“See, there’s the pie chart. If you look, you can see clear as day that the happy times—the times when you think, ‘How fun! I’m glad I’m alive!’—don’t make up even one tenth of life. I worked this out properly with a calculator, so there’s no mistake.”

I rather wondered what kind of calculation methods she’d used, but Misaki didn’t show me any other pages. I had no intention of going out of my way to infringe on her privacy further.

Misaki continued, “That’s why. Any God who would purposefully create such a painful world must be a really terrible guy, don’t you think? It’s a logical conclusion, isn’t it?”

“Misaki, didn’t you just say that you wanted to believe in God?”

“Yeah. I do want to believe. I think I wish that God did exist. I mean…”

“You mean?”

“If that type of bad God did exist, then we could go on living in good health. If we could push the responsibility for our misery onto God, then we would have that much more peace of mind, wouldn’t we?”

It was a complicated discussion. I folded my arms and pretended to think deeply about it, but my mind wasn’t working properly.

To begin with, Misaki, how serious about this are you? You’ve been smiling bizarrely for a while now. From start to finish, I felt as though I’d been trapped in a deceptive fog.

In the end, though, her words sounded honest and heartfelt. “If I could believe in God”, she whispered, “I could become happy. God is a bad guy; even so, I know I could become happy.”

“The problem is”, she continued, “the problem is… I have a poor imagination, so I can’t believe in God very easily. Look, couldn’t He create some really showy miracle for me, just like He does in the Bible?”

She was the kind of girl who said these unreasonable things.

After we chatted for about an hour longer, I decided it was about time to leave. When I went to pay, the man behind the register said, “Don’t worry about it. Please, be kind to her.”

I felt that this was a strange thing to say to a guy getting to know a girl Misaki’s age, but the man’s weary expression was strangely compelling. I bowed my head slightly and hurried for home.

Back at my apartment, I was incredibly surprised.

In the middle of my room, a life-sized, mannequin-like doll had been set up. Wobbling with each step, Yamazaki circled the doll.

“Welcome back, Satou! This is our object of worship.”

I was speechless.