Volume 1 - CH 1.1

Chapter 1 – Saturday Begins

1 – July 15th (Saturday) – Starting Point

Good morning, Kei!

From your perspective, this was sent to you yesterday, July 14. Now now, don’t give me that annoyed sigh. I know that surely, as youths living in the vibrant times of our first year of high school, yesterday is history, already worth being forgotten. But, from my point of view, it’s still going on, and is of great importance.

I’d like you to take a moment and remember yesterday. Despite nearing the end of the rainy season, it was still an overcast, rainy, and dreary day. What’s the weather like from your perspective, Kei? Oh, wait, let me make a prediction.

The weather is… clear skies.

How about that? I was spot on, right? I’m sure you’re already tilting your head in confusion, thinking, “How did he know that?” But I promise it was nothing too crazy. I read the weather forecast, you say? No, no, my friend, that’s not it. There’s a much simpler answer staring you in the face. Oh, you think I kicked my shoe up in the air and made my prediction based on which side it landed on? Truly, a brilliant mode of divination. That’s because, all things equal, the shoe’s center of gravity favors one side over the other. It’s quite similar to buying a fortune slip on a New Year’s shrine visit. The best methods of divination allow you to stack the odds in favor of your desired outcome. I, however, was capable of predicting the weather without having to risk my favorite sneakers getting dirty.

Have your memories of yesterday surfaced yet? If so, I’m sure things are clicking into place. You made a very important promise yesterday, remember? That’s right, yesterday, from my perspective, you promised a lovely young lady that you would go out with her for tea on Saturday, July 15th.

Truly, such a promise stokes the flames of jealousy in others’ hearts. The world has showered blessings upon you. Everything is moving in your favor. Even the heavens themselves have cleared up for you. Unless, of course, your plan was to share an umbrella together, so you could walk side by side, your shoulders in almost constant contact.

And so, to make sure that you don’t oversleep, and don’t have to rush out of your house with horrible beadhead, I’m sending you this wakeup call.

How about that? Aren’t I just the greatest friend of all time?

So that’s how it is, Kei. Don’t you think you should be getting up about now?

…So said the voice that Asai Kei woke up to. It was quite possibly the worst thing he could imagine hearing first thing in the morning.

Kei hated alarm clocks. He preferred quieter starts to his day, and yet he had to deal with such an obnoxiously loud and rude awakening. Unfortunately, there was nobody for him to vent his anger to. That said, alarm clocks did have their good points. You could push the switch to turn it off, or choose not to set it in the first place. If it broke, then no matter how much it wanted to, it would not be able to continue its incessant ringing. Perhaps all of civilization should be structured that way. Technology that can’t be stopped with a hammer is a threat to humanity.

Kei frowned at the loud voice in his head, and hugged his comforter. The alarm clock beside his bed had yet to make a sound. The clock’s hand was positioned just slightly before 8. While one couldn’t call it early, it was still difficult to convince himself to get up.

The noise that was bothering Kei was slightly more sinister than that of an alarm clock. This alarm had no off switch, and you couldn’t hit it with something. He didn’t even have a way to set the alarm. Even if he tried wearing earplugs, it wouldn’t block out the noise.

The familiar-sounding voice continued ringing in his head. Nobody else was in the room with Kei. It wasn’t coming from outside his window, and of course it wasn’t Kei himself producing it. Instead, the voice was echoing directly inside his head.

The voice was correct in saying that Kei had promised to meet with a girl today, though it was missing some slight nuances. For example, the meeting had been arranged to begin at 10. He could have slept for an additional hour. As he considered closing his eyes once more, he heard a different voice. A girl’s voice. It was slightly deep for a girl, perhaps even husky, yet comforting, like the touch of linen.

And now, our one and only idol, Haruki Misora, will take the stage.

“Uhm… Kei, have you woken up yet? You’ll make sure not to be tardy, won’t you?”

And there you have it. She said it herself, she wants to spend even the smallest of moments longer with you, if possible. You wouldn’t deny her such a wish, would you? Well, that’s all from me—

She was right, being late was certainly in poor taste. Just thinking of how he had been late in meeting Haruki last Sunday gave Kei pangs of regret.

Kei pushed his hands above his head, stretched his back out, and finally got out of bed, grabbing his cell phone. Looking through his contacts list, he selected the name Nakano Tomoki, and pressed the call button. For whatever reason, he counted the rings, and on the 14th ring, they finally answered.

