Miss Kanna's Dragon Playdate

Chapters

Unexpected Obstacle In Shipping Lane
Plato Never Had To Watercolor Any Of It
Mandatory Elevator Flashback Animation Budget-Saver Scene
On The Edge Of A Gatcha Moment
Some Of You Are Now Waiting For 'Dragon: The (Verbing)'
A Keen Awareness Of The Wrong Tropes
Don't Look, Then Don't Look Again
Pureidēto

Unexpected Obstacle In Shipping Lane

There was something indescribably wonderful about having your entire romantic life settled, especially when you'd originally managed that feat at the age of eight. Which currently meant that Riko Saikawa had come to that realization nearly two years ago, and she knew she'd made the right decision. Even at nine (ten soon), everything was holding up. She still wasn't sure what she was going to do for a living and changed her mind a lot, but she was absolutely going to marry Kanna Kobayashi. There was nothing which could prevent that from happening, especially since Saikawa spent most of her time on full watch for anything which might try to get in the way. Being ready to stop it.

For example, there were a lot of people who said girls shouldn't marry each other, and they were very stupid. Saikawa had already figured out how to beat them. She and Kanna would be married once they were both adults.

She was skipping down the sidewalk as she made her way through a familiar section of Oborozuka in the Chiba prefecture, early on a beautiful summer morning: a girl of nine (ten soon) with brown-tinged hair, whose arms and legs seemed to be a little too long for her body. Her forehead was rather high (which she claimed to be an obvious sign of intelligence), and she dressed in what she felt would be the cutest outfits possible because Kanna liked cute things. Recently, this had meant paying very close attention to the shows Kanna watched and then purchasing anything which had those logos and characters. Kanna's tastes in the matter were presumed to be perfect. Just like Kanna.

Saikawa skipped along, because that was what you did when you were happy and on your way to a date. And she made sure to skip in a very straight path, because Kanna often treated any painted white line as a battlefield and anyone whose skips brought them off to the side was declared dead. Saikawa, who wasn't quite as good at the game, usually responded to her own losses by leaping up again and declaring herself immortal. She was. She was nine, going on ten. It was pretty much the same thing.

Kanna... sometimes got this look when Saikawa said it. And Kanna's expressions were usually -- understated. Delicate, while still being almost exceedingly cute. She didn't really laugh or giggle when she saw something which delighted her: instead, she would take a little breath. Her mouth would go round, the blue eyes became wide, and there would be a tiny sound. Something very much like an "...oh!" Saikawa lived to bring forth that sound. But when she told Kanna about being immortal, the white-haired girl would just look...

...sad.

It would only be for a moment. But Saikawa hated making Kanna sad, and that was why she was trying to get better at skipping in perfectly straight lines. And running, especially with batons. And she was trying to figure out how to be a good girlfriend. Going on dates helped.

...fine, so it was what the adults called a 'playdate'. They still went out together, didn't they? Spent time with each other. And if you spent enough time with someone else, then you would learn about them. Figure out what truly made them happy. And it was more than just that. Hours, days, weeks and months and it might be another year or so before Saikawa found the right instant, but time shared meant a chance to recognize the best moment. The perfect opportunity to confess, and say "I love you" to the perfect girl.

Kanna was smart and athletic and the best at just about everything. She was the most popular girl in the class. She could have all the friends she wanted at any time, and that was a significant difference when compared to Saikawa. Because Saikawa could be loud. Abrasive. She tended to challenge too quickly, punching so far beyond her weight class as to be incapable of reaching the target. When lost for answers on how to deal with a new arrival, her first resort would be insult and she typically wouldn't truly hear what she'd said until the moment after she stopped saying it. And then the consequences would begin.

Saikawa, when it came to those within her class, had one friend. But that friend was Kanna. Quality over quantity.

Kanna was perfect.

...okay, so there were a few... quirks.

Just for starters, Kanna didn't use honorifics when addressing her own mother. It was always just 'Kobayashi' instead of 'Kobayashi-okāsan'. The single parent seemed to be okay with it, but Saikawa was dreading the day when a teacher overheard and launched into a lecture.

And she talked about dragons a lot.

Not that Kanna probably knew Saikawa had spotted that, because Kanna never did it when Saikawa was close. But if there was a gathering of family and friends, with Saikawa was off to one side, just barely in range to pick up a word or two from the central cluster -- then one of those words was probably going to be 'dragon'. It saw a lot of repetition.

But when you loved someone, you had to accept their quirks. And it was a quirky family. At least Kanna was only talking about dragons. (It was probably a show. Saikawa was trying to find out which one it was in secret, followed by getting the whole series so they could watch it together.) Her mother could go on for hours about maids, especially when she got drunk. Saikawa, whose older sister was heavily into both the culture and the cosplay, treated that as No Rest For The Visiting Weary and tried to find a quiet corner whenever the alcohol came out.

Miss Kobayashi also muttered about dragons. Rather frequently, and typically while sober.

Saikawa had wondered if the exhausted adult shared a favorite manga with her daughter. Maybe there was a light novel being written and she read the drafts to Kanna every night. It still felt like an odd choice of secondary interest for someone who was so clearly into maids.

Of course, Kanna's family actually had a maid. Saikawa didn't know how that was possible on a programmer's salary, but there Miss Tohru was. (The Lady Tohru, according to Kanna, and that was another quirk: addressing a maid as her superior.) Miss Tohru was mostly all right, even if she acted weird around Miss Kobayashi sometimes. And her first response to most problems was to joke about how many humans she'd have to kill in order to solve them. You got used to that, even when you were still waiting for it to become funny.

And then you had Ilulu. Who was very short for sixteen, and so curvy that kids from two districts over had been known to wander into the candy shop where she worked just to get a look. Ilulu was sweet, loving, a bit of a tease, always wanted to play with kids of any age, had unfortunately picked up most of the human massacre jokes from Miss Tohru, and if she'd just been a few years younger, Saikawa might have fallen in love with her first.

Ilulu's quirkiness mostly manifested as a general, near-total failure to understand the majority of Japan's culture. Which was expected for a foreigner. Annoying, but -- expected. Kanna had adjusted faster that that, but -- Kanna went to school. Ilulu didn't. And she usually wound up treating normal people as if they were an entirely separate species. But she was incredibly fun to hug.

Saikawa loved hugging Kanna even more.

They were growing up, though. (With Kanna, the process seemed to be -- slow.) Saikawa had already decided that Kanna would remain just as much fun to hug whether she wound up with Ilulu's figure or something more reflective of her mother, who typically wore Men's Skinny for a better fit. However, there had been a brief moment of concern about how to make hugs work if both Kanna and Saikawa turned out Ilulu-curvy -- and then she'd realized that hugging from behind was fine. It would be squishy, but workable. You could even snuggle against a shoulder that way.

Saikawa was always on the lookout for chances to hug. Hold hands. Sometimes when she lost a game with Kanna, the perfect girl would declare that the punishment was having to perform a tummy rub, but you couldn't count on that and besides, it looked too weird if Saikawa lost all the time. And there was something in her which hated losing in front of Kanna.

She hated dropping the baton...

The thought clouded smile and movements. She nearly went off the straight line. But then she adjusted, skipped towards the entrance of that familiar apartment building while singing to herself.

"Pureidēto, pureidēto..."

Playdate? It still counted. She loved Kanna. Everyone did. Saikawa's parents adored the smaller girl. They just got funny looks when Saikawa talked about her as more than a friend.

They -- thought she would grow out of it...

...it didn't matter. Not even parents could stop love. Everyone loved Kanna, but Saikawa was the only one who got to date her. And there was the elevator door, it opened immediately when she pushed the button and that had to be a good omen, she rode up, exited, walked along the railing-bordered access path which led to the right door, knocked...

The maid opened the door almost before Saikawa had pulled her hand back. Miss Tohru was quick like that.

"Hello, Saikawa," the tall blonde girl smiled. "Kanna will be ready in a few minutes. I was just packing bentō-bakos for all of you. You can go out when they're done."

Saikawa wasn't quite sure how old Miss Tohru was. Nineteen felt about right, but it was hard to tell age on a lot of adults. For example, Miss Kobayashi claimed to be twenty-six, which just showed that adults lied a lot. Not that it really mattered. The minor sin of lying about her age was more than countered by her excellent taste when it came to adopting children.

Not that she'd ever talked about it. But even though Saikawa felt the programmer was more than old enough to have birthed both Kanna and Ilulu, the two girls were just so obviously foreign. Miss Kobayashi was a native. It was the only possible answer, and Saikawa contented herself with having worked it out. Besides, asking could be rude.

"Thank you for the meal!" Saikawa chirped in advance, because saying it over the bentō box didn't guarantee the chef would hear you and it made the maid's smile a little warmer.

Miss Tohru turned, began to go back down the hallway. Saikawa paused to remove shoes.

"Do you have a phone with you?" the maid asked.

"Yes." Saikawa's parents had finally given her one of her very own. She tended to wander when she was with Kanna, because Kanna wanted to see everything. And the girls usually traveled without adult supervision. Miss Kobayashi didn't mind: she'd just make of those completely unfunny jokes about how Saikawa was safer in Kanna's company than in the center of a full tank battalion. But Saikawa's parents...

...Saikawa was sure the phone came with a hidden tracking app. She was still trying to figure out how to both find the thing and get it turned off.

"Just in case we have to call," Miss Tohru said. "And you need to call us if you're running late. Your parents will understand if you stay over tonight, but you have to be back here in time for dinner."

Which would probably be omurice. The entire family loved it, and Kanna's mother had once muttered something about it being the best way to keep Miss Tohru from trying to add meat. "Okay!"

"Do you know where you're going?"

"Wherever Kanna wants to --"

-- and then it hit her.

'min'na no tame.'

She nearly stumbled over her own shoes.

Lunches for all of them. You didn't say that about a pair...

It's not Chloe. It was too soon for the American's return and besides, they would have gotten some warning. The Skype calls were good for that. "Is Ilulu coming with us?" The teenager's working hours were irregular, she loved the company of children, and she occasionally tagged along for the fun of it. Saikawa usually didn't mind, because the adolescent could play like a kid, was fun to have around, and could sometimes entice sweets out of adults with one of those half-crooked smiles and a strategic anatomical bounce. But...

...I thought this was going to be our playdate...

"No, no!" the maid brightly declared. "She went in to work early. 'Inventory', she said. She'll be there for most of the day."

Saikawa cleared the hurdle of her footwear, scrambled to catch up. "But you said 'all' --"

-- Miss Tohru reached the end of the hallway. A maid's wide skirt swished, and the tall girl ducked off to one side. Entering the kitchenette. And without her in the way...

It wasn't the largest apartment: three bedrooms, and one of those had to be shared. (Saikawa, whose parents had good jobs, lived in a house.) Clear the viewing path from the hallway and you would be looking directly into the little living room. Something which was dominated by a midsized television, one older model of console, a couple of small couches, and the kotatsu had been put out. Saikawa didn't understand that. A table with a heat source mounted on the underside, with a thick blanket draped around the edges... that was a winter thing. No one needed to get their legs beneath the warm blanket in summer.

But it had been put out. Brought into unseasonal service, and that was the first strange thing.

The second was the boy who had sat down next to it, with his feet tucked under the blanket's folds.

He was a foreigner -- well, of course he was. The Kobayashi household was full of them. Additionally, Kanna's mother had a lot of friends, and Mr. Takiya seemed to be the only adult among them who'd been born in Japan. Being foreign really wasn't the problem. He just happened to be a foreign boy who, a mere few seconds ago, had been counted within the traitorous category of 'all'.

Saikawa's stare did its best to burrow into his skull.

The boy flinched. Looked up at her from his seated position on the floor, and reluctantly began to stand.

Foreign? Absolutely. In fact, Saikawa was fully certain that she knew exactly where he was from, to the point where she wasn't going to bother asking because no other answer was possible. She watched a lot of movies with Kanna, because the world's most perfect girl loved films. She wanted them to have magic and monsters and, where possible, interesting bugs. You usually couldn't get the last part, but the first two just about took care of themselves. It meant they'd both seen that one film with a corrupted goddess, a demigod (who carried a giant fishhook for magical reasons) who was frankly a jerk and that was what you got with boys who tasted the smallest bit of power, and songs which might have been different before they'd all been dubbed into a more sensible language.

She guessed him to be about twelve. The skin was a light, even brown. Black hair, somewhat curled -- but there was also a thin ridge of upraised strands. This started at the peak of his forehead, then ran backwards along the center of the skull. And where the rest of the follicles were black, the ridge displayed embedded highlights of a deep forest green. Saikawa's assumption was that he'd started into the chuni phase a little early. Or he was a delinquent. Delinquency made just as much sense and meant she could look down on him, so she decided to go with that.

He was wearing a short-sleeve shirt: medium lavender. Black pants. Neither did much to hide his build, and it was a fairly strange one. The boy was lightly muscled, almost wiry -- but that quality sat directly on top of a powerful bone structure. Saikawa felt he was closer to average Japanese height for his age than what she presumed to be suitable for the much larger Samoans, but... it was the build of someone who wasn't going to be small for very long.

And he had bright emerald eyes: almost luminescent, with an odd reflectiveness about the irises. It was strange to see, and most of that strangeness came about because Saikawa could see it. A lot of people passed through the Kobayashi household, and every last one had perfectly normal eyes. Even Miss Lucoa could say that, although heterochromia meant hers displayed two colors.

Perfectly normal eyes. Just as long as you were looking directly at them.

There were times when Kanna's eyes...

...Kanna's eyes were beautiful. And the boy was getting up now, legs shifting as if he didn't quite understand how the full length was supposed to work, he had this odd little rounding at the tip of his nose, his front incisors were a little long, the fingernails had been cut so poorly as to leave little points at the centers and as far as Saikawa was concerned, he was the ugliest boy in the world.

(His features were -- pleasant. A little drawn around the cheekbones, as if he had to grow into them. But in Saikawa's expert, fully unbiased opinion, he was hideous.)

"Kanna found another friend!" Miss Tohru happily announced as the maid continued to busy herself about the kitchen. "And he can really only drop by today. So you're all going to go out together! Won't that be fun?"

Saikawa felt her entire body go tense. Sunlight came in through the apartment's big living room windows, bounced off her forehead and seemed to burn.

No.

No, it would not be fun.

It was her date with Kanna. Ilulu could have been tolerated because she was part of Kanna's family, could actually be a lot of fun, and obviously wasn't a potential rival. This was a boy.

The boy was standing. Moving towards her. She stood her ground, because that was what she had to do. And then he raised his right arm, held out the hand with the knuckles facing her and the fingers curled in --

-- it was probably a Samoan thing. Belatedly extending the fingers was more of an American one.

She stared at the hand. She knew what a handshake was, and she also knew she didn't have to return the gesture.

Three awkward seconds ticked by, and then the thin arm dropped.

"Kon'nichiwa," just barely emerged from his mouth, and that after adjusting for an atrocious accent. It was the voice of a boy who was both speaking the local language for the first time and had no idea of what a tongue was supposed to do. And yet he might have almost gotten away with it, if not for the rather poor choice to say something else. "Watashinonamaeha Supaikudesu. Aruiwa 'Supaiku'...?"

She made the conscious choice not to correct any of it. He was free to sound as stupid as he wished or, better yet, as dumb as he was.

Your name is 'Spike'.

It was good to know that. Miss Kobayashi had once said that as a programmer, most of the initial trouble came from trying to define what you needed to solve. You had to put a name on the problem, and Saikawa now knew her problem's name was 'Spike'. Progress.

Now she just had to figure out how to keep him from taking Kanna away from her.

Plato Never Had To Watercolor Any Of It

Saikawa made a point of sitting on the couch while they waited. She sat in a way which she felt was suitable to someone ten years older, about thirty kilograms heavier, and who possessed exactly the same amount of angry sulk. It mostly involved folding her arms across her chest and not looking at the boy. The boy was sitting on the floor again.

A boy.

Boys were a problem.

It really wasn't the foreign thing. If Saikawa had any real problems with foreigners, then she never would have fallen in love with Kanna. The smaller girl had said where she was from, on that very first day when she'd introduced herself to the class: Ushishir Island. Saikawa had tried to look that up online and while there hadn't been all that much information available, she'd managed to discover that it was part of Russia. The same article, which had obviously suffered from very poor public editing, had also claimed that the island had a permanent population of -- zero. Saikawa had immediately presumed that some idiot had decided to round down for a joke. However, the fact that you could round a population down to 'zero' without having another editor come in to correct it suggested that the number of people living there was pretty close to the count of those who looked up the article. That probably created a pretty significant incentive to leave.

Shortly after they'd met, she'd tried to ask Kanna about what it had been like to live there. But the one she loved didn't like to talk about her past, and -- after seeing Kanna's mother, Saikawa had realized that Kanna was adopted. That meant something had happened to her birth parents. Hearing questions about her old home had to hurt, and...

...no one was allowed to hurt Kanna. Ever. A list which began and (romantically) ended with Saikawa. So she didn't ask any more.

