Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gotchard-
Their school has gotten more lively recently, and everyone knows exactly why.
Their homeroom teacher smiles a little when Ichinose gives his usual whimsical answers, Kudou seems lighter, her eyes all fond, and when Kana passes by him at the end of the day, they sees him talking excitedly to an energetic girl and a shy boy that Kana only vaguely recognize, or to a pet he must keep in his bag.
He makes happiness seem so easy, that Ichinose, that at first, it was so very annoying.
Kana, after all, isn’t as confident as him, always second guessing themselves, the direction they’re going, keeping all that is original about them close to their chest.
But, slowly, it gets simpler.
Kana figures out, watching Ichinose stick to what he does best and get better at it, that it’s harder than it looks. A guy like that, who believes in other so much, must have been disappointed more than Kana, who takes months of consideration and tests before calling people their friends.
And so, if Ichinose still smiles and runs, eyes wide, listening to Kajiki blabbers about aliens and odd phenomenons, then it’s because it’s mostly worth it.
It gets simpler, because someone like Ichinose encounters more good than bad.
And someone like Kana, who has no pride in their skills but still reads books and buy brand new pencils once a month, who found friends that accept them, who has a sister and brother that let them borrow their best outfits… Someone like Kana has encountered more good than bad.
On the last month of school, Kana shoves their notebook at Ichinose, already red with embarrassment even though he’s still gaping at the page. Ichinose looks at the portrait, and Kana realize how strange it is, to give somebody you barely talk to a drawing of themselves, but it’s already too late. Ichinose smiles and say that it looks good.
More good than bad, every day a little bit better.

Geats-
On Mondays, the Asagawa family go out to the temple.
It was always there, it was only recently introduced, it’s on the way to their house.
Hiroko goes out of school, and join up with her parents and Taiji. The way to the temple is prettiest clothed in dusk’s lights, and something slowly uncoils inside her.
Because her mother likes to joke around, she makes a terrible pun and Taiji’s face scrunches up while Hiroko tugs on her father’s arm.
Every time, he turns towards her and asks her what she will wish for this time.
Every time, she answers something banal, like finding a cute cat in the morning, or getting to win against Anika next athletic meet. But, really, she doesn’t know and doesn’t wish for anything.
It feels too heavy, too many possibilities open to her, and no ideas of the consequences.
And even beyond that, the little fox in the temple is only as strong as a little fox can be. How is it supposed to bring her something as big as happiness?
Today, she goes off script. There’s something in the sky, or maybe in the wind, that says it’s alright.
So, she looks at her father, at her mother and at Taiji scrunching his face, and wish to be there again next week.
The little fox, when she looks up, is smiling.

Revice-
Chiyo breathe out quietly as she feels the water washing away the bone-deep tiredness she felt all day. There isn’t quite any other bath house like Happy Spa anywhere Chiyo went.
Of course, she knows about the Igarashi family’s other activities, but she had never needed any requests fulfilled beyond some rest after a month of work.
Her apartment isn’t all that welcoming yet, decorating it still a work in process, but going back after a trip at Happy Spa makes it feel cozy and warm, surely more than it really is, almost like some of the homely feel of the Igarashi family’s bath house had followed her.
Her loneliness abide too, when she’s in the bath, talking with the residents of the town, learning that so and so got married, that the son of a neighbor's cousin went to university, that the closest park to the mall has gotten prettier this year. And that their home-grown heroes have been doing great work.
Chiyo, too, can say she was helped by the Igarashi family, even if not in any ways involving their not so secret identities (not that they were really trying to keep it hidden, she thinks, but it’s nice knowing that the rest of Japan hasn’t yet caught on, and that her friend over in Fuuto no longer has anything to gloat over when it comes to local heroes).
The way Chiyo was helped is probably not that big a deal, considering everything else they did, but she’s still as grateful as when it happened, and sometimes, she wonder if the oldest of the four siblings remembers it.
She doesn’t know them that well, so it’s unlikely he even know who she is, but he also doesn’t seem the type to forget his own acts of kindness. Even when he brushed her off and said he was only being a busybody, Chiyo thinks that he must have done it because he truly cared.
It’s thanks to him that she has a job, one that pays well and doesn’t treat her like shit, in a nice shop in town, owned by the friend of a friend of a friend, apparently, where she makes flower arrangements and still has time off to keep on practicing tennis. Just because she impulsively confessed her worries to him, her fears of disappointing people, of having to constantly make a nuisance of herself.
That’s a debt she doesn’t mind having, paying it back by her continuous support and new found expertise in “smells that really don’t go well together”.
So, she smiles to herself, in the bath, before greeting the next person that comes in.

Saber-
Yuki closes the book not knowing what to feel.
Like their brother said, the book is a masterwork, sentences woven together like a tapestry, the imperfect parts enhancing the experience, a perfect balance of quiet moment and plot progression.
Eventually Yuki settles on thinking that, on the whole, they like this book.
There will surely always be a part of them a little envious of other people’s works, when their own efforts always come short of their expectation, but surely this must happen to Kamiyama-sensei too.
After all, they were out of the public eyes for a while, Shu having spent that entire time talking their parents’ ears off when he wasn’t busy trying to convince Yuki that this was somehow an allusion to a future plot point.
He hadn’t been that far off, Kamiyama-sensei’s next book once again clearly in part biographical.
Is this one too?
It feels a bit bittersweet, when compared to Kamiyama-sensei’s previous works, and that’s part of what leads Yuki to close their eyes and try to describe the feelings it stirred in them.
Mostly, it feels like a half-formed, slightly hesitant grief.
But grief shouldn’t feel that way, now should it? Like something that lingers on in the corners, something that seeps in.
It should be at the center, probably, and expressed in tears.
But it’s not how their grief is either.
It’s not how it was for Yuki, and it’s not how it was in the book either.
Scornful, and resentful, and sometimes a little too close to acceptance, other time swinging all the way around into a physical sort of unease, the knowledge that the world shouldn’t feel that way, that nothing will ever make it right again, that it’s not fair at all.
So, Yuki sits and, lingering in the aftermath of the book, decides that it’s fine if they never read it again and then decides that they’ll buy the next one too.
Maybe Shu will manage to hear it from where he is, if Yuki speaks loud enough.

Zero-One-
Haruna is used to being stood up.
She’s fine with it, even, most of the time.
That is, if the person leaving her behind has the balls to say so.
Even by text is fine, it’s a bit shitty, and she thinks it’s cowardly at best, but she can make her peace with it. At least she’s warned, and she can cancel the date before getting humiliated publicly.
She might be exaggerating the last point, a little, nobody in the restaurant looks all that concerned by her, talking or eating their gyozas in peace, but it stills feels like they know, somehow.
So, here she is.
Alone.
When she said she wouldn’t be, the waiter even looked a little bit sorry for her when they asked if she knew if the Asshole was coming soon.
She might even have received an offer for free dessert, when it became really clear that she was absolutely miserable.
Haruna let herself feel shitty, the moment she got the offer. Not impolite, because no assholes, not even that Asshole, could make her one of them, but still. She thinks it’s reasonable at least if she doesn’t smile as much as usual. Plus, she’ll only be like that this once, tomorrow another day in which she’ll be active and dynamic and let herself show off a bit to remember that it’s not her fault if she got stood up.
(She hopes that it’s not her fault.)
The gyozas, at least, are very good.
She take another healing bite and promptly spits it out, choking on an incredulous laughter. Somebody, behind her or on a seat nearby, made a terrible joke. A joke so terrible Haruna immediately feels a slightly tinge of shame at having laughed, and decides to forget it on the spot.
“Hah! Who laughed?!”
It almost feels like she should raise her hand, the voice so exited. But she has her pride, and a joke so terrible shouldn’t be encouraged.
Yet, as she smooth over her burning lungs with water, she finds herself smiling, genuinely. It’s a joke so terrible it wraps around to be healing, erasing almost all her anger and a great deal of her tears along the way. A joke so terrible she mouths, facing the empty seat in front of her, “thanks”, and gets herself the cake she never really dare command, as tooth-rottingly sweet as she expects.
It’s still a shitty day, and the Asshole is still an asshole, but Haruna thinks she wouldn’t mind many more shitty dates if one day somebody tells her a joke this funny just to see her smile.

Zi-O-
Kanji prides himself on knowing “The Thing” about Sougo-sempai.
“The Thing” is a secret known only by a handful of people. His group of friends, that Kanji doesn’t know very well but is friendly with, Sougo-sempai’s uncle, the weird man that keeps on praising him, whom Kanji is a bit concerned by, and presumably the colorful people Sougo-sempai inexplicably knows, from the weird detective that Kanji heard mew one time to the man whose smile feel like it actually shines.
And, of course, Kanji.
“The Thing” about Sougo-sempai is that, for all that he’s a little bit of an idiot, he’s also kind of cool.
He’s not often cool, and most of the times he’s a bit concerning with all the strange things he says like they’re perfectly normal, but occasionally he is.
“The Thing” is the reason why Kanji still looks up to him as his upperclassman, and doesn’t mind (too much) when he’s always the one saddled with handling their club’s cleaning with him, when everybody gets to go home after theater practice.
It also helps that Sougo-sempai is actual kind, even if he can be a bit oblivious and his friends keeps insisting that he’s actually really selfish. Kanji isn’t too sure about that, in part because of how he learned “The Thing” and in part because Sougo-sempai seems really selfless at school and in his uncle’s shop, but maybe he’s different with them. He does get intense, at times.
Still, “The Thing”.
“The Thing” is something Kanji only really got to witness a few times, but he’s sure that with a little bit of persistence, he’ll get to see it again before Sougo-sempai’s graduation.
The first time Kanji saw “The Thing” was when Sougo-sempai was the only one to jump in and help Ono-kun when he got cornered by Yanagi’s clique. In only a few minutes, although Kanji was sure it would have been the reverse, Yanagi and his gang were apologizing, and Sougo-sempai was entirely free of bruises, looking way more fierce than Kanji thought possible with a friendly face like Sougo-sempai’s.
The second time was the one that really left an impression on Kanji.
He had been late to school again, having had to get Fuwa-chan to the veterinary while his parents got the twins to school. The homeroom teacher had gotten really pissed, then, and Kanji had fully been expecting a good hour after class of being screamed at.
Yet, Sougo-sempai had rosen from his seat, apologized, and then had rushed out of the class, Kanji only catching a glimpse of a round watch-looking thing, and the calm expression on Sougo-sempai’s face. That day, the homeroom teacher hadn’t said anything to Kanji, too baffled by Sougo-sempai’s express exit.
Kanji himself knew that Sougo-sempai hadn’t done that for him, per say, but he still had a debt to him, and Sougo-sempai had still looked really really cool, in that moment.
Like a hero, sorta, all calm and composed but still polite.
Like the sort of hero you’ll always look up to, no matter how weird they are.
So Kanji prides himself on knowing “The Thing” before the rest of the world inevitably catches on.

Build-
In Mikiko’s opinion, Sento-san is the coolest guy around.
She met him when her mother and the other parents around asked him to look after her and her friends. He was already the coolest guy then, even if he already made his food too salty.
He never talks down to her or her friends, even though he’s always busy writing down complicated numbers or his script or moving excitedly while mixing strange substances or connecting weird looking metallic parts.
It was so cool watching him do those things, even if Mikiko didn’t really get how it all worked.
But that’s why Sento-san is so cool.
Instead of saying that she’s too young or that it’s not something she should do, he showed her even cooler things and how to do them too. Not too long ago, he had shown her how to make her hair rise up with a paper sheet, and her little sister had laughed so hard when she had shown it to her at dinner, that Mikiko immediately understood that she wanted to do those things forever.
So, when her friends and her would come to Sento-san’s house, she would sit to watch him work as long as she could.
Sometimes Banjo-niisan would also be there, and Mikiko and her friends would get to both do Sento-san’s tricks and learn how to fight all stylish and fast like Banjo-niisan.
Sento-san sometimes said that he was way better than Banjo-niisan because he could both fight and do the tricks, but Mikiko had never seen him throw a punch or a kick at all, so she doubted that Sento-san could win a fight a lot. Still, it was good, she thought, that Banjo-niisan was there to protect Sento-san. He looked like he could get kidnapped really easy, if somebody entered their home while he was writing on his board. And Mikiko wasn’t old enough yet to protect Sento-san herself.
Her oldest cousin had told her that children can only protect things when they turn twenty, which was way too long, long enough that Sento-san would probably learn to defend himself by then, which would suck for Mikiko’s plans, but Sento-san had said, when she told him that, that she could protect smaller things already, like her sister or plants, and that it would make him smile if she did.
A smiling Sento-san was already great.
So she and her friends had started forming their own club of heroes, using the punch Banjo-niisan had showed them and the slightly reckless trick on how to light a flame from Sento-san.
When she had showed her costume to Sento-san, a blue and red coat and scarf Banjo-niisan had said would make him happy, he had cried. But he had also smiled, so Mikiko thought he must haven’t been too sad. He had actually smiled way bigger than how he usually smiled, and put his papers and boards away, to go play with Mikiko and her friends, building a bunny out of the small amount of snow that fell that day, saying that snow was very useful to science and fun.
Banjo-niisan had showed up way later, when they were all gathered inside to watch Sento-san’s explosive goo, and while he had stopped Sento-san from blowing things up, which was kind of a bummer, he did gave them all thanks and cookies when he returned them to their parents.
It would be nice, if Mikiko could be just like Sento-san, when she was finally old enough to protect larger things.
And maybe, if she worked really hard and made a lot of people smile, she could teach Sento-san something too, one day, so he would smile like that again.

