It wasn't just that Saikawa's most recent words were bouncing around in her head, defying everything she knew about echoes through gaining volume with every additional ricochet. Having the closest adults in the clothing store staring at her, along with a couple of other kids -- that didn't matter.
Kanna had heard everything.
And now the white-haired girl was moving towards her, doing so with a surprising lack of grace. Kanna's movements tended to flow, like a dancer who was the only person aware that the background music even existed. Saikawa had never seen Kanna scramble, and bead-bound white strands of hair banged against her back as she raced towards her classmate, the blue eyes wide with something which felt very close to desperation.
Kanna didn't move like that. Didn't lose control. Saikawa was the one whose emotions emerged in torrents, washing away decorum and sanity and connections --
-- Kanna had heard everything. Saikawa knew it, and the endlessly-replaying loop inside her head told her exactly how much there had been to hear.
Saikawa had neglected to call the boy a delinquent. It didn't seem to help.
I can't keep thinking about it.
I can't --
-- she heard everything --
-- I'm going to break --
She could feel her body trembling. Her shoulders shook. Moisture was starting to coat her eyes, and the fast-approaching beautiful vision warped lightly to suit. No horns, no alterations to the eyes: just a faint ripple, as if reality was passing over Kanna in waves.
"Saikawa. " Just the slightest increase in volume, accompanied by what felt like a tripling of urgency. She hadn't heard Kanna be this insistent since the river. "Saikawa, listen --"
"-- I --" just barely fell out of her mouth, and did so as half a stammer.
"-- there isn't anyone just like him."
And just for a moment, the beautiful blue eyes squeezed shut.
"No one," Kanna quietly stated. "No one at all."
Saikawa could feel her ribs heaving. A wild thought wondered about puberty, and whether having weight over them slowed the process down.
"...what?" she managed to whisper, and desperately wanted to consider it as an improvement.
"He's adopted," the white-haired girl softly said. "Like me. And he's different. He isn't like anyone else in his home. He can't be. He was unique, and they took him in. They love him, Saikawa. He knows it. He loves them just as much. Like Kobayashi loves me, and I love her. But he isn't like them. He can't ever be. He can only try. Pretend..."
The trailing off was unusual for Kanna. The sheer length of the speech which had preceded it was even more so. And the rest of the reaction...
"...Kanna?"
...Saikawa had only seen that once before.
She was prepared to spend the rest of her life in trying to make up for it.
"...Kanna," Saikawa frantically tried as her right arm tried to come up, then dropped back down. She didn't know what she could do any more. What was still allowed. "Kanna, please don't cry --"
"-- pretend," the white-haired girl half-whispered. "It's all pretend. We're all just pretending. Until we can't..."
Pretending to be...
She stopped. Took a breath, and blinked away the tears.
"Maybe it's worse for him," Kanna quietly considered. "He -- stands out, when he's home. For being different. I do too." Her left arm briefly lifted, and fingers ran through white strands. "But not as much. And I wanted school. He doesn't go. He has family. Friends. But he's lonely. So much of the time. He never has a day when he can just pretend. Because no one is just like him. I'm not like him. But I thought I was close enough."
She stopped. Looked away from Saikawa. Glanced at the racks of clothing, and the kids who were investigating larger sizes. Turned back, and both arms came up. Small hands urgently, almost fiercely gripped Saikawa's shoulders, and the trembling stopped.
"I thought... it would be good for him. One day. One day where he was --" and hesitated again.
"I don't understand --" Saikawa frantically tried.
Maybe she did.
Maybe she didn't want to.
"I want my friends," Kanna softly finished as the last hot tears fell, "to be friends. Why can't that happen? Why, Saikawa?"
The beautiful head tilted slightly to the right. And Kanna waited for an answer.
The words...
Kanna had heard everything. But that wasn't what the white-haired girl wanted to deal with right now. She had cried over what had happened, Saikawa had made her cry again and she only had a single endless lifetime in which to try and make up for the first time --
-- hurting the foreign boy with words had made Kanna cry.
To reject him was to hurt Kanna.
She couldn't ever hurt Kanna.
Saikawa pushed herself away from the wall. Kanna's hands dropped.
"I need to talk to him," Saikawa urgently declared, because it was a reason to postpone everything else and -- she needed to speak with him. "Right now --"
Immediately, "-- I'll come with you --"
The next word didn't surprise her for several hours.
