Not a detective

Page 60

I haven't seen Yukie in this outfit yet, but I think it's probably because the weather is getting a bit cooler as autumn approaches, and Yukie always has a habit of keeping warm, so her casual clothes are usually a bit thick.

That shrine maiden outfit hadn't been taken out for a long time. Asakawa Riku wanted to offer suggestions, but he knew he probably didn't have a vote, so he didn't want to embarrass himself.

"Let's not get our clothes dirty again today, let's go."

After getting dressed, Chizuko kept muttering to herself, and then she went out with Asakawa Riku, who had been dressed casually and had been waiting for half an hour.

By the way, I've already bought her a bra in the right size at the convenience store... Asakawa Riku doesn't actually know this for sure, but he can guess it.

...

It was already evening when they arrived at the school, and it was dark.

It wasn't meant to create a scary atmosphere; it's just that there might be other teachers and students at the school during the day, but there are fewer people at night, making it safer.

However, as soon as I entered the campus, I saw a person standing guard there.

That wasn't a school janitor or a teacher, but a construction worker dressed in denim clothes and wearing a baseball cap pulled low, looking like some kind of suspicious person.

"Yo, Yorozuya." Chizuko greeted him immediately, realizing he was an acquaintance.

"Chizuko-chan, little sister."

The middle-aged man known as the Yorozuya stubbed out his cigarette, straightened up from the tree he was leaning against, and turned around.

He was a middle-aged man with a stubble beard, who looked somewhat like Kazamatsuri Akihisa, but not as handsome. He had a very ordinary appearance, the kind of face that you could forget in a second. His rough skin hadn't been well-maintained, and his weathered hair was casually styled, as if he didn't care about his image at all. But his eyes were sharp, as if they were hiding something.

At least when Asakawa Riku looked over, he had this premonition.

"Is he your boyfriend?"

“No, I am Asakawa Riku.” Asakawa Riku introduced himself and shook hands with him: “But I am a partner you can trust.”

"Then I'll have to rely on your business from now on."

Yorozuya casually slipped the business card into his hand like a dealer's card, flashing a fawning smile: "Marrying Chizuko won't be easy for you later in life. You have good taste; I like doing business with smart people."

Asakawa Riku didn't see a name on it, only the words "Yorozuya" and a contact number, but no shop address.

The main job is "to do anything"... that sounds very suspicious.

"Ouch." Yorozuya seemed to have been kicked for speaking up, but Chizuko didn't retaliate; she probably had Yamawaro do it instead.

The girl remained standing there, smiling, showing absolutely no ill intentions.

"Don't talk nonsense, okay? How's the job I asked you to do?"

"promise."

Yorozuya raised his chin and pointed upwards.

On the fourth floor of the school building, where the art classroom used to be, the area was now covered by tarpaulins and scaffolding, with the words "Under Construction" painted on it.

“You guys are really making a big fuss. There’s a terrible smell. It’ll take at least half a month of construction to fix it… No one else would dare take this job except me. Normally, we should call the police.”

"You specialize in doing work that others can't do, right? You just want more money, and I'll pay you as much as you want."

Chizuko speaks very frankly, like a wealthy person.

"You make it sound so easy, but this will be charged to that Lord Fengji's account... Is your father sure he knows about this?"

Yorozuya gave her a suspicious look: "Little sister, I don't do things on credit. It would be troublesome if I couldn't collect the payment later."

Asakawa Riku was taken aback. He remembered that Chizuko and her had said that the money would be paid as "official compensation." He hadn't expected there to be another trick up his sleeve.

To everyone's surprise, Chizuko remained calm and composed, showing no sign of panic whatsoever.

"Of course I know. We're just doing righteous things to exorcise demons. It's just that they sent me to run errands for this little problem."

"Let me confirm?" Yorozuya took out his phone.

Before making the call, Chizuko suddenly said out of the blue, "Uncle, I'm talking to myself right now: Horse number 5 isn't in good form for the race tomorrow, Sunday, so it's best not to bet on it. Horse number 9's rider has improved a lot recently, and it seems like there's some behind-the-scenes manipulation, so it's very likely to be an upset. You could give it a try."

"……I see."

Yorozuya immediately put away his phone, walked back to the tree, lit another cigarette, and acted as if he hadn't seen them.

At that moment, Chizuko suddenly took Asakawa Riku's hand and walked right past him without any hesitation.

"It's okay to say he's my boyfriend, right?"

Aoandon's Autumn: Chapter Twenty-Two - A Mirror Reflecting One's Future Self

After entering the school building, my hand unconsciously loosened its grip.

