Pathway to Japanese Literature

Let me preface this by saying that in this story, characters would be dropping like flies one after another—or perhaps it would have been more accurate to say they'd be systematically slaughtered.
In this regard, I believed readers of detective fiction who'd been thirsting for blood since The Tragedy of the Greene Family would find it thoroughly satisfying.
But while one might overlook this in a novel—in this story that claimed to be no less than a true account, even if preserved as one of those secret tales people treasured—the sheer number of characters dropping dead one after another made one feel as though they were watching some absurd modern swashbuckler play.
Yet if you listened to this secret tale with such complacency and underestimated modern society's dangers, you invited a colossal mistake.
For instance, consider the numbers of tragic deaths from automobile accidents in present-day America.
Thirty thousand living souls were being devoured each year by this convenient mechanical civilization.
In Japan too, Your Excellency Viscount Hamao had been crying out, "Automobile-related manslaughter regulations must be made more stringent!"
It wasn't just mechanical civilization.
Every advancement of scientific civilization, while providing humanity with life's "conveniences," had never failed to throw in murder's "conveniences" as an added bonus.
The Japanese people had historically lacked scientific knowledge in great measure, and even then still struggled mightily to assimilate it.
But among young Japanese, a great many individuals richly versed in scientific knowledge had emerged.
There were often times when one was startled by the scientific knowledge possessed by young boys and girls.
It seemed there had been a tremendous increase in young men and women making their living by tending to scientific equipment in factories.
For young people, scientific knowledge became a weapon.
They might put their scientific knowledge to good use when something occurred, but at the same time would prove unable to resist the temptation to misuse it.
In fact, for some among them, murder would have been easier than twisting a baby's hand.
However, the reason such scientific murder cases were rarely reported in society stemmed partly from the fact that while these individuals understood how easily murder could be committed, they lacked interest in it nor understood its allure.
Secondly, it was also due to their methods being flawless—both in how the crimes remained completely undetectable and in how no evidence stayed behind to identify the perpetrators even when discovered...

But no—I’d foolishly been spouting this ‘thesis’ of mine, though in truth its essence had first been articulated by Okabe Mitataro—that ‘electrophobia patient’ I’m about to describe—long before it ever occurred to me. Having been his original audience, I’d since become deeply sympathetic to his views and worked to propagate them, yet truly this Okabe Mitataro stood as the perfect embodiment of our modern age where scientific murder had become so convenient.

As Okabe still maintained, murder could be easily committed in this modern age—yet he himself had loathed arithmetic and science since elementary school, having excessively strained his nerves with algebra, plane geometry, solid geometry, trigonometry, and physical chemistry during middle school, ultimately graduating from K University’s finance department three years prior as a “spoiled young master.”

Here was a man diametrically opposed to scientific knowledge, cursing it with extraordinary vehemence—even as this very sage who decried murder’s newfound convenience remained utterly convinced they’d inevitably use those same conveniences on him someday. That he’d surely be murdered long before reaching his natural lifespan made him a truly troublesome case indeed.

While this scholar did express trepidation toward mechanical civilization, what proved more vexing was his absolute terror of electrical civilization.

Where mechanical civilization concerned automobiles, trains, or trolleys (he’d once nearly been run over by a clay-laden trolley in the suburbs), their sounds or speeding forms at least signaled danger through auditory or visual senses—rendering them relatively safe.

In stark contrast flowed electrical civilization—its currents invisible to eye and ear alike.

Touch it by accident? A jolting buzz would spell your end.

The instant one perceived electricity’s presence? Electrocution death—your heart already stilled mid-beat.

A stopped heart differs from clocks—it won’t restart.

By the time electricity entered your awareness? Your life had already been severed.

Could anything exist more heartlessly cruel?

Moreover, the Metropolitan Police Department had implemented no means to indicate live currents.

Electric wires all came gray or black—scarcely distinguishable from tarnished copper.

These inconspicuous hues meant people carelessly grabbed live wires or electrified corrugated fences unawares.

