I yet again grew impatient, but I was handling the wait better than I had the first time. I now knew for certain that there was a chance we might see each other again. As I waited, I thought again and again about the meaning behind the mysterious girl’s words. She lived in a different world where there was a war going on, and Japan did not exist. What could that mean? I didn’t understand it, but I had to consider that it was true, even with my limited knowledge. I wondered if it had anything to do with the war I had been hearing so much about lately.
Right, and more importantly, what was up with all that static? It was like a radio receiver suddenly going out of focus.
“Somethin’ is up with you, Suzuki-kun…” Tanaka, who was already at her desk, began when I entered the classroom and took my own assigned seat.
“Hm?”
“Don’t usually see you playin’ with your phone. Didn’t even realize you had one. Whatcha doin’?”
“It’s got nothing to do with you.”
Never in a million years would I exchange contact information with Tanaka.
“Tch, I wasn’t assuming that it did…?”
If it doesn’t concern her, then why is she asking about it? I thought, but of course I couldn’t say that, so I just let it go. If Tanaka wanted to waste her life being a busybody poking at things that she had no interest or investment in, then she was free to do so. That was none of my business.
Incidentally, I was messing around on my phone because I needed to look some things up. At the very least I supposed I needed to figure out a universal name for the girl. Though she had said “universal,” to put it simply, there were a lot of names for girls out there, weren’t there? That was what I was investigating. That said, the lists of most popular names changed every year, and I got the sense there wasn’t really any one name that could be considered ‘universal.’
A surname would be easy—something like Takahashi or Satou. Names like Tanaka were already taken. Still, it felt kind of awkward for me to offer up a given name for a girl. She’d said I could call her whatever I wanted, and instinctively, I already half felt that Satou was the best option.
While I investigated and pondered things I was not even sure that I needed to, the day of our reunion came. It was two days after the last time she had appeared at the bus shelter.
“Been waiting for you, Kaya.”
I heard her voice from the faint lights the moment I entered.
“It’s been a bit. I don’t visit the safe houses very often these ××.”
“What’s this about a safe house?”
“Right, we should continue our conversation. Where should I start?”
I was glad to hear her get right down to business. I closed the door and sat down in my usual spot. Her nails were in a tidy line, as though she had her hands atop her knees, her eyes pointed fixedly at me.
“So, I actually came here with a lot of questions about you, Kaya. Mind if I go ahead?”
“Sure.”
I had no reason to refuse.
“Um, so while we were apart, I checked some ××××××.”
“Sorry, couldn’t hear that. You checked some what?”
“Right.” Her eyes moved up and down as though acknowledging something. “Books?”
“That I understand.”
“I looked through some books, and sure enough, there’s no country called Jappan anywhere in our world. Not currently or formerly.”
Given her phrasing, she was not speaking metaphorically—Japan as a country truly never existed. If I believed what she was saying, the possibility of her being a ghost was shrinking.
“You live in a country that shouldn’t exist, and know nothing about the sirens, and can’t understand the words I say, but…there’s something that’s been bugging me even more than that, even since before we could talk to each other.” Five of her nails drew nearer to me, only one of them extending further. It was obvious she was pointing. “Your eyes and nails don’t glow.”
She seemed to be suggesting that it was normal for her to find this mysterious. As I stared deeply into the lights, I remembered that those were her eyes and awkwardly averted mine.
“Because of that, at first I assumed you were a figment of my imagination, that my mind was just making up all the right things for you to say.”
Honestly, I had sort of thought the same thing.
“Still, I have no way of confirming that. Even if I asked you whether you were just a product of my imagination, you could say no, but that might just be my imagination as well.”
“Yeah, same on my end really.”
“I’m glad you get it. Even though that might just be my imagination too.”
It was difficult to determine just from the shape of her eyes, and there was a strong chance that I was just seeing what I wanted to, but even if it was just my guess, it seemed that she was smiling. Though I couldn’t actually see it, this smile made me feel for the first time that she might actually be a person.
“The next thing that occurred to me, which I mentioned before, was that you might be a dead person. You said you were alive, but you might actually be dead, and your ×××× is just lingering in my safe house for some reason.”
I assumed the word I couldn’t hear was ‘spirit’ or something. I figured I would ask later, so as not to interrupt her.
“But if that were true, it wouldn’t explain why you would mention a country called Jappan. So, based on what you’ve told me so far, I’ve landed on a more accurate theory than you being dead.”
Of course. And that would be…
“Is that what you were saying last time? About us not being in the same world?”
“Yep. That’s the most ×××× answer.”
“So…are you saying that you’ve come from a different world into the one that I’m in, where Japan exists?”
I was thinking she was perhaps some kind of traveler from another world who had made her way to this shelter, but she looked like she was shaking her head.
“I don’t think that’s right. Right now, I’m in my safe house. I need to ask: Kaya, where are you right now?”
Right here, I was almost tempted to answer, though I knew she was not asking such a straightforward question.
“I’m at a bus stop.”
“Bus stop…? The bus stop is for…some kind of vehicle?”
“Yeah, a bus.”
“…Gotcha.”
What was that about?
“Kaya, there’s one more thing I’d like to confirm. Can you give me your right hand?”
Again, I had no reason to refuse, so I did as I was asked, gently stretching out my right hand, which definitely fully existed beyond just my fingernails. I was honestly shocked at myself for how readily, how casually I did this. Then, before I had time to prepare myself, something cold touched my hand.
“Whoa!”