"-- no."
The blue eyes blinked.
"It's important," Kanna said.
"This is my apology," Saikawa insisted. "It has to be from me. Just me --"
"-- I need to watch over what you say --"
"-- NO."
Kanna's mouth fell open. Very slightly.
"I said all of it," Saikawa declared. "Not you. I have to be the one who fixes this." Without supervision. And she needed to think about what she was going to say, in advance. Hear the words in her head before they came out. Try to claim that power for her own.
A little too slowly, "Saikawa. I have to be there --"
She almost heard the next two words prior to their emergence. It wasn't entirely progress.
"-- Kanna. Stay!"
And with that, she dodged around the smaller girl, quickly accelerating into a runner's stride as she wove past kids, around adults, moving towards the store's exit.
She just barely heard the little sound which arose behind her. A fully familiar vocalization, something which she usually had to work so hard to bring out -- but this time, Saikawa wasn't sure what it meant.
"...oh!"
He was outside the rockhound shop. Sitting with his back against the wall, slumped in a fashion which kept his hair below window level. His legs were tucked up against his body in a way which placed his knees just under the chin, and he was rocking slightly. Eyes half-shut, and what little vision remained was mostly gazing down.
The backpack was leaning against an elbow. If he moved too much, something within clinked.
Saikawa slowly walked up to him. Turned to place her back against the wall, slid down as her knees bent. It left her sitting on his right, with both small forms dappled by the hot sun.
He didn't look at her. He didn't seem to have even noticed that she was there.
Saikawa took a careful breath.
"She's..."
That word had been planned. She had others which were waiting to follow, and none of them wanted to come out.
The boy's head raised. Green eyes fully opened, and his legs straightened. But he didn't look at her.
"She's what?" he asked the arcade's central street.
Something inside Saikawa pushed.
"She's the only friend I have," the native softly said. "And she can have all the friends she wants, any time she wants them. I can't. I always get it wrong..."
His original position had looked oddly comfortable. She wondered if trying it would help anything. But thin legs splayed forward. It didn't feel like a good thing for legs to do.
"Your only friend," he half-repeated. Still without looking at her.
Saikawa forced a nod, and wondered if he'd seen it. Then she wondered if Samoans nodded, and if the gesture still meant 'yes'. Maybe he was just translating.
"It's -- more than that," the boy placidly said. "Isn't it?"
She couldn't answer. But her head dipped.
Adults flowed around them, giving the pairing no notice. There were two kids sitting together. Nothing they said or did could possibly be important.
"I like her," the boy quietly decided. "We're friends. But I don't like her the same way you do."
Her head slowly turned. Her stare took him in, from the green-tinged ridge of hair to the partially-crushed shoe. It took a few seconds before she recognized her own lack of blinks.
"Not stupid I'm," he sedately announced in exactly the wrong order. "I know what it's like to feel that way." This time, his head dipped. "Sometimes I wish I didn't."
"You have someone?" Because the tone had been so stark...
His shoulders briefly shook: a repressed laugh which had gone in the wrong direction. "I have somep -- someone I like. It..." The sigh was surprisingly deep. "It doesn't matter."
"No," Saikawa quickly said. "It does. Tell me."
A cool breeze found the arcade entrance, brushed against their faces.
"She's older."
"How much older?"
He told her.
Immediately, with very little actual rancor, "Pervert."
The boy winced. "Some people think so. But it's how I feel. I can't stop it. I've tried." His neck arched, and he looked up at the thin blue sliver of sky. "Sometimes I wonder if she'll still be there when I grow up. If she'll -- think about it. Or things could change. I could change. I'm afraid to cha --"
He stopped. Took three slow, carefully-measured breaths.
"I don't feel that way about Kanna," the foreigner informed the sky. "I know what the difference is. And I do like her. But even if it was the same... she's too far away."
Long-distance relationships don't work...
"You really aren't from around here," Saikawa carefully asked. "Are you?" She'd known he was visiting, but there had been a chance that it was just from the next district over.
He shook his head.
"How far?" she checked.
"Very," was all he would say.
The breeze came back. Saikawa's hair shifted against her shoulders.
