Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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If it had no basis in reality, then Kento Nanami wanted nothing to do with it.

Success, or at the very least, basic survival, depended on reaping tangible results from a process of thoughtful planning and execution. Furthermore, for this success or survival or what-have-you to be guaranteed, every decision made within the process had to align with “what is” and “what has come before.” To leave any piece and part to the mercy of a “what could be” would decrease the likelihood of attaining the goal. To fall prey to the whimsies of the imagination would serve only to cripple the chances of not being deemed a screw-up. To uphold the sanctity of the abstract would demand the instant renunciation of the brain and all associated neurons.

Ah, the abstract. That which cannot be defined. That which cannot be denied. Of all things here and present on this Earth, the abstract is what Nanami believed to be the most deplorable. Really, anything up to interpretation caught his ire. From what he’d seen, interpretation bred doubt, and doubt bred immobility, and immobility bred no results. No success. No survival.

Nanami couldn’t remember when his personal agenda against abstract thought began. He also couldn’t be bothered to care about when it began. All he knew, and all he needed to know, was that it had no place in his life. In his world. It rarely, if ever, did him good. In truth, he’d prefer to eliminate from his mind, succinctly and wholly, the possibility of generating anything related to the abstract. An extreme maneuver, to be sure, and one that would leave him with nary a shred of what some might regard as his “humanity”, but one he would appreciate, nonetheless. Just to make his life easier.

So, if he were to streamline his existence down to a collection of facts, only informed by present and past circumstances and not once tainted by subjectivity, then dreams would be the first to go, yes? It would? Good. Because a dream is exactly what Nanami was in right now and he’d really rather not deal with it.

Over the course of his nearly twenty-eight years alive, he had grown quite proficient at determining whether he was in a dream. To him, the experience of dreaming was like being underwater—he couldn’t register any smells or tastes and didn’t have the greatest range of motion, but he could hear and see well enough. Admittedly, he could never remember what was said in his dreams, so maybe that wasn’t the best method for discernment. As for the scenery, well, he didn’t consider himself an expert in landscape architecture or color theory, but everything felt more vivid, more impossible, than in real life. In all, if his immediate surroundings matched up with the aforementioned criteria, then he could conclude, to some small degree, that he was dreaming. Either that, or he was inebriated.

The dream Nanami found himself in was similar to ones he had experienced previously. He stood, in his work attire of a blue button-down shirt and tan slacks, on a flat, white-sanded beach. Above him, the expanse of the rich blue sky boasted not a single cloud. In front of him, the ocean, a more turquoise hue, carried on into the distance until it met the sky along a thin line. The bright disc of the sun was at just the right height to cast a pillar of diamonds and pearls on the water’s waves, and those same waves would rush up to meet his brown oxford shoes, then back away to join the rest of the ocean.

Oh. He had his shoes on. At least these were water resistant. A person more inclined to interpretation might consider this, and the rest of his clothing in the dream, to be a sign of his complicated relationship with work-life balance. He had spent years chained to an office chair, toiling in front of two 22-inch monitors for the sake of securing more wealth for the already wealthy, yet even with a new but not necessarily better job, and with more but not necessarily a lot of personal time, he’d still show up in paradise fully dressed for work. Must be some unresolved issues there.

All an interpretation, however.

If there was a breeze, he didn’t feel it blow through his light blonde hair. It must have been sweltering on this beach, but he didn’t feel sweat on his pale, easy-to-burn skin, either. The side effects of dreaming, he figured. With nothing else to perceive, he turned to walk down the endless length of sand, along the water, all by himself.

Nanami walked. And walked. And after some time, he walked some more. The only thing worth detailing was the unending trail of shoe prints, faded from the rolling and receding of the waves, that went on behind him. So far, this dream was turning out to be uneventful, and for that, he was thankful. If it kept playing out the way it did, him trekking down the beach with no distractions, then he could wake up a little less upended.

Cue the distractions. Steadily, the sun grew in brightness to an almost biblical degree, causing Nanami to stop, squint, and shield his eyes with his hands. Here we go. This is what he dreaded. At the current moment, he knew—he knew—that he’d be pissed come the morning time. Because once he opened his eyes, he’d see, in the dizzying glare, the manifestation of every bane he bore.

His eyes opened.

And there she was.

Or, rather, her silhouette. The light obscured most of her, to the point where he couldn’t identify a single feature on her face. But he was familiar with this; he had seen her in past iterations of the dream. Even if, in those iterations, the sky was gray and the beach was black, the shape of her never changed.

She was looking at the ocean. Imaginary wind blew through her nondescript hair as she held her hands behind her back. Nanami couldn’t make out any more than that, and he couldn’t stand the frustration he harbored because of it. A part of his brain that hadn’t shut off from sleep kept shouting Wake up! Wake up! Get up, damn it! but the dream continued, in spite of his pleas.

After what seemed an eternity, but was probably only seconds, she turned her head and looked at him. With this action, he was fully in the clutches of whatever his subconscious had in store, and no amount of mental bartering could influence his next move.

He took a step towards her.

That same person from earlier, the one inclined to interpretation, might have dubbed Nanami as being transfixed by her presence and eager to close the gap between them, to finally get a sense of who she was. The crazy part was that he didn’t have anything in his arsenal of argumentation to refute that statement. He had seen her so many times, on so many beaches, and there had never been a moment where he got to ask her why she was there, or what was a good name to call her by.

The disbelief hit hard. Here he was, blinded and disoriented, expressing interest in nothing but a shadow. Shameful. Completely shameful.

She, perhaps noticing the step he took, began walking in his direction. Her hands, no longer behind her back, swung at her sides as she made her way over.

Nanami responded by walking forward as well, still holding up a hand to protect his eyes. The accursed space that kept them apart slowly diminished, and he swore he could feel something as she approached him. It was a gross little thing, way deep in his gut, too potent to ignore.

Maybe, this time, things would be different. Maybe, after all their past encounters, he would—

He would what, exactly? This was a dream. Nothing here followed any form or sense of reason, so there was no way he could expect anything to transpire in a certain manner. He had an equal chance of spontaneously catching fire and dropping dead, though if he were to be frank, he didn’t want that to happen as he had endured that fate plenty of times in other nightmares. His current whereabouts were preferred.

Like hell, it was preferred. She was getting closer and closer and Nanami was getting sick. Her lithe frame, covered in a fitted white dress with a long, flowing skirt, swayed amidst the sun’s burning rays. A breath blew past his lips as he made the absurd determination that she resembled a bride on her wedding day.

With steady, graceful strides, she walked to him. He did his best to match her pace, so as to not come across as too eager or too unwilling. Yet none of that would matter since they had arrived, all too soon, at the beginning of the end of their rendezvous.

She extended her hand to him.

That not-so-great range of motion kicked in as Nanami struggled to raise his own hand. There was something about the combined efforts of moving his legs, having one hand above his eyes, and having the other out in front of him that short-circuited his cerebellum. Despite this, he put all of his focus, all of himself, or at least all he had access to in his slumbering state, into reaching for her.

His grip on the dream was weakening. The edges of his vision became dotted and frayed, and his steps became more uncoordinated. In just a few moments, she’d be gone, and he had no inkling of when he’d return to see her. But, somehow, if he consciously grabbed on to the tattered pieces of this fading world, then maybe, with her hand so close, he could—

take hold—

of—

Morning.

He lay awake in his bed, head pressed against his pillow and arm outstretched on the sheets. For a minute he stayed there, untying himself from the cords tethering him to unreality, or, in layman’s terms, just blinking a few times. He was facing the side of his bedroom with a mirror spanning the entire wall, and reflected in this mirror were the deep blues of dawn beyond the sheer-curtained window to his balcony. Which meant that, in the very next moment, he’d hear it.

Beep booboobooboobooboobeep

Like clockwork.

Beep booboobooboobooboobeep

Nanami had to wonder if it was necessary for him to even have a morning alarm. Without fail, he always awoke before the damn thing went off, so there was no point in setting it up. Still, he never started his day without one, as he didn’t want to risk not waking up on time, regardless of what his plans for the day were. He would never oversleep, mind you, he just wanted to be careful.

Beep booboobooboobooboobeep

Grunting, he pulled his stretched-out arm closer and pushed himself upright into a sitting position. Unfortunately, the alarm was—

Beep booboobooboobooboobeep

—not off yet, so he twisted his upper body around to reach for his phone on the charging station atop his bedside table. With a tap of his finger on the “Stop” button, silence returned to his bedroom. The silence wasn’t complete, however. Birds chirped, and some squawked, as they initiated their own biologically driven routines.

He had seen, as he turned off the alarm, that the time was 4:29am, so he had roughly one minute to recalibrate his mind.

Nanami, back in his original sitting position, let out a sigh as he stretched and curled the fingers on the hand that almost touched hers. Probably almost touched hers. Honestly, he was having a hard time recalling anything specific from his dream, which was another common occurrence. The only thing, the only sensation, that kept him from outright denying that he had dreamt at all was the overwhelming feeling of discontent covering his body. If he allowed for it, this heaviness would sit on his skin long after the sun lifted its head over the horizon. Even past the late afternoon.

He decided this would not be one of those days. In just a few moments, he’d sever ties to this nonsense and fully commit to matters of actual relevance.

…Any second now.

…Anyyyyy—

Beep booboobooboobooboobeep

He got out of bed to turn off his next and final alarm. A single tap. Saturday, 4:30am.

Time to get to work.

☼

Nanami made his way out of the bedroom and into the adjacent room, which was really a sizable walk-in closet. (He had one of those bizarre floor plans where the walk-in separated the bedroom from the rest of the apartment, though he wasn’t complaining since this provided him with all of the space he could ever need for his fairly extensive wardrobe.) The first thing on his agenda was to prepare for an early-morning, sun’s-barely-out-so-it-won’t-be-too-hot-but-it’s-humid-so-it’ll-be-gross run. Normally, he would wait until the evening to exercise at the facilities located on Jujutsu High’s labyrinth of a campus, but today, he didn’t have that luxury. Principal Yaga had informed him the previous night that he’d been assigned to an urgent, last-minute mission, and those often called for late or unusual hours. So, to mitigate this regrettable wrench in his deeply rooted, deeply personal schedule, he opted for a few laps around the neighborhood. It wasn’t a terrible alternative. The worst obstacle he’d have to wrangle with would be the meandering drunks looking for the nearest train station after a night on the town. Just a quirk of the area he lived in.

After a quick and quiet lament over not having worn any of his newer suits, he changed out of his nightclothes, threw on a shirt-sweatpants combo, then went out the closet’s other door to enter the main hallway. Following a detour to the bathroom to brush his teeth, he trotted about ten steps to the lowered entryway by his front door, and, after putting on the sneakers he kept in the floor-to-ceiling shoe cupboard, left his apartment at 4:45am to begin his workout.

Check.

He returned home at 5:35am. The run went well, even with him confronting an aforementioned drunk. This one, notably, wasn’t wandering around in the street. Instead, he was leaning against a light pole, groaning and mumbling to no one. Nanami knew better than to converse with random strangers this early in the day and had every mind to keep his head down, to pretend he saw nothing. However, he cautiously approached the disheveled man anyway, as he was wont to do in these situations. The drunk waved him off while forcing out an incomprehensible slurry of sounds that held no resemblance to established languages. Nanami, taking the crude hint, nodded and backed away, but not before relaying some stripped-down directions to one of the nearest stations. In response, the drunk made a strained noise, one that had faint traces of a “How nice” in it, and gave a wonky, wobbly thumbs up. Since there was no indication of the conversation continuing beyond that point, Nanami, with a breath that wasn’t quite exasperated, took his leave.

Back to the present. The shower beckoned.

Check.

By the time Nanami had wrapped up in the bathroom and changed into some loungewear, it was 6:00am. He didn’t like to eat breakfast until after seven, so that left an hour for him to relax, which was a word still so foreign, still so precious, that to merely utter it carried the weight of the divine. On this holiest of occasions, he decided on the simple option of sitting on the L-shaped couch in his compact living room and reading the latest multilingual print of Financial & Business Journal, all while the television played in the background. He didn’t have a preference for channels, since everything on at this time was certified crap, so he settled for whatever news program happened to be airing.

As he perused a column on stock market forecasts, his ear caught on to the shrill prattling of an anchorwoman.

“Wow, it sure rained a lot yesterday! And we’ll likely have some scattered showers over the next few days, too…what a letdown.”

Nanami scoffed. How can it be a letdown when it rains like this every June? People should be used to it by now.

“Imagine if someone was getting married yesterday. Aw, the poor bride!”

His grip on the paper tensed. That was certainly an unexpected and unwelcome tangent. He had a hard time understanding how that line was relevant to the weather, but he had an even harder time understanding why anyone would schedule a wedding during the rainy season. Perhaps the allure of becoming a “June bride” dampened one’s common sense.

“But, hey, let’s not focus on the sad stuff.  We’re already on the topic of tying the knot, so let’s move on to our next segment—”

Oh, so that’s where they were going with this. He could hardly wait.

“—on how to plan the ultimate beachside wedding—!”

Click.

The speed at which Nanami grabbed the remote and shut off the television couldn’t be explicated by modern science. When he silenced his second alarm this morning, he swore that however he felt, regarding all of that, would stay right there in the bedroom. Under the pillow, to be exact. He couldn’t allow for random comments, especially those from tacky and unoriginal programming, to unearth lingering feelings that had no bearing on the now.

That was over. That was done. Moving on.

…

He tossed his reading material and remote onto the coffee table and leaned his entire weight onto the couch’s back cushions. Sunlight, after remaining hidden behind the towering skyline and increasing cloud cover, had breached his apartment windows, filling the living room, kitchen, and small desk space with the most delicate of yellow tones. Unprompted, his vision turned upwards to the circular light fixtures on his ceiling. Out of the four he had installed, only one was turned on, above where he was seated. He had been meaning to get them replaced. They were too large and threw off the careful balance he had crafted for his interior. He’d have to speak to the landlord, though, about any renovations he had in mind. Fortunately, paying for it wouldn’t be a problem. He had plenty saved. That’s what being wise with your money got you.

…

Nanami dragged a slow, tired hand down his face.

…Did they really have to mention a wedding on a beach?

☼

Nanami carried out the rest of his morning routine with a noticeable tightness in his jaw. At 7:00am, he hauled himself off the couch and meandered over to the kitchen to eat his breakfast, prepared beforehand a few days ago. Salted salmon with the skin attached, simmered vegetables, rice, and a cup of black coffee. Check.

At 7:20am, he entered the walk-in closet again to put on his work clothes, comprising of the button-down blue shirt, tan slacks, suspenders for holstering his blunt blade, and tan suit jacket. He had ironed his shirt the night before, and his suit, being one of many identical sets, was still crisp from the dry cleaners. Check.

Once dressed, he yanked his yellow, black-spotted necktie off the motorized revolving tie rack that Gojo had ragged on him for installing some time ago. He hooked the fabric around his neck, pulled the wide end over, threaded it through, pulled it out, so on and so forth. Check.

Next was his hair, neatly parted on the side. Then came his watch, clasped around the left wrist. And after that were his brown oxfords, tied and polished to perfection. 7:45 am. Check, check, and check.

The final step involved the large black rectangular box that Nanami stored on the shoe cupboard’s lowest shelf. Undoing the box’s three latches and raising its lid revealed the following: a blunt blade wrapped in dotted fabric and a pair of rounded sunglasses with side shields and no arms. Never would he bring these items further into his living space—a sanctuary it would remain, a haven where no curses, or anything related to them, may tread.

Blade securely fastened. Sunglasses on. His checklist was near complete.

The final, final step was to make sure he was presentable, so he faced the mirror (also floor-to-ceiling) on the opposite wall from his shoe cupboard and began surveying his appearance. No hair out of place, no wrinkles where there shouldn’t be, no chance in hell that an insufficient amount of shirt cuff was showing from underneath his jacket sleeve. Sometimes, he found his own high standards to be irritating, but he would never, in any capacity, even with a knife to his throat or a gun to his temple, leave his apartment looking anything less than correct.

Once everything was in order, he looked at his watch. 7:50am. That gave him a little more than ninety minutes to walk to his meeting at the Jujutsu High office building, located in the neighboring ward. Maybe he could unwind a little on his way there. Get himself all the way right. He might just take a different route than he usually—

kra-koooooooom

Ah. He couldn’t forget his umbrella. Rainy season, and whatnot.

