“Does it taaaste gooood, Harutoooo? ♪”
Shunpei was energetically singing horribly off-key right in front of my face.
“You’re too close! I can’t eat in peace if you’re all up in my face like that!”
“Oh, sorry. I’m just really happy to see you’re all better now~. La-dee-la-dee-la~”
“What’s with that ‘la-dee-la-dee-la’ thing?”
As I watched Shunpei dance around the shop incredulously, I nibbled on the donuts he had brought for me. They were of course my favorite, plain sugar. Shunpei can be really off about things a lot of the time, but this is the one thing he never gets wrong. And that’s what I love about him.
Shunpei Nara is a regular at Omokagedou, and I guess he’s like one of my comrades. He’s been following me around ever since I saved him from a Phantom attack.
Shunpei apparently wanted to become a magician when he was a kid. When he found out I was a magician, he asked me to make him my apprentice, but once he understood that that was impossible, he joined Rinko in helping me out with taking care of the Phantoms. He’s now training to become a ring craftsman as Wajima’s apprentice.
Shunpei’s a really obnoxious and unreliable guy, but I just can’t bring myself to dislike him. He sometimes brings about miracles, and he even rescued me out of a pinch thanks to one of the rings he made before.
“Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to be walking around?”
Shunpei once again drew close to my face with that friendly smile of his.
“Yeah. My appetite’s back in full force too.”
I stuffed my mouth with the rest of the donut.
After having that dream about Koyomi, my body completely recovered. That awful fever that had been torturing me for so long had gone away without a trace. That’s why I’m able to finally come back down from the second floor and relax on the shop’s comfy sofas.
I stretched my hand toward the Hungry bag on the table and took out a second donut.
Just then, the door to the shop flew open with a bam, and in jumped Nitou.
“Oh, Nitou!”
Shunpei greeted Nitou with a smile, but Nitou ignored him completely as he stormed straight toward me before suddenly grabbing my collar.
“What the hell was that all about?!”
Nitou’s voice was filled with intense rage. I couldn’t do anything but respond in complete confusion.
“Huh? What the hell was what all about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me! I’m talking about what happened earlier!”
(What happened earlier…?)
I was only getting even more confused. I hadn’t stepped foot out of Omokagedou all day. The only person I’d seen was Shunpei who came to visit me.
Shunpei stepped in between us in a panic.
“Wait wait wait, let’s just calm down for a second.”
“There’s no way I could calm down after what happened! Also stop eating those donuts already, Haruto!”
Nitou, in a fit of anger, grabbed the donut from my hand and immediately threw it behind him.
“Ahhh! How could you… I went out of my way to buy those for Haruto!”
Shunpei grabbed Nitou as he shouted out in dismay.
“Who cares about donuts right now! More importantly-”
Nitou shrugged Shunpei’s arms off of him, only to have Shunpei grab onto him even tighter while screaming like a maniac.
“Apologize! You have to apologize for throwing away my heartfelt gift like it was nothing!”
“Okay, okay, I get it! I’ll make sure to apologize later.”
“No, you have to do it now! Apologize right this instant!”
“I’m telling you, this isn’t the time for this!”
…At some point, Nitou had completely given up on me and was completely focused on arguing with Shunpei.
I might be all better now, but it’s still kind of tough on me to have to deal with their high-tension energy right after recovering. I let out a deep sigh and sat back down on the sofa as I watched the two of them fight with each other.
Eventually, Wajima showed up, probably because of all the ruckus.
“What’s going on? What’s all this fuss?”
“Listen to this, Haruto was-”
“No, Nitou was-”
“Stop, first we need to talk about how Haruto was-”
“No, we have to talk about what you did first!”
The two of them still continued to argue even after Wajima showed up.
“Haruto, this is all your fault, you know that?!”
Nitou, who Shunpei was still grabbing onto, glared at me.
I had no idea what Nitou was so mad about, but the one thing I knew for sure was that tonight was going to be a long night.