Saikawa loved a foreigner, because that happened to be Kanna and Saikawa would have loved her no matter where she was from. And they both had foreign friends -- well, for their own age group, a foreign friend. The same one. Because Kanna had been in America at some point -- Saikawa's guess was that the adoption agency was there -- and she'd met Chloe. Who was blonde, blue-eyed, Minnesotan, utterly cute, and rich. Saikawa's family was perfectly comfortable, but Chloe had a credit card made out in her name and it was black. She could travel wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted -- although the fact of her wealth and youthful vulnerability meant her father liked to send along bodyguards. So she'd visited Japan to see Kanna, stayed for two days, and then decided that the next time around, she was coming for a month.

Her first meeting with Chloe had made Saikawa very worried, because you didn't have to be an adult to know that 'exotic and rich' was a hard combination to beat. But... the American cared about Kanna (because that was just a sign of common sense), but it didn't seem to be in the same way. It was more like someone clinging to a protector. So there didn't seem to be any romantic threat, and all three girls talked online when their schedules and the time zones managed to line up.

Besides, Kanna was extremely practical. She would know that the adults always said long-distance relationships didn't work out.

Chloe wasn't really an issue. But Kanna could have all the friends she wanted, whenever she decided to actually desire them. The fact that Kanna spent most of her time with Saikawa said something there -- but it didn't change a basic fact. Kanna was popular.

She'd gotten endless chocolates on Valentine's Day, and had even managed to get most of them back to the apartment: the trick had then been locating a place to hide the stash where a visiting Miss Elma couldn't find it. If there was an assignment which required a partner, then the line to work with Kanna could go all the way back to the door. And some of the boys in the class looked at her. Saikawa considered the vast majority of them to be too stupid and immature to recognize exactly what they were looking at, but they were still looking and it was only going to get worse when puberty let more of the idiocy flow in.

Boys were dangerous. Boys could be attracted to Kanna, which was basically how anyone in the class demonstrated that they had at least one working brain cell to begin with. And as they all grew up, some of them would try to act on it. With more chocolates. And possibly flowers.

Saikawa had to establish her place before that could happen. Lock it in. For a lifetime.

"Did..." She heard the boy swallow, and then more words forced themselves out. In the wrong order. "Something I wrong did?"

She didn't correct his atrociously-phrased Japanese, nor did she bother to answer the question. She knew exactly what he'd done wrong. He'd made the choice to exist. And she wanted to unleash a string of challenges and insults, but Miss Tohru was right there --

-- the door to the smallest bedroom opened, and the most beautiful girl in the world stepped out.

"Ready," the little vision softly said, because so many of her words were soft. Kanna's speech existed as a sort of perpetual vocal understatement. You had to pay close attention to hear how she was feeling. She could get mad, and there were times when she was even a little sarcastic, but -- even the insults would be quiet statements of newborn fact: Kanna has called you a scoundrel, and so scoundrel you are. Deal with it.

Kanna looked up at the maid. "Bentō," she quietly checked. "Bentōs ready?"

"I'm just wrapping them now," the tall blonde smiled. Deft hands tied a knot in protective cloth.

"Thank you, Lady," Kanna politely offered, and the blue gaze turned towards the living room area. "Saikawa. Good."

Saikawa was already standing up, arms unfolded because crossed over the ribs was a horrible way to receive or give a hug --

"You met Spike," the beautiful girl said. "Good."

Insults spoken by Kanna often became fact. It was a skill which didn't extend into assessing introductions.

Saikawa immediately glanced at Spike, trying to figure out how he was reacting to Kanna's arrival --

-- relieved.
That he doesn't have to be stuck in the room with me.
Because I know what he's after.

Kanna collected the wrapped boxes. The three-stack looked as if it was weighing down thin arms --

-- the boy crossed the distance before Saikawa could get two steps, took custody.

No.
Watch for that.
Move faster.
Don't drop the baton --

"Thank you," Kanna quietly offered. "We can go now." And the perfect girl moved towards the apartment's main door.

They both followed. They had to. For Saikawa, it had been an order. But it wasn't the widest of hallways, and she made sure to get an accidental elbow into the boy's ribs as she passed.

He didn't seem to notice.

How to describe Kanna? Saikawa had spent a lot of time in trying, usually while lying in bed and wondering what it would be like in a decade or so. When Kanna would be next to her, always next to her in the bed because they were married and --

-- it wasn't so long to wait, really. Saikawa had plans.

She often tried to describe Kanna to herself: the hardest part was in finding terms which were strong enough. She'd also made multiple efforts to render the girl's appearance within art. Saikawa had attempted painting, sketches, was starting to get a decent grounding in sculpture, and all of it was in an effort to capture perfection. There was nothing Saikawa could create which wouldn't have Kanna somewhere in it: even a self-portrait would find the other girl reflected in her eyes.

Eyes...

...Kanna's eyes were beautiful.

Describe Kanna in truly fitting terms? Japanese wasn't up to the task, and that meant no language could do it. But if Saikawa had to use lesser words...

She was pale. Her skin was closer to white than pink, and she didn't really tan. (She'd tried. It had been one of the few things Kanna had ever failed at, and it had left her low-key irritated for a week.) And her hair was white, almost purely so. Saikawa had once wondered if Kanna was an albino, but the other girl had just enough melanin to create that tinge of pink and peach. There were also no problems with sun exposure (other than not tanning), she didn't suffer from what were apparently very common vision problems, and those beautiful eyes were blue.

She liked to keep her hair long at the front: her bangs overlapped her eyebrows. The rest was kept even longer, and she preferred to pull the thickest strands through glassy guide beads: the full fall easily reached the small of her back. Her features were fine: an afterthought of a nose, delicate ears, thin lips and perfect teeth. She seldom smiled. Saikawa had to work harder for a smile than the little "...oh!" It was always worth the effort.

It was a struggle to get her into casual clothing. She would put on a school uniform if she had to, but the teacher had pretty much given up on trying to keep her in it after the first month. At best, you could ask her to wear the hat and shoes: anything in between was probably going to take the form of a dress which came with its own layering, and stockings to go with the skirt. You got Kanna out of stockings by getting her into water or pajamas. Just about nothing else worked. Today, she'd gone with a more basic dress than the usual: blue, lightly fringed. The boy had already been caught examining the stitching, or at least that was what he probably wanted Saikawa to think.

And she was small. Saikawa had been a little taller when they'd first met, and...

...nearly two years now. They were growing up. But Kanna hadn't really changed. At all.

Saikawa presumed that Kanna's hair was trimmed at home, and rather often: she'd never really seen it longer or shorter than the base state. It was too early for some of the other changes. But Saikawa had picked up some height, and the one she loved hadn't.

She was starting to worry about that.

Surely Kanna's mother had noticed. A few more months without a change, and they'd consult a doctor.

Surely...

...she didn't want to bring it up with Kanna. She didn't want to hurt the one she loved. To place any degree of pain in --

-- her eyes are beautiful.

They left the apartment. The door closed behind them, and the three children headed for the elevator. The boy was trailing somewhat behind, distracted by the effort involved in loading the boxes into a small, extremely elaborate well-stitched backpack. It gave Kanna a chance to talk without having him overhear.

"Spike is visiting," the perfect girl softly said. "But he can't stay very long."

How did you meet him?
Has he tried anything? (Boys did that. All the best shows and books said so, and most of the worst.)
Were there any chocolates?

None of it reached Saikawa's voice.

"His parents are waiting for him to get home?" Maybe shortly after noon. She would have hoped for before noon, but there were three bentō boxes.

"His parents --" and Kanna paused.

The delay was just long enough for Saikawa's heart to fill with horror.

Kanna almost never hesitated in her speech. Sentences were clipped, brusque, and direct. She said whatever she wished, and stopped when there was nothing left to say. Hesitations were almost unknown, pauses virtually extinct.

Kanna had been an orphan. (Saikawa had never asked. She just told herself she knew it, and that was enough.) And the hesitation had come after 'parents'.

How had she met the boy? Where --

"-- are very far away," the white-haired girl finally finished. "He lives with his sister. She worries."

Oh.

"I asked him to tell her he was coming," Kanna said. "I don't know if he did. So he really has to be home on time."

"We should call her," Saikawa's near-whisper immediately decided. "Make sure she knows." Because if that got the boy dragged off by an angry older sibling, then the day would be on track for perfection.

"No phone."

"No keitai?" Well, Saikawa's first mobile phone was less than a month old --

"No phone. At all."

...and that was weird. How was it possible to live without any phone? Maybe the sister just had a tablet and facetimed a lot.

"I like him," Kanna abruptly said.

She likes a boy.
An older boy.
He could try anything.

"He doesn't get to have a lot of fun with kids. Not kids like him. And I didn't know today was when he could come over." The smaller girl looked up at Saikawa. "I didn't forget about you. He just arrived before you did."

Saikawa thought of a few insults to use on the boy later. Most of them centered on delinquency.

"You're mad," Kanna said.

Kanna frequently made direct comments on how she felt someone else was feeling. She was usually right. It was another sign of how perfect she was, except when it was annoying.

"Am not," Saikawa immediately huffed.

"I want him to come with us," Kanna's even tones stated. "I want you to be there. I want --"

"-- I want the elevator to be on this floor," Saikawa decided, and jabbed a finger at the button.

It wasn't. The boy caught up, and they all waited together. A creaking from the cables suggested that Mr. Sone was taking a wood delivery.

Three.

Saikawa needed to get a few minutes alone with the backpack. Maybe the boy had a phone. His sister's email address had to be in there somewhere.

There had to be an email address. Living without any phone was one incomprehensible thing, but not having email meant you didn't exist.

Mandatory Elevator Flashback Animation Budget-Saver Scene

There was a certain fundamental awkwardness built into sharing an elevator ride with someone you didn't like, and it was so basic as to shove itself into the fabric of the world. It made space for itself between seconds, forcing everything else to repeatedly jump over the gaps. It slowed time.

The trip to street level took approximately six forevers within oddly-compressed stifling air, which was also the duration for which Saikawa had to make sure she kept standing between Kanna and the boy. (The boy kept shuffling his feet. Shaking them, as if he was waiting for the first chance to kick off the shoes.) Looking for a chance to seize Kanna's delicate hand, because that would be a declaration of both protection and possession --

-- except that Kanna's arms were resting at the beautiful girl's sides, and the one closest to Saikawa hadn't moved at all. Wasn't reaching for her.

We should have taken the stairs.

Stairs offered more options. You could control your own pace. There would have been a chance to gain wider separation, and Saikawa was on the relay race team for her class: she was sure she was faster than the boy. Also, Ilulu probably would have said something about the opportunity for problem solving. Because the teenager hadn't exactly asked her coworker out just yet -- which was perfectly acceptable for girls who had to deal with boys, as boys were accurately presumed to be clueless on the matter -- but when it came to Taketo Aida, she was decidedly territorial. Any female who seemed to be looking at the sleepy-eyed adolescent male for a little too long would find themselves on the receiving end of Ilulu's attention, and --

-- it was... strange. When it came to height, Ilulu was very short for her age: just about all of her growth energy had gone somewhere else. She didn't look as if she'd be much good in a fight. When it came to her total appearance, any observer would put a marker flagpole in the ground next to her, mark it as the new central capital of Intimidation, and then tell Ilulu to position herself on the exact opposite side of the planet.

Saikawa had briefly wondered if that would put the teenager back where she originally came from, but she'd checked online again and the 'antipode' city for their region was a place called Cidreira. Ilulu didn't look Brazilian, any more than Kanna seemed to be Russian.

Ilulu had never said where she was from.

Neither of the adopted sisters really looked as if they came from anywhere real --

-- Ilulu was only intimidating if you were worried about having your shins repeatedly kicked, or had an odd fear of suffocating during hugs. But if another girl took visible interest in Take, Ilulu would... look at them. A silent, steady gaze, which might be accompanied by one of those half-crooked smiles. Something which just barely showed teeth.

(Ilulu had even, flawless white teeth. Just as long as you were looking directly at them.)
(...her smile was beautiful. Warm. Perfect.)

And then the other girl would leave. Rather quickly.

None of them ever came back.

Ilulu had picked up most of the massacre jokes from Miss Tohru. And if she'd been on a staircase with someone who was seen as a potential rival, she might have commented on getting behind them, waiting for exactly the right moment and then...

'Number of humans who need to die in order to solve the problem: one.'

Saikawa could almost hear the words, because the teenager's voice was just that distinctive. There would have been a laugh embedded within the syllables.

It still wasn't funny.

Saikawa felt herself to have some violence in her. She... had a hard time dealing with certain issues. Nearly anything new. Anyone new. She struck out, and -- just about all of that was verbal. She wasn't sure she had it in her to truly hurt someone, not unless they were threatening Kanna. (She took karate classes, had done well in a few tournaments -- within her own age group and weight class.) Pushing the boy wasn't even a joke option.

The words were bad enough. The ones she never truly heard until she stopped talking, and could never take back.

She'd nearly lost Kanna over words. On the very first day.

What did it feel like, to fall in love at first sight?

There was a certain heat to it. When you were sitting at your desk, looking at the new student who was being introduced to the entire class, the foreigner who had multiple rows of boys and girls just staring at her... it could feel a lot like the heat of rage.

They were staring at the new girl. They were openly fascinated by the white hair and the too-elaborate dress and those hints of an exotic accent. Saikawa had spotted all of it immediately: how beautiful the foreigner was, how utterly enticing and everyone in the class was falling under the spell of that soft voice. The new girl was introducing herself without saying very much, two dozen kids were hanging on every scant syllable, and --

-- the new girl was going to have friends. Saikawa knew that. All the friends she could ever want.

Saikawa didn't have any friends at all.

If Saikawa had been asked to describe herself -- not that anyone cared to, or spoke to her unless they absolutely had to -- she would have said she was a hopeless person who couldn't admit defeat. And, when necessary, cheated. She viewed both of those qualities as positives. It meant she kept pushing forward, even without friends. She wouldn't admit that her school career had been an utter social failure since the first day, because her education wasn't finished yet. There was still time to turn things around.

And there was a new girl in front of the class. Someone who didn't know Saikawa at all, hadn't even had a chance to hear any of the stories about previous disasters, the foreigner was fresh and untainted by harsh words and beautiful and perfect and the class was giving her its full rapt attention.

A new girl.

Saikawa didn't know how to deal with the new. She had no concept of how to go about making friends. She'd certainly never managed the feat before. All she understood was that 'Kanna Kobayashi' existed as a living ideal. Someone who would have all the friends she ever wanted, just as soon as she decided to want them. And she would never, ever want to be friends with Riko Saikawa, because no one ever had.

Maybe it was 'would'.

No one ever would --

-- the introduction had ended. There had been some class time. The teacher had gone out of the room. It was everyone's first chance to speak with the foreigner without supervision.

And Saikawa, who didn't know how to deal with people... had gone on the verbal attack.

She'd said it directly: the new girl was getting far too much attention. The foreigner hadn't even done anything to earn it other than showing up and being perfect, and she was so cute that Saikawa wanted to hug her forever --

-- she'd said that, she'd actually said it in front of multiple kids during the tirade, the words just started flowing and she never realized what they'd been until everything stopped --

-- but she'd just kept going from there, challenging the new girl to a karate match. Or arm wrestling. Either was fine. The important thing was that the perfect vision who would never, ever be friends with her would be beaten, pushed away, rejected before she could do the same to Saikawa and that was the only way to win --

-- and then she'd seen the first tears welling up in blue eyes.

It had made her stop. The words ended, and that had let her finally hear what they'd all been. Listening to their endless echoes within her head, as she'd forced herself to look at what furious syllables had done.

The foreign girl was in a new place. Lost and scared and, as Saikawa would eventually learn, recently adopted. No anchors left, no stability, trying to work it all out and...

...no friends.

Kanna had said... she just wanted to be friends...

It had taken an offer of candy to make the tears stop.

(Saikawa usually had some candy hidden somewhere. Sugar filled in the loneliness. For a little while.)

And then they'd spent time together afterwards. Kanna had let Saikawa stay near her, even after everything which had been said. There had been no talk of forgiveness, or requirements for same. Saikawa had just been allowed to -- stay.

To be her friend.
To have a chance at becoming more.

On the first day they'd met, Saikawa had made Kanna cry.

What did it take, to properly atone for that?

A lifetime of making her laugh.

On The Edge Of A Gatcha Moment

The day was heating up fast. Summer in the prefecture frequently had temperatures going into the low thirties, and Saikawa wasn't sure this one was going to stop there. The mere act of emerging from the elevator had sweat beading on her arms, and she briefly considered proposing a stay-in playdate to Kanna. They could go back to the apartment and have a few rounds of Twister. Saikawa had gifted a deluxe version -- randomized, computer-spoken movement instructions -- to Kanna, because it was the same one they played when the beautiful girl was visiting her house. There was a lot of fun in getting tangled up with Kanna, to the point where it really wasn't about how who won or lost: it was how they crashed to the mat together at the end of the game.

She thought about suggesting it. And then she remembered that there was a boy with them. There was no fun in touching a boy, much less having one fall on you. He probably had really bony knees.

Boys ruined everything.

(Except for Shouta. But he'd sort of come pre-ruined. Miss Koyabashi blamed Miss Lucoa for that, and wouldn't go into details.)

Saikawa took a personal moment for fuming, then glanced at Kanna. The white-haired girl wasn't sweating. She hardly ever did, at least when it came to heat. Exertion, yes: if Kanna ran herself ragged -- which could take a lot -- then sweat would fall. But summer wasn't enough to do it.

