Chapter 104

CHILDREN RECORD SIDE -NO. 5- When I first entered the industry, my manager taught me a lot about how a pop idol was supposed to act. Whether the camera was on me or not, he said, it was totally important that I conducted myself as though someone was always watching. “I’ve been acting that way since elementary school,” I replied, a little too cheekily than I should’ve. My manager smiled. “Wow, you’ve been carrying yourself like an idol for that long?” he said. Not that I wanted to. I just had this weird effect on people; I would constantly attract attention, to an honestly scary level. According to what my brother told me yesterday, this “captivating eyes” ability was one of the supernatural skills that came to people who made contact with this otherworldly phenomenon known as the “Kagerou Daze.” Occult stuff like that would normally get me kind of excited, but this “captivating” thing…It was more annoying than anything else. I wasn’t even all that pretty, besides. And yet, just walking down the street, I’d have strangers chasing after me who’d erupt into cheers if I spoke even a word to them. Cameras would go off all around me, no matter where I was. It had been going on ever since I was a little kid, so being obsessed over how people saw me was an everyday thing for years. Thus, when it came to acting “like somebody was always watching,” I was confident that I was a lot more sensitive to that than your average pop star. …But now, I’ve started to give some more thought to my manager’s words. He said to act like I was being watched. He didn’t say “A lot of people will be watching you, so be prepared for that.” I suppose what he was trying to get at was “Never forget that you’re an idol at all times, in all places.” By that definition, I was a total washout. I had two servings of the katsudon rice bowl our boss cooked up last night—it’s her specialty—and after running around for the entire day, I’d found myself falling asleep on the sofa for the second night in a row. I didn’t even wake up until after noon today. Not too many people—women, especially—are capable of sleeping on a stranger’s sofa in their living room, I don’t think. It wasn’t like anyone tried to wake me up, either. In fact, Seto and Marie had to eat breakfast while huddled away from me, all sprawled out on the sofa. I wonder how they did it. …Though, hell. That problem didn’t have anything to do with being an idol in the first place. I could just die, I swear. All the silly crap I did today was enough to astonish even Shintaro: “You’ve gone way past freaky and full circle back to amazing,” he told me. That might be the first time he’s ever complimented me, actually. Heh-heh; I want to die. So now, this katsudon-obsessed pop star is in a bit of a fix. More than a fix actually. A crisis, maybe? Or maybe a world-shattering impasse. Yeah. That’s what I was facing. It was 11:50 at night, and a lukewarm wind was blowing on my face. The moon was hidden under thick cloud cover, the bare street lamps and passing headlights from cars the only things illuminating the paved roads. We had walked maybe half an hour since leaving the hideout. Conversation was sparse as we plodded along silently before arriving at the front gate of our target point—the “enemy” base. “…Are you kidding me?” Hibiya shivered. “We’re gonna break into that scary building?” Behind the high walls was a gigantic Western-style structure, a shiny black color in the darkness. It loomed above the gate, and like Hibiya said, it was the textbook definition of “creepy.” If this really was the enemy’s hideout, the foreboding gloom it exuded certainly made it look the part. But it was still a bit hard to swallow. I mean, the building wasn’t meant for any inherently scary purpose. It was the main building of my high school. Two years ago, right before Shintaro was first admitted, the school underwent a pretty large-scale renovation. You’d think “renovation” just involved patching up the broken or worn-out parts of the building, but by the time they were done, it didn’t seem like a renovation. More like a complete rebuild. The building itself was fully redone, of course. There was also a strong, durable wall built around the surrounding land, complete with an electronic security system. I don’t know if the “enemy” my brother talked about had planned all that out, but it was certainly one reason I was willing to believe his tale. I still remembered what it was like when work began, for one. I passed by that battered old schoolhouse all the time—then one day, construction started, and in the wink of an eye, it was transformed into this. Looking back, they certainly wrapped up the project in lightning speed. It was right around that time, in fact, that all sorts of new buildings began to get built in the neighborhood. That was something I got to experience for myself, and I couldn’t deny that my brother’s theory—that that’s when our enemy began to hatch its scheme—sounded awfully correct. “Wow,” I stubbornly