K -Lost Small World- Vol 1 Chapter 2.3

It was six year since he last had come to this building. Despite the tenant’s sign sticking out of the wall and the worn out posters that were plastered over the windows’ gla.s.s the building itself had not changed much. For Yata six years was half of his life but for the city’s history six years probably did not amount to much.

That s.h.i.+zume City was a peaceful city was hard to say. Especially the place near the station had been maintained well and gaudy shopping malls strung together there but entering just one back street would bring you to the poor neighborhood of crime organizations and delinquent groups that even now still existed. It seemed like fights between those organizations had not stopped either. It didn’t look like s.h.i.+zume City was an area to suddenly get a playground, so the kids living in s.h.i.+zume City had become good at creating playgrounds in the middle of the city themselves. The rooftop of this building had been one of those playgrounds.

“Back then this building might’ve been an office for the yakuza. Maybe they had a gunfight with the cops! For example, this b.u.mp in the railing, doesn’t it look like it was caused by a bullet?”

While Yata talked lively he had gone ahead and walked up the outdoor stairs. Yata had wanted to scare them a bit, but the footsteps of the two people following him did not change at all.

“Didn’t your parents get, like, angry that you entered a place like this?”

“Well, I did get a good scolding for it. When I was a little kid my mom would always bare my b.u.t.t and give me a spanking. But because I was born as a man there’s no way I’d stop exploring just because my parents got mad, right?”

“Hmm. So that’s what boys are like?”

“That’s what we are like! Right, Fus.h.i.+mi?”

Yata hoped for Fus.h.i.+mi to have the same opinion but when he turned around, Fus.h.i.+mi on the very end had stopped and was staring at the lower part of the stairs. He was listening carefully and because of this suspicious behavior Yata strained his ears too.

“Can you hear something?” asked Yata Fus.h.i.+mi but he himself could only hear the faint noise of the cars pa.s.sing by on the street.

“There was a story floating around online.”

Fus.h.i.+mi started to talk while keeping his eyes on the stairs. Although it was uncertain where this story was going, Yata and Aya were drawn in by Fus.h.i.+mi’s calm tone and listened focusedly.

“There was a woman who committed suicide by jumping down the roof of a building, and even though she became a ghost she did not remember her own death, so she climbed up the rooftop again and jumped down once more. But the woman’s ghost still thought that she had not died and while uttering a curse ‘I can’t die, I can’t die…’ she climbed up the rooftop and jumped down over and over again. The building had been closed down but despite that if you climb up the outdoor stairs of that building you will hear one pair of footsteps coming…….”

Fus.h.i.+mi’s voice carried an unpleasant dampness. The wind blew and the railing clattered.

“Is how the story goes.” He ended his telling calmly, with a face as if he had just talked about the weather.

What the h.e.l.l made him suddenly talk about something like that!? Yata regretted deeply that he had listened attentively until the very end.

“Wha-wha-what the h.e.l.l is up with you, thinking of suddenly telling a story like this!? Tha-tha-that’s of poor taste, Fus.h.i.+mi hahahaha-eek.”

“Footsteps,” muttered Fus.h.i.+mi and tilted his head, carefully listening again. “Just now I thought I had heard a fourth pair of footsteps.”

“Fou-…..Fourth pair……ha, ha eek? Wha- whawhawhat are you saying, there’s just three of us, right, just three. There’s no way you could’ve heard another pair of footsteps.”

“Shouldn’t we hear them once we start going up again?” said Fus.h.i.+mi in a serious manner.

Yata turned his head to Aya who he was depending on. Aya’s smiling face too had become stiff. “Ehehehehe, Saruhiko, what are you saying, tha-tha-that’s a ridiculous story.”

At the end of the sentence her voice jumped up in a weird way. The bunny ears on her back shook nervously and its fur stood on end. Yata and Aya both couldn’t move one foot.

Even if we start walking nothing will happen, they thought but the feeling that something was approaching them increased and

Bam!

A foot stepping loudly on an iron plate resounded.

“U- Uuaaahhhhhh!”

