COTE : Parasite in Love.

Chapter 8 : Museum

*DON’T MISS THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER!

It was his weekly shopping day. Holding shopping bags in both hands, Ayanokouji walked down the road lit by streetlights. Water that had faintly pooled in places on the road shone darkly. The air was clear, and you could see even small stars with the naked eye.

He saw a middle-aged man sitting on a roadside bench encircled by trees. When the man saw Ayanokouji, he put his can of coffee on the bench and stood up.

“Hey,” Tsukishiro said, raising a hand.

“Looks heavy. Need a hand?”

“I’m fine.” Ayanokouji turned him down. “…Checking on my progress?”

“Well, more or less.”

Tsukishiro was in his usual get-up, a drab Chester coat over a suit. Did he not have any other coats? Or maybe he decided to always wear this when he met Ayanokouji? Or maybe it was simply that he didn’t care at all about clothes.

Tsukishiro sat back on the bench and glanced at Ayanokouji’s shopping bags. “I’ve been wondering, what does a clean freak eat?”

“Cereal, nutritional foodstuff, tofu, canned goods, frozen vegetables…” Ayanokouji listed off the contents of his bags. “There’s a lot I won’t eat, sure, but I’m not particularly limited. And I don’t generally eat a lot.”

“Meat? Sashimi? Raw vegetables?”

“I hate oily things, so I can’t eat meat. Sashimi is a definite no. I can eat raw vegetables if I clean them well and cook them myself. Though I don’t think about wanting to eat them because I like to.”

“Alcohol?”

“I’ll drink only whiskey, if I’m told to.”
But that only applies to medicine-esque whiskey like Laphroaig and Bowmore, Ayanokouji thought to himself.

“Well, that’s good,” Tsukishiro nodded, finding it plausible. “There’s lots of people who can’t drink whiskey and aren’t clean freaks. In that sense, you’re pretty lucky.”

Ayanokouji sat down beside Tsukishiro and put his bags on the ground. The cans in the bag clinked up against each other. After pulling the face mask dampened by his breathing down to his chin, he spoke.

“The reason Hiyori hasn’t been attending school is scopophobia.”

After a few seconds, Tsukishiro asked, “Did you hear that from her mouth?”

“Yeah. Her headphones seem to be for easing her symptoms.”

“…Hard to believe,” Tsukishiro said doubtfully. “Did Shina Hiyori really say that? This isn’t just some guess of yours, is it?”

“Have you not heard anything from her?”, Ayanokouji inquired.

“She won’t tell me anything about herself. It’s a total mystery.”

I see, Ayanokouji thought to himself. From Tsukishiro’s face just now, he could surely conclude that there was some level of communication between Tsukishiro and Hiyori.

“She happened to have an episode of scopophobia and called me for help. If it hadn’t been for that, I probably wouldn’t have been able to find out for quite some time.”

“She called for help?”, Tsukishiro repeated, as if struck off-guard. “This is shaping up to be a hell of a surprise. Can’t tell what’ll happen with you. And I figured you had the least promise of anybody I’d hired to date…”

“She probably had no one else to depend on then but me. I was just lucky.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it. You’re the first person to find out why Hiyori hasn’t been going to school. Until now, no matter how weak-hearted she’s been, she’s never revealed her scopophobia to anyone except relatives. In other words, she trusts you as much as a relative.”