☼

It was much too early for this.

Nanami had been mellowing out considerably from his walk, a feat deserving of every praise given the mostly cloudy conditions, looming threat of rain, and headache-inducing humidity. That different route he ended up taking had even led him past some shops he wouldn’t mind visiting on an upcoming day off. One had advertised, on a storefront blackboard inundated with swirling patterns and fonts, their growing selection of imported books. Another had displayed, behind a large window also decorated with swirls, an assortment of freshly baked breads and sandwiches, all touted by an employee as having been carefully crafted with improved ingredients and recipes. However, he couldn’t afford to spare any time speculating on the best ways to satiate his personal indulgences—not only because he had gone beyond the comfy shops and entered a residential area with temples occupying every other property, but because at this moment, thirty minutes into his commute, he noticed something. He wished he hadn’t noticed something, since his workday hadn’t formally started, but one could argue that he was always on the clock due to the unpredictable nature of the cursed spirits that lingered in any available corner.

Well, not entirely unpredictable. Over the years, he had developed a keen sense of the behavioral patterns of curses, with two key examples being their tendency to gather in places rife with negative energy, and their ability to attach themselves to humans and cause any manner of physical or mental harm. Not every curse behaved this way; he had come to blows with the most erratic of beings, even as recently as last month. But what he saw today, in a quiet neighborhood with light foot traffic, gave him pause.

There were multiple groups of two, three, sometimes five or so curses, all on the smaller side and of different shapes, traveling down the road. Flying and crawling and slithering and all else. They didn’t seem to be paying any mind to the ordinary people walking about, though that observation only fueled Nanami’s growing unease.  Something was definitely off.

With knitted brows, he peered down at his watch. 8:22am. His well-curbed, deftly-trimmed sensibilities told him that this would be the topic of his meeting in about an hour. The fact that the office building was fifteen minutes away from where he stood further supported this. He had two options before him: either report to his meeting early to inform Principal Yaga of his discovery and receive more information on the matter, or—okay, he’s already walking in the opposite direction of the meeting, so he’s gone with the second option of scoping out the curses. Collecting additional intel would take no more than ten minutes, he surmised. And if it did take longer, he could assume he was dealing with something unprecedented.

Nanami followed a few steps behind a random pair of curses, one with too many eyes and the other with way, way too many teeth. To his annoyance, more curses emerged from the shadows to join them on their excursion, and pretty soon, he was playing chaperone to a growing cluster of these monsters. The only upside to this baffling setup was that nobody else in the vicinity, besides himself, could see the curses. He had entertained the thought once, of non-sorcerers suddenly gaining the ability of supernatural perception, and the consequences of that would be nothing short of pure pandemonium. As aggravating and isolating as it was, he would withstand this burden of being one of the very few to witness the horrific manifestations of humanity’s ills. Anything to keep an already fragile peace.

Five minutes passed, and he, along with the curses he trailed, reached the end of the road. Of all the scenes he expected as he exited the residential area and approached a larger, busier thoroughfare, this scene, here in front of him, was what he least wanted to see. Yet once he did, he really had no words.

“Shit.”

Except that one.                                                                 

The curses here had grown to unfathomable numbers. How many could there have been? Two hundred? More than that? He couldn’t tell for sure. All of them were moving down the street towards an unknown destination, and the curses he had followed had already turned to blend in with the rest of the wriggling, writhing masses. He, on the other hand, remained in place, craning his neck slightly to pinpoint where they were going, gathering, anything.

…

Was that…?

There. Right there. Further along the street, roughly a quarter mile away, the curses had halted their movements and amassed around a corner building at the upcoming intersection. None of the nearby structures showed signs of property damage, so wanton destruction must’ve not been too high on the priority list of these curses. That being said, he still couldn’t figure out any part of their priority list, or if they had one to begin with.

Nanami took a deep, purposeful breath, the flat side of his blunt blade pushing deeper into his back. To have this many curses in one area, parading under the command of a mysterious force, brought to mind the horrors wrought half a year ago in this same ward. If something similar was taking place, then he had to be ready, prepared, willing to do—

CAW! CAW! CAW!

The sudden cacophony ripped his thoughts in half. Puzzled, he looked up into a nearby tree, and saw three large crows perched side-by-side on a branch. Although the shadows of the foliage concealed the crows’ dark eyes, he could tell they were glaring at him, communicating with him. He didn’t speak crow, obviously, but he understood the implications of their presence. For now, he would cast his concerns aside and trust in his decision to merely investigate.

One of the crows took off from the branch and flew in the direction of the curses at the intersection. Perhaps that was his cue to get a move on. It was either that or go to his meeting. A few minutes early. Which he wasn’t about to do.

pitter pitter pitterpatter pitterpatterpitterpatter

And there goes the damn rain. He opened the umbrella over his head and cast a glance down at his watch. 8:30 am, it said. At the sight of the time, he sighed, spending less than a moment to ponder a few small things. He wasn’t one to pray, to place faith in the deities that had likely abandoned creation long ago after realizing none of this was worth the trouble. In his abnormally systematized brain, if one could only pray for something, then that something was never an option to begin with. He wouldn’t pass judgement on those that thought differently, as to relinquish the reigns of reality encompassed an integral facet of the human condition. Based on his own experiences, though, he’d much rather be certain of what came next.

But no certainty existed at this time. No guarantees. Walking towards the horde of curses only reinforced that. He held no idea in his head, no prayers in his heart, of what was to come.

All he could do was be ready for it.                            

·⋆ ·

   .· .  ·   ✫ ·  ⟡  ·✫ ·  .· .  ·   

·⋆ ·

“Okay, seriously, how the hell is it already raining?!”

A young woman, fair skinned and rosy cheeked, trampled down a flight of stairs, her blonde pigtails bouncing with every energy-laden stomp she took. Her pink athleisure set had a few dark spots on it, no doubt from the heavy drops of rain that had descended upon her and her companion some seconds earlier. As a precaution, they both decided to take refuge in an underground train station, though it was getting a little crowded from others having the same idea.

“That weather app said there’d be no rain until twelve, so whyyyy is there rain and it’s not even twelve yet?! Aaaaaah, I hate thiiiiiiis, Tia, what are we gonna doooooooooo?”

A few paces behind the pig-tailed girl was Tiana, or Tia, as her friend often called her. Appearance-wise, Tiana stood in sharp contrast; her skin was much darker, a deep bronze tone, and she had her black coily hair pulled into a side ponytail. She had read on travel blogs that leggings and other forms of active wear weren’t seen as proper clothing in Tokyo, and she didn’t want to stick out too much, so her attire consisted of a fleur-de-lis t-shirt tucked into black jeans. For a touch of charm, she stuck in her favorite pair of pearl earrings.

“Lottie,” said Tiana, patting the top of her own head dry, “the app showed a thirty percent chance of rain for right now, and a hundred percent chance for twelve. There was always a possibility of us getting rained on. I just wish we found an umbrella before it started.”

Lottie, full name Charlotte, huffed in response as she hopped from the last step and onto the tile floor. “Yeah, but back home, thirty percent means no rain. None. At all.”

Tiana shrugged as she completed her hike down the stairs. “You’re right about that.”

To avoid the herd of people waiting near the stairwell, the two trotted down a sterile gray hallway. Rows upon rows of fluorescent tube lamps lit their way, and every section of wall they passed had an advertisement plastered on it, with letters and characters unfamiliar to them both. Tiana had tried to memorize some written words in Japanese, for the purpose of reading menu items and signs and the like, but the fact that there were three different lettering systems to consider had swiftly stifled her plan. The best she could do was learn some basic spoken greetings, though her pronunciation was trash. An abysmal effort, really. She could’ve done better.

The hallway came to an end, and they found themselves in a cramped corner next to the ticket gates. Fortunately, not as many people were this far into the station, so they had some room to breathe. But not too much room. Situated immediately on the other side of the gates, towards the right, was the waiting area for the trains, making this possibly the smallest station constructed in modern times. This was an uninformed assumption, as Tiana had never ridden on a train, and by extension, had never stepped foot in any such stations.

“Tiaaaaa,” said Charlotte, back against the cold wall, “I’m hungryyyyy.”

Tiana let out a quick sigh as she glanced at the blur of bodies zipping through the gates. “I don’t know how you can stand to eat when you just finished the leftovers that Travis and his friend brought over last night.”

Charlotte blew a raspberry. “And you’re surprised by that?”

Tiana raised her hands in mock surrender. “I’m just sayin’.”

For the next minute, the two stood side by side in silence, occasionally fawning over the cute outfits worn by a few women, but not much beyond that.

And then the silence was no more.

“OH, my God,” said Charlotte, stepping forward and slapping her friend on the arm. “Tia, look over there! To the left, past the gates!”

Tiana squinted her eyes in that direction. “Uhm, all I see is a vending machine—”

“Bingo!” Charlotte, smiling from ear to ear, dug through her small, noticeably distressed designer backpack and tugged out her equally distressed designer wallet. “The day is saved, thanks to ME!”

“Wait, wait, hold on there,” said Tiana. “In order to get to the machine, you need to pass through the gates. And to do that, you need to pay.”

From the confines of her wallet, Charlotte retrieved a plastic card decorated with a bunch of cute characters. “You worry too much, Tia. What I have here is the answer to all our woes.”

“Your woes,” said Tiana, folding her arms and shifting her weight onto one leg. “I’m not spending any more money than I have to, and neither should you.”

Charlotte’s face fell. “Tiaaaa,” she said, clasping her hands together as if in prayer, “pretty pleeeaase come over to the vending machine with me?”

With another sigh, Tiana slumped her shoulders. Back in New Orleans, a week ago, the two of them had sat down to discuss the ground rules of their trip. For the times they were together, barring when Charlotte was attending her research conference or was with anyone from her research team, they would absolutely stay together. Hand-in-hand, if they had to. The blogs Tiana read through had spoken of how safe Tokyo was, even for tourists, and she had no reason to doubt that. (On the topic of safety, she could speak multitudes on how poorly her hometown fared, but that was neither here nor there.) Still, she would never let down, or leave behind, her oldest friend. Especially over a vending machine. A drink vending machine, by the looks of it. So, no actual food.

Standing up straighter, Tiana stretched her arms high over her head. “Y’know, now that I think about it, I wouldn’t mind getting something.”

Charlotte perked up. “Really? You mean it?”

“Yup.” Tiana brought her arms back down and placed her hands on her hips. “Let’s go.”

“YES!! Finally!”

Charlotte’s outburst caught the attention of nearly everyone passing through the station, leaving Tiana warm in the cheeks and fighting the urge to cover her face.

“Okay, Tia, get out your Hasbro card so we can go!”

Tiana shook her head, partly at Charlotte but mostly to abate her growing embarrassment. “It’s a Pasmo, Lottie. And sure, I’m right behind you.”

From her simple backpack and wallet, Tiana fished out her card, which had been graciously granted by a nifty dispenser back at the airport. If she were being honest, it was the only nifty thing about her time at the airport, but she didn’t want to waste any energy recalling that debacle. If there was any positive to spending three hours in customs, it was that she and Charlotte had a personal tour guide assigned to them for the duration of their stay. Talk about hospitality.

Cards in hand, they approached the ticket gates. Charlotte led the way, and once there, she triumphantly placed her card on a conspicuous black square on the steel cabinet to her right. Hark, and behold, the gates—

Didn’t open.

 “Wait, shit, why isn’t it working?” asked Charlotte, pressing the card harder against the square.

Tiana, more cognizant of the stares that people were sending their way, offered advice. “I think the card goes over that square, the one with the arrows pointing towards the center. I don’t know what that other spot is for.”

Lips pursed, Charlotte held the card over the other square, and to her astonishment, and Tiana’s relief, the gates flew open. Passage had been granted.

“Nice! I mean, I, uh, I knew that already,” said Charlotte, hustling through to the other side. She then cleared her throat. “Thank you for the refresher, Tia.”

“Of course,” said Tiana, repeating the process with her own card so she could cross over.

“And since you’re thinking about it,” said Charlotte, “let me just say that the gate thingies in Prague, Budapest, and London are all different from…whatever these are, and that’s why I messed up. I absolutely know what I’m doing, thank you very much.”

“I never said you didn’t.”

“Yeah, but you thought it! I know you did!”

And Charlotte pranced to the machine.

Tiana wouldn’t dare address it directly, but she had to wonder how her travel partner, the self-declared queen, regent, and sovereign of international vacations and (as of last month) international underground metros, could have a difficult time clearing a ticket gate with such a distinguishable card reader.

Then again, maybe this gate had the misfortune of being more obtuse than what Charlotte was used to.

Or maybe Tiana was thinking about this too hard.

Charlotte placed the card in her pocket, and proceeded to rub her hands together as she examined the long awaited, highly anticipated vending machine.  “Okay, let’s see what we have— wait, huh??”

After carefully sliding her card into her wallet, and her wallet into her backpack, Tiana stepped up to the vending machine as well. “What’s the problem?” she asked.

“There’s only drinks in here!” said Charlotte, placing her hands flat against the glass and whipping her head around to look at the available choices. “Where’s the food?!”

“Yeah, about that,” said Tiana. “I was wondering if you knew this thing only had drinks. It was pretty obvious from where we were standing, so I just assumed you didn’t care and were fine with anything at this point.”

“No, no, hold on!” Charlotte turned to put her hands on Tiana’s shoulders. “I thought every vending machine in Japan sold actual meals!”

Tiana’s eyes went wide. “WHAT?!”

Oh, gosh, that was much too loud. The station wasn’t deathly quiet, and she doubted she was as loud as Charlotte had been. In any case, the last thing Tiana wanted to be was a public nuisance, so she brought her voice down to the softest whisper she could manage. “Lottie, where on Earth did you get that idea from?!”

“The videos online!” said Charlotte, waving her arms around for emphasis. “They showed these people getting all sorts of stuff like pizza and hamburgers and ramen and ugh, damn it, I really wanted ramen!”

A whirlwind of disbelief, and every one of its syllables, rattled through Tiana’s head. She didn’t see or read anything to do with that in her pre-trip research binge, and she almost wanted to chuckle at the antics of her friend, for finding such an out-of-box factoid and treating it as universal truth.

But then Tiana remembered that Charlotte, with all of her “travel” “experience”, had insisted on organizing their itinerary for today. If there was this much hullabaloo taking place this early in the morning, then—

“Welp, that’s lame,” said Charlotte, pouting her lips, but only for a moment. “Anyway, where’s the bathroom, I gotta pee.”

Goodness. Tiana sent up a prayer for God, wherever he was, and for his heavenly army, wherever they were, to cast their guiding light onto Charlotte as she bumbled through this foreign land. Heck, let the prayer go to anyone who’s listening. The more help, the better.

Tiana glanced around the area. “Lucky for you,” she said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder, “there’s a bathroom behind us, on the platform.”

“Well, it’s good to know we got something going for us,” said Charlotte as she tugged on her backpack straps. “I’m still mad about the food, though.”

Despite her near constant concern for Charlotte’ out-of-order priorities, Tiana allowed for a smile, complete with dimples, to spread across her face. “Don’t you worry,” she said, patting her friend on the back. “I’m sure you’ll get your ramen soon enough.”

“Oh, I know I will. It’s on our schedule for today, while we’re out sight-seeing.”

Tiana’s smile vanished. “And you wanted some now?” She looked at her own watch. “At 8:35 in the morning?”

“At this time, all further questions,” said Charlotte, already walking away from the vending machine, “will be forwarded to and handled by the appropriate representatives from my PR team.”

“Your who??” Tiana scampered after Charlotte. “Hey, wait up!”

The two went down a small set of stairs to reach the train platform, which served as the only available path to the bathrooms. Separating the platform from the tunnel was a chest-high metal barrier with sliding doors, likely installed for safety purposes. Tiana considered asking Charlotte about them, to give the poor girl a chance at redemption after fumbling hard at the ticket gates, but then heard her say in a relatively low voice,

“What’s this weird-ass metal thing doing here?”

and thought otherwise.

As they walked along the wall to avoid those standing in wait, a train with a thick red line running down its length careened through the tunnel and came to a stop next to the platform. Both the train doors and barrier doors slid open, allowing for Tiana and Charlotte to witness a seamless waltz of people silently alighting and boarding the train. After a few seconds, a brief, chirpy, carnivalesque jingle rang out, and once it ended, the doors shut and the train departed, leaving the tunnel barren once more.

