Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 10 - Chapter 10

It Happens from Time to Tama

We were forming groups of two for an independent study project at Nabuka Third Junior High. Each group would work together to study something we had an interest in, research it, and then put together a report about the process and our results. The best reports from each class would be selected, and those groups would later present their results in front of the whole student body.

A group of two is the smallest possible unit. You would inevitably be associating closely. So when we were finding partners, things were unusually tense. Nobody wanted to think about being the one person left over, and yet all the students were chattering away and laughing as if that wasn’t on their minds while we divided into pairs. Back in elementary school, it was never this much of a hassle. In high school and university, I bet it’s not this much of a hassle, either. I doubt you worry about this kind of thing once you’re an adult. It’s just middle schoolers who get butterflies in their stomachs as they worry about splitting into groups. At least I hope so.

The number was two to a group. In other words: pairs. Our so-called group of friends had six in total, including me, Chihiro Kuwata. With the six of us, we could usually manage to stay together when we got split into groups. Whether it was pairs or groups of three, with six people, you could divide things evenly. With a bigger group like four to six, they’d give you some flexibility with the number of people. If not for the bad luck of one member of the group having broken her ankle in an accident with her club and having gone to the hospital, we would have been able to make pairs like usual. That brought us down to five, meaning we couldn’t make three pairs.

Everyone wore bright expressions, but they were uncomfortable. It would be embarrassing to be the one person left out. And I doubted the four who left that one out would be able to hang out with the one left out in the same way as before. I quickly did the calculations in my head and broached the subject.

“I’ll go with someone else, guys.”

It was a problem if someone who was supposed to be a part of the group had to be abandoned. If I proactively stepped out, it would reduce the awkwardness, and there would be no more shame. Everyone was all like, “You don’t have to do that, Chihiro,” and “I’ll go,” but I think they were all privately relieved. I mean, I would be if I were in their position.

Right now, it was best for me to leave of my own accord. Being down to five of us friends instead of the usual six did not work in my favor. It’s not like you could assign a numerical value to our hierarchy within the group, but I could get a vague sense of how it was. I was at about third or fourth. If someone was gonna get cut, it was very possible it would be me.

That was why I willingly backed out of the group. But I was a little too late.

As we were having a back-and-forth of “I’ll go,” “No, no, I’ll go,” like some bad comedy routine, most of the others in the class partnered up. Just as there was a ranking in the group, of course there was also a ranking within the class. We were around the middle. If I dragged my heels, naturally, nobody else would wait. They’d pair up without me.

Having been the one to withdraw, I didn’t have the room to choose.

Throughout the term, both school hours and extracurricular time were allocated toward the independent study project. In the classroom, each group would huddle together to discuss, do research at the library, go out of the school to do surveys, or use the surveys as a pretense to skip out. My group wasn’t at the research stage yet, so first we had to decide what we would do.

My provisional partner and I sat on chairs opposite each other at a desk. She was short, and I was tall. Even when we were seated, her eyes were at least a few inches below my own. Maybe that was why the distance of just one desk felt farther than it looked, and I was okay with that.

“Um… L-looking forward to working with you…”

Tama Inubouzaki. She was so bad at school that she wasn’t simply the worst in the class; she could very well vie for the lowest rank in our entire grade. She was better at athletics, but still lower than average. In the interclass jump rope competition, her foot had caught over and over, and everyone had been shooting her nasty stares until she wound up practically in tears. I’ve never thought I’m really glad I’m not in that person’s position more than at that moment.

Because she didn’t really have anything interesting to say and was simply a bad student who sucked at both academics and athletics, nobody needed her. She was at the lowest rank in the class, she got mocked and laughed at, but, despite that, she didn’t even get mad about it. She’d simply put on her foolish, pathetic forced smile.

I hadn’t wanted my own group to self-destruct over who would get knocked out. That was why I’d volunteered to leave, but I hadn’t heard that I’d be doing the independent study project with Tama Inubouzaki. Regardless, I couldn’t change the past. All I could do now was avoid standing out as much as possible as I made it through this predicament, nothing more.

Just enough to keep from drawing attention to myself, just enough to not make myself a laughingstock or humiliating spectacle, just enough to not hurt my reputation with teachers—all that was being asked of me here was “just enough” effort. My partner wasn’t equipped for that, so I was the one forced to produce even just the bare minimum.

