A Headphone Actor

by Jin (Shizen no Teki-P)

My sister is two years younger than me, making her sixteen this year. To think that just a bit ago…okay, more like a few years ago, but there was a time when she acted a lot cutesier to me, constantly pestering me about this and that for attention.

  The moment she became a high-school student, though, her mood toward me made a full U-turn.

  She began to take this domineering, high-handed attitude, the way a lot of teenage girls do.

  Then, thanks to some mistake or other, she actually became an idol singer, so the point where she’s become pretty well-known among the general public. Posters of her all around town, the works.

  I was glad to see my sister make such a breakthrough in her life, but since the gap between us had grown so large, we barely had the chance to even strike up a conversation as of late.

  But the life of an idol is a pretty stressful one, apparently, and her agency agreed to give her some time off yesterday after discussing things with them.

  She didn’t seem to have too many friends, but apparently she was chummy with the folks in the Mekakushi-dan, which—though, as her brother, I had my qualms—was a bit of a relief to see.

  “—Uh, hello? Are you listening? Just take that off already. You’re drenched in sweat. This isn’t some kind of contest to see how long you can hold out.”

  It was a fact. This temperature, along with the sweat pouring down my body, had made the hoodie I was wearing into a sort of portable sauna for my upper torso.

  Taking it off would have been fine, perhaps, but I didn’t want my pasty white skin to get sunburned, and discarding this hoodie—this pinnacle, this ultimate culmination of clothing culture—was impossible for someone like me who had grown so fond of that fashion accessory.

  The real reason was because this (female) friend I once had said, “You look really good in a hoodie, Shintaro” one time. But now it was starting to feel like a kind of curse upon me.

  “Hell-ooooooo? Hey! Are you listening, bro?! I said, you’re looking gross!”

  Judging by how dogged she was in her complaining, I figured she must have been spewing her frustration at the heat and fatigue or whatnot at me.

  I knew how she felt, but, hey, guess what, I’m in the same boat. All this verbal abuse was starting to get on my nerves, so I decided to take the bait and respond to my sister’s provocation.

  “It’s not causing you any trouble, Momo. And besides, what’s with your outfit, huh? Did they make you wear that after losing a bet in some stupid variety show?”

  The parka Momo was wearing, with ISOLATED written on it in large characters, was so hideous that even the most avant-garde of celebrities wouldn’t dare touch it.

  Anyone who caught sight of her would undoubtedly say to himself, “Wow, that has to be some kind of punishment for something bad she did.”

  “Uh, what? You don’t get this? This is cute. You have, like, no sense whatsoever, do you, Shintaro? And what about that hoodie? You look like a comedian doing some reality-show bit where he’s trying to hitchhike across the country. I can just imagine you getting taken in by some farmer and crying about how delicious his vegetables are and stuff.”

  Judging by the fangs behind this salvo, Momo was apparently a pretty big fan of her own look, too.

  But if I wanted to protect the dignity of my hoodie, I couldn’t afford to lose here.

  So I decided to strike Momo right where it hurt the most.

  “Oh, shut up, Momo. You know, I know what you do every night. You just sit in your room, laughing at Let’s Play videos. You know that’s freaky, right? Sitting there in that darkened room, eating those dried, shredded squid bits like some guy in his sixties…?”

  Momo, stunned by this unexpected attack, began to grow desperate.

  “Wha…How?! How do you know that?!”

  She may have been all gung-ho at first, but now Momo’s face was pale, quickly turning red out of shame.

  I continued, aiming to strike a combo blow.

  “Oh, you know, I was passing by your room on the way to the john, and I heard this really weird laugh, like ‘heh…heh-heh…’ You had the door, like, half-open, so it’s not like I could avoid seeing you.”

  Unable to say anything in response, Momo angrily shook a fist at me.

  I won. She is, after all, just my sister. No way could she ever beat her older brother.

  “You…You’re horrible, Shintaro! I can’t believe that! Plus, I’m sure you’re just looking at pervo images that whole time anyway! Ene told me, you know! She said ‘my master’s sexual drive is limitless’! That’s really embarrassing to me, you know!”

