mission report for gomushroom (part 2 of 3)
Back to Part 1
Monochrome effect
Jun’s scream is short-lived. When the laser beam dissipates Sho remains standing, completely unharmed, except for a light scratch on his forehead. He rubs it with a frown. “Always the forehead.”
“You…what.” Jun gapes, pointing at the man who should be dead. “But the laser-”
“Can we leave the explanation for after we’re out of this battle?” Sho asks, squinting his eyes at the distance.
“No,” Jun spits before Sho tackles him to the side, narrowly missing another laser beam. The wall is left a scorched, blistering black. “Okay, fine, but-”
A third laser beam heads their way and before Sho can manhandle him anymore, the beam is deflected by something long and thin flying in front of them, clattering onto the floor.
“Umbrella?” Sho takes the disbelieving words right out of Jun’s mouth. “Really?”
“It was Aiba’s idea! He still goes on about that time you fended off those onibaba with just a parasol.”
Jun winces. He knows that voice. He’s spent the better part of three days wishing he didn’t know that voice. “Nino.”
“Yo, Emperor.” Nino waves boredly from the roof of the next-door building. He’s squatting with his knees to his chest and in his hands there is something that looks suspiciously like-
“Oi, we are battling for our lives and you’re going to sit there and play Nintendo DS!?”
“We?” Nino doesn’t even take his eyes off the game screen as Sho leaps into the air with his umbrella raised, only to get slammed back into the rooftop door. “And it’s a 3DS!”
“Is now the time-” Sho grits, taking Jun by the arm and tossing him behind before opening the umbrella and deflecting a barrage of laser bullets, “for this conversation?”
“Yes!”
Sho ignores him and charges forward with his open umbrella, leaving Jun rather defenseless against the giant wasp monsters suddenly interested in his face. Luckily Kashiyuka appears just in time to slice the monster clean in two with the quickest bow work he’s ever seen.
“Are you okay, Jun-sama?”
Well, he just found out he’s from another universe, he’s being targeted by some freakish monsters because of his apparent royal blood, meaning his whole life may have been something of a lie, or a refraction of the truth, and, oh yeah, even the senpai he’s come to admire is part of this freak show. “Define okay.”
“Uninjured!” Kashiyuka cries, drawing her arrow three times in rapid succession. He feels a gust of wind across his face as her arrows meet their marks, leaving behind only the pitiful cries of dying Shade.
“Oh, I guess.”
“Let’s keep it that way!” A-chan adds, flanking his right side and sending another Shade into disintegrating flames.
“Roger!” Nocchi concludes, flanking his last side so they are forming a triangle around him, fending off Shade attacks left and right. Jun’s legs twitch and he tells himself it’s just fatigue, but his ankles continue to knock together long after he slides onto the floor in a pathetic heap.
The battle is over with one last Shade scream, and as the girls huff and puff and try to catch their breaths and tend to their wounds, Sho offers him a hand. “You all right?” His smile is friendly and disarming, the same as it always has been, and that’s what bothers Jun the most.
“No,” he says, ignoring Sho’s hand and rising to his shaky feet with his own effort. “No, I’m not.”
“Jun-”
“You were one of them this entire time,” he says quietly, trying to calm the anger swelling up in his chest and throbbing in his skull. “You pretended to be my friend for an entire year, plotting the day you would all sweep in and what, get me to follow you into your ridiculous quest to save the world? Is that it?”
“Jun-sama, that’s not-”
“Shut up,” he snaps, glaring at the girls. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you three hanging around the train station for months before that day, but you,” he continues, rounding on Sho, “you were my friend. Sakurai-senpai. I trusted you. You were there when my mother passed and-” Jun’s eyes widen as everyone falls silent.
“My mother…the one person I would miss from this world-and the only person who would miss me. Did you do anything to her? Is that how you thought you could get me to follow you-!?”
“Jun-sama, we would never-”
“I’m not asking you,” Jun snarls. Tears spring to Kashiyuka’s eyes, but he doesn’t care he doesn’t he doesn’t.
“I would never hurt your mother,” Sho says quietly.
“Was her death Shade-related?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I know things are confusing, Jun-sama, but…”
“Don’t call me that! Stop acting like I’m some great hero who’s going to help save your universe because, if you can’t tell-I can’t save anyone. I couldn’t keep my mother alive and I probably can’t even keep myself alive. But…the least I can do is keep a promise to her.” He takes a breath. “I’m not going with you. I can’t save your world. Don’t come near me ever again.”
Sho smiles bitterly. “You can’t mean that, Jun-sama.”
“I can and I do. If you have any respect for me as your Crown Prince, you will leave me alone.” And then he’s running, ignoring their shouts and pleas, running to the station and hopping aboard any train that will take him far away.
He rides down endless lines until he realizes he’s starving, stops by a family restaurant and orders three things off the menu to go. He realizes by the time he gets back to an empty home that he’s bought enough to feed five.
Jun sets the food on the kitchen table and doesn’t feel hungry anymore. But it’s for the best, he thinks. No more lying senpai, no more finger-flicking psychos and no more strange, stupid, brave girls.
He closes his eyes and breathes deeply.
One, his name is Matsumoto Jun.
Two, he is relieved. Really. All he’s ever wanted was a normal life.
The doorbell rings and Jun’s heart doesn’t leap into his throat and he tells himself he’s not relieved and he’s not going to let them in, not after everything that’s happened-not even if he’s more likely to get killed from the next Shade attack without them than not-so when he opens the door to find a tiny, cherub-faced little girl, he’s not quite sure what he feels anymore.
“Jun-chan! I ran away from home!” she cries before clinging to his legs.
“Eh?”
Three, he…nope. He’s got nothing for this one.
Waiting for you
“So you’re a time traveler?”
“Time Manipulator,” Nino corrects with a wag of his finger.
“That’s not a real thing.” Jun frowns. “And you girls are?”
“Your Royal Guard.” This is said in complete, harmonious unison.
Jun digs his fingers into his temples. “And you say you’re all from…another universe?”
“Sort of.” Nino scrunches up his face in thought. “It’s more like-you know how light refracts in your universe, right? It’s kind of like that. Our universe occupies the same time and space as yours, but it’s refracted. Like, it exists in a slightly different wavelength.”
“I think you’re mixing metaphors, Nino-kun,” Kashiyuka says politely.
“It’s because Nino always thought he was too cool for lessons.”
“You slept through most of our classes, too, A-chan,” Nocchi murmurs, smiling sheepishly at A-chan’s subsequent look of betrayal.
“In any case,” Nino cuts in, “because the two universes occupy the same time and space, it’s not uncommon for some crossover to occur. All your supernatural myths and legends are but visions, or, say, afterimages of things that exist in our universe.”
“And you’re saying,” Jun says slowly, “that not only am I from the same ‘refracted universe’ you’re all from-but I am also a prince?”
“The Crown Prince, Jun-sama,” the girls chorus at once.
“Right, right.” Jun nods, waving them off. Their attention bordering on adoration is a bit too much to handle on top of everything else right now. “And not only am I the Crown Prince, but you also need me to save your universe from-what again, exactly?”
“We call them Shade,” A-chan explains, taking the lead. “Shade is the term we use for anything that manifests from negative energy. Anger, despair, all people’s negative emotions can create Shade.”
“That’s why children from our world are trained at a young age to control their emotions,” Kashiyuka adds.
“So what does that have to do with me?”
“Other than the fact that you have Shade trying to kill you, you mean?” Nino snipes.
Nocchi shoots him a frown and steps in front of him. “Although rude, Nino-kun has a point. Shade can’t exist in your universe, rather, they shouldn’t be able to, because there’s not enough belief in such things to allow their physical forms to manifest.”
“If Shade can’t manifest in this universe, why is half of my face burned off?”
Nocchi seems to take this as a sign to change his gauze. She peels it off and he hisses at the pain, but then her hand is cold against his cheek and she’s cleaning and bandaging his face anew. “I said they shouldn’t be able to manifest in this universe. But the barrier separating the two worlds has been weakening for some time now-it is at its weakest at this very moment. This is the reason we risked crossing over. For you.”
“But why me?” Jun asks. “Crown Prince or whatever, I’m not clearly not trained for this-fighting. I’m just a human. I won’t be any-”
“Frankly speaking, you’re right,” Nino says with a shrug while the girls make affronted noises. “Even the two-year-olds from the refracted universe can keep from getting slimed in the face. Compared to them, you’re not even level one. You’re not even level zero. You’re an NPC.”
“A what?”
“Non-Playable Character. The way you are now, you’ll be torn to shreds if you were to fight even the puniest of Shade.”
