These days, the rest of the world was in a tizzy trying to make first contact with extraterrestrial life-forms. I’d known one for years now, though, so I couldn’t really see what all the fuss was about.
“Heh heh heh! In truth, I am not an alien at all.”
“Get out of my head.”
At first glance, I couldn’t tell what she was supposed to be dressed as today. My guess was a deer, given the antlers. But in fact, she was apparently an out-of-season reindeer, trotting around downtown without a sleigh.
“Oh, right. Not to put you on the spot, but I wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
“Why do you only ever say ‘hello,’ not ‘good morning’?” It was a little late to bother asking, granted, but the question had occurred to me when she turned up yesterday and was only cemented more firmly as of this morning.
“Little told me that she preferred ‘hello.’ Therefore, I say ‘hello.’”
“Hunh… What did she have against ‘good morning’?”
“Who knows?” Yashiro replied with an exaggerated shrug. She evidently hadn’t bothered to ask.
I mulled it over for a while myself, but I couldn’t think of a plausible reason. Perhaps my sister was simply an odd duck. “How very strange.”
“Indeed.”
Maybe that oddness explained why she’d doted on Yashiro all her life.
I scarcely remembered the last time I’d gone into town with a friend—or the last day trip I’d taken, or the last time I’d bathed blithely in the sun. Today, its rays filtered dimly through a thin layer of clouds, its shape obscured as if by gauze. This weather made the walk easier on me, but still, it took its toll on my back and hips after a while. At my age, Earth’s pull was too great to endure.
“It seems I won’t make it into outer space.” I had hoped to experience zero gravity before I died, but clearly that was still beyond me, and now I wouldn’t live to see a free-flying world.
“Do you want to?” Yashiro asked casually, turning her innocent gaze on me.
I had a feeling that, if I said “yes,” she’d knock me into orbit faster than I could blink. So was that what I wanted? To feel light again?
“Can you come with me into space, Adachi?”
“Wherever you go, I’ll go.”
“Glad I can count on you.”
If there was indeed no such thing as ghosts, then Adachi couldn’t go anywhere, since she was dead and gone. I’d never see her again, and…and there would never be a next time. If that was the case, then perhaps from now on, she could truly only be found in the haze of my heart.
“No thanks. I’ve got plans today.”
“I see.” With that, Yashiro donned her usual smile, as if saying that she didn’t mind either way.
I decided to start with the electronics store before I went wandering around blindly. There, I listened to an employee’s patient explanation. Only half of it made any sense to me; to sum it up, though, all I really needed to get the console to work was an adapter.
“Well, that makes things easy.” As it turned out, I didn’t have to buy a second TV after all. “Hear that? It’ll work with the one I have.”
“That’s good. You don’t have room for a second TV anyway.”
“True.” I thought back to how Adachi and I had agonized over furniture placement in our condo. It had felt like playing with building blocks made of pure happiness.
Fortunately, I managed to get my hands on that “adapter” thing while Yashiro and I were out. Going to the farthest reaches of town was no grand adventure, but at my age, it was enough excitement for one day.
“Yaaay!”
It helped, of course, that I was accompanied by a gleeful gremlin carrying a bag of freshly purchased caramel corn.
When we returned, Yashiro helped herself to my bed while I set about connecting the console to the television. I hadn’t thought to test my TV before we left the house, so if it turned out to be broken, we’d need to make a second trip into town. Naturally, that hadn’t occurred to me until I was already home.
Fortunately, the TV seemed well-preserved; I couldn’t see any discoloration on the plastic exterior, and it didn’t…you know…feel old? The moment I had that thought, I paused to contemplate what it meant. Perhaps, to me, something only felt “old” if it was covered by a thin, sticky membrane of dust and dirt. I ran a finger over the back of my wizened hand. Still young, I lied to myself.
“Where’d I put the—ah, there’s the remote. Now, will it show up…?”
Faithfully following the instructions I’d been given, I changed the channel. The TV screen darkened for a moment; then, at last, an explosion of color erupted.
“Ooooh!” Yashiro kicked her feet in excitement.
“It works! Attaboy, old-timer,” I joked, petting the machine, which was nearly as old as me. For a split second, I hallucinated that my baby sister was there with us, smirking proudly. Given that she’d lived a relatively busy life in and out of the spotlight, I wasn’t sure when she would’ve found time to play video games, but clearly, she had.
Yashiro came and sat in my lap. Holding her like a cushion, I pressed a few buttons on the controller.
“Oh, there’s stuff on it…”
A row of my sister’s digital purchases had popped up onscreen, the most recent of which was a game in which you went on a quest to defeat a dragon. I’d only played video games with my sister or friends, never by myself—looking back, I’d spent the majority of my free time sleeping—so I was almost unfamiliar with the series. But I didn’t think I could keep up with an action game’s pace, so perhaps something text-heavy was the perfect choice. Thus, I decided to quest after dragons.
As the game booted up, I mashed buttons to get to the title screen and accidentally skipped the opening cinematic. Oops… Oh well. When I selected Continue, I saw my sister’s name on the top save file.
You used your real name? I don’t know whether to cringe or feel proud.
Her character’s level was pretty high, so I was tempted to load the file and see whether she’d beaten the game…but opted not to. “Nah, that’s hers.” If I messed with it, she’d get mad at me. On the one hand, maybe I was silly to fear the dead, but on the other hand, ghosts were a Halloween staple for a reason. Smiling to myself, I decided I’d made the smart choice.
I started a new game. When it prompted me for a name, I waffled between my surname and given name, but I ultimately settled on “Shimamura.”
“Shimamura-san the Hero?”
“That’s me.” Only my family had ever called me “Hougetsu,” so at this point, I had very little attachment to that name. Not even my old coworkers had called me Hougetsu-san… That would’ve been weird, actually.