Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator Part 1 (6 page)

It wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't always have a group of girls crowding around me. All they ever did was just squeal and treat me like their own little toy; never like a true friend. I was pretty fed up with it by then, but I stuck with it.

Then one day, I slipped up. Guess I must've been tired or something.

I had to swing by the station, so I cut through a back alley, and found myself surrounded by five guys.

“So, Mr. Study Abroad. You've been doing pretty well for yourself, haven't ya?”

“Getting a little bit too much attention, see?”

You'd think these guys would be dressed all trashy, but they weren't. No, they were all wearing pretty expensive jackets and didn't look like delinquents at all. So I hadn't realized what they were up to until it was too late and I was already surrounded. And by then, they already had switchblades open.

I wasn't sure how old they were, but they had to have been younger than me. One of the kids' voices had barely even cracked. Still, that didn't make the others any less menacing.

“Right. . . I'll be more careful.”

I'd blown it. I'd been so careful not to let myself get into a situation like this that I had walked right smack dab into one. . . now they had me.

“You'll be careful? How are you gonna do that?”

“I'll try not to get as much attention?”

They all cackled.

Then suddenly, one shouted, “Don't you fuck with us!” And a hard punch connected with my cheek.

I saw his fist coming for me easily enough, but I let him hit me. I swung my body back a little and softened the blow.

The punch had connected enough to cut the inside of my cheek. There was blood in my mouth. . . but my teeth were fine. He hadn't hit any key points, so I wasn't even shaken.

This guy was nothing much. In Phnom Penh, I'd been studying a sort of undisciplined form of karate -- kind of a child's self-defense class, if you will -- for a pretty long time. I'd learned to size up my opponents just by looking at them. Their shoulders alone were a good indicator of just how much damage a person could really do.

The most effective technique in this self-defense class was to yell for help as loud as you can. I considered this, briefly. If these were professional kidnappers, it might work, but this was Japan, and I felt that with opponents as inexperienced as these guys it would just provoke them. Plus, people tend to ignore cries for help anyway. The only real way to get anyone's attention is to just lie and scream, “Fire!”

What really had me worried was that these guys probably went to the same school as me. If I kicked their asses, they'd just come back in larger numbers, and then the trouble would never let up.

And just as I was trying to figure out if hitting them four or five times would settle things or not. . .

“Hey,” someone said.

She was talking to all of us at once. Both the attackers and little ol' me -- the victim.

“That looks boring.”

Surprised, we turned and found a girl just standing there.

The first thing I noticed was her unruly hair, which seemed to have been just left there at a sort of arbitrary length. It seemed to flow out of her.

We were in a dirty back alley that stank of piss and ditch water. The sky was dark and cloudy, and I was hunched down like a sad frightened rabbit.

No matter how you looked at it, my first meeting with Orihata Aya was. . . anything but perfect.

***

“. . . . . . . . .”

I gaped at her for what seemed like an eternity.

The girl with her arbitrary hair never even glanced at me. She just walked briskly towards us.

“Wh-who are you? Study Abroad's girlfriend?” one snarled.

She didn't even blink. “What is your purpose? What failing of his caused this behavior?” Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

“Hunh? You don't know this guy?”

“What do you think you're doing here?” asked another classmate.

“I asked for a reason,” she insisted.

“Hey, this guy thinks he's Don Juan. Looking like this, tricking girls into falling for him.”

Obviously lies, but I fought back the anger.

“Hunh. . .” she said, and at last looked at me.

For some reason, I found myself glaring back at her.

She frowned. She looked at me like I puzzled her.

I thought she was pitying me, which made me angrier. I could tell my expression was growing harsher as I fought against my feelings.

She frowned harder, put her head to one side, then sort of drooped before looking back at the group around me.

“So, he stole your girlfriends, then? The cause of your anger is sexual frustration?”

She didn't even bat an eye at what she was saying.

It was so out there that we all just sort of stared.

“Uh. . . what? What did she say?”

“I'm asking if this attack is a way of forgetting that your sexual partners all hate you.”