“Then-”
“You think we want to rely on your scrawny ass?” Nino raises a hand, effectively curtailing the bewildered protests of the girls. “Because we don’t. A twenty-four year old war with you as the solution? Don’t make me laugh.” He pokes Jun in the chest. Hard. “But see, fighting is in your blood. And your blood holds the key to defeating the Shade and putting an end to this war. So come with us.” Nino cracks a grin and it is one of the most unsettling images Jun has ever had the displeasure of searing into his brain. “It’s not like anyone will miss you if you’re gone, anyway.”
Jun bristles. “Thanks but no thanks. I’m going to keep my blood here, in my universe, thank you very much.”
Nino snorts. “You’re only saying that because you don’t understand. You are from the refracted universe-you are a Matsumoto. The adrenaline from the attacks has probably already gotten your blood pumping and it won’t stop. You thirst for adventure, you yearn for battle. You, against all odds and rationale, were born to be a fighter-a hero.”
“…Are you trying to say that I’m a Saiyan?”
Nino guffaws. “You wish.”
His blood is pumping-in his head, in his veins, drowning out everything and he can feel it, a calling, a yearning, a-
Nonsense. His blood is pumping because he’s had a near-death experience. All this talk about blood is ridiculous. “My blood is no more special than anyone else’s.”
“That’s not true, Jun-sama!” Nocchi protests, and Jun resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“Look, I’m not unsympathetic, and I really am grateful that you’ve saved my life. I get that you want to believe in someone who can save your world, but let’s face it. It’s not me. My blood is just blood. I’m no prince, I’m-”
A-chan cuts him off by taking his hand and placing it directly over her chest.
“What are you-!”
But A-chan glares at him-glares-and tells him to be quiet. To close his eyes and breathe. He doesn’t understand, is vaguely aware that he could be arrested for perversion at any moment, but then he feels it. She has no pulse. No beat.
Nothing.
He inhales sharply at the realization, and there is a twinge. He feels her heart pump-once, twice-and then again and again. Rhythm. Music. A soaring and rushing that fills his ears and it’s only until she places one of her hands over his chest that he understands.
Her blood is pumping to the beat of his heart.
“You are special, Jun-sama,” A-chan says, eyes filling with tears that dribble down her sweet little face. She is crying, but her smile is so wide and so bright. “I don’t know why or how exactly, but I know that we were born for you. Kashiyuka, Nocchi and I-we are here to serve you. I know it for sure now, because the blood in my body-the blood in our bodies-it only pumps for you. We were born for you, Jun-sama. We’ve been waiting for you.” She releases his hands only to tackle him into an embrace that the rest of the girls join in on. Jun flails his hands away from them, looks to Nino wildly for some kind of help.
“I guess now’s a good time to tell you that they’re legal. All of them.”
“You’re no help at all,” Jun hisses, befote frowning amidst the crowd of happy, noisy, sobbing girls and girl limbs. “But if I’m really a prince from your universe…why am I here?” His head is pounding again, and the burns on his face itch-begging to be scratched until bloody and content-but he presses on. “What happened to incite a war twenty-four years ago?”
“That,” Nino says, and the look on his face is seems so out of place that it takes Jun a moment to place it. Discomfort? “is a question best saved for Satoshi.”
“Who’s Satoshi?”
“…Your brother.”
Ceramic Girl
“Sorry, Mana-chan, I don’t seem to have much to eat for breakfast. We’ll have to go grocery shopping.”
A-chan, for all the housework she didn’t do, always made sure his fridge was stocked with all the foods she wanted to try.
“I don’t mind!” Mana says, looking rather cheerful for a girl who’s just run away from home.
Mana is the daughter of Haruko, his mother’s best friend’s daughter. Her ex-best friend, apparently, Jun thinks with some bitterness. Apparently she had a fight with her mother about something Mana refuses to speak further about, so Mana ran away to the first person she could find in Haruko’s address book: Jun. That was about all Jun could get out of her before Mana demolished a third of everything he bought from the family restaurant and fell straight asleep. On top of his bed.
He spent the better part of the night searching for Ashida Haruko’s number, but though he called first thing in the morning, before Mana woke up, there was no answer.
“Mana-chan, don’t you want to go home to your mom?” Jun asks, watching as Mana swings her legs off the chair, wriggling them several feet off the floor. “I mean, don’t you miss her?”
Mana stops swinging her legs at once, looks at him with pitiful eyes, and doesn’t speak for several minutes. Jun is afraid she may star crying, but instead she finally answers, in a tiny voice, “Mom will be mad.” Well, a mother’s wrath is often harsh, though just.
“What about your dad? Can’t he soften your mom up?”
She averts her gaze. “I don’t have a dad.”
Oh.
“I’m sorry, Mana-chan.” Jun kneels beside her chair and pats her on the head. “I know what it’s like to grow up without a father.”
“What happened to yours?” Mana asks, her eyes wide and glassy and heartbreaking.
“He-” Jun’s not sure, actually. His mother rarely spoke of his father, and even then it was always laced with a wistful fondness. He always assumed he had left her-left them, and Jun harbored bitterness in his heart against that man for as long as he could remember. But if there’s a Satoshi…
No.
Jun doesn’t let that thought linger. Nino refused to say another word about Satoshi unless Jun agreed to go back with them, but for all he knew, there was no Satoshi. For all he knew, Nino fabricated a story about a brother as a set up, as a way to get him into the refracted universe and then-what? Make him save their world? Or maybe just kill him? Stage a coup because one day Jun could come back and take his rightful place on a throne he never wanted nor asked for?
But there would be no reason to save Jun’s life repeatedly if that’s what they were truly after. And would A-chan, Kashiyuka, and Nocchi really be capable of harming him?
“Jun-chan? Are you okay?”
“Huh?”
“You looked like you were thinking hard about something.”
Jun blinks. “Oh, no. I’m fine, Mana-chan. I just-I don’t like thinking of my father.”
“Why?”
“He was never around. He made my mother sad. There’s no reason for me to think about him.”
“Oh.” Mana frowns and leans toward him, a brief, sweet touch against his forehead. “I’m sorry.”
Jun could laugh. Here he is, feeling sorry for himself and being comforted by a six-year-old girl. It’s absurd.
Somehow, though, all he wants to do is cry.
“My father was never around, either.”
“Why not?”
“He was never around after I was born.”
“Mana-chan, I’m so-”
“Jun-sama, good mor-eeeeeeeeeeeh!?” A-chan crashes through the kitchen window unceremoniously, wide-eyed and ungraceful.
“W-w-what’s wrong, A-chan?” Kashiyuka calls fretfully from somewhere outside as Nocchi pokes her head through the kitchen window next.
“Jun-sama was with child!?” A-chan shrieks, shaking her finger at them.
“I don’t think that’s quite the expression,” Nocchi says, pulling one leg and then the other over the window sill, landing delicately onto the floor. “Though it’s true I also had no idea Jun-sama had a daughter.”
“A daughter!?” Kashiyuka squeaks.
“Excuse me,” Jun cuts in, standing protectively in front of Mana. “Just what do you girls think you’re doing here? And why did you come in through the kitchen window?”
“We were worried, Jun-sama!” A-chan says, taking his hands immediately into hers. He moves away before she can place them on her chest or something in front of Mana-chan.
“Your front door was locked and A-chan knew you would be more upset if she tore it down, so we decided to go through the window.” Nocchi sounds suspiciously proud as she says this. As if not breaking but still entering, uninvited, is somehow any better.
“We missed you, Jun-sama!” Kashiyuka cries plaintively from outside the window.
Jun shoots Nocchi a bewildered look and she giggles. “Mini-skirt.”
Ah.
“I’m A-chan, what’s your name?” A-chan asks, suddenly rounding on Mana, who blinks.
“A-Ah, Mana-chan.” She turns those giant doe-eyes on Jun and he really can’t blame her for her confusion. “But, Jun-chan, shouldn’t you let your other friend in?”
Traitor. “Uh, yeah. I’ll…do that.” There’s no trace of tears left on Mana’s face.
Girls are so…strange.
Jun sighs and heads over to unlock the front door. Kashiyuka bursts into his arms before he can finish turning the knob, her fingers finding his t-shirt, her face sobbing wet, messy tears into his neck.
“Kashiyuka, what-”
“I’m just so glad you’re okay, Jun-sama,” she hiccups, looking up at him with watery eyes. “Are you still mad at us?”
Yes, but he can’t really say that now, can he? Tears are so unfair. “Well, no, I guess not. But you guys have to promise to be honest with me from now on, okay? About everything.”
