Chapter One

Chapter One

 

1.

 

KATAGAKI NAOMI WAS THINKING about going to the bookstore.

The idea first crossed his mind on his way to school, as he walked along bus-clogged Shijo Street reading a paperback. He’d visited the store the day before, which meant there wouldn’t be anything new for sale. But Naomi went nearly every day that he could. On the rare days he didn’t, he often went to the library instead. Often, he’d visit both.

Since reading was his only real hobby, these visits were a part of his usual daily routine. The only times he consciously thought about going to a bookstore were when he had some special reason to do so, like when he wanted a specific kind of book he didn’t usually read or when he felt like he really needed help.

Naomi rounded the corner at the Shijo-Horikawa intersection and Nishiki High School came into view. Just as he approached the crosswalk before the front gate, the walk signal started to blink.

He thought he had enough time to rush across the street, so he decided to go for it. Unfortunately, the few seconds it took him to reach that conclusion made him wonder if it was too late to cross at this point.

As Naomi hesitated, two boys wearing the same school uniform sprinted right past him and across the street. Just as they reached the other side, the signal finally turned red. He could hear them shouting “Safe!” and laughing happily.

I should go to the bookstore today.

 

2.

 

THE CLASSROOM WAS FULL of cheerful voices that morning. After he entered, Naomi looked around for his seat. He’d only been a high schooler for a few days, so he wasn’t used to his new spot yet. Actually, he did remember where his seat was, but he was always a little worried someone else might be sitting in it. This little ritual was his way of reassuring himself.

Naomi managed to walk over and take his seat without making a complete fool of himself. A group of guys next to him were already chattering about something. He kind of wanted to say hi, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves, so he was reluctant to butt into the conversation.

After a few moments, he gave up on the idea and opened his book instead. The story he’d been reading a few minutes earlier quickly pulled him right back in.

Once first period class was over, there was a brief free period. The guy in the next seat put away his textbook. He wasn’t talking to anyone at the moment. This was the perfect chance.

But before Naomi could work up the nerve to say anything, someone else came over.

Oh, well. I guess my timing was off, Naomi thought as the two struck up a conversation. For lack of any better options, he opened his book again.

After second period, the guy in the next seat went off to visit a different class. With a shrug, Naomi went back to his book.

After third period, the guy in the next seat was reading a manga magazine. Naomi knew how engrossing that could be, so he didn’t want to interrupt. He read his book instead.

When fourth period ended and it was time for lunch, the guy in the next seat joined up with a bunch of his friends to run off loudly toward the school store. The idea of buying food inside the building was still fresh and exciting to the first-year students, since that hadn’t been an option back in middle school. Naomi wasn’t about to blunder over and delay them. That would have been inconsiderate.

When he thought things through more carefully, though, he realized he hadn’t brought a bento with him, which meant also needed to visit the school store.

By the time he finally got there, almost all the lunch breads were gone. There wasn’t a single meat, fish, or cream-filled one left on the shelves, and the leftovers were a sad smattering of less-than-appetizing options. Naomi went for something called a “twisty bread,” which turned out to be nothing more than a basic bread roll twisted into knots.

As he finished his meal, Naomi thought, I should really go to the bookstore today.

The moment the end-of-day homeroom period wrapped up, a hubbub of voices filled the classroom.

Naomi busied himself with packing up the books he’d be taking home tonight, trying to decide which bookstore to visit. His first choice was Oogaki Books near the corner of Shijo and Karasuma, followed by the nearby Kumazawa Bookstore. On second thought, Maruzen might have a better selection of the kind of books he wanted right now. If he headed in that direction, he’d also pass a Junkudo. Maybe the best plan was to hit up four or five places, one after the other…

“Hey, d’you want to come along?”

Naomi’s heart nearly jumped out of his mouth. He spun around a little too fast, cringing like a child who’d just been screamed at. At some point, a group of ten-odd people had gathered right next to him. He had no idea what was going on. What had they just asked him? What were they even talking about?

“Sorry, uh…”

The girl who’d spoken to him hesitated awkwardly. After a few seconds, Naomi realized that she was waiting for his name. “Um, it’s Katagaki.”

“Right, right. Anyway, Katagaki-kun, we’re gonna go hang out and get to know each other. Thought we’d sing some karaoke, you know?”

Finally, the pieces fell into place. He’d been invited out with his classmates.

“Um… Well…”

Now that he knew the question, he had to figure out his answer.

Naomi wasn’t a big fan of karaoke, honestly. He’d gone a couple times with his friends from middle school, but he’d been too shy to sing. And that was with people he knew and got along with. The idea of singing in front of people he’d just met was terrifying.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to sing, though? They probably wouldn’t force him. But if he kept refusing, that might get pretty embarrassing in its own way.

Also, there was the whole bookstore thing. He’d been planning that all day. But when he thought it through, the whole reason for that trip might be rendered meaningless if he just went to this karaoke thing instead.

So, there was no reason to turn them down. In fact, he should probably go, even if it did feel a little awkward. Naomi opened his mouth, his lips forming the word “sure.”

“Oh, sorry. If you’ve got something else to do, don’t worry about it.”

“Um, okay.”

“Let’s go, guys!”

“Wait for me!”

Chattering amongst themselves, the group of students left their classroom behind. Naomi was left standing by himself, listening as the noises grew fainter.

I really need to go to the bookstore, he thought. Right now.

 

3.

 

OOGAKI BOOKS SHIJO was a store on the second floor of a building near the intersection of Shijo Street and Karasuma Street, about a ten-minute walk from Nishiki High.

A similar, brand-new building not far away was home to Oogaki Books Kyoto, the main branch, but Naomi had always preferred the smaller Shijo store. Compared to the Kyoto branch, where a whole corner of the first floor was devoted to magazines, this felt more like a proper bookstore—every inch of available space was crammed full of bookshelves.

Fortunately, he had lots of other options when he wanted some variety. That was the best part of going to a high school so close to the Shijo-Karasuma area.

Riding up to the second floor of the building on a narrow escalator, Naomi gazed out over a familiar scene. He’d lost track of how many times he’d visited this place, but the sight of it never got old. Near the front entrance, there were a few tables of notebooks, stationery, and new releases. But once you got past those, you entered a forest of bookshelves that stretched the entire length of the floor.

Oogaki Books was a chain local to the Kinki Region, with thirty-odd branches centered in the Kyoto area. Everyone living in the city was familiar with it; Naomi had been shocked to learn it wasn’t a national brand. When a relative had told him, “They’ve got Maruzen and Junkudo in Tokyo, but no Oogaki Books,” he hadn’t believed her at first.

In all honesty, it was still hard to imagine living in a place without a single Oogaki store. Could you even call that living, really?

Passing by the stationery tables, Naomi glanced over the new releases, all of which he’d already perused yesterday. The sight was still kind of soothing—it felt a little like walking into his living room. This place wasn’t exactly his home, but he still felt a lot more relaxed here than in the halls of his new high school.

Naomi stepped confidently forward into his natural habitat.

Glancing up at the signs hanging from the ceiling, he made his way deeper and deeper into the shelves. He already knew where to find the genres that he usually read—he tended to buy novels, manga, magazines, art books, and the occasional science book. But today he was looking for a kind of book he’d never been remotely interested in before.

Naomi took a right turn into the “Hobbies and Practical Skills” section.

The shelves here were divided by a thicket of smaller signs, each marking a specific genre. Naomi’s eyes quickly focused on one sign in particular. The words on it seemed intense, even intimidating; just looking at them made him want to blush. But he screwed up his courage and approached.

