8 DAYS LEFT TILL POLL CLOSES!

CLEAR-5

KOUJAKU-3

MINK-3

Noiz Route #9

"Hey, Noiz!" I try getting his attention.

"I'll be done soon."

"No…" Maybe it isn't a good idea to talk to him, he's concentrating…I open my bag to ask Ren. "Ren, what is that? Why is a dog here?"

"…Aoba, run. That machine-"

"Machine?"

The black dog comes to a stop…And then opens his mouth wide. A long, narrow iron pipe comes out of his deep red mouth. "!"

"That's a special type of Allmate with crime-prevention equipment added to it." Ren said.

"Crime prevention!? Noiz, run!"

Noiz looks up and immediately begins to run with me. But the dog is faster than us and sends a bolt of light flying straight at us.

"Watch out…!"

"…!"

"Ouch…!" I push Noiz just barely out of the way and we continue running. What was that just now? It was like a beam…When I lift my chin up, I see the wall the beam had hit is now a black color, burning and melting. If that had been a direct hit…I shiver at the thought.

"Just in the nick of time, too…Ouch!" When I try to get up, a numbing pain runs up my side. I find a scalding burn under my torn shirt on one side of my body. I must've been hit by that beam when I tackled Noiz out of the way.

"That, you…"

"Forget about me, over there!" I point frantically at the dog while Noiz scowls at my wound. The iron pipe out of its mouth is pointed right at us. It's going to shoot the second shot.

"-!" I don't know what he was thinking, but Noiz dashed up to it.

"Noiz!"

Noiz takes out a cube from his side while running and pushes it into the dogs' mouth, trying to stop it.

What is he doing…!?

And suddenly, smoke fumes out of the dog's mouth. Its feet jerk and wobble until it falls to the ground. That just… Did the cube clog up the pipe and cause it to backfire? Jeez, it would've been dangerous if he didn't have that perfect timing. That was seriously terrifying, sheesh…

He's as reckless as he ever was. But he did save us.

…But it was nothing but a fleeting thought. At the back of the hallway, more similar-looking dogs appeared. How many more of them are out there!?

"Tch, more of 'em? Hey, can you run?"

"Yeah."

"Let's hide somewhere and let them go past."

I hold my aching side with a hand and run down the hallway with Noiz. On the way there was a door that was half made of glass, and we looked inside. It seemed to be a room for storing equipment. There wasn't any sign of people. We wait for the danger to pass by hiding between the evenly lined shelves.

We try to hold in our heaving breaths as quietly as possible, listening for any signs of activity outside. Engulfed in the tense atmosphere, the only sounds I hear are my own heartbeat and the footsteps of the dog outside. The footsteps reach the door and stop. But after a while, they pass and move farther away.

…What a relief. They left.

"…Haah." I breathe out a heavy sigh of relief. "That was dangerous."

"…"

I look at Noiz and see him staring into empty space with a brooding expression. "Noiz?"

"…I don't get it." Muttering like he was talking to himself, Noiz looks at me. His sharp eyes startle me.

For some reason, I can tell that the expression he's making means he's unhappy. "If you have something to say, say it."

"You…"

"He-…Oww!" Suddenly, Noiz reaches out his hand and touches the burn on my side. I flinch and try to move back, but the pain stops me from doing so. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" I protest to him with an angry glare.

"It hurts, right? All because you covered for me. But I didn't ask you to. I don't get why you'd go so far."

"This again…You would've been dead if that hit you. What's wrong with me covering you?"

"Same goes for you. If you'd made one wrong step you would've died."

"…Well, you're right about that." I mumbled.

"I still don't get why you jumped out in front of me. Do you have a death wish?" He asked.

"Huh? What're you talking about? It's not like I want your gratitude or anything. Don't you care if you die or not?"

"Nah."

"…!" In an instant, the blood rises to my head and I seriously punch Noiz's shit. "!" Taken aback, I glance at my fist and then to Noiz's face. His cheek is a swelling red with a bit of blood seeping from his mouth.

Shit, I've really done it now.

"…Heh." He lightly licks off the blood from his slit lip and smiles. "…Bring it on."

"-!" Returning the punch, an impact slams into my cheek. "Ow…You little-!"

"…!"

"Ouch! You-!"

"…Shut up!"

"Oww…!"

The two of us keep trading punches. During our fight, we tumble to the floor. Noiz is on top of me and shoves his knee into the burn on my side.

"Agh, my side, that really hurts!"