And producing results on this project was not the only work I was being forced to do.

Your worth is decided based on whom you associate with. Which important person said that again? I was the sole person forced to be with Tama Inubouzaki, someone no one hung out with usually. I was conscious of the gazes of the dozen-odd people who were still in the classroom. If you want to laugh and call me overly self-conscious, then laugh. I didn’t want to be friendly with Tama Inubouzaki in a place where others were watching. And even if we weren’t actually close, I couldn’t have it seem like we were. I needed to make it look as if I didn’t have any choice but to be with this lower-ranked student. Because if I got treated like her friend, as someone like her, and then from that day onward wound up being an outcast from the class as well—that would be a disaster.

“Inubouzaki.”

Sure, my tone wasn’t the nicest, but simply being addressed made Tama Inubouzaki tremble all over. “Y-yes?”

“Do you have any ideas for what you want to do?”

“Yeah…” She rummaged around inside her desk, and I was stunned by her unexpected answer. I’d thought for sure she’d have prepared nothing and intended to be taken by the hand and babied through this, but it seemed she’d actually brought something. The few pages of copy paper she pulled out had their corners folded over. She plucked at them with her fingertips, bending them back the other way, and handed them to me.

They were stapled together on the left side, gathered like a booklet. It was strangely sensible. I turned a page. To be blunt, her handwriting was bad. There was a weird idiosyncrasy to her penmanship that made it really hard to read, but the parts she considered important were written in red or blue. There had been a surprising amount of effort involved.

Maybe she was actually into this. But I’d heard somewhere that there’s no one more useless than a hard worker who’s incompetent. It’d be best not to get my hopes too high. I meant to skim, but as I was turning the page, my hand stopped. Written there were things like what sort of soil you should use to grow plants and conducting research by using different kinds of earth for each plant. It went on with a call to action for observing the differences in allocation of soil and drainage.

I looked up from the booklet at Tama Inubouzaki. She was trembling as if she was frightened.

This wasn’t so bad. It made me think a little better of her—just a little, as I turned another page.

That was the end of the stuff about earth and plants. Next was about researching the differences in soil by location—like mountains and oceans, upstream and downstream of rivers, residential areas and office districts, among various other places—and considering why they were different. After that was a proposal to examine the geological strata of N City and to consider what the terrain had been like in ancient times, and what had made it transform into its current state. And after that… I flipped all through the booklet. The last page was finished off with an illustration of a dog-eared girl giving a little wave, with the line “Good-bye!” in a speech bubble. Just like the handwriting, it wasn’t very good.

“Inubouzaki.”

“Y-yes?”

“Why is this all soil related?”

“Because…I like digging holes…”

I imagined a girl with no friends taking up a position alone in a corner of the schoolyard, relentlessly digging into the earth with a shovel, and the energy drained out of me. I don’t know if she was alone because she was a weirdo or if she had become a weirdo because she was alone. However, Tama Inubouzaki’s feelings toward, like, soil—or rather digging holes—were something maybe we could use.

Once we’d decided we would research changes in the strata of N City, we headed off toward the library. I wanted to search for the books we’d need before homeroom ended.

I ordered Tama Inubouzaki to grab some things that seemed useful from the natural science reference collection while I searched for some illustrated reference books on earth and strata. Our school library had nothing as fancy as a librarian. There was also no computer to use to search. We only had a library committee member stationed there at lunch and after school, so at that moment, during classes, they weren’t present. If we were going to look for books, we’d have to do it ourselves. There were other students besides us who were doing research. If we happened to need the same books and they took them away first, it’d mean more hassle for me.

I started from the section for illustrated guides, and three of the seven books weren’t there, but four were. Considering how small our school library was, those were pretty great results. I pulled out the first three books, and then the fourth, a particularly thick book, was at the end of the highest shelf. I was too short to reach. I brought over a chair and could barely touch the edge of the shelf with my fingertips, straining to somehow drag it out, but it was sandwiched in tight. I stood on my tiptoes and stretched out, grabbed the book, and slowly pulled at it—I gave it a tug, thinking, Just a bit more, and it came out with a pop. It came out so suddenly, my upper body fell backward, and I totally lost my balance. A few of the books that came out along with it fell down toward my face, and I reflexively closed my eyes, prepared for pain and impact, clenching my teeth…but nothing happened. I didn’t hit my back, and the books didn’t hit me in the face, either.