It probably had something to do with Russian genes. There were supposed to be parts of that country which were extremely cold and if you could develop a resistance to one end of the scale, then maybe the other side just came with it.

The boy wasn't sweating either, but that made sense. Samoa was in the tropics.

He was standing just outside the elevator doors, and he was -- looking at things.

No. He was staring. Looking at the buildings, the roads, the people using the sidewalk on the other side of the street, and doing so with his mouth slightly agape and the too-long incisors on full display. Seemingly regarding just about every perfectly ordinary thing as if he'd never seen anything like it before in his life.

Maybe he lives in a hut. There had to be some Samoans who still used huts, much like there were people who lived in shrines. However, both conditions presumed that you got to go outside once in a while.

A man rode by on a bicycle. Emerald eyes watched the pedals and gears with open fascination.

"Where are we going?" Saikawa asked. In the early days of their relationship, she'd pretended to be doing Kanna a favor by letting the foreigner come along with her, but the true dynamics had sorted themselves out in a hurry. Kanna had pursued some fairly odd interests, and staying close to her had found Saikawa doing some really stupid things.

At least we probably won't be looking for ghosts this time.
Or aliens.

Of course, compared to the boy, that was probably an improvement.

There was a risk in going out to look for strangeness in Kanna's company. Like the near-constant shiver of nerves which said that you were on the verge of finding it. The little whisper in the back of the brain which said there was strangeness in the world, hiding in the closet or camped out next to the warmth of the kotatsu.

The monsters in the shadows. Waiting for you to look away. Or -- to almost look. To see things from exactly the wrong angle --

-- her eyes are beautiful.

Which didn't change what Saikawa had seen --

"I wanted to show Spike around the city," Kanna softly said. "His home isn't like this. Shopping arcade first. But we'll take the long way. Cross the river."

"The river," the taller girl carefully repeated.

"It's a better walk. He'll see more."

Maybe it'll be there again.

It had been there the first time. She knew that. No one believed her, but --

-- maybe it would be there.

Maybe it would come to the surface. She had her own phone this time. Her own camera. During the first sighting, Kanna had gotten in the way, but...

Saikawa wanted to find it again. But she didn't like going to the river any more.

Maybe it'll try to eat me.

Not by herself.

"The river," Saikawa said for the second time. "Fine." She knew the way, and thin legs pushed towards the proper street corner before their owner could change her mind.

She got ahead of the other two, found herself waiting for the light to change. The road was currently empty, but the safe thing to do was waiting to cross. Patiently watching the glow of the stoplights, because that was better than thinking about what had been in the river.

Kanna caught up. There were still no cars, but -- they knew to wait.

The boy reached them, strode directly past both girls, stepped into the street, got halfway into his next stride, and that was when a salaryman who was probably horribly late for his childhood decided to make up some time by gunning his big car across the intersection.

Most of what Saikawa would remember afterwards was the horn. The angry blare of sound, and she instantly decided it had been rude. But the rest was the outstretching of arms, both she and Kanna reaching forward, Saikawa had to reach out because she didn't hate the boy that much and they weren't close enough --

-- the sideview mirror on the SUV came within centimeters of the boy's chin. The car barreled around the corner, horn still blaring, and then Kanna managed to grab the boy's arm. The smaller girl yanked, and the boy was nearly vaulted back to the curb.

"Not on yellow," Kanna's soft voice instructed. "Some drivers do stupid things on yellow. Our side red, the other side blue. Then cross. Understand?"

The boy managed a rather uncertain nod. Lifted his right foot, shook it from side to side.

"You're all right?" Kanna checked.

"...yes," the boy said. "I'm not hurt." The foot shook again.

Saikawa instinctively looked down.

The shoe over the left foot was fine. Not the best fit, and fairly cheap for a walking sneaker, but there was nothing particularly wrong with it. The black-stained upper rounding over the toes of the right no longer existed. The dome had completely collapsed --

-- toes presumably wriggled. Portions of the lost curve tried to pop back into existence, and almost made it.

Maybe it was only the edge of the tire.
Maybe he had his toes curled back. Like he did with his fingers before.
Maybe the car was going so fast that it didn't have time for the weight to rest on anything.
Maybe his shoe was always like that.

"Cross when we do," Kanna evenly ordered. "Not before."

The boy nodded. The light changed, and Saikawa automatically reached for Kanna's hand --

-- the beautiful girl had moved away from her. Just enough to stand directly next to the boy.

To hold his hand.

She wanted Kanna to let go. She wanted to push them apart. To do anything which would make them stop touching and just for a moment, she began to feel as if Ilulu and Miss Tohru had a point --

"I'll walk him across," Kanna said. "Until he gets used to things."

And then they crossed together.

Saikawa remained on the corner. Fuming.

...well, at least they'd waited for her on the other side. Kanna had eventually glanced back, and that had let the beautiful girl discover that Saikawa had been steaming in place long enough for the light to change again.

They were taking the twisty path: the one which went through some of the less densely-populated areas. There were homes around, but just about no businesses. The best anyone could hope for was a well-placed vending machine alcove, because the yatais weren't going to show up until they got a lot closer to the river.

A food cart would have been welcome. A cluster of jihanki might offer a better automated selection, and Saikawa didn't care as long as either one appeared before they reached the shopping arcade. The other two might not be sweating, but she was going to need a drink.

There's public fountains along the riverwalk.

But that would mean going down to the river.

They kept walking. Saikawa made two ill-timed attempts at taking Kanna's hand, and found herself Spike-blocked.

The Samoan kept looking around. At houses, architectural styles, children playing, as if he was seeing it all for the first time. He was also staring at each passing car as if daring every last one of them to just try and make a move.

Stupid boy.

It had to be a foreigner thing. Maybe he was one of those people who thought that stoplights needed to end with green.

A small beetle flew by: red with black spots. Kanna's beautiful eyes tracked it. She was endlessly fascinated by insects. Which was really more of a boy thing, but -- quirky.

"Ten..." the boy uncertainly voiced. "Tent..."

"Tentōchū," Kanna softly told him.

"Ladybug," he managed on the third attempt.

"You have them? Where you live?" asked the white-haired girl.

"Yes. They're little a b --" hesitated "-- a little bigger."

"Or maybe you're taller," Kanna quietly proposed.

He laughed. Quick and bright, if somewhat nasal.

The pair mutually quickened their step. Putting some distance between themselves and Saikawa, who didn't know whether to fume or worry. She wasn't sure it was possible to do both at the same time. But Kanna was pulling away, walking with the boy, and they were speaking a little more quietly now. As if they were trying to keep from being overheard.

Saikawa tried to accelerate, making her walking pace as fast as it could be without turning into a full run. Strained her ears, because a pre-Kanna lifetime suggested that any kids who were trying to talk outside of her hearing were probably laughing at her --

"-- do you balance?" the boy half-whispered. His buttocks seemed to be twitching. "I feel like I'm going to fall over --"

"You get used to it," Kanna said.

"When?"

"Eventually." Paused. "That's how they move. It's not walking. It's falling forward. They just don't hit."

Which was when Kanna heard Saiwaka trying to catch up. Turned to face the taller girl, and the tone changed.

"You're hot," she said. "We'll find drinks."

Good

"Spike's never had Ramune," Kanna added. "We should find some."

Saikawa briefly tried to reconcile the refreshment deprivation equivalent of living without oxygen.

"What's --" the boy began.

"Soda," Kanna explained. "You'll like it."

I hope you choke on the marble.

A stray thought. It wasn't as if it had meant anything. The marble was in the bottle to keep the carbonation from getting out. You couldn't swallow it. Extracting enough of the things to create a playset was enough of a challenge.

It was also the sort of thing which normally would have come free-flowing out of her mouth in the presence of someone she didn't like, but -- Kanna was right there.

She wanted Kanna to be at least that close for the rest of her life. The boy was the problem.

And then they were at the edge of the river.

Well -- one of them.

The city had a couple of rivers, to go with what was just about direct proximity to the ocean. However, the closest beaches weren't very good. The best of them had some decent sand, all of which existed on a narrow strip of land which jutted a short distance across the water. It had a practical occupancy limit of about sixty, and mostly offered a stunning view of where the offshore wind farm was eventually going to be. Any really nice beach required a train ride. The local water parks were just easier.

The primary river was much more simple to reach. There was a walking path next to the left bank. Travelers would find benches to rest on, drinking fountains, and if you walked for enough time, you would find the place where it met the other river. Saikawa had once taken the hike with Kanna, bringing along a borrowed phone in order to get a picture of the confluence.

That had been the intent. A shot of the merge point, with the two of them next to it. Just to show that they'd managed to go that far together.

But now Saikawa had her own phone.

She paused at the base of the bridge. Looked down at the water, which was simultaneously too far below and not far enough away. She'd seen what was in it. Being on the bridge didn't matter. Not if it wanted to come up.

She didn't cross the bridge as much as she once had. There were times when she went out of her way to avoid it. Some weeks found her going back over and over, because she'd tried to talk her parents out of even driving over it and -- they hadn't listened.

A picture would be proof. Protecting everyone was worth the fear. The risk.

She took the rectangle out, made sure it had power, and fumbled with the icons for a few seconds. It wasn't the same model as her sister's, and she wasn't used to the setup yet. She had to be properly prepared.

Proper preparation had required stopping, and it only took Kanna six extra steps before the smaller girl noticed.

The white-haired vision paused. Softly asked the boy to wait, then walked back to Saikawa.

"Cee-Gee," Kanna said.

"It's my phone," Saikawa huffed. This was the truth. It was absolutely her phone. Her parents had given it to her and when someone gave you a gift, that thing was yours. As additional proof, it was keyed to her fingerprint. And, because she hadn't spent all that much time with the photo controls, had just captured a somewhat-smudged image of her fingers.

"Just CG," Kanna repeated. "It won't be there. They're gone."

Who's gone?

She tried not to fight with Kanna. Truly fighting might make Kanna cry, and... Saikawa only had a single lifetime in which to atone. Even an immortal one was eventually going to get crowded.

Saikawa didn't fight with the one she loved. Putting her foot down clearly didn't count.

"It's my phone," she said. "Maybe I just want to get a picture of the river. For your friend to have. I can send it to his number. Unless he doesn't have a phone either."

"He doesn't --"

"-- so we'll find a printer in the arcade." The words were nearly spat. "It's my phone, Kanna. I want to take a picture --"

The white-haired girl tilted her head slightly to the right. Back to center again, and the blue eyes were... sad.

"-- okay," Kanna softly told. "Okay. But there won't be anything. There never was."

"The river is real." Because that was how Saikawa had started to reconcile it. The river was real. The path. The air above it.

If the setting was real, then so was everything else.

Kanna turned back towards the boy, took two steps. Stopped, and spoke to that air.

"Don't fall behind, Saikawa," she asked. "Don't be scared. We'll cross together. There's nothing to be afraid of. It wasn't real."

Her beloved's words tended to be soft. Emotions were understated. Sincere, fully present, but -- muted.

It didn't hide the tinge of desperation.

They crossed together. It was almost possible to pretend that the boy wasn't there. And perhaps there was a moment during the passage when Kanna might have reached for her hand, but -- Saikawa was otherwise occupied. Pointing the lens at the water, ready to take the picture at any instant. At the first hint of what lurked within.

She caught the boy looking at her a few times as they crossed. She didn't care. The river was more important. Getting proof.

But there was nothing there.

Not on that day.

There had been another.

It was supposed to be a date.

Not that Kanna had probably seen it that way. But Saikawa knew the truth of it. Take the riverwalk to the confluence point? That was something which older kids did. And adults. There were a lot of adults who enjoyed the walk. Most of them were seniors, and that was why Saikawa absolutely could not propose a tickle fight within the shadows of the bridges. Laughter drew attention, nearly all of the seniors had phones, the phones came with cameras, and adults took things the wrong way.

Big kids took the full hike. Teenagers. And when it came to things which Saikawa and Kanna could do together, any kind of date was an early start. It was just a matter of reaching the point where the rivers met, then using her sister's borrowed phone to get a picture of the proof. That they'd come that far, that they were capable of going that far, and -- in time, they would go even further. Together.

Maybe they would even leave the prefecture. Saikawa didn't have to live in Oborozuka for her whole life, and -- Kanna hadn't been born there to start with. They could go to Ushishir Island together. Saikawa wasn't sure how that could be done, as there didn't seem to be any direct flights. But there had to be a way. Maybe it was a boat hire.

Maybe that was a place where people didn't give you funny looks when you talked about getting married when you grew up. There had to be somewhere in the world which accepted that. And it would hurt to leave her parents and culture and home behind, but -- they would be looking together.

It would be strange out there. Saikawa knew that, and also realized that the foreign films had given her only the smallest hint of that strangeness. But she'd spent a lot of time at the Kobayashi household. You got used to foreigners after a while.

But that was for the future, a soon-to-come stop on the endless road of an immortal life. Not so long to wait. On that beautiful sunny day, they'd been moving along the riverwalk, and Saikawa had been perfectly content with that. It was something she was doing with Kanna. That made it good.

And then she'd learned just how much strangeness existed in her own home, at the moment when the giant river serpent had erupted from the water.

How had she not seen it before the moment of emergence? That much was easy to explain: she'd been with Kanna. If she was going to look at anything, there was a perfectly suitable (and perfect) subject for her attention right there. But once the serpent had reared itself up...

How large had it been? She still wasn't sure she'd seen the whole thing. What had come out of the water, rearing itself up along undulating curves to seek out the sky, had been at least a hundred meters long. The scales had been blue, and a ridge of green spines ran down the center of its back. Hues which, in many ways, matched the river itself. It might not have been possible to make out the form while it was still within the water -- with one exception: the horn at the center of the forehead. Two meters, twisted and brown.

It had almost exploded from the water. Tossed itself about, sending liquid everywhere. And...

...there were apartment buildings on the opposite bank. A bridge nearby, with cars crossing. Had no one seen? Did adults ever truly see anything?

Saiwaka had expended the first few seconds of direct vision in reeling. Trying to reconcile what was in front of her, fighting back the fear as the monstrous serpent tossed and thrashed and seemed to play with the very air.

And then she'd remembered that she had her sister's phone.

She'd gone directly for it. Fumbled somewhat in getting it out of the bag, but she'd managed to get it turned on and placed in camera mode, aimed directly for the serpent --

-- and Kanna had gotten in the way.

Stayed in the way.

It had been something of a distraction.

Saikawa had persisted. Leaned left, darted right, tried to get Cute out of her lens so she could have a clear shot at Monster. Kanna had matched everything.

Then there had been a huge splash.

And the monster had been gone.

"CG."

That was Kanna's explanation for it. Computer-generated. They'd walked into a filming site during a shoot. Nothing more.

Saikawa had a word to counter that. She'd just never spoken it to Kanna because she tried to avoid those fights. And even so, the proper response would have been 'Detarame'.

(You couldn't say it front of adults, at least not with certain intonations. Spitting the term took it out of the 'nonsense' definition in a hurry.)

But she wanted to believe Kanna. Saikawa needed to trust her.

And she lived in Japan. Ushishir Island had a population very close to zero, which suggested some bad things about the local download rates. Saikawa's house was fully set up for wifi.

She'd dropped the subject, waiting to reach a computer. (It was a borrowed phone, and she was nowhere close to mastering typing on the screen.) But it had taken some time to get home. Kanna had asked to use the phone, made a call, they'd had to get all the way back to where they'd come in, it had been a long walk, and -- when they'd exited the riverwalk, Miss Lucoa had been at the top of the staircase. Waiting.

Shouta's older sister was normally -- 'carefree' was fair. (Miss Kobayashi was occasionally caught muttering 'irresponsible' under her breath.) 'Completely unconcerned with how much skin she's showing' was just about full-time. But on that day, she'd looked... worried. Her eyes (one green, one amber) had been half-shut from stress, and her hands kept going behind her back. Fingers wringing against each other.

She'd asked to speak with Kanna. Alone. They'd walked a short distance to gain isolation and in doing so, hadn't truly accounted for Saikawa's hearing.

Not that she'd caught most of it, and the majority of what she registered didn't make any sense. There had been something about "I would have needed to be here within ten minutes, Kanna," and "only so much time before it sets. It's -- too late."

The beautiful girl had lowered her head. White strands fell in front of perfect features, and...

...Saikawa had heard the soft sounds of crying.

She hated it when Kanna cried.

Miss Lucoa had carefully knelt down, gently rubbed at Kanna's shoulders. Said something about "can't do it too often." Kanna must have replied, because the next word had been "memory."

Indistinct syllables had flowed for a while. Volume had dropped. Miss Elma's name had been invoked twice, with open anger. And finally, with the increased decibels of careful insistence, "The more I use it, the stronger the chance that something -- slips. It's still underneath. All of the originals. Lurking. If we keep pushing..."

Kanna had said "CG" a few times. Almost sobbed it. Miss Lucoa had carefully hugged her, wiped the blue eyes. And once the white-haired girl was composed again, Shouta's older sister had taken them to their respective homes.

Saikawa had gone directly for the bathroom and, with true privacy gained at last, threw up.

The next five hours had been spent online. It was easier than sleeping.

