Assembly and Arithmetic (Part 2)

It was already past ten o'clock when I borrowed Kunagisa's bath to freshen up. Kunagisa sat in front of her PCs in the revolving chair, but all three terminals were turned off. She just wanted to spin. Must've had a strong stomach.

"You take a bath, too."

"No."

"I don't care about tonight, but take one tomorrow."

"No."

"Tomorrow I'll strip you down, tie your hands and feet, and throw you in. If you don't want that, you'd better do it yourself."

"Awww, what a drag." She half rose out of her chair to stretch. "I envy fish. They don't ever have to take baths. Hmm, but I wonder if they get cold in the winter. Oh oh oh, by the way, have you heard this before, Ii-chan? So, like, let's say you're keeping a fish in a fish tank. And say you gradually raise the temperature of the tank. Like you raise it so gradually that the fish doesn't even notice. Eventually the water gets so hot that it's boiling, but the fish's body has gotten used to the gradual change, so it can go on swimming without even noticing how hot the water is. It sounds like a lie, but it's for real. Now, Ii-chan, what lesson can we gather from this?"

"That global warming isn't a problem."

"Ding ding ding!" She looked utterly amused. What a peppy chick, I thought, then without warning, she completely collapsed. Face-first, belly-down, without breaking her fall.

I flinched.

"Owww. That hurt."

No doubt.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm hungry…"

"You just ate a freaking feast."

"That doesn't matter. I missed breakfast and lunch, so I probably haven't eaten enough. I slept all afternoon, so I don't have to sleep again until tomorrow, but I guess you really have to make sure you sleep and eat properly."

"Human bodies aren't made for that kind of treatment."

"I guess I'm not human then. Let's get something to eat, Ii-chan. Will you tie my hair up first?"

"I think Yayoi-san's probably already back in her room. She gets up early, so don't you think she's already sleeping?"

We couldn't just go wake her up so she would make some dinner. We had to remember that she was a guest, too.

"Hikari-chan is probably awake though. Hikari-chan's cooking is delicious, too, in a Hikari-chan kinda way. If Hikari-chan's asleep, too, Ii-chan, you can make me something."

"Why me?"

"Well, 'cuz you look so a-meow-zing from behind when you're cooking."

"Ehehehe," she laughed naughtily, still facedown.

"Okay okay okay. Fine fine. Understood, Miss Tomo. First I'll tie that hair up, so get over here."

"Oh me oh my."

I tied her hair in a loose ponytail. Then we left her room, heading for the living room.

"Ah, by the way, sorry about earlier."

"About what? Ah, about the thing with Maki-chan. Yeah, it's okay. I'll forgive you. But really, compared to the old days, you've gotten soft. I didn't think you'd let her off with just a single comment like that. I wonder if living in Houston repressed you or something."

"Yeah, well, living in a desert-like that for five years, your beliefs start to change. I'm not sure if it matters that it was a desert, though."

"You should tell me about it sometime. What happened over there and stuff."

"You've changed a lot, too. Not so much on the outside, but on the inside."

"There's nothing in this world that doesn't change. It's panta rhei."

"Handa Rei?"

"The cycling of all things… Ii-chan, you're supposed to be smart, so why don't you know anything?"

"I just have a bad memory. All I want is an average one, really." Just enough of one so that I wouldn't forget the fun times.

Just enough of one so that I could realize the world is full of good things, too.

"Ah, Akari-chan spotted," Kunagisa said, and charged down the hallway. I looked to see that, indeed, Akari-san was there. Or really, at this distance, there was no way I could tell whether it was Akari-san or Hikari-san. It was also possible that it was Teruko-san with her glasses removed. But if Kunagisa said it was Akari-san, it was most likely her.

By the time I reached them, Kunagisa and Akari-san had already exchanged a few words. Kunagisa returned to my side and Akari-san continued down the hall in the opposite direction. I wondered about her. She must have had work left to do, even at this hour. If that was the case, she really was going above and beyond.

"What did you talk about?"

"She says Hikari-chan's in the living room."

"Oh yeah? That's convenient."

Of course, not everything in the world goes so smoothly.

