It had been seven years since my dad had died, but FM-KCZ was right where it had been.
It was five minutes from the condo where I lived—definitely past tense now—with my mom. It was a radio station, but on the outside, it looked like an ordinary house. This had been my dad’s parents’ house. He’d remodeled the first floor into a radio studio. The inside was far more elaborate than you’d expect from the term “mini-FM radio station.”
It had been seven years since I’d been here. In other words, I hadn’t been here once since Dad died. Maybe it would be better to say I was avoiding it. I was deliberately avoiding coming anywhere near it.
So why had I come here now? Did I want to escape from this painful reality by remembering my kind father? Or was it because I thought Mom was here?
I approached the house. It was two stories tall, with a front door facing the street and a big window to the first-floor studio. Mom would come sometimes to clean it, and it was clean enough that you’d never believe it was empty. The big antenna on the second floor roof was still there, sticking out like a sore thumb in the quiet residential neighborhood.
I looked in through the window at the studio.
It was empty. Mom wasn’t here, it seemed. I used to love watching my dad’s excitement through the window as he did his recording.
During broadcasts I would always stand here, using the dial on the Skysensor to tune in and make sure I could hear my dad’s voice. And then I’d look at him through the window and give him a thumbs-up.
He’d do the same, and the program would begin.
“Once again, we’ve started off with my son watching me. Welcome to Musashino Wonderland.”
That was always how he’d start the program.
Whenever I watched him through that window, I was so proud, and excited, and happy. I always used to look forward to the days when my dad did his broadcasts.
I sighed and stood in front of the window as I flipped the switch on the Skysensor. I spun the dial without looking at the numbers, relying only on the sensation of my fingers.
---Bzzztt--bzzzzt
Static came out of the speaker. Just like I’d tried before.
No matter how long I waited, even after I was dead, would I never be able to connect with my dad?
“Yuta Gamon.”
“Hyah!”
Suddenly, somebody said my name from behind me, and I thought my heart would stop even though I wasn’t alive.
I turned around to see a girl who was my age, or a little younger than me. Our eyes met.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
Huh? Hadn’t I met her somewhere? Saeko Kitaya? No, that girl was much plainer. This girl was... I dunno, this is a weird example, but the word that came to mind was “colorless.”
I didn’t know anyone this colorless. Then... who was she? No, forget that!
“You can see me? Can you see me? Hey, can you see me?!”
“Yes.” The girl nodded. “I don’t know why, honestly.”
--Zzzzz--bbbbzzz---
Huh? I was hearing the static from the radio again, but it wasn’t from the one on my shoulder.
I looked and saw that the girl in front of me was carrying a bag, too. It looked incredibly like mine. No, it didn’t ‘look like it.’ That bag for the Skysensor had been my own design, and there was even the same Zonko strap on it.
“That’s... my Skysensor!”
“Sky... what?” The girl’s eyebrows narrowed.
“Skysensor! That radio! A BCL radio made in 1975! It’s the greatest masterpiece of that famous manufacturer! It’s capable of capturing every radio wave across the planet! Wait, that doesn’t matter!” I strode towards the girl and stared at the Zonko keychain. “This! Zonko! It’s Zonko!”
The girl simply looked confused.
“Is a coincidence like this possible? No way! It can’t be this identical! Were you copying me? Are you a stalker? A beautiful girl like you as a stalker... Are you some kind of yandere?”
“I got this from your corpse...”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. It would take more than two identical radios to surprise me at this point. I’m already dead, after all.”
“I’d like to talk to you more about that.” The girl didn’t seem surprised at all to hear me say that I was dead. She was a very calm girl. She didn’t feel like she was really my age. “I’m investigating the Inokashira Mass Suicide.”
“Investigating? Wait, who are you?” I looked again at the girl in front of me. This time I tried my best to be subtle so our eyes wouldn’t meet.
She had a kid’s face and a tiny, fragile-looking body. She didn’t look very healthy. Her skin was pale, and her pallor was pretty bad. She was clearly the sick-character archetype. She was thin enough that I thought she might be in middle school. At least, I was sure she wasn’t in college.
