5
The factors that cause Sakura Delusion to sprout are various. Some, like Ogami, succumb to suspicion because of the involvement of actual prompters, while others are possessed by the delusion from the day they learn the prompter system exists. Some end up that way due to special circumstances, and some mistake people who were just drawn in by their charms as Sakura. In any event, always fearing the threat of lurking Sakura much like Ogami, they live isolated lives that keep others as a distance.
A few years ago, Ogami had binge-read writings from sufferers of the delusion. He thought maybe they would contain clues to help resolve his own problems. But he could learn nothing at all from them. Those who were successful in shaking free of Sakura Delusion either had a light case to begin with, or became taken by some other delusion.
As he continued reading their writings, he noticed a common dilemma that those with Sakura Delusion faced. To put it simply: just because a person is afraid of other people doesn't mean they no longer need others.
Rather, the majority could be said to have an above-average need for others. If you looked at groups created by sufferers of Sakura Delusion, like "Victims of the Prompter System" or "Blossom-Killers Anonymous," that was immediately obvious. In places like that, they would become shockingly social. They became desperate to fill the gap left by the social opportunities they missed, and would continue to miss. Here is where they chose to spend the affection and kindness they had nothing else to do with.
A strong solidarity between patients with light symptoms could even progress into a friendly or romantic relationship. Yet unfortunately, these wouldn't last long. People who have been alone for a long time can't help but have unreasonable expectations of other people. And upon actually getting a friend or lover, they're faced with intense disappointment. The thing I'd been dreaming about all this time - was this all it was?
On the other hand, severe cases are such bundles of distrust that they'll even see Sakura among gatherings of Sakura Delusion sufferers. Are these people surrounding me not actually victims of Sakura, but themselves Sakura who are pretending to have it to encourage me? Maybe such doubly-blooming deceptions, Sakura with the goal of resolving Sakura Delusion, have already been placed around without me knowing. And so on. In short, regardless of the severity of your symptoms, the curse inflicted by Sakura always hangs over you.
That being said, it surprisingly didn't always mean that these people had turned to despair. They were able to manage their isolation well through alternate methods. Isolation wasn't something exclusive to Sakura Delusion, after all. It had been with them since long prior.
So then, what about the Sakura? After the people chosen as prompters by the System are freed from their role, are they able to return to a normal life as if nothing had happened?
To tell the truth, some do experience prolonged after-effects of their own from their distorted relationships. At least a few, exhausted by having to care for someone at a high risk of suicide, become biased toward people at risk of suicide in general. Some even purposefully keep their distance from others in hopes of never being chosen as a Sakura again.
But taken as a whole, most ex-Sakura see the experience positively. Some even hope to become someone else's Sakura. Naturally, you don't typically get tons of people near you with a high risk of suicide, so the chances they'll be selected as Sakura again are near-zero. So to fulfill their unsatisfied desires, they devote themselves to positions that are as close to being a Sakura as they can get. Paths like volunteering for human services, becoming a counselor, or working with a suicide prevention hotline.
You could imagine that they were chosen as Sakura because they had such qualities to begin with, but you could also take a different perspective. Namely, that in the course of continuing to perform as Sakura, they could then only live in a Sakura-like way. They always had to be the ones giving, the ones helping, the ones taking things on, or they wouldn't be satisfied. Their pride could no longer bear being the one receiving, or being helped, or having things taken on for them.
That in itself wasn't always a bad thing. It caused them no harm, at least, and even they would see themselves as satisfied. But in any event, it might be good to keep in mind that some have their lives driven mad on the Sakura side, too. And that, had there not been someone at risk of suicide, they wouldn't have had to become a Sakura, either.
The days went by with Ogami just waiting in the old apartment for Kasumi to contact him. To ensure he could take action immediately once he had an appointment with this "troupe leader," Ogami wouldn't take a single step outside of the Town of Sakura. It was a boring town, but he'd built up a tolerance to its boredom from growing up there.
He also had the option of fabricating reasons to go visit Kasumi so he could deepen their friendship. But he felt their reunion was still all too recent, and that making a rapid approach at this stage would have the opposite effect. He'd learned from his experience on matchmaking apps that such impatience could be fatal. For the time being, doing nothing seemed like the best move.
The level of comfort in the old apartment was awful, fully in line with his expectations. He bought a small oil heater, but no matter how high he raised the temperature setting, it only heated up the room right up to the cusp of "warm." It's just like Kujirai's garage, Ogami thought. Even the warmth the heater provided wasn't sufficient there.
It snowed in town every other day. It was a charmless snow fitting for February, piling up on everything from guard rails to power lines. The apartment roof was covered in a thick snow mixed with ice, and many thick, pointed icicles hung down from the edges. Ogami remarked upon how impressive it was that the roof didn't collapse every time he went in or out.