These perilous wires now sprawled like spiderwebs through humanity’s last sanctuary—the home itself.

Lamps! Heaters! Coffee boilers! Cigarette lighters! Electric foot warmers! Soldering irons! Murder risks multiplied through electricity-infested tools proliferating daily.

Most horrifying? Nearly all such appliances were metal—electricity’s perfect conductor.

Why deliberately choose such perilous metal? What exactly was the Metropolitan Police Department’s Security Division doing? —Okabe Mitataro would shake his ashen face vehemently in outrage.

Regarding Okabe’s electrophobia symptoms—since discussing them here would prove endless—I wished to conclude at this point.

“I’m definitely going to be killed by electricity,” he would repeat like a mantra.
Each time, Haru-chan—that waitress at Café Neon and a central figure in the “Café Neon Tragedy”—would taunt him with remarks like, “There goes Mr. O’s favorite act again.
“If you’re that worried, why not ask Iwata’s Kyo-bon to electrocute you properly once and for all, Mr. O?” came her shrill voice rising in pitch.
This Iwata’s Kyo-bon—real name Kyoshiro—was the young proprietor of an electrical shop about a block from Café Neon. Having handled the wiring for lights and heaters during the café’s neon installation phase, he’d since become something of a special patron—sometimes visiting to sip whiskey as a customer, other times returning as their electrician for tasks like expanding the power system or installing the controversial neon signboard.
Of course, being a young man, it went without saying he’d taken a fancy to one of the pretty waitresses.
Though the conversation seemed to veer off course whenever such remarks about Kyo-bon electrocuting him arose, Mr. Okabe would flatten himself against the corner wainscoting to distance himself from the group, eyes bulging wide.
At that moment Haru-chan would cry, “Look! A flashlight!
“Look—electricity!” she’d say, jabbing Okabe’s side lightly and sending him leaping back a meter with a yelp. Finding his reactions endlessly entertaining, she employed this method periodically to alleviate boredom.
The other waitresses proved equally mischievous, abandoning their own customers to come watch the spectacle.
When the commotion grew too raucous, Suzue—a waitress resembling an apprentice geisha—would approach the group pale-faced.
“Cut it out with the shrieking—it gives me the creeps,” she’d say.
At this Haru-chan would fix Suzue with a glare as if to shout something down, only to swallow her words and fall silent.
Sensing the shift in atmosphere, everyone would grow quiet and scatter back to their stations—a routine that had become customary.
Observing this scene while pretending not to was Kei-san—the counter manager and head waiter.
This was Torii Keizo, thirty-five years old and senior-most among Café Neon’s current staff.
The man nursed a secret affection for Haru-chan.
Though given she was Neon’s prima donna, there wasn’t a soul among customers or employees who didn’t harbor hopes of securing some rosy opportunity with her if possible.
Kei-san would conceal his white jacket behind liquor bottles while feigning absorption in organizing tasks, then summon Suzue into that shadowed space to admonish her in an unsettling tone: “Don’t go saying things that’ll upset Haru-chan.”
The amusing part came when Haru-chan noticed—she’d dart before Kei-san like a swallow and snap: “Quit meddling, Suu-chan! Scram over there...”
Kei-san would simply smirk wordlessly as the scene concluded—a recurring pattern.

Kei-san, seemingly unwilling to let the scene end there, slipped into the backstage cook’s room and began engaging in idle chatter with Kichiko, the cook.
Kichiko was the nickname for Sobue Haruyoshi—a name that would have naturally lent itself to “Haru-kō” or similar variants. However, due to the preexisting presence of a waitress called “Haru-chan” at the café before his arrival, Haruyoshi came to be referred to not as “Haru-kō” but as “Kichiko.”
Kei-san and Kichiko were on relatively good terms, and as Café Neon’s entire male staff, they found themselves—pitiful as it was—utterly outmatched by the women’s brigade: eight waitresses assigned to the first floor and seven to the second, totaling fifteen.

