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“Neku!”
Well, he supposed Shiki had been saying his name, at the same time her hand shook his shoulder, snapping him out of his drowsiness. As his eyes opened, on the seats opposite to him, Beat was gently poking Rhyme’s face. The girl had fallen half-asleep herself against her brother’s side. Next to her, she had left an empty spot.
Neku reluctantly took his headphones off. He would have to listen to Ishimoto’s tunes of Emptinesses another time. “What?”
“We’re arriving,” Shiki replied excitedly, eyes all sparkles. “We’re in Odaiba! Look!”
Well, since they had to take the Yurikamome so early just to see the lights, he might as well…
The Rainbow Bridge that connected Odaiba to the rest of Tokyo gave a unique view of the bay, Neku had to admit. His mouth even let a “wow” slip. Under the train, the multicolored lights reflected on the waters, waves of everchanging yellows and greens trying to move the still-slumbering sea of this summer morning. It was like an artificial aurora. No wonder it was the main symbol of the district.
“Wow indeed,” Shiki commented, her phone already spam-taking pictures.
Neku felt Beat’s elbow weigh against his back to make himself a room by the window. “‘Dat’s so cool! You see this, Rhyme!”
“Oooh, the seagulls!” As Rhyme excitedly pointed them out, a flock of birds was flying right alongside the Yurikamome, as if they wanted to tag along.
“Rhyme,” Shiki called, “what’s this?” She left another greasy circle against the window.
The girl pushed herself away from her brother and reached for her bag. As she pulled out a huge pile of paper out—brochures, tickets, and scribbled memos with what seemed like directions—Neku felt a shiver crawling up his spine. Was their first day of summer in Odaiba supposed to be vacation, or a damn school assignment?
The empty seat next to her seemed to tease him. He could not shake it off. There was someone missing here.
“It’s Daiba Park! It’s where Odaiba was born,” Rhyme started to read studiously from one of her brochures. “You know, two hundred years ago, there was nothing here—”
Neku pressed the side of his head against the window. The seagulls were already heading ahead of the train. Too bad, they seemed like good company.
“—‘Cause of the sokaku, yeah? We learned about it—”
“—We can always take a look. We’re supposed to go to the park anyway—”
“—Yo, don’t forget Decks! Decks first—”
The laughter of his friends slowly turned into white noise. In the distance, Neku could distinguish the outlines of the old fortifications, scattered along the coastline. Odaiba had been dubbed the entertainment island, which was why they chose it—well, Shiki chose, Beat agreed, Rhyme planned, and he diplomatically did not argue—as their spot for their first summer vacation together. So to see the ruins of a two-centuries-old war blend so effortlessly among the modern buildings and the greenery, as if they had tried, but ultimately failed, to forget the past of the isle… An uneasy feeling sunk into his chest.
What, not enjoying the sights? Well, that’s what you fought for, right, partner?
A jolt of the Yurikamome brought him back to reality. Around them, tourists and locals started to awaken as well, long stretches and yawns and kicks in their seats. Beat and Rhyme were still chatting together, sorting their bags for what must have been the fifth time—never one time too many for Beat—, and Shiki was looking at the ephemeral lights again. Once they would arrive at the O-kaihinkōen Station, they would have disappeared until next evening.
Her eyes darted towards Neku. “So, you like it?”
He fought back the urge to meet with Ishimoto again. “Yeah. It’s cool.”
While she said nothing, evidently, his excuse had not been quite as convincing as he had hoped to be.
Decks Tokyo Beach was known to be the biggest commercial center of Odaiba. It certainly did not pale next to the One-O-Four, and of course they had to stop by. For research, according to Shiki.
More specifically, she had wanted to visit the fourth floor, Itchome Shotengai. The moment the elevator opened on the fourth floor, Neku felt like he had stepped into another dimension. Like this pocket area of Decks had been frozen in some postcard-perfect version of the seventies. Stalls of bright-colored candies and frozen fried pastries, alcoves of gashapon machines and long strings of artificial lights filled the place beyond the painted arch; it looked as if all the shops there had been built on top of each other like kapla, leaving as little free space as possible. And yet it felt… Familiar, in a way. Homey.