When he felt like it, he would clear the snow outside the apartment using a snow-shovel from the communal area. It was made of aluminum, with a red handle that could stand out even amid snow. People in the neighborhood would put shoveled snow onto a snow scoop and carry it off. So it seemed there was a snow "dump" of sorts somewhere, but even if he'd known where it was, he lacked the tools to bring it there. So he piled up the snow in the corner of the site, creating a mountain of snow that could make a fine igloo.
There were other residents besides Ogami at the apartment, of course, but they were docile, as if hibernating for the winter. They lived quiet lives, aiming not to make household noises or encounter the other residents. If he sat still in his room at night, he could sometimes hear a creaky floor through the wall, and that finally gave him the sense that it wasn't just him in these apartments.
There was no room for a washing machine in the room, so when he ran out of changes of clothes, he went to a small laundromat in the neighborhood. Listening to the washing machines spin in the middle of the night felt like being among the workings of an old clock tower, and it calmed his heart. Not like he'd even been inside a clock tower, of course, so it was no more than his imagination.
Early in the morning that day, he left the apartment to head for a Mental Health and Welfare Center in the prefecture. Though known for being in an inconvenient location, it was less than a 30-minute drive from Ogami's apartment.
The building had a coloration that brought to mind a dull, cloudy winter sky. It was a tidy facility that indeed seemed to align with words like "mental health" and "welfare." But stepping inside, he found it much more aged than the impression the exterior had given. Even if every inch was kept clean, the entire building had an air of being worn down.
There was still time before the prompter training began. Ogami went outside and sat on a bench to eat a sandwich from the convenience store. He sat there for about ten minutes, yet didn't see a single person enter or leave the building in that time. Perhaps he would be receiving training all on his own.
But when he entered the training room five minutes before the starting time, he found about a dozen men and women sitting there. The majority were young, with the oldest man seeming like he was 30 at best. There was even a high school boy in uniform, but indeed, no middle schoolers that he could see. Cases like Sumika and Kujirai must have been rare after all, Ogami thought as he sat in his assigned seat. And he waited for the teacher to arrive.
Ever since he began working as a Sakura on matchmaking apps, he had realized over and over just how outstanding Sumika and Kujirai had been as Sakura. As he improved, he saw that his way of speaking (albeit just through text messages) and choice of words were becoming more and more similar to those two. By their early teens, they had already picked up the art of precisely hitting people's tender parts, the weak spots they were unable to reinforce. Not only that, but skillful acting chops that kept lies from seeming like lies.
Part of him felt like he could hardly be blamed for not seeing through Sumika's act. When the girl he'd secretly yearned for gently spoke to him while he was being ostracized in the classroom, of course he wouldn't be able to keep his cool.
But Kujirai was different. Compared to Sumika coming in with the advantage of Ogami liking her, Kujirai was saddled with many handicaps. Despite having once earned Ogami's resentment, he overcame that to gain his trust.
Still, maybe happenstance played a big part there, Ogami considered. Sure, Kujirai had been entirely consciously performing as a friend that would get on well with me. No mistaking that. But you couldn't purposefully aim to do something like using the same movie's CD case as a hiding spot.
Likely there had been things that genuinely overlapped between us. But whether Kujirai would have developed a real friendship with me if he weren't my Sakura is an entirely different question. Our common points, most likely, would just be things about ourselves that we hated to see in others.
The training was split into a morning and afternoon section, with the morning part being nothing but watching a video about prompter training. The video had nothing special to say, just a lot of things you'd already know with a bit of research into prompters. The general attitude to take when dealing with high-risk people. Common mistakes. Handling examples.
The other trainees, too, watched the video earnestly for the first hour, but eventually started losing focus and glancing around, with some even falling asleep. That's how boring it was. You couldn't imagine that someone who needed to be explicitly taught these fundamentals to put them into practice would be chosen as a prompter in the first place. But they must have felt they had to cover their bases.
There was a two-and-a-half-hour break between the morning and afternoon sessions. After eating at the cafeteria, Ogami headed for the smoking area outside. It felt unusual that there was a smoking area at a facility like this, but maybe it being this kind of facility meant there would be people who needed to smoke. After finishing his cigarette, he sat on a nearby bench and mindlessly felt the breeze.
As there weren't any places to kill time close to the facility, he just continued to smoke there. Two and a half hours seemed a bit too long for a break. Maybe the other trainees were using this time to mingle with each other. Or maybe they were enthusiastically going back over the video, reflecting upon the weight of the mission they had been assigned.
