LOST AND FOUND

The north end of the dome was crammed with people hurrying home.

Kun stood in front of the Lost and Found sign. He couldn’t read it, but he was able to guess its meaning from the pictures. People joined the queue behind him one after the next. The more people riding the trains, the more things getting lost, he supposed.

Kun was terribly nervous. Never in his life had he lined up at a window like this. Was he in the right line? When his turn came, would he be able to explain what was wrong? He fretted about all these things as he waited, but something else was bothering him even more.

“…It’s all kids.”

Behind him and in front, the line was made up entirely of children for some reason. He guessed the oldest were in their midteens. They were playing games or using the Internet on their phones. He wondered what it all meant. Was this line for children only? The sign didn’t seem to say anything about that. If not, did only children lose things?

Above, he saw a stone balcony illuminated with the yellowish light of incandescent bulbs and beautifully decorated with art nouveau motifs. Through the intricately designed dome of steel and glass, he could see the clear, deep-blue sky. The sun had already set.

As he craned his neck, a voice called, “Next!”

“Oh…”

He stepped up to the station attendant, who was clacking away on a keyboard on the desk.

“Have you lost something? What did you lose?”

“Uh, um, I didn’t lose anything.”

The attendant’s hand stopped moving.

“This is the Lost and Found desk. If you have a different problem…”

Kun lifted his head and said exactly what he was thinking.

“I’m lost.”

The attendant raised his pale face and peered at Kun without blinking. He was wearing a perfectly pressed uniform with a perfectly dust-free cap. His back was stick straight, and his position on his chair was completely symmetrical. He lifted his left arm like a mechanical crane, pinched the temple of his glasses, and adjusted them. His pupils were strangely shaped, as if someone had cut them out with scissors and pasted them onto his eyes.

“Lost, are you? So in other words, the lost item is you?”

Kun blinked several times. How should he answer? He decided the man’s words were fairly accurate.

“Uh-huh.”

“I see. In that case, I will ask you several questions required for the announcement. First, what is your name?”

“Kun,” he answered right away.

A little man about the size of a pocket watch emerged from the attendant’s shoulder.

“Ping!”

The little man waved a green flag. From the double row of buttons on his uniform and the double gold braid on his hat, Kun decided he must be the stationmaster. When Kun peered closely, he saw that his face was actually that of a pocket watch.

The attendant typed something on his keyboard.

“Noted. Next, what is your mother’s name?”

“Mom’s name?” Huh? he thought. Wait. He couldn’t remember. Eyes wide, he pressed his hands to the sides of his head.

“Um… What was it…?”

“Please tell me your mother’s name,” the attendant repeated. Why couldn’t Kun remember? He was sure he knew it. He searched every corner of his mind, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t remember. He bounced anxiously.

“Huh? What’s going on? Um, I—”

“Bzzz!”

A buzzer sounded, and the stationmaster whipped out a red flag.

“I was unable to make note of it. Next, what is your father’s name?”

“Dad’s name?”

Of course Kun should have known the answer. But strangely, he couldn’t remember. He pressed his cheeks and stomped in frustration. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn’t say it.

The pocket-watch stationmaster climbed down onto the desk.

“Um, uh—”

“Bzzz!”

The tiny man waved his red flag imperiously.

“I was unable to make note of it. Please tell me the names of your other family members.”

“Yukko.”

“Bzzz!”

Up popped the red flag.

“Please be aware that we are not able to issue announcements to animals. Please tell me the name of another family member.”

“Umm…”

“Please tell me the name of another family member.”

“Uh, umm…”

The pocket-watch stationmaster marched back and forth from one end of the desk to the other, waiting for an answer. Very soon, though, he was tapping his foot impatiently.

Kun tried to say a name, any name, but all that came out was hemming and hawing.

“Um, uh, um…”

His mind was blank.

The flag swished emphatically.

“Bzzz!”

The eyes behind the clockface were icy and sharp.

The attendant spoke quietly. “I was unable to make note of anything. May I cancel the announcement?”

“What’ll happen if you do?”

The attendant’s pasted pupils didn’t move from Kun. They were so still that Kun began wondering if they really had been taken from something else and glued on his face.

“This is a very large station. Every day, many lost children like you come to see us. If no one comes for them, they must board a special Shinkansen located inside a hole,” he said.

Kun gulped.

“…Where to?”

“The destination for children with nowhere to go…,” the attendant said, slowly raising his left hand and adjusting his glasses, “…is the Land of Loneliness.”

At that moment—

“The Shinkansen train will be arriving momentarily.”