"I like Kanna as a friend," the boy carefully emphasized. "But I can't see her too often. We met by accident, because of something strange, I don't know how often I can visit when she's so far away, and... she's a friend. That's all. I can see how you feel about her. I swear I won't get in the way --"
"'I'm not stupid'," Saikawa said.
He blinked. "I didn't say you were --"
"-- no. What you said earlier. You said 'Not stupid I'm'." With a relaxed sense of light superiority, "You got the word order wrong. Your Japanese needs work."
"...oh," the boy said, and did so while sounding nothing like Kanna.
"It's a very basic language," Saikawa told him. "Babies learn it."
He didn't seem to have a response for that and accordingly, went directly for the scoundrel's tactic of changing the subject.
"Does she know how you feel?"
Her knees were now directly under her chin. She wondered how they'd gotten here. Having her arms wrapped around thin bent legs was a secondary consideration at best.
Saikawa looked around. No white hair revealed itself.
"...she might know a little more now," was all she could manage, and she tried to push the echoes away.
"You said she was supposed to be yours," the boy reminded her. "That's wrong. One person can't own another."
"I know," Saikawa quietly said. "But you can give yourself to someone. I want to be hers."
He nodded, and that was all he did. A simple, basic nod. Even with a foreigner, it was all which was required to be understood. Because -- he did understand. She knew it.
"Does yours know?" Saikawa asked.
"Yes," the boy softly sighed. "She -- mostly uses it as a way to make me do a lot of work." (Saikawa, whose older sister was heavily into maid culture and had parents willing to exploit it for bathroom cleaning, said nothing.) He lowered his head, tried to find a sight line which went all the way through the passing crowd and wound up having it mostly bounce off the produce shop. "Can I ask you something?"
She nodded.
The boy hesitated. "What you said... I would be a -- 'pervert'? -- for liking her. Is that how people see it here?"
"Because she's so much older," Saikawa explained. "But a crush is a crush." Followed by, because she didn't want him to think she was trying to belittle his feelings, "It's the same for love. You don't get to pick." If she'd met Ilulu first...
Love was a hopeless sort of thing. All you could really do was keep pushing forward and, in the name of retaining that love, remain prepared to cheat.
"How would they feel about you being in love with Kanna?"
She wondered when she'd started to rock back and forth. The motion was oddly comforting.
"A lot of them don't want me to love her."
Pure, honest curiosity. "Why?"
How could he not know? "They don't like girls who marry girls."
His head tilted slightly. That much closer to looking at her. "Why?"
"I don't know. They just don't."
Her parents adored Kanna -- but not the way Saikawa felt. They kept saying she would grow out of it. They didn't know...
The boy evenly shrugged. "That's stupid."
"...it is?"
"Where I come from? It happens all the time."
Oh. American Samoa. Maybe she needed to start writing up a list of places where she and Kanna could live.
If she even --
-- the echoes had to wait.
He hesitated. "Saikawa... I'm not your rival. I promise. I won't crowd you out. I'm not even going to be here very much, if I even get to come back at all. I may not talk to Kanna for a long time --"
"-- you can't call?" she asked. "Chloe calls."
The boy blinked a few times.
"...call?" somehow came across as a helpless attempt to force a familiar word into a new definition, and to do so when the foreigner didn't know what that definition was.
"Skype?" had a certain futile valiance behind it.
Green eyes immediately consulted the clouds. No answers dropped into the world.
"Um," the boy eventually said. "What's --"
"-- never mind," Saikawa sighed, and decided it had been an appropriate reaction in the presence of the technologically hopeless. "I'm --" And she'd planned to say it, she'd thought about how the word had to emerge, intonations and maybe a downcast expression, but all of the hurried preparation just felt stupid. "-- I'm sorry."
And he didn't say anything. He just kept trying to look at the apples, and did so as if every last sample was personally failing to meet his standards.
She'd failed. It had been hopeless. Everything she did was hopeless --
-- so she kept going.
"You're adopted?"
The boy silently nodded.
"Do they love you?"
He didn't hesitate. Another nod.
"Miss Kobayashi loves Kanna and Ilulu," Saikawa quietly said. "It's one of the reasons I like to visit. To watch her love them. She's quiet about it, but -- she loves them. My parents..."
Emerald eyes were now fixed on her face.
"What?" the boy asked.
"Good grades," she finally said. "They want me to get into the best high school. Then a university. To... not be with Kanna. And not drop batons."