Ex-aid-
Sakura had once been very scared of needles.
Unfortunately, she had also been very sickly, and she never really knew how to explain what hurt or how strange the sensation was. The tests were very tiresome, and she feared, strongly, that the doctors would tell her that she was being a bother, or that she kept other people from getting the help she need. So when she had to go to the hospital, she hadn’t been able to sleep at all from fear.
And then the day had come, and the doctor who had taken care of her had been the polar opposite of what she pictured a doctor in a white coat to be.
Hojo-sensei was kind but not in a grating way like the other doctors Sakura had seen, who never explained anything and only talked to her dad.
Instead, he had explained everything, complimented her purple crocodile plush and even talked about his favorite video games, when she had been too tense to speak. He had told her neat facts, and joked about one of his friends who was always eating cake but never had to go to the dentist, and his other friend who could go faster than a bike. Then he had laughed, weirdly, like he had a thing stuck on his feet, and complained about how annoying his friends could be, and how much smarter children were.
Sakura liked Hojo-sensei, and she hadn’t even realized that the injection had already been done until he was asking her which band aid she wanted. She had picked the pink and yellow one that matched his shirt, although it was pretty ugly, and he had smiled and told her she was very brave.
The next time she saw him, she wasn’t scared of the injection at all.

Ghost-
Marcia was lost.
She was lost, away from her friends and teachers, in a country she had only recently began learning the language of, near a temple she wasn’t sure she was supposed to be near of.
She was lost and very much scared.
When somebody had called out to her from behind, she had only been slightly mortified and far much more terrified when she had punched the air, the man avoiding her fist by only a few centimeters.
He probably should have been pissed at her, instead of smiling sheepishly, but then again she wasn’t exactly acting like she should either.
In fact, Marcia was so relieved that there was somebody there, somebody who seemed like he wanted to help her, that she could have almost break down in tears right there. But she pulled herself together, summoned what little Japanese she remembered to apologize for her previous actions and tried to string a sentence that was probably laughably bad to ask for help. The man nodded once, said something she didn’t understand, then looked around a bit.
As she let him do whatever it was that he was doing, she noted that he was wearing the sort of hoodie she really liked herself, filled with flowers and warm colors, as soothing as he, too, was.
The man said something else, which she understood of mainly the part about “no hostile ghosts” before gently taking her hand and leading her through the wood.
His hand was a little cold, and he was maybe a little too bright, but Marcia didn’t even considered, at the time, that he might have been a spirit himself, even as everything about the situation seemed straight out of a horror movie. She had been far too relieved at having a guide, one who looked back at her to make sure she was okay, and occasionally pointed at the direction he was headed toward, to worry.
Eventually, Marcia started recognizing places she must have passed through, like fragmented memories, not even that afraid at the dawning realization that she couldn’t actually recall going into the wood.
Finally, they were back at the temple’s entrance, and the nice man in the flowery hoodie pointed her towards her friends, who were running around, probably trying to find her. She thanked him, briefly, and ran to them.
When she looked back, he was gone, but the temple didn’t seem scary at all, only calming.
On the ride back to the hostel, she fell asleep and dreamed of orange lights dancing with blue and green flames.

Drive-
Kou and Seiichi weren’t exactly exigent. But when they had enrolled Miyu in that school, they had hoped that the direction would understand her circumstances and be accommodating to her need for space and time. Now, they weren’t afraid of fighting for their daughter’s sake, but it could feel a bit lonely, waging a war of only two.
So, while it wasn’t expected, the Tomaris’ support had been very much welcome.
They had understood Miyu’s fear of speaking publicly and been shouted at for it and had even insisted on being there for the reunion, as support. Thankfully, by the end of the meeting, Miyu was allowed her needs and the certitude that the rest of the students would also be treated kindly. It had been hard work, of course, but Miyu deserved nothing less than their support.
It was even more rewarding to exit the meeting and find her playing Daruma-san ga koronda with the Tomaris’ son, the sight of Miyu playing with a kid her age too rare not to make Kou tear up a bit, Seiichi soothing him.
And maybe they, too, could make a new friendship come out of it.
“We wanted to know if you’d like to come to dinner, tonight?”

Gaim-
It hadn’t rained for a while, and Simon’s flowers and trees were dying of thirst, no matter how often he watered them.
Then, one night, he dreamed of two figures in white, smiling with a bit of a tired look to them. A sound like a drum exploded into oranges and blues and Simon was awake, shaking. Beyond his window, rain was falling.

Wizard-
The streets were always so busy in the afternoon, and nobody ever looked to see if the person they had crashed onto maybe needed help. That was something Haruka thought about as he fell backward, knowing he wouldn’t be able to steady himself in time.
Distantly, he thought that it was probably gonna be the last straw in a stressful day, that she would go home and collapse on his bed, that she would be soaked, since, to add to her upcoming despair, rain had fallen not too long ago, despite the forecast claiming a sunny week ahead.
Life sucked so incredibly hard, sometimes, that it gave her headaches.
But she wasn’t falling. Instead, she was suspended in mid air, gently pushed back onto her feet by a hand supporting her back.
A hand that shouldn’t be there, since Haruka had been pushed towards a side street that was entirely empty of people.
The moment the tip of his shoes clicked onto the ground, she whirled around, ready to thank the kind soul that had brightened her day.
There was no one around, and the only person looking at her was a pretty man, a bit further away, holding onto a plain donuts while waving at him (huh?). A bit incredulous, she bowed at the man, who only turned around, all together far too cool to be human.
Haruka breathed out, and dusted his coat, feeling a bit of sugar coat the tip of her nail.

Fourze-
Taka wasn’t a loser anymore, had never been one, even.
The latter part, he still had his doubts about, but the former was definitely true. He wasn’t the only one either. Shunsuke, Kentarou, Mikumo, Chisa and Kouichi weren’t either, nor were Setsuko, Jona, Nanako or Mio.
Nobody who got into Kisaragi-sensei’s school was a loser, and those who were in his class (like Taka!) were even less losers than the rest. Somehow. Taka wasn’t exactly great at math. Although, Kisaragi-sensei had helped him lots with getting better, insisting they go find a method Taka would be able to not only understand but apply again to other subjects.
After all, Kisaragi-sensei was the best, and every kids who ever met for more than an hour came out knowing by heart his special handshake. Sometimes, Taka would teach them to his cousins, and he knew some of his friends shared it too, all contributing to the Kisaragi-sensei’s friendship constellation. When Setsuko and Taka had told him about the name, Kisaragi-sensei had gotten so exited that he had pulled out his phone right there and then, typing something Taka hadn’t seen, which had made his phone buzz for at least ten minutes. Then he had gotten a call, from a guy that had sounded more than a little annoyed and yet still fond, and Taka had pulled Setsuko away.
It had been kind of great, to know Kisaragi-sensei’s constellation of friends was something to be proud of, and Taka, from that day on, had done his best to be nicer.
Just to spread it a bit further, of course.
Now that he wasn’t a loser, Taka had to be cool.

OOO-
Nadir’s bike get stuck on a stone as he makes his way back from work.
It’s not anything too terrible, the road is well lit and his bag wasn’t dislodged, nothing broken and the tire only a little bit deflated, but it has been a long day already, the sun almost fully gone, leaving only trails of orange in the sky.
It feels like that small delay would be enough for Nadir’s heart to burst, for him to simply lay on the grass and wait, devoid of any strength. He’s not quite at that point, instead simply starring at his bike and wondering if he could maybe keep going without pumping air in the back.
And then a stranger smiles at him, and ask if he needs help in a warm and only slightly accented voice.
One thing leads to another and the stranger is pumping air into the tire, chatting about the weather and how he got a bit blindsided by how early the sun started setting. It’s not exactly hard to keep up with that easy going conversation, and Nadir both is and isn’t pressed for time, but he finds himself taking far greater notice of the man’s appearance than his words: he is more muscular that Nadir realized, at a closer glance, clearly not from here and he has maybe a little too many scars, an aura that tells of a well seasoned traveler. The man’s laugh at one of Nadir’s contribution to the conversation, and it suddenly hits him that he won’t ever forget the stranger.
It’s strange but it isn’t due to any of the man’s most stand outs traits or anything of the sort.
Rather, it feels like he’s a person that deserve to be remembered, somebody who’s searching for something and doesn’t have a home to return back to yet. The sort of person you want to support any way you can, his kindness not faked but thoughtful.
So, when the man has fixed Nadir’s bike for him and turned a dull and even shitty day into a nice memorable one, Nadir’s hands him a recipe his mother makes him when he feels down. The man smile like it’s something precious to him already, and somehow Nadir finds himself smiling back, watching the man leave.
When he goes home that day, he calls his mother and tells her inane things and slips a thank you in it.

W-
Yao’s attachment to her cat is something she doesn’t always know how to word. It’s not that she doesn’t know what it is, why she needs Mu to be at ease, but not everyone understand how hard it is to breathe when she can’t chase her terrible thoughts with a simple purr. Most of the time, Yao doesn’t even try.
But, now, Mu has vanished, and she doesn’t know what to do, already conjuring a hundred scenarios of doom, a hundred ways Mu might have gotten hurt. She can barely breathe around the dread inside her, barely speak with how wet her words come out, but her eyes are dry, so dry she can’t see anything.
Yao stayed out for hours, searching everywhere, wind blowing her hair everywhere (wind perhaps blowing the traces away too), and she has nothing to show for it, nothing except the paleness of her face.
So, she finds herself seating at an agency, with a guy with an ugly hat, and a woman who speak with the kind of accent she only hears in her girlfriend’s drama. Yao bow to them, having pushed the words out in one block, and as she catches her breath she readies herself to be laughed at, for the detectives to tell her they’re wasting her time.
Instead, the hat-guy nods his head as though Yao told him her lover got ransomed, and he’s out the door. His boss says something, presumably to Yao, but she finds that she’s also outside, following him, listening only to him talk, a jumbled mess of “where would he go”, mews and “wait, they can do that?” told to no one exactly, or maybe someone Yao can’t hear.
Eventually hat-guy, Hidari-san, tells her she can stay at the office, drink something calming, and she can’t explain why his kindness makes her tear up, but her eyes are no longer dry. The detective asks if she’s alright, pulling away a second to bite out that, no, he’s not lame, thanks a lot. She barks out a laugh, rough and loud, but Yao is fine now, Yao can think.
The wind isn’t deafening but comforting, and Hidari-san suddenly starts to run, under an invisible person’s advice.
Thirty minutes later, Mu is purring on her lap, Yao’s worries lessened suddenly. She keeps the card she’s handed, reassured in the knowledge that she has someone to go to if she ever needs it.

