Parasites / How to Disguise Yourself as a Red Rose

Her feelings seemed to have become slightly more transparent, which made Kitagawa Ryo smile.

"You don't have to force yourself to say things like that."

"I..."

"Kei wouldn't say something like that. The girl I know as Karuizawa Kei is both weak and strong, and probably the kind of girl people would find pitiful and hopeless. So—you understand, right?"

Kitagawa Ryo continued in as gentle a tone as he could manage.

"It's all right. I'll be fine. I'll definitely come back, and then I'll stay by your side."

"So, Kei, please wait for me at home. And let's have dinner together tonight, too."

After saying that, Kitagawa Ryo hung up.

Kitagawa Ryo knew all of Karuizawa Kei's weaknesses and schemes, but he wouldn't reject her for them.

But that said—he had no intention of giving up at all.

Kitagawa Ryo sincerely hoped that Karuizawa Kei could find happiness of her own, preferably by his side.

[I hope you can receive it. I hope you can hold on to it tightly. I hope you'll never let go.]

[I hope you'll realize this: The Little Prince didn't love the rose because she was the only one of her kind on his planet. He thought she was unique because he loved her.]

Kitagawa Ryo closed the door behind him. He was going to create an opportunity for Emi Eura to leave Karuizawa Kei's life for good.

Today was the day.

The Way to Pass as a Red Rose

Karuizawa Kei pushed open the door in a fluster, the phone still pressed in her palm emitting the hollow electronic tone of a call that had already ended. She hurriedly changed her shoes, moving so abruptly that she even startled Hotaru beside her. The cat lifted her head and stared, bewildered, at her still-not-quite-familiar pooper scooper.

Why had Kitagawa Ryo suddenly decided to meet Emi Eura alone?

As Karuizawa Kei locked the door and hurried down the stairs, her phone put away, a sense of foreboding rose in her heart the moment she received Kitagawa Ryo's call. He rarely made decisions on his own without consulting her, and the person at the center of this matter was none other than Karuizawa Kei herself.

Her instincts told her she absolutely couldn't let the two of them meet alone. Karuizawa Kei knew Kitagawa Ryo. He must have his reasons for singling out Emi Eura from among all the bullies. Legally speaking, Emi Eura hadn't inflicted any substantial harm on Karuizawa Kei, and she was a minor, too. No matter how well-connected Kitagawa Ryo might be, he couldn't simply take revenge on her.

School bullying had always existed in the space between morality and the law. Whether it was so-called "emotional abuse" through ostracism or actual acts of violence, law enforcement agencies often found themselves struggling with problems such as the victim being too young, the harm not being serious enough to qualify as assault, and the number of perpetrators. On top of that, schools did their best to cover things up to protect their reputations. So even after all these years, school bullying hadn't improved. It had only grown worse, and was even happening at younger and younger ages.

A knife suddenly appeared in Karuizawa Kei's mind. As time passed, it slowly took shape in her consciousness, its blade glinting sharply before slashing through the air and drawing blood.

She didn't know where Kitagawa Ryo and Emi Eura had arranged to meet. Karuizawa Kei decided to try the hotel first and see if she could find Mr. Izaki. She'd known the old man Kitagawa Ryo called "Grandpa" since she was little. If she found Izaki, he might know where Kitagawa Ryo was now.

Just as Karuizawa Kei reached the hotel, panting, and headed toward the elevators, a somewhat familiar voice suddenly came from the sofas in the lobby. It seemed the speaker had been waiting for her. The half-finished hot drink in front of her and her unhurried tone were proof enough.

"Karuizawa Kei... right?"

Horikita Suzune raised her head from her book. Her voice was like a spell, pinning Karuizawa Kei firmly in place so she couldn't take another step.

"If you go upstairs now, you'll find no one there. Since he chose to tell you what he was doing, it means he has a clear plan and is confident you won't disrupt it."

"Sit down and talk. We probably have two hours before he takes care of things."

Horikita Suzune's tone was firm, and carried an undeniable authority.

"Who are you?"

Karuizawa Kei knew perfectly well who the other girl was, but she still played dumb and asked anyway.

"Horikita Suzune."

Horikita Suzune gave her name plainly, without any title or honorific.

"Why should I listen to you?"

Karuizawa Kei refused to back down. Whenever she saw Horikita Suzune, the words "Marriage Contract" came to mind. They turned into a strange anger, like a steel bar braced straight through her body, from her feet to her head. Her whole body tensed in an instant; her neck and back stiffened, and even her steps were rigid as she walked straight up to Horikita Suzune.

"I think this is what Kitagawa wants, too."

Horikita Suzune wasn't intimidated in the slightest by Karuizawa Kei's attitude. The two stared at each other sharply. After Kitagawa Ryo's name entered the conversation, something even sharper seemed to cut through the air. It sliced through Karuizawa Kei's vocal cords, making her voice sound even more indistinct.

"Are you two close? Have you known each other for one day? Two?"