She hadn’t smiled at all, either. Was she the type who didn’t let her emotions show? The so-called Ayanami type. In every way, she was the exact opposite of Ryotasu.
So what did she mean she was “investigating” the case?
Was she playing detective? All on her own? Or did she run an occult aggregator blog like I did? Maybe she’d decided I was a rival and was stalking me? I didn’t need any stalkers, but maybe I could hire her as a third Basara girl?
As I stood there thinking about that, the girl in front of me said something I’d never expected. She took what looked like a black pass case out of her pocket, opened it, and showed it to me. “I’m Asuna Kizaki. I’m an FBI investigator in charge of the Kichijoji incident.”
“Huhuhh?!” I yelled in shock. “Seriously? FBI? Like THE FBI?” I checked the ID she showed me. It was the same as I’d seen in movies and things, sure enough. It even had her photo. “Oh, wow! A Japanese FBI Agent (who’s also a hot girl?) It’s like something out of a manga!”
“U-Um...”
“No, no, no. Hold on. This is impossible. The FBI’s the American police! They’d never come to Kichijoji. In other words, you’re lying. Are you cosplaying or something? I don’t think I remember that character. Were there any moe FBI characters in anime?”
“It’s not cosplay. The FBI is interested in the case that’s happening in this town right now. It’s that important.” She looked back at me seriously. Just looking at her, she didn’t seem to be lying. But still, you know...
“So the FBI just specially made you an officer? Just one day?”
“There was another officer in charge, but now I’ve taken over. Until a year ago, I was in America, where I worked for the FBI.”
“That doesn’t answer the question. There’s no way the FBI would hire a young girl like you. You’re my age, or younger than me, right?”
“I’m older than you. I’m a third-year student at Seimei High.”
“See? So you’re a Japanese high school (hot) girl FBI agent. Another improbable story. Nobody’s going to believe that. Is this an anime? It’s an anime, right? There’s no way you’re telling the truth!”
“I’m telling the truth!”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter whether you are or not.”
Since I was dead, she didn’t have anything to do with me. If I just considered her a slightly delusional upperclassman, it wasn’t that big a deal. After dealing with Ryotasu all the time, this was nothing.
For now, I would call this “Japanese high school hot girl FBI agent,” AKA Asuna Kizaki, “Asunyan.” Just like with Myu-Pom, if I ended up writing any articles about her, it would make her more popular. Still, if I was going to meet an FBI Agent, I would’ve preferred to meet Mulder and Scully. I couldn’t speak English, though.
Using the key, I invited Asunyan into FM-KCZ. The inside of the station was a little dusty, but it smelled just like I remembered, and I almost teared up a little.
“So um, what do you want with me?”
“Why did you kill yourself?” Asunyan asked. She evidently wasn’t concerned with my feelings as a dead person.
“I did not kill myself. I’m dead, I guess, but it wasn’t suicide.”
“So you were killed?”
“I don’t remember that at all. It took a while for me to even realize I was dead. Well, I guess that happens a lot with ghosts! Hahaha.” I laughed, a little forced. But I remembered what happened at Daiseiji yesterday and immediately felt depressed. “Yeah, I really saw my own body... It was awful. I should never have gone. Man, I should’ve never gone! Damn it!”
Hmm? Wait a second. Wasn’t she...
“Oh, right! You were the girl next to my coffin yesterday!”
“That’s right. We met yesterday at Daiseiji.”
I see. That’s why I remembered her.
“You don’t look so good,” I said.
“I’m fine now. Don’t worry about me,” Asunyan answered, as she looked around the inside of the booth. Her expression was serious, and not at all like a girl playing detective. “This was your dad’s radio station, right?”
“Yeah. It was a small one, but it had a decent number of listeners. We got a bunch of postcards and stuff, and I think we were pretty famous, I guess.”
There was a cork bulletin board on the wall of the booth, covered with letters and postcards my dad had received. There were a pretty good number of thank-you letters. After seven years, they were pretty faded, but you could still read them. Most of the letters were about things that didn’t matter, but those that did, Dad would read on air and try his best to help them with any problems they were having.