“Well, the story’s set in her subconscious, right? So it’s hard to choose any specific real-world counterpart, especially when the prose is so overwrought. In the movie, it took place in a field of wildflowers.”
“Ah, yeah, I remember that…”
“Oh, you’ve seen it? Yeah. In the source material, she tries to jump from the subconscious into the void, knowing her life is forfeit once she’s touched it, but then Ai stops her. Thing is, the scenery isn’t really described in detail from The Girl’s perspective. Even the author has only ever gone on record saying it’s where the two first met.”
“Where the hell are people supposed to find out about this stuff…?”
It wasn’t clear how she had chosen to interpret his unconcealed frustration, but her reaction was to smile bashfully. “Sorry, I’m kind of a geek about it! But the story does depict the actual location of where they first met. Personally, I interpreted it as a hazy sort of dream world.”
“Me too, more or less.” To Ai, the world inside The Girl’s heart was like the music venue stage, all covered in smoke. “So I guess that’s the answer, huh? Got it. Thanks.”
“No problem! Happy to help.”
“One last thing, actually, if you don’t mind…”
As she bobbed her head in a cute little bow, Ai couldn’t help but get his hopes up. After all, someone who had read all the interviews with the creator might know the answer to yet another mystery.
“Be my guest.”
“My friend told me the character Ai is actually a guy. Do you think that’s possible?”
“Hmmm… Hard to say.”
Right as he was ready to accept that he and the creators of the film adaptation were indeed in the majority on the subject, however, he was stopped in his tracks.
“I do think there’s a plot twist about Ai, but I’m not sure it’s her gender.” She leaned closer and cupped a hand around her mouth, likely to prevent other customers from overhearing spoilers. “If you ask me, she’s just a figment of The Girl’s imagination! But that’s just my personal headcanon, of course.”
Once again, this was a theory Ai had never considered. Before he could ask for more details, however, she was called away by another employee.
“Come by again sometime!” she told him as she left.
“Roger that,” he replied offhandedly.
With nothing left to do, Ai started flipping through the book again. On a whim, he searched for the author’s bio and found a small paragraph on the last page detailing how she had started writing stories in elementary school, followed by a list of other titles she had published thus far. Nothing about her personality.
He sincerely wondered how she must have felt, watching total strangers embrace her creation to the point of inventing their own headcanons. If she had even the slightest inkling that it could get someone killed, then she was a monster… Picturing Ogusu Nanoka like a mind flayer implanting parasites in people’s heads creeped him out, so he shook that idea off altogether. Then he put the book back on the shelf and left the store. Thanks to that clerk, he had an idea of what to do next.
As the night wind caressed his cheek, he walked down the street until he arrived at an intersection, then crossed to the other side. There, he made a left and walked until he arrived at the yellow record store where he and his young friend had first met.
A few young women were standing out front, but none of them were Akane. He went inside and did a sweep of the ground floor, but didn’t see her, so he took the escalator upstairs. There, he briefly checked his phone. No missed calls or emails.
He checked the second floor, then the third, all the while thinking about what Julia had said to him. Granted, he had vowed not to think about Julia herself anymore, so he did his best to think only of the words and not the surrounding context in which they were said.
Julia had offered a headcanon about Akane—that she was two-faced and unable to make real connections, and therefore wished she could one day change for the better, like the main character from her favorite novel. Julia also suspected that she was still reenacting the storyline. Likewise, Akane had had a headcanon about Ai, albeit far less realistic, and because of it, she had asked him to do specific things to mimic the fictional character she felt he resembled.
As for Ai himself—he was terrified of having a biased opinion of someone. At the same time, however, he knew that no matter how careful he tried to be, there was always a chance he would unconsciously project his own biases onto them. It was for that exact reason that he insisted on honest communication. Even if no human being could be fully honest 100 percent of the time, by opening up to friends and family, he had believed that the resulting relationships would be that much closer to the truth, and that this was the best possible outcome.
But that belief was starting to waver.
At the top floor, Akane was still nowhere to be seen. Thinking about it, he couldn’t really imagine how she would kill herself in a CD store anyway, so this felt like a massive waste of time. Kicking himself, he took the escalator back down to the ground floor. Still no messages on his phone.
Right as he was preparing to give up and go home, however, he remembered the look of desperation in Julia’s eyes. Thus he resigned himself to a quick sweep of the block, just in case. Luckily, this included a smoking area where he could stop and have a cigarette.
Outside the store, he followed the sidewalk in the direction of the biggest intersection in the entire district.