Amidst such scenes being repeated with deceptively ordinary surfaces at Café Neon, a black cloud of catastrophe suddenly descended upon the establishment.

It was an incident that occurred at midnight in early February—a cold so severe it could freeze the moon creaking as it crept across the eaves.
In the third-floor bedroom of Café Neon, Haru-chan had been brutally murdered.
In that bedroom apart from Haru-chan slept four waitresses with pillows scattered haphazardly; yet strangely they remained completely unaware of Haru-chan's murder until eleven o'clock in the morning.
Just before that hour counter manager Kei-san arrived for work, roused Kichiko—who had been sleeping alone in the downstairs kitchen—and charged up to the third-floor women's dormitory only to meet stubborn resistance from those preferring sleep over disturbed futons. Retreating meekly downstairs he began opening windows in their stead when thirty minutes later the three-story building shook thunderously as four surviving waitresses came screaming down.
Their appearance defied description.
It was a grotesque spectacle laying bare how comedy and tragedy dwell side by side.
The four waitresses were Suzue Fumiko Ochiyo and Toshiko—all veteran members.

When they went up to the third floor, Harumi—who had been sleeping by the window on the floor—lay dead on her back, her white chest thrust unnaturally upward.
Beneath her left breast stood a single dagger vertically upright, resembling the heavenly inverted spear.
A dusky pool of blood had spread across half her chest and seemed to flow down toward her armpit.
Her right breast—gripped tightly in her own right hand—showed no visible damage.
Yet judging from her overall posture, she appeared to have died instantly and lay neatly arranged within her futon.
After killing her, the culprit had neatly pulled the futon over her head from above, likely delaying discovery.
This explained why even Kei-san—who had visited the room once that morning—failed to notice anything amiss.

The Metropolitan Police Department’s investigation began.
The corpse was immediately sent to the university and autopsied.
As a result, it was determined that she had been killed between 2:00 and 3:00 AM in the early hours.
The cause of death was stabbing, and the blade had cleanly reached the heart.
Furthermore, there existed signs of assault around the time of death; however, considering the victim's posture, it was more logical to conclude that these were inflicted postmortem.
Of course, it was evident that the motive for the crime stemmed from a romantic entanglement.
However, the murderer’s identity remained frustratingly unclear.

First of all, absolutely no evidence was left behind.
No fingerprints were on the dagger’s handle either.
Since the victim died instantly without resistance, the culprit didn’t tear off any part of their clothing.
The corpse’s right hand was moved away from her right breast, and upon re-examining the palm, no abnormalities were found there either—it was observed that Haru-chan had simply been gripping her breast.
Kei-san and Kichiko underwent rigorous interrogation but naturally managed not to give themselves away.
However, the basis for their alibis was somewhat flimsy.
For Kei-san—a widower at the time—it was claimed he was sleeping with his two soundly sleeping children; as for Kichiko, while he indeed went to bed at 1 AM and rose at 10 AM—sleeping throughout that period—he was a single man with no means to prove it.
The women were also investigated, but they all claimed they were sound asleep due to daytime fatigue, and no compelling facts emerged from their statements regarding the time around Haru-chan’s murder.
According to the testimony of Fumiko—the oldest among the waitresses—after closing time, she had gone to Café Neon’s villa (though calling it that made it sound respectable; in reality, it was the residence of the café’s owner, Kitamura Jirō, designed to accommodate about five waitresses and said to exist for their “special transactions”) three blocks away to handle a matter related to clothing. After completing her errand, she returned to the café and went to bed at 1:30 AM.
At that time, Harumi and the four waitresses were already asleep, but Fumiko found Harumi’s sleeping figure oddly gaunt and grew suspicious. When she drew closer to inspect it properly, she stated that Harumi’s body was gone—sleeping garments and pillows had been arranged in its place.
This became the sole reference material for the Metropolitan Police Department.
Harumi had gone somewhere and was not in bed by 1:30 AM.
What could Harumi have been doing at that time?

