I’ve never traveled outside Japan, but I bet that first step onto foreign soil is really something. That’s what I’m thinking as I walk down the narrow ramp attached to the side of the ferry. The second my loafers hit the concrete of the harbor, my heart shouts Shikoku! It’s my first time here. I stop and wait for the crowd of middle-aged men to pass through. Once they’re a safe distance away, I start walking. To be safe, I’m holding the chair behind my back. Since I left my house empty-handed, I’m now a shady character wearing a school uniform and carrying a kiddie chair. I don’t want to draw attention to myself.
I maintain a steady distance from the men, who are talking noisily: “Today’s another hot one!” “I’m on my way to Osaka from here” and so on. I walk down a bare-bones passage covered with corrugated metal. “We look forward to your next voyage with us,” a voice is telling me through a speaker. I imagined Shikoku would be different from my hometown in Miyazaki, but so far, the sounds, the air, and the run-down look of the harbor are exactly like home. From the blue of the sky and the smell of the sea to the faded color of the concrete, everything is disappointingly similar.
“…Suzume?”
With a clatter, the chair behind my back begins to move. I stop at the sound of Souta’s voice.
“You’re finally up!” I say, sighing with relief. “You wouldn’t wake up, so I was starting to wonder if everything was a dream!”
We’re outside of the ferry terminal, standing at the edge of a large parking lot. Souta, the lazy bum, had the nerve to stay asleep for the whole two hours since sunrise, even though I tried to wake him up who knows how many times.
“I…was sleeping…?” he asks groggily. I sigh again, loudly.
“Oh, never mind. Now, about that cat! How should we search for it? Should we start by asking around at the harbor?”
“What?”
“I wonder where we are anyway.”
I take my phone out of my skirt pocket. I’m glad I brought this, at least. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to pay for the ferry.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Ignoring Souta’s panicked voice, I turn on my phone. I briskly swipe away the message notifications from Tamaki, open a map, and determine our location. We’re at Yawatahama Harbor, on the western edge of Ehime Prefecture. There’s an urban area to the east of us and a train station within walking distance. Hmm. I wonder how far we are from my house. I pull up my trip log, and the map zooms out to show Shikoku and Kyushu. I’m 219 kilometers from home.
“Wow, we came a long way,” I say.
“I wonder if you could get back home by tonight if you took the next ferry. Remember what I told you last night? You need to stop worrying about me and get yourself back—”
“Aaah!” I blurt out.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at this!”
I crouch down and show Souta my social media feed. There’s a picture of the white kitten perched on the seat of a train.
“I think that’s our cat, isn’t it?!”
“No way…!”
I filter my feed so it only shows posts near our current location. It’s full of pictures of the white cat. There’s one from last night of it sitting on the bow of the patrol boat, one at dawn of it sitting on a mooring at the harbor, one from a little later of it on the railing of a bridge, then one from a few hours ago of it on a bench outside a train station. And finally, one from a few minutes ago of it sitting on the ticket box inside a train—and in every one, it’s doing an obnoxiously photogenic innocent kitten pose.
“Look what I saw on my pilgrimage!”
“It’s so cute I can’t stand it!”
“I got on the train and bam, a real-life version of Whisper of the Heart!”
“Kitty Stationmaster meets Ciao Churu mascot!”
“Cute…so cute… A kitten is sitting next to me…”
Each picture has its own caption, though most are pretty simple. It’s like the posters are too overwhelmed to say much beyond how cute the kitten is. Everywhere it goes, it has been craftily, haughtily (I mean, that’s how it looks!) getting its picture taken.
“They’re calling it Daijin, like a cabinet minister…?” I mutter.
“That white goatee looks just like the ones ministers had in the old days. Too cute!”
“The way the fur on its cheeks curls up looks just like a politician!”
I see a lot of similar posts. There’s even a hashtag: #withDaijin.
“Are they serious…? Actually, now that I think about it, they’re kind of right…”
“It’s heading east by train. I have to follow it!” Souta says, walking off noisily. As he goes, he creaks his backrest toward me and says decisively, “We part here. Thanks for everything, Suzume. Take care on your trip home.”
Where should I buy a ticket to? Might as well go as far as I can, I think, and I press the largest button on the ticket machine. The electronic beep echoes off the yawning ceiling of the station.
“Hold on, now…”
Ignoring the voice of protest next to me, I take the ticket from the machine. Then I walk through the ticket gate at Yawatahama Station clasping the little chair to my stomach.
“If you don’t get home, your family will worry about you!”
“Not a problem. My family is hands off,” I whisper calmly. I thought I was pulling off this “holding this chair is no big deal” thing pretty well, but kids wearing unfamiliar uniforms are staring at me. “The conductorless train for Matsuyama is now arriving,” a lackadaisical voice announces over the speaker. We get on. At first the train is nearly empty, but after a few stations, it’s packed. We can finally relax.
“…This trip is going to be dangerous. I can’t have you following me,” the chair says in a troubled voice from its spot on my lap.
“But, Souta,” I say, turning my phone screen toward his face. “Look!”
A picture of the chair running down the hill has been posted on social media. The picture is blurry because its subject is moving fast, but that only lends it a kind of dubious reality, like the discovery of some new cryptid. Other pictures show it walking down the pier and strolling around the harbor this morning. Some of them include me, although my face isn’t clear.
“You won’t believe what I saw!”
“Me too!”
“Is it a chair-shaped drone?!”
“Who’s the mysterious girl?”
We’re not quite trending, but we’re getting there. There’s another hashtag: #runningchair.
“No way…!”
“See? It’s risky for you to walk in front of people! At this rate, you’ll be captured before you reach the cat!”
Souta appears to be at a loss for words. After a moment, he says gravely, “Suzume, it seems I have no choice. I would like your assistance until we find Daijin.”
The chair bows its head with a creak. Yesss! I grin and bow in return.
“The pleasure is mine!”
He’s finally accepted me. I look up, newly determined, and realize a little kid is staring at me. Fortunately, his mother is absorbed in her phone. Close call! I have a responsibility to get Souta back to his original form. Until he’s human again, I’ve got to protect him!