“I wanted to take some inspiration from the hamatora style for our next line,” Shiki started, effortlessly navigating them through the cluster, as if she knew perfectly where she was going. “I thought this place would give me ideas, and then you’ll tell me what you think.”
Neku let himself be dragged, feeling like his feet were skating above the ground. “Hamatora?”
Shiki stopped in front of some shop—as indistinct as the others in Neku’s mind. “You know, in the seventies,” she explained, “after the war, there were these young people, kind-of stuck in the middle. Like,” her finger was running over a rack like… Well, a conductor’s baton, and as much as Neku tried to push that idea out of his mind, it did not want to let go. “Look!”
Shiki pulled a jersey out. The thing had evidently been worn to death, judging by the mismatched threads and the patches adorning the sleeves; as she made a small twirl, holding it against her chest, Neku could have sworn he saw a mite falling off.
“What do you think of this?”
“It’s very… Vintage?”
Judging by Shiki’s grimace, his attempt at tact had miserably failed. However, it did not last long. “I think I need to capture the idea of this place,” she said solemnly, putting the jersey back on the rack, as if she felt sorry for the thing—she must have known no one would ever purchase it, even for a hundred yen. “It’s about… A generation still trying to find its own identity, you know? They wanted to reconnect with traditional Japanese fashion, while having this western fashion becoming more and more accessible—”
Neku kept seeing her lips move, popping Os and closing them, but the words were drowned in the Everything Else.
His eyes kept looking at the other strangers running around them. Now that he thought about it, it was kind of weird, how young everyone here seemed. Even though none of them could possibly have remembered the years Itchome Shotengai tried to replicate…
… He wondered if Odaiba had its own Composer. Like Shinjuku did… like Shibuya did. And if so, what were they like? How long had they been bound to the district? Were they old, were they new? Could they taste through its inhabitants the artificial sourness of candy, read through their eyes the little colored papers in the gashapons, feel in their throats the laughter budding? Even though, to achieve that happiness, they had to be robbed of actually living it themselves? Or… Could they only feel the scars the war left on the isle, as the memory of it was slowly fading from—
“—Neku?”
“Yeah! I’m listening.”
Shiki pouted. “Do you want to go back downstairs? Beat and Rhyme must still be at Joypolis.”
Neku did not think he would have had more fun at Joypolis either. If only because he knew that the first reason, no, the only reason Beat had wanted to visit the arcade was to have his picture in front of the Sacred Guardian, Mister Sonic the Hedgehog himself. He had not said it, but it would have been obvious to everyone: the moment Shiki had suggested they split for the remainder of the morning, Beat had made a beeline for the statue, Rhyme trailing behind like the supportive sidekick she was. And, look, Neku was not a judgmental person… Not out loud, anyway. But did he really need to go and make a fool of himself by doing the Sonic Pose (trademark!) next to Sonic?
Nah, he did not.
But judging by the amount of research she was now carrying over one arm, he must have let Shiki ramble into the void for a while. Crap. Now he felt extra guilty. “Sorry. I’m just a bit… tired, I guess.”
Shiki’s mouth stretched in a sympathetic smile. “Here!” She took his hand, spreading his fingers gently, before dropping something in his palm. “Maybe you’re going to be luckier than me.”
It was an ordinary yellow plastic coin, that Shiki must have traded against real yen before entering Itchome Shotengai. Yet his index poked and turned it on its side, carefully, as if it was the shell of a dead bug. “... Okay, but luckier at what?”
“At the gashapon, of course! I saw this adorable collection of mofu cats on the way, and—” She moved closer to Neku’s face, her glasses glowing with a devious intent. “I need the black cat, you understand?”
