Ordinary Love: Who Exactly Died?

Ordinary Love④ Exactly Died?

[Part① Sweetness of Raspberries]

Back on the commercial street in New Sider County, the sky was growing darker. The humid, hot fog was pressed down hard against the earth by a strange atmospheric pressure, and everything seemed shrouded in mystery.

Lightning flashed now and then, like the eyes of a beast lurking in the thick fog. The thunder was its roar.

The security booth at the county hospital entrance was lit, but no one was inside. I waited outside the gate for a long time, but the guard never came back. There was no way I could enter the public hospital through the usual channels—

—the inpatient and treatment departments were housed in three complex, multi-wing buildings, each four stories tall. They had an L-shaped earthquake-resistant design and circular, tower-like rooftops built for wartime defense, with blockhouses designed as elevated machine-gun posts. They seemed to have once served as a temporary German military headquarters. From the gate, they looked like a Baroque church concealed in the fog.

I leaned through the booth window and glanced at the guard's duty roster. I also spotted some tools for trimming wires—voltage testers and pliers, a soldering iron and soft solder for repairing circuits, and an empty rum bottle.

I immediately understood. The guard seemed to moonlight as an electrician. Maybe he'd been so exhausted that he'd gone to sleep after finishing the bottle.

I strode over the low parking-lot barrier. When I reached the underground passage, I caught a strange scent—

—a mournful, sorrowful smell, tinged with frustration. It also carried a faint, cloying sweetness, like wild raspberries.

I had no idea what this inexplicable synesthesia meant. Last time, it had been Officer Tom. Who would it be this time?

As I continued toward the elevators, the scent grew