Decade-
There’s always at least something one should strive to remember, should hold onto as much as possible. Always at least one thing that changes you, turns into somebody you can keep on polishing every day.
Sometimes, it’s someone, or a sentence, maybe even a view you went out to find on your own.
And sometimes your camera breaks on the way there.
It’s frustrating more than anything else, but that frustration is one Nanako hates with all the strength her feelings usually lacks.
She had worked to get there, picked up a hundred hobbies that didn’t spark anything in her, learned a thousand skills she couldn’t hone, so she only has her camera. For once in her life, she didn’t care that others were better at it than her, didn’t mind the time it took, even made sure to account for it when figuring out where her money should go each month. She goes on bike all over her prefecture, went at least five times to every hot spots in Nara, and learned to plan routes for every kind of weather, every kind of mood.
Sometimes, she gets second thoughts, wonders if what she’s planning to capture is really worth the shot, but then her finger press down before she can give up. The picture Nanako gets to frame later is always perfect to her. Even her earliest attempt, the one with the ugly smear, the focal making the grass look sharp while the bunny change into some sort of melting snow cone, is one she’s fond of her. When she looks at it, it’s undeniably hers, with her fingerprints all over it.
So, her camera matters to her, it’s her tool, adjusted to her eye.
And it broke down.
It wasn’t even due to age, that camera was barely three years old. Instead, it was her fault. Well, her and the pebble she stupidly tried to avoid, sending her bike onto a collision course with a nearby lamppost. It’s done for good, that camera. Nanako doesn’t want to cry, doesn’t want to complain. She wants to kick her bike until it breaks too, then kick the lamppost even harder, harden than she wants to kick herself.
It’s probably not that bad, looking at it from above, but Nanako can only see the broken bits on the wet ground of her city, and suddenly it’s raining in her heart, a tempest rolling around. Sure, she has the money left to get a new one, and she can sell some of her equipment to get new ones if they’re not compatible. But she crashed because she was paying attention to the sunset reflected in the puddles on the asphalt, paying attention to the lights in people’s homes, to the smells of the food stalls and how clearly they shine to her.
Nanako was paying attention to a picture she cannot take anymore.
Her frustration doubles over and she lets out a deep sigh right as a small pink thing drop in front of her.
She follows the arm holding it, notes the tight grip on it even as the posture is meant to seem loose and “cool”, all the way to the bleached blond man its attached to. The moment her eyes met his, his face turns a bit smug, a bit like hers, really, when she’s proud of herself.
Beyond all the words he throws at her nonchalantly, Nanako zeroes in on the sympathy he has for her camera, and finds herself relaxing. It’s honest compassion.
Nanako wouldn't have accepted pity, but a fellow photographer can be relied on.
When she takes his camera, she does so carefully in spite of her burning need to get back to her view, who could vanish in a second. The photographer’s fingers lingers on the camera and hoovers near her shoulder as she turns. She doesn’t have to adjust too much to get the width she wants, and while she’s not familiar with the man’s model, she finds it comfortable to handle. Aware of the gift she was lent, Nanako stills for a while, taking a few steps forward without commenting when the man advance a bit too, then snaps her shot. After a second, she’s done, the camera spits out her picture and she returns the gift to its partner.
The man doesn’t smile at her, only grins, but Nanako knows. Knows how important this is to her, to be able to get her view, so she turns the picture towards him.
Below his breath, he complains that her picture didn’t blur, and, impulsively, she jots down a note to him, of one of the book she read when starting out. Nanako can’t tell if he appreciates it, but it’s something she needs to do for herself.
When he leaves, he doesn’t even need to ask. Nanako doesn’t plan on forgetting a passing through colleague.

Kiva-
Kurenai-sensei always listen. Sometimes he does it while marking a measure, sometimes with closed eyes, sometimes while hiding behind furniture and notebooks, sometimes with eyes shining like so many lights. Kurenai-sensei listen to even Hideo, despite his shaky voice, and his too rough words.
Hideo comes with a weight around his heart he can’t loosen, guided to Kurenai-sensei by a university friend and former student of Kurenai-sensei.
“Can you make me a violinist?”
Hideo asks excepting a no, for judgment to be passed onto his unrefined hands, on his lousy voice, on his pitiful outfit. But Kurenai-sensei only listen, then bows before Hideo.
The first lesson goes terribly and so do the ones after. Hideo just can’t focus, doesn’t know how to sit still and find the tune Kurenai-sensei plays a bit too dry, for all that it is played flawlessly (or so Hideo assumes). Hideo tries to mimic Kurenai-sensei’s hands movements, the way his chest rise and fall, the soft swaying on his feet, but Hideo was never gracious, not for a single day of his life. He has fingers calloused by work, not strings, and he can’t keep much of a beat.
Still, Kurenai-sensei listen to all the tune he plays, correct his placement with nothing but understanding. That makes it worst, somehow. Hideo is wasting Kurenai-sensei’s time. The gracious thing would be to bow out. When he goes to severe their relationship, however, Kurenai-sensei stops him.
“Why did you want to learn so badly?” He asks, with a bit of a stutter and conviction in each words.
Hideo looks down, convinced Kurenai-sensei could burn him with just a gaze, or shatter him like glass.
“My grand-mother used to play to me, when I was young. I could never focus long enough to hear the end… She passed away two years ago and I couldn’t stop thinking… that, that I should have- I’m not sure. It was a bad idea.”
“Then, would you mind listening?”
“I’ll be wasting your time.”
“But I’d like to play for you. You just need to listen from the heart.”
As though it could be that easy.
But then Kurenai-sensei starts to play, and he does it slowly, let the sound hang in the air, closing his eyes to focus better. Hideo starts to focus, notice the way the violin gets faster, then slows down again, how it skips around the string, how it pinches and caress and smiles, teasing and full of heart. Hideo starts to focus and remember, how Kurenai-sensei thought over all his words, how his grandmother always said “Hide-chan, is it easier that way?”
She always said that she played when he couldn’t cry, let her violin express what he couldn’t, until his face was no longer red and his nails no longer digging into his legs, until he was running about again, feeling lighter than a feather.
Hideo let himself cry, let himself miss his grandmother, from the top to the bottom of his heart, purple shadows and green bubbles of light, while the violin sang.
Kurenai-sensei was listening too.
When the song ran its course and Hideo wiped his cheeks with his sleeves, the way his grandmother did, Kurenai-sensei looked at him, serious as always.
“Would you like to try again?”
Five months after, his hands were calloused the same way his grandmother’s were.

Den-o-
Natsumi flips her coin, times it so it lends on tails, heads, tails, heads, in a pattern she can rely on whenever her hands are idle. She flips it, tails, heads, tails, heads, and memorize its weight, tails, heads, tails then rolls it up and down her ring finger, heads, tails, heads, make it loop around her knuckles, tails, heads, tails, then drops it on the back of her hand, heads, tails, heads, tails.
The rotations, the arcs, the curves, all under her control. And if she does it flawlessly, only good comes her way.
She gets a perfect 100 at her history test, gets there before anyone else when the cafe opens in the afternoon, goes home to find her older brother done with his work and free to play video games with her, her parents having brought them the newest movie release.
If she does it wrong, skip a beat or a step, then she gets a bruise when Kushida from two blocs over picks up a fight, or her shoes fly all the way to a puddle when she rushes out the door in the morning, or her mom and dad miss the earliest train back from work.
So Natsumi flips her coin, tails, heads, tails and down the street.
That’s when she starts panicking.
It’s not around her when she drops to her knees, so fast they shake when the ground hit them, and it’s not in the general area when she does four rotations around her starting point, clockwise, then backwards, and again five minutes later.
It’s nowhere.
Natsumi almost kick the guy who puts a hand on her shoulder, high strung and convinced her bad luck is starting, but it’s not Kushida.
It’s a guy with blue strands in his hair and a pair of glasses just like Natsumi’s.
The moment she registers his appearance, she starts to bawl, and the man’s face contorts.
In hindsight, Natsumi should have been a bit more aware when the blue stripes were replaced with yellow and the overly slimy looking coat by a pretty hakama. However, Natsumi isn’t thinking, she’s panicking, so instead she shakes the hand off and drops to her knees again, only raising her voice to ask if the guy has seen a coin with a red rose at its center.
There’s a rush of voices above her, who sound nothing alike and seem to be arguing, but Natsumi is far too focused to care. If his friends are there, that’s just more eyes to look with.
A hand pats her shoulder, gentle this time, almost shy.
The guy is smiling at her, and it’s a very small and hesitant smile, but somehow it suits him well, her panic dispelled.
“I’ll look for it too, so don’t worry.”
He waits just enough for her to nods, then walks a short stride down.
And crashes on the ground.
The noise is so loud that Natsumi jumps to her feet, and when she gets to the guy, she half except him to be passed out, or for the street to be smeared with drops of blood.
Instead, he smiles again, wider and more than a little concussed, handing her her coin.
“Thank you a lot, Mister.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
Still, heads, tails, heads, tails and it’s heads that win.
It feels like good luck when Natsumi returns him to his house alive, three pot holes and five near car crashes later.

Kabuto-
“That was the fifth interview I botched this week!”
Mikiko shook a bit, the cold gathering around her tailbone. The snow still fell outside the bistro she had found refuge in. As she let out another pained sigh, the man currently working the shift shoot her an understanding look. She nodded in return, then went back to picking apart the menu. Not that it was of any sort of use, since the usual chef was apparently on a break.
That information had been conveyed to her with a deeply pained face by the man who worked the shift when he had welcomed her in, insisting she not stay out in the cold. The man had also insisted on the fact that he wasn’t an employee there, just a “relative”, with something like despair in the way he cringed, full bodied, upon saying it.
Mikiko had began considering if she should try Morse code and ask if he needed an extraction.
At the same time, he did seem somewhat happy when he told her that, although the food she’d get would be the replacement chief’s choice, it would be one of the best thing she’d ever eat. She wasn’t sure she could trust him, when he was trying to avoid speaking of the chef as much as possible, like that man was a demon one shouldn’t invoke.
Still, Mikiko was not one to turn down free food, especially when her job search doesn’t turn out any results. She knew rushing in won’t get her anywhere, and she also knew that she couldn’t allow herself to lower her standards, but it got depressing.
Sometime, she wondered if she lacked something invisible to herself but known by all.
Mikiko was talented, though, at the field she wanted to work in. She was a great wood worker, dedicated to her craft, and she knew the safety measures by heart. It’s just that nobody seemed to need her, the person behind the skills.
“I really try, you know, I do my best!”
Part-time, possibly kidnapped, Guy nodded again, once more caught in what seem like a painful memory, when a voice rung out. It was a clear and confident voice, and Part-time Guy (Kagami?) relaxed as he turned heels and headed toward the nearest door, leaving Mikiko alone with her deception.
Mikiko read through the menu again, admiring the cute fairies drawn on the corner, and counted in her head to fifty. Once she reached zero, regardless of what could happen to her, she planed on checking on Kagami, lest he truly was mind controlled into attending to the bistro. Her fellow clients had seemed much less concerned, and they smiled at her like cats looking at a mouse. Was she going to get poisoned?
The moment her food arrived, handed to her by a faintly blushing Part-time Guy, Mikiko stopped worrying. About everything, even her job interviews.
It tasted wonderful, and she could tell work went into it, maybe even decades of learning.
That was oddly soothing, to be part of someone’s journey to improvement.
Kagami sat next to her then, growing redder, and he waited for her to put her fork down before speaking. It looked like it pained him to speak, but he almost seemed proud, too, and so she focused on him even though she’d rather keep eating.
“There’s something he want you to hear… that is, that guy… Well, his grandmother once said you can only get to the place you belong in by walking there.”
Mikiko smiled and asked him to send her thanks and compliments to the chef.

Hibiki-
“So did you wear them a lot since?”
“No, not really. I mean, I’m an office worker, so most of the time I have to wear the same pair every time.”
“Well, then I think the shoes aren’t the problem, Choi-san. You just haven’t worked them enough, so they’re still a bit tight. And when you were stung, they started to dig into it, most likely.”
“Ah, so it was my fault after all… I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“It’s nothing. Everybody makes mistakes, at first, and it’s already brave of you to try it on your own. That forest is a pretty good choice, too. I go there a lot, you know, it’s really calming and there isn’t much stones or broken trees to worry about.”
“Still, I feel a bit stupid.”
“Better to feel stupid for a mistake than stupid for having missed something, no? Anyway, for you leg, it’s nothing too bad. Next time, just pick three different leaves and rub the zone. Or if you worried you’ll pick some nasty ones, you can also add some salve in your back-bag.”
“I’m always worried about the weight and space, though.”
“Salve isn’t too big, but even then, it’s better to have a strong and sturdy back-bag when you start, with thick straps so you can carry it on you without being bothered. My friend’s apprentice, who is a very bright lady, she always keep a notebook on herself with a list of all the good herbs and those to avoid, and the weight is well worth her peace of mind.”
“I see. Maybe I’ve been getting over my head.”
“It’s nothing, Choi-san. It takes a bit of training for everyone and I’ve made worst mistakes.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it’d give up. I took it up for health reason, see, and I quite like nature. I just don’t know what to bring with myself.”
“So why don’t I show you?”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Sure, it’s always nice helping someone out, no? And I know a good store for supply. I could also show you some routes, if you’d like?”
“Yes… that’d be less scary. Thank you, Hibiki-san.”