For the first time, he laid eyes upon the “Self-Help” section.

At a glance, the titles were all alarmingly dramatic.

“The Harvard Thought Process: How to Win at Life”

“The Five-Minute-a-Day Millionaire”

“How to Shrug off Your Haters”

Naomi tensed as his eyes moved across the covers and spines of the books on display. They felt like a giant, invisible hand pressing down on him.

When he was in the fiction sections, even the most sensational titles never bothered him. Those books were stories, after all. He was just a reader who might enjoy them.

But these books were different. The books in this corner were purchased by people who wanted to change themselves in a specific way. When you brought one to the register, you were basically announcing that to the world.

What would the person behind the counter think? Would he look at the book and then at Naomi, stifling a laugh?

The thought made him want to melt into the ground. He was so embarrassed he was tempted to leave empty-handed.

And yet…

Naomi squeezed his slightly sweaty hands into fists. This was the whole reason he’d come here, wasn’t it? He wanted to get past this feeling. He wanted to overcome his shyness.

Fifteen minutes later, Naomi finally reached out, grabbed a book with a paper band boasting 50,000 sales, and headed for the register.

Its title was How to Be Decisive: A Better You by Tomorrow!

 

4.

 

SITTING IN HIS BEDROOM, Naomi focused intently on his new book. His table lamp cast a warm glow on the pages, which made a pleasant whisper when they turned. There was no other sound.

If there was one word that defined him, it was indecisive.

He didn’t know how long he’d been like this; it had just sort of turned out that way. Naomi agonized over every choice, even simple, harmless ones. The thought of choosing wrong, of screwing up horrifically, made him flinch in terror. He was the very picture of a coward.

To the best of his ability, Naomi avoided taking risks. He didn’t like challenging himself unless the outcome was predictable.

He did enjoy studying, though. Put more effort in, and you’d reliably be rewarded for it. It was one of the few things he could focus on without getting anxious.

Naomi liked books, too. Reading them was a lot of fun, and moving steadily through their pages gave him a real sense of accomplishment.

Thanks to that, his grades had gotten steadily better, and he’d been accepted into one of the best high schools in the prefecture. Careful and consistent had been his watchwords all his life, and they’d served him well enough.

That wasn’t to say that he liked his personality, though.

A part of him had always wanted to change, but he’d never found the spark to actually make it happen. He’d been waiting and waiting for the right moment to fall into his lap. On the day he entered high school, he’d thought, maybe this is my chance.

It wasn’t like he wanted to completely redefine himself the way some kids did. He’d never even fantasized about transforming into some cool, popular guy who’d be the center of attention. But he did think it might be nice if he could change, at least a little. Maybe it’d make his high school experience more fun.

Surely that wasn’t too much to hope for. He wasn’t being overly ambitious here.

That was why Naomi had bought his new self-help book. In all honesty, he thought its 2000-yen price tag was kind of excessive. He’d never flinched at spending that much on a hardcover edition of a novel he enjoyed, but there was no telling if the advice in this book would be remotely useful. Buying it felt like a risk in itself.

He probably wouldn’t have gambled his money on this back in middle school.

Maybe, he thought hopefully, I’ve already changed a little bit.

 

5.

 

THE NEXT DAY, Naomi sat in the classroom, intently reading his new book. Of course, the last thing he wanted was for any of his classmates to know he’d bought a book like this, so he’d put it in a thick, blank cover that hid the title.

Its pages were full of life-changing bits of advice in bold, eye-catching type.

“Don’t overthink things! Make a conscious effort to decide quickly!”

At the end of fourth period, Naomi headed to the school store as fast as he could walk. He pushed his way forcefully through the chaotic crowd and made his way to the bread shelves. He’d made it here quickly; today, he had his pick.

His eyes found the barbecue bread, the most popular option. But the golden fish sandwich was also tempting. They both looked tasty, but he had to choose fast.

Naomi considered his options. They both looked good. Either was fine, really.

He reached out for the nearest barbecue bread, then paused. How much money did he have left in his wallet, anyway? He’d bought that book yesterday. He shouldn’t buy too much, either. He didn’t want to waste any food, or his cash.

By the time he worked his way through that thought process, the barbecue bread had vanished. The fish sandwiches and the three-color breads melted away like smoke, too.

Naomi just looked on, totally flustered, until the lady behind the counter finally shouted, “What’s it gonna be, kid?!”

 

Naomi’s plastic bag swayed slightly in his hand as he trudged back to his classroom. It contained two packaged “twisty breads.”

He read his book as he walked along. Luckily, it contained a full eighty-seven pieces of advice, each designed to help you become more decisive. He’d decided to move on to the next item.

“Don’t worry about what other people think. When you have something to say, speak up!”

When he stepped into his classroom, Naomi found that a group of girls had gathered, spreading out their lunches and packaged snacks across several desks. One of them was sitting in Naomi’s chair. She’d pulled it away from his desk to sit with the others. If he wanted to eat his lunch here, he’d have to get it back.

Naomi studied the girl in question. She looked like a gentle, soft-spoken person. She’d probably give the chair back without any real fuss. There were plenty of other empty chairs in the classroom, after all.

Settling down onto one of the stone stairways that surrounded the main school building, Naomi took a bite of his twisty bread. It was nice out today, and it never hurt to get some fresh air. Or so he’d convinced himself.

Once again, he opened up his book.

“Don’t let others do the deciding for you. Make your own choices!”

That made perfect sense. It was easy to nod in agreement. The tricky part was actually acting on that advice.

After finishing his bland lunch, Naomi headed back to his classroom.

Fifth period that day was a homeroom session rather than a class. Today, all the first-year classes were electing their representatives and officers. There was a long list of school committees on the blackboard. Everyone was expected to at least join a committee. The homeroom teacher led the discussion, helped by two students who’d been chosen as assistants since their names fell at the beginning of the alphabet.

Since they were all new here, most of the kids didn’t have any strong preferences. The class worked its way down the list picking people more or less at random.

Naomi let it wash over him, lost in thought. He was murmuring inside his head like a mantra, Make your own choices. Don’t let others do the deciding for you.

“Next up is the library committee,” one of the student assistants called.

The homeroom teacher looked around the room. “Do we have any book lovers in this class?”

Instantly, a number of faces turned Naomi’s way. A moment later, the rest of the class followed suit.

Naomi swallowed nervously.

Thinking about it…in his first ten days of high school, he’d spent most of his free time sitting in this classroom reading books. He hadn’t done anything else, really.

The teacher looked down at his list of students. “Uh, Katagaki, right? How about it?”

“Um… Well…”

The words caught in Naomi’s throat. They wanted an answer now. He could feel the anxiety welling up inside him.

It wasn’t like he disliked the idea of working in the library. He loved books, after all. It was easily the most attractive option of anything listed on the blackboard. And yet, part of him really didn’t want to say yes.

He’d been nominated for this by other people, just because everybody looked at him. He needed to make his own decisions from now on.

But he couldn’t bring himself to come out and say that. There were too many sets of eyes on him. And the growing silence was too much to handle.

“Sure, I’ll do it.”

“All right, then. Katagaki it is.”

Everyone finally looked away. The assistant wrote his name on the blackboard and moved along to the next entry on the list.

It had gone smoothly enough, in a way. But there was an ugly, muddy feeling lingering in Naomi’s chest.

He wasn’t even upset that he hadn’t made his own decision.

He was disgusted by how relieved he felt to escape those eyes.

 

6.

 

THE FIRST MEETING OF THE LIBRARY COMMITTEE was held immediately after school that same day.