“Okay.” Kashiyuka sniffles and releases his shirt, but doesn’t move from his embrace. He pats her awkwardly on the back.
“Jun-sama…there’s no easy way to say this…but you know you’re not meant to be here, right? Even if-even if all you want is a normal life in this universe, it’s just not possible.”
Yes, perhaps he does know. He’s never quite fit in anywhere, and his mother always seemed so frightened for him, so desperately keen to move from one place to the next, never staying long enough to form any lasting connections…
Still, this is the only place, the only universe he knows.
He sighs, resting his chin against her forehead, his arms somehow winding around her waist. “But if I don’t belong here, and I don’t think I really belong in the refracted universe, where do I belong?”
“With us, Jun-sama!” A-chan cries passionately from the doorway, her eyes shiny and wet.
“You do belong with us, even if you can’t quite see it yet, Jun-sama.” Nocchi nods furiously, blinking back tears.
Mana, who is holding each of their hands, blinks. “Why do you all call him Jun-sama?”
Jun shoots them all warning looks and after an exchange of panicked expressions, A-chan blurts out, “Because he’s so stoic!”
The other two immediately nod and chime in. “Yes, yes, exactly.”
“I mean, he was watching me fi-er, practice, and he kept telling me that I had to swing higher, right?” A-chan continues, her voice climbing into a high-pitched falsetto.
“Right!” Kashiyuka and Nocchi chorus, and Jun frowns. What he specifically remembers saying is to please swing her sword higher so she doesn’t burn off his face. A second time.
“Anyway, Mana-chan, are you hungry? Nocchi can make us rice balls!”
“Ha? Well, I wouldn’t mind, but only if you help, too, A-chan!”
“Ehhhhhhhh!?”
Beyond the wind
Jun hears wind chimes crashing violently against each other and wakes with a start. The skies are the same dark gray-blue of the ocean.
He’s okay, he’s fine, so why do Mom and Dad fight every night? Why does Mom cry every night? He doesn’t understand, but wishes so hard that he did so he could fix something, do anything. He presses the sides of his pillow to his ears to drown out the clamor.
The chimes crash harder, reverberate in his ears and in his head and in his heart and-”Jun-chan?”
Jun cracks his eyes open to see a shaft of pale purple light peek into his room.
“Jun-chan, are you awake?”
He nods and hears a sad sigh in return. The light flickers and disappears behind the door, but he hears padded footsteps coming closer and closer until his bed dips with familiar weight.
“You should really try and get some sleep.”
“Can’t.”
A laugh, and then the warmth of a hand over his forehead, smoothing back his hair. Mom hasn’t been doing that lately.
“Try. Just close your eyes. When you wake up, it will be morning again.”
“And everyone will stop fighting?”
Another sad sigh. “Good night, Jun-chan.”
And the press of clumsy, childish lips against his forehead.
Secret secret
A-chan begrudgingly agrees to help, so everyone crams into the kitchen to prepare for a rice ball feast. A-chan prepares the fillings, Nocchi sautés beef and onions, and Kashiyuka scoops rice into a large bowl.
“Is there anything you particularly like, Mana-chan?” A-chan asks as she scoops pickled plums into a small glass bowl and dried plums into another.
Mana puckers her lips. “Ah, well…”
“It’s okay to tell us, we’ll do our best to make it!” Kashiyuka encourages with a bright smile.
“I really like pickled cucumbers.”
“P-pickled cucumbers?” Nocchi repeats with some surprise. “How refined.”
“Can you make some, Nocchi?” A-chan and Kashiyuka ask in unison, turning expectantly toward Nocchi, who furrows her eyebrows in thought.
“A-chan has never been patient enough to wait for something to pickle, so…”
Jun grins smugly from where he’s been banished to the far side of the kitchen. “Well now, guess who can make amazing pickled cucumbers?”
“Eh, really!?”
Mana’s excited exclamation is all the incentive Jun needs to remove some cucumbers from the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator. His mother’s special cucumbers straight from her garden. He quickly rinses them in some cold water and reaches for the cutting board and a knife.
“A-ah, Jun-sama,” Nocchi starts, but he simply raises his eyebrows and she coughs and shakes her head. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Good. Mana-chan, do you want to help me?”
“Yes!”
“I’m sure I have-aha!” He lets out a noise of triumph when he finds his old children’s cooking knife hiding in one of the taller cabinets. It was the one his mother handed to help prepare their modest, but delicious, meals every night before…before what? When did he stop helping his mother cook?
He shakes his head and allows Mana to cut one cucumber while he rummages about for the rest of the ingredients-a plastic bag, salt, vinegar, sugar.
“Ehh, this cucumber is shaped like a heart!” Mana exclaims, and Jun tries to fight the grin pinching at his lips. He fails completely when A-chan gasps, “Ehhh!?” and Kashiyuka and Nocchi exclaim, “How cute!”
“Now we’ll just drop everything in a plastic bag and let them sit for twenty minutes.”
“I don’t think I can wait that long,” A-chan whines, putting on her best sad face.
Mana mirrors her expression, but Jun shakes his head firmly. “It won’t taste good otherwise. Now let’s finish the rice balls.”
Lunch is prepared in a flash, but Jun is not thrilled that everyone reaches for his pickled cucumbers first.
“Ah, surprisingly delicious!” A-chan murmurs in amazement. Nocchi elbows her in the ribs and Kashiyuka follows with a quiet, “Yum!”
“How is it, Mana-chan?” Jun asks as Mana chews and chews and swallows a piece. She sets down her chopsticks and lowers her head. Jun purses his lips. “Ah, no good?”
“No…” When Mana looks up at him her eyes are fresh with tears and she wipes her hand hastily across her face to no avail. “I-it’s delicious.”
“That delicious?” He really, really doesn’t know what to do with crying girls. Especially two crying girls in one day.
“It tastes just like Mom makes.” Mana hiccups before dissolving into full-blown sobs. Nocchi reacts instantly, offering Mana a box of tissues as Kashiyuka takes the girl into her arms and A-chan pats her sweetly on the head.
Jun sighs and says the only thing he can think to say to alleviate the situation. “Mana-chan, have you ever played a Wii?”
Turns out she has; Mana kicks their collective asses in every game Nino somehow snuck into his living room. It’s only after her third crushing win in Super Smash Brothers-using Jigglypuff of all characters, and without losing a single life-that A-chan cries in frustration. “Ah, how are you so good at this, Mana-chan!?”
“I’ve played this one a lot before.” Mana replies with a sunny grin. “Someone taught me.”
Kashiyuka giggles knowingly. “It’s a boy isn’t it?”
Mana colors. “N-no-”
“Ehhhhhh! Spill! Is it a boy from class?” A-chan gasps, bringing her face inches from Mana’s. Mana bites her lip and looks at Nocchi for help.
“Is he cute?” Nocchi asks with a wink.
“…Yes.”
“Tell us more!” They gasp and squee all at once and it Jun frowns at a weird, protective feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.
“Well…he’s really nice and he teaches me a lot of things. And he’s really funny. He always makes me laugh. And he really likes magic tricks and, and-” Mana flushes bright red when she realizes how long she’s been talking about this boy. “And, um, well, do you three have anyone you like?”
“Anyone…”
“I…”
“Like…”
The three of them blink roundly before glancing in his direction and then bursting into a fit of giggles.
Jun thinks there’s something he’s missed, but decides against finding out. Instead he rummages around the TV area, because he’s so sure the last time Nino was here he left-”Aha! Who wants to play Super Mario Brothers?” The game is still factory-sealed.
“Jun-sama, why are you grinning like that?” Nocchi asks as Mana and A-chan tear open the plastic wrapper.
“What? Am I?”
“You are,” Kashiyuka confirms.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” He’s most certainly not thinking about Nino’s pathetic cries at not being the first one to open or play the game. Not at all.
Revenge is sweet.
Everyone falls asleep in the living room after a few hours, leaving Jun to pick up discarded snack wrappers, cans and cups from the floor and furniture alike. He eases a milk tea Kit Kat wrapper from under Mana’s arm, careful not to wake her, but she rolls over and grabs onto his wrist with her tiny hands. Jun waits a beat, but Mana continues to slumber on. He smiles as he slips away from her grasp, smoothes the hair away from her face and brings the fallen couch blanket up and around her shoulders.
Once he’s done cleaning, Jun slips out the front door and checks his phone. No new messages. He dials Haruko’s number again, frustrated. Shouldn’t Haruko be desperately searching for her daughter? Could she be so unfeeling that Mana felt the need to run away? And if that’s the case, maybe Mana is justified for doing so.
Maybe she should just stay with him indefinitely.
Wait-what? Where did that come from?