Blade-
Phillipa walks half a step behind, listening to her friends chatter about their up coming exams.
It’s not that she isn’t interested. She loves them and next week is going to be high tension for everyone, as it is every year. It’s only that, under those slightly too blue skies, in this slightly too vivid city, she doesn’t feel much alive.
Or perhaps it would be better to say that Phillipa looks half asleep to herself? Such thoughts are hard to understand, even used to spacing out as she is. She tires herself out, can feel that something is coming yet cannot tell what it is, isn’t sure she can ever notice it.
Phillipa feels like she’s waiting every day, waiting to be given the right to live on her own.
Everything around her is too much, and she feels lonely, even with her friends there. A good person wouldn’t feel that way, surely. A good person would value the people around them more. Such thoughts are hard to understand.
So, she doesn’t even try anymore, merely endure her oddness, feeling like nobody could get it, and so selfish for thinking that. She walks a step behind, now, afraid to look at her friends. Maria is smiling, Lucy is laughing, and Phillipa turns her head.
And the world starts.
There’s a tall man, toying with a bracelet, looking at the world like it’s a precious thing.
Phillipa stops in her track, stare at the man without even noticing it. Takes time to look at it, to look at the way he smiles at the horizon, and then she finds herself looking at it too. Maybe it’s because he seem relieved, more than happy, but it makes her wonder what he might be seeing.
She wants to be someone who could seem so beautiful while looking at the horizon.
But Phillipa couldn’t be that sort of person. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she’d notice only her flaws, and in the streets, she’d look at only the trash, the discarded cigarettes, the stray plastic bag hanging from a branch. And because this was the world who jumped out at her, she couldn’t help but hate it and feel discouraged.
And yet…
That man.
That man’s gaze didn’t waver, even though the air about him was melancholic. That man was smiling as though holding back tears, as though his heart would rise to the sky and become fireworks.
Phillipa takes a step forward, try to follow his line of sight. Her eyes pass over a dirty street with golden tiles, a window with green blinds, a broken lamp with cracks like a spider’s web, a young woman with a skip in her steps, and then Phillipa knows she found it, what that man is looking at.
It’s a spot under the town’s main bridge, where the water is shallow and grey stones are pilled up high, something that isn’t much to talk about.
So, why is that man looking at it? Phillipa wants to know, at that moment, so much that she almost think of asking, of talking to a stranger in the middle of a street who might not even speak her language.
She can picture it, even, planting her feet a bit too far apart with her arms hanging by her side and her fists clutched tight, and, exposing all the raw ugliness of her, asking: Why does it make you cry, that ugly place, that spot nobody cares about, that spot that only matters because the bridge needs it to stand, and who could change without nobody noticing? Why do you care about it, when it’s only another part of this piece of shit world?
But that’s why, isn’t it.
She can be as spiteful as she wants, but she cares about it, too, wants to learn how to love more, wants to fill her heart with emotions which she could feel move around while walking about.
She loves it, and she knows why that man is crying, under the beautiful grey sky.
This is still a part of this world.

Faiz-
Ai cannot sleep. No matter when she tries, no matter where she sleeps, no matter what medicine she take, she simply cannot sleep for more than two hours. When she wakes up, she feels feverish, as heavy as a rock and her hearts is tied up in iron knots. Eventually, she gets used to it, to walking with shadows sticking to her heels.
Ai goes to university, to her part time jobs, and pretend she cannot see the bags under her eyes turn darker. She also pretend she doesn’t want to slap her desk when her classmates laugh too loud, the sounds of their voices like the noise of a bat hitting a railing again and again. Ai doesn’t have the strength to be polite, now, not with people who don’t know their luck…
And they all speak about their future, the teachers saying that all they need to do is become teachers like them, the students who claim they’ll have a perfect future, and Ai who tells herself she’s heading nowhere.
She doesn’t want to sleep anymore, she’d much rather kill the night.
“I don’t know anything.” She tells the night. “I mean, even my frustration probably isn’t all that real. I’m just being selfish as always…”
When her classmate pass her the attendance sheet or her coworker tells her she did a good job today, Ai wants to smile, but her smile is ugly, and she’s always annoying others, asking them to repeat explanations she should have registered a long time ago. Ai is clumsy and selfish, lacks in motivation and was part of the going home club in high school.
She walked to school with wet socks until she was seventeen, spending all her time by the riverbed because it was the one place where her tears weren’t flowing on her cheeks but in a place tears were meant to be in.
When she dreams, she dreams of a flood that swallows not her but her organs, leave her hollow and hopeless, unable to move in, unable to do anything but wait in the dark, and something scratches her wrists. When she dreams, she wants to puke, feeling off balance. When she dreams, she dreams of hitting her manager, who makes jokes she pretend to laugh at a second too late, hitting him and telling him that he doesn’t know anything, just like her, but that at least he can sleep.
Ai doesn’t feel alone, not when her anxieties crowds her, sit next to her on the bus, jeer at the jokes she can’t help but fear are directed towards her.
Ai wasn’t always like that.
Once, she was a brave girl who climbed trees, did wheels and made her family proud. Once, Ai thought everybody was like that, because Ai was always selfish, after all.
And then in middle school, she learned that nothing was worst than the feeling of being pointed at.
They weren’t even always horrible to her. Sometimes, they’d tell Ai she was cool, or picked her for their team. Sometimes, they acted like she was their friend. They didn’t even gave her the right to think of them as cruel.
Ai doesn’t want to sleep, doesn’t want to be awake, doesn’t want anything anymore.
Except clean sheets.
Her washing machine broke sometime last month, and she couldn’t afford a new one yet, so Ai had cleaned her outfits by hand, watched them looking ugly and sad, crumbled in her sink, and once again had wanted to cry. Ai couldn’t even stand to think of her sheets, but eventually she had realized she wouldn’t be able to deal with it herself. Ai was asthmatic, after all, and she couldn’t stand the though of going to the hospital for something as stupid as letting her sheets choke her out.
So, she didn’t have much in the way of choices.
Ai could have asked her cousin Shigeru for help, maybe borrow something from him, but it was tiresome to deal with his naked concerns, or the snappish remarks he’d throw her way just to see her react. Even if it wasn’t out of any sorts of dislike for her, and Ai knew that, those words made her want to cry nonetheless.
So, since that wasn’t really an option, she had instead found the cheapest cleaner available near her and resolved to get it done there, as quickly as possible with, hopefully, as little witnesses as could be.
The city was quiet in the early morning, especially on weekends. There had been a time, when Ai was younger, when her parents had forbidden her from going out, too many strange activities happening outside, that seemingly nobody ever did anything about or explained. That had been a strange period of time, in her life, one that been overshadowed by everything else she had gone through.
Now, Ai wondered what exactly had made her parents so scared for her and how it could be any worst than what she had kept hidden from them. Wondered if they’d have kept her out of school too, for her safety, had she explained what her nightmares were about.
The city was quiet in the early morning and so, its wideness was more comforting than scary. Ai whistles a simple tune, to keep herself company, finding the picture she made, with her dirty sheets tossed in an over-seized bag, somewhat comical.
When Ai enters the shop, there’s only one man there. Ai braces herself for judgment or maybe even a sneer, but the man only ask her to hand her sheets then to give him her address so he could deliver them directly to her the next day.
Which left her with no sheets.
“I’m… I’m sorry to bother you and, and I don’t mind going without if it’s too much of a bother, but those are the only ones I have. Is there anyway it could go faster?” Ai stammers, shame digging a hole in her throat.
The man sigh, Ai barely holding back from flinching, but he simply turns around, searching for something.
“There’s some sheets you can borrow. I’ll pick them up at the same I’ll deliver your own.”
It doesn’t have any sort of elegance. Actually, it sounds rough and awkward, the feelings coming out all wrong, even when the words were cleared or rehearsed. Even when the tone was copied from somewhere else. But that was an attempt at kindness.
Ah, you’re the same as me, right? You’re trying to figure it out, too.
“Thank you a lot.” Ai says, bowing deep in the hope he’ll get it. “You’re being very kind.”
The man doesn’t answer, simply glance at her and go back to his search.
Eventually, he hands her a simply pair of sheets, a little bigger than what she needs, and she thanks him twice before leaving. Ai goes on about her day, wonders if she would sleep better or worst and tires herself out so much she’s out the moment she hit her bed.
She wakes up the next day feeling just fine, which is in itself unusual, and when the man comes to deliver her sheets, she doesn’t know what to say, only that she wants to speak to him, to ask something. But he’s a stranger, who probably doesn’t care much for her.
“Here, those should be good. Next time you’ll come, you can list any problems or need and we’ll take of it.”
She nods, lost in thoughts, expecting him to leave, but the man keeps looking, and it seems he wants to speak too, standing in the middle of her floor’s corridor, with his hands holding onto the sheets she gave back.
Eventually, his shoulders relax.
“Try to rest more, take it slow, I’ll-” He close his eyes. “They’ll protect you.”
And he’s already turning around, leaving only a card with his name behind.
Later that night, for a reason she pretend not to know, Ai sleeps soundly. Finally, her dreams were safe.

Ryuki-
Tetsuo hadn’t gotten many clients those past few years. It had angered him, at first, but it wasn’t much different for any of the small shops around him, and so he had accepted that it wasn’t something he could fight against.
Still, he felt a bit of a pang, on the days he could count recall all of his clients’ faces. It had been the work he’d devoted himself since he dropped out of school, keeping the books in pristine conditions, picking selections filled with the most interesting works, refreshing his shelves with new artists and literary masters. He took pride in being able to recommend works suited to all tastes, and to later be told he was right in his pick.
Recently, he’d been less invested, however, burned by one too many days of his energy going to waste as people passed by the doors without glancing at his small shop.
He’d been asked to sell it, and, though it was painful to say, Tetsuo was every day a little closer to accepting defeat. He didn’t know what he’d do, after, wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand it.
The door rang, and Tetsuo tried to figure out, by the rhythm of the steps, if it was Nishimura-san or Tian-san. Except, they weren’t one set of steps.
Tetsuo’s head snapped up, heart pounding a bit faster.
There was a group of high school students, a young girl with a ponytail, a pristine uniform and a leg brace dragging along a bespectacled youth and a short boy with hair dyed green.
The girl with the ponytail looked around then stared right at Tetsuo, bowing once.
“Is this Lemon Library?”
It was, the name taken from Tetsuo’s favorite short story, the one he could wax poetics about for hours. Except it couldn’t be, because nobody new ever looked for his shop, lost as it was in a corner of the busy city.
“I… yes?” It wasn’t very articular, and a part of Tetsuo snapped at him to correct his position.
First impressions mattered.
“Well, is it or not?” The bespectacled youth asked, snappish. The short boy hit them lightly.
“Forgive Shu-tan, the road was a bit long.”
“We’re from five blocks south. We were on cleaning duty, so we had to rush there before closing.”
Tetsuo stood, agape.
“The fancy private academy? Why did ya come here?”
The ponytail girl smiled smugly, looking terribly proud of herself, and the bespectacled youth stuck their tongue out at her before answering:
“Cause we wanted to be the first one there, old man. Ken from 2-B already said he’d come, and I can’t stand his stupid face, since he hit Teru.”
“I already said it was an accident.” The boy chimed in. “But it’d be funny if he was second just because of the favor he owes me. But, anyway. Yuna, do you have the article?”
The girl took a step forward, and pulled something out her bag, dropping it in front of Tetsuo, then tapping it when he didn’t grab it.
It was a phone opened to the page of a website Tetsuo didn’t know. It seemed to be news pertaining to the town.
“See, mister.” The girl, Yuna, said. “Next to our school, there’s a fortune teller who’s never wrong about what people need, so we all go to consult him, right?” She waited for Tetsuo to nod. “Well, sometimes, instead of saying which subject we should read up on, or what kind of weather we’ll have, he tells us to check Ore Journal.” She pointed at the site. “And there will be an article from that Kido guy.”
“He doesn’t always do recommendations.” Shu added.
“Yep, sometime he does interview, but that’s mostly Momoi-san, right? That big journalist we had to do a presentation on.” Teru said.
Tetsuo nodded again, vaguely familiar with that woman, and now faintly recalling the rumors that she was still working part time for her old journal.
“Anyway.” Yuna cut, with a sweep of her arm. “What matters is that that Kido guy, sometimes he’s useful to us, right? I mean, once he did an interview together with Momoi, and it was that big shot lawyer who spoke about all that corruptions stuff. And then we actually had to talk about it in class! Saved us big time, to have asked the fortune teller first.”
“And you’re here to get the paper version? I don’t think I have th-”
“Nope.” That was Shu, popping an imaginary bubble.
“She’s the one who’ll answer.” Teru helpfully stated.
“Right, we came because, sometimes, Kido talks about places, you know small ones with cool stuff there, and all, and he wrote about your library. Here, look.”
Yuna picked her phone back up, clicking with laser focus three times, before once again shoving the screen at Tetsuo. This time, instead of a homepage, an article about “Great shops at risk of closing” was displayed. Tetsuo recognized his shop, the first listed, with a few lines about the quality of the services he provided, and how nice he supposedly was when the journalist had hit his head on a shelf, and subsequently gotten hit by a shower of books.
Tetsuo vaguely recalled the guy, now, a very earnest man who had hanged onto Tetsuo explanations. At the time, Tetsuo had assumed the man had gotten lost, given how a guy on a bike had needed to pick him up after, scoffing a bit too fondly to pull off annoyance correctly.
“So, you chose my shop because of that?”
“Yep.” This time, Teru and Shu were in perfect unison.
“I mean, everyone’s gonna come, since that fortune teller is never wrong and he always tells people to read that Kido guy’s work.”
Tetsuo scratched his head.
“And you don’t think he might have a secondary motive?”
Yuna laughed.
“Oh, definitely, I mean they’re super close and we met that Kido a lot, too! He’s always by the stand in the afternoon and he’s really nice and all.”
“And dumb.”
“Shu-tan, don’t say that, say gullible.”
“But, the thing is, the fortune teller is never wrong, so Kido is never wrong. If he stops being right, then I’ll stop following his advice. That’s simple, right?”
“Right.” Tetsuo smiled, feeling a steady happiness warm him up. “Then what kind of book would you like to find, young lady?”
“Something weird and interesting! Mysterious, too. Ah, the fortune teller said I should find something with mirrors!”
Right, Edogawa-sensei it was, then.