The search for Harumi’s customers and lovers was meticulously conducted.
Okabe Mitataro and Kyo-bun of Iwata were also among those investigated.
They were reportedly asleep at home as well, and no significant evidence was discovered.
The case had literally plunged deeper into the labyrinth.

Harumi’s seventh-day memorial service arrived.
That night, another tragedy unfolded on the third floor of Café Neon.
The one who drew the unlucky lot was that middle-aged waitress named Fumiko.
The murder circumstances perfectly replicated those of Haru-chan’s previous brutal killing, as if captured in a photograph.
If one were to forcibly point out the differing points, it would be as follows.

1. The waitresses sleeping in the same room consisted of three familiar faces from last time—Suzue, Ochiyo, and Toshiko—with two new additions: Kiyoko and Kaoru.

2. No signs of assault were discovered on victim Fumiko's body.
3. Unlike in Harumi's case, victim Fumiko was not gripping her right breast with her right hand; her right hand had been properly extended.

4. Victim Fumiko’s bedding was not by the outward-facing window as in Harumi’s case; instead, she had been sleeping at the edge of the wall, rotated ninety degrees clockwise from that position.

(Incidentally, the one sleeping in Harumi’s position had been Suzue.)

In all other points, everything remained identical—strangely enough, the time of murder, the dagger’s dimensions, and the location of the fatal wound were all the same—with only the depth of the wound reported to be slightly greater.

In the day or two following the second tragedy, I will now recount a few peculiar details that came to my attention.

“What, are you asking me to spell out what role you played in this incident? It’s already perfectly clear.”
“If you just hear it out to the end, it’ll all make sense anyway.”
“No matter who I am, it shouldn’t make any difference to how this story unfolds.”

There was one matter Suzue was questioned about by the investigation section chief.
It was a question regarding whether Fumiko—the second victim—had ever mentioned developing a boil or sustaining an injury during her lifetime, in relation to the adhesive bandage affixed near her shoulder.
Suzue answered that she did not know.
The same question was next posed to Ochiyo.
Ochiyo frowned with her thin, plucked eyebrows as if trying to recall something, then said, “It seems Fuu-chan didn’t have any boils or wounds on her neck. Around noon that day, we went to Jakotsu Bathhouse together and scrubbed each other’s backs, you see.”
“I noticed a small mole on Fuu-chan’s neck, so I decided to play a little prank and vigorously scrubbed her neck there.”
“Fuu-chan said, ‘You’re hurting me—it’ll make me bleed!’ But then she laughed and said, ‘This little mole just won’t come off, no matter what!’ I think I looked carefully at the time, but… I don’t recall seeing any wound or boil there…” she testified.
Kiyoko, Kaoru, and Toshiko also answered in turn that they did not know.

After this interrogation concluded, such a conversation was heard taking place among the officers.

“I removed the adhesive bandage from Fumiko’s neck, but the hole was quite deep.”
“We’ve applied iodine tincture, but it seems slightly different from a boil scar. Have them add a note to the university’s autopsy report to specify what disease the hole indicates.”

“Strange, isn’t it? In Harumi’s case too, there was a small adhesive bandage stuck on her neck, wasn’t there?”

“What? Is that true?”
“Hmm... Then perhaps this hole relates to the crime.”
“But if so, that means the culprit applied the adhesive bandage.”
“Damn—I messed up.”
“I threw away that bandage.”
“If we’d examined it under a microscope—even if the culprit wore gloves—the rubber’s stickiness would’ve caught dozens of glove fibers. We might’ve gotten a lead.”
“What a stupid mistake.”

The section chief’s lament appeared to be far from ordinary.