  The euphoria of victory dissolved in an instant as I was tossed into the bottom of a deep, humiliating pit. I started to break into a cold sweat, easily outpacing the sweat pouring out from the heat.

  “Y-you…You…What did she tell you…?”

  “Pretty much what I just said!”

  “W-what you said…?! Uh…well, look, that was just that one time, okay? That time I accidentally clicked on that weird banner ad! Everyone makes mistakes, you know!”

  “Oh, really? How many of them make the same mistake multiple times a day? Ene told me that you run out of the room in a nervous panic every time you click on a page, too…”

  The emergency alarm within my head began to ring painfully.

  I, Shintaro Kisaragi, was undeniably faced with danger. Mortal danger! I wanted to toss the mobile phone in my pocket straight into any nearby sewer grate, but more important than that, I needed to change the topic. Momo was already looking at me like I was a pile of putrid garbage, but I still had to have some kind of chance. Something…something else…

  “Hey, what’re you two going on about? Aw, it sure is nice to see you two siblings get along with each other!”

  “Oww!”

  I leaped into the air, surprised at having someone suddenly clap me on the back.

  Swiveling around, I saw a large young man in a green jumpsuit, a puffy white mound of something on his back. He flashed us a friendly smile.

  It was a man from the Mekakushi-dan I had joined a bit earlier.

  Come to think of it, he must have been behind us the whole time. He could have heard that whole conversation…Maybe he was extending a helping hand to free me from this barrage.

  “You were…uh, Zetto, right?”

  Trying to call him by name when I knew I hadn’t quite remembered it correctly was a mistake. By the way Momo instantly landed an arrowlike elbow on my side, I suppose I had it wrong.

  I groaned helplessly as the air rushed out of my mouth.

  “No, it’s Setto! You just got introduced to him this morning! Ugh, Shintaro, you never remember anybody’s name…!”

  Momo angrily glared at me, as if to visually demonstrate to me how rude I was being. But before she could continue landing blows on me, a peeved voice emanated out from the white, fluffy mass on the jumpsuited man’s back.

  “…No, it’s Seto…”

  A pair of pink eyes were staring at us from behind the man called Seto’s shoulders.

  Marie, the white, long-haired mass behind Seto, continued to correct us as she steeled her rankled gaze upon us.

  “It’s Seto, okay? If you mess up his name…that’s just mean.”

  Momo, under the full bore of Marie’s gaze, was frozen to the spot like an exposed criminal.

  For a moment, I could see her checking on my own facial expression from the side.

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha! It’s fine, Marie. Besides, I like Setto! Sounds kinda cool!”

  Seto tried to appease her, seemingly unfazed by any of this.

  Marie remained unconvinced, emitting an annoyed little mmffff before burying her face in Seto’s shoulder and falling silent.

  A moment of silence passed…Momo quietly stepped up her walking pace, trying to ignore everything, but I wasn’t about to let her.

  “…Hey.”

  I confronted Momo, my voice brimming with discontent. As it should be. She had messed up the name she
elbowed me for messing up. That’d make anybody mad.

  “What’d you have to do that for?”

  “Well…well, you got it wrong, too, Shintaro! Didn’t you?! Besides, I was closer than you…”

  It’s not a matter of being close or not! Where the hell did you get ‘Setto’ from?!”

  “Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Seto, heartily, as he watched us continue our aimless argument.

  We had only met this morning, but already it seemed like Seto never got angry over anything, or that he was too magnanimous to let things bother him in general.

  Instead he just brushed it off with one of his belly laughs, leaving Momo and me tremendously embarrassed that we were sniping at each other over this.

  “Ngh…I’m sorry that I got your name wrong, Seto…And I’m sorry if I hurt you, too, Marie. Okay…?”

  Momo turned toward the two of them and apologized.

  Marie’s head popped up from behind Seto’s shoulder. “Setto,” she said. “…I think it’s cool, too.”

  Momo breathed a sigh of relief.

  “You know, though, I’m impressed you can actually carry someone in this heat.”

