Chapter 007
IT SOMEHOW FELT moist outside.
She must have been imagining it.
Yesterday’s rain had dried up. It’d been sunny all day today.
Though Hazuki hadn’t once confirmed the weather outside herself.
The wind struck her cheek. Her hair was pregnant with the gust and billowed up. Hazuki held her chest. Her palpitations sped up. She’d just run for the first time in a while.
This road never ended.
It kept going and she couldn’t see ahead.
It made her uneasy. The city was a large box. It didn’t suit Hazuki’s scale. It was like looking at a low-resolution image on a large-screen monitor. It felt hollow and the edges were blurred. How was it that with such low density, reality could draw up the images so clearly?
She could see a black shadow straight down the road.
“What are you doing?” asked the shadow.
“If you’re coming along let’s go together.”
“Together?”
She hadn’t planned on going together.
Why had she flown out like that? She wasn’t sure herself. Maybe she’d wanted a last word with Mio for jimmying her way into her house and then leaving as abruptly.
No…
That couldn’t be.
“You’re so weird,” the shadow said. “If you didn’t want to come along then what are you doing?”
“What am I doing?”
“I mean, are you just going to follow me?”
“Yeah.”
Just then a street lamp went on.
It illuminated Mio’s face.
“It’s late.”
“Yeah, and dangerous,” added Mio.
“If you’re not coming you should just go back now. Even if there isn’t a murderer out there, you’ll be stopped by the police walking around wearing that.”
Hazuki wasn’t in regular clothes.
Still, Mio had no right to talk.
“What about your clothes?”
Hazuki ran up to Mio. “I’d run away,” Mio said. “I’d just up and run. I don’t know what ‘up and run’ means, but I’d do it.”
“I would too.”
“Impossible. You ran thirty meters and are already out of breath.”
“Out of breath?”
“You’re panting, right?” Mio said, a little snide. “When you pant, they call that being ‘out of breath.’ Your shoulders go up and down. You can’t run at all, Makino. You’re weird.”
Was she?
In indoor athletics at least, Hazuki was of above-average physical strength. Even in her medical exam, she ranked an A-minus.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Mio said. “You’re funny. Let’s go to Kono’s place.”
“Funny?”
Hazuki didn’t know what was so funny.
She didn’t understand why Mio insisted she come with her. Should they have been going to Ayumi’s house in the first place?
“Can we walk there?”
She had a feeling it was far away for some reason.
“Of course we can. I’m pretty sure she’s really close.” Mio got up on a stone ledge by the sidewalk and looked up the address on her monitor.
“She’s in Section A, right?”
“I think so. She’s not in my neighborhood, that’s for sure…Oh, here we go.”
Mio went into a side alley. “This is an unusually old neighborhood. It could get dicey up ahead.”
Up ahead. There was so much depth to the city. It was gross. Different from the maps.
Or so Hazuki thought.
Mio went into the alley. If Hazuki fell behind she’d lose sight of her.
She brought out her monitor and opened the navigator. Confirmed her location. Until Hazuki determined her placement in the world with an axis of coordinates she wouldn’t feel grounded.
Should they be uncomfortable walking forward into an unknown? She’d have a bird’s-eye view of the city with a map. She’d know what lay ahead five meters to the east, know who occupied the building behind the wall. But right now she couldn’t see anything. In which case…
“Hurry up already. We’re not in official residential quarters anymore, so it’s easier to get lost.”
“There’s a nonofficial living quarter in Section A?”
“Idiot. Sixty percent of Section A is nondesignated. Cities were originally built ad hoc. Short of demolishing everything and building anew, no area can be perfectly designed.”
I didn’t realize it wasn’t all built at once. Of course it wasn’t. I just hadn’t really thought about it, Hazuki said to herself.
This world had been the same since Hazuki was born. At the very least, the world she’d seen and heard hadn’t changed. The world of the past she’d learned about was certainly cut from a different cloth, but it was wholly removed from the present. The remnants of that past were certainly still felt in parts of Section C, for example, but for Hazuki at least that was all another world.
The earth kept going.
They couldn’t have been walking more than twenty minutes, but the sky was already completely different.
Perhaps because of the time.
