I will forget this feeling someday by Yoru Somino 1

Seven Seas Siren presents "I Will Forget This Feeling Someday" by Yoru Sumino, performed by Kurt Kanazawa.

Life, it seems, is a horribly dull thing. The fact that every single adult always says that their teen years were the best time of their life is proof of that simple fact. To think that one day I'm supposed to look back on these meaningless days with reverence, with jealousy, with the notion that I'll never rise any higher than the place where I currently stand is a tragedy.

I'd always assumed that everyone around me was burdened by a similar sense of dread. But it seems that is not the case. Every last person manages to find some kind of fulfillment, some kind of consolation in their own way, whether in reading books, listening to music, playing sports, or pouring themselves into their studies.

By following certain basic rules and acquiring certain basic abilities and generally avoiding any extreme hardship, I've been able to survive. Food tastes good and sleep feels great, but no matter what I do, it's all boring. It's all so very, very boring.

Every morning I eat breakfast, go to school, walk into my assigned classroom, and sit in my assigned seat. I never share any particularly meaningful exchanges with anyone. I don't make friends, and I don't offend anyone. I just sit at my desk waiting for the time to pass me by.

Any stimulation makes the boredom all the more apparent. When you wriggle your body, the pain resonates. As long as you remain still, you can get by just being there. All I do is gaze upon the boredom that sits in the back of my mind.

I raise my eyes, taking a quick glance around me. There's not a single special soul amongst the gathering of 30 unremarkable children in this classroom. Every last one of them is dull, myself included. What sets me apart from them is that I am always keenly aware of just how boring I am. The rest of them live with the illusion that life is a colorful, mini-splendored thing and that they themselves are special, and every one of them grates on me equally.

I find myself at a loss. I feel a swell of anger both for my own aimless self and for those who feel no such confusion. And yet, it seems that these days when all I can do is curse my own dullness are supposed to be the height of my life. Give me a break. Seriously, someone please take my feelings away from me and take me away from this pointless place.

I used to read a lot of books in my spare time when I had nothing else to do. Thanks to this, I accumulated a lot of useless knowledge, but I didn't reap much more from it than that. Specialized books and non-fiction aside, the stories thought up by others gave me no hope whatsoever.

"Suzuki, please read from line five until the next paragraph."

Okay. As the teacher instructed, I stood up, language arts text in hand, and read the indicated passage aloud. There was no point in rebelling. Whenever I saw the self-styled delinquents in my class complaining about what a pain in the ass this sort of thing was, it struck me all the more how absolutely clueless they were. If you think something's a pain, then just do as you're told. Going with the flow is the easiest way to keep time marching on.

If you elect not to skip school or if there's some reason you have to attend, this is your only means of alleviating the tedium. Or if it isn't actually a pain and you just think you can deal with your boredom by having someone fuss over you, then you're truly the lowest of the low. The sooner you sit for your lesson, the sooner it's over.

Four lessons before lunch. Just sitting there and listening to someone talk is enough to make you hungry. So every day you go to the cafeteria and eat. You pick an empty chair and sit down in it, putting whatever you happen to pick up that day in your mouth. You force yourself to eat a meal that's never quite what you were hoping for.

After lunch, you return to the classroom without much dawdling. When you take your seat, the others around you distance themselves. To be frank, this is a blessing. There's nothing good about actively getting involved with others. And then, just like in the morning, you suffer through the tedium of boredom. Usually, you're successful.

"Hey, Suzuki."

Today, however, I was interrupted. Tanaka, the girl who sat in front of me, was sitting sideways in her chair, looking at me through dull eyes. A straw ran between her mouth and a juice box.

"What do you do for fun?"

"Piss off," I thought. Both for asking blunt questions for no real reason and for acting like her life was somehow so much more special than mine.

"Nothing, really."

"Quit being so pissy and answer the question. What do you do after school?"

"Go running with who?"

"You weren't in any clubs, right?"

"Alone?"

"What? You some kind of athlete?"

"No."

"That's obvious, idiot. Why didn't you find something funner to do? Just looking at your gloomy face, glaring at your desk all the time really gets me down, you know?"

"Mind your own business. I'm not even bothering you. Why are you so concerned about other people's feelings?"

If I were to bother striking up a conversation with my boring classmates who seem to measure their own worth by how buddy-buddy they could get with random people, it would just add to my own tedium.

"Fun doesn't exist."

"Jeez, that's dark."

I choked back the sigh that I was about to let out at the way her face twisted up at my statement. I had no intention of recklessly making enemies in my class. Not only would it be tedious, but it would also be incredibly annoying.

"I mean, you're not wrong that it's boring out here. I can't wait to get out of this Hicksville. You know what I mean?"

What a vapid opinion. Endlessly so. It didn't matter if we lived in the middle of nowhere or in the heart of the city. It only took an hour to get to the city by car or train, maybe two at most. A completely trivial amount of time. Exactly what could either of us accomplish in such a short span? Both of us were boring people regardless of our location.

I looked away. There was no point in conversing with her further. Tanaka, however, still seemed intent on using me as a means of killing time and pretended to mutter to herself, fishing for a reaction.

"Oh, our class's resident, Dark Cloud, the girls' rep, is back." She looked toward the back of the classroom as she spoke, loud enough that it was clear she was making no attempts to hide it. I knew without looking who it was that she was referring to.

"You ever talk to her, Suzuki? You know, as a fellow stick in the mud. What would it take to satisfy her?"

There were so many pointless questions in the world.

"I mean, not really. I bet you two could get along. You're both always staring at your desks, so maybe you could talk about what kind of desktops look the nicest."

I hated people who laughed at their own jokes. Fellow sticks in the mud. I was aware that from the outside, Saitō, who had probably just entered the classroom, and me appeared to be the same sort of person, but that didn't make it a meaningful point of connection.

Having finally gotten her fill of talking at me, Tanaka vanished, leaving me to sit quietly until lunch break was over.

I was in charge of cleaning the classroom this week. Wipe down the floors and blackboard well enough. Line up the desks reasonably, things like that. Cleanup is necessary when there's no one else around to do it for you. Performing tasks that one was not expected to derive enjoyment out of in the first place was an easy thing for me and put me far more at ease than even our midday break.

After that, I made it through fifth and sixth periods, said my farewells, and headed home with no lingering attachments. My classmates remained for a few moments in the classroom, some of them nervous about upcoming club activities, most of them relieved at the feeling of freedom. As a result, only I and one other classmate left the room without wasting any time. Sometimes the pattern of which one of us ended up staring at the other's back on the way out flipped. But not once had we ever interacted as we made our way down the hall.

Our enrollment numbers were close, however, so whichever of us arrived at the shoe lockers second always had to wait for the other to finish changing their shoes before they could leave. Today, Silito arrived at the lockers first. I waited quietly as she donned her shoes in no particular hurry. Almost every day, we shared these few moments together, sometimes with our positions reversed. Never once had we spoken.

After Seaitto left, not speaking a word or even turning back to look at me, I changed my shoes as well. Would you really think that Silito and I were two peas in a pod? I'm sure that whatever was inside of her was no more than a few ten-thousandths of a millimeter different from the boringness that lies in anyone else. Being lucky enough to have someone in the same class who you could share your feelings with and who'd come to your rescue would never happen. At least not to a worthless human being like me. Fate, miracles, outstanding moments—none of them are real.

"Oh, Ka, welcome home." My mother was on the way out when I arrived at home. She was dressed all in black. "Hey there. Glad I caught you in time. I'm going out for a bit. I don't think you ever met her, but your grandpa's younger sister passed away. They're having a wake for her. Could you let your brother know?"

"All right."

"I'll be home late, but I left some dinner for you in the fridge. Make sure you eat."

"Okay, there's some snacks, too."

"Okay, I'll be back before your birthday."

"Okay, don't get caught."

After seeing my mother off, I climbed to the second floor of our very average house and dropped my bag off in my similarly average room. I changed out of my uniform and into some sweats, went back downstairs, and then opened the fridge to find a box of donuts. "Won't they be cold?" I wondered as I took the box out and opened it, selecting the doughnut that looked like it contained the most calories. I needed plenty of energy for running, after all.

I sat at the living room table in the middle of the quiet house and nibbled on the donut. Ours was the sort of household you'd find anywhere. Right about now, my father was out working hard to put food on the table, and my older brother was giving his all to his university classes in the morning and a part-time job in the afternoon. With my mother gone, there was no soul here but me right now. The three of them lived average lives, all seeming to go about their days with some measure of happiness. All the while spouting to me, the youngest, about how your teenage years are the best time of your life, as though they'd just resigned themselves to their lousy existences.

Something suddenly occurring to me. I stood up and turned on the radio in the corner of the living room. My mother usually had the radio playing while she was doing her housework, so it was normally on when I got home. Having been raised in such an environment, it was easier to ignore any unwanted noises with the radio on than while sitting in silence. When I turned it on, there was news about the war playing. There had been a lot of that lately.

The donut had sucked up all the moisture from my mouth, so I went to the fridge, poured myself a glass of milk, and gulped it down. It was probably owing to my lifelong fondness for milk that I'd grown a little taller than average. Unfortunately, I had no interest in playing any sports for which my height would be beneficial. Food was delicious because I was hungry. Eating was necessary to survive.

There are likely those who believe that a boring life is not worth living. Death by suicide, however, was not currently an option even on my radar. I had the typical fear of death, but more importantly, dying now would still be boring. If I ended myself, jerks like my seat neighbor Tanaka would just say, "I knew he'd do it," before moving on with their dull lives. It would be completely pointless.

After waiting 30 minutes for the food to digest, I turned off the radio, put on my running shoes, and headed out. First, I did some stretching in front of the house. Then, I started walking, gradually picking up speed as I headed towards the mountains in my usual routine. I didn't have a goal or any specific plans in mind. I was simply training my body in case anything ever happened, but I couldn't say it wasn't a little bit exhilarating.

As I ran, I alternated between periods of thinking and periods where there was not a thought in my brain. When I was thinking, my thoughts were primarily occupied with how I could escape from these days of doldrum. Ever since junior high, I would spend my runs imagining conducting myself like the delinquents did or dropping in unannounced on club activities or living my life to the sound of music. I would keep that up until I was disappointed in myself, thinking, "Is that all?" Then I would once again start running and think some more again and again. This time surely I would do something.

In the coldest days of winter, my runs felt as though I were putting myself through some sort of intense club training. But now that it was the latter half of February, more and more days were a comfortable temperature for running. I supposed I would run for about an hour down the usual back road to the tower I used as a landmark and then back. On the way back, already breathing heavily, I cut through a forest on route to my final stretch. The unpaved road eventually gave way to crumbling asphalt at the end of which was a single lone bus stop. That was the actual goal of my run.

Affixed to the bus stop sign, which was browning and rusted from disuse, was a timetable for a bus that would never come no matter how long I waited for it. Beside it was a probably unnecessary prefab structure, which served as a shelter of which I would slide open the door and take a seat on the bench. By the time my breath had steadied and my heart rate had settled, there were no sounds in the shelter besides the chirping of birds outside. Not a single car drove down the asphalt road before me, largely because some years back a nice new road that circumnavigated this forest was paved, so no one used this route anymore.

The biggest reason that I used this spot as my goal was how abandoned it was. Even though I could not fully explain why, I hated seeing people when I just finished running. It just made me feel weird. There's nothing particularly off-putting about seeing someone mid-run or when they were just setting out, but finishing a run was a moment that I wanted to keep to myself. The next most important reason, which is probably just my own imagination or something, was that this was the only place where I could actually daydream. I felt like sitting here all alone was the only time I could allow myself wild fancies. Like the idea that a strange bus might show up here one day and take me somewhere far away. I knew that such a fantasy would never come true. I knew that I was just as stupid for sitting here in my delusions as the vapid people in my class who consoled themselves with such things. That was why I only did this here in private. This was the only place where it was permitted. The only place where twice a day I could truly be alone. I wondered if everyone had a place where they could daydream. Well, other people probably didn't need something like that.

I sat there until my sweat began to dry, standing up once my thoughts had put themselves back in order. Then I left the shelter to once again become acquainted with my boring everyday self. There was not a single soul to my left or right along the strange, twisting asphalt path. After about a 30-minute walk, I returned home to see that my brother was finally back. We exchanged a hollow greeting in the living room before I conveyed the message from our mother.

"Hold up. Wasn't your birthday today, Ka?"

"Tomorrow."

There was no point in being defiant towards a family that was in no way lacking other than their dullness. Leaving him with that one-word answer, I headed up to my room to change. I stayed there until dinner researching mountain climbing, which had occurred to me during my run as a potential next challenge for myself. I always thought of the sports that involved competing against other people or against the records that others had set as pointless for all but those who would make their marks on history. But having nature as my opponent might not be so bad. If I saw something with my own two eyes that I couldn't see in my normal life, perhaps that would awaken something within me. Though there was a strong possibility that I might see some beautiful sight and just think to myself, "Is that all?"

Just as I was reading an article online about a monk who had climbed to a mountain summit that no one had ever reached before, my stomach started to rumble. I went downstairs and ate the dinner my mother had prepared, savoring it well enough before sharing another pointless exchange with my brother and returning to my room. My parents used to worry about how much time I spent holed up in my room, but that didn't seem to concern them as much lately. They knew by now that I had a set after-dinner routine.

After spending another hour or so looking up the necessary equipment for mountain climbing, I once more changed into my sweats. Then I descended the stairs and headed for the living room where my brother still sat.

"I'm going out."

"Okay, try not to get caught."

Ignoring his flat reply, I went to the front door and put on my shoes. Sure enough, it was chilly outside. Still, it was fairly comfortable, considering that not long ago I'd had to bundle up before heading out at night. I started out once more in the same direction I had run earlier that evening. I'm sure my family assumed that my nightly runs were somewhere with good visibility, but that was not the case. Ever since I realized that spending too much time in my room would attract unwanted attention, I started wasting a lot of time just wandering around in the dark, hoping to avoid any family reunions.

The speed at which I ran at night was not the only difference from my earlier run. This time I headed directly for the bus stop. I did not pass through the forest, instead walking leisurely down the dimly lit asphalt road. While I was still around inhabited homes, I didn't have to think about much as I walked. But I had to be more careful as it grew darker. The scenery around me changing to street lights that stood farther and farther apart, empty houses, and the occasional passing bicycle. I wore a glowing band around my wrist to keep myself from getting run over. But if I spaced out, I might just take a tumble into a field or a rice paddy. If I did, there was no telling when someone might pass by who could help me. Still, it was a route I took almost every day. So, I once again arrived at the forest without issue.

As I walked along the darkened asphalt, street lights looking down upon me, the bus stop came into view. Though the bus stop was situated at the exact darkest point in the space between street lights, it was still lit by the moon, though nothing else. After all, there was no need to have a light for a bus that never came. Beyond the sliding door of the shelter was what looked to be a switch for a fluorescent light, but I had never tried turning it on. I had no idea if it would even work. The shelter blocked the wind from getting in, so in winter it was warmer in here than outside. I shut the door and sat down upon the bench that I could only assume was still there. I crossed my legs, then removed my wristband and put it in my pocket. In the darkness, the light was only a distraction. Pitch black darkness. It would be hard to describe the shelter in that moment any other way. Outside was slightly brighter, which made this place seem like a completely different existence from the dull world surrounding it. Here was the only place where I was permitted to dream. Twice a day. This was the only time I was allowed to be my own boring self. I closed my eyes, waiting for the special something that might come for me someday.

There was a reason that this bus stop, no longer in use, had not been removed. A strange legend that was passed down in this little town. Structures that fell into disuse were always left alone for a while, undemolished. Why? Because abandoned places might still be in use by our ancestors. They might still be needed by those who came down from the afterlife. Here and there in this town, old houses stood eerily empty. The origins of the legend and the reason it persisted until the present day were irrelevant. But it was thanks to this ridiculous fairy tale that day after day I had a solitary place to relax.

In that relaxation, however, I grew careless. At some point, I had fallen asleep within the shelter. This wasn't the first time I dozed off, but I wondered if it was due to the temperature getting warmer or if it was simply because I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. At any rate, upon waking, I was shocked at myself for falling asleep, and even more shocked when I took out my phone and checked the time. I was now officially 16 years old. I had a number of missed calls and texts from my mother, who must have gotten home from the wake. The texts were part concern, part lecture, only half lying. I replied that I had taken a break on a bench in the park and fallen asleep, and that I would be home soon.

The dark and quiet of the shelter, darker and quieter still now that I was late at night, gave me a strange, hazy sensation, as though I were still asleep. I felt my breath getting a bit out of sync with my body and steadied it. I'd said I would be heading right home, but I still needed a bit of time to prepare myself to step from my dream world back into the outside. I had to align my rhythm with that of beyond the shelter walls. I breathed slowly and after a while I could feel my body acclimating itself to the real world. I stood up and took a few steps to shake off the moes of darkness clinging to my body. Then reached for the handle of the sliding door.

"Where is it you always go?"

There was a voice. My hand flew from the handle, the door rattling in its wake. I had breathed in too suddenly. Pain coursed through my lungs. My heart was beating as loud as a drum. In a momentary panic, I wobbled back in the darkness, placing my hands against the wall. It felt coarse to the touch, and something, maybe dust or fragments of the wall itself, fluttered to the ground.

"Calm down," I silently told myself. I breathed out and back in again.

"What was that?" I'd heard a voice. A voice that came from my right. Perhaps a female voice. It had to be my imagination, didn't it? I probably was still half dreaming.

"Today, I've learned that you sleep, too."

Just as I was thinking this, I heard the voice again more clearly. A husky female voice. I felt electricity run down my spine. Where was it coming from? The first thing that came to mind was a ghost. No thanks to the legends I had heard so often. They were practically drilled into my brain. I couldn't imagine a better setting for such an encounter than an ancient bus stop late at night. Still, I had my doubts. Why would a spirit appear right now all of a sudden when they had never done so before? Plus, how could a person as normal as me ever hear the voice of a ghost?

The next thing to occur to me was that perhaps someone had snuck in here while I was asleep. But why? I put my all into steadying my breath and heart rate. I wondered if I should turn around. I stood at a crossroads. If I turned around now, would some danger befall me? I was scared and nervous, but I came to a decision quickly. Was I stupid? Was I really that big of an idiot? This was nothing to worry about. There was only one correct choice here. I realized that this was what I thought about every day. I've been waiting for this. I came to this dilapidated bus stop every single night, nauseated at my own vapid self, because I was waiting for a moment like this one to arrive. And finally, the moment had come without fanfare. That was all. At the very least, I needed to verify what was happening. I didn't know how I'd be able to live with myself if I let the moment pass without doing at least that much.

