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V11 Story I – Part 07

“Oh, it’s you. It went very well.”

It was Mikage, whistling gleefully as she tossed something high into the air—a golden brooch with an eyeball inside. My eyes widened. Why did she have that?

“Perfect timing. Let’s dispose of it here.”

Without warning, she hurled the brooch against the wall, shattering the glass. The eyeball rolled to the floor, and formalin solution splashed. She brought her foot down at the cloudy, fragile eyeball, crushing it. After relentlessly smashing her own left eye, she picked up the remains.

“I’ll throw it into the fireplace. You’re the witness. With this, we have achieved our objective.”

Resuming her whistling, Mikage cheerfully walked away, leaving me behind.

I dashed into the corner room. Inside sat a woman, the younger sister of the siblings who had been huddling together. Her shoulders, covered by a shawl, quivered as she toyed with something in front of her emotionlessly.

Her hands were soaked in blood. Upon closer look, there was another person in front of her. Mayuzumi, crouching down, was studying something. The two girls earnestly observed it from both sides.

In the center lay the dead body of a man with his belly torn open.

The woman pulled her arm out of his belly and, without hesitation, wiped her hands with the shawl before looking up. Our eyes met, and for a few seconds, she seemed hesitant to say anything.

“The door was wide open, so I entered,” she said. “Then I found him dead.”

That seemed to be explanation enough for her. She turned back to the body. Fearfully, I looked at the corpse. It was Tatenashi. His face bore traces of agony.

He didn’t seem to have committed suicide. He had been killed, his belly ripped open.

The woman continued her intrusive exploration of his belly with heightened intensity. Each organ underwent meticulous scrutiny under her fingers. Abruptly, she froze, and lifted her emotionless face.

“The liver and a portion of the lungs are gone,” she told me.

I stood there with my mouth agape, unable to process what I just heard. Missing organs? Shock momentarily delayed my response. She shifted her attention away from me, maintaining her dispassionate demeanor as she addressed Mayuzumi.

“The organs have been removed. They’re missing. Do you understand?”

“I see. I wonder where they could have gone.”

Mayuzumi got up slowly, walking past me toward the door. I hurriedly followed. She entered the dining room. The red tablecloth looked like a pool of blood, paralyzing me on the spot. But the bloodied cloth had been replaced. The grand chandelier was gone, leaving only traces of the feast.

I hastened my steps to keep up with Mayuzumi. She entered the kitchen without hesitation.

She approached the large refrigerator and opened it, releasing a blast of cold air. Peering inside, I saw a piece of meat lying on a plate.

Mayuzumi squeezed the soft red thing between her porcelain fingers, examining its shape. She chuckled.

“This is a part of a lung,” she said, tossing it onto a plate.

It had been chilling in the refrigerator. Why was Tatenashi’s lung kept there? I felt nauseous as I studied the chilled meat. And then came the natural question.

The lungs were there, but where was the liver?

“Where could the liver have gone?” I muttered in disbelief.

Mayuzumi said nothing. Some of his organs had vanished.

---

Mayuzumi and I returned to the body. The remaining guests were gathered in Tatenashi’s room. The sister was seated on the bed. Next to her, the brother sat cross-legged, holding her hand. The old woman sat on the floor.

Mikage was studying Tatenashi’s body up close. When she noticed us, she lifted her gaze and snorted.

“I’m in a great mood,” she said. “I thought about giving him a kiss as a souvenir for the afterlife, but I changed my mind.”

She moved away from the corpse. I looked around at everyone. I knew what I was about to say would be horribly out of place, but I decided to speak up.

“Don’t you think we should call the police? Someone has been killed. The dinner party should be canceled.”

“Ah. So you are stupid!” Mikage clapped her hands together.

Mayuzumi nodded, agreeing with her assessment. Trembling nervously, the old woman looked at me.

“What the hell are you talking about?!” she cried shrilly, spitting everywhere. “I won’t allow any cancellation! I’ve already disposed of my assets. I won’t let you cancel it!”