"Why?" Asakawa Riku asked.

"That guy loves to spread rumors. It's fine to treat him like a tabloid reporter. He'll definitely exaggerate our relationship anyway, so let's just be casual and scare him a bit so he can't tell what's true and what's false."

Chizuko shook her head as she spoke, her expression obscured as she walked ahead.

"No, I meant just now... about those horse races and stuff."

"Oh... that person has a hobby of betting on horse races. In fact, he's basically lost all the money he makes. By doing him a small favor, I can avoid a lot of trouble."

So that's how it is. Asakawa Riku couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Kazamatsuri Akihisa. Perhaps he had no idea that his dutiful daughter had already added an unknown expense to his life.

He carefully kept the Yorozuya business card, thinking he might need it someday, as long as he could afford the fee.

This incident had little impact; they successfully infiltrated the school building for the night and were heading towards their destination for the day.

The fifth of the seven incredible things about campus life: a mirror that reflects your future self.

In the school building, there is a full-length mirror at the corner of each staircase, which is cleaned and polished every day by the cleaners until it is shiny.

Its main function is to provide students and teachers with a tool to tidy their appearance, constantly reminding them to behave properly at school and to examine their words and actions. However, in the end, it mostly becomes the object of vanity for female high school students. They would gather here with cosmetics to put on makeup, and Asakawa Riku has even seen them playing around and making short videos.

Although the situation improved considerably after the school arranged for teachers and disciplinary committee members to crack down on the problem, high school students are at a critical stage of developing self-awareness and will always be particularly concerned about their appearance.

These mirrors have become a fixed feature of the school, but mirrors have always been associated with bad things and are considered an omen of unease in Feng Shui.

Just like the sink mirror that Riku Asakawa saw in the women's restroom, people are always worried that something strange might emerge from the mirror...

In this way, fear became the fuel for ghost stories.

"The place we're going to is the top floor of the school building, the fifth floor, the mirror at the corner of the staircase between the rooftop and the fifth floor."

As Chizuko went upstairs, she explained, "For some reason, the mirrors there are different from all the ones downstairs. The others only have one full-length mirror, but this one has three mirrors."

"A three-sided mirror?" Asakawa Riku asked.

"It consists of three interconnected mirrors, one in the middle and one on each side, at a slightly tilted angle."

Chizuko gestured: "Well, you might not know about women's makeup mirrors... Some magicians also buy those mirrors to practice, to ensure that their performances from different angles are flawless, so that no one around them can see through their tricks during the actual performance."

Asakawa Riku roughly understood. He had seen those kinds of mirrors when he went to the amusement park when he was a child. One side was a concave mirror and the other side was a convex mirror. He remembered that they were called "funhouse mirrors" because they looked very funny. But the three-sided mirror that Chizuko-senpai was talking about should not have that effect. It was just three ordinary plane mirrors.

Why is this placed there?

"I don't know, maybe it's for safety reasons, but no one has a definite answer. It's the unknown that breeds fear."

Chizuko got to the point: "So the rumor has come out that if you stand straight in the center of the three mirrors at midnight, and in the infinite images reflected in the mirrors, at 0:00:00, you can see your future self."

"Oh?" Asakawa Riku became interested: "So this ghost story is not only non-aggressive, but also functional."

"Yes, it's much safer than yesterday's music classroom, and if used well, it can even offer a glimpse into the future."

Upon hearing Chizuko's words, Asakawa Riku inexplicably thought of the detective with the beautiful eyes.

Her superpowers seem to have this effect as well.

Asakawa Riku is, after all, an ordinary person, and he is still very interested in his future.

What will the future hold? Studies, work, settling down, marriage, and even family are all important life events, and he wants to know where things are headed.

Seeing that he was somewhat distracted, Chizuko cleared her throat and became slightly serious:

"However, we must not let our guard down. Rumors also mention a girl who discovered the secret of the three mirrors. The first time she peeked into them, she saw the exam questions for a month later. She gained benefits from this and became obsessed with it, unable to extricate herself. She would watch the experience of becoming a top student and reaching the pinnacle of life in the future, and she would watch it every night without fail."

"Until one day, she saw herself thirty years in the mirror and was shocked. After that, she found that every time she looked in the mirror, she would age a lot, and correspondingly, her real body was also aging. Finally, one day, she saw her old and frail appearance. Not long after, she died from organ failure. The doctors said that this phenomenon could not possibly occur in such a young female student, but her organs were already as old as those of a centenarian and could not support her at all."

After hearing this story, Asakawa Riku couldn't help but become wary: "So, this mirror also has some side effects?"