The phone rings three times, and just as Jun is rehearsing his next voice message, someone picks up.
“H-Hello?”
“Hey, Haruko? It’s Jun. I’m sorry for leaving so many messages, but I know you and Mana-chan had some kind of fight. She’s safe with me now, but don’t you think it’s time to pick her up? Aren’t you worried? She seems to really miss you-”
“Excuse me!” Haruko cuts in harshly, and she sounds-scared? “Although my name is Haruko, I’m sure you have the wrong one!”
But this sounds like the Haruko he remembers.
“What are you-?”
“You keep talking about this Mana-chan, but I don’t know any Mana-chan. Or any Jun for that matter.”
“H-Haruko. Are you serious? This isn’t funny, your mother was my mother’s best friend. We used to play together all the time.”
“I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding and that you mean well for this Mana-chan, but please leave me alone and search for her real mother.”
“Wha-wait.”
“Goodbye!”
“Haruko.” When she hesitates for a moment, Jun asks the only question he can think of. “Can you…at least tell me your daughter’s name?”
“What!? Why would I-”
“Please?”
“My daughter’s name is Reina. Please don’t contact me anymore.”
A beep and then nothing.
“Jun-chan, what’re you doing?” Mana stands before the front door, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
“Mana-chan…who are you?”
Happiness
“No way, a dweeb like you has a Wii!?”
“Stop rummaging through my things,” Jun huffs, smacking Nino on the head and removing the box from his greedy, hammy hands. “Why are you even here?”
“B-but. Wii.“ It’s the first time Nino has looked less than insufferable. It’s almost cute in that pathetic, kicked-puppy kind of way.
But not. Absolutely not.
“Ooh, what’s this?” A-chan bubbles into the room, taking the box from his hands before he can stop her. “Can we eat it?”
“No!” Jun and Nino exclaim at once.
“It’s a really, really fun game,” Nino explains, eyes lighting up mischievously.
“Ehh, I want to play!”
“Ah, game? Me, too!” Nocchi says, raising her hand as she enters the room. Kashiyuka seems confused, but raises her hand as well.
“Sorry, girls. Emperor Jun-sama says he doesn’t want to share.”
“Eh!?” “Jun-sama!?” “Why!”? The girls clamor at once, and the grin on Nino’s face is obnoxiously, insufferably smug.
“No, I didn’t mean that. I just. I don’t know how to set this up. I don’t even think it came with any games-I got it from an office grab bag and no one wanted to trade with me.” Actually, everyone wanted to trade with him, except Becky, who received a hundred dollar gift certificate for a hair perm treatment. Jun kept the Wii out of spite.
“You just leave that to me,” Nino declares, reclaiming the box from A-chan’s hands and sending a triumphant grin over his shoulder as the girls follow after him excitedly. When Jun finally makes it to the living room, Nino is sorting through color-coded wires, plugging them into the Wii and the back of the television. The girls are watching him like beady-eyes hawks, so Jun takes the opportunity to stretch himself out over the couch. Kashiyuka and Nocchi notice and are quick to sit on opposite sides of him, pressing close into his arms, as A-chan seats herself in front of his legs, so that his knees are grazing her back. These girls-really!
“How do you even know how to work one of these things-and wait! Where did you get that game?” Jun asks just as Nino slips a blue disc into the system.
“There’s nothing not within my reach,” Nino sing-songs. “Time Manipulator!”
Jun rolls his eyes and leans back into the sofa as Nino begins to explain the intricacies of the game. His eyes are fluttering closed before he realizes it, the cheerful voices in the room and the music from the game melding into a sound that’s strangely comforting. It’s weird, this feeling, weird and nostalgic.
He wonders if this is…
Night Flight
“Or should I say…what are you?” Jun swallows, heart hammering in his chest. He should have known better after everything that’s happened. He shouldn’t have let down his guard because for all he knows she is a Shade in a tiny, unassuming body, and she could kill him. Everything can kill him. There is just no escaping death-even with a trio of magical girl guards snoring away in his living room.
“Can we take a walk, Jun-chan?”
One, his name is Matsumoto Jun, but he’s not stupid.
“I don’t think I really want to walk anywhere with you until you tell me who you are.” He almost regrets the words as they fly out of his mouth because Mana’s face visibly drops. But then he remembers that, two, he has no idea who or what this girl even is.
He feels slightly comforted by that.
Except for the fact that she could still potentially kill him.
“My name is Mana, but Ashida Haruko is not my mother. I’m not a Shade, either, if that’s what you’re wondering about.” Mana says quietly, staring at her hands. “Everything else I’ve ever said to you was true, though.”
“But if you know what Shade are, then…”
“Yes.” She nods. “I’m from the refracted universe.”
He admittedly expected a bit more fanfare than that. “Why…how?”
“May we please take a walk, Jun-chan? I don’t want to be overheard…” She glances behind her, but Jun doesn’t feel threatened by anything or anyone left in the house. He’d feel much safer inside, to be honest. But Mana’s little eyes are watering again and he sighs.
Three, he’s a sucker for a crying face.
“Okay…but don’t try anything funny.”
She smiles weakly at that.
They set off a short distance from the house, Jun sparing furtive glances at her every few seconds. He’s not proud of this thought, but he really is ready to run should she turn on him. Even the two year olds can keep from getting slimed in the face…
Fucking Nino.
“I’m from the refracted universe, but there’s something else, too,” Mana says, stopping so suddenly Jun almost falls flat on his face. “I’m from ten years into the future of the refracted universe.”
“You’re…sure. Because that makes sense.” He takes a seat on the curb of the sidewalk and pats the place next to him gently. Mana blinks, but seats herself with a small smile.
“You’re from the future.”
“Yes.”
“So…why come here?”
Mana licks her lips, as if debating her next words. “I came to the past in order to save my father.”
“You said your father left you a long time ago.”
“I said he wasn’t around.” Mana looks away. “He passed away before I was born.”
“Oh…”
Mana sniffs, but keeps the tears away. “This is why I came back…because I had to save him. Because he shouldn’t have died. I came because-” Mana slips a chain out from under the collar of her dress and Jun freezes, ready to duck and cover at any moment.
Nothing happens.
On the chain is a small vial filled with a purple liquid that shimmers under the glow of the streetlamps.
“What is it?”
“This is an antidote for Shade toxin. I came here to entrust this to you.”
“Me? Why me?”
Mana’s smile is small and broken. Like so many other children of war. “Because you’re my hero.”
“Wh…”
“You’re the only one who can help me-who can save him.”
“Why does everyone expect me to be a hero?” Jun whispers, shaking his head. “I’m not-”
“You are.” She unclasps the necklace and offers him the vial, chain and all.
“But…”
“You just don’t know how amazing you are yet, Jun-chan.”
And then it happens again as if in slow motion. A thick curl of black smoke creeps up Mana’s ankles, twisting around her legs, but before Jun can do anything it’s wrapped all over her tiny little body and she’s pulled into complete darkness and Jun can’t move, he can’t do anything he’s so useless useless useless even with Mana screaming for him-screaming his name-and when he finally wills one arm to reach for her she is…gone. The necklace crashes onto the floor and the purple liquid shimmers and fades away into nothingness. Gone.
Just like Mana.
“Princess-princess!”
No, not now, this is not happening what the fuck-
When Jun turns around, Nino stands before him, breathless and winded. He doesn’t think twice before punching him in the face.
Dive into the future
Jun checks his watch and frowns. It’s late. The train is late. This is Japan. The train is never late. Especially not at six in the morning.
Today it is late.
Jun glances up from his watch and catches sight of three tittering girls in almost matching school uniforms. Almost because there is something off about each outfit, some detail that sets it apart from the rest, though Jun can’t quite put his finger on it. He groans and averts his gaze because an old man like him really shouldn’t be staring at three girls in school uniforms trying to put his finger on anything.
But his eyes are drawn to them against his will. There is something so-familiar about them? Familiar strangers. There was an experiment about that, right? It took place at a train station.
After some time you are able to recognize people with whom you’ve had no actual contact, simply because you routinely see them every day when, say, you’re waiting for a train. Familiar strangers-the same faces, every morning, like clockwork.
Like Japanese trains.
Usually.
Jun frowns and wonders why something still feels wrong. Something…something.
The train arrives-Jun checks his watch-five minutes late. He’ll get a train tardiness card, though he won’t need to use it. He’s always twenty minutes early for work anyway. He enters the train car and stands by the far window, glances outside and notes with some surprise that the three girls have disappeared. The opposite-going train is nowhere to be seen.
It’s only as the doors begin to close that Jun finally understands.
