After becoming a chaotic daughter

"name?"

"Xia Chuan... I don't remember the name."

"age?"

"Ten... 11 years old?...It seems to be 11 years old."

"School and class?"

"Seagull Elementary School, fourth grade...Group B?"

"Why are you here?"

The harsh summer sunlight fell into the empty music classroom through the large glass windows, and the air conditioner installed on the ceiling blew cold wind, dispelling the summer heat.Sitting on the seat in the first row of the classroom, the middle-aged police officer with a stern face leaned forward slightly, his sharp eyes were like sharp arrows, staring at the bewildered girl sitting on the piano chair.

The little girl in the uniform of Seagull Elementary School tilted her head, her blank face showed some contemplation. After a few seconds of short silence, her soft answer sounded in the silent classroom, as if she was in a daze. The mist is generally misty and faint.

She said:

"because I……"

"Here to die."

******

Natsukawa Ryoko is an ordinary girl.

Ten years old, studying in Group B of the fourth grade of Seagull Primary School, his father is the section chief of a certain company, his mother is the editor of a magazine, and there is a younger sister who is four years younger than her. The family of four lives in a senior high school in downtown Yokohama In the apartment, there is a puppet cat named Crayon. It is very ordinary in appearance and academic performance. The only specialty is the piano from elementary school to adulthood.

But Natsukawa Ryoko is a very unusual girl.Since kindergarten, the teachers and classmates around her have paid special attention to her. They always treat her with a cautious attitude like a fragile vase. They can’t even speak loudly in front of her. Talk to her softly and try not to touch her as much as possible.

Because she suffers from congenital heart disease, she may die if she is not careful.

Facts have proved that she did "die by accident".

It was a very ordinary afternoon, and a week later, it would be the school's end-of-semester party. Although she was not in good health, Ryoko Xia Chuan applied for a piano performance as before, and was finally selected.After school that day, she came to the music classroom and practiced the repertoire to be performed alone in the classroom as usual.

This is a song that she has played many times, the rhythm is soft and cheerful, as gentle and lovely as flowers swaying in spring.Xia Chuan played the piece very skillfully, devoting himself to the practice, honing his playing skills over and over again, and hundreds of teachers and students in the school wanted to perform this piece with the best posture at the party. It is her audience who will hear the music she plays.

——Xia Chuan had such thoughts.

But in the end, her piano sound failed to sound at the party, but stopped abruptly in this empty music classroom in this afternoon.

Congenital heart disease caused her to die "accidentally".

Xia Chuan has changed from an ordinary "person" to an ordinary "ghost".She looked at her dead body and caused a small-scale confusion, but it soon subsided. After a summer vacation, the music classroom was closed, and the new semester came, and it was put into use again as usual.

It seems that because of becoming a ghost, Xia Chuan's memory of being a "human" gradually became blurred. She wandered bored in the music classroom, and no one could see her. For some reason, she never gave birth to the "leave". The idea of ​​"here" is just sitting in the classroom seat day after day, watching the students come and go in class, and listening to the teacher play the piano during class.

【Ah... I really want to play the piano. 】

One day, Xia Chuan looked at the piano in front of the classroom, and suddenly such an idea popped into his mind.

She floated over from the seat and tried to sit on the piano chair. She hadn't touched the piano for nearly a year, and she "put" her ten fingers on the keys with awkward movements.

Then press down.

The piano was not played.

I don't know if it's because she is still a novice ghost or for some other reason, Xia Chuan's hand directly penetrated the keys, unable to press even a single sound.

"Sitting" on the piano chair, Xia Chuan looked at her translucent fingertips submerged in the black and white keys. At that moment, a certain strong will spewed out from the depths of her "heart", and she was in a daze for a year. In Xia Chuan's mind, for the first time, such an obsession rose so clearly——

[I really want to play the piano. 】

[I wish someone could listen to me play the piano. 】

When she was alive, she was just an ordinary little girl. Because she had a heart disease, everyone thought it was normal for her to be unable to do anything well, and there was nothing to blame her for her mediocre grades. After all, "she had a heart disease."The only thing she can do well is "playing the piano". Only when she is playing the piano, everyone will not look at her so cautiously, as if looking at a handful of snow that will melt at any time , everyone will look at her with admiration as if they were looking at a "normal" excellent child.

She wanted to play the piano, just like when she was alive, but she couldn't touch the piano, and there was no audience who could hear her play the piano.

An uncomfortable feeling came from the heart. Could it be said that "ghosts" also suffer from heart disease?

The 11-year-old ghost Xia Chuan clutched his left chest.

She suddenly discovered that the place that should have been the "heart" when she was alive had turned into an empty hole at some point.

At this moment, a boy with a black background and a red letter [答] on his cheek suddenly appeared in front of her.

******

Abilities, spells, monsters, magical girls—there are many [existences] that go beyond the definition of "science" in this world, and only the most "familiar" [abilities] of Edogawa Ranpo are For example, no one can tell what kind of thing it is.

What constitutes it, how it works, and why it can ignore the "general laws of physics" have not yet had a definite answer to these questions. Even the supernatural research institutions in various countries are only studying "how to control and use various supernatural powers." can".