I timidly opened my eyelids—and was surprised to see Tama Inubouzaki’s face right there. I lifted my face, and our foreheads clunked. “Ngh,” I moaned, and she cried out, too, pressing her forehead as she crouched down, shoulders trembling.

I checked all around. The illustrated books that had fallen out were on a pile on the table. The chair hadn’t been knocked over. I couldn’t quite understand what had just happened. I think Tama Inubouzaki had helped me. Anyway, though, I’m impressed she could save me when she has such dull athletic reflexes.

“Inubouzaki.”

“Y-yes?”

“Thanks.”

“Y-you’re welcome.” She blushed, and, touching her right hand to the back of her head, she looked down. She seemed shy. I’d thought I’d understood this girl, but I didn’t really get her at all.

During our other classes, as well as during gym, Tama Inubouzaki was the same old Tama Inubouzaki. The math teacher didn’t ask her any questions, treating her as if she weren’t there. When we played basketball in gym class, she ran around pointlessly, shoulders heaving, never touching the ball. The teachers, the kids, nobody looked at her. I was the only one watching.

The more I watched her, the more I saw it was the same old Tama Inubouzaki. But I felt like she was different somehow. What was different, specifically? It wasn’t as if she’d gotten smarter. It wasn’t as if her athletic abilities had improved. What was different was her behavior, her actions. Though it didn’t come with results, she was being more proactive than before.

During basketball, she’d never gotten her hands on the ball, but before, she would have stayed in a corner, pretending to move around, and never tried to come up to the front. Though it had been no use that day, she’d run around enough that she was out of breath.

I could sense some confidence there. She was still timid and hesitant, and she looked frightened even when I was just normally talking with her, but she really was different from before.

During class, while passing the ball around, while talking with friends, while cleaning, while walking to and from school, while having a bath, while cutting my Salisbury steak dinner into six pieces, while showering, while brushing my teeth, while watching dramas, I thought about Tama Inubouzaki. At night, when I was in bed, I realized that I’d been thinking about nothing but her all day long and felt disappointed with myself, pulling my blanket over me.

The next day there was no homeroom. So we didn’t have to work on the independent study project, but I’d promised Tama Inubouzaki that we would meet up after school by the library. I told myself that this was because I had no cram school that day, and because I wanted to get this study project done quickly, and though I was aware that maybe this wasn’t the real reason, I decided to pretend it was. I didn’t want to walk together with her, so I wouldn’t take her with me on the way to the library, I’d just meet her there—that was the plan I’d decided on, like an excuse.

After school, I headed for the bench by the bike racks at the side of the library. I didn’t like being made to wait, and making someone else wait is like putting yourself in their debt, and I didn’t like that, either. So the whole way there, I kept checking my phone and slowing down so that I’d arrive exactly on the dot. Tama Inubouzaki was sitting alone on the bench, having a staring contest with her phone. It felt like a bother to call out to her, so I made the sound of my footsteps particularly loud, so she would notice, crunching on the gravel as I walked, but she didn’t even glance up, eyes glued to her phone. It irritated me—or more like I got impatient, so I approached her without saying anything and circled behind her to take a peek at the screen. Wondering what she was doing, I saw she was playing Magical Girl Raising Project. It was that mobile game advertised as being completely free, so even elementary and middle school kids were all playing it. I played it, too. I hadn’t known that she was into it, but it didn’t come as a particular surprise. Even someone off in a corner of the classroom, totally disconnected from trends, would be on it—the game was ubiquitous.

“Oh!” She yelped, then looked up and tried to hurriedly put her phone away, but I grabbed her arm, keeping her from doing it.

I pointed at her screen, and, feeling like my voice might tremble, I asked, “Um, this magic circle mark in the level column… Are you at max level?”

“Yeah… Um, do you know Magical Girl Raising Project?”

“Yeah, I play it. Mind showing me your status screen?”

“S-sure.”

Her dog-eared avatar seemed kind of familiar and had seriously beefy stats that belied her charming appearance. She’d maxed out her level, and on top of her already high attack, defense, and HP were additional powerful modifiers that had to be from items. Checking the equipment column, I saw it was all rare items I’d only heard about from rumors.