She wanted to believe Kanna. So she'd tried to find a way in which Kanna's answer was the right one.

It didn't exist.

Computer-generated image? So where was the screen? Saikawa had seen holograms, during trips into Tokyo with her parents: the best advertisements liked to use them. But you had to project them: from or onto. Ideally, both.

A hologram rig tended to be noticeable. Saikawa had learned that there was one which could work underwater, but it was huge and incredibly expensive. And if the results could reach the air, then where was the screen? The sun hadn't been reflecting off glass or plastic. If it was just an advertisement, then what was the product? Also, exactly how did a hologram make water splash?

...all right. Abandon CGI entirely, because the articles Saikawa had been reading said the best place to put that kind of image together was the computer. You could create a serpent, but the best way to film it against the background of the river was to get a capture of the river and do the compositing inside the program. (The exact vocabulary involved was making her head swim, but she felt herself to be getting the basics.) Let's say this was practical effects. Someone built an artificial giant river serpent and somehow made it look so alive that the fake muscles rippled under simulated skin.

So who's doing the filming?

Okay, television always needed monsters for the heroes to fight. But to feel that any show would go that far required belief in something more impossible than a giant river serpent: namely, a sentai series with a budget. And if it had been a full-scale monster movie...

The articles said it was all the same laws. The studio had to get a permit from the city. Notices had to be posted in public view. People needed to be told that they might be filmed, because that gave them the option of leaving the area. There had been no notices, the city didn't have any record of a shoot in the district...

So maybe it was an amateur production. Running outlaw, filming without official notice. Which had somehow managed to construct... that. And where had the cameras been? The sound pickup, the operators? You couldn't hide all of it!

Or maybe it had been a monstrous river serpent.

...no.

That was exactly what it had been.

Kanna had lied to her.

...maybe she hadn't known she was lying. She'd decided it was CG -- so for her, that was what it had to be.

Maybe that was just the kind of lie which Kanna needed to tell herself in order to sleep without fear, and Miss Lucoa had been trying to calm her down.

Or maybe... maybe Kanna had known exactly what it was. And she'd been trying to protect Saikawa.

The last was what Saikawa had wanted to believe. So she'd let Kanna repeat the lie. Never challenging it too strenuously, avoiding the true fight. But she kept looking at the river. Avoided it when she could, hoped to get pictures whenever she couldn't.

Saikawa knew what she had seen.

She didn't talk about the giant serpent with Kanna, and Kanna didn't want her to think about it. Maybe that was just because she wanted Saikawa to sleep.

It didn't change what she'd witnessed. There were monsters in the world. She'd seen one.

And in a way, the strangest part had been seeing it... directly.

There were things which Saikawa thought she saw, and it had started shortly after Kanna had entered her life. A little past the first time Miss Lucoa had taken Saikawa aside for a private talk.

(What had Shouta's sister said?)
(She didn't remember...)

Always out of the corner of her eye.

....Kanna's eyes were beautiful.

Some Of You Are Now Waiting For 'Dragon: The (Verbing)'

When you truly thought about matters, most problems could be traced back to boys.

Of course, it wasn't every boy. For starters, you eventually had to take the ones who had grown up (if only physically) and reluctantly change the designation to 'men'. The majority of men thought they were in charge of everything, and didn't do well when anyone challenged them on any aspect of that. Saikawa had a tendency to challenge first and hear the actual words sometime after, but... if the majority of males weren't so bad, then would there really be as much of a need to challenge at all?

(She challenged girls in equal measure. But this was a day for fuming about boys.)

And she did try to remember that it was just the majority. Which still represented far too high a percentage -- she'd done well in math, and could work out a few percentages on the run -- but had a crucial remainder preventing it from becoming universal. The good ones.

For example, there was Mr. Fafnir. The dark-haired, glasses-wearing lean man was... age was really hard to determine on adults, but Saikawa felt he was likely in his early thirties -- which meant his entry into the gaming otaku community had been on the late side. However, he'd proven to be an absolute natural at the hikikomori lifestyle --

-- maybe that was a little unfair. As Saikawa understood it, a true hikikimori would withdraw from proper society because they weren't capable of dealing with it. Mr. Fafnir could go out and about any time he felt like doing so. He just didn't want to. He felt people were stupid, but games were challenging. So he spent most of his time in front of a monitor and if he absolutely had to go out, brought along a portable. Mr. Takiya, who served as Mr. Fafnir's roommate (and was also counted among the good ones), had once casually mentioned that the older male really wanted a gaming deck -- but was holding off until the battery life improved. Which, in Mr. Takiya's opinion, mostly served as another excuse for not heading outside.

Mr. Fafnir collected the rarest loot drop items in the world, forever letting his mouse turn the crank on a digital gatcha, and -- Saikawa wasn't sure what he did with any of them. She was aware that they could be sold and that might have been how the adult was managing his half of the rent: he always seemed to have money, and he certainly didn't do anything which resembled classic work. But he seemed to hang onto just about everything. He wouldn't trade the most common item out of an overflowing digital backpack unless he was getting at least three times the value in return and even then, he might fume about the sacrifice for ages. And he didn't like to deal with people. Or society. Or the closing hours of Comiket, because the adult had another interest: just like his roommate, he created his own doujinshi and completely unlike Mr. Takiya, had yet to actually sell a single issue. But he kept making comics, and he kept renting out convention tables. Usually while fuming.

He didn't like people. But he had taken to collecting arcade cabinets from every era. He'd started with the most ancient portion of history -- the 1970s -- and kept going through the current day. Somehow, he'd found the trick to keeping them running, storing them all in an abandoned gesen. And after Saikawa and Kanna had mutually caught him at it, every so often, he would choose to open the doors and let kids in to play. At no cost, and that was probably because the prehistoric game center didn't have a license -- but Mr. Fafnir also said that games were meant to be played, and he couldn't give every last one of them personal attention. So it was best to have someone else doing it.

Besides, that way, he had a small army of playtesters telling him exactly what needed to be repaired, and none of them were collecting a salary.

He smirked a little when he said that sort of thing, and tended to add at least half a snarl. But Saikawa felt it was the sort of reaction you got from someone who didn't like to be caught smiling and had needed to find some kind of substitute. If you wanted to find open approval from Mr. Fafnir, you had to look just over the rim of the little pince-nez glasses, gazing closely (and directly) into the deep mahogany eyes with their faint hint of red at exactly the right moment, and -- maybe it would be there. Mr. Fafnir had been known to almost look approving for periods as long as three seconds. Rounding up.

And then you had Shouta, who was very much still a boy and, as Miss Kobayashi had suggested, had sort of come pre-ruined. He was a little older than Saikawa and Kanna: perhaps two years. He'd very much started into the chuni phase, and Saikawa was still trying to figure out how he hadn't been kicked out of school. Because Kanna's white hair was natural, and Miss Kobayashi had still been called in for a conference with the principal: it had taken a very loud argument to put away threats of educationally-mandated dye.

Shouta went out into the world every day while sporting too-long-for-a-boy straight falls of lavender. And he hadn't been expelled, or held back on eternal demerits and detentions. Nothing at all.

...then again, Miss Kobayashi was just a programmer. Shouta's father ran her company. And you didn't have to be very old to work out the connection between Money and Rules: getting a lot of the first meant dealing with less of the second. Shouta's scholastic hair acceptance was probably the direct result of Bribery. And even with the relatively low-key chuni problem -- for Shouta, that centered around occasionally discussing magic as if it was real --

-- monstrous river serpents were real --

-- she'd fainted once in Shouta's presence, during a camping day trip, at the exact moment when she thought she'd seen the serpent again and when she'd finally woken up, the other two kids had tried to tell her something about low blood sugar and hallucinations --

-- he was a nice boy. Shouta was okay with hanging around girls who were a couple of years younger, because...

Miss Kobayashi refused to go into details. But you didn't have to be around the Magatsuchi siblings for long to recognize that Miss Lucoa was very affectionate towards her little brother. She rumpled his hair, pulled him in close for hugs, and just about always failed to notice just how much he was struggling to get away. She put on displays of adoration which would have approached the border of acceptability in private, did it all in full public view, and usually wound up staring after a fast-fleeing Shouta, desperately wondering what she'd done wrong.

(Miss Lucoa had once asked Saikawa about that. They'd spent an elevator ride in mutually establishing a certain age group of boys as near-feral idiots who argued about bananas a lot.)

Shouta didn't mind female company, and was one of the few boys who could truly say that he liked to have girls as his friends. But he visibly preferred the company of girls and Kanna, who tended to be direct, had once defined Shouta's comfort zone as "No curves." Which meant kids a little younger than he was -- or Miss Kobayashi, which really annoyed the adult. And even so, he wouldn't play Twister with them. Going hiking, playing board games, just hanging out while the adults talked, that was fine -- but Twister guaranteed you were going to fall on someone eventually , and Shouta's desperate attempts to avoid the game suggested he was afraid of making contact with anatomy which didn't exist yet.

Shouta was a little weird and very twitchy, especially around his older sister.

(Miss Lucoa didn't look like she was related to Shouta. At all. Even if you allowed for hair dye and the sort of gyaru addiction to dressing American which could no longer admit that pants existed, Miss Lucoa was just so obviously foreign. But maybe she'd been adopted a long time ago, with Shouta as a late natural birth into the family. Maybe everyone had met at the same adoption agency...)

But he was also nice. Shouta could be good company, and his presence in the extended group occasionally made Saikawa fret a little. She was looking forward to puberty, because it would be one step closer to marriage. She didn't want the changes to drive anyone away.

But Kanna would still be there.

Kanna wasn't changing...

Most problems could be backtracked to boys.

The three children crossed the bridge, clearing the river. There had been no serpent, and that absence continued to maintain no matter how many times Saikawa glanced back in attempted ambush. It was as if the thing was hiding from her. Maybe that was why it had turned up during the camping trip, in those three seconds before she'd fainted. The local woods had felt like a place where Saikawa wouldn't be.

It was a hot day, and getting hotter. They still hadn't found a food cart. But there was a public park close by, a little off the main path. There would be water fountains at the park, and vending machines at the edges. It was a place to get a drink. The fact that Saikawa was the only one who was visibly sweating didn't mean she was the only reason for taking the detour. The foreign boy had never sampled Japan's most popular soda, which meant he was hopelessly out of touch with the entire world. Kanna had already said that she wanted him to have some and to Saikawa, that was why they were taking the detour. Having Kanna regularly checking on her and asking whether she was thirsty had nothing to do with it.

So they'd set out for the park. And they'd been just about all the way up to the entrance before Saikawa had recognized which park it was.

She didn't like the park very much. Not any more.

Saikawa had been the one who'd introduced Kanna to it: a multi-sports outdoor facility with playground rides off to one side. She'd described the place as one of the city's hidden gems, a place which didn't see as much traffic as some of the more central greeneries. And the park had done its immediate best to make her into a liar, because it had been in use by a group of adolescent males: old enough to either be in senior high school or playing delinquent from it. (Saikawa had Views on delinquents.) They'd been roughhousing their way through a dodgeball round, completely failed to consider that a badly-thrown ball could wind up anywhere, and Kanna had smoothly intercepted the stray rubber missile just before Saikawa could get hit.

The five teenagers had come over to recover their ball. One had tried to apologize. Another hadn't. He'd said it was time for the babies to go home.

Saikawa's ears had instantly intercepted the words, figured out a response, and sent the perfect insults directly to her mouth. Getting the brain involved just took too much time.

She'd said a few things about the teenagers. The term 'mazakon' had been tossed around with more speed than the dodgeball, and... there might have been some other words, because saying someone was a momma's boy wasn't always enough. She sort of remembered taking it up a few notches from there. And she'd challenged: dodgeball match the next day. The terms? When the teenagers lost, they would have to abandon the park. Let younger kids play in peace --

-- they'd thought it was funny. (She'd still been eight. Less intimidating than Ilulu, without the potential for anywhere near as much shin damage.) They'd said as much.

So she'd found more words. And she'd blasted every last one of them at the males until they accepted her challenge, five-on-five for the next day, they'd walked out laughing about the chance to whip rubber spheres at her face and because they were heading out of the park, Saikawa had stopped talking.

Which finally gave her the chance to hear every last thing she'd said.

She'd just challenged five adolescent males to dodgeball. Boys twice her size, and rather more than twice her mass. Anyone that much bigger could also be presumed to throw twice as hard. Minimum.

And they wouldn't just be throwing at her.

Saikawa had turned back to face Kanna. Slowly, shaking her way across most of the distance. And she'd immediately considered the rather simple and totally practical solution of never going back to that park again, possibly followed by moving out of the city. With Kanna in tow, because she always needed to have her priorities straight and besides, that was obviously the best way to make sure Kanna never, ever got hit by the ball. Any impact would have been Saikawa's fault. She didn't want to live with that.

But Kanna liked the park. She was, in that understated way, happy that Saikawa had brought her there. She said it was special, and she wanted to retain access. Which meant the match was on, and...

There had been an attempt to recruit three kids from their class, filling out the team. Saikawa had done that, and it hadn't worked. She wasn't popular. Plus she'd felt that it was necessary to tell them exactly what they were up against, and it hadn't helped.

Then they'd wound up back at Miss Kobayashi's apartment. Miss Lucoa and Mr. Fafnir had been visiting. The girls had mutually explained events, and Miss Tohru had immediately volunteered to fill a dodgeball team slot. Why not? The boys were older than the two girls, so having the maid along was just bringing up the team average a little.

Then Miss Lucoa had added her voice to the volunteer list. Mr. Fafnir had been... curious, mostly because he'd played a digital version and wanted to see how the real thing compared. Miss Kobayashi, who had the next day off from work, was just going to watch. And they'd all gone to the park the next day, the teenagers had initially laughed at the girls for bringing in adults and then decided to go ahead with it anyway, the ball had been brought out, flung at Miss Tohru --

-- the maid had readily snatched it out of the air. Held the ball, considering her next move. And Miss Kobayashi, who had been standing on the sideline -- had spoken to the servant.

"Tohru."

The maid had turned to face her employer. Curiously waiting for the next words.

"No killing," Miss Kobayashi had said.

(It was a joke. The maid told that kind of unfunny joke all the time, the programmer had picked it up from her, Ilulu had just fallen into the no-humor line...)

Miss Tohru had beamed.

"Okay!"

And then she'd whipped the ball across the field, precisely placing it in a teenager's gut.

The joke of an order had been obeyed. No one had died. But there had been quite a bit of bruising, and not just to the adolescent male ego. Mr. Fafnir picked his shots carefully, the maid just looked for ways to make the targets hurt, and Miss Lucoa liked to run right up to the line before throwing because that way, whoever she was aiming at had time to fear: everyone else on the opposition just got caught up with watching her run and lost any of the focus which could have been used for a follow-up move.

It had been a zero-fatalities massacre. One which left the boys limping out of the park as Saikawa tried to thank Kanna's incredible friends and family, Kanna had said something about those friends being the worst scum ever, and then...

...the adults had decided they wanted to play another round of dodgeball. Just going against each other, without holding back. Kanna had decided to join in, and Saikawa --

-- what did I do?

She... wasn't sure.

She'd been tired, hadn't she? That was what it felt like. As if just barely participating in the first match had completely worn her out, so she'd decided to go into the park's bleachers and lie down there for a while. Taking a nap while the adults and Kanna had it out.

Why wouldn't I have wanted to watch Kanna play?

The Kobayashi family had gotten her home. She was sure of that much.

And when she tried to remember anything more...

She's standing near the staircase which creates the nearest entrance to the riverwalk, waiting to be taken home. She needs to get online. Maybe there's a website somewhere which will prove Kanna right. That all she saw was a special effect from a movie yet to come, and maybe they'll even get to spot themselves in one of the shots when the whole thing reaches the big screen. Or a streaming service. It might take a while to track it down if it's streaming.

But the blonde woman in the too-skimpy clothing is still talking.

Kanna's been sniffling for a while now, and the sound draws the taller girl closer. She doesn't want her friend to be sad. She wants to hug her until the sadness goes away. Maybe some candy will help. She's been carrying sweets with her for months now, just in case.

The girl instinctively steps forward, and the blonde woman in the pink Nigo cap doesn't notice. Gentle, worried syllables wash into listening ears.

"Kanna... I can't keep pushing. Not as often as I have."

"Something..." Another sniffle. "Something -- could break? She could --"

"The dam could break. It would all come flooding back. And..."

The adult hesitates. Mismatched eyes squeeze shut.

"...if she has any sensitivity," Miss Lucoa quietly says, "any at all -- and some of them do -- then this is pushing it. Pushing towards waking up."

The blonde head comes up. Eyelids slowly open, allowing half-squinting green and amber to check on the other girl's location.

She steps back just in time.

On that first day, Saikawa had wanted to show Kanna the park. Older boys had been using it as their private dodgeball court. So you could argue that everything had been their fault. Sure, it had been Saikawa's intention to go there and it had been her mouth which had set off the next day's match -- but she didn't exactly control who else indulged in the facilities, did she. It was clearly just easier to blame the boys.