Yata’s scream was completely synchronized with Aya’s. They had struggled earlier to run away but now they both pressed together. Fus.h.i.+mi’s swift footsteps resounded while he was calmly walking past the petrified Yata and Aya. When he ran past them he whispered: “Just kidding.”

The footsteps…..there obviously had been only one pair of them.

Huh…..?

‘Just kidding’?…..Eh?

“Huhhh!?”

Yata opened his eyes wide and stared up at the thin back disappearing upstairs.

Don’t tell me, this just now had been a joke!? Was Fus.h.i.+mi the kind of person to make such jokes!?

“s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t. To be tricked in such a way is the defeat of a lifetime. It is an embarra.s.sment that will last to the future of the Oogai family.”

While cursing in a foulmouthed way Aya put up folding chairs close to the entry of the rooftop and lined up sweets and water bottles. The folding chairs had the same pink checked pattern like her backpack. Yata placed the battery-powered lantern he had brought with him in the middle of the seat to serve as a light source but Aya put a shade over it which had bunny shaped holes in it.

What the h.e.l.l…..

With the pink color and the bunnies it looked like she was turning their secret base on the rooftop to part of the girl-game playing house, and it made Yata feel somewhat reluctant. When he had been a little child it had sometimes happened that sisters or other female relatives of the exploration group’s members had tagged along but basically they had been a tough group without any girls…..

“Here you go, Misaki-kun.”

Aya offered him of one of the bottles’ plastic cup in which she had poured something to drink. Maybe it was milk tea; it was a sweet colored, bubbly liquid. Drinks for exploring are supposed to be calm river water! (that was the ideal image he had gotten from TV but the only “river” in s.h.i.+zume City was the drainage channel so the best “tough drink“ they had was tap water.)

“Uh. Ah. Thanks.”

It was obvious that Yata could not decline so he sat down cross-legged on the chair and took the cup.

“What about Fus.h.i.+mi?”

Yata looked around with the opinion that Fus.h.i.+mi should also already say something. Fus.h.i.+mi was in a corner of the rooftop the lantern’s light did not reach. After leaning over the fence to check the street’s state below them he sat down on the concrete, the holographic keyboard and display appearing in midair.

“Hey Fus.h.i.+mi, come here and let’s together……”

“We should let him be for now. Since back then he had been, like, that kind of guy. Only Aya and Misaki should, like, get on the blimp!”

Fus.h.i.+mi raised his eyes for a moment as if he had hear what Aya had said.

“Don’t say something like that. The three of us came here, right?” Yata tried to smooth things over.

Aya turned the other way. “Aya did not invite that guy.”

Fus.h.i.+m did not seem to care anymore and looked back at his things.

“We’re relatives. Second cousins, though he is the kind of guy who is neither close nor far. Aya has, like, known him since she was little.”

Aya spoke in an annoyed tone and bit three Pocky sticks in half with her front teeth. Yata had been suspicious because he could not see Fus.h.i.+mi have a new female friend but with Aya’s explanation he finally understood. I see, relatives, huh.

Yata felt kind of relieved, if Fus.h.i.+mi would have had a girlfriend or something he felt like he had been beaten to the punch regarding everything…..

"What’s Fus.h.i.+mi’s place like? I heard that they are kinda rich.”

“They do have money. His mother leads a business.”

“His mom’s the head of a company? Not his father? That’s amazing.”

Right after Yata expressed his genuine impression Aya spit out the Pocky and broke into laughter.

“Uhihihihi. Geez Misaki-kun, please don’t, like, make me laugh. That guy, the head of a company? Imagining it alone is already impossible uhihihi….”

“Did- did I say something funny?”

Aya hit her chest with her fist as if the remains of the sweets had entered her trachea. “Ueh, cough cough, uhi cough, uhihi”, she laughed in a way that made him wonder if she was all right. Yata who didn’t understand the situation at all pulled back and frowned.

“Ah, I’m, like, sorry. I’m getting a call.”

With that Aya fished for her PDA and pulled it out. Her PDA with the huge bunny dangling from it rang. Yata who wasn’t familiar with the ring tone thought that it was the theme song of some magical girl anime. In that moment Yata stood up and with the cup Aya had given him and the bag from the convenience store he left the folding chair.