Love wasn't the sort of thing you could argue with. There were no negotiations possible. And it still felt like there was so much which could casually take it away. Uncaring.
"Drop..." the boy didn't quite ask.
She explained. He listened.
"My big sister..." the boy finally said. "She -- I guess you could say she drops batons all the time. Then she picks up them again. And she keeps running. And we love her because she keeps trying. Because, even if she doesn't have a baton all the time, she won't stop. I think that counts."
She thought about that.
"Would you like some candy?" Saikawa asked.
"I'm not sure --" was probably the wrong answer. She decided to forgive him for it.
"I always have candy," she told him, and peeled her arms away from her legs. "Just in case. But a lot of it is bug-flavored, because that's what Kanna likes." She began to dig in her pockets. "For you..."
She removed a small bar. Separated one of the individually-wrapped pinkish segments, turned to face him directly, then passed it over. He removed the paper, put it in his mouth, chewed --
"-- what is this?" was, at best half-choked.
"Salted salmon Puccho," she proudly said. "Do you like it?"
"Yes," the boy openly lied. "I... what you said earlier..." One more breath. "Sometimes, with mine... other people look at her. And I have to tell myself that -- she isn't mine. That someone else might love her, and... it scares me. I have to let them love her, and it still scares me..." He forced himself to swallow. "I know how that feels, Saikawa. I get it. And I know you're sorry. I accept your apology --"
And because he'd cared enough to do that, she hugged him.
The shock was something she could feel: his entire body going tight at once. Four seconds passed while he tried to figure out how to respond, and then his arms came up. One hand awkwardly patted her back.
Saikawa didn't hold her grip for long. Spike was too bony to hug very often. But he understood. That was worth a hug every now and again.
Also, he liked Kanna. That was just a sign of good taste.
It took a few minutes to find Kanna within the clothing store, and then they left quickly. There was still a chance of coming across an adult who would want to know what all of that had been about, and they also had to be careful about just how much day was left.
Kanna didn't say anything to Saikawa about -- everything. Maybe she was holding off until Spike went home. And all Saikawa could do was wait for it.
But before that happened...
They found a step-platform rhythm game. The girls took turns challenging him, and found Spike a tough opponent to beat -- at least during those moments when he wasn't being distracted by the graphics. Flashing colors and laughing characters could easily get the best of him, but he moved like someone who'd grown up around full-scale dance numbers.
At one point, they had to recruit an adult because the only way to get a picture of the trio was for someone else to hold the phone. After that, it was a matter of paying for the printing at the stationery shop, and Spike solemnly tucked the results in his backpack -- after spending nearly half a minute in gazing at the photo. It was as if he'd never seen his own face before.
That shop also gave them the chance to explain the School Supplies Conspiracy. He did fairly well with district-mandated uniforms and styles, but they lost him when Kanna tried to explain how the teachers were clearly receiving kickbacks. This was eventually blamed on his being homeschooled. Saikawa was roughly familiar with homeschooling: she just hadn't been aware that it was possible to start it before the age of fourteen. Samoa was weird. Still, there had to be something good about it. As boys went, Spike wasn't all that stupid.
The breeze continued to rise as they came close to the end of the arcade. A moment was spared for peeking in the window of Ilulu's candy shop, and the only glimpse they had of the adolescent was a frustrated heel kicking the back door to the storeroom shut. Inventory didn't seem to be going well.
They all snacked. Then there were more drinks, and that was followed by finding another bathroom. Saikawa used the privacy to attempt a reverse-image search on the pictures she'd taken of the golden coin. It took a few seconds after emergence before she started talking again.
The city was explored. They passed a shrine, and then they had to explain what a shrine was. Saikawa, who hadn't forgotten everything from the previous year's classes, asked the boy if he was used to churches. Then they had to explain what a church was, with Kanna continually glancing around to make sure Miss Tohru didn't somehow walk in on the discussion. When it came to organized religion, the maid had Views.
A summer day passed, and the sun began to dip. Getting lower in the sky, slowly approaching the horizon...
"I have to get home," Spike finally announced, and the trio paused in the shadow of a small hotel. With open worry, "I may have stayed too long already. My sister's going to worry..."
"I'll get you home," Kanna evenly told him. "You brought it, didn't you?"
