The girl shook her head with a wry smile.
What was she doing?
Had she been so badly shaken...
that she was starting to act strangely, too?
The girl got no response.
Fortunately,
she was at home.
No one else was around.
Even so, she still felt her cheeks growing warm.
The girl looked around.
She hesitated for a while, but decided not to call the police.
Just like when she'd followed after them, she'd only lost a watermelon.
Oh.
Last time, it had been two.
This time, it was one.
She hadn't lost anything else.
Even if she called the police...
just like last time, the officers wouldn't find anything.
So why make them come all this way?
The girl went to bed with her mind full of questions.
The next day, still full of doubt and unwilling to give up, the girl bought another watermelon.
This time, she went to a different fruit shop.
She was too embarrassed to go back to the watermelon stand from last time.
If the owner asked her how the watermelon was again...
what would she say?
Tell the owner her watermelon had been stolen again?
Hmm.
Was it because...
the girl felt inexplicably embarrassed?
After all...
having her watermelons stolen two days in a row...
wasn't exactly something to broadcast to everyone.
The girl hesitated for a while.
She bought one watermelon.
But after taking the bag with the watermelon, she bought another one.
The girl carried two watermelons home.
This time, she didn't do anything else.
The first thing she did when she got home was cut open a watermelon and eat it.
The moment the watermelon touched her tongue, the girl was so moved she nearly cried.
It had been so difficult.
She