Charlotte spoke up first. “Heyheyheyhey, Tia, check it out. You see how there’s a platform just like this one on the other side of the tracks?”

“Yeah, I see it,” said Tiana. “What about it?”

“It’s for trains going the opposite way! Pretty cool, right?” Charlotte put on a self-satisfied smile. “A little bit of trivia for you. Since I know about these things. And know what I’m doing. And know what I’m talking about.”

Tiana pinched an eye shut as she drummed up an answer to that bit of self-explanatory knowledge. “So, basically the same way streetcars on the neutral ground are set up. Gotcha.”

Charlotte, ready to refute, held up her pointer finger in protest, but it curled inward as her eyes grew bright and wide. “Dude. Wait. Hold the phone. Does that mean streetcars are trains?!”

“Obviously, they’re…” Tiana trailed off, a quizzical look occupying her face. “Huh. I was about to say no, but now I’m not sure. At the very least, they’re similar.” Her eyes widened as well. “Maybe they are the same.”

“Whoa.”

After spending the rest of their walk dumbfounded, they arrived at the women’s bathrooms, indicated by a reddish- pink strip on an outside corner of the open entryway. Also on the strip was a female icon, the word “Women”, and what Tiana assumed to be the same word displayed in Japanese characters. With renewed intrigue, she took out her phone and snapped a picture of it. Even though she gave up on learning written Japanese at home, she felt compelled to make another attempt right now, in earnest.

…Mother of all mercy, there was no way she could commit this to memory. Maybe the multitudes of convenience stores in the area had packs of index cards she could buy to assist with studying. As it stood, she had been teleported back in time to her freshman art history course, stuck trying to parse the deeper meanings of an abstract piece but having nothing better to say other than I don’t get it.

Charlotte poked twice at Tiana’s cheek. “Well, you comin’ with?”

With a wince, Tiana swatted her away. “Yeah, yeah, I’m just trying to see if I can’t figure some of this out while I’m here.”

“Didn’t you take Spanish?” asked Charlotte, peeping at the picture on Tiana’s phone. “This should be peasy easy for you!”

“Four semesters,” said Tiana. “And it isn’t. We’re dealing with two different language families here.”

“Lies! All lies! You’re too smart! Now come on!”

Tiana stuffed her phone in her front pants pocket. “Why don’t you try learning some?”

“HA!” Charlotte punctuated her laugh with a clap. “I barely made it through my four semesters of French! Forget that.”

Some steps down the entryway and to the left brought them to the bathroom stalls. The space was clean, brightly lit, but narrow and cramped, just like the station it resided in. And since the stall doors were kept closed, it was hard to tell if there was anyone else here.

“Wow,” said Tiana. “Not a whole lot of room for standing around.”

“You can wait outside, if you want,” said Charlotte. “I’ll be alright.”

 “No, no, I’ll stay. Don’t want to leave you by yourself.”

“Pfffft, stoooop, it’s a bathroom, it’s not like we’re surrounded by the entire population!” Charlotte punched the air. “And if anything happens, I’ll start screaming and swinging!”

“Lottie, you can’t be doing all that. I’ll just—”

“Shush. Shoo.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, yes, I am!” said Charlotte, knocking on a stall door and pushing it open. “Also,” and she said this with a smirk, “I’m not sold on the idea of you wanting to be around any toilets right now.”

Tiana shot a searing glare at Charlotte. “Don’t you bring that up!”

With a giggle, Charlotte leapt into her stall and started slowly closing the door. “Oooh, sorry, can’t hear you, byeee, adios, bienvenuuueee~!”

“LOT—!!”

SLAM!

Before Tiana could formulate any sort of reaction, she heard a toilet flushing in a different stall. Great. Of course, there was another person in here. Now she really had to leave, lest she make an even bigger fool of herself.

With her head angled downward, she shuffled out of the bathroom and onto the platform. There was enough room to wait inside the entryway, but she really, truly, did not want to risk running into the woman she most likely (definitely) frightened. By choosing to stay out here, she could maintain an air of composure, of calm, and not give any indication of having just quarreled over a complete non-issue that henceforth shall never be discussed, mentioned, or alluded to.

Tiana leaned against the beige wall. The entryway and path back to the ticket gates were on one side of her, and a standing sign holder the same height as her was on the other, with the men’s bathroom further down the way. Around eight to ten more people had gathered on the platform, which made her wonder how hectic a station like this would be on a regular weekday. Her internet searches on Tokyo tourism led her to a myriad of posts on how to best survive rush hour mayhem, and, occasionally, videos of passengers being stuffed into train cars well over capacity would pop up. She could never bring herself to watch them. Just the idea of being tightly packed with no room to move made her palms all sweaty.

Her thoughts screeched to a halt as the sound of clacking heels echoed from the entryway. In preparation, Tiana pushed her shoulders back, pulled out her phone, and scrolled through her photo album.

In Tiana’s peripheral vision, a woman, petite in stature with a mask over her face, came into view. She stopped, next to Tiana of all places, to smooth out a wrinkle from her floor-length skirt.  The good thing, great thing, wonderful thing was that the woman didn’t seem to notice anyone around her, and after tugging the mask higher up on her nose, proceeded to walk away.

“Phew.”

Tiana slid her phone in her pocket once more and touched the back of her head to the wall. Looks like she had no reason to worry, seeing as how the woman demonstrated no visible signs of giving a hoot. But worry, Tiana would, and worry, Tiana did. She had been wound up tight since landing at Haneda Airport, and her time here consisted only of misunderstandings and mishaps. Not wanting to be consumed by any pessimism, she promised herself, this morning, that today would be a good day. She barely slept at all last night, which was nothing new, but she made it a point to get up on the right side of the bed and get off on the right foot, too. Yeah. A lot of good that did her.

She sighed as she imagined where the people on the platform could be headed. With how early it was, she deemed that work had to be the most probable answer.

Work.

Work.

She wrung her hands together. That’s exactly where she should be. Needed to be. Four years she spent doing part-time at one of Uptown’s busiest and most popular bakeries, and as soon as she secured a full-time position, a feat deemed impossible by many, she up and went across the Pacific Ocean. It’s not like she had a choice in the matter. She had insisted over and over to loved ones that a vacation was unnecessary, a supreme waste of time. Her mother insisted on the contrary, and shoved into Tiana’s trembling hands the exact money required for a round trip.

The questions of Why?!  and How did you get this?! went unanswered. Nothing she said could change her mother’s mind. Nothing she did could make her mother take back the money.

…

Tiana’s nails dug into the skin on the back of her hand.

…

. . .

Tokyo was fourteen hours ahead of New Orleans. If she did her math correctly, then it had to have been almost seven in the evening back at home. Yesterday. Such a strange place, this planet.

Georgia wanted updates throughout the day. Texting her now would be alright. The sun’s up and out over there.

But maybe she’s busy.

What was she up to? Clocking out from her job? Going out to see the rest of their friends?

What was the family up to? Sitting down for dinner? Laughing about a crazy story on the news?

What was anyone doing?

Tiana bit down on her lip.

“What am I doing?”

fyoooooooooooooooo

Ah. Another train.

She eyed the people preparing to board. To move. To make things happen.

Her head felt light. Her vision grew bleary.

Shadows shifted and squirmed.

The train slowed to a stop. The doors opened.

And Tiana

sang to herself.

“And what about hope?”

A slew of strangers, young and old and in-between, crossed one another as they took their place on either the train or the platform.

“What about joy?”

But right in front of her, on the train, was a family. A mother, a father, and, cradled in a carrier strapped to his chest, a sleeping baby.

“What about tears

when I'm happy?”

The baby stirred. Her father planted a soft kiss on the top of her head. The mother gave a tender smile that would belong only to her husband and child.

“What about wings

when I fall?”

The father grabbed hold of the mother’s hand, and she rested her cheek on his shoulder.

“I want you to be

 a story for me…”

A smile reappeared on Tiana’s face.

“…that I can believe in forever.”

Then it wavered as the doors shut.

“And what about…”

She watched as the train carried the family away, to the blessings that awaited them.

“What about…”

fyoooooooooooooooo

The song ended there.

. . .

…

All was quiet. Still.

Normal.

Against the ever-increasing odds, Tiana had managed to reclaim some peace. It was far from complete, resembling more of a fragile mote that crumbled under the faintest touch or breath, but it was back, it was hers, and she’d nurture it as she always did when it ran low. She could do nothing else. The path she set for herself more than ten years ago required a clear mind and a firm heart. Nothing, not even this impromptu holiday, would knock her off course.

Whenever she felt defeated, she’d get back up. Whenever she felt lost, she’d find a way.

She’d be just fine.

Tiana breathed in, then breathed out. “It’s only a detour, Daddy. I’ll be back at it soon.”

And her eyes closed.

“We don’t need stars to get to where we’re going.”

caw!

Chapter Text

⟡

Tiana’s eyes shot back open. “What on Earth?”

She looked up and down and everywhere around. Certainly, that wasn’t a bird she heard just now.

caw! caw!

There it goes again. Probably someone’s ringtone or alarm. An odd choice, but she wouldn’t judge.

CAW! CAW!

Okay, never mind, that was a real bird. A crow, specifically. The poor thing must have flown down here while trying to escape the rain. Weirdly enough, she couldn’t tell where it was, even though it sounded so close—“AH!”

A black feathery mass rushed past her face, leaving her no time to take a step back, raise her arms, do anything to defend herself. With that, she drew the line. If she was going to have to do battle with the local wildlife, then she’d rather wait in the bathroom. Not to mention she was running on a depleted battery and just wanted some space to recuperate.

Before she made her move, she caught sight of the crow flying in languid circles above the train tracks, directly ahead of her. The rhythmic beating of its wings stole every ounce of her attention, and although it was some distance away from her, she could’ve sworn she saw a gleam within its dark-as-coal eyes.

Tiana cocked her head to the side. She wasn’t working with a ton of proof, but she had a growing suspicion that this wasn’t just any old crow. It could be a child’s remote-controlled toy. A techie’s high-end drone. A bird keeper’s well-trained pet. Whatever it was, her listing of possibilities ended once she eyed the crow complete one final circle, then swoop over some startled onlookers and glide towards the ticket gates, all before she lost sight of it altogether.

“Huh. Guess that’s the end of…”

But Tiana’s attention was hijacked by another presence, one that rendered her body heavy and cold.

“..!”

Standing close to where the crow disappeared was a blond-haired man in a tan suit. He held a wet umbrella in one hand. He had the other hand in his pocket.

And he was looking

right

 at

her.

…Or that’s what she assumed. Despite her being the only person on this part of the platform, it was hard to tell if he was really looking at her or not. His eyes hid behind the most unusual sunglasses, a pair of dark green lenses in metal frames that didn’t have those long, thin pieces hooked around his ears. His mouth formed a straight line, which further accentuated his impressive yet unsettling poker face. He was well dressed, that much was undeniable, but the combination of his clothing, stance, and demeanor conferred to him an aura that she could only describe as such:

No nonsense.

Tiana didn’t know what to do. She could always turn around, face the other way. Maybe pretending to text on her phone was the way to go. Yet none of those options were suitable. Seated deep in her soul, and weaved throughout her very being, were the tenets of what some might consider “southern hospitality.” If you locked eyes with somebody, particularly a stranger, you nodded and gave a quick greeting. You acknowledged the other person. Failing to do so, whether by accident or by choice, netted you the moniker of either “not from around here” or, in the words of her grandmother, “lowdown pieces of dirtshit.”

A weight sunk to the bottom of Tiana’s stomach. Today, and for the next week and a half, she’d be the one “not from around here.” Relying on her own ideas for best social practices, even if they weren’t necessarily classified as rude gestures by travel blogs, had the very real possibility of resulting in a huge mess.

Especially when it came to him, this random guy wearing crazy glasses and a nice suit.

Her restless mind shuffled through any of the reasons he might’ve had for looking. An obvious one would be her skin and hair; there weren’t too many people around here that had her features, so curious peeks were to be expected. She even received some earlier, before the rain started. But she wasn’t getting that vibe from him. He would’ve only made a passing glance if that were the case.

And yet there he was. Focused on her. With those glasses.

She couldn’t deal with this anymore. Forget his reasons. Forget his wacky lens-frame-things that stuck to his face by sheer force alone. She had to do something to dispel this awkward air, and she hoped her chosen method would be a good way to do it.

Tiana, with a small, slightly crooked smile, nodded at him.

Right as it happened, she regretted it. That was awful. The smile did not come together at all, feeling more like a pulled-taut lip than anything else. Also, the nod, better recognized as the loose bobbing motion she made with her head, deserved lower than a zero.

The ice that had been racing through her veins promptly turned to lava. She so badly wanted to cover her face and hide. She decided, instead, to stay resolute. Yes, her attempts at a greeting may have been lackluster, and, yes, she may have inadvertently freaked that guy out, but she wouldn’t let it get to her. In just the next second, this mystery man would return the favor by offering a nod and a smile, and go on his merry way—

He took a step towards her.

No, no, nonononono, nope, Tiana did not plan for that. A jolt of energy tore through her, from scalp to sole, and along with that jolt came the urge to move. But move where? And why was that a question she had to ask? Going left or right made no sense, and she wasn’t about to walk up to him and start chatting, so the only option for her was to step backwards. Which she ended up doing.

tak  

Her heel tapped against something solid, and she turned around to see the sign holder tipping over. Eyes wide, she extended her arms to catch it before it could hit the ground, but she only grabbed onto empty air. The darned thing kept falling, falling, until it did indeed hit the ground!

CLANG!!

Clang!

clang  

Tiana cupped her face with her hands as the noise reverberated throughout all ends of the station. Every echo made her ears pulse and burn, and she swore her head was about to pop from a mixture of shame and horror.

She knocked this thing to the floor.

Everyone heard it.

That guy, though.

The one in the suit.

He saw and heard it.

He saw AND heard it.

A soft, buzzing static filled every inch of Tiana’s insides. Looks of disapproval. Whispers of derision. Real or imagined, she could no longer care. Everyone in the vicinity, everyone on Earth, they had all disappeared into an encroaching fog.

But then there was

And she couldn’t just ignore

Yet her thoughts failed to move beyond

…

Gosh.

This sucked.

With glazed eyes, Tiana leaned forward, picked up the sign holder, placed it upright on the same spot it fell from, but kept her hands clasped around its sleek metal. She refused to let go until she was sure, certain, ready-to-lay-down-her-life confident that this thing wouldn’t fall over again. Knowing her luck, that feeling wouldn’t be coming anytime soon, so she uncurled her fingers, one after the other after the other. The sign holder stood on its own. To the surprise of no one, relief eluded her, and in a desperate bid to wrap up this sideshow and save any remaining face, she scurried into the women’s bathroom entryway, eyes to the floor all the while.

The lump in her throat wouldn’t go down. Hadn’t she just regained her peace a few minutes ago? Didn’t she assure herself that this trip wouldn’t distract or discourage her? The answer might as well have been “no.”

It wasn’t the end of the world. None of this would matter in the long run. She knew that. She knew that. But as she arrived at the bathroom stalls, a single sentiment burst forth.

This wouldn’t have happened if she stayed home.

Charlotte was fixing her hair in front of a small mirror above the farthest sink. Tiana, folding her arms tight across her chest, walked forward and huddled against the farthest wall. The lack of space meant that the two friends were essentially standing right beside each other.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m taking forever,” said Charlotte, focusing on her reflection as she picked at her bangs. “I just can’t decide if I want to pull all my hair back or leave some out.”

Tiana raised her head a tad. She’d been so preoccupied with her own craziness that she hadn’t realized Charlotte was in the bathroom this whole time.

“Tia, what do you think? Bangs or no bangs?”

The inquiry barely registered, its words dissolving into the wispy, cottony film that clogged up Tiana’s concentration. Somehow, a compulsion to keep up the exchange exceeded all that, so she forced a slight, hollow smile onto her face. “You’ll look cute no matter what you do, Lottie.”

“I know, that’s what makes this so hard.” Charlotte brought her sulking face closer to the mirror. “I’m in a different country. I need a look that’ll catapult me into the upper echelons of cute. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Mhmm.”