This incident is not like the work of a "supernatural person". There is no trace, no reason for drowsiness, the location is limited to the music classroom, and the victims are just a few ordinary elementary school students. I thought it was a curse. After a sleeping child was awakened by Nanako, Ranpo and Yosano stayed in the music classroom, planning to wait for the other to come to the door, but what appeared in front of them was a translucent ghost of the dead.

It was a girl who had been dead for a year but had not been reincarnated for a long time.

In the concept of conjurers, there is the existence of "soul", but it seems that I have never heard of anyone who has seen the soul of the dead with their own eyes. I have heard of the existence of being cursed into a curse spirit, but Generally speaking, "ghost" is not an existence beyond Ranpo's cognition, and it is just a special one among [a certain existence].

The ghost girl's obsession is "I want someone to listen to her play the piano", so she chooses seven students she likes from the students who come to the music classroom, and keeps their souls, making them her forever "audience".She played a half piece of music over and over again, which was the only piece of music she remembered after she became a ghost.

She is not strong enough to press the keys of the piano, so she can only dance her fingertips on the keys while humming this soft and cheerful part of the music.

She originally wanted to swallow the souls of these students, so that she could touch the keys, but after swallowing these students, she could only find new souls to listen to.The music classroom was closed and the school was on holiday. She couldn't leave here to find new "listeners" outside, because she had become the "earth-bound spirit" of this music classroom.

She hesitated for several days. Three days ago, she was going to eat these souls, but she finally gave up. As a result, today, the souls she left behind suddenly returned to their respective bodies. In the body, no longer bound by her.

The ghost girl who has lost her audience targets what she sees as the "culprit" and wants to turn Ranpo and Yosano into her "new audience", but Ranpo throws a trick at her that makes her unable to listen. The temptation to refuse.

"Even if you turn us into your 'audience', those who can listen to you playing the piano in the end are just 'ghosts'."

"Do you want to let all 'people' see you and hear you play the piano as if you were alive?"

Ten-year-old Ryoko Xia Chuan was moved.

******

Nanako sat on the seat in the first row of the music classroom, digging hard into the three-color ice cream in her hand. The small plastic spoon poked into the frozen ice cream. Scoop of ice cream to come.

I don't understand what happened, and I don't know who the little girl in school uniform playing the piano is sitting on the piano chair at the moment. Nanako is sitting on the chair, dangling her short legs, eating her ice cream intently , I just think that Officer Yasui really deserves to be a male Bodhisattva. Hearing her stupid father talking nonsense, he didn't throw him out. He even asked the little police officer to buy ice cream for her and Gogol.

Licking the chocolate-flavored crispy ice cream, sitting cross-legged on the seat to the right of Nanako, Gogol still had a happy smile on his face, and his golden eyes were half-bent, like two beautiful but innocent The jewel of temperature, the back of the girl next to the piano is reflected in some strange pupils.

The melodious and soft piano sound reverberated in the empty music classroom, and the central air conditioner above the head tirelessly breathed out air-conditioning. The hot weather was isolated from the outside. This classroom seemed to be independent from the world, forming a corner of its own.

There was a bit too much three-color ice cream. After eating half a box, Nanako felt that her throat was a little itchy. She coughed twice like a kitten and dared not eat any more.

Climbing down from the chair with the ice cream in her arms, Nanako ran to the door of the music classroom, opened the door with great effort, and then slipped out.Ranpo and Police Officer Yasui were standing at the door of the music classroom talking, and the light and cheerful piano sound like flowing water came from the classroom, and they could be heard clearly even standing at the door.

Holding the ice cream, Nanako stretched out her small short hand and tugged at the corner of Ranbu's clothes vigorously.

With half a popsicle in his mouth, he squinted his eyes and lowered his head in disorder, looked at Nanako, and uttered a questioning syllable: "Huh?"

"Ice cream, I can't finish it." Nanako raised her head and said slowly, her dark eyes stared at Ranbu without blinking, and the half box of ice cream in her hand was almost melting.

Luanbu glanced at the three-color ice cream in her hand. The melted sugar water of the three different flavors of ice cream melted together, which looked like whipped cream.He took the ice cream from Nanako's hands indifferently, with a popsicle in his mouth, he patted her on the head, and said vaguely, "If you can't finish it, give it to Dad."

"Oh……"

"But Gogol's father won't eat it, you let him eat it by himself."

Nanako scratched her little head, said "Oh" slowly, then turned around and ran back to the music classroom, closing the sliding door again with difficulty.

Holding a popsicle in one hand and half a box of ice cream in the other, watching Nanako go back to the music classroom, Ranpo looked away, smiling at the acquainted officer Yasui and Toshiro whom he had met for the first time. In a tone that is not too serious, he asked with a free and unrestrained look:

"Then who is going to take that ghost kid who is the 'prisoner' away~?"

Officer Yasui: "..."

Toshiro Hitsugaya: "..."

The inner thoughts of the two people who had never known each other surprisingly reached a consensus at this moment.

【—Of course it's me! 】