…Thirty minutes later.
All that ruckus from earlier had dissipated completely, and Omokagedou was filled with a heavy air.
Nitou, who had finally managed to get out what he was trying to say after holding down Shunpei, was looking at me with a serious face. Shunpei and Wajima, who heard everything Nitou said as well, were dead silent.
“Was that guy really me…?”
I once again questioned Nitou.
According to him, the magicians Yamamoto and Yuzuru were attacked one after the other, and just earlier, Mayu was attacked in the same way as well.
“There’s no way I’d mistake someone else for you. Even Rinko and Mayu are absolutely sure that was you.”
Nitou responded with a voice filled with confidence and anger.
Three people I know all said they witnessed me at a completely different location…? What the heck is going on?
“Are you sure you were here the whole time…?”
Nitou looked at me with doubtful eyes.
“He was!”
Shunpei cut in.
“When I came here, I saw Haruto come down from the second floor.”
“When was that?”
“About fifteen minutes before you came here.”
Shunpei then looked at the antique clock on the wall and added “Around eight o’clock, I think.”
“We saw Haruto just past seven. Haruto, were you still here then as well?”
I answered Nitou’s question with complete honesty.
“Yeah, I was in my room on the second floor. When I came down the stairs, Shunpei had just arrived.”
Nitou then looked at Wajima and immediately shot him a question.
“Were you in the shop too? Did you see Haruto here?”
Wajima lifted his hanging head and responded in a regrettable tone.
“I was here, but I haven’t been to Haruto’s room since this morning. I assumed that he would’ve been laying in bed the whole time…”
“So that means he doesn’t have an alibi.”
Nitou spoke those words as he glared at me again.
“Hold on. Why would I even attack Mayu in the first place?”
“Hell if I know! That’s why I’m asking you!”
It seemed that Nitou was convinced that I was the one who put Yuzuru in that unconscious state.
As I thought about how tonight really would be a long night, the door to the shop opened up, and in came Rinko and Mayu.
“Rinko, Mayu!”
Shunpei greeted them, but the two of them only responded with a small bow before looking at me, who was sitting on the sofa, with complicated expressions. They had both said that they “saw me” as well. It was only natural they were suspicious of me.
Rinko spoke to Nitou.
“Did you tell Haruto about what happened…?”
“Yeah. He says he doesn’t know anything about it, but he doesn’t have an alibi either.”
“I see.”
Rinko’s expression clouded as she gave that short reply.
“Anyway, what have you two been up to?”
“Sorry, Rinko got a call and we ended up going back to the hospital.”
Mayu responded to Nitou’s question.
“…There’s both good news and bad news.”
Rinko spoke with a worried face.
“Did something happen to Yuzuru?!”
Nitou leaned forward.
“No, that’s where the good news comes in. Yuzuru and Yamamoto have both regained consciousness.”
Upon hearing Rinko’s words, Nitou cried out “Yes!” in tears as he dropped to the floor while making a fist pump. Shunpei flopped onto the sofa in relief as well after hearing the news.
“…So what’s the bad news?” I asked Rinko.
Rinko’s looked startled for a second, but she then regained her composure and began speaking quietly.
“Yuzuru and Yamamoto both claim that they’re absolutely sure it was Haruto who attacked them…”
This time it was my turn to get startled. Rinko had a pensive look on her face as she glanced at me.
“They said that a man in a black cloak showed up in front of them, just like with Mayu. They were both cautious at first, but when they saw the man’s face after he took off his hood, they ended up letting their guard down…”
“And that man was me…?”
Rinko silently nodded in response. The air in the room got even heavier.
“Um!”
Shunpei raised his hand with a cheerful voice as if he was trying to clear the heavy air.
“Could it be possible that the Haruto everyone saw was a fake? Like, maybe a Phantom was disguising itself as him or something!”
“Yes, that’s definitely a possibility.”
Rinko’s face looked a little brighter, as if encouraged by Shunpei’s words.