Charlotte, blinking her eyes, furrowing her brows, stepped back from the mirror and faced Tiana. “That’s it? ‘Mhmm?’ What, no comment on how silly I’m being for fussing over my hair so much? Or how it makes no sense that I’m stuck on this after asking about it nonstop at the house? Nothing??”

“I’m sorry, Lottie,” said Tiana, shaking her head. “I guess I got tired all of a sudden.”

Charlotte’s incredulous expression made it clear she wasn’t buying that. “Hold on. You’re tired? Miss Runs-Just-Fine-On-One-Hour-Of-Sleep?”

“I swear, I’m—”

“No, no, now that I’m getting a good look at you, I can tell something’s up.” Charlotte tapped her chin while contemplating what, exactly, was “up,” and her mouth fell open as she settled on an answer. “Oh, my God, is this about the toilet thing? Tia, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think it was a big deal!”

“It’s not that.”

“Oh, good,” said Charlotte. “Because that was super funny. Hehe. Yeah, in all seriousness, I know something’s bothering you.”

Sharp irritation. Inviting warmth. A peculiar combination, yet a comfortable one.

“Thank you, Lottie. I’m fine. Just a little out of it.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about! You’re never out of it! You hate being out of it!” Charlotte held Tiana’s hands. “What happened? What’s wrong?” She gasped. “You didn’t run into trouble while waiting for me, did you?!”

Tiana sucked in a sharp breath. Her mental faculties came flooding back. That wasn’t “trouble” she experienced out there. It was a series of successive blunders that caught her off guard, left her shaken, made her nervous. And there was the core problem. She could never get nervous, and if by some slim-to-none chance she did, no one could ever see. The lessons of the past forced her to navigate life with grace and ease, effectively minimizing any nervousness, worry, and anxiety. A most valuable tool, surely, as it kept her unsightlier emotions under wraps, too.

(Now her thoughts were all over the place. How wonderful.)

Such emotions didn’t stay dormant, much to her chagrin. Whether because of trials and tribulations, or stray memories and stimuli, despondency would take hold of her, but she soldiered on. Sung a verse or two. Worked it out by working. Did whatever she had to do to get herself under control.

Thinking about it now, it seemed that being at home, in a familiar setting, helped her to cope with those feelings, and maybe break them down into something manageable.

Helped. That wasn’t right. Being at home was the entire reason she could hold it together. Here? In Tokyo? Everything was new. Everything was a source of uncertainty. The mundane had been her safety net, and now her nerves ran free, mangling and exacerbating the gloom that always watched from afar.

Always watched.

--always watching.

“Tia?”

“Oh.” Tiana squeezed her friend’s hands. “Sorry. Really, I’m okay. Please don’t worry about me.”

Charlotte, with a grim expression, squeezed back harder. “Who was it.”

“W-What?”

“You heard me.” A fire burned in Charlotte’s blue eyes. “Who was it. Where are they.”

That look. That tone. This wasn’t good. Tiana had to reassure her, quickly. “Lottie, I am telling you, nothing is wrong."

After three silent, grueling seconds of Charlotte standing motionless, seemingly chewing on what was just said, she pulled her hands back, snorted, and marched towards the bathroom exit.

Tiana gave chase. “No, no, no, wait!”

This really wasn’t good. As much as she hated to admit it, she hid in here mainly to escape that disastrous run-in with the mystery man. But how and why did she not consider what he might’ve done after the fact? These nerves of hers. Ruining everything. Honestly, the man could be in the same place, and if Charlotte were to somehow piece together that he was the catalyst and then confront him about it…

Lord. Anything but that.

“Lottie, come back!”

“Hell no. I was serious about the screaming and swinging. I’ll handle this.”

“‘Handle this?!’ Are you serious?!”

They were in the entryway, with the platform in plain view, yet Tiana couldn’t see the man from her vantage point. That didn’t mean he wasn’t out there.

“Lottie, listen to me! You said it yourself, we’re in a different country! You can’t go around acting out!”

“Hmph. Like that’s ever mattered to me before.”

Tiana wanted to crumple into a ball. The platform drew near, and so did the impending fallout. Her desperation bubbled over. All she had left was the truth.

“This guy was looking at me and I got flustered and I knocked over a sign. That’s it! That’s all that happened!”

Charlotte stopped short of walking onto the platform. The fierceness on her face dwindled, but it held a noticeable edge. Tiana stood still, trying to slow her own rapid heartbeat.

One second passed. Maybe two. At last, Charlotte turned towards Tiana. “He was looking at you?”

Tiana swallowed. “I think so. He was wearing sunglasses. I couldn’t see his eyes.”

“Did he do it for long?”

“N-no, not really. Not at all.”

“Did he do anything else?”

“Well, he took a step and that’s when I bumped into the sign and then, uh, went into the bathroom. Yeah.”

Saying it out loud made the absurdity of the situation all the more apparent. If Tiana didn’t get a break from this soon, she’d turn to dust and blow away in the wind.

Curiously, Charlotte hadn’t spoken yet. She was pressing down on her fingernails with her thumb, pursing her lips, probably thinking of her next question. Tiana waited.

And the question came. “Did he make you uncomfortable?”

Every gear in Tiana’s head stopped spinning. She—

“I—”

She didn’t know.

Going by her reactions, it sure seemed like he did, but she couldn’t settle on a simple, one-worded answer. People looked at other people. It was a fact of life, and one she was used to. Customers often eyed her. Past classmates did, too. If she noticed, she gave a smile and went on with her business. If they approached her, she provided an appropriate amount of conversation and politely declined any advances. If things got weird, she shut it down. She knew how to conduct herself.

The man in the suit was an anomaly for her. Everything about him, aside from his glasses, was ordinary. She dropped the ball.

And the sign.

Her final answer: “I think I made him uncomfortable.”

Charlotte hummed. “I see.”

A pause.

Another snort.

A smirk.

“Was he cute?”

Huh. What.

“Huh? What?”

*✫

“WHAT??!!”

“Aw, Tia, that explains everything!” Charlotte squealed, hopped, and clapped her hands. “He was a cutie! No wonder you’re so tickled!”

Tiana’s face and neck were so hot, she thought every curl on her head would burn right off. “T-T-Tickled? Noooooo, no, you’ve got this way wrong, I’m not--!”

“Is he still here? I wanna see him!”

Charlotte, with the infernal jollity of a child, skipped forward. In an instant, the last of Tiana’s spirit and sanity evaporated, and she couldn’t comprehend a thing.

But she moved.

“Wait!”

She was a loose tangle of limbs, her arms flailing and legs buckling, but she moved.

“Please, Charlotte!”

This couldn’t be happening.

“I…!”

What was even going on?

“I can’t…”

After stumbling onto the platform, she doubled over and leaned on her knees, utterly trounced and drained.

“Alright, Tia!” said Charlotte, standing tall, donning a smile that sparkled with delight. “Point him out!”

Tiana kept her eyes on the floor. She saw her own shoes, an aged pair of black Chucks, with the laces done in such a way that tying was no longer required. To the left were Charlotte’s blocky white sneakers, clean and fresh out the box. Beyond that were a woman’s short-heeled blue pumps, a man’s flip flops, and other footwear that held no interest to her, no relevancy to the situation. This was just wasting time, and she knew it.

Slowly, she pushed up her head-turned-furnace and scanned her surroundings. There were people walking to and fro, waiting for the train, just milling about, but her focus was on locating blond hair, a tan suit, and weird sunglasses.

…

…

Oh?

Her internal thermostat turned down a few notches. She could hardly believe it. Fortune had decided to favor her.

“Soooo, where is he?!” asked Charlotte, slapping Tiana on the back.

“He’s gone.”

Charlotte visibly deflated. “Huh?! Awww, no waaaay.”                                               

Yes way. Not a strand of blond to be seen. Not a thread of tan to be found. And absolutely no sign of those—Tiana was running out of descriptors, but it was easy to guess what she was talking about.

She placed a hand on her chest and took the deepest possible breath she could take. Relief. That’s what she was feeling. Sweet and nourishing relief.

“Tia, tell me, what did he look like? Maybe you missed him!”

She didn’t miss him. “I’m not telling you. It’s over, Lottie. Let it go.”

“No! What about your spontaneous Tokyo romance?! The setup was too perfect, argh!”

Tiana ignored that.

“Wait, he could still be in the station!”

“Or he could’ve gotten on a train.”

“Well, what if he didn’t get on a train and is waiting in here for the rain to stop, like us?”

“He had an umbrella. He could leave if he wanted to.”

“Ugh!” Charlotte threw up her hands, exasperated. “You are no fun!”

Aside from the twinge that last comment gave her, Tiana was feeling a smidge better. Her overactive friend did bring up a good counterpoint: the man could be nearby, lurking, waiting to topple her defenses. If true, there wasn’t much she could do to avoid him, and the thought of that alone made her stomach twist and tighten into knots. Her pool of relief was already in danger of drying up.

But she had a plan.

“Hey, Lottie,” said Tiana, retrieving her phone and opening her maps app, “listen to this.”

Charlotte folded her arms. “I’m not listening unless it’s about us finding that guy.”

“It’s about finding you some food.”

“I’m listening.”

“We have plenty of time before we meet with our tour guide. Let’s ride on the train for a bit.”

“Seriously?” asked Charlotte, unfolding her arms. “What’s that gonna do? And how is that gonna get me something to eat?”

“First, you’ll have a chance to tell me everything you know about trains.”

For a brief moment, panic shot across Charlotte’s face, but it disappeared just as quickly, and she nodded.

“Second, we’ll get off at the next station. That way, we won’t stray too far and risk getting lost.” Tiana pinched, zoomed, and scrolled through the map. “Third, we’ll be in a neighborhood filled with convenience stores, so you’ll have no shortage of choices when it comes to eating.”

“Convenience stores? Like RaceTrac?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Tiana minimized her map app and pulled up the website for one of the stores. “Here’s what they have.”

Charlotte took the phone from Tiana. “Hmm. FamilyMart? Sounds pretty dull, if you ask me.”

“Hey, now, don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Look, they even have some sweets.”

“Are those cream puffs??”

“Yup. And they also sell—”

“Soufflé pudding??”

Tiana smiled. “Sounds good, right?”

Charlotte returned the phone and held up her hand as if ready to take an oath. “Tia, I hereby renounce my previously held opinions and dedicate myself to seeking out the wonders offered by this convenience store.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Hallelujah. Step one complete. Tiana had to give credit to the eSIM card she agonized over purchasing before the trip, because without it, she never would’ve been able to access any of those apps or sites. There was also Charlotte’s unwillingness to check if there were convenience stores outside of this station, or maybe it was more of an unawareness of how widespread those stores were in Japan. Nevertheless, getting out of here was within reach. Now they just had to wait for the train.

So.

Where was it?

That twisting, tightening motion had spread up to Tiana’s chest, and her smile could only do so much to hide it. He got on the train! and He left in the rain! were probable claims, not absolute. She didn’t have much else to go on. She had no way of knowing where he was. And no, she was not about to drop down this pit of rumination again.

Where, oh, where was the train?

“Tia, the toilet in my stall was really weird. Like, it was basically an oval in the floor and I had to squat to use it. Absolutely wild. Guess the bathrooms here are giving both of us a tough time, huh? Hehe.”

Bathroom. Bathroom bathroom bathroom.

What if he went into the bathroom?

Tiana smacked herself on the forehead. That had to have been the case. It made way too much sense. She assumed the man was Japanese, but he could’ve easily been a foreigner, given his blond hair. A foreigner searching for the men’s bathroom, which she just so happened to be standing by. He wasn’t looking at her, he was looking for the no. No more. Where is the train. Someone, anyone, please send this train because if she had to stand here and mull over this any longer, she’d—

fyoooooooooooooooo

“About damn time! Tia, perk up, our ride’s here.”

From the black of the tunnel, the train appeared, and once it came to a full stop, the doors opened, permitting commuters to silently disembark.

The arrival of public transportation wouldn’t normally render Tiana speechless. She wanted to respond, say something corny like And not a moment too soon, and maybe laugh. Alas, she had no words.

“Heyhey, listen, I got some facts,” said Charlotte, somewhat hurriedly. “We have to wait until everyone leaves before we can get on. That’s the proper etiquette. Again, I know these things.”

Tiana nodded, and she made sure to speak. “Duly noted.”

Let’s go let’s go let’s go let’s go

Once the vacating crowd cleared out, the two friends walked in. Tiana squinted her eyes—the car they entered was so bright, the lights were almost shrieking, and overall, there were so many new details to take in. Dozens of identical ads occupied a curled indentation above the windows, and triangular handles hung and swayed from metal rails attached to the ceiling. Sitting on the dark red seats that lined the interior were a few passengers, all on their phones, minding their business. The floors were spotless. The windows had no smudges.

“Tia, pay close attention. You’re about to hear a funny little song.”

“You don’t say.”

let’sgolet’sgolet’sgolet’sgo

That merry-go-round tune rang out, and Tiana knew she was in the clear. Finally, finally, the relief could pour back in.

Yet she felt something. A pull, an urge, to take one last look at the platform behind her. There was no need, she had gotten away, but she had to be sure.

She glanced over her shoulder.

No trace of him.

…

The song ended, the doors closed, and the two took their seats. In the next moment, the train began to move, starting slow as it slid past the platform, then reaching its maximum speed as it hurdled down the dark tunnel. Step two complete. Mission accomplished.

Tiana closed her eyes and heaved a long, hefty sigh. The vestiges of her composure could now be salvaged, rebuilt, made new and strong. No more of this inability to reel herself in. She’d be just fine.

“I sure hope you enjoyed those train fun facts,” said Charlotte, talking over the train’s automated female voice,” because I am famished. Trivia is over.”

Tiana let a soft laugh slip out. “You really know your stuff, Lottie.”

“Thank you, I absolutely do. But seriously, trivia’s done. No more.”

“Understood.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Okay, okay.”

Seconds ticked, ticked, ticked. Tubes of fluorescent lights zoomed by on the other side of the windows.

“Wow,” said Charlotte, tapping her feet, “it sure is quiet in here.”

“Yes,” said Tiana, “it’s rather nice.”

“I guess.”

“Yup.”

“Makes me want to scream.”

“Don’t.”

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Tick.

“Sooooo, are you gonna get anything from the store?” asked Charlotte.

“A drink, probably,” said Tiana.

“Really? No food?”

“No food.”

“Unbelievable. Eat something.”

“Pass.”

Someone coughed.

Another sneezed.

Was it allergy season?

“Y’know,” said Charlotte, “you never told me if he was cute.”

Tiana stiffened, but caught herself, and slackened into her original posture. “It’s in the past, Lottie. I’m not bringing that up anymore.”

“Yeah, well, I am. Here you go, scoring a foreign guy, and I got the same dude following me around since kindergarten.”

How in every nation on Earth was Tiana supposed to reply to that?

“I mean, it’s crazy. When is he going to get it through his thick head that I’m. Not. Interested! Like, please, find some other girl to drool over!”

“Lottie. Volume.”

“I know, I should be thankful he got me on this grant, and listen, don’t get me wrong, I truly am, but come on! It’s been seventeen years!”

“Keep it down, people are starting to look at us…”

“I’m not done! Just because our dads work together doesn’t mean we’re bound by fate or destiny or some other third thing I can’t think of—EEP! Hey, what’d you do that for?!”

The loud, incessant prattling had forced Tiana to use a forbidden technique: the waist pinch. It was a last-ditch effort to suppress Charlotte at her chattiest, yet there was a chance it could backfire and make the girl even more irritable. For that reason, it was only to be used in the most pressing of circumstances, where the risk and reward were equally attainable.

Did this count as pressing? Others might not see it as such. From her perspective, Tiana didn’t have enough bandwidth to lay down every aspect or option on the table, measure them on the scale of severity, and make a decision based on her findings.

She just wanted it to stop.

“I told you to keep your voice down,” said Tiana, in a tone befitting a scolding mother.

“You didn’t have to pinch me!”

“And you didn’t have to be so noisy.”

“Noisy?! I wasn’t—I never—!” Charlotte scoffed. “Alright, already, I’ll pipe down. Sheesh.”

Charlotte took up the guise of a petulant child by folding her arms, puffing her cheeks, and leaning back in her seat, with the bonus of letting out a few grumbles here and there.