With this day, Saikawa had been hot and thirsty, when no one else was. So Kanna had decided to bring her to that same park for drinks. And the place was occupied, because it was summer. Even a hot day would find kids all over the park. Some were using the playground rides, others had claimed the track area (along with a few slow-jogging adults), and a big group of kids their own age were in the process of taking over the football field. A white-and-black ball was being removed from a carrying bag, and the foreign boy was staring at it. The expression of someone who had just come across the half-familiar, and was trying to reconcile which half it was.

"Hey!" They all looked over towards the voice, spotted the black-haired skinny boy frantically waving his arms. "Do you wanna play? We're two short!"

A boy had said that.

So really, it was all his fault.

A Keen Awareness Of The Wrong Tropes

The foreign boy looked at his hands.

The kid who'd just invited them into the game hadn't been expecting that. An enthusiastic 'Yes!' had probably been seen as the default response, with 'Not right now' as an option. Simply raising both arms a little, rotating them to look at palms and brown fingers and those poorly-trimmed nails with the little points in the center -- that probably hadn't been anywhere on the list.

"You wanna play?" the local kid repeated. "Because we've gotta get started soon and if it's not two of you, we need to find someone else."

The Samoan visibly swallowed.

"Tell you in a minute?"

Which made the local boy shrug. "A minute," he said. "Fine. Just come down to the sidelines if you're in." And walked off to the nearest bench, sitting down so he could change his shoes.

The foreigner awkwardly looked towards Kanna. Fingers lifted, curled: follow me. And then he took a few steps away, with Kanna moving in his wake. Saikawa started to follow --

"Stay," Kanna said.

It was a hot day. That was a good reason for Saikawa to feel as if steam was starting to rise from her skin.

"Why do I have to --"

"-- he wants to ask me something," the white-haired girl stated. "You stay."

Something about the muted tone felt familiar. "I'm not a dog --"

"Stay."

Saikawa fumed. Came very close to grinding her teeth, and ultimately chose to disobey. Taking two furiously-stomping strides back towards the gate clearly wasn't 'staying' at all.

Kanna followed the foreign boy: just a few steps, and then they began to talk. Keeping the words in low tones. A private conversation.

Something which Kanna was conducting with a boy. One who had come out of nowhere (because that was Samoa now: the capital of Nowhere), who might be a rival looking for his chance to steal Kanna away...

Saikawa risked a small shift to the side. Then another. Strained ears which were used to reaching into the depths of scant decibels to fish out Kanna's muted tones, and --

"-- they're -- looking at me."

"Waiting. For you to tell them," declared Kanna's absolute certainty.

A little shakily, "It doesn't feel like that. Not all of it. Some of them are just -- looking..."

Gently, "You're foreign."

The boy sighed. It was a soft sound, and a weary one. It was also a sigh which came with a surprising amount of weight, and thick shoulders bowed inwards.

"I thought... I was going to be just like them. I was finally going to be just like --"

"It doesn't work that way," Kanna quietly told him. "You're who you would have been all along, if everything had been different. Who you are inside. It doesn't make you exactly the same. Because you're you. You're Spike. You're not them. You're just close enough to try."

I don't understand.

(Maybe she didn't want to understand.)

And now there was a little tremble of fear in his voice. "They -- won't know?"

"Not if you're careful." The small girl took a slow breath. "Spike, there's time. Before the shopping arcade, before you have to go home. Try."

She reached out for his right hand. Took it in her own, squeezed.

Don't.
Don't do that with him.
It hurts...

"Play," Kanna said. And the white-haired girl almost smiled.

He shivered a little, in the middle of a hot day.

"Do you know how?" Kanna checked.

"I think so," the foreign boy hesitantly decided. "We have something like this at home."

Something like this? What country didn't have football? Even Americans had it, although they called it by a stupid name. Saikawa was sure Samoa had a national team and if you were sending your squad out to compete with the rest of the planet, then they had to be playing by the same rules --

"That's the goal?" the foreigner asked. Pointed.

"Yes."

He looked at his hands again. Rotated them, wriggled brown digits. Overly-green eyes carefully inspected pointed fingernails.

"I think I'll be okay if they let me play goal," he decided. "Kanna, you're sure --"

"-- you play. I play," Kanna said. "Let's go tell them."

And that was exactly how it worked out. He played. She played. But since each team had been down by one, they wound up on opposite sides. The Samoan was in the goal and Kanna, who was typically in great demand for sporting events, wound up as an opposing striker.

There was also a place for Saikawa and because each team had been down by one, it was in the stands.

She fumed. She ground her shoes against the park's dirt. A girl who absolutely had at least a little violence in her gave brief thought towards tripping one of the players and then offering herself as a substitute: ideally, this would have put her on Kanna's team. But there was no getting past the numbers and after making multiple offers/threats to be the first person in after an injury, Saikawa stomped off to the bleachers.

It took longer than it should have. They'd originally come to the park in order to get a drink. Kanna and the foreign boy now had equal access to the fieldside water coolers: Saikawa didn't. So her first stomping destination was the vending machines, where she fiercely slammed coins into the slot and then got her favorite flavor in the hopes that it would bring the selection that much closer to selling out before the boy reached it.

And then she stomped up the metal stairs to sit on a too-hot bench, all while moving more slowly than she wanted to. But she had a good reason for slowing down. She was carrying some extra weight.

Saikawa angrily arranged herself on the hot bench. Slammed back most of the soda and, with absolutely no one paying attention to her, felt free to furiously burp.

She watched the game for a while. Most of her attention was on Kanna. The team definitely wasn't getting the ball to Kanna enough. That was how you scored. Saikawa liked to play center forward because that was the first step in giving Kanna a chance to shine. Kanna was as good at football as everything else, even if she had an odd reluctance to try heading the ball --

-- the striker position was really far too close to the opposing goalie for comfort. Close enough to talk --

-- she looked away.

(She hardly ever looked away from Kanna.)

Saikawa gazed across the park. Found the track section, and watched as kids ran past sweating adults. One of the youngest approached a self-designated finish line, put out an empty hand so she could pass an intangible object to someone who wasn't there.

Don't drop the baton.

It was a thought she didn't want to have. It shot through her with the speed of instinct and the strength of pain, carrying memory along in an unstoppable wave.

She was still waiting for the day when it didn't hurt.

Undōkai. The day of the school sports festival.

Saikawi wasn't popular. She had only one friend. But she could run, and that was why she was on the relay race team. Parents were crowded into the stands, her parents had come and her older sister was there, Miss Kobayashi had worked extra hours for a week so the programmer could clear the day to cheer for Kanna...

They would be racing together. Kanna had the anchor leg. Saikawa would be passing her the baton.

It would be an honor to win. A privilege to boost Kanna into the true victory. And when it came to moving through life together, Saikawa wanted to treat it as a preview.

So many adults, all watching during the first two legs. Saikawa was trying not to look at her parents while she waited. That was a distraction. Wait for the exact moment when she could start moving, receive a smooth handoff, try to open up a lead. Give Kanna that much more to work with --

-- and that was the signal, her chance to push, and she was running and her classmate was coming up behind her, Saikawa put her hand back, felt the aluminum rod slap her palm, closed her fingers around it and then she took off.

She could run. It was a good skill to have in a society where it so often felt like an entire educational system was trying to chase her down.

Moving around the circuit. Accelerating steadily. There was a runner from another class in front of her, and then there wasn't. Legs and arms and heart all pumping smoothly and there was Kanna up ahead, waiting to receive the baton. Saikawa was opening up a lead, she was getting ahead in front of her parents and Miss Kobayashi, she was proving herself and she pushed and she stumbled and in the moment it took to recover, the single instant required to rebalance herself, she dropped the baton.

It was over. She knew it. She could feel the hot tears surging across her eyes, the tidal wave of failure, and their class was going to lose, Kanna wouldn't win and it would all be Saikawa's fault. The entire schoolroom would blame her. Deservedly. She'd dropped the baton, the one thing you could never do and she'd done it, it was skittering away across the track as everyone passed her and she'd lost.

She was crying, in that very first moment of realization. Knowing it was over, and she was the reason why. A distant-feeling thought decided that if she had been a character in a sports anime, then this would have been the defining moment of her life. She would have fought to get past it in high school. Possibly still been thinking about it at the ancient age of thirty, and that was a horrible thing to carry into immortality.

She'd lost. For everyone.

But she was also a hopeless person who couldn't admit defeat. And, when necessary, cheated.

You couldn't really cheat in a relay race. But you could go grab the stupid baton and then run for your life.

She'd scrambled. Spotted where it had gone, managed to focus on the metal rod through the tears, ran and scooped and ran. And she'd been making up ground, closing some of that horrible lost distance as the hot liquid salt flowed down her face, but -- there wasn't enough track left. Just Kanna, starting to move in the lane after everyone else had already taken off and all Saikawa could do was hold out the traitorous rod --

"I'm sorry!" Pushed out of burning lungs, gasped through tears.

"Leave it to me." Steady, half-muted placidity.

Saikawa, spent and doubled over from the gravity of failure, had taken a few more staggering steps and then collapsed to her knees, tears falling into the dirt of the track.

Kanna had run --

-- after the comeback, the victory, when the entire class had been crowding around Kanna to cheer her at proximity... the white-haired girl had given Saikawa the credit. Said that if Saikawa hadn't kept pushing, hadn't closed so much of the gap, then Kanna never would have been able to finish it. And kids had yelled, parents had cheered, Saikawa's father had sobbed from happiness, and it had kept everyone else from blaming her.

It hadn't done a thing to prevent Saikawa from blaming herself.

If Kanna hadn't been running anchor -- if the baton hadn't been passed off to the perfect girl -- anyone else would have failed to close the final gap, and it would have all been Saikawa's fault.

She couldn't lose in front of Kanna.
She couldn't lose Kanna.
She couldn't drop the baton --

-- she looked away from the track area.

(She still ran. She tried to run faster. She didn't know if it was enough.)

Her attention turned to the extra weight.

There were things you couldn't bring onto the football field. Kanna's little bag was being carried in a position of protection. The boy's backpack had been unceremoniously dropped by Saikawa's feet and if not for her desire to make sure Kanna had a decent lunch, she would have kicked it a few times.

Her left foot gave it a frustrated nudge. Something dense rattled within, and edged mass pressed against fabric and shoe.

Saikawa looked down.

It isn't snooping.
He's a stranger. Strangers can do bad things to girls, even when they're just boys.
I'm making sure he isn't carrying anything which might hurt her.
This is protection.

And thus self-blessed, she snooped.

The bentō boxes came out first, because that was going to be her excuse if anyone looked up at her: she'd been hungry. There was a brief temptation to pick one and sabotage it, but that would be an insult to Miss Tohru's cooking and besides, she couldn't fully guarantee that the boy would get it.

Once those were clear, she fished around a little more, searching for whatever had rattled against the box's edge. Nothing emerged, although the tactile inspection was allowing her to verify that the stitching on the backpack was simply exquisite --

-- no phone. A few coins. (She had no intention of taking any for herself: she wasn't stealing.) Some of the coins feel strange. There was definitely a few yen in there, but the others...

She risked raising one out of fabric-hosted shadows, just enough to get a look. It was golden, oddly heavy, and featured what she eventually decided was a very stylized horse. Samoan money. The fact that she couldn't read the word 'Samoa' on it anywhere was put down to the strangeness of foreign writing.

After a moment, she took her phone out and took a picture of both sides. Put the coin back down, while trying not to drip sweat into the backpack. Checked the field to make sure no one was watching her, saw that the boy was distracted by an incoming shot -- not one of Kanna's: he never would have blocked that -- and reached in again.

There.
A little pocket. No button. No zipper. It's just tensed fabric.
Squeeze the top to open it.
Reach in...
...why is he carrying a rock?

Maybe that was his true intent. Get Kanna out of sight, then hit her over the head with the most basic weapon to exist.

She angrily fished it out. Raised it to the hot light --

-- a grey so mild as to almost be clear, at least at the very top of the facets. Everything below that took on increasing tinges of purple, just like --

Her eyes are beautiful.
Her hair...

-- suffusion rushing through a receptive medium. (She was going on ten. Suffusion had been in the previous year's science classes.) That slow, increasingly-dense spread of color until the far tips became deep violet --

-- amethyst.
I saw it in the rockhound store. When I wanted to make jewelry for her.
Raw amethyst.

Why was the foreign boy carrying that? As a gift? What else was in there? How was he attempting to bribe Kanna? If he was carrying sweets --

-- a yell abruptly sounded from the field, and she dropped the stone back into its little pocket: most of the clunk which came from meeting its fellows was lost, along with the sound of crystal sliding along dense glass. All of her attention focused on the action --

-- Kanna had the ball. And white strands were flying, the glass beads which she loved so much were banging against her back as she ran towards the goal, steadily guiding the ball, the foreign boy was watching her closely, looking for a feint and none of the defenders could reach Kanna in time because the small girl was just that fast, she was running and accelerating and she had a clear shot --

Kanna kicked.
The boy lunged.

He'd anticipated her. (No one ever did that.) And the fast-moving ball, traveling almost too quickly to clearly see, went directly into his hands, he stopped it, began to bring it down --

-- but Kanna was still running.

She was very fast.
There were times when she was a little too fast to stop.

The girl went directly into the boy.

He dropped the ball. And for purposes of defending the goal, that was fine for his team: he'd already stopped it, had succeeded in taking something away from the perfect girl. The one who had just about rammed him and when it came to fouls, that was also fine: the kids called fouls on themselves, which meant it could take a lot more than a collision like two very small trucks coming together to bring a yellow card out.

It was okay if he dropped the ball.

There were no real issues with Kanna knocking him off his feet. She'd done it to larger kids, most of whom limped off towards the sidelines. Once they could move again.

But to just take the hit, to use emptied hands to grab onto Kanna as he went backwards, to have the two of them fall into the goal space together, a pair of bodies rolling around as a single unit while the boy laughed and --

-- Kanna was laughing.

Saikawa could hear it. The dress had been dirtied and the beads would probably need to have strands pushed back through the centers and Kanna, so muted and quiet, was -- laughing.

I always try to make her laugh.
Always.
It's hard. Just the "...oh!" is hard. And to make her laugh...
...and he just did it...

They kept rolling. Eventually stopped, with each falling onto their back, lying next to the other. Staring up at blue sky and giggling within the rising heat of the day.

That was when Saikawa decided she hated him.

Don't Look, Then Don't Look Again

The heat of the day, added to the slow burn of simmering rage. Temperatures rising from within and without.

You could just about always count on a football game for certain things and unless the team figured out that they had to get the ball to Kanna a lot more, just about none of them would be offense. But a proper field needed to take up a certain amount of space, which was steadily scaled up as the players headed towards adulthood. And if the game was being run correctly, then it was pretty much guaranteed to take up a minimum amount of time.

Saikawa took out her phone, activated the screen just long enough to look at the homescreen display clock, then forced herself to put it away for twelve endless eternities before checking it again and somehow, a dozen emotionally-measured infinities kept working out to roughly three minutes.

She went back for another drink, as the sun continued to beat down on steaming bleachers and heated forehead. Then another.

Shortly after that, the natural consequences caught up with her. She exited the toilet area just in time to hear the last fading echoes of cheers, because of course Kanna had scored a goal while she'd been in there and Saikawa had missed it. The sensible thing to do was blame the foreign boy. Even with the heat, there was no way she would have drank that much if she hadn't been trying to empty out the vending machine's most crucial stock.

(Scoring meant Kanna had gotten a shot past the boy. This proved the beautiful girl to be the stranger's superior. Forever.)

She stomped back to the bleachers, carrying everything with her because there was no way she could abandon Kanna's possessions and the boy's stuff pretty much had to come along too: the alternative was not having lunch. And then she plopped back down on the too-hot seat, made herself watch the game through focusing almost exclusively on Kanna...

Her dress is dirty.

Kanna liked to remain clean. Elegant, which was another reason why the white-haired girl preferred complicated dresses. But it was a game, and so she was running around in a dirty dress without a care.

They could always go back to Miss Kobayashi's apartment to change. Or... Kanna usually had at least a little money and when it came to clothing, a trip to the shopping arcade meant --

-- she didn't want to think about it. She didn't have to. It was so much easier to just sit on what was starting to feel like a blistering surface and dedicate herself to not looking at the boy. She couldn't risk so much as a single glance. It felt as if a mere instant of having her attention resting on his stupid face would send every last degree of heat lancing out through her pupils. Burning him where he stood, until there was nothing more than fast-scattering ashes in the goal and as a little bonus, that would allow Kanna to more easily score --

-- she was allowed to have fantasies like that. Saikawa didn't believe she could actually do it, and that would have been the first sign that chuni was taking hold. When it came to the power fantasies inherent to Middle-Second Syndrome, Saikawa firmly believed that they were all stupid and would remain so even when she reached the crucial school year. A real fantasy would be to dream of doing ordinary things. That which just about everyone else could manage, while Saikawa continued to struggle.

Like making friends easily.

(Kanna was enough, but -- Kanna had pretty much been an accident.)

Like making friends at all.

(Why would Kanna want to stay with someone like her?)

She watched the game, as much as she could. Felt the heat rise on endless waves of anger and frustration, carefully twinned to inadequacy. And she waited, because she always waited for Kanna.

She might have to wait for years before the right moment came. The perfect second in which to confess. But confession took words, and when it came to speaking...

What would be a real power to claim from dream? That was easy. Knowing what you were going to say before you said it.

