Track 2: OH! NO!

TW: Blood and murder, mention of bullying, and suicide ideation.

“Ohhhh noooo… OH! NO?”

“Judging from the way you’ve said it, it seems like you’re saying it in English, but it’s not like that. It’s written with the characters for ‘big’ and ‘field’... It’s read as Ono¹. That’s my name.”

“Languages from Earth have waaay too many words that sound the same~ I still get them mixed up sometimes~...”

Let’s shelf that flashback I said was coming~

“First, I should introduce myself properly,” the boy said. “It’s only polite.”

Polite.

The concept shows up often in literature, but apparently, people in this country are especially particular about it.

If someone gives their name to you, you give yours in return.

If you ask someone for their name, you should introduce yourself first.

When exchanging business cards, you present yours beneath the other person’s. Something to show that “I’m not worthy of introducing myself,” and so on.

I don’t fully get it yet, but order aside, it seems that introducing oneself is considered proper etiquette when meeting for the first time.

From my perspective, calling the human “boy” was sufficient to identify the individual, so no issue there.

As for “Netaro Yowa”, I only picked it because ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’², right? It seemed convenient to have a name, so I don’t really mind if no one uses it.

“So then, boy.”

“I told you, it’s Ono… Whatever.”

The boy shrugged with an exasperated look—

“Anyway, I’ll continue. Where should I start…”

Thinking carefully, he began telling me about what he had seen.

—This happened 2 weeks ago.

That day, I went to the school for the first time in a while.

My best friend seemed off that morning.

He seemed kind of distracted, and he kept glancing over at the old school building.

I’m not even sure if I can really call him my best friend in the first place.

He was just someone I got along well with back in elementary school… 

But I found it odd and asked him what was wrong. He brushed me off, saying it was nothing, so I started wondering if maybe it was all in my head…

But then, it happened.

After school, I suddenly saw him running toward the old school building with a panicked look on his face, and I knew that something was definitely up.

So I quietly followed him. And then–

Behind the old building.

A mysterious man appeared out of nowhere and struck my friend with a strangely elongated arm.

My friend collapsed to the ground as I watched from the shadows. I couldn’t wrap my head around what just happened, and I was too shocked to move.

After that, the man crouched beside my friend on the floor and rummaged around for something…And suddenly lifted his head.

He had a hood pulled tightly over his head and a scarf wrapped around his neck, so I couldn’t see his face clearly. However, his eyes…they didn’t look human. There was something strange and unsettling about them…

I was so afraid that I couldn't even scream, and for a brief moment, our eyes met…

When the man stood up, one of his arms stretched out again as if something was clinging to it.

I thought that I might be next when suddenly, a voice called out from somewhere.

The man fled immediately after hearing it and disappeared from sight.

Trembling, I approached my friend.

There was a dandelion lying beside him.

And there was a huge, gaping hole in his body…

In the center of the hole, a hairy, strange creature poked its head out.

It was bleeding blue…I think it was probably dead.

The sight of it was so overwhelming that I couldn’t make even a single sound. Then, the voices came closer.

My friend’s parents rushed over and lifted both my friend and the hairy creature…

“Ah, u-um…”

I barely managed to speak, but they only gave me a quick glance before running off.

I couldn’t make any sense of it.

Even though I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t sleep when I went back home… I was so sleep-deprived I felt like I was gonna die.

I had planned to stay home and rest as usual, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my friend, so I went to school.

That day, I was told that my friend had suddenly transferred to another school due to unforeseen circumstances.

“So I’m wondering if my friend, his parents, and that man were all aliens… Or even spirits or something…?

“They’re definitely aaaaall aliens!”

“S-So I was right!?”

The boy took the bait instantly at my declaration and snorted with excitement.

“That’s right! They’re all aliens. The hairy one’s almost certainly a parasitic type, and the long-armed one with the distinctive eyes is an even rarer combat type.”

“I-I knew it…!”

The boy’s voice trembled even more with excitement.

However, according to my internal database, the combat type is supposed to be from a planet that ‘went extinct’ a long time ago… Could there have been survivors who made it to Earth~?

And if so, could they be connected to the Chinori aliens’ recent target spot~?

“Mm~ Still not enough data~ Maybe I should gather a little more info around here~....”

While I twisted my neck from side to side in thought, the boy was doing the opposite, smiling brightly and seeming satisfied that the mystery had been solved.