I took another deep breath in and then breathed out for just as long. A plethora of dreadful premonitions ran through my head. Truth be told, I was frozen in place. Slowly, gradually enough that this person or thing would not notice, I turned around. There in the dark was not a humanlike form, nor an animallike form. Yet, something was there, though I didn't know what exactly it was. I squinted. In the darkness floated a small form or perhaps forms glowing with faint green light. There were no light sources within this shelter, which meant that whatever was floating here shone with their own light. There were two a few dozen centimeters above the bench. Just above the seat of the bench were 10 more, and near the ground there were nine, or rather 10 again, as two of them merely looked to be overlapping. The two up top were different in form from the other 20. They moved differently as well. The top two were almost elliptical in shape, a bit like almonds, one beside the other. Now and then they disappeared at the same time. The others were rather small and round. They wriggled about almost systematically like insects. Were these what had spoken to me?

I stood there watching, but the little lights did not appear to mean me any harm. I gathered up my courage and drew nearer.

"What's the matter?"

I felt goosebumps rise on my skin as the same voice sounded again, and my beat stopped in place. The voice was coming from right in front of me. It was clearly responding directly to my actions. These were words with meaning. Were these things capable of conversation? I swallowed hard and decided to try speaking back myself. My words faltered.

"Who's speaking?"

There was a reaction to the sound of my voice. I heard something like a person inhaling. Then the 20 small orbs began to wriggle. The upper 10 shifting upwards into a line. The two lights at the top grew larger than before, changing from ellipses into almost perfect circles.

"How?" the female voice sounded surprised. The two top lights blinked off and on in repetition like a traffic light changing. I stood there in silence, unable to reply as I did not understand the question. Again, I heard the sound of someone inhaling.

"You can hear me?"

"I can." The two top lights grew even larger. Half of the 20 smaller lights, the 10 up top, moved up closer to the top two in a line.

"Why now?" Again and again, the top lights flickered.

"Blink, blink, blink, blink."

"Are you alive?" the voice asked.

"Uh, I am. Are you?"

"I'm still alive." The conversation was progressing. I suppose it was asking if I was alive because it thought I might be a ghost. On my end, I had no idea whether this thing made only of light that was speaking to me was an organism or not, but apparently it was also alive. I figured I should at least ask what sort of life form it was.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Where?"

"Right here," the voice seemed to say. "But where are you?"

"A bug or something?"

"A bug? I'm a person." No matter how you diced it, that did not look like a person. The lights stretched and wriggled.

"You don't look like a person," I said honestly. The voice grew quiet. I wondered if I had made it unhappy, but it seemed to be thinking.

"You do look like a person to me though," it said.

"Well, that's because I am one. How do I look to you?" I explained it exactly as I saw it. Two elliptical lights about the height of my chest with 10 small connected lights just above the seat of the bench and 10 similarly sized lights near the ground.

"I see." I could not have imagined what sort of reaction I would get to this, but there was a sense of acceptance to the voice. Then the two top lights drifted simultaneously up and down.

"What you're seeing are my eyes and nails."

"Eyes and your nails." I reflexively gasped at the absurd reply. Once more, I stared. Now that I took a closer look, I could almost see variations within the light of the top two shapes like irises and pupils. Was the momentary vanishing blinking growing larger as the eyes grew wider? Was the vertical motion nodding? The two groups of 10 lights were hands and feet. Working off of the assumption that these were eyes and nails, that would mean that the rest of their body was invisible in the darkness. Judging by their posture, they were probably sitting. Was this an invisible person or something?

When I posed the question to them, however, they immediately replied, "No, I'm just a normal person." Exactly what about this was normal? I still didn't know if they even were a person.

"I'm surprised that you can hear my voice, too," they muttered, foregoing any explanation of why I could only see their eyes and nails. I thought hard about this.

"Could you always hear my voice?"

"Yeah." The lights, meant to be eyes, drifted up and down. Another nod, I supposed. "Up until yesterday, I could hear your voice. But no matter what I said, you could never beep." The words cut out partway through. They were drowned out by some sort of interference, like the noise you hear when a radio frequency doesn't quite match up. I was surprised that you could suddenly beep all of a sudden today.

Again, there was that sound like television static. Judging by the context, the incomprehensible word was probably the same sort of word as before.

"And now I can suddenly hear you." At my earnest reply, the girl—wait, was it all right for me to call her a girl? The voice sounded female anyway—in front of me said with reasonable suspicion, "I wonder why. Just before you called me an invisible person."

"So nothing besides my eyes and nails looks beep to you. Nothing but the glowing parts." I pointed and the two upper lights moved downward.

"I see." I heard her mutter in some sort of understanding. Because I could not see where her mouth was, her voice came suddenly and it was tricky to catch her meaning. Then it was that noise again.

"Do you have any body parts besides the glowing parts?"

"Of course I do." I was unsure if I should believe that. But if I did choose to believe her, I couldn't help but start to imagine the hazy outline of the rest of her form if what I could see were her eyes and nails. Judging by the placement of her eyes, the length of her arms and legs would not be at all unnatural for a human.

"I can see your body beep though," she said.

"There it is again. My body looks what? I didn't quite catch you."

"Beep beep." It seemed like she was sounding the word out, but I still couldn't hear it. What on earth was that noise?

"Uh, clearly, distinctly. Does that make sense?"

"Uh, yeah, I can understand those. There was just a part I couldn't make out. Um, so anyway, I can only see your eyes and nails, but you're saying you can see my whole body?"

"Yeah, even before you could hear my voice. I always just thought you were a dead person. The way you'd appear here and then disappear without doing anything. I would try talking to you, but I never got any reply. That's why I was so surprised before."

For a long moment, the eye lights went out. I could tell that she was more at ease than I was.

"So why is it I can only see your eyes and nails?" If I was to believe all that she said, then this was a bizarre inequality.

"I mean, I guess it makes sense if you think about it. In a dark place like this, you would only be able to see the parts that are glowing. Honestly, it's weirder to me that I can see all of you."

"Dark." No, that wasn't it. Though it was faint, beyond her eyes and nails, I could still see the wall and bench. There was clearly no body there. I offered a proposal.

"What if I turned on a light?"

"Lights are forbidden."

"Forbidden by who?"

"The government, obviously. Guess you don't know about beep."

"There's a lot I'd like to ask you," she started to say when the lights that were apparently her eyes went wide and turned to me.

"Oh." The girl, who had seemed quite calm until now, suddenly sounded frightful. Judging from her glowing nails, her hands moved slowly up beside her eyes. She looked as though she was covering her ears.

"That's the siren. I've got to go."

I didn't hear any siren. I turned my focus to beyond the walls, but heard nothing from outside the shelter.

"Goodbye." All I heard was an abrupt word of parting.

"Huh? I have to go. I'm still alive. Hold on. What? Wait." A parting as sudden as our meeting. Though I still knew nothing, felt nothing, understood nothing. I was immediately terrified that this special thing was going to leave me.

"You don't have to go, though," she said calmly.

"I uh—"

"No, I mean that doesn't matter." She sounded like a worried parent. "I don't know where you came from or where you're going though. If you are alive, I'm sure we can meet here again." Was that really true? Or was this special moment going to end here, never to occur in my life ever again? I began to imagine going back to my boring everyday life day after day after day with nothing but a sense of premonition, and I shuddered.

The girl, made of only eyes and nails, not seeming to share my concerns, stood up, at least as far as I could judge by seeing the position of her eyes shift. "Goodbye," she said once more. From the movement of her nails, I could see her walk towards the wall opposite where I was standing, disappearing just before she would have collided. Or rather, the lights of her eyes and nails simply went out, gone. Nothing more.

"Hey," I called out, but there was no reply. I called out once more again, but of course, there was still nothing. Had she left or was she simply ignoring me? Regardless, it seemed the conversation stopped here. There was probably no point in saying anything else. The only thing I could do was leave.

Now, just as I had always assumed I was, I stood alone in the bus shelter. Just before her departure, there were two things that I was able to determine, or rather to suppose. First off, judging by the height of her eyes, she was probably no different in height from the average human. Perhaps about 160 cm. Though, if there was any strange elongation from her forehead upward, I would have no idea. Second, though I could not see the rest of her body, it probably did exist, just as she said. When she stood up and it appeared that she was turning around, one of her eye-lights went out of view. That probably meant that she had a head and that the one eye had been hidden by the angle she was facing.

Once more, the bus shelter was dark and quiet. Left alone in the simple prefab structure, I was thrown into a sense of disarray, of anxiety, my pulse shamelessly began to quicken in a much different way than it did when I was exercising. It had only been a few short minutes. What had I just experienced? What had happened to me? For a while, I stood frozen and dazed, vividly replaying what I had just witnessed again and again in my head. I kept questioning it. Had that really happened? I had no idea. Maybe it was just a dream, though. How horrid it would be if that were true. At the same time though, I had to wonder. Could my own boring subconscious really come up with a being with such a fantastical appearance? A creature that looked like a human invisible but for her nails and eyes. What the heck? What the heck was that? What in the heck had just unfolded before my own two eyes?

I was not ready to allow myself to feel any reckless joy. I had no idea if there would even be a next time. She'd said that we would meet again, but I had no proof of that. Even if I truly had encountered this girl, if this was to be our only meeting, then it was no better than a dream. Regardless, I knew that just standing around there forever would gain me nothing. If what she said to me was true, then perhaps if I came back the next day, something might happen again. And if in fact this was a dream, if it truly was, then I needed to wake up so that I could recognize that fact. I couldn't linger in this dream of something special forever.

I steeled myself and made up my mind to exit the shelter. I put my hand on the handle and slid open the door. When I stepped outside, I was buffeted by a cold wind, but it did not awaken me. I was still standing in my own normal world. Though while I knew that it was too soon, far too soon to be happy, for a few seconds I merely stood there wearing an expression that I would never show to anyone else.

I could not sleep a wink after that. The next morning when I went to the living room, I received another lecture, same as I had when I returned home along with birthday congratulations. As I did every other morning, I ate my breakfast to the sound of the radio, changed my clothes, and rode my bike to school. It had been a while since I'd pulled an all-nighter, but for some reason, I wasn't that tired. Maybe the daily exercise was paying off. Besides, if I did get tired, I could just take a nap during one of our breaks. Something special had happened last night. And yet, my daily life was unchanged.

As though my emotions were plain on my face, Tanukica gave me what could only be described as a look of indifference as we passed each other on the way from the bike racks to the main entrance. Even still, she greeted me with a "yo," as if she didn't mind wasting her own boring energy on a boring guy like me.

"What are you pouting for?"

"I'm not."

"A flat-out bold-faced lie. You definitely are. With a face like that, the girls would be throwing themselves at you."

"That'd be nice. But of course, I'd never say that aloud. I mean, whatever. That's what happens with good-looking guys."

When I couldn't come up with anything to reply to this meaningless opinion, Tanaka made herself scarce. When I got to the classroom, she was boisterously bragging and showing off pictures of her dog to another classmate.

Normally, I would just spend the rest of our arrival time gazing around in boredom. But today was different. Now I had the girl from the bus shelter to think about. Maybe she really was a ghost. There are plenty of legends about them in this town. She might have only said that she was alive because she didn't realize she was dead. Or maybe she was an alien or some other kind of unknown life form. Not that a woman made only of lights had ever appeared in any of the stories or accounts I had read. I considered a number of different possibilities about her true identity based on what I knew. I honestly had no idea if I would ever even see her again. But it was still a departure from my pointless everyday life. Spending these few moments thinking about something special was not a waste of time. Thinking in and of itself was not pointless until it became so. The most important thing to consider was this: Should I meet this girl again? And how could I utilize this encounter to make my life into something special? Meeting a non-human being only once was not enough for me to live a special life going forward. What would make it meaningful was what might happen next, such as if she could share some knowledge or information with me that only she knew, which I could apply to my own life in the future. I even had the fleeting thought that if she was a ghost, perhaps she could show me a glimpse of the afterlife. But that was a little too out of the box. What mattered most to me was that I saw her again.

That day, I sat through my classes as usual, making Silto wait her turn at the shoe lockers this time, and set out running as always the moment I got home. The only way I was going to encounter that girl was by going to the bus stop, so there was no point in deviating from my usual routine. I ran my normal route before ending up at the bus stop. It was as deserted as ever, the shelter lit by the evening sun refracting off the asphalt and not giving the slightest vibe that any ghosts might emerge from it. I sat quietly within it as I always did, but nothing special occurred. Perhaps she really wouldn't appear until after dark. Or maybe she was already there and it was simply too bright out for me to see her still. In case it was the latter, I tried striking up a conversation, but there was no reply. No matter what I did, I received no response and waited there until just before dinner time before I decided to head home.

Today, my family was celebrating my birthday, and as a gift, I received a wristwatch that would monitor my heart rate while running. I had never really paid attention to stuff like that while running before, but I had heard that maintaining your heart rate while running was good for building fitness, so I decided to put it to use. I ate my dinner and then set out for my walk, as I always did. My mother chided me and reminded me not to go falling asleep in the park again. But I was already fully set on using the same lie today when I set foot out the door. Even if she didn't show up, I was going to wait there until the clock struck midnight. There was a chance that she might only appear in the dead of night after all.

I arrived at the shelter once again. There was no one there. I sat in my usual spot, quietly awaiting her. I wondered how she would appear, if she did at all. Yesterday, she had been sitting to my right when I was facing the sliding door at the farthest spot from the entrance. Perhaps she would come walking in from somewhere, the opposite direction from which she had left the night before. I had not slept enough, but I wasn't tired. As I patiently awaited her, wide awake. Finally, midnight came. Though I was reluctant to do so, I decided to head back home. Naturally, my fears had accumulated over the course of the night. How strong the possibility was that the previous night had been only a dream, that another encounter with this girl might never come again. My life followed the exact same pattern.

The next day, and the day after that, and yet she did not again appear at my side. I was anxious. And though I was well aware that my impatience would get me nowhere, I felt a prickling sensation all throughout my body, as if it was obvious to those around me that I was much more irritable than usual. Tonica hadn't started up with me at any point in the past few days. It felt like I was being struck by a fit of some illness. I tried to will myself out of my anxiety, but the feeling of my skin crawling was going nowhere, present as ever. I knew that the only way I would be able to escape this was by meeting her again. If not, I would probably spend the rest of my life visiting this bus stop. The sensation never leaving me. What a terrible life that would be. I spent another day hoping that she would be there. Half resigned that she would not. Heading to the bus stop as I always did when evening came, opening and shutting the door of the shelter futilely.

"Looks like we meet again."

At that voice and

The sight of the faint lights, the prickling in my body swelled in one dramatic moment to a fever pitch and then vanished as though it had never been. I felt so horribly at ease that I thought I might cry. "I'm so glad to see you." I almost thought the words had come out of my mouth, but in fact, they had been hers.

"There's so many things I've been wanting to ask you," she said.

"Me, too. I've wanted to ask you some stuff." So, I sat down, a bit shaken that I said something so sappy in my own elation. She only replied with a simple, "Yeah," in her usual husky voice.

"I actually thought you'd only be here at later hours," I said, checking my watch to see it was not even 8:00 p.m. yet.

"It's not always the same time. Plus, there are a lot of beep, so I figured it might be a while before we could see each other again." As I once more heard that strange noise, I knew for certain that this day was connected to the other, that it had not been a dream.

"Sorry, a lot of—"

"What was that again? I couldn't hear you."

"Safe houses. How about that?"

"Ah, yeah. I wonder why you can't understand certain words. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge or something."

"What a rude way to put it."

"No, I mean, it's not just that they're words I've never heard before. I literally can't hear them. It's like they're buried under some kind of sh sound."

"Curiouser and curiouser." The girl, who, as before, was made up only of her eyes and nails, lined up her 10 fingernails around what I suppose would be her lower abdomen if she were a human, moving them back and forth. Maybe she was scratching her knees.

Speaking of curious things, perhaps it was even more odd that I could simply accept someone who looked like this enough to have a conversation with them. Of course, standing around there forever was going to get me no closer to my goal. So, I had to force myself to accept what I saw in front of me.

"First off," I said, "there's something I'd like to establish." I figured it was best to start off with the simplest question. Putting aside whether or not the person I was conversing with actually existed in this world, there was no telling how much time I had, so I needed to hurry up and get to the point.

"Who are you?" It was a stupid-sounding question, but the girl just laughed. Thinking about it, I actually couldn't remember the last time I had actually been interested enough in another person to want to know about them.

"Me? Well, what do you want to know about me?"

"Um, like, assuming you're a person, what gender are you?"

"Female."

"And you're male, I presume?" Apparently, she had been the right pronoun for her.

"Yep."

"How old? You mean, how many years has it been since I was born?"

"Yeah, I'm 16, by the way."

"I'm a bit older. I'm 18 now." So, she was a third-year in high school, or maybe even a university student. Though if she was a ghost, and that had only been her age when she was alive, there was no telling how old she actually would be now. For a fraction of a second, I wondered if I should be speaking more formally to her. But I put that aside and continued questioning the owner of this voice that sounded a bit husky for her age.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Suzuki Kaya."

"Suzuki Kaya? Sounds strange. I'm Beep." My ears were assailed by a static noise longer than any before.

"Sorry, I couldn't make out your name." I apologized, thinking this might annoy her, but she didn't seem bothered, though it might have shown in her nose and mouth and eyebrows, which I could not see.

"Guess my name's a no-go either. That's rather inconvenient, I suppose. So, why don't you decide then? If there's some universal name that you might have for a woman, you can call me that. Anything's fine."

"Universal? I mean, that you can really just call me whatever." You know, it occurred to me that this girl might have an odd way of thinking, regardless of whether she was a ghost. It was one thing to say you didn't care what someone else was called, but much different not to care about one's own name.

Also, "Is that name Suzuki Kaya just your personal name? You don't have a family name?"

"Oh, uh, Suzuki is my surname, so I guess you call that my family name. Ka is my personal name."

"Oh, Ka. That's shorter and much easier to say. Weird, though. Are you from another country, Ka?" Suddenly being called by my first name by someone I had barely interacted with felt almost like a violation. More importantly, though, "Another country? This is Japan."

