Chapter 24: Midnight
Returning to the villa from school, Kagehara Tetsuya allowed himself a moment to relax.
"Kishida Masayoshi still hasn’t responded—no agreement, no refusal. But there’s no rush. I can wait a little longer."
"Today is the third day since the face swap. According to the legend of Lord Mask-Taker, tonight is when Hanako makes her second wish."
"The second wish is—Hanako wishes for her hair to become as smooth as Natsuhime’s."
"Based on how the first wish came true, the hair swap with my senpai will likely happen around midnight tonight."
Tetsuya pondered silently. On the night of the voice swap, he hadn’t felt anything unusual. He had gone to bed around 11:30 PM and woke up at 2:20 AM. The voice swap had occurred during that time.
From the questions Matsushita Makoto and Kishida Masayoshi had asked him, he could roughly deduce that no one had entered his room after 11 PM that night at the inn. More importantly, the staff hadn’t heard any unusual sounds either.
So, how exactly did the voice swap—and tonight’s hair swap—happen? Was it like a copy-paste operation that occurred instantaneously at a specific moment? This was something that deeply intrigued him.
Tetsuya prepared a meal for himself, ate, changed out of his school uniform, and picked up a copy of *A Brief History of Thought*. He settled on the living room sofa, planning to stay awake until at least 2 AM. He wanted to witness firsthand what would happen during the swap.
At the moment, Tetsuya had removed his wig. He occasionally flipped through the pages of the book, which his senpai had recommended to Nakamura Manatsu. To avoid any future conversational pitfalls, he had to cram as much as he could.
The chat logs showed that senpai and Nakamura had recommended many books to each other. Nakamura’s recommendations were mostly novels—romance, mystery, and the like. In short, Nakamura preferred stories with twists and turns.
In the empty villa, the sound of flipping pages occasionally broke the silence. Outside, the sky darkened rapidly. When Tetsuya went to turn on the lights, he realized it had become overcast.
Thick clouds loomed over the city, and a howling wind swept through the streets and grass. Unnoticed, the air inside the villa had grown chilly.
"It looks like there’s going to be a heavy rain tonight."
Tetsuya closed all the windows and doors tightly. By the time he finished reading *A Brief History of Thought*, it was nearly midnight.
He set the book aside and stretched his neck. The time was now 11:30 PM. To keep himself awake, he turned on the TV and grabbed a can of coffee. As he listened to the TV, he stared at the mirror on the coffee table, which reflected his current appearance.
Outside, the rain pelted the windows, and the wind roared like a monster’s wail.
Unconsciously, Tetsuya began to feel a chill. The rain and wind outside were draining the warmth from the villa. He deliberately didn’t put on more clothes, as the cold would help keep him alert. As he watched, time ticked by. When the clock struck 11:59 PM, a thunderclap suddenly exploded in the sky.
BOOM!
It was as if a bomb had gone off right next to his ear. Tetsuya’s eardrums rang, drowning out the sound of the TV and the rain. Before he could react, the entire villa plunged into darkness.
A power outage?
His eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden darkness, and the ringing in his ears made him nearly deaf. From the living room, he couldn’t see the neighboring houses, so he couldn’t tell if the darkness was due to a power outage or something else.
In the darkness, he groped around, trying to find his phone for light.
*Creak!*
The next second, Tetsuya’s head snapped around.
Amid the ringing in his ears, he thought he heard an unusual sound—like something heavy stepping on an old, creaky wooden staircase.
The direction was… the basement?
In the entire villa, only the staircase leading to the basement could make such a sound.
Was there something—or someone—down there?
Tetsuya listened intently, but the strange sound didn’t repeat. As the ringing in his ears faded, only the sound of the wind and rain outside remained. It was as if the strange noise had been his imagination.
"I can’t find my phone."
Giving up, he got up from the sofa and headed for the basement. He remembered there was a flashlight down there. Even in the dark, he could find it easily.
While he was at it, he might as well see what was down there.
Just as he took a step, he suddenly sniffed the air.
In the darkness, a strange, sticky smell lingered. It was like some kind of thick liquid, giving off an indescribable sensation. Before he could identify it, he felt the world spin around him.
Tetsuya collapsed onto the floor. It felt as if he had been injected with a powerful anesthetic, numbing even his thoughts. His last conscious effort was to try moving a finger, but his body didn’t respond.
Then, his consciousness faded into darkness.
.......
Somewhere else…
"Please think carefully. Did Yuki Yamazaki really not know this person? Or did you notice her associating with older men?"
In a residential home, Kishida Masayoshi held up a photo, pressing the middle-aged couple in front of him.
"What are you implying? Our Yuki would never do something as improper as associating with older men!"
"You bastard! What are you suspecting? You can’t solve the case, so now you’re trying to shift the blame onto our dead daughter? Are you saying Yuki was killed because she was involved with some kind of shady people?"
Under Kishida’s persistent questioning, the couple could no longer contain their anger. They roared in fury. Their beloved daughter had been killed, and now they were being accused of her associating with unsavory characters. It was like rubbing salt in their wounds.
Kishida had no choice but to apologize and explain, "We’ve found that a man named Hasebe Koichi may hold crucial clues to your daughter’s murder. We have to investigate every lead. I’m not trying to slander the deceased or shift blame."
Yuki Yamazaki was the eighth victim of the Makeup Hunter case.
"Also, it’s not necessarily that Yuki was involved with Hasebe Koichi. There are other possibilities, like Yuki being harassed or blackmailed. Was there anything troubling her before the incident?"
Hearing Kishida’s explanation, Yuki’s mother’s expression softened slightly. "Yuki wasn’t being harassed or blackmailed. If something like that had happened, she would have told us immediately."
Kishida asked a few more questions before leaving the Yamazaki household with a sense of regret.
He checked the time—it was past midnight, and the rain showed no signs of stopping. He lit a cigarette in his car and pulled out his investigation notebook, jotting down the details of the conversation.
Earlier, he had already questioned the families of the other eight victims in the Makeup Hunter case.
In short, he had found nothing.
All nine families claimed that the victims didn’t know Hasebe Koichi.
There was also no evidence of harassment or blackmail.
"Could it be that the clue Hasebe Koichi has isn’t related to the victims?"
Initially, Kishida had thought Hasebe might have had some connection to one of the victims—perhaps a relationship or blackmail. In any case, Hasebe might have frequently visited the victim and, during one of these visits, noticed something unusual. Then, the victim was killed.
But after the interviews, this possibility was ruled out.
"What could it be? A clue unrelated to the victims, something Hasebe Koichi stumbled upon, and that Kagehara Tetsuya managed to uncover."
Kishida frowned. He was genuinely curious about how Tetsuya had conducted his investigation. Was Tetsuya really that brilliant? Even following his trail, Kishida had come up empty-handed.
"However, the harder it is to uncover, the more important the clue must be."
"Besides, Tetsuya started investigating right after leaving the juvenile detention center. He’s had months to work on this. It’s too much to expect results in just one day."
Though somewhat frustrated, Kishida didn’t doubt the validity of the clue that "Hasebe Koichi has information about the Makeup Hunter case."
"For now, I’ll focus on the hot spring inn case. If I can catch Hasebe Koichi or Kagehara Tetsuya, things will get much easier."
With that thought, Kishida started his car and drove off into the rain and wind.
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