Isn’t it too early for school?
On to Part 3
Monochrome effect
Jun’s scream is short-lived. When the laser beam dissipates Sho remains standing, completely unharmed, except for a light scratch on his forehead. He rubs it with a frown. “Always the forehead.”
“You…what.” Jun gapes, pointing at the man who should be dead. “But the laser-”
“Can we leave the explanation for after we’re out of this battle?” Sho asks, squinting his eyes at the distance.
“No,” Jun spits before Sho tackles him to the side, narrowly missing another laser beam. The wall is left a scorched, blistering black. “Okay, fine, but-”
A third laser beam heads their way and before Sho can manhandle him anymore, the beam is deflected by something long and thin flying in front of them, clattering onto the floor.
“Umbrella?” Sho takes the disbelieving words right out of Jun’s mouth. “Really?”
“It was Aiba’s idea! He still goes on about that time you fended off those onibaba with just a parasol.”
Jun winces. He knows that voice. He’s spent the better part of three days wishing he didn’t know that voice. “Nino.”
“Yo, Emperor.” Nino waves boredly from the roof of the next-door building. He’s squatting with his knees to his chest and in his hands there is something that looks suspiciously like-
“Oi, we are battling for our lives and you’re going to sit there and play Nintendo DS!?”
“We?” Nino doesn’t even take his eyes off the game screen as Sho leaps into the air with his umbrella raised, only to get slammed back into the rooftop door. “And it’s a 3DS!”
“Is now the time-” Sho grits, taking Jun by the arm and tossing him behind before opening the umbrella and deflecting a barrage of laser bullets, “for this conversation?”
“Yes!”
Sho ignores him and charges forward with his open umbrella, leaving Jun rather defenseless against the giant wasp monsters suddenly interested in his face. Luckily Kashiyuka appears just in time to slice the monster clean in two with the quickest bow work he’s ever seen.
“Are you okay, Jun-sama?”
Well, he just found out he’s from another universe, he’s being targeted by some freakish monsters because of his apparent royal blood, meaning his whole life may have been something of a lie, or a refraction of the truth, and, oh yeah, even the senpai he’s come to admire is part of this freak show. “Define okay.”
“Uninjured!” Kashiyuka cries, drawing her arrow three times in rapid succession. He feels a gust of wind across his face as her arrows meet their marks, leaving behind only the pitiful cries of dying Shade.
“Oh, I guess.”
“Let’s keep it that way!” A-chan adds, flanking his right side and sending another Shade into disintegrating flames.
“Roger!” Nocchi concludes, flanking his last side so they are forming a triangle around him, fending off Shade attacks left and right. Jun’s legs twitch and he tells himself it’s just fatigue, but his ankles continue to knock together long after he slides onto the floor in a pathetic heap.
The battle is over with one last Shade scream, and as the girls huff and puff and try to catch their breaths and tend to their wounds, Sho offers him a hand. “You all right?” His smile is friendly and disarming, the same as it always has been, and that’s what bothers Jun the most.
“No,” he says, ignoring Sho’s hand and rising to his shaky feet with his own effort. “No, I’m not.”
“Jun-”
“You were one of them this entire time,” he says quietly, trying to calm the anger swelling up in his chest and throbbing in his skull. “You pretended to be my friend for an entire year, plotting the day you would all sweep in and what, get me to follow you into your ridiculous quest to save the world? Is that it?”
“Jun-sama, that’s not-”
“Shut up,” he snaps, glaring at the girls. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you three hanging around the train station for months before that day, but you,” he continues, rounding on Sho, “you were my friend. Sakurai-senpai. I trusted you. You were there when my mother passed and-” Jun’s eyes widen as everyone falls silent.
“My mother…the one person I would miss from this world-and the only person who would miss me. Did you do anything to her? Is that how you thought you could get me to follow you-!?”
“Jun-sama, we would never-”
“I’m not asking you,” Jun snarls. Tears spring to Kashiyuka’s eyes, but he doesn’t care he doesn’t he doesn’t.
“I would never hurt your mother,” Sho says quietly.
“Was her death Shade-related?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I know things are confusing, Jun-sama, but…”
“Don’t call me that! Stop acting like I’m some great hero who’s going to help save your universe because, if you can’t tell-I can’t save anyone. I couldn’t keep my mother alive and I probably can’t even keep myself alive. But…the least I can do is keep a promise to her.” He takes a breath. “I’m not going with you. I can’t save your world. Don’t come near me ever again.”
Sho smiles bitterly. “You can’t mean that, Jun-sama.”
“I can and I do. If you have any respect for me as your Crown Prince, you will leave me alone.” And then he’s running, ignoring their shouts and pleas, running to the station and hopping aboard any train that will take him far away.
He rides down endless lines until he realizes he’s starving, stops by a family restaurant and orders three things off the menu to go. He realizes by the time he gets back to an empty home that he’s bought enough to feed five.
Jun sets the food on the kitchen table and doesn’t feel hungry anymore. But it’s for the best, he thinks. No more lying senpai, no more finger-flicking psychos and no more strange, stupid, brave girls.
He closes his eyes and breathes deeply.
One, his name is Matsumoto Jun.
Two, he is relieved. Really. All he’s ever wanted was a normal life.
The doorbell rings and Jun’s heart doesn’t leap into his throat and he tells himself he’s not relieved and he’s not going to let them in, not after everything that’s happened-not even if he’s more likely to get killed from the next Shade attack without them than not-so when he opens the door to find a tiny, cherub-faced little girl, he’s not quite sure what he feels anymore.
“Jun-chan! I ran away from home!” she cries before clinging to his legs.
“Eh?”
Three, he…nope. He’s got nothing for this one.
Waiting for you
“So you’re a time traveler?”
“Time Manipulator,” Nino corrects with a wag of his finger.
“That’s not a real thing.” Jun frowns. “And you girls are?”
“Your Royal Guard.” This is said in complete, harmonious unison.
Jun digs his fingers into his temples. “And you say you’re all from…another universe?”
“Sort of.” Nino scrunches up his face in thought. “It’s more like-you know how light refracts in your universe, right? It’s kind of like that. Our universe occupies the same time and space as yours, but it’s refracted. Like, it exists in a slightly different wavelength.”
“I think you’re mixing metaphors, Nino-kun,” Kashiyuka says politely.
“It’s because Nino always thought he was too cool for lessons.”
“You slept through most of our classes, too, A-chan,” Nocchi murmurs, smiling sheepishly at A-chan’s subsequent look of betrayal.
“In any case,” Nino cuts in, “because the two universes occupy the same time and space, it’s not uncommon for some crossover to occur. All your supernatural myths and legends are but visions, or, say, afterimages of things that exist in our universe.”
“And you’re saying,” Jun says slowly, “that not only am I from the same ‘refracted universe’ you’re all from-but I am also a prince?”
“The Crown Prince, Jun-sama,” the girls chorus at once.
“Right, right.” Jun nods, waving them off. Their attention bordering on adoration is a bit too much to handle on top of everything else right now. “And not only am I the Crown Prince, but you also need me to save your universe from-what again, exactly?”
“We call them Shade,” A-chan explains, taking the lead. “Shade is the term we use for anything that manifests from negative energy. Anger, despair, all people’s negative emotions can create Shade.”
“That’s why children from our world are trained at a young age to control their emotions,” Kashiyuka adds.
“So what does that have to do with me?”
“Other than the fact that you have Shade trying to kill you, you mean?” Nino snipes.
Nocchi shoots him a frown and steps in front of him. “Although rude, Nino-kun has a point. Shade can’t exist in your universe, rather, they shouldn’t be able to, because there’s not enough belief in such things to allow their physical forms to manifest.”
“If Shade can’t manifest in this universe, why is half of my face burned off?”
Nocchi seems to take this as a sign to change his gauze. She peels it off and he hisses at the pain, but then her hand is cold against his cheek and she’s cleaning and bandaging his face anew. “I said they shouldn’t be able to manifest in this universe. But the barrier separating the two worlds has been weakening for some time now-it is at its weakest at this very moment. This is the reason we risked crossing over. For you.”
“But why me?” Jun asks. “Crown Prince or whatever, I’m not clearly not trained for this-fighting. I’m just a human. I won’t be any-”
“Frankly speaking, you’re right,” Nino says with a shrug while the girls make affronted noises. “Even the two-year-olds from the refracted universe can keep from getting slimed in the face. Compared to them, you’re not even level one. You’re not even level zero. You’re an NPC.”
“A what?”
“Non-Playable Character. The way you are now, you’ll be torn to shreds if you were to fight even the puniest of Shade.”
