← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 1
Chapter 09: The Overwhelming Sense of Wrongness, and Where It Leads
Chapter 9: The Overwhelming Sense of Wrongness, and Where It Leads
“Phew… and yet, ‘RIKA’ is still the best, isn’t she.”
Tsutomu murmured as he gave a wry smile.
Because he’d gotten the feeling he kept saying the very same thing every time.
…Well, it was the truth, so there was no problem with it.
Humming, he scrolled through the images in the ‘RIKA’ folder.
The first post had been an image of her lower body wearing hot pants.
He remembered being captivated by white legs he’d wanted to rub his cheek against, and following her without a moment’s delay.
“These ones here aren’t exactly erotic images, though.”
Most of her early photos had her dressed normally.
She’d gradually started giving peeks at her underwear, or getting creative with angles…
Going through them in order, he noticed that the photos she posted were gradually becoming more extreme.
It might reveal an expansion of self-assertiveness, or of a desire for approval.
Or maybe she’d been struck by some serious trouble, and her heart was crying out in pain.
He felt pathetic for enjoying erotic images so irresponsibly, but at the same time, he supposed there was nothing to be done about it.
“Still, we connected a moment ago.”
The comment he’d posted out of a wish to cheer her up.
Its content was quite terrible, but surprisingly, she’d replied.
Until now, Tsutomu had only ever thought of ‘RIKA’ as an alien existence living in a world cut off from his own.
He’d been wrong. She, too, was just an ordinary Japanese girl living somewhere in Japan.
“…”
He scrutinized, one by one, the selfie images she’d spread across SNS.
It wasn’t that he had any deep meaning behind it.
He’d simply been elated about getting a comment and had felt like looking back over everything so far.
He couldn’t help but mock himself — ‘you’re so easy to please.’
The ‘RIKA’ images stored on Tsutomu’s smartphone were varied and numerous.
“…Hm?”
As he smiled and looked at her posted photos, he felt an odd hitch.
He couldn’t quite tell himself what was bothering him.
“…What?”
There was no one to answer the question of a loner living alone.
But—this strange feeling came from ’RIKA’s photos.
Well then, he decided to focus up and observe the images in detail.
Holding them far away, bringing them close. From above, from below, from the side…
“I might be imagining it… but it feels like I’ve seen this somewhere before.”
In the time since he’d discovered the account, he’d viewed countless photos.
That wasn’t what he meant. What was bothering him was a memory. It felt like he’d seen it somewhere in real life.
He thought it absurd. Given a body this captivating, once he’d seen it even a single time, he’d never forget it.
To begin with, in Tsutomu’s life of roughly sixteen-odd years, his interactions with the opposite sex weren’t that many.
People he’d met in early childhood could be excluded. There was no way his memories of them then would match the images on his phone.
If he’d seen her in real life, it should be relatively recent. That narrowed things down further.
His mother, stepsister, classmates, teachers. The part-time shop staff were all men, so they were out.
“It can’t be my mother. My stepsister’s no different. Teachers… no. Which leaves…”
A chest that proudly asserted its volume even over her clothes.
From there, a soft curve drew her waist, then went through her hips down to her lower body.
Her hips sat high, and her legs were long. Soft-looking legs with just the right amount of flesh.
Long, straight black hair reaching to her waist.
The ‘RIKA’ in the photos always struck bold, confident poses.
It was clear she was quite assertive and held strong pride in herself.
Until yesterday, there’d been no sense of wrongness at all.
He saw ’RIKA’s images every day.
On the days she updated, and on the days she didn’t.
If so… why all of a sudden, today?
—Something drastically different between yesterday and today, then.
“Not just recently. It’s… today?”
He couldn’t believe the guess that had slipped from his own lips.
If this reasoning were correct, the person it pointed to was nearly only one.
“Hm? This… ‘RIKA’-san, there’s a mole here.”
It was today’s updated cheongsam back shot.
On her right leg, boldly exposed through the slit, there was a small mole behind the knee.
—A mole behind the knee?
Today.
A mole behind the knee.
A female around his age.
The scattered pieces of information assembled into a single hypothesis in Tsutomu’s head.
“…This is Tachibana?”
Tachibana.
Tachibana Matsurika.
A girl in the same class.
An overwhelmingly beautiful girl, enough to have won the beauty contest last year.
Recalled was her walking ahead of him after leaving the staff room.
White, slender, long legs stretching from a short skirt.
He’d only noticed today that there was a mole behind her knee.
Being classmates was the only connection they’d had, and so he’d never had the chance to observe such an obscure detail.
Her glossy black hair was long, reaching around her waist.
As the center of the class, she always comported herself with confidence.
Long straight black hair, and a self-assured bearing.
Both of these were common to ‘Tachibana Matsurika’ and ‘RIKA.’
“No way.”
The corners of Tsutomu’s mouth, reflected in his smartphone display, twisted crookedly.
He’d assumed ‘RIKA’ was somewhere in Japan, but a person with no connection to him.
He’d never felt doubt, nor had he thought it a shame. He’d been at peace with that.
But…
‘Something bad happened.’
The comment attached to the post came to mind.
Just today, Matsurika had also had something bad happen.
She’d been nitpicked by the discipline teacher, and had nearly been forced to wipe off her makeup.
It matched. It unfortunately matched.
The more he looked at the pile of saved images, the more ’RIKA’s and Matsurika’s images overlapped perfectly.
“…No way, really?”
He gulped. His throat had gone dry.
“What am I supposed to do about this…”
Still, this was, at most, a possibility.
He’d heard that in this world three people exist who look alike.
‘Tachibana Matsurika’ and ‘RIKA’ are just look-alikes.
It was far more convincing to think so. He hadn’t seen ’RIKA’s face, after all.
He thought, ‘I want to know the truth.’ He also thought, ‘And what would you do if you knew?’
Given the nature of the matter, he couldn’t carelessly consult anyone.
Closing his eyes, he lay on his back on the bed and took a deep breath. The breath that escaped his mouth was hot.
Before he knew it, strange sweat had broken out over his whole body, terribly unpleasant.
Even the wind drifting in through the window, left wide open, felt oddly warm.