Agito-
“Why are you so kind to me?” Rumi asked, frowning at her soup.
Restaurant Agito had been closed early today. Rumi had sent Mana-san a message, since the bouts of nausea had increased and Rumi had burned yet another pair of shoes. Mana-san had been busy with another teen Rumi knew, and so, Majima-san had picked up Rumi and left her by Restaurant Agito’s door. He’d been busy too, but had told her that she could call him, Mana-san or any adults in their “club” if needed. Rumi had only nodded with a smile, knowing full well she wouldn't call any of them. The only persons she felt safe with were Mana-san and their unofficial leader, Tsugami-san, although more often than not he baffled Rumi. Majima-san had seemed to know something, and he’d had yet again told her to list the essentials numbers.
That part was really stupid. Hikawa-san was always busy, either with his job or making a fool of himself and if she’d call him, he’d end up burning his hand on Tsugami-san’s tepid preparation water, probably. Ashihara-san, meanwhile, scared Rumi a bit. Majima-san had no powers anymore, Mana-san was absent and the others, Rumi didn’t know well. They weren’t as central as the others were, all orbiting around Tsugami-san as though he was their sun.
Regardless, Rumi was no better, since she was now watching her soup, trying to decipher the secrets of her weird powers in the swirls it made.
Next to her, Tsugami-san smiled, light oozing off him.
It wasn’t blindingly bright, more so warm, and sometimes the glow would quiet down or be gone entirely. But, today, Tsugami-san was in his more frequent good moods, rather than that quiet state that meant they all had to give him space, and maybe get Mana-san if it didn’t stop.
“I don’t get it.” Rumi breathed, watching the ripples on the red surface. Tomato again. “I could burn you. I could… I could do things I don’t want to do.”
She did that to her friend after all, and now Saki pretends her shoulder doesn’t sting when the wind blows on it too strongly.
“I like it, here, but I don’t get it. Why you’d help me. I’m not even making progress.”
It’s always like this around Tsugami-san. She ends up saying things she doesn’t want to say, things that could make him run away from her, one day.
But, today again, Tsugami-san’s smile gets a bit fonder, and his eyes look beyond the window.
“Cabbages need better soil to grow well. It’s the same for every vegetables, even the ones that aren’t exactly like the rest or the ones that take more time to grow. And it’s the same for flowers too.”
Her soup tastes amazing, so good it leaves her cheeks red and her eyes downcast.
He’s always so weird, their Tsugami-san. Rumi knows, though she wasn’t there, that he’s done things no other humans have ever done, that only he will ever be able to do, pushing the limits of humanity all on his own without ever looking down on others.
She knows, from conversations she caught the adults have between themselves, and rumors she shares with fellow agitos of her generation, that Tsugami-san went through more than they can picture, more than even he remembers. And yet he’s still there, speaking to her like Rumi matters as much as the world or the work he loves doing so much.
She’s not the only one, either. He speaks to everyone like he understand them more than they could ever get themselves, but without rubbing it in their faces.
She saw Tsugami-san, once, talk to a guy in a magenta shirt, gently encouraging him. That man had seemed a bit odd, to Rumi, and yet he had been nothing but respectful to Tsugami-san. And the man with the mole, who occasionally drop by Restaurant Agito to leave spices from foreign countries, laughs with Tsugami-san like they’re just two friends instead of people with a year of fighting in their eyes.
Even Kana-san, who is one of the earliest agitos around and who is Tsugami-san’s rival in cooking abilities, evokes the encouragements he gave her without pointing out the way his light dims and brightens in bursts.
Rumi takes another spoonful of soup, to hide her embarrassment in.
“You’re so weird, Tsugami-san.”
“I do spend a lot of time picking up weeds, hehe.”
That too, is so strange. The way he gets proud of the stupidest things, instead of high grades or a flawless attendance record. Rumi envies him, the warm he lets out, the way he makes her want to try her best, regardless of what that best looks like everyday.
She finishes her soup quickly, and before he can go and produce a cake out of nowhere, she pinch his uniform, pristine white to his gentle gold.
“Tsugami-san… Do… Did you intended to protect me, back then, or was it an accident? Is it okay to ask if you can keep doing it?”
She doesn’t look at her hand, doesn’t think of Hikawa-san’s evident worry, or Mana-san’s concern afterward, doesn’t think of Ashihara-san anger or the food Kana-san had made her while they waited.
She only thinks of what he’ll tell her, Tsugami-san. Wonder if he regrets it, wonder if he knows how important it was to her, that he went to talk to … To them, who she doesn’t visit anymore. Wonder if he knows how glad she was that somebody went there, smiling like everything would be alright, like he had already known what would happen.
Tsugami-san turns towards her, and his eyes are sharp, far sharper than anyone ever give them credit for, so sharp they take in everything in a second.
“Well, of course I want to protect you. And when you’ll find the place you can be safe in, I’ll protect it too.” He says it so naturally that she immediately believes him.
She’ll find a place, a place who’ll withstand the flames.
He smiles, bright, and she watches him cook, safe and content.

Kuuga-
Vera doesn’t move right away. First, she’s stunned.
The kid keep crying. She’s not equipped to deal with it, barely remembers how her younger siblings used to be like.
Still, that kid is on their own, the parents must be mad with worry, and Vera is here, watching. So. What to do?
Then, a memories rise to the surface. A memory she holds dear, kept in a space it won’t ever be damaged in. The man in her memory is smiling, crouching a distance away for her.
Right, the child wouldn’t feel safe with a stranger too close.
Vera moves a bit, carefully that her steps aren’t noisy but still audible. In her experience, being surprised during a panic is the worst feeling.
The child raise their head, dark eyes filled with tears, cheeks red from crying.
“Hey.”
She stay where she is, keeps her hands out of her pockets. The man in her memory radiate kindness, his words a bit muddle by age and the accent she can’t fully recall.
“Is it your parents? You can’t find them?”
The kid nod, shivering a bit. That… Is that good? Bad? The man in her memory had seemed to understand everything, and Vera can’t even recall having being afraid, once he’d appeared.
“Okay. Look, I’ll stay here, right. We’ll wait together.”
The kid doesn’t reply, hiccuping, head buried in their arms. Vera wants to die, on the spot.
She tries to dig into her recollections, but find only bits of his face, the mole, the eyebrows, the shape of his half-smile. His voice was… Somewhat like…. But mostly… And then a bit… And he was kind. So kind she had repeated the words he gave her.
Right.
Vera breathes out, and the kid looks at her again.
She extend her hand, thumbs up steady.
“Do you know what this mean?” She ask, together with the gentle man of her memories.
The child, her, the one in front of her, surely many more of them, looks surprised, shocked out of fear and straight into the arms of curiosity.
“A long time ago,” It went sort of like that, his voice faded but beautiful. “In ancient Rome, that was a symbol given to those who did good. Approval, right?”
The man had given her something so immeasurable that it had become her ideal.
“You can be someone who can carry that symbol.” She says, feeling the man of her memory around her, wishing to give a fragment of him to the lost child in front of her.
She was in that child’s place once, and had spent a lifetime hoping she’d stand where her hero had, afterward. Now was the time.
“If you do your best so someone else can smile” The words shifted around. “Then wouldn’t that be great?”
Back then, her hero had asked her that too, and she hadn’t known what to say, heart ready to explode, feeling everything too close and knowing her parents far away. But, then, her eyes had seen only his thumbs up, had began mirroring it.
Then, as time went on, the symbol became her reply. When she did her best, when someone else did, when she wanted to wish a good week, beautiful dreams or a peaceful rest, she’d give them a thumbs up. Eventually, she had given it to the sky, the sea, the earth, herself. She had become someone who could approve of everything worth it and stand against what was unfair or twisted beyond repair. Would he gave her a thumbs up, she wondered.
Vera smile, not at all like her hero, but exactly the way she feel. The skies are blues, she feels proud.
The kid nod, and their hand tighten.
“I think it’s great.”
I think he’s the greatest person I’ve ever met.
By the time the parents return, half mad with worries, the kid is laughing. When they turn towards her, she shoot them another thumbs up, and smile when it gets returned.
If I met him again, no, when I met him again, I’ll tell him that it’s great.

J-
The wind blows through the grass, and a grasshopper kick off into a tall jump. A flower keeps on growing, catching as many sun rays as it can. The skies, at that time, are flamingo pink.
The human comes, the one the earth claimed for itself.
Today, he comes only to look upon them, finding beauty in each of them, the dirty grass root, the forgotten cracked rock, the corpse of a fly hanging from a web, the bird cawing, the mud on his shoes, the redness of the dusk reflected on the ponds.
Their human is named Kouji Segawa, and he has three eyes and two bodies. Once, he towered over them but his looming shadow was an embrace. He has a body to admire and another to defend, both made to love all that lives, regardless of how. Occasionally he comes with other humans and teaches them how to listen, how to still and look at the world. Those humans tend to only have two eyes themselves.
Kouji is alone today. He smiles at them, and understand that, although they cannot return his gesture, their affection overflows. He compliments a tree who did its best to become stronger, helps a beetle find its way to a leaf, then pulls out his third eye.
It’s a camera, one that reflects the world as he sees it, makes all that is smile. It’s a camera that never lies, reveals beauty where it lands and doesn’t refuse anyone its grace. It is Kouji himself, smiling at them, wishing to understand more and more of what they are, to share it with his specie, a little more every day.
It’s Kouji who died to save others, Kouji who was butchered by uncaring monsters, Kouji who they couldn’t help as he breathed his last.
It’s Kouji, who was resurrected, who is more than human and nothing other than humane, Kouji who was held by branches and leaves, blessed by all that lives, so that he could be among them again.
A clever bird lands by Kouji’s feet, show off their wings.
See, Kouji.
The wind carries another tune.
Listen, Kouji.
It’s everything everywhere saying: Thank you Kouji, thank you for everything.
And it’s Kouji smiling, as he remove a can from where it poisons the soil, smiling bright and content to have understood everything.

