I encountered Toriko Nishina again a week later in the university’s cafeteria.
In between third and fourth period, I had just gotten out of the lecture for African History I, and was eating lunch. Out of nowhere, someone pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. Wow, how rude... I thought as I looked up. There was a face I’d never forget, even if I tried... That blonde woman who was in illegal possession of a firearm, waving at me.
“Heya.”
I continued chewing on my chicken with grated daikon sauce, staring at Toriko, unable to say a word.
Today, unlike last time, she was in normal clothes—the kind you might wear around town. A white blouse with a long, blue pleated skirt. The only thing she was carrying on her was a leather tote bag. It was a simple outfit, but her looks were good to begin with, so she looked exceptionally good in it. As for me, on the other hand, I was just wearing the usual sort of thing you might wear when heading straight to class from a nearby apartment, then going straight home when you finished. It was a cotton shirt and... erm, whatever jeans were closest on hand at the time. I was carrying a cloth bag I’d been fond of since high school. There was a pretty big gap in our “usual” appearances...
Toriko stared straight at me with her sparkling eyes. “Don’t you have any friends to eat with?”
“Would you leave me alone?!” When I got angry and responded despite myself, Toriko raised an eyebrow and got this happy look on her face.
Aw, crap. I didn’t mean to respond.
I hated people who were good at teasing others like this. People who thought it was okay to make fun of people for having no friends, or being unsociable, or being gloomy. Seriously, I wish people like that would leave me alone. There were people like that in high school, but when I ran into them right away in university, too, it was exhausting. I’d done my best to keep my distance from that nonsense, and it led to me being in May of my second year without being able to make a single friend.
I looked at her blonde hair, feeling exasperated. It was pretty, for a dye job. That pissed me off.
What was she doing here? How did she know where I’d be? Sure, I’d reluctantly told her what university I attended, but was she able to track me down with just that? I hadn’t given her my number, my e-mail, my address, nothing. Scary.
“Let me ask you one more time,” the mystery woman, Toriko, said.
I immediately knew she was talking about the Otherside. It was the only thing the two of us had in common, after all.
“Why don’t you go by yourself?” I asked.
“Let’s go together. Can’t we?”
“It’s not a matter of can or can’t... What would we go there to do?”
“That thing we brought back last time, that weird mirror lump... There’s this person who wants it, you see.”
“Oh, that...”
It was a mysterious thing, so fair enough. Maybe someone out there would want it.
“They can want it all they like, there’s nothing we can do about it. You only picked it up by coincidence.”
“It wasn’t coincidence. I know a way to get more.”
“A way? Wait, you can’t mean...”
As I was feeling a bad premonition, Toriko leaned in closer.
“The Kunekune, was it? Let’s hunt that thing.”
“Huh?!” I couldn’t help but raise my voice.
Hunt it? That freaky thing that drove a person mad just looking at it?
Was this woman an idiot?
“The money’s good, Boss.”
“Bo—”
I half stood up, then realized we were starting to draw attention. I sat back down, and spoke to her in a quiet voice. “...Are you for real?”
“You bet. I went out and bought a bunch of seeds. Look.” Toriko rolled a lump of rock salt across the table. “See? Let’s find happiness together.”
“You’re serious...” I whispered, dumbstruck, and by the time I came back to my senses I was shaking my head hard. “No, no, no. No way, no how. I don’t want to go anywhere near that thing ever again. I nearly died, you know.”
Besides, would that rock salt even work? Okay, sure, it did vanish when she threw rock salt at it last time, but still.
Toriko lowered her eyes pathetically, bringing a hand to her chest.
“I could die out there on my own. That’s why I want you to come with me, Sorawo.”
“Why me?”
“Because you seem trustworthy.”
“How?! We’ve only met once! How can you know—”
“Today makes two times.”
When my brow furrowed, Toriko smiled. “You manage to fix your phone?”
“Huh?”
“It was broken before, right?”