If that was the expectation they'd planned this break with, then I was completely flying in the face of that hope. I felt bad, yet the responsibility surely didn't lay with me, but with the System who's chosen the likes of me as a prompter.
For the afternoon portion, they were made to practice. With the lesson from the morning in mind, they would actually talk with people at high risk of suicide. Of course, it wasn't being done with real human beings. It was a mock exercise using a simulator. The high-risk individual on the monitor would have a talk with you, and the appropriateness of your response was judged. Of course, it's not like there was a penalty for repeated inappropriate responses.
"Rather, approach it with a sense of getting out all your mistakes while you can," the training staff said. "Because failures here can always be taken back."
Over the following two hours, Ogami met with nine high-risk individuals. He was judged to have given an "inappropriate response" for five of them. If that implied a failure to prevent their suicide, it meant he had managed to kill five people in two hours. Talk about efficiency.
Ogami felt he had given safe responses for all nine. At the very least, he didn't do anything that went against what they'd been taught in the morning. They'd probably set the difficulty to be unreasonably high. The purpose of the training was to impress upon you the difficulty of preventing suicide, so maybe they made it such that even a professional counselor wouldn't be able to save them all. Either that, or the simulator was more advanced than Ogami expected, and it saw through to his innermost lack of desire to stop their suicides.
Taking off his headphones after finishing up the ninth meeting, he realized he was now alone in the practice room. The silence pierced his ears the way cold pierces your skin when taking off a heavy coat. It seemed the other trainees had already finished and moved elsewhere.
Ogami still had a tenth person to go.
Putting the headphones back on, he resumed the simulation on the device.
The last one was a boy. He was around 14 years old, and had a gloomy expression.
The boy didn't make eye contact with Ogami, seeming dead-set on not opening his mouth. Maybe the idea was that he hadn't come to talk of his own will, but rather someone else brought him here.
He figured he should be the one to speak, but for some reason, he couldn't get a word out.
The test of endurance lasted nearly five minutes. The boy was the one who cracked first.
"I think there's been some kind of mistake," said the boy. "I'm not thinking about dying or anything, and I'm having fun every day..."
That's what I thought too, Ogami said.
But maybe, just maybe, you're standing on the edge of a cliff without even realizing it.
Maybe everything you see before you is a sham, and the world might turn on its head tomorrow.
You ought to prepare yourself for that eventuality.
The boy stared into Ogami's eyes silently for a long time.
Eventually, the boy vanished from the screen, and the message "inappropriate response" was displayed.
Past noon the following day, he got a call from Kasumi.
"I finally got in contact with the troupe leader. Sorry it's sudden, but are you available this evening?"
"I'm always available," Ogami answered.
"Good. Then I'll let the leader know," Kasumi said. "I'm sorry it took so long. It seems there's lots of work to be done with the dissolution of the troupe."
"Dissolution?"
"Oh, that's right, I never mentioned. They're breaking up. The troupe my sister was in."
Ogami thought for a bit, then asked: "Is that somehow connected to your sister?"
"That's part of it. It's just... I think it'd be faster to ask the troupe leader for the details in person."
"I see." Ogami judged that he shouldn't pursue that any further. "So, what should I do now?"
"I'll have you head for their rehearsal hall. It's less than an hour from your apartment."
Kasumi explained the route to the rehearsal hall. When you grew up in the same town, things like this could be talked out quickly.
"They renovated an old warehouse for it. There aren't any other buildings nearby, so you should be able to spot it easily."
Ogami made out some faint voices in the background of the call. They all sounded young and lively.
"Are you calling from school?"
"Yes. It's my lunch break," Kasumi said in a hushed tone. "It feels strange to be talking to someone unrelated to school while I'm at school."
"I was having similar thoughts. Like I'm up to something nefarious."
"Yes, nefarious," she repeated, then giggled to herself.
"By the way, what's the troupe leader's name?"
There was silence for a while. Ogami heard a sound that seemed to be the first bell.
"I'm sorry, I've forgotten. My sister always just said "troupe leader," you see."
"Ah, that's fine."
"Oh, but I remember your name, Ogami. It's Ogami, right?"
"Good on you for remembering."
"That's a sign of our friendship."
"Huh."
"Also, I'm terribly sorry, but I can't accompany you this time."
"Still busy with school?"
"No, it's nothing like that. But given of the nature of the conversation, isn't it better that a relative of hers not be there?"
It was a good point. If a relative of a suicide victim were there, they'd probably only be able to bring up harmless topics.
"So I'll have you go by yourself this time. Please call me when you're done talking. I don't mind even if it's late at night."
"Sure."
"It's going to be chilly again tonight, so please keep warm. Well, goodbye."
With that, she hung up.
