✦ ✦ ✦
Sara showed him her screen.
A social media service with short posts, filtered by the dreaming hashtag.
Mai Sakurajima reveals that she’s Touko Kirishima. April 1. Red Brick Warehouse music festival. #dreaming
The band’s guest vocalist is Mai Sakurajima, sang a Touko Kirishima number, then announced she’s been Touko Kirishima all along! #dreaming
Seems like a lot of people had this dream. Well, so did I. Mai Sakurajima confirms she’s Touko Kirishima at a music festival. #dreaming
This settles it. Touko Kirishima and Mai Sakurajima are one and the same. #dreaming
There were tons of posts just like these.
He scrolled down ten times without finding an end to it.
That made sense.
“There’s, like, five thousand of them…,” Sara said, looking creeped out by it. She was well aware of how ominous that was.
This was not something to be dismissed, and the look on her face made it clear she was taking it seriously.
“That is definitely too many,” Sakuta said, voicing his honest opinion.
✦ ✦ ✦
The whole time he was working, he couldn’t get those five thousand posts out of his head.
Everyone had seen the same concert.
They’d been part of that crowd.
And they’d all seen Mai Sakurajima take that mic and claim she was Touko Kirishima. They’d dreamed it.
The same dream Sakuta himself had experienced. He imagined that the details all lined up—the only difference being where they stood.
Which meant all these posts came from members of that concert audience.
Just as Sakuta’s and Ikumi’s dreams had overlapped, these five thousand posters had all dreamed of that same moment in the future.
At that point, it no longer qualified as just “weird.” Sakuta found it downright unnerving.
So anytime he had a moment to spare, his mind went back to those posts. His shift wound on.
And he racked up the hours worked.
✦ ✦ ✦
At nine, high school staff—Tomoe and Sara—took off, leaving Sakuta, the manager, and one other college part-timer on the floor. It had been Sara’s first day on the job, but she left with a smile and a wave.
“I’m outta here, Sakuta-sensei!”
The hour after that went quick, and Sakuta’s shift ended. There hadn’t been much traffic that night, so around nine thirty, the manager had told him to clock out already.
Not one to argue, he excused himself at ten on the dot and headed to the back room while taking off his apron.
He stepped into the break room, intending to change behind the lockers. He’d assumed he’d find it empty, but there was a high school girl just hanging out. Tomoe, eyes on her phone.
“You still here, Koga?”
“Oh, Senpai.”
“Quit fiddling with your phone and get home.”
“I wanted to ask you something, so I was waiting for you.”
About Sara? He figured that would lead to grumbling. But what Tomoe said next was on a different subject entirely.
“You seemed concerned about the #dreaming posts, so I thought I’d share my dream.”
Tomoe was looking right at him, clearly taking this seriously. The fact that she’d waited a full hour for him got his attention. This seemed like something she couldn’t talk about during work, so she’d kept quiet until now. In which case, he thought that they should take this outside.
“Lemme change quick, then. This isn’t the best place for it, so I’ll hear you out on the way.”
“Gotcha,” Tomoe said, nodding.