“So cute!”
“Chesed-tan is my waifu.”
“Do we get to see Myu’s scary-ass pictures?”
“Her art’s so bad it’s good.”
They were all a bunch of idiots. I decided to shake my head a little and forget all about them.
I concentrated and turned over the card. Before I could look at what the card said, a blurry vision flooded into my mind. It was kind of like the kaleidoscope effect you see on TV shows sometimes.
—I saw two men in suits. Both were in their 20s. They were talking happily.
I saw spots in my field of vision as I came back to reality. I blinked a few times to figure out where I was. I’d been out for a maybe a little over a second. It had only taken an instant, but I’d seen it.
“Visions” was what I’d taken to calling them. It was a kind of spiritual power I’d had since I was very young. I didn’t really know how they worked, but when I was listening to someone, I could somehow see fragments of their future.
Normally you called something like that clairvoyance, or maybe precognition, I think. But the vision I saw was a little strange, maybe. It didn’t seem to match the question I’d been asked.
I looked at the card I’d turned over. It was a picture of a girl and an upside-down dog man. The girl was fused to the dog man’s legs, and they were looking right at each other. The dog’s body was covered in blood, and he looked like he’d collapsed, dead.
“The Hanged Dog. Reversed.” This was the same card as the Hanged Man in a tarot deck. Reversed meant that from my perspective, it was upside-down.
“Hmm...” That explained it. I turned back to the camera and spoke to the listener.
“Mr. Mochi-Mochi Pon-Pon, can I ask you something? Is the person you’re asking about maybe not a girl?”
“Huh?!” I heard a gasp on the other end of the phone.
The comment box was filled with confused questions.
Mr. Mochi-Mochi Pon-Pon had fallen silent. But I didn’t want to ask any questions. It would feel like I was leading him if I did. So I waited patiently for him to talk.
And then...
“Wow. I guess I can’t hide anything from you, can I, Myu? Yeah, that’s right. The person I love is... a man.”
I let out a gasp when I heard his courageous confession.
And I ignored the excited comments on the screen.
“Oh!”
“It’s a homo.”
“I’m a girl, and this made me wet.”
“Didn’t see that coming!”
“I’m gay... but he’s not. He’s straight. So I know if I ask him out, he’ll hate me. But I can’t keep hiding my love for him.” The voice on the other side of the phone was mixed with sobs.
This had to be, like, so hard for him! So hard that he’d turned to an amateur fortune-telling stream like mine for help. It’s okay, Mr. Mochi-Mochi Pon-Pon.
“There’s no reason to give up. Really!”
“Huh?”
“I saw it in my vision. You and the guy you like were having, like, a super lovey-dovey conversation.”
“Th-Then...”
“You should tell him how you feel on a day that’s important to you both! I think if you do, he’ll understand!”
“R-Really?! Thank you! You’re my goddess, Myu! Thank you!” He thanked me excitedly, and hung up the phone.
Whew... I was glad that worked out. I was really glad I hadn’t seen a bad future for him. Sometimes, even when I saw a good future for someone, I didn’t have the emotional energy left to feel happy for them. This time, I could feel relieved. But it was always kind of a struggle for me.
I realized my hands were shaking. This happened every time I told somebody their fortune. I tried to hide my shaking hands by quickly bringing all the scattered cards back together. Then I glanced at the screen and saw it was overflowing with comments.
“Holy shit!”
“She got it!”
“Myu is our goddess! All hail Myu!”
“She’s the real thing!”
“Myu’s still got more tricks up her sleeve!”
“Lick-lick!”
“Stop with the licking, guys.” It’s creepy. But kind of funny, I guess.
“All right, time for our next little lost puppy to call in!” The phone started ringing before the words were even out of my mouth.
The second caller was a woman. She was calling to ask about a ring that she’d lost a month or so ago.
Just like with the first one, I used my cards to tell her fortune. In the vision I saw, a woman, who was probably the caller, was looking in the trunk of her car.