“Nah, that can’t be,” cut in Nitou.
“He called me ‘Mayonnaise’. Haruto’s the only person who’d ever call me that.”
“Now that you mention it, he called me ‘Rinko darling’ in a really familiar way. But I still don’t think we should assume he was Haruto just because of that.”
“That’s not all, though. I could tell since I fought him. His movements were just like Haruto’s. As his rival, there’s no way I would mistake them.”
Nitou gave Rinko his rebuttal with complete confidence.
Nitou is someone who can easily get the wrong impression, but he’s not the type of guy who’d tell a lie. If he recognized that that man was me on an instinctive level, then that’s probably true. But if that’s the case, just who in the world is that other “me”…?
“But Haruto’s been in Omokagedou the whole time ever since he was bedridden.”
Rinko retorted against Nitou as if defending me.
“About that, actually…”
Wajima, who had been quiet the whole time as if deep in thought, finally opened his mouth.
“I just remembered something that had been bothering me a bit. I actually, um…”
He then got caught up in his words as he gave me a glance.
“I saw Haruto leave the shop.”
Surprise ran across everyone’s faces, me included. After all, I was in bed the whole time, just like Rinko had said.
Flustered from everyone’s eyes on him, Wajima continued.
“I mean, there’s always the chance that I just mistook what I saw… When I was working in my workshop, I heard the door open up, you see. And when I peeked into the shop, I saw Haruto walking out of the front door. I tried chasing after him since I was wondering where he’d be going when he still had a fever, but he was already gone… I’d forgotten it until now since I just assumed that I must have seen things wrong.”
“And when did that happen?”
Upon Nitou’s inquiry, Wajima fell deep in thought again before finally responding.
“…If I recall correctly, I believe it was the night before yesterday.”
My chest stirred. The night before yesterday was when I had that dream about Koyomi.
“But I was in bed until morning that night as well,” I said as I suppressed the stirring in my chest.
“Then who could that Haruto have been…?”
Rinko’s eyebrows furrowed.
“…A doppleganger.”
Mayu whispered quietly.
Everyone looked at her.
“I’ve read about it in a book before, about the phenomenon of one person appearing at multiple places at the same time. I was thinking that maybe that’s what’s happening here…”
Shunpei then responded as if he had recalled something from Mayu’s explanation.
“I’ve heard of that too! I think it was like, whoever sees their own doppelganger will end up dying after a while or something, right?”
Rinko looked at Shunpei with a scared face. Shunpei then quickly became quiet as if realizing that he had said too much.
“If that’s true, then why’s a dopple… or whatever it’s called, going around attacking magicians? And what the hell did he do to Yuzuru and Yamamoto?” Nitou questioned Rinko.
“Apparently the two of them had their magic stolen by him. It seems like they fell unconscious from having almost all their magic sucked out. He probably attacked Mayu to take her magic as well.”
“I’ve figured it out!”
Nitou let out a noticeably loud voice as he looked at me.
“When you were on the brink of death from your fever, you ended up getting up in your sleep without even realizing it and started attacking everyone so you could charge up your magic again!”
The hasty Nitou quickly spouted out his theory, completely confident that he had the whole thing figured out.
It’s true that my memory was vague the whole time I was sick, probably because I had so much trouble sleeping with that fever. Nitou’s theory honestly might not be too off the mark.
“So you’re saying that Haruto’s been sleepwalking?”
“Yep.”
“Even if that’s true, there’s no way Haruto would attack-”
“Lemme stop you right there!”
Nitou interrupted with his usual line.
“Whatever the case is, it doesn’t change the fact that Haruto’s a prime suspect. Until we figure out the truth, we’ll have to keep him under watch.”
Rinko let out a deep sigh, as if admitting that Nitou had a point, and glanced at me. I signaled with my eyes that I had resigned myself to this situation, and then returned to thinking about this bizarre incident that revolved around this other me.
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 