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My Favorite Thing is the Secret Art: Swallow Reversal. My Special Skill is the Secret Art: Swallow Reversal. My Hobby is the Secret Art: Swallow Reversal – Part 05

It was about a month before I met Haruna—May 26th. A little past 1 a.m., I went to the convenience store. I didn’t have anything I specifically wanted, just felt like clearing my head.

That’s when I spotted her, sitting quietly in the empty parking lot. Not a single car around.

Up until that moment, I’d never been that interested in girls. Watching the loud, giggling girls in class never made me feel like I wanted to hang out with them. I guess I’d been chasing some fantasy.

But that night, I ran into someone who looked like a character straight out of a work of fantasy.

She had silver hair so radiant the whole world might envy it, and she wore armor and gauntlets.

Of course, I’d never seen a girl dressed like that before. Not exactly the kind of outfit you’d wear to a convenience store.

There was something otherworldly about her, and she was beautiful. I was pulled in like a bee drawn to the scent of a flower.

Normally, I would’ve just thought, What a weirdo, and slipped into the store without making eye contact. But this time, I stopped. That’s how much she grabbed my attention.

Our eyes met. She stared right at me.

She looked like a doll. That was the only way I could describe her. Her features were so perfect, she could’ve stepped out of a manga or anime. Even with her youthful face, there was a kind of quiet elegance in those deep blue eyes.

I gathered my courage and stepped toward her. For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to talk to a girl.

I remembered something Orito once told me: “Weird behavior catches a girl’s attention.”

All right, then.

“Excuse me, do you believe in Princess Mononoke?”^[1]

She looked away. So much for my first contact.

Crap. That was a disaster. What now? I’d ruined the moment. How do I fix this? Oh, right! If I nailed a round-off into a moonsault, I’d totally earn points.

I quickly backed away, took a deep breath, and broke into a run. Cartwheel. That was good. I got momentum now.

As soon as my feet hit the ground, I launched into a double tucked backflip with a twist.

Snap.

Aaagh! My ankle! I totally botched the round-off.

I glanced at the girl. Her shoulders were quivering. Maybe she was scared. Made sense. Some random guy pulling stunts out of nowhere would terrify anyone. I should’ve known better than to trust Orito’s advice.

I covered my face with both hands. Now that I really thought about it, what I just did was downright embarrassing.

Then, I felt a tug on my shirt sleeve.

I moved my hands and saw her looking at me with a completely blank expression. She didn’t say a word. She just stared into my face. Her blue eyes were so deep, it felt like they could pull out your soul.

Standing in the glow of the convenience store lights, she pulled a pen and notepad from her skirt pocket, tore off a page… and showed me what she’d written.

“That was funny.”

It caught me completely off guard. So her shoulders shaking earlier… she was laughing?

All right. This time, I’d try one of Orito’s recent jokes. I raised both hands.

“So don’t ever do it again.”

Oh, come on! I dropped my hands onto my head and ruffled my hair.

“Who are you?”

Same expression, same gaze. But this time, they had a sharper edge, like she was being cautious.

“Just a nice guy passing by.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Fair enough. So, what kind of person do I look like to you?”

She paused and thought for a long time. She was frozen, like someone had pulled her batteries. Just as I was about to say something, she tore off another note.

“No matter how you look at it, a shady idiot.”

I burst out laughing. She wasn’t wrong. I really did look like a shady idiot.

She never said a single word the whole time, but her right hand did plenty of talking. I wasn’t sure how long we spent there, just going back and forth.

I’d never imagined talking to a cute girl could be this fun. Being alone had always felt good, but this… this was nice too. Meeting Eu taught me that.

Looking back on it now, I think that was the moment I started having a soft spot for girls.

I cut the conversation off at a good point, waved her goodbye, then headed home.

“Take care.”

Eu didn’t wave back. Her silver hair just fluttered in the warm breeze.

I stopped right before the final corner to my house. While staring up at the eerie, starless sky, something caught my eye.

A second-floor window with the lights off. Something was stuck to it.

Wondering what it was, I squinted. A hair-raising feeling of disgust settled within me.

Is that… blood?

Smeared across the glass was a thick red splatter, like someone had hurled a tomato at the window.

The words serial dismemberment murders flashed through my mind.

A chill crawled up my spine. Fighting the urge to run, I pulled out my phone. Gotta call the ambulance. Or wait, maybe the cops?