The clock had only just hit 2 PM. What preparations should he be making in this span of time? Should he get his questions in order, or look more into the troupe? Though of course, even if he skimped on preparations and wasn't able to get anything major out of this, it was no issue. He didn't have that much interest in the truth of Sumika's death. He was just using her death for the sake of building a good fake relationship with Kasumi.
Ultimately, he just spaced out until the appointed time. Remembering how Kasumi said she'd come visit sometime soon, he went and cleaned up, but even that took fewer than ten minutes.
I have to say though, thought Ogami, does she have no sense of wariness? Does she understand what it means to visit the room of a man living on his own? Thinking about it, her letting me into her room at night while her parents weren't around was also pretty dubious. Does she trust a friend of her sister just that much, or is she making light of me? Or else, is visiting a man's house a common occurrence for her?
At any rate, it was beyond Ogami's understanding as a man whose life had no notion of friendship.
The warehouse being used as a rehearsal hall was next to railroad tracks at the end of a path through a field. The entrance door was on the side of the building, with the front having a lowered rusty shutter. Its structure brought to mind equipment storage for a fire brigade, a common sight in rural areas. Maybe that's what it had actually been once.
An old pickup truck was parked in front of the warehouse. There were many footprints going back and forth between the truck and the warehouse. Loaded onto the back was a cluttered pile of things like folding chairs, pipes, and plywood.
Ogami leaned against the truck bed and lit a cigarette. Across the train tracks were a sprawling number of conifers covered in snow. A horn sounded in the distance, and after some time, a train passed behind the warehouse. Once it left, the sense of stillness became stronger yet. It wasn't like there was no sound at all, but it felt like the snow was covering up not only the terrain, but the noise as well.
After finishing a cigarette, Ogami walked alongside the footprints toward the warehouse. Just then, the door opened, and a man came out carrying a cardboard box and holding open the door with his leg. Perhaps having been working in darkness, the man narrowed his eyes for a bit as if dazed by the light. Seeing no sign of anyone else around, Ogami judged that he must have been the "troupe leader."
When Ogami greeted him and gave his name, the leader nodded with understanding.
"Come inside. I'll leave this here."
Ogami shook the snow off his boots in front of the door, then went inside the warehouse. It was dark, and his eyes took a few seconds to adjust. The light coming through the window illuminated the concrete floor in a blurry rectangular area. The only things left inside were cardboard boxes, so he could find nothing that indicated it having been a rehearsal hall. He tried to imagine Sumika working on rehearsals for a play here, but found himself struggling.
The leader came back quickly. He brought two folding chairs from the truck and sat them across from each other. The two chairs sitting in the center of a basically empty warehouse was something of a curious sight.
"Sorry it's so cold. Disposed of the heater yesterday."
The leader was tall and slender, with hair dyed a bright color, but Ogami didn't sense any of the aggressiveness one might expect from such an appearance. He was probably somewhere around 30. The cracked sheepskin jacket he wore over his sweatshirt had a musty leather smell that reached Ogami even at a distance.
"The work's been going kinda slow," the leader explained, gesturing with his chin at the boxes scattered around the warehouse. "Sorry, but hold on just a li'l longer. I'll be done soon."
"I can help," Ogami offered. He had nothing else to do.
"Oh yeah? I'd appreciate it."
The leader smiled, as if that had been his aim from the start.
The two worked together to clean up the cardboard boxes. Ogami carried them out to the truck, and the leader loaded them onto the truck bed. Quickly warming up from the work, Ogami took off his jacket. These sorts of day-laborer jobs had been his primary work before he started as a chat operator, so he was accustomed.
Moving his body didn't feel so bad. He didn't have to think about anything but what was in front of him.
"Those guys always say they're busy and won't even come help." The leader sometimes stopped to grumble about the troupe members. "I've had'ta find time between work to do this too, y'know. Had to clean up pretty much this whole place myself. Driving a beat-up old truck to and fro down snowy roads. What're they so busy with, anyway? They had nothin' to do before, meeting here and making a ruckus. But then the second it's decided we're dissolving the troupe, they suddenly act like they're serious adults with busy jobs. Even the founding members. Heartless, I tell ya. Though yeah, I guess it might be hard to face each other now..."
In spite of his rough tone, he didn't appear to be genuinely angry. Maybe that anger was a thing of the past for him, and he was just dragging it back out to fill space.
By the time everything on the bed was tied in place with rope and they took a break from the cleanup, it had become completely dark outside. You could see the moon through the clouds that night - a rare treat.
The leader boiled water using a portable stove and a little kettle, then made some instant coffee. The two drank it while sitting on the edge of the truck bed. Seeing the leader light a cigarette, Ogami removed his Handcuff and took out one of his own. He struck the flint in his lighter, and the bright spark in the center of his vision briefly dazed him.