Another intriguing fact was that on the afternoon of the day Fumiko died, Okabe Mitataro had abruptly pushed open the café’s door and entered.
At the Metropolitan Police Department, given that the evidence in the successive murder cases was exceedingly sparse—so much so that, depending on one’s perspective, the culprit’s remarkably thorough preparation seemed to stand out—they had ordered that Café Neon must not cease operations until some lead could be obtained.
And so Fumiko’s body was to have all funeral arrangements handled at the villa, while Café Neon had its usual dim pink electric lights on from daytime as always.
Unaware of anything, Okabe Mitataro had slipped narrowly through the stationed detectives without realizing it and settled into his usual seat.
Then Suzue came hurrying out from the back and plopped down in front of Okabe. “O-san, it’s terrible!
“Even if I tell you, don’t raise your voice.”
“Early this morning, Fuu-chan was killed again.”
“Yes, on the third floor... using the same method as before...”
“So,” she continued, glancing around while lowering her voice further, “there are detectives stationed both outside *and* inside our place. You better not go making any strange noises, got it?” She glared at him gently.

To begin with, it seemed Suzue had grown absurdly close to Okabe—that decent man—after Haru-chan’s death.
This woman would one moment present the appearance of a junior geisha, then speak with the diction of a middle-aged matron.
She appeared to have aged far beyond what her face and figure suggested.
At present, Okabe seemed to have forgotten Haru-chan as completely as a fading dream; the sight of him sharing deepest confidences with Suzue made for an unsavory social spectacle when observed from without.

“Suu-chan. Around what time was Fuu-chan killed this morning?”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure, but they say it was between two and three o’clock. Why—?”

“Then 2:20 AM—yes, that’s it,” Okabe exclaimed, his eyes suddenly widening as he brought his trembling slender hand to his forehead. “Suu-chan, this café is cursed. You should move out somewhere else soon.”
“I saw it.”
“I saw it with my own eyes—and the time was exactly 2:20 AM, the very moment Fumi-chan was killed.”

“O-san.”
“You know something—spit it out.”
“Tell me. Everything. Right now.”

“No—it’s horrifying.”
“You see, that electric signboard hanging on the third floor of Café Neon isn’t just any ordinary signboard.”
“It’s alive!”
“It’s true—it’s alive!”
“That electric signboard must have a human soul transferred into it!”
“It’s definitely that thing!”

“What kind of sleep-talking nonsense are you saying?”
“Hurry up and tell me already—what you supposedly saw this morning... Could it be that you, O-san, came to this house this morning…?”

“They should destroy that electric signboard as soon as possible.”
“Hey, Suu-chan—that electric signboard always draws the ‘Café Neon’ letters in pink lines.”
“That neon sign isn’t the blinking type like regular Jintan ad towers.”
“And they leave that signboard lit all night every night.”
“My place is thirteen blocks away, but being on a hill—I can see that neon sign plain as day from my roof.”
“It sits there like a crimson tattoo—eerie and dead still.”
“No reason it should move... yet this morning at 2:20 sharp, that signboard blinked out for a whole second.”
“Came right back on after...”
“If it were a blackout, wouldn’t all the streetlamps have died too?”
“But only our signboard cut out.”
“2:20 AM—same time Fumi-chan got killed.”
“Signboard twitches right when murder happens—gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?”
“I’ll lay it straight.”
“That signboard’s got nerves—knew when the killing happened.”
“And it had to’ve been signaling me about it.”
“We’ve gotta smash that cursed thing before day’s end.”

“O-san, you’d better keep quiet about that,” Suzue shouted in a withered voice, forcing the words from her throat as if retching them up, her face having turned deathly pale upon hearing this story. “That story only serves to cast suspicion on your behavior.” “I know everything.” “For instance, I know full well how you and the late Haru-chan used that electric signboard’s flickering to arrange your secret meetings.” “Don’t act surprised now.” “Every night at midnight, Haru-chan would flip that signboard’s switch on and off like telegraph signals. Then you’d come sneaking up the back ladder to the third-floor attic storage room in the dead of night after reading those signals from her rooftop—right?” “We don’t use the signboard’s signals now, but otherwise it’s just like those late-night rendezvous you and I keep having.” “Ugh, how humiliating!” “How could I forget? On the day Haru-chan was killed, I saw you two wriggling like rats in that attic storage room—I...” “O-san.” “If you talk about this now, you’ll cause an uproar.” “Keep quiet—understand?”