She never went outside at this hour. Of course everything looked different when the light changed.
Even so, this view of her block was beyond her wildest imagination.
“The city implies the time.”
“It’s not something you can just reset,” Mio said. She grabbed a pole on the sidewalk as if to hop off it. “Look at this. It’s not a cable pole. It’s just a plain column. A useless pole. Made of concrete, no less.
They don’t even have these in the red-light district. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to leave just one. It truly is just ornamental. It has no use!”
Mio cackled. “It’s a Section A under heaven. Of course the cables are laid underground.”
“What do you mean ‘under heaven’?”
“What do I— Don’t be stupid. That’s what this is called. This neighborhood. Haven’t you ever been here?”
“I’ve never had to.”
It was difficult to walk here.
Hazuki concentrated on the tips of her feet. The road was hard. She didn’t want to look up. The sky was in the midst of turning to night, and she didn’t want to see the exaggeration in scale. She heard Mio’s voice. The area patrol is making its rounds…the voice seemed to say.
“They’re making rounds. Let’s not run into them. Oh, over here.”
Mio slipped into a side street as if to hide herself. As she turned on her heel a red signal bled in the distance.
“What are you doing?”
Caught zoning out, Hazuki was pulled into the alley by her sleeve.
It was a hilly road.
It was a public road that had only been half completed.
“This used to be a burial ground.”
“Burial ground?”
“Where you bury dead bodies.”
“Really?” Hazuki asked. “Probably,” answered Mio.
There were very few street lamps. The houses lining the street looked like black clumps.
The shadows stretched toward their distant destination.
“Isn’t there a forest up ahead?”
“We’re not by a nature preservation area, so it’s probably just a natural outgrowth. Our area’s ecological standard is met with the green area cocooning the community center, so if we see forest, it’s just land that’s been left alone. It’s really started to become decrepit, hasn’t it? People used to love growing trees and stuff, so it wouldn’t be so weird to do it again.”
“Still.”
It looked like a forest.
“Hey, there it is, Makino.”
Mio pointed at the very forest.
There stood a new-looking house against the backdrop of the black forest. Mio ran up to the gate. The white cheeks on her small face lit up green, reflecting the monitor’s display.
“This is it,” Mio said. “Kiyomi and Ayumi Kono. I didn’t realize Ayumi lived here with her sister. I heard her sister’s out of the country right now.”
When did she hear that? Hazuki remembered hearing something about it too.
Hazuki advanced up to where Mio was.
The gate display said no one was in the house.
“They’re out.”
But Mio made no sign of moving. Kept staring at the building.
“You plan on going in anyway?”
She was going to use her new modified card.
“It’s a crime to go into a house when no one’s in.”
“It’s a crime even if someone is in. But I don’t think I’ll need this.” Still expressionless, Mio jutted her jaw forward, apparently distracted by something she saw on top of the building. Hazuki also lifted her gaze.
It was a standard three-story building.
But…
“What’s that?”
There was definitely some kind of square object on the roof. It had been obscured by the blackness of the forest at first. The dimensions were illuminated from within, meaning there was light inside.
“It’s moving.”
“Moving?”
Mio fumbled through her clothing and eventually came out with a clunky-looking object Hazuki had never seen before.
“What is that?”
“You can see things more clearly with this,” Mio said as she brought the binoculars to her face. “So that’s what that is,” Mio whispered, and walked past the gate forward to the building.
“What is it?”
“Well…”
“Well what? Besides, you still can’t just barge onto property like this. The cops will show up.”
“This isn’t like your house, Hazuki. There aren’t surveillance cameras everywhere. Until I’m inside the building I’m not actually on anyone’s property. It’s no different from being on a public road. If they can do it, we can do it.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Listen…” Mio said, exasperated, and went along the side of the house between the fence and the building to get to the back.
“Kono is here.”
“It said she wasn’t.”
“She is. Watch.”
The knocking sound of beating metal.
It was hard to walk. Nonstandard width. The ground was made of a material not conducive to walking. Hazuki finally made it through the gap to the back of the house, where Mio struck a pillar with the palm of her hand and looked up.
“Look. It’s a spiral staircase. They must have attached it after the place was built.”
