Renji looked indifferently at Ooka’s body, which was gradually losing heat, then turned and walked into Ooka’s room.
He reached out and took the rugby ribbon with the school emblem and jersey number from Ooka’s hanger, then grabbed Ooka by the collar with one hand and dragged the body to the storage room at the end of the hallway.
Usually, apartments here don’t have shared storage rooms, but this one did.
However, Renji noticed it was very spacious, with almost no one storing personal items there.
“The dead and the dead” — this was a true description: the strength needed to drag him after death was greater than when he was alive.
But for Renji as Ghostface, dragging a person weighing over eighty kilograms tonight was not a difficult task.
The door to the storage room at the end of the hallway was unlocked; inside were just some broken chairs and odds and ends that previous occupants had stuffed in there before moving out.
On the ceiling were several exposed pipes, rusted and stained.
Renji wrapped the rugby ribbon under the corpse’s armpit, threw the other end over a heating pipe, tied a secure knot, and pulled hard.
Ooka’s body swayed off the ground, suspended in midair, his bare feet swinging and dangling downward.
The cramped space of the room, filled with clutter, made the scene even more suffocating and horrifying — piles of worn-out junk lay all around, like silent spectators watching the hanging corpse.
Renji took two steps back to assess the situation.
The rugby player was suspended from the pipe in the storage room by the rugby ribbon he knew best.
This was classic visual horror aesthetics.
And in the middle of the night, or tomorrow morning, or even a little later, some resident might discover this thing in the storage room, and that frightened face would become the first audience member of the show.
Renji exited through the back door of the residential building.
A few steps through the back door led into a narrow alley with a concrete road full of potholes.
He finished his role as Ghostface in the shadow of the alley, naturally blending into the crowd on the small commercial street west of the station.
It was almost ten o’clock in the evening.
The streets were neither too crowded nor too sparse — office workers who had just gotten off work, middle-aged men coming out of izakayas, and students chatting near the stores.
Renji walked among them, looking no different from anyone else — a young man in a dark hoodie, carrying a bag, walking home — no one looked at him.
When Renji returned to his apartment around 10:30, he quickly took a shower, changed into clean pajamas, and then went to the kitchen for a bottle of chilled cola.
Renji sipped his cola while watching the news about Tobe’s murder investigation.
“It’s already been 24 hours, and almost no progress?”
Renji scrolled through many news articles, but there was no substantial progress.
He believed that almost all of these reports were just slightly modified in a few places and then republished.
Just as the cola was finished, his phone screen lit up with a new message.
Renji saw that it was actually from Hachiman Hikigaya.
“You there?”
Renji looked at the opening message sent by Hachiman, whose profile picture wasn’t typical for a kid; otherwise, Renji might have thought Hachiman was asking him for money.
“What’s up?”
Renji replied from his end, then saw the other side go silent for a few minutes before a message appeared.
Renji guessed that Hachiman was annoyed with himself for why he had written to him.
Renji guessed that Hachiman was preoccupied with thoughts about the Ghostface mask and couldn’t find anyone to talk to, so he had spontaneously sent Renji a message.
Then he regretted it after posting, but when he saw that the message had been read, he had to grit his teeth and continue the conversation.
“I couldn’t sleep at all, so I went back to check the campus forum.”
“I was wondering if there was a possibility that before Tobe was killed, he received threatening messages or something like that, and then took it as a prank.”
“If this is a deliberate serial crime, then Tobe might not be the last victim.”
Renji looked at these lines, surprised at how sharp Hachiman’s intuition was — there had already been a second victim.
While silently complaining about Hachiman’s strange intuition, Renji typed a line and sent it.
“You’re saying there will be another one?”
This time, Hachiman replied almost instantly, without hesitation, as if he had already drafted it and was just waiting for a response.
“I don’t know, just a guess. I just think that if the killer really had some strange motive or ritual, like those cult madmen, he definitely wouldn’t stop.”
Renji thought: Damn, that’s spot on.
Renji looked at Hachiman’s news.
His guess was partly correct, but it didn’t matter much.
Hachiman would never guess that the answer was right in front of him.
“Have you been reading a lot of detective novels?”
“If things really go the way you say, who do you think will be next?”
This time, there was no instant reply from the other side of the screen; after a while, Hachiman finally responded.
“I don’t know, it’s just my guess.”
“Like you said, maybe I’ve read too many detective novels, and my thoughts are a bit scattered.”
“Then why don’t you try writing down your scattered thoughts? I’ll definitely support you — buy three copies.”
“I’ve already come up with a title for you. Considering the killer’s appearance, how about calling it ‘Scream’? [Like.jpg]”
Renji replied jokingly.
Hachiman looked at the chat and smiled; this was his first time sharing his thoughts with a friend this way.
“Better not. I doubt I could write it, but you’re pretty good at coming up with book titles.”
Hachiman’s words weren’t flattery; he genuinely felt that combining the appearance of the Ghostface mask that Renji had told him about today with the murder case,
the title “Scream” was quite fitting and timely.
Renji closed the chat window, turned off the light, and went to sleep.
In the darkness, Renji lay in bed with his eyes open, not falling asleep.
Now in his mind was neither the scene of Ooka’s death nor the seemingly casual conversation with Hachiman just now.
But another person.
A very famous student at school, a child who had returned from abroad, a top student in the class, and one of his role models played by Yukino Yukinoshita.
Just a few minutes ago, Renji had half-jokingly encouraged Hachiman to write a novel in the chat window, even calling it “Scream.” Hachiman had laughed and said the title was quite fitting, and the topic ended naturally.