A bus pass? Train? How is he --
"Yes," the boy told her. "It's in my backpack."
Brought what?
Kanna turned to look at Saikawa. Blue eyes placidly regarded the taller girl's face.
"I need to get him back," the white-haired girl said. "The Lady Tohru got him here. But I can send him home. Wait for me here."
Saikawa took a breath. "Kanna --"
"-- his sister will worry about him if he's late," Kanna stated. "Like we worry about Ilulu. She might run into someone." The smaller girl paused. "Poor someone."
Saikawa briefly considered the full potential for shin damage. Then she remembered the half-vision of pointed teeth and barely-contained glow.
"I'm going to walk him to his stop," Kanna said. "It's close. I want to say goodbye. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"We can all walk together --"
"-- please," Kanna softly requested. "Please, Saikawa. Let me send him home."
Eventually, Saikawa nodded.
She told Spike goodbye. Did her best to shake his hand, because that was what he'd tried on first meeting and therefore it had to be appropriate. Gave him some candy for the trip back while making sure a portion of it wasn't salmon-based, failed to get the contact information of a boy who didn't have any (and didn't seem to know what 'contact information' meant), and then stepped back.
Saikawa watched Kanna walk away, leading the boy by the hand. Something which didn't hurt quite as much now, and that was why she was able to hold her position as the other two moved into a narrow passage between buildings. Possibly cutting across to a train station. Except that Saikawa knew there was no such place on the other side.
She waited a few seconds.
Then she followed.
She had to hang back. Staying within deepening shadows, making sure she wasn't spotted. It was why she didn't see all of it.
Spike took off his backpack. Unloaded the empty bentō boxes, which Kanna carefully placed into a shopping bag from the arcade. Then he reached in again --
-- they'd seen it at one of the museums, during a school field trip. It had fascinated Kanna, because of course it had. There were guaranteed ways of getting the white-haired girl's attention: two of the foremost were bugs and electricity. To see a plasma globe, with false lightning crackling across the central ball and arcing out to harmlessly touch any portion of glass which had been contacted by fingers -- Kanna had loved that.
This was a vial. Simple, clear, heavy glass, with what seemed to be a faceted stopper at the top. And within the hollow, lightning danced.
There was no central globe. No power source. Just pure electricity, blue and yellow and white, moving and twisting and silently zapping about without doing harm. And Saikawa thought about how the coin had matched nothing which had ever been put into a search engine, considered that game tokens were never rendered as anything so heavy...
She watched as the vial was passed to Kanna, who looked at it with what almost seemed to be hunger. Sparks reflected from blue eyes.
The older boy hugged the smaller girl, who returned the gesture. Then they both went further down the passage, leaving the shopping bag behind. Kanna unlatched a swinging gate, something which probably just led to a garbage collection area, gestured for Spike to go in ahead of her, followed and dropped out of sight just as her hands began to work on the vial's stopper...
There was a moment of silence.
Light came out of the open gate. It was almost exactly like normal sunlight, except for the part where it seemed to carry half the hues at double the strength. A faint scent of hibiscus and fresh-cut hay wafted its way to Saikawa on a truly foreign breeze.
The light vanished. Saikawa scrambled, reached her original waiting post. And by the time Kanna reached her, she was fully prepared to pretend she'd been there all along.
They were heading towards Miss Kobayashi's apartment. Saikawa had already called her parents, because you had to tell an adult when you were staying over for dinner. Omurice was probably going to get involved.
There was also the chance of a sleepover. Summer opened up all kinds of options.
The girls were walking back together, staying close on the sidewalk. But they hadn't said a word to each other since Spike had left. Kanna was naturally on the quiet side, at least when she wanted to be. And Saikawa had already unleashed words into the world, didn't know how many of them were still echoing.
They were walking together: Saikawa was closer to the curb, Kanna had taken the side near the grass. But they hadn't touched. Arms swung at their sides as they moved, with hands failing to reach towards each other.
The river was getting close.
"It's easier. With him."
The tones had been subdued. So many of Kanna's reactions were. Even when she was happy, the joy expressed itself in little ways and as far as Saikawa was concerned, that just made them more special. Except that the muted demonstrations hadn't been in play with the visitor --
He doesn't want her.
She believed him.
But it didn't mean Kanna wasn't interested in Spike.