I told her the basic make and color of the car. I don’t know a lot about cars, so I wasn’t able to identify the model. But it matched the car that she owned exactly.
When I told her she’d dropped it in her trunk, she quickly went to look. Within three minutes, she was back, and excitedly told me that she’d found her ring.
Of all the things that people lost, stuff like rings were the easiest to find. Precious metals were especially good at storing people’s feelings, the way a computer’s hard drive stored data.
Then it was on to the third lost puppy. The man who answered the phone had a very androgynous voice.
“Hello, Myu? It’s me! Zenigata! That’s just my online name, though. Wow, I’m so happy I get to talk to you! I can’t believe it! It’s like I used up all my luck just for today! Tee hee hee! ☆”
Wow. He was really excited and way too friendly. He almost sounded like a little kid.
I tried to think about if I had run into him before, but I couldn’t come up with anything.
“So your name’s Zenigata?”
“Yes, that’s right. More specifically, it’s ‘Hello there, I’m Zenigata.’ I love Inspector Zenigata, you see.”
“Huh? Inspector Zenigata? I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is.”
“Wow, teenage girls these days don’t know about him?! Talk about a generation gap!”
“I-It’s okay, sir!”
“No, you don’t have to call me ‘sir’! I’m still only 26!”
Wow, this was kind of a pain in the butt.
“By the way, I admire you almost as much as I admire Inspector Zenigata. I love the whole teenage girl fortune-teller thing. Oh, right. I have a question. Can you tell me what your hobbies are?”
“Wait, you can’t just start asking me questions. For somebody who’s 26, you sure sound like an old man.”
All the listeners were saying things like, “Hang up on this asshole,” “No one cares about you, loser,” and, “Don’t waste your time with this dipshit, Myu.”
“Oh, I’ve got more than one question, though. I want to know what type of guys you’re into. Try not to give me any obvious answers like, ‘I’m into guys who are nice.’ Oh, and do you ever think of becoming an idol? If you do, I’ll back you all the way. I’ve got a government job, so I make some decent cash. Oh, am I not supposed to say that because it’ll upset the peasants?”
“If you’re not going to ask me to tell your fortune, I’m hanging up.” My voice was cold, but when I saw Chi’s whiteboard with “Calm down!” written in cute little letters, I almost laughed. Thank you, Chi.
“Oh, don’t hang up! Don’t hang up on me, please! I’m a huge fan!” Mr. Zenigata was panicking on the other side of the phone.
“So, Mr. Zenigata, what’s your question for me?”
“Right, that’s right! So, can I have you tell the future about anything?”
“Hmm... Maybe.” My visions let me see just about anything. I couldn’t choose whether what I saw was good or bad news for the questioner, though.
“Okay, here’s my question.”
I almost told him that he was supposed to be asking me for help, not peppering me with questions... but I figured it would just drag this out longer.
“Do you know the story about the man who livestreamed his game of One-Man Hide And Seek?”
It w
as something people had been talking about online. I’d heard a little about it from a classmate of mine who loved gossip.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but it felt like Mr. Zenigata’s voice had changed. Like... I don’t know. Like he’d suddenly gotten serious.
“I’d like you to use your fortune-telling to find out where the missing man is. Where he is, and whether or not he’s alive.”
I could see confused comments from the listeners. Most of the little lost puppies on my show so far had been asking me for help with things like romance or lost objects. Sometimes they’d just want to know what kind of luck they could expect to have in the future.
But it felt like this Zenigata guy was different. Of all the things he could ask, he wanted my help finding a famous missing person?
I think there was a similar show on TV once. Something where a self-proclaimed spiritualist would use their power to find missing people. They say all that stuff’s fake, though.
I never thought somebody would ask me to do something like that.
“Myu, what’s wrong? Can you not do it?”
Actually, maybe I could. Not that I really wanted to...
