Target!

Natsume Chikage pushed open the door to his home.

What rushed toward him was the stuffy air unique to a three-tsubo space, mixed with the smell of dust and old wood.

Whenever the windows were not opened for ventilation, staying in this cramped room always gave him a suffocating feeling, as though his chest were tightening.

The furnishings were old, and everywhere he looked bore the marks of time.

The walls were mottled with patches of varying shades.

Several light-brown hand-sewn patches dotted the tatami mats.

Even for a rundown three-tsubo room like this, the monthly rent cost sixty thousand yen!

Yet at this price, it was already one of the relatively cheaper places Chikage could find in Shibuya.

He knew that he only had forty thousand yen left in his wallet.

If he did not work hard at his part-time job, he might not even have next month's rent.

"I'm home."

"I'm home."

The siblings' voices rang out almost at the same time, echoing through the empty room where there would never be a third voice to answer. They had grown accustomed to it.

Ruri bent down to take off her small black leather shoes, her delicate feet wrapped in pure white cotton socks stepping onto the cold tatami.

She briskly took the items out of the shopping bag one by one.

Discounted vegetables, limited-time special bento boxes, buy-one-get-one-free cartons of milk... and the brand-new bracelet her brother had given her.

She first carefully sorted the ingredients and placed them one by one into the tiny refrigerator.

Then she put the discounted bento boxes into the microwave, twisted the timer with a click, and set it for five minutes.

After finishing all that, she eagerly opened the package containing the brand-new bracelet.

"Wait!"

At that critical moment, Natsume Chikage dashed forward to stop her, his voice filled with alarm.

"It's so late. What are you doing?"

Natsume Chikage had planned to wait until tomorrow, since school would not start until the day after next, and find time to buy an identical bracelet. Then he could pull a switch and replace the special "equipment" in his sister's hands!

He had never expected her to want to put it on the moment she got home.

This truly caught him off guard.

Natsume Ruri's long eyelashes fluttered. "Putting on the bracelet."

"...I'm asking why you're putting on a bracelet for no reason when it's so late?" Natsume Chikage coughed.

"You have to try on a newly bought bracelet." Ruri's tone was light, carrying the little calculations unique to a young girl. "If it doesn't fit, I can exchange it or something."

"...That makes sense."

The reasoning was airtight.

Natsume Chikage was instantly left speechless. Alarm bells rang in his head, yet he could find no excuse to stop her.

It seemed there was no way to collect this special equipment for the time being.

Fortunately, though, the bracelet was with his own sister.

There was always a way around a problem. As long as he was patient, he would get his hands on it soon enough!

"Brother, what do you think? Is it pretty?"

Ruri shook her fair hand. The crystals on the bracelet gleamed brilliantly, and her voice carried a hint of excitement and expectation.

"It's pretty!" Natsume Chikage nodded with a helpless smile.

Natsume Ruri was delighted, and she could not help slowly recalling the past.

In the past, her brother had seemed rather gloomy in her eyes. He often stayed in his room playing games, and his grades were terrible.

Even though their father had enrolled him in all sorts of classes—music, chess, calligraphy, painting, and more—he had never shown any particular talent.

It could be said that he was useless at everything, except asking for money.

From then on, their father had more or less given up on him, seeing him as good for nothing.

He basically just sent him money every month, letting him muddle through school while thinking he could find him some position at the company in the future.

But what Ruri had not expected was this.

Ever since the family went bankrupt and their father passed away, her brother had suddenly become much more mature—and much more handsome.

Now, he had even taken the initiative to work part-time and support the family.

In the past, Ruri would never have dared imagine it.

Ding—

The microwave timer went off.

Natsume Ruri came back to her senses. Wearing heat-resistant gloves, she carefully took the two warmed bento boxes from the microwave and placed them on the table.

"Brother, the bento is heated up. You eat first. If it isn't enough, you can have my portion too. I'll just cook some instant noodles for myself."

"No need. One bento is enough for me."

Natsume Chikage took the bento and began eating. As he ate, his left hand flipped through the special equipment he had obtained earlier, Young Boy's Painful Diary.