In spite of himself, Neku gave away a chuckle. “I’ll do my best, Boss.”
In front of the sun, Neku gravely contemplated his prize. In the end, he had not managed to pull the famed mofu. Nor did Shiki and her now-empty pouch; as far as he was concerned, the black cat might well not have existed. She had let him keep the keychain he had pulled, but… It was just a weird-looking orange hog—Shiki swore it was a cat, they were all cats, that was the whole point of making it a collection, and you have a real problem with animals, Neku. What was he supposed to do with it?
“—Earth to Phones!” Neku perked up at Beat’s voice. “Watch out!”
Neku perked up just in time to cover his head, trying not to be completely soaked by Beat’s attack. “Hey, what gives?!”
“You’re askin’ me ‘what gives’,” Beat repeated mockingly. He had already bent down, his arms up to the elbows into the sea and ready to splash on Neku again. “You’ve just been standin’ here for ages! What’s the point of goin’ to the beach if you’re not goin’ to, y’know, enjoy the beach?”
“You’ve been off all day,” Rhyme added, more softly. “As if you don’t want to be here.”
“That’s not true! It’s—”
It was, what, exactly? The siblings were brutally honest, each in their own way, but they were right.
He would have hoped the quietness, away from main Odaiba, would have dissipated his thoughts, but it had only made them louder. But, of course, after the three years he had spent in Shinjuku, having his dreams floating with the echoes like fishes gobbling a moonshine; he should have realized that his friends would pick up.
“It’s about Joshua, right?”
When Shiki said his name, Neku could not muster up any word.
“... Who, Prissy? Who cares about— Oof!” Rhyme had kindly sent her elbow in her brother’s side, before Neku could think about throwing a punch at his face. That surely would have ruined the mood… You know, more than it already was.
“I was just thinking, it’s not fair he can’t be with us, you know?”
Shiki’s wet hand reached for his. He would always be surprised at how gentle she was with him, even though those same hands had once tried to take her life. Still, she had this frown of disappointment on her face, and he did not need a psych to scan her mind to know what was going through her mind.
She helpfully voiced her thoughts still. “I get it. He was your partner too. But you should have told us.”
He averted his eyes, guilt sinking in. Fuck. They were supposed to have fun. It was the first time they were all going to the sea, too. They had found this little rocky strand, away from the artificial sand beach of Daiba Park. Only a few rock piles could have betrayed that any human had recently walked here. It was discouraged to swim—there were still remnants of lead pollution, according to the many, many boards they saw on their way—, but his friends still wanted to dip their toes in. And Neku had started too, you know, as a sign of good faith; rolling up his pants and slowly walking into the ocean, each step sending a shiver up his spine. If he had been looking down, he would have seen the small silver fishes gathering around his feet, as if they had already forgotten what human beings were supposed to be.
He would have remembered seeing them before, in the depths of Shibuya. Had they forgotten what they used to be? Stupid fishes—
“Hey.” Everyone turned their heads in the same direction. “What’s this port for?”
“Uh, give me a second.” Rhyme unfolded one of her brochures from her pocket—the full map of Odaiba, Neku could guess—, carefully holding it by its corners so as to not let water fall on it. “Oh! It’s for the Hotaluna. It goes down the Sumida River, to—o,” her vowels stretched at the same time her eyes followed the curves on the map, “Asakusa.”
“Asakusa?” The place sounded familiar, though Neku could not pinpoint where he had heard it before.
“That’s where the Sensō-ji is,” Rhyme explained. “It’s one of the oldest buddhist temples left in Japan! I’ve heard people from all around the world come there for pilgrimage, but—”
“How long?”
The question had left Neku’s mouth before he had even realized it, missing the thinking part of his brain completely; and he felt his cheeks redden at his friends’ stunned silence. “I mean, how long would it take to go to Asakusa?”
“Uh…” Rhyme looked at the map again, squinting her eyes in focus. “It says from here, there’s only one other stop before Asakusa, so we could be there before nighttime?”