"Japan. Japan. Japan." This was getting us nowhere.

"Um, that's the name of this country." Never did I think the day would come when I'd have to explain to someone that the name of this country was Japan. While I stood upon its shores, putting aside my own bewilderment at this bizarre experience, however, the girl's glowing eyes opened wide.

"The name of this country? You're saying that's the country we're in right now?"

"What a strange question."

"That's right. What could that mean?" She asked, moving her eyes and nails as though in thought before saying with her unseen mouth, "The name of the country that I'm in, anyway, is, 'Well, it's called beep.'" Another word I could not hear.

"Couldn't hear it," she confirmed. I wondered if she could tell that from my expression, which would mean that she really could see me clearly, even here in the dark. I gave an earnest nod. She then nodded as well, judging by the movement of her eyes, and muttered, "I see. Guess there's a lot I need to think about here."

"Such as, first off, Kaya. I need to tell you that I have never heard of a country called Japan and, moreover, I don't think such a country even exists in the world I'm in."

"Probably what didn't exist, but we were in Japan right now." As I seriously considered this incomprehensible thing she was telling me, she suddenly let out a loud, "Oh!"

"It's the siren," she explained. "I have to go."

"Didn't have much time today, huh?" She had mentioned something similar before.

"What siren?"

"The one that means it's over up top." I looked reflexively upward. It was faint in the dark, but all I could make out was the rusting, dusty ceiling.

"What's over, right? Of course, you wouldn't know." The beep. I knew that she wasn't making fun of me, but the way she phrased it really sounded like she was. She then made a move that looked like she was standing up.

"Hey, wait a sec. War. Do you understand that?"

"Huh?" I stopped myself from reaching out pointlessly into the void. "I'll explain more next time I see you, but I've got to go now. I think we—" the girl, the girl whose name I had not yet decided, began, then turned toward the wall and said, "might not be in the same world," and then she disappeared. I yet again grew impatient, but I was handling the weight better than I had the first time. I now knew for certain that there was a chance we might see each other again. As I waited, I thought again and again about the meaning behind the mysterious girl's words. She lived in a different world where there was a war going on and Japan did not exist. What could that mean? I didn't understand it, but I had to consider that it was true, even with my limited knowledge. I wondered if it had anything to do with the war I had been hearing so much about lately.

"Right. And more importantly, what was up with all that static? It was like a radio receiver suddenly going out of focus."

"Something is up with you, Suzuki-kun," Tanaka, who was already at her desk, began when I entered the classroom and took my own assigned seat. "I don't usually see you playing with your phone. Didn't even realize you had one. What you doing?"

"It's got nothing to do with you." Never in a million years would I exchange contact information with Tanaka. I wasn't assuming that it did. If it doesn't concern her, then why is she asking about it? I thought. But of course, I couldn't say that, so I just let it go. If Tanaka wanted to waste her life being a busybody poking at things that she had no interest or investment in, then she was free to do so. That was none of my business.

Incidentally, I was messing around on my phone because I needed to look some things up. At the very least, I supposed I needed to figure out a universal name for the girl. Though she had said "universal," to put it simply, there were a lot of names for girls out there, weren't there? That was what I was investigating. That said, the lists of most popular names changed every year, and I got the sense there wasn't really any one name that could be considered universal. A surname would be easy. Something like Takahashi or Sato. Names like Tanaka were already taken. Still, it felt kind of awkward for me to offer up a given name for a girl. She'd said I could call her whatever I wanted, and instinctively, I already half felt that Sato was the best option.

While I investigated and pondered things I was not even sure that I needed to, the day of our reunion came. It was 2 days after the last time she had appeared at the bus shelter.

"Been waiting for you, Ka." I heard her voice from the faint lights the moment I entered.

"It's been a bit. I don't visit the safe houses very often. These beep."

"What's this about a safe house? Right. We should continue our conversation. Where should I start?" I was glad to hear her get right down to business. I closed the door and sat down in my usual spot. Her nails were in a tidy line as though she had her hands at top her knees. Her eyes pointed fixably at me.

"So, I actually came here with a lot of questions about you, Ka. Mind if I go ahead?"

"Sure." I had no reason to refuse.

"Um, so while we were apart, I checked some beep."

"Sorry, couldn't hear that. You checked some what?"

"Right." Her eyes moved up and down as though acknowledging something. "Books."

"That I understand. I looked through some books and sure enough, there's no country called Japan anywhere in our world, not currently or formerly." Given her phrasing, she was not speaking metaphorically. Japan as a country truly never existed. If I believed what she was saying, the possibility of her being a ghost was shrinking.

"You live in a country that shouldn't exist and know nothing about the sirens and can't understand the words I say. But there's something that's been bugging me even more than that. Even since before we could talk to each other." Five of her nails drew nearer to me, only one of them extending further. It was obvious she was pointing.

"Your eyes and nails don't glow." She seemed to be suggesting that it was normal for her to find this mysterious. As I stared deeply into the lights, I remembered that those were her eyes and awkwardly averted mine. Because of that, at first, I assumed you were a figment of my imagination, that my mind was just making up all the right things for you to say. Honestly, I had sort of thought the same thing. Still, I have no way of confirming that. Even if I asked you whether you were just a product of my imagination, you could say no. But that might just be my imagination as well."

"Yeah, same on my end. Really, I'm glad you get it. Even though that might just be my imagination, too." It was difficult to determine just from the shape of her eyes, and there was a strong chance that I was just seeing what I wanted to. But even if it was just my guess, it seemed that she was smiling. Though I couldn't actually see it, this smile made me feel for the first time that she might actually be a person.

"The next thing that occurred to me, which I mentioned before, was that you might be a dead person. You said you were alive, but you might actually be dead. And your beep is just lingering in my safe house for some reason." I assumed the word I couldn't hear was "spirit" or something. I figured I would ask later so as not to interrupt her. But if that were true, it wouldn't explain why you would mention a country called Japan. So, based on what you've told me so far, I've landed on a more accurate theory than you being dead.

"Of course. And that would be, is that what you were saying last time about us not being in the same world?"

"Yep. That's the most beep answer."

"So, are you saying that you've come from a different world into the one that I'm in where Japan exists?" I was thinking she was perhaps some kind of traveler from another world who had made her way to this shelter, but she looked like she was shaking her head.

"I don't think that's right. Right now, I'm in my safe house. I need to ask Ka, where are you right now?"

"Right here?" I was almost tempted to answer, though I knew she was not asking such a straightforward question.

"I'm at a bus stop."

"Bus stop? The bus stop is for some kind of vehicle."

"Yeah, a bus."

"Gotcha. What was that about? Ka, there's one more thing I'd like to confirm. Can you give me your right hand?" Again, I had no reason to refuse. So, I did as I was asked, gently stretching out my right hand, which definitely fully existed beyond just my fingernails. I was honestly shocked at myself for how readily, how casually I did this. Then, before I had time to prepare myself, something cold touched my hand.

"Whoa." I reflexively withdrew it. "What the heck was that?" I looked to see her eyes fixed on me, the nails of what were probably her left hand floating exactly where my right had just been.

"Again, if you don't mind." Nervously, I held my hand out again as asked. Though I had reflexively curled my hand into a fist, this time I felt the cold thing from before gently stroke my palm and the back of my hand instead of gripping it as though trying to confirm the sensation.

"I can touch you. Do you feel me touching you, Ka?"

"Yeah." I could tangibly feel the sensation of something cold and thin, probably a finger tracing along the surface of my hand. A little calmer this time, I looked to confirm it visually. The sensation of being touched moved in sync with the light. My back was damp with sweat. This experiment continued for some time. Even after the lights finally moved away, I could still feel the sensation lingering on my skin.

"Thank you." It seeming like my second assumption was closer to the truth. I looked at my own hand. I realized that I had only been listening dimly to what she was saying.

"Ye. Yeah. If my assumptions were wrong, then maybe only one of our beep was making it across to the other side and it only looked and sounded like the other was right there. But I don't think that's it." I focused all my attention on her words, not wishing to lose a single one while she was explaining her logic. I got the sense that once more the word hidden in the noise meant something like "soul," so it was easy enough to guess what she was trying to say. She thought that perhaps I might have been something like an image on a projector screen. However, that didn't seem to be it.

"After all, I can touch you."

"Yeah, I could feel you touching me, too." The ghost of the sensation still remained.

"So, here's what I think is going on. For some reason, the safe house I'm in and the place you're in are connected. Despite this, both of our perceptions of this place differ. To you, it looks like we're both at a bus station, right?"

"That's right. Only her eyes and nails, though."

"To me, it looks like you and I are both in an underground safe house. Where?"

"What?" I wasn't particularly rattled by this. Merely surprised. But if what she said was true, then what she'd mentioned before about something being finished up above us was referring to a world other than my own.

"This is my most beep assumption at this point. What do you think, Ka?"

What did I think? Honestly, I thought this was all incredibly inventive. Her theory was like listening to a fairy tale. However, what I had just experienced, something invisible touching my right hand, proved to me that she was very real. Even though, as she said, the feeling of being touched might have been nothing more than my imagination.

"Well, what I've been thinking is, I had no idea if what she'd said was right or wrong, so I decided to just explain to her what I had been thinking over the past few days. She herself had already thought of the possibility of one of us being a ghost or merely a product of the other's imagination. So I floated one of the other various theories that had occurred to me: that she might simply have lived in a time before the name Japan was in use."

"I see. So you're saying that I was assuming that we live in different worlds, but you think there's a chance we live in the same world but separated by a vast period of time. On the contrary, the world you live in might be the one in the past, and maybe later on there was some huge disaster and the country known as Japan vanished." It was a disturbing thought. It would explain her talk of a war, though. The fact that there were no mentions of Japan in the past when I looked into it could just mean that the information was inconvenient for whichever country won the war. And so they struck Japan from the beep."

"Sorry. Struck Japan from the what? Couldn't hear what you said."

"Records. Does that work?"

"Yeah. I also had some thoughts about these words that you can't hear, if you don't mind." Thinking about it, it's actually weird that we can talk at all. It was true. If we were in different countries or even just different time periods, let alone if we were in different worlds entirely, incomprehensible words aside, it was bizarre that we could more or less carry on a conversation in the same language to begin with. Even the slightest amount of distance would usually cause a cultural or linguistic clash.

"Now, this is just my theory, but consider that maybe of the countless different worlds there are, including differences in time and place, it just so happens that the linguistic structures of your world and mine align. Where I come from, there's a saying, 'words gave birth to the world.' But humans made words. Words must be pretty powerful, though, to be able to connect to another world." Her voice sounded more optimistic than anything else. She's a lot more of a dreamer than that laid-back voice of hers would imply. I started to think, then winced at how very basic it was of me to think for even a moment that a person's personality could be determined by the sound and tone of their voice.

"But then why are there words that only I can't understand?"

"Because they're words that don't exist in your world. The fact that I can't understand everything you say either means that you just haven't said any words I'd be unable to hear or that your influence on this space is stronger than mine. Earlier you mentioned a vehicle called a bus, which I've never heard of, but I could still hear it. I could hear your name, too."

"Oh, right. About that universal name. Did you think of one? I'd like something as short as yours. Something simple." Well, that immediately cut out Sato, the surname. I felt my enthusiasm dying already. I looked into it, but I couldn't really come up with anything. Like you mentioned, "Anything's fine. Really, anything." All that I knew about her was that her eyes and nails glowed. That she had a husky voice, that she lived in a country that was currently at war, that she was in an underground bunker, and that her hands were cold.

"How about Chica?" I offered.

"Underground?"

"What does that mean? Well, like underground since you're in an underground shelter." It was a completely silly reason, but most people's names were given for fairly silly, vapid reasons. She narrowed her eyes slightly and nodded with a simple, "Okay, all right, then. From now on, in your world, my name is Chica."

"A nice beep name."

"I didn't catch that last bit."

"The word after 'nice'."

"Concise. Got it. That's good. I'm glad." I was glad to know that the word caught in the noise was an affirmative. I'd been worried it was something sarcastic. With that, her name was decided. I don't know that it was even necessary, considering I didn't plan on referring to her in the third person. Still, the fact that she liked it was a bonus. Nothing good could come of putting a person you wish to talk to in a foul mood.

"So, did you come here to ride on one of those bus things?" The question came suddenly out of nowhere. Typically, you could tell a person was talking to you by looking at their mouth. If I didn't focus, I felt like some of the sounds were going to slip right by me.

"No, this bus stop is no longer in use. I just come in here to rest. I come here every night, actually."

"Oh, let me guess. H—" I think our time zones are different. The sun is still up here, even though I can't see it from underground."

"What? It's still daytime there."

"It is. I mean, I wouldn't exactly call it daytime, but I get what you mean." For the record, as a follow-up, I did ask her what word she would use, but her reply once more vanished into the static. The word "daytime" was not used colloquially in her world. I tried to figure out how many hours we were apart by, but while Chika's world also used days as a unit of time, their seconds, minutes, and hours were slightly different from ours. Since a full understanding would require comprehending a lot of words that were getting lost to the static, I swiftly gave up. At any rate, what was important was that it was nighttime here, but daytime there.

"I wonder if time moves at the same rate for us," she said. I had a similar curiosity. She seemed to have thought of a lot of different possibilities under the assumption that we were in different worlds. "Like, for all I know, the sun rises and sets dozens of times in your world in just one cycle of ours."

"I've read stories like that before."

"As have I," I thought.

"Well, the sun's only risen and set twice since I last saw you."

"Okay, then the cycles are the same. It's only been twice for me, too. There have only been two wars as well."

"Wars. You've mentioned that before."

"So, about that war," I started, only realizing after I had already steered the conversation in that direction that I had not prepared any follow-up questions. I might have finally gone too far. There was a war going on in her home. Chika might die tomorrow. Her family might die today. War carried a certain imagery. The shadow of death that hung over it brought my words to an unnatural halt.

"There's a war going on right now," she said plainly, as though she was irritated, but had no other choice. "Is there a war in your world right now, too?"

"There isn't, but I think there'll be one soon." There had been a lot of talk about it in the paper and on the radio lately.

"I see. It's rough no matter where you go, huh?"

"I guess. I mean, unlike where you are, there's no one killing each other in the streets here, so we don't have any safe houses or anything."

"Really? Guess we have different beep then?"

"Different what?" Any concept of what had just occurred to her was as hazy in my mind as her expression, but I could see the placement of her nails. Both her hands looked to be placed at top her thighs, sliding back and forth. Maybe that was a habit of hers when she was thinking.

"Rules. Do you understand me when I say that word?"

"Yeah, we must have different rules."

"What are wars like in your world?" I don't really know the details, but I explained to Chica all that I knew about wars in our world based on what I had learned in school, seen on the news, and read in books. All of it was hearsay, secondhand knowledge. It was unrealistic, of course, as I had never seen any of it with my own eyes. But Chika listened dutifully to my explanation, letting out a pained sigh partway through.

"So, a lot of people die in wars in your world."

"Yeah. I don't know how it'll be the next time, but a long time ago, my town was completely wiped out."

"That's so terrible. Oh, wars aren't like that in your world."

"Well, in my world." I straightened up my mental posture to listen. "There's a thing called beep. And like I said before, there's a stipulated set of rules, but it's very different from how wars are fought in your world." Unlike mine, the tone of Chica's voice suggested that war was an everyday reality for her and felt far more concrete than the vague concept I had. Or rather, from what I hear, a long time ago in our world, we did have wars that resulted in a lot of casualties like in yours. But since the rules were established, people who are just going about their lives like we do, no longer die in wars. This was apparently decided ages ago by an agreement between some larger nations. That's just what they teach us, though. So, for all I know, history has been rewritten. Anyway, with the current rules of warfare, it rarely results in our deaths."

"Well, that's good." The fact that there was currently a war going on still made me fear for Chica's safety, but I was relieved to at least know it was unlikely she would die.

"You were worried about me, huh?" Again, I could only imagine Chika's expression from the shape of her eyes, but she looked like she was smiling. Of course, as much as I was worried for her safety, I was also afraid I would have to give up the chance to see her again. So, I awkwardly asked, "What are the rules?"

"There are a lot of them. It'll be hard to explain it in a way that you can hear. The simplest one is about my eyes and nails, which you can see. I did mention before that it's weird that yours don't glow." She pointed to various places. "This is completely normal in our world." That was supposed to be a basic rule. Then wouldn't it mean that she was simply born that way? I waited for her explanation, offering up a suitable verbal acknowledgement.

"To put it in simple terms, our eyes and nails are colored for the sake of beep."

"Um, for the sake of what?"

"Identification. Distinction. Oh, okay. So, it was like a mark. Each country has its own color. When you're born, everyone gets their own country's color so that you can tell friend from foe. This is just a vestige from when countries were still next to one another and people mixed together. Though now it's only used to tell when enemy soldiers are trying to blend in in another country and no one fights after the sun goes down." Of course, I tried to imagine a map of where Chika was. Perhaps the various nations were divided by some sort of wilderness or oceans, or maybe something that did not exist here.

"Since you have soldiers, is there a military?"

"Yeah, there are people whose job it is to fight. They decide on dates and times to beep."

"Dates and times for what?"

"Um, days for attacking and days for defending and which country they're going to fight in. On some days they go on the offense, some days on defense. It's fine on the days when they're on offense because the soldiers aren't here, but on defense days, we have to go into the safe houses like now."

"I see. So that's why you're here some days and not others," I suggested. Her toenails moved to the surface of the bench. She had probably pulled her knees up to her chest.

"Or rather, today your country is on defense."

"Yeah, I think it'll be over soon, though." I could tell from her tone that she was filled with regret at the fact that she would have to leave soon. She obviously had a different sense of values regarding wars.

"Oh, in case you were worried, though, the people who do the fighting rarely die either. I don't really know the details, but apparently they've been researching beep, so there haven't been any incidents of mass casualties lately."

"Oh, I see." I assumed that the word I could not hear was something like "tactics," so I did not press further.

"But if they try to fight without killing people, how do they determine the victors?"

"Beep. Um, they have certain set objectives. There's like this big round thing and if the attackers can get it outside of the country, they win. If they don't carry it out within the time limit, then the defenders win."

"What the hell?" I was stunned. That was way more— It was like a video game. One which people might actually die in.

"Sorry, but that's just like it sounds. The adults made some kind of messed-up game."