When we arrived in the living room, not only Hikari-san but also Shinya-san and my arch-nemesis Himena Maki-san were there. The three of them sat on a horseshoe-shaped sofa, engaged in a lighthearted discussion. On the table were some glasses and alcohol, plus some cheese on a big plate prepared as a snack. Hikari-san promptly noticed our presence and called out with a raised hand, "Ah, Tomo-san!" Having been spotted, there was nothing we could do. We walked over and joined them on the sofa.

Awkwardly, Kunagisa quickly snapped up the seat next to Hikari-san, forcing me to sit next to Maki-san. All the same, I couldn't bear the thought of turning tail and running now. It was dishonorable to flee in the face of the enemy. But Maki-san, seeming to see right through me, greeted me with a wicked expression. "Welcome to my club," she said boastfully.

"Sorry about before. I guess I hit a touchy subject," she apologized insincerely. "Really, I'm sorry. Anybody would get mad about such a sensitive subject."

"It wasn't a particularly sensitive subject."

"Oh, it was. It was so pitiful." She sneered at me. Might she have been drunk? No, she was like this all the time. In fact, she was probably more pleasant when drunk. She slugged down her wine in one gulp, then thrust her glass at me.

"Now you drink, too, boy. Alcohol is good, you know. You forget all the bad things."

"There's nothing so bad I want to forget."

"And there's nothing so good you want to remember," she giggled. "I don't think your poor memory is to blame for not having any happy memories. There are few happy things in your life, and a few sad things. There's not much of anything at all. It's all empty. It's an emptiness scarier than darkness. Ahahaha. Isn't life fun?"

Retrocognition, telepathy.

It seemed the advertisements about her weren't just baloney. She was a damn clairvoyant.

"Give me a break, Maki-san. This is just bullying."

"Yup. I'm bullying you. Now drink up."

"I don't do alcohol. I'm underage."

"How by-the-book of you. Oh dear, you're being so cold. Oh, Ii-chan, you're so cool! Is that what you want to hear? That's weird. I should call you the Boy Who's Cold Even in the Summer."

She put her glass back in front of her with a bored expression on her face.

Apparently quite starving, Kunagisa scarfed down the cheese appetizer. She ate with two hands, displaying terrible manners. Of course, knowing that it would cause no harm in this situation, it was hard to care about stuff like that.

"It's supreme, Valencay, and Maroille cheese," Hikari-san explained sweetly. Apparently, they were all good cheeses to have with wine. Trying a single piece, I found that it was indeed delicious, but probably only Kunagisa would be able to stand a whole lot of it without even so much as some water.

"How did it go with Kanami?" Shinya-san asked me after a while, cheese in hand. He seemed fairly interested. "Did the modeling go well?"

"Eh, I suppose. There were no problems, anyway."

"She's got a pretty foul personality, eh?" He spoke without euphemism, about his own boss, no less.

"Oh no, she doesn't—"

"Is that so? Well, at least I've never met a woman with a worse personality than that."

I had.

She was sitting right next to me, drinking up.

"No, she was fine, really… Oh, but she did smash one of her pictures all of a sudden, and that was surprising."

He smirked.

"Oh, that… yeah, yeah. When I got back to the atelier, she was all, 'Shinya-san, dispose of this garbage.' I was like, 'Who are you, Picasso?' Sorry about that. That's just her thing. Don't pay any attention to it. That woman's seen quite a bit of success without exerting much effort, so she's very obstinate. She can't live without acting like a big shot."

"Her 'thing'?"

"Yeah, you know. If she acts like that, she looks like a world-class artist, don't you think? Didn't she say all sorts of artistry things to you? Sort of snooty things? That's how she is, you see."

"Well, but, that's her true nature, right? I mean… I thought it was."

"Oh, of course. It's unquestionably her true nature. But she doesn't have to say that kind of stuff, now, does she? If she were a real artist, she wouldn't talk like that. Kanami is a genius, to be sure, but she's miles away from being an artist. She's just giving herself an image. At least, that's what I think. I'd appreciate it if she would peel away the façade, but you know how it is." He looked a little sad. "Seriously," he continued, taking a sip of wine. As he wandered slightly off-topic, the glass of wine suited him quite well. It was a little enviable.