  “Um? Oh, I’m totally fine. I carry around all kinds of stuff in my job, so it’s normal to me. In fact, Marie’s easy. She’s so light!”

  Seto was built pretty well. Impressively so, considering that my sticklike arms, the fruits of two years of playing twenty-four-hour security guard inside my own room, were lucky if they could support the weight of a newborn, much less a grown girl.

  I pretended that I didn’t see Momo out the corner of my eye, looking at me and Seto before exhaling a light chuckle out of her nose.

  “But, you know, you can’t do that forever, Marie. You need to exercise more on a daily basis, or else you’ll keep getting too exhausted to move like this.”

  “I-I know…I’ll try to go on longer walks…”

  Marie was down for the count just a few minutes after leaving home, clinging to her spot on Seto’s back ever since.

  The girl didn’t get out much, it seemed.

  I felt at least a hint of kinship with her, but in terms of ethnic groups, the difference between a sheltered young girl and a college-age unemployed shut-in was like heaven and earth. My case seemed a lot more hopeless.

  The cicadas chirping around us had grown louder and louder.

  We were already a decent distance away from the center of the city.

  We began to see small wooded areas here and there as we continued down the sidewalk. The number of houses began to plummet.

  It was amazing to think how rural things could get after just a little bit of walking. I thought about this yesterday, but it was still weird to me how much the central part of the city had developed.

  The somewhat outdated smartphone Momo had in her hand was apparently in its death throes after being doused in tea the previous day. It had allegedly sprung back to life after being tossed into a bag filled with silica-gel desiccant.

  “But, hey, I’m sorry for this, guys. Being forced to walk thanks to me…”

  Momo drooped her head a little as she murmured the words.

  Taking a bus would have certainly been faster, but Kido’s “concealing eyes” ability apparently has a weakness—it immediately stops working if someone bumps into any of us. That made it too difficult to try in an enclosed space like a bus, so we walked instead.

  Our original plan for the day was to go back to the department store we shopped at yesterday and have fun on the rooftop amusement park, but given the terrorist attack the previous day, there was no way they’d be open for business the following afternoon. Scratch that, then.

  But thanks to Ene’s selfish ranting (“It has to be now, or never!”), we decided to head for another amusement park out in the suburbs.

  Kido, leader of the gang, and Kano, another member, were going to be a little late, so the rest of us were on our way to the park by ourselves.

  Since we were walking down a road with nearly no traffic at all, it wasn’t a particular problem for Momo to be visible and outdoors here.

  “…Kano told us it was like they made an amusement park out of a national forest…but, hey, is that it? I think it is! I think that’s a Ferris wheel!”

  Momo, springing to life, pointed toward the right in front of us.

  A large forest spread itself out beyond. Among the trees, we could see roller-coaster tracks and other classic theme-park trappings.

  “Ooh, it looks like it! Hey, Marie, we made it!”

  Seto shook his back to alert Marie. “Wow, we did!” she said when she looked up, eyes aflame with delight. “It looks sooooo great!”

  “Ene’s gotten kinda quiet, hasn’t she? Is she all right? I haven’t heard anything from her lately.”

  “She told me to tell her when we arrived, then shut herself off. Something about wanting to conserve her batteries.”

  And I had expected another constant barrage of griping and wheedling today, too. It turns out she has a surprising weakness after all.

  “Ah. Makes sense. Better get her up soon, then…Oh, is that the boss?”

  A sign with FOREST PARK in big letters stood about forty meters ahead, right above a shuttle bus stop. Two of the people stepping off the bus alongside all the families and children looked familiar.

  “Ooh, it is! Wow, look at all the people getting off…! I better make a call!”

  Momo frantically put up her hood and started dialing.

  “Uh, hello, boss? We’re right nearby the gate…Okay! Sure, sure. We’ll be waiting right here, okay?”

  After hanging up, Momo took a quick look around the area. The visitors leaving the bus were herded into the park entrance, not taking a second look at us.

  We could see the two people we spotted before walking up to us.

