I'm an Infinite Regressor, But I've Got Stories to Tell-Chapter 425 (the monkey paw girl)

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There was a person named Kurosawa Touka.

“Touka-chan! Mommy’s going out!”

“……”

Now, there was sadly only one person left in the world who still called that name—a critically endangered species.

In fact, until only a few months ago, that population counted two.

There was a woman named Sena. She was Kurosawa’s girlfriend.

And at the same time, she was also the girlfriend of three other women.

Bedroom. Kurosawa muttered, looking down at her smartphone.

“That beastly woman……”

No matter how she thought about it, this was a breach of contract.

Who could have imagined that the first same-sex lover she’d ever dated in her life (in fact, her first lover, period) would turn out to be not a bipedal mammal but a four-legged reptile?

So this is why people hate reptilians. Kurosawa, as a member of the human race, learned a deep new lesson.

“And I was the fourth one…!”

Even a harem had its limits.

Who on earth would recognize the fourth heroine? Even in Japan, if someone were asked to name the fourth most-voted-for political party in the country, they’d probably answer weakly, “Uh… the, Communist Party?”

Moreover, Kurosawa Touka came loaded with a dazzling list of tags befitting a heroine: #menhera #gloomy #dark #jealous #hikikomori #no friends, and so on.

Among the small minority of people afflicted with the incurable “sub-heroine syndrome,” she might enjoy cult-level popularity, but even if she received all their campaign support, her odds of being elected were close to zero.

So Kurosawa chose the same path most politicians who lost elections took.

—I, uh, will become a shut-in.

In other words, she went into seclusion.

In truth, Kurosawa had expected that this decision of hers would cause some social stir. After all, wasn’t she a victim of a quadrupedal same-sex melodrama now holed up in her room?

The reactions around her were—

—Ah. It’s finally happened.

—?

Kurosawa’s mother accepted her daughter’s “shut-in declaration” with a perfectly calm face.

—All right. Rest. Get a good rest. But after half a year, you’ll either go back to school or start a part-time job.

—?

—If you don’t get a part-time job, I’ll kick you out of the house, Touka-chan.

—??

Do not panic in the slightest!

As though, by physiognomy, her child’s evolution into a reclusive homebody was a destined path, one she had predicted years ago.

Indeed.

Unfortunately, to parents raising the youth of modern Japan, hikineet had long ceased to be some strange alien species.

The older generation, who were caught off guard and helpless in the face of the “waste-of-life lifestyle,” had all fallen behind in the struggle for survival and gone extinct.

Now, only those parents who had learned to “counter the waste-of-life lifestyle” in a young, MZ way had survived.

“Touka-chan! Mommy’s leaving for work—you should come out and say goodbye! Otherwise, no dinner money today!”

“…Take, take care.”

“Good! Two months from now, you’ll need to start a part-time job, okay? Prepare yourself mentally.”

“You’ve got plenty of money though, Mom…”

“That’s my money, not your money, isn’t it?”

“……”

“The value of labor is sacred, my dear. You’ll understand once you’ve worked. Ah—going to be late for my meeting. Bye! Love you! Touka-chan!”

Chu! Blowing a kiss on her daughter’s disgusted cheek, the mother dashed out in a hurry.

Ughhh. Left alone, Kurosawa rubbed her cheek furiously and couldn’t help but realize— 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

‘My mom’s mental fortitude is way too strong…’

Once again, Kurosawa had been defeated by the combat power of her single-mother, career-woman mom (former underground idol, current employee of a Vtuber agency).

“Haa.”

Her 2.5-pyeong private room.

Even her sigh, once released, had nowhere to escape and hovered in the air—but Kurosawa had never once thought her room was too small.

Maybe because, back in high school when she ran away from home and hung around with the Toyoko Kids, she had experienced falling asleep shoulder-to-shoulder in cramped hotel rooms.

—Anonymous: This is dangerous. I got the “Flower of Rumor” delivered to me too.

Or maybe it was because she could easily feel connected to a wider world just by turning on her smartphone.

—Anonymous: Flower of Rumor?

She didn’t know which, but today again Kurosawa took the bait of some new forum gossip.

—Anonymous: Don’t you know? It’s that flower that gets delivered internationally, shipping paid by them, sent indiscriminately to random addresses.

—Anonymous: Isn’t that an urban legend? Can’t trust someone without proof.

—Anonymous: Look, idiot.

Soon after, a photo was uploaded.

Kurosawa saw the image and muttered without thinking.