“What do you want? Do you know what time it is?”

It was the same voice that had just earlier been ringing inside his head. Although, having just woken up, it didn’t sound quite as energetic.

“Just getting revenge on you for messing with my beauty sleep.”

And with that as his only answer, Kei cut off the call. He pulled a bottle of oolong tea out the fridge and chugged it down while opening the curtains.

The skies were bright and clear. The shrill cry of cicadas ran through the air. They compounded with Tomoki’s boisterous voice, so Kei tried imagining Haruki’s voice instead to cut them off.

In the end, Kei decided to leave his room a little bit ahead of schedule.

✽

Sakurada is a town in the corner of Japan, facing the Pacific Ocean. It holds enough people to be considered a city, and about half of those people possess some sort of special ability. Each ability is wildly different, and while most want to keep their abilities secret, there are too many people to be able to keep the knowledge of their existence hidden. To put it simply, most residents just accept that Sakurada is a city of espers.

Such were the things on Haruki Misora’s mind, as she considered the rather normal morning that Sakurada was experiencing. Haruki had never lived in any other town than Sakurada. With that in mind, comparing it to other cities was mostly conjecture, but she figured that it was easy to forget about special abilities when faced with such an ordinary-looking town.

It’s easy to explain why so many people with special abilities are all gathered in Sakurada. Anyone who ever left Sakurada would immediately forget about their ability. Forgetting how to use an ability is essentially the same as not having one. No matter how many ability users left Sakurada, there was never news of abilities being used outside of it. Therefore, it stands to reason that ability usage is limited to Sakurada. Nobody could take their abilities outside of Sakurada.

Generally speaking, most abilities are nothing earth-shattering. For example, Nakano Tomoki can transmit a voice message to any specified person and time period. On the other hand, there exist several dangerous abilities, and even the more docile abilities could become harmful in the wrong hands. In response, agencies were created to crack down on ability abuse. One such organization was the Administration Bureau, focused on the management of abilities and the handling of public issues regarding them.

The Bureau does a good job. At least, on the surface. It isn’t that there are no complaints, but at the same time, there aren’t enough people riled up to lobby against them. Haruki couldn’t remember a single front page headline or breaking news report about them, either. For a public institution, they’re good enough at what they do.

Perhaps thanks to that, the town of Sakurada was peaceful on July 15th, at 9:30 AM. At some unknown point, Haruki had even begun humming a familiar song. Perhaps I’m in a good mood, she thought.

Likely due to it being an early Saturday morning, there wasn’t much traffic or people around. Although it had been raining through last night, the skies were bright and blue right now. The sunlight was strong, but not too hot, probably because the ground hadn’t absorbed too much of the heat yet. It was a pleasant summer day.

There were still, however, some things worth being concerned about. Perhaps she had gone too far in asking Nakano Tomoki to send a message to Kei yesterday. What if Kei was angry? She might never know, because Kei wasn’t one to express his anger. That would be terrible. With no way to know, she could only look from the sidelines, forever wondering if he was upset or not.

Haruki walked slowly and carefully, working her way around the many puddles. There was still plenty of time before their meeting. But all the other shops’ shutters were closed, and she didn’t feel much for taking a detour.

After checking the time in front of the coffee shop that was her destination, she entered. Despite being fashioned as an old-style cafe, there was no bell on the door to ring as you opened it. That was probably one of the many reasons Kei liked this shop.

There weren’t many customers inside.  A man sat on the corner counter, reading a newspaper. A woman was resting her chin in her hands, staring at a watch she’d removed from her wrist. Finally, there was a young man sitting with his back to Haruki, at a table for four. That was Asai Kei. He’d already ordered a morning breakfast combo with buttered toast.

She considered sneaking up to him and putting her hands in front of his eyes. For whatever reason, meeting with him on a weekend made her feel so much more excited than usual. But, before she could decide what to do, Kei raised his head and looked toward her.

It was a little disappointing. But, she didn’t let it show on her face. Haruki made her way to him, and offered a reserved greeting.

“Good morning to you.”

He smiled and responded, “‘Morning.” A stereotypical exchange, like opening the door that someone knocked on.

Haruki sat in the seat to his left. Such was Haruki’s natural position. Kei took a bite of toast, swallowed, and opened his mouth once more.

