4

“No good. You can’t keep using such half-hearted colors. It has to really pop out.”

Designer Semigasawa Suguru looked at the sample packaging that had just arrived and sharply scolded his assistant.

“I-I’m very sorry.”

The assistant went pale. Though effeminate in his speech, Suguru’s strict nature toward his job was clear in his voice.

“In any case, you’re going to have to start over. When the situation really calls for it, it’s important to use daring colors. If you rely on careful color schemes all the time, then that will be the most you’ll be able to create.”

“Y-yes, sir!” The assistant shrunk down, lowering their head.

“Whew…” Semigasawa sat down at his desk and set to work on the packaging design for the new bridal gift cake set that Kusunoki Rei was trying her hand at right now. He’d already worked through the basic image with Rei herself, so it was just a matter of putting it all together.

“Still… It’s such a waste of Rei-chan,” he muttered, not making much sense to those around him.

Just then, the cell phone sitting on the table started to buzz.

He answered. But what he heard on the other end wasn’t someone’s voice––it was a static noise that crackled like the sound of chirping insects. And then it suddenly broke off.

“………”

Semigasawa stood up from his desk. His face seemed expressionless at first glance, but if someone had been paying attention, they would have noticed. They’d have noticed that the mask-like expression was one he rarely ever wore.

“Something came up. I’ll be right back. Answer any calls for me, would you? Don’t forward them to me.”

Leaving a nearby member of staff with this message, he set out from the office. His small, personal, Japanese-brand car tore out of the parking lot at full throttle. Its handling and acceleration were much better than typical cars of the same make.

…Unbelievable. To think that he’d really show up…

He even seemed to be somewhat gritting his teeth.

* * * * *

…There was, in an age where you’d never see one, a western-style house that looked just like a castle.

Its windows were caked in a thick layer of dust, suggesting that its occupants were long gone, and the trails of the rain dripping from the eaves colored the building in broad stripes as if a giant had come along and poured chocolate sauce on it from above.

The doors of the gate hung open lazily…but only the chains that dangled in the wind revealed that it hadn’t always been that way.

Those chains, which had been tightly sealing the gate, had been wrenched apart at the center. It was an indication that the door had been forced open with a strength the maker of those chains could never have imagined. And the bolt, too, fallen from the door, had gouged out the flagstones on the ground, drawing a curve like one made with a compass. It was freshly made, making one fully aware that the violent act had occurred only recently.

And there were a single set of footprints, leading toward the mansion. Tracing them, they did not lead to the entrance, but carried on to the back garden. Here, only weeds grew, feeble and desiccated, and, despite their splendid form, it was clear that no one had any desire to tend to these plants. It was into this foliage that the footsteps led. And then, at the corner of the garden, they stopped.

Immediately in front of that, was a hole.

There lay a square entrance that led to a secret underground passage. But the strange thing about that hidden door was that, for being a hidden door, it no longer had a lid with which it could be closed. That had been flattened and smashed to pieces below. It was likely that someone had kicked it in from above, because, normally, this hidden door could only be opened from underneath, and the one who had opened it knew that very well.

A noise could be heard from the hole––a kind of rustling sound.

Proceeding down the steps, the passage gave way to an underground chamber. Though underground, it didn’t feel at all dingy. It was spacious enough, and though the ceiling was streaked with piled-up dust, light from the outside world dimly poured in from the windows.

In that chamber, deeper still, were storage units hidden beneath the floor. These had been opened, and the various boxes that had been tightly packed inside of them had been taken out. All of them were apparently sealed tight and insulated from external heat. The faint buzz that could be heard was apparently the sound of a private generator running.

The cords that snaked along the floor were linked to rows of refrigerators. And among them, a lone figure was moving at pace.

“…I see. I knew it. So that’s how it is…” He spoke while licking the semi-solid substance from the bowl in his hand. “Now I finally understand why I was so obsessed with ice cream, and nothing else. I wanted to ‘freeze’ it. If I'd left it unchecked, it would have all spilled over, so I did what I could to reduce the effect of the ‘component,’ if even a little…”

He sighed. Then he lifted his head and turned to look this way.

“You’re the third person to come here. The first was Kigawa Norisuke––he built this place. The second was the one who brought me out of here, Teratsuki Kyouichirou. And it looks like you're the third and final one. So tell me, Semigasawa Suguru. What part did you play in all of this?”

“…My real name is Squeeze. It’s the codename that was given to me, a combat-type synthetic human,” said he who had been using the name of Semigasawa Suguru calmly, his manner of speaking no longer feminine. “And your true name is Notorious I.C.E.. The ‘I.C.E.’ part means that you were a failure.”

“Name?” Hearing this, he snickered. “I don’t need anything like that. Because, it looks like I’ve been living inside of a lie this whole time. If you had to call me something… Yeah… Call me a wizard.” Placing the bowl to one side, he turned to Squeeze and opened his arms wide. “A wizard with a body covered in strange make-up. A Peppermint Wizard.”

He spoke as if in jest, tilting his head to one side. Squeeze couldn’t keep up with his pace and continued on indifferently.