countered, “it sure gives you a different impression from the daytime, huh…? You aren’t scared of creepy stuff like this, are you, Hibiya?” Hibiya gave me an exasperated look. “Oh, come on. I’m just saying, it’s creepy because we don’t know what’s inside. I don’t believe in ghosts or anything…but what about you, Momo?” “Mmm, I’m not really affected by any of that stuff. Oh, but Shintaro and the boss are total pushovers! We went to a haunted house a bit ago, and she actually fainted in there.” “Whoa! What?” Hibiya’s eyes lit up as he grinned. “That’s kind of a surprise. She acts so chill all the time. Guess not so much in real life, huh?” I was kind of the one who made her faint, by the way…but I wasn’t exactly lying, either, and there was no point in going into the nitty-gritty. The boss didn’t seem to remember, anyway. That was the sort of pointless conversation we had as we waited for the appointed hour. There didn’t seem to be anyone there, in the school, standing around blithely in the middle of the darkness. Come to think of it, today was supposed to be the first day of remedial lessons after the Obon holiday; I wound up cutting class in the end. There should’ve been people going in and out for club activities, but there was no activity. …Hmm. I’m still not sure I totally get this. What was this “enemy” of ours thinking, building his den of evil underneath a public building? I took another look around but naturally failed to find any answers from my vantage point. “Do you think the school’s really…the hideout and all? I’m having trouble believing it.” “I’m not too sure this ‘enemy’ of ours even exists, for that matter,” Hibiya added. “You go to this school, right, Momo? You didn’t notice anything?” I shook my head. “Nothing. Like, if I did, I’m sure everyone else would’ve, too, and then it’d be a huge deal.” “Ooh, you never know, though,” he replied, still on the alert. “Like, maybe this evil organization’s already brainwashed you and stuff.” It sounded like something out of a children’s superhero show. Something told me that if any “evil organization” existed in this town, we were likely it. The “Mekakushi-dan” wasn’t what any decent, upstanding group named itself. “Nah, I doubt it. I don’t think any of the students here noticed anything up with the school itself. I mean, I didn’t.” “Yeah, but the way Shintaro put it, this ‘enemy’…It’s your teacher, right? The one who took us to the park yesterday?” I had difficulty forming an answer. As if noticing the silence, the wind chose that moment to begin gusting. I knew it in my head, and I didn’t mean to cast doubt on my own brother. But to be honest, I still didn’t entirely believe everything Shintaro said. That someone’s after us and our “eye” abilities; that this entire city’s already been taken over by some sinister presence; and most of all, that the diabolical mastermind behind all this was Mr. Tateyama, my homeroom teacher. When I first heard that today, I was pretty much speechless. If Shintaro hadn’t been the one to say it, I don’t think I’d have believed one bit of it. But that’s exactly what he said. He was never a totally reliable presence in my life, but I knew he was smarter than pretty much anybody, and I knew he wouldn’t spout off a bunch of BS during a crisis like this. Never. He had to be telling the truth, and I had absolutely no rationale for thinking he wasn’t. So I didn’t want to call it a pack of lies…But still, it came as a huge shock. I think I would’ve felt a bit better about it if I could’ve talked to Shintaro some more. But he acted all broody about something or other, so I couldn’t even do that. My mind, uncaring about my feelings, began to conjure up all kinds of worst-case scenarios. I grew anxious that all these amazing, irreplaceable things I’d encountered over the past few days would fly away, never to be seen again. It made my chest feel like it was about to cave in. Really, if there was a God out there, he could be a real prankster sometimes. Why were we being asked to put up with all this? I never asked for anything unreasonable, I didn’t think. I just wanted a normal life. One where I could be with everyone else. That was it. “…Momo?” Hibiya’s voice flung me back to reality, while his right hand was tugging at the hem of my hoodie. The anxiety on his face a moment ago was gone, and his cheeks were puffed out a little bit. I must’ve been too slow to respond for his tastes. “Umm…,” I said, trying to pull my mind back together. “Look, if you’re worried about something, just say it. Do you really trust me that little?” “…Huhhh?” I was bewildered. “I mean, I’m nervous, too, but…like, we gotta do this, don’t we? We all talked it out together—get it all back and put an end to this. If you’re gonna act all nervous about this…you’re gonna start messing me up, too, all right?” Then he turned around, a bit ashamed of what he’d just said. The wind, making a boisterous noise until now, had calmed. We were enclosed in silence. “Uh…thanks. I…I’ll try my best.” I