"Now then, it was about Sumika, right?" The leader placed the paper coffee cup on the side of the truck bed and rubbed his hands together for warmth. "I got the gist from her sister. Looking into the truth behind her suicide?"
"It's nothing as major as that. I just wanted to ask you about it."
"What was your relationship with that woman?"
"Just a friend," Ogami answered, tapping his cigarette to drop some ash to the ground. "No, I guess a plain old friend wouldn't have come this far. I'll just say we had a bit of a complex relationship."
The leader nodded. "I'm not sure Sumika had anyone who was "just a friend," honestly. If there was anybody who could avoid having special feelings about that woman, they'd have to be a saint or something."
"Meaning you had special feelings toward Sumika, too?"
"She ruined my troupe. 'Course I've got thoughts."
"Sumika ruined the troupe?"
"Most of the members'll back me up on that opinion."
Come to think of it, Kasumi had alluded to trouble within the troupe.
Eventually, she found herself in a vortex of serious trouble. No, not just in a vortex...
Could that mean she had been the very cause of said vortex?
"I want to know more about that, too," Ogami insisted.
"I wouldn't mind telling you," the leader began, "but if you still have any fondness for Sumika Takasago, I recommend you leave without listening to another word. 'Cause I'm sure it'll leave you with a bad taste."
"I can accept that."
"Guess you would," the leader said, breathing out smoke.
"You want the roundabout version, or the short version?"
"I might as well hear the roundabout one."
"Good," he said. "I'm lousy at summarizing stories."
*
One of the troupe leader's classmates in high school was a person who wanted to die. His name was Kayaba. If Kayaba hadn't been in his class, and hadn't wanted to die, the troupe leader wouldn't have become a troupe leader, likely taking a different path in life.
Of course, now that the troupe had dissolved, his title was more accurately "ex-troupe leader." And as of now, he hadn't found a title to replace that. Even if he was able to become something else, it would take time to paint over that awareness of himself. For a time, it had carried a far more important weight than the name his parents gave him, even.
Maybe I'll be dragging along the title "ex-troupe leader" for the rest of my life, he sometimes thought. It was a name signifying his meager glory days, and the remnants of his dreams.
The troupe leader received a light-pink envelope in spring his second year of high school. After becoming Kayaba's Sakura, that relationship continued until graduating high school. He didn't know what happened to Kayaba after that. Maybe he was being supported by some new Sakura, maybe he had long since killed himself. It was even possible he himself had wound up as a Sakura.
It had never become clear why Kayaba wanted to die. It wasn't even a sure thing that he actually did want to die. As far as the leader could ascertain, there was nothing in Kayaba's life that meant he had to despair. He looked like an average high school boy in every respect, and even if he wasn't especially fortunate, neither did he seem especially misfortunate.
If there was any cause for alarm, it was that a relative of Kayaba's had killed themselves a few years prior. Even as someone with no knowledge of whether suicide risk had anything to do with genetics, nor familiarity with mental issues, the troupe leader could easily imagine how the act of suicide might be contagious. When someone close to you does something, it instantly becomes an easier "option" to consider for yourself. That is, "if someone tied to me by blood can do it, I see no reason why I couldn't."
The leader wasn't the kind of person who found his own value in helping others. But it was in his nature that if he was going to do something, he had to do it well, so he carried out his duty as a Sakura diligently. He disguised himself skillfully enough that Kayaba thought of him as an unparalleled best friend, and as he polished his acting methods day after day, he even found a game-like enjoyment in it.
In practice, many of the people the System selects as prompters are of this type. Altruism and a spirit of self-sacrifice aren't considered for evaluation (though of course a person with violent tendencies won't be chosen); rather, priority is given to people with high adaptability and stable emotions. Without that sort of tenacity, there would be a risk of them being afflicted by suicidal thoughts themselves.
As he played the role of a second self as a Sakura, the leader learned the depths of what it meant to act. Until then, he hadn't really thought of theater as much more than an extension of kids playing make-believe. But when he pursued this "game" earnestly, it occurred to him that, in a way, all people's lives are being tested. How attentively you've been observing yourself, other people, and the world, and whether you've put serious thought into them, will reliably show in your acting. This game - there's really nothing else like it.
That said, he hadn't imagined by that point that he would genuinely get involved in the world of theater. He was able to find enjoyment in his duty as a Sakura if he looked for it, but it didn't change the fact it was a burden on him. He had plenty of other charming friends, yet he was bound to a boring person who seemed to offer no interest at all. What could he call it but exhausting?
