Chapter 47: The Same Symptoms!
Mai had already made several guesses and conducted a few experiments regarding Saku's inner voice.
By now, she had a rough understanding of the rules surrounding it.
First, she couldn't tell anyone that she could hear Saku's inner voice.
Not even someone who could hear it too.
She'd already confirmed that much with Yui.
Second, whenever she tried to reveal the existence of the inner voice, some invisible and mysterious force would interfere.
The most obvious symptom was a headache.
And the harder she fought against that restriction, the worse the pain became.
Finally, even if she endured the headache and forced the words out, some unknown power would filter what she said.
Either the other person wouldn't hear her voice at all, or everything she said would be reduced to meaningless sounds like "ah-ba-ah-ba."
But that didn't mean the restrictions were impossible to work around.
The key was simply not to reveal the inner voice directly.
That was why Mai had thought of Adolescence Syndrome.
It was another supernatural phenomenon, making it the perfect substitute.
The principle wasn't that different from avoiding banned words online.
You couldn't say the forbidden term directly, but if you replaced it with another phrase and the other person understood the implication, that was enough.
"Have you ever heard of Adolescence Syndrome?"
Mai didn't bother with a long, indirect test.
She went straight to the point.
The instant Futaba heard the question, she froze.
There was a simple reason.
She was essentially the person who had coined that term.
Even then, "Adolescence Syndrome" was something known only among Futaba, Sakuta, and a few people around them.
At least, that had been true under normal circumstances.
Around two weeks ago, Futaba discovered that one other person seemed to understand exactly what the term meant.
That person had even cured someone suffering from such a phenomenon.
And that person was now standing directly in front of her.
Sakurajima Mai.
"How do you know...?"
Futaba stopped herself and immediately changed the question.
"No. Why are you asking me about that?"
Under ordinary circumstances, Mai and Futaba were like two parallel lines.
Their lives had almost no reason to intersect.
So Mai suddenly appearing here and asking her this particular question was obviously abnormal.
"It seems you really do know what the term means."
Mai walked over to a nearby table and sat on its edge.
"As for why I'm asking, it's because I used to suffer from it myself."
She had no intention of hiding that.
In fact, she'd come here specifically because she wanted an open conversation.
"Not long ago, I almost disappeared from this world because of Adolescence Syndrome."
Mai paused.
"I don't mean that I nearly died physically."
"It was more like social erasure."
"If someone hadn't helped me in time, there might not be anyone left who remembered who Sakurajima Mai was."
Futaba already knew about that.
Or rather, it would've been difficult for her not to know.
A mysterious voice had spent quite a lot of time talking about it in her ears.
"But judging from the result, your condition has already disappeared."
"That's right."
Mai nodded.
But everything she'd said so far was merely an introduction.
Her real purpose came next.
"However, I actually developed another condition."
"Sometimes, I can hear a voice."
"At first, I thought it was an auditory hallucination caused by lack of sleep."
Mai carefully watched Futaba's face.
"Later, I started treating it as a secondary symptom of Adolescence Syndrome."
"The strange thing is, I can still hear that voice even now."
"And what it says has an uncanny habit of matching things that happen in reality."
She tilted her head slightly.
"What do you think about a symptom like that?"
Mai couldn't directly reveal the secret of Saku's inner voice.
But she didn't need to.
What she'd just said was already about as explicit as the rules allowed.
Someone unfamiliar with the situation might not understand.
But if Futaba understood Adolescence Syndrome and could also hear Saku's inner voice, there was no way she'd miss the implication.
Sure enough, as Mai continued speaking, Futaba's expression became increasingly shocked.
By the time Mai finished, she no longer needed an answer.
Futaba's face had already given her one.
Futaba could hear Saku's inner voice too.
Just like Mai.
Just like Yui.
One person could be a coincidence.
Two was already suspicious.
Three meant there was almost certainly some kind of pattern and some kind of condition determining who could hear it.
And if that was true, then the people capable of hearing Saku's inner voice must share something in common.
"You... also have the 'auditory hallucination' version of Adolescence Syndrome?"
As expected, Futaba had already discovered some of the same restrictions.
Without realizing it, she'd immediately adopted Mai's euphemism to avoid triggering them.
"You have it too, don't you?"
Mai smiled faintly.
"I knew it."
"Still, just to be safe, let's compare when it started."
Futaba had no objection.
After comparing their memories, they quickly confirmed that the timing matched.
Both of them had begun hearing Saku's inner voice at exactly the same time.
"I thought I was the only one who could hear it."
Futaba looked slightly embarrassed as she said that.
There were some things she'd never tell another person, but she knew her own mental state wasn't completely healthy.
Maybe it was depression.
Maybe it was something else.
She couldn't say for certain.
But she had long understood that she carried problems she didn't know how to resolve.
So when Saku's inner voice first appeared, Futaba had assumed she'd somehow developed a second personality.
Worse, in the beginning, she'd actually tried talking to that voice inside her head.
She'd poured out thoughts she normally kept completely hidden, even though the voice never answered her.
Only later did Futaba learn the truth.
The voice belonged to an actual boy named Jinnai Saku, who was currently attending Sobu High School.
It wasn't an imaginary second personality at all.
Remembering how openly she'd talked to it now left Futaba deeply embarrassed.
She'd exposed parts of herself to that mysterious voice that she'd never shown anyone else.
Not even Sakuta, her friend.
Not even Kunimi Yuma, the boy she secretly liked.
"That's a perfectly reasonable conclusion."
Mai understood completely.
"I suspect most people who develop this particular 'symptom' probably think the same thing at first."
She had too.
Mai had originally believed she was the only person who could hear the voice.
The only special one.
Reality had since proven otherwise.
The truly special person was Saku.
"You mean there are more than just the two of us?"
Futaba immediately caught the implication.
Mai nodded.
"You've heard him talk about plots involving male and female protagonists before, haven't you?"
"I have a theory."
She chose her words carefully.
"Maybe every heroine develops this particular condition."
Futaba fell silent.
After thinking for a while, she asked the most important question.
"But I'm not a hero—ah!"
Pain suddenly stabbed through her head halfway through the sentence.
Futaba pressed a hand against her temple.
"So even connecting myself directly to those things counts as breaking the rule."
She took a slow breath and tried again.
"I'm different from you."
"If your theory is correct, then only the heroine should qualify."
The sentence was deliberately incomplete, but Mai still understood what Futaba meant.
Futaba was emphasizing that she wasn't the heroine.
And from that perspective...
She had a point.
If Saku's comments about the original story were accurate, then Sakurajima Mai should've been the sole main heroine.
The other girls were, at most, supporting characters.
Yet Futaba Rio could hear Saku's inner voice too.
And that meant their theory was still missing something.
…