Not after.

The game ended without injuries. Heat effects from having to sit on something which the summer had turned into a giant outdoor kotatsu weren't considered to count.

The football match had consumed well over an hour, and Kanna wanted to eat. She and the boy sat down in the bleachers, with neither seeming to truly feel the heat. And Saikawa had been ready to move, prepared to sit between the two and prevent contact, but -- there wasn't time, and she wound up on the edge of proceedings, with the boy between her and the one she loved. This maintained even when the others sat down for the second time, because Kanna had felt the need to walk the foreigner through his first vending machine purchase.

"There's no vending machines where he comes from," Saikawa didn't quite ask.

Kanna looked at the boy, whose slightly-scrunched features were demonstrating the foreign version of an awkward look. Whispers went back and forth.

"Older ones," Kanna finally said. "Just scales and counterweights."

Maybe he doesn't have a phone because he can't figure out how to turn one on. Saikawa had already decided that for the boy and his unseen sister to not have phones was a demonstration of irreconcilable strangeness, and she had made that observation as an expert: someone who'd had her own for less than a month.

Bentōs were distributed. The foreign boy got sweet and sour pork with pineapple-based sauce and more of the acidic fruit in a side compartment. This pleased Saikawa immensely, because she hated the dish and presumed that anyone with taste would feel the same way --

-- and naturally, she was dealing with a boy.

The current best way to describe his eating was 'indiscriminate', if only because she was saving 'completely uncivilized' for a special occasion. He didn't bother to thank anyone before starting on the meal: that most basic act of manners was something which needed to be explained to him.

Chopsticks? He could hold them. For short periods, most of which ended when he moved his fingers in just the wrong way and wound up flinging the slim pieces of birch to distant regions: unfortunately, going far enough to retrieve them didn't take him home. But during those times when he wasn't balling up his hands and trying to press them against the wood as if it might do something, he could absolutely hold the chopsticks. Holding any food with them was a lost cause.

He didn't really go from box compartment to compartment. He visibly savored the flavors, and then he mixed them at seeming random to see what else he could get. Inquires were made regarding napkins, which put him on the explaining end because if you were making so much of a mess while eating that you needed to wipe your face, then you were probably hopeless with chopsticks, using your fingers, and taking far too much food at once. He qualified on all three counts. 'Napkins' failed to materialize, and wouldn't have helped with his decision to lick out the corners of the box. Which was utterly disgusting, even if it was something Miss Elma did all the time.

(Saikawa had to reluctantly admit that the boy wasn't quite as bad as Miss Kobayashi's coworker. Miss Elma would have tried to claim any leftovers from the other two boxes, usually before anyone else had finished eating. And then she would have tried to mooch refreshments from the sidelines. There was also a rumor which claimed you could get anything from a vending machine for free if you just knew its master code, and Miss Elma was going to keep accosting jihanki restockers until she finally found the one who would give up The Secret.)

The Ramune (which hadn't even been Saikawa's favorite, so he had no taste) gave him some trouble. There was a certain art to keeping the marble out of the way while drinking, and he didn't have it. The boy kept flicking his tongue tip into the bottleneck, trying to dislodge the glass. (His tongue was too narrow. It was also slightly pointed.) And he dealt with the carbonation about as well as any boy, which meant he burped a lot and then pretended it had been funny.

The multiple horrifying displays finally wrapped up. The boy belatedly thanked the air for the meal. Then he did it again while adding Miss Tohru's name, and looked around as if he was expecting her to appear right there.

"We should go to the shopping arcade," Kanna softly said. "If you're ready."

The boy didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked out across the park, green eyes darting from one playing field to another. Watching kids as they ran, shouted, kicked and swung and dodged for their lives.

Saikawa also took a quick survey. The adolescent delinquents had never returned, but it was best to keep an eye out. Especially when there weren't any adults around. And it wasn't as if the boy would be much good in a fight. She wasn't much good in a fight, not when the opponents were that much larger and heavier. But she just kept challenging...

...she had to look strong in front of Kanna. She needed to defend the one she loved...

"This is..." he half-whispered. "This is so weird..."

"What's weird?" Kanna quietly asked. Thought about it. "Is it weird or 'wicked'? You should learn when to say 'wicked'."

"The weird part," the boy evenly spouted absolute nonsense, "is in it not being weirder."

Saikawa silently turned over the poorly-voiced Japanese in her head a few times, trying to figure out if it made any sense when the words were placed in a different order. Kanna just nodded once, and the long bangs bobbed along.

He abruptly shook his head, as if trying to dislodge a thought.

"I can't stay," he muttered to himself. "She's expecting me back. I can't..." Another head shake, followed by a slow breath. "What do we do with the boxes?"

"The bentōs? Rinse until they don't smell," Kanna instructed. "Take them along. I'll bring them home. Chopsticks in the garbage. The red-sticker can. We'll find one before we leave here."

(For Kanna, this represented an unusually long speech. But the boy clearly needed to have the most fundamental basics explained, and Saikawa certainly wasn't going to do it.)

"Rinse them in the bathroom?" the boy said, and Kanna nodded. "Okay..." He very carefully stood up. "Where's the bathroom?"

"I'll show you. We should all go," Kanna calmly decided. "I need to brush some dirt off. You wash your face. And then it'll be the shopping arcade."

"Okay," the boy repeated. The girls stood up: Saikawa quickly glanced back to make sure none of her clothing had seared itself to the seat. "Bathroom..."

They wound up waiting for him outside the door.

And waiting.

Saikawa fought the urge to tap her toes with impatience. That was the sort of thing which summoned spirits of poverty to haunt you. The river serpent was more than enough trouble.

"You're still mad," Kanna decided.

"Am not."

"You've been angry since we started," the white-haired girl placidly observed.

"Am not," felt insufficient.

"You haven't talked to him. At all."

There was a certain demonstration of affection in emulating the one you loved and when you loved Kanna, that meant blatantly stating the obvious was just tribute.

"He's not my friend."

Immediately, "I want --"

"-- I want him to finish," Saikawa huffed. And wished for the chance to take Kanna's hand, but they were each holding a freshly-rinsed bentō box and the boy had the backpack.

Stupid boy.

"What's he even doing in there?" Saikawa demanded.

"Boy stuff," Kanna concluded.

"Then boy stuff takes forever now," Saikawa concluded. "Unless..."

The half-smile which manifested on her face would have done Ilulu proud. It was somewhat crooked, and just a little twisted.

Saikawa took out her phone again. Noted the time, created a baseline number based on her father, and then waited. It took nearly four times that duration before the boy emerged, bearing a clean box and an expression of utter confusion: the latter was heavily etched into brown features.

She just barely managed to hold back the smirk. Not being able to figure out basic toilet controls was the most foreigner thing ever.

Kanna kept leading the boy across intersections, and did so while holding his hand. At one point, a car stopped a little too close to the crosswalk, and the foreigner's head whipped to the right just before --

-- it hadn't been a shout of anger, and there hadn't been any vocal facets of scream in the sound which furiously emerged from his open mouth. It had almost felt like he was trying to roar...

Foreigners could be very weird. It was all of the little cultural things. Roaring was probably something Samoan. The movie had already demonstrated the use of war cries. And after it happened, Kanna stayed that much closer to him. Whispering.

They passed homes, and he stared at just about everything. Gardens made him slow down. An outdoor koi pond froze him in place for most of a minute, and then Kanna had to explain why he couldn't just go onto someone else's property and feed the fish. Bicycles continued to be an endless source of fascination, to the point where a fuming Saikawa started to wonder if Samoa had gotten around to discovering the wheel.

There were times when they saw other kids, usually passing by on the other side of the street. The boy began waving to them and when the first confused girl started to cross the street to see what he wanted, Kanna had to teach the foreigner about casual greetings. Which left him trying to offer small head bows to everyone else, and he always looked so surprised when someone returned the gesture...

She was forcing herself to count off every minute. The boy was going to leave before dinner. Go home. And once he was gone, it would all be normal again. Just her and Kanna, because that was how it was supposed to be --

-- except that she didn't know where he lived. Maybe he'd just moved into the area. The boy could show up over and over again, across the course of the summer. And once school started? He could potentially show up every weekend, always hanging around Kanna and staying close to her constantly and... holding her hand.

Worse: having her hold his.

Kanna liked him. She'd said so.

If she likes him more than me...

Why had Kanna ever liked Saikawa to begin with? Why would anyone want to be around a girl who was so hopeless? Whose arms were too skinny, with a forehead which was possibly too high and a habit of dropping batons...

She watched Kanna lead the boy through the city, from what seemed to be her assigned position: five paces to the rear. The white-haired girl was pointing things out, explaining details he might have missed. Staying close. Guiding and teaching and holding his hand.

And with every step the two took together, she hated him all the more.

They reached the shopping arcade, and it came as a relief. The long, wide street had an east-to-west alignment, allowing it to receive sunlight for the entire day. It didn't offer any true relief from the heat while you were out in the open -- but the stores would have air conditioning.

The boy looked up at the sign over the arcade's entrance. He seemed to examine it for just a little too long, and Saikawa wondered if he was capable of reading any of the words.

"Why is there a moon?" he asked. "Is it open at night?"

"Most places are open until ten at night," Kanna said. "Moons can mean a lot of things. I think this one means someone wanted a moon on the sign."

He smiled. "More things should night open," the inexperienced speaker twisted the sentence. "I know
ikutsu ka no ponī who feels that way..."

Saikawa, who was seldom in the position of having to translate her own language, felt her eyebrows climb halfway up her forehead.

...some pony?

She'd been studying English since the third grade, as the curriculum dictated. There was a sudden question as to whether she was that bad at speaking it.

"We go inside," Kanna told him. "I think you'll like the stores."

The first stop was at the vending machines. Kanna wanted to get a treat, and the arcade had what was still a fairly rare type of jihanki: the kind which dispensed snacks made from bugs. Kanna's fascination with insects stretched into the culinary, and she was always on the lookout for cricket crackers and imported barbecued waterbugs. Saikawa, who dearly wanted to love everything about the world's most beautiful girl, mostly tried not to look and, when they were working on their biology school assignments together, always had to remind Kanna that 'crunchy' wasn't a teacher-approved genus.

After that, they explored -- for that value of 'they' which meant Saikawa and Kanna knew where everything was, but the white-haired girl had to show the boy around. And he continued to have his attention caught by the strangest things. Like the butcher shop.

Saikawa didn't understand why he wanted to look at the butcher shop so closely, and dearly wished he would go anywhere else. Just for starters, you couldn't actually head inside. The glass display cases took up the whole of the entrance, and everything behind them was the butchery area. So the best anyone could get for coolness was whatever came over the top of the case -- and while that was chillier than most of what was in the arcade, the air current also carried a distinctive collection of scents.

"In the open?" he half-whispered as adults and kids moved around them, with the butcher occupied by a rather complicated order. "They just keep it where anyone can see and smell --"

He's not a vegetarian. The boy had eaten sweet and sour pork. With pineapple. For Saikawa, it created a certain basic doubt as to whether he was human.

"They eat a lot of meat here," Kanna softly replied. "The Lady Tohru buys from Mr. Tatsuta all the time."

"...she does?"

"Yes."

"And not fruits and vegetables."

Kanna gestured in the appropriate direction. The boy's too-green eyes tracked the pointing finger, and a curious gaze eventually found the produce shop.

"Oh," the boy said. "But... it's just right here..."

"It's good to have meat," Kanna decided. "Mr. Tatsuta gives the Lady Tohru extra pieces all the time."

"Why?"

Kanna pondered the question.

"Because," the girl bluntly said, "he thinks she's pretty. So if he gives her extras, then she buys from him more. And he can keep looking at her."

She is pretty.

Kanna was the most beautiful girl in the world, and Miss Tohru was an adult. Far too old. But most people saw beauty in the blonde foreigner. Saikawa did too. Just as long as she looked directly --

-- don't --

"We won't pick up anything," Kanna stated. "The Lady comes through here nearly every day. And we don't have insulated bags. Unless you wanted something?"

He paused. Looked over the selection carefully, then shook his head. This was followed by removing his backpack and fishing around inside it for a few seconds, reaching past the empty bentō boxes. He extracted something in a closed fist and before Saikawa could try to get a look at it, stuck it in his mouth.

His face suggested that he was sucking on a piece of candy. This was followed by a rather loud crunch. A little bit of edged purple appeared along his lips, and the narrow tongue quickly reclaimed the fragment.

Foreign candy. Saikawa clearly hadn't dug far enough into the backpack. It had to be a better snack than raw meat, although she wasn't sure how it compared to cooked bugs and had no intention of finding out.

"There's more stuff to see," Kanna told him. "Come with me."

With me. Not 'with us'.

And then Kanna took his hand again.

They stopped in the manga shop, and it took nearly an hour before they could get the boy out. Kanna had to keep telling him that it was rude to try and read whole volumes in the store, especially when he was mostly just examining the pictures. There was also a quick lesson on not being allowed to open anything which was in a sealed plastic bag, because those were for adolescents, adults of dubious taste, and the sort of otaku which Saikawa's parents kept warning her about. Which occasionally felt unfair, because some of the bagged stories were clearly about girls who wanted to get married someday -- but it wasn't so long to wait, and Saikawa had reluctantly held off on acquiring illustrated advice.

The foreigner, being a boy, was naturally attracted to anything which had people punching each other. This gave him what was effectively an endless selection to deal with -- on a very limited budget. The process of narrowing it down to what he actually wanted to purchase had Saikawa on the verge of summoning poverty spirits again.

At one point, he seemed to give up on trying to isolate the things he wanted most. The boy put several volumes in a stack, then started to walk away from the girls. He was clearly heading for one of the more shadowed parts of the store, and Saikawa wondered how Kanna would feel about her delinquent 'friend' getting arrested. It was so obvious that he was about to try and slip everything into his backpack, and the stress of the upcoming theft had his lips pursed into a tiny circle --

"Pay for them," Kanna softly said. "Just the ones you like most."

He stopped. His shoulders sank.

"I was just thinking about it," he told her. "That's all. I wasn't going to do it."

"You'll visit again. You can pick up more next time."

He's going to visit again.

"I don't know when I can come again," the boy told the nearest bookcase. (He wouldn't look at Kanna, and Saikawa took it as an insult.) "Or maybe it's 'if'. There's always stuff happening at home. It could be a really long time. I might never --"

And in the instant before hope suffused Saikawa's body, Kanna stepped forward. Raised her right hand, and gently rested the palm on the boy's left shoulder.

"You'll come back, Spike," she gently told. "I'll make sure." And ever so lightly, she squeezed his shoulder.

He looked back at her. Green eyes went wide with hope.

"You pinkie-promise --"

"I swear."

And Kanna smiled.

She likes him.
She smiles for him.
I have to work so hard just to see anything and
she smiles
for him

The next few stores floundered by. Saikawa had very little sense of them, mostly registering each as a place where the waters of future rejection could continue to fill her lungs.

At one point, they wound up in the rockhound shop. Kanna needed to do a surprising amount of talking to get the boy out of there, and hand-holding wound up being added to cautious yanks. Most of the boy's money stayed behind, to keep company with the majority of his more advanced vocabulary. He had what seemed to be an expert's knowledge of gemology, a professional interest in rock-cleaning tools, and the proprietor watched him being not-dragged away with open regret.

The produce stand mostly saw him examining apples. He would raise a specimen, hold it against the sunlight, rotate it a few times, then put it back down. Nothing was up to his standards.

The hairdresser didn't interest him. The green tinge along the raised ridge meant Saikawa hadn't expected it to.

And then there was the clothing store.

The clothing store was where it all went wrong.

There were several reactions which could have been reasonably expected from a boy in a clothing store for kids and because Shouta had come to the arcade with them a few times, the one Saikawa knew best was abject boredom. Shouta had a known response to the presence of display racks: he would look for a circular model, then slip into the center hollow and play a game on his phone. There were two ways of getting him to leave: you peeked into the private space and told him everything was finished, or you did the same thing while asking him how you looked in an outfit. Either way, he was out the door.

The foreigner looked around with open curiosity. He ran his hands along sleeves, checked the stitching on cuffs. But he had no interest in buying anything.

"I can't use it," he told Kanna. "Not once I go back. Besides, she'd be insulted."

"She?" the beautiful girl asked.

He smiled a little. "She makes all of my clothes. She wouldn't be happy if anyone else did it. And mass market..." His entire body shuddered. "I really don't need that lecture."

"Not your sister," Kanna checked.

"No." With a hint of shyness, "I still haven't told you about all of them yet. Maybe later."

Saikawa, who was hanging back by a skirt display, patiently waited for her anger to set it on fire. He has a girl who makes all of his clothing, and he --

Maybe it was his mother.

Except that he didn't live with his parents.

"I should look at a couple of things," Kanna said. "For fall. You don't mind?"

He shook his head. "I'll just look around."

"Don't go far."

"I won't."

He turned away, wandered off. And that meant Saikawa had Kanna to herself again, if you didn't count all of the other kids in the store, the adults who ran the place, and the cat who occasionally wandered in from the stationery shop. The cat wasn't always welcome. It shed.

"Saikawa," Kanna softly said. "Help."

'Help me get out of here before he comes back' --
-- she likes him, she holds his hand, she's smiling and laughing...

