Golden Days Read online

  Kojou’s demeanor, ignorant to his peril, made Yuuho a bit irritated as she raised her voice.

  “She’s not like an idol, she is an idol. I mean she’s, like, the savior of Itogami Island, stopping a group of terrorists with international arrest warrants all by herself. Of course she’s popular. Well, she’s only a local idol here on Itogami Island…”

  “So it’s a localized fame thing, like a place’s famous general from the Warring States period, or their mascot, or something like that.”

  “W-well, I suppose. But it seems like she’s a topic everywhere on the mainland. I mean, Asagi’s actually pretty hot. Although, she tried too hard to be fashionable, and it started going in a weird direction…”

  “Um, well, that’s fine, isn’t it? If it suits her, it’s all good, right?”

  Kojou recalled Asagi’s needlessly extravagant hairstyle and clothing as he found himself defending her. She certainly did seem to be flailing at times, but he didn’t exactly mind her putting so much effort into her appearance.

  Yuuho curled up the corners of her mouth in mild amusement as she teased, “I’m a little surprised to hear you say that, Akatsuki.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Well, that’s fine. Ah, before I forget. Akatsuki, do you have a photo of Asagi on you?”

  Yuuho’s lips loosened into a leering smile as she changed topics. Kojou knit his brows, thrown off course.

  “Photo?”

  “Yes, yes. Something private, not one of those class picture things.”

  “My smartphone got broken, and I only just replaced it. Wonder if there is anything like that on here.”

  He took out his smartphone. The crucial data had been transferred, but there weren’t many photos left over in the process.

  “Ah, there is. The one from when we went to Blue Elysium last year.”

  “Eh, Blue Ely?! That’s incredible. Blue Ely means, what, she’s in a swimsuit?!”

  Yuuho leaned forward, acting excited. Kojou shook his head, a half-hearted expression coming over him as he said, “Ah, well, technically she’s in a swimsuit, but…”

  “…What the heck is this?” Yuuho fumed, shooting Kojou an accusatory glare.

  The picture showed Kojou and Asagi at Blue Elysium. Both were wearing lame T-shirts, holding a metal container and a yakisoba pack, respectively.

  “Well, um, this is the photo from when Asagi and I went to Blue Ely. We worked part-time at a yakisoba stand.”

  “This isn’t the kind of photo I wanted to see! And what the hell’s so private about this?!”

  “There’s also the one of her at the all-you-can-eat fried chicken bar. After that, there’s the commemorative photo for eating all the special ramen at a contest…”

  “Those are just photos of her eating! Why is it that all you have are photos that would only serve to shatter the image of an innocent little kid’s idol?!”

  Yuuho’s voice was ragged.

  Even if you put it like that…, Kojou thought, sighing before he said, “That’s why there’s no way she can pull off being an idol. The heck are you people expecting out of Asagi?”

  “When you put it that way, you’ve got a point, I guess.”

  Yuuho’s cheeks puffed up in a pout. Asagi was a beauty as long as she kept her mouth shut, but she was the type without any sensuality to go with her looks. She was spoiled rotten, she didn’t have a bubbly personality, and she couldn’t care less what other people thought of her. Kojou actually liked those blunt traits of hers, but he knew they weren’t traits befitting the typical idol.

  However, Yuuho looked like she wasn’t ready to give in just yet. She grabbed Kojou’s smartphone without his permission and connected to a website. A song began to play, and he immediately recognized the singer’s voice.

  “But Asagi’s promotional video was fun and adorable, totally legit idol stuff. Here, look.”

  “Ah, that?”

  Gazing at the video, Kojou shrugged his shoulders. The title was “Save Our Sanctuary”—a charity song produced by the Gigafloat Management Corporation, broadcast all over the island to support the Itogami Island revival effort.

  Asagi was singing it while wearing a pure-white summer dress. If someone twisted his arm, he’d admit that the sight of her walking barefoot along a beach in the video was pretty idol-like. She was owning it. Apparently, it had gotten a positive reception. But, put bluntly, Kojou didn’t care for that image of her at all.