—an announcement echoed across the north dome.

Kun flinched and whirled around.

“…?!”

Directly behind him was a large sign reading SHINKANSEN PLATFORM in several languages. The words DESTINATION UNKNOWN flashed across the electric signboard, and the boarding gates opened all at once with a bang. Beyond each was an escalator leading underground, and the bottom was too far down to see.

Not a soul was there, not on the left or the right, and above, the top of the escalator had already vanished. It simply ebbed ever downward. Time and space felt paralyzed. Finally, after reaching an unfathomable depth, the escalator arrived at the lowest level.

This world swam in darkness. Gas lamps glowed faintly, as if the place were trapped somewhere in the past. The immense space was packed with tracks and elevated rails and platforms—ten or twenty or maybe more. Still no sign of other people. The 0-, 151-, and 101-model trains sitting on the tracks looked like rusting ghosts. Perhaps it was a graveyard for ancient trains that had been retired from service.

But someone stood under the lights of the central platform. This place wasn’t completely abandoned after all. Maybe the figure was a repairman or a conductor or an attendant or someone else, but when the figure was close enough to make out—

—it was Kun himself in a trance.

“…Huh? What am I doing here?” Kun finally realized what was happening, and his eyes opened so wide, they nearly popped out of his head as they darted to the left and right. A moment ago, he had been in the north dome. Why was he here now? When had he arrived and how?

Then…

Whizzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

“Oh!” he said, turning toward the familiar sound. Uncanny vibrations shivered through the air, coming closer and closer. A slowly growing light glittered in the darkness, and Kun’s heart pounded. From where he was standing, the silhouette of the train reminded him of an E5, yet it was clearly different.

The air trembled, and the headlights shone brilliantly as the pitch-black Shinkansen bore down on him. The lights of the eerily shaped front car were two luminous eyes slashing upward like knives, and its slit of a mouth revealed row upon row of teeth. The body of the train was not painted black but densely covered with something that was neither scales nor fur but part of a living creature. The round windows dotting each car glowed red. Slowly, the black Shinkansen decelerated and stopped directly before Kun. The doors unlocked with a pneumatic whoosh, and as they slowly opened, the smoke hanging over the platform was sucked inside.

The red light beyond the doors began pulsing as a robotic voice repeated the same announcement over and over again.

“You may now board the train… You may now board the train…”

Who would want to get on this creepy bullet train? Kun, for one, did not want to go to the Land of Loneliness.

He loudly voiced his position: “I don’t want to!”

But contrary to his wishes, an invisible magnetic force dragged his legs toward the door.

“Ahh!”

Kun instinctively leaned backward as the blinking light washed over him. He felt as if someone had grabbed his ankles and was pulling him into the train. The instant before the doors swallowed him up, he thrust out both arms and grabbed on to the edges of the doorframe, managing to plant his feet on the ground just in the nick of time.

“Noooo!” But the invisible force overwhelmed him, and he was sucked into the train. He tumbled forward and landed hard on his face. As he huddled in the vestibule, moaning and clutching his head, the inner door to the seating area slid open. He lifted his head and saw rows of three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other. They had all been facing away from him, but now they swung around toward him. A skull was plastered to each.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!!”

Kun screamed and sprinted out of the seating area, but once again, the invisible force pulled him back in.

“Nooooooo!”

He ran out again so quickly his legs practically spun. For a third time, he was reeled back in. Somehow, he managed to squirm out.

“Noooooooooo!”

Just then, the red light stopped pulsing, and the sucking vanished as if it had never been.

“Oh!”

Kun’s momentum sent him rolling out of the car. He leaped up, his face sweaty.

“No! No! No!” he shouted, stamping his foot with each word.

“In that case…” The station attendant’s voice echoed from the ceiling above the platform. “You yourself must provide proof of who you are.”

“I’m… I’m…my mommy’s son,” Kun answered haltingly.

“Who?” the rusting 0-model Shinkansen asked quietly from a distant platform.

Kun placed both hands over his heart.

“I’m…my daddy’s son,” he mumbled, as if talking to himself.

“Hmm? Who?” a rusting orange 101-model train softly inquired.

“I’m…the one who gives Yukko his treats.”

“Who is your mother?” asked a rusting 151-model express train.

“Mommy…doesn’t like cleaning up,” Kun mumbled, imagining her.

“Who is your father?” asked a rusting EF58-model electric locomotive.

“Daddy…is bad at holding Mirai,” he muttered, imagining him.

“I hate Mirai,” the demonic black Shinkansen droned.