“Then-”
“You think we want to rely on your scrawny ass?” Nino raises a hand, effectively curtailing the bewildered protests of the girls. “Because we don’t. A twenty-four year old war with you as the solution? Don’t make me laugh.” He pokes Jun in the chest. Hard. “But see, fighting is in your blood. And your blood holds the key to defeating the Shade and putting an end to this war. So come with us.” Nino cracks a grin and it is one of the most unsettling images Jun has ever had the displeasure of searing into his brain. “It’s not like anyone will miss you if you’re gone, anyway.”
Jun bristles. “Thanks but no thanks. I’m going to keep my blood here, in my universe, thank you very much.”
Nino snorts. “You’re only saying that because you don’t understand. You are from the refracted universe-you are a Matsumoto. The adrenaline from the attacks has probably already gotten your blood pumping and it won’t stop. You thirst for adventure, you yearn for battle. You, against all odds and rationale, were born to be a fighter-a hero.”
“…Are you trying to say that I’m a Saiyan?”
Nino guffaws. “You wish.”
His blood is pumping-in his head, in his veins, drowning out everything and he can feel it, a calling, a yearning, a-
Nonsense. His blood is pumping because he’s had a near-death experience. All this talk about blood is ridiculous. “My blood is no more special than anyone else’s.”
“That’s not true, Jun-sama!” Nocchi protests, and Jun resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“Look, I’m not unsympathetic, and I really am grateful that you’ve saved my life. I get that you want to believe in someone who can save your world, but let’s face it. It’s not me. My blood is just blood. I’m no prince, I’m-”
A-chan cuts him off by taking his hand and placing it directly over her chest.
“What are you-!”
But A-chan glares at him-glares-and tells him to be quiet. To close his eyes and breathe. He doesn’t understand, is vaguely aware that he could be arrested for perversion at any moment, but then he feels it. She has no pulse. No beat.
Nothing.
He inhales sharply at the realization, and there is a twinge. He feels her heart pump-once, twice-and then again and again. Rhythm. Music. A soaring and rushing that fills his ears and it’s only until she places one of her hands over his chest that he understands.
Her blood is pumping to the beat of his heart.
“You are special, Jun-sama,” A-chan says, eyes filling with tears that dribble down her sweet little face. She is crying, but her smile is so wide and so bright. “I don’t know why or how exactly, but I know that we were born for you. Kashiyuka, Nocchi and I-we are here to serve you. I know it for sure now, because the blood in my body-the blood in our bodies-it only pumps for you. We were born for you, Jun-sama. We’ve been waiting for you.” She releases his hands only to tackle him into an embrace that the rest of the girls join in on. Jun flails his hands away from them, looks to Nino wildly for some kind of help.
“I guess now’s a good time to tell you that they’re legal. All of them.”
“You’re no help at all,” Jun hisses, befote frowning amidst the crowd of happy, noisy, sobbing girls and girl limbs. “But if I’m really a prince from your universe…why am I here?” His head is pounding again, and the burns on his face itch-begging to be scratched until bloody and content-but he presses on. “What happened to incite a war twenty-four years ago?”
“That,” Nino says, and the look on his face is seems so out of place that it takes Jun a moment to place it. Discomfort? “is a question best saved for Satoshi.”
“Who’s Satoshi?”
“…Your brother.”
Ceramic Girl
“Sorry, Mana-chan, I don’t seem to have much to eat for breakfast. We’ll have to go grocery shopping.”
A-chan, for all the housework she didn’t do, always made sure his fridge was stocked with all the foods she wanted to try.
“I don’t mind!” Mana says, looking rather cheerful for a girl who’s just run away from home.
Mana is the daughter of Haruko, his mother’s best friend’s daughter. Her ex-best friend, apparently, Jun thinks with some bitterness. Apparently she had a fight with her mother about something Mana refuses to speak further about, so Mana ran away to the first person she could find in Haruko’s address book: Jun. That was about all Jun could get out of her before Mana demolished a third of everything he bought from the family restaurant and fell straight asleep. On top of his bed.
He spent the better part of the night searching for Ashida Haruko’s number, but though he called first thing in the morning, before Mana woke up, there was no answer.
“Mana-chan, don’t you want to go home to your mom?” Jun asks, watching as Mana swings her legs off the chair, wriggling them several feet off the floor. “I mean, don’t you miss her?”
Mana stops swinging her legs at once, looks at him with pitiful eyes, and doesn’t speak for several minutes. Jun is afraid she may star crying, but instead she finally answers, in a tiny voice, “Mom will be mad.” Well, a mother’s wrath is often harsh, though just.
“What about your dad? Can’t he soften your mom up?”
She averts her gaze. “I don’t have a dad.”
Oh.
“I’m sorry, Mana-chan.” Jun kneels beside her chair and pats her on the head. “I know what it’s like to grow up without a father.”
“What happened to yours?” Mana asks, her eyes wide and glassy and heartbreaking.
“He-” Jun’s not sure, actually. His mother rarely spoke of his father, and even then it was always laced with a wistful fondness. He always assumed he had left her-left them, and Jun harbored bitterness in his heart against that man for as long as he could remember. But if there’s a Satoshi…
No.
Jun doesn’t let that thought linger. Nino refused to say another word about Satoshi unless Jun agreed to go back with them, but for all he knew, there was no Satoshi. For all he knew, Nino fabricated a story about a brother as a set up, as a way to get him into the refracted universe and then-what? Make him save their world? Or maybe just kill him? Stage a coup because one day Jun could come back and take his rightful place on a throne he never wanted nor asked for?
But there would be no reason to save Jun’s life repeatedly if that’s what they were truly after. And would A-chan, Kashiyuka, and Nocchi really be capable of harming him?
“Jun-chan? Are you okay?”
“Huh?”
“You looked like you were thinking hard about something.”
Jun blinks. “Oh, no. I’m fine, Mana-chan. I just-I don’t like thinking of my father.”
“Why?”
“He was never around. He made my mother sad. There’s no reason for me to think about him.”
“Oh.” Mana frowns and leans toward him, a brief, sweet touch against his forehead. “I’m sorry.”
Jun could laugh. Here he is, feeling sorry for himself and being comforted by a six-year-old girl. It’s absurd.
Somehow, though, all he wants to do is cry.
“My father was never around, either.”
“Why not?”
“He was never around after I was born.”
“Mana-chan, I’m so-”
“Jun-sama, good mor-eeeeeeeeeeeh!?” A-chan crashes through the kitchen window unceremoniously, wide-eyed and ungraceful.
“W-w-what’s wrong, A-chan?” Kashiyuka calls fretfully from somewhere outside as Nocchi pokes her head through the kitchen window next.
“Jun-sama was with child!?” A-chan shrieks, shaking her finger at them.
“I don’t think that’s quite the expression,” Nocchi says, pulling one leg and then the other over the window sill, landing delicately onto the floor. “Though it’s true I also had no idea Jun-sama had a daughter.”
“A daughter!?” Kashiyuka squeaks.
“Excuse me,” Jun cuts in, standing protectively in front of Mana. “Just what do you girls think you’re doing here? And why did you come in through the kitchen window?”
“We were worried, Jun-sama!” A-chan says, taking his hands immediately into hers. He moves away before she can place them on her chest or something in front of Mana-chan.
“Your front door was locked and A-chan knew you would be more upset if she tore it down, so we decided to go through the window.” Nocchi sounds suspiciously proud as she says this. As if not breaking but still entering, uninvited, is somehow any better.
“We missed you, Jun-sama!” Kashiyuka cries plaintively from outside the window.
Jun shoots Nocchi a bewildered look and she giggles. “Mini-skirt.”
Ah.
“I’m A-chan, what’s your name?” A-chan asks, suddenly rounding on Mana, who blinks.
“A-Ah, Mana-chan.” She turns those giant doe-eyes on Jun and he really can’t blame her for her confusion. “But, Jun-chan, shouldn’t you let your other friend in?”
Traitor. “Uh, yeah. I’ll…do that.” There’s no trace of tears left on Mana’s face.
Girls are so…strange.
Jun sighs and heads over to unlock the front door. Kashiyuka bursts into his arms before he can finish turning the knob, her fingers finding his t-shirt, her face sobbing wet, messy tears into his neck.
“Kashiyuka, what-”
“I’m just so glad you’re okay, Jun-sama,” she hiccups, looking up at him with watery eyes. “Are you still mad at us?”
Yes, but he can’t really say that now, can he? Tears are so unfair. “Well, no, I guess not. But you guys have to promise to be honest with me from now on, okay? About everything.”
“Okay.” Kashiyuka sniffles and releases his shirt, but doesn’t move from his embrace. He pats her awkwardly on the back.