“Then I need to go.”
It would have been hard—as in, someone would have to want to avoid it on purpose—to miss the Sensō-ji. The inner gate stood in the middle at the very end of the Nakamise-dōri, its blackened roof towering over the flat houses of Asakusa. Night had not completely fallen yet, but one could see the red lanterns swinging along the sea-breeze, golden lights inside dancing like beacons for lost souls. Neku walked confidently towards the temple, avoiding the wandering hands of the shopkeepers along the street trying to sell him, read scam him, with wooden amulets and cheap alcohol; his friends trailing behind with the small clusters of tourists still lingering at this hour.
In front of the Kaminarimon, before the inner gate, there was another red lantern: bigger than all the others, its flame playfully curling inside and out as if to invite him; its warmth, almost palpable. Yeah, Neku did not define himself as a lost soul—not anymore—, he knew where he was going, but would he know what to say then?
Whatever.
There were many praying statues in the main court, but the main one stood right in front of him. A monk that reminded Neku of Hachiko, the way the bronze patina had turned to gold where the visitors had rubbed the figure’s head and hands. Several offerings had already been left to its feet; some today, some probably days ago already, that no one bothered to clean. An incense stick was still burning between its fingers.
He was sure of it now: he could not be sure what it was, but there was a presence here, listening.
Neku cleared his throat. “... So, I’m not sure if a Composer can hear me?” He made a short pause, but of course, no one answered. “It’s the first time we’re visiting Odaiba. It’s… A nice district.” Yeah, even now, telling people how he felt was not exactly his strong suit. “We’ve seen the Rainbow Bridge, Decks, and the marine park… I think my friends liked it.” That his interlocutor, if he even listened, did not, and could not, answer, did little to alleviate his nervousness. In fact, rambling to an inanimate statue felt stupid.
But Neku went on: “There’s a Composer in my district too. Joshua Kiryu. Without him… I wouldn’t have the friends I’ve got now. I wouldn’t have dreamed of going out of Shibuya. I know he would’ve liked to be here too.”
Well, to be honest, within the Game, he hated him. But now that they were all out, the memories of the Underground brought a smile to his lips.
“Actually…”
Neku’s hand fished into his pocket, taking out the orange hog-cat-thing. The cheap plastic had half-melted, flattening its face. “Uh, Shiki says there’s a super rare black cat to find, but… Yeah, no luck.” He dropped the little keychain among the other offerings. “So, maybe we come back next year and try to pull it?” It would be nice, to have a tradition between them.
“Look, I’m not sure I’m doing this right, but…” Neku rubbed the back of his neck. “Can you bring it to Josh? And let him know about… All the stuff I said.”
He looked at the statue’s face again. It had not moved, but its grin… It almost felt like it agreed. So he brought his hands together in a prayer, and bowed. “Thank you.”
By the time Neku exited the temple, it was almost dark outside. Only a few lost tourists were still in Asakusa, walking through the outer gate with hurried steps and chatting loudly in languages he did not understand, paper lanterns in their arms.
His friends were waiting against a beam. Shiki was the first to stand up. “So?”
“... So, perhaps we could keep traveling. If you want to. Maybe even go outside Japan?”
She smiled. “Let’s go back to our hotel before that, OK? Or we’ll miss the last boat.”
They all turned on their phones, the light-up screens to ward off the spirits that would soon claim the Sensō-ji, and started walking away.
Just for a split second, Neku’s head turned, looking at the temple one last time, and his eyes squinted in the obscurity. Was that… A bird? A seagull? Landing on the roof with a sinister laugh foreign to its species. What was it doing in this area of Odaiba, and so late at night? He would never know, before Shiki’s arm, intertwined with his, reluctantly dragged him away.
The bird’s eyes kept following the little group until they disappeared behind the gate, into the night. An offering to the Composer of Shibuya, eh?
Well, it was a small world, after all.