Students from all three years trickled into the special classroom where the meeting would be held, wandering around to find their seats. On a whiteboard near the far wall, someone had written “Welcome to the Library Committee!” in dry-erase marker.

Naomi had already taken his seat. Naturally, he was using this opportunity to read his book.

“When you’re uncertain, trust your instincts!”

They sure made it sound simple.

Furrowing his brow, Naomi let out a quiet sigh. So far, this stuff was easier said than done.

Why do I have to be like this?

He’d made it into a good high school and earned himself a fresh start. He’d bought a self-help book. This was the perfect chance to overcome his weaknesses.

And yet, he couldn’t even manage to buy the lunch he wanted. He couldn’t even ask for his own chair back. Now, he’d been shoved onto this committee by his classmates. He thought he might enjoy the job itself, but he just knew that every single time he came here, he’d remember that he hadn’t decided to join this committee.

He hadn’t said, “I’d rather do something else, actually,” at homeroom just now. And that fact was going to haunt him for a solid year.

Maybe it wasn’t so easy for people to change.

“Wonder what class that girl’s from…”

As he stared down resentfully at his book, Naomi overheard the guys next to him whispering to each other. Following their gaze, he spotted a girl with big, round eyes. Her bangs formed a neat line across her forehead, and she had a ribbon in her hair—on one side, but not the other. It was a distinctive hairstyle, but it looked completely natural on her.

“She’s like an idol, man,” mumbled one of the boys a few seats over. Naomi silently agreed. The girl was petite and slender, and her smile was adorable. Judging from where she sat, she was probably a first year, just like him. But it looked like she was already on friendly terms with everyone sitting around her.

After watching her for a few moments, Naomi realized he was staring and looked away hurriedly. It wasn’t like he’d done anything bad, but he somehow still managed to feel guilty.

 

The library committee chairman gave them a quick overview of their main responsibilities and yearly events, then wrapped things up early. The work itself did sound kind of fun, just as Naomi had expected. He’d always wanted to try sitting behind the lending desk at a library.

There was a chorus of scraping sounds as everyone rose from their chairs.

Naomi found himself glancing over at the girl he’d spotted earlier. He knew her name now, since they’d all introduced themselves. Kadenokouji Misuzu was a pretty striking name, but she was a pretty striking person, so it felt right.

A small group was already forming around Misuzu. Some were first-year boys; others were older guys. They all had their cell phones out. They were probably asking for her contact info.

“Oh, right. One last thing, guys!” Everyone turned around—the third-year committee chairman was holding his cell phone up in the air. “We’re gonna make a WiZ group for updates and stuff. Come on over here so I can add you.”

Hurriedly taking out his own phone, Naomi started up the WiZ app. Fortunately, he already had it installed.

WiZ was the most popular chat app of the moment, and most people who owned a smartphone used it regularly. You could easily form big groups and send out notifications to everyone at once, so it was convenient for this sort of thing.

The members of the committee swarmed around the chairman. Once you had the app open on the Contact Exchange screen, you could easily add anyone nearby to your friends list, or join any open groups.

They’d already set up a group called Nishiki High Library Committee, and Naomi joined it easily enough. He breathed a small sigh of relief—the idea of messing this up somehow had given him some serious pangs of anxiety.

“If anybody couldn’t join the group just now, just have someone else pass the messages to you, okay? That’s it for today!”

With those words from the chairman, the committee members headed for the exit. It got congested right away. Figuring he might as well wait for them to clear out, Naomi looked down at his phone and checked out his new WiZ group once again.

Spotting the name Kadenokouji Misuzu on the list of members, he found himself smiling a little. Of course, he didn’t have the nerve to send her a direct message. He could never contact her directly. Still, he felt lucky just to have the name of a girl that cute in his phone.

“Hm...?”

At that point, Naomi noticed something—or the lack of something, rather. Looking up from his screen, he glanced around the room. Most of the committee members had left by now, but there was one other first-year who also seemed to be waiting for the congestion to clear up.

It was a girl from his class. He knew her name already, and he’d just noticed it wasn’t listed in the WiZ group.

The girl in question closed her bag like she was ready to head home. She straightened up and began striding for the door. She was about to leave.

But…

“If anybody couldn’t join the group just now, just have someone else pass on the messages to you, okay?”

This might be a problem, right?

“Ich…” Naomi’s voice came out softer than he expected it to—nerves, probably. “Ichigyou-san.”

Ichigyou Ruri stopped in her tracks and looked over at him. She didn’t smile or reply. Naomi forced a smile onto his face, but he had the feeling it looked kind of awkward. He needed to get straight to the point.

“Um, you…you didn’t manage to join the WiZ group, right? Maybe we should…add each other, or something…” The words came out slowly, in bits and pieces.

Despite being in the same class and on the same committee, this was the first time Naomi had ever spoken to Ruri. The two of them hadn’t even walked here together from their classroom.

He’d managed to say what he needed to say, though. Now they could just add each other on the app and be on their way.

Ichigyou Ruri frowned slightly. A cold shiver ran down Naomi’s spine. Had he screwed this up already? They’d be on the same committee for at least a year. Hopefully he hadn’t somehow insulted her without meaning to.

Too nervous to say anything else, he waited anxiously for her reply.

Still frowning, she took a phone out of her bag and started tapping at its screen, using a bit more force than was strictly necessary. After a few hard taps, she paused to run her eyes back and forth across the screen for a while. It was hard to tell what exactly she was doing.

“Um, do you have WiZ installed?” Naomi finally asked.

There was no reply. Still silent, Ruri started hammering the power button on the side of her phone. The look on her face only got more intense. Naomi was tempted to run for the hills. She looked like she might start yelling at any moment.

“Nngh.”

Naomi couldn’t make sense of the sound at first, but he realized Ruri had let out a grunt of frustration. Pushing the phone back into her bag, she took out a paper and pen and quickly jotted something down. Then she held out the paper in Naomi’s direction.

“If there’s anything I need to know, contact me here.”

Uncertainly, Naomi accepted the piece of paper. Before he could look at it, Ruri had turned around and stalked out of the room.

Naomi looked down at the note she’d handed him. It wasn’t a WiZ username, or even a phone number for her house. It was her home address.

 

7.

 

THROUGH THE LARGE WINDOWS of the library, Naomi could hear the faint sounds of children playing outside. It was a pleasant background soundtrack for his reading.

The Kyoto City Library South Branch was located on Takeda-kaido Road, just a little south of Kyoto Station. The building was old, and it also housed a youth activity center, so the library itself wasn’t especially spacious. Its collection was smaller than those of the other branches, and it only had sixteen seats in the reading area. But it was a cozy little place, and that was why Naomi loved it.

He flipped to the next page. There weren’t many of them left; he was drawing close to the end of this story.

Today, he was working on a book by Jean M. Auel, an American author—one of the novels in her epic Earth’s Children series, which is set thirty-five thousand years in the past. Its heroine is a Cro-Magnon girl named Ayla who was raised by a tribe of Neanderthals and eventually sets off on a long journey to find others of her own kind. There were six novels in all, and because of length, they’d been split into sixteen volumes when translated to Japanese. Naomi was about to finish off the very first one.

After reading the final sentence, he quietly closed the library book.

The children were still squealing outside. The world hadn’t changed at all in the time he’d spent immersed in his book. But he could feel the story he’d just read slowly permeating through him from tip to toe. He loved moments like this.