“Mama? What is it?”

He could hear Aya answering the phone from behind him. Her voice was like two octaves lower than her usual high pitched voice.

“Fus.h.i.+mi, isn’t it cold here? There’s still a lot of time until the blimp will pa.s.s by so have a meal. Here.”

Yata approached Fus.h.i.+mi and dangled the bag from the convenience store in front of his eyes. From this corner of the rooftop the main street was right beneath their eyes and it was close to the entrance so the wind blew strong. Fus.h.i.+mi who had been looking at the display lifted his eyes once and silently took the bag. There were proper things like Onigiri in there but somehow Fusimi made a sour face and chose a chocolate bar instead.

“That’s it? You’ll get an upset stomach. Eat the Onigiri.”

“Don’t have any utensils to eat it with.”

Fus.h.i.+mi peeled the silver foil of the chocolate bar and took a bite, then he held the rest of it in one hand and with the other he worked with the keyboard on top of his lap. Yata sat down next to Fus.h.i.+mi with his back leaning on the fence. Right after he tried the drink in his cup he stuck out his tongue.

“Sweet!” Yata usually also liked sweets but just how much sugar had been added to this drink?

“I heard it just now, you’re relatives with Oogai?”

At that topic Fus.h.i.+mi turned towards his display and candidly clicked his tongue. The relations.h.i.+p with his family and home seemed to be on bad terms.

„Ah-……Y’know, I have a few memories about this building. Back when I was a dumb little kid I had a fight with my mom…..that is, she scolded me, I become sulky and run away from home and in that night ended up here alone. The season right now is kinda okay, but in the dead of winter the nights are super cold, y’know and as expected the next day I had a fever…..And my mom even though she had been so angry took care of me like usual, and I felt totally guilty……”

It was a story from way back so now it wasn’t embarra.s.sing anymore, but while he had been talking Yata had ruffled the hair on the back of his head roughly. No matter how he thought about it it had been his fault for being scolded and that he in the end hadn’t apologized to his mother troubled him still greatly.

“I had told you that I had lived here until first grade of elementary school, right? My father was never around, but my mom met a good person and remarried and then we moved in with my new dad. And then this year again, because of that new dad’s work we returned to this place.”

While he sipped the milk tea which made his tongue feel like it was burning down he continued to talk absentmindedly. From the other side of the fence he could see the distant crammed neon lights in front of the station. Because he had heard some things about Fus.h.i.+mi’s family from Aya he felt like it would not be fair if he wouldn’t tell a few things himself. Although Fus.h.i.+mi didn’t really seem to care about Yata’s family, if Yata wouldn’t talk about it he’d feel bad.

“My mom and the new dad had a child… that is, my little brother, and last year my little sister was born. Like that it’s now a family were only I am related by a half. The new dad and my mom, my brother and sister have tight bonds. I mean, I do love my siblings and my new dad is a normal, good person. I’m glad that my mom came together with him. However, from now it’s the new family that will make my mother happy……it’s okay if I don’t protect my mom anymore. When I had thought about that I had realized that isn’t the place I belong to anymore……”

He turned around the cup in his hands and the mildly colored liquid moved with it. His new family was like this sweetly mixed milk tea. It felt like only he didn’t blend into it. Because Yata had complained for a bit he felt better and lightened his voice.

“Ah, I talked freely because I wanted to tell you, that’s all. It’s not like in exchange I want to hear about your family from you or anything, so don’t worr-”

“You said she scolded you.”

Because Fus.h.i.+mi had unexpectedly opened his mouth Yata asked in return: “Eh?”

Fus.h.i.+mi’s eyes followed the in high speed flowing numbers in the hologram. Just when Yata had started to think he had maybe misheard, Fus.h.i.+mi murmured again.

“Why?”

“Huh?” For a moment Yata did not understand what he was talking about. “Ah, aah. You meant that.” It was something he had talked about much earlier.

After that I had talked a lot about my circ.u.mstances……don’t tell me, he had stopped at the beginning and hadn’t listen to how I had continued, hey.

