“Let’s go,” she said.
“Uh. To where?”
“To Lucie’s home.”
Uh… Who was Lucie? Was she talking about herself? I asked carefully, like I was trying to speak a foreign language, “Who is Lucie? Are you Lucie-san?”
The girl—Lucie-san—nodded.
“C-cool. My name’s Amaori Renako.”
“That is nice, Renako-chan,” she said.
Was I doing it? Were we communicating?
“L-Lucie-san, where is it you’d like to go?”
“Home,” she said.
“Uh, did you forget the way? Is that it?”
Lucie-san lit up so brightly she glowed like a lamp. Aggh! Not my one weakness, the bright smiles of pretty girls!
“Yes, Renako-sama!”
“Wait, I’m on a ‘-sama’ basis now?!”
“I knew you were a good person,” she said. “Take me home.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” I put up both hands like I was trying to stop a big dog from flinging herself on me. “Hold on a sec. I don’t know where you live!”
No sooner did I say that than Lucie-san (Lucie-chan?) dug around in her pocket and pulled out a note. “I live here,” she said. “Do you recognize it?”
The note had a simple map showing the route between her place and the station. Urgh. Alas, maps without a “You are here” marker tended to give me grief. But when Lucie-chan was looking at me with the trusting eyes of a kindergartner, I couldn’t up and be like, “LOL nope!”
“Hey, wait a sec,” I said. “There’s an address written on the back.”
Oh, thank god. And since I’d lived here my entire life, I could find her place, easy!
“Renako-sama?” Lucie-chan prompted.
“Okke, okke,” I said, showing off more of my English. “So long as I have an address, I can show you the way home. C’mon, let’s go.”
“My hero!” she cried, and she hugged me tight. I yelped. I felt like I was being crushed in the arms of a bear that had grown too used to humans.
“Wh-whoa, hold on!” I said. “Let’s all calm down, okay? There’s no need for any ‘hero’ business. Just call me Renako.”
“Renako-sama!”
“Nooo… Okay, you know what? If that’s as good as it gets, then we’ll stick with that.”
I gave in and started to set off. But just then, Lucie-chan stuck her hand out for me to take. It was almost a little too natural of a gesture. Oh well. I guess, if I had to… She probably felt scared, being lost in a place she didn’t know.
I took her hand, and off we went. I felt like I had a toddler on a leash.
“Lucie-chan, are you, uh, from another country? Did you come to Japan recently?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Wow. You’re really good at Japanese.”
“I’ve been here on vacation many times. But now I live here.”
Cool. She must have moved here, which must have been tough with her limited vocabulary. If someone had dumped me in the middle of the U.S. and left me there, I’d stand no freaking chance of ever getting by. Even a vacation there would’ve been too much for me.
“By the way,” I said, “those things are called police boxes. If you ever get lost again, they can give you directions. They’re really nice about it.”
“Who is ‘they?’ Renako-sama?”
“Huh? I mean, I can help if I happen to bump into you, but…”
I was about to add that this was because I had nothing better to do, but I usually didn’t have this much time in my schedule. Yet before I could, she lunged at me again, cried, “Renako-sama!” and hugged me. Whoa, whoa, whoa! This girl needed to work on her boundaries!
“But I won’t always be here! The police have much better availability than me.”
“What days and times are you available?”
“You can’t just ask that!”
Not in this day and age, when we all had phones! But I gave her a rough estimate anyway, based on the times I went to and from school. That seemed to satisfy Lucie-chan.
“Okay,” she said. “If I need help, I will wait at the train station at those times.”
“What are you, a stalker?”
Lucie-chan was definitely an odd bird, so I didn’t want to give her easy access to me. But my conscience ate at me.
Finally, I gave up and pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Here, let me give you my number… Do you have a phone?”
“Yes.”
I looked her up and down. She clearly had nothing on her.
“I have a phone,” she repeated.
Maybe she meant she had one at home. Well, that explained how she got lost.
“Ah. Okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll give it to you next time I bump into you. Or something, I dunno.”
“Okay.”
The expression on her face was all but inscrutable, but I think she was happy.
You know what? This prompted a trip down memory lane. I always had trouble cutting ties with kids like her. Not, like bad kids or anything. But you know. The ones who were kinda weird. That always ended up biting me in the ass, but it wasn’t like they ever meant me any harm. You know what I’m saying? And believe me, I knew perfectly well that I had my own fair share of quirks. So hello pot, meet kettle.
Man, people who spoke their mind really were something else. Couldn’t be me.
“If you just moved here and you don’t know anybody, what do you do all day?” I asked her.
“I work.”
“You’re kidding me. You work already? Like, as an adult?”
She had to be pulling my leg, right? A girl like this, who couldn’t even make it home from the train station without curling up into a ball? If a girl like that could find a job, what the heck was my excuse? (Yes, I knew this was rude.)
“After work, I play a game at home,” she added.
My eyes snapped wide open. Because then she listed off the name of a game that was going viral the world over. Coincidentally, it was my favorite game at the moment.
“W-wait, you play that one too?” I asked her. “Are you, uh, ranked?”
“Platinum.”
“Dude, same!” I got so excited I squeezed her hand. “Awesome. I can’t believe I stumbled across someone else who plays the same game. Seriously, this rules. Ooh, you gotta tell me. Who’s your main?”
“I change depending on the map and my party. But my top characters are…”
From there, we had a grand old time gabbing about games. Well. I had a grand old time. I kind of talked at her. But who cares? I was sure she enjoyed herself too.
Whenever I talked about my hobbies, it was always kinda touch and go. I didn’t know how hard to throw the conversational ball or what lengths people would go to catch it. You know? Yet no matter how hard I lobbed it, Lucie-chan matched me stride for stride.
“Dude, the way they keep messing with the balance is so wack. You know what I’m saying? They completely nerfed my favorite character in that last patch! Now I barely want to use them. Maybe they just want us to try out all the characters, but if so, that’s not the way to go! You feel me?”
“Yes. I was sad when my main was nerfed. They are no longer the meta, but I can still make them work for me.”
“Seriously?”
As my excitement grew, my motormouth kicked in. But that never seemed to give Lucie the ick. She kept right on talking to me.
We were having the time of our lives when I looked up, and—
“Hey, wait a sec. Is this your house?”
“Yes.”
I had to crane my neck so far it hurt to take in the entire place. It was a huge, towering apartment complex. The kind of fancy joint with a concierge at the front desk.
“You live in some swanky digs,” I told her.
“Yes. I live so high up I can’t get domed from snipers on the ground,” she said with a proud giggle. Domed, meaning shot in the head. It’s a shooter game thing. She said it so casually, like only a gamer would.
“Goodbye, Renako-sama,” she said. “Thank you for everything. I must pay you back someday.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” I said. “I had fun hanging out with you.”
Lucie-chan bowed to me deeply. Her silver hair swayed and flickered in the afternoon sun, like a clamshell on the bottom of the river reflecting the sunlight.
“See you again?” I offered.
“Absolutely.”
Just then, Lucie-chan raised her head—she must have remembered something, judging by the look on her face—and darted forward. I didn’t know what she was doing until she grabbed me and hugged me tight. Oh god!
Lucie-chan whispered in my ear, “Thank you so much. Merci du fond du cœur.”
“Come again?” I stiffened involuntarily as those unfamiliar words washed over me.
She let me go, bowed once more, and trotted into the apartment building. I clamped my hands over my fiery-red ears and muttered to myself, “Uh…what was that language?”
My heart galloped like a racehorse.
I would only discover the significance of my meeting with Lucie-chan the mystery girl much, much later.