Her mouth felt oddly dry. She probably needed another drink.

"Help -- with what?"

"I don't want to stay very long," Kanna said. "It's his time. But Kobayashi wanted me to try a dress and tell her about it. So I'd have something for fall."

"And what do I have to do?"

"Tell me how it looks. How I look." Very directly, "It has to be cute. Always cute."

It's always cute.

And Kanna always looked beautiful. Just as long as Saikawa --

I didn't really look at what she picked up in the manga shop.

I don't know what I can get to wear that she'll like...

"Saikawa," Kanna quietly said. "Come." And began to move towards one of the racks. Something which had a Sale designation at the top, because Kanna worried about how much her mother made. A single parent with two girls to raise, just about everything Ilulu wore had to be customized or it wouldn't fit right, Miss Tohru collected a salary, and Kanna knew that her own tastes leaned towards the expensive side. She was always trying to find ways of getting dressed up at a lowered cost.

Saikawa followed.

(She wanted to spend an endless lifetime in following.)
(But the boy...)

And then she saw exactly where Kanna was heading.

Blues and blacks and golds. Lace trim, here and there. And Saikawa was intimately familiar with all of it, because --

-- she looked at those last year.
We were here last summer. She looked at them, and she decided that she didn't want one because it was too much money.
It's on sale because that's last year's stock and
she's going to look at the same size
she's the same size as last year
she isn't any taller or anything, she's exactly the same
her mother has to know
she must have seen
another few months and they'll see a doctor
it has to be a doctor
she doesn't even look any older --

Her heart ached. And she was scared, so scared for the one she loved, she hurt too much to watch, almost too much to move, and she felt her legs come to a stop, her head started to turn because she couldn't look, but Kanna wanted her to be there on a day when the boy felt like he was everywhere and always in the way and shoving Saikawa out --

-- she started to look back.

Stopped, at exactly the wrong moment, in the instant when the pain paralyzed her heart.

In a position which left her looking at Kanna out of the corner of her eye.

No --

It happened again.

There are shadows in the closet. Her bed has an elevated mattress, with formal space underneath: enough room to hide, or -- sufficient space for something else to hide. And when you look at those shadows, if imagination takes over for a girl who knows river serpents are real -- you can start to see things. Shade becomes shape, shape acquires intent, and intent produces the illusion of movement. When you know that the strange exists, the shadows begin to reach.

But they're just shadows. If you make yourself look closely at them, it's all you might ever find. Just a place where the light moves aside and makes space for dreams to take over. That's what her parents taught her. Saikawa isn't afraid of what she sees in the dark.

It's what comes out in the light.

When did it start? At some point after the first time Miss Lucoa took Saikawa for a private talk, and -- she can't remember what the older Magatsuchi sibling had said. She's tried, and it just won't come to her. If she tries for too long, her head starts to pulse. Like something just under the surface is trying to force its way out.

They're beautiful. They're all so beautiful. Just as long as she's looking directly at them.

And if she doesn't... if she catches them from exactly the wrong angle...

It doesn't last long, and she can't try to focus on what she's seeing. Focusing means careful examination and at the instant she brings the whole of her attention to bear, it all goes away. And she can't try to do it on purpose. It's just about always in the little moments, the quiet times when it feels like everything is normal and

then
something
slips.

Miss Tohru has hazel eyes: all gradients and fine shades. They're beautiful, and remain so until the moment she sees them from exactly the wrong angle. And when that happens...

Normally, the maid's hair is blonde. Most of it remains so. But as you move down the length, the shade begins to change. Warm oranges start to phase in, intensify until the very tips of the strands threaten to enter fire-reds. Fingers elongate, just a little. The nails become far too long, sharp. Shadows cluster at the top of the head, form a quartet of short, outward-curving vertical horns. And the eyes...

The eyes still have gradients to their colors. The top of the iris is a hot red: the bottom is more of a brilliant yellow. They seem to glow from within, and that quality is reflected and refined through the pupils. The pupils are vertical slits.

Miss Tohru's eyes are on fire.

Mr. Fafnir's mahogany eyes deepen. Become pools. You can fall into his eyes, and you might never come out because what's under the surface ripples like lava. There's even a choice of places for demise, because there's one set of eyes behind the tiny glasses. And another above, and another below. The air around him smolders when he talks, and the world ripples against the force of his disdain.

Ilulu? Her teeth are still white. They're also edged. Everything ends in a point. The half-crooked smile shows off a mouth full of rending fangs. She has her own horns: one on each side of her head, tight curls, like a ram, ending in wicked points. Violet eyes become furious, saturated pink as the pupils go vertical: deep auburn hair takes on a lighter shade of the ocular hue. And her body...

Take a small, powerful flashlight. Spread the fingers of one hand. Place the bulb against the web of skin between index finger and thumb, and the skin will glow.

Ilulu's hands are mostly normal. (There are times when a finger will seem to be pointing in the wrong direction, or has too many joints.) But move up to the curves, and any exposed skin displays something very much like that radiance. Only hotter. It's as if there's fire being kept inside, and it boils. It threatens to erupt through the shells, and any moment of anger has her clothing a mere second away from being fully ablaze.

Miss Lucoa...

...her hair is a little like that of the maid, only the color initially shifts from blonde to green, then phases into blue. There's only two horns, and the cap always seems to have room to let them through.

It truly starts with the eyes.

Heterochromia: one green, one amber. The green remains so. The amber becomes yellow, and sets itself up in the center of a huge black circle. The irises turn into mazes. Paths twist across green, wind their way around yellow. None of them are constant. The trails keep shifting. You can get lost in her eyes, and it might take a lifetime to find your way out. And her body... it feels as if she's just barely contained within her own skin. It creates the sense that a tremendous entity has been compressed into a human-shaped space. All of her movements acquire invisible, exponential weight. She takes a step, and the world only fails to shake because she's told it not to do so. There is something very much like a goddess walking the earth, and she would prefer that the planet failed to notice.

...Kanna...
...Kanna...

...the hair is no longer white. Greyish-purple at the crown of the head, the lightest shade possible. The colors suffuse and saturate as they move down the strands: pass through the glass beads (which glow now and again), reach the tips, and that's where the purple becomes pure. There are four horns, starting just above and in front of the ears: two point up and crest the top of the skull, while the two pointing down barely reach the cheekbones. All of the tips are blunted.

Sometimes there's a shadow at the base of her spine. If she's standing or sitting close to an outlet, sparks crawl up her back.

And the eyes...

...still blue. They're just blue all the way in. The color exists in rings. There's barely any white to Kanna's eyes: just a tiny fringe at the absolute edge, and then you get the first circle. Then another. Even the pupils are blue. They're also just as vertical as Ilulu's and Miss Tohru's.

Only for a moment. Every time. And then instinct takes over. There's a choice of two kinds. Saikawa has tried to look more closely, but that's focus and it makes everything go back. The other...

She can't look at it.
She can't.
She can't see Kanna that way. Not for long.
The vision is too b --

-- she was in another part of the store, and didn't know how she'd gotten there. Back against the wall. Kids staring at her, along with a few adults. It was probably because of her breathing. Too deep and too shallow, all at once. Everything going in with deep gulps, emerging as too-fast panting.

i have
i have to
i need
i can't just keep

There was an adult coming closer. The woman probably wanted to see if she was all right.

every time
every time and i can't

But the boy got there first.

He was right in front of her. Close, too close, and the emerald eyes were filled with concern.

"I saw you go by," he said. "You looked..." Stopped, visibly searched for vocabulary as Saikawa's palms pressed against air-chilled drywall and the adult, seeing that someone who apparently knew her was on the scene, began to veer away.

"...you don't look all right," the foreigner finished. "Do you want me to get Kanna? I can bring her right over. Or I can take you to her --"

His right arm came out. Reached forward, coming closer in order to put the limb behind her back, they were almost ribs-to-ribs in a parody of a hug and he carefully grasped her left hand --

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

She didn't truly hear her own words. (She never did, not until it had ended.) It was just everyone else who picked up on the shout: kids recoiling, adults pulling away, and the foreign boy jumping backwards as if he'd just touched the purest of flame.

He came down about half a meter away from her, eyes wide and frightened. She immediately decided he was still too close, and pushed herself off the wall. Strode forward, just to watch him back away. And all the while, the words kept coming.

"Who ARE you? You just show up out of nowhere, from the capital of Nowhere, and she likes you, she likes a BOY, a stupid older BOY who doesn't even BELONG here! Why --" and there was something hot on her face, hot and flowing "-- did you even come? You just show up and she says you're her friend when she can have any friend, any at all and I CAN'T, it's just her, I'm supposed to be WITH her, she's supposed to be MINE and she's holding your hand and smiling and laughing and why can't you GO AWAY? WHY DON'T YOU JUST STAY WITH PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU? I DON'T WANT YOU HERE! I DON'T WANT YOU NEAR HER! NOT WHEN IT MEANS THERE ISN'T ANY ROOM FOR ME --"

There was a tiny gasp, somewhere behind the foreign boy's back.

It was a familiar sound.

Saikawa's eyes focused. Found Kanna three meters behind the boy. Her right hand had come up. Covering her mouth, and blocking the rest of the horror.

Adults stared. Children reeled. Saikawa, who had eyes for only one person, stopped talking.

She heard her own words.

The foreign boy turned. Spun on his right heel, nearly sent himself into the ground. Got a hand on a rack, jerked himself upright, recovered his balance, and then he ran. Pounding footsteps quickly carried him out of sight.

The consequences began.

Pureidēto

It wasn't just that Saikawa's most recent words were bouncing around in her head, defying everything she knew about echoes through gaining volume with every additional ricochet. Having the closest adults in the clothing store staring at her, along with a couple of other kids -- that didn't matter.

Kanna had heard everything.

And now the white-haired girl was moving towards her, doing so with a surprising lack of grace. Kanna's movements tended to flow, like a dancer who was the only person aware that the background music even existed. Saikawa had never seen Kanna scramble, and bead-bound white strands of hair banged against her back as she raced towards her classmate, the blue eyes wide with something which felt very close to desperation.

Kanna didn't move like that. Didn't lose control. Saikawa was the one whose emotions emerged in torrents, washing away decorum and sanity and connections --

-- Kanna had heard everything. Saikawa knew it, and the endlessly-replaying loop inside her head told her exactly how much there had been to hear.

Saikawa had neglected to call the boy a delinquent. It didn't seem to help.

I can't keep thinking about it.
I can't --
-- she heard everything --
-- I'm going to break --

She could feel her body trembling. Her shoulders shook. Moisture was starting to coat her eyes, and the fast-approaching beautiful vision warped lightly to suit. No horns, no alterations to the eyes: just a faint ripple, as if reality was passing over Kanna in waves.

"Saikawa. " Just the slightest increase in volume, accompanied by what felt like a tripling of urgency. She hadn't heard Kanna be this insistent since the river. "Saikawa, listen --"

"-- I --" just barely fell out of her mouth, and did so as half a stammer.

"-- there isn't anyone just like him."

And just for a moment, the beautiful blue eyes squeezed shut.

"No one," Kanna quietly stated. "No one at all."

Saikawa could feel her ribs heaving. A wild thought wondered about puberty, and whether having weight over them slowed the process down.

"...what?" she managed to whisper, and desperately wanted to consider it as an improvement.

"He's adopted," the white-haired girl softly said. "Like me. And he's different. He isn't like anyone else in his home. He can't be. He was unique, and they took him in. They love him, Saikawa. He knows it. He loves them just as much. Like Kobayashi loves me, and I love her. But he isn't like them. He can't ever be. He can only try. Pretend..."

The trailing off was unusual for Kanna. The sheer length of the speech which had preceded it was even more so. And the rest of the reaction...

"...Kanna?"

...Saikawa had only seen that once before.

She was prepared to spend the rest of her life in trying to make up for it.

"...Kanna," Saikawa frantically tried as her right arm tried to come up, then dropped back down. She didn't know what she could do any more. What was still allowed. "Kanna, please don't cry --"

"-- pretend," the white-haired girl half-whispered. "It's all pretend. We're all just pretending. Until we can't..."

Pretending to be...

She stopped. Took a breath, and blinked away the tears.

"Maybe it's worse for him," Kanna quietly considered. "He -- stands out, when he's home. For being different. I do too." Her left arm briefly lifted, and fingers ran through white strands. "But not as much. And I wanted school. He doesn't go. He has family. Friends. But he's lonely. So much of the time. He never has a day when he can just pretend. Because no one is just like him. I'm not like him. But I thought I was close enough."

She stopped. Looked away from Saikawa. Glanced at the racks of clothing, and the kids who were investigating larger sizes. Turned back, and both arms came up. Small hands urgently, almost fiercely gripped Saikawa's shoulders, and the trembling stopped.

"I thought... it would be good for him. One day. One day where he was --" and hesitated again.

"I don't understand --" Saikawa frantically tried.

Maybe she did.
Maybe she didn't want to.

"I want my friends," Kanna softly finished as the last hot tears fell, "to be friends. Why can't that happen? Why, Saikawa?"

The beautiful head tilted slightly to the right. And Kanna waited for an answer.

The words...

Kanna had heard everything. But that wasn't what the white-haired girl wanted to deal with right now. She had cried over what had happened, Saikawa had made her cry again and she only had a single endless lifetime in which to try and make up for the first time --

-- hurting the foreign boy with words had made Kanna cry.
To reject him was to hurt Kanna.
She couldn't ever hurt Kanna.

Saikawa pushed herself away from the wall. Kanna's hands dropped.

"I need to talk to him," Saikawa urgently declared, because it was a reason to postpone everything else and -- she needed to speak with him. "Right now --"

Immediately, "-- I'll come with you --"

The next word didn't surprise her for several hours.

"-- no."

The blue eyes blinked.

"It's important," Kanna said.

"This is my apology," Saikawa insisted. "It has to be from me. Just me --"

"-- I need to watch over what you say --"

"-- NO."

Kanna's mouth fell open. Very slightly.

"I said all of it," Saikawa declared. "Not you. I have to be the one who fixes this." Without supervision. And she needed to think about what she was going to say, in advance. Hear the words in her head before they came out. Try to claim that power for her own.

A little too slowly, "Saikawa. I have to be there --"

She almost heard the next two words prior to their emergence. It wasn't entirely progress.

"-- Kanna. Stay!"

And with that, she dodged around the smaller girl, quickly accelerating into a runner's stride as she wove past kids, around adults, moving towards the store's exit.

She just barely heard the little sound which arose behind her. A fully familiar vocalization, something which she usually had to work so hard to bring out -- but this time, Saikawa wasn't sure what it meant.

"...oh!"

He was outside the rockhound shop. Sitting with his back against the wall, slumped in a fashion which kept his hair below window level. His legs were tucked up against his body in a way which placed his knees just under the chin, and he was rocking slightly. Eyes half-shut, and what little vision remained was mostly gazing down.

The backpack was leaning against an elbow. If he moved too much, something within clinked.

Saikawa slowly walked up to him. Turned to place her back against the wall, slid down as her knees bent. It left her sitting on his right, with both small forms dappled by the hot sun.

He didn't look at her. He didn't seem to have even noticed that she was there.

Saikawa took a careful breath.

"She's..."

That word had been planned. She had others which were waiting to follow, and none of them wanted to come out.

The boy's head raised. Green eyes fully opened, and his legs straightened. But he didn't look at her.

"She's what?" he asked the arcade's central street.

Something inside Saikawa pushed.

"She's the only friend I have," the native softly said. "And she can have all the friends she wants, any time she wants them. I can't. I always get it wrong..."

His original position had looked oddly comfortable. She wondered if trying it would help anything. But thin legs splayed forward. It didn't feel like a good thing for legs to do.

"Your only friend," he half-repeated. Still without looking at her.

Saikawa forced a nod, and wondered if he'd seen it. Then she wondered if Samoans nodded, and if the gesture still meant 'yes'. Maybe he was just translating.

"It's -- more than that," the boy placidly said. "Isn't it?"

She couldn't answer. But her head dipped.

Adults flowed around them, giving the pairing no notice. There were two kids sitting together. Nothing they said or did could possibly be important.

"I like her," the boy quietly decided. "We're friends. But I don't like her the same way you do."

Her head slowly turned. Her stare took him in, from the green-tinged ridge of hair to the partially-crushed shoe. It took a few seconds before she recognized her own lack of blinks.

"Not stupid I'm," he sedately announced in exactly the wrong order. "I know what it's like to feel that way." This time, his head dipped. "Sometimes I wish I didn't."

"You have someone?" Because the tone had been so stark...

His shoulders briefly shook: a repressed laugh which had gone in the wrong direction. "I have somep -- someone I like. It..." The sigh was surprisingly deep. "It doesn't matter."

"No," Saikawa quickly said. "It does. Tell me."

A cool breeze found the arcade entrance, brushed against their faces.

"She's older."

"How much older?"

He told her.

Immediately, with very little actual rancor, "Pervert."

The boy winced. "Some people think so. But it's how I feel. I can't stop it. I've tried." His neck arched, and he looked up at the thin blue sliver of sky. "Sometimes I wonder if she'll still be there when I grow up. If she'll -- think about it. Or things could change. I could change. I'm afraid to cha --"

He stopped. Took three slow, carefully-measured breaths.