"That's the reason I asked you to be her model, too. She doesn't do many portraits, you see."

"Oh yeah? But she was saying she doesn't choose her subjects."

"Well, she doesn't, but… It's a taste issue. She hates people. No matter how she draws them, they complain, you see. Plus, you know, because she used to be blind, and now her legs are bad, and above all else, she has that kind of personality, she doesn't get along well with anyone."

"That's how geniuses are."

The only genius I'd ever heard of who was at all good with human relationships was Gauss.

People like Michelangelo were all supposedly widely disliked. But with Michelangelo, it was because he didn't like anybody to begin with.

"You don't have to be a genius to be socially awkward," Maki-san interjected with a phony innocent expression.

Ah, indeed.

"That woman has a lot of pride about having reached where she is on her own. So it's no wonder she doesn't get along with Sonoyama-san."

Indeed, Akane-san, who had honed her talents in a group atmosphere at the ER3 system, and Kanami-san, who was a raging individualist, were practically polar opposites. It was only natural that they never hit it off.

"It was I who taught art to Kanami-san," Shinya-san said. "Her eyes got better, and… you have to understand, back then she had nothing. No family, no special knowledge to speak of. So I gave her a brush. I was only trying to comfort her, but just a month later, she had surpassed me."

"So you're an artist, too?"

I hadn't heard that.

He shrugged his right shoulder, a little embarrassed.

"After Kanami-san surpassed me, I quit. When Verrocchio realized da Vinci had surpassed him, he broke his own paintbrush. I, too, grew to understand his feelings in that moment. With this person of unbelievable talent right next to me all the time, there's no need for me to paint pictures."

That morning, Shinya-san had told me we were alike. I didn't know what he meant until now.

The Sakaki Shinya is relative to Ibuki Kanami. It was just like me relative to Kunagisa Tomo. Though he spoke badly of her, it was clear to me now that Shinya-san had unconditional affection for Kanami-san.

"So you're the kind of guy who does everything for other people, too, eh, Shinya-san?" Maki-san said as if reading my mind (what an analogy). "Of course in Shinya-san's case, there's a charm to it, unlike with some people."

"And why's that?"

"He doesn't go around blaming others."

She was going to bring me down blow by blow.

"Um, hey hey…" Hikari-san interjected with a worried look. "Who wants something to drink?"

"Some kind of soda would be good."

"Certainly, right away."

She pulled a small bottle of ginger ale out of the living room fridge and quickly returned. With a bright smile, she placed it beside me.

"Please enjoy."

She really was quite the hard worker. I thought it would be rude to keep fighting like this in front of her, so I forced my wound-up nerves to relax.

Gah, there I go blaming things on others.

Damn…

Maki-san had me in the palm of her hand.

"Hikari-chan, gimme a drink, too," Kunagisa said.

"Certainly!" She went over to Kunagisa with the ginger ale.

"Come to think of it, you're underage as well, isn't that right, Kunagisa-chan?" Maki-san said. "But it's okay, isn't it? How about it? Just one drink."

"Please don't encourage her."

"My my, playing guardian, are we?" Maki-san sneered. "Ah, how wonderful it must be to be young."

"But you're still young as well."

"No, I'm already twenty-nine." She spoke as if it were no big deal, but I was a little surprised. She was always dressed like such a kid, I figured she had to be about the same age as Iria-san.

"Wow. So that means you're the same age as Kanami," Shinya-san said. "Then Himena-san, you are still young. You know, I'm already thirty-two years old. Once you pass thirty, you really start to feel your age. You get winded easily and such."

"Hikari-san, how old are you?" I took the chance to ask.

"I'm twenty-seven."

"So then, Akari-san is twenty-seven, too?"

"Yup. We're triplets, after all."

Twenty-seven… I repeated the number a few times in my head. Twenty-seven years old. Akari-san and Hikari-san, both twenty-seven. Maybe this is rude of me, but they really didn't look like twenty-seven. I almost wondered if there was some sort of age-stopping mystery air flowing through the island.

Nah, not likely.

This wasn't Neverland.

"Akane-chan is thirty, right? And I think Yayoi-chan is about thirty as well. Boy, when you sit down and think about it, everyone sure is young. Iria-chan must really like young, female geniuses."

