“What!? Iori disappeared during the school trip!?”

I jumped up from my bed in my room and shouted with a loud voice.
The person I was talking to on my phone was a boy who was a classmate of Iori’s.

The junior high school students were currently on a school trip to Kyoto.
Iori went missing in the middle of their trip.

Lost!? Is he lost!? Is the blood of the Kisaragi family forcing the younger brother to go through the same experience as the older sister?
However, it does not seem so, according to the boys’ story.

“Kisaragi-kun is popular among both boys and girls, and he is like an idol to us. Therefore…Kisaragi-kun and Hoshikawa-san, we were talking about how close they are these days, and we all got a little too excited…”

“Yeah, you mean with Aoi. I know how you feel, but what happened…?”
“We had free time to explore and Hoshikawa-san ran out of the house because she was probably too embarrassed and Kisaragi-kun chased after her…”

…Heh? Something about that sounds familiar.
Maybe that time I called him in a daze while I was leaving school?
“We’re in trouble over here right now!” I’m sure that was what he was saying.

“I think Kisaragi-kun probably caught up with her because they both came home together. But both of them seemed depressed…”
“…Fumm.”

I see the story.
Something happened between the two of them at that time.

What I remember was the conversation with Aoi at the family restaurant.
My sister-in-law said she wasn’t sure if Iori’s feelings were for her or not.

On top of that, he said that during the school trip, people around her made her embarrassed and she ran away and Iori went to pick her up, but when they came back…they were depressed.

“I’m going to double check, but it wasn’t Aoi who disappeared, it was Iori?”
“Yes, that’s right! At dinner, I noticed that Kisaragi-kun was nowhere to be found…”

So that was how it is.
I encouraged Aoi at the family restaurant, and when I called Aoi today, she told me “I’m sorry.”
And after a while, Iori disappeared.

…I had a general idea of what had happened.

”We fooled the teacher’s roll-call! But he still hasn’t come back even though it’s past lights out, and he hasn’t answered his phone, and we didn’t know what to do… and the legendary Mikami-senpai is Kisaragi-kun’s older brother, so we had no choice but to rely on you.”

“I understand. How is Aoi doing?”
“Hoshikawa-san is probably in the girls’ room.”

“All right, you guys stay at the inn. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“T-Thank you very much..!’”

I hang up the phone and breathe thinly in bed.

I didn’t think Iori… No, Yuika also got lost, and Nadeshiko-san also said she crawled in the night, and it might be the Kisaragi family’s bloodline that caused disturbances on school trips.

I said I would try to find out what I could think of, but it was several hours from here to Kyoto by Shinkansen bullet train.
Looking at the clock on the wall, it looked as if I could get onto the last train of the local line if I went there now.

“Well, what can I do?”

Iori’s homeroom teacher was a savvy female teacher in her twenties.
She was a trustworthy teacher who used to be the homeroom teacher for me and Yuika. If I contact her, she would try to find Iori with some understanding of the situation.

I think I’ll contact Iori first, and if he doesn’t pick up the phone, I’ll call the teacher at…or even Aoi before that.

I made the arrangements in my head and tried to get Iori’s number from the address field.
But just before I did that.

I received an incoming call.

It wasn’t Iori.
The name displayed was “Kisaragi Yuika.”

“What—!?”

For a moment, I was caught off guard.
Yuika never calls me. She never texts me, never sends me messages.

Because.
Because even if she didn’t, I would see her every day without fail.
365 days a year without fail.

That was why for the past year and a half, we haven’t communicated through our phones.
It was like proof of our bond.

But, however.
Right now, Yuika’s name is displayed on this screen.
In other words, it’s urgent enough to call me.

I was taken aback for a brief moment.
My mind instantly flipped a switch and I ran out of the room.
Grabbing only my jumper, I run down the hallway and press the call button.

“What’s wrong!? I’m on my way!”

Even as I asked, I felt as if I had connected the dots.
Iori, who was gone, and the sudden call from Yuika.
I could guess from years of experience what was happening now.

From the phone’s speaker, I could hear Yuika’s clinging voice—