Naomi basked in the afterglow for a few moments longer, then pulled a notebook out of his bag. This medium-sized journal contained nothing but his thoughts and impressions of all the books he’d read so far this year. He made one of these reading logs every year, starting back when he was in elementary school.

In one corner of the cover, he’d written down his current goal in small letters, “Yearly target: 200 books.”

Flipping through the journal, he found the first blank page and wrote “Book #61” at its very top, then copied down the name and author of his latest conquest. Once these formalities were dispensed with, he jotted down his thoughts freely as they popped into his head.

Once he’d finally gotten everything out of his system, Naomi exhaled through his nose in satisfaction. Glancing over at the clock, he saw it wasn’t yet 4:00.

The library wouldn’t close until 7:30, so he still had plenty of time. And on the table in front of him, he had five more volumes of Earth’s Children waiting.

Letting his momentum carry him forward, Naomi reached out for the second volume. But just as he did so, an announcement began to play over the library’s speaker system.

“The library will be closing at 4:00 today for sorting of the shelves. If you’d like to borrow a book, please—”

Holding the books he’d checked out in his arms, Naomi regretfully stepped out of the library building. He’d been ejected from his reading spot at an awkward time in the afternoon.

Where to now?

Naomi’s mother worked late, so dinner wouldn’t be until 8:00 or so. That gave him four hours to kill. He could head straight back home and keep reading there, but the thought of that dampened his mood somewhat. He was in high school now, but he hadn’t joined any extracurriculars. He didn’t have any friends he could hang out with, either.

He’d been given that one golden chance, when his classmates invited him to karaoke, but he’d hesitated and missed out. And now he was right back where he’d started, reading books all alone.

Was it going to stay like this for the next three years? Was he never going to change?

He wanted to think that he could get better, but it felt disturbingly likely that he wouldn’t. A cold wave of loneliness washed over him. He found himself yearning for a conversation with someone—anyone.

“Kaw!”

Naomi looked up, blinking with surprise.

For a moment, he’d thought he heard someone call to him from above. But it was a bird that had spoken, not a person—a black bird that slowly circled above the street. Its call made him think it was a crow, but on closer examination, it was hard to tell. The thing looked a little too unkempt and fluffy. Maybe it was an unusually chubby crow…?

As he pondered this, the bird drew slowly closer, and then dropped down to the ground right in front of him. Their eyes met.

Naomi felt a bit startled. Weren’t wild animals supposed to be more wary than this? Was this thing going to attack him?

Then, he noticed something very peculiar.

“Wait, its legs…”

The bird had three of them.

Naomi blinked and looked again. He wasn’t seeing things. This crow-like bird had a third leg positioned between and behind its other two, like a tripod. Was this thing a mutant or something? He remembered hearing that crows sometimes attacked people by kicking them in the head. If this thing went after him with those thick little legs, he’d probably get a nasty cut.

“Kaaaw!”

“Eek!”

Startled by the bird’s sudden cry, Naomi dropped the books he was carrying to the ground.

Oh crap, I hope I didn’t damage them…

As he bent down to check, the three-legged bird hopped over and grabbed one of his paperbacks in its beak.

“Hey!”

The bird flapped into the air and flew right off. Naomi stood there staring for a moment before snapping out of his daze.

“Hey! That’s a library book!”

The bird was heading straight south down Takeda-kaido Road. Hurriedly picking up his other books, Naomi set off after it at a run.

Naomi’s heart pounded. He breathed in gasps and felt like he’d run a good two kilometers already.

When he glanced up at the sky, he could see the bird in the distance, but he was certain he’d lose sight of it if he paused even for a moment. Gritting his teeth, he chased it down the street as it moved parallel to the Kamo River.

After a while, the bird abruptly changed course—it had been flying straight south, but now it flew off to the east. As Naomi followed it, he found himself dodging more and more people on the streets.

Finally, he came to a halt. In front of him were two neat lines of trees and a well-maintained stone path. The bird was heading for the hill this road led up to—a splash of green in the distance.

“It’s going to Inari Shrine?” Naomi muttered disbelievingly.

For some reason, the bird was flying toward one of Kyoto’s most famous tourist spots, the great Fushimi Inari shrine. Soon enough, it had disappeared beyond the tall torii gates standing in the distance.

Panicking all over again, Naomi rushed up the road, dodging tourists as he went.

The red torii seemed to go on forever.

Naomi found himself in the thousand-gate corridor of the Fushimi Inari shrine. He’d already passed the thousandth torii, which was located near the main shrine and labeled clearly. But the line of gates went on beyond it, stretching deep into the woods of Mount Inari. By now, Naomi was past even the rear shrine area; he was on a path that ran along a ridge, somewhere beyond the third and fourth crossroads.

The red gates flowed slowly by overhead, one by one, each much like the last. Naomi looked up between them as he walked, trying to catch a glimpse of that strange bird.

By this point, he was panting with exertion. He’d given up on running, but walking up the mountain was plenty of exercise in itself. He felt like his knees might give out on him if he relaxed for a moment.

After what felt like an eternity, Naomi stepped out from the tunnel of torii gates. Just ahead, another corridor of torii waited for him, but he paused in the small clearing, using the opportunity to look around.

While this was a popular tourist spot, there weren’t many tourists who ventured all the way past the fourth crossroads. All he could see from his current vantage point was the natural landscape of the mountain—in other words, plants and dirt.

In front of him, all he could see was a long, unbroken chain of more red gates. When he turned around, however, he could see black characters carved into the back sides of the gates he’d already passed through. On their right pillar, there was the year and month the gate had been dedicated; on the left, there was the address and name of whoever had paid for its construction.

It’s been a while since I came here last, hasn’t it…?

Naomi dug back through his memories. The last time he’d been here was in middle school, when he’d come with some friends for the traditional New Year’s shrine visit. They’d turned back much further down the mountain then. He didn’t know if he’d ever come this far before.

He also found himself remembering what he knew about these gates. Their construction was paid for by special donations to the Fushimi Inari shrine, and there were two times when you were supposed to pay for one.

The first: when you had a wish you desperately wanted to have granted.

The second: when your dreams were realized.

Naomi stared back at the corridor of gates with a fresh sense of admiration. For every gate in this long tunnel, someone had wished desperately for something, or had a wish come true. That felt really impressive.

Maybe the atmosphere of this place was rubbing off on him. He found himself wanting to make a wish of his own. It was a bit audacious, considering he hadn’t paid for a gate himself, but maybe the gods would give him a freebie if he kept things modest. Surely they wouldn’t begrudge him finding that bird and getting back his library book?

Or maybe… Yeah, I know…

The sound of flapping wings interrupted Naomi’s thoughts.

Looking up, he saw that the bird in question had perched on top of a nearby torii. There was no doubt that it was the same bird—that thick third leg was unmistakable, and it still had his book in its mouth.

Their eyes met. And just like that, the bird opened its beak. The library book tumbled down to the ground. Naomi sprinted over, picked it up, and looked it over for damage. It had a few minor scrapes here and there, but nothing too serious.

As he straightened up, he realized that the three-legged bird hadn’t moved an inch. What was wrong with that thing? He felt like it was staring at him.

Naomi didn’t expect to find any meaning in the behavior of a wild animal, but there was something very weird about this one. Maybe he should report it to some kind of agency? Or at least take a picture of it?

Naomi reached into his bag and pulled out his phone, then paused. With a glance around the area, he suddenly realized he was all alone.

He looked back at the corridor on the other side of the open area. It was empty, too. The tourists who’d been walking through it earlier had all disappeared at some point. Maybe they’d gone on ahead or turned back without him noticing. In any case, they were gone.