Karuizawa Kei had to admit that the moment she faced Horikita Suzune alone, all her defenses sprang up like a hedgehog's spines. It was as if the nightmare from before had suddenly appeared before her. She was frightened and repulsed, yet also somewhat curious as she sized Horikita Suzune up.

"So that's the kind of person you are?"

Horikita Suzune only glanced at her indifferently. That response made Karuizawa Kei feel even more guilty. Her bravado drained away like air from a balloon with a hole in it. A balloon could still bob through the wind with a faint whistle before falling to the ground like a scrap of cloth, but Karuizawa Kei could only sit down, somewhat cowed.

"You... Miss Horikita... Horikita-san..."

Karuizawa Kei tried several forms of address in a row. She'd always hated girls who naturally carried such an imposing presence. Just standing there, they seemed able to leave everyone else gasping for breath. They were creatures from a completely different world than her—and on top of that, this girl had an even more troublesome identity.

She had already accepted that she couldn't live independently of Kitagawa Ryo. She had also considered the possibility that one day he might leave her, but that had been nothing more than a hypothetical. There was no way someone could suddenly appear and lead Kitagawa Ryo away. But now Karuizawa Kei realized that the person she'd imagined had leapt out of her fantasy and grown into a gigantic monster right before her eyes.

The feeling nearly suffocated Karuizawa Kei, but she had to endure it.

Karuizawa Kei secretly sized Horikita Suzune up from the corner of her eye. Her resolute bearing was matched by a pair of reddish-purple eyes. Her beautiful black hair fell past her shoulders to her waist, with a thin braid tied off to one side by a hair ribbon. Judging by her looks alone, she was unquestionably top-tier.

"In the hour before I met you, I actually sketched out a psychological portrait of you."

Horikita Suzune spoke first, taking control of the conversation.

"I was curious why he wanted me to get in touch with you, and even asked me to befriend you."

"From the picture of you I pieced together from what Kitagawa said during that hour, Karuizawa Kei..."

Horikita Suzune sighed, set her copy of Crime and Punishment on the table, and looked directly into Karuizawa Kei's eyes.

"You're a girl who seems to have basically no value."

"So I was puzzled about why Kitagawa treated you differently. Then I realized it was only because you happened to be by his side during the time he needed a friend most."

Horikita Suzune nodded.

"It was a very unlikely coincidence."

"Other than the memories you've built up over time, there's nothing else about you that would make Kitagawa want to give anything for you."

Karuizawa Kei gave a weak, cold laugh. She watched the girl across from her effortlessly dismiss her past with Kitagawa Ryo in just a few sentences. But what horrified her was that, for the moment, she couldn't find a reason to refute her. Karuizawa Kei desperately racked her brain. Her heart pumped like a water pump, sending the blood in her body rushing backward, and she could barely get a word out.

She didn't know why Horikita Suzune was saying all this. Karuizawa Kei also had no idea what kind of relationship she and Kitagawa Ryo had now. After all, she'd fled the restaurant that day and had been waiting ever since for Kitagawa Ryo to explain. She hadn't expected the other girl to come after her before Kitagawa Ryo had even had a chance to say anything.

"What gives you the right to define me like that? How long have you even known me? Ten minutes?"

Karuizawa Kei answered with a question, like a cornered beast fighting back desperately.

"...Then why don't you deny it?"

Horikita Suzune lifted the hot drink in front of her and took another sip. Waiting here for Karuizawa Kei had been an impulse. Kitagawa Ryo's words that morning had suddenly made her curious about Karuizawa Kei. Foxes all wanted to become roses, so naturally she wanted to see what kind of rose could tame Kitagawa Ryo.

"I just don't think you, Karuizawa Kei, are a rose."

Horikita Suzune set down her cup. Her sharp gaze pierced straight into Karuizawa Kei's heart.

"No matter how capricious a rose might be, at least she's loyal to the Little Prince alone."

"Karuizawa Kei."

Horikita Suzune's voice gleamed like the blade of a guillotine.

"If—I mean, if..."

"If Kitagawa hadn't come back now, but three years from now, or five years from now? What do you think you'd be like then?"

Horikita Suzune leaned closer, as if watching Karuizawa Kei tremble, and calmly described what she imagined.

"You'd be bullied all three years of middle school. If what Kitagawa said is true, and you're both weak and strong, then you probably wouldn't choose to end your life."

"You'd probably choose to start over in high school, just as you'd planned when you entered middle school."

"You'd pull yourself together and piece your shattered self back together, then bury your memories of the past."

"How could you avoid being bullied? You'd be troubled by that question, but your past experience would already have taught you that you couldn't survive on your own without someone protecting you. After all, when you were in elementary school, Kitagawa Ryo protected you. Once he left in middle school, you were bullied again."

Horikita Suzune continued to make one supposition after another.

"So you'd definitely seek someone else's protection, just as you once sought Kitagawa's. But not everyone would be like Kitagawa, ready to protect you just because you were there. So what would you do?"