“Um? The reason why I got scolded? What was it again, maybe that I had slid down the escalator’s handrail? No, that wasn’t quite it. ‘What would you do if you’d crash into somebody who was standing at the end, you and that person too would get hurt’ mom had said that with a very angry look.”

“And when she had taken care of you when you had been sick?”

Although Fus.h.i.+mi had inquired the previous topic, he didn’t react at all and continued to ask questions.

“Huh?”

“What did she do?”

“Uh, nothing special? For example she’d take my temperature or ask me if there’s something I’d like to eat, or if it’s too hot or too cold, the usual stuff. Also y’know when you have a cold and you’re lying down and it’s kind of lonely? But then you can hear your mom making noise in the kitchen and that feeling of relief when she immediately comes to you when you call is the most – ah? W- well for me it’s okay now. I was talking about when I was around the age of my little brother, okay?”

Yata had gotten fl.u.s.tered and while he supplemented what he had said a question popped up in his mind. He inclined his head, peeked at Fus.h.i.+mi’s face and asked:

“……when you get sick, you do get taken care for, right? From your mother.”

“No.”

“Ah, aah. She’s a business head, right? She must be extremely busy. Then instead your father looks after you, right?”

Crack, resounded it quietly. It was the sound of the chocolate bar getting crushed in Fus.h.i.+mi’s hands.

“…….yeah. He looks after me.” (1)

The way Fus.h.i.+mi muttered his response was the same like his reaction at the bus station. When Yata had asked him if his parents were strict; it was like a spit out laugh.

“Geez, that’s just your complaints, mama. Aya’s tired of hearing it.”

They could hear Aya’s voice that had gotten higher again.

“Aya doesn’t have the time to have such long telephone conversations. Eh? Aya told you, she’s doing homework at a friend’s place. Eh- Aya did tell you! It’s probably just that you weren’t listening, mama. No, not Erika-chan. Don’t call her home. It’s a different friend. You want to greet them? No, it’s okay if you don’t.”

Overwhelmed by her aggressive speech Yata looked back to the folding chair.

“Isn’t Oogai’s voice different when she talks with her mother?”

Wasn’t it kind of more plain? It was how the girls in their cla.s.s talked like, in a normal way.

“Misaki-kun!”

Aya ran to them with the PDA in her hand and an anxious expression.

“You, like, talk to her for a second!”

While covering the PDA’s mouthpiece she pushed it into a puzzled Yata’s hand.

“Aya told her she’s doing homework at her cla.s.smate Yata Misaki’s house. Then mama said she wanted to greet your mother. Aya, like, responded she isn’t here right now but mama said to hand the phone over to Misaki-chan.”

“Huh-…..why’d you tell such a stupid lie. Well whatever, if it’s just a greeting….”

Although he felt reluctant to speak with a friend’s parent, it couldn’t be helped so he took the PDA and the moment he put it to his ear “Ah, Aya told her you’re, like, a girl, so please talk with that in mind” Aya made that kind of outrageous request.

“Wha-!? Huhhh!? Who is-”

“Shh!”

Aya pressed her hand once again against the mouthpiece of the PDA Yata was holding and spoke in a low voice. While Yata turned away his face he got influenced by her and lowered his voice, too.

“Don- don’t joke around, there’s no way I could imitate a girl’s speech!”

“Misaki-kun hasn’t had his change of voice yet so it’s totally okay. We won’t be busted if you, like, don’t use any guy-speech. It’s okay, you can do it. Let’s try.”

“Do- don’t f.u.c.k with me.”

“Please! I beg of you! We’ve come this far and Aya doesn’t, like, want to return now, Aya wants to get on the blimp no matter what!”

“Uh…..gh….”

She wasn’t like Yata who was simply excited about the new challenge of catching the blimp, from Aya came another much more tense feeling. If she would have begged in such a desperate way before and we would have refused just like now he could not have lived with himself.

“……I get it already. I’ll do it.”

With the best scowl he could manage he pushed away Aya’s hand and held the PDA to his ear.