"That's because they did. Fewer people die, but more get hurt. Houses and all sorts of other structures get destroyed and it interferes with our lives. They should have just stopped this whole thing when they were putting the rules together." It was the first time I heard her get this emotional. Normally, this sort of voice would be accompanied with a facial expression, so it was rather novel for me. This was probably what she sounded like when she was feeling resentful. Her voice carried a tang of anger, like dark ink forcibly seeping into one's heart.

"I've thought of something, though," she said. The hint of anger had seemingly vanished, but without seeing her face, I could not tell when the switch had occurred or by what degree. "Now that you've heard about the rules of war in my world, maybe you could use them to guide your own world to stop so many people from dying. Maybe you came to be able to speak to me so that you could transform your own world. If that's true, then maybe we really could think of my world as the future of yours." Putting aside the timeline, the idea that I could ever become a leader was just way too creative. I doubted I would ever have the power within me to put an end to the senseless killing that was born of human stupidity. However, if there was the slightest grain of truth to this, there was still one issue.

"If that's the case, since that goal has already been achieved, we might not see each other again." I had meant this as nothing more than a statement of fact.

"I wouldn't like that much either," said Chica. I suddenly grew embarrassed, realizing that my own sadness at the prospect of parting had made it into my expression and my voice. Of course, I had reacted that way because I had still nowhere near achieved my own personal goals, but it would be a little vexing to cheapen her evaluation of me now, assuming she thought of me as someone likable. I was glad to know that she was just as bummed as I was at the idea of us never meeting again.

"Ah, there's the siren." She swiftly covered her ears. It seemed she was afraid of the sound.

"Shouldn't the end of the war be a positive thing, though?"

"I couldn't hear it, of course. What does it sound like?"

"Oh, you can't hear it. That's good. It sounds terrible. The sound makes your beep vibrate."

"Makes what vibrate?"

"Um, the inside of your stomach. Your internal organs," she probably meant. Or maybe it was something a little different. Something internal to a human that I didn't know about.

Chika stood up without the slightest bit of hesitation at the possibility that our mission might have been fulfilled and we might never see each other again. She turned toward the wall and took one step forward. I could tell by the movement of her toenails.

"See you, Chica. Don't get caught." Chika had her own life in that other world. One which I could not keep her from. So, it was all I could do to at least persuade her to come see me again. To my surprise, she looked back at me. Our eyes met, and the light seemed to shift into a smile.

"Next time, I want to learn more about you, Ka." Leaving only her voice behind, the girl who had always been in darkness vanished. Left all alone, I looked at my watch. We had talked a lot longer today than we ever had before. It had been a largely disturbing conversation with all the talk of war. But to be able to hear about the world she knew was huge. Even if I still couldn't abandon the possibility that she was lying or that this was all simply in my head. Still, she had touched me. The feeling of her cold finger tracing my hand was real. I could almost still feel the thrill of it lingering on my skin. I stood up slowly, trying not to let that feeling go. I exited the shelter. The air was so much thicker outside. It was hard to breathe. I was back in my own world again.

If we did live in completely different worlds, as Chika said, I tried to imagine what sort of place she would go home to. She'd said it was daytime there. The war might still be winding down where she was. Or perhaps things would just be carrying on as always. Did it rain in her world? Was it cold there right now or hot? For now, I just needed to get home and put in order all that I had heard about this world of hers. Regardless of whether or not I could actually change the face of warfare in my world, this might have been the first step in making my own life into something special. As I walked the path home, I grew self-conscious. Once again, I had done something utterly basic. It was the first time in a while that I had actually gotten excited about a conversation. Nothing had come of it yet, but the thoughts still occurred to me. I was just that sort of person. We were 10 days into March, and spring was just around the corner. I held no special feelings toward the changing of the seasons, but this being a sign of the sure passage of time, I was once again growing anxious. I had not seen Chika again since that night. It might have just been a problem of timing, but I began to worry that perhaps our goal really had already been fulfilled. I knew there was no point in worrying over it. So, for the time being, I decided to focus on the things that did matter to me. It was still too early to be certain, but at the very least, the things that she told me did not seem to align with the world I knew. There was still the possibility that every word out of her mouth was a lie, but I had no way of confirming that. Even if she was ultimately deceiving me, right now I had no choice but to believe her. If nothing else, the resentment in her voice when she spoke about the war could not have been a lie. Chika probably really did live in a different sort of environment from me. It occurred to me that perhaps she had not appeared at that bunker because the war was over. By that token, however, wanting to see her meant wishing war upon her world. If I could sincerely wish for and rejoice in another person's misfortune, I would have. But I knew myself to be a boring, vaguely sympathetic person, so I gave up on that train of thought. I started visiting the bus stop in the early evening in addition to later at night, but Chika still did not appear. She had said there were no wars after the sun went down, which meant that she would not be in the bunker at night, and thus chances were slim that she would appear when it was still midday at the bus stop. Still, I had no idea what our time difference was, so I couldn't say this definitively. I went running every day as I always did. The only thing that changed about my runs is that I started focusing on maintaining an optimal heart rate and that I had altered my route on the way to the bus stop. The heart rate was primarily because I had been given that watch. As for changing my route, there was no real reason to do so. If I were the sort to keep a diary and someone pilfered it, they would quickly grow weary of reading about my life. I started running as usual, gradually increasing my speed. The watch on my wrist was designed to keep track of both exercise intensity and heart rate so I could improve my cardiopulmonary capacity over time. There were various presets installed which would sound a warning alarm if I started going too fast or my heart rate got too high. I wondered if there was a sort of scenery I could only see if I kept training in a way that put too much strain on my heart. Would a life-threatening workout erase the boredom that lay behind the exhilaration? Should I try it? I wondered, beginning to increase my speed, when suddenly I saw a familiar face up ahead, vapidly raising a hand to wave at them, though at the same time praying they wouldn't notice me. Given that ignoring them was utterly out of the question, I slowed my pace and gave a yo. I'd intended to keep running right by, but of course, my classroom neighbor Tanaka decided it was fully acceptable to strike up a conversation with someone who was running with a, "What you doing?" Reflexively, I stopped.

"I mean, isn't it obvious?" I asked. "I'm running." I spoke a bit faster than normal, probably thanks to my elevated heart rate.

"Yeah, I can see that. I'm asking why. Does that really need an answer? Enough of these frivolities. I'm running just to run."

"I don't get you. I mean, if that's why you're doing it, you could at least look like you're having a little more fun. By the way, I'm walking my dog." First of all, I hadn't asked. Second of all, I could clearly see that. Even so, I glanced down at the dog at Tanaka's feet. When we locked eyes, the dog sidled up to me. She should have been using the leash to keep the animal in place at her side, but instead, her arm stretched out towards me in tandem with the dog's movement. After the dog did not leave, even after several moments of just staring at me, I realized that it was after something. I gave it a single pat on the head, but this did not satisfy it enough to return to Tanaka.

"This dog has no loyalty," she said. "Gets attached to everyone, just like the owner." I doubted the dog truly was attached to me, and nothing good would come of it if so, either for Tanaka or the dog. Anyway, "Didn't realize he went running this way." I'd had no idea that my recent route change would run me straight into Tanaka's walking route.

"This is the first time I've run this way." I didn't ask, but I suppose that meant she didn't have any set route herself.

"Seems like lightning struck here recently and a tree fell down. I was going to go see if it's burnt."

"To what end?" I wondered. But I knew that if I asked her what the point of her doing so was, she'd just give me some meaningless reply. I didn't bother.

"You want to come?"

"Seems like you've got some time."

"No thanks, I'm running."

"But aren't you just running 'cause you don't have anything else to do?"

"Why would you go around saying things that shatter people to the core without even thinking about it?" Oh, right. I waited to see what else she had to say, though I was indifferent to it. I hated this. I saw I really hated this kind of thing. I couldn't stand people who just said whatever they wanted without any rhyme or reason. I had no idea what sort of reaction she expected out of me, but I decided not to take it seriously.

"Did you now? Have you been in touch?"

"Nope. Guess it's good to know she's alive, though. Anyway, I'm just letting you know I saw her." Having said what she wanted to, Tanaka and her dog were on their way. Pretty sure that dog didn't care about going to see some burnt-up tree. Being forced to go look at something by someone who just assumed you'd want to see it only created ill will. I wouldn't blame the dog for feeling that way about Tanaka. The word "distracted" now came to mind, but that wasn't right. There was nothing all that enthralling about running in the first place. It was just that talking to Tanaka had sapped my willpower. So, I gave up on my self-imposed heart rate challenge. I resumed my usual running, stopped by the bus stop, and ran back home as I always did. I, thanks to Tanaka, a name I could usually put out of my mind, entirely now clouded my whole vision, dragging at my feet. Not that I really found it much of an obstacle. Once more, all I wanted today was for Chika to be there. With that in my heart, I headed to the bus stop that night. But all that awaited me within the shelter was a darkness and silence beyond compare.

It was 5 days after that when Chika appeared again. On an unrelated note, exams had started up at school. As I did every night, I set out for the bus stop, my mother calling behind me, "Try not to get caught." Chika was not present when I opened the door to the shelter. But as soon as the weight of my disappointment pressed me down onto the bench, something flickered in the corner of my eye. I turned my head to see the lights I had been waiting for.

"We meet again, Kaya." I was glad that Chika spoke first in her placid tone. If I had gone first, all the anticipation that had built up within me might have squeezed my voice into a squeak. Chika sat down on the bench in her usual position to my right, as though she thought nothing of the fact that I was here with her.

"Chika, what are you sitting on right now?" I asked a casual question so as to disguise my panic and overwhelming joy, though I was also genuinely curious. I was sitting on a long wooden bench myself, but I wondered what she was sitting on.

"Uh, beep. Sorry, that was a bit too fast for me to catch. Um, a long chair."

"Got it. Same as me, then." Maybe the fact that the bunker Chika was in resembled this shelter had something to do with the fact that our two worlds were able to align.

"It's been a while. I'm guessing there wasn't any war." This time, I asked a question I had already prepared. If Chika said yes, it would mean that I had been hoping for a war to happen somewhere, but I needed to at least find out what rules governed her visits.

"No, that's not it." I was relieved. I could get by without praying for Chika to live amongst some vague misfortune. Knowing this freed me from acknowledging how lost and petty I truly was. "A family member who lives far away died suddenly, so he had to go help with some things. I was with everyone else in a bigger safe house over there."

"Did they die because of a war?"

"No, they were ill. She was just my beep, though, so I hadn't really spoken to her before."

"Your what?"

"My grandfather's younger sister. My older brother is the only one in our family who's in the war business, so he's the only one with any chance of dying from it." It would be easy to say something trite to Chika, like, "I'm surprised you can stay so calm," given how matter-of-fact she could be about the shadow of looming death that hung over one of her family members. But it would also be insensitive. Whether you're in the same world or a different one, there are few times when people can truly relate to one another.

Anyway, "I mentioned this last time, but I've thought of some things I want to ask about you, Ka."

"Okay," I acknowledged casually, but in fact, I had been ready for this. It was not as though I wanted to talk about myself, but I figured that if I told Chika anything she wanted to know, I could learn more about her in return. "You get as much as you give." Short of that, I would never have any interest in volunteering information about myself.

"First off, she probably would want to know about my family or my life up until then. The sort of information that would tell you who you were dealing with. What sort of things do you like?" She asked instead. I had been fully prepared to respond, but the words caught my throat. Things I liked. The question was far too abstract. And furthermore, what was the point in knowing someone's interests before anything else?

"Things I like. Um, do you mean like my favorite foods?" I

tried to narrow down the question a bit. Is eating your favorite thing to do? I didn't dislike it, but that wasn't enough for me to declare that eating delicious food was a passion of mine or that meals were my favorite part of the day. So, I shook my head. That's not what I meant.

If we're talking about hobbies, I guess my favorite thing would be my daily runs. Running is your favorite time of the day? Well, I certainly couldn't call it my favorite. I'd assume she just wanted to know my hobbies, which are nothing more than the things that kept me going every day outside the basic necessities. I didn't agree with her assumption because I wanted to tell her what I actually considered my favorite part of the day, but I couldn't think of anything. If I was honest with myself, I didn't have a favorite part of my day or even one that I cherished at all. Rather, I doubted such a special time existed in this boring life of mine. It was true in some regards that the time I spent here was special to me, but I didn't say that. I didn't want her to think I was the sort of basic person who cherished talking to others.

"I can't really think of anything, but do you have any better idea of that, Chica?" What time of the day is most important to you? It would be a lie to say that I didn't have the slightest bit of hope that our goals would overlap, that she would say that it was the time she spent here. It was just as true that I hoped she wasn't the sort of person who would give such a basic response for me. I got the sense that she was about to say something I couldn't hear, but that didn't happen.

"Probably the time just before I go to bed when I'm all alone in my room." It was a stereotypically girlish response. Incredibly so. A selfish feeling of disappointment started peeking out from within me, but I shued it away. I still hadn't heard the details.

"Can I ask why that time is so important to you?" "It's because everything is all mine." She sounded like some sort of world conqueror in a storybook. "I like all the things I have in my room and in my head. In my room, I have my important beep, my books and my music and all the journals I've ever written in. Inside my head, I have thoughts that no one else will ever hear and my feelings. Even if someone comes barging into my room, they can never see what's inside my head. No one can even see my expressions. I love that time when I can exist just for myself. That's the real world, at least for me."

Concerned, she asked whether there was anything I had not heard out of all the words she said. I asked her what else she had in her room besides the books and music and journals. "How do I put this? It's a way to experience a story through smell, like a perfume. Not quite. It's something that conjures up people and places. A bunch of scents come together to make up the sensation of a story. I'm guessing that doesn't exist in your world." Not that I knew of. Or maybe it did, but I had never heard of it. I had no idea how well what I was imagining lined up with it. But I decided to file that away for later.

And that aside, depending how you looked at it, what Chika was saying was far too much like a shut-in's way of thinking. Rather insular. However, I soon realized something. "Do you like being in your room because there's a war going on in your hometown, so you don't get to go out much?" I wondered if it was because she had been born into such an unusual society, but it seemed I was off the mark. She hummed as though she was searching for the right words, then gave an um and began.

"I don't think it really has to do with the war. I like being in my room because there are none of the things that I was forced into liking and I'm permitted to keep it that way. There might be songs that imprinted themselves on me or things like the beep, that scent thing I mentioned earlier, but no matter how I encountered them, none of those things are something that I came to like because of anyone else. That's why my room's important to me." I sort of got what she was trying to say, but we had far different intrinsic values regarding our rooms. For me, my room was nothing more than a simple box. It protected me from the rain. I could sleep there, and at least no one else could see me. In exchange, though, trapped in that space, my own boring self still lorded over me. It was stifling.

"If you can't think of anything important, does that mean you have everything or that you have nothing?" she asked. As usual, I was briefly thrown by the voice suddenly issued from a mouth I could not see with no movement to match it. This time, though, as much as I ruminated on the meaning of those sounds in my head, I could not understand the intent of the question. Still, if I could answer such a question while fully ignoring the intent, then it was obvious what was there or not. "Nothing, I guess."

"Why?" I thought that maybe you couldn't think of anything you cherish because you're all filled up by some color or other. Are you full or are you empty? "You said there's nothing. Can I ask what you mean by that?" I wondered if she had gotten the wrong idea. I figured I should explain to avoid any unnecessary pity. "I don't mean that I don't have a family or a house or anything. And I don't mean that I'm sad because I don't have any friends or lovers. It's just that there's nothing in my life that I really consider important."

"You don't pretend much, do you?" I couldn't quite grasp the meaning of her words. "Pretend?" "Yeah, pretend. More importantly though, how do you feel about the fact that there's nothing special in your life?" I had to answer honestly. "It's boring. Utterly boring, but I'm kind of at a loss because it's not the sort of void that can be filled with books or music like you mentioned."

"You really don't pretend." Those glowing eyes stared fixedly at me as though she was forgetting to blink. Slowly, the meaning of her words began to seep into my skull. Fundamentally, I think people, though I'm not sure if people means exactly the same thing in your world, but all the people in my world live their whole lives pretending. The biggest lie of all is when we pretend to understand or like each other. "Uh, yeah, I said, I get it."

"I don't think the pretending is good or bad so much as a necessary part of life, but I'm surprised to learn you don't do that. Is everyone like that in your world?" "No. Everyone here lives their lives pretending to. It's not as if I don't do it as well. I had pretended plenty of times in my life. I hadn't thought of those moments as pretending at the time, but looking back, they probably were. It was because it was all pretend that I had begun to think, is this all there is? To borrow Chica's words, even if I didn't pretend, I might live my entire life just waiting to feel something special. I'm sure I spend less time pretending than other people do, but I do it, too."

"Yeah, I don't feel like I'm doing it just to live. If I were doing it to live, I would have never caught the attention of those scum at the bottom of the human race who make up reasons just to torment others like I had in elementary school. I think I'm pretending because I want to find something I don't have to pretend about. Rather perplexing if I do say so myself."

"So are you saying that your feelings towards your books and music are pretend too?" "No, I really do like them. But when I'm outside of my room, I pretend to like a lot of other things. I just like being inside my room because it's only filled with things that I don't have to pretend about." That made sense. I got then what she meant about liking her room. Still, I didn't think she realized that even those feelings of liking the things in her room were just another form of pretending. She was filling up the voids in her life with things that other people created. By the way, it still sounded like a strange turn of phrase for a being made up of only eyes and nails to use. I suppose the thoughts and feelings people hold are governed far more by our sense of sight than we imagine.

"Yeah, I know about friends and family," Chika said curiously. "But what's a lover?" "Uh, wait, you don't know?" Um, how do I put this? "Two people who share a romance." I guess I've never heard of romance either. This was the first time in all of our conversations that there was something I knew about that Chika did not. Would I need to phrase this a different way? "How else do you say the word romance?" "It's um Huh. I'm really not sure how to put this. It's when two people like each other and start going out. And that's different from being friends." "It is. Or rather, I'm not really sure where the boundary lies, but it means something different." Words like marriage and family came to mind, but those weren't necessarily connected. I also thought of explaining it as the opposite sex, but surely there were cases where that didn't apply.