"Throw away your so-called dignity. It wouldn't matter anyway if you were being bullied."

"Maybe you'd use your body to seduce someone. After all, you seem like a cute kind of girl."

"If you happened to meet a boy who could accept your past and protect you, would you treat him well without any self-respect, no matter what? You'd definitely attach yourself to him without hesitation. And since what happened with Kitagawa came first, you'd probably try even harder to tie him down this time, wouldn't you? Because you're afraid he'll leave you and abandon you like Kitagawa Ryo did, aren't you?"

Horikita Suzune looked at Karuizawa Kei, who was covering her face and could no longer speak, with a gaze that was both pitying and incomprehending.

"Then, once you had someone to protect you, naturally you'd need to raise your own status to protect yourself further."

"You've already done something similar. Whether you meant to or not, when you became the center of the girls' group under the protection of Kitagawa's rumors, you must have felt a little bit of pitiful security."

"If you want to solidify your position, there are only two ways: elevate yourself or put others down."

Horikita Suzune picked up Crime and Punishment from the table again and lowered her voice for the first time. The question was thin as a thread, like a sinister dagger.

"Would you become a new bully?"

At that moment, Karuizawa Kei was practically begging Horikita Suzune to stop—to stop exposing the dark parts of her and laying them bare. The other girl even seemed intent on sorting them out and leaving them to dry in the sun.

Karuizawa Kei looked at Horikita Suzune, sitting calmly in her seat and sipping her hot drink. She'd just said so many hurtful things, yet she showed not the slightest remorse or regret. It was as if she'd merely stated an impersonal fact, then sat back like an audience member and watched what happened.

"Does Karuizawa-san know about parasites?"

Horikita Suzune asked as if casually, flipping through her book, but soon answered her own question.

"Parasites don't always live in just one kind of organism. They have intermediate hosts and definitive hosts. For example, some parasites first live in fish, then enter a person's body through the fish meat, and finally complete their parasitic life cycle there."

"Sometimes even the host doesn't know whether it's an intermediate host or a definitive host."

"Some hosts might even willingly give their nutrients to the parasite, thinking it doesn't matter. But the parasite might not consider them a definitive host at all—just an intermediate host to use as a stepping stone."

Horikita Suzune closed the book.

"If anything I said made Karuizawa-san uncomfortable... I was only stating the facts."

Horikita Suzune looked at Karuizawa Kei's back. The other girl was bent over in a pained posture. Was she covering her face and crying?

[Actually, most parasites are invertebrates...]

Perhaps because she didn't want to strike Karuizawa Kei one more time, Horikita Suzune, for once, didn't say the last sentence aloud.

"...You... what do you know?"

Karuizawa Kei's voice sounded as if it were streaked with blood.

Little by little, she lifted her eyes and looked up at Horikita Suzune's straight-backed figure. Even seated, Horikita Suzune's back was perfectly straight.

That was exactly the kind of person Karuizawa Kei dreamed of becoming:

A powerful, proud, heroic version of herself.

The Way to Pass as a Red Rose

Emi Eura often fantasized about cutting open the abdomen of the woman named Karuizawa Kei with the knife in her hand. She habitually chose a place where the scar wouldn't be particularly noticeable, even if it remained. She knew very well that leaving a scar on Karuizawa Kei's face would bring her to the brink of collapse in the short term, but would also greatly increase the chance that the other girl would give up on herself entirely.

A scar that was hidden yet deep—something that would plunge her back into terror as soon as she touched it or even laid eyes on it.

It would make the other girl recognize the truth: she was a pitiful victim of bullying. It was like branding her with a red-hot iron.

Unfortunately, the situation no longer allowed for such an act.

Emi Eura stared emotionlessly at the object in front of her, which had made a wet "squelch" as liquid splattered from it. It rolled to the edge of the windowsill, where the sunlight revealed what it really was.

It was a man's face, split vertically.

It had already been severed from his neck.

The half that had been cut away rolled beside her feet.

Its "inner" side faced upward.

It was a cross-section with colors Emi Eura had never seen before, a remarkably rare sight.

The crushed, mangled brain gleamed strangely. The skull, deformed where it hadn't been completely severed, was mixed with the blood spilling out from within, along with other thick fluids.

Emi Eura glanced at her mother, who was curled up in the corner of the room, too frightened to speak. She calmly washed her face at the kitchen sink. Only after a brief numbness did she realize that the splattered blood was flowing down her face and chest, then slithering lower like a snake, sparks flickering in the darkness.

After washing the blood from her face, Emi Eura casually took off the apron she'd been wearing. Red spots slowly spread across its pale blue fabric, which had faded slightly to yellow. She crumpled it up and tossed it aside.

Then Emi Eura began carefully examining the knife in her hand, using her other hand to pick at the bone fragments along its blade. The fragments had been soaked in blood and glinted red. Her movements were very slow, but also very careful.

"I killed him."