“Why? Why would they put something like this on the back of their house…?”
It was hard to see in the dark, but this was the sort of metal staircase one hardly ever saw anymore.
“Obviously it’s to get to the top,” Mio said, and turned around.
“Top?”
“You really are stupid. To get to the room on top of the roof.”
“That was a room?”
That was…
They added a room to the roof? But by the time Hazuki had realized this Mio was long gone, up the stairs and twirling upward toward the sky.
Hazuki started up the hard metal stairs.
The more energy she put in her legs the higher she got. Repeat. Her view kept rotating. It wasn’t her spinning, but the world. Hazuki eventually found herself at an incredible height.
Mio’s back. And beyond it…
A white nape she was too familiar with.
And very short hair.
Ayumi was leaning against something and looking at the night sky.
“Illegal entry,” Ayumi said without moving.
“Illegal building structure,” Mio answered back.
“You’re clever. We are outside.”
“What’s it for?”
Ayumi turned at the neck only. From behind Mio, Hazuki could see Ayumi’s pale face.
“Makino.” Ayumi confirmed Hazuki’s presence with the short utterance.
Though she couldn’t tell from Ayumi’s voice, Hazuki thought they must have surprised her.
Ayumi let her eyes wander and stepped outside.
It was pretty wide.
A third of it was the square room with a small window. Light shone from inside it.
“What…is this?”
“A dove house.”
“Doves,” Mio repeated, and thrust her head through the door left open.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know their schedule.”
“Hmph.”
Mio withdrew her head and said sarcastically,
“I didn’t realize doves slept in beds.”
“That’s mine.” Ayumi stood up. Mio closed the door.
“You here all the time, Kono?”
“Yeah.”
“It must get quiet. You turn on the vacant sign and turn off your main monitor. But what do you do about homework? You couldn’t possibly do it out here.”
“I go downstairs for that. About once a week.”
“You go home once a week, eh? That’s pretty savage.”
“You can’t eat up here either.”
“Hmph. So you cook too?”
“What do you want?”
“Wait a minute.” Mio walked up to Ayumi and stopped at the handrail.
Hazuki and Ayumi were forced to face each other.
A round red orb glimmered behind Ayumi’s shoulder.
The moon.
The moon truly hung in space.
Ayumi stood with her back against the moon.
Hazuki lowered her eyes and said just inside her mouth, “Sorry.”
She probably didn’t hear that. No, she definitely didn’t hear that. Ayumi didn’t respond.
But…
She hated this. No doubt about it she hated this. Ayumi hated facing people like this, being seen. Talking like this was a total nuisance.
Hazuki regretted ever coming here. Palpitations vibrated in her throat.
“What can you see from here?” Mio asked in a loud voice. She grabbed the handrail and leaned over it, looking out in the direction Ayumi had been facing. She listlessly stretched her neck.
“The sky.”
“The sky?” Mio spun around and leaned her hip against the rail. “I don’t see anything.”
“That’s because there’s nothing there.”
“Then you’re not looking at anything.”
“I’m looking at nothing, then.”
“Philosophical, aren’t we?”
Hmph, Mio let out idiotically and brought out her binoculars, then turned back around.
“That’s…the elevated freight road. What they used to call the highway.”
“It’s the North-South Line,” Ayumi said nonchalantly.
“It’s bright,” Mio said, and she lowered her binoculars. “It’s the lamps on the side of the road. These make everything look a lot brighter.”
“You can’t see without those things?”
“Human eyes aren’t that good. If you can see it, that means you’re the unusual one, Kono.”
Mio shrugged, bored, and approached Ayumi, holding the piercing between her fingertips and bringing it up near Ayumi’s cheek.
She wasn’t sure what it was reflecting—Hazuki thought maybe the moonlight—but for a moment, the pink stone glittered.
“This.”
Ayumi moved only the pupils of her large eyes over to where the object reflected light.
“What about this?” she said.
“This was left at my house.”
“And?”
“Isn’t it yours?”
Mio leaned in toward Ayumi.
“It isn’t?”
Ayumi suddenly dropped her shoulders as if they’d lost all strength and crossed her arms. She compared facial expressions on Hazuki and Mio.
