It Made This Girl Dream (I)

The journey from Tokyo to Sapporo wasn’t as long as his colleagues had warned him. It was a mere four hours, and if he added the additional five for the drive, it would hardly take a day. With his eyes pasted to the calligraphed pictographs from the Hokkaido Shinyobun, his fingers traced its shape. He then tried to superimpose it over the new ones from yesterday, hoping to find a hint.

“It won’t hurt to rest for a while, Professor.” Ayano gave him a light tap from over the side, tilting her head and filling his peripheral vision with strands of chestnut-brown hair that slipped from beneath her pink beanie.

“I don’t know if you remember correctly, Dr. Inoue, but this excursion that I have undertaken is by no means legal,” he sighed, remembering the events of last eve and then the night. He felt his skin itch. “Thus, time is of the essence. For all I know, Director Okinomiya might even send a manhunt for overstepping the institution’s rules and breaking into a government-protected site.”

“Aren’t you such a drama queen?” she grumbled, pouting a little. “Also, I am here too, aren’t I? That makes the two of us fugitives.”

“There is no semblance of logic behind your argument. I sometimes wonder how you made it so far. What was your thesis on? Annoying others?”

“That was hurtful.”

“I am aware.”

“Now you are just being mean.”

“Let me work.”

That’s how the first hour of Anu’s ride to Sapporo ended.

Over the next three, Anu drowned himself into deeper recesses of his mind, calling on his years of experience. His fingers held onto the brush as he furiously scribbled with practised precision. The symbols, at first twisted and turned, forming shapes, his erudition could scarcely piece together. The lines of the Roman alphabet were imposed into a circular loop connected to archaic Kanji before being cut into two with what seemed like Brahmi from the seventh century. It was a symbol he found grotesque, a far cry from the symmetry of human aestheticism.

“The newly discovered inscription had the same symbol,” Ayano added, her eyes strained over his ink-stained cuffs. “The Kanji was evocative from when we saw the Kojiki. It made me wonder,” she pointed her finger at the layered kanji symbol and gave it a light tap. “Just like how they used the Man’yōgana, for pronunciation, by extension sounds; could it be that the three letters are a composite of sound and meaning?”

When Kojiki was first discussed in the academic world, it was gazed upon as a symphony of words borrowed from the Chinese. It was not the script of the land, a foreign invention. Though, as time passed, scholars debunked the claim. Despite being an adoption, the script didn’t steal the conveyance it brought. It was only the pronunciation that was utilised. And thus it was written, the Kojiki belongs to an era when this land lacked a script and alluded to a foreign one, but the meaning was never carried. And thereafter, this script of sound was called Man’yōgana.

“Where do you derive such a conclusion from?” Anu asked, his pen kissing his cheek as he gave her a sharp gaze.

“Same reason as was for Kojiki,” she shrugged. “If we could borrow before, nothing stops us from doing it again. Although with Man’yōgana, the migration of scripts is understandable, but with this…” she stopped, her gaze casting over the sheaf of paper drawn over the tray table. Each with a scribble, more precise than the last. Her finger paused over the Roman-Brahmi alphabet composite as she pulled it. “I can’t see the inspiration...honestly, even the year of its inception is distorted. There is no contemporary, nor a mention of it in literary sources of the period preceding it, assuming that is the period. If I had to put it anywhere…” she paused again, her head tilted, making Anu lean in. His eyes darted at her free hand holding a book barely the size of an Octavo. “It would not be in this world. The script is a distortion, a walking anomaly. It shouldn’t exist, not here at least.”

In the twenty-seven years of his life, Anu had never found a car ride as tiring as he did today. His back was pushed against the hard-backed seat, his head bobbed with every bump, even those barely a few inches tall. The gears grinded, moaning, writhing in pain, as Anu clutched the tattered seat belt, praying to the Gods of script to let him live.

The path ahead twisted and turned as the tarmac morphed into a frost-laden earth.

“How long till we reach the town?” Anu shivered due to the glacial gale of Hokkaido.

“The driver said it's still an hour away,” Ayano informed, pushing the portable Kairo towards his chest. “Did you not expect the snow?”

“I did…” he clenched his teeth, shifting his gaze towards the crystalline canopy of the evergreen. “But this is unprecedented. It is treacherous, the snow.”

“Is this your first time experiencing it?” she asked, her smile warping between innocence and amusement.

“No…”

“Tokyo doesn’t count, last Christmas can hardly be coined as a snowfall.”

Anu pressed his lips into a line as his jaw twitched beneath the tension.

“So you haven’t,” Ayano giggled, her magenta eye sparkling in a kiddish glow. “Well, isn’t this turning out to be a trip of firsts?”

“The snow was the only one.”

“Defying the Institute?”

“That makes it second...though there isn’t a single mail from the director.”

“What do you expect? It’s Christmas,” She gave him an exasperated look, smiling. “Normal people don’t leave their homes and hitch a ride to nowhere for work.”

“But we are historians?”

“Sometimes I really wonder. All this intellect, and yet the semblance of a social construct never registered up there.”

“Now you are being rude.”

“I am being real,” Ayano turned away, her fingers still clutching the book. Anu could barely make out the title; he was still learning Kanji. Although one word was clear—異世界—the first word gave the sound of I, the last two composed were sekai, meaning world. All three put together, it was-

“Isekai...?” Anu muttered out loud, his cheeks flushed as his ears heated up.

“Parallel world,” Ayano replied nonchalantly, her head still away. “If you were looking for the meaning.”

“I know…” he lied.

“Thank you.”

Anu narrowed his eyes briefly as his lips parted to ask ‘why’, but she beat him to it.

“For still being you. It is a great closure,” Ayano added. “If you hadn’t noticed.”

The gaps between them, although minuscule in reality, were drifting away. The worn-out Toyota groaned again, its joints creaking as the hood flapped.

“Was it the book that gave you the idea?” Anu tried, a sorry attempt to break the silence. His dream from a night ago left him receptive to warmth. He craved it, but only for his convenience.

“For this trip? Or the theory from before?”

“Both.”

“Let’s just say, it taught me how to look past delusion.”

“Delusion?”

“And you said you knew,” Ayano scoffed, but explained nevertheless. “Isekai, parallel-world, transmigration. It’s a trope popular in the community.”

“Anime?” he inquired. Anu, despite his years in this land, was stranded in an isolation of his own. Popular culture or trends were noises he’d rather not indulge in.

“Novels, to be precise, light novels for posterity.” She tapped over the cracked glass, her eyes reflecting over it. “It narrates the journey of the protagonist, usually brooding, gone beyond salvation, victimised in their head, being thrown into another world. Given a free slate, to start afresh and learn.” She pushed the book towards Anu, who reluctantly accepted it. “It was delusional, regrettable, preposterous in reappraisal. But it made this girl dream.”

“Dream? You wanted to go to another world?”

“No,” she gave a defeated laugh. “I wanted another chance, not for myself, but for another. And that’s why it was delusional-” she paused, mist gushed from her breath as she turned. “-to trust.”