“I didn’t kill Haru-chan.
“I didn’t kill Fuu-chan either.”

“That’s not what I’m asking about!”
“What a nasty person you are!”
“There’s a truly terrifying person among us here.”
“There’s someone here who might even suck human blood, you know.”
“You’ll find out soon enough, damn you.”

“Suu-chan, do you know the person who committed the murder?”

A group of new customers noisily streamed in through the door and occupied the booth next to Okabe, so their precarious conversation came to an abrupt end.

When the report from the university arrived at the Metropolitan Police Department at 4:00 PM that day, the investigation policy underwent a complete change.
Kei-san, the counter manager, and Kichiko, the cook—who had been detained since morning—were permitted to return to the shop by evening, and in their place, Iwata Kyoshiro, the electrician, was arrested.
The interrogation room, with Kyo-bon sandwiched between the lead investigator in his dazzling gold-braided uniform and a group of unpleasant-looking detectives, was intensely tense.

Iwata Kyoshiro did not readily confess.
However, the investigators assumed it was only a matter of time.
The reason lay in a new fact first discovered through the university's report—the autopsy of the second victim Fumiko's corpse had revealed damage to the skin and muscles exactly overlapping with but not caused by the dagger wound.
The area showed claw-like tearing patterns, with additional continuous yellow burn marks on portions of skin and muscle.
Finding this peculiar, they continued the autopsy and ultimately overturned the initial conclusion—that Fumiko's cause of death was a dagger wound to the heart—revealing instead death by high-voltage electrocution.
The current had been discharged through electrodes placed beneath her breast and on her neck where an adhesive bandage had been applied, with sufficient voltage piercing her heart for instant death.
When this astonishing fact emerged, the Metropolitan Police Department became convinced the same method had been used in Harumi's brutal murder.
This conclusion solidified when an officer recalled a small adhesive bandage attached to Harumi's neck.
Electrician Iwata Kyoshiro now faced extreme suspicion, with harsh interrogation commencing about Café Neon's frequent electrical work.
Naturally—since only he could handle tens of thousands of volts from the third-floor neon signboard used to channel electricity into victims' bodies—his implication as perpetrator of both electrocution murders became inevitable.

It was the following morning after Kyo-bon the electrician had spent a sleepless night on the worn-out bench of a cold holding cell awaiting continued interrogation. Due to the urgency of the case, officers who had been sleeping in shifts in the duty room were jolted awake by an emergency report—"A third victim has appeared at Café Neon"—their fatigue from the night's vigil vanishing instantly. The third victim was Ochie, identifiable by her characteristically thin eyebrows. The Investigation Squad Leader remained sitting up on the duty room floor in a despondent state, showing no inclination to emerge.

The murder scene of the third victim, Ochie, was far too gruesome. Ever since the second tragedy, all the waitresses had been reluctant to stay overnight at Café Neon and had instead been sleeping at the cottage. Only the stout-hearted cook Kichiko, unwilling to leave the café unmanned, continued staying overnight in the downstairs cook’s room. However, he had barricaded himself from inside the room and was ridiculed by the waitresses in broad daylight for his timidity. That night, Ochie had been on duty and appeared to have remained at the shop until closing. Though she should have returned to the cottage without fail, she never appeared there that night. Since the incident, staying elsewhere had become frequent enough that it wasn’t considered particularly unusual. But by morning, when the waitresses—having shaken off their weariness from the previous night—began rising, the ominous question of Ochie’s failure to return began spreading like wildfire among them.

“Oh, Suu-chan isn’t here, is she?”

There was a girl who shouted.

“She stayed here last night. Look, that futon is hers, isn’t it? Maybe she just went to the restroom or something, but with things like this happening, every little thing feels creepy.”