“Eh? What’s this flower?”

It was a red flower, so beautiful it seemed impossible for it to exist in reality.

Kurosawa had always thought she shared nothing with her mother besides looks, but there was one thing—

They both loved flowers and plants.

“It’s not a red spider lily… maybe a kind of peony? No, no, the petals are too thin. And why do the petals have a purplish tint? Ehh, this has to be an AI photo, right?”

The forum users’ opinions were mostly similar.

—Anonymous: Again…? Don’t they ever get tired?

—Anonymous: Stop importing overseas memes like the Italian Brain Rot stuff. It’s neither funny nor touching.

—Anonymous: Impossible. Yesterday, a Vtuber mentioned publicly on stream that she got a “Flower of Rumor,” so it’s causing a fuss everywhere.

—Anonymous: Don’t leak stuff from members-only streams!

—Anonymous: After animals, now plants. The stupidity of their thought process is hilarious.

Her curiosity was slightly piqued.

Soon, Kurosawa began searching various communities for “Flower of Rumor” and “Udumbara.”

She even logged back into that app she’d cut off after breaking up with her ex—it had been a long time.

“Wow. What’s this? It’s really famous?”

Apparently, she was a bit late to the news—already, the “Flower of Rumor” was trending everywhere.

“At least… it doesn’t look AI-generated.”

Mutter.

“For an AI image, the angles are too varied. And there are a fair number of people showing their faces for proof… this is really strange.”

Normally, she’d be spending this time waging an all-out war online against rival Vtuber agencies competing with her mother’s (something her mother didn’t know about).

“But it’s so pretty, this flower…”

For some reason, Kurosawa found herself pouring all her attention into researching the “Flower of Rumor.”

It was like being possessed.

‘There must be others interested like me.’

She put down her smartphone and turned on her computer.

She dove deeper, into the ocean of information—tracing the tip of the iceberg down to its base.

A little trick she had learned during her runaway youth.

‘Ahh, this cool feeling.’

It was time for Internet Detective Kuro (黒) to return.

Hours passed.

—Anonymous: Though it’s called international shipping, all the senders seem to be Korean.

Found it.

—Anonymous: Korean?

Kurosawa held her breath and typed.

—Anonymous: Yeah. Specifically from Busan. My girlfriend’s Korean, so I asked a local contact, and they found a flower shop there with the exact same flowers.

—Anonymous: Proof photo?

—Anonymous: Impossible. More importantly, this seems tied to a major Korean politician. The city’s mayor, the one from Busan I mentioned. It’s a lot dirtier than expected.

“Politician?!”

What the hell, this is an urban legend.

—Anonymous: I don’t get it. Why would a Korean politician send flowers to Japanese people?

—Anonymous: Agreed.

—Anonymous: Could it be a bioweapon or some cult scheme?

—Anonymous: As far as I know, no one’s reported any harm. Too early to say for sure, but doesn’t seem to have physical side effects.

—Anonymous: Do you know which flower shop?

A short delay.

—Anonymous: Tang Family Garden (唐家花園).

Another delay.

—Anonymous: It’s not only being shipped to Japan. The U.S. and China are seeing even more. There are simultaneous reports worldwide.

—Anonymous: In my opinion, it’s weird that fresh flowers are spreading so fast without customs checks.

—Anonymous: So maybe they just look real, but they’re actually artificial.

Artificial?

So beautiful—and yet fake flowers?

—Anonymous: As the name suggests, the Flower of Rumor. Or perhaps, the legendary flower, Udumbara (優曇華の花).

“……”

Her research ended there.

“Haa.”

Thud.

Kurosawa dropped her upper body onto the table. Hours of nonstop investigation had drained her completely, leaving only a heavy exhaustion.

“So it only looked real, huh…? A fake flower. What a garbage ending.”

Well, so be it.

Somehow, a bitter smile came to her lips.

‘An ending that suits someone like me.’

She had no dreams.

Even though her parent was someone who had chased dreams and lived passionately, she herself felt like the burnt wick of a candle that had never even been lit.

She thought maybe love could change something. And thanks to that, she now possessed the most bizarre romantic experience imaginable. But did that change her life? Hardly.

Trash.

‘I’m hungry.’

She wanted pizza.

Lately, the genes inherited from her mother were starting to rebel in her belly, as if saying, “Hmm, my previous owner used to dance and sing to burn calories, but this new one doesn’t?”—but she couldn’t resist pizza.