“Jun-sama…there’s no easy way to say this…but you know you’re not meant to be here, right? Even if-even if all you want is a normal life in this universe, it’s just not possible.”
Yes, perhaps he does know. He’s never quite fit in anywhere, and his mother always seemed so frightened for him, so desperately keen to move from one place to the next, never staying long enough to form any lasting connections…
Still, this is the only place, the only universe he knows.
He sighs, resting his chin against her forehead, his arms somehow winding around her waist. “But if I don’t belong here, and I don’t think I really belong in the refracted universe, where do I belong?”
“With us, Jun-sama!” A-chan cries passionately from the doorway, her eyes shiny and wet.
“You do belong with us, even if you can’t quite see it yet, Jun-sama.” Nocchi nods furiously, blinking back tears.
Mana, who is holding each of their hands, blinks. “Why do you all call him Jun-sama?”
Jun shoots them all warning looks and after an exchange of panicked expressions, A-chan blurts out, “Because he’s so stoic!”
The other two immediately nod and chime in. “Yes, yes, exactly.”
“I mean, he was watching me fi-er, practice, and he kept telling me that I had to swing higher, right?” A-chan continues, her voice climbing into a high-pitched falsetto.
“Right!” Kashiyuka and Nocchi chorus, and Jun frowns. What he specifically remembers saying is to please swing her sword higher so she doesn’t burn off his face. A second time.
“Anyway, Mana-chan, are you hungry? Nocchi can make us rice balls!”
“Ha? Well, I wouldn’t mind, but only if you help, too, A-chan!”
“Ehhhhhhhh!?”
Beyond the wind
Jun hears wind chimes crashing violently against each other and wakes with a start. The skies are the same dark gray-blue of the ocean.
He’s okay, he’s fine, so why do Mom and Dad fight every night? Why does Mom cry every night? He doesn’t understand, but wishes so hard that he did so he could fix something, do anything. He presses the sides of his pillow to his ears to drown out the clamor.
The chimes crash harder, reverberate in his ears and in his head and in his heart and-”Jun-chan?”
Jun cracks his eyes open to see a shaft of pale purple light peek into his room.
“Jun-chan, are you awake?”
He nods and hears a sad sigh in return. The light flickers and disappears behind the door, but he hears padded footsteps coming closer and closer until his bed dips with familiar weight.
“You should really try and get some sleep.”
“Can’t.”
A laugh, and then the warmth of a hand over his forehead, smoothing back his hair. Mom hasn’t been doing that lately.
“Try. Just close your eyes. When you wake up, it will be morning again.”
“And everyone will stop fighting?”
Another sad sigh. “Good night, Jun-chan.”
And the press of clumsy, childish lips against his forehead.
Secret secret
A-chan begrudgingly agrees to help, so everyone crams into the kitchen to prepare for a rice ball feast. A-chan prepares the fillings, Nocchi sautés beef and onions, and Kashiyuka scoops rice into a large bowl.
“Is there anything you particularly like, Mana-chan?” A-chan asks as she scoops pickled plums into a small glass bowl and dried plums into another.
Mana puckers her lips. “Ah, well…”
“It’s okay to tell us, we’ll do our best to make it!” Kashiyuka encourages with a bright smile.
“I really like pickled cucumbers.”
“P-pickled cucumbers?” Nocchi repeats with some surprise. “How refined.”
“Can you make some, Nocchi?” A-chan and Kashiyuka ask in unison, turning expectantly toward Nocchi, who furrows her eyebrows in thought.
“A-chan has never been patient enough to wait for something to pickle, so…”
Jun grins smugly from where he’s been banished to the far side of the kitchen. “Well now, guess who can make amazing pickled cucumbers?”
“Eh, really!?”
Mana’s excited exclamation is all the incentive Jun needs to remove some cucumbers from the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator. His mother’s special cucumbers straight from her garden. He quickly rinses them in some cold water and reaches for the cutting board and a knife.
“A-ah, Jun-sama,” Nocchi starts, but he simply raises his eyebrows and she coughs and shakes her head. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Good. Mana-chan, do you want to help me?”
“Yes!”
“I’m sure I have-aha!” He lets out a noise of triumph when he finds his old children’s cooking knife hiding in one of the taller cabinets. It was the one his mother handed to help prepare their modest, but delicious, meals every night before…before what? When did he stop helping his mother cook?
He shakes his head and allows Mana to cut one cucumber while he rummages about for the rest of the ingredients-a plastic bag, salt, vinegar, sugar.
“Ehh, this cucumber is shaped like a heart!” Mana exclaims, and Jun tries to fight the grin pinching at his lips. He fails completely when A-chan gasps, “Ehhh!?” and Kashiyuka and Nocchi exclaim, “How cute!”
“Now we’ll just drop everything in a plastic bag and let them sit for twenty minutes.”
“I don’t think I can wait that long,” A-chan whines, putting on her best sad face.
Mana mirrors her expression, but Jun shakes his head firmly. “It won’t taste good otherwise. Now let’s finish the rice balls.”
Lunch is prepared in a flash, but Jun is not thrilled that everyone reaches for his pickled cucumbers first.
“Ah, surprisingly delicious!” A-chan murmurs in amazement. Nocchi elbows her in the ribs and Kashiyuka follows with a quiet, “Yum!”
“How is it, Mana-chan?” Jun asks as Mana chews and chews and swallows a piece. She sets down her chopsticks and lowers her head. Jun purses his lips. “Ah, no good?”
“No…” When Mana looks up at him her eyes are fresh with tears and she wipes her hand hastily across her face to no avail. “I-it’s delicious.”
“That delicious?” He really, really doesn’t know what to do with crying girls. Especially two crying girls in one day.
“It tastes just like Mom makes.” Mana hiccups before dissolving into full-blown sobs. Nocchi reacts instantly, offering Mana a box of tissues as Kashiyuka takes the girl into her arms and A-chan pats her sweetly on the head.
Jun sighs and says the only thing he can think to say to alleviate the situation. “Mana-chan, have you ever played a Wii?”
Turns out she has; Mana kicks their collective asses in every game Nino somehow snuck into his living room. It’s only after her third crushing win in Super Smash Brothers-using Jigglypuff of all characters, and without losing a single life-that A-chan cries in frustration. “Ah, how are you so good at this, Mana-chan!?”
“I’ve played this one a lot before.” Mana replies with a sunny grin. “Someone taught me.”
Kashiyuka giggles knowingly. “It’s a boy isn’t it?”
Mana colors. “N-no-”
“Ehhhhhh! Spill! Is it a boy from class?” A-chan gasps, bringing her face inches from Mana’s. Mana bites her lip and looks at Nocchi for help.
“Is he cute?” Nocchi asks with a wink.
“…Yes.”
“Tell us more!” They gasp and squee all at once and it Jun frowns at a weird, protective feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.
“Well…he’s really nice and he teaches me a lot of things. And he’s really funny. He always makes me laugh. And he really likes magic tricks and, and-” Mana flushes bright red when she realizes how long she’s been talking about this boy. “And, um, well, do you three have anyone you like?”
“Anyone…”
“I…”
“Like…”
The three of them blink roundly before glancing in his direction and then bursting into a fit of giggles.
Jun thinks there’s something he’s missed, but decides against finding out. Instead he rummages around the TV area, because he’s so sure the last time Nino was here he left-”Aha! Who wants to play Super Mario Brothers?” The game is still factory-sealed.
“Jun-sama, why are you grinning like that?” Nocchi asks as Mana and A-chan tear open the plastic wrapper.
“What? Am I?”
“You are,” Kashiyuka confirms.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” He’s most certainly not thinking about Nino’s pathetic cries at not being the first one to open or play the game. Not at all.
Revenge is sweet.
Everyone falls asleep in the living room after a few hours, leaving Jun to pick up discarded snack wrappers, cans and cups from the floor and furniture alike. He eases a milk tea Kit Kat wrapper from under Mana’s arm, careful not to wake her, but she rolls over and grabs onto his wrist with her tiny hands. Jun waits a beat, but Mana continues to slumber on. He smiles as he slips away from her grasp, smoothes the hair away from her face and brings the fallen couch blanket up and around her shoulders.
Once he’s done cleaning, Jun slips out the front door and checks his phone. No new messages. He dials Haruko’s number again, frustrated. Shouldn’t Haruko be desperately searching for her daughter? Could she be so unfeeling that Mana felt the need to run away? And if that’s the case, maybe Mana is justified for doing so.
Maybe she should just stay with him indefinitely.
Wait-what? Where did that come from?
