✧ Stigma — Chapter XXII: “Critical Runaway” ✧

Victorian Prose Translation

The traffic report from Bunka Broadcasting was delivered in a calm, indifferent voice, as though reciting the weather of a distant land.

“Here is the current situation on the Shuto Expressway. Due to an accident near the Kawaguchi Junction, a twenty‑kilometer queue has formed, beginning at the point where the Tōhoku Expressway merges. It is taking over an hour to pass through. Please exercise caution if you plan to use this route.”

Damn it. I left early for nothing.

The red blink of hazard lights reflected upon the rear window of the car ahead. In the sluggish procession of vehicles, I glared at the clock.

Golden Week had not yet fully ended. It was the hour when the last of the holidaymakers returned from the countryside to the city.

Caught in the tide, I stared at the time with growing irritation.

Yes—him.

I tried calling Eiji, but he did not answer. It was 2:40 p.m. Every minute mattered. I sent a short message to his LINE account.

Wake up.

No read receipt appeared.

At that very moment, Eiji was still asleep.

And while he slept, the man called Masah had already begun to descend into an accelerated frenzy— like a reactor core that had lost its cooling system. At the time, I could not yet grasp this with certainty.

His heart had entered a state of critical runaway.

A strange agitation stirred in my chest, raising gooseflesh along my arms. Something— I did not wish to name it, but if forced, I would call it:

…unease… dread… fear.

Outside the window, the clouds coiled like serpents, dark and writhing. A shaft of sunlight pierced through them, glittering harshly, stinging my eyes.

A room without light. Even in the daytime, the shutters were sealed so tightly that no sunbeam could trespass. Only the pallid glow of several smartphone screens illuminated the darkness— cold, spectral, and trembling.

Masah sat amidst them, his fingers moving feverishly, commanding each device in turn. He was sending messages— all of them to a single recipient. To one person alone.

To Eiji.

“Eiji… I will mend you. I will make you whole again. You need not fear anything. The wounds carved into you are nothing more than stains— like a drop of sauce fallen upon a garment. And when a stain appears, it is only natural to cleanse it. So do not worry. I will heal you, purify you, and save you.”

He was not speaking to anyone. He was merely persuading himself.

To say you do not need me… To reject me… And thus to suffer such wounds— poor, pitiful Eiji.

But I will come for you. Today. Everything is prepared. It took some time, but now it is perfect.

I will bring salvation in a manner that will astonish you. I have always loved surprises. Joy arrives most beautifully when it arrives without warning.

Let us have a celebration, Eiji.

Today shall be the anniversary of the salvation of your soul.

Masah stepped out of his house in buoyant spirits. His heart was filled—utterly and exclusively— with thoughts of Eiji. Within the chambers of his mind, a voice seemed to echo:

What shall happen within me, Masah? I am so terribly excited!

It was Eiji’s voice— or rather, the voice Masah believed to be Eiji’s. He answered it cheerfully, almost singing.

“Leave it to me! Let’s lift our spirits to the heavens!”

A housewife walking her dog turned, startled, at the sudden exuberance. The dog barked furiously, but Masah paid no heed.

On the contrary, he smiled— a radiant, sun‑bright smile.

Yet that smile no longer held even the faintest trace of human warmth. Behind his wide, gleaming eyes lay a darkness beyond retrieval— a bottomless abyss glimpsed only for an instant before it swallowed itself again.

And Eiji, at that very moment, still lingered at the edge of sleep, drifting in a soft, drowsy haze.

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