“You came all the way here for that?”
“Was that wrong?”
“It’s weird.”
“It’s fun,” Mio said as she walked around Ayumi.
“Fun?”
“Yeah. Isn’t it, Makino?”
Fun…
What does fun feel like? Hazuki wondered.
But before she could answer her question, Ayumi plucked the piercing from Mio.
“This thing.” Ayumi stared into it.
“I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that,” Mio said.
“Then we’ll just have to put it on you after you’ve died,” Ayumi said.
Mio narrowed her eyes.
“I’ll let you because you’re special. But if it’s not yours or Makino’s, whose is it?”
“This is Yabe’s.”
“Yabe?”
Yuko Yabe…soaked by the rain, pale skin. Pink pupils.
It matches her pink contacts, Hazuki thought.
“You mean that Yabe?”
“You know any other Yuko Yabes?”
“No…but why would Yabe’s piercing be in my house? I don’t even know what she looks like. I’ve never connected with her online and her house is nowhere near mine.”
Her house was far from hers?
Nowhere near?
If Mio said so…
But that day…Yuko Yabe had been in Section C, where Mio lived. Moreover, that girl with the drenched pink hair was the one who told Ayumi and Hazuki exactly which building Mio lived in. What was that all about? Was that some kind of mistake?
Could have been a mistake, Hazuki thought.
Just because they’d seen and heard her didn’t make it a reality.
“It’s my fault,” Ayumi said unexpectedly.
“Your fault?”
“I had a physical exchange with Yuko Yabe a couple nights ago.”
“Real contact? You met?”
“Liar,” Hazuki blurted out.
“Liar?” Ayumi made a puzzled look.
Ayumi didn’t meet with people.
Ayumi hated being looked at directly.
Ayumi would never directly exchange words with someone.
Ayumi had never even made eye contact with Hazuki.
But.
Yesterday.
Yuko Yabe and Ayumi…
They did something together. Some kind of shared information Hazuki wasn’t in on. That was what this was.
If that were the case.
Maybe…
Hazuki looked back, and Ayumi, still facing the other direction, said,
“We had an encounter.”
“An encounter.”
“Yeah. I’m sure her piercing must have fallen in my bag or something. And I took that bag to our communication session, then on the way home I found myself breaking into your house. It must have fallen then. That’s the most logical explanation. I was bumping into a lot of that crazy wiring in your room.”
Ayumi adjusted her seat away—a wooden chair—and sat back down on the edge of it.
Mio rounded in front of her again and leaned in.
“When you say you met, you mean you deliberately interacted with her?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would her piercing get stuck on your bag from merely meeting? You saying her ear brushed against your bag when you met? Is she like some kind of pet?”
“Yes, already. God you’re annoying.” Ayumi moved away again. “Yabe was clinging to me.”
“Clinging?”
“Yeah, she clung on to me, and like you said, she rubbed her head against my bag. That’s probably when the piercing fell off.”
Ayumi looked up slightly.
“Actually, her piercing might have been taken off by then already.”
“Huh?”
Ayumi looked down at herself and turned her face to the right.
“Either way, it’s because she’d used my body as her medium that it got to your room.”
“Where?”
“Where did you two meet?” Mio asked. Ayumi simply pointed forward. She was pointing at nothing in the dark.
It was the direction in which Mio had been staring before.
“Huh? At night? What was going on?”
“None of your business. Just walked.”
“I don’t mean you. I don’t care what weird shit you were up to. I mean Yabe.”
“I don’t know,” Ayumi said indifferently. “She was being chased by someone. She was running away.”
“She was being chased?”
Mio’s eyes widened. She looked over to Hazuki.
“This isn’t some kind of movie. People don’t get chased,” Mio said.
Hazuki couldn’t answer.
She didn’t understand what was going on.
“Yabe was attacked?” Mio asked. “By whom?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“And…you tried to save her?”
“No, I didn’t. I just ran into her. The girl in the Chinese clothes saved her.”
“The girl in the Chinese clothes…You don’t mean the girl with the cats!”
Mio stood up.
Ayumi didn’t.
Hazuki…looked up at the heavenly orb above her.