He briefly read the first page and discovered in surprise that the novel was actually handwritten. Calling it a diary would not be inaccurate.

He just did not know why it had appeared in a secondhand bookstore.

The book was not long. Sitting quietly in his seat, Natsume Chikage finished it within an hour or two.

The diary recounted the life of a high school student troubled by countless problems in a small town, yearning to escape its restraints and go to Tokyo to pursue his dreams.

Yet the tangled web of interpersonal relationships and endless setbacks held him firmly in place.

His timid and indecisive nature eventually wore down his will, leaving him unable to break free from the shackles of fate. He could only accept reality in despair, becoming part of the town—and the kind of person he hated most...

The content made Natsume Chikage deeply uncomfortable.

No wonder it was called Young Boy's Painful Diary.

But thinking of that, Natsume Chikage felt somewhat puzzled.

He truly did not understand why Young Boy's Painful Diary and the One-in-a-Thousand Bracelet were special equipment.

Why were other things not?

Was there some pattern behind this?

Natsume Chikage could not figure it out for the moment, so he did not dwell on it. There was still plenty of time, and perhaps he would have a chance to solve the mystery later.

[Young Boy's Painful Diary]

[Effect: After use, can precisely recall a certain portion of painful memories and will never be able to forget them again. (Two uses remaining)]

[Synthesis Requirement: At least three pieces of equipment of the same type are required.]

[Description: That small town was the boy's abyss and the source of his suffering.]

Chikage pondered it. Although Young Boy's Painful Diary could only be used to recall pain, with a slight change in approach, it could become a key to precisely retrieving memories from his previous life.

After all, this world's novels, films, anime, music, and other entertainment were vastly different from those of his previous life.

Perhaps he could use this equipment to "recreate" those unforgettable works of entertainment from his previous life.

And he happened to remember quite a few classics with heart-wrenching plots and intense emotions.

The Devotion of Suspect X—the sensational bestselling novel that had once caused a massive stir—was one of them!

When he tried using the diary's ability, he was overjoyed to discover that every detail of the entire novel clearly surfaced in his mind, as if it had been welded into his brain, never to be forgotten again.

At that moment, he was ecstatic!

After all, novels that could sell more than a million copies in Japan were exceedingly rare.

Not to mention the already niche mystery genre, where achieving that was even more difficult!

Yet Keigo Higashino's The Devotion of Suspect X had broken through in precisely such circumstances, becoming one of the pillars of Japan's mystery fiction scene!

The moment it was published, its tightly woven and gripping plot swiftly took the market by storm, and sales soared.

Before long, it was adapted for the screen into hit television dramas and films!

Its rights were even eagerly purchased overseas, spawning multiple screen adaptations in different versions.

Even across cultural boundaries, the core impact of The Devotion of Suspect X remained undiminished, and its adaptations achieved enormous success in different countries.

Even today, the novel had not become outdated in the slightest. Its profound themes and intricately tangled plot still kept readers on edge and left them sighing in regret.

Its enduring appeal was proof enough of its extraordinary quality.

The original author, Keigo Higashino, had won both the Honkaku Mystery Award and the Naoki Prize in one stroke with this novel!

Winning these two awards meant receiving full recognition from professional readers and critics alike!

Within Japan's mystery fiction world, these were already the most prestigious awards possible!

Even today, few novels had won both awards at the same time, which showed just how beloved this novel was!

Natsume Chikage looked around the shabby, cramped three-tsubo room.

If he had lived alone, he could still have endured it. But he was not alone now; he and his sister depended on each other.

The two of them squeezed into such a tiny room, and life was unbearably stifling.

He wanted to give his sister a better life. He wanted to redeem their old house. He wanted to buy back the company that had gone bankrupt!

And none of that could be done without money!

If he published The Devotion of Suspect X, one book alone would probably be enough to grant him financial freedom while he was still in high school!

He did not know whether it would be enough to buy back the company, but it would certainly be enough to redeem their former house, which had been worth over a hundred million yen!