Chapter 1 - Mizuki Yumeno

His memories were fuzzy… Or rather, he couldn’t remember anything at all.

He didn’t know who he was.

Looking around him, it felt like he was in an unfamiliar place.

A foul sky he had never seen before, a creepy gloomy room, a collapsed townscape, and he saw no landscape in the distance.

It looked like a world from a horror movie.

Mizuki was in the shadow of a collapsed building.

He tried to get a look at himself.

He wore a slightly dirty hoodie, headphones hanging around his neck, bare feet, and blood on his hoodie.

“What blood was it?” Thinking that, he patted himself all over.

When he reached his ears, he got a revolting feeling.

Now he knew where the blood had come from, but he felt like that wasn’t the end of the story.

Instead of feeling his ears, he felt something warm.

Collecting himself for a moment, he looked down at the bed.

There, a pair of human ears lay, seemingly having been cut off not too long ago.

He immediately realized that they were his own ears.

He had thought that it was strange that he hadn’t heard anything since a while ago… but never would he have expected that he had lost his ears.

“Ahh! Ahhhh… Ughh.”

He remembered the pain and silently complained.

Looking at it closely, there was blood on the bed as well, and it seemed like the bleeding was stopping.

Although he couldn’t hear the clinking sound, he could feel the metal.

He had noticed it when he had moved his arm earlier.

His left wrist was bound in a handcuff.

A chain stretched out from the handcuff and linked something together.

“Ugh.”

At the end of the chain was a girl wearing a black sailor uniform.

He hadn’t noticed her until now.

Her ears were… still attached.

Perplexed, Mizuki watched the girl, who looked like she would wake up at any moment now.

He was worried that there would be a strange misunderstanding from this.

“… Who?”

As soon as the girl woke up, she noticed Mizuki.

The two strangers observed each other carefully.

“…”

Mizuki, who couldn’t hear anything, didn’t hear the girl’s question.

Still, he understood that she had said anything since her mouth had moved.

“Sorry, I don’t have any ears… I don’t know what you’re saying.”

Mizuki said as he pointed at the ears on the floor and at where they should have been on his head.

The girl slapped her hand over her mouth in a surprised manner.

“Err… one moment.”

The girls said while gesturing for him to “wait a moment”.

The girl started looking around her restlessly.

She picked things up and put them down again like she was searching for something.

In her surroundings lay Mizuki’s ears, two empty syringes, a box of medical supplies, two shoulder bags, a knife with blood from having probably cut Mizuki’s ears off, and a broken video camera squashed under her.

“… Found it.”

The girl took out a pen and notepad from one of the shoulder bags.

From watching the girl’s reaction, she didn’t seem to have known the contents of the bag.

“What’s… your name?”

She said at the same time she wrote: “What’s your name?”.

Seeing that, Mizuki showed a troubled expression.

“I don’t know… Let alone my name, what’s here, who cut off my ears, when I came here, I don’t know anything.”

“Huh? … Are you serious? Oh…”

The girl was so surprised that she forgot that Mizuki had lost his hearing.

Flustered, she picked up the pencil and wrote: “Seriously? It might be unbelievable, but I’m the same.”

Mizuki looked at the notepad and opened his eyes wide.

“If that’s the case, then this is troubling. First off… Let’s… Check the luggage.”

Mizuki said and carefully reached out to one of the shoulder bags.

In that instant, the girl slapped his shoulder.

Surprised, Mizuki turned around to face her.

The girl was writing something on her notepad.

“Yes?”

The girl handed over the notepad and a student card.

“This was in my pocket, my name and school are written on it.”

After reading the note, he looked at the student card.

Looking only at the important places,

Yamanashi First Junior High School, Year 3 Class A, Yua Kanzaki.

Other than that, there were only her portrait and unnecessary information.

She was then a girl called Yua Kanzaki who lived in Yamanashi prefecture.

Even only learning that was sufficient.

“Huh?”

Mizuki received another note.

“Maybe you have one too?”

He hurriedly fumbled with his clothes.

“… Found it.”

He took out the student card from the wallet in his pocket.

Yamanashi First Junior High, Year 3 Class A, Mizuki Yumeno.

Apparently, he and the girl―Yua―were in the same class.

“Nice to meet you, Mizuki.”

The girl―Yua―held out her hand for a handshake.

Knowing she said “Nice to meet you”, Mizuki clasped Yua’s hand full of nerves and vigilance.

This was the beginning of Mizuki Yumeno’s story of experiencing love and madness, and eventually falling into despair.