"The difference between romance and friendship is that romance is usually with someone of the opposite sex and the relationship usually involves sexual attraction." "I feel like friendships sometimes involve that too though and sometimes not." "Uh, well, yeah, I guess." How was I meant to explain this? In using Japanese to explain Japanese words, it felt more like I was revealing my own general perception of the concept and that my worth as a person would be judged in the process. It made me self-conscious. She seemed to understand the concept of friendship. I had already given her the key words of like and attraction. So perhaps if there was a concept similar to romance that she was aware of, there was a good chance she might realize it. There was also as good a chance that she'd just say another word I couldn't hear. Or did no such word exist in her language at all?

"Chica, do you know about marriage?" "That I understand. It's one of the steps in making a family. Romance is usually part of the process of achieving a marriage in my world." "Huh. Guess we differ there then. We usually just marry someone we're friends with who we don't hate as long as it's convenient for both parties." "Convenient? Like in terms of work or the distance between your houses? I guess you all just add romance to that list in this world. What is it like? How does the process go?"

"Are you asking what we do? Do you do things you don't do with your friends?" I remembered when I had once tried immersing myself in romance for the experience. But I swiftly realized that I was just pretending yet again. At the same time, a name flickered to mine. But it was all right for now. Since I had once had people I called friends, I did know what sort of things you didn't do with them. A number of things popped to mind, of which I chose the ones that, as far as I was aware, were all right to talk about in mixed company. Like touching each other, for example.

"Oh, wait. When I touched your hand, was that inappropriate for our relationship in your world? I'm very sorry." She blinked for longer than she usually did, the lights slowly fading in and out, probably a habit of hers when she was apologizing. There seemed to have been a strange misunderstanding, which I quickly corrected. "No, that's not what I meant. Even friends sometimes hold hands, I think. I meant more like kissing."

"What is that?" It was embarrassing enough just saying the word, but now she wanted me to describe the act. "Is that like making babies?" If she knew about that, did it mean that they produced offspring the same way in her world? I had no idea how I'd react if she told me they just grew right out of the ground. "No, that's not it. You touch each other with your lips." Why did I phrase that so awkwardly? "With your lips?" "Yeah, you put your lips together." "But why? Is it like some kind of marking?" "No, it's not about leaving a mark or anything." Why indeed though? I didn't know anything about biology and I couldn't explain it in terms of feelings as I didn't really understand romance itself. Apparently, some countries besides ours also use it as a greeting, but in my country, it's an expression of love. "I'm guessing you all don't do that." "We don't. We don't do that when expressing love for family or friends either."

All right. So, she did have some concept of love. She had said that friendship sometimes included sexual attraction. So perhaps the scope of what she considered friendship was broader than ours. Perhaps we were only causing trouble for ourselves by dividing human relationships into so many distinct words and categories.

"Ka, do you have anyone you consider a lover?" Chika's voice sounded suddenly interrupting my thoughts. However, the huh that slipped out of my mouth was not because I had not registered her question, but because I was shaken. And I was further shaken by the mere fact that I was shaken, distracted by both my own memories of the past and Tanaka's words from the other day. "I I don't." As far as I could discern from her eyes and nails, Chika wasn't bothered by my clipped answer. On the contrary, after that came a bevy of other questions. So I explained to her that lovers were usually pairs, that having multiple partners was frowned upon, that most people were friends before they were lovers, and that it was not unheard of to have more than one partner in a lifetime. "I did have someone before, but we broke up." I had offered this information up myself so as not to be caught off guard by another question.

"When you stop being lovers, do you become friends?" "That happens in some cases, in other cases not. Definitely not. In my case, there was no point in discussing my love life more than I already had." To my chagrin, Chika still seemed curious about this concept of romance, something which she did not have.

"It's weird that you'd have to share such a vague type of relationship with only one other person. I don't know. I mean, I guess we all just want to be special, probably. People spoke about affairs with such passion that you'd think they were the most important person in the world. So being someone's only lover makes you special." "A lot of people feel that way. Not just when it comes to romance, but sometimes with friendships, too."

"I see. I don't know if you could call what you and I have friendship. But when we're here, you're the only one I see." It was half a joke, but I think she was trying to cheer me up. I appreciated the sentiment, but unfortunately, I was not the sort of person who would think himself special just because someone said he was. "Thanks." Even if she lacked any concept of romance, I couldn't tell Chika that lately I thought of nothing but her day or night.

Today we were given far longer than usual before the siren sounded. I asked Chica about her daily routine, which was something I had been curious about. She told me how she went about her day with occasional explanations of the words I couldn't hear. In the morning, she awoke, then went shopping at a place we would refer to as a market before returning home to eat with her family. Something I couldn't understand, even with an explanation. After that, if it was a defense day, she would enter a bunker at the designated time. The war might start either before or after lunch. The place where we met seemed to be Chika's closest personally preferred safe house to her home. After the war, if the area around her house had been ransacked, she would clean up. But thankfully, her home was far from any crucial location, so there was rarely any damage. When the war was over, or on days without a war, she would help her father, who was a custodian of the National Library. Then she would head back home, eat dinner, and go to bed. In the past, she had attended what I would refer to as school, but she had apparently graduated at 16.

I wondered how Chika felt about that life. "I guess it's whatever." "What do you mean?" I assumed whatever meant the same as boring. "Life is just something I live so that I can keep thinking and feeling. It takes a body and a life to have the thoughts that exist only in my head, to experience books and music and all sorts of other things. That's what I'm living for. My body is a vessel that keeps my heart beating and I just go throughout my days trying to keep that body alive. So, it's whatever." It was different from saying that every day was boring. Every day was worthless from the beginning. No point in treating days like they were important or being pessimistic about it. That was how it sounded to me.

"Do you mean that life of itself is meaningless?" "If I could still keep thinking and feeling after death, then yes, it would be. But if I died, I have no idea if I'd ever be able to open a book again or if my whole existence would just fade away. So, for now, I have to keep on living. I doubt my room would be there either. War and illness are detestable simply because they might snatch away my ability to think and feel." I was sort of moved by Chica's words. It was the first time I had ever heard a perspective like that. The only reason I was not truly deeply moved was that I had no idea whether such thinking was commonplace where she came from. It was wholly possible that this was just a statement of common sense for her.

"Would my way of thinking be strange in your world?" she asked. "It's the first time I've ever heard anything like it. But it does make sense, so I don't think it's all that strange." I hated people who thought of themselves as strange. "That's good. People have gotten mad at me in the past when I beep things like this. In my world, there's nothing more precious than life itself. Even if it changes nothing in my world, it's nice to be able to talk to someone like you who understands me." Her eylights narrowed.

"Are there any things you talk about that a normal person wouldn't? I'd like to hear them if you don't mind." There was nothing to gain from letting someone else see what was inside your heart. Even knowing this, I faltered at her suggestion. I wasn't looking for any sympathy. I didn't want someone to tell me how interesting I was. It was only because I was here in the bus shelter that I even considered letting someone else hear about the sorts of things I would normally never think of sharing with others. "I can't really think of anything."

"Gotcha. Well, there's not much else I can offer you, but let's just keep in mind that if there's ever anything we'd like to talk about, we'll always have someone to say it to. That goes for both of us." I did not agree to this. After all, I had no interest in lying to her. But I couldn't just do nothing. I had to give her something so I would get something from her in return. At the same time, I realized that this denial was also something of a relief. Why was that? Perhaps the absence of any responsibility made me feel more carefree.

"In exchange, though, would you tell me about all the things that have been happening in your life lately?" she asked. "Even the little things, it doesn't matter." "Sure, but I mean there's really nothing. Best I could tell you about is the weather. And I guess a tree somewhere nearby was struck by lightning the other day."

"Whoa. A tree within walking distance of my home was struck by lightning, too. It's been growing there since I was little. So, I went to beep." "You went to do what?" "Um, I pulled it apart and took the pieces and burned them in the beep in my house. We do the same when nearby trees get burned down in the wars. I don't really get why, but it's an old custom." I didn't ask about the mysterious thing in her house, not wanting to bring the conversation to a halt there. I was sure it had to be a fireplace or some similar thing. I guessed every place had weird old traditions no one understood. It wasn't raining when the lightning struck, but I heard it's supposed to rain tomorrow. "I think it's going to be clear here." "Oh, I see. Sorry. I just suddenly started feeling like we were somehow in the same place."

I didn't want to ruin the terribly cozy atmosphere that Shika's reserved laughter had created, but I was curious about something. "Are there wars on rainy days?" "A lot of times they cancel them when it rains since we can't hide in our bunkers." I understood her resentment about the wars. If they were so concerned for the citizens, they shouldn't have had the wars in the first place. Every day on our media, they talked about preparedness for war, but it was absurd. They just shouldn't start any wars to begin with.

I wasn't sure how much time we had left until the siren. I asked Chika, but she said that it varied. Given that there was no telling how long we had, nor if there would even be a next time, I had to absorb as much useful information from Chica as possible. But it was hard to determine what would be most useful. For the last several minutes we had, I listened to Chica talk about her interest and the toys that let you experience stories through smell. If it was something that did not exist in our own world, perhaps I could put the knowledge to practical use or even devote myself to creating them. However, it was difficult to imagine and comprehend a form of entertainment that differed based on the perceptions of each recipient by a verbal explanation alone.

"Should I bring one next time? Is that against the rules?" "I think it'll be fine. It doesn't release that strong of a scent." Mid-sentence, Chica's nails moved up to her face. The siren was sounding. "See you later," she stated simply before vanishing the way she always did. With those four short syllables, we promised that we would meet again. We had no idea if there would be a next time, and we knew we might just live out the rest of our lives in separate places. Perhaps it was better to say we had stumbled into a promise of sorts. A promise was a troublesome burden. I had placed that burden upon her just as she had upon me. Still, I could worry all I wanted, but there was nothing I could do about it now but look forward to our reunion and the possibility of experiencing another world's culture in the future.

I stood up and went outside when suddenly I realized something. I was starting to truly believe that Chika was not a ghost or a figment of my imagination but a real living breathing being. Even now I don't know whether that was a good thing. Soon a war broke out in my world as well. Despite a clear forecast, it was raining. In this world, however, this was no impediment to a war. War or no, the lives of our citizens were not dramatically affected. Thus, the sudden rain occupied my thoughts more than the notion of fighting ever did. My basic brain was churning. The rain, the lightning, my grandfather's sister. Could it be? Perhaps there were other things besides the bus stop that connected Chica's world and mine. I had some ideas I would need to confirm the next time we met, though there was no telling when that would be.

As a rule, I didn't go running on rainy days, instead staying at home to work on some solo strength training. Still, I couldn't afford to miss out on an opportunity to meet up with Chica. So, I would have to at least go out later that evening to check. Because the downpour had come on so suddenly on a day that had started out fully dry, a number of students were frantically contacting their parents, holed up in the school building until the rain stopped. I had a folding umbrella stashed in my locker, so I instead grabbed that and headed straight home. Perhaps it had finally paid off that this item had been born as an umbrella, getting to demonstrate the worth of its own existence for the first time in so long. Just as the rain gave umbrellas meaning, it also put a stop to the wars in Chika's world. You know, I had always hated the terms "rainy girls" and "sunny boys," terms predicated on the belief that someone's very disposition could alter the weather. It made sense that she would reject the human folly of thinking that we could have any effect on the weather in the same way that we could predict it, that we could try to interpret the will of the heavens. Humans are such dreadfully basic creatures, after all.

Seaitto left the classroom before me that day. It was always either one of us, so today I followed behind her, arriving at the shoe lockers without incident. I waited for her to change her shoes and move out of the way, then changed mine as well. The same pattern as ever. However, as I placed my indoor shoes into the locker and turned toward the exit, something out of the ordinary occurred. For some reason, Silto was still standing there. She had paused in the entryway, looking up at the sky. Before I even had time to consider why that might be, she rushed out into the rain as though she was embarrassed and having faltered.

"Hey." My outburst was harried as I'd called out on reflex. Ignoring someone who was about to get soaked right before my eyes was practically akin to violence. It was fine if she didn't stop. I had no obligation to chase after her. I thought it would be nice if she realized that I might be talking to her and turned around, but I was startled when she actually did. "Here, take this. I've got another one." I walked up to her and handed her my umbrella. She looked at me, her eyes wide, clearly equally startled by what I was doing. To my further surprise, she accepted the umbrella with an unexpectedly clear and crisp, "Thank you." She opened it and walked out into the rain. I had imagined there would be some back and forth about whether she could accept the umbrella or not, or else that she might just ignore me entirely. I was shocked that she would bother to engage with me at all. Though I was also concerned that the engagement itself felt like she was only speaking to me because it would be a pain not to. Such were the governing principles of my own life. Incidentally, I was lying about the spare umbrella.

Exactly one week from that rainy day, the sun finally showed itself again and spring break began. After the break, I would be a second-year student. I cared little about my retriculation, but the fact that it had been a month since I had last seen Chika weighed heavily on my mind. At first, I assumed we would only get to see each other once, maybe even twice. But lately, I was starting to feel like it meant something that we had been able to meet so many times. Though we still had no idea when our connection would come to an end, I found myself waiting for whatever it was that connected us to give birth to something special. How terribly inventive of me.

It was 2 days after the sky cleared that Chika appeared again. "Sorry to rush, but I brought it. The beep." "Uh, um, the thing that makes smells." I heard a sigh-laugh from the invisible mouth, as though she had not quite found the exact words she was looking for. My impression of her had changed somewhat from the first time we met. "Oh, thanks."

"Normally, you put it on a cloth or something, but you probably wouldn't be able to see that. So, are you okay with just smelling my fingertips?" "Sure, if you don't mind." I watched her movements as she picked up the item that probably sat beside her. I pictured it as something like a little bottle, but obviously it was difficult to grasp the shape from just the movement of her fingers. Though I watched her carefully, I could only make out her rubbing her fingertips together until she suddenly appeared to be finished applying the scent. I stood up and sat back down, shifting slightly to the right so that Chika could put her fingertips to my nose. As I approached her, the sensation of being near someone grew vividly stronger.

"I tried setting it to a rainy scene here." Her glowing nails grouped up and were offered to me. I moved my face in slowly so as not to get poked in the eye and reservedly breathed in. There was an odor. It was difficult to describe, a scent I had never experienced before. As she had mentioned, it was not a strong scent, nor was it unpleasant. If you asked me whether I liked the smell, though, I couldn't tell you. It was neither sweet nor acrid, and though she had called it rain, it was nothing like I had imagined.

"What was this smell?" So she asked, drawing her nails away. "I've never smelled anything like this. So what was the rain scene like for you?" "Nothing." Her arms retracted. The change in the shape of her eyes was probably her head tilting. "I didn't imagine anything," I clarified. "There wasn't any scene in my head like you described." "Wonder if I should have put a bit more on." She repeated her previous action and then extended her fingertips again. Considering how this would go, but hoping my imagination was wrong, I once more brought my face to her fingers.

"Yeah, it's an interesting smell, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is. It's like having an itch somewhere that I can't scratch. It's like my brain doesn't know how to react to it. I wonder if there's just nothing in your world that corresponds to this." "That's a possibility." I was disappointed that I hadn't picked up on anything. This had proved to be a pastime of Chika's that I simply couldn't enjoy in the same way without my even getting the chance to determine if it jived with me or not. Still, the sensation of not being able to comprehend had itself been a valuable experience. It was yet another piece of solid proof that Chika was likely not a being of this world.

"Well, what kind of scene do you get from this scent, Chika?" Chika silently brought her own fingers up below her eyes. I now knew for certain where her nose was. The structure of her face truly seemed humanoid in nature. "The forest. Yeah. There's a girl walking through a dense forest while a light rain falls. Light enough that most of the droplets are absorbed into the canopy before they ever reach the girl. After a short time, there's a loud sound from somewhere. The vibrations from that sound shake the canopy and the rain that was caught on all the leaves and branches falls down at once, drenching the girl. That's what I picture." I tried to picture this myself. I could imagine my own version of the scene, but I doubted that the details, the color of the leaves, the girl's expression, the amount of rain in Chika's imagination were the same. Of course, perhaps that was the nature of this form of amusement. Now, creative work always leaves some amount of space open for interpretation. So perhaps this form of entertainment, one which produced stories from sense, was meant to offer a much higher degree of freedom of interpretation than a novel would. Or perhaps there was simply some extra dimension that the residents of Chika's world took from scent that I wasn't privy to.

"Would everyone in your world get rain from this scent?" "The rough idea might be the same, but whenever I try to describe in words what I imagine, it always takes me a lot longer than other people. Maybe because I always try to feel out the little details. I think I tend to take my time with enjoying it more than other people do." This was in line with all I knew of Chika's personality so far, so I could see that.

"How is it made?" "There are people called beep who make sense with which they craft stories over time. It's an incredibly specialized profession." I ignored the part that I could not hear, assuming that it was the name of the profession, and likewise assuming that I still would not catch it on repetition. I asked her if it was a profession that she herself aspired to, but she seemed to just shake her head. "I wonder, I mean, if there was no one who could make something that would be utterly perfect for my room, I would want to make it myself. But when you do it as a career, you have to think about how other people are going to receive what you make. So, I don't think I'd be suited to it. I only live for the things that I personally think and feel."

"I see." I appreciated this thought process of hers. Or at least I found it interesting. I realized that there were a few ways in which both our philosophies aligned. For some reason, this reminded me of something else. "Oh, right, Chica. There was something I wanted to ask you about." "Sure. What's up?" "About the weather and your relatives." I told her what had occurred to me on that rainy day, which I had been thinking about ever since. Put simply, I wondered if there were things besides this bus stop that overlapped in the places we were both in. I had started to even consider that the two overlapping worlds might be mirroring one another based on the phenomena that had been occurring. This was such a wild leap that I was almost embarrassed at myself when I first thought of it, but it was worth bringing up the possibility to Chica.

As predicted, she showed not the slightest hint of ridiculing or shooting me down. Not so far as I could see, anyway. "It was cloudy for seven turns of the sun in my town, too. So, it might be possible. The same with the lightning. Would be nice if we had a little more proof, though. Has anything else happened around you lately?" "My school's gone on break. I haven't really had any kind of break in a while." "Right." Chika had told me before that she already graduated school, so that was unlikely another parallel. It would probably be difficult for her to understand something she wasn't experiencing firsthand. Was there anything else that had happened in my copy-paste of a daily life?

"Is there anything you've done that you wouldn't normally do?" I was exasperated at myself. The first thing that came to my mind at her question was something that Chika would probably find utterly inconsequential. "No. Well, huh. Probably not." "I see." Chica scrunched up her eyes, moving her hands back and forth on her thighs. I'd initially assumed this to be a habitual motion, but perhaps she was just cold. Either way, the conversation was at a standstill. I thought for a moment and decided it would be best just to bring up the thing I had thought of previously. Better to grasp at any possibility rather than just wasting time.

