“You’re okay, Tomoya-kun. Don’t panic,” said Ayane. She grabbed me by the arm as I wriggled and squirmed like a blind worm in the dirt. Apparently she’d followed me down into the earth. With her now pulling me up, I was able to stabilize my posture. After giving me a chance to regain my bearings, she dragged me back up to the surface.
“What in the hell was that for?!” I shouted.
“I just wanted to see you freak out a little bit, that’s all,” she said. “I mean, who doesn’t relish the chance to see a usually-calm-and-collected type lose their cool for once? It’s almost titillating in a way, y’know what I mean? …Well, I guess maybe a guy like you wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re correct. I do not understand, nor do I have any desire to.”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Here, I’ll teach you how to actually fly now, so cheer up.”
We soared up into the skies over the city once more. She gave me a moment to calm down before grabbing both my hands so that we were floating facing each other.
“Remember, gravity has no effect on you as a ghost,” she said. “You’re free to go and fly off in whatever direction you want to. All you have to do is picture it clearly in your mind’s eyes, and I promise you won’t fall.”
This time, she let go of my hands much more slowly—and while I still did panic and lose a bit of altitude at first, once I took Ayane’s advice and scrambled to imagine myself floating alongside her, I managed to catch my own fall and float back up to her level.
“Whoa, hey!” I shouted. “I’m actually doing it!”
“See, there you go,” said Ayane.
After another few minutes’ practice, I was propelling my soul here and there across the skyline like it was no trouble at all. Ayane really wasn’t kidding: all you had to do was picture a direction in your head, and off you went.
“Now then,” said Ayane, calling out to me from beneath the moonlight. “Where would you like to go next? Just pick a destination and make a wish.”
On the outskirts of town was a vast nature park that also housed an art museum on its grounds. It was already well past closing time, so the doors were locked—but that hardly made a difference for me and Ayane. We slipped through its outer walls, right past the night security guard stationed outside the building, and snuck our way into the museum. With no visitors inside, the lights in each of the museum’s wings had been turned off for the night. The only illumination remaining was the green glow of the emergency exit signs and an occasional bright red dot here and there where the fire alarms were located. We could have easily flown down the halls, but for whatever reason, we opted to walk slowly and respectfully like proper museum guests.
“Over here,” I said to Ayane. “This is the intended route.”
“You come here pretty often?” she asked.
“Used to. My dad took me here a lot when I was a kid.”
One of the museum staff members was of the same faith as my father, so we were treated like family any time we came here. There were several pieces of Christian art on display here, including an old Russian icon of Jesus Christ and an original oil painting depicting the Annunciation from somewhere in Europe. My father would sometimes stop in front of these art pieces and relate some anecdotes from the Bible to me.
“I’ve definitely never been here after closing time, though,” I added. “It’s kind of surreal. I used to dream about getting to stay here after hours and look at all the artwork as long as I liked with no other museum visitors to disturb me.”
“You’re a pretty big art buff, aren’t you, Tomoya-kun?” she asked while standing beside the statue of a woman on display at the center of the gallery and attempting to strike the same pose.
“Not sure I’d go quite that far, but I was in the art club back in junior high. My fellow clubmates and I used to come here pretty often too.”
Though all of the lights in the building were off, if I really strained my eyes, I could still make out even the smaller details of the paintings on display. I perceived them through some alternate form of vision I had right now that wasn’t dependent on light whatsoever. I examined each painting from point-blank range—close enough that I’d be issued a warning from one of the security guards under normal circumstances. I could even dip my face into the painting itself if I wanted to and examine the microscopic contours of each and every brush stroke along the canvas.
“Look, Tomoya-kun. I’m royalty now.”
Ayane had seen fit to float up into the massive oil portrait of some aristocratic woman and poke her head out from behind the canvas, superimposing her own face right over where the subject’s would otherwise be—almost like one of those photo op boards with the faces cut out that you could find at any tourist trap. I was genuinely impressed by her ingenuity; not everyone would be able to come up with such a dumb way to take advantage of their incorporeality.
As we talked while we walked through the dusky corridors, we eventually came to the aforementioned oil painting my father loved so much. It depicted the Annunciation—a moment from the New Testament in which an angel visits the Virgin Mary and informs her of her destiny to give birth to the savior of mankind through the miracle of Immaculate Conception.
“I have to say, I’m a little surprised to hear you were in art club,” said Ayane. “You don’t really strike me as the artsy type, Tomoya-kun.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Well, I mean, art’s all about feeling and intuition, right? Expressing yourself through emotion above all else. You seem more like someone who thinks much more critically and values hard facts and logic over your own feelings. I know this is only the second time we’ve talked, but just based on my first impressions, you give off serious STEM major vibes. Like, I could see you meticulously sketching out blueprints all night, but painting portraits? Not so much.”
“You actually need a pretty logical mindset to be a good artist, I’d say.”
“Is that right?” she asked.