“Not yet, no. I don’t have the money.” I didn’t have anyone to call me, either, so I’d spent the whole week trying not to think about it, and it was still the same as before.
“How much do you think one of those mirror stones is worth?” Toriko asked, leaning in as if to tell me a secret, so I reluctantly lent her an ear.
“...How much?”
The price she named left me flabbergasted. I could buy myself all the smartphones I wanted and still have change left over.
As I stared back at her vacantly, Toriko grinned. “We’ll split it even. 50-50.”
“Seriously...?”
Yeah, she was serious.
We headed out of the university together, getting on the Saikyo Line at Minami-Yono.
Along the way, I got depressed trying to come up with ways to talk to someone I didn’t really know, but, surprisingly, Toriko didn’t try to start a conversation. We stood next to the train door, looking out the window in silence. It seemed she was in a good mood, because she was kind of smiling. It didn’t feel particularly awkward; I’d been expecting her to be annoying and keep trying to talk with me, so I felt a little let down.
It was easier this way, yes, but this only made me more curious about her. There was a lot I wanted to ask her, but how could I bring it up...? It had been a seriously long time since I’d been interested in another person, so my conversation skills had gone to pieces. After riding on the shaky train, a lot of ‘uh’s and ‘um’s said only inside my head, we changed to the Marunouchi Line at Ikebukuro and alighted at Ochanomizu with me, ultimately, never having said a word.
The place Toriko led me to was a building in Jinbouchou.
It was a tall, thin building with a bunch of shops in the back of Book Town. Ten floors in total.
“Here...?” I looked up at the building dubiously. “Is this really okay?”
“I’m telling you, it’s fine. Let’s go.”
Watching Toriko’s back as she headed into the building after that brief answer, I grew hesitant.
I wasn’t good with her type. It felt like I’d been targeted by a delinquent.
The reason I begrudgingly followed her, even as I thought that, was that I didn’t want to lose my connection to the Otherside.
Ever since I discovered its existence, the Otherside had been everything to me. I mean, wouldn’t that be true for anyone? If you found a secret world, all your own, where you could be free from all the bother, the entanglements, the nuisances of life, who wouldn’t want to go there?
Or maybe I was wrong about that.
Either way, it wasn’t that I couldn’t have resisted Toriko. Not at all.
Oh, fine. Whatever happens, happens.
I finally steeled myself, stepping into the building. We passed through a grimy entrance and got in the elevator. When the door closed, Toriko pressed the button for the fourth floor. We didn’t get off when the elevator reached the fourth floor, and she pushed the button for the second. Next it was the sixth. Like she was inputting a secret code, she pressed the buttons for floors in a ridiculous order.
This was the kind of thing you’d get upset at a child doing while they were fooling around, but Toriko’s face was dead serious.
“...What are you doing?”
“If you press the elevator’s buttons in a certain order, you can go to another world,” Toriko answered without her hands stopping. “Knowing you, you’ve heard that story before, right, Sorawo?”
“...I have.” I nodded. Yeah, I’d definitely read an urban legend like that online. That sounds kind of childish, was my first impression, so it didn’t really draw my attention. However, the trend in online stories about how to reach another world had stuck with me.
Who could have known I’d be taking part in one of them?
Third floor, second floor, tenth floor... The elevator busily moved up and down. Each time it stopped at the designated floor, Toriko immediately pressed the Door-Close button.
The fifth floor. When the door opened, a woman rushed towards us from the opposite end of the hall. Her hair was long and black, and her face wasn’t visible. That was because, before I could get a closer look, Toriko pressed the Door-Close button.
“Um, the person just now was trying to get on, you know?” I said, faulting her despite myself, but Toriko just shrugged it off.
“She always tries to get on on the fifth floor.”
“...Always?”
“On the fifth floor, a woman is guaranteed to attempt to get on, but you absolutely must not let her.”
What? That’s scary.
First floor, third floor, eighth floor.
The corridors of the building that I saw through the gap in the opening and closing door changed like a slideshow.
Second floor, seventh floor, tenth floor.