"Um, do you know what an umbrella is?" "Yeah, you pull them out when it rains." "This probably isn't much of a story, but I love hearing whatever you have to say." For a moment, I was lost for words. "It really isn't much of a story. The day after the last time we met, there was a huge downpour, and a person I don't normally talk to didn't have an umbrella, so I struck up a conversation and lent her mine."

"So what?" I thought. Most of the time, the world around me did little to defy my boring expectations. Still, maybe it was because I was here at the bus shelter or because it was Chica I was speaking to, but words I never would have expected came to me out of the dark. "You see, that wasn't nothing." It sounded to me like she was smiling, tinted with vague surprise.

"That very same day, I happened to pass close by a career military fighter. Normally, I wouldn't talk to them at all, but it had started raining, so I lent them my umbrella." "Seriously?" It was still too soon to confirm that the two worlds were experiencing things in parallel. Chances were still high that these happenings were just coincidence. However, I could no longer readily dismiss it either.

"Why don't you usually talk to them?" I asked, realizing that it was a fundamentally pointless question. It only concerned me because I was hoping that her reason wasn't discriminatory. If I'd wanted to keep the peace, I should have just avoided asking. But if I was going to associate with someone, just as I should give them the benefit of the doubt when possible, I also shouldn't overlook their faults. "I'm afraid afraid that we might pick up the scent of each other's consciousnesses." "The scent of your consciousness?" "Yeah, the scent. I'm afraid that some trace of my own philosophy of living for my own impulses will attach itself to them and it interfere with their will to live for others, particularly when their lives are truly in danger. Likewise, I'm afraid that their own personal philosophies of fighting and living for others will contaminate my room, my brain. I know it's selfish of me though, so I don't usually talk about this."

"So then why, why did you talk to them?" I didn't need to clarify what I meant. "Because that day there was only the smell of the rain." For the first time I thought how cruel it was that I could not see her face. For a reason besides a simple desire for easier comprehension, her voice conveyed far more than I could ever understand. I wanted to know what was going on around her narrowed eyes. I wanted to know how her excuses and penitence and kindness and mirth all factored into her expression. Or was it perhaps because I could not see her face that I perceived so much emotion within her words? I had no idea. But regardless, I truly wish to see her face.

"What kind of person did you lend your umbrella to, Ka?" "H, how should I describe her? We run into each other at the same place every day, but I've never spoken to her, nor had I ever planned to. She keeps her head down, and she's always quiet, never saying more than necessary. So, I don't really know what sort of person she is." As I spoke, I felt I was describing the exact same sort of person as me. I started to walk it back, but was interrupted by Chika.

"So, someone who's completely different from you, just like the person I lent my umbrella to." "Oh, yeah, for sure." I was suddenly worried about what sort of person Chica thought I was. If she saw Silito and me as clear opposites. Just as my seat neighbor Tanaka had said, I was fairly convinced that she and I were two peas in a pod. Whatever the connections between both our worlds, though, could they really affect one another in that intricate of a way? I wondered.

"Well, if you and I are the starting point, then what starts off as these smaller coincidences might grow into larger ones as you move further away. If that were true, we needed to figure out how big of a deal these smaller coincidences were and what they could grow into. Were they pure chance? Or would we be able to intentionally influence each other in some way? For example, was it nothing more than coincidence that we had both lent out our umbrella? Or had one of us lent their umbrella because the other had already done so first? If it was the latter, then both of our actions started to take on a deeper meaning." However, I couldn't bring myself to share Chica's opinion that the thing connecting both of our worlds might be the two of us. There was no way the catalyst that could send ripples through our entire world could be a boring person like me. Even if this connection was real, the origin was not us, but this bus stop and Chica's bunker. The worlds themselves had to be connected somehow. That seemed far more likely. These places were far less boring, so it made much more sense for them to be the connection.

"Before the next time we meet, let's each try doing something that we wouldn't usually do." "Good plan. I'll try to think of things to do that are easy to understand." And with that, I realized I had once again made a promise that would bind us to this tenuous relationship that could end before we even knew it. Human relationships were built on the knowledge that one day, whether it's tomorrow or decades from now, one of you was always destined to betray the other. Thus, I wanted to see her as many times as I possibly could, though my intentions had nothing to do with the separation that would inevitably occur. After all, there was no telling when someone or something entirely unrelated might spell our doom. There was no way I could possibly prepare myself for such a moment. And yet it came.

I picked up on a rattling sound. At first, I had no idea what the sound was. I had foolishly completely ruled out the source as a possibility. The next sound reached my brain through my ears before I even realized the danger I was in. "What are you doing out here?" The psychological shock was so great my butt almost flew right off the seat. I reflexively looked to the source of the voice, not considering hiding Chika. Curiously though, I had permitted someone to invade in this space so easily while I was not paying attention. Now that my focus was drawn, my nerves were so sharp it was like everything was moving in slow motion. Before I even saw who had opened the door and spoken to me, I ran through all the possibilities of who it might be. As I saw the intruder's face, lost for words, they peeishly started speaking after themselves with a muttered, "Are you serious?"

"It felt wrong, but mom was getting worried about how late you've been coming home lately, so I followed you. When I saw you go in here and not come out for a while, I thought you were doing some kind of weird drugs or something. Guess that's not it. That's good." My brother, resident mama's boy, looked a bit bashful, perhaps caught between apology and relief that his younger brother wasn't doing something strange in a place like this. I started off with an "I swear" as well, proof that we really were brothers. Not that I would ever admit that, even with my dying breath. This was not a rejection of my brother so much an objection to the idea that DNA could really influence that many parts of our lives. "I was just resting." That was the best I could come up with. After cycling all the way through my brain, I tried to act normal, not letting a fraction of how I was really feeling slip to my brother. All the while, I desperately pleaded for him not to notice Chika's eyes and nails, and for Chica not to say a word. My brother was nothing like me. If he saw Chika, he would immediately peg her presence as something occult, and run away, warning me never to come here again. Then he'd probably start spreading the word around town, which would be a nuisance more than anything. All I could do was wait and hope that he would leave without anything happening.

"I usually take a break here or in the park a little farther down. Still, what are you even doing running in a place as dark as this? I thought you might have been meeting up with someone dangerous or something." "I was meeting up with someone. He just hadn't noticed. I come out here to think, so I prefer places without other folks around. Plus, I've apparently got my family following me around. So, if I was doing something bad, I'd be caught right away." "I see. That's true." I did not let my eyes so much as flicker in Chika's direction. I didn't want to do anything that would lead him to notice her, no matter how unlikely that was. Thankfully, she caught on to my not addressing her and remained silent. The sudden visitor had probably put her on guard. I was sure she was capable of that kind of deduction.

"Anyway, it's getting late. Let's go home." I pretended to think for a few moments and then shook my head. "No, I'll head back in a little bit. If we come home together, it'll look like I just tricked you or something, won't it? Just head back and tell mom I'm all right." There was no actual logic behind that reasoning, but my brother just nodded with a "Right. Gotcha." Followed by, "Don't stay out too late. Try not to get caught," before he left the bus shelter. I was thankful that he was not as

prudent a person as Chica. I didn't say anything right away in case my brother came back. Instead, closing my eyes and stealing myself. For a moment, I nearly disparaged him. But it was my fault for not being prepared for something like this. I should have kept my guard up.

When after some time my brother showed no signs of returning, I stood up and shut the open door. Then I finally turned back to face Chika. However, I saw not a single moat of light before me. Chika, no reply. Chika, are you there? There were no lights anywhere.

In an instant, I considered three possibilities. The best was that she had, in a moment of quick thinking, shut her eyes and hid her nails with the other parts of her body. However, she wasn't responding. The next best possibility that occurred to me was that the siren had gone off while I was talking to my brother. If she had managed to slip out of her seat without me even noticing, then surely my brother would not have noticed either. And while it was unfortunate that we would not get to talk anymore that day, I would just have to wait for our next opportunity.

The worst possibility, however, stuck in my brain. Could someone else invading this space have severed the connection between this shelter and Chika's bunker? If the conditions that govern the connection between this world and hers, involved this shelter, Chika's safe house, and the two of us, could an intruder, a stranger to this situation, have disrupted that overlap? Chika. I knew that she was probably already gone. Still, I called that name. Obviously, there was no reply. It was impossible to know which of those possibilities was correct. It might not have even been any of them.

Regardless of the reason, if it turned out we were never able to meet again because of something like this, just the thought of it made my vision start to darken. I still had no idea what connected us. Maybe there was nothing to begin with. Useless as I was, before I left, I offered a prayer. That was all that I could do. Even though I had accomplished nothing.

Ka, were there ever again come a day when I was so relieved just to hear someone call my name? It had never happened before that moment. Two weeks had passed since my brother had intruded on the bus shelter, and I was now a second-year student. I had been worried sick that Shika and I might never meet again. It was bad enough that I was about ready to start ranting about it to the people around me. And so, the moment she next appeared, I had planned to tell her in certain terms just how happy I was and how worried I'd been. I would explain what had happened on my side that night and ask why she had vanished so suddenly. But more than anything, I would celebrate our reunion. I'd even started dreaming about it.

And yet, I never could have imagined the words that would come out of my mouth when I heard my name. "Cha, what is that?" I asked before I sat down. Chika did not look at what I was pointing to. Instead, she drew her hands to the spot, a set of bright lights just a bit above her toenails that I had never seen until that day. Ah, so you can see it bright and clear. The lights, which are not as uniform a shape as her eyes or nails, were somewhere around what would probably be her shin, assuming she was human. There were a series of overlapping lines of all shapes and sizes, like earthworm trails crossing one another. They shone more brightly than her eyes and nails, as though asserting their vitality.

"I got hurt. I was bitten by a loose beep." I had to assume she was referring to some kind of domestic creature, like a stray dog. "Certainly. Will you be all right?" "Yeah, this is nothing. It'll heal quickly." "That's good." But um the worry I felt upon hearing she was hurt was genuine. Still, I had to ask, "Why is it glowing?" I thought of a number of possible answers. Maybe the doglike creature had some kind of venomous fangs or the medicine they used was that color, but I was totally wrong.

"Ka, does your blood not glow?" I shook my head, breathing in deeply as I did. For the first time, I was certain about something. Chika and I were not the same type of life form. It was not something as trivial as time or space that separated us. We lived in totally different worlds. All of the information and theories Chika had provided me with up until now were settling into a clear outline. Of course, I'd never once considered discriminating against Chika simply because she was a strange life form from another world. Her blood glowed. I had to accept that fact and move forward on the assumption that my common sense would not apply to her. I then turned my attention to one more surprise, one which I was bursting at the seams to make Chika aware of. I felt like a kid. Unfortunate as it was, that was the best way to describe my behavior.

"No, our blood doesn't glow." "I see. We really are indifferent. But look," I said, interrupting her, lifting the hem of my sweatpants to show Chika my own leg. It was my right leg, the opposite of Chika's injured leg. "Did you get hurt?" I'd wondered if it might be too dark for her to see, but apparently my injury was clear to her. "This is what our blood looks like. Plain dried up human blood. Completely unlike Chikas." "What happened? Were you attacked by a beep?" "No, I just tripped and fell while running." It was a lie. The embarrassing truth was that I, for no particular reason, had kicked a piece of lumber that was lying on the side of the road in a sullen fit and knocked my shin into it. As it turned out, there was a nail protruding from it. Never mind how it happened, though.

"I'm just surprised. I didn't think you would have gotten hurt, too. Even stuff like that seems to be having a mutual effect. I should probably take care not to let this get infected then. Wouldn't want you to end up in pain, too." Our two worlds and our separate lives in those different worlds were affecting one another. The peculiar circumstances were getting me so worked up that I had ended up telling what might almost pass for a joke. To cover up my sudden awkwardness, I tugged my pant leg back down. Even the fact that I was still standing there made me feel like I was getting carried away and it embarrassed me. I sat down in my usual spot and put myself in order looking at Chika. She looked silently back at me. I suddenly worried I had said something rude. "I mean uh not that I'm not upset that we've both gotten hurt. Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression there." I reflexively apologized before Chika could say anything.

"It's okay. I wasn't thinking that." The narrowing of her eyes was the only tell that I had that she was probably smiling. "What were you thinking then?" Her eyeline lowered slightly from my face. I had more than enough time to consider what kind of reaction this was. Whenever I lowered my eyes like that, it was because I was searching for the right words. Finally, her eyeline raised again. "I was thinking how happy I am to see you, Ka." "Oh, yeah. I'm glad we could meet again. I was thinking the same thing." While bearing the embarrassment of hearing such a blunt declaration, I embarrassed myself doubly with my own reply. Thankfully, I was able to hide some of my shame in the natural flow of the conversation. I continued.

"That reminds me. Before launching into the topic that had been on my mind since earlier in the day. Sorry about last time. Someone showed up suddenly." "I figured that was what happened. Yeah, it was my brother." I tried to act normal around my brother after that evening. If I seemed displeased with him, he might suspect that I had been somehow inconvenienced by being spotted at the bus shelter, which might bring about another intrusion just when I had gotten to see Chika again. To prevent that, I was currently acting the same way around my brother that I always did, neither getting close nor pulling away.

"Ah, I was hoping I could see what kind of person he was. That meant she had left before she had the chance to get a proper look at him. I figured you had already slipped away before I could talk to you again so that you wouldn't be seen. But what actually happened with you?" "The siren went off. I saw that you were talking to someone, so I left without saying anything so as not to interrupt. Sorry about that." "No, no need to apologize. I had been worried sick, but that didn't matter now. We would certainly need a countermeasure in case anything like that happened again, but I also wanted to avoid doing anything unusual that would alert anyone else to Chika's presence. The siren is practically sacred to us. We have to obey it. So, if the siren ever goes off again when someone shows up over there, I'll probably have to do the same thing. Honestly, that worked out well since it kept my brother from spotting you. That won't be a problem in the future, though, if we can come up with a plan."

As I was speaking, I realized something. Chaka regretted that she had left me without hesitation or reluctance. And she just told me as much that she even felt that way made me happy. Sharing a genuine friendship was a boon in achieving all sorts of goals. A sound like we humans would make when we're thinking came out of the darkness. A h from Chika. I wondered if she had already come up with a countermeasure.

"That said, I sort of wonder whether your brother could see me at all. What do you mean?" "Well, because I couldn't see him." Huh? As I pondered what she meant, Chika, ever the intellectual, offered, "Let me explain. I only knew that someone else had arrived over there because you turned away from me and started talking. I couldn't see who you were talking to, though." "What? You very rarely talk to yourself." Her voice was tinged with friendship, shared secrets, and the slightest bit of teasing. I wondered how she could know such a thing. But I soon remembered she had seen me alone in the twilight in this shelter before. This time, however, that fact did not embarrass me.

"So, you think that he wouldn't be able to see you since you couldn't see him?" "Yeah. And I figured that if anyone else showed up in this safe house, you wouldn't be able to see them either, just like I couldn't see your brother when he showed up there with you. So, I can only see you. And the only one I can see here is you. I'd mentioned that before when we were talking about feelings, but the incident with your brother is proof that that might actually be true. I think it was not the places that were connected. It was both of us. Just the two of us." Though the very proposal sent nervous shivers down my spine, I wondered if this was a bad thing. The fact that Chika, who had shown me friendship, was saying this gave me some pause, but I had to tell her.

"In that case, that just increases the possibility that she only exists in my imagination." "Yep, that's true." This was not a surprising response given Chika's nature. Still, her somewhat vapid nod in response was a bit of a letdown. "I feel the same about you," she said. "But we have no way of proving that. Still, even if you are just a figment of my imagination, I'm all right with that. I would still cherish the version of you that exists solely inside of me." Putting that together with the feelings she'd shared about her room and life choices, things were starting to line up. This made sense. Still, for me, that was not good enough. If Chika was a being of my imagination, then she would extend no farther than what already existed inside of me. That just couldn't be. That would mean there was no point to our meeting, that we had never actually met at all. Just no.

"I wonder if there really is no way to prove it." "I don't think there is. There's no way to tell how much of this is our own imaginations. How much of it is just happening inside of our heads? Like even if I stabbed you with a knife or something." It was a disturbing thought, but I had admittedly been thinking along the same lines. Still, I wouldn't consider doing anything that might have us harm each other. But even that wouldn't be proof of my existence to you, would it? Even if you felt yourself get stabbed, it might just mean that you forgot you had actually stabbed yourself. From that perspective, it wouldn't get us anywhere. Even my whole world might just be a product of my imagination. It might not exist at all. I couldn't claim that idea was too far-fetched at this point. I couldn't even fully deny that even someone as basic and generic as me could spin from my own imagination a nonsensical world of peace and death. Everyone's dreams feel like reality to them. My entire life from my first breath up until this moment could all have been a dream. But that said, if you were stuck in a dream that you didn't wake from until you died, would there be any point in recognizing it as a dream? No, I don't think so.

"Hey, give me your hand, Kaya." I dutifully extended my hand out to Chica as I had once before, like I was waiting for a typical handshake. Her cold hand gripped my fingertips. Every last bit of this might just be a dream. Even if I realized that, and even someday accepted it, this was all far too cruel. Even if it means nothing, I'd like to say it once more. What could she need to affirm? That there was no way to prove whether this was a dream. "Even if this is all just a dream, I'm still glad that I met you. That's enough for me." Her voice was husky and warm. I could almost picture it wafting through the air to my ears from where it soaked down into my whole body. As that voice gradually reached each part of me, I felt the skin of that portion rising up. Gentle waves of numbness coursing throughout my entire form. When that sensation finally reached my fingertips where Chika was touching me, I pulled my own hand back.

"It is that a goodbye?" Why had those words come out of my mouth when it was the last thing I wanted to say in that moment? Chica laughed softly, breathily. "It's not though. That did sound like it would have been a goodbye in the story, didn't it?" "Yes. Yes, it had. It had sounded exactly that way to me. Yet, that was not what I wished to say. But then, what did I want to say?" I racked my brain, but the words had seeped out of me with that strange pulsing sensation in my body. If this were a story, this is the point when one of us would wake up from the dream. I agreed, saying something that was probably in line with what I'd meant to. I must have wanted to say something to cheer Chika up.

