This is a story with a somewhat cliché theme, boy meets girl.
The boy's name is Kurodori Mikiya.
One day in 1995, a heavy snowfall occurred in Guanbuzi City, which had not been seen in many years.
On a snowy night, in the darkness that should have been gray but was dyed white, the boy met a girl in a kimono.
Just one glance, just one moment, and the boy fell in love with her. From then on, he could never forget the girl's figure.
Not long after, on the first day of the new semester, the boy met the unforgettable girl again. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the girl was in the same school and class as him.
He knew the girl's name, a somewhat strange name, but one that he would remember for the rest of his life—Ryougi Shiki.
She has a neutral and elegant appearance and always wears a kimono to school. Although she never speaks a word, her behavior that is inconsistent with her age and her calm and steady attitude are enough to attract people's attention.
However, this strange girl always kept people at a distance and stubbornly stayed away from others, as if she was living in her own world. Over time, she became a well-known outcast in the school, whom no one cared about—except him.
For the first time, the ordinary boy showed his extraordinary resilience.
You stay away, I stay close.
If you refuse, I will come again.
Even if you hide from me, I will find you.
Even if you say you will kill me, I will still stay by your side.
The boy approached the girl relentlessly, as if she was everything to him.
I don’t know if the girl was moved by the boy or found that all resistance was futile, but slowly, the boy and the girl became closer and closer, and they became very good friends. Many people even thought they were dating.
The boy learned about the girl's background, the unusual family behind her, and that she had two personalities just like her surname.
Tai Chi gives birth to two opposites, one yin and one yang. Shi represents the feminine personality and the affirmative heart; Zhi, which has the same pronunciation as Shi in Japanese but a different spelling in Chinese, represents the masculine personality and the negative heart.
The two are independent of each other, yet interconnected, just like the Tai Chi diagram of yin and yang biting into two fish.
Many people would feel uncomfortable or even disgusted with this way of existence, but the boy didn't, not at all. He didn't mind at all whether it was Shiki or Ori who was with him.
The two of them just get along naturally, as if no one is around. There is no confession of love, and they don't seem like lovers, but they are closer than ordinary friends. So they are more than friends but less than lovers
Well, it doesn’t really matter, because neither Kanye nor Shiki or Ori would care, because in each other’s eyes, the other is a special existence.
As the days passed, if things continued like this, the two would probably continue to be classmates, grow up together, and finally get together, get married peacefully, and live out their lives.
But the girl's abnormal existence doomed her fate to be turbulent, and the boy would also experience an unusual life with her.
A series of bizarre murders occurred in the peaceful Guanbuzi City. One day soon after, the boy learned from his uncle, a policeman, that the badge of his school was left at the crime scene.
Later, on the second day after the sixth victim appeared, the boy saw the wound on the girl's hand. Thinking of what the girl had said about her impulse to kill, the boy had a bad feeling in his heart.
A few days later, the boy saw the girl and the seventh victim near her home. The girl was standing in a pool of blood, her plain kimono stained with bright red blood, exuding a cruel beauty.
The nausea brought by the smell of blood, the shock brought by the dark scene, and the impact brought by the unbelievable fact made the boy faint on the spot.
When I woke up, I was already in the police station.
Faced with the police's questioning, the boy chose to conceal the truth and said nothing, but at the same time, the boy began to wait in front of the girl's door every night and watch the girl's room.
The girl who discovered this let the boy do whatever he wanted and even stopped her family from trying to drive the boy away.
The next day, the girl asked the boy why he was still willing to approach her.
The boy just smiled and answered, because he believed it.
He just saw the girl at the crime scene, but did not see her kill anyone. He believed that this girl named Ryougi Shiki would not do such a thing.
From that day on, the girl completely ignored the boy, and the boy did not take the initiative to talk to the girl, but he still waited outside the girl's window every night.
To investigate the truth
To find out the real murderer
That's not the case. If it was for such a purpose, the smile on the boy's face would not be so gentle, nor so full of trust.
He stood there to confirm her innocence, and only after he confirmed that she did not go out at night did he reveal such a reassuring smile.
And that smile is what attracts girls, but also what makes them feel uneasy.
The girl couldn't stand the incomprehensible and growing emotions in her heart, so she confessed to the boy that she was the murderer.
But even so, it did not shake the smile and trust on the boy's face.
The girl showed a hysterical expression for the first time: "What do you understand about me, and what do you believe in me?"
The boy's smile became softer: "There is no basis for this. I just like you, so I want to keep believing in you."
The sudden confession made the girl's heart wall, which she had built with great difficulty, crumble. She lowered her head, letting her bangs cover her eyes, and whispered, "You are an idiot."
The boy was still laughing: "Yeah, you often say that."
Everything seemed to have returned to the way it was before, back to peaceful daily life.
However, this was just the boy's illusion, at night, when he fulfilled his agreement with the girl to continue monitoring her.
The girl changed into a bright red kimono that was different from her usual outfit and walked out of the house, stabbing the boy with a knife as if she was crazy.
She really wanted to kill him.
The boy didn't want to die, but the girl stubbornly wanted to kill him as if to protect her own existence.
Finally, the girl pushed the boy to the ground, put a knife to his throat, and said softly with an expression like a crying mask on her face:
"I'm going to kill you."
The boy did not die in the end because the girl was stopped by a middle-aged man of unknown origin.
In the ensuing fight between the girl and the middle-aged man, the girl was subconsciously avoiding killing. The boy guessed correctly that the girl was not a murderer at all.
The man pointed out the girl's motive for wanting to kill the boy. It was not for survival, nor for anything else, but just to escape.
The girl really ran away, and kept running away.
The boy chased after her desperately.
But just before the boy was about to catch up with the girl, the girl was hit by a passing car and fell into a coma for two years.
For two years, the boy has been staying with the girl, visiting her regularly and taking care of her.
One day, the boy accidentally saw a doll that looked very similar to the girl at an exhibition, so he followed the information left by the puppeteer at the exhibition and found the underground office in an unfinished building.
The boy dropped out of college and became an employee of a firm. He was telling the firm's director and his friends the story of him and the girl.