Be that as it may regarding Suzue’s whereabouts, the gruesome corpse of Ochie was once again discovered on the third floor of Café Neon, triggering a major uproar.
To repeat, Ochie’s end was a gruesome spectacle to the extreme.
For some reason, she had leaned half her body out backward from the front-facing window that had been opened during the night and was found dead wedged precisely between the window and the electric signboard.
Thus at dawn, a passerby finally discovered the pale shins peeking from the upper edge of the electric signboard, fragments of a woman's clothing, and—as if someone had overturned a severed head beneath the signboard—a woman's upside-down face with eyes snapped wide open, her black hair cascading across half the dangling neck, sparking a major commotion.
Ochie had been killed still wearing her fine clothes.
Just as before, a dagger had been cleanly thrust into her heart, and the adhesive bandage that had caught the Metropolitan Police Department’s attention was discovered near her shoulder.
All were murders committed using the same method.
Despite knowing it was an electrocution murder, they had gone so far as to thrust a dagger beneath the breast in an attempt to conceal it.
The investigators swallowed bitter tears of grief and indignation at the criminal’s mockery.
And immediately, an order was issued for a thorough search of this building.

During that interrogation, when Okabe Mitataro—who had staggered in unsteadily—was effortlessly subdued by the detectives, it was as pitiful as it was absurd.

"I know someone was killed at Café Neon last night, detective.
“That’s why I warned you to destroy this monstrous electric signboard!”
“And because you didn’t believe what people said, someone else ended up getting killed, didn’t they?”
“Who is it this time?”
“Eh? Ochie... Chiyo-chan?”
“Is Suu-chan still alive, you know?”
“Poor Chiyo-chan.”
"That girl’s death was indeed at 2:20 AM this morning."
“I saw it clearly with my own two eyes—right now, you know!”
"You damn monster—this signboard had the nerve to flicker again!"
Before the detectives could restrain this troublesome man, Okabe picked up a large stone from the roadside and swiftly hurled it at the neon sign.
With a terrible crash, the sign's glass shattered and the electric signboard lurched sharply rightward from the wall, causing Ochie's corpse—left exactly as it was—to suddenly become exposed in broad daylight. The watching officers and crowd simultaneously let out cries and turned ghastly pale.
Seizing this moment, Okabe jumped up and began rampaging about while shouting something utterly unintelligible.
“Haru-kō’s damn vengeful ghost—I know full well you’ve possessed that electric signboard!”
"If you can kill me, then come here and try it!"
He was laboring under the delusion that the electric signboard was Haru-chan's vengeful ghost.
The police officers led away Okabe Mitataro—who seemed to have gone mad—grasping him by his hands and feet.

As the commotion grew increasingly larger, it was reported that waitress Suzue and cook Kichiko had gone completely missing.
From that day to this very day, the whereabouts of the two have not been reported to the Metropolitan Police Department.
That night, the Metropolitan Police Department released Kyo-bon the electrician and cleared Kei-san of suspicion.
Okabe Mitataro underwent various interrogations once he had calmed somewhat, but since he not only lacked electrical knowledge but even felt intense fear toward electricity, the suspicion of him being the perpetrator gradually diminished—there was no way he could have committed an electrocution murder.
Moreover, even when the investigators explained to him that the electric signboard appeared to flicker because electricity flowed toward human bodies—which had lower electrical resistance—at those moments, cutting off power to the signboard and causing it to briefly go dark, he remained utterly unable to comprehend it.
Be that as it may, some doubt still remained regarding Okabe Mitataro’s actions on the night of Harumi’s brutal murder.
As for why he alone would rise to stand on the rooftop in the cold depths of night between 2:00 and 3:00 AM, gazing intently at Café Neon’s electric signboard—according to Okabe’s own account, he could not forget how he and Harumi had once used the signboard’s flickering as a signal for their secret rendezvous. Even now, after growing close with Suzue, he claimed to make nightly pilgrimages from thirteen blocks away just to stare enraptured at that peach-colored neon sign. This ritual, he insisted, brought him such joy that he felt no cold whatsoever.