She ordered Domino’s with the money her mom had transferred that morning.

A little while later, after confirming the deliveryman’s footsteps had gone away, she opened the door.

“……?”

Next to the familiar pizza box was an unfamiliar package.

“What’s this? Mom’s delivery?”

Well, couldn’t be helped. Just as she was about to perform the filial act of carrying her mother’s package into the house herself, her hand froze.

[唐家花園]

Those exact characters were written on the box.

“……….”

Thump-thump-thump.

Her heart pounded wildly.

She’d been keeping up the habit of talking to herself intentionally, so she wouldn’t forget how to communicate before starting her part-time job soon—but now, even that habit paused.

“Eh.”

Kurosawa quickly grabbed the box and carried it inside. Thud! Then realized she’d left the pizza outside, panicked, and dashed back to bring it in. Thud.

“Eh.”

Cold pizza was disgusting. Hardened cheese was the worst crime of all. But right now, was pizza really important?

“Eh.”

She grabbed scissors and carefully—carefully—cut open the cardboard, hands trembling so the possible contents inside wouldn’t get hurt.

“Eeeeeeh?!”

And then she saw it.

“No way?!”

Inside was a single red flower, quietly placed in a transparent plastic bottle.

“No way! No way, no way! Impossible! Wow—this is real? It’s actually a real flower?! But wait, they said it was fake.”

She touched it.

“It’s alive!”

She sniffed it.

“It smells amazing! Eh, wow! What is this?! Is it artificially perfumed? No, but… no way! I’ve never smelled anything like this!”

It was a scent woven of seven colors—a fragrance once permitted only to a single person in this world.

But Kurosawa could not know that.

“Waaah…”

She placed it on the table, forgot all about her pizza, and simply stared blankly at the Udumbara.

“So pretty…”

Why was it?

“Oh, right! A photo! I should take a picture!”

Ever since she first saw it online earlier that day—just looking at this flower—

Her heart had kept trembling.

“…Huh?”

She didn’t understand.

It felt as though something terribly sad had happened.

As though she had gone missing somewhere. As though she could never again meet her beloved mother. Forever and ever.

Forever unable to meet again.

“……”

Words like “I’m sorry” or “thank you”—

Her mom had said them to her every day.

But she could no longer return even words like those.

“Um… so… I guess I’ll take the photo…”

No one could save her.

Even if they wanted to, it was already too late.

She had wanted to become someone who could proudly say “I love you” to her mother.

That kind of feeling.

That truly strange feeling—Kurosawa Touka felt it.

“……”

She set down her smartphone.

She took a single picture but didn’t upload it anywhere. Come to think of it, she no longer had anyone to share it with.

‘My flower.’

Kurosawa stroked the petals.

‘It doesn’t even exist in this world. People call it fake, call it artificial. But this… it came to me. So I can name it whatever I want, right?’

And somehow, she felt she already knew the name of that red flower.

‘Touka (灯花).’

That day—

“Mom.”

“Yes? I saw the pizza box—after eating something so heavy, you should exercise. Otherwise, you’ll gain weight fast.”

“I want to go back to school.”

“……”

“And I’m going to study abroad in Korea.”

“Eh?”

“Ah, well, I don’t have to study, but they said it’s easiest to get a part-time job abroad through an exchange program. I could just get a work visa too, though.”

“Eh?”

“There’s a flower shop there I really want to work at. I didn’t know before, but… if it’s something to do with flowers, I feel like I could really throw myself into it.”

“Eh.”

“But first I have to confirm that the flower shop actually exists. So I already bought my plane ticket to Korea. I leave in a week. Ahh, my savings are really in danger now…”

“Ehh.”

“If that doesn’t work out, I’ll debut as an idol like you did when you were young. Isn’t your agency recruiting new Vtubers? How about a mother-daughter Vtuber duo? It’d sell for sure.”

“Eh?”

Kurosawa Touka didn’t know.

That she wasn’t the only one who had found a red flower waiting by her front door.

A week passed.

Time moved forward.

That day, no one’s head exploded from foreseeing a future they couldn’t bear.

That day, Kurosawa Touka pulled her hood low, avoided eye contact with the flight attendants, and boarded the plane.

That day, her mother, seeing that a red flower in her daughter’s room had withered and in its place a single plum blossom had bloomed, tilted her head curiously and murmured, “Huh?”

That day was—

June 17th.

—The one who had once been an impostor. 結.

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End of Chapter — “The One Who Was Once an Impostor.”