Meanwhile, a pocket of guilt sat in Tiana’s chest. She didn’t like having to resort to pinching, hence the whole “last-ditch effort” description, and seeing a sour expression on Charlotte, in turn, soured her own mood.

But the two made sure the ordeal never lasted long.

“Hey, Lottie?”

“Pancakes, Tia.”

Tiana scrunched her nose in confusion. “Pancakes?”

 Charlotte returned to an age-appropriate sitting position. “That place you showed me, Kmart, they had pancakes, too.”

“You mean FamilyMart?”

“With bean filling.”

“Beans??”

Immediately, they engaged in hushed talks of proper names and baked goods and the culinary ethics of stuffing jellybeans into a pancake. In Tiana’s mind, she figured this would be an opportune time to quell the remaining doubts that plagued her fragmented peace. Some insignificant part of her kept insisting on the prophetic nature of the morning’s events, that all of this should be interpreted as an omen for things to come.

But that was ludicrous. As always, she’d be just fi—.

“Listen,” said Charlotte, “I know we’re on a different topic, but I’m still bummed about that guy you met. You’ll never see him again. Not ever. Boo hoo hoo.”

Tiana’s eye twitched, but she had to say, the latter half of that remark had some decent logic behind it. He was one of…she had seen the population of the Greater Tokyo Area before, it was close to…37 million, maybe? She’d go with that. One of 37 million. A drop in the ocean. A single dot in a massive Pointillism piece.

How about that? She actually retained something from her art history course.

Her feelings on this were tricky, for lack of better wording. Unintentionally, and a bit ironically, she had found a perfect recipe for disaster: two weeks off from work, one plane ticket to a place she never thought of visiting, less than half of an understanding of the country’s norms, and a single man, clad in business attire, who came out of nowhere. The chef could use their discretion on whether to add a collapsed sign holder.

Wait. She just remembered. Those glasses. Gosh, what was up with those?

Once more, Tiana breathed in, then breathed out. Whether she liked it or not, she was here, in Tokyo, 6,800 miles away from her entire world. The quality of her remaining days abroad hinged upon moving past the mess-ups, slip-ups, goof-ups, all of them. Which she intended on doing.

And to start it off, going forward, she would take every comfort, and any bit of pleasure, in what she deemed the truth. She wasn’t fooling herself, though; it was more of a probability, with a microscopic, non-zero chance of being falsified.

Shouldn’t that be enough?

…

She shook her head.

She’d never see him again.

☼

_____________

---- ----

------

---

“Here’s all of our available information on Tiana Baker,” said a bespectacled man in a black suit.

The meeting room Nanami sat in was on the second floor of the “Tokyo Municipal High School for the Assembly of Gifted Youth Detached Offices” building. Obviously, that was a cover. Displaying the school’s real name on the sign outside would attract scrutiny from the general public, and you could count on one finger the number of faculty and staff who were properly equipped to handle a hypothetical fiasco like that.  

As for the room itself, the layout was puzzling. The walls were constructed out of a mysterious type of paneling, all aged and yellowed, and the only two windows were tucked into a topmost corner of the room, giving the solemn impression of a prison cell. On the front wall was a traditional classroom blackboard, complete with erasers but no chalk. To the left of the board was a metal door leading to a dismal, dark hallway. To the right was a switched-off flat screen television on a small wooden table.

The seating area made a little more sense. A classroom setting traditionally called for desks, and the person in charge of decorating must have gotten the memo, as there were three rows and two columns of double-seated desks, also worn from disuse. Nanami himself was in the first row, closest to the blackboard.

The room’s occupants were quite the lot. Preparing to dole out stapled packets to those in attendance was the man in the black suit, Kiyotaka Ijichi, an assistant manager who had a humble soul wedged between his narrow shoulders. Sitting on the edge of the other desk in the first row was a larger man, tanned and square-jawed. His appearance would send anybody running for the safest place to hide—he wore an all-black tracksuit, his perpetual frown was framed by a sharp-angled “circle” beard, and the sides and back of his head were shaved, leaving spiky tufts of hair to poke out from the top. He was Principal Masamichi Yaga, and behind his dark sunglasses were two deep-set eyes that did nothing to soften his image.

“Be aware that we don’t have much to go on,” said Yaga, taking a packet. “But what we do have is taken from Nitta’s interview and Mei Mei’s surveillance of the subject.”

Ijichi quickly handed a packet to Nanami before hurrying to the other two attendees. Next up, in the second row, was a woman with hair that could pass as either white, pale blue, or silver, depending on the lighting. It was styled into two large braids, one dangling over her made-up face and one cascading down her back. An unnervingly unreadable smile was her most prominent accessory, and her elegant tastes were shown through her puffy purple jumpsuit and heeled brown boots. Her colleagues referred to her as Mei Mei, but some had speculated that this was an alias for hiding seedier business transactions.

And then came—

“Oiii! Ijichiiiii~!”

Good God.

“Don’t forget about meee~!”

It was Gojo. White hair and a blindfold. No elaboration required.

“H-Here you are,” said Ijichi, passing a packet to Gojo in the third row.

“Thaaaank you kindly” said Gojo, snatching the packet and propping his feet on the table. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this excited for a mission.”

Yaga drummed his fingers on his knee. “And how are you familiar with this case already, Satoru?”

“If you must know,” said Gojo, “on the way here, Ijichi and I drove past a whole bunch of curses. Looked like they were going someplace. It was super obvious we’d be talking about that today.”

“I did receive word that our subject was in the area,” said Yaga. “Your answer is sufficient, I suppose.”

Gojo flashed a toothy grin. “I also got Ijichi to spill.”

A squeak slipped out of the man in question. “No, wait, hold on a second! I only mentioned that this was a matter of international importance!”

“Which is more than enough for me,” said Gojo, thumbing haphazardly through the pages.

Nanami knew better than to entertain such banter, and yet he found himself turning his upper half towards Gojo to ask the following question. “What about this has you so interested?”

“Tsk, tsk, Nanami. You of all people should know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t.”

“Two words for you, then: Foreign. Women.”

“Knock it off,” said Yaga. “Ijichi, please get this meeting started before I throw everyone out. I swear, every time all of you are in the same room, it’s like you’re back in high school.”

Ijichi complied, rushing to his place in front of the blackboard, also ecstatic that Yaga had not reprimanded him for indirectly starting that tirade.

Nanami faced forward.

After smoothing down his suit and readjusting his glasses, Ijichi began reading from his own stack of paper. “This is our timeline of events.

“Yesterday afternoon, at 2:00pm, our windows stationed at Haneda reported unusual curse activity in Terminal 3. As you know, airports can oftentimes be a hotbed for curses, due in large part to delays, layovers, cancelled flights, missing luggage, the usual fare. Fortunately, these aren’t cataclysmic, life-ending issues, and when cataclysmic, life-ending issues do happen, it’s a rare occurrence, so the curses are typically pretty easy to handle.

“However, in this instance, two abnormalities were documented. The first involved the curses’ behavior. They were congregating at Gate 114, both indoors and outdoors, specifically around a parked plane that had just landed from an overseas flight. The second abnormality, and perhaps the more alarming one, was the number of curses in the vicinity. We don’t have an exact figure, but our windows estimated the total to be well over a hundred. They were all low-grade, and caused no damage to the infrastructure and no harm to regular peo—oh, uhm, y-yes, Gojo?”

Gojo was waving a lazy hand in the air. “Hey, hi, hello. Let me just say that this is an awesome report, Ijichi. You’re killing it up there. Good stuff.”

“Uhm, thank you!” said Ijichi, a light red tint on his cheeks.

“I just have one question,” said Gojo, lowering his hand.

Yaga groaned. “And what might that be?”

“Got any visuals to go with this? Like a video or an animation or something like that?”

Silence.

“A PowerPoint maybe?”

Silence.

“Look, all I’m saying—”

“Curses,” said Yaga, “do not appear in photographs or other recorded media.”

“Yeah, I know that, but I can’t be the only one who’s kind of bored listening to this without something to watch. Can’t we at least get a diagram? Or a diorama for extra depth?”

A thick vein appeared on Yaga’s forehead. “Ijichi, continue.”

“Y-Yes, of course,” said Ijichi. “And I, uh, do apologize for the lack of proper visuals. I didn’t have much time to put this together. I tried working on a poster board, though. It had cutouts and pictures, and even little arrows pointing to different…uhm…”

No one spoke.

Ijichi cleared his throat. “Right, well, I’ll try to make the rest of this brief.

“Regarding the curses’ behavior, there were a couple of viable explanations. A cursed object could be in a piece of luggage, or someone could be controlling the curses from within the plane. Nonetheless, protecting the emotional well-being of the civilians onboard and at the gate was paramount, so a decision was made to only observe for the time being.

“Once passengers started exiting the plane, the curses became more agitated, putting the windows on high alert. After ten or so minutes, a strong outburst was noted around one young woman in particular, whose cursed energy resembled thin tendrils of smoke. As she stepped off the jet bridge and made her way through the gate, all the curses stared at her, and then followed her, but did so while keeping some distance.”

Nanami heard Gojo take his feet off the table. Ijichi went on.

“Inspection of the subject continued as she passed through Immigration. She did not seem to be aware of the curses around her, which carried two implications: she wasn’t exerting control over them, and, more broadly, she couldn’t be classified as a sorcerer. Jujutsu High, by this point, had been made aware of the unfolding situation and deployed Assistant Manager Nitta to the scene. The young woman, identified as Tiana Baker, and her travel partner, Charlotte La Bouff, were escorted to a side office in Customs for questioning. Everything we uncovered is on page three of your packet.”

Yaga flipped to the page. “Are we sure that she’s not able to see curses? We’ve had curse users feign ignorance before.”

Ijichi nodded. “That’s a valid concern. According to the report, her actions aligned with what’s normally seen in non-sorcerers. Nitta even arranged for curses to be brought in periodically during their sit-down. The subject didn’t react.”

Mei Mei chuckled. “It says here that she’s a recent college graduate. A degree in business administration and a minor in finance. That tells me she’s got a good head on her shoulders. Knows what’s really important.”

Gojo let out a low whistle. “Is this her passport picture? She’s quite a looker. Those dimples are to die for. And she’s from New Orleans? I’ve always wanted to go there.”

Yaga put his packet down on the desk. “Focus, people, this isn’t someone’s job application.” He stood up and walked to the front of the room, next to Ijichi. “I need to explain the severity of this mission to you all.”

Everyone stilled.

“If this were a domestic case, we’d take more time to consider our options, but the subject is from another country, and that complicates things for us. Our knowledge on sorcery and curses outside of Japan is limited to one African nation, and we can’t rely on that to make generalizations about this. As such, the purpose of the mission will be oversight and information-gathering.”

“Uhm, nothing else beyond that, sir?” asked Ijichi.

“No,” said Yaga. “In a best-case scenario, she’s kept in the dark about what she can do. She stays out of trouble, she goes back home, and we get data. Worst-case, we get the higher-ups involved, which trickles over into the whole of Jujutsu Society, which then trickles over to the Japanese government, which then gets scooped up by the United States government. You can see where this is going.”

Gojo raised his hand again. “What if she’s cursed?”

Everyone looked at him.

“Makes sense,” he said. “She can’t see the curses and she’s still attracting them. Sounds like someone put a curse on her. A nasty one, at that.”

“It’s a possibility,” said Yaga, “but it doesn’t explain her cursed energy. Again, we aren’t too familiar with how curse-related phenomena manifest in other parts of the world. What could be one thing for us, could be something entirely different for her.”

It was quiet once more.

Ijichi sorted through his papers. “If it helps, I’ve done some supplementary research on her hometown, to get an idea of why her situation might be so extreme.”

“What did you find?” asked Yaga.

“New Orleans has quite the history. I almost fell down a three-hundred-year-long rabbit hole. And I was shocked to learn that one of its worst disasters took place only thirteen years ago. From what I could gather, the impacts were catastrophic. The protective systems couldn’t…no, I won’t go into any more detail. What I will say is that city is no stranger to hardship.”

Yaga folded his arms. “It’s a start. Until we learn more, her connection to the event will have to remain conjecture. For all we know, she wasn’t affected by it.”

“R-Right,” said Ijichi.

Yaga looked around the room, then set his sights on one person. “Tell us what you’re thinking, Nanami.”

“I’ve already encountered her.”

Mei Mei gave an affirmative hum.

“You have?” asked Yaga, quirking his bare brow. “That’s news to me.”

“It was this morning, before our meeting,” said Nanami.  “I saw cursed spirits converging at a train station. I scoped it out and found her waiting inside.”

“Can you corroborate what the report said?” asked Yaga.

“It’s accurate,” said Nanami. “All around her were hundreds of weak curses. She couldn’t see them, and they did nothing but stare at her. The description of her cursed energy matched what I saw.”

“Anything else?”

“She knocked something over, hid in the bathroom, and the curses moved in a little closer. Not much happened after that, so I left.”

Gojo snickered. “You sure she didn’t notice you and run away?”

“Ignore him. What’s your final verdict?” asked Yaga.

Nanami exhaled.

“The less involvement from the higher-ups, the better off Ms. Baker will be.”

A firm nod from Yaga. “We’re in agreement. I was right to appoint you as mission lead. Your sound judgement will get us through this. That, and your fluency in English.”

His English?

“I haven’t told you yet,” said Yaga. “To better keep an eye out, you’ll be her tour guide while she’s here. You meet with her and her friend in about half an hour. Their itinerary is on the last page.”

He

He’ll be what?

“Pfffffffffffffffft!”

Nanami didn’t have to look. He knew it was Gojo.

“That’s hilarious!  Nanami as a tour guide?! They’ll want to go home the minute he opens his mouth. Let me do the guiding, I’m way more fun.”

“Hell no,” said Yaga. “Having you as a tour guide will sink this mission fast. You’re on backup duty.”

“Backup?!” asked Gojo. “Why do I need to be on backup?”

“Ask the higher-ups,” said Yaga, “they requested it. I’m not arguing about this. Deal with it.”

“Tch. ‘Requested it?’ Sounds like those old bastards are plenty involved already.”

“Watch yourself, Satoru,” said Yaga, who then turned to face his next target. “As for you, Ijichi, you’ll be accompanying Nanami as the other guide.”

Ijichi dropped his papers. “The other guide?! Why?!”

“You’ve already begun preliminary research on the subject’s background,” said Yaga. “You’ll be an asset.”

“But! My! My English isn’t nearly as good as Nanami’s and Gojo’s! I’ll be laughed at! They’ll mock me!”

“Then start improving.”

“Why don’t you send Mei Mei?!”

“She’s been on reconnaissance since yesterday.”

“Nitta?!”

“Called in sick.”

“Aaaaaaahhh…”

“Any other questions?” asked Yaga.

The chaos in the room dissolved into calm.

“Good. Remember, our goal is to monitor. Until tomorrow. Dismissed.”

Yaga took his leave, swinging open the metal door and plodding down the abyssal hallway.

“Well, damn,” said Gojo. “That was abrupt.”

“Indeed,” said Ijichi, bending down to pick up his papers. “And cruel.”

He completed his jumbled paper recovery and approached Nanami. “I, uh, guess we should get going. I took a peek at the itinerary, and luckily, the meet-up location isn’t too far from here.”

“Right,” said Nanami, standing up from his seat.

“Do you think we can formulate a game plan first?” asked Ijichi. “You know, about how we’re going to handle this assignment?”

“A game plan?” asked Nanami.

“I, uh…it’s not just my English that needs help. I’m worried that I’ll make…I mean, I’m not sure about how I…” He sighed. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“Rooting for you, Ijichi!” said Gojo, grinning again. “Don’t let those girls bully you too hard!”

The deepest shade of red overtook Ijichi’s face. “I-I don’t plan on it!”

“Let’s go,” said Nanami. “We can talk in the car.”

Beneath the blindfold, Gojo’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, okay, guess I’ll just get a ride with Yaga, then! Thanks, guys! Thanks a lot!”

The newly designated tour guides walked out of the room. Nanami thought he heard Mei Mei asking Gojo to stay behind and chat, but he didn’t dwell on it. That was no business of his.

“So,” said Ijichi, wearily, “we’re going to meet with our subject and her friend in a little bit. Aaaah, why can’t we watch from afar and collect info that way?”

