"That's My Nindo, My Ninja Way"

Azuki Nadeshiko, Joe Weeze’s great love. 

Zipper stewed on that while Azuki led her down the street, past noodle-shop skyscrapers and beneath criss-crossing pedestrian walkways, until they arrived at the Neo-Neon Tama. Meticulously-crafted parks covered both riverbanks, all lit by dim red lanterns. Even the shadows seemed specifically arranged for maximum aesthetic. Orange holograms danced across distant skyscrapers beneath the night sky. 

“So, you really do know Joe and his friends." Azuki seemed to glide as she strolled along. 

Zipper always felt like people who had it all together moved with grace, compared to her own clumsy movements.

“And you know Joe, too,” she supposed.

Azuki giggled. “We don’t talk about it with others too much. Especially nowadays, with all the media attention it would bring.”

The park's trees rustled in the autumnal breeze, as did Azuki’s kimono.

“How’d you meet him?” Zipper asked.

“Online, at first. His first performance at Crash Landing was a few years ago. He used Alt-I, but I didn't mind. This music is fantastic, I commented. He messaged me back later, saying he didn’t think so. He wanted to learn how to actually play. We kept messaging, and then one day he came to see me here. We try to meet twice a year, but with his touring schedule and media scrutiny nowadays, I’m not so sure.”

“First Grace Pillow, then Fujiwara Kaede, and now Azuki Nadeshiko…" Zipper frowned, then collected herself. "Oh, sorry. It’s just that I tend to meet people who got their act together. They know so much and I know so little.” 

She side-eyed Azuki. “What’s it like, being in love? Or rather…what’s it like, being in love, when that person loves you back?”

Azuki stepped lightly in her sandals.

“It’s a feeling you can’t exactly put words to,” she admitted, looking a little sheepish. “Imagine…someone you can share everything with. A best friend you can always trust and confide in. You find something interesting and you look forward to showing them. Their smile, their presence…you feel grateful to have them around. Spontaneous moments of intimacy.”

“What’s that mean?”

Azuki went a little red. “Well, you know…you’re out walking the streets, he puts his hand in yours. He’s making dinner, you give him a hug from behind. Nothing planned, it’s just the feeling you get around the person you love.”

“Huh…” Zipper supposed that sounded quite nice. “Does it give ya a reason to get up in the morning?”

“It does.”

“Then maybe I should just go find somebody in love with me then.”

Azuki gently shook her head. “It’s a reason, but not the reason. I have my own goals, just as Joe does. A relationship won’t make you happy by default. You need to work on yourself first.”

Zipper rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, it would certainly make me happier, I ‘spose.”

They arrived at the top of a set of stairs leading down towards the riverbank. They stood there for a while, watching the meandering ripples of the Tama.

“I know I want to create,” Zipper said. “Creating would be my Something. But I don’t know how. And apparently I’m not even good enough to be a Do-Nothing.”

“Don’t mind Kaede,” Azuki said. “She’s just insecure about her place in the movement. She’s the best Do-Nothing writer in Tokyo. That just makes her so much more afraid that somebody will supplant her.”

“But creating should be about bringing joy, not about status.”

“For some people, that’s intertwined.”

The two kept walking, eventually approaching an underpass beneath a bridge over the river. Their sudden arrival spooked a couple of teenagers working in the shadows, up to no good. They fled at the sight of the women, escaping in a huff. 

Zipper found the bottle of spray paint they left behind. On the A-Polymer wall of the underpass, amid Japanimation characters, Apollo 11 eagles, and muted post horns, the teens wrote:

NO JOB

NO ART

NO GIRLFRIEND

NO HOPE

THIS MUST BE THE END OF THE WORLD

“Well, that’s sad.” Zipper ran a hand along the graffiti, the wall cold to the touch. The Tama lapped gently beyond the shadows. “I guess when robots do all the work, alternative intelligences make all the art, and people just don’t meet anyone anymore - how can we have everything at our fingertips, yet still feel so crummy?”

Azuki watched the teens disappear onto the streets. “We’re close to utopia. Everybody has housing, everybody has food, and there’s no violent crimes or wars. We’re spreading across the stars. We do have it good. But you can still feel crummy, even when you ‘should’ be feeling good. Statistics can’t replace feelings of the heart.”

“Jobs, art, partners,” Zipper reflected. “All those could be Something. People are having trouble with finding that Something, and I should know. There’s a disconnect somewhere along the way.”

She gasped and hit her open palm with a fist. “That’s it! That’s what I’ll do. I’m not gonna be stuck-up like Kaede. I’m going to create, and I want whatever I create to fix that disconnect. I want to help people feel better and find that purpose. Making people happy…why, that’d make me happy too.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

Azuki sounded a little blue when she said it.

“Something wrong?” Zipper asked.

A smile returned to Azuki’s face. “That’s my Something, too. I inherited Starlight Cafe from my father. I cook because of the joy I see on customers' faces. I’m the first in my family to actually work there in a long, long time. Usually, my family had robots do everything. Because we…have a higher purpose. But I don’t care for that purpose. I just want to make people happy the best way I can. My father and I fought a lot about it before he passed.”

“Sorry to hear that, old chum.”

The two women stood there for a bit, listening to the waves of the Tama. Finally, Zipper shook the bottle of spray paint, and with a grin, fixed up the graffiti just a bit, her first step in spreading happiness. The graffiti now said:

NO JOB

NO ART

NO GIRLFRIEND

NO HOPE

THIS MUST BE THE END OF THE WORLD

AND I FEEL FINE.