Her tone was so level, it couldn't be taken as deliberate provocation. She was just throwing the words out there.

They stood silently for a moment, but then their faces turned red, their fists shook. They were getting angry.

“You. . . bitch!” They all went for her, reaching out to grab her. And she did something none of us could have predicted.

She grabbed her own shirt, and tore it off.

Her bare chest hit the chilly night air.

It was pale and beautiful, as if it was drinking in all the light that shone around it.

“If you have frustrated desires, I can fulfill them,” she said, still completely calm. The thing is, there was much more expression on her face just moments before when she had looked at me. At this moment, it was like she was wearing a mask.

“Uuuum. . .”

“H-hey. . .”

The boys froze in mid-lunge, bug-eyed.

“Whoa, wait a minute -- !” I said, flustered. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I was not about to stand by and let them do as they pleased with her.

But at that moment, a loud voice came from the far end of the alley.

“Well,
this
is easy to figure out!”

We spun around, and there was a young man in white clothes standing there.

He strode towards us confidently.

“ -- Wh-who are you?!”

“Just to make sure, I'd better ask. You there,” he pointed at me. “Do you want to save this girl?”

I quickly nodded, “Y-yes.”

“Then take her and run!” he snapped, strode right over to her, and took the bare-chested girl by the arm.

“Hey!” one of the boys said, and moved towards him, but with blinding speed he reached out to the boy's chest. . . and that alone sent him flying.

Even I couldn't see what he'd done. This guy was something else.

While I was still stunned, he shoved the girl towards me.

“Go! Get out of here!!”

I managed to say, “Th-thank you,” as I took the girl's arm and ran. She followed, unresisting.

When we were almost on the main street, I quickly shrugged off my jacket and covered her body with it.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She seemed a little out of it. She stared back at me, and asked, “Why?”

“Eh?”

“Didn't you hate me?” She looked puzzled again.

I didn't get it, but I couldn't leave that man to handle those boys all by himself, so I put her on a bench in front of the station, which seemed safe enough, told her to wait for me, and hurried back.

But halfway there a hand grabbed me from behind.

I turned around, and it was the young man.

“Hey,” he said, smiling. There was not a scratch on him. No dirt. . . not even so much as a wrinkle on his crisp white suit. Who was this guy?!

“Are. . . you okay?!”

“Yeah, it's all taken care of. I doubt they'll bother you again,” he said airily.

I gaped at him. I'd been gone less than two or three minutes. And there'd been five of them.

“Umm, y-you. . .”

“I think you ought to worry more about her than me. How's she doing?”

“Um, I don't. . .”

“Better hurry back. The girl's much less secure than she looks. Her roots and stem have merged, and you can't tell them apart. Plus, she's got very few leaves and just a hardened bud in place of a flower.”

He'd lost me completely. All I could manage was a dumbfounded, “What?”

“It's not important. If she says horrible things to you, I wouldn't pay too much attention. That's the trick for getting along with her. Bye.” Leaving this further cryptic comment behind him, the man in white turned and walked away.

I stood there stunned for a moment, but soon collected myself, and hurried back to the girl.

She was sitting in exactly the same position as I'd left her, with both hands on the front of the jacket, holding it closed.

“-- Um, are you feeling better?” I asked rather stupidly, unable to think of anything else.

“. . . . . . . .” She didn't answer.

I didn't know what to do, but now that I thought about it, she had effectively rescued me, so I said, “Uh, th-thanks. For, uh. . .  for back there.”

“Why?” she asked, looking up at me. She looked puzzled again.

Man, I couldn't get this conversation rolling at all.

“Well, you saved me, didn't you?” I said, smiling hopefully.

Her eyes widened, then for some reason she looked down, and mumbled, “. . . I thought you hated me.”

“Hunh?” I gaped back at her. “Why? Why would I hate you?”

“I can't be hated by anyone. Not by any normal humans,” she said oddly intense. Her eyes were serious.

“. . . I don't hate you.”

“But you glared at me. . .” she said, very sadly.