  As if seeing straight through to Kojou’s heart, Yuuho raised one eyebrow as she said, “Oh my. What’s wrong? You don’t like it, Akatsuki?”

  “Not really. It just feels…off, somehow.”

  “Hmmm. Well, that’s… I suppose you’re right. You must feel like Asagi’s suddenly riding off into the sunset.”

  That was a good one, thought Yuuho as she jumped to conclusions. Although Kojou thought there was obviously some misunderstanding, clearing up the confusion would be a pain, so Kojou just let it be. Well, it’s no big deal, he thought, taking back his smartphone and heading to his seat for real this time.

  As he did, a tall, mature-looking high school girl spoke to Kojou along the way. It was Rin Tsukishima, the class representative. With sound coursing from Kojou’s smartphone, she looked at it like it was some sort of novelty.

  “Good morning, Akatsuki. What are you watching?” she asked.

  “Ah, Tsukishima. Some sort of promotional video by Asagi, apparently.”

  “The Itogami Island Revival Support Project song?” Rin gave the smartphone a scornful glance, shaking her head as if losing all interest when she said, full of invective for some reason, “It’s well shot, but it’s fake.”

  “Fake?”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking magic or CGI. I don’t think Asagi went and participated herself, either.”

  “I see… So that’s why, huh?”

  Kojou’s face suddenly turned serious as he stared at the Asagi on the screen. He paused the video app when it showed a close-up of the girl he was so familiar with.

  “…So that’s why.”

  Rin stared at Kojou with a sharp look in her eyes. Unable to discern what came after the cutoff, she scrutinized Kojou’s conflicted face as he said:

  “I knew something was off about it. It didn’t seem like Asagi at all.”

  The instant she heard his explanation, Rin went Heh, breaking into a soft, charming smile. She gazed at Kojou with a gentle smile, almost as if to say I’ve raised my estimation just a little.

  “At times, it’s hard to tell whether you’re dense or sharp, Akatsuki.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Anyway, how’d you know it was fake, Tsukishima?”

  “Earrings.”

  Rin’s expression remained unchanged as she made the blunt, single-word statement. Kojou, looking like the village idiot, peered back at her and said:

  “Huh?”

  “The color of her earrings is different.”

  “Ah, now that you mention it…”

  When the promotional video was shot, Asagi was wearing red earrings Kojou didn’t recognize. From the looks of it, they were the expensive kind embedded with large gemstones. Asagi always wore her favorite blue earrings, which certainly gave off a very different impression.

  “Wait, that’s all?”

  “It’s enough. Asagi would never go without them, let alone put on a different pair.”

  “R-right…”

  With Rin crisply refuting him, Kojou could offer no rebuttal. If Rin, Asagi’s close friend, went as far as saying that, Kojou could not help but trust her.

  “Besides, singing and dancing are hardly Asagi’s specialties. That girl tries to hide it, but she’s actually quite tone-deaf.”

  “Y…yeah.”

  This time, Kojou agreed when Rin laid out the unvarnished truth. As a matter of fact, Kojou was well aware that Asagi hated karaoke. Neither the sound nor richness of her voice were poor, but for some reason, singing was a no-go.

  E
ven if it was for Itogami Island’s revival, he didn’t think Asagi would sing in front of people. If she had to sing, she’d probably just break out her PC and design synthetic voice software from scratch to do the singing for her.

  And if Asagi’s singing was fake, it wasn’t strange to assume that the entire promo video was fake from top to bottom. Now that he’d begun to suspect one portion, he couldn’t think of the girl in the video and Asagi as being the same person at all.

  It didn’t matter much to Kojou and the others whether the promo video was real or fake. One often heard of idol songs and photos being edited, and there was no way Asagi would make a career out of being an idol anyway.

  The problem was not the existence of a fake Asagi. The problem was, why was the Gigafloat Management Corporation building Asagi up as an idol, to the point it had provided a counterfeit?

  And there was one more question on his mind.

  “………”

  Kojou was still pursing his lips when he swung his legs over his chair and sat. Even after the chime indicated the start of classes, he couldn’t stop wondering.