“Think hard about that suggestion you made,” said Nanami, “and tell me if you’d want two grown men doing that to you.”

“I…I suppose not.”

Their shoes clacked against the dust-caked floors.

“I’ve never been on a mission like this,” said Ijichi. “I’m used to guiding students and professional sorcerers, but college-age women? Dear me...”

“Shall we ask Gojo for advice?”

“Please, please, no.”

A waning overhead lightbulb flickered on and off. On and off. On.

“Nanami? Could I pick your brain a little?”

And off.

“What is it?”

“This doesn’t seem to be bothering you at all. I know you have a good head for these types of things. How do you feel about everything so far?”

How does he feel?

…

…

God damn it.

For Nanami, being asked for his stance, both now and in the meeting, shouldn’t have felt so close to getting a bucket of cold water dumped on his head. In mission debriefs, his tasks were to sit, listen, and provide insight when necessary. He’d done it countless times before.

This was no different.

…is what he would’ve liked to say.

Truth be told, he’d been fighting to keep his wits about him the entire morning. He awoke from a dream that left him as well-rested as a nightmare would, and got saddled with steering a mission that, if unsuccessful, could invite unwarranted global attention.

Not too out of the ordinary, actually.

But his journey into the train station accounted for ninety-eight percent of his current well of indignation. After seeing the curses flock near the entrance, choke the stairwell, and drown the halls, he knew he couldn’t back away. Farther and farther, he descended, and the stink of errant cursed energy stung his nose. Burnt his eyes. He passed the ticket gates, turned a corner.

And found what he had been looking for.

The source of the curses’ skewed devotion. They stared, mouths agape, paws and claws gripping in her direction. She stood against a wall, unaware of the eyes fixated on her, while her own were latched to the crow that entered the station before him. Thin clouds of cursed energy wafted off her skin, each malignant spiral an affront to the soft wonder behind her gaze.

Eventually, those eyes of hers turned to him.

I’ve already encountered her.

Nanami hated how right he was. He hated being wrong, never once enjoyed being told he was wrong, but he didn’t need to be right this time. He’d give everything to not be right this time.

It kept getting worse. The longer he stared at her, the more he lost touch.

The brighter the sun shone.

The louder the waves roared.

The greater his desire to reach out a hand.

And the greater his shame when she hid away.

The worst part? The greatest offense? He took a step towards her. How stupid. Idiotic. Someone get him a lobotomy.

…

…

“I have no opinion.”

False.

It was his opinion that he was well and truly fucked.

Chapter Text

·⋆ ·

   .· .  ·   ✫ ·  ⟡  ·✫ ·  .· .  ·   

·⋆ ·

If it stood in the way of a goal, then Tiana Baker wanted nothing more than to crush it.

…She really had to find a nicer way of saying that.

Success, to her, was a necessity, an undefeatable constant that couldn’t be stalled or stifled. To succeed was to meet every challenge and seize it, rout it, stick a flag in and declare it done. Her chosen path, and all its embedded milestones, ran deep into the soil of the Earth, but over time, the path had shifted, skewed—enough to be nearly unrecognizable from when she first set forth on it.

The destination stayed the same, never once altering under any circumstance. She knew where she needed to be. She knew where she was going to be.

Yet she always teetered on the brink of lunacy whenever the path was tampered with, or, in other words, whenever it looked as if the soil and dirt had been kicked up by hungry squirrels desperate to find their well-hidden winter stashes.

Wait, what was she talking about? Success? Squirrels? Goodness gracious. She was all over the place today.

Squirrels, in particular, were the least of her concern. She hadn’t even seen any since arriving in Tokyo. All she saw were buildings. And crows.

And hi—

She tensed. Tried to breathe. Fretted over the last ninety minutes, struggled to understand what she had done to find herself in this new position. 

Things were looking up.

What the heck went wrong?

⟡

She and Charlotte had arrived at the next station ( she wasn’t about to butcher the pronunciation of its name) and stepped off the train to begin their convenience store quest. The two friends, ready and willing to free themselves from anything to do with underground transport, scampered down the long, long platform, but came to a complete stop when they confronted, at the far end, a new set of ticket gates.

“Tia, stand back. I got this.”

Charlotte scanned her card over the correct space. They were in. Out? Whatever.

A climb up the wet stairs brought them outside, to the underbelly of a rippling gray sky. The rain had whittled down to a sprinkle, or, perhaps, it never went beyond that. Charlotte had hightailed it indoors as soon as she felt the first drop, and Tiana had followed close behind, so they had no way of knowing the intensity of the rainfall. Judging by how saturated the ground was, they had likely steered clear of a decently sized pour.

More pertinent to Charlotte’s interests was the FamilyMart on the opposite street corner. The storefront was humble, with nothing noteworthy except for the bright green stripe on the awning and windows, which created an appealing contrast to the subdued blue of the logo’s letters. It reminded Tiana, in a way, of the stuffed-in-the-wall shops in her neighborhood back home. Those spots wouldn’t be receiving accolades for decoration or presentation, but they offered some unforgettable experiences. The ones you’d only get when visiting New Orleans.

But after walking past the FamilyMart’s sliding doors, she realized the interior looked no different from a regular Walgreens, and felt silly for getting so sentimental.

Charlotte spread out her arms as she entered the store.“Tia, grab a basket, I’m getting everything!”

“No, you are not. Do you even know what half this stuff is?”

“Don’t care!”

Charlotte began to roam, scouring the shelves for coveted treats. Tiana, on her own, kept an eye peeled for index cards, or anything similar, yet had no luck in locating them. Seemed as though she’d have to settle for an online studying tool. A pity, really. Writing down terms and definitions by hand was her go-to method for memorization.

Fifteen minutes passed.

Situated by the front windows, and facing the street, was a seating area with a counter and three stools. Charlotte, after purchasing two plastic bags worth of snacks, sandwiches, and sweets, dumped it all unceremoniously on the countertop. Tiana, carrying her iced coffee, chose the left-most stool to sit in.

“Tia, look at it.” Charlotte made a sweeping gesture at her bounty. “Doesn’t it just make your heart sing?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘sing.’”

“What would you say?”

“Is ‘cry’ an option?”

“Only if you’re crying from joy.”

Charlotte’s strategy for taste-testing was rather chaotic. She would grab a packaged good (a seaweed-covered rice product, in one instance), tear off the wrapping, and take a gargantuan bite. Her cheeks, as she chewed, resembled those of the hungry squirrels that didn’t live anywhere near here, and if she tried to swallow before her food was properly ground up, she’d cough, sputter, make a mad dash for whatever colorful beverage was closest and gulp that down. If she liked what she ate, she finished the entire thing. If she didn’t like it, she tossed it aside and stuck out her tongue.

Rinse and repeat for the next eight minutes.

“Uuugh…” Charlotte, wincing and cradling her stomach, sat amongst a sea of ripped plastic and half-eaten egg sandwiches. “Tia, I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Tiana’s iced coffee sat empty on the counter. “And what would that be?”

Charlotte hiccuped. “Everything.”

“You brought those tablets with you, right?”

A sniff. “They’re at the house.”

“The house? Lottie, you told me you’d hold on to them while we were out today.”

“I knooow, I’m sorryyyy. Can't we get some here?”

“They don’t sell antacids over the counter in Japan.”

“Waaaah…”

Tiana, with a sympathetic look and a slow shake of her head, blew a soft yet audible flow of air out her nose. “Listen, it’s not a big deal, okay? Just hang tight. I’ll be right back.”

And she got up to find some water, in the hopes of relieving her friend of that acidic, self-imposed agony.

During her swift, light-footed search, she came across an employee, hard at work, restocking bags of vegetables in the frozen aisle. Brussels sprouts, by the looks of it.  Lots and lots of Brussels sprouts. She couldn’t say she didn’t understand the struggle. Her first job, at fourteen, had been in a larger grocery store, and her shifts had comprised of handling heaps of cold inventory and helping shoppers who couldn’t help themselves out of an open field. Numb hands and a numb mind were the name of the game.

But the produce aisle had been her favorite. Touching a fruit or vegetable would unlock a wealth of inspiration within her, for one ingredient held every possibility in the entire world. Galaxy. Universe.

A simpler time, that was. Much simpler.

Hm.

Life always had a nasty, unwelcome habit of becoming too complicated the longer it clambered on. Things you thought you knew would suddenly change meaning under different contexts. People you thought you knew would suddenly change their tune.

And whenever it happened, Tiana would just…

…stop.

Then get down on her hands and knees to carve out a new branch of her path. Use new soil. Repurpose the dirt.

Did what she had to do.

Over and over.

…

Oh, good. She found the water.

She plucked the bottle off the refrigerated shelf and made her way over to the cash register. The clerk who had previously rung her up stood listless, a little miserable, but he brightened at the sight of her and gave her a brief nod. She returned in kind.

The checkout routine that had been used for her coffee was again used for the water: he smiled, silently scanned her item, and pointed to its price on the checkout screen.

Now, she owed much to this clerk, this sweet saint from above. Those inconvenient, out-of-town nerves of hers had been whirring beneath her skin, and they completely let loose when she first met the clerk. Irksome questions had materialized within her: if he spoke to her, what would be the appropriate way to respond? She had wanted to say something in Japanese, to show her appreciation for the language, but what if it sounded wrong? Got misconstrued as a different word altogether?

Turned out her worries were unfounded. Both exchanges involved no words whatsoever.

Such straightforward outcomes were Tiana’s lifeblood, and she couldn’t help but smile at the clerk, then and now. Hopefully, that would count as an appropriate Thank you. If it didn’t, well, she’d freak out about it later. In the meantime, she had a delivery to make.

After paying, she brought the water to Charlotte, who was leaning over, forehead on the counter. The explosion of trash had also been cleared.

“Aw, Lottie, did you clean up the table?”

“…uhhhhuh.”

“Even though your stomach’s hurting?”

“…eeeeyup.”

“I appreciate that. I’m sure the staff does, as well.”

“…’m not a mess.”

“I know you’re not. Here.”

Charlotte, head still down, held out a hand.

Tiana twisted the cap enough to break the seal, and passed the bottle over to Charlotte.

“…anks, Tia.”

A couple more minutes went by. Charlotte was sitting up to sip on her water, and Tiana was peering out the window to dabble in a spot of people-watching.

“Feeling any better, Lottie?”

“Nope. What do I owe for the water?”

“Nothing. You’re good.”

“Unacceptable. You’ll be receiving a check in the mail. I’m going to sleep.”

Tiana’s eyes darted around the store, then back to Charlotte. “Uh, I’m not sure if we’re allowed to do that.”

“We paid for stuff, they can’t kick us out. Nighty-night.”

“But—”

Charlotte rested her head on the counter. “Wake me up when it’s time to see the guide.”

And that was that.

Tiana didn’t have a problem with how the conversation ended. She was used to it.

She did have one problem, which by the standards of this trip, was nothing new. They were sitting at the counter, taking up space that could be better utilized by a customer preferring to eat inside. If an employee asked them to leave, or gave some indication of wanting them to leave, she’d hoist Charlotte out of the stool, no questions asked. For now, she’d stay put. There weren’t too many folks in the store anyway. Just the clerk and the frozen Brussels sprouts stocker. Maybe one or two others.

Tiana looked elsewhere, outside, at the reflective roads, the shallow puddles, the few souls passing by. Not much else was happening.

Strange. Wasn’t Tokyo supposed to be a bustling metropolis? It must have rained harder than she initially believed. That was her only explanation for why such a small number of people were out and about.

But the empty streets didn’t bother her.

She thought it was kind of nice.

Yes. Nice.

Again, it wasn’t nice that Charlotte was putting herself first and potentially inconveniencing others, actions which Tiana had repeatedly chided her for (yet ultimately acquiesced to), but that was normal.

Nice. Normal. Two of her favorite things.

Her spiked nerves had flattened. For the first time in over twenty-four hours, clarity of thought had returned.

Tiana twisted the pearl stud in her ear. Bit back a smile.

She felt just fine.

…Nuts. Along with that clarity came a startling realization. She hadn’t texted Georgia.

Her watch said 9:35am. A brief bout of mental math led to her determining the correct time at home, and, fortunately, it wasn’t super late over there.  She pulled out her phone, opened the messages app, and pressed on the fourth text thread from the top to begin typing.

Hey Gigi!

The reply was almost instantaneous.

Damn where the hell you been ?

Dumping me for your rich friends smh

A flash of indignation passed over Tiana’s face.

That’s not true

How’s everything?

Less than a second.

Hot

You ?

It’s been raining

Gross

Having fun ?

Uhm.

Yeah, it’s really nice here

Lmao thats a damn lie, I know your ass is miserable . Wish you were here with me <3 keep me updated !

Will do

<3 <3 Also, post pics to group chat, thank you <3

Yes ma’am

Tiana hardly cared about not receiving a text back. Taking up the mantle of “last one to say something” came with a host of conveniences, her top pick being that she no longer carried the burden of having to craft an uninspired response. The proverbial ball was in the other court. Georgia had the same viewpoint, so there were never any bitter feelings if someone was left hanging.

Charlotte, on the other hand, would’ve made a big stink. That girl demanded feedback, survived off it, and denying her that God-given right would send her underneath the bedsheets to sulk and cry.

To Tiana, it mattered not if her friends had distinct methods of communicating. She adored them regardless.

…

Although she had come to Tokyo with her oldest friend and genuinely couldn’t be happier about it, she still missed Georgia and the rest of their tight-knit, ride-or-die group, forged at random in the campus library four years prior.

Tiana’s work schedule, a possible insult to labor laws, had frequently kept her occupied, and the group, with the best of intentions, would moan and groan and tell her all sorts of things about how she was working herself into an early grave. She didn’t disagree, but she continuously reminded them that this was a crucial step she had to take.

 So, they’d moan and groan and tell her the same things.

Georgia had been the most supportive. She’d needled on occasions, especially during their junior year of high school, when they’d first met. Despite that, she always had an idea of how to best bring Tiana some peace.

Tiana read out the text. “Wish you were here.”

She appreciated the sentiment. As much as she would rather wake up in her own bed, walk in her own house, drive in her own city, exist in her own element, none of that was currently possible. She’d promised Charlotte, however long ago, that they’d take a trip together once they (or one of them, in this case) graduated from college, and here they were.

“Wish you were here…”

Wishing wasn’t necessary.

Whatever you were given, you got, and if by some chance you didn’t like the outcome, you’d better start thinking of a way to fix it. With your own power. You couldn’t just wish your way out of something.

Heck, she didn’t even like saying that word. It slipped out occasionally, because that’s what people did, they wished, and to stop doing so wasn’t the easiest task.

But she digressed.

And she sighed.

It sure would be nice to be at home, where everything was normal. In New Orleans, she wouldn’t have to think too hard about wrestling with communication barriers, or breaking multitudes of hidden societal rules, or turning into a blustering buffoon in front of a well-dressed man.

Tiana, in an alternate dimension, would’ve slammed her head on the counter and knocked herself out next to Charlotte.

The ghost of green-lensed sunglasses had returned to haunt her. It was to be expected, though. She hadn’t completely forgotten the whole “ordeal”, not at all, just considered it an annoying stray curl and tucked it behind her ear. Luckily, it didn’t hold as much sway over her in the present, but it was still there. It still happened.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

The man was gone, off to buy new eyewear, God willing. He had his life, she had her own, and…why was she giving this any more of her attention?

Staying idle was starting to mess with her. She had to get going, so she patted Charlotte, ever so lightly, on the back.

No response.

Next came a not-as-light chop on the head.

Charlotte’s eyes flew open. “Wha? Huh? Wuzzat?”

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty.”

Charlotte pushed herself up and wiped the corner of her mouth. “Ugh, that was barely a nap. What’s the rush?”

“I figured we’d leave early and find the meeting place for our guide. I’d rather not wait until the last minute. How are you feeling?”

Charlotte yawned, smacked her lips, scratched her back. “Y’know, it’s weird,” she said. “I’m suddenly feeling a lot better. There is a huge bubble in my stomach that needs to be popped, but that’s really it.”

“I…” Tiana shrugged her shoulders. “Will drinking a soda help?”

“I’ll let nature run its course.” Charlotte got up from her seat. “Let us be on our way.”

“I mean, if you need to use the ba—”

“Nope, I don’t. But if that changes, I heard there are a ton of public restrooms scattered everywhere. We’re good!”

