Loups-Garous by Natsuhiko Kyôgoku Page B

about to copy the next ten minutes of yesterday into today. I have to go now. If I’m found walking around too late in the evening the police will give me trouble. They have more guys on the street now with this killer and everything.”
    â€œTsuzuki, you going somewhere else now?”
    â€œSomewhere else? I’m gonna go return this stone, of course. I’m going to Kono’s house.”
    Ayumi’s house…
    â€œThis time it’ll be a real payback. All right, it’s as though I was never here.”
    Never here. So this was all a lie.
    â€œIt was all a dream?”
    Mio turned back and laughed.

CHAPTER 006
    SHIZUE SMELLED SYNTHETIC resin. She smelled a cheap synthetic leather sheet.
    No, wait, that wasn’t all. She smelled something medicinal. It was mixed with a volatile astringent.
    People who were bothered by potent smells once liked this kind of smell, but at the end of the day, this wasn’t pleasant to the human olfactory sense. To be frank it was a noxious odor.
    Research on pleasant smells was thriving, and a perfume boom was spreading through the younger generation. Some of Shizue’s kids had taken up a hobby of perfuming but unfortunately had never experienced a delicate fragrance. If they knew a fragrant odor it was smelled in passing.
    It was no wonder, with odor-deficient people suddenly increasing in number.
    Shizue opened a window.
    It wasn’t as though it smelled better outside. The air wasn’t invigorating by any means, but the mere presence of the breeze made her feel better. The atmosphere and landscape ran without end throughout the residential quarter like an ancient scroll of parchment.
    â€œIs it stuffy?” Kunugi asked. “I might be a, uh, germophile , but the person usually riding this car is a clean freak of a woman. She’s always sterilizing everything. I figured you’d be okay in here.”
    â€œShe probably has anosmia.”
    â€œOh yeah?” Kunugi sniffed the air a couple times.
    â€œMore importantly, are we all right? It’s already almost five.”
    â€œWe’re fine. I told them if they waited around it was pointless. We couldn’t get our finished work in during business hours. I made the call directly to the prefectural police headquarters through the center’s terminal and not my portable one, so they won’t suspect anything. I’m ostensibly on my way home. That said, I’m going to stop by headquarters on my way to your office tomorrow. Though that means you can’t start working till I get there.”
    â€œThat’s fine.”
    â€œMore importantly…is that girl who didn’t show up to the group one of your kids without a guardian?” Kunugi asked.
    â€œNo. However, her parents have been gone for three days.”
    â€œGone?”
    â€œThey’re traveling.”
    â€œWell, isn’t that nice?”
    â€œIt’s not private. It’s a public matter.”
    â€œ Ohh ,” Kunugi let out in neither a sigh nor a word. “They’re one of these couples that are both employed by the same people, eh?”
    â€œYes. It’s one of those awful ‘partnership’ systems. Supervising and protecting children under sixteen is obviously mandated of guardians, but this partnership system exempts those guardians who have applied for paired status. It’s a matter of work productivity, apparently. When the child is thirteen they’re allowed to be left home alone. Minors between the ages of fourteen and sixteen have the right to be under guardianship, but that right can’t be enforced.”
    â€œWherever there is a law there is a loophole.”
    â€œOur system is riddled with loopholes,” Shizue said. “It ends up being the center’s responsibility to protect children during those years. However, there aren’t enough people designated to do that there. Counselors end up having to be extra careful. But even