Chapter 31: Protect the Doctor, or Protect the Nurse?
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Fukae had considered founding a club, but Utagaya had never dreamed that she would establish one devoted to the study of folkloric phenomena. He especially had not expected her to want to bring Kayako into it after he had explained to her just how unusual Kayako was.
Could they please not do this? In a world where Kayako existed, she was actually going to study something this dangerous?
I’m genuinely terrified...
That was Kayako—the Kayako who, after death, could twist space and time and interfere with reality. And now Fukae wanted to drag her into playing around with dangerous things like this...
Wasn’t that just a mouse licking a cat’s coin—deliberately courting disaster for no reason?!
Utagaya covered his forehead, his expression full of pain and his tone bordering on hysteria.
“Why did you decide to establish this club? Besides, at a university, any club with a name like that would immediately get called in for ideological counseling. There’s no way they’d approve it, right?”
Fukae had long since anticipated Utagaya’s resistance.
She raised a hand and gently stroked his back as she reassured him.
“Relax. Nothing’s going to happen. I just don’t want the teachers constantly asking which club I’m going to join. Since that’s the case, I might as well start one myself.”
“...Then you could start something else.”
Don’t scare me like this...
If anything happened to either you or Kayako, the island nation could explode at any moment.
And if something happened to both of you at once, the Earth itself might well die on the spot just to spite you!
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to play spirit games, investigate haunted houses, or do anything like that. I just want to use the club to see another side of this world, and to study my own abilities.”
“?”
“Study?”
Fukae nodded.
Her abilities evolved as the number of deaths increased, whether the deaths involved her true self or her divided forms.
That evolution was certainly beneficial to Fukae herself, but it was not necessarily a good thing for her relationship with Utagaya.
One major reason she wanted to establish the club was because of a dream she had the previous night.
In the dream, she and Utagaya had crossed the threshold of marriage, entered each other’s worlds, and begun, quite naturally, to create a new life.
The scene shifted.
Fukae lay on an operating table in labor while Utagaya sat anxiously outside the room.
At the sound of a baby’s cry, their child entered the world.
Yet just as Fukae, filled with joy, weakly opened her mouth to ask the doctor to let her see the baby, she saw the doctors and nurses in the operating room retreating in terror.
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Then a genderless child whose features bore a faint resemblance to both Fukae and Utagaya stood up.
With an evil grin, it grasped a surgical knife, went outside, found the deeply worried Utagaya, and sweetly called out:
“Daddy~ Doctor or guardian~?”
The sheer wrongness of the dream jolted Fukae awake. Yet in a certain sense, what she had seen in it was entirely possible...
At the same time, founding this club would allow her to gain a better understanding of and greater exposure to supernatural matters, giving her something to work with in the future.
Although she had already assigned Kayako a role in her heart and done all the necessary mental preparation, she still wanted to learn as much as possible about the supernatural, just to be safe.
After all, according to Utagaya, Kayako would become extraordinarily powerful once she turned into a grudge-bearing spirit. Studying the supernatural was not merely a way to guard against unforeseen circumstances.
It was also directly connected to Fukae’s position in the Uda family, should that day truly come!
The club had to be founded. The war had already begun!
Fukae’s reasoning made Utagaya frown deeply. Certain wonderful associations made him want to dissuade her, but the moment he opened his mouth, Fukae pinched it shut.
“That’s enough. Shut up. I’m informing you, not asking for your opinion. Don’t worry—I know exactly what I’m doing~”
Before Utagaya could recover, she quickly pecked him on the lips, then giggled and skipped toward the classroom with her hands clasped behind her back.
Fukae’s decision left Utagaya distracted for the entire afternoon. Meanwhile, in the classroom where Kayako sat, the solitary girl remained in her usual seat, as transparent as a shadow.
Her fingers stayed beneath the desk, endlessly fiddling with something no one could identify.
The teacher noticed Kayako’s furtive movements and merely frowned. He could not even be bothered to say anything.
The teacher himself found it strange that he felt such inexplicable dislike for a student deep in his heart, but he simply chalked it up to the girl’s own peculiar personality.
The noisy chaos after class and the rear corner where Kayako sat seemed like two clearly separated worlds. Sitting in her place, Kayako resembled an immovable boulder amid a raging sea.
The bell rang on schedule. As someone who had been rejected by more clubs than she could count, Kayako naturally left the school and started toward home.
This time, however, she was not alone.
“U... Utagaya...”
Her voice trembled with delight and nervousness. Unable to suppress her joy, Kayako broke into a light run toward Utagaya, who was chatting with Saburo Higashimutsu not far from the school gate.
“This girl...”
Saburo Higashimutsu watched Kayako approach and, for some reason, felt deeply uncomfortable in her presence.
Still, she was really tall.
“She’s my neighbor, Kayako Kawamata.”
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“Hello~!”
Suppressing his strange unease, Saburo smiled and greeted Kayako.
“H-Hello...”
After the brief exchange, Kayako fell a step behind the two of them and followed along.
“Come to think of it, you’re walking home with another girl after school. What about Fukae...? Can you handle that?”
Saburo jabbed Utagaya with his elbow and asked with a thoroughly lecherous grin.
“They obviously know each other. What are you thinking?”
Saburo’s eyes widened in astonishment. Then he solemnly raised a thumbs-up toward Utagaya.
“As expected of you.”
“...”
Just as Utagaya was wondering how to retort to Saburo’s ridiculous expression, Fukae’s gentle, clear voice came from behind them.
“Stop.”
Seeing Fukae’s unfriendly expression, Saburo gave an awkward laugh, muttered that he would be leaving first, and hurried away.
Fukae glanced at him in confusion. That boy was rather strange as well. His attitude toward her was not as indifferent as Utagaya’s, but neither was he infatuated with her like most boys.
She went to Utagaya’s side and told him what puzzled her. Utagaya could only smile helplessly.
“He doesn’t like women from the real world.”
“Huh...? A hardcore shut-in? What are you doing back there? Come over here!”
“Oh... all right...”
At Fukae’s command, Kayako reluctantly abandoned her chance to keep admiring Utagaya’s back, then jogged over to Fukae’s left side.
“Remember to help me write the club proposal.”
“You want me to write it myself?”
“Are you going to write it or not?!”
“No... Gah!!”
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