Chapter Text

Part One

ヤケになって　どうでもよくなり
やっぱりどうでもよくなくなり
一体この電車のはじまりの駅はどこだい

通い慣れすぎていつの間に
疑うことさえもなくなり
いっそ今日はいつもと反対電車に乗り　どこまでも行こうよ

(I got reckless, stopped caring about anything
And then suddenly, I cared again after all
Hey, where did this train even start from, anyway?

I've ridden it so many times that somewhere along the way
I stopped even questioning it
So today, let's just get on the train going the opposite direction and ride as far as it’ll take us)

Chapter 1: Collision

“Enjoy your visit!” the friendly lady behind the glass of the ticket booth smiled at me as she handed me the plastic card stamped with my name and photo.

It had taken a few months, but I finally managed to get back to the zoo, and I decided to treat myself to an annual pass. I looked it up and it turned out that, a long as I lived in the Tokyo metro area, I could show them my middle school student ID and I could get one for free. Oneechan kept promising and promising she'd take me on another zoo date, one to make up for how much of a disaster the last one had ended up being. I really didn't want to go to the zoo alone, but I figured having the pass might make for enough of an incentive to help push me past that hurdle. Ideally, it was an activity one should do in a group, or at least as a couple. But I couldn't go with any of my friends. I tended to get a little, um, well… oneechan would say I regressed to a young child, but I prefer to think of it as just being enthusiastic about seeing the cute and interesting animals. After all, I, Amaori Haruna, was fourteen years old, and certainly not a child anymore!

Whatever you might call it, that was a side of me that I wouldn't want my classmates to see, and especially not my friends, so it was either wait for oneechan to finally have a weekend that wasn't filled with studying or drama, or… okay, who am I kidding, that was never going to happen. I love oneechan, but the girl attracts drama like fish attract penguins at feeding time.

Anyway I refused to go by myself. And I went on stubbornly refusing for almost a month and a half before caving to my need to see cute animals in person again. I still hadn't spent my New Year's money, so I finally swallowed my pride, took the envelope out of the dresser drawer I had been carefully hiding it in (for train tickets and snacks), and hauled my ass out to the zoo all by my lonesome.

Which is why I was here on this chilly February morning. The sky was clear, and there was still a fine layer of frost on the ground. My breath fogged the shades that I was wearing — a girl can never be too careful, not when one of her friends might see her there or on the way. My face mask helped keep my nose warm a little, but I could see little clouds whenever I exhaled all the same. The sun did little to chase away the chill in the air. It was supposed to be (a balmy!) 13 degrees Celsius later that day, but this early in the morning it was still hovering in the single digits. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my oversized coat and smiled at the ticket lady again as I entered the zoo.

The smell of wild animals hit me almost immediately. I breathed it in deeply. I could already feel myself starting to relax. A smile crept over my face, and my steps quickened as I headed to the first animal enclosure.

I started in the vivarium, enjoying the humid tropical atmosphere even though I had to take my shades off since they kept fogging up (I was probably safe at this point anyway, right?). After that, I went out to the lemur pen, watching them swing from branch to branch.

I caught an elephant feeding, giggling as the huge gray animal sprayed its handlers with water when they were a little too slow with the hay. I craned my neck up at the giraffes that still loomed over me despite my recent growth spurt. I stared for longer than I can remember at the antics of the red pandas. It was nearing noon, and I was starting to get hungry then, so I promised myself I'd grab some food after one more exhibit. And what better to follow up the lesser pandas than with their greater namesakes?

The pandas were mostly inside their hutch. Only a solitary male was visible from the glass panes of the walkway, happily chewing on stalk after stalk of bamboo. I sighed, resting my forehead against the glass, and watched him work on the fibrous wood. He seemed to not have a care in the world. I envied him a bit. Things had gotten a little better since I started going back to school, but midterms were coming up, and my last year of middle school was looming ahead after that. I put all that out of my mind and let myself stare at the white and black beast, a smile plastered on my face.

My stomach roused me from my trance with a loud gurgle, so loud I was sure the panda must have heard it. I pushed myself away from the glass, turned to head towards the walkway and…

And immediately ran face-first into someone who was standing right behind me. My momentum sent them tumbling to the ground, and I nearly followed right after.

"Oof, I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there!" I quickly regained my balance, face red from embarrassment. I looked at who I had nearly run over. She was a girl about my age, maybe a bit younger, wearing a salmon cardigan over a cream-colored pair of cotton overalls and a matching scarf around her neck. Her hair was short and light brown, done up in cute bows. Her bag had opened in the fall, and papers and pencils were scattered all over the ground.

"I'm so sorry," I repeated, offering a hand to help her to her feet. She ignored my offered hand, and instead rolled over and started collecting her scattered belongings without a word.

I felt a little miffed by her refusal, but not wanting to make an even worse impression than I already had, I quickly pivoted to helping her gather her things. I picked up a piece of paper. I could see pencil impressions of some kind of drawing through the backside of it. I was about to turn it around to get a better look when the girl grabbed it out of my hand like a hawk snatching a mouse. Her brown eyes reminded me of a prey animal that had just spotted a predator. It looked like she was on the verge of tears. She finished stuffing the papers and into her messenger bag, then clutched it to her chest protectively.

"I- I'm sorry," she stammered, giving me a deep bow, almost as though she had been the one at fault for the collision in the first place. It bothered me a little how meek she was being, and I was starting to feel a little angry on her behalf. I ran into you! Why are you apologizing to me??