“I still don’t know why I let you go back then… But I never expected you to trip the alarm that I’d placed just as a precaution. I thought it had been another malfunction, but you really did just blunder straight in…” His face then contorted into one of disgust. “Why’d you have to come back here? You managed to escape. You should have just stayed hidden…”

“Hmm?” His brow creased slightly. “Oh, so that means you didn’t have a grudge against me personally? Then I apologize,” he said, nodding to himself. “It seems like I just can’t help but tend toward these things. I never have the slightest intent of hurting people, but before I know it, all I’m doing is bad things to them. I did so to Norisuke, and I did so to Sonoko. And above all…to Rei.”

“So you did do it for that woman… You ate one of her cakes somewhere, didn’t you?” said Squeeze, his words seeming to writhe. “That’s right. Her memory’s being manipulated. Soon enough, she started beginning to think your flavor was one of her own. It was meant to be a continuation of your experiment, that is. Of course, being an insurance of sorts, she’s hardly been much of a priority. But she’s already lost sight of what her own flavor is now.”

“That’s a terrible humiliation.”

“It was unavoidable. There was no one apart from her who understood your flavor.”

“That’s not what I meant…” Here, for the first time, he visibly expressed something akin to hate. “I mean the fact that you’re calling something like that my flavor. I can’t have you lumping me together with that second-rate garbage.” He spoke assertively. “That goes for Rei too, of course. There’s no way something like that could be on her level. You really have been doing something pointless. I don’t know what this experiment of yours is, but that half-hearted attempt of a flavor is just an incomplete mess, nothing more. If you were going to copy me, you should have left that up to Rei. I’m sure she’d have made something far better than anything I could.”

Squeeze was speechless. The sensitive nature of Semigasawa Suguru within him acknowledged that it was just as he’d said. But unfortunately, that and his mission were two separate issues.

"...You asked me earlier what part I play. Let me answer that now: it’s to kill you," he said quietly.

"Oh, really?" Again, he laughed. "I doubt you’ll be able to do that, though."

"It's not a question of being able to or not. It's something that must be done."

That compression had begun. It would take just over three seconds to charge. As he'd survived a hit from him before, this time he'd punch him with a force incomparable to the last!

But despite being faced with this attack, he who called himself a wizard simply laughed.

"Like I was saying, that's not what I meant..."

The blast fired. His body took the full brunt of the impact. Blown away, a spray of blue blood diffused and danced through the air a second time. His body slammed against a refrigerator, sending the surrounding objects flying across the room, and then stopped.

He lay that way for a moment, but soon rose deliberately to his feet.

"Oof, that hurt..." he grumbled.

His whole body was wound-ridden, and he'd spilled a tremendous amount of blood, but he was still alive, and treating it as if it were nothing. His was a formidable life force.

However...faced with him in this state, Squeeze simply stood there in a daze.

"...Wh-what on earth?” he said, looking in a different direction.

"Here's your answer, Suguru. Or, what was it I should call you again? Squeeze?"

He stood up and dusted off his body.

"Ouch, that opened up some wounds."

And even throughout all this, Squeeze walked forward unsteadily, muttering to himself.

"Did I overdo it? Still… Even so, I can’t believe he’d disappear without a trace..."

And then he walked straight past the blood-drenched man next to him.

He didn’t see him. No, it wasn’t even that. He'd rejected any perception of him, so that even though the sounds and smells were right there, he somehow simply did not turn that way.

"This is the reason why I managed to get away that time without anyone finding me, Squeeze. I'd been doing it unconsciously back then, but now I have full command of it," he said quietly. But his voice, too, failed to reach the combat-type synthetic human. "At this moment, I've become your pain. You're living your life averting your eyes from your own pain. And that’s why you can’t see me. No… You are seeing me, and you can hear me, and you should be feeling something too, but after that, there’s just a compulsion to turn away from those feelings that you can’t resist... And that's why I won’t be seen by anyone. That's why no one will care. That's my ability--'to make the pain of others my own.' "

Even when he whispered all this right into his ear, Squeeze didn't turn his way, nor register the sigh that fell upon him. He simply muttered on.

"I never meant to go this far..."

"There’s so much blood splattered here, that should be more than enough proof that I died, shouldn't it? That's why I made sure to take the hit. But it really did hit me hard... I guess you holding back a little was what saved me, though, huh."

He flicked Squeeze's forehead with the tip of his finger, and still, Squeeze appeared to remain completely oblivious. Even if he were to strangle him here, or stick a knife through his chest, he would likely die without ever realizing that fact.

No one would be able to stop him, and none would have the power to oppose him...so long as their hearts felt pain.

"Well, there is a much easier way to describe what this is. In a word, it’s magic. No tricks, no smoke and mirrors… The real deal. Now then…”

He carried himself over to one of the refrigerators that was still intact, took out several ice-cream packs, then stuffed them into a portable ice box.

Even as he did this manual work, Squeeze simply tottered around. And even after the wizard had gone, he would continue to stay there for a while, absent-mindedly standing there on the spot.

[1] In America, we don’t usually think of mice being particularly work-minded rodents (we give that to hamsters), but the mice mentioned here are known for being industrious in Japan.

[2] Microwaves cook food by using electromagnetic waves to vibrate the molecules in food, producing heat. Squeeze is basically saying that he does the same thing, but through matching his soundwaves with the object’s resonant frequency