Kayaba had the sorts of average faults an average person does, and there were numerous times the troupe leader got fed up and irritated with him. But even when he was, he had to pretend to be an understanding person and maintain appearances. Gradually, a feeling of hatred for Kayaba grew inside him.
But just before his good graces for Kayaba ran out, the System took action. Judging that the troupe leader alone would be insufficient to keep Kayaba from suicide, a second and third prompter were sent to Kayaba.
At first, he didn't realize this had happened. To the leader, it just looked as if Kayaba had made new friends entirely naturally. He had two of them: Kakimoto was a short guy good with words who was the life of the party, and Usuzumi was a big guy who seemed to take charge of keeping the class in order.
The two quickly hit it off with the troupe leader by way of Kayaba, and the four would often act as one from then on. It thus became rare for the leader and Kayaba to just be by themselves, lessening the burden of being his Sakura. He could count on the other two to keep Kayaba in a good mood, allowing him to stand on the sidelines, nodding along and smiling vaguely.
But ever since that group was established, the troupe leader would sometimes feel that something was off in a way that defied description. This sense of dissonance grew slowly but surely, like unseen sediment in the water. Something's odd about this group. Of course, part of it is that I'm in it as a Sakura, but even subtracting that, there were still unnatural aspects.
Kakimoto and Usuzumi's appearance had been a godsend for the troupe leader, so he'd closed his eyes to questions like what appealed to them about Kayaba, or why they suddenly decided to hang out with Kayaba after the class's relationships had solidified. But after a month had passed, he found himself having to confront those doubts again. For what possible reason did they approach Kayaba?
As he carefully observed the group, the cause of the dissonance slowly became clear. In many cases, it took the form of a bizarre synchronicity. Curious coincidences, namely the three of them sans Kayaba saying almost the same thing as the same time, were happening once every few days. Furthermore, this only happened when the troupe leader was pressed to say something to Kayaba "as his Sakura." To put that more clearly, they synced up only when he went to say words of encouragement or flattery he wasn't really thinking.
As an experiment, he completely abandoned his duty as a Sakura for a few days, leaving Kayaba to the other two, and there were no problems at all. The two of them neatly filled the hole he left.
These guys are way too convenient for me, the troupe leader thought. It's like there are three of me to act as Sakura now, and they'll work in my place.
No, hold on - could that be it exactly?
Were they actually new Sakura, dispatched to help me out?
However, the leader didn't try to directly air his suspicion to the two of them. Even supposing Kakimoto and Usuzumi were Sakura, making that clear to each other would introduce flaws into their performances, he thought. They'd lose the tension of working alone as a Sakura, getting careless and assuming that the others would cover for any mistakes.
Having three actors also triples the risk of the performance being seen through. That was the troupe leader's thinking. Kakimoto and Usuzumi probably had the same idea. Until the day of their high school graduation, the three feigned ignorance and performed as Kayaba's Sakura.
The day after graduation, the leader received another one of those light-pink envelopes, and he was freed from his duty as a prompter. Maybe Kayaba's suicide risk had decreased to a safe level, or maybe the role would be passed on to someone more suitable to match the change in environment. The four members of the group went on to different colleges, and it seemed their relationship would end there.
After graduating, the troupe leader felt liberated. Now I won't have to watch over somebody who wants to die anymore, and I can just get along with people I wanna get along with. That thought alone made his heart feel light.
At first, he viewed his two years as a Sakura as pure exhaustion. But after returning to normal human connections unrelated to Sakura, he had second thoughts. His experience as a Sakura had done wonders for his acting, observation, and above all, his endurance. As a result, by treating his new college environment as a stage, he was able to conduct himself skillfully enough that even he was shocked.
Compared to having to keep pretending to be understanding with Kayaba, this game was simple enough to make him yawn. With just a quick conversation, the troupe leader was able to read what a person subconsciously sought in others, and he learned how to act as their ideal just as quickly. Like a creature that changes color to blend in with its environment, he was creating new selves on the spot.
It wasn't just him who was performing on a daily basis, of course. Everyone did something similar, with the key difference being to what degree. But to him, other people's acting looked astoundingly stiff and clumsy. He hadn't realized back in high school with Kayaba taking his attention, but it looked to him like they didn't even know the basic rules of the game.
Maybe this ability I'm wielding like it's ordinary is actually something really special? It didn't take too long for the troupe leader to start thinking that way. In fact, the moment he was selected as Kayaba's Sakura, the System was acknowledging that he had talent as an actor.
That discovery excited him. Until then, he'd never thought of himself as having talents surpassing anyone else's in any way. He was generally fine, but anything he did was only half-baked, and with no particular weaknesses, he couldn't boast about anything either.
