Chapter 3

## Guide

This is the **3rd Chapter** of The Summer Hikaru Died manga series, written and illustrated by Mokumokuren.

## Plot

While the students are cleaning their classroom, Maki approaches Yoshiki and asks him a favor. He cries out in despair when Yoshiki declines, which prompts their classmate Yuuki to ask what's going on. Maki explains that he always takes the mountain path from the school's eastern gate to get back to his house in Ashidori. Normally he goes through a tunnel, but since it's under construction, he's been walking through the forest instead, and he wants Yoshiki to go with him because he finds it scary. He explains that sometimes he can't look into the forest, his eyes unable to move away from the path in front of him. Asako suddenly enters the conversation, intrigued by what she overhead. Maki continues trying to convince Yoshiki to come with him. Eventually, "Hikaru" also takes an interest and insists on going. His friends are skeptical, commenting that Indou Hikaru has always been terrible at tolerating creepy things. "Hikaru" responds that he's gotten better at dealing with it lately. Asako looks at him sideways, unsettled. The five then agree to walk the mountain path with Maki.

After school, Hara warns the students that a dead body was found by Kubitachi this morning, so they shouldn't be surprised if they see police cars around. As agreed, the group of five then go to the mountain path together. Yuuki admits she's unsettled by what Hara told them, and Maki agrees that the victim died in a terrible way - stuffing her own hand down her throat. Yoshiki thinks to himself that based on where the police were, the corpse they found might have been Matsuura.

They arrive at the forest path, enter, and come through the other side without anything strange happening. Sheepish, Maki thanks them for their help and continues home alone. The other four then turn back the way they came. Yoshiki looks into the forest and sees what he thinks to be a less-than symbol floating in the distance. It spins around, transforming into a scythe-like shape, the top of which resembles a woman's head with flowing hair. Yoshiki turns away, immediately feeling unwell as he mumbles that "it" is swining its head at him. "Hikaru" calls his attention and tells him to come closer, because "it" is coming for him. There's a loud pop, which startles Asako and Yuuki and causes them to run away. "Hikaru" collpases with a bloody nose, but he licks it up and says that he's fine. He explains that an entity tried to stick to Yoshiki, so he smashed it up and put it inside him. His nose started bleeding because it put up a fight. He then tells Yoshiki that entities are lonely, so they'll stick to Yoshiki if he even looks at them. He instructs Yoshiki to only look at him, and to tell him right away if he looks at anything else.

The two boys emerge from the forest and rejoin Yuuki and Asako, who apologizes for running off without them. "Hikaru" explains away the nosebleed by saying he tripped, and suggests that the "pop" they heard was a scare cannon misfiring somewhere. Privately, Asako thinks to herself that the eerie feeling from the forest is gone.

In Indou Hikaru's memories, his father told him to marry anyone he really likes right away, because otherwise Unuki-sama would take that beloved person into the mountains. It's considered an Indou family rule to quickly wed their lovers into their family, because Unuki-sama promised not to lay a hand on their family members. In present day, "Hikaru" remarks that he won't be taking Yoshiki, but can always stay with him now, and make sure that nothing else takes him instead.

## Character Appearance

* Hara
* Maki
* Tsujinaka Yoshiki
* Yuuki
* Asako
* "Hikaru"
* Matsuura (flashback)
* Hikaru's father (flashback)

## Translation Notes

* In the English translation, Yoshiki identifies the symbol he sees in the forest as a less-than symbol (<). In the original Japanese publication, he identifies it as the hiragana く *ku*.