My fingers trembled. My heart pounded. My throat tightened.

Just as I was about to hit the call button, I heard it clearly.

A scream. A human scream.

Someone inside that house was being attacked. Who knew how long it would take for the cops to get here? I looked around, but no one else was in sight.

So it was either… run. Or help. When in doubt, choose the braver path.

I held my breath as I stood at the front door of a stranger’s home.

The door wasn’t locked. I eased it open and slipped inside. If this turned out to not be a murder scene, then I’d basically just broken in. Great. As I crept through the unlit hallway, I finally managed to think straight again.

What the hell was I doing? There was no way I could help. What was I planning to do if I actually did find the killer? Was I stupid? I wasn’t going to make it in time. I’d come here just to die.

And the fear multiplied. This was bad. Really bad.

I tried desperately to silence the pounding in my chest and moved my numb legs. I had to get out. Quietly. Without making a sound.

I pressed a hand to the wall, careful not to make even the slightest noise.

All right. If I could just reach the front door and yell, the killer might not be able to do anything.

I turned the knob slowly. Huh?

My body wouldn’t move. I wasn’t playing Red Light Green Light. It wasn’t fear locking my legs in place. My entire body was frozen solid like time itself had stopped.

Clack.

My heart leapt. It wasn’t me. I couldn’t have made a sound. After all, I couldn’t move.

Clink.

The ring of metal. That definitely wasn’t me. Then who made it?

A sharp, icy pressure touched my back.

Please no.

I shrank inward. A stabbing pain.

Something sharp ran straight through me. I looked down and saw the weapon. Something resembling a sword.

I couldn’t breathe. My lungs, my body, my head—everything burned.

With a forceful shove, the blade wrenched free from my back, and a spray of blood gushed out.

My whole body went limp, and I collapsed to the floor. The last thing I saw in my fading consciousness was a long-haired person holding something long and thin in both hands.

“Don’t die.”

The moment those words filled my mind, I found myself in a cemetery. That same favorite spot of mine. Standing in front of me was that girl in her bizarre outfit. It was Eu.

“It’s… you. Am I alive?”

I touched my chest. The wound was wide open, but I didn’t feel any pain. Just a weird sensation inside me, like someone was zipping me up from the inside.

“You’re dead.”

That was what she wrote on the notepad. Brutal.

“Was it you?”

I was asking if she was the one who killed me.

“Yes. I made it so you wouldn’t die.”

So she wasn’t the culprit. She saved me. That made sense. If she was the one who stabbed me, there’d be no reason to let me live.

“Wait, what? So I’m a zombie now or something? You a necromancer or what?” I was freaking out. The situation was too absurd.

Eu looked me straight in the eye and gave a firm nod.

No way.

“Hold on. Wait a sec. Does the person who attacked me know I’m still alive? Are they still out there looking for me? God, don’t tell me they’re still after me.”

I was spiraling. I couldn’t even track what I was saying anymore.

Eu handed me a note. “Don’t worry. I’m with you.”

Her eyes, blue as the sky, looked strangely dependable just then.

“Someone is after me, too. So it’s better if we don’t stay alone.”

That just makes me not want to be around you.

Of course, I wasn’t heartless enough to say that to the girl who just saved my life. Better to stick with her than go home alone and spend the night flinching at shadows.

There were a lot of things I didn’t get, and even more I couldn’t accept, but I didn’t have the energy to keep asking. I was still shaking from the fear of being killed.

But along with that fear, something just as strong lingered in my mind. A foggy bitterness I couldn’t shake.

Who the hell killed me?

I never cared much when I saw this kind of thing on the news. But once it happened to me, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I’m gonna find them. No matter what.

And so, I became a zombie.

From that day on, my life turned supernatural.

Bad side? Freakish creatures I’d never seen before started coming to my house to kill Eu, and I somehow ended up fighting them off.

Good side? Girls so impossibly pretty they looked like they walked out of a dream started showing up at my place, one after another.

All the stuff I thought could never happen started happening.

“If something has a chance of happening, then someday, it will.”

Maybe this kind of thing never really had a 0% chance to begin with. If the chance wasn’t zero, then eventually, it was going to happen. Somewhere.

And I guess, for whatever reason, that somewhere just happened to be around me. And the chance? Pretty damn high.