“Misaki-kun!” Aya’s face was beaming.

d.a.m.n…..even if things are like this now, I’ll show you what a guy’s made of! Wait, I meant what a girl’s made of. Or something, I don’t know anymore.

Half desperate Yata cleared his throat and raised his voice. He changed his voice as much as possible and spoke the first words.

“Goo- good evening, ma’am. This is Yata Misaki.”

His voice was more high-pitched that he had imagined and even he was surprised by it.

“Yes, ye-s, it’s like that, I’m doing homework together with Aya. Mama should come back soon too, so it’s no problem. It’s no bother at all, really. Yes, next time I’ll come over to play.”

I- is it okay if I stop now? Because of that weird energy I had in the beginning this is getting out of hand.

He was dripping with sweat and his jaw was shaking. He ground his teeth and glared at Aya who was suppressing her laughter by pressing her hands on her mouth.

I- I’m doing this for you, y’know….

“Yes, yes. Have a pleasant night.”

Yata had somehow deceived Aya’s mother and after the telephone conversation had ended he felt like he had used up all of the high-pitch and girl power he had had. He hadn’t had much girl power to begin with and there was no real need for a high-pitched voice either. Less than a minute of a telephone conversation had exhausted him and drooping his head, he gave Aya her PDA back.

“Don- Don’t go complaining about this… I have helped you out of your pinch, so…”

Yata had over used his high-pitched voice and now his throat was throbbing with pain.

“It was, like, perfect. A performance mama was not suspicious of.”

“Don’t laugh, you.”

“I’m not laughing uhihihi!”

“Ugh…don’t think of asking a favor of me again.”

“Do not say something like that. I’m sorr-hihihi!”

If she by any chance has recorded me, then my life is over… Yata gazed to the distance with hollow eyes.

“Hehe.”

A stifled voice was audible. Aya stopped her laughing and became big-eyed. Yata followed Aya’s eyes and saw Fus.h.i.+mi, with his face buried in his kneecap and his shoulders trembling with laughter.

“Fu- Fus.h.i.+mi!? Even you?”

“No way… Saruhiko is laughing…” muttered Aya, forgetting her verbal tic.

Fus.h.i.+mi raised his head with the back of his hand still covering his mouth. His cheeks were still twitching a bit, but he cleared his facial expression again, and Yata regretted a bit that he had not seen Fus.h.i.+mi’s laughing face … However, he had become a bit happier. That he had been able to make Fus.h.i.+mi laugh made Yata feel kind of proud, and he had not been completely unwilling to do the favor, so whatever, he thought.

It was in that moment when he felt the ground beneath his feet shake faintly. An earthquake―? When Yata was looking around nervously Fus.h.i.+mi stood up quickly and stared beyond the fence.

“Fus.h.i.+mi? What’s up?” Yata stepped up to his side and after he looked at Fus.h.i.+mi’s profile once he followed the latter’s gaze. The wind that blew was so strong, it seemed to be able to pull somebody over the fence.

“Oh no-”, exclaimed Aya and ran towards the folding chairs. When Yata turned around he could see how the sweets’ bags and other light things were blown away in the wind.

“Over there” said Fus.h.i.+mi and Yata turned to the fence. Fus.h.i.+mi’s hair was tousled by the wind and while he held down the frame of his gla.s.ses, he fixated his eyes on one point in the sky. Yata placed his belly on the fence and leaned out his upper body. The wind quickly washed away the gray clouds that were covering the sky. He could steal a look at the sky behind the torn away clouds.

―There it is!

Flying through the moonlight, a small black shadow. From here it didn’t seem bigger than a bean but that was mostly because they were far away and in reality it was probably huge.

“The blimp!” exclaimed Yata in an excited voice.

“Really?"Aya came running back and leaped at the fence. "Where? Where is it?”

“Over there, that bright spot. Do you see it? That’s a blimp, right? Right?”

The excitement of those two grew and in contrast to that Fus.h.i.+mi spoke in a serious tone.

“It’s farther away than your prediction. And its alt.i.tude is…..high.”

“Are you saying that Aya made a mistake? There is no way that, like, happened. After all, Aya plotted the coordinates and alt.i.tude correctly.”