But if I did try to use my fortune-telling, I was scared I might see a bad vision. The pain deep in my chest flared up again.
But most of the listeners were telling me that I should do it.
I took a quick, inconspicuous glance over at Chi. She was watching me with an uneasy look on her face. Evidently, she didn’t feel like she should be giving me instructions on her whiteboard.
What should I do?
I clutched my hands into fists. They were on top of my knees and out of the camera’s view. Then I glared straight into the laptop’s camera lens.
—Miyuu, your power isn’t wrong. It’s okay to be proud of it.
“I’ll try it.” I made my decision and picked up the cards.
I was scared. I was seriously scared, but I had to be proud. That’s what I had promised Dad.
Just like I’d done before, I laid out my hand-drawn cards in the shape of the Tree of Life. The one I needed to open this time was...
“Open, Yesod!”
The Ninth Sephirah. Its name meant “foundation.”
Just as I turned over the third card in the center row, a vision came smashing into my brain.
—The water’s surface gently rocked. I was looking up at it. Was the sky so bright because it was a full moon outside? But my vision was blurry. It was like I was under water, looking up. The moon’s light couldn’t reach down to the bottom of the water. I could barely make out the many shadows that wavered beside me.
“The bottom of the water. It’s dark. They’re not alone...” I described what I was seeing without even realizing I’d opened my mouth. I’d never seen anything like this before.
When I saw the visions, I normally didn’t feel any sensations to go with them. But this time I could imagine the freezing-cold water around my body, and I shivered.
I saw the comments. “Are you okay?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Myu’s eyes have gone crazy.”
“We’re having technical difficulties. Please stand by.”
I suddenly put my hand over my mouth. “Umm...”
“Myu, what happened? Did you see it?! You saw it, didn’t you?! What did you mean ‘the bottom of the water’? Is he alive?” He kept asking me questions.
I gulped. Suddenly, I realized I felt very thirsty.
I checked the card I’d turned over. “The Dog of Judgment...” It was a drawing of Dogman blowing a trumpet, and the girl covered in blood, her head exploding.
“The man’s in the water. He’s surrounded by other people. There’s a full moon in the sky...”
“Is he alive?”
“I don’t know if he’s alive...” But in answer to his question, I—
“He’s alive for now,” I corrected myself. “But I couldn’t tell about his future. I’m sorry.”
I bowed, then thought about my vision. What was going on in it? I couldn’t figure it out. I was sure I was seeing something underwater, but...
There was a sensation that came with the vision that I didn’t experience in the others. It was like... it was too real to be just a hallucination? Part of it was the coldness of the water. But it wasn’t just that.
It had been super-hard to breathe. I had really felt like I might drown right there.
It wasn’t a vision of death, right? I hoped it wasn’t. I wanted to believe it wasn’t. But whatever it was, it wasn’t very pleasant.
When I hung up on Mr. Zenigata, I tried to force myself to act cheerful to get my mind off of it. Myu was a girl who was always cheerful. Sometimes things were easier to deal with that way.
I could see Chi write a message on her whiteboard. “Should we call it a day?”
I shook my head a little. I didn’t want to end on a downer note like this if I could help it.
“L-Let’s move on to our fourth caller, okay?” I said to the camera. The phone started to ring again.
This time I picked up right away, instead of making the audience wait.
“Hello. What’s your name?”
“D-Does my name really matter? Here’s a question for you. H-How much are you getting paid by the admins?”
“Huh? W-What?”
“You’re getting paid, right? Or are you paying them? A-All of these callers are actually actors, aren’t they?” Was it someone who didn’t like fortune-telling, maybe?
Man, I picked up a bad one. I regretted this a little. No, a lot. I should’ve quit when Chi suggested it.
The staff at Niconico had told me that once I started getting more viewers, I’d get more haters, too. They’d also told me it was best to ignore them.
“You don’t believe in fortune-telling?”