  After all, he’d been told the reason for Asagi’s absence from school was that she was supporting Itogami Island’s reconstruction. But if her activities toward that end were fake to begin with…

  …where was the real Asagi now, and what was she up to?

  3

  “A fake…you say? Of Aiba??”

  After classes that day, Yukina had been waiting for Kojou outside the school gate. Once they met up, they took a walk over to the general hospital in Island West. They meant to pay a visit to Motoki Yaze, who’d been injured during the Roses of Tartarus incident.

  Caught up in a Tartarus Lapse attack aimed at Asagi, Yaze had suffered magical damage and blood loss, temporarily falling into a coma, but he’d returned to his normal self after a week in the hospital and was now energetic enough to request that candy and junk food be brought along on their latest visit.

  “That’s just what a girl in my class said, so it’s not like there’s hard proof or anything…,” Kojou said as he toyed with the pass token for the regular school train.

  Several days earlier, large posters for the Itogami Island Revival Support Project had been plastered all over the monorail station, restored to service only the day before. Of course, Asagi’s photo was on the main poster. Certainly, the Asagi flashing a perfect idol smile was a completely different person from the Asagi Kojou was used to.

  “But we haven’t seen Aiba once since she vanished after the Roses of Tartarus, have we…?”

  She had such good intuition that she might well have realized something was off with the videos of Asagi flooding the city long before Kojou had noticed.

  “She’s been messaging me every day, so I hadn’t been all that worried, but…now that I think about it rationally, who knows if it was really Asagi typing them out.”

  “True. At the very least, it would be good if we could contact Aiba directly…”

  “Even if we went to see her, there’s no way they’d let us in easily. Her phone’s been going straight to voicemail this whole time, too.”

  “Aiba has become quite famous, hasn’t she? She’s even become a hot topic among middle schoolers.”

  Yukina spoke as they passed through the station’s automatic ticket gate. Guess she really has, thought Kojou, only belatedly appreciating the fact. Apparently, Asagi’s activities as a local idol had spread to the general public more than Kojou had imagined.

  “Well, let’s just talk to Yaze for now. He might have a clue about what’s going on,” Kojou murmured as they exited the station.

  Motoki Yaze was Asagi’s childhood friend, and his older brother was a senior executive of the Gigafloat Management Corporation. It was a lot faster and more reliable to have Yaze look into the situation than to have the two of them wander around worried.

  The hospital where Yaze was staying was an eye-catching building in front of the station. They’d already visited a number of times, so they knew his room number.

  The pair went to the reception desk, obtained hospital passes with their names on them, and boarded the elevator. However, just as they arrived at Yaze’s room, the two came to a stop, dumbfounded.

  “Huh…?”

  Kojou’s voice trickled out as he surveyed the empty hospital room’s interior, sounding incredulous. The bed Yaze had been using had been very tidily made, and all his personal belongings were missing.

  At some point, the admitted patient nameplate that had been hanging on the hospital room door had been removed. It seemed he’d been discharged without Kojou knowing.

  “Are you Yaze’s friends?”

  A passing female nurse called out to Kojou as he stood rooted to the spot. He’d seen the young nurse a number of times during previous visits.

  “Ah, yes. When did he get discharged?” Kojou asked, a dissatisfied look regarding at Yaze coming over him. There was a hint of conflict in the nurse’s smile as she said:

  “Perhaps he wasn’t discharged, but transferred? His older brother visited last night and left with him,” the nurse explained. She raised a finger in front of her lips in an adorable gesture, the sort one used when dealing with little kids. “But that’s a secret.”

  “Yaze’s older brother, huh?”

  “There were quite a few bodyguards. Yaze’s father is a big shot at the Gigafloat Management Corporation, so I can understand their concern…”

  The nurse then let out a small sigh. The father of the Yaze brothers—Akishige Yaze—was the chairman emeritus of the Gigafloat Management Corporation. He had been a target during the Roses of Tartarus incident. Even at that moment, it was still unclear whether he was dead or alive.

