modestly furnished. The cat-printed bed sheets and pencil case, however, lightened the atmosphere of the room. I looked around and rested my gaze at the window.

I spotted a similar scene as in Tsubaki’s room. A potted plant was sitting on the windowsill.

But there was one clear difference.

A huge bud was swaying in the pot.

The color of its petals was red.

“This is probably the same potted plant that was in Tsubaki’s room,” Mayuzumi said. “There were no vases of any other kind in that room. The flowers that Tsubaki-kun shredded were from that pot.”

She tore the flower, leaving the stalk to wither. Right before her death, the flower was in full bloom.

Why was the same object in Kotori’s room?

“What in the world does this mean?”

“They all fear the same thing. Tsubaki-kun died disliking flowers. Do you get it now?”

Mayuzumi extended a pale hand and poked the bud with her finger, shaking it. All of a sudden, she wrapped her hand around it all and dug her nails into the stalk.

Snap.

The bud rolled down onto Mayuzumi’s hand. It seemed to me like she broke a child’s neck. She plucked the bud from the flower and showed it to me.

“Take a look inside, Odagiri-kun.”

The bud, with its thick red petals, resembled a rosebud. But its size was strange. If a lily and rose were combined, would it look like this?

I took the bud. Following what the late Tsubaki did, I dug my nail into it and ripped off a petal.

There was something off with the texture.

The layers of petals unraveled and broke apart. Some of them were torn and smelled sweet.

It felt like peeling the skin off a human finger.

The petals burst, crumbling, revealing another bundle of closed petals inside. I ripped it open with my nail.

Honey poured out.

Viscous liquid, mixed with deep-colored pollen, trickled down. The inside of the red flower was wet with frothy liquid. It dripped down my fingers. White stamens and pistils fell.

White chunks resembling boiled asparagus tumbled down.

It was neither stamen nor pistil.

It fell, dripping mucus.

Plop.

Five cylindrical things were packed tightly inside.

Human fingers. I placed the flower on my palm to prevent the other four from falling off. Bones peeked out from the white base. The bloodless fingers were slender.

A woman’s fingers.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. I tried to distract myself from the cold sensation in my hand.

Mayuzumi met my gaze. She was smiling.

“Is this what the girls are afraid of?” I asked.

“That’s right. This flower itself has turned into an oddity. There are fingers in the bud. I’m guessing the flower spits out human fingers every time it blooms. It opens at night and closes during the day. It doesn’t end with it blooming. No, that’s too simple. This oddity repeats the process over and over.”

Mayuzumi picked up the fallen finger. After a quick examination, she tossed it away. It hit the window and rolled on the floor quietly, leaving a trace of mucus on the glass.

It made sense. I was used to the supernatural by now. Sometimes in this world, skeletons laugh and people turn into bubbles. I had to accept that flowers could spit out human fingers.

But then that raised a question.

“Whose fingers are these?”

These pale fingers resembled human flesh so vividly.

There had to be an original they were based on.

Mayuzumi closed her parasol and held it straight at the potted plant.

Then, she pushed it to the side.

Crash.

The pot fell to the floor and broke into pieces. Dirt and shards scattered around. But most of the soil remained in clumps, held together by the roots. I stared at them. Sensing something odd, I put my hand inside. I brushed away the soil with my fingers to reach the center of the root.

Between the roots was something I expected to find.

My hunch was right. A feeling akin to relief filled my chest. At the same time, I felt extremely disgusted.

I should be feeling something else, but there was nothing.

The bones of human fingers were buried in the earth.

Five of them, probably.

The pots were like tiny coffins.

“The flowers spitting out fingers is similar to that child puking flesh. It looks real, but it’s just an imitation. You should just wrap it in tissue and throw it away so no one can see it. But… the person who buries them probably can’t forget about it that easily. And they descend into madness.”

I pictured a child dressed in white gothic Lolita fashion. My hackles rose. I looked at the bones buried in the dirt. All the fingers had been severed at the base.

One of those girls must have done it.

“One girl dead, three girls alive. Another one who disappeared.”

The dead girl’s body was recovered. It was easy to guess, then, who these fingers belonged to.

But why did they bury a part of the body in a pot?

What happened to the girls?

A knock came at the door, followed by a faint voice.

“Kotori? Are you there?”

Dinner should not be over yet. I turned around, not sure how to deal with the sudden situation. I didn’t know what to say. Mayuzumi, however, walked straight to the door.

And she opened it. Shizuki’s hand froze mid-air in a knocking motion. Staring at us, she opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Mayuzumi flashed a smile. “So, who killed Cock Robin, and who dug the grave?”

Who watched him die? Who caught his blood?

Shizuki did not answer the ambiguous question. Suddenly she sank down on the floor, as though the strength had drained from her legs. She hung her head low, her long hair concealing the expression on her face.

She seemed to have grasped the situation. Her shoulders quivered, and she hugged herself tight. There was no response from her.

“Shizuki-san,” I said. “What did you all do?”

“…All of us,” she murmured in an indifferent tone.

She was trembling, but her voice was ice-cold.

Shizuki lifted her head. Her eyes were clear.

She bit her lip. “We killed Saori and buried her.”

There was a strong glint of determination in her eyes. Her voice held a note of rage.

It was a confession of murder.