was just too simple like that sometimes. Listening to Hibiya was all it took for the anxiety that filled my heart to cower down and hide in the shadows. Which is fine, I supposed. It’s fine, but…I don’t know. The creeping feeling that was expanding in its place wasn’t any less comfortable. Kids these days…They sure know how to keep it together! Um…Ha-ha-ha. Oh, brother. “Aaall right!” a blunt voice shouted. “Sorry to interrupt you when things’re getting heated, but it’s just about time to move!” I followed the voice. It was coming from my pocket. Taking it out, I was greeted with the image of a girl with twin ponytails, glaring at me and looking extremely peeved for some reason. “Ah…Ene?! Since when were you in there?!” “Oh, since the ‘Thanks, I’ll try my best’ part, I guess?” she replied, a mischievous smirk on her face. Reflexively, I applied pressure to both sides of the phone. The screen began to creak. “Aaagh!” Ene shouted in response. “Wh-what’re you doing?! If you break this phone, the whole operation’s gonna fall apart! All of it!” She spread her hands wide to prove her point. The time display above her read 11:55 p.m. “Well, that’s your fault for sneaking up on me, Ene. Ugh…So did Shintaro and the rest get inside?” “You bet they did! Ha! I bet they didn’t expect me to break into this security in ten billion years! I had the entire thing busted wide open in seconds! It’s stripped down to the bone!” Ene stood tall in the phone, arms crossed. I was amazed that she could keep that tension going even at a time like this. It was really like, like she’s… “Well, good job, Ene. I’m glad we can count on you.” Ene froze for a second, not expecting my praise, before beaming from one end of the screen to the other. “Yeah, totally! I’m just, like, a fiend, aren’t I?!” Hibiya, looking on from the side, hefted a long sigh, as if there was nothing more for him to comment on. “C’mon, Momo,” he said. “We gotta get started. You know what you’re supposed to do?” “Umm, probably!” I replied with a smile. Hibiya nervously tensed up his face, the way he always did. I was trying to act the clown for him a bit, but of course I knew my role in all this. With Ene’s consummate security-breaking skills, the entire school was now ours to explore. Assuming everything was proceeding as planned, the other group was using a map drawn from Hibiya’s ability to march right into the central core of our “enemy’s” hideout. But, as Ene warned us, “once they notice the security’s offline, there’s no telling what kind of dudes they’ll send in from the outside.” We had the lock open, in other words, but we might have some company soon that didn’t approve of it. At all. They could very well be armed, too, and given the Mekakushi-dan’s lack of sophisticated battle training, we wouldn’t last long then. And as long as we didn’t know how much of this town was really in the grasp of our enemy, there was no counting on any external support. …But that’s where I come in. It was now three minutes to midnight. My mission was just about to kick off. Ene must’ve known as well. “I spread the word on the net that you’re here right now, like we planned,” she told me, showing some rare seriousness for a change. “You pop idols are somethin’ else. You wouldn’t believe how nuts people are right now.” Straining my ears a little, I could already here the murmurings of faraway people among the sounds of the night. I retired from the industry for pretty personal reasons, but tonight, I might just have a chance to make up for it. “Thanks, Ene,” I said. Ene grinned. “Hey, we’re all friends here! No need to hold back now!” I answered with a smile of my own. Then I handed the phone to Hibiya and turned back toward the school gate. Looking back, the last time I had set foot in here was…OH. Just three days ago, huh? It feels like forever at this point. Three days ago, I was headed here in a total funk, ready to kick off my remedial courses. I never imagined summer school would turn out this way—joining the Mekakushi-dan, running into all these people, encountering something like this… It was starting to feel, by now, like I was completely detached from reality. “…Hey, Momo? Can I ask you something?” When I turned around, I found Hibiya staring me down, something clearly on his mind. Then it struck me: This could very well be the last time we were ever in the same place. I nodded back to him. “You’re, like, this incredible idol, right, Momo? I—I think that’s the whole reason I came here in the first place. You’re probably the celebrity Hiyori wanted to get an autograph from.” Hiyori. The girl Hibiya came to town with. The one who was probably suffering in the Kagerou Daze right now. Someone Hibiya had to rescue at all costs. “So, uh, when this is all over…can I get an autograph?” I had somewhat mixed feelings about this request. One, assuming we were successful at all, it meant I was permanently retired from the pop-star business. An autograph from someone like me wouldn’t make her excited much at all.