  As a result, Akishige’s seat had been passed to the Yaze family by way of inheritance, and ferocious horse trading was apparently underway. If anything, it made sense to be extra wary of assassinations against the Yaze brothers.

  Perhaps Yaze’s sudden transfer to another hospital was related to those circumstances. Not contacting Kojou and Yukina about it was probably a security measure.

  “Do you know which hospital Yaze was transferred to?” Kojou asked, but the nurse smiled and shook her head.

  “I’m afraid not. But I wouldn’t be able to tell you even if I did.”

  “That figures.”

  With a deep sigh, Kojou thanked the nurse and left the hospital room. He trudged heavily down the corridor, got into the elevator, and headed out of the hospital.

  Noticing Kojou brooding, Yukina looked up at the side of his face and asked, seemingly to herself, “I wonder what all of this means?”

  “Dunno.” Kojou weakly raised both hands in a noncommittal gesture. “A transfer’s no big deal, but the no contact part bugs me. It’s not like Yaze’s big brother has a reason to kidnap his younger brother, so there’s probably no need to worry, but…”

  Yaze’s transfer. And Asagi’s prolonged absence. Both were somewhat special circumstances, but neither action had unnatural elements to them. Kojou and Yukina had no reason to worry.

  But all of a sudden, he’d lost all means of contact with the friends who had continued to stand at his side, and he couldn’t find any rhyme or reason to it. That was what made Kojou worry. He tried sending Yaze a text message for peace of mind, but as he expected, there was no reply whatsoever.

  “Senpai?”

  When Kojou stopped in the middle of a crosswalk, Yukina looked at him in confusion.

  “Oh, it’s… I was thinking, I’m pretty sure Asagi’s place is close to this hospital.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I vaguely remembered, somehow…”

  Yukina blinked in confusion as Kojou nodded to himself. It was a fairly vague memory, but he remembered passing through that crossing when he’d visited Asagi’s place on New Year’s.

  “We’ve come this far either way, so why not try seeing Sumire?”

  “Sumire? You mean Aiba’s mother?”
/>   “We might be able to ask her about Asagi… Ah, no need to force yourself to see her, Himeragi.”

  “No, I’ll accompany you. It is at times like these that I must firmly watch your conduct, senpai. I mean, Aiba’s mother is a very pretty lady—”

  Yukina spoke, an especially serious expression coming over her. Kojou spontaneously opened his eyes wide as he protested, “Hold on a sec! What are you worried about, exactly?!”

  “Perhaps you should reflect upon all your actions to date.”

  When Yukina glared with narrowed eyes, Kojou’s lips twisted in displeasure. Certainly, due to extenuating circumstances, he’d ended up drinking the blood of a number of girls, but there was no way he’d do the same with Asagi’s mother……probably.

  Asagi’s home was located in a corner of an affluent residential district at the top of a gently sloping hill. As he proceeded to walk past beautiful roadside trees, a familiar mansion with a very traditional style came into view.

  “Hey. This is the street, right?”

  “Yes, but…”

  Yukina suddenly came to a halt as she gazed at the wall encircling the mansion. Kojou soon realized why. The road leading to the front of Asagi’s home was sealed off with a steel-pipe barricade.

  Standing in front of the barricade were guardsmen carrying firearms.

  “The Island Guard…?!” Yukina gasped, her voice quiet when she saw their uniforms.

  It wasn’t ordinary police blocking the road. Dubbed the Island Guard, they were anti-demon armed guardsmen under the direct command of the Gigafloat Management Corporation, charged with maintaining public order inside the Demon Sanctuary.

  There were probably two squads deployed to surround the mansion—some ten-odd souls. There was an armored car parked behind the barricade. Asagi’s father was a VIP who worked on the Itogami City Council, but such gratuitous fighting strength was clearly overkill for mere escort duty.

  Though it was a fact the strict security made him falter for a moment, Kojou had come too far. He couldn’t just turn back without doing anything. Kojou put on his best “harmless high school student” face and called out to one of the guardsmen.