“Oh, uh, sure! Naturally…but what’re you looking for, anyway?”
“Huh? Uh, you know, there’s this new pop-idol singer, right? And I’m kinda looking for her autograph? I mean, you saw the ads, right? ‘The sixteen-year-old phenom who’ll steal your heart away!’ and stuff? I, like, totally love her. She’s so adorable!”
“Oh! Oh. Yeah, I don’t really watch a lot of TV, so…Wow, though. Neat.”
I could feel my heart freeze over at teeth-clattering speed.
The warmth that manifested itself the moment Hiyori Asahina began talking about that singer was more than enough to show me and my wild fantasies of a chic urban getaway with my new partner where the chips really lay.
It should have been obvious from the start. There’s no way her main goal was to spend time with me. I had my head way too far into the clouds.
And I didn’t know which pop idol she was talking about, but if she was charming enough to make Hiyori Asahina’s heart melt, she was truly someone to fear.
“But…but, uh, if she’s that famous, wouldn’t it be hard to get her autograph…?”
“Hee-hee! You think so? Well, guess what! I’m gonna have a chance at it.”
She all but trumpeted the words, the “rich heiress” side of her exposed for all to see.
“A chance? Is she doing an autograph event, or?”
“Uh, no? I mean, she, like, never does stuff like that. Like, she’s so famous, it always turns into a mob scene wherever she show up.”
A new pop idol who’s already too famous for one-on-one fan events? What kind of world-beating beauty was this?
No. She couldn’t be that beautiful.
After all, there wasn’t a woman in the world who could outclass Hiyori Asahina. There couldn’t be.
But if this star wasn’t into public appearances, then an autograph seemed out of the question.
She wasn’t expecting me to come up with some harebrained scheme to trick this celebrity into whipping out a pen for her, was she?
“But I kind of have an in, you know? My sister’s husband is a schoolteacher, and that girl is one of his students! I was chatting with her on the phone, and she was like ‘Come on down for Obon, I can probably get a signature for you.’ So I figured I’d, like, do a little sightseeing while I was over there, but my parents…You know, they freaked? They were all like ‘Oooh, how can you say that, you need to study, blah blah blah.’”
“So that’s why you aren’t telling them?”
“Right. Yeah. But, like, I haven’t been to the city by myself before, so I figured I’d invite you to help carry my stuff. You know?”
I knew. It explained why she was so gung-ho about a trip with me, or at least anyone available and breathing.
If she had a local relative who knew that pop idol, there was a pretty good chance an autograph was in her future. We wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel, either.
Given the level of respect Hiyori Asahina generally had for others—which is to say, zero—a long lecture from her parents was a surefire way to make her run away from home, even if it meant going it alone. That made the meaning behind “let’s go away and keep it a secret” all the more clear.
Which brought another nagging question to the forefront:
“Uh…so, so why did you need me to come along at all?”
“Why? No reason. I just figured, like, you’d listen to what I’d say, you know?”
I felt something sharp thud unto my heart. Faced with the overwhelming presence of Hiyori Asahina’s sheer indifference, the smile of Hibiya Amamiya—the same pair of lips that accused her just a moment ago of being “that into” him—evaporated into a wisp of dust.
I should have expected it. All Hiyori Asahina cared about was this airhead pop singer’s autograph. Nothing else captured so much as a moment of her interest.
In conclusion, then, there was no particular romantic motivation behind tonight’s phone call.
The Level-3 Super Hibiya in my mind, previously dismembering the hordes of masked men that stalked the charred remains of the Apocalyptic Crap Festival, suddenly fell to his knees, a shriveled version of himself.
“But…you said you’d make my dreams come true. What was that supposed to mean?! I mean, it’s not that easy to—”
“Uh, what are you going on about? I’ll help you buy a cell phone. It’s not supposed to, like, mean anything, okay?”
Cell phone?
Why did the conversation make a sudden swerve toward portable technology? I didn’t remember the topic coming up once this entire phone call.
Wait up.
Let’s pick our way back through this conversation.
Hiyori Asahina noticed my bus pass on the floor. She picked it up, discovering the photo I had inside. She saw that, and she quite loudly articulated her wish to “make my dreams come true.” Because I was clearly “serious about this.”
Then she asked if I “wanted it.” Two words I’d never forget. Ever.
Where did mobile phones fit into this?
That didn’t have anything to do with—
“…Ohhhgh.”
A sudden nightmare scenario popping into my brain made me audibly groan.
Like a long-lost puzzle piece, it made all the discomfort lurking behind the scenes a suddenly complete, eerily dreadful picture of doom.
I turned toward the full-length mirror placed on one wall of the downstairs corridor. It reflected my image back, of course, just as I was when I returned home earlier.
Thrusting a harried hand into the breast pocket where I always put my bus pass, I realized that something else I always kept in there was missing.
“Uh, you did want a cell phone, right? You, like, stuck part of a sales flyer for one in your bus-pass holder. I’m trying to help you come with me so you can make that dream come true. Why’re you acting all, like, suspicious of me?”
At that moment, my foolish misunderstanding became clear as day, the ecstasy in my heart crashing to earth at terminal speed.
