As I Know Anything About You, I'll Be The One To Your Girlfriend, Aren't I? - Volume 1 Chapter 5.1

What Red Means to You 1

Suika’s PoV

I think it was over ten years ago.

“Suika, do you know what the cutest creature in this world is?”

After the end of practice in our home dojo, my mother suddenly asked me this question.

“…A cat?”

“Well, cats are cute, indeed. But that’s incorrect.”

My mother shook her head at my answer and said with an incredibly serene smile,

“The cutest creature in the world is a man.”

“…Why?”

“Oh, don’t you think so, Suika?”

“I don’t think so… Because their bodies are big, and they’re strong…”

Adult men have an imposing presence. Even boys my age, with their loud voices and high spirits, were intimidating to me, who was just about to enter or just entered elementary school.

“You see, Suika, men have big bodies and strong strength for a reason. Unlike us women, they don’t have demons inside their hearts.”

“…?”

“Since they don’t have demons inside, they need to be big and strong… otherwise, they couldn’t survive. It’s probably a handicap given by God… That’s why they are adorable.”

At the time, I couldn’t understand what my mother was saying at all. I couldn’t even think if that was the case.

“…Do I also have a demon inside me?”

The scary men don’t have demons, but I, a weak woman, do. I couldn’t quite digest that.

“Yes, you do. Because you’re a woman.”

My mother and I were sitting face-to-face on the dojo floor, sitting properly in seiza. My mother, looking straight at me, said,

“Suika, you’ll come to understand one day. That you have a demon inside you. A greedy demon that wants to protect something precious as well as consume it.”

My mother, with her back straight and in a beautiful posture as she spoke, suggested that even inside such a beautiful woman like her, there was a demon.

“The demons inside the women of the Ado family are particularly terrible… When you find something more precious than your own life, I wonder what you will do.”

◆◇◆

It was all a mystery.

For some reason, the meeting place was a park downtown, and to begin with, the fact that person called me was incomprehensible.

But… it was something I couldn’t just ignore.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about regarding Miyashiro-kun.”

Given that statement, I had no choice but to go.

“…Okay, this is it.”

I arrived at the specified park. For the record, I ran here from my house, which took about fifteen minutes.

Entering the park and looking around, I saw several children playing energetically on the lawn under the blazing sun and…

A familiar person was sitting alone on a bench in the shade of a tree.

As she noticed me, she came out of the shade and approached.

“Hello, Ado-san.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Kujo-senpai. May I ask what you need from me straight away?”

As I asked with a smile, she—Kujo-senpai also smiled thinly. Her beautiful posture sent shivers down my spine. She didn’t seem human.

“Sure, quick to the point. Do you recognize this?”

“Eh, …that”

Seeing what was in her hand, my eyes widened.

It was Kuuya’s smartphone. The case on it was one we had picked out together. There was no mistaking it.

“It was lying near the roadside… Look, where the vending machine is. Around that area.”

“…I see.”

Ah, so that’s why she called me. To have me deliver it to Kuuya’s house.

─I didn’t say that, though. Because there were two things I wanted to ask first.

“How did you know my phone number, Senpai?”

“That must be the same answer to the next question you’ll ask me.”

Her response was odd, but I went along with it and asked another question.

“Did you just happen to find Kuuya’s smartphone?”

“I’m a bit of an oddball, you see.”

Straightforwardly, she said. As if stating something obvious.

“There’s a bit of a risk for me in telling this story. So, let me confirm something on my end first.”

“…What is it?”

“Do you know what Miyashiro-kun was doing today? Did he have any plans to go out somewhere that you heard about? Is there any way to contact him now?”

She fired off a series of focused questions. Somehow, I thought, ah, she seems like a science person.

Of course, most of my mind wasn’t occupied with such trivial thoughts.

“…I didn’t hear about any plans for today. Nor about any plans to go out… If”

As I spoke the following words, I felt disgusted with myself.

“If he had plans to go far, he almost always tells me.”

“…Hmm, I see. So at least we can rule out a planned outing.”

“If Kuuya is not reachable now… I’ll try calling his home.”

Without his smartphone, the next option was the home phone.

The call rang several times but eventually switched to the answering machine. Kuuya usually answers the phone if he’s at home.

“He’s not answering, …Hmm… So, it seems…”

“Um, could we have a more detailed conversation, please?”

From my perspective, Kuuya might have just dropped his smartphone while out on a short errand nearby—the expected situation.

“Do you have any idea? …Though I hate to think about it, something serious might be happening.”

“Yes. …Well, yes, that’s right.”

This was the best course of action.

Kujo-senpai muttered quietly, then said,

“I’m a stalker of Miyashiro-kun.”

“…What?”

“Oh, but I’m not the type who physically follows him around. The goal of a stalker is to gather information, right? So, I track him electronically, not physically.”

“…What? I mean, wait, um”

I couldn’t catch up. …What?

“I’ll disclose the detailed methods, but I’ve been extracting various information from his smartphone and smartwatch daily. GPS data from his smartphone is one of those. That’s how I knew his smartphone was dropped here.”

“…What…”

“Unfortunately, his smartwatch isn’t a cellular model that’s always connected to the net, so now that he’s dropped his smartphone, I can’t extract GPS or other data… Ah, right, and the data I got from his smartwatch around noon today is crucial.”

“…”

Though my brain still hadn’t caught up with the situation, I understood this was something I needed to hear.

“The heart rate data from the smartwatch can give us some idea about the state of the autonomic nervous system. Roughly speaking, it can tell us the “Stress Value.”

“The value was incredibly high around noon. And then, according to the location data, he left his house and walked into the city… probably on foot, based on the speed… and likely dropped his smartphone along the way. That’s all I can tell from the data I have.”

“…”

If.

If I were to take everything she said at face value, it could indeed indicate that something might have happened.

“…So”

“Yes, that’s why I called you. I thought you might know something. …Ah, you understand why I knew your phone number without me having to explain, right?”

If she’s extracting data from Kuuya’s smartphone, getting my number, which would be in his contact list, would be trivial.

“I believe something not so peaceful might be happening.”

“…If something not so peaceful is happening, it’s already happening right in front of me. Because there’s a woman here claiming to be Kuuya’s stalker.”

“That’s true too.”

…What should I do?

Kuuya comes first. Thinking of him, what should I do now─

“Ah, but you know, Ado-san. If there’s really nothing you can do right now, that’s fine too.”

“…?”

“Sorry for suddenly bringing this up. It’s inevitable, isn’t it? Not everyone can immediately provide useful information in situations like this.”

Kujo-senpai said with full confidence.

“Or rather, there’s no one who can provide information I don’t already know.”

I don’t have eyes like Kuuya’s. But something so obvious, there’s no way I could mistake it.

“If it’s about him…”

Kujo-senpai clearly stated, with the face of a woman talking about her own belonging.