The “Asakura Kasumi” in the article wasn’t my sister.
It took me thirty seconds to realize that.
<This person isn’t Kasumi.>
My fingers trembled as I sent the message to Nana.
The newspaper article didn’t include a photograph. But my sister’s last name had been Fujisaki. She had never married before she died. Her age was different, too. Five years ago, my sister had been twenty-seven.
A different person with the same name.
Except the woman had died the day after my sister. And the last name of the person questioned as her romantic partner was Asakura.
The same as Ren’s.
My sister’s death had been handled as an accident.
Kasumi had fallen down a station staircase in August five years ago. It was a nearly deserted platform after the last train, and by the time she was found, she was already dead. The security cameras showed only my sister climbing the stairs alone. There were no other people’s fingerprints on the handrail, and we were told there was no indication of foul play.
But my sister never wore high heels. On rainy days, she always chose sneakers with good traction, and she hadn’t been drunk, either. My mother had repeatedly demanded a reinvestigation, but nothing changed.
I had also tried not to think too deeply about the fact that the only thing missing from my sister’s bag had been her smartphone.
I assumed she had lost it. Maybe someone had picked it up and sold it. I couldn’t keep going day after day unless I dismissed it as some kind of coincidence.
By the time I met Ren, five years had passed since my sister’s death.
I hadn’t told him much about my sister. I’d mentioned just once that I’d lost a family member. I hadn’t said who, when, or how. Ren hadn’t asked. I thought the way he kept his distance was kind.
There was no way he should have known that she liked white flowers, or that she had an old phone number.
Nana called.
“Mio, are you alone?”
Her urgent voice burst into my ear without even a greeting.
“Yeah. Ren went home.”
“You didn’t let him inside?”
I looked at the floor by the entrance. Rainwater from the bouquet of white flowers had fallen in thin streaks.
“I didn’t. Hey, where did you find this article?”
Nana didn’t answer right away. I heard a door close on the other end.
“It was sent to me today by an account I didn’t recognize.”
“What kind of account?”
“A gray icon. No posts.”
The same sender.
“What did it say?”
“It said, ‘Take responsibility for introducing Asakura Ren to Mio.’”
My throat went dry.
“You were the one who introduced me to Ren, right, Nana?”
“No.”
She denied it too quickly.
“You hosted the dinner gathering.”
“I made the reservation. But Takase brought Ren. He works at a video-production company. I’d never met Ren before that day.”
I thought back to the dinner gathering three months ago. A table for six. Ren arriving late. Nana definitely hadn’t called him a “friend.” She’d laughed and said, “It’s my first time meeting him, too, but he seems interesting.”
I’d simply assumed he was someone Nana knew.
“Can you ask Takase?”
“I’ve been trying to reach him, but he won’t answer. His account is gone, too.”
Something scraped outside my door.
I paused the call and peered through the peephole. No one was in the hallway. I felt as though someone was standing in the blind spot by my feet, so I moved away from the door.
“Mio?”
“I’m okay. Probably.”
“You’re not going on the trip tomorrow, are you?”
I looked at the suitcase on the bed. The clothes I’d packed for my trip to Hakone with Ren. A brand-new dress. Two toothbrushes.
“I’m not going.”
Saying it aloud made something deep in my chest ache.
I had enough evidence to suspect him. Even so, I remembered Ren’s smiling face and the soup he’d left by my door on the night I had a fever. Had all of that been an act to deceive someone?
“I’m coming over now.”
“Nana, wait. Someone behind an account I don’t recognize is steering our actions. Getting us to meet might be part of their plan.”
“Then are you going to stay there alone?”
I couldn’t answer.
While we were still on the phone, a number appeared in the DM indicating a new message.
<Article Two has been disclosed.>
I opened the image of The Lover's Instruction Manual. The second entry, which had been blacked out, was now readable.
Article Two.
<If he talks about a woman who shares your family name, run away immediately.>
A chill ran down my spine.
Article One had become reality. I hadn’t let Ren, who had brought white flowers, into my apartment.
Article Two hadn’t happened yet.
<Do you know the future?>
This time, the message was marked read immediately.
<It isn’t the future. I know his procedure.>
<What is Ren planning to do?>
<He will do the same thing to you that he did to me.>
<Are you really his wife?>
A few seconds later, I received a photograph.