Now I'll finally share what I'd kept secret - I knew something about the relationship between Haruyoshi and Suzue, who were suspected as perpetrators of Café Neon's tragedies.
Suzue grew intensely jealous of Okabe, whom she loved, and his lover Harumi's closeness. Having discovered their frequent trysts in the attic storage room, she ultimately resolved to kill Harumi.
She'd told no one, but through her past work in XX Electric Company's high-voltage division as a factory girl, she possessed electrical expertise - this became her murder weapon.
Before each crime, she'd drug a soundly sleeping roommate with narcotic vapors to deepen their slumber; after committing the deed, she'd use the same drug on herself to fall into profound sleep, thus artfully deceiving everyone's watchful eyes.

The cook Haruyoshi was actually a male cousin of the murdered Harumi but had concealed this relationship and been employed at Café Neon.
Harumi had noticed that Suzue was watching her, but in the end, she was killed before his attention could reach her.
Not only did Suzue kill Harumi, but she also completely won over Harumi's lover Okabe, who began acting as though he had forgotten all about Harumi while whispering sweet nothings with Suzue.
Thus did Haruyoshi become utterly enraged and plan his revenge.
He had originally been an extreme hedonist who chose various occupations for his interests and drifted through a nomadic existence.
During that time he had worked as an electrical worker and learned how to handle high-voltage electricity.
What made matters worse was that after encountering his cousin Harumi’s electrocution death, his hedonism blazed fiercely into a taste for the grotesque.
As his means of revenge he did not kill Suzue immediately but instead used her own method - killing young women one after another to make suspicion gradually turn toward her - intending after fully threatening and terrifying her to finally murder her brutally.
Yet when he killed Fumiko as his first step, Suzue immediately realized he was the culprit.
The two entered a state of mutual glaring, their shared crimes binding them in a bizarrely conjugate relationship.
Though Haruyoshi committed this third tragedy too, it became both a threat against Suzue and a burden upon himself.
They paid extreme attention to each other's movements.
If one reported the other to authorities and sent them to the gallows, they themselves would inevitably be captured and executed the next day.
Separately yet simultaneously understanding this point, they struggled to devise escape routes from each other.
Only one conclusion remained.
To take the other’s life.
Knowing no other path to survival existed, they began watching each other for openings.
But when their crimes neared exposure through this third tragedy, they fled the café hand in hand before dawn’s first light breached the eastern horizon.
No - they vanished from the city forever.
A strange journey between enemies began.

A life filled with eerie strangeness began.
To outside observers, they appeared to be an enviably close and modest young man and woman.
However, once away from prying eyes in their private world, the flames of their repressed fury seemed to reach toward the heavens as they honed their vigilance like hypodermic needles to escape each other’s murderous intent.
The young pair slept embraced together in one futon, appearing harmonious.
As long as the other’s arm remained firmly entwined with their limbs, they slept in peace.

“Sleeping with a blade.”

One night, Haruyoshi suddenly muttered those words under his breath.
He had exhausted all his energy and nerves in his current life.
A terrifying life—but for one who had pursued every pleasure until now, on one level, nothing had ever provided such abnormal ecstasy.
Never before had he felt the value of life so intensely.
Never before had he contemplated god so intensely.

“You said, ‘Sleeping with a blade.’”
Suzue—whom he had thought to be in a foul mood—whispered softly by his ear in a slender voice.
Something lukewarm fell plip-plop onto his cheek pressed beneath Suzue’s face, tickling as it trailed beneath his lips before dripping down to the pillow below.

He felt Suzue’s arm clamp tightly around his body.
Contrary to his usual self, he found himself clinging with boundless attachment to Suzue’s powerful grip.

“Well, that’s about the gist of it. Since my wife’ll likely be back from her bath soon, once she is, I’ll treat you to dinner or something.”

“Today might’ve become our farewell. Take your time goin’.”