messiah novel (you are in shine, part 7)

You practically share a room with your partner, your Messiah, from the moment you're matched up until you graduate.

In Kaidou Eiri's case, he had been matched up more than two years ago, and he had constantly shared a room with him.

With this jinx that lived in a rubbish dump.

"You... That's enough, Haku!"

As he entered their set of connected rooms, Eiri's eyes grew as sharp as a cat's.

"Throw it away!"

In Eiri's line of sight was his partner, Mitsumi Haku. If you'd look closely enough, you would see that his face was pretty good looking, but it was difficult to see since he never had many facial expressions.

Beautiful, but without any personality. Everyone said he was like a mannequin from the window of a luxury brand store.

This was Haku's castle. For people who didn't know it would only look like a rubbish dump, but he just had a bad habit of filling up his surroundings with his favourite things.

"Wait, Eiri."

Although he had been rolling around on the bed with empty boxes of candy, he hurriedly stood up.

Suuu, there was the sound of Haku sipping from the carton of his fermented milk drink. It was Nagamori dairy industries' "Nanny", which he called his life force fluid.

"That isn't trash. It's my collection."

"No matter who would look at this, they'd say it's trash."

"It's not good to put down other people's sets of values. Japan is a democratic country."

"In a democratic country it's been decided that there's two days a week to take out the trash!"

As Eiri talked, he was holding bags desginated for trash collection by New Tokyo City. Haku turned really pale. Like a child whose favourite toys were about to be confiscated.

"Listen, if you collect 100 empty boxes of Super Monkey Man chocolate, you can get a Super Monkey can."

"Are those your last words?"

As Eiri remembered all the ridiculous reasons Haku had given time again and again to not have to clean up since the duo had been matched up two years ago, a murderous impulse grew in him.

(Why do I have to clean this guy's room again and again each week?)

Although he still didn't know the underlying reasons, the more obvious reasons were easy to see.　If everything would be left as it is, the empty boxes, empty cans and empty bags would start to descend onto Eiri's room like a tsunami.

"... Ouch."

Eiri's foot stepped on something. It was this month's Consumer Report.

Suddenly Haku threw something over. It was round and rugged and carefully wrapped in aluminum foil. It looked like confectionery.

"Try eating it. It's the new chocolate from the long-established patisserie "SIN" from Aoyama. It dissolves in hot water and becomes hot chocolate."

"Hot chocolate...?"

In that moment Eiri remembered the hot chocolate his father had brought out onto the veranda when he was a child.

It reminded him that even though he liked hot chocolate a lot, he hadn't ever been drinking it again for years since back then.

He smiled a little bit. The reason was obvious.

It hadn't been the hot chocolate that he liked.

It had been his father.

"... I don't care, just clean up! Don't forget that I live in these rooms as well!"

Eiri shut the door with a big bang and returned to his own room.

(That jinx.)

The jinx of Maru School--- Haku was called that among Sakura due to the fact that everyone he got partnered up with died unexpectedly one by one.

But right now Eiri was the one in that spot and was still lively, and until now they hadn't failed a mission enough to the point that he felt like his life had been endangered. If anything, the garbage mountain that was piled up in that guy's room felt more dangerous than anything else.

His cell phone rang. He got an email from an unknown address.

(Who's that?)

There wasn't any text. But he still had to realise the sender's intentions and quickly and accurately take action. If he couldn't do as much, he wouldn't be qualified to be a Sakura.

Eiri slowly crossed the room and looked at the door. A piece of paper had been inserted in the doorcrack. Even in this modern age where there were electronics everywhere, spies tended to lean more towards the analogue. Paper and pen, lip reading, verbal messages. All of that was necessary to get through to the truth.

There was only one thing on the paper. "White", that was what was written there.

(It came.)

Eiri had a hunch. This was a test.

"--- Haku, it's a summons from Ichijima."

Haku, who had been buried by the empty boxes of new types of stick candy, lifted up his face.

( back to index. )