ZO-
It was Seiichirou’s fault. He was new to that whole parenting thing, after all, eager to try, willing to help Kayo. He fell in love with her all over again when she had felt confident enough to confide in her family life, and so, when they had tied the knot, Seiichirou had seen Rei as his son, too. Seiichirou had learned the tricks, picked up their son from daycare when Kayo couldn’t, then when she could too, the two of them following along to Rei signed ramblings. Seiichirou liked to think he had done good so far and willing to learn even more.
But there were still things he needed to master, after all.
It was just him and Rei that afternoon, out shopping to pick a birthday gift for Kayo. Seiichirou had expected to get done quickly, a simple trip to the nearest utility shop to pick up one of those pincers Kayo needed for her model kits, but Rei had dragged him to a nearby gachapon instead, right at the corner between the alley and the busy road. Seiichirou had checked the money he had, pulled a small amount out and handed them to Rei, hands moving to ask his son what he wanted.
As it turned out, the gachapon included a small toy replica of a character Rei liked from his Sunday morning’s TV show. Seiichirou hadn’t had the heart to resist, then, and so he had watched Rei try to pull the correct character, failing three times in a row. Rei had turned towards him with the face of someone who had discovered betrayal, and Seiichirou had breathed out and stepped up to the plate, focus on the machine.
The first attempt failed but the second didn’t. Seiichirou was already signing his victory when he turned to find his son gone.
It was odd, at least somewhat, to realize you cherished someone so deeply that the possibility of them being hurt would be enough to drive you half mad. Seiichirou rose up, twisting around and looking everywhere, eyes landing on Rei far too close to the road, head turned away from the motorbike breaking the law. Seiichirou threw himself towards them, knowing that if anything happened he would lose it, would do something unspeakable to anyone who harmed his child. And how strange that was, to love someone else so strongly, to want only the best for them.
Seiichirou wasn’t sure he believed in gods or Buddha, but he prayed nonetheless.
A gloved hand pulled Rei backward just in time. The kid stumbled backward into the arms of his rescuer, who steadied him.
Seiichirou, in that moment, felt the sort of relief that leave you in tears. The moment he was next to his son, he pulled Rei into a bear hug, then turned toward his savior.
“Thank you so much.” The tears wouldn’t stop flowing and his hand kept rubbing circles on his son’s jacket. “Thank you.”
“It’s alright.” The man’s voice was calm and steady, and Seiichirou admired his composure.
“I’m sorry, I should have-” Seiichirou switched the way he held Rei and bowed. “I’m not very good at that, am I? He can’t hear, you know, so I should have realized something like that-”
The man held out a hand, smiling softly.
“No father is perfect, I think, but the good ones are those willing to learn, no?”
Then, he crouched and showed his hands to Rei, signing “are you okay”, which Rei answered with a nod, still shaken.
“It seem it was more fear than harm.”
The man picked up the prize Seiichirou had won for Rei.
“I think you’re doing just fine. If you’ll excuse me?”
And he vanished into the crowds of Tokyo.
“Dad, are you okay?” Rei signed, twice. Seiichirou nodded and smiled.
“I’m okay. Let’s pick a gift for mom and eat a lot of ice cream. But stay by my side.”

Shin-
He sings to his child, when he can.
It’s a simple tune, more suited to a beautiful voice, one he’s no good with.
“You are tomorrow’s continuous dream, you alone are the star shining in the blue skies…”
He cannot recall where he heard it or if he simply woke up knowing it. What he does know is that his son is in his arms, breathing slowly, and this is a song that child can cherish, a song that can give him the courage to go on.
Ai is no longer here, her absence is a wound that won’t close. His father died, his body isn’t his own, he’s on the run constantly, and yet, today he wants to smile. That child is a precious existence, someone he loves in a way he didn’t know was possible, someone he wants to protect against all that is unfair and ugly in this complicated world.
It doesn’t matter how long it takes him, doesn’t matter what the cost will be, he’ll make sure his son is free to be happy, to have room to grow, to discover all that he wants to see, in a universe that won’t try to harm him or control him.
He sings to his son, holding him against his chest, regardless of the form he takes.
His heartbeat becomes part of the melancholic tune, “forever…”
A beautiful light grows, nurtured patiently by someone whose one wish is “that you grow to be who you want to become”.
“Kazuki, I’ll always be there to protect you.”
It’s a thread of light that won’t break.

Black and RX-
Everyone knows him, in town.
He’d be hard to miss, after all, with his pristine white jacket, those eyes that shine like the sun, and that distinctive walk. It also helps that he keep a strange company, with that famous reporter and the strange man who seem to vanish in a blink. Not exactly the traditional fare of a helicopter pilot.
He has a strong sense of justice too, always standing up for people who need it, even against those with more power than him, but he’s also bad at lying, and oddly goody, whimsical in weird places.
By all account, a man like that should have all that he wants. It would feel right for the world to reward a man as stunning as a comet.
“But he always seem so sad.”
That’s why Rui thinks of him, that he looks sadder than anything she has seen on TV or heard on the radio.
There are time where she spots him, while going home from school, looking at the sunset and, although he doesn’t say anything and doesn’t cry, she wants to hug him like her mom hugs her after a nightmare, pat him on the head and say “I’m sorry”, even though she has nothing to apologize for.
Rui goes home late, most of the time, she does a small detour to go check on Tama, the small dog she once helped when their leg broke. Tama doesn’t want to follow her home, so Rui goes on her own, plays with them a bit then goes back before it’s too dark.
But recently, Tama got sick and sicker, and Rui doesn’t know what to do. She thinks about it at school, and on the way home, and in her sleep. Although she can’t say why, something terrible gather at the back of her mouth, something that stings her teeth and makes her want to cry. Her hands twists into knots, and she keeps forgetting where she is.
That day, there’s something in the way the sun shines that tells Rui she absolutely mustn't go, that she should never return to see Tama again. But, Tama will get lonely, and Rui knows what it’s like to wait for a friend who won’t return.
Rui passes by Kotarou-san on the way to Tama. He’s smiling, this time, and somehow Rui wants to kick a stone. Still, she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look up when he greets her, and simply walk straight forward. If she let herself be distracted, it’d be too late. Except, she’s too late anyway. Tama is here but Tama is gone, and the thing blocking Rui’s throat lets in a flood.
It’s unfair, unforgivable, and Rui can’t move, can’t talk, can’t advance. She cries and cries and scream until her throat won’t let her anymore, until the flood drowns her out. Until Kotarou-san is holding her, somehow here even though he wasn’t before. He rubs gentle circles on her jacket and she holds onto him, feel the rumbling of something that isn’t a heartbeat.
They sit side by side, when Rui’s tears run out.
Kotarou-san stepped aside to call her mom and promised to keep Rui safe until she could come pick her up. Rui feel so tired that she leans, half asleep, on Kotarou-san’s side. She doesn’t know how to say what she wants to ask, but she doesn’t have to try, because Kotarou-san understands. Kotarou-san went through so much more.
“Kotarou-san, is it always like that?”
He smiles, and it breaks her heart a little to know it doesn’t get better, but at least he’s not lying to her. At least he’s letting her know what lays ahead.
“But, Tama was happy, I’m sure, that you were there.”
“I was late.”
“But you were by their side, everyday. You let them know someone would remember.”
“Was that enough?”
The sun sets, yet remains at her side, and it cries a bit with her.
“There’s no enough with love, I think. It’s far bigger than any word can contain, when it’s honest. Were you happy with them?”
So much that it feels like she won’t ever be again.
“Yes.”
“Then I’m sure they felt that happiness too, and how much you loved them.”
Kotarou-san looks so tired, in a way Rui never knew adults could.
“Kotarou-san, do you miss them, too?”
He jolts a bit, so faint she can only tell because she’s safe at his side, and looks down at her.
She never realized he was crying, those days he looked at the horizon.
“A lot, every day. But I want to keep on loving. There are people who need it, right? And I think those people are worth both the happiness and the tears.”
She doesn't have the words to explain it, so she lets herself cry, together with Kotarou-san.

ZX-
“Going the wrong way once doesn’t mean you can’t find your path again.”
Yuu keeps his head down, leaning against the railing.
“It’s easy for you to say, old man. You’ve got enough money to buy that tuned up bike, no? So what would you even know, huh?”
He’s not even angry. It’s impossible to be, when the man hadn’t even called the cops on him, just flipped him onto his back, taken his keys back and pulled Yuu up. They’ve been standing side by side, and Yuu had felt intense shame. When people got pissed at him, he could just snarl back, if they got violent, he could punch or run, but when they got concerned, he was left at a loss.
The man at his side looked at him from behind sunglasses.
“You’re the only one who made mistakes. Why should you be the only one to get unfairly punished? I did things far worst than what you could have done.”
“What?” Yuu had barked out a laugh. “Killed a man?”
The man didn’t reply.
“Thought so. I don’t need your concern.”
“But do you want it?”
“Ah?”
What’s up with that guy? Yuu can’t deal with people like that, who wants to look cool by helping others but don’t have the balls to follow through. Except, that man isn’t giving up as easily as the rest, is he?.
“Let me put it bluntly. There isn’t a single mistake you could make that could be equal to the ones I’ve made in the past. But those mistakes didn’t mean I could give up on trying to be better. If you want to be better, then there’s only one way to do it.” The man said, plainly. “Still, if there is no one willing to hear you out, you won’t be able to make it through. I’m well aware of that. It’s impossible to climb out of the darkness alone. So, I’m saying I’ll give you all the chances you need, as long as you take them. Doesn’t matter if you fail the first or second or third try. As long as you’re trying, I’ll be there to help you through.”
“…. What?”
The man turns towards him, then, removing his sunglasses. The eyes underneath are kind and determined.
“Take the offer, kid. You deserve better.”
Yuu falters, barely catching himself on the railing. What the hell. Was that was he had waited for? For someone to see what he did and ask him to stop for his own sake?
“You have a pretty good eye, picking my bike over the fancier models. How are you at mechanics?”
“Not bad, I think…” Yuu mumbles.
“Don’t sell yourself short, and chin up.” The man smiles, and start walking. “I’m getting you a job.”

Super-1-
“Wrong move. You have to lower your core a bit, otherwise I’ll be able to get you off balance.”
Sayoko picks herself up from the mat, feeling her right leg throb. Still, she refuse to let herself be defeated, and exhales, moving into position again.
Oki-sensei nods, and his eyes are playful as he throws another chop that Sayoko barely blocks in time. He doesn’t let her catch her breath and press the advance, twisting to pull her down but Sayoko successfully evades and can’t help grinning, feeling like she finally has a chance. He left himself unprotected.
However, as she prepares her Sincere Shaolin Fist Two-handed Chop, he whirls around and kick her hard right above her midriff.
Her back hits the mats again, noise loud as a gun.
This time, Sayoko doesn’t stand up right away, instead letting her head knock against the ground, frustration mixing with exhaustion. She’s drenched in sweat, having trained the whole afternoon, and the sun is setting beyond the window. Oki-sensei is much older than her, and yet he doesn’t seem the least bit bothered.
It pisses Sayoko off.
Why can’t she pull that one move? The rest she knows and feels confident in, and yet this one, far from the most complex or bothersome, eludes her. It’s like the gods have cursed Sayoko once again.
She has talent, that she knows, and she trains her body until every parts answer her call, but the timing… She wants to be strong, strong enough that the frustration won’t reach her.
Oki-sensei’s face blocks the ceiling.
“Sayoko.” He calls out, and she notices that her first is clenched tight.
“I’m sorry, Oki-sensei, I…”
“It’s fine. You shouldn't apologize if you don’t feel like it, since you haven’t done anything wrong.”
He plops down.
“Your feelings are your strength, Sayoko. It’s meaningless to learn martial arts if you can’t express yourself through them. We’re not fighting, we’re creating.”
“Huh?”
“A fight is something far more simple. Some people fight to hurt, some to defend. At times, it’s necessary to fight, but often, it ends up meaningless. A fight can destroy you. What we’re doing is conversing. If you can’t get the meaning across, then change the wording. As long as the feeling behind it is genuine, it’s still Sincere Shaolin Fist.”
Sayoko breathes and pushes herself up.
“It’s only what I have to tell you that I need to pass through, right?”
“Right. Trust that I’ll understand it.”
She closes her eyes. What she has to say…
I want to express myself better.
As long as it’s honest, it’s Sincere Shaolin Fist, and so, she throws her palm as fast as she can, striking the middle of Oki-sensei’s chest, the place where her words fall flat.
When he hits the mat, he’s smiling and his next attack is covered in pride. Sayoko blocks it with one forearm, the other arm rising to convey her thanks.