Tiana nodded, slowly at first, then with more fervor. “Yeah, yeah, I read about that, too!”

“Hehehehe.”

“What’s with the giggling?”

“Heeheehee. Hoohoohoo.” Charlotte hopped from foot to foot. “Ooh, nothing. Just remembered something funny. Heeheehoohoo.”

“If we’re remembering the same thing, I suggest you forget it. Now.”

“Tiaaaa, don’t be like that. A little laughing goes a long way. Heeheehooooo.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“That’s the spirit!” Charlotte offered a hand to Tiana, who was still sitting down. “Care to join me on this journey, my dear?”

With her lips pressed thin, Tiana studied those wiggling fingers desperate for connection. And that beaming face, endlessly pelting her with high doses of concentrated light. A unique brand of love.

She relaxed. Smiled, even.

“I would be delighted to,” said Tiana, taking the hand.

“Then lead the way!” said Charlotte. “No, seriously, lead the way, I don’t know where we’re going.”

Charlotte yanked Tiana off her stool, and together, they exited through the sliding doors and stepped out onto the non-bustling sidewalk. Tiana, after referencing her map app, determined that they needed to head left, so that’s exactly what they did, hand-in-hand. It was a pleasant callback to their childhood days, to when they’d go from place to place with their arms linked, hands held, pinkies locked, whatever got the point across.

Nice. Normal.

“Lottie, we need to get an umbrella.”

“How in the hell does a whole country not sell Tums?!”

Tiana spit out a laugh.

She was just fine.

⟡

Nothing went wrong.

She couldn’t glean anything from the last ninety minutes. Charlotte ate too much, too fast, and saddled herself with some mild gastrointestinal discomfort. That’s it. The end.

Plenty had gone wrong before that. The early morning had been an eventful one, filled to the brim with hijinks better suited for a prime-time sitcom. But those were one-off occurrences, capable of happening to anyone. They held no meaning.

She didn’t want them to have meaning.

What Tiana really needed was a concrete answer for why this, right here, was happening. This. Right. Here.

Customs. The three-hour interview in customs. That’s where all this started. The woman in the black suit said it herself:

“I offer my sincerest apologies for keeping you in here. To make up for this, we’d like to assign a personal guide to you and your friend. They’ll be ready for you as soon as tomorrow!”

It didn’t get more concrete than that.

Yet it wasn’t enough. The nature of Tiana’s situation had empowered a suppressed, insignificant voice to ignore every strain of logic and overstuff her head with outlandish hypotheticals.

Like so:

Every single mechanism regulating the tides of chance had grown a mouth and begun laughing in her face. She had become the plaything of a mad trickster god, one whose name she dared not utter for fear of further invoking his wrath. The stars in the sky had entered a perfect, once-in-a-millennium alignment, creating a constellation that, when viewed from a certain angle, looked suspiciously like a middle finger.

None of that made sense, but she was willing to give it a mite of credence. Just for today.

Because why else would this man—

“Good morning.”

with his repurposed goggles—

“My name is Kento Nanami.”

come back to ruin her day again??

“And I’ll be your tour guide.”

???!!!

“A pleasure to meet you both.”

This.

Sucked.

The man in the tan suit bowed. Next to him, a fidgety man in a black suit did the same. Across from them, Tiana, too dazed to think about proper social protocols, gave a smaller, not as deep bow. Charlotte, positively uninterested, waved a flopping hand.  

The four of them were on some sidewalk, next to some street, which, aside from the left-hand traffic, had a startlingly similar layout to Canal Street in New Orleans. The meet-up location, recommended by the woman from the airport, was in front of a men’s clothing boutique, eight floors tall. Low rumbles of thunder resounded in the distance, and the rain had ceased entirely. Brighter patches of gray were seeping through the clouds—a sign of the sun’s valiant battle for control over the skies.

There were also more people around, taking advantage of the improving weather, no doubt. Some of them, as they walked by, sent the motley quartet a variety of looks, ranging from confused to amused. Tiana couldn’t blame them. Where else were you going to find a black girl clenching the hands behind her back into fists, a white girl eyeing the posters of male models in the boutique’s windows, a blonde-haired (not foreign!) Japanese man as lively as Scotch tape, and…another Japanese man.

Speaking of which.

“My name is Kiyotaka Ijichi. I’ll be assisting Nanami. I-It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He bowed once more. Despite his efforts to appear as collected as possible, Tiana knew that he was suffering from a bad case of the nerves. She could relate. Sympathize. Hers were in overdrive, and they showed no signs of slowing.

None of that was an excuse to remain silent. She’d have to respond, and even though she couldn’t pinpoint the source of his trembles, she hoped to alleviate them with kind words of her own.

From one Nervous Nellie to the next.  

“Great! My name is Tiana Baker.” The sweet-toned words belied a deep sense of disquiet. “Thank you for helping us out today, erm…Mr. Ijichi, right?”

Some of the trepidation on his face melted away. “Yes!” he said, his glasses bobbing along with his nods. “You’re very welcome!”

Aw. That was sweet. Tiana stored the interaction, and the warmth it provided, in her palpitating heart. Lord knows she’d need it going forward.

And now, the moment she’d been dreading. No drum rolls, please. Instead, let the drum roll over her. That would be great.

She turned to the other man, known formally as Kento Nanami. They’d have to speak to each other, no use in denying it. She chose to ignore her sweaty palms, her fluttery chest, her lousy brain for rerunning the events at the train station in stark, excruciating, high-definition detail.

With 4K laser projection.

And surround sound.

And subtitles.

And free refills on large popcorn. 

She shuddered, and played it off by rubbing her arms, pretending that a post-rain chill, in the dead of June, had struck her bones.

Although his gaze was hidden, she could tell, from the angle of his head, that he was looking at her. Or was it her general direction? Actually, she couldn’t tell. Again. What else was new. To make matters worse, his face was a perfect replica of the one he made at the station.  Flat lips, flat brows, there was nothing she could use to gauge what he thought. Or how he felt.

If he felt at all.

…

Was that rolling drum on its way? Wait, it wasn’t? A shame. A crying shame.

Guess that was it. 

(Last call for the drum!) 

Time to get this over with.

Rip off the bloody Band-Aid. Plunge into the freezing water. Clean out the refrigerator after the power’s been cut for days and discard all the stinking, rotting meat.

Just a normal greeting. Hello and Thank you. That’s all she needed to give. That’s all she owed him. That's all she could spare right now. 

Hello and Thank you.

Hello and Thank you. 

Okay.

(Not okay.)

(Not okay at all.)

She parted her lips.

Prepared to speak.

Then it hit her. Smacked her. Used her head as punching practice.

What if, in his response, he quipped about what happened earlier?

Nooo, no. She refused to get lost in another labyrinth of overthinking. This man, Nanami, he didn’t seem like the type to mock another person’s blunders. Granted, he didn’t seem like the type to react to anything, but that was beside the point.

He could still bring it up.

She couldn’t have his partner, Ijichi, thinking of her as some clumsy cretin. And she couldn’t have Charlotte—

Oh, no.

Charlotte, who had been championing for the return of the mystery man, could never know that he had reappeared as their tour guide. The oceans would boil. The continents would collide. She’d never quit yapping about it.

Tiana could not let that happen. The fate of her trip depended on this very moment, so she had to make sure her words left him with no opportunity to attach any additional commentary.

A simple And thank you, too should suffice.

And thank you, too.

And thank you, too.

Okay…

(Still not okay.)

(Still very much not okay.)

She parted her dry lips.

Prepared to speak with a dry mouth.

Then it hit her again, this time with a mean, brutal, right-off-the-feet uppercut.

Nothing was stopping him from bringing it up anyway, regardless of what she said.

She could hear it now:

Knocked any good signs down lately?

That clanging noise is still ringing in my ears.

I guess rushing into bathrooms is your way of saying hello to someone.

Ah.

Ha.

She had no control over the situation. He could spill the pot of beans. Let everyone know. Send her into a spiral.

She hated this.

How could one man cause her to fall apart so easily?

She didn’t want this.

He was just a guy.

She had more important things to think about.

Was their meeting really an omen?

If only she could see his eyes.

It was as if he had locked himself away, behind two opaque lenses. On even the most surface level, there had been no way for her to connect with him.

But would he want to connect with her at this point? She had run away from him. That must have put him off—

No.

No.

No, no, no.

She blocked all incoming jabs.

That was enough. 

She would no longer shackle herself to such ugly, festering negativity. Whatever he said, she would accept and deal with it. Stew over it. Lose her mind over it. But deal with it. And move on. Their paths had already touched. Everything else was out of her hands.

These hands of hers. Always preferring to hold the wheel, yet never maintaining that grip.

…

From nowhere,

somewhere,

everywhere,

a fleeting phrase arose.

Wish you here with me.

Oh, Georgia.

If only things were that simple.

…

…

Okay.

It’s okay.

It’ll be just fine.

It will. 

It has to be.

Tiana took a wobbly breath and looked past his glasses, right into his eyes.

Then quickly wet her lips.

And smiled.

“Thank you for being our tour guide, Mr. Nanami. I greatly appreciate it.”  

For a split second, Nanami’s brows twitched upwards. “You’re welcome.”

Her heart stopped.

“A-Also,” said Tiana, “I have to ask. Did I say your name correctly?”

“Yes. Perfectly.”

There was a hard thump under her ribs.

“Wonderful! I’m glad to hear that.”

He regarded her with a slow, single nod.

…

…Wow.

Was it over?

Had she done it?

She had. She had! And her nerves were still bad!

Tiana, calling upon her dwindling strength, forced her knees to stay straight, her legs to stay upright. Never before had she felt this winded while talking to someone. Maybe during those tumultuous times in high school, she had come close, but this was on a different level entirely.

What struck Tiana especially hard was how bland their dialogue had been. She felt like a proper fool for putting so much stock into what, essentially, amounted to nothing. His responses were terse, tame, without derision.

And…somewhat reassuring?

He had approved of her pronunciation. She had said his name “perfectly.”

She couldn’t believe she was about to say this, mainly because she associated this man with general feelings of blah and bleh, but she was quite happy to hear that from him.

A word of clarification: by no means did she crave words of praise. Completing objectives for the purpose of receiving validation had never been, and would never be, her modus operandi. Her joy and comfort stemmed from knowing that she had done her job correctly. That she was on the right track.

Another step closer to her end goal.

Tiana placed a hand on her chest. Surely, his compliment, and more importantly, the resulting knowledge that she had succeeded in some fashion, would’ve caused her nerves to subside. But they hadn’t. Not one bit.

How curious.

This man. What was up with him? Dressed to the nines, void of any expression. By a most insidious stroke of bad luck, he had seen her at her most careless, and by that same exact stroke, he had become a permanent fixture of her trip.

She could always avoid him, make him a semi-permanent fixture, but that wouldn’t be very polite. Southern hospitality, and all that.

Though, to be honest, and this was especially alarming, she was starting to think she didn’t want to avoid him.

How weird.

It was a wild change of heart, to be sure. Through his incredible superpower of standing still and staying silent, he had put her on edge. By saying something, he kept her on edge. Why wouldn’t she want to avoid him?

She’d encountered a peculiar one, this Kento Nanami figure. A pillar of mystery. In a suit.

“Is everything alright, Ms. Baker?” he asked.

Gosh. She hadn’t realized it before, but his voice was deep, and there was a raspiness to it that made the back of her throat itch.

She probably had a post-nasal drip. It was allergy season, after all.

“Y-Yes!” said Tiana.  “I’m just jet lagged. Don’t worry about me.”

Another slow nod. “If there’s anything I can do for you,” he said, “please do not hesitate to ask.”

Sunlight broke through the clouds overhead, yet Tiana, somehow, had already begun to feel warm. Warmer.  That new warmth did strange things to her nerves—reinforced them in some places, thawed them in others. And within a pile of melted, slushy nerves, there existed a faint sensation, an underdeveloped familiarity.

It felt…

 …sort of nice. A little normal. It made her feel, to some extent, maybe almost fine.

Hang on. Was she “fine?” Not completely. Barely at all. In fact, she’d go as far to say that, with him around, it might take a while for her to get back to an acceptable measure of “fine.”

Take a while?

That was it. Her non-zero chance.

She could make this work.

Unfortunately, Tiana was still unsure of how the rest of her time in Tokyo would play out. There weren’t any roadmaps, or hint boxes, or lists of recommended choices to make.

Yet, for the sake of her nervous system, she’d settle on this one choice.

From now until her plane ride home, this man would only get the best of Tiana Baker. No more mess-ups, slip-ups, goof-ups. The train station would become a distant memory for them both. This would be their first true meeting.

Only grace and ease from now on.

“Again, thank you, Mr. Nanami.”

These days, she had little use for what people referred to as their “intuition.” In her mind, a sound decision was based on lengthy and thorough contemplation (though she hadn’t really adhered to this over the last day or so.) Family and friends had begged her to do away with such stiff rationale, and their reasons coalesced into a thematically linked blob of “just do what feels right.”

Had she used her intuition just now? She must have, because something had indeed “felt right” about this. That, and her brain was fried, so she couldn’t sit down and think this through.

Goodness, these nerves. Would they ever go away? She grew tired of experiencing life as a downed power line.

And there was one more teensy issue. His sunglasses. They had to go. She hated to judge them so harshly, but they looked like a prop you’d buy from a popup Spirit Halloween store.

Okay, that was mean. They weren’t that bad. They weren’t that good, but—

“Charlotte La Bouff.”

The last person to introduce themselves spoke.

“My first name has two ‘t’s, and the ‘La’ is detached from the ‘Bouff.’” She was picking at her nails. “That’s all. Can we go now?”

Tiana almost choked.

She snapped her eyes over to the two men. Nanami wasn’t fazed. Ijichi was sweating and tugging on his shirt collar.

Her eyes drifted over to Charlotte, who was inspecting her nails and paying no mind to anyone else.

The audacity of this girl. And right when things were looking up. Again!

“I am so sorry,” Tiana said to the men, “but could you give us a minute?”

Tiana pulled Charlotte into a hushed two-woman huddle.

“Lottie, what on Earth was that?!”

“What was what?

“Your attitude! You can’t speak to people like that. They’re here to help us!”

“I didn’t think I was that rude.”

“Trust me. You were.”

 “But Tiaaaa, they’re so boring.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was kind of expecting,” Charlotte did a little shimmy with her body, “I don’t know, someone hot. A real piece of candy.” She slumped. “Not a bunch of squares.”

Tiana’s mouth hung open.

Charlotte shrugged. “They’re dull. Lame. I’m not impressed.”

“They’re not here to impress you!”

“Ugh. Tell me, wouldn’t it be better if we had that cutie you met at the train station?”

“NO!!”

Tiana clamped her hands over her mouth. Charlotte’s face scrunched up at the sudden attack on her ear canals.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, Tiana had been too loud. She couldn’t bring herself to peek at the men’s faces. At their reactions.

But hiding away wouldn’t be “the best of Tiana Baker.” Instead, she’d play it off and play it cool. Composed. Calm. Assure everyone that all was well.

After putting her hands down, she turned to the men, and saw Ijichi whispering to Nanami.

Wait hold it what was he talking about what was he saying what was he

Ijichi must have seen Tiana’s panicked look, as he immediately ceased his whispers and amended his posture, pushing his shoulders back. “My apologies! That was ill-mannered of me!”

“What? No, no, don’t apologize,” said Tiana, stealing a glance at Nanami’s blank face. “If anything, I should be the one to apologize. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. It’s just that Charlotte here is, uhm, having a bit of a rough morning, and—”

“Huh?! What are you talking about, Tia?! I’m having a great morning, thank you very much!” Charlotte parked her hands squarely on her hips. “Peachy! Super. Can’t contain my excitement…”

Ijichi squirmed at Charlotte’s lack of enthusiasm. Tiana was torn; if she offered encouragement to Ijichi, Charlotte might enact some form of passive aggression, but if she tried to placate Charlotte, Ijichi would grow increasingly uncomfortable on the sidelines. A truly prickly predicament.

Nanami, instead of addressing the concerns of either person, went with a more impersonal approach. “We should get the tour started. The car is parked farther down the street. If you’d all—”

“One moment, please!”

It was Ijichi. Charlotte raised an eyebrow. Tiana pinched her own brows together. Nanami turned his head towards him.