“The heck is this?” I asked her.

“Um…it’s Magical Girl Raising Project.”

“I know that! I’m asking why your level is this high!”

“Well…because I play a lot.”

If she was “playing a lot,” then I and my friends also, without question, “played a lot.” But our levels weren’t even half that of the dog-eared magical girl, and we didn’t have any of those items, either. Since the game didn’t have any paid content, playing it was just a matter of time and efficiency in completing the quests.

Then I remembered the reason the dog-eared magical girl was familiar. She looked exactly like the illustration Tama Inubouzaki had drawn on the final page of that outline she’d brought.

“Inubouzaki.”

“Wh-what?”

“Do you mind…if I add you as a friend?”

“Huh? You’re sure?”

After that, we got deep into a conversation about Magical Girl Raising Project until the sun set and things grew dark. Since it was past library closing, we decided to look for books the next day.

“How did you get your level up that high?” I asked her.

“Um…I work on it at night and stuff.”

“Sleeping three hours, that sort of thing?”

“Yeah. Or, like, not sleeping.”

“That’s too much…”

“But everyone’s playing it…”

I gave up. Moderation was best. Reaching the top in a game like this was the act of a monster, not a human, so I wouldn’t see her as someone to compete with. I made up my mind to treat Magical Girl Raising Project as a hobby. Tama told me some little gameplay tricks and good places to grind, and at night she would accompany me on quests as I worked on leveling up and discovering items, while during the day, in addition to my usual studying and hanging out with friends, I also had to work on the study project. Not only during homeroom, but also during free time after school, we had to gather books and put together the report.

Maybe the “plants and soil” idea would have been easier. I’d chosen the “consider the changes in the strata” idea thinking we could just make whatever kind of appropriate-sounding conjectures. But it was too late to be having those kinds of regrets. Days when I had no cram school, I used up all my time after school in the library doing research and writing.

“Did you stick those Post-its in the book for me?” I asked Tama.

“Yep, right here.”

“And the memos about the characteristics of each type of soil?”

“Yep, here.”

“Um… ‘The taste of the soil’?”

“I tried taking a bite… Was that…bad?”

“No, maybe it’s good to have something unique… Also, do you have photos of a geographic fault?”

“We have to actually go and take those…”

“Huh? We do? I thought there were a few in that book about local history.”

“I don’t think we can use those…probably.”

This was sounding more and more like a pain in the butt. I sighed, and Tama’s eyebrows turned downward apologetically.

“Agh, geez,” I said. “Don’t give me that look. Now you’re making me feel bad, too.”

“Sorry… Um, if we go there and come back quick, it won’t take much time.”

I cocked an eyebrow. Something felt a little off—just a little. If this had been before I’d gotten stuck being paired up with Tama Inubouzaki, before I’d ever thought about her, maybe I wouldn’t have felt this way. I knew more about her now.

After considering the idea awhile, I nodded. “Okay, then let’s go right away.”

“Huh? Now?”

“We just have to finish this up; then we can get back to work again once we come back, right?” I stood, and Tama followed me silently. There was no heaviness in her footsteps.

Even I thought my proposal was pretty sudden, but Tama wasn’t against it. And then there was how she’d said, “go there and come back quick.” Considering her personality, you’d think she would say, “If you really don’t want to go, then I’ll go alone,” but she hadn’t—I got the feeling she was taking that I would go with her as a given.

Tama and I switched positions once we got to the bike racks: She went first and I followed. Tama had a plan about where, specifically, we would take pictures of the soil strata, so she must have already decided where we were going. And it seemed she was trying to take me there. Obviously she wasn’t going to try to take me to someplace deserted to finish me off, so just what was this about? With 30 percent irritation and 70 percent curiosity pushing me forward, we arrived at Juzu Mountain—not Mount Meishou, or Takanami Mountain, or Funaga Mountain. It wasn’t even among the prefecture’s most prominent mountains—Juzu Mountain was one of the five smallest in the city, and even if we did get a photo of strata in a place like this, I figured it’d wind up being pretty sad.

“Hey, is this really a good spot?” I asked her.

“Uh-huh.”