Hiyori Asahina hadn’t spotted my photo of her at all.
It was a department-store flyer advertising a sale on mobile devices. I had a habit of sticking it in my breast pocket so I could use it as conversation fodder, just in case I ran into Hiyori Asahina sometime.
How did that escape my notice until now?
This sudden call from Hiyori Asahina herself shook me, no doubt.
But that didn’t excuse the megaton-level mistake I just made.
She was “shyly courting me.” I “super want it.” Why don’t you just die, you stupid, depraved freak?
Just recalling the events of a moment ago made me want to run around the hall, screaming and bashing my head against the wall panels. Then I realized that another question—the biggest one of all, actually—still remained unanswered.
I gingerly asked:
“…Uh, was there anything else inside my pass holder?”
Hiyori Asahina sighed an exasperated, gruff sigh.
“What, did you lose something else? That was, like, all I saw in there, but…What? Was there something important?”
“No. Not, um, really.”
I knew it. Hiyori Asahina didn’t have the photo.
She couldn’t have. If she did, she’d call the youth detention center, not me.
But, after thinking about it a moment, it made sense. Around school, especially in the school years around Hiyori Asahina’s, there was a huge population of card-holding Asahina Army members.
—You can’t even spit without hitting one of Asahina’s secret admirers—
It wasn’t much of an exaggeration.
If one of those half-starved hyenas picked up my pass holder, graced with the presence of one of my favorite self-made trading cards, before Hiyori Asahina did—what would he (and it’d definitely be “he”) do?
The answer was evident.
He’d swipe the photo and toss the holder back where he found it. A bus pass around this county—especially one t
hat brought the rider out as far into the sticks as I lived—wasn’t worth much.
It even had my name on it, too. Stealing something that left such a clear trail of footprints provided little benefit to any would-be thief.
The photo by itself, though…Talk about the ultimate in opportunity crimes. If I reported to the police that I was searching for something so blatantly gray-area, it’d be straight to happy-delinquent land for me.
It’s not like I could ask anyone else about it, either. The criminal who made off with it probably figured he’d face zero punishment whatsoever. The flyer was folded right in there, too, so the photo was probably stuck somewhere in between.
But maybe I needed to thank the Asahina Army scavenger behind this theft. The act made me boil with anger, of course, but he kept my deviant and totally actionable sexual desires a secret from Hiyori Asahina. He saved my life, in a way. It made me nauseated, imagining her laying eyes on that photo. It’d be nothing but prison food for the rest of my teenage years.
“But…wow, that’s really great…”
I leaned against the shelf the phone was poised on, slowly collapsing down to the floor.
“Uh, hello? You’re acting, like, really weird again?”
“Oh. Sorry. I guess I am, kinda, huh?”
So, in the end, I misread her intentions and let myself wallow in a fantastical realm of fantasy for several minutes.
The gap from my previous euphoria made it difficult to remain upright, but I still felt a strange sense of serenity.
It was all an impossible dream. A lone flower, atop a high mountain peak, never possibly within my grasp. I let myself dream about it nonetheless, but having this enormous chance presented before me and then promptly burned to the ground made the truth all the more stark.
There was no reason left to expect things would improve with—
“Uh, so are you going, or what?”
“Huh?”
She sounded ready to lecture at me, but still seemed open to my response. My pulse, almost slowed back to normal, leapt back into action.
Oh. Right. This wasn’t over yet.
In fact, I was still being presented with an unbelievable chance, wasn’t I?
Even if it was all a ridiculous fever dream on my part, even if this was just another one of Hiyori Asahina’s selfish whims, she was still this close to me.
She initiated an entire conversation with me. She’s inviting me to come along with her. Even if it meant nothing at all, could I have been any more blessed?
I used my free hand to prop myself back up to a standing position.
“Well, of course I’m going. We can make this a great summer break together.”
Yes. There’s no reason it can’t start like this. The gears are all in motion.
Whether it’s destiny at work or just some dumb coincidence, it didn’t matter. Regardless of what happens, as long as I didn’t give up, I’m sure I could communicate my true feelings to her.
“Pfft. Well, like, you’re gonna work for it, okay? I’ll figure out a schedule and stuff tomorrow. All right?”
“Sure thing! Looking forward to it!”
“Mm. Good. Talk to you later.”
There was a click, and then Hiyori Asahina’s voice was gone.
I sighed deeply, letting my body relax a little.
Then I shot a look toward the front door, suddenly taken by an impulse to run out and breathe some fresh air. Walking down the hall, I put on a threadbare pair of shoes and slipped out. A chill wind, scented with summer grass, greeted me by the door.
A large full moon shone in the dark blue sky as I walked down the road, gazing at it. There weren’t too many lights along this street, but the moon was all I needed to see the way.
Summer was about to begin, and an adventure that only we were privy to.
I looked to the moon in anticipation, the past euphoria not quite drained from my body.
It was a season we’d likely never forget.
CHILDREN RECORD 1
An emergency stretcher wheels its way past me, clattering loudly as it goes.
I was surprised at how close it was, but it was clear that now was no time to be concerned about that.