"That's true. But the fact that no one woke up makes it a little more possible that this isn't a dream ever so slightly, which means that we can only strengthen the density of our own realities. The density of our realities, the viscosity of the proof that we were here, our own realities according to us. Nothing to do with wars or strangers or common sense or anyone else. A way to take this world from dream into reality. The real chika who only I knew." Right now I remembered. "That reminds me. I did something like what you said before. I did a few things that I wouldn't normally do to see if they would have an effect on your world. I have no idea if any of them would leave more of an impression than that wound, though." "I did the same. Could you tell me about yours?"

"Of course. In the weeks since the new term had started, I had been doing everything I was supposed to despite my worries about Chika. I was fully aware that I was merely pushing away the anxiety that came with not having a set course of action, but regardless, I'd still done the things I needed to. Um, well, for starters, I'd done three things that, as far as I was aware, I would not normally do. The first was how I conducted myself towards others. This was a simple one, greeting people. I considered Chika's recent anecdote about her and the soldier and decided to target a specific person with this action, imagining that each entity that existed around us might have some counterpart in the other's world. 'Good morning.'" The first time I had been ignored, so I tried again, louder. "'Good morning.'" "Huh?" In our school, we did not change classes. Tanuka, who had previously sat in front of me during our first year, stared back from beside me with a quizzical expression. I could understand that reaction. Here, I was disrupting our routine relationship, which usually consisted of nothing more than Tanaka bugging me once every 3 days. For the first few days, Tanaka seemed to find this creepy. But starting on the fourth day, that greeting would actually develop into a conversation. And on the fifth day, she started showing me some pictures of her dog she had taken that morning. I hadn't wanted it to go that far, but I suppose it was all right.

The second action involved things. I carefully polished all the shoes in our house. I had chosen to do this after thinking about the way I could always see Chika's toenails. I was curious what sort of effect this might have on Chika's world, depending on whether or not they wore shoes there. Obviously, after trying to affect people and things, my final action should have to do with a place, but I was a little lost on how to handle that. The easiest place to experiment in would be at home, but I wanted to avoid anything that would affect the room that Chika cherished so much. In the end, I decided on school for the location, though I knew it might just end up overlapping with my first test. I decided to remain at school for an hour after the final bell. On the heels of my greeting from before, my seat neighbor, Tanaka, looked at my unnatural behavior with some suspicion. But we talked more and more during my extra hour, finally wrapping up with a proper don't get caught before we parted. Silaitto left the classroom in a hurry as always.

Putting the matter of Seaitto aside, when I told Chika of all the things I had done, she muttered, "And I see." Then seemed to be thinking, as far as I could tell from her eyes and nails, "We do wear shoes, too. I don't do so in here, but of course we do outside where you might step on something dangerous after things get destroyed in the wars. I've never shined my shoes, though. I have had the chance to go some places I normally don't, but they have nothing to do with school. Such as where beep, which you probably can't understand. Yeah. Why? Because it's a place that has to do with the wars. It's where the siren comes from, where they tally the number of the injuries and the rare occurrence of deaths. I was there on duty to report the damages. I have no idea if there's any connection between the fact that you've been greeting someone who you don't normally and all of the people I don't know that I was on duty with who I've been greeting. Gotcha. So, she had greeted an unspecified large number of people. I was thinking that maybe only things like illness or injury have an effect. What about the umbrella then? Maybe it wasn't lending the umbrella that had an effect, but the fact that we both got soaked in the rain, which could lead to either of us falling ill, but that can't be it since there was the lightning, too. It was true that was different. But well, I guess there was another way of thinking about it. I hadn't had the perspective to look beyond the actions themselves to the circumstances surrounding them. It was reassuring to know that the person before me had ideas that I didn't, but frustrating that I had not thought of them myself. I wanted to be able to provide her with some useful new perspective, whatever it might have been. That was the simplest way for us to have a positive effect on each other without actually crossing the border of our worlds. It was mortifying that I couldn't come up with anything that easily. I unconsciously let out a sigh.

"We could do so much good for one another if we could figure out the rules that govern the connection between your world and mine. I said, for example, if there was something blocking your partner's path in the other world and stopping them from reaching something important, you could move the corresponding object in your own world and allow them to pass. Even that sort of thing would be useful. I had used a gimmick like that to beat a game. I played once. If you moved a wall in the other world, you'd clear an obstacle in this one and could get to the treasure." "That's true. Like if my being happy could make you happy, too. That would be really nice, right? The best possible scenario would be helping each other to live satisfying lives." Though, I obviously wasn't going to expect Chikat to single-handedly grant my wish alone. On that front, I decided to put aside pondering the rules for now. Instead, I wanted to hear about the special things that Chika had done that week so I could gather more fuel for my thought process.

"First off was food. Food?" "Yeah. I thought it would be pretty big if our actions could affect each other's daily necessities. So, I wanted to test that. Specifically, I went a day without drinking any water." "Uh, did you drink anything besides water?" "Nope. I decided to forego all liquids." "Did you have any days like that?" "Uh, no, I didn't." "I see. That's good. At least that means we can still eat as we like," she said, as though that wasn't significant at all. Though her diligence in investigating this was reassuring, it was also a bit worrying. "You don't need to try anything that's going to jeopardize your health." "Are you worried about me?" "It was fine. Listen, they say that a person can see 30 sunrises without water. Seriously?" My reaction wasn't surprised at learning that people can live a month without water. As far as I knew, humans definitely couldn't go that long without it. My surprise was more because I was struck once again with certainty that Chika and I were fundamentally different organisms.

"Is it not the same for you?" she asked. "No, we couldn't survive that long." "Between that and the blood, I guess we really are different from each other, huh?" There was a marked tranquility to both her tone and her words. Perhaps she lacked the emotion of surprise itself, just as she couldn't comprehend the concept of romance. "I don't think the other thing will worry you like that." I grew nervous about how upset I must look for Chika to give that preface. Everyone fears others reading them wrong. I suddenly remembered something rather intrusive given the moment. Something that had happened the day before last, but that had nothing to do with what was going on right now. I went to see a friend, someone I hadn't seen in a very long time because of a fight. She looked briefly up to the ceiling and then back to me. "You recently told me that thing about lovers." "Yeah. It made me think of someone who was special to me, but we'd grown estranged, and I wasn't sure what kind of relationship we might still be capable of. I was hoping we could be friends again. In the end though, no matter how much time had passed, it didn't change the way we both think. I was the one who rejected the idea of being friends again. I don't regret the decision. Still, I got a little scared of that path being close to me, that our relationship might truly be over." Chica had shown me her own fear over and over. Perhaps that was because she was so brave.

"Um, I started." She narrowed her eyes and waited. "I think that did have an effect." Her eyes widened slightly. My eyes were open wide in shock. Something that I had thought was unrelated had in an instant been upgraded to monumental. "I actually did the same thing. You went to see someone who you used to be friends with." I would have already mentioned it if it had been an active choice. However, it wasn't. I didn't go to see her. She called me. Actually, do you all have telephones? You use them to talk to people far away. That's like a beep. I couldn't make out the word, but she caught my meaning. "Good. Anyway, I got a call." I was sure that this word would be enough for her to understand that I hadn't heard her. I'd meant to continue right away, but I found myself hesitating. Chika took this opportunity to ask, "From who?" I started to say the name, but I stopped myself. What she was asking about was the relationship. A girl who used to be my lover. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. It was just that talking about her here felt wrong. Still, it was just as wrong to be racked by guilt while talking about her. That was nothing more than a flare up of my half-hearted ego.

"I did the same thing as you. I closed myself off from a future where I could be the one to repair the relationship." "Really?" "Yeah. Were you afraid?" I could feel in her question only a hair's breadth between her heart and her words. "I wasn't afraid of disrupting our future. There's no reason for her to associate with me, just as there is no reason for me to associate with her. No, that wasn't it. If I was afraid of anything, if I said anymore, I would be stepping into extremely basic territory. I didn't want to show my real self and run the risk of disappointing Chika. Still, this was Chika, whom I apparently shared mutual influence with, even in matters of the heart. She would figure it out sooner or later. Chika had shown me her fear. There was nothing strange about letting her see mine in equal measure. If there was anything that I was afraid of, it was that if she was unhappy or even died because of something I left behind inside her, if I ever found out about something like that, I would never stop blaming myself. Even if I didn't do anything to her. This was not a hypothetical fear. It was something I could actively predict based on past experiences."

"Allow me to talk about the past for a moment. The relationship that she and I shared lasted just 3 months during our third year of junior high. Only 3 months, she had said. But both at the time and even now, I felt that I spent those three months pretending, as Chika put it. Thinking back on it now, I should have been honest. By halfassing things and pretending to have some real consideration for her, I had created an air of disaster between us. I put up a front as a sympathetic person and drew words of parting from her, muddying the path with a superficial shared understanding, and then she tried to take her own life. One of our classmates, knowledgeable on the subject, said that her method would have never resulted in her death. I looked into it myself and confirmed it was true. I wondered which it had been. Did she know that she wouldn't die? Or was she determined nonetheless? Even if her method wasn't truly fatal, if she hadn't known that, didn't that still mean she was fully intent on dying? I couldn't permit myself reckless apologies or worries. Eventually, I realized that I didn't need to waste time on human relationships, and soon the number of people who casually approached me at school drastically decreased."

"I don't think we have a direct effect on each other's emotions, but the action I took is pretty similar to yours. What did you say to her?" Chica asked. I had no idea if she wanted to test the extent of the shared influence or if she was merely curious to know more about me. What had I said to close off our future? "Nothing particularly special," I replied. It really hadn't been anything special. I had said something very generic, something I would say to just about anyone. It was, "you know, Eizumi, we really are boring."

"That does seem special to me, though." "Not really. It really wasn't special. Every last one of us is a really godamn boring individual. That was all I was saying. Boring. Basic. Every single person in the entire world mistakes themselves for someone special and uses that feeling to make excuses for their behavior. Whether it's in clinging to dead romances, dragging others into their messes, hurting people, worrying about things, or whatever. Not that Chika with no concept of romance could ever understand that."

"It's really not special. I don't get this romance thing. But if I treat it like an extension of friendship, I think she must still be pretty special to you if you would say something to her that's so obvious that you normally wouldn't say to anyone else." "Obvious?" I stared at Chika as I took in the meaning of that. Her voice came again before it had fully finished sinking in. "I don't know if she'd see it as a good thing or a bad thing, but most of us live and die without ever being special. It's such an obvious truth, but most people don't seem to realize it. At least the people around me. But if you say something like that aloud, people get upset with you and act like it's an insult."

"That's that's true, but it's not like that." I had inadvertently interrupted despite my intention to listen to what she had to say all the way through. Regretful, I shut my mouth. Perhaps because she could see what I had done, Chika's eyes narrowed. "Only the people who realized that fact can truly live. They dismissed the idea of ever making themselves into someone special. I see. That was how I'd always lived my life. That's why I think that girl must be special to you. That's the place you're starting from since you're willing to admit that you aren't special yourself."

"The place I'm starting from?" I had never made that kind of progress. "You were hoping something would change, weren't you?" "I was. I really truly was." As I nodded, a light bulb popped on inside my head. There was a moment where my words and thoughts aligned. Chika had suddenly put a name to a notion within me that I had struggled to put into words. I wanted something to change. That was it. That was how I really felt about Iumi. I finally saw it. Even if I was just pretending, I wanted her, the person who I thought I loved, to change. I couldn't deny my own arrogant wish for her to change herself into a person who suited my needs. I wanted her to escape from the place where she was subject to the whims of my own boring self and of the boring love that we once shared. Even if it was just a case of overlapping coincidences, we had tried to acknowledge each other as individuals. Iumi at the very least had truly seemed to hope she could be someone special. In that alone, we were alike. I couldn't overlook the fact that she aspired to the same thing as me. And yet, in failing to make her wish a reality, I had only hurt her again.

"Still, if it's a sin for you to be afraid of that, then I'm a sinner, too. You did the same thing to that estranged friend of yours." She neither affirmed nor denied this. Instead, her eyes turned away from me for several seconds, and she breathed in. "Finding someone who's committed the same sin as you is a lot like holding hands with someone." Her voice was husky and gentle. I didn't think that such a thing could ever happen within a living body, but I felt it. Just once, my heart beat hard. Probably the single most powerful heartbeat I had felt in my entire life. The next moment, its rhythm returned to normal. On one hand, I was uneasy about what that strange sensation might have been. On the other, a far too novel notion floated through my head. The telltale beating of my heart told me that my spirit and chas were holding hands. Though it may have all been in my imagination, that single heartbeat had made what I felt inside me all the more tangible.

"What the hell? I was going to make myself puke. Our spirits were holding hands. Seriously. And I was just starting to get along better with her. It was nice to have a friend who could bring me closer to my goals, but that wasn't it. We were just becoming friends. We hadn't actually done anything. Nothing at all. There was no reason yet for me to feel any sort of satisfaction, even in the back of my mind. I knew that well."

From that point until the siren sounded, we discussed a number of possible ways for us to spend our upcoming days. The discussion was prefaced with a warning to not let ourselves get gravely injured. Chika had said this jokingly, but we could not discount the possibility that any injury could put both our lives at risk. It was reasonable to guess that if the same level of damage carried over from one side to the other, what might leave one of us on the verge of death might take the other less resilient party out entirely. Aside from the injury awareness, we set out some other clear guidelines. Last time, we had both tried doing things that we would not normally do. This time only Chika would proactively do something unusual while I would do everything within my power to live as normally as possible. This had been Chika's proposal as she hypothesized that there was a possibility that just like the shared events in our worlds, each of our actions might affect the other to varying degrees. In the case with Izumi, I had done nothing more than pick up the phone while Chika had gone out of her way to actually see her former friend. Putting aside lightning, rain, and death, if our own proactiveness choices had any effect on the actions and outcomes, then me venting my anger on that piece of wood had directly led to Chika getting hurt. Realizing this, I had no choice but to apologize for what I had done. Still, the fact that we could proactively have some effect on one another's lives was a happy thing. If we could intentionally affect one another, there were a lot of potential benefits.

What I needed to do was devote myself to keeping up in real time with domestic weather reports and news of other incidents, as well as any other events of global import. If Chica did this as well, then we could confirm whether there was any interference between our worlds. So now, anytime I had a free moment at work or school, I was always on my phone skimming the news. As a result of this, or rather because I no longer had a reason to make conversation with her, my seat neighbor, Tanaka, looked puzzled about my return to my former behavior. I did still reply when she greeted me and I responded to any attempts to start chatting about her dog, but I was no longer the one to initiate these exchanges. "What's with you?" she'd ask. But I had simply gone back to my normal self. The only new information I obtained from Tanaka in those few weeks was that her dog's name was Alumi. Once more, I was back to my normal life. My life in a world without Chika. My normal boring life with my normal boring self and the trivial people around me. Ever since I met Chika, my whole life had begun to revolve around those dozens of minutes I spent with her. I began to wonder if it was unusual for me to live like my time at the bus stop was my reality, my life outside of it, like a dream. But that wasn't true. I had to look out for the special things in my own world. In and of itself, my meeting Chika meant nothing. After all, even my heart skipping a beat when I was lucky enough to see her again only came from my attaining one more chance to find something special. Nothing more, nothing less.

Based on the information that we shared with one another and my own investigations, it did not seem that Chika's actions had had any effect on my world. It was unfortunate, but there was nothing we could do about that. There was still a lot I didn't know. So, putting that aside, I decided to ask Chika what the average life was like for people of her world when she suddenly said, "Obviously, we have no way of knowing this, but I wonder if we had been born into each other's worlds. Would the way that we each think and live have turned out different?" I doubted that I would have turned out exactly the same regardless of where I was born just because of who I am. There was no way someone as boring as me wouldn't be shaped by his birthplace and surroundings and the people he knew. If I had been born in a different place, I would simply be a different type of boring individual. If I had been born on enemy soil, I'm sure I would see Japan as an enemy by now.

"I do think I would be different, but I wonder how much you believe in your own soul, in the firmness of your character. I feel that there are things inside you that never change no matter where you are," she replied. "But it's different for your philosophies, lifestyle, and preferences. If I was in your world right now, my voice and appearance would be different in a way I might not even realize at first. That's about where I'm at. The same would go for if you were in my world." Given that I knew her only by the shape of her eyes and nails, even if I were to see her in the flesh in my world, I doubted I would recognize her. "If you were that different, you'd be basically a different being," I replied. "On the surface, that might be true. But don't you think there are things deeper down, immovable things that we can't choose?" By my reckoning, if your personality and appearance and voice were different, then you were already 100% not yourself. Perhaps even Chika's philosophy that there were things within us that we could not oppose was something that she had been born into her world with that would be different in ours.

"Things that we can't choose. Like what?" It was a difficult question, I must say. Thus, I prepared myself to have to wait for her answer. But that turned out to be unnecessary. "I'm pretty sure that even if I had been born in your world, I still would have met you." "You mean like fate?" "Fate? A word that carried the same meaning as resignation?" "I don't think it's like fate. I guess I'm saying that the part of me that wouldn't change is good at meeting people." Once again, the novelty of her thought process was on full display. That said, in a way, it seemed to touch on the meaningless delusions I'd been having as of late. Naturally, I never thought about this during my daily life. Only at night on the evenings when Chica appeared at the bus stop. My thought was this. What would it be like if Chika were a resident of my world and we met? I had already put even more thought into that than Chika. There was no use talking about things that could have been, but still, I was curious. If she were the same sort of life form as me and lived a normal life in my world, would we have even noticed each other? If we had ever chance to meet, to recognize each other's existence for even the shortest while, might we have formed some connection? Was there even the slightest chance that I would have enjoyed talking with Chica in this way if she weren't a resident of another world? It was pointless to imagine. As I said before, if Chika had been born into this world, she would probably have a completely different set of values. The chikah who lived in that world met the mi of this world. That was what made this meaningful. And if we could derive nothing from it, then it would mean nothing. This was reality though. So there was no point in thinking about things that were entirely impossible. To even speculate about impossible things like this wasn't like me at all. I knew this. But despite knowing it, I still kept thinking it was because deep down I had begun to feel a sort of jealousy for those who had been given the chance to simply live near Chika. But that simple opportunity didn't mean anything in and of itself. I knew that as well. However, as the days rolled by and my thirst grew, these were the thoughts that came to me. I hoped that the special one known as Chika would always be there. I wished I didn't have to wait out these empty, boring days.