“I did? Oh. . .  but that wasn't about you. I just was angry with myself, so. . .  I. . .  I mean. . .” I stumbled, trying to clear things up.

Still looking at the ground, she whispered, “I'm sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing? It's all my fault!
I
was worried that
you
hated me!”

She looked up. “-- Why?”

“I mean, that was pretty pathetic back there, right? That's why I was angry at myself. Nothing to do with you. I was so angry because I was sure you hated me.” The more I babbled, the more pathetic I came across.

She quietly watched me flail about, but said nothing.

“And then because I couldn't make up my mind, you. . .” I trailed off, shoulders slumping. “But it's over now. I'll pay for your clothes. Um. . .”

I reached for my wallet, and remembered that the reason I'd been heading for the station in the first place was that I had no money and needed to swing by an ATM.

“Ugh, crap. ..the ATM's already closed. . . !”

“Don't worry about money. I have some,” she answered as she stood up.

“But I can't just do nothing. . .”

“Really. If you could lend me this jacket. . . I'll give it back.”

“Oh, no -- take it! But that doesn't really pay you back at all. . . could you at least give me your address? Or phone number? I'll call you later and I’ll pay you for the clothes then. . .”

“. . . . . . . .” She stared at me levelly. I was taller than her, so she had to look up at me slightly. It could be taken as a glare.

“Ah, no, I don't mean it like that. Uh. . . if you'd prefer to call me. . . yeah, we should do it that way.”

“Orihata.”

“Mm?”

“My name. Orihata Aya. You are. . . ?”

“Oh, uh, I'm Taniguchi Masaki.”

“Masaki. . . that's a nice name,” and at last she smiled. A very small smile, the corners of her mouth turning up ever so slightly, but there was enough power in it to grab me by the heart.

Was this what they called love at first sight?

***

“I. . . I got tickets to a movie that's supposed to be really good. You. . . you wanna come?” I asked, finally working up the nerve to ask out Orihata. It was over the phone, but you have to go with what you have.

“Are you sure? With me?” The voice on the other end of the line said, faintly.

Hiding my tension, I replied cheerily, “I still haven't thanked you for last time. If you've got other plans, I. . . I understand, but. . .”

“. . . Thank you. Okay.”

“You'll. ..you'll come?! Awesome! !”

“But Masaki, I'm really. . .”

“Mm? What?”

“No. . . never mind.” And she fell silent.

Further details were basically all decided by me, and she simply agreed to everything I suggested. I couldn't think of any clever way to say good-bye, so ended up sort of hanging up awkwardly.

I heard someone giggle behind me. At some point, my sister had come downstairs. My parents were still living abroad, so the two of us were alone in the house.

“And here I thought you were a playboy. Awfully stressed for a
simple
date, aren't we?”

“It's not nice to eavesdrop.”

“I couldn't
not
hear you. Your voice was so loud, I heard it upstairs. I thought something had happened.”

Considering that she spent basically all her time poking at computers in her room, she was awfully nosy at times like this.

“None of your business, Nagi! Leave me alone.”

“Okay, okay. I'm not
that
bored,” she said, playing dumb.

***

And on the day of our date, we got to the movie theater and realized we had underestimated the situation a bit. There was a huge crowd with the line snaking all around the theater and back out onto the street.

“The end of the line starts here,” shouted a theater employee at the end of the line. “Please be advised that there is a four-hour wait!”

“Oh, wow. . . what should we do?” I clutched my head. I'd blown our first date. “Should we try some other day?” I asked.

Orihata looked puzzled. “'Why?” she asked.

“We'll have to wait a really long time. It'll blow our whole day.”

“You don't want to wait?”

“Well. . . doesn't it make you tired?”

“Then I'll wait in line. You go play somewhere,” she said calmly, and took her place at the end of the line.

I was a mess. “What?! I can't do that! I should be the one who waits!”

“I don't mind. I'm used to doing nothing.”

“No, I mean. . . this is supposed to be me. . . thanking you.” Even as I spoke, several people got in line behind her.