The walk through the winter flower garden was a pleasant one. Every now and then, they’d pass someone else, but mostly they heard only their own breath, their own footsteps. From time to time, they could hear a woodpecker in the distance.
“Where could it be?”
“Good question.”
They looked for it but never saw the bird itself. Just the tap, tap, tap, tap from somewhere far away.
They gave up their search and took a rest in the garden café. The staff told them the woodpecker was claiming its territory.
Just after one, they drove back to Gora Station and ate a late lunch nearby. They had a popular local specialty—firm tofu breaded and sliced to look like pork katsu and stewed in an earthen pot.
After blowing on the hot cutlets for a while, they wound back down the mountain roads to Hakone Yumoto, the last stop on the Romancecar line. They went shopping for souvenirs near the station.
Sakuta bought some yosegi-zaiku coasters and yumochi—thin slivers of red bean jelly in marshmallow-soft mochi. He and Mai had eaten some in the attached café, and he thought Kaede would like it, so he bought a box to take home.
They left Hakone Yumoto just after three. The traffic forecast had predicted jams in the evening, so they left before things got bad.
They made a stop in Odawara to order kamaboko for New Year’s and were back home in Fujisawa before five.
“I’ll be over just after six.”
“Looking forward to it.”
After agreeing to eat dinner together, they split up outside their respective buildings.
He made sure there was nothing in the mailbox, then boarded the elevator. He’d only been away for the night, but it sure felt like a homecoming.
That feeling only got stronger as he left the elevator and headed for his apartment door.
He unlocked it and stepped in.
As he did, he heard voices inside, likely from the TV. Kaede had spent the night with their parents in Yokohama, but the lights were on, and he could hear movement.
As Sakuta took off his shoes, Kaede came out, carrying their cat, Nasuno.
“You’re late!” she said.
Nasuno meowed. Sakuta took that for a welcome.
“I was on a date, so actually, I’m home early.”
Once his shoes were off, he stepped up into the room.
“But why are you here, Kaede? I thought you were staying with Mom and Dad.”
“I felt bad leaving Nasuno all alone, and I’ve got a shift at six. And I need to talk to you.”
Her voice grew smaller and smaller as he headed to the living room. Not because he was leaving her behind—she was just getting quiet. He could hear her footsteps right behind him.
“About what?” he asked, putting the souvenir bag on the dining room table.
“……”
Kaede didn’t answer right away.
Sakuta turned toward her, and she avoided his gaze as she put Nasuno down.
The TV switched from commercials to the news.
“Continuing our discussion of the connectivity issues affecting all social media: Since early this morning, users on multiple services have reported difficulties accessing sites.”
The screen showed logos for text- and photo-based services—quite a few of them.
“About this,” Kaede said, pointing at the screen.
Sakuta had no clue what she meant.
“This?” he asked, turning his attention to the TV. The male announcer was starting to expand on the details.
“Sources say the issues may have been caused by a flood of users attempting to post under this #dreaming. So many users that the technical problems continue even hours later.”
Reading from the teleprompter, the man proceeded to explain the hashtag itself. Beginning with “Many of you have heard of it already…”
“Hashtag dreaming again…”
Sakuta had heard about this a lot lately and struggled with his own seemingly prophetic dreams it was related to. Directly or indirectly.
And it was not a good sign if the trend had grown visible enough to hit the news. Even if they were focused solely on the connectivity issues it caused.
“Kaede, can I borrow your laptop?”
“Oh, sure.”
He opened it and tried to load a short-post service. It took quite a while. He waited patiently, and eventually, the site loaded. Like the news said, the issues clearly had not been resolved yet.
He did a search for #dreaming.
Once again, it took nearly a full minute, but at least results showed up.
A whole list of dreams.
I dreamed I broke up with my boyfriend. The reasons were so on point. That’s who he is! I had to laugh. #dreaming
Please, no. I dreamed I got into college—argh! It was just a dream! I moved to Tokyo, started a new life, it was great—then I woke up! #dreaming
Nighttime cherry blossom viewing. A college friend got drunk and puked everywhere. I’m not letting that dude touch booze again. #dreaming
Dreamed my girlfriend dumped me. It sucked. She said a lot of things, but it boiled down to how I hold chopsticks. Gotta fix that quick. #dreaming
Every one described a brief moment of time, but with great specificity. Like they’d just happened yesterday. That felt a lot like the dream he’d had.
And the list of posts went on forever. More were added every second. Not a couple hundred or a couple thousand, but verging on six digits. That’s how many people had dreamed the night before and were inspired to post about it.
Assuming all these dreams really showed the future, what did that mean? How would this affect what lay ahead?
The guy dumped for holding his chopsticks wrong might escape that fate by holding them properly. He might get dumped for something else. There was no telling until the moment arrived.
“……”
Feeling eyes on him, he looked up. Kaede seemed like she had more to say.
“So what did you dream about?” he asked.
“Huh?”
She blinked at him.
“You wanted to talk about that, right? They say these dreams come true.”
“Yeah, but…”
She pursed her lips, appearing disgruntled. She was obviously of two minds. He could see her waffling.
“Is it embarrassing to talk about?” he asked, reaching for the souvenir.
“Not embarrassing, just…”
“Just?”
“……I dreamed the other me came back.”
Sakuta’s hand stopped, hovering over the box.
He looked up and met her eyes, and she averted them, petting the cat.
Still crouching, she said, “She and Nasuno were waiting for you to get home.”
“……”
Saying nothing, Sakuta picked up the box of mochi and opened it. He took out a piece—it felt ready to fall apart in his hands—and shoved it past his lips. It melted in his mouth before he could even chew.
Figuring he should make something to drink, he got the tanuki and panda mugs from the kitchen. He filled the electric kettle and hit the On switch.
“Is something bothering you? Anything that might retrigger the dissociative disorder?”
He put instant coffee flakes in the tanuki cup and cocoa powder in the panda cup.
“I’m not you, Sakuta. I have problems.”
“Like?”
The water in the kettle was starting to bubble. Also, Sakuta had plenty of problems.
“My future,” Kaede admitted, clearly loath to do so.
“Well, that’s a healthy concern. Classic ‘winter of your second year of high school’ troubles.”
The water was boiling, so he poured some into each mug. The bitter scent of coffee and the sweet fragrance of cocoa mingled in the air.