Chapter 9: Senpai

Shiori didn’t sleep much that night. At one point she grew bashful, realizing this was the closest she had come to having a boy in her bedroom.

Despite it being night in Japan, the sun was past midday in Kryptopeda. She wondered how long the day would last. Motohara looked tired. One bizarre thing about a place that exists only as an idea is that time and daylight are relative.

The best Kryptopedian scholars determined that day or night length was relative to the average person’s needs. It was like a silent, unconscious vote moved the sun through the sky.

During joyous holidays with reduced work, days lasted longer to extend the celebration. Night came when enough people needed sleep. During times of plague when more sleep was needed, nights naturally lengthened. Kryptopedian tradition was to tease the bride and groom that the night of their honeymoon felt unusually long.

Time was different in Kryptopeda. Motohara had been there twelve days by his count. Their communication was frustratingly slow. Shiori had to write her responses by hand. Motohara could write a symbol or two, and eventually found a stick to gouge the dirt, but couldn’t write as quickly or as much as Shiori.

The more they talked, the healthier Motohara looked. There was a sadness hidden behind his bright smile. In a moment of insight that she quickly ignored, Shiori thought she saw self-doubt in the older boy.

Shiori learned a lot, and so did Motohara.

He was surprised that a boy replaced him immediately. He didn’t know the name Otonashi, but he was immediately suspicious.

“Narrator?” he asked. That was a rare term for magic users, favored by specific factions in Kryptopeda.

“Yes, he’s a Speaker,” she said, writing out the common word for those who used magic. “I’ve seen him use magic.”

He considered this for an uncomfortably long time before answering. He’d heard that a band of Narrators were hunting for a new Princess. Was there any strange new girl at school?

“He called me a Princess,” Shiori wrote.

He nodded.

“Aren’t princesses born in Kryptopeda?” she asked. “Heroes can come from other worlds, but Royalty are always born in Kryptopeda.” Shiori felt silly relying on what she had read in the books, but she had little else to go off of.

Motohara thought about this and shrugged. He was frustrated. He wrote “Plan” in the dirt.

“We need a plan?”

He pointed at Shiori.

“Oh, I need a plan,” Shiori wrote back.

He nodded vigorously.

They learned to communicate smoothly despite limitations. It was a slow, impersonal conversation. Motohara wanted to come back. She wanted him to come back.

Despite the distance between them, separated by whole worlds, she felt closer to him than any boy in her life. Despite the lack of words, she felt she understood him more deeply than anyone else. She felt like he understood her too. She wanted to squeeze through the crack in space that both united and separated them.

They hatched a plan. The Speaker, Otonashi, might have saved her from Kryptics, but he was probably up to no good. Princesses were often betrayed in Kryptopeda. They were often abused, killed, or manipulated by the Usurper warlords or powerful Speakers. Otonashi likely meant the same for her.

Motohara noticed her grow tired, while he seemed fresh and energized. They planned to keep her safe and get him back to Earth. They could talk more when he returned. She blushed at how she wanted to hug him when he returned. Would he hug her back?

He bid her sleep and touched the bookmark’s surface on his side with two fingers. The tips of his fingers flattened, like against clear glass.

She blushed furiously as she did the same, pressing her two fingers to the same spot.

“Come back to me,” Shiori whispered instinctively. The bookmarked bucked in a sharp, sudden vibration that was painful in the palm of her hand. The last she saw of Motohara was his startled face before the bookmark returned to perfect blackness.

And just like that, Motohara was gone again. She looked at the bookmark, then the small note, 'From Masahiro Motohara,' that he had left in the book.

Shiori fought down a yawn, then the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

She was being watched.

Her eyes flicked up to Otonashi on the top of the utility pole. He was looking at her. His face was hidden in the dark of the night, except for subtle reflections glinting off his eyes. He was looking into her room, right at her.

Shiori waited, heart racing. The bookmarks vibration was thankfully silent. It’s buzzing vibration silently faded like an exhausted earthquake, a bit at a time.

When it ceased, and after a dozen panicked breaths from Shiori, Otonashi turned away again.

He sensed the bookmark’s movement.

Shiori thought she’d never sleep, between the strange conversation with Motohara and the fierce glint from Otonashi’s eyes in the dark that made her heart race every time she thought of it.

But the young are nothing if not resilient, and it was late. Shiori faded off to sleep.

* * *

Shiori felt awful after little sleep the night before, but she dragged her tired bones out of bed.

“You look tired,” her mother said as she handed her daughter a handmade lunch box for the day.

“Iz nothing,” Shiori slurred back.

“Shiori,” her mother said in a tone that made the girl stop, “you can always talk to me. About anything.”

Shiori nodded as she resumed her hurried preparations for school.

She met Tsubame at their traditional corner.

“You look awful,” Tsubame said, “I told you to get some sleep.”

Shiori gave her friend a pitiful look.

“Wow, you look worse than awful,” Tsubame leaned forward, minimizing their height difference on the tips of her toes. “Wait, you promised you wouldn’t read the book!”

Shiori sighed. There were probably people who could lie to Tsubame successfully, but Shiori had never met one. She was a human lie detector.

“Well, I did, and I spoke to Motohara for quite some time,” Shiori said in a tone that mixed a confession with bragging.

“Oh?” Tsubame said, falling into step as they headed to school, “learn anything?”

“I learned,” Shiori said, patting her handbag where she felt the book inside, “what I must do to handle that Outlander, Otonashi.”

“Are you sure he’s a bad guy? He seemed to want to help us. He saved us,” Tsubame said thoughtfully.

“After what I learned from Motohara,” Shiori said, “I’m sure. Senpai is stuck in another world. We’re going to use Otonashi to bring him back.”