“Th-That’s not really it. I think the h-horoscopes and stuff they do on TV are j-just... fine. B-But what you’re doing is different, somehow? What is it?” His voice was a muffled whisper. It was creepy. Kind of scary, actually.
Did he call just to complain? Did he get off on being a jerk to teenage girls? Some people just didn’t have enough going on in their lives. I wish they’d just let me tell a normal fortune.
I stopped myself from groaning and went to hang up, when—
“Who I’ll be ten years from now.”
“Huh?”
“Tell me who I’ll be ten years from now.”
“Ten years from now?”
He didn’t believe in fortune-telling, but he wanted me to tell his fortune anyway. I wasn’t sure how to handle this. But it was a pretty normal question, I guess. What was I supposed to do? I could just tell him to go away, but...
“Mmm... Okay! Let’s see who you are ten years from now!” I forced myself to smile and asked him for some basic information about himself.
He was 28 years old, male, and unemployed.
“All right! Time for your Nicco-Nico Live Fortune-Telling!” Maybe if he got a good result, he might change his mind. Maybe he’d realize that my power wasn’t wrong.
I was just making excuses to myself, though. I think I was taking what he’d said a little too personally.
I shuffled the cards and put them on the table. I could hear mumbling coming from the cellphone I’d placed to the side. It felt like he was talking to himself. That was even creepier. I decided to ignore him.
This time, I was opening—
“Open, Keter!” I flipped the very first card, the one at the top of the Tree of Life. What I saw was—
“The calendar reads 2026... You’re in the office building of a very nice company. You’re doing something with a computer. It’s not a laptop. It’s a big computer.”
Whether that answer was a good one or a bad one for him, I couldn’t say.
The first card was the reversed Foolish Dog. Dogman was on all fours, biting a naked girl.
Huh? What was this? That card signified unknown possibilities. And it was reversed?
“Hahaha! Ahahaha! Fwahahaha!” I could hear hysterical laughter coming from the phone. “That’s awful! Man, that proves you’re a fake. Proves it! Bitch, you’re no fortune-teller!”
“I... I’m not a fake! I saw a vision...”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’ve got late-stage cancer. I only have a year to live.”
Huh?
“And you say you saw my future ten years from now? Yeah, right!”
“Wh-What? So you tried to trick me from the start? Can you prove that you’ve got just a year to live?”
“Huh? You want to meet up right now? Sure, I’m down. I can show you the diagnosis.”
—It hurt. I felt a pricking pain deep in my chest. It had been getting stronger and stronger ever since I started telling his fortune.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, no matter how much I balled them into fists.
“And I’ve got electromagnetic hypersensitivity so bad that the doctors have put restrictions on me, too. Hahaha! Do you know what electromagnetic hypersensitivity is? If you don’t, then you should look it up, you fucking whore! And you say I’m going to get a job using a computer? Hah, that’s hilarious! Hey, how does it feel? How does it feel to know that everybody knows you’re a fake now?!”
The comments were going crazy. Some of them were sympathetic to me, but most of them just seemed to be having fun with it. I closed my eyes tight. I couldn’t take this.
There were voices echoing in the distance. It was the innocent, cruel laughter of children.
I was hearing things. I knew it. The laughter was what I’d heard a long time ago, when I was very little. I knew I wasn’t really hearing it now.
In the darkness, I could see terrified eyes, eyes that felt as if they were staring at a monster. They were my mom’s eyes when she looked at me.
—This might be really bad.
It had taken everything I had to endure the eyes and the laughter when I was a child. But the memories kept flooding back. All the childhood memories that I usually tried my best not to think about.
It started before I entered elementary school. I’d drawn lots of cards with Dogman and the girl. There were twenty-two different ones. I’d keep drawing the same cards over and over again.
My teachers and friends at day care laughed at me and told me I was creepy. But it had felt at the time like I had no choice but to draw them. I kept doing it at day care and at home, too, as if I was possessed.
Occultic;Nine: Volume 1 Page 7