Skyrider-
The skies are cloudy, today, sun rays dim and winds tepid.
“What matters is remembering that you can’t force change. That’s the first step.”
Tsukuba-san is always polite. His excitement is contained in his eyes, but it’s clear he’s glad to be of help, with how brightly he had smiled at Gen.
“But just because you might not be able to get the weather you want doesn’t me it’s all over. Of course, there are times where you won’t be able to go out… But when it comes to certain winds, you can learn how to use them, and there are kinds of rain that can make a flight better.”
Gen nods, since it seems like the right choice, but his mind is already spinning a terrible tale of getting swept by a storm.
“Once you’ve accepted that you can only impact yourself, up there, you can understand better how to overcome hardships. When I need a pick up, I go into the skies and I pick the current I need.”
That’d be nice, if it was that easy to escape life. But Gen has no illusion. When he tries to do good, he fails at it, over and over again. More and more, Gen considers a life spent in his room, where he won’t have to face the tightness of a crowd of people laughing at him. But Tsukuba-san is a family friend, and he was always kind, so when he asked if Gen would like to accompany him gliding, Gen found himself agreeing.
“You’ll see, Gen-kun, it’s beautiful up there. You can hear the wind, and see for yourself how beautiful our world is there.”
“If you say so, Tsukuba-san. As long as I don’t crash…”
“You won’t. You’re a smart kid, Gen-kun, and I explained everything, right? I’ll be right there to catch you.”
It’s easy for Tsukuba-san to say, being a professional at the sport, who never seem to fear for himself. Gen can’t even understand why Tsukuba-san wanted him to come, when all he’s gonna do is get in the way.
“Remember, don’t push the world to change, simply pick the way you want to follow.”
And off they go.
Gen spend the first minutes looking at his arms as they shake, and avoiding thinking about the terrible distance between his body and the ground, and how fast it would narrow were he to fall. Slowly, he builds confidence in looking up at Tsukuba-san, flying like he always do, with an elegance Gen envies. And then, oddly, Gen finally notice the sky.
It had always been such a regular part of the scenery after all, but now… Now it’s something moving. The blue isn’t just blue, it has green, grey, gold and traces of red that turn into pink as they spread. The clouds shift, going slowly, and Gen wants to go slow too, to be suspended in a moment without any doubts, any fears. The world is far away, and yet very close. He’s tied to people bu that doesn’t hurt, when they can’t look up at him. It’s him watching, him noticing the way the sea isn’t so different from the sky, the way there is almost no way to tell where something start and another ends. He’s not anything but himself, here, under the endless skies.
He’s drifting down, but it’s nothing to worry about, and the tears that slips out will turn into a few drops of rain. All the shaking he did is just a trick of the light, and all the aches on his body are being carried away by a wind that isn’t perfect but is certainly good enough to love.
When they get down, Gen asks, voice a bit unsure:
“Can we do it again?”
Tsukuba-san’s smile is all too pleased.

Stronger-
The man who walks in, jacket thrown over his shoulder, is effortlessly cool. He’s still cool when he commands a drink, two fingers joined together in a perfect picture of nonchalance. His drink is soft, no alcohol in it, and he proudly wears an outfit that she can only dream of one day wearing. But more so than anything, it’s her guts who tell her that this is what she had longed for.
That’s the kind of person she wants to grow up into.
Not a man, not a woman, but that kind of man. To become a girl who’ll turn into a cool man with a denim jacket. He’s so cool, and his voice is smooth and stylish, he rides a bike and has a perfect smile. It’s her dream existence.
Sure of what to do, she slips out of the cafe and waits by its entrance, hidden behind a car, until he comes out, still effortlessly cool, wind rustling his hair. His bell bottoms look even cooler in the breeze. She steps away for a bit, fiddling with her camera.
“So, any reason you were looking at me, kid?”
She jumps, not sure how he managed to tell she was there.
“Go on, come out. You look like you have something to say.”
Well, no use pretending. She needs his help, regardless, and he doesn’t look like he’d mind the question. Or, rather than looking, she knows without any tells that he’ll be fine with it.
She walks out of her hiding spot and stances up.
“So?” He says, amused.
“How do I become a man like you?!”
“Huh?”
Was she wrong to assume he’d get it? But she can’t back down, not when she can tell she’s getting closer to the goal, to the body she wants to have later. So she pushes further.
“I want to be a man that looks as cool as you do.”
He stares at her blankly then burst laughing. Is that relief in his eyes?
“That’s nothing to laugh about! I’m serious about it.”
“Ah, no, that I get. It’s just a misunderstanding kid. How about you tell me more about your dream, instead?”
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
He raise his pinky in answer, and even that movement looks so awesome coming from him.
“It’s a bit hard to describe, so… I’m fine with that body for now, but soon it won’t fit me. I just know it won’t. I can’t see myself becoming a woman, even. I’ll become a man. But I don’t want to be a man in a body that doesn’t fit. So… please, tell me how to be a man that looks like you.”
He looks at her, seriously, and she feels herself being judged.
Then, he sighs.
“Listen, that won’t be easy. Not today, at least. And you can’t have a body like mine, there’s way too much baggage you’re not prepared for. But, when it comes to making a body that works for you, then sure, I can give pointers.”
She almost hugs him, there, joy knocking the breath out of her. He doesn’t tell her anything until they’re seated and she has her drink in front of her, however, but she doesn’t mind waiting a few minutes more when she’s been waiting for years.
“To start, you have to decide what kind of body you want to aim for. Like, do you want to have muscles? Do you want to be fat? Do you want to have earrings? Do you mind having scars? Now, there are things you won’t be able to decide on, that’s part of the experience.”
She nods, hanging on to his words.
“Then, you also have to know that even if your body looks a certain way, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with what it’s labeled as. I know guys who like having chest, and ladies who appreciate having a beard. So, don’t just go for what you think is the standard, but what you want for yourself. Then, you can figure out how to get there, the way you want to move, how to dress and all that. A lot of it is about confidence.”
“In what way? I mean, the point is I don’t like the one I’ll end up having.”
“Well, sometimes you do get the body you like, but it doesn’t feel right immediately. It might be clearer if I put it that way.” He says, taking a perfectly cool sip. “Has it ever happened to you to get something you real want and think you don’t deserve it?”
Of course it did. Grades, and her friends, her bird, that time she won at the archery club competition.
“In my case, there’s definitely some victories I’ve pulled off and couldn’t believe in, when I was your age. Well, it can happen with a body too. I have a friend who still can’t believe he looks how he looks no matter how much we tell him it suits him. And that’s because he can’t believe he deserves it. So, if you want your ideal body, the one that can only be yours, you can’t simply work it physically, you have to be ready for it mentally and let yourself be happy. After that it gets easier.”
“And… And does it get easier with others too?”
He closes his eyes, a thoughtful expression on, then takes another sip.
“I think if it doesn’t, you can just meet better people, no?”
She doesn’t know what to answer.
“But it’s fine if you feel differently. We’re not the same, and we won’t ever be, but we can understand each other, right? That’s a matter of confidence, too. You have to trust in what you say and accept that you can be wrong.”
“At the same time?”
“Yep. No two ways about it, in this world. But as long as you trust in yourself, in all that makes you you, it’s not so hard to stand tall and say something other might find stupid. You might even inspire others.” He says it with a wink, and she thinks Cool.
Cool, so cool, but not the cool she wants for the man she’ll become.
She wants to be a cool guy who’s more composed, less sly and softer at the edge.
But with the suave style he has.
“Alright… It’s a lot.”
“You’re already a good way there, you know. You were pretty cool when you called out to me, no?”
He says it with a teasing glint in his eyes but it’s no less true, so she smiles.
“Right!”
“Then, if that helped, what’s going to be your next step?”
“Changing my name, probably.”
He leans back on his chair, still so very cool and it almost pisses her off but it also feels like home.
“Oh?”
“Right now, I’m Araki Yuka. But, I’m thinking about becoming Tsutomu.”
His grin get even sharper, then.
“Sounds about right. It’s a strong name.”
She nods and when he makes a move to stand up, she stops him.
“Hey, I’m not done. I still want to ask about your outfits! And how you got those muscles, too. Mine are pretty good on the arms, but your legs are something else!”
He seems shocked for a second then sits back with a lazy smile.
“A strong name for a strong personality, huh?”

Amazon-
Kohaku doesn’t want to talk. It’s hard to push the words through, and they always turn out ugly, misshaped.
The monster who attacked her had mocked that, said she was dumb, that she didn’t even scream for help the right way. The monster who took her is gone now, because a weird man beat him to protect her, so what he says doesn’t matter, really. It doesn’t matter.
The weird man is looking at her as she stiffens a sob, trying not to look like she’s pouting.
“Are you… Okay?” He says, and his voice is strange but familiar. It’s like hers when she pushes the words out in class, but without her classmates laughing.
She wants to say yes, wants to say her arm is sore, wants to ask if he’s okay, wants to say it right even though she has no idea how. She bits her hand, instead.
He pulls it free from her teeth, gently, but not so gentle it become annoying.
“Are you okay?”
Kohaku breathes, sharp, one, two and then three times, and the weird man waits her out.
“I- Ai- I’m f-fine.” It’s good enough, probably. “Sssorry.”
“Why?”
“Kause, cause I’m no-not good at talkin’.” She breathes again then repeat, trying to separate her words. “My-- my classmates say I’m no good at talking.”
“Amazon thinks wrong.”
“Amazon?” She never heard of a name like that.
Maybe he’s slurring, too, maybe it’s Amazaki like her neighbor. Maybe it’s like when she introduced herself in class and now all the people in class call her Kokoha.
But he smiles, so big it takes up half his face, and points at himself.
“My name Amazon. Kamen Rider Amazon.”
Huh.
“I’m-” She says it very slowly so it comes out a syllable at a time. “Kohaku.”
“Kohaku, nice voice.”
She smiles.
“Kohaku, Amazon, walk you home safe.”
She takes his hand and talk to him the whole way through, stumbling over her words without him laughing at it. She talks about her parents moving out of their old house in the middle of the year, and having no friends here, and missing hers. She asks if he’s away from home and he talks about the jungle and the friends he made there, voice warm and nice.
When they get to her home and her parents hugs her tightly, she looks back at Amazon.
“Kohaku, Amazon, friends.”
“Y-yes! Friends!”
The next morning, she shows Saki the cool gesture she learned and makes her second friend.

X-
The sea accepts everything. Jin Keisuke had said it like it was a soothing balm all on its own, like knowing it would be enough to helps the world get slower. Makoto isn’t sure he can believe it, however. Everything hurt so much and he knew enough about himself to know that he was alone for a reason.
Makoto had no places to call home, anymore, unable to live with those who had hurt him so many times. Makoto isn’t kind, because nobody had taught him how to be. When that woman had died, he had laughed, crying in relief the whole night.
But Keisuke Jin had said nothing about that, hadn’t asked Makoto to leave. Instead, he had walked up the stairs and made Makoto a bed.
“It’s not my place to say if you were wright or wrong, or if your regrets are justified. But, that’s not what you need, is it?”
And so Makoto had moved into Keisuke Jin’s home.
In the morning, he walked Mari to school, picked her up in the afternoon, made them dinner when Keisuke was out late at his office. Occasionally he cleaned the home, and avoided thinking as much as he could. It was almost peaceful, to live that way, with the maritime air filling his lungs every morning.
He didn’t ask why Keisuke had taken him under his wing, didn’t ask if he regretted it. Didn’t ask if it was hard to be a hero, even at that age, had made sure not to ask anything about the maintenance Keisuke ran on his own body and the friends he invited over at times.
Don’t make noises, don’t make troubles, and you can pull through just fine.
Don’t do things they don’t want you to do and anticipate what they want.
And then, one day, Makoto screwed up. He was so tired, and Mari had become more and more restless, more and more annoyed at everything. She had started getting snippy with Keisuke, but he had shouldered it without flinching, and she must have decided, then, to switch target.
It was just petty remarks at first, which Makoto had learned to ignore, with his years of practice, and the knowledge that, this time, the person saying them didn’t mean any of it.
And then, Mari had gotten truly vicious. He hadn’t been in Keisuke Jin’s home, any more, but back there, in that too white and too big house, watching from the corridor as his room was stripped of what he loved more. The plush tossed without care over someone’s shoulder rolled to his feet.
The person he slapped wasn’t the one he had wanted to hit.
Mari had stool perfectly still, mouth agape, eyes wide, and Makoto mirrored her surprise. His breath hitched, and he turned tails, climbing down the stairs, a pounding like a thunder strike, and Mari calling his name.
The door slammed shut.
He had nowhere to go, nowhere to be.
“I’m lonely.” Something cold crawled up his back as he stood, facing the water and the darkening day.
The sea accepts everything but would it accept him?
He didn’t move, didn’t pick up the phone Keisuke had brought him, didn’t turn around, didn’t walk, didn’t cry, didn’t scream, even though he wanted nothing more than do all of that, at once and forever, retreating into himself so deeply he would no longer have a body.
“This isn't how I meant it.”
Makoto didn’t look back, but he listened to the only thing left that wasn’t the sea.
Keisuke came by his side.
“You can’t give all of yourself to someone. People who care about you would much rather you keep it, and people you want to be loved by won’t start caring if you hand it all over. You can’t wait for the impossible to happen. Not even death will change their mind, trust me.” Keisuke pulled Makoto down, onto the sand and to his side. “The people who want the best for you are those who want to see you live how you like it.”
“Even though I’m bad at it?”
“You’re not any worst than I was at your age. Listen, Makoto-kun. The only people who should blame themselves are those who wronged you. You did nothing that could justify that pain.”
“I hit Mari.”
“And you want to apologize, don’t you? She wants to apologize to you too, if you’d let her. Both of you are young, it’s good to make mistake now.” Keisuke says kindly.
“What does the sea accept then, if it shouldn't accept me?”
“The things you struggle to say, the love you hold for people who didn’t give anything back, the shame you have over being happier elsewhere, the joy of meeting people who understand you even as it means they also went through hardships. Those are all the feelings you can tell the sea about, when they get you down, and you will see that they aren’t so bad, since the sea will remain the same beautiful blue.”
Makoto closed his eyes, listened to the paired performance of the tide and the cogs and pumps. He wanted to see Mari, wanted the three of them to eat together, wanted to go about his day and play cards in the afternoon, wanted to sleep a little more.
“It was so tiring. I’m glad she’s dead.”
He said it out loud.
“That’s alright, too, Makoto-kun. Some days, I’m glad he’s gone, too.” Keisuke breathed deep and the whirling grew a bit louder than the waves. “Shall we go eat? Mari made your favorite.”
They walked back together, through the dark streets. People waved at Keisuke, and he waved back with one hand, the other on Makoto’s shoulder. When they came home, Mari was waiting on the doorsteps, shoes in hand. She crashed into them with a lack of grace and an abundance of apologies that Makoto joined in.
When he went to sleep, after, Mari in a futon next to him and Keisuke watching over them, Makoto had a realization.
The sea accepts everything, and Keisuke Jin accepts him.

