The next day, after making the best possible exit at the karaoke lounge…I was back at the karaoke lounge. With Takigawa-san. Again.
When I tried peeking at her in class, I couldn’t really tell if she was the girl from World 85 or not. I was curious to know if she made it back home, but I didn’t have the balls to talk to her. When I opened my shoe locker after school, however, I found another note from her waiting for me.
Sadly, the second go around was still nerve-racking for me. I doused my parched throat with another free drink and decided to try to get the ball rolling. “Uhh… Hi…?”
“Hello.”
Which Takigawa-san was this? I seriously couldn’t tell. Was she from World Zero or World 85? Given that she used the same strategy to get me here, my guess was the latter, but even then I couldn’t be certain.
“You’re the parallel Takigawa-san…right?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“I see you haven’t gone home yet.”
“Well, the greater the distance between two worlds, the more difficult parallel shifting becomes. And since we’re 85 worlds apart, I imagine it’ll take a lot longer than a day or two.”
Her matter-of-fact tone gave me pause. “You knew that the whole time?”
“Yes…?”
“Then why did you say you weren’t going to see me again?” I asked.
“I said there was a chance I wouldn’t.”
“…Oh.”
“Please don’t be upset. I’ve never gone through this before, so I don’t know for sure how long it usually takes. There was a small chance I wouldn’t see you again after that. I was just reasonably certain it wouldn’t happen that fast.”
Her argument was bulletproof, but frankly, I didn’t care about winning this one. I was just a tiny bit glad to see her again. “Okay, so why did you invite me here again?”
“Well, you’re the only one I can hang out with in this world!”
At that, my heart fluttered. “You wanted to hang out? Not just talk about parallel worlds?”
“Oh, we could do that. How much do you know about imaginary science?”
Full disclosure: my dad had a fairly prestigious position at the Imaginary Science Research Institute. He liked to tell me about his work. Honestly, I was pretty sure I knew more about imaginary science than most people my age.
“Eh… I know a little.”
I chose to undersell myself on purpose. That said, I went with “I know a little” rather than my usual “I don’t know much,” purely out of respect for her intelligence.
“A little, you say… Then let’s have an imaginary science quiz.”
Oh god, what?
“Question one: What does the ‘IP’ stand for in ‘IP band’?”
“Uhhh… Imaginary Print,” I replied.
“Close. You forgot ‘Elements.’ Question two: What is imaginary space likened to?”
“The ocean?”
“Correct. Question three: What is the name of the world’s foremost imaginary science expert?”
“What? How should I know?”
“Bzzzt. Her name is Satou Itoko. Question four…”
And so she spent the whole time quizzing me on imaginary science. She seemed impressed with my level of knowledge, and her questions became more and more esoteric over time. I found it kind of fun to try to answer them.
Like yesterday, I was the first to leave, but this time I didn’t try to act cool. It’d only get more cringey the more I kept doing it.
And as for the question of when she would shift back home… Well, let me put it this way—a full week later, she was still Takigawa-san 85.
In the beginning, I was confident that she’d go home sooner or later, so I happily hung out with her every day at the karaoke lounge, chatting about imaginary science. As I suspected based on the fact that she had an IP band, her father was involved in the field as well—and when I asked where he worked, it turned out that he and my father were colleagues. And so, flaunting the knowledge we each gleaned from our dads, we had a great time discussing all sorts of topics. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever have a stimulating conversation with someone the same age as me.
As we chatted, I came to realize just how truly intelligent she was—and not just because of her test scores. You see, whenever I talked to someone, I had a bad habit of subconsciously leaving out details I didn’t think were necessary, so people were constantly asking me to back up and explain something. But Takigawa-san was different. She was the first person my age who could actually keep up with me.
But what brought us even closer together was probably the point when we hashed out how to address each other—and it was all because of one particular conversation we were having regarding parallel worlds.
“Oh, I get it. So the version of you in your world—”
“Stop,” she said suddenly.
“Huh?”
“Having to say ‘the version of you in your world’ is too long. It’s exhausting!”
Whenever something annoyed her, she always cut straight to the chase. Personally, it was annoying for me too, but when parallel worlds were involved, we needed a way to keep things distinct and clear. After all, if I called both of her selves “Takigawa-san,” it would just get confusing.
“Okay then, what should I do? Call you by your numbers?”
“That’s even worse. Let’s just use surname for one and given name for the other.”
“Huh?”
“In this world, the two of you are Takasaki-kun and Takigawa-san, but in my world, we’re Koyomi and Kazune. It makes sense, since that’s what we call each other anyway.”
“So…you want me to call you Kazune?”
“Sure, why not?”
And so we decided that I’d refer to my 85th self as Koyomi, and the 85th Takigawa-san as Kazune. Conversely, she would call me Takasaki-kun, and refer to the Takigawa-san I knew as just that—Takigawa-san. For some reason, it felt really awkward to address a female classmate by her given name only, even though I couldn’t explain it.
Every now and then, instead of talking science, we actually sang karaoke instead. Surprisingly, Takigawa-san—er, Kazune—was a really good singer. She tore my crappy performances apart and then coached me to sing better. Before I knew it, we were on close enough terms that I was comfortable snapping back at her when she got too pushy.
Then one day, I got so cocky that I flat-out asked her, “Well then, could you date me instead of Koyomi?”
I don’t really remember what led to it—we were probably talking about what she would do if she stayed stuck in my world forever. At the time, I really struggled to keep my tone perfectly casual so she wouldn’t think I was serious. But perhaps that struggle worked in my favor… No, probably not.
Her eyes turned serious. She said, “To be honest, I’m not attracted to you.”
“Exactly, so…” I started to respond promptly in a tone that suggested I had anticipated this answer well before I even asked the question. If I let her see that it hurt me, it was all over.
But even then, Kazune was one step ahead of me.
“But… I really love Koyomi, so…perhaps we could be destined for each other, even 85 entire worlds away. If you’re angling for that, you’ll have to give it your best.”
I was speechless. Was she saying I had a chance with this world’s version of her?
Then, I realized something. Despite all the conversations I’d had with Kazune, I still hadn’t spoken to Takigawa-san once. What was that version of her even like?