It was already dusk, and Ikeda finally arrived at home. His father hadn't come back yet, so he was probably still drinking in the izakaya.
He took out an instant bar from the refrigerator, got into the stove, and turned on the TV. This was the time Ikeda cherished most besides sleeping. He finished his homework in front of the TV while eating junk food that only the poorest families stocked up.
From a very young age, TV seems to have become Ikeda’s father. There is also this sentence in the book that belongs to him: "TV will not come home drunk, TV will not forget me at the zoo, TV will not play... Scold me, TV is the one who teaches me how to be a human being."
He had imagined more than once that like the protagonists in those fictional stories, he would suddenly encounter aliens one day, or meet a mysterious girl, or be recruited by a secret "government" agency, or even be taken to another place by a bolt of lightning. The world, thereby changing his life; he hopes that he can be relied on like the heroes in those movies, instead of being despised and bullied.
But the moment he opens his eyes every day, Ikeda has to face the cruel reality.
Life is already so painful for a seventeen-year-old boy.
The deepest terror does not come from the present, but from the future; the most complete despair does not mean that you do not know the future yet, but that even though you are still young, you can already foresee your own miserable life.
At some point, Ikeda stopped writing. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 10:20 and his father still hadn't come home.
Ikeda got out of the heater, came to the door of his house again, put on his shoes, and walked quickly into the night.
On the quiet street, this young man showed a serious expression that he had never seen before, and his eyes under his glasses were even quite scary and ferocious.
Tianyi's bookstore was closed. When Ikeda passed by, he originally wanted to go in and confirm again, but it was obvious that he would not get any response if he knocked on the door.
"Now that you have come out, you will never look back!" This is what Ikeda told himself.
He walked for more than an hour and arrived at school almost midnight. In the dark campus, there is only a little light in the guard's hut.
By this point, the security guard on duty should have already fallen asleep, because the school stipulates that the night shift security guards must patrol once from midnight to five o'clock. These guys usually go to bed very early and wait until around four o'clock the next day. Get up and go straight out to buy some breakfast or something after patrolling.
The school gate is not high and has a horizontal folding and stretching design. Ikeda climbed in without any effort and walked all the way to the front of the teaching building. He finally stopped.
I arrived here in a hurry, only to find that the door of the teaching building was locked with a ring lock at night. Maybe this is not a problem for the fictional heroes, but Ikeda was helpless.
"What am I thinking..." Ikeda smiled bitterly.
He turned around and prepared to go back, muttering to himself in a low voice: "There is nothing we can do... Not to mention that we are empty-handed now. Even if we had anticipated this situation in advance and came with root canal pliers, it would still be a serious matter to damage the school property." .”
Ikeda really hates himself, and he also knows that talking nonsense is meaningless. The fact is that even if he is determined to do something, he will give up easily because of any small unexpected situation.
"Am I really just a waste... I deserve to be called a wet mosquito coil..." Ikeda began to torture himself in his heart. He reluctantly turned around and looked at the teaching building again, as if doing so would still have a chance to find out something. Hope comes.
"That is!" Ikeda's eyes suddenly widened, hope really appeared, and there would be unexpected good luck in his miserable life.
The closer Ikeda got, the more clearly Ikeda could see. There was a window in the corridor on the first floor that was not closed properly, leaving a small gap. It was not very obvious at first glance, but he discovered it when he turned around.
He came to the window, took a deep breath, and the cold air of the cold night rushed into his mind. He stretched out his hand and opened the window. After a few seconds, he climbed smoothly into the corridor.
Ikeda couldn't suppress the excitement in his heart, and his whole body was trembling. The words Tianyi said a few hours ago were still in his ears: "Sneak into Matsuo's office at midnight and bring out any of his things, and I will allow you to see Miura." book of."
Although I don’t know why the other party would make such a request, let alone why the other party would know Matsuo and Miura, but with the kind of weird book full of people’s voices as a foreshadowing, this kind of thing can’t be said to be that weird.
Until he stood in front of the door of the teacher's office, Ikeda could not be said to be very determined. After all, he was Ikeda, the one who did not dare to fight back after being beaten. Even he himself could not believe that he was doing such a thing at this moment. It was something out of the ordinary, but this experience that he had never tasted also made him feel unprecedented excitement. I am afraid that he had too much adrenaline at this moment, and the hand he stretched out to open the door was shaking very hard.
The door opened, and under the clear moonlight, the first thing that came into Ikeda's sight was a pair of feet.
A pair of feet off the ground, with the toes of both feet tilted to the inside, hanging precariously in the air.
Ikeda felt his heart stop beating. His eyes instinctively moved up, and soon he saw Matsuo's face.
His eyes were bulging, his tongue was half sticking out, and his face was purple and black. He was obviously dead.
"Ah... ah... cough... um..." Ikeda sat down on the ground and retreated quickly. His back quickly pressed against the wall of the corridor. He wanted to scream at first, then vomited, but in the end, he used He covered his mouth with both hands, suppressing both his shouting and stomach acid.
He couldn't shout because he couldn't explain why he came to school in the middle of the night after calling in security; he couldn't vomit, because it would leave obvious traces on the scene.
Ikeda himself didn't know why he had such a clear and reasonable idea in his mind, and such a calm judgment came out in such a terrifying environment. Could it be that he was cruel by nature, or indifferent to death
He couldn't help but think too much. The question he needed to think about was, what should he do next
"Judging from this situation, Matsuo probably committed suicide, but if the police were called, it would be impossible to explain why he sneaked into the school at midnight. Even if the investigation finally confirmed that Matsuo's death had nothing to do with me, the school would definitely expel him. Me." After weighing and calculating, Ikeda punched his thigh a few times, and then stood up with barely enough support. Although his legs are still a little weak, at least the pain has restored some consciousness and he can walk.
Ikeda walked into the teacher's office and deliberately avoided Matsuo's terrifying face. He hurried around the hanging corpse, quickly grabbed a pen from the pen holder on Matsuo's desk, and ran away without looking back.
Rushing all the way from the third floor to the first floor, Ikeda came to the window where he climbed in. Just about to step out, when he lowered his head, he suddenly discovered something. There were two different footprints on the window sill!
It was backlit when he came in just now, and his shadow covered the window edge without noticing it. But now under the white moonlight, this discovery made his hair stand on end. There are two shoe prints on the window sill, with the toes facing the corridor, and one of the shoe prints is obviously larger than the other. The smaller shoe print is probably my own, but what about the larger one
At this time, his thinking was surprisingly quick. Ikeda quickly had the answer. The larger footprints should have been left by Matsuo. Because at seven or eight o'clock in the evening, before going to bed, the security guards will inspect every room in the teaching building and gymnasium to confirm that there is nothing abnormal before locking the door. Therefore, Matsuo could not have "committed suicide" before that. He must have sneaked into the school after eight o'clock and then died. This also explains why there were only footprints in the corridor and no return.
After understanding this, there was nothing to be afraid of. Ikeda turned to the side of the window and carefully wiped off the footprints he had made when he came in and out. He even erased the fingerprints on the edge of the window, and Matsuo's footprints he Didn't touch it.
Ikeda, who felt that he had not left any traces, put his hands in his sleeves and carefully closed the window, returning it to the same state as when he came. Then he quickly escaped from the campus and ran wildly on the way home.
At the same time, in the dark corridor of the teaching building, there was a figure looking at Ikeda's leaving figure, standing silently.