  “So as long as we’ve got Kido’s ability, we can enjoy the theme park all we want to…right?”

  “Right! Totally!”

  Momo beamed from underneath her hood like an elated child.

  —Out of breath, I found a nearby bench and sat myself down.

  It was shaded by the lush foliage above me, making the backrest a little damp and cool to the touch.

  I took a deep breath. I guess my sense of balance wasn’t working so well…I still felt like I was on a lurching cruise ship, and the feeling of nausea welled right back up my throat.

  “Are you all right, Shintaro? You know, guys, you’re taking all of this too quickly. You can’t just go on the roller coaster first thing like that…”

  Seto, seated on my left, slapped me on the back as he offered me a bottle of water.

  “Oh, man, Shintaro…Hee-hee! Try not to worry about it too much, okay? Heh-heh…”

  Kano, closing in on me from the right, clasped his hands behind his head as he attempted to cheer me up in the most mean-spirited way possible.

  “Quit being so rude, Kano. Not everyone’s as good at roller coasters as you are. Just because he threw up a bit doesn’t mean you should pick on him all day.”

  “Just…don’t say it anymore…Please…”

  Seto was just acting out of conscience, but when he reiterated that I had lost my lunch, it served to do nothing but mentally damage me even further. I wanted to die on the spot.

  “Sure, sure, sorry. Shintaro’s just a lot of fun to pick on, that’s all. Gotta say, though, I was surprised to see Marie having such a good time on there. Kido looked all tense, though, like I figured she’d be.”

  Kano’s assessment reminded me of the women in our midst, which made my sense of shame grow even larger. They all saw the whole thing. I’m so screwed.

  “Yeah, Kido likes to put on a bold front like that, I guess. This is pretty fun, though, huh? All of us, getting to play around a bit together!”

  That was about as profound as Seto could manage, it seemed, as he continued slapping me on the back.

  He calls this fun? Me, earning the nickname “Barfman” for life?

  “Y
eah. It’s kinda the first time, too, really. You’re busy with your part-time work all day usually, Seto. You were pretty late gettin’ in yesterday, too, weren’t you?”

  “You got me there, yeah…But I tell ya, having all those dudes waiting for me when I got back! What a surprise!”

  “I’ll bet. Our first new members in years, after Marie joined up. The more the merrier, yeah? And if Kido’s happy about it, then so am I. But whadaya think about her, Seto? Momo, I mean?”

  Seto and Kano’s lighthearted conversation continued above my hunched-over back, forcing me to recall Momo’s frigid, aghast face. It made me utterly unable to join in the chatter.

  “Oh, she’s great! Really polite, too. I was pretty impressed that our shy li’l Marie introduced me to her. And, wow, a real pop celebrity, too!”

  “Yeah, you should’ve seen Kido when she brought her in for the first time. That utterly frazzled look on her face…Hee-hee!”

  Kano kept chuckling affably, unable to get enough of the mental image. On my end, I felt about ready to cry.

  “Oh, and Ene, too! Talk about one crazy character! But what’s, like, driving her, you think? Is she being controlled by someone?”

  “Yeah, the lady in the phone? Uh, who knows? To me, it looks like she’s honest-to-God living in that thing…”

  The tears flowed out of my eyes once the topic turned to Ene. She would never, ever forget this incident. No doubt she’d poke fun at me about it until I was six feet under.

  “I’d have to agree with you on that one, yeah. You know anything about what makes her tick, Shintaro?…Whoa, hey, what’re you crying for?!”

  The look on Kano’s face as he looked down to peer at me all but screamed “Ooh, look what I found!!” He could be downright insidious like that.

  I couldn’t say I was a fan of the way he breezily put his hand on my back, either.

  “J-just shut up! It’s nothing!!…What did you say about Ene?”

  I mentally switched gears to reply to Kano’s question. Maybe getting involved in the conversation would help clear the dark cloud above me a little.

  “Huh? Oh! Yeah, yeah, Ene! How’d you come to know that girl, huh?! Did you find her through one of those whadayacallits? You know, those ‘casual encounters’ sites?!”