We set down our bicycles and walked, quickly arriving at the summit. It was only about as big as a playground, but since there were a lot of poisonous lacquer trees growing there, it was inappropriate even for that. It was basically just a small hill that nobody visited. There was no way there would be anything here that could be called a fault.

“So where’s the fault?” I asked.

“Hold on a sec.” Tama looked all around; then she pushed some of the thicket apart and beckoned to me.

“Aren’t there lacquer trees around here?”

“It’s okay.”

What the heck could be here? Heading over where she beckoned, there, where she pointed—I looked at the ground at her feet. There was a big pile of leaves there. “What’s this?”

“Hold on a sec.” She moved the leaves to reveal a pile of soil, and when she moved it aside, there was the kind of metal bar cover that you’d see over a gutter…I think they’re called “gratings” or something. Tama dragged aside the grating to try to get it off, and I helped her, each of us taking one end to move it to the side. That revealed a big hole.

It was about three feet in diameter, I figured. When I timidly tried peeking in from above, I saw iron pipes stuck inside lengthwise and crosswise like a grille. I couldn’t see the bottom.

“I think we should be okay, but…,” Tama said, “I covered the hole so that nobody falls in by accident.”

“Yeah, I get that… So what is this down here?”

“I dug it.”

“Huh? Dug it? You did this? Alone?”

“Yeah… Because I like digging holes.”

I pinched a pebble from the dirt that had been covering the top and dropped it into the hole. It fell between the iron pipes and quickly descended out of sight, and I couldn’t hear it bounce at the bottom.

This was probably a deep hole.

“…How the heck did you do this? Did you bore it?” I asked her.

“No? I thought it was pretty interesting.”

“That’s not what I mean… How did you dig this hole?”

“I just dug my hardest.”

I blinked, then massaged between my eyes with my right hand and peered into the hole once again. This time, I tried shining a light inside with my phone, but I still couldn’t see the bottom. I turned back to Tama. She was looking at me expectantly.

“Did you really…did you really do this?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

Should I be exasperated at her idiocy, or terrified by how crazy this is, or should I be having some other kind of reaction? Putting my hands on my knees, I looked down, blew out a deep breath, then lifted my head. What am I thinking? The person I had assumed was good for nothing had a fearsome talent. If someone told me to imitate this, I could never do it, and I think it would be impossible for anyone else, too. So there was just one thing I should say to her.

“Tama…you’re amazing.”

She broke into a brilliant smile, and I understood what she’d been hoping for. Tama had wanted to be praised. That was why she’d wanted me to come here with her. She’d wanted me to see this hole, to know how amazing it was. I put my hand on her head and mussed her hair. She smiled gladly.

“We can take pictures of strata with this hole,” she said.

“Isn’t it dangerous, though? I don’t know how to get down there, but if you slip and fall, you’d probably die…and what if there’s a gas buildup or something?”

“It’s okay. I, um…I’m a pro.”

I couldn’t say, “You’re a middle schooler, not a pro.” She’d been digging such a deep hole, if she wasn’t a pro, then who was?

“Oh yeah,” I said, “and where did you put the soil you dug up?”

“Don’t worry, I made sure to take care of it.”

She must have had some pro way to do that.

“Oh, and I got some interesting stuff,” she added.

“Interesting stuff?”

I helped Tama put the grating cover, soil, and leaves back in place, then came out from the depths of the thicket to go along a wall of earth clockwise. After walking for a little while, she stopped. She kicked a part of the wall with her foot, knocking down the earth, then took away the grating under it, revealing a tunnel.

“Do you like gratings?” I asked her.

“What’s a grating?”

“…Never mind. So then what do you have here?”

“All kinds of stuff.”

When she brought out a strangely shaped brown stone, I was so disappointed, I thought my shoulders would visibly slump. Then, seeing she had brought out another, similar sort of rock, I tilted my head, and, seeing the third rock, I noticed the rope impressions.

“Wait,” I said, “are these…pottery shards?”

What she brought out next was a palm-size rock with a pretty spiral on it—could this be one of those ammonite fossil things? Then she brought out what appeared to be a fang, maybe a dinosaur fang fossil? And then there was a fossil that looked like a thigh or some kind of bone, and more treasures came rattling on out. She finished off her collection with an armful-size ammonite. Pottery and ammonites and dinosaur fangs—it was a real mix of eras. Seeing all this, I could understand just how deeply she’d been digging.