"Pretty lousy hobby, if you ask me."

Kunagisa nodded in agreement as she crammed her face with cheese. Apparently having picked up a spicy piece, she immediately went for the ginger ale and chugged it, but it looked as if it went down the wrong pipe, and she released a barrage of coughs. What the hell was she doing?

Shinya-san let out a sigh. "I thought if I brought Kanami here to cohabitate with other people, she might change a little. Kind of like when you send a truant kid off to camp. But this strategy seems to have been off the mark. It was kind of like a last resort. At this point, she'll probably be living like that for the rest of her life."

Misunderstood by everyone.

Not expecting anyone to understand.

Not relying on anyone but herself.

Eating away at herself all the while.

"Well, that's one way to live."

"Look who's talking."

I don't think I even have to mention whose line that was.

"Uh, speaking of which, Maki-san, why are you here on the island?" Shinya-san said. "I've been wondering for a while. It's not just a vacation, is it?"

"It is. This place is a sweet deal. You get to live for free, and you even get money for it. It's Xanadu. If I use the Net, I can even still do fortune-telling. It's a world of convenience. Nonstop good times."

What a crappy excuse for an adult.

And pretty damn crappy, at that.

"I don't recall hearing your story," Maki-san said, breaking my silence. "Why are you on this island then? And please don't tell me something like you came here just because Kunagisa-chan said she was going."

Don't act like you don't know, bitch.

Seriously, why was she picking on me like that? Maybe she was really just making fun of me with no objective or reason whatsoever.

It wasn't unthinkable.

"Wrong," she said, then looked over at Kunagisa.

"Fine, assuming guys like you don't matter anyway, why is Kunagisa-chan here?"

"Just a whim, just a whim. I don't go making reasons for every little thing I do."

"I wonder." Maki-san gave a suspicious grin. I didn't know what the deal with her personality was, but she seemed to be getting along with everyone besides me rather well, including Kunagisa.

"She's clever, unlike you."

"Ah, getting sick of this? Getting tense? Hehehe, but I won't stop. I'm gonna keep playing with you until I'm bored with it."

She wore an absolutely sadistic smile.

I felt like a captured game.

"Telepathy, eh? Amazing as usual, Himena-san, but lay off him," Shinya-san cut in. "You've chased a whole lot of brilliant people off this island doing that. He'll be leaving soon enough as it is, so there's no need to send him home any faster, right?"

"Everyone I try to have fun with hates me. It's discrimination against people with superpowers, I tell you."

Superpowers…

They talked about it like it was an everyday thing, but did such a thing really exist? Indeed, at the ER3 system, as a "comprehensive" research center, they had even conducted advanced psychological research relating to super abilities. Psychokinesis, ESP, DOP, levitation, and teleportation. I had seen any number of papers on the inexplicable, unobservable subject in my time in the ER3 program, and even met a person who claimed it was for real (though he was a phony).

But all I had concluded was that no matter how you thought about it, that stuff was a bunch of bull. None of those papers really explained anything, despite how hard they tried to arbitrarily cram facts into conclusions.

It was what they called "dry love." The dry love-filled thesis papers of these phony scientists were, to be fair, amusing in their own right, but that's all they were. They certainly didn't have what it took to convince someone of anything.

"That's just because you have a narrow mind."

"Have you ever heard of the word privacy?"

"It's not my fault. I see what I see and I hear what I hear. And by the way, trying to run away is futile. No matter where you go, I'll know exactly where you are."

"So, you have remote viewing and supersensitive hearing powers, too!" Kunagisa said. "I know a lot of people with special powers, but this is the first time I've ever met someone with so many. Multimulti. Amazing."

Despite knowing that our pasts, futures, and minds were all possibly being read right now, Kunagisa was without a care in the world. Or maybe she didn't have any secrets to keep.

"I really wanted psychokinesis, actually, but I ended up gravitating toward ESP for some reason. Too bad… I mean, doesn't teleportation seem so convenient?"

Psychokinesis—referred to as PK—and ESP was academically defined as two completely different abilities. In mainstream metapsychology, it's often said that the existence of ESP can now be proven, though the same cannot be said about PK. This is because the idea of PK is something completely inhuman, while ESP is simply an extension of actual human senses.