It was a marriage registration form.
“Asakura Ren” was written in the field for the future husband. In the field for the future wife, it said “Asakura Kasumi.” The filing date was July 10, five years ago. The witness fields and registered domicile had been hidden by a finger.
The same name as the woman in the article.
“Nana, I got a picture of a marriage registration form.”
“Is it real?”
“I don’t know. But the wife’s name is Asakura Kasumi.”
Nana drew a sharp breath on the other end.
“The woman in the article?”
“It has to be. But a dead woman couldn’t send DMs.”
The moment Nana started to say something, the intercom buzzed.
I looked at the screen.
A man wearing a delivery driver’s cap stood in front of the building’s first-floor entrance. A large cardboard box hid half his face.
“I didn’t order anything,” I whispered.
“Don’t go out. Should I call the police?”
“He hasn’t done anything yet.”
The intercom buzzed again. The man adjusted the package in his arms. As he did, I saw his right hand.
A silver ring on his ring finger.
It looked like Ren’s hand.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I pressed the record button. The man stood there for a while, then eventually disappeared into the camera’s blind spot.
Immediately afterward, I heard the sound of a cardboard box being set down in front of my door.
How had he gotten past the building’s first-floor auto-lock?
“Mio, call the police.”
“Don’t hang up.”
I put Nana on speakerphone and entered 911. Just before I touched the call button, a message came from Ren.
<I’m sorry about earlier. I left your things along with the flowers. Don’t open the door until morning, no matter what.>
I couldn’t tell whether it was a warning or a threat.
I called the police and explained about the suspicious person and suspicious package. I gave them my name and address. They told me an officer was on the way, and I ended the call.
Nana was still on the line.
“Don’t go near the door until the police arrive.”
“Okay.”
“I’m coming, too. I’ll call you when I get close.”
“Don’t come alone. Take a cab, and call me from somewhere the driver is still with you.”
When I ended the call with Nana, the apartment fell silent.
I checked the recording on my smartphone. The delivery driver was holding the cardboard box. When I enlarged the image, I could see the area around his eyes beneath the cap.
He wasn’t Ren.
But I recognized him.
He was the man named Takase who had brought Ren to the dinner gathering three months ago.
The deleted account. The man who had introduced us and could no longer be reached. And the package left in front of my apartment.
Takase knew about Ren’s past.
At the dinner gathering, Takase had sat across from me. We hadn’t talked much, but when Ren stepped away from the table, he’d asked me one strange question.
“Fujisaki, do you have an older sister?”
Surprised, I’d answered, “I did.”
“You used the past tense.”
Takase hadn’t asked anything else. I’d thought it was drunken small talk and quickly forgotten it. Now that I thought about it, maybe he’d been checking.
Checking whether I was Kasumi’s sister.
The dinner gathering, my meeting Ren—none of it had been a coincidence.
I entered Takase’s full name into the search bar. His employer’s page had been deleted, but an old event photo remained in the image search results. It was from the anniversary party of a video-production company. Ren stood beside Takase at the edge of the photo, smiling with a glass in his hand.
And beside him stood a woman.
The moment I saw her face, my fingers stopped.
She wasn’t my sister. I didn’t know what the Asakura Kasumi in the newspaper article looked like, either. Even so, I recognized the necklace the woman was wearing.
A silver pendant shaped like a small white flower.
It was the item missing from my sister’s belongings.
I was told the police would arrive in about twenty minutes. The wait felt unbearably long.
I sat beside the bed, as far from the kitchen as possible, and stared at the bouquet of white flowers. I should have thrown it away, but I was afraid to touch it.
A small white piece of paper was tucked inside the transparent film wrapped around the flowers.
I hadn’t noticed it before.
I put on rubber gloves and pulled the paper out with cooking chopsticks.
A phone number was written on the back in blue ink.
I recognized the digits.
My sister’s old phone number.
The number that should have been canceled five years ago.
I called it.
Someone answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
It was a woman’s voice.
Blood roared in my ears.
“Kasumi...?”
I didn’t even know why I called out that name.
The other person was silent for a while.
Then she drew in a small breath, with the same habit my sister had.
“Mio. I’ve been telling you not to touch white flowers since you were little, haven’t I?”
The call disconnected.
At the same time, a ringtone began playing from the cardboard box outside my door.