Romantic Troubles of Duanmu-kun

Looking back, it had been about half a month ago that I had begun using the astronomical telescope to peep into other people’s lives in this room.

Directly across from this house was Building One. So that had become my first target. Each of the six buildings in the area stood facing each other, separated by greenery and gardens. From this house, I could only see the floor-to-ceiling windows on the first floor and the bedrooms on the second floor.

Before I had started peeping, through ordinary observation I had already known that the residents of Building One were a middle-aged man in his fifties and a young woman in her thirties. The two usually acted quite intimate with each other, likely husband and wife.

Judging from the car used by the man of the house and the couple’s clothing, their financial situation appeared quite good. The husband seemed to love his wife very much.

The man of the house was usually quite busy. Probably due to the nature of his work, he could only stay at home two or three times a week. I saw the wife more often. Her daily life was monotonous and dull, and she rarely went out. Before long, I had given up on the idea of continuing to peep, because it was just too boring.

Mom seemed to have a lot in common with her and chatted with her frequently. The wife was young and pretty, but her brow was often clouded with worry and loneliness.

One afternoon, through the telescope, I had inadvertently noticed an unfamiliar young man sneaking into Building One. I was startled, thinking it might be a burglar, and considered calling the police… but later, the villa remained quiet, with no unusual sounds coming from it. The next day, when the wife met and chatted with Mom, her expression showed no abnormality, and she didn’t mention this incident—not like someone whose home had been burglarized.

I abandoned the idea of calling the police. Subsequently, that young man came again. Since there was no financial motive, perhaps he and the wife had “that kind of relationship”—that was the only conclusion I could draw.

…

About a week had passed.

That afternoon, both the man and woman of Building One were at home. Shadows constantly flickered across the floor-to-ceiling windows. Even without hearing the sound, from their movements and gestures, I could easily guess that the couple was arguing fiercely.

This is certainly not nice to say… but my mood improved slightly. And that wife’s dull and boring life was finally broken.

That night, I tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep. At two in the morning, I brought the telescope to the bedside, thinking I wanted to look at the stars.

Then, in the garden outside the villa across the way, I saw the silhouette of a man busily working.

It was strange. Despite it being the middle of the night, he hadn’t gone to sleep and was still wearing a suit. After a while, in the pitch-dark living room, a spark from a struck match suddenly lit up, which startled me. Why not turn on the lights?

He must have been planning to lie down there after finishing his work, intending to spend the night on the sofa or something else.

The man kept moving back and forth between the garden and the stairway inside the living room. His arms were cradling something indistinct, which looked light.

What was it?

I examined it carefully for a moment and guessed it might have been a woman’s skirt. He was arranging a box, packing the woman’s things into a large upright trunk.

Soon after, he appeared again in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, standing there quietly for a moment. I saw him raise his arm across his forehead, not once, but several times, then fling something into the air. Indeed, doing such heavy work on a night like this would be exhausting.

After finishing the transport, he walked back to the room and felt along the wall, taking something down. Since he was in the living room, my imagination told me it might have been some kind of wall decoration. In the faint light from outside, I could see clearly that he was wearing gloves.

The man was very cautious, always walking in corners where streetlights couldn’t reach, even in the pitch-black night when one couldn’t see their hand in front of their face. So although I could see his movements clearly, I couldn’t see his face.

He approached the window again, standing next to the curtain, so that only a tiny bit of his head and shoulders were visible. He peered intently into the dark garden and the villa clusters beyond. Scanning the rows of windows, most of which were unlit at this hour.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but he kept looking in my direction.

…He couldn’t possibly notice me.

This side was using an astronomical telescope, and the distance was far. The curtains were also drawn, leaving only a small gap. Outsiders couldn’t possibly detect anything unusual.

He couldn’t possibly discover me.

“I’ve baked cookies, let’s take them to the neighbors.”

The next day, Mom said this to me, who had stayed up all night without sleeping at all.

I quickly agreed. In fact, I had been very concerned about what had happened the night before. I kept recalling the scenes I had peeped at… That was definitely abnormal, so I decided to go across and check out the situation.

Carrying the cookies, I thought that since the couple knew me, there shouldn’t be any issues. It was still daytime, and neither of them would do anything to me to avoid alerting suspicion. Through subtle verbal probing, I might discover some clues. My heart was pounding, as if I had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

Would this behavior bring danger to me and Mom? But there was no way to stop now. Rather, it was precisely because of the lurking possibility of danger that I should pursue the truth.

I deliberately didn’t ring the doorbell but went into the garden first. On the moist, soft soil, sure enough, I found traces and footprints that would be left by dragging heavy objects.

Following the traces, I also noticed a large patch of soil with a color different from the surrounding soil—about six to seven feet in a rectangular shape, showing signs of having been turned over, fresher and darker. This patch of land was larger than I had expected, occupying almost half the flower bed.

Realizing something, I thought of retreating, but a figure suddenly turned out from the corridor, catching me off guard, leaving me frozen there.

Without a doubt, it was the suited man I had witnessed last night… and, of course, I recognized him. He froze when he saw me.

“What’s wrong? Is someone here?”

From behind him emerged a young woman in her twenties wearing a long dress, affectionately hugging the man’s arm. I didn’t recognize this woman.

Where was the wife? In the moment our eyes met, I realized something was terribly wrong.

I dropped what I was holding and quickly fled backward.

But that person raised his hand high—

In the sunlight, reflecting a cold metallic gleam, was an antler-shaped wall decoration.

A heavy whooshing sound came from behind.

“Thud.”

The impact from the back of my head sent shock waves through my blood and brain. Like the sound of a bird’s wings taking flight, this was the final sound that echoed from my brain stem.