Saikawa forced herself to wait as thin legs pushed forward, and hoped for any heartbreak to be fast and clean.
"It's easier to laugh," the smaller girl said as they moved under a slowly-darkening sky, and the bag of empty bentō boxes swung along. "Because he's just a friend. I don't worry as much about what it all might mean. That's why it's harder with you."
Several hundred implications lodged themselves in Saikawa's throat.
They hadn't talked about her outburst in the clothing shop.
Maybe they didn't have to.
The baton had been fumbled. Some degree of fumbling was probably natural in a relationship, especially when you were doing it for the first time. But it hadn't been dropped.
Ten footsteps passed in silence.
Four months. If she isn't any taller in four months and her mother doesn't find a doctor, I'll say something.
"I don't want to hurt you," Kanna finally said. "I try so hard --"
"-- you haven't," Saikawa softly cut her off.
The white-haired girl turned to look at her, and the blue eyes were pained.
"What if I do?" Neutral. Composed. Only the slightest hint of tremble.
"You won't."
Kanna's head dipped. They kept walking.
"I'll try to give you some warning. If Spike can come back for another day." The smaller girl hesitated. "You wouldn't have to come with us. If you didn't want to."
"It's okay. I don't mind seeing him again."
"Really?"
"He's a little weird," Saikawa admitted. "But that's what you get with foreigners. And he's nice."
"I'm foreign," Kanna pointed out.
"Yeah," the taller girl conceded. "But with you, it's cute."
They were almost at the base of the bridge.
"No CG today," Kanna decided. "Don't be scared --"
"-- I'm not scared --"
"-- we'll cross together."
The white-haired girl reached for Saikawa's hand. Firmly grasped it.
She didn't gasp. (There had been times when she'd done exactly that, and she was trying to get it under control.) Instead, she simply allowed the warmth to wrap her fingers, and then grasped back.
"...oh!" Kanna said. Which was followed by a hint of a smile, and two bars of a musical laugh.
They walked together. Crossing the bridge.
"Just CG," Kanna stated. "If we see anything, it's just CG."
Which was a lie.
Saikawa tried to look at Kanna then -- but not directly. Out of the corner of her eye, the barest glimpse -- but it didn't work. It never happened when she wanted it to. And even when the visions did arrive, she could never stand to look at them for very long.
The white-haired girl was simply too beautiful.
There were strange things in the world, and Kanna was one of them. Spike potentially represented another. But strange didn't have to mean bad.
A picture of the river serpent just proved it was there, and Saikawa wanted both proof and reassurance. But Kanna had gotten in front of the shot, lied over and over, and --
-- maybe she was protecting a friend.
Kanna was something strange, and -- it didn't matter. Saikawa already loved a foreigner. Accepting additional differences didn't feel like such a big step. And maybe Kanna was simply waiting for the right moment to tell her. Admitting everything to someone who wasn't just a friend. Confessing.
It was just like growing up. When you thought about things, it wasn't so long to wait.
Kanna's eyes were beautiful. In every view. And Saikawa knew something was different. Strange. But she loved Kanna. And on the day the white-haired girl told her the full truth, Saikawa would know she was truly loved too.
"I bet I can balance on the edge of the curb," Saikawa said. "It's like walking on the white lines --"
"-- don't," Kanna softly said. "Not on the curb. Fall onto the sidewalk, I'll catch you. Fall into the road, you'll get hurt. You could die, Saikawa."
"That won't happen," the taller girl solemnly said, "I've got great balance."
"White lines say you're wrong."
"And I'm immortal."
And there was a single instant under the darkening sky in which the blue eyes locked onto her face. A mere second during which Kanna looked... sad.
"Live a long life, Saikawa," the white-haired girl said. "Please."
She said that sometimes, and it always seemed to bring her down. Saikawa resolved to make her laugh over dinner. It might even be easy, as omurice was inherently funny.
But she didn't understand why the sadness had been there.
Still... right now, there was a bridge to cross, and a dinner to reach. A sleepover was definitely on the possibility list for the night. And maybe she would be able to make Kanna laugh.
But there was a whole summer stretching out before them.
They were nine years old. (Going on ten.)
Everything was settled. It had been settled for nearly two years. They would grow up together, and then no matter what anyone said, they would get married.
They were going to live forever.