But it only lasted a moment before his expression clouded over again.

I’d never seen a creature whose mood shifted so quickly other than myself. …Are all humans like this?

“So in the end, my friend was killed, right…?”

“Yep. Since the hairy creature was really your friend’s true form and was the one that died³, then that means your friend died!”

“That’s awful… Why was my friend killed…?”

“Noooo idea.”

“....I’m…I’m all alone now.”

“All alone?”

“...I don’t have any other real friends.”

The bow groaned and lowered his head.

From my own judgment, if I had to guess…I believe that he was embarrassed.

“Hm~? Being alone means being by yourself, correct?”

“...Yeah.”

“And that is something to be embarrassed of?”

“...No, that’s not it.”

“I don’t get ittttt~....”

“...”

“EUREKA! Then shall I eat you?”

“E-Eat me!? What are you talking about!?”

“We’ll become one if I eat you, right?♪ Beings on Earth don’t seem to merge into a single entity from what I observed, so you might not get it!”

“Ummmm. Humans have ways of feeling united without doing that too. Like becoming friends, or comrades…”

“Hoh—!”

The boy lowered his head and fell silent. After a while, he looked up a bit.

“I can’t really fit in like everyone else…”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t get along well with people at school. It’s like there’s this distance between my classmates and I, or something…”

“???”

“...It’s like…I can’t stay in the classroom.”

“In other words?”

“...It means I’m not welcome there.”

“So in other words~~~???”

I hurried him so that he could get to the point, and his face turned red.

“...I’m being bullied, so I don’t belong anywhere. I can’t become friends with anyone or be part of a group.”

“Ohhh! You’re being bullied! …What does that mean?”

“You don’t know? Being ignored, gossiped about behind your back, and treated like you don’t even exist… Like that?”

And just like a comet, a flash of realization went through my head.

I see. So that’s what ‘being bullied’ means.

“Then by Earth standards, I suppose I was bullied too!”

“Huh?”

“The other aliens did the same thing to me back on my home planet!”

“...!”

“I didn’t feel anything about it then, and I still don’t~!”

At once, the tension that had been radiating from the boy vanished.

Instead, his gaze traveled over me from head to toe as if he were looking at a comrade-in-arms.

“So even aliens get bullied…  I guess, in the end, things like that never really disappear no matter where you go. It’s just that the one on the receiving end will feel differently from each other…”

“Mhm, how fascinating~! Individuals behave more or less the same, even across different species! This could become a new interstellar theory about how individuals interact in the universe!”

“Ahaha…”

The boy laughed a little.

It was a tiny laugh, like a distant star flickering for just a moment.

So I continued.

I wanted to see that faint light just one more time.

“Do humans commit suicide because they’re bullied?”

“...”

However, I was still terribly bad at understanding humans.

Just like when we first met, the boy’s expression gradually stiffened instead.

“Is being bullied something that makes you want to erase your own existence? Why erase yourself instead of the ones doing the bullying?”

“It might be really, really easy to take out your anger on someone else. But I don’t want to do something like that, so I might choose to end up…killing myself instead…”

“Interesting! Then my next question is, why—”

“Hold on. It’s not fair for you to be the only one asking questions, Yowa-san. Let me ask something too. Why did you come to this old school building?”

“For investigation purposes.”

“And could you tell me what this investigation's about?"

“I’m pinpointing the Chinori aliens’ target coordinates and setting up a shield if necessary~!”

“I have absolutely no idea what that means even though you made it sound so simple. Next question… Are you coming here again tomorrow? Here?”

The boy looked up at me and pressed his lips together as he waited for my answer.

“Yep, I will! I have an investigation to conduct, after all!”

“Then… If it’s okay with you, do you want to meet me here again tomorrow…? I won’t force you if you don’t want to. I just… I’d like to observe you a little more...”

"Gladly!”

I accepted at once.

If anything, his offer was exactly what I’d hoped for.

I’d wanted to observe humans up close anyway, and this suicidal boy seemed like the perfect subject.

“It might only be for a short time, but starting tomorrow…let’s get along, okay?”

“As you wish♪”

And so, we began spending time observing one another until the boy’s death.

Our time together went by faster than light traveling a million light-years, but just slightly longer than a single instant.

For a few weeks, one lonely being watched another lonely being.