It would be a waste to let this ability rot, the leader thought. And it's not just me. The abilities of those two, who performed as Sakura just as well if not better than me back then, should be put to some use, too.
He called the two of them. And he asked, "I didn't dare bring it up at the time, but you were both Kayaba's Sakura like me, right?" Both Kakimoto and Usuzumi readily admitted it. They had also picked up on the troupe leader being a Sakura, and were themselves realizing the value of their talents after being relieved of their duty.
From then on, the three developed friendly relations without Kayaba. Two months after their reunion, they launched an acting troupe. All three were practically amateurs at theater, but they couldn't think of any other means of utilizing their talents.
The troupe, though started by fumbling around, steadily grew in part thanks to the trio's social talents. Motivation was high, and they were blessed with good luck. They soon became known online, and people even came from outside the prefecture to join. In the end, there were fifteen members including the original trio, but they had all made it through strict auditions to find the best of the best, so for a troupe led by an amateur, they were a superb bunch.
Sumika Takasago was the fifteenth, and last, member of the troupe.
First speaking with Sumika when she came to the rehearsal hall for an audition, then immediately passing her after seeing her performance, the troupe leader was bewildered by both her towering talent and her incongruous lack of presence. Anyone in this field would put stickers saying "look at me" all over their body, but she had none. No matter how immense a talent they had, he couldn't imagine that sort of desire-less person could manage in such a self-asserting place as an acting troupe.
He had no confidence in whether his decision to pass Sumika was correct. That said, it seemed like introducing a foreign substance like her could be a good way to stimulate the other members. He could just watch how it went for a while, and leave later decisions for later.
As he expected, Sumika had a hard time fitting into the troupe. She wasn't necessarily shy, but it seemed like deepening her relations with others was quite low on her list of priorities. The other members didn't treat her with concern nor cruelty, taking a neutral stance of "be here if you want to be, leave if you want to leave." The leader felt fine with that, too. He didn't know what other troupes did, but he thought troupe members becoming too stuck to each other should be avoided if possible. It's best if they're just barely connected by the thin thread that is the stage. Leaving a slight discomfort among the troupe helped maintain a nice tension.
But while the troupe leader wasn't looking, Sumika had suddenly become accepted by the other members. His impression was that rather than her approaching them, they had started to understand the charms she concealed within her. Male members regarded her like "She may fade into the background, but she's actually got a pretty face, and lots of talent," while female members thought "It's hard to tell what she's thinking, but she works hard in practice, and often takes notice of details."
A year, then two years passed, and Sumika had become an irreplaceable part of the troupe. Her presence made the entire troupe turn smoothly. She was just lubricant, not a threat to the job of the gears - this perception, too, was one of the reasons she was accepted. She also had talent and put in plenty of effort, but had shed some essential quality as an actor, making her a lovable junior member.
To sum it up, every single one of them thoroughly misunderstood Sumika. That's what the leader realized, much later. They would all admit it now, no doubt. That she was the best actor in the troupe, the best deceiver, and the most brimming with ambition.
And by the time he realized that, it was too late to do anything.
It happened two and a half years after Sumika joined the troupe.
There had been no advance signs. That day, nearly half the members abruptly skipped rehearsal. He tried calling them, but no one picked up. It was the end of April, and they were preparing for a show next month, so no one should have been skipping rehearsals with no notice at a time like this. He asked the other members if they had any ideas, but they just shook their heads.
The six members who had disappeared were all men. Considering the almost even split of men and women in the troupe, that hardly seemed like a simple coincidence.
Could this be some kind of mutiny?, the leader considered at first. Maybe the six who weren't here were planning to start a new troupe of their own. Most of them were long-time members, including Kakimoto and Usuzumi who had launched it with him. He didn't want to consider it, but he couldn't think of any other reasonable explanation. It wasn't like all of them would've come down with some contagious disease.
Something serious was happening, that was for sure. The leader canceled rehearsal and went around visiting the six's homes and workplaces, questioning them about what was going on. His bad feeling had been accurate. All six wanted to leave the troupe - however, for a completely different reason than he'd imagined.
To get right to the conclusion, the six who wanted to quit the troupe were all Sumika's lovers.
Not in the sense that Sumika had been waffling between different lovers in such a short time, of course. Without anyone in the troupe being the wiser, she had been dating the six of them simultaneously for more than half a year. And they weren't merely going out; she had completely charmed them.
It's not like they were pure, naive, and ignorant. All six were accustomed to being betrayed and deceived, with enough resilience to recover from breaking up from a years-long relationship in half a day tops. They wouldn't survive as troupe members otherwise.