The phone rings three times, and just as Jun is rehearsing his next voice message, someone picks up.
“H-Hello?”
“Hey, Haruko? It’s Jun. I’m sorry for leaving so many messages, but I know you and Mana-chan had some kind of fight. She’s safe with me now, but don’t you think it’s time to pick her up? Aren’t you worried? She seems to really miss you-”
“Excuse me!” Haruko cuts in harshly, and she sounds-scared? “Although my name is Haruko, I’m sure you have the wrong one!”
But this sounds like the Haruko he remembers.
“What are you-?”
“You keep talking about this Mana-chan, but I don’t know any Mana-chan. Or any Jun for that matter.”
“H-Haruko. Are you serious? This isn’t funny, your mother was my mother’s best friend. We used to play together all the time.”
“I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding and that you mean well for this Mana-chan, but please leave me alone and search for her real mother.”
“Wha-wait.”
“Goodbye!”
“Haruko.” When she hesitates for a moment, Jun asks the only question he can think of. “Can you…at least tell me your daughter’s name?”
“What!? Why would I-”
“Please?”
“My daughter’s name is Reina. Please don’t contact me anymore.”
A beep and then nothing.
“Jun-chan, what’re you doing?” Mana stands before the front door, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
“Mana-chan…who are you?”
Happiness
“No way, a dweeb like you has a Wii!?”
“Stop rummaging through my things,” Jun huffs, smacking Nino on the head and removing the box from his greedy, hammy hands. “Why are you even here?”
“B-but. Wii.“ It’s the first time Nino has looked less than insufferable. It’s almost cute in that pathetic, kicked-puppy kind of way.
But not. Absolutely not.
“Ooh, what’s this?” A-chan bubbles into the room, taking the box from his hands before he can stop her. “Can we eat it?”
“No!” Jun and Nino exclaim at once.
“It’s a really, really fun game,” Nino explains, eyes lighting up mischievously.
“Ehh, I want to play!”
“Ah, game? Me, too!” Nocchi says, raising her hand as she enters the room. Kashiyuka seems confused, but raises her hand as well.
“Sorry, girls. Emperor Jun-sama says he doesn’t want to share.”
“Eh!?” “Jun-sama!?” “Why!”? The girls clamor at once, and the grin on Nino’s face is obnoxiously, insufferably smug.
“No, I didn’t mean that. I just. I don’t know how to set this up. I don’t even think it came with any games-I got it from an office grab bag and no one wanted to trade with me.” Actually, everyone wanted to trade with him, except Becky, who received a hundred dollar gift certificate for a hair perm treatment. Jun kept the Wii out of spite.
“You just leave that to me,” Nino declares, reclaiming the box from A-chan’s hands and sending a triumphant grin over his shoulder as the girls follow after him excitedly. When Jun finally makes it to the living room, Nino is sorting through color-coded wires, plugging them into the Wii and the back of the television. The girls are watching him like beady-eyes hawks, so Jun takes the opportunity to stretch himself out over the couch. Kashiyuka and Nocchi notice and are quick to sit on opposite sides of him, pressing close into his arms, as A-chan seats herself in front of his legs, so that his knees are grazing her back. These girls-really!
“How do you even know how to work one of these things-and wait! Where did you get that game?” Jun asks just as Nino slips a blue disc into the system.
“There’s nothing not within my reach,” Nino sing-songs. “Time Manipulator!”
Jun rolls his eyes and leans back into the sofa as Nino begins to explain the intricacies of the game. His eyes are fluttering closed before he realizes it, the cheerful voices in the room and the music from the game melding into a sound that’s strangely comforting. It’s weird, this feeling, weird and nostalgic.
He wonders if this is…
Night Flight
“Or should I say…what are you?” Jun swallows, heart hammering in his chest. He should have known better after everything that’s happened. He shouldn’t have let down his guard because for all he knows she is a Shade in a tiny, unassuming body, and she could kill him. Everything can kill him. There is just no escaping death-even with a trio of magical girl guards snoring away in his living room.
“Can we take a walk, Jun-chan?”
One, his name is Matsumoto Jun, but he’s not stupid.
“I don’t think I really want to walk anywhere with you until you tell me who you are.” He almost regrets the words as they fly out of his mouth because Mana’s face visibly drops. But then he remembers that, two, he has no idea who or what this girl even is.
He feels slightly comforted by that.
Except for the fact that she could still potentially kill him.
“My name is Mana, but Ashida Haruko is not my mother. I’m not a Shade, either, if that’s what you’re wondering about.” Mana says quietly, staring at her hands. “Everything else I’ve ever said to you was true, though.”
“But if you know what Shade are, then…”
“Yes.” She nods. “I’m from the refracted universe.”
He admittedly expected a bit more fanfare than that. “Why…how?”
“May we please take a walk, Jun-chan? I don’t want to be overheard…” She glances behind her, but Jun doesn’t feel threatened by anything or anyone left in the house. He’d feel much safer inside, to be honest. But Mana’s little eyes are watering again and he sighs.
Three, he’s a sucker for a crying face.
“Okay…but don’t try anything funny.”
She smiles weakly at that.
They set off a short distance from the house, Jun sparing furtive glances at her every few seconds. He’s not proud of this thought, but he really is ready to run should she turn on him. Even the two year olds can keep from getting slimed in the face…
Fucking Nino.
“I’m from the refracted universe, but there’s something else, too,” Mana says, stopping so suddenly Jun almost falls flat on his face. “I’m from ten years into the future of the refracted universe.”
“You’re…sure. Because that makes sense.” He takes a seat on the curb of the sidewalk and pats the place next to him gently. Mana blinks, but seats herself with a small smile.
“You’re from the future.”
“Yes.”
“So…why come here?”
Mana licks her lips, as if debating her next words. “I came to the past in order to save my father.”
“You said your father left you a long time ago.”
“I said he wasn’t around.” Mana looks away. “He passed away before I was born.”
“Oh…”
Mana sniffs, but keeps the tears away. “This is why I came back…because I had to save him. Because he shouldn’t have died. I came because-” Mana slips a chain out from under the collar of her dress and Jun freezes, ready to duck and cover at any moment.
Nothing happens.
On the chain is a small vial filled with a purple liquid that shimmers under the glow of the streetlamps.
“What is it?”
“This is an antidote for Shade toxin. I came here to entrust this to you.”
“Me? Why me?”
Mana’s smile is small and broken. Like so many other children of war. “Because you’re my hero.”
“Wh…”
“You’re the only one who can help me-who can save him.”
“Why does everyone expect me to be a hero?” Jun whispers, shaking his head. “I’m not-”
“You are.” She unclasps the necklace and offers him the vial, chain and all.
“But…”
“You just don’t know how amazing you are yet, Jun-chan.”
And then it happens again as if in slow motion. A thick curl of black smoke creeps up Mana’s ankles, twisting around her legs, but before Jun can do anything it’s wrapped all over her tiny little body and she’s pulled into complete darkness and Jun can’t move, he can’t do anything he’s so useless useless useless even with Mana screaming for him-screaming his name-and when he finally wills one arm to reach for her she is…gone. The necklace crashes onto the floor and the purple liquid shimmers and fades away into nothingness. Gone.
Just like Mana.
“Princess-princess!”
No, not now, this is not happening what the fuck-
When Jun turns around, Nino stands before him, breathless and winded. He doesn’t think twice before punching him in the face.
Dive into the future
Jun checks his watch and frowns. It’s late. The train is late. This is Japan. The train is never late. Especially not at six in the morning.
Today it is late.
Jun glances up from his watch and catches sight of three tittering girls in almost matching school uniforms. Almost because there is something off about each outfit, some detail that sets it apart from the rest, though Jun can’t quite put his finger on it. He groans and averts his gaze because an old man like him really shouldn’t be staring at three girls in school uniforms trying to put his finger on anything.
But his eyes are drawn to them against his will. There is something so-familiar about them? Familiar strangers. There was an experiment about that, right? It took place at a train station.
After some time you are able to recognize people with whom you’ve had no actual contact, simply because you routinely see them every day when, say, you’re waiting for a train. Familiar strangers-the same faces, every morning, like clockwork.
Like Japanese trains.
Usually.
Jun frowns and wonders why something still feels wrong. Something…something.
The train arrives-Jun checks his watch-five minutes late. He’ll get a train tardiness card, though he won’t need to use it. He’s always twenty minutes early for work anyway. He enters the train car and stands by the far window, glances outside and notes with some surprise that the three girls have disappeared. The opposite-going train is nowhere to be seen.
It’s only as the doors begin to close that Jun finally understands.
Isn’t it too early for school?
On to Part 3