"I don't feel that way about Kanna," the foreigner informed the sky. "I know what the difference is. And I do like her. But even if it was the same... she's too far away."

Long-distance relationships don't work...

"You really aren't from around here," Saikawa carefully asked. "Are you?" She'd known he was visiting, but there had been a chance that it was just from the next district over.

He shook his head.

"How far?" she checked.

"Very," was all he would say.

The breeze came back. Saikawa's hair shifted against her shoulders.

"I like Kanna as a friend," the boy carefully emphasized. "But I can't see her too often. We met by accident, because of something strange, I don't know how often I can visit when she's so far away, and... she's a friend. That's all. I can see how you feel about her. I swear I won't get in the way --"

"'I'm not stupid'," Saikawa said.

He blinked. "I didn't say you were --"

"-- no. What you said earlier. You said 'Not stupid I'm'." With a relaxed sense of light superiority, "You got the word order wrong. Your Japanese needs work."

"...oh," the boy said, and did so while sounding nothing like Kanna.

"It's a very basic language," Saikawa told him. "Babies learn it."

He didn't seem to have a response for that and accordingly, went directly for the scoundrel's tactic of changing the subject.

"Does she know how you feel?"

Her knees were now directly under her chin. She wondered how they'd gotten here. Having her arms wrapped around thin bent legs was a secondary consideration at best.

Saikawa looked around. No white hair revealed itself.

"...she might know a little more now," was all she could manage, and she tried to push the echoes away.

"You said she was supposed to be yours," the boy reminded her. "That's wrong. One person can't own another."

"I know," Saikawa quietly said. "But you can give yourself to someone. I want to be hers."

He nodded, and that was all he did. A simple, basic nod. Even with a foreigner, it was all which was required to be understood. Because -- he did understand. She knew it.

"Does yours know?" Saikawa asked.

"Yes," the boy softly sighed. "She -- mostly uses it as a way to make me do a lot of work." (Saikawa, whose older sister was heavily into maid culture and had parents willing to exploit it for bathroom cleaning, said nothing.) He lowered his head, tried to find a sight line which went all the way through the passing crowd and wound up having it mostly bounce off the produce shop. "Can I ask you something?"

She nodded.

The boy hesitated. "What you said... I would be a -- 'pervert'? -- for liking her. Is that how people see it here?"

"Because she's so much older," Saikawa explained. "But a crush is a crush." Followed by, because she didn't want him to think she was trying to belittle his feelings, "It's the same for love. You don't get to pick." If she'd met Ilulu first...

Love was a hopeless sort of thing. All you could really do was keep pushing forward and, in the name of retaining that love, remain prepared to cheat.

"How would they feel about you being in love with Kanna?"

She wondered when she'd started to rock back and forth. The motion was oddly comforting.

"A lot of them don't want me to love her."

Pure, honest curiosity. "Why?"

How could he not know? "They don't like girls who marry girls."

His head tilted slightly. That much closer to looking at her. "Why?"

"I don't know. They just don't."

Her parents adored Kanna -- but not the way Saikawa felt. They kept saying she would grow out of it. They didn't know...

The boy evenly shrugged. "That's stupid."

"...it is?"

"Where I come from? It happens all the time."

Oh. American Samoa. Maybe she needed to start writing up a list of places where she and Kanna could live.

If she even --

-- the echoes had to wait.

He hesitated. "Saikawa... I'm not your rival. I promise. I won't crowd you out. I'm not even going to be here very much, if I even get to come back at all. I may not talk to Kanna for a long time --"

"-- you can't call?" she asked. "Chloe calls."

The boy blinked a few times.

"...call?" somehow came across as a helpless attempt to force a familiar word into a new definition, and to do so when the foreigner didn't know what that definition was.

"Skype?" had a certain futile valiance behind it.

Green eyes immediately consulted the clouds. No answers dropped into the world.

"Um," the boy eventually said. "What's --"

"-- never mind," Saikawa sighed, and decided it had been an appropriate reaction in the presence of the technologically hopeless. "I'm --" And she'd planned to say it, she'd thought about how the word had to emerge, intonations and maybe a downcast expression, but all of the hurried preparation just felt stupid. "-- I'm sorry."

And he didn't say anything. He just kept trying to look at the apples, and did so as if every last sample was personally failing to meet his standards.

She'd failed. It had been hopeless. Everything she did was hopeless --

-- so she kept going.

"You're adopted?"

The boy silently nodded.

"Do they love you?"

He didn't hesitate. Another nod.

"Miss Kobayashi loves Kanna and Ilulu," Saikawa quietly said. "It's one of the reasons I like to visit. To watch her love them. She's quiet about it, but -- she loves them. My parents..."

Emerald eyes were now fixed on her face.

"What?" the boy asked.

"Good grades," she finally said. "They want me to get into the best high school. Then a university. To... not be with Kanna. And not drop batons."

Love wasn't the sort of thing you could argue with. There were no negotiations possible. And it still felt like there was so much which could casually take it away. Uncaring.

"Drop..." the boy didn't quite ask.

She explained. He listened.

"My big sister..." the boy finally said. "She -- I guess you could say she drops batons all the time. Then she picks up them again. And she keeps running. And we love her because she keeps trying. Because, even if she doesn't have a baton all the time, she won't stop. I think that counts."

She thought about that.

"Would you like some candy?" Saikawa asked.

"I'm not sure --" was probably the wrong answer. She decided to forgive him for it.

"I always have candy," she told him, and peeled her arms away from her legs. "Just in case. But a lot of it is bug-flavored, because that's what Kanna likes." She began to dig in her pockets. "For you..."

She removed a small bar. Separated one of the individually-wrapped pinkish segments, turned to face him directly, then passed it over. He removed the paper, put it in his mouth, chewed --

"-- what is this?" was, at best half-choked.

"Salted salmon Puccho," she proudly said. "Do you like it?"

"Yes," the boy openly lied. "I... what you said earlier..." One more breath. "Sometimes, with mine... other people look at her. And I have to tell myself that -- she isn't mine. That someone else might love her, and... it scares me. I have to let them love her, and it still scares me..." He forced himself to swallow. "I know how that feels, Saikawa. I get it. And I know you're sorry. I accept your apology --"

And because he'd cared enough to do that, she hugged him.

The shock was something she could feel: his entire body going tight at once. Four seconds passed while he tried to figure out how to respond, and then his arms came up. One hand awkwardly patted her back.

Saikawa didn't hold her grip for long. Spike was too bony to hug very often. But he understood. That was worth a hug every now and again.

Also, he liked Kanna. That was just a sign of good taste.

It took a few minutes to find Kanna within the clothing store, and then they left quickly. There was still a chance of coming across an adult who would want to know what all of that had been about, and they also had to be careful about just how much day was left.

Kanna didn't say anything to Saikawa about -- everything. Maybe she was holding off until Spike went home. And all Saikawa could do was wait for it.

But before that happened...

They found a step-platform rhythm game. The girls took turns challenging him, and found Spike a tough opponent to beat -- at least during those moments when he wasn't being distracted by the graphics. Flashing colors and laughing characters could easily get the best of him, but he moved like someone who'd grown up around full-scale dance numbers.

At one point, they had to recruit an adult because the only way to get a picture of the trio was for someone else to hold the phone. After that, it was a matter of paying for the printing at the stationery shop, and Spike solemnly tucked the results in his backpack -- after spending nearly half a minute in gazing at the photo. It was as if he'd never seen his own face before.

That shop also gave them the chance to explain the School Supplies Conspiracy. He did fairly well with district-mandated uniforms and styles, but they lost him when Kanna tried to explain how the teachers were clearly receiving kickbacks. This was eventually blamed on his being homeschooled. Saikawa was roughly familiar with homeschooling: she just hadn't been aware that it was possible to start it before the age of fourteen. Samoa was weird. Still, there had to be something good about it. As boys went, Spike wasn't all that stupid.

The breeze continued to rise as they came close to the end of the arcade. A moment was spared for peeking in the window of Ilulu's candy shop, and the only glimpse they had of the adolescent was a frustrated heel kicking the back door to the storeroom shut. Inventory didn't seem to be going well.

They all snacked. Then there were more drinks, and that was followed by finding another bathroom. Saikawa used the privacy to attempt a reverse-image search on the pictures she'd taken of the golden coin. It took a few seconds after emergence before she started talking again.

The city was explored. They passed a shrine, and then they had to explain what a shrine was. Saikawa, who hadn't forgotten everything from the previous year's classes, asked the boy if he was used to churches. Then they had to explain what a church was, with Kanna continually glancing around to make sure Miss Tohru didn't somehow walk in on the discussion. When it came to organized religion, the maid had Views.

A summer day passed, and the sun began to dip. Getting lower in the sky, slowly approaching the horizon...

"I have to get home," Spike finally announced, and the trio paused in the shadow of a small hotel. With open worry, "I may have stayed too long already. My sister's going to worry..."

"I'll get you home," Kanna evenly told him. "You brought it, didn't you?"

A bus pass? Train? How is he --

"Yes," the boy told her. "It's in my backpack."

Brought what?

Kanna turned to look at Saikawa. Blue eyes placidly regarded the taller girl's face.

"I need to get him back," the white-haired girl said. "The Lady Tohru got him here. But I can send him home. Wait for me here."

Saikawa took a breath. "Kanna --"

"-- his sister will worry about him if he's late," Kanna stated. "Like we worry about Ilulu. She might run into someone." The smaller girl paused. "Poor someone."

Saikawa briefly considered the full potential for shin damage. Then she remembered the half-vision of pointed teeth and barely-contained glow.

"I'm going to walk him to his stop," Kanna said. "It's close. I want to say goodbye. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"We can all walk together --"

"-- please," Kanna softly requested. "Please, Saikawa. Let me send him home."

Eventually, Saikawa nodded.

She told Spike goodbye. Did her best to shake his hand, because that was what he'd tried on first meeting and therefore it had to be appropriate. Gave him some candy for the trip back while making sure a portion of it wasn't salmon-based, failed to get the contact information of a boy who didn't have any (and didn't seem to know what 'contact information' meant), and then stepped back.

Saikawa watched Kanna walk away, leading the boy by the hand. Something which didn't hurt quite as much now, and that was why she was able to hold her position as the other two moved into a narrow passage between buildings. Possibly cutting across to a train station. Except that Saikawa knew there was no such place on the other side.

She waited a few seconds.

Then she followed.

She had to hang back. Staying within deepening shadows, making sure she wasn't spotted. It was why she didn't see all of it.

Spike took off his backpack. Unloaded the empty bentō boxes, which Kanna carefully placed into a shopping bag from the arcade. Then he reached in again --

-- they'd seen it at one of the museums, during a school field trip. It had fascinated Kanna, because of course it had. There were guaranteed ways of getting the white-haired girl's attention: two of the foremost were bugs and electricity. To see a plasma globe, with false lightning crackling across the central ball and arcing out to harmlessly touch any portion of glass which had been contacted by fingers -- Kanna had loved that.

This was a vial. Simple, clear, heavy glass, with what seemed to be a faceted stopper at the top. And within the hollow, lightning danced.

There was no central globe. No power source. Just pure electricity, blue and yellow and white, moving and twisting and silently zapping about without doing harm. And Saikawa thought about how the coin had matched nothing which had ever been put into a search engine, considered that game tokens were never rendered as anything so heavy...

She watched as the vial was passed to Kanna, who looked at it with what almost seemed to be hunger. Sparks reflected from blue eyes.

The older boy hugged the smaller girl, who returned the gesture. Then they both went further down the passage, leaving the shopping bag behind. Kanna unlatched a swinging gate, something which probably just led to a garbage collection area, gestured for Spike to go in ahead of her, followed and dropped out of sight just as her hands began to work on the vial's stopper...

There was a moment of silence.

Light came out of the open gate. It was almost exactly like normal sunlight, except for the part where it seemed to carry half the hues at double the strength. A faint scent of hibiscus and fresh-cut hay wafted its way to Saikawa on a truly foreign breeze.

The light vanished. Saikawa scrambled, reached her original waiting post. And by the time Kanna reached her, she was fully prepared to pretend she'd been there all along.

They were heading towards Miss Kobayashi's apartment. Saikawa had already called her parents, because you had to tell an adult when you were staying over for dinner. Omurice was probably going to get involved.

There was also the chance of a sleepover. Summer opened up all kinds of options.

The girls were walking back together, staying close on the sidewalk. But they hadn't said a word to each other since Spike had left. Kanna was naturally on the quiet side, at least when she wanted to be. And Saikawa had already unleashed words into the world, didn't know how many of them were still echoing.

They were walking together: Saikawa was closer to the curb, Kanna had taken the side near the grass. But they hadn't touched. Arms swung at their sides as they moved, with hands failing to reach towards each other.

The river was getting close.

"It's easier. With him."

The tones had been subdued. So many of Kanna's reactions were. Even when she was happy, the joy expressed itself in little ways and as far as Saikawa was concerned, that just made them more special. Except that the muted demonstrations hadn't been in play with the visitor --

He doesn't want her.
She believed him.
But it didn't mean Kanna wasn't interested in Spike.

Saikawa forced herself to wait as thin legs pushed forward, and hoped for any heartbreak to be fast and clean.

"It's easier to laugh," the smaller girl said as they moved under a slowly-darkening sky, and the bag of empty bentō boxes swung along. "Because he's just a friend. I don't worry as much about what it all might mean. That's why it's harder with you."

Several hundred implications lodged themselves in Saikawa's throat.

They hadn't talked about her outburst in the clothing shop.

Maybe they didn't have to.

The baton had been fumbled. Some degree of fumbling was probably natural in a relationship, especially when you were doing it for the first time. But it hadn't been dropped.

Ten footsteps passed in silence.

Four months. If she isn't any taller in four months and her mother doesn't find a doctor, I'll say something.

"I don't want to hurt you," Kanna finally said. "I try so hard --"

"-- you haven't," Saikawa softly cut her off.

The white-haired girl turned to look at her, and the blue eyes were pained.

"What if I do?" Neutral. Composed. Only the slightest hint of tremble.

"You won't."

Kanna's head dipped. They kept walking.

"I'll try to give you some warning. If Spike can come back for another day." The smaller girl hesitated. "You wouldn't have to come with us. If you didn't want to."

"It's okay. I don't mind seeing him again."

"Really?"

"He's a little weird," Saikawa admitted. "But that's what you get with foreigners. And he's nice."

"I'm foreign," Kanna pointed out.

"Yeah," the taller girl conceded. "But with you, it's cute."

They were almost at the base of the bridge.

"No CG today," Kanna decided. "Don't be scared --"

"-- I'm not scared --"

"-- we'll cross together."

The white-haired girl reached for Saikawa's hand. Firmly grasped it.

She didn't gasp. (There had been times when she'd done exactly that, and she was trying to get it under control.) Instead, she simply allowed the warmth to wrap her fingers, and then grasped back.

"...oh!" Kanna said. Which was followed by a hint of a smile, and two bars of a musical laugh.

They walked together. Crossing the bridge.

"Just CG," Kanna stated. "If we see anything, it's just CG."

Which was a lie.

Saikawa tried to look at Kanna then -- but not directly. Out of the corner of her eye, the barest glimpse -- but it didn't work. It never happened when she wanted it to. And even when the visions did arrive, she could never stand to look at them for very long.

The white-haired girl was simply too beautiful.

There were strange things in the world, and Kanna was one of them. Spike potentially represented another. But strange didn't have to mean bad.

A picture of the river serpent just proved it was there, and Saikawa wanted both proof and reassurance. But Kanna had gotten in front of the shot, lied over and over, and --

-- maybe she was protecting a friend.

Kanna was something strange, and -- it didn't matter. Saikawa already loved a foreigner. Accepting additional differences didn't feel like such a big step. And maybe Kanna was simply waiting for the right moment to tell her. Admitting everything to someone who wasn't just a friend. Confessing.

It was just like growing up. When you thought about things, it wasn't so long to wait.

Kanna's eyes were beautiful. In every view. And Saikawa knew something was different. Strange. But she loved Kanna. And on the day the white-haired girl told her the full truth, Saikawa would know she was truly loved too.

"I bet I can balance on the edge of the curb," Saikawa said. "It's like walking on the white lines --"

"-- don't," Kanna softly said. "Not on the curb. Fall onto the sidewalk, I'll catch you. Fall into the road, you'll get hurt. You could die, Saikawa."

"That won't happen," the taller girl solemnly said, "I've got great balance."

"White lines say you're wrong."

"And I'm immortal."

And there was a single instant under the darkening sky in which the blue eyes locked onto her face. A mere second during which Kanna looked... sad.

"Live a long life, Saikawa," the white-haired girl said. "Please."

She said that sometimes, and it always seemed to bring her down. Saikawa resolved to make her laugh over dinner. It might even be easy, as omurice was inherently funny.

But she didn't understand why the sadness had been there.

Still... right now, there was a bridge to cross, and a dinner to reach. A sleepover was definitely on the possibility list for the night. And maybe she would be able to make Kanna laugh.

But there was a whole summer stretching out before them.
They were nine years old. (Going on ten.)
Everything was settled. It had been settled for nearly two years. They would grow up together, and then no matter what anyone said, they would get married.

They were going to live forever.