"Fortune-telling is about all I can do with just ESP. It's not such a useful ability," Maki-san said with a sigh.

Certainly, there wasn't much she could have done apart from fortune-telling, but I still felt skeptical about the whole idea.

"Maki-san, can you prove that you have these special powers?"

"I don't think I need to. How would you, for example, prove that you are you? Would you show us your driver's license? Would you be convinced if I had a Superpowers License? It doesn't matter anyway. Whether you think it's true or think it's a lie or think it's something else, that doesn't affect anything anyway. Just like my knowing everything doesn't change anything."

"Mmm, I wonder."

"You sure have a lot of doubt. Ah, okay, how about I give you your fortune again?" she said out of the blue, grinning at me.

Damn, I hadn't seen this coming.

"You deceived me the first time, after all. Yeah, let's do it. It's a good opportunity for you. I almost never do fortune-tellings for free."

"I'll pass."

"Quick answer. You really hate me, huh? Hehehe, my mentor always taught me to 'push people's hatred onward,' so that's what I do."

"I can't help but wonder if your mentor meant something else."

"You're quite a liar, aren't you?" She began her fortune-telling, regardless of what I had said.

"You don't like showing your emotions, but you don't like controlling them either, so you have many regrets. Even though you let yourself get pushed around by other people's opinions, you're quite independent. When faced with a challenge, you run away without deliberating, but you're not dumb. And, you don't like competition. Sound about right?

"Is that what you people call a 'cold reading'?" I shot back. "You could've just said anything. Those are all things that hold true for any person, to some extent."

"Is that so? Hmm, maybe. Then let's talk about your relationship with Kunagisa-chan. What we call a compatibility reading. Hmm, both you and Kunagisa-chan are the type who don't need friends. Yet for some reason, you stick together. And the reason for that is? Oh my, this part is fairly skewed. You stay by her side because you're jealous of her. And while you're jealous of her ability to express herself freely, she somehow looks unhappy, regardless of whether or not she really is. You see this girl who has everything you want and can do all the things you can't do, yet she is still, for some reason, unhappy, and that makes you feel better. That makes you feel like it doesn't matter if you can't get what you want."

"Really?" Kunagisa gave me a confused look. Whether it was true or not, it wasn't okay to say such a thing right in front of Kunagisa.

I shook my head. "No, Maki-san, I think you've got me all wrong. I'm not such a complicated guy. I'm simple as could be."

"Yeah, well, maybe, maybe not."

"Say, Maki-chan," Kunagisa said, moving closer to her. "If that's really the case, then why do I spend time with Ii-chan?"

"Sorry, but I can't seem to read your mind or past." Maki-san gave a shrug. "Occasionally I meet someone like that. I guess it's a compatibility issue or something, but the aura surrounding them is very ambiguous and hard to decipher. It's like they're in the dark, and it's a little unsettling. It puts me in a bad mood."

So maybe she was just venting on me.

How awful.

"Himena-san, in light of the occasion. I'll go ahead and ask a question, too. How does it feel to be able to see the future and read people's minds and such?" Shinya-san said. "I'm just curious."

"Hmm. That's like asking how things look to spiders with their eight eyes. To attempt a simple explanation, it's like watching TV. It's like the entire room is covered with TVs, and I don't have a remote. I can't turn them off, and I can't change the channels, so all I can do is watch. It's like having a few more brains than regular people if you can imagine that."

I couldn't.

"Now, what's his face over there got us a little off-topic, Kunagisa-chan, but I still haven't heard why you came to this island."

"It was just on a whim. I tell you."

"No. I may not be able to read you, but I know that's not why."

Kunagisa wheezed out a strange sigh. She seemed a little troubled. I wasn't a big fan of Maki-san's way of posing the question, but to be honest, I had been wondering about it myself. For what reason had Kunagisa, the ultimate shut-in with no equal, been compelled to travel all the way out here to Wet Crow's Feather Island?

"Okay, I'll tell you," she finally said with a piece of cheese on her tongue. "I'm interested in an incident that took place here a long time ago."