A small chill ran down his spine.

The air around him felt like it had gotten colder, or maybe heavier. Right now, he was totally alone with this bizarre three-legged bird. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but that felt…not great.

Naomi put a hand to his forehead.

There! What was that?

He’d seen something for a second. An unfamiliar image had flashed before his eyes—almost like a single frame of a movie, spliced in somewhere it didn’t belong.

Again!

This was too weird. He couldn’t make sense of it. Strange scenes kept popping up, only to vanish in the blink of an eye.

What was that just now? A notebook?

That one was some kind of ball or sphere.

Oh, now it’s a bunch of torii gates…

“Waaaaah!”

All of a sudden, a person tumbled past Naomi from behind.

Startled, Naomi looked behind him. The corridor of torii was just as empty as before. When he turned back around, though, there was a person lying on the stone path, groaning in pain.

Once again, Naomi looked behind him.

Where did this guy come from? There hadn’t been anyone on that path a minute ago.

Confused and unsettled, he studied the person on the ground. The voice had sounded like a man, but the hood of his jacket was covering most of his face, so it was hard to tell anything else about him.

The man put his hands on the ground and pushed himself slowly to his feet.

He was a head taller than Naomi. The jacket he was wearing was pure white and had a very distinctive design, like something you might see in a Paris fashion show. His pants and shoes were also a shade of white; together, they made the jacket look a little bit like a lab coat.

The hooded man began to stretch out and flex his fingers. After a few moments, he moved on to jiggling his legs and poking at his thighs.

“It worked,” he murmured. “It finally worked. I’m in!”

For some reason, he sounded triumphant.

Frowning, Naomi backed away slowly. He couldn’t begin to guess what this bizarre person was up to.

His confusion only grew when he saw the three-legged bird flap down from its perch to stand right in front of the strange man, resting its fat little legs on the stone path.

“Nice! Very nice!” said the man, sounding extremely pleased.

Naomi was really starting to freak out at this point. This was increasingly alarming stuff. Backing away slowly seemed like the smartest move.

The hooded man made a circle with his pointer finger and thumb and began to murmur to himself in a low voice. He hadn’t even glanced in Naomi’s direction. This was a golden chance to escape, in other words.

Gingerly, Naomi began to tiptoe off down the corridor.

He moved as carefully as he could, trying not to make a sound. He did everything he could not to stir the air. The last thing he wanted was to provoke some kind of a response. He had his library book back; there was no reason to hang around here any longer.

But then, just as he had managed to turn about 90 degrees—

“Hey, kid.” The man called out to him. He was looking straight at Naomi. “What’s the date today?”

It was a simple enough question, the sort of thing you might ask anyone you passed in the streets. Naomi decided it wasn’t worth the risk of ignoring him.

“The… The sixteenth.”

“Hm…?”

The hooded man hadn’t waited for his answer. Instead, he’d mumbled over Naomi and turned away as he spoke. But a moment later, the strange man froze.

Naomi had the feeling that he’d just screwed up very, very badly.

The hooded man turned back to look at him. Naomi couldn’t see the look in his eyes, since they were in shadow…but he could see his mouth.

The man was grinning happily.

“Katagaki…Naomi!”

 

8.

 

NAOMI RUSHED DESPERATELY down the stone path, going as fast as his legs would carry him. The path downhill twisted, and the stones were uneven in places. He felt like his calves were about to cramp and send him sprawling at any moment, but he didn’t stop running.

Turning back, he saw the hooded man about a dozen meters back, chasing after him. The man was tall, and his legs were long. He hopped nimbly over the uneven stones and easily kept pace with Naomi’s desperate sprinting.

Naomi was breathing heavily by now. He’d already spent a lot of time running uphill in pursuit of that bird, and now he was pushing himself again. His body wanted to collapse and rest, but he forced it onward by sheer willpower.

Why is this lunatic chasing me?! How does he know my name?!

The creepiness of it all made him shiver. There was a small part of him that really wanted an explanation, and a much larger part of him that wanted to stay far away from this guy forever.

He remembered the way the man had spoken to him earlier. His voice was powerful and arrogant, his words totally unconcerned with Naomi’s feelings. Apart from everything else, this man was the kind of grown-up Naomi absolutely couldn’t stand.

By now, he’d made it back to the rear shrine area. The hill was growing less steep and the path more neatly paved. There were a few tourists visible nearby as well. Naomi considered crying out to them for help but dismissed the idea reflexively. The reasons he’d done so only came to him a second later.

He was too scared to stop running, even for a moment. The man was very close to catching him now. And there was something else, too…

“Oh, right—”

It was the words that man had muttered earlier.

He didn’t know exactly what they meant, of course. But he’d read a lot of novels in his life, and he had a gut feeling about what they implied.

Rushing down the path, Naomi finally passed under Fushimi Inari’s towering Great Torii. He hesitated for a moment as he reached the little town outside the shrine, then bolted to the right. As he made his way through the streets, dodging both residents and tourists, his ears picked up the chiming of a bell up ahead: ding, ding, ding.

Yes! This is perfect!

Naomi took a sharp right turn at the next corner that he came to. Up ahead, he spotted the railway crossing that emitted the loud electronic chiming. Wringing out his last ounce of strength, he slipped under the crossing gates just as they fell and hurried into Fushimi Inari station on the Kyoto–Osaka line.

The next train was just pulling into the station. Naomi ran along at the same speed as the decelerating cars, then leapt inside the instant the doors slid open.

Close. Close! Close already!

After a moment, the doors slid shut and the train set off. Pressing himself to the window, Naomi looked outside, then ran over to the opposite window and looked out there as well.

There was no sign of the hooded man.

Did I lose him?

Naomi breathed a long, involuntary sigh of relief and finally allowed himself to relax. His heart was still pumping rapidly, straining to spread oxygen through his exhausted limbs.

After a moment, he noticed that everyone in the train car was staring at him dubiously. That was understandable. He’d just rushed in here like a man possessed, and he was still behaving strangely. Avoiding their gazes, Naomi turned to face the door and stared down at his feet. There was nothing he hated more than standing out like this.

What did I do to deserve this, anyway?

As the train passed over the Kamo River, he silently cursed that crazy hooded man.

A little while later, Naomi stepped up to the surface from the subway platform at Nijo Station.

The sun was already setting. He’d apparently spent most of the afternoon running around the mountains behind Fushimi Inari. He would be back in time for dinner, but that would probably be his only accomplishment today. At this point, he just wanted to get back home and rest.

Naomi hurried through the rotary area in front of the station, his pace still a bit faster than usual.

Now that he was back in his comfort zone, he finally felt composed enough to think through what had just happened to him.

Who was that man? Why did he know my name?

The man had recognized Naomi’s face, so he must’ve known what he looked like. He’d been chasing Naomi in particular.

That might mean this wasn’t over yet. Maybe the man would keep looking for him. He’d have to go the police, in that case.

Maybe I should go to them now, before it comes to that…

They might assign a police officer to guard him or something if he explained the situation. But that would really stand out, so he wasn’t sure he liked the idea.

Honestly, why did this have to happen to—

Naomi stopped in his tracks.

It was a purely involuntary reaction. He’d just spotted something terrifying out of the corner of his eye.

“Hmm, very convenient,” someone murmured. He turned toward the voice.

There was someone sitting just outside the JR Nijo Station, on a metal rail marked “No bicycles past this point.”

It was the hooded man.

“Why…” The word slipped out of his mouth. Why? Why was the man here?