"…"

He must've gotten the message, and he held back his knee.

"Owowowowow, ow…Move, I said it hurts!"

"-!"

Overloaded with pain, I kick as hard as I can into Noiz's stomach.

"Shit, sorry…!" Noiz looked down on my flustered face with a calm expression. His cheek was swelled up from that harsh fight earlier, but he doesn't look like he's in pain at all. "…Did that not hurt?"

"…"

He doesn't say anything. His expression doesn't change either. This guy… He was like this before, too. He didn't say he was in pain when scalding coffee was spilled onto his hand. At first I thought he was playing tough, but now it seems strange. And right now, he wasn't able to feel any sort of backlash after hitting me back. Usually you'd be angry and say something like 'You really did it now'.

…He has none of that. He doesn't hesitate either. It's like he's an empty machine.

"…Don't you feel pain?"

"…It doesn't hurt." Noiz looks at me with icy eyes. His voice is more dry, more inhuman than I've ever heard it. "Whether I'm hit, kicked, or stabbed, nothing hurts. I can't feel pain."

"You can't feel pain?"

"My senses are all dull, all except in my tongue. I can still feel things, but it always feels like my skin is covered by something thick. Didn't I tell you earlier that you didn't need to take care of me?"

"…"

"If I leave my wounds alone, they'll heal just fine. That's always how it's been. But you're different. Don't you feel pain? But you still try to cover for me, I don't get it at all. It's a total mystery to me as to why you'd go to those lengths."

"You're not the one who doesn't get it, asshole." I lightly dust off Noiz's cheek, cutting off his words. It surprised me to hear that he didn't feel pain. In fact, I couldn't even comprehend what he meant at first. But when I watched him say it so calmly… I pretty much understood.

Noiz can't feel pain. He doesn't know what real pain is.

That's…isn't that just sad?

Just thinking that he can't feel pain, let alone anything else… The feeling of hurting someone and being hurt. Most people understand what it's like when it comes to others, and reflect on themselves.

But he's probably never done that.

If you don't feel pain yourself, you can't understand the pain of others. So he wasn't able to understand why I did what I did. What it's like for someone to truly care about someone else. It's not something cost-benefit.

But he doesn't know that.

And for him to say that I have some sort of motive…it's a lonely way to think. While thinking that, I found Noiz to be awfully childish. "You say some pretty stupid things. Even if you don't feel pain, you'll bleed, and die if it's fatal. You're just trying to find some way to argue against me helping you even though you don't feel pain."

"…"

"It really hurt when I covered your ass. But I'm glad I did it. Enough that I don't care about getting hurt over it."

"Then it'll be your fault when I die. You're going to be a pain in the ass in the future."

"Wrong. Why can't you think of anything other than being rebellious? I'm saying I want to help you because I don't want it to be my fault."

"So you do it because you want to." He said.

"Stop talking like that. I said that you were wrong. If I were to say why I wanted to help you…I don't think I could say it in a way for you to understand. Anyway, I wanted to save you. So I'm treating you and watching your back."

"I don't get what you mean."

"You just don't understand other people. You're calm because you don't feel pain, but I'm not like you. So that's why I'll go around doing things myself."

"Are you stupid?" He asked.

"I don't want to hear that from you." I said.

"You're just losing instead of getting collateral."

"That's okay. I don't think I'm losing anything. In a way I'm being selfish, since I'm pushing you around to be doing whatever I want."

"And if I told you to stop?"

"I won't. Don't you hate me for looking after you? But I don't care about that; I'm just doing what I want. If that's too much, just hear me out. Then I'll think about it. So you need to think about me some more."

"…." Noiz shuts up, suddenly looking impatient. I did say some weird things… "…Do you even realize how damn weird you sound right now?"

"Eh?"

"Saying that you think about me right to my face. It's the first time I've seen a girl say something like that without even blinking."

"…" I feel my face go burning hot when he points it out. I turn my face away, flustered.

"Your face is red."

"Shut up."

"…But, well, I said this before, but you're the first one to ever get in my way so much. I've always hated people and pushed them away: they always come to me for the bit of coin I have."

I turn my face back when I hear Noiz's voice calm down. He had a different expression on. His cold expression disappeared and a faintly confused one took place.

"Bit of coin? What do you mean?"

"Same old, same old. My parents are rich."

"Rich?"

"Well, my parents. But I don't have any interest in people like them. So when I became a little rowdy, I became a problem."