She chewed on her left hand’s fingernails, chipping them. I glanced at the siblings on the bed. Tilting her head slightly, the sister pointed to her brother.

“Do you think… we can go home?”

The brother bared his teeth, glaring fiercely at me as if seeing an enemy. I pulled my eyes away from his twisted face. Finally, I looked at Mayuzumi. She returned my gaze with a pitying smile.

“Listen, Odagiri-kun,” she said tenderly. “Your cellphone won’t work. Only the organizer can make calls. Anyway, that’s a strange thing to say. Think about it. What’s the difference between suicide and murder?”

“Murder involves a killer. I don’t understand why you all can remain so calm.”

“But in the end, both lead to death. If the final result is the same, the problem lies in the process,” Mayuzumi said indifferently, raising one arm to indicate the three guests.

Blank eyes stared back at me. I grasped the abnormality of the situation. They were controlled by their appetites.

“Their biggest worry is whether they can still eat in this mess. If the dinner party goes on, they won’t have any objections. But if the culprit’s killing was random, we can’t just sit back and relax. Seems like that’s not the case either.”

Mayuzumi wore a distant look. I clenched my fists tightly. Her reasoning seemed unfounded to me. But I had my own concerns. Occasionally, the mad banquet from my dream flashed before my eyes. I felt sick at my own thoughts.

“But his lungs were stored in the fridge,” I said.

“…And?”

“There’s a chance that the liver was missing to begin with. But the lungs are different. What if they were chilled for later consumption?”

I worried that one of the three might not be able to suppress their appetite. Another scene flashed in my mind. In the nightmare’s climax, the cook was holding a knife. Wasn’t it me he was about to butcher?

“The lung was in the fridge, but not the liver?” Mikage wondered. “Wait a minute. What’s going on?”

“Part of his lungs were cut out and stored in the fridge. And there was no liver… it might have been missing from the start, but the lungs, at least, were taken out by someone.”

My response left Mikage wide-eyed. She gazed hard at Tatenashi’s body and shook her head.

“His liver was missing from the start? No, that’s unlikely. If he had it removed and it hasn’t regenerated yet, it means the surgery was recent or very reckless. Like me, he despised doctors to an extreme degree. Regardless of what I foresaw, I intended to get rid of my eye, so I kept a close eye on him. But I heard nothing about hospitalization or surgery.”

“Wait… so…”

Where could the liver have disappeared to? Was it already eaten by someone? I glanced at Mayuzumi.

She remained silent, wearing an unusually troubled expression.

“Well, then. What do we do?” she murmured with a frown. “It would be nice if we could achieve our goal without problems.”

She looked towards Mikage for apparently no reason, then turned her attention to the corpse.

A heavy silence descended. The corpse lay untouched, and the situation came at a standstill.

Before I could speak, an oddly large figure appeared at the entrance. The cook regarded all of us, then opened her crooked lips.

“Is Kaya-sama present?”

“That’s… me.”

The sister raised her pale hand. The cook strode past the corpse and approached her.

Despite the gruesome sight before us, the organizers showed no signs of agitation. My mind was a jumbled mess, but the situation unfolded steadily.

The cook respectfully handed her a card. “Congratulations. You have been bestowed the second-highest honor. Please rejoice. The young lady’s meal will be served late at night. If you wish, you may have a light meal beforehand.”

The cook turned, and in a smooth motion grabbed Tatenashi’s ankle, dragging him away as if he were a mere object. Tatenashi’s head rocked back and forth, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. I was too stunned to react to the sudden turn of events. The cook stopped at the door and bowed.

“If you prefer not to go to the dining hall, we will bring you an aperitif at dinnertime. That would be all. Excuse me.”

With that, he disappeared down the hallway. The body collided with the door. Several seconds later, I snapped out of it. I left Mayuzumi and the others in the room and quickly followed the cook.

“Wait, please!” I shouted.

But deep down, I knew there was no point in trying to stop him.