Aya shoved Yata in the middle and snapped at Fus.h.i.+mi. Fus.h.i.+mi ignored Aya, turned around and sat down like earlier, with his back to the fence. He agilely typed on the holographic keyboard and a map appeared on top of the display.

“When did you-!”

Aya raised her eyebrows. It was the same map with the blimp’s route like the one Aya had shown them earlier, but here the fluorescent yellow line was quickly being drawn. Looking at the route the blimp wouldn’t pa.s.s by the building they were in right now until 22:15. Right now it was still before nine o’clock. If the prediction was right than the blimp would come closer in about one and a half hours.

“Look at the map once more.” Fus.h.i.+mi tugged at Yata’s clothes from below him. “Isn’t there anything you notice?”

“Huh? Even if you say so….”

Yata squatted down and brought his face closer to the map and once again followed the route displayed in a fluorescent color with his eyes.

Huh…? There was something weird about it. When he had seen it for the first time he hadn’t thought much of it, but now he felt like he had somewhere…

“Don’t, Misaki-kun!” yelled Aya and shoved her face into the hologram. The map made waves over her face.

“You, like, don’t have to listen to what Saruhiko says. There is, like, no way Aya made a mistake. You should only listen to what Aya says, Misaki-kun!”

“Yata”, called Fus.h.i.+mi out in an impatient voice.

Maybe it was meant as an remark against Aya, but this was the first time Fus.h.i.+mi had called Yata something else than “you”. Yata concentrated on the map without looking at Aya.

“Ah…I got it!”

He pointed at one spot within the route, forcing Aya’s face aside.

Even though he had had to have noticed – but maybe he had failed to see it because he had been so excited.

“You know that there’s a steel tower here, right? It overlaps with the route, right here. If the blimp would fly by here with the alt.i.tude that is written here, then it would definitely crash into the steel tower!”

Because both the map and the satellite picture showed only a section, one could not grasp the height of the buildings. Yata however was familiar with the area and relied on his experience rather than on the map. He could recall and compare the steel tower’s and other buildings’ heights.

“Steel tower…?”

Fus.h.i.+mi held onto the fence for a second time and his determined eyes behind the gla.s.ses squinted. Yata pointed from next to Fus.h.i.+mi’s face to the sky. “It’s that, over there” he told him. It was difficult to make out the towering building in the night sky, but aircraft warning lights made it possible for the tower’s long outline to stand out slightly. Yata wasn’t sure if Fus.h.i.+mi had been able to make it out or not, but the latter squatted down again and turned to his display and keyboard. The digits Aya had called “hints” that were so detailed it made Yata feel overwhelmed appeared on the screen. Fus.h.i.+mi squinted his eyes and traced the digits as if he was scrutinizing something.

“Are you, like, planning to re-calculate everything? How rude!”

“If you look at things now it’s obvious they are off.”

Fus.h.i.+mi silenced Aya’s protest easily.

“Yata, what is the blimp’s current position?”

“Um….somewhere here I think.”

Yata located the area in which the blimp was still only visible as a tiny spot in the map and pointed on it with his finger. That place was not on the fluorescent yellow line. Where the blimp was right now was far away from where Aya had predicted it to be. Aya’s mouth curved as she was about to say something, but she fell silent.

“How you divided the thirty-two digits into parts was not wrong. For example, if we single out the thirty-two digits from here we have 05301525035689520139691703035015… 0530 is the date, 1525 the time, 035689520 the X-axis, 139691703 the Y-axis, and 035015 the alt.i.tude”, muttered Fus.h.i.+mi while the list of digits that fully covered the screen were reflected on the lenses of his gla.s.ses. Aya was about to stick out her chest in pride and say “See, I told you”, but Fus.h.i.+mi continued to mumble by himself so she ground her teeth in frustration. Yata too only watched him without saying anything.

“These digits aren’t the only hints they provided… they hid something intentionally, so that you have to decode it.”

Fus.h.i.+mi’s fingers glided over the keyboard, he revised the digits on the screen.