“I,” Ijichi swallowed, “I am very sorry to hear that your morning hasn’t gone well, Ms. La Bouff. If I can do anything—"

“Thank you,” said Charlotte, “but no. You can’t.”

“Are you sure that there’s nothing I—?”

“I’m sure.”

“Ah. U-Understood.”

Ijichi gave Nanami a sad, sad look—one of absolute defeat. Tiana could see Nanami take a deep breath.

“Ladies,” said Nanami, “if you would.”

He turned and went, presumably to the car. Ijichi, doing his darnedest to appear as small as possible, followed suit.

Tiana rubbed her hands on the front of her pants. The women in her family tended to gray before middle-age, and at this rate, she’d be joining them, maybe even surpassing them, by setting a new record at twenty-two years old. Between her nerves and the second-hand embarrassment, she stood no chance of keeping her original hair color.

Charlotte had already started walking. Tiana caught up to her and leaned in close.

“You need to say sorry,” said Tiana.

“I didn’t do anything,” said Charlotte. And you should apologize to me. Why did you tell them I was having a bad morning?”

“Fine. I’m sorry. But I can’t think of any other reason for you to act this way.”

“I’m sorry, too. And I told you. I’m not impressed.”

“That’s no excuse to brush them off. And I don’t need an apology. Tell that to Mr. Ijichi and Mr. Nanami.”

“How do you know their names already?”

“Don’t change the subject!”

“Uhm, p-pardon me!”

Tiana and Charlotte broke free of their tiff and swiveled their heads towards the third voice’s owner.

It was Ijichi again, red from ear to ear. He had stopped his dour trek to the car and was fully facing the two friends. His arms were ramrod straight at his sides, and the frown cutting deep lines around his nose and mouth managed, through some miracle, to carry an air of fierce determination.

Tiana noticed that Nanami had also stopped moving, and that he was watching his partner with a tiny gap between his lips. Did Ijichi’s comment take him by surprise?

“I just wanted to say,” said Ijichi, “that it is truly an honor to be guiding you both today!”

Tiana and Charlotte exchanged puzzled looks.

The surprises didn’t end there. “I-I know my English isn’t the best,” he said, “but I’ll do my best to improve for your sake!”

Everyone remained silent. Tiana wanted to tell him he was doing great, that his English was superb, but he went on.

“And Ms. La Bouff?”

Charlotte pointed a finger at herself. “Who, me?”

“It’s not my place to inquire further about your morning, but as one of your guides, I take it upon myself to help wherever and whenever I can. So let me just say…”

Ijichi filled his lungs with every molecule of available air, held it, then—

“…that the shade of pink you’re wearing is one of my favorite colors and you’ve inspired me to incorporate it more into my wardrobe!”

He bowed.

And he stayed that way for some time.

Tiana, as perplexed as she could possibly be, should’ve checked on Charlotte, to see how her friend was faring after hearing that, but her attention was pulled to Nanami. He had a short, thin crease between his brows and his mouth was parted a little more. A crack in his stony visage.

As gratifying as it was to witness the birth of actual emotion on Nanami’s face, she had to yank her eyes away and focus on Charlotte.

The girl was flabbergasted.

Tiana had seen different forms of “flabbergasted” throughout her lifetime. You had the standard eyes-and-mouth-wide-open variant, common amongst those who had a natural inclination for telegraphing their thoughts and feelings onto their faces. You also had the more muted variant, with nothing too extreme in the eyes or mouth, yet it conveyed the person’s shock well enough. There were others, of course, but those two types were the most prevalent.

The type of “flabbergasted” on Charlotte was a unique mixture of the two. Her eyes, bright and blue, were so wide open, a ring of white was visible around the irises. On the opposite end of the spectrum, her mouth formed an “o”, one so small that onlookers would be forgiven for believing she had never opened her mouth at all. The final element was that she had her hands up, fingers splayed, as if she had jumped in front of a gaggle of young trick-or-treaters and yelled Boo!

But there was a surefire glint in those eyes—a shimmer that rivaled the whole of Andromeda.

Tiana took a step back. She knew what was coming, and silently sent every possible grain of good cheer to the men. There was nothing else she could do.

Three…

Two…

One.

Charlotte beamed and bounced up and down.

“EEEEEE! Oh, my GOD, is that true?!”

Ijichi, still bent over, lifted his face. It was drained of all color. “Uhm, y-yes?”

“Heeheehee! I take back everything I said about you!”

Charlotte spun and launched herself at Ijichi. He unbent his body and let out a quick yelp as she wrapped an arm around his shaking shoulders. 

“So, tell me,” said Charlotte, giggling, disrespecting Ijichi’s personal space. “Do you have any pieces of pink clothing already?”

“I-I-I-I--!” Ijichi, red once more, hadn’t processed what was going on. “A-All I have is a pink tie!”

“Oooooh, that is too cute! I’m always saying that men should really embrace their feminine sides more often. Guys who don’t are such turn-offs. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Ijichi looked like he was about to combust. “Tu-Tu-Turn-offs?!”

“Tia, listen! Aren’t I always saying that men with feminine qualities are super sexy?!”

There was a closed-mouth, high-pitched whine from Ijichi.

“I,” said Tiana, “am not a part of this conversation.”

“Anyway,” said Charlotte, to the man imprisoned under her arm, “what did you say your name was again? There was definitely an ‘i’ in there somewhere.”

“Wha?! I, uhm…” Ijichi swallowed. “It was Kiyo—“

“Yeah, Kiyo, I remember now! Kiyo, listen to me: I know my comments about men and their feminine sides may have given the idea that I’m interested in you, and believe me, I’m flattered you think that way.”

Ijichi’s eyes bugged out. “HUH?!”

“But you need to understand. You and me? We can only be friends.  There’s not enough of a height difference between us.”

And then the life left those same eyes.

“I’ll tell you this. While I’m here, you’ll have the honor of being my honorary best friend! How’s that sound?!”

Tiana’s heart bled for poor Ijichi. The man had been put under a vicious headlock by a stranger and he had no viable means of escaping. Meanwhile, Charlotte was snickering to herself, a complete one-eighty from her behavior mere moments ago.

Nanami folded his arms. The crease between his brows had disappeared.

After a few seconds, Ijichi pushed up his glasses and let out a quivering breath.

“I-I’d be honored to be your honorary best friend, Ms. La Bouff.”

“Yay!” Charlotte released Ijichi and slapped him on the back. “Good choice, Kiyo! And you, tall blonde dude! You’re Nana, right?”

“That’s partially correct,” said Nanami.

“Alright, good enough! Kiyo and Nana. Lottie and Tia. The dynamic, uh…double duo!”

Tiana was ready to go back to the house.

 “And one more thing,” said Charlotte, holding up her pointer finger. “This ‘Ms.’ stuff is lame. If we’re gonna be besties, then you’d best call me Charlotte. That goes for the both of you.”

Ijichi had just finished straightening his tie. “We couldn’t possibly do that…”

“And why ever not?” asked Charlotte, wounded at the rejection.

With pleading eyes, Ijichi looked at Nanami.

“It wouldn’t be proper,” said Nanami. “We’ve only just met.”

“Boo,” said Charlotte, blowing a raspberry. “Tia, back me up here.”

Tiana felt so removed from all this. “If they prefer to call us by our last names,” she said, “then we should let them.”

“Boooooo,” said Charlotte. “All of you, booooo.”

Nanami unfolded his arms. “I recommend that we start our tour. We don’t want to fall behind schedule. Please follow us to the car, Ms. La Bouff.”

He turned to Tiana. “And Ms. Baker.”

That familiar jolt of energy shot through Tiana’s muscles. This time, there was only one direction to follow, and it was the same direction he was going in.  

She moved. Her legs may have been reduced to petroleum jelly, but she moved.

Charlotte walked alongside Ijichi. “Okay, honorary best friend, you and I are gonna get to know everything about each other!”

Ijichi scratched the back of his head. “I’m sorry, Ms. La Bouff. I don’t think I’m too interesting…”

“Then I’ll go first! See, even though I live in New Orleans, I was actually born in Lafayette…”

Their voices faded into a rambling string of noises, growing more indecipherable to Tiana as she trailed the group. She had thought about catching up, speaking up, but she let that thought slip by.

In the weeks leading up to her “vacation,” she’d lain in bed, not sleeping, wringing her hands, hoping the whole thing would get cancelled so she could focus on work and other matters related to work. Alas, nothing of the sort occurred, and before she knew it, she was gone, armed with a duffel bag and a large hard-shelled suitcase.   

She hadn’t expected much in the way of activities. Some sight-seeing here, a dabble of food-sampling there. Regular tourist stuff. Relatively normal.

Then came the opposite.

Each new setting inflated Tiana’s nerves. The waiting office at customs, the cab drive to the house, the house itself, the train station, and just when she thought it couldn’t get much worse, it all went to the dogs at the sight of him. Mr. Kento Nanami. Her tour guide.

And Tiana, even with her newfound lease on the situation, still found herself wondering why.

Why him?

…

Those words...

No nonsense.

Here in front of her stood the consummate professional. Calm. Composed. Everything she was trying to be.

Holy moly, she cracked the code.

So amazed was she by his clean-cut composure that she had fallen to pieces. He was a sharp, subconscious reminder of what she had been working towards for so long: “to have her shit together,” in the words of her grandmother.

He had also been cordial. It wasn’t an outpouring of affection, but it felt significant coming from him. Almost as if such behavior was reserved for a select few, and to be included in said selection was a mark of distinction.

(Was she allowed to say that he had been kind? Or was that too much of a stretch? She didn’t want to extrapolate.)

In any case, she’d made a breakthrough with him. That’s all that mattered.

Tiana put some more pep in her step. She could do this. Grace and ease. Grace and ease.

She’d be just fi—

…

Jiminy Crickets.

She hadn’t considered that maybe, back then, he had taken a step towards her because he already knew he’d be guiding her today. Probably recognized her from a description or something.

All he’d wanted was to say hello, and she’d run away from him.

She covered her face with her hands, then retracted them after realizing how clammy they had become.

May whoever’s listening please grant her strength.

☼

_____________

---- ----

------

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Nanami never called in sick.

It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say he’d always been a sturdy guy. As a child, he would shrug off colds and lug himself to school, or wherever else he had to be, with little to no trouble. This continued into his teenage years, when he was a student at Jujutsu High, and it went on, for better or for worse, as he entered the workforce as a salaryman. The same applied to his current occupation.

Runny noses weren’t the only things he could whizz past. Hives, migraines, workout-related injuries—nothing stopped him.

As of today, he might have to recant that claim.

In the car ride over, Nanami and Ijichi had discussed their game plan for best engaging with the subject. Nanami’s first recommendation was to be courteous, and to treat the young woman as just that, a young woman. No more thinking of her as a “subject.” Ijichi agreed emphatically.

The second recommendation was to focus their attention solely on her. Nanami warned Ijichi that the number of curses would be staggering, and that they shouldn’t spend more than a quarter of a second looking at them. Ijichi nodded his head.

“But you have sunglasses,” Ijichi had said. “You can look anywhere.”

“If you want that same luxury,” Nanami had said, “then invest in some of your own.”

“I can’t. Gojo said I’ll be a dead ringer for Agent K.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“I can see that.”

“You can?!”

The third and most crucial recommendation:

“Just be yourself,” Nanami had said.

“Aaah…”

They had parked, walked, initiated contact. And now, as the four of them were heading back to the car, Nanami could confirm that he felt sick. Stay-at-home sick.

There were no hives, no migraines, no shin splints or concussions.  It wasn’t an ailment that required medication, and it couldn’t be addressed by visiting Ieiri. There was no remedy to speak of.

He would rather the cause of his churning stomach be the curses themselves. Their engorged eyes, dappled skin, and deformed bodies had the power to send even the most dedicated horror enthusiast to church for a spiritual cleansing. He must’ve been too far gone, in that regard. For him, seeing a curse was as normal as seeing a star at night. (The light pollution in this city made that nigh impossible, however.)

He thought he’d be more disturbed by the number of curses in the area, but he grew used to that, too. The entire lot, all 256 of them, didn’t do much of anything. Only sit, watch, and make grabbing motions with their fingers and hands.

And then there was her. Their “subject.” Tiana Baker.

The one he had scared away.

Something inside Nanami lurched.

He couldn’t forget the face she’d made when he approached her a second time. She had been chatting with her friend, the bubbly blonde one named Charlotte, in front of a men’s clothing store. Charlotte was the first to notice him and Ijichi, and when she did, she pursed her lips and pointed at them with her thumb.

She, Tiana, oblivious to the cursed energy billowing around her, had also taken notice of the men. All signs of levity evaporated from her body, and her eyes, the same shade as her brown skin, widened with an emotion he couldn’t identify.

In that instance, Nanami knew he should’ve kept his ass at home.

In that same instance, he assembled a remedy of his own.

He’d withstand this new affliction, this “curse”, if you will, and complete his mission. He’d overlook how his heartbeat had crawled up into his throat, how an already hot day had grown even hotter, and how, when she’d finally smiled at him, that specific smile from her passport picture, he felt as if he had hit an imaginary jackpot.

All he needed to do was not go home, not make any more mistakes.

And let the illness run its course.

“W-We’re here,” said Ijichi, who had been on the receiving end of Charlotte’s verbal onslaught. “This is the car.”

Charlotte gasped. “No way. A Benz?! Is this yours, Kiyo?! I bet it is!”

“Uhm, no,” said Ijichi. “It’s just a company car.”

“Same difference!” said Charlotte, slapping Ijichi’s back again. “Oh, she’s beautiful. Judging by the front and shape, I’d say it’s an E-Class. Am I right?!”

“I…want to say yes?”

“Knew it! And is it the latest model?!”

“We, uh, get new ones every year, so—”

“Alright!” Charlotte clapped her hands. “Tia, Tia! Aren’t you excited to see the interior?!”

“Lottie,” said Tiana, letting out a huff of laughter. “It’s just a car.”

Nanami silently agreed.

“‘Just a car??’” Charlotte shook her head. “It’s never ‘just a car.’ I’ll show you.”

Charlotte proceeded to repeatedly yank on the handle to the rear passenger door.

“Wait, Ms. La Bouff!” Ijichi reached into his pocket and retrieved a key fob. “Allow me to get that for you!”

As Charlotte pulled back her hand, Ijichi pressed the unlocking button twice, to which the car gave two perky beep-beeps and a quiet shunk.  He reached for the handle, gave it a tentative tug, and pulled open the door.

“H-Here you are,” said Ijichi.

“Kiyooooo, you’re so sweet! Thank you!” Charlotte climbed into the car. “My God, this leather is just to die—oh.”

Ijichi peered inside. “Is something wrong?”

“I forgot, the driver’s side is reversed over here, and I’m a driver’s side girl.” Charlotte scooted back out and began walking around the car. “I’ll get in through the other door.”

“Uh—I—!” Ijichi abandoned the door he had just opened and ran after Charlotte. “Wait! Let me get that one, too!”

Nanami, staring at the vacant back seat, wondered why Charlotte didn’t just slide over once she’d gotten in.

“You’re, uhm, probably wondering why Lottie didn’t just slide over.”

He glanced at Tiana, who was a few feet away and also staring at the back seat. Her hands were clasped in front of her body, and the stray curls that hadn’t been pulled into her ponytail were dangling above her brows, over her ears…

“I did,” he said, turning away.

Tiana sighed. “Yeah. I’m wondering the same thing.”

Heat crawled up Nanami’s neck.

“Tia, get in here! The upholstery!”

Nanami, thankful for the interruption, took Ijichi’s place beside the car door and gripped the handle. “Please have a seat, Ms. Baker.”

Those brown eyes of hers. They were glued to his face.

She smiled at him.

“Thank you, Mr. Nanami.”

He watched as she stepped forward and lowered herself, bottom first, onto the seat. Swung her right leg in. Then her left. All so careful and effortless.

“Can I close the door?” asked Nanami.

“Yes,” said Tiana, taking off her backpack and placing it in her lap. “Go ahead.”

He placed his other hand on the door, and, with as much care as he himself could muster, pushed it shut.

His hands lingered. He turned his head to examine the surrounding curses, and saw that some had moved closer while others had remained still.

They were staring. Reaching. Yearning. But nothing else.

He removed his hands from the door and got in the car.