“It’s great that it’s so sunny today.”

When asked by the sleepy-looking part-timer, Haruki ordered her usual iced coffee.

“Do you really think so?”

She nodded meekly, for no reason in particular. If asked why, she would say that it was because such an act suited Kei’s tastes. It was the same reason behind her efficient speech mannerisms, short-length hair, and simple jeans and T-shirt attire.

Kei smiled in that unique way of his, only bending the corners of his mouth.

“I do. Tomoki seems to think that the world is showering blessings upon us.”

Now that she thought about it, Tomoki Nakano had in fact said that in his message yesterday. Kei must have heard it this morning.

“I apologize. I’m sure it was quite irritating.”

Kei tilted his head with an ambiguous expression.

“I certainly don’t care for that ability of his. But at the same time, I can never think of a way around it. D’you think it could count as A-Rank?”

Abilities are evaluated based on various competence perspectives. Strength, for example, evaluates the brute force of one ability interacting with other abilities. If one user has a destructive ability, and another has a protective ability, then the destructive ability would rank higher on strength evaluation. The Bureau uses such methods to evaluate several aspects of abilities. That isn’t to say that it’s a great scale, though.

A-rank is generally considered the highest rating. Some abilities outclass A-rankers so far as to be given an S-rank, but there’s no consistent standard for giving an ability S-rank. Under the right circumstances, some A-rank abilities have an advantage over other S-rank abilities. Much like rock-paper-scissors, some abilities are given to win over others, and then others are in their own outside category. Another job of the Bureau is trying to control and understand abilities that slip through the cracks of standard categorization.

“But Nakano-kun’s ability is only transmitting his voice. Surely you can’t cause much harm with that.”

“I’m not so sure. If he only sent five-second intervals of sound, he could stack 720 intervals in an hour. I don’t think that would be healthy.”

Kei brought his toast to his mouth as he spoke. The toast had so much butter that it swelled over the bread. Haruki didn’t think that was very healthy, either. However, she doubted he’d do anything about it if she pointed it out, so she left it alone.

“Do you really think he could use his ability that many times in succession?”

By and large, abilities had a limitation of some kind. Whether it was the number of uses, meeting specifications, or something else entirely. As far as Haruki knew, there were no abilities that didn’t have some sort of limitation. Therefore, Tomoki Nakano’s ability must have had something to hold it back.

“Well, I dunno. Maybe he could. I wouldn’t want to make him angry enough to find out.”

Kei put his mouth on his coffee cup. Haruki wanted to retort that, even in that case, they could combat him with their powers— but ultimately, she only gave a small nod. Saying that would only lead to a predictable response from him, and the conversation probably wouldn’t go anywhere interesting.

Haruki searched for an alternative conversation topic. Something simple, straightforward, boring even.

“By the way, I bought a wind chime recently. I found one in the shape of a cat.”

Haruki was something of a collector of cat-shaped accessories. At any given time, you could see her black cat strap attached to her phone, but her closet back home was stuffed full of items she’d built up. It was unexpectedly challenging to find cat merchandise.

“Oh, a wind chime, that’s nice. Feels like I haven’t heard one of those in a long time.”

Kei closed his eyes momentarily, then opened them back up.

“That’s right. The last time I heard one was two years ago. Feels a little nostalgic now.”

“Shall I lend you one? I own one that isn’t cat-shaped.”

“I dunno. It’s kinda nice to run into the sound of wind chimes unexpectedly. It makes me feel happy, like finding a rainbow by coincidence.”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could create a rainbow on demand? For example, an amusement park booth that you could visit. I’d enjoy that.”

“I might like to visit that once myself. But, it wouldn’t be the same if you always saw it in the same place. There’s just something about glancing up and happening upon a rainbow.”

Haruki didn’t completely agree, but could understand his logic. Perhaps. Haruki’s iced coffee was brought over, and she poured plenty of milk in. She didn’t use any syrup.

“It would be unfortunate to be a rainbow that disappears before anyone notices you.”

Like wind chimes that didn’t reach anyone’s ears, a clock that ticked away in the back of a drawer, or a billboard that flashed and spun without anyone seeing. It was sad to see work go unappreciated.

“Unless you think about it in a different way. Maybe the rainbow is happy by itself, wrapped up entirely in its own beauty.”

Kei smiled as he responded, picking up his coffee cup.