site 30: Miyuu Aikawa

Friday, February 26th

“Huh? You’re going back to that weird café?”

Chi looked shocked. I’d been cleaning the classroom with her after school and talking about my plans for the day. I nodded as I swept the floor with a broom.

“Which means you’re meeting that weird older boy again?”

She was talking about Gamo. When he’d come to the AV room before, she’d been there too, of course. And of course, she’d seen me talk to him. I remembered her asking me a bunch of questions about that later.

“He’s strange, but he’s not... weird, you know?” If anybody there was weird, it was Master Izumin. He was pretty bizarre.

“I don’t know... I mean, he runs one of those shady websites, right? I saw it. He was saying all this stuff about you.”

“Myu?! Chi, you saw that?” I really didn’t want any of my real-world friends seeing that, maybe. Gamo was really making a big deal out of things online.

“Hey, Myu, are you sure about this? You can be a bit of an airhead, so I’m worried.”

“An airhead... Nobody but you has ever said that to me.”

“You are. I mean, you remember that one writer with the occult magazine who wanted to interview you?”

“You mean Toko from Mumuu?”

“That’s right. She did the interview, but never wrote the article, right?”

I’d met Toko Sumikaze several months ago. Back when our livestream was still more or less unknown, Toko had happened to see it by chance. She’d contacted me and said she wanted to write about me in Mumuu.

“They ran out of space, is all. And she apologized later.” In the end, she’d had to scrap the article, but she and I had really gotten along well, and once in a while we still sent messages to one another.

“That person with Mumuu might have turned out to be a good person, but there’s lots of people who aren’t. If you ever think you’re in danger, even a little, let me know, okay?” Her hands were folded together, and she was panting a little. She was really worried about me.

“Umyu... I’m so happy you’re my friend.” I jumped and grabbed her, and she rubbed my head.

“There, there. I’ll protect you, my little air-headed Myu.”

“Okay, then buy me a cream chocolate banana crepe at Circus.”

“Don’t get cocky.” She poked me slightly on the head.

“Hey, you girls, get to work!” The other boys who were cleaning the classroom complained, and we quickly got back to work.

All the after-school clubs had been canceled since yesterday. I was pretty sure it was because they still hadn’t caught the murderer responsible for the death that took place at the university campus next door. When the homeroom teacher had told us to make sure we were home before dark, some of the boys in the class had complained. “We’re not in elementary school,” they’d said.

When I finished cleaning, I left the school with Chi. We walked the path lined with gingko trees to the station. In fall, this path was covered with yellow leaves, but by now they were long gone, and it felt pretty lonely.

It was a pretty long walk from the school to Kichijoji Station, about twenty minutes or so. There was a bus stop in front of the school, but the bus was always super crowded, and both Chi and I avoided it as much as we could.

“You told my fortune once before, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. It was about two or three months ago, wasn’t it? I saw a little birdie, didn’t I?” But Chi didn’t own a bird, and neither she nor her family had anything to do with them. We never really figured out what it meant.

“Ever since you saw it, I’ve been thinking about birds. I started looking at pictures of birds on the internet, and found one I wanted.”

“Yeah? What kind of bird?”

“A parakeet.”

“Wow, that’s great! Then maybe what I saw was the parakeet you’re going to get.”

“Ahaha... I hope so. I’m trying to persuade my mom to let me get it. Here, take a look.” She showed me a photo she’d taken on her cell phone.

It was a picture of a parakeet with brilliant lemon-colored plumage. She must’ve taken it while she was moving, because it was a little blurry.

“It’s so cute! But you’re a bad photographer, Chi.”

“Don’t say that.” Whenever she took a picture, it was always blurry. It had happened a bunch of times before.

“Where did you take this picture? Is it real?”

“There’s a pet shop near my house. That’s where I found it. I go at least once every three days lately. I’m just looking, so it doesn’t bother the shop.”

Once every three days was a lot. She was really dedicated. She must have really wanted it.

“How much is a parakeet, anyway?”

“He’s five thousand yen.”

“That’s a lot, huh? You couldn’t buy it with your allowance.”

“You need to get a cage and stuff, too, so it’s actually a lot more than that.” Five thousand yen was a ton of money for a student. High school girls in particular spent a lot of money all the time.

“I hope you can persuade your mom.”

“Yeah. If I get it, I’ve already picked a name. I’m gonna call it Dodo.”

“Huh? What’s that mean? It’s kind of... weird.”

“I figured you wouldn’t know what it’s from. It’s from Alice in Wonderland. The Dodo. That’s where I got the name.”

That was just like Chi, maybe. She loved fairy tales and children’s stories, and she always said her dream was to write children’s books.

“Was the Dodo in Alice a parakeet, though?”

“It wasn’t, but that doesn’t matter!” I’d thought she’d put a lot of effort into it, but maybe she hadn’t given it that much thought after all.

“Chi, you’re gonna regret that. I mean, Dodo? Isn’t that a lame name? Let’s think of something else.” I tried my best to persuade her, but she pouted.

“...I’ll think about it. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to get one, anyway. I’m stopping on the way home today, too, though.” We were having so much fun talking that it felt like we got to the station in a flash.

“Okay, see you later. Bye!” We waved and said goodbye in front of the station.

I went to Blue Moon on my own after that, but neither Gamo nor Narusawa were there, and I ended up having to spend an hour or so talking to Master Izumin. By the time I staggered home, exhausted, the sun had already set.

I looked down at my phone as I changed out of my uniform and saw a message from Chi. “Birdie ba” was all it said. There was a weird photo attached.

“Chi, your picture’s blurry again.” It was so blurry I couldn’t tell where it was taken. All I could tell was that it was taken on a street somewhere. There was a single trading card lying on the ground. The sun was setting. There was a long shadow that probably belonged to her. It felt, though, like nobody who saw the picture would pay any attention to those things.

There was something big in the top right, something really strange. That’s what they’d notice instead. It was like a ray of white light and was clearly different than the rest of the scenery surrounding it. It wasn’t a natural light. I’d seen pictures like this before on TV when I was a little girl.

“A ghost picture?” I hurriedly sent Chi back a message asking what this was. I called her, too. But she didn’t answer my message, and she didn’t pick up the phone.

Saturday and Sunday were the weekend, but on Monday, the next day of school, Chi wasn’t there.