Countless questions spiraled through Naomi’s mind. He’d taken the shortest possible route from Fushimi Inari to Nijo, right? Was there any possible way the man could have gotten ahead of his train?

Wouldn’t he need to know in advance where Naomi was going? Did he know where Naomi lived?

Terrible thoughts came in quick succession, one after another.

The man rose to his feet. Ignoring Naomi completely for the moment, he made a circle with his pointer finger and thumb, then peered into it. It was the same strange gesture he’d made on the mountain. Naomi had no earthly idea what it was supposed to mean.

After a moment, the man broke the circle and turned his hidden face to Naomi.

A cold tingle ran down Naomi’s spine. He couldn’t help but flinch. His courage was near its breaking point, but he forced himself to stand strong. He was all right. There was no danger here. There were lots of people around—they were in front of a train station, after all. Someone would come running if he yelled for help.

And so, mustering all the determination he could, Naomi shouted at the strange man.

“S-stop following me! I’ll call the cops!” His voice was forceful and loud.

An elementary-school boy wearing a yellow hat was staring at him with a look of terror on his face.

“Huh?”

Dumbfounded, Naomi looked down at the child. He could see his face just fine, but not the rest of his body.

The kid’s face was poking out of the hooded man’s torso. This didn’t make any sense at all. How could one person walk right through another?

The boy recovered from his shock before Naomi did and scampered off, clearly fleeing for his life.

At the same time, Naomi noticed a number of heads turning toward him. The nearest pedestrians stared at him suspiciously. They’d just seen a high schooler yelling at a little kid for no apparent reason, after all.

Not a single one of them, however, so much as glanced at the hooded man. It was like the strange phenomenon just now had never happened.

Slowly, Naomi looked up at the man. His mind flashed back to the words he’d heard him mutter at the shrine.

“Oh, right. He can’t see me…”

“Who…are you?” Naomi finally squeaked out.

“Don’t worry, I’ll tell you, whether you like it or not,” he replied with a strong, confident voice—the voice of a grown man. “I’ll tell you who I am. And while I’m at it…”

There was a smirk on his face.

“I’ll tell you all about yourself, Katagaki Naomi.”

 

9.

 

NAOMI OPENED HIS EYES.

The familiar wooden ceiling of his bedroom appeared before him.

The beams were faintly visible. His lights were off, but there was a bit of sunlight coming in through the curtains. The sounds of the outside world suggested that morning was well underway.

He rolled out of bed and looked around, not yet fully conscious.

Naomi’s bedroom was a Japanese-style room with tatami floors. It contained some shelves—stuffed with two layers of books—and a desk, built into his closet, that held a desktop PC. On the walls, there were a few posters and a periodic table of the elements.

It was the same old room he’d been living in for years, and it hadn’t changed a bit since yesterday. Naomi felt like he’d just awoken from some feverish nightmare.

Getting down from his bed onto the tatami floor, he savored the feeling of reality for a moment. And then, yawning, he headed over to the window and opened the curtains.

A three-legged bird was waiting for him, perched on the guardrail of his balcony. Naomi’s face twitched with fear as he was pulled violently back into that nightmare.

The bird slowly spread its wings and flapped up into the air. And then, abruptly, it began to attack his window.

Tak tak tak tak tak tak tak

The window glass shivered with each very real impact. The bird battered at it with its thick, sturdy beak.

“Gah! Stop! Stop it!”

The thing didn’t relent until Naomi finally gave up and let it inside.

 

A cool breeze was blowing. A big, beautiful blue sky stretched out above the large trees that lined the road.

Naomi was walking down Kamanza Street, around the midpoint between Nijo Castle and the Imperial Palace—in the center of Kyoto, in other words. He’d come straight here in his school uniform after the end of his half-length Saturday school session. It should have been a fifteen-minute walk from Nishiki High, but his reluctance had slowed him down so much that it had taken twice as long.

Naomi looked around as he trudged forward. This area was home to many public offices and official buildings, in particular the Kyoto Prefectural Office. It wasn’t the sort of place a typical teenager spent much time in. A wide thoroughfare ran between two lines of beautiful trees; to either side, there were local streets that you could actually park on. This was the main avenue that led directly to the gates of the prefectural government’s main building.

Naomi turned his attention to the sky for a moment.

That damn bird was still up there, circling above him endlessly. It was both a guide and an observer, here to make sure he went straight to his destination and didn’t try to run for it.

Naomi let his gaze fall back to street level and tried to focus on what was right ahead of him. There was an imposing Western-style mansion just across the road, the former main office of the Kyoto government. It was a historic building dating back to year 37 of the Meiji era, officially designated as a culturally significant structure, but even now, parts of it were occupied by certain sections of the government. It was the single oldest public office in Japan still in active use.

The hooded man was standing in front of its main gate.

Grimacing, Naomi forced himself to pick up the pace. He was too intimidated by the man to make it obvious how reluctant he was about all of this.

Making his way over the crosswalk, he approached his waiting tormentor.

“Well, I see you made it here, at least,” the man called out casually. He was dressed the same as yesterday—in his fashionable protective coat, with the hood pulled down over his face. Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten any less sketchy looking overnight.

“It’s not like I had much choice,” Naomi muttered sulkily. It was all the defiance he could muster.

“Don’t be such a whiner, kid. It’s not like you had anything else to do.”

“How would you know?” Naomi said. “I’ve got all sorts of stuff to do on the weekends, actually.”

“Still working on those two hundred books, huh?”

Naomi jerked in surprise, but the man was already striding onto the grounds of the old government building. He had no choice but to hurry after him.

The floor inside the building shone like a mirror.

In between pieces of modern interior décor, there were Japanese-style wooden accents; the design was a striking mixture of traditional and futuristic. Naomi looked around the place with some interest. It was the first time he’d ever been in here.

A tag with the word Visitor printed on it in bold letters hung around his neck.

The hooded man had guided Naomi to a specific facility inside the spacious building—the Chronicle Kyoto Project Center. Naomi had heard the name mentioned before, but he had no idea what they actually did here. He hadn’t even known they gave tours to the public.

A huge decorative wooden lattice panel some ten meters in length caught Naomi’s eye for a long moment. It was probably supposed to represent traditional Kyoto-style design, but in all honesty, it seemed more like an attempt to show off how much money they had to throw around in here.

This facility was located in the basement of the old government building, so Naomi hadn’t been expecting anything quite this grand and showy. The name Chronicle Kyoto had evoked something like an old warehouse full of dusty ancient books. This place was nothing like what he’d pictured.

Glancing around, he spotted a large Pluura logo on one wall, and had to re-evaluate his assessment of this place once again. Apparently, this was the sort of project that could attract an investment from one of the biggest companies in the world.

There probably wasn’t a single person on the planet who hadn’t heard of Pluura, the biggest web services company in existence. Their search site was simply Pluura, their email service was P-Mail, their mapping service was Pluura Maps, and their game store was Pluura Play. If you spent any time on the internet at all, it was basically impossible to avoid interacting with their products.

Naomi didn’t have any personal connection to the company, but it was such a familiar part of his life that he felt a little more comfortable than he did before.

“Please gather over here, everyone!” called the woman who would be leading the tour.

Once the ten-odd people in their group had gathered around her, an explanatory video started playing on a huge monitor mounted on the wall.

Naomi glanced to his side. The hooded man was standing there next to him. Another visitor was right behind him, looking straight toward the monitor.

He really is invisible, huh…

The hooded man was tall, and the visitor behind him was a short woman. She was looking right into his back, in other words. But instead of complaining or moving over, she just stared forward with a look of interest on her face. She was obviously seeing right through him.