“You…you dug all this up?”

“Yeah. They get in the way when I’m digging…but I figured they might be useful someday, so I picked them up.”

Might be useful? These were more valuable than strata or faults. “This could actually work, you know. For real.”

“Work…? What work…?”

“This is it, seriously. For real.”

“O-okay…I see. Great.”

“Yeah. Great!”

Tama seemed like she didn’t really get it, but I took her hands and smiled, and we rode our bikes back to the library.

I felt on top of the world. A story like something out of movies or manga—a partnership I’d thought was hopeless and no good making the kind of miraculous turnaround I’d never expected—was happening in real life. The teacher, our classmates, everyone was going to be so surprised. And my friends—thinking to this point, I gasped. If Tama and I were chosen to present our results, then we would stand in front of all the students in school to talk about our research. If that happened, then what would my friends think, seeing me? What would they think of me?

Wouldn’t I seem like a weirdo, getting along with the class outcast, Tama Inubouzaki? Wouldn’t they be like, “You’d rather be with her than with us, huh?” And then when that happened, nobody in the class would talk to me, and then—I didn’t even want to consider beyond that. Whenever we split into groups, whenever we were stretching in gym class, everyone would ignore me. I didn’t want that.

I stopped my bicycle, and Tama, who was cycling behind, passed me by to stop about seven feet ahead, looking back at me with a confused expression. I waved at her. I didn’t want her to clue in on what I was thinking that moment.

When we got back to the library, Tama and I once again hit the books. She flipped through the pages of a thick tome with an overly serious face, and, watching her, I silently tiptoed away, then ran to the bike racks and pedaled like mad the whole way home.

As soon as I got home, I fell into bed. I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling, my thoughts nothing but negative ones. In a flash, my mood had become heavy, dark, and miserable. Futures black and sticky like tar came to mind one after another—No, I don’t want that. I don’t want to wind up like that.

I was now aware that I’d gotten carried away. An outstanding, big success would be bad. I only needed to not fail—that would be for the best. It was fine for our project to remain lost among all the others, remembered by nobody once the event was over—a project that came and went like the wind.

Excavating fossils was going too far. If I were in the position of the other students or the teachers, frankly, I’d be a little put off. The stratum research, well, that should be just about right. It seemed like Tama had never originally intended to put these fossils and stuff out in the world anyway, so if I told her to keep them secret, I doubted she’d complain.

I rolled over and picked up the phone by my pillow. The time was 5:50. I closed my eyes, squeezing them until they hurt, then opened them. My vision was now blurry. The time display had turned to 5:51.

Time was passing by without stopping. I didn’t know Tama’s phone number. I didn’t know her email, either. I couldn’t tell her that I’d had something urgent to do and I’d gone home before her. I didn’t want to look at my phone anymore, so I threw it down on my pillow. The hand that had been holding it was damp with sweat. I pulled my futon over me and curled up. I couldn’t have a big success. Tama’s smile rose in my mind, how she’d been glad in her own uncomprehending way when I had said, “This could actually work,” and I wrapped myself up in my blanket and rolled around on the bed. It was like a candy wrapper. Wrapped up in that blanket, I squirmed, suffocated. I can’t have a big success, I can’t have a big success, I chanted like a spell—and then the blanket was ripped away from me, and I flinched under the bright light.

“What are you doing?” My mom was looking down at me.

I scowled. “At least knock when you come into my room.”

“No weird noises, okay?” My mom squared her shoulders and slammed the door.

The shock and sound made me jump up in bed, causing me to hit my back on the wall. Moaning in pain, I rubbed my back, and when I checked the time on the wall clock, I saw it was already six thirty. The library closed at seven. Even if I went down there, Tama would have left.

Why had I gone back alone? I’d felt unable to be around her. So I’d left her behind and gone home without a word. Tama had seemed really happy, and I’m sure I had, too. She must never have thought I would go home alone without saying anything. What sort of expression did she have when she’d found out? Had she seemed lonely, or sad, or uninterested? I thought she had surely had the same expression as always.

I rolled over in bed and looked up at the ceiling again. The cream-colored wallpaper had turned a dirty yellow from many years of being under the glare of the fluorescent lighting. I remembered saying to my parents, “Wouldn’t it be better to choose a darker-colored wallpaper?” In the end, my mom had insisted on her own tastes.

