A woman around his age, her gray hair in a loose bun. She was wearing…a long, fluttering skirt in floral print? Wait a second.
No way am I ever gonna wear a skirt that long. I’m too short to pull it off. Is my fashion sense gonna change when I get older?
Meh, the details weren’t too important right now. Lemme continue.
They’d lived happily together ever since their wedding. Their children had flown the nest some time ago, and now their days were peaceful as could be. He’s telling her the same story he always did when they were younger. He points far beyond the clouds and draws a line down toward the horizon, like he’s searching for something precious. She smiles beside him.
“That story doesn’t have an ending,” she says.
“It doesn’t,” he replies, “and I’m gonna keep telling it over and over.”
The couple naturally reach out for each other’s hands, and the shadows by their feet merge together as one…
Suddenly, the train jolted violently. I’d been so wrapped up in my fantasy that I lost my footing.
“Ack!”
I staggered backward at an angle and failed in my attempt to grab the bar. Determined not to fall, I tried to keep my balance. It didn’t work. I let out another series of cries.
My foot was forced to step to one side, and I crashed right into one of the trio. Of course. The impact made me drop my phone, which I automatically stooped to pick up, only for the entire contents of my shoulder bag to spill out over the floor. I let out the dumbest shriek ever.
“You okay?”
I couldn’t look up to see who’d asked.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This can’t be happening!” I muttered on autopilot, my mind blank. I might have been about to cry. Scratch that, I was dead. My life was over. I started to pick up and gather all the stuff I’d dropped while my thoughts went crazy.
I threw everything into my bag at random, snatched up my phone, and let out another scream to top it all off, because I’d just stumbled in the other direction. About to fall over, I stamped my foot on the floor like a sumo wrestler to hold my ground. This time, I managed to grab the bar. The train was arriving at a station. My station.
“Sorry!” I couldn’t turn around. I could only leap through the open doors onto the platform and run. I wanted to cry so badly. I was never taking that train ever again. I could swear I was gonna faint, but I kept running anyway.
“Ah! Wait! You, in the uniform!” The shout collided with me from behind.
“Uniform?” Did he mean me? I stopped.
“That’s my…”
Confused, I turned around. The doors were sliding shut. One of the trio was looking panicked on the other side of the glass.
“…my phone!”
The doors shut completely, cutting off his voice.
His phone?
Dumbfounded, I looked at what I was clutching in my hands. In my right hand was my white iPhone. In my left hand was something else, still white, but lighter and thinner…
“Huh? No. No way!”
The train started to rock into motion, leaving me glued to the spot. I watched the window slide past me like nothing was wrong. I couldn’t think.
Help. Help. Help!
I saw the black-haired boy bring his face closer to the window as it moved farther away. Without thinking, I ran a few paces down the platform in pursuit of the train. He was mouthing something at me, but I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. It looked like he was pointing at my hand. The train accelerated until it was out of sight, and I was left alone on the platform.
I didn’t know what to do. I still wanted to cry. I looked down at the unfamiliar phone in my hand. It vibrated out of nowhere, making me gasp. A LINE message appeared on the screen.
Wait there. We’re coming back.
The message had come from a “Kengo.” I did exactly as the message said, waiting on the platform without moving a muscle. It wasn’t long till a train came in on the other side of the tracks and the three of them got off it. They found me right away.
“Yes! My phone! Really sorry about that. I dropped mine too.”
He was behind the smiling guy who approached me. He was looking at me. I was surprised how useless my brain was being. I raised my left hand like a puppet and returned the phone to its owner. I couldn’t even apologize, though I really should have.
I was looking at him too.
“Are you okay, though? Didn’t rick your ankle or anything?”
“‘Rick’? What the heck does that mean? You asking if she twisted her ankle?”
“What, you don’t say ‘rick’? It’s how we say it at home.”
It was a conversation between two of the three. He didn’t say anything. He was still looking at me.
I opened my mouth. “Um, uh… Uh, um… Er…um…”
It was the best I could do. I didn’t know what I was saying, or even what I was trying to say. My brain had completely shut down, and my face was probably bright red.
“You say ‘rick,’ right? I mean, girls say ‘rick.’”
“No one says ‘rick.’ They say ‘twist.’ That must be some regional thing.”
“You’re kidding. No one’s ever accused us of that before. Kengo, you say ‘rick,’ right?”
His eyes were as cool as the ocean. “No.” His reply came with a slight smile. The smile showed no signs of fading as he turned his gaze back to my frozen form. “It’s no big deal, right?”
I was cooked. The limits of my mind had just been breached. Rationality, common sense, social norms.
“Uh…”
Overflowing.
“Um…”
Spilling over.
“Er…”
Gone.
“Mm…”
An irrepressible desire darted upward like a little bird from its depths, flying out in the open for all to see.
“Photo…”
“Huh?”
“Can I…take a…photo… Urgh…”