But what Sumika had wrought upon them was different from mere heartbreak. Sumika had led them to believe it would be a lifelong love. It was fair to say she'd repainted their very concept of love.
Talking with the six of them, the leader was horribly confused. Because it was like they were each talking about an entirely different woman. He wondered again and again whether this Sumika Takasago was indeed the same person as the Sumika Takasago he knew.
There was only one explanation that made sense. That Sumika had gone and perfectly played six different roles as the "girl of their destiny," matching each of the six members' types. No matter how excellent her acting chops were, he couldn't see her as someone who would do such an outrageous thing, yet there was no room for any other explanation.
That left just one question: motive. Why did she have to do such a thing? What possible reason could there be to stir chaos and destroy the troupe that accepted her from the inside?
There would be no way of knowing that without asking Sumika herself. But the leader was now busy dealing with a troupe that could no longer maintain itself, and would have no chance of meeting her for a while - no, perhaps that was only an excuse. He knew Sumika's address and contact info, so he could create an opportunity anytime if he wanted.
The leader was afraid of Sumika - that was the truth. Maybe she was still concealing something even now. What if the troupe's destruction was only the beginning, and she was watching how things played out to decide when to drop a second bomb? What if agitating her somehow caused the already-fatal wound to open further?
Now that Sumika had left this world, he was freed from such fears, but had lost all means of determining her motive. The troupe was a mish-mash aside from the initial three, so they were a weakly-involved bunch who had little association once they stepped away from the troupe. So while a grudge against individuals would be one thing, it was hard to imagine Sumika held a grudge against the troupe itself.
As much as he racked his brain, he couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer. She probably had some grand motive far beyond us, he imagined vaguely. Or no, maybe she simply wanted to try using her incomparable talents in the real world instead of on stage. If that were the case, I could understand at least a little.
In any case, the incident forced the dissolution of the troupe. To call it a breakup caused by romantic trouble was too trite. He had instated rules to prevent those kinds of problems in advance, but they proved to be useless in the end. In fact, it could be said those rules only delayed the surfacing of the problem.
But at least in that regard, the leader didn't feel much regret. No matter how many counter-measures he prepared, it would have arrived at the same conclusion regardless. The moment he caught the attention of that femme fatale Sumika Takasago, his troupe was already done for. Though he lost a thing that he'd built up over long years, perhaps he could chalk it up to simple bad luck, that he wasn't chosen as a target of her seduction.
*
That marked the end of the troupe leader's story.
There was a long silence. The leader took a tissue out of his pocket and blew his nose, then started making fresh coffee. While they waited for the water to boil, the two of them gazed at the pale blue flame on the portable stove. And they smoked cigarette after cigarette.
"Do you hate Sumika?", Ogami asked casually. After asking it, he realized it was a pointless question. There was no chance he didn't.
"'Course I do. Hated her enough to kill her, at first."
The leader put coffee grounds into a paper cup filled with hot water and stirred them, then handed the first cup to Ogami. He thanked him, and put the hot coffee to his chilled lips.
"Everything I'd worked so hard to build was destroyed without me really even knowing why. If there were some way to hurt that woman without leaving evidence, I'd say I would've done it without hesitation. 'Course, then she went and kicked the bucket without my involvement."
After the leader finished making his own coffee, he pondered about how to continue for a while.
"Yeah, at the time, I hated her to death. But at this point, I'm more impressed than anything. That woman deceived a bunch of guys who'd put years of work into acting with her stellar performance alone. No offense to the ones she tricked, but I feel like I got to see a good show in the end."
"Surprisingly positive of you," Ogami remarked.
"Yeah. And I'm not just impressed. I'm grateful, too. As I watched the troupe break apart, I realized that deep down, I was relieved. Seems like my motivation for acting had left long ago. The moment I realized I didn't have to keep the troupe going anymore, I felt refreshed like never before in my life. Like I'd suddenly grown wings."
"Your position as troupe leader had become a burden?"
"That's part of it. But more than that..."
All of a sudden, he smiled.
"When I first heard about the commotion Sumika'd caused, I was hit by an intense jealousy even I couldn't make sense of. Not toward the six guys she was deceiving, but toward Sumika. I think half my murderous desire toward her wasn't for destroying the troupe, but because of that jealousy. And when I realized what that jealousy was about, I lost my passion for acting completely."
The troupe leader summed up the circumstances of the dissolution like so:
"It's like this. It's not that I wanted to perform; I wanted to become 100% perfect to someone, like I'd been back in high school. When I was acting as a good friend to Kayaba, by way of him having 100% trust in me, I could approve of myself 100%, too. I was always someone who needed a roundabout approach like that to appreciate myself. And that woman managed to do it to six guys at the same time. You gotta admit defeat there."