"There's the siren. See you later then, Ka." "Yeah, see you." The moment we parted and I was returned to my normal life, I was consumed by a singular thought. I want to see her again. Somehow the scent of the rainy scene that Chika had painted on her fingertips still lingered in my mind. My time at the bus shelter passed by in the blink of an eye.

"Hey Suzuki. Was it lunch break?" "Yeah, it was during my lunch break." My seat neighbor, Tanaka, ever encouraging, had struck up a conversation. Ever since those few days where I had been the one to speak to her first, she'd grown much more familiar with me. In retrospect, I should have thought of an approach with fewer drawbacks. "You think she's on some kind of drugs or something?" I turned my face to see her pointing to Seaitto, who was sitting some distance away from us. Honestly, just how easy did she think it was for someone to get their hands on drugs of all things? "How should I know?" "So, a cult then?" "I definitely wouldn't know." "Why would a cult be less obvious than drugs?" "Well, drugs are a real thing. Beliefs are a state of mind, so you can't see them." "Oh." I looked at Tanaka, who gave an impressed nod. I suddenly felt a bit foolish for answering so seriously. I didn't care if Silito used drugs or was some kind of religious fanatic. If she was, she could just keep living her life in those deluded dreams. Something I had discussed previously with Chica crossed my mind. If there was a dream you could never wake from, then there was no point in recognizing that it was a dream. Drugs and religion at least held meaning for whoever took part in them. Not even thinking that for an instant was ridiculous. Chica was encroaching on my boring everyday life. I was growing twisted.

But like I mean though I'd asked for no followup, Tanaka continued the conversation. I decided to let her keep talking because it would be more trouble to stop her. "Hasn't she been kind of weird lately?" I answered her question with a non-committal reply, using as little of my facial muscles as possible. The response was meant to convey my utter lack of interest in Silaitto, but deep down I reluctantly agreed with Tanaka. I wasn't interested in her at all, but if I did have it in me to reply, I would have had to agree. Saito was acting strange lately. It had been 2 months since the incident with Izumi. We were in the rainy season now and had switched to our summer uniforms. The newspapers and radio reported to the citizens that the situation with the war was changing by the minute, while online foul-mouthed pundits bashed each other over it, as they always did. As an experiment to test the theory that I could have any effect on the way that wars were conducted in this world, I tried spreading information about the way wars were fought in Chika's world on various social networks. But I was either ignored or chewed out by people with even more free time than me. It was only a week before in the midst of these horribly uneventful days that I noticed a change in Seaitto.

"See you tomorrow." I couldn't quite make out the end of those trailing words, but she was clearly saying, "See you tomorrow." The what that came out of my mouth wasn't because I didn't understand, but because I had never in a million years imagined that Silito, who had left the classroom at the end of the day and headed promptly to the shoe lockers, as she always did, would ever turn back to talk to me before she departed. My reply to this greeting was a rude one, but it came so suddenly that I had no chance to react. Well, I suppose now I sort of got what Tanaka felt when I greeted her out of the blue. For better or worse, Silito left immediately after she spoke, so she probably didn't catch my confusion. Before I could even make sense of this suspicious behavior, the next day, the

Same thing happened again. See you tomorrow.

This time I was prepared and heard her all the way to the end. So I replied with a simple, "Yeah, try not to get caught." I knew that my words had gotten across from the rare smile that quirked Seaitto's lips, the first I had ever seen. One corner of her mouth tipping upward.

I passed the next week overly on edge, hoping that she didn't have something to tell me or anything annoying like that. But now it seemed that I was not the only one who had noticed the change in her. I doubted she had started taking drugs or joined a cult, but I wondered if someone had maybe advised her to start being more friendly.

The next day, she greeted me yet again. Tonica continued as though my response had been utterly irrelevant to begin with. Like she started talking to me about all sorts of random stuff. She never did that before. And like since this was all brand new, I asked her if something happened. And you know what she said? I hated people who thought it was funny to ask questions you couldn't possibly know the answer to, like blood types or star signs. Even more so when they then answered those questions themselves. She said she had an encounter. The hell? I mean, that was the sort of answer you might expect from a new religious convert. It was far more likely that she had started dating someone and was learning to socialize, but that was an awkward way to put it, and it was all the more irritating that Tanukica hadn't asked the most basic of follow-ups. An encounter with what? Fundamentally though, it didn't matter what she had encountered. I was a little concerned that any encounter could alter her behavior in that way. But I didn't need to get emotionally invested in that. There were things far more deserving of my attention than Saitto.

It had been over 2 months now. I'd met with Chica five more times since I talked about Izzumi. But through all our discussions, we had yet to draw any further conclusions about the connections between our worlds. The most we had been able to determine was that the weather in my neighborhood was the same as in Chika's home area. When it was clear here, it was clear there, too. And when it rained here, it rained there as well. I wondered if the climates in the corresponding regions in each of our worlds were the same. But Chika's world map seemed to be completely different from ours, and we did not have the time to be making any fidious investigations into which countries corresponded to which.

As such, it seemed unlikely that JK's theory about the two of us being able to personally affect each other's worlds was correct. We continued trying out things that we normally didn't do, but very few of them seemed to be reflected across worlds. For the most part, our lives were so incredibly different that we were unable to detect any real pattern to these mutual effects. The theory that we had previously considered about proactive actions having an effect on the other party also seemed to be incorrect. Attending school while wearing my shoes on the wrong feet, stocking up on a ton of snacks that I didn't normally buy, and going out of my way to pet Tanaka's dog all seemed to have no effect. Though, when I met up with Chika 2 days afterward, I got a rip in my sock, there did seem to be the subtle crossover effect of her buying a pair of replacement shoes on that same day. The heck was that supposed to be?

In other words, we still basically knew nothing. We had wasted the past 2 months. A waste. A true waste. Indeed, I could think of this time as nothing but absolutely positively wasted. I couldn't even appreciate all the things we'd done for the sake of fun. Not when we'd made absolutely no progress whatsoever. Having fun wasn't what mattered here. An impertinent feeling like fun didn't mean anything. It had to be rejected.

I was beginning to feel like it was time to tell Chica my true purpose and how I really felt. In meeting her, I'd hoped to obtain something that would give my life some real meaning, something that I didn't think of as dull. So, I didn't want to use our time just getting to know each other, but to find that something as quickly as possible before we could no longer see one another again. If I told Chika that, she would probably do all that was in her power to help me. If she were, say, to start introducing me to one element of her world's culture after another, I might even find that something straight away, optimistically speaking. Lately, that idea had been floating persistently at the front of my mind.

What I hadn't been able to do, what I hadn't been able to do was I didn't want to believe that this was weakness, pure and simple. I wanted to believe that it was not just that I was afraid that Chica would let me down. I wanted to believe that. But at present, I could not deny the fact that I simply was afraid of letting her know the calculating way I thought about our meetings and that she'd hate me if she found out. I couldn't ignore that I was just another basic person scared of losing the friendship I had found with an intelligent imaginative resident of another world. Thus, I could only keep bumbling for some sort of meaning in the fact that we had met, that we were getting to know one another in itself as we slaved away the days with these experiments.

It wasn't until Chika asked, "What's up? Is there something in my eyes?" That I realized I had been staring dully into them. Thinking it would be rude to hastily avert my gaze and perhaps to protect my own fragile sense of pride, I let my eyes slowly drift to the dustcaked floor. "Sorry, no, I was just thinking. Is it rude to stare into people's eyes in your world?" She was merely asking me a question of values. Sweat ran down my spine as if I was being accused of some wrongdoing. "It's not necessarily rude, but just like you asked. If you stare at someone for too long, they might think that there's something on them, so you shouldn't do that. That's why I apologized. Is that not the case in your world, though?" "Sometimes in my world, you stare at someone for a while when you have something you want to say to them, but can't manage to get the words out." "What were you thinking about?" "I was just wondering whether there really isn't any way for us to actually taste these." "True. I guess if I somehow got pulled into your world and had to live there, I'd be stuck eating tasteless food forever."

I knew by the narrowing of her eyes that this was a joke. I could imagine by the gradation of her eyes, so much more vivid than her usual expression. But it was nothing but my imagination. No matter how I strained my eyes, I still couldn't see her nose and mouth.

Tonight, we both sat in chairs in our respective spaces, two body widths closer than usual. The reason for this was that we were experimenting with tasting foods from each other's worlds. If that was all there was to it, we could have just sat in our usual positions and handed each other the food. But a problem arose when I tried to hand Shika a calorie mate bar. The bar passed right through her hand, falling onto the bench. Likewise, I couldn't interact with the invisible solid food object that Shika had prepared either. Mysteriously, however, we learned that if we got close and Chika brought the food directly to my mouth, I could eat the food from her world. I didn't understand the rules behind this, but I ate it anyway. As I tried to process the taste, a sensation I had felt before returned in stark recollection. No matter how I chewed or swallowed, I could taste only the absence of nothing. Just as with the odor producing device from before, my brain could make no sense of the actual flavor. The texture that I could sense reminded me of something. Macadamia nuts, maybe. I conveyed this and then it was time for Chica to try the calorie meat from my hand. I didn't want to collide with her invisible face, so I held my hand out and waited for her mouth. By degrees, her eyes came closer to my hand. I felt her cold breath on my fingers. And finally, the calorie mate grew shorter. She had already informed me previously that she did indeed have teeth. So, what's it taste like? I had no idea if she was chewing, but it at least seemed that her mouth was in the same place as a humans. "No idea. But it's not like what you described. There really is no flavor at all. No smell either." She had gotten something different out of it. But either way, if neither of us could taste anything, then there was no point in sharing food. Smell was out, as was taste and flavor. That was when I wondered if it was going to be this difficult to share our cultures. What could the two of us possibly accomplish?

And I started absently staring into Chika's eyes. "I know what you said about coming to my world was a joke, but what if there really was a possibility, however small, of us actually traveling to each other's worlds?" I had already half abandoned the notion since seeing nothing but her eyes and nails meant that the probability of us actually being able to exist in the same place was quite low. "We can't completely throw out the possibility. We may not know how to do it, but just as you and I are connected, there might be some way to make it work." If that was true, then there would be nothing better. If I could have the special experience of spending time in another world, nothing could possibly compare to the discoveries I might make there, nor the things that Chika could tell me. All I could think about was how much I would want to go if I could. Not I'd like to go, but I want to go. The desire burned within me even without any guarantee that I'd be able to return home and Chika would be there.

"Which would you prefer?" she asked me. "Huh? For me to come to Japan or for you to come here?" "I..." It was obvious, wasn't it? The clear choice was I'd want to go there. "Obviously, this world is already boring to me." It was only for a moment really, nothing more than a distant, fleeting thought. However, I could now allow such a thought to cross my mind for even a second. For that moment, I thought, was there really that much difference between me going there and her coming here?

Chica giggled. I figured she had seen right through my foolishness. "It's probably not very interesting here either." For some reason, I had neglected to consider something so obvious. I suppose it was hard to imagine without much information. "I'd be fine either way. Whether I went there or you came here, I do have my room here." Her eyes narrowed. From this distance, I could actually see the pupils clearly in her eyes. "I'd be fine either way as well. As long as you were there," she said. She might have been addressing those mistaken feelings within me directly. If not, there would have been no way for her to reach that shut off part of me. Still, it would be a problem if I couldn't taste the food in your world. "Would be nice if maybe you comprehended the flavor a bit over time. I guess it'd be like just being born. We'd probably come to understand the tastes as we adapted to the other's world. Wonder if that day will ever come." "I wonder. The possibilities are boundless. If it's impossible in either of our worlds, maybe there's a different world where our senses of taste might adapt."

Here we went again, wasting our time discussing a future that was unlikely to ever happen. I should have realized that while we were in the midst of the conversation, but it was unfortunately only later that this occurred to me. Finally, without having accomplished anything productive besides comparing notes on taste, I parted from Chika again and returned to my uneventful days.

Working sucks. Well, it is work. Today, as always, I shared a pointless exchange with my seat neighbor, Tanaka. Got my characteristically awkward farewell from Silito and then headed home. Naturally, I went running after. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

As every single day passed by identically in my everyday life, the sense of anxiety inside me only deepened. The food of the other world had done nothing to evolve my pallet. At this rate, the fact that I had met Chika was never going to mean a damn thing. This monumental opportunity had fallen into my lap. And here I was, basic as always, sitting idle. That was more terrifying than anything.

Well, no. There was one thing that was different from before. I didn't care in the slightest about how dull Tanaka thought her part-time job was. But when she started that job about a month ago, I changed my running route. The convenience store that I normally used as my turnaround point was the very store that she now worked at. I changed my route to avoid running into her. However, while I die before I called it anything like fate, as I was running my new course the other day, I ran into a familiar face. Not a human face, but a canine one. As I ran past the backyard of an aging traditional style house, I saw a dog, one that would follow just about anyone around. I paused in my run, and the dog trotted to the end of its leash. It didn't bark, but simply hopped around my feet to beg me to pat its head. When I turned onto the main road and checked the name on the doorplate, the home sure enough belonged to Tanaka, though she would have been at work at the time. Now that I knew the place, as an experiment for Chika, I started bringing the dog treats. It helped that I had heard that Tanaka's parents both worked away from home. I did worry that someone might snatch the overfriendly dog if it was left alone like that, but it seemed that had yet to cross anyone's mind. I knew this because I ran the same route almost every day.

Today, I laced my sneakers up tight and set off in my usual direction. Lately, as I ran, I started thinking more concretely about what I could get out of Chika to make my life something special. You could even say I was posing this question to myself as a challenge. It was difficult for me to experience any of her culture via taste or smell, and sight was out of the question from the beginning. That left only sound and touch. But simply touching something wasn't enough to stir my heart. Thus, I had no choice but to use my ears, words, and thoughts. Using those, perhaps Chika could tell me the teachings of the religions of her world. I couldn't imagine myself as some sort of religious fanatic, but I couldn't rule out the possibility that learning some new religious philosophy might give me the power to change my own worldview or perhaps even the entire world around me. Of course, as was evidenced by my attempts to change the ways of warfare, there were limits to what a high school student could do. It would require a tremendous amount of time and ability to actualize such a thing. It was too dangerous to stake it all on a single idea. It would be far more effective if I could simply bombard Shika with questions and receive the answers. But I obviously couldn't do that. Still, I didn't want to ruin a good time. What an inconvenient feeling it is to see someone else as something valuable.

Before I met Chika, if I had a goal in mind, I could ignore any worries I had about being disliked. Perhaps I did once feel it more acutely. But when I broke up with Izzumi, I was perfectly able to ignore that feeling once I realized I was faking it and decided what to do, just as I was perfectly fine with the fact that everyone at my junior high stopped wanting to talk to me. My objectives came above all other things. My relationships with others changed once I started high school. But everyone else was just as basic a person as I was. I kept living only for my own goals, no matter what anyone else thought. But I couldn't live like that any longer. How stupid of me to start thinking of a relationship itself as my objective. However, the fear that I felt at the thought of being cut off from Chika was real, whether or not she was a resident of another world, this was stupid. Knowing that I should have been able to cleanse myself of those fears, yet I still couldn't force myself to twist this away with the strength of my resolve.

"Heyo." As I ran deep in thought, I arrived at Tanaka's house. I called out to the dog Alumi, who trotted up to my feet as always. I took a single step into the backyard, reaching out my hand to pet it. I had stopped feeding the dog out of concern for its health, but I had instead started calling to the animal. I stooped down and offered my hand. I didn't dislike dogs. I thought the fools who thought pet ownership gave their life significant meaning idiotic, but that wasn't at odds with my finding dogs cute. I wish I could separate these thoughts from my thoughts of Chika, but I apparently couldn't manage to think that way.

"That way? H that way? What way?" I held Alumi's front paws as the dog stood up to greet me, frozen to the spot. Just then, something terrifying passed right by my heart. I inhaled and exhaled and watched the retreating form of that something. Regardless of my opinions or intentions, I thought that Alumi was cute. Even when I had no interest in food, I still thought donuts were delicious. Even if I didn't enjoy running in and of itself, it still gave me a rush. It had nothing to do with my objectives or being special or the things I wanted to achieve or what I wanted to accomplish with my life. It didn't matter why we had met, nor whether we could manipulate anything with our intent. I thought of Chica. I thought I unconsciously gasped. For the first time ever, Alumi let out a little bark in front of me, perhaps startled. I realized I was gripping the dog's paws too tightly. "Sorry." The words were directed toward Alumi. And yet all of myself, my entire being was contained within that apology. Sweat poured from my whole body. Yet it had nothing to do with the exercise. My temperature was rising. I wanted to scream at these emotions, but I held back. I dug up, dragged out, and turned all the memories in my head upside down. How? Where the hell did these come from? When in the process of checking and discarding every recollection in turn, I remembered when when I spoke to Chika about Izzumi, I had felt something. The way my heart beat, that floating sensation, that thing that was that's a this is this feeling, an emotion that couldn't be twisted by opinions or intention had started to bud. No way. There was no one here to contradict me. as though to aid in giving birth to this great new feeling, something other than the tedium that always lingered in my heart. I let out a groan that pierced my whole body. I stealed myself against being overtaken by these emotions. It felt like they were draining the blood from my brain. This emotion? No, that wasn't it. This was something else. This couldn't be something directed at Chika herself. I should have felt nothing more than a trivial interest in a being from another world, a special being. That was how it should have been. And yet, if if that were the case, if that should be, if that was how it was, this was bad. I would be the one getting in my own way. Of course, if I was honest, I could see one lucky thing in all of this. If a small one, this would be my salvation. Even if these feelings were truly for Chika, they would never go anywhere. After all, Chika could not understand them. No matter what words I used, I would never be able to properly convey it. Chika would never see the true shape of the feelings that were likely growing inside of me. For that, I was truly grateful. Let's try to be objective about this. A person with dangerous thoughts would still experience the gratitude of others if they saved someone as long as those thoughts were never revealed. So, no matter what feelings lingered inside me, as long as they didn't come across in my actions, it would be fine. Or at least it should have been. Still, it was strange. I could feel a distinct nervousness running down my spine, clearly different from before. It stung down to my eardrums. More times than I could count now, I'd cursed my own indecisiveness. Or maybe not cursing, just being disappointed in myself. Though by this point I could truthfully do neither.

"What's the matter?" Kaika was breathing. Chika was sitting beside me.