“No matter how much I clean, there’s no end to it… I wonder if the riverbed of Sai no Kawara is like this…”

With a dustpan in one hand, sweeping up dust bunnies, today again I strive to beautify the lab. The Professor had gone out to Kawaramachi for an interview with a web media outlet. An interview in a corner of a chic café, what a truly sophisticated assignment… What am I, left behind and covered in dust…?

And the moment I let my guard down, what comes to mind is Mayuki-kun.

Since that incident the other day, we haven’t contacted each other.

Mayuki-kun might have taken my silence as a rejection.

It’s not that I feel that way at all, but it’s difficult to know how to contact him.

That’s why I couldn’t think of what kind of exchange we should have.

My true feeling is—I’m very happy.

If this had been affection from some random person I didn’t know, I probably would have rejected it, but the other party is ‘Kamimura Mayu’, whom I admired. There are no negative factors there.

That’s precisely why.

I want to know more and more about Nakamura Mayuki as a boy, not ‘Kamimura Mayu’ the influencer. I wanted us to understand a lot about each other.

“She’s late…”

That kind of impatience showed, and I couldn’t settle down, doing unnecessary things like organizing the bookshelves, pointlessly polishing the guest sofa, and sweeping the floor more thoroughly than necessary.

It was at that moment.

GATAGATAGATAGATA! A loud clattering sound rang out.

Wondering what was going on, I glanced at the entrance, and the Professor was standing there.

With enough force to blow away the poorly fitted sliding door. tlnote

“Himari.”

On her face was a look of panic I had never seen before.

“What’s the matter?”

In the tense atmosphere, I leaned the broom in my hand against the wall and asked.

“From the looks of it, you haven’t seen it yet. Open RootSpeak, right now.”

I was about to ask ‘what on RootSpeak?’, but for now I did as the Professor urged and launched the app… and I swallowed my words.

On my smartphone screen, the crime-threat account ‘Shinda’ was displayed.

On its latest post—.

“No way…?”

There’s a photo of the ‘overly cute crossdressing streamer’, his hands and feet bound, lying limp.

It was unmistakably the person I was waiting for.

The influencer ‘Kamimura Mayu’.

Was being held captive in the form of the high school boy, Nakamura Mayuki.


Inception