I got out of bed, grabbed my phone in my right hand and my jacket in my left, and then stood. I ran down the stairs, and, ignoring my mother’s voice from behind, I leaped out the front door.

Ten after seven. The sun had set. It was past closing time for the library. There were some people around, but nobody who looked like Tama. Had she already gone home? Was she still nearby? I passed by the fountain in the central park and went through the baseball field, heading for the thicket around the back. I checked the faces of passersby, but Tama wasn’t there. There were soon fewer and fewer people around. It meant less work checking, but Tama was still not there.

“Hey.”

I turned to see three boys of about high school age.

“Are you talking to me?” My voice came out stiff even though I hadn’t meant to respond.

The three guys were smirking. Their hair was dyed colors like brown and red. The colors of their clothing were red or green—garish. They were hitting on me. They had absolutely no business with me now. Screw off, hitting on a middle schooler, I thought, but my body would not cooperate with my mind. I was tense. The trio slowly approached me.

“What’s up?”

“It looks like you’re kinda loitering around.”

“If you’re bored, then why don’t we go have some fun? We’ve got a car, so we can go to the beach. The sunset’s pretty.”

“Sorry, right now, I’m searching for a friend.” My voice was hopelessly stiff.

“Oh, then we’ll look, too.”

“We’ll help you out.”

“Once we find your friend, let’s all hang out together.”

I looked around, but there was no sign of anyone else. The guys were coming closer and closer. “Sorry, I really am busy.”

“If we help out, then you’ll be half as busy, right?”

“Naw, there’s three of us, so it’ll be one-fourth.”

“Wouldn’t three be one-third?”

“Go back to elementary school, man.”

“Sorry, I really am busy.” I tried to pass by them, but one grabbed my arm.

“That’s like running away.”

“It’s not like we’re gonna grab you and eat you up.”

“Please, let me go,” I said.

“Don’t be like that; we can just all look together, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I didn’t feel like I was getting through. But I still tried to convince them anyway, until I fell on my bottom with a thump.

I thought one of the guys had pushed me, but that wasn’t it. There was a girl in front of me, positioned like she was blocking me from the guys. She had her arms spread wide, standing in front of me, and when I tried to get up, my body was bent in half. My breath caught from the impact and the surprise, and then the shocked faces of the three guys swiftly grew distant. Once they were out of sight, we slowed down before eventually coming to a stop. I was then lowered onto the ground over the roots of a fig tree.

Looking up, I saw someone’s face. Under the shine of a streetlamp, I couldn’t see her properly because the light was behind her. But I could tell she was a girl. She had a hood with dog ears and paw gloves, and she wore polka-dot tights. She was just like the magical-girl avatar I knew.

The dog-eared girl ran off on all fours like a dog, and I watched her go, unable to even call out to her. She was smaller than I. With that build, she’d grabbed me and run off so fast that those three guys had only been able to dazedly watch us go. I remembered a certain rumor about the cell phone game Magical Girl Raising Project—that one in every few tens of thousands of users would become a real magical girl from playing the game.

Footsteps drew near. Still slumped on the ground, I turned toward the sound. Illuminated by the streetlamps standing at regular intervals, Tama’s face alternated between light and dark as she walked toward me.

“Are you okay, Chihiro?” she asked.

I nodded, taking the hand she offered to help me up. “…Thanks.”

“Huh? Um, but…I, um, didn’t really do anything?”

“Ah, yeah. Then I’m sorry. Sorry for disappearing without saying anything.”

“It’s fine, really. I mean, you came back.”

I looked up at the streetlamp, and the faces of all the people in my group of friends passed through my mind. Objectively speaking, if you were to ask which of us had the nastiest personality and the most inner spite, I think it would be me. So then it’d probably be okay.

“Hey,” I said.

“Wh-what?”

“Tomorrow at lunch.”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna eat with me?”

“Huh…? O-okay!”

That was what I should do.

Introduce Tama. Aim to present our results for the independent study project. And if things went well, make some money off those ammonites. And then aim to accomplish what Tama had in Magical Girl Raising Project. If I could become a magical girl, too, she would be so surprised. Imagining the look of shock on her face made me feel so giddy, I couldn’t help but smile.