"I'm afraid so. After all, these are ghost stories; there aren't any completely benevolent ones. We must be cautious."

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Chizuko emphasized, "Asakawa-kun, we absolutely cannot become addicted to peeking into the future. We can't just do one investigation today and then destroy the mirror, understand?"

"I see."

Asakawa Riku nodded. There was no need to worry about that. He had strong self-control and wouldn't ruin himself for a little temptation.

Although he is interested in the future, he only keeps it within the realm of "interest." He believes that one must create one's own destiny, which is the correct view.

"Is that the mirror up there?" As they talked, they were almost there.

They had already reached the fifth floor and looked up, as if they could already see the area around the corner of the stairs, which connected to the sealed-off rooftop, the most secluded corner of the school.

The presence of mirrors here is why it's believed to inspire ghost stories; the whole place has an eerie atmosphere, like a "gap."

"No, that's the mirror I'm going to." Chizuko stopped and turned around, saying, "Asakawa-san, yours is on the other side."

"Ok?"

Asakawa Riku was stunned.

“I said ‘the mirror at the corner of the stairs between the fifth floor and the rooftop,’ not that there was only one three-sided mirror.”

Chizuko pointed her finger toward another staircase on the other side of the corridor: "There are two mirrors like this in our school building. You go to one, and I'll go to the other."

Aoandon's Autumn: Chapter Twenty-Three Meditation

Asakawa Riku had no choice but to walk alone down the corridor to the other side.

He understood what Chizuko-senpai meant. Because the school building was oriented north-south, there were two staircases, one on the east and one on the west, which meant there were two places with three-sided mirrors that matched the description in the ghost story.

"At midnight, 0:0:0, the time requirement was very strict. Only one person could look in the mirror. To ensure that we could both see ourselves, we had to separate."

That's what she said.

Asakawa Riku questioned whether splitting up might be unsafe, but Chizuko disagreed, saying that this ghost story didn't have any dangerous elements and there was no need to worry.

She pulled at the corner of her eye, stuck out her tongue, and said, "Can you please be considerate of a girl's feelings? I don't want Asakawa-kun to see what I'll look like when I'm old, absolutely not."

Since things have come to this point, there's no other way but to proceed as planned.

Asakawa Riku walked slowly through the silent corridor. The fifth floor of the school building was the highest floor, where most of the classrooms were for senior high school students, as well as some staff rooms.

Looking around, the desks and chairs were all neatly arranged, and there were no portraits that would suddenly stare at him. Although his experience a few days ago might give people the impression that "this school is not very peaceful," Asakawa Riku actually felt that it was fine. Under normal circumstances, this school was quite normal.

The corridor wasn't long, so we quickly reached the stairs on the other side. After climbing up a little more than half a floor, we soon saw the three-sided mirror.

—It really is a very strange mirror.

The moment it came into view, Asakawa Riku couldn't help but think that way.

It was as if three mirrors had merged together, yet maintained an eerie, slightly tilted angle, like the embrace of a monster, about to devour a person.

The light here is dim, making it almost impossible to see anything. That's why the mirror is so eerie, with its shadowy human figures that make you wonder if it's really you in there.

It was more like three judges from hell, collectively scrutinizing and surrounding him.

No wonder it's so scary.

Why did the school install such a mirror here?

Asakawa Riku turned around and avoided eye contact. He saw that the rooftop door was blocked off and leading up the stairs behind him.

To prevent accidents from happening to students, the rooftop has always been locked. Even so, quite a few naughty delinquents have sneaked up there. For example, Riku Asakawa remembers that when Shizue Kasahara was being bullied, the bullying group was watching the commotion on the rooftop and even took out their phones to film it.

But looking at it today, the rooftop door wasn't just a simple deadbolt; it also had an additional padlock on the outside, securely bound. Forget picking the lock, you'd need a chainsaw to cut it open. It felt like a "no entry allowed" declaration, as if it were sealed off. Asakawa Riku guessed this was some kind of follow-up measure taken by the school.

That being said, only a minority of people went to the school rooftop for the meeting. Apart from that delinquent group, the others didn't want to get into trouble, which is a perfectly normal mentality.

Why set up a "three-sided mirror" here in such a blatant way? Who would come here to look in the mirror?

Riku Asakawa thought about it for a while, but still couldn't figure it out. Perhaps, as Chizuko said, "the unknown breeds fear."

He took out his phone and glanced at it: "23:55," the time was just right.

Although it's the weekend, their insistence on coming to school at night isn't just about avoiding attention; it's also because this strange tale has a "time requirement."

Only at the exact hour of midnight can one glimpse the future through the mirror.