Kun looked up in surprise.

“Mirai is… Mirai is…”

Mirai was…the baby he didn’t like. The baby with the strange name. The baby who wouldn’t smile. The baby who liked bananas. And…and…and…

His voice was so hushed and unsure it was almost inaudible.

“She’s my…my…my…”

Just then, he heard something far away.

“Gooo…”

“…Huh?”

It was a baby. Kun looked over his shoulder in astonishment. Could it have been…?

Far beyond the black Shinkansen, toward Platform 1, he caught sight of Mirai’s back.

“Ahh!! Mirai, why are you here?!”

Before he knew it, he was running.

“Gaaaah…” Mirai crawled around as if looking for something, as she had this morning. What in the world was she searching for? When she looked up, the door to the black Shinkansen was right in front of her.

“Don’t go in there!” Kun dashed down the platform to try to stop her, but he stumbled and tumbled to the ground.

“Ahh!”

Mirai hadn’t noticed him. She studied the door, then started crawling toward the red light. She seemed completely oblivious to the danger.

“Ahhhh!”

Covered in scrapes, Kun leaped up and took off again as hard as he could. His hat flew off his head. With its elastic chin strap wrapped around his neck, he shouted to her:

“Mirai!!”

Even though he was screaming, she didn’t hear him. She kept crawling into the red light. She must have triggered the sensor, because a loudspeaker suddenly announced:

“You may now board the train… You may now board the train…”

At the same time, the light began flashing. Mirai scooted toward the door as if she were being pulled by a magnet. She looked down at her legs in confusion.

“Don’t get onnnnnnn!” Kun screamed, squeezing his eyes shut.

“You may now board the train… You may now board the train…”

Mirai crawled into the black Shinkansen train.

The next instant, Kun outstretched both hands in front of him and dove into the red light.

“Mirai!”

As if in a dream, he wrapped his arms around her little body and, in the same motion, hurled himself back out of the car, thudding onto the platform. Once he was free of the red glow, the light at the door stopped blinking.

Kun lay motionless on the platform for a moment. Mirai was firmly within his arms, cooing like she always did, though she did squirm a bit.

“Gooo…”

They were safe. Kun felt incredibly relieved. He was so glad he’d made it in time. As that thought crossed his mind, he remembered something else.

On that cloudy day when Kun had first met Mirai, Mom had asked him to do something.

I want you to always look out for her and keep her safe.

It was only now, so many months later, that he understood what she’d meant. As soon as he did, a completely new feeling welled up in his chest.

“I’m… I’m…”

He raised his face and loudly declared to the whole world:

“I’m Mirai’s big brother!!”

His voice echoed across dark subterranean platforms.

At that very same moment, in the north dome aboveground, the chime of a bell signaled that he had given the correct answer.

The station attendant readjusted his glasses as if to confirm that he had heard. Immediately thereafter, an announcement resounded through the steel and glass dome.

“Calling Mirai of Isoiso Ward. Mirai. Your brother, Kun, is waiting for you on the underground Shinkansen platform.”

A flock of swallows flapped out from their hiding place and soared in an arc through the air.

On the underground platform, Kun slowly relaxed his face and cautiously opened his eyes.

“…Oh!”

The baby was no longer in his arms.

“Where is she?”

Then…

“Found you!”

Kun looked up at the voice.

“Huh?”

A hand with a familiar red birthmark on the palm was thrust toward him.

Kun hurriedly reached out and firmly grasped it.

That hand belonged to…

“Mirai of the future!”

She was hovering softly in the air right in front of him. The white collar and red scarf of her school uniform flapped in the wind. She reminded Kun of a bird.

“You’re so silly, running away and just getting lost. I had to look all over for you,” she said with her usual sigh, thinking about the trip back home. “Let’s go.”

Mirai of the future kicked the darkness and slid through the air like an ice-skater, pulling Kun along with her by the hand.

“Ack!”

They zipped up the descending escalator. Although it was very long, they reached the top before they knew it, slipping through the gates just before they slammed shut and flying into the crowded north dome.

“Whoooooa!”

The passengers scattered as Mirai shot up toward the glass cupola. Onlookers might have mistaken Mirai and Kun for two birds that had strayed into the station.

Only the station attendant knew the truth—that the two figures high above were the little boy who had come to the Lost and Found desk earlier and his baby sister, who had come to find him.

The attendant smiled very slightly as he watched the two of them soar upward, then quickly recovered his blank expression. With his cutout eyes, he surveyed the long line of children weary of waiting and adjusted his glasses.

“Next!”