Riderman-
“Band-aids were invented in 1920. It was a gift of love, and we have been using them since. Before, we dressed wounds in bandages or we disinfected them and let them heal on their own.” The man paused, looking at Keiko’s leg. “Scrapped knees can hurt a lot, but I don’t think it will scar, so there is no need for worry.”
Keiko nodded, but she was only half listening.
While it had hurt to fall while running, the man in front of her had immediately rushed in, pulling a box out of his coat’s pockets. She barely even had time to notice she was hurt before it was fixed. What Keiko was interested in was the man’s look.
“Are you a scientist?”
His eyebrows fall and his smile stills. The man pushes himself up.
“What do you think?”
“Well, you look like one, with the coat. Although you don’t have glasses.”
“And I should have a pair?”
She nods again. It’d make it even more evident that he’s a scientist.
“What kind of science did you do?”
“Ah…” Once more, he looks like he’s biting into a lemon. “It’s a bit hard to explain. Now, I help people who have… I suppose you can say prosthesis.”
“My mom has one!” It’s a metal hand Keiko likes looking at, who moves without making any sounds. “One day, I’ll make an even better one!”
“Really?” He smiles, this time, genuinely.
“Yep! I’ve read you need to be a scientist for that, though. Is it hard fixing them?”
“Sometimes, yes. Everyone has different need. For example, if you’re making prosthesis for athletes, you have to be careful not to put too much weight. It’s hard to run while carrying something, right?”
Keiko nods again, thinking seriously.
“I want to make cool ones, with fun functions.”
“Fun? How?”
“Well, ones who play music or who light up. Maybe some who transforms.”
“Transformation huh… That’s a great idea.”
“Really?” Her brother said it was stupid when she said that, and her friends at school said it was boring. But Keiko likes drawing them. She turns to grab her bag, where it landed at her feet, and pulls a sheet of paper out. “Look, that’s one I thought of! It can turn into a microphone, if you need to speak in front of a crowd.” She even added a light up function, though she doesn’t know where it would come from yet. “That’s not dumb, right?”
“Of course it’s not.” The man says, seriously. “Just because it’s made to be useful doesn’t mean it can’t be funny either. Actually…” He pauses, then raise one of his sleeve up.
“Wow!”
It looks like something out of a TV show, with switches everywhere. Keiko grabs her paper and a pen.
“Don’t move, Mister.”
“Of course, of course. Is the angle okay?”
She nods, and trace an arch, her tongue sticking out as she add in little cubes along the surface.
“Can it change?”
“I’m sure it could, yes.”
“Then it should change into …” She searches for the right word. “A trumpet or something.”
“I don’t think I’d be very good at music.”
“Then a camera?”
“It’d be a good idea for one of my friends.”
“Don’t move!”
“My apologies.”
By the time she’s done, she has almost run of suggestions, all of whom he comments on, be it it to say it’s a good idea or ask how she’d implement it. It feels a bit weird, to Keiko, to talk to someone who knows more than her and still seem genuinely interested in her ideas.
She shows him her drawing, and he gives her a thumb up, the prosthesis moving smoothly.
“You did really well.”
“Well, I just thought it was pretty, with how smooth it was… But, Mister, can I… Can I make them, when I’m older?”
“Why not? If you learn and keep wanting to help others, I’m sure you’ll make ones who are far better than mines. But you have to keep caring and listen to what they want, alright?”
“Yeah!” Keiko nods again and pick her bag up, throwing it over her shoulders.
Before leaving, however, she twists on her feet.
“Hey, Mister, what kind do you make?”
“I make prosthesis for heroes.”
And with one final smile, fireworks shoots from his hand.

V3-
It’s not spying, if the man doesn’t see Kai.
The man, in the middle of the field, plays a song barely above a whisper, but Kai feels it rest heavily against his heart. It warms him, even as the winter weather lingers in the early spring season.
It’s a song carried by the guitar and harmonica, a song that comes from the depth of the heart.
Kai happened upon it by chance, coming home from the library. At first, he had only heard it faintly, bits of something floating, nothing more than a fragment of the clouds above. Then, it had come closer, and Kai, too, had approached it, feeling as skittish as a cat. It sounded familiar, to his tired ears, and the music had slowly lifted Kai higher and higher, mind above himself.
That’s when he had seen the man, beautiful and solemn, pinching the guitar carefully and blowing into the harmonica occasionally. His white scarf looked as though it would fly away at any moment and even when the song seemed to call out a name what laid beneath was only a gaping absence.
To fight every day was painful, the song said, but it has to be done so that no else vanish before the time comes. That person is gone, the song said, that person is gone and will never return. The sun may rise again, the wind may blow again, the earth may spin again, but that person will still be gone tomorrow.
Kai felt tears spill on his cheeks.
Ah, so he was gone.
The person Kai cared for the most in the world.
He is gone and the sun is rising, the wind blowing, the earth spinning and yet only this song is really playing. That grief kept melting inside his heart, filling every little crevices, and he had to keep laughing while it stabbed him, had to keep studying with it scorched him, had to keep moving even though his body was heavier than the universe could ever be able to stand.
The song said, that person is gone and will never return, but the shadow of a smile comes into the room like sun rays through the windows. Even a trick of the light is the echo of that smile.
Somebody had once smiled at him in a way nobody would ever be, but that he knew it had been possible, that somebody had given him something so amazing…
The song said, today I feel lonely, and tomorrow it won’t feel the same.
Kai sobbed, loud. After all, it would be callous to listen in without doing anything. The music stopped for a second, stumbling upon his sudden presence, then continued softer than before. That person is gone and will never return, someone else will come through the door, sang the guitar that man played.
They didn’t know each other, but perhaps they could grieve side by side, a little longer.

2-
“Will you show me your smile?”
“It’s not pretty at all.”
Dawn was breaking beyond the door, but the night remained inside. The heaviness inside didn’t move a bit, didn’t shed tears, a complete stranger let out a sigh.
“Is there anything you like?”
“I’m not good-”
“That’s not what I want to ask. Is there anything you like to do? My partner likes science, our precious kouhai does music, many of us likes riding around, feeling the wind blow through us and on our cheeks. Some of the young ones cook, and some of them are pretty good at dry cleaning. One of them takes pictures that I don’t think any human should be able to take, and I’ve met some who like to dance, or to sing but aren’t what you’d call master. I don’t think that has to matter. If only people who were good at things were allowed to do them, we’d all sit around aimlessly, no? So.” The light shines a bit brighter. “What do you like?”
The silence distend, then the line breaks.
“I’ve started climbing.”
“Oh? In rooms? Is that popular among you kids?”
“I… I’m not sure. There’s not many people on the days I show up.”
“What do you like about it?”
“I’m not sure… I guess, how I have to think it and give it what I can to make it to the top.”
“That’s a pretty great feeling, huh, landing the finish?”
“Hmm… I don’t always manage it.”
“But you don’t give up, right?”
“I don’t want to. It’s… It’d piss me off if I couldn’t pull it off at all, when I know I can.”
“Right, I get you. Well, there’s days with and days out, but when you know you’re in the right space, that’s the best feeling.”
“Is it like that for photography?”
“Well, when I can catch the perfect light with the perfect angle, when what I want to convey and the world I capture are right where I want them to be, that’s when I’m the second most happy.”
“Second? What’s the first.”
“Who knows?”
One eye vanish under a dark full moon, the thunder strike bids its time. It’s coming, approaching, growing closer. The sound of a perfect stranger’s heartbeat fills the room.
“Are you happy?”
“About?”
“Picking me as a model. I haven’t given you a single workable shot, right.”
“You thought it was for work?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Well, not entirely. It’s part of my work, yes, but I also do it for a simpler reason.”
“Huh.”
“Of course, you’re the one with custody of the shot. If you ask, I’ll even burn it in front of you. But, I’ll do say it’s going to come out just right. And I’m never wrong about that.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I make a lot of mistakes, and I’m nowhere near as good as some of those guys when it comes to many, many things. But when it’s the perfect shot, I won’t be beaten. I might be the strength rather than the skill, but I’ve been training in photography for years.”
“The strength? In what?”
“Being Kamen Rider, of course.”
The room falls silent like a light turned off. The man in the cap doesn’t falter, the one visible eye shines like a rolling marble.
Inside that person’s stomach, a wave roll and break onto the shore.
Laughter erupts.
“What? Kamen Rider?” That’s impossible to believe, someone as thin as that man.
There’s a thunder strike bursting out of the black moon.
“Got it.”
“Ah?”
“Your smile. As I thought, it’s an undefeated smile, so flash it when you feel like it, instead of holding it back for people who don’t know what they’re missing.”

1-
“You should always fight to protect the lives around you. More than a right, it’s a duty.” Professor Hongo told them that evening.
The class was utterly silent, mesmerized by the look in their professor’s eyes.
Most times, when asked a question, Professor Hongo would smile kindly, patiently, and then repeat his explanation until the person concerned understood. He was their most gentle teacher, and naturally, became the most popular at Johnan University. Even people unrelated to the biochemistry classes tended to speak of him with nothing but the highest of regards. All the rumors around him only served to preserve this image.
But there was another facet of his that was just as deeply admired by students as his kindness.
Who was it who started it, this time? Was it Emi? Jo? Rinnosuke? Maybe even Rachel? What mattered was that a student had asked about the strike.
It was one that had been prepared by various clubs all over at school, the total interruption of activity on campus to fight migrants rights. There had been, previously, march for women’s rights, equal pay, against homophobic or racist laws, for insurance, against medical and student debts and any sort of causes that set their hearts ablaze. But none, before, had occurred on the day Professor Hongo taught to them.
“Is it alright for us to strike?” “What do you think of that?” “Will we be penalized?” Those were questions they wanted to ask the teacher that had helped them so, earnestly.
“Will you be proud of us?”
And Professor Hongo’s eyes had flared, a quiet strength who never left but made itself quiet, most days.
“If it is to defend others, even against unjust laws, then there is nothing that should stand in your way, no one who should tell you to stand down. When you are angry on someone else’s behalf, it is kindness that you learn, and when you stand together, you become stronger. As a teacher, as an adult, there is nothing I can want for you that is more important that a bright and peaceful future.”
The students stayed silent. Then, Akemi raised her hand.
“Professor, if we ever come to doubt ourselves, will you still believe in us?”
“I believe in your sense of justice, in your ability to be good, in the kindness you are learning every day. And I will always be by your side. If you ever falter, know that I believe in you and that you will take great care of the future I want to entrust to you. That there is still so much we didn’t you is not your fault but a mistake of us older generations.”
The students relaxed. Professor Hongo, after all, was smiling again, the way he did to say it would be all okay.
“And, regardless, there will be no class next week. I am attending the march, after all.”
And since there was no doubts to be had, the class continued, equations written in red chalk.