It was hard to understand. To Naomi, the man looked absolutely real. There wasn’t any fuzziness to him, like you’d see on a hologram; he wasn’t even partially transparent.

Naomi hadn’t tried actually touching him yet, though. He thought that might make him angry.

He’d read stories like this before, of course. He’d seen similar things in movies and on TV. It wasn’t that unusual for a mysterious being to appear to the protagonist while remaining invisible to everyone else. A visit like that typically kicked off some sort of adventure.

But now that he was living that very scenario, Naomi wasn’t feeling any of the thrilled anticipation he experienced when starting a new novel. Instead, he felt intensely anxious and profoundly weirded out.

It was simple enough, really. He just wasn’t cut out to be a protagonist.

He’d read a lot of books, but he couldn’t remember a single hero who bought self-help books to boost his confidence, only to continue being extremely awkward.

Apparently noticing Naomi’s gaze, the hooded man looked over at him. Naomi hurriedly turned his attention back to the guide.

“Seven years ago, Pluura partnered with Kyoto College and the city government to launch a joint project.”

Two bold words appeared on the screen. “That project is Chronicle Kyoto.”

The monitor immediately switched over to a map of the city. It was the typical Pluura Maps overhead view, just as it appeared on a smartphone screen.

“I expect you’re all familiar with Pluura’s primary areas of business. The company provides email, maps, and many other convenient web services. We’ve come to rely heavily on them in many facets of our lives.”

The map on the screen suddenly tilted to one side, and the buildings and geographical features took on real depth. It was a 3D map of the city—another of Pluura Maps’ familiar functions.

“One of their main services, Pluura Maps, is widely considered the world’s most advanced geographic information system. It’s a continually updated record of the entire surface of our planet. From the world’s cities to its wildest corners, Pluura gathers images and measurements at ground level, from satellites, and even from low-altitude drones. They provide high-resolution maps, updated on a daily basis, to everyone who uses their service.”

The 3D map on the screen zoomed in rapidly until they were inside a commercial building. As long as the owner gave their permission, Pluura Maps could show you interior images as well.

“Pluura isn’t resting on their laurels, however. They’re actively developing new, exciting improvements to their mapping service. And one of those projects…” The camera zoomed in even closer, taking them from the inside of the building, to the inside of one specific store, then inside a specific showcase in that store, until a single pastry filled the entire screen. “...was the pursuit of ultra HD imaging within a specific urban area.”

The guide had emphasized that last sentence a bit. Maybe it was a line they really wanted you to remember.

“It just so happens that Kyoto, this very city, was chosen as the pilot participant for this initiative. It’s a city with a long, rich history, and it’s home to more intact works of culturally significant architecture than any other place on Earth. This made it an ideal candidate for thorough, top-to-bottom mapping. In addition, its location in a valley offered an easy boundary for the project area. And so, seven years ago, the Kyoto municipal government reached an agreement with Pluura—and its partner, Kyoto College—to launch this project.”

The pastry began to shrink as the camera zoomed back out. In seconds, they were outside of the building entirely, and soon the screen was once again displaying the entire city. But this time, the 3D map of Kyoto began to change.

A house suddenly crumbled and disappeared, replaced by a vacant lot. An instant later, the site was filled with construction equipment; just as quickly, an apartment building was standing there.

It took a few moments for Naomi to understand what he was seeing. It was a time-lapse depiction of a changing Kyoto.

New houses sprung up here and there. Shops appeared. Roads moved around.

“The goal was to map Kyoto far more accurately, and in far more detail, than ever before. And also, crucially, to preserve a historical record of all this information—a record of all the city’s changes through the years.”

The city finally stopped shifting around, and today’s date appeared on the screen. Apparently it was now displaying the Kyoto of the present.

The tour guide held out her hand to indicate the map. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Chronicle Kyoto is all about.”

“Or so the official story goes,” the hooded man said.

So, the others couldn’t hear him, either.

Ushered onward by the guide, the tour group proceeded further into the facility. There were signs and explanation panels all over the place. It was clear this facility had been designed with visitors in mind.

As they continued down the hallway, they came to a large glass-walled room on their left. There was a sign that just read LABORATORY above the door; the people working inside were wearing uniforms of some kind. Naomi watched them as he walked along, wondering idly what they were researching in there.

At that point, a door inside the room slid open and a weird old guy emerged.

Naomi frowned dubiously; the words weird old guy really did feel like the only appropriate description. The man was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers—a pretty casual outfit for a middle-aged guy, even if you ignored the cartoony Eizan Electric mascot on the T-shirt. And then there were the two plastic tulips that appeared to be sprouting from his head like the horns of some Star Trek alien.

Weird pretty much summed it up.

The odd man started using a small toy drone, and soon had it divebombing the people who were hard at work inside the laboratory. A beautiful woman appeared to be shouting at him, but he didn’t seem inclined to stop. The glass walls muffled their voices completely; it was kind of like watching a slapstick silent movie.

Suddenly, the weird guy turned toward Naomi, and their eyes met. The man stuck out his tongue, threw up peace signs with both his hands, and began to dance. Finally reaching the limit of his endurance, Naomi looked away and hurried off. He didn’t want someone like that remembering his face.

When he glanced over, though, he noticed that the hooded man was smiling. Was that his idea of comedy? It was just one more thing they weren’t on the same page about.

A few minutes later, Naomi was staring through a glass wall at an enormous sphere.

The thing had to be four or five meters tall, and only the top half of it was visible—its total diameter was probably closer to ten meters.

The group had reached the final room of their tour, according to the map on their pamphlet. Inside it, they’d found this huge white ball enshrined behind a cylinder of glass, its lower half buried in the floor.

The word AllTale was engraved in English on the sphere’s surface. That didn’t mean much to Naomi, though.

“As I’m sure you might imagine, continually recording the state of an entire city requires an impossibly massive amount of storage space,” the guide said, her voice echoing against the walls. “However, Pluura’s advances in quantum computing, in combination with some cutting-edge research from Kyoto College, made this possible. What you’re looking at is the fruit of multiple technological breakthroughs: it’s a storage device that never runs out of space.”

The guide paused for a moment to gesture dramatically at the object behind the glass.

“We call it AllTale—the world’s first quantum storage device.”

Hmm, wait. That actually sounds kind of familiar…

Naomi couldn’t put his finger on it, but he thought he might have heard or seen the word AllTale before. Maybe it was in some science article he’d skimmed a while ago?

But even aside from that vague memory…there was something about this spherical device itself that felt very familiar. He almost felt like he’d seen it before.

Wait… Yeah, that’s right!

It came to him after a moment—he’d seen this thing in one of the images that flashed before his eyes back at Fushimi Inari shrine. Or something like it, at least.

What were those images, anyway? I don’t get it…

“Let’s go.”

Naomi turned toward the sound of the voice. The hooded man had already stepped away from the tour group and was striding along casually in the direction from which they’d come.

“Hey! Wa—”

The tour guide had already launched right into a new explanation of something or other. Flustered, Naomi looked from her to the hooded man and back again.

“Um, sorry! I, uh, I have to leave now!”

Bowing his head a few times to tour group, he set off after the hooded man at a trot. He knew a couple people were shooting him weird looks, and it made him blush.

As he hurried along, he muttered a few choice words to his invisible tormentor—in the safety of his own mind.

 

10.

 

THE FOREST WITHIN the Imperial Palace grounds sped by outside the window.