That bed was transporting what may be the heaviest thing in the world, not to mention the most fleeting.
That was why I was never good with hospitals: Because if I went to one, I had to face that.
Because it reminded you, no matter how much you were numbed to it in your daily life, that this, this, is the inescapable fear of death.
There was no way to tell how much time passed after that.
Thanks to my sudden sprint earlier, my legs, generally about as resilient as a particularly strong dandelion, were trembling. I doubted I could rely on them much for a while.
Of course I couldn’t. I generally never used my legs at all, except to transport myself to the shower and/or toilet. And yet here I am, having kicked off my journey with a shopping trip, continued by a day I was forced to spend in an amusement park, and capping it off with a full-on footrace. Nobody could keep up with that.
What was she even thinking, though? I had no idea. I had constant trouble reading her thoughts in general, but deep down, I didn’t really want to know what that impish, malicious virus was thinking anyway.
But something about her behavior today bothered me. On the way from the amusement park, she begged me to chase an ambulance. When we finally made it to the hospital, she made me hand over her cell phone to a total stranger. “I need to be alone with him for a bit,” she told me, and then she was taken away. I have no idea what’s going on.
So here I find myself, sitting bewildered in front of an examination room occupied by some unknown boy, no place to go really, waiting around for Ene after handing her off to the kid’s apparent guardian.
I felt like a beach ball in the river, tossed around from place to place before settling down here, and the more I thought about it, the more horribly out of place I felt. I knew nothing about the boy brought into that room. I didn’t have any business with him. I’m just sitting here, and that’s all.
And what if this boy’s parents showed up and asked me who I was? All I’d be able to do was grin awkwardly and say, “Uh, just this guy, you know…?”
These past two days have been hideous. I was used to Ene’s antics throwing me for a loop, but she’s been going way too far lately. Once she’s back in my hands, I wanted to march straight home and back to my normal life. Assuming these Mekakushi-dan dudes will let me.
All these irritations jumbled together before me at the same time; even attempting to think about them was starting to be too much.
“This makes absolutely no sense to me…”
I sighed heavily.
“If you think it doesn’t, what about me?”
The voice to my side, interlaced with the equally somber sigh of a third person, startled me out of my seat.
I yelped and whipped around. “S-since when were you there?!”
The white-haired young man I handed Ene to a moment ago sat there, looking blankly up at me from his chair, phone in hand.
“I’m sorry…I…” The man’s voice shook as he apologized. He must have thought I was angry at him.
The thing was, though, that his expression barely changed at all from his blank stare. There was a twinge of concern to it, maybe, if you squinted hard enough. But otherwise, nothing. I paused, taking a moment to figure out what he had said.
“Uh…Oh, no, not you. The girl in there.”
I snatched the phone out of his hand and peered at it. A familiar blue-haired girl was floating around on-screen, cheeks puffed up in irritation.
“Mm? What is it, master?”
She kept floating, her voice irritated, not even bothering to look at me.
“What is it? Well, for one, when did you get back here? And who was that guy, anyway? You must know him or something, right?”
Ene had batted me around from place to place a
ll day with zero explanation. I figured I was entitled to ask why.
That was what inspired the question, but for some reason, it made Ene glare angrily at me, giving the phone two quick blurps of vibration to drive the point home.
For a moment, the glare took on a threatening sort of rage, a vast difference from her usual affable insanity. It was strange to see, yet something I could have sworn I saw before from her, somewhere, for some reason.
After confirming that her display of dominance put me in my place, Ene puffed up her cheeks once more.
“I had the wrong person. I don’t know this guy at all. Sorry I made you run around like that. Let’s just go home.”
As Ene’s words so clearly expressed her annoyed rage, the white-haired man seated adjacent let a hint of sorrow cross his stare a second time, apparently feeling at fault for this somehow.
“Dude, look…,” I began at Ene. “I mean, if it was your mistake, then oh well, but you can’t just butt in with people like that. This is an emergency!”
“I know, but…I…Ugghhh!! I told you, I just made a mistake!! This is why you’re so unpopular with people, master!”
The white-haired man’s eyebrows twitched a little at this tirade. Otherwise his face remained blank.
Was that how he expressed surprise, maybe? There was something unnatural to his blithe, unreadable face, like he was a cyborg waiting for a software upgrade.
The young man turned his barren countenance toward mine.
“Um…I’m sorry. I think it’s my fault that she’s angry. Probably.”
His voice was a whisper.
“She kept talking to me. Crying. Things like ‘I wanted to see you for so long’ and ‘I thought you had died.’ But I didn’t know what she was talking about at all…I think I may have kind of given her the wrong idea or something.”
It seemed like a good twenty seconds passed between the white-haired youth opening his mouth and finishing his thoughts. Considering Ene’s usual breakneck speaking pace, I felt like time slowed gradually to a crawl as he meandered his way toward the end of his speech.
So there was part of the story. This guy looked like one of Ene’s former friends.
There was definitely something distinctive to how the young man looked—something unusual. No wonder he captured the attention of someone like Ene. It seemed to add up.
The Children Reason Page 3