Recently, Rukana Shizukudani had taken to going to school at the same time every day. She used to show up after classes had started and enter through the staff doorway, which she’d been given special permission to use. That routine, however, had changed as of late.
Now she joined the throngs of middle schoolers making their way through the school gates. Even when she was part of the crowd, she was still alone. Alone and yet not. After all, Cipher was always right by her side—always watching as its four legs propelled it silently forward.
Needless to say, Rukana had a reason for showing up on time. At that moment, a trio of girls were walking about ten meters in front of her. One of them—the girl in the middle—was her target, and Rukana had been watching her every morning for a while now.
The girl had always been thin with rather narrow shoulders, and she’d kept her black hair in the same long, perfectly straight style since elementary school. Back then, however, she never would have walked to school in a group. That would have been impossible.
As Rukana watched the girl reply to the others in her group, nodding and laughing when appropriate, a thought struck her: She’s forcing herself. Rukana could tell. She knew the girl’s true nature. The students flanking her were her classmates and maybe her friends, but neither of them understood her like Rukana did. They couldn’t possibly.
The girl had changed a lot. In elementary school, she would spend every day out hunting for bugs and sketching them. Her interest was so intense it bordered on obsession, and she couldn’t hold a half-decent conversation about anything else. Others found her unsettling, and she’d wound up an outcast. She was a total weirdo, though, so it was no surprise her peers had kept their distance.
But now she was trying to change—or rather, she’d already changed. She’d put in the work and learned how to appeal to those around her. She’d figured out how to hold a conversation. In the end, though, that was all surface level. You couldn’t become a new person overnight.
A pair of butterflies fluttered around the girl’s shoulders. The girls with her didn’t seem to notice them nor did the other middle schoolers around them. In fact, even the girl herself seemed oblivious. An avid insect collector like her, who regularly grabbed bugs with her bare hands and loved butterflies above all else, hadn’t noticed that two of them were fluttering right above her own shoulder. That couldn’t be right. Had she really changed that much?
The girl had a favorite type of butterfly: a species called the blue admiral. Blue admirals had black wings with vivid blue patterns—just like the butterflies that, at that very moment, had passed behind the girl’s neck to a position above her left shoulder, where they now hovered in place.
She couldn’t see them. No one could. Nobody aside from Rukana anyway. That said, they weren’t a hallucination. In fact, they weren’t butterflies, either, much as they resembled them. They were zingai, and though they’d been flying in tandem until now, they suddenly split apart. One of them flew away from the girl, toward the student walking to her left. The other turned back the way it had come and continued toward the student on the girl’s right.
The student on the left had short hair, and the butterfly-like zingai landed on the exposed nape of her neck. The student on the right’s hair was long, and she kept it tucked behind her ears. The zingai that had flown toward her came to rest on her earlobe.
The butterfly-like creatures spread their wings wide. They looked like they were resting or perhaps harvesting nectar or sap. They hadn’t landed on flowers or trees, though. They’d landed on people.
When the trio of girls passed through the school gates, the butterfly zingai still hadn’t budged. Soon the group vanished into the entryway, out of Rukana’s line of sight. The butterfly zingai had stayed on the two girls until the very end, never moving.
Rukana went in through the staff entrance and pulled her indoor shoes out of a bag she’d been carrying. Once she’d switched her footwear, she made her way toward the nurse’s office. In the hall, she pressed her wrist against her mouth. Try as she might, she simply couldn’t keep down her laughter.
“Itoha’s zingai are making great progress. They’ve grown so well…”
Rukana had delivered one success after another. Things could hardly have been going better.
She took a moment to collect herself, then opened the door to the nurse’s office—and paused. She wasn’t shocked per se, just confused. The stool that the school nurse usually sat on was occupied by someone else—a man wearing a brimless hat and a medical mask that covered the lower half of his face. His hands were large, and he wore a pair of tall boots.
“Th-the Cleaner,” Rukana muttered.
“Close the door.”
The voice was deep yet gentle and, above all, incredibly comforting. It didn’t belong to the Cleaner, though. As far as Rukana knew, he never spoke. The beds. It was coming from the beds.
Rukana did as she was told, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. There were three beds in the nurse’s office, with curtains that could be drawn around them for privacy. A man wearing a white button-up shirt was sitting on the farthest one. The instant Rukana saw him, she felt like her heart might stop. Perhaps it had, just for a moment. For a split second, she’d been dead, and he had brought her back to life.
“Master S…!”
Rukana saw stars. Her ears rang. It felt like the Earth was spinning beneath her. A smile spread across the man called S’s beautiful face. He was an almost uncannily slender man—entirely unlike the boys who went to Rukana’s middle school. There was no comparing them. The word handsome seemed too frivolous—too ordinary—to do him justice. How could she ever hope to describe him in words? Rukana considered him to be a truly noble individual. Holy even.
Cipher crawled its way up Rukana’s right leg, wrapping its four limbs around her. It was probably trying to calm her down. She couldn’t afford to lose her cool. Rukana understood that, but she couldn’t help herself. S was here. Right here. He’d come for her. The Cleaner was one thing, but why would S himself pay her a visit? She’d never anticipated this. How could she have?
“Wh-wh-why are you at my s-school, Master S…?” Rukana sputtered.
“Just running an errand,” S replied. He stood up from the bed and tilted his chin—gesturing for her to come toward him. Rukana understood what the gesture meant, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. How could this possibly be? Why would S beckon her over? “Oh—and I came to see you, too, Rukana,” he added.
“Y-you came…to see…?”
Rukana slowly tottered toward S. He’d come to see her. Her.
The Cleaner stood up as well, then moved the stool he’d been sitting on closer to S.
“Go on,” S said.
Rukana nodded repeatedly, then sat down. Sitting while he was standing was shockingly discourteous—but S had ordered it. She had to obey.
S knelt down on one knee, lowering himself to Rukana’s eye level. Is this really okay? she thought. Cipher had vanished at some point. At any rate, it was no longer by her side. But she wasn’t worried; it was surely somewhere nearby. And anyway, that didn’t matter right now.
“Hold out your hands, Rukana.”
Rukana could never disobey S, no matter what he asked of her. She raised her hands, clueless as to what he wanted. S raised his hands as well—slender, like those of a pianist, with long, perfectly smooth fingers—and wrapped them around hers. Her hands looked tiny in comparison. Childish. His felt sleek—silky. They weren’t dry, but they weren’t damp, either. Not like Rukana’s. Even she could feel the sweat on her palms.
“I-I’m sorry,” said Rukana. “My nerves—my hands, the sweat, I…”
“Don’t worry about it,” said S. “Just breathe. Slowly. Deep breaths. Watch. Do as I do.”
S pursed his lips and sucked in a slow, deep breath. Rukana imitated him, and like magic, her pounding heart began to slow and the stiffness in her limbs drained away.
“You’ve done well, Rukana. Very well, indeed,” said S.
“…Have I really?” she asked.
“Of course.” He gently drew her hands toward his face, stopping just before the tip of his nose. Rukana could feel his breath on her fingertips. Her heart started pounding all over again. “You’ve done enough already, but the way I see it, you’re capable of so much more. You have a wealth of potential, Rukana. Simply tremendous.”
“I do? I have potential?”
“You do—because you’re special.”
“I’m…special.”
“That’s right,” S said as he lowered his head. His hair brushed against the back of Rukana’s hands. She felt like she might faint on the spot, but there was still more to come. Next, he pressed his forehead into the back of her fingers. “I know you can do this, Rukana. I have faith in you, and I’m always watching you.”