As instructed by the hooded man, Naomi had caught a city bus heading down Imadegawa Street. It was afternoon now, so things were relatively crowded. He held onto a strap with one hand and gripped his cell phone in the other.

At the moment, he was looking at the Pluura Maps app. A blue line showed the path to the destination the man had specified, marked with a pin and the word Demachiyanagi.

Naomi tapped the screen. The camera zoomed in, changing from a map to street-level photographs of the area. It was a fully rotatable 360-degree image, complete with pedestrians frozen in mid-stride.

“So Chronicle Kyoto is just a much more detailed version of this, right?” he asked.

The hooded man stood calmly at his side. He wasn’t bothering to hold on to anything, even for show.

“In a sense, yes. But there’s really no comparison,” he replied. “As a quantum storage device, AllTale has infinite capacity. We’re not talking about twice as much storage space, or even ten times as much. It can record billions or trillions of times more information than any conventional computer system.”

“Those numbers are so large, it’s kind of hard to actually grasp…”

“Ahem.”

Naomi looked over his shoulder. A middle-aged man in a suit was staring at him with an annoyed expression on his face. Naomi realized he’d been talking to “himself” fairly loudly.

The man in the hood snorted in amusement. Somehow, Naomi managed to hate him just a little bit more.

After a while, the bus pulled into the stop outside Demachiyanagi Station. As soon as they disembarked, the hooded man walked off quickly.

“Get a move on. We’re cutting it close.”

Totally bewildered, Naomi hurried after him. It was hard to keep up with his long-legged strides; Naomi had to jog along, in fact. It felt like the man was rubbing his height in his face or something.

Out of spite, Naomi picked up the pace until he was walking alongside the hooded man.

“You were looking at Map View mode earlier, right?” the man said.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.”

“There were pedestrians in the images, weren’t there?”

“Sure.”

“Here’s a question for you,” the man said, his tone dropping lower than usual. “Do you think the people in those photos know they’re inside a photo?”

Naomi furrowed his brow at that. The question didn’t make much sense. Even after turning it over in his mind, it still seemed nonsensical.

As he hesitated over his reply, the two of them arrived at their destination. The hooded man hopped down off the sidewalk, then ran down the embankment leading to the river.

They’d come to the Kamo Delta, a triangular piece of land where the Kamo River meets the Takano. There were stepping stones leading from the top of the triangle to either side, so you could get from one side to the other on foot. It was a famous local spot that got featured in a lot of movies and TV shows.

Naomi and the hooded man were on the east side of the delta, on a paved section of the Takano riverbank. It was still early afternoon, and there were tourists nearby, lounging in the grass or hopping their way across the river.

In the sky above them, one of the mapping drones Naomi had just heard so much about was circling quietly. The faint humming of its propellers only accentuated the peacefulness of the moment.

That was the only thing of interest he could see.

Naomi blinked in confusion. “Uh, there’s nothing here…” They’d rushed over in a big hurry, but from what he could tell, there wasn’t anything special going on.

“Wrong. There’s something here, all right,” the hooded man said, turning back to face Naomi. The two of them stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Finally, the hooded man smirked.

“Specifically, a prerecorded event.”

Naomi frowned. What’s that supposed to mean?

In that same moment—he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye. Turning toward it reflexively, he realized it was a small shadow darting across the ground. He looked up to find the source.

Something up there was falling toward him.

“Gah!”

He had no chance to react in time. A blow to the head staggered him; the next thing he knew, he was down on the ground on all fours, staring at the concrete in a daze.

Two drops of blood dripped to the ground before his eyes.

After a long moment, his brain finally started functioning again. Something had just fallen from the sky and hit him. He’d seen a glimpse of a propeller.

Was that the drone?

“Let me take you back to the year 2020.” The hooded man said. “That was when the real Chronicle Kyoto project began, operating under the utmost secrecy.”

The hooded man walked up and paused in front of the fallen drone. The thing’s propeller was damaged; a small light flashed on its body to indicate potential danger. The man stared down at it for a moment.

“The plan was to use a huge network of surveillance and measurement machines to precisely monitor the entire city, recording all detectable phenomena in AllTale.”

“What?” Naomi asked, dazed. Pressing a hand to his forehead, he looked up. He could feel a trickle of liquid against his palm.

“All…what?”

“Jumping forward to April 17th, 2027,” the man continued, ignoring Naomi entirely as he listed today’s date, “Katagaki Naomi, attempting to read a book on the riverbank, was hit by a malfunctioning drone that fell from the sky. This left him with a nasty cut on his forehead.”

He paused for a moment to point at the drone.

“That’s the past, as recorded in AllTale.”

“The past?” Naomi parroted back numbly. It took a moment for the meaning of the word to work its way into his mind.

“Yes.” The hooded man didn’t seem inclined to give Naomi’s brain a chance to catch up. With a sweeping gesture of his arm, he indicated the city as a whole. “This is a record of Kyoto, as it existed in the past.” Next, he pointed down at Naomi where he crouched on the ground. “And you are a record of Katagaki Naomi as he existed in the past.”

“Uh, I…”

Slowly, Naomi began to make sense of this. The strange question the man had asked a few minutes earlier seemed much more relevant now.

Do you think the people in those photos know they’re inside a photo?

Those people in the Map View weren’t real. They were just images. Data.

Records of the past.

“I’m…a record?”

The man nodded firmly. “That’s correct. And as for me…” He reached up to the hood he always wore. Slowly, he began to pull it back.

Little by little, his face came into view. His cheeks looked a little thin, and there were bags under his eyes.

“I’m a man who’s accessing the AllTale system from the real world, in the year 2037.” Finally, he yanked the hood back completely. The man looked like he was in his twenties. He had a small scar on his forehead.

It was in the same spot that Naomi was currently holding his hand to.

Wait. Is he… Oh God. He has to be…

“I’m you, Katagaki Naomi. From ten years in the future.”

“You’re…what?” Naomi repeated numbly. “The future…?”

He fully understood, at last, what was going on.

Strangely, this made perfect sense to him. It filled in all the blanks and lined up perfectly with the events of these last two days. It all fit together.

There was just one problem.

Was something so absurd really possible?

In a science fiction novel, sure. In a movie, absolutely. It was the sort of story you saw all the time in comics and video games. But it wasn’t something that happened in real life.

But then again…this man was telling him that this world wasn’t real. He was claiming Naomi lived in a simulation of the past, and that he’d somehow broken into it from the future.

“Don’t be scared.”

Startled, Naomi looked up again. The man was staring down at him with a little smile on his face. His voice sounded almost gentle, in a way it never had before.

“Rest assured, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I know all about you. You’re me, after all.” The man’s voice was soothing and kind. Striding up to Naomi, he bent down on one knee to bring their faces closer together.

I have to say something, Naomi thought. But his bewilderment wasn’t going away. Finding the right words felt impossible.

“Don’t say anything,” the man said gently. “I understand.”

In that moment, Naomi felt reassured in a strange way he’d never experienced before. It felt a bit like…he was with an old friend who knew him intimately. Or a family member who he completely trusted.

This man was Naomi. He knew everything about him.

In that case, he had to know what Naomi was going through right now.

He knew about his frustration, his anguish, and his failed attempts to change.

“That’s right. That’s the reason I came here,” Naomi’s other self murmured quietly. “I know what you’re thinking…”

Naomi’s heart thudded loudly in his chest. He stared up at the older man with the expression of a trusting little brother.

The man continued, his eyes full of compassion.

“You want a girlfriend.”

“Uh, not really…”

The Takano River gurgled softly along, oblivious to the awkward silence between them.