I bit back these comments though, and forced myself to smile. "I hope you're not hurt? I'm so sorry, I should have looked where I was going! Let me make it up to you!" I bowed as well, making sure to dip just a little lower than she had. My cursed stomach, of course, had to take that second to let out another loud gurgle, and I was glad for the moment that my face was pointed at the pavement to hide the glow of embarrassment that rose to cover it.

"N-no, it's fine really," the girl said as she started to back away. "I shouldn't have been standing th—"

Whatever excuse she had been about to give was drowned out by another gurgle. This time, though, it was coming from the anxious girl across from me. A silence hung in the air between us as we made mortified eye contact with one another. Then I started giggling uncontrollably.

"Haha okay, that settles it, I'm treating you to lunch. It's the least I can do, and I won't take no for an answer."

"O-okay," she responded with a weak nod. "If you insist." She still looked a little terrified, but her hunger seemed to be winning her over.

"I do. Like I said, it's the least I can do." And I would be damned if I let this girl get used to being the one to take the blame for other people's mistakes, especially when that other person was me. "My name is Amaori Haruna." I bowed gently in introduction.

"Azusagawa Kaede," she replied. "Azusagawa like Azusagawa Rest Area, Kaede like flower and maple."

"Very pleased to meet you, Azusagawa-chan." I did my best to smile in a nonthreatening way, chuckling at the first-day-of-school-style introduction. "There's a cafe right over here… "

"A-actually, if it's okay with you, would you mind if we went to the one by the polar bears? It's warmer, and has pudding…"

My smile turned genuine at that request. She spoke with the voice of someone who knew her way around the place. Seems I had found someone who loved the zoo nearly as much as I did.

We had just finished our lunches and were sipping on warm tea that helped drive out some of the chill from our bones. I nodded towards the messenger bag that was propped on one of the empty chairs at our table.

"So… you're an artist?"

Azusagawa-chan blushed deeply, but then nodded slowly as she swallowed. "Well, kinda. I just started, really." She hesitated for a moment, then reached over to her bag and pulled out a sketchbook, handing it to me to take a look. I carefully flipped through the pages and saw lions, hippos, birds, and page after page of pandas. The sketches were rough, and showed signs of lots and lots of erasing, but they were all very recognizable and quite a bit better than anything I could have drawn.

Azusagawa-chan continued as I slowly turned the pages. "I only started a few months ago. I wanted to find something I could do for myself, you know? A new hobby. And this seemed like a fun one to try."

I nodded, returning the portfolio to her. "Well, for only a few months of practice, these are really good!"

She laughed, as though she didn't believe that herself. "Thanks, I know they're nothing special, but…"

"No, really!" I cut her off. "I know how hard it can be to learn a new skill when you're starting at nothing. I think it's really cool!"

This made her blush again, and I could feel my own cheeks warming in response.

"Th-thanks. You're the only person I've shown these to so far, so that means a lot."

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I took another sip of tea. It really was helping to warm the body, though it was slowly starting to warm up outside at least too. I decided to change the subject.

"So, Azusagawa-chan. So where are you from?"

"Oh I live in Kanagawa, in Fujisawa."

I let out a whistle. That was quite a trip to make just to see the animals. Not that I was one to talk, having come all the way from Choufu. Could I have gone to the zoo in Inokashira or Tama instead, which were much closer? Sure, probably, the same annual pass worked at those too, after all. But the risk of running into a classmate or, even worse, a friend there was much higher, and I didn't mind taking a little extra time to avoid that chance. Besides, no other zoo in Japan had pandas, so it was worth the trek to Ueno for that reason alone.

"Is that where you go to school, too?" I asked, hoping she didn't notice I hadn't offered my home town in return. Again, too risky.

"Sort of. Actually I'll be starting a new school next year," she took a sip of her tea, then hid behind the cup as she said, quietly, "it's a high school in Shibuya."

"Oh wow, that's quite a change!" Oh, shoot, if she was going to high school next term then that meant she was at least a year older than me. I wouldn't have guessed it from looking at her.

"Well, I'm still in middle school, myself, Azusagawa-senpai," I said, immediately correcting my mistake of defaulting to using the chan honorific. She blushed hard when I used it, and it had the effect of making her already cute face look even more adorable.

"Y-you're the first person to ever call me senpai, Amaori-san." She smiled, blushing even harder. "Th-thank you."

"Don't mention it," I grinned back at her. In the back of my head a little voice wondered why, if she was a third-year in middle school, no one had called her that already, but I paid it no mind. I didn't want to go down the path of speculating about her personal life, especially not… well, anyway, I suppressed the question and moved on.

"Do you come here often, Azusagawa-senpai?" I asked, enjoying how her face reddened every time I said it.

"Y-yes and no, I've been here before but this is my first time coming alone." She pulled out the green annual pass from her pocket and showed it to me. "I wanted to get the most use out of this that I could, since it was gift."

"Yeah, I get that," I pulled out my own and held it next to hers, almost like we were presenting business cards to one another, then giggled. (I swear I'm not usually this giggly, something about the situation just had me feeling giddier than usual.) "It sucks having to come alone though, I get it." Then, before I realized what I was about to ask, I added, "hey, Azusagawa-senpai, want to be zoo buddies?"

"Huh?" she seemed confused, so I stammered, "you know, we arrange to meet here together when no one else can come, so we don't have to be alone? I just thought, you know, since we both have annual passes…" I trailed off. I wasn't even sure where I was going with that. Azusagawa-senpai stared at me blankly for a few agonizingly long moments, but then a smile started blossoming on her face.

"Yeah, I'd like that."