“There is a code somewhere….. maybe breaking down the prime numbers? Can an amateur figure out that much….? It’s probably simpler, something like a puzzle…maybe adding and subtracting the digits….no, that’s useless. And if I reorganize every line…. ah, that could work? Okay, it’s this. If I change everything using this rule and then plot them….”

The way Fus.h.i.+mi was talking to himself started to take on a weird heat. The chaotic digits were busily converted in Fus.h.i.+mi’s brain. Yata couldn’t image anything but for the inside of Fus.h.i.+mi’s head to be like outer s.p.a.ce, where a big bang happened and asteroids collided with each other.

This guy’s amazing—

Plop, a fluorescent blue point appeared on the map. Plop, plop, plop plop plop… The points increased like an evening shower suddenly becoming a strong rain. Soon the a.s.sembled points connected and a zigzag line was drawn. This blue line was a curved and totally different from Aya’s yellow line.

“Tha- That doesn’t prove that’s the right answer.”

Persisted Aya but there was proof that this line was more correct than Aya’s because the new calculated position of the blimp fit perfectly with its actual position. And the problem of the steel tower too was avoided by this new line.

“Amazing….you did it, Fus.h.i.+mi!”

“Not really.”

Fus.h.i.+mi calmly cut off Yata’s excited praise.

“There’s still something…if I have it arranged like this then this can’t be everything….Ah, right when I had changed the digits with that rule earlier a new set had appeared….If I plot them once again…..”

Over the map opened a new row of windows. Fus.h.i.+mi’s fingers ran over the keyboard with amazing speed and he wrote some kind of command consisting of alphanumeric characters and symbols. He then added the list of numbers to it. This time fluorescent green dots appeared on top of the map.

How the dots were linked together this time did not look like a line. A circle was drawn an in its middle…. a face? Something like that…….?

“Th- this is….!”

Yata became big-eyed by the surprising thing that appeared in front of him. It looked like an emoticon drawn by using window lights; the thing that had appeared over the city’s map was―

a smiley.

“……they’re making fun of us”, grumbled Fus.h.i.+mi and clicked his tongue. Exhausted, he took his fingers off the keyboard. He was like an honor student who threw his mechanical pencil on his desk after solving the questions of a test quickly. His eyes filled with amus.e.m.e.nt and he switched off the hologram.

“Why did you turn off the map? That just now, wasn’t that another code? Some kind of super secret hidden…..”

“No. The person who made this has a twisted personality, that’s all. It’s been a sign telling us there are no more hints.”

“Well, we did figure out the correct route, right? So what are we gonna do next?”

“Next… even if we’d keep waiting here it’s been made clear that the blimp won’t come. The place to light up "candle” is too far away and the possibility that we’ll be found by the blimp is little. It’s cold, so I’m leaving.“

"Eh, what are you saying? Let’s go after the blimp!”

When Yata said that with vigor, Fus.h.i.+mi made perplex expression. Yata pointed at the tiny shadow floating amid moonlight and raised his voice.

“I mean, we can see it right now, right? We can’t just leave now. We can still catch it!”

s.h.i.+zume City was his territory. It wasn’t a map, a holographic projection, something you couldn’t touch with your hands. In Yata existed a sixth sense about the area that really responded to him. The reluctant Fus.h.i.+mi showed him the map once more and Yata examined the buildings. A building as high as possible and which they could enter….. His head spun with an unusual desperation and he dug out a memory from the explorations during his childhood.

was the name that leaped in front of his eyes as if it was suggesting itself, saying “only here and nowhere else”. Hirasaka building ― it was exactly in the middle of the vicinity of where the blimp was right now and the building the three of them were.

“Alright, if we go there—”

“We won’t make it” said Fus.h.i.+mi after glancing quickly at the building Yata was pointing at. “It’s located right in the middle, you say? The blimp’s much farther away.”

“Nope, we’ll make it.”

“And what are you basing that on?”

“That is of course, my intuition!”,declared Yata, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with confidence.

———

The verb both Yata and Fus.h.i.+mi use here is かまう (kamau) it can mean “to care for/ to look after” but also “to tease”