Chapter 5.4

I tried to meet Reiko afterwards, multiple times in fact, but on every occasion, we missed each other, as if the strings of our lives ran parallel with each other.

On the days where I waited at her favorite cafe, Reiko slept in and skipped her morning coffee. During the evenings where I waited outside of a tall glass office building, work ran late, and I was forced to return home.

Training sessions with Fang Fang went overtime. I would lose track of the clock while reading. Anything and everything conspired against me.

“You’ve been trying to meet her, haven’t you?” Natsuko said one night.

“Why do you ask when you already know?” I growled.

“I was being courteous,” Natsuko shrugged. “For the record, I think of this as a good thing. If given a choice, you should resist your fate with all your might. It’s a wonderful quality to have, Fujiko.”

“It’s hard to not read this as sarcasm…”

“It’s not. Destiny comes for us all. We either resist or give in.”

“How do you resist it, Natsuko?”

“With the power of love, maybe?”

“Natsuko.”

“Look, people need strong emotions to overcome adversity,” Natsuko explained. “Strong emotions like love, like hate. I’m not recommending that you overcome things with hatred, so that just leaves us with love.”

“And who do you love?”

“Can’t you tell?” Natsuko said. “I love you.”

“You barely know me.”

I barely know myself, I thought.

“Believe it or not, I know almost everything there is to know about you,” Natsuko smiled. “Well… at least half of you anyway.”

“I just think it’s strange that I’m your first answer. I thought you were married,” I pointed at the portrait on the counter, featuring Natsuko and a man I had never met. “What about him?”

“Marriage has nothing to do with love,” Natsuko blushed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not true for everyone, but it is true for me.”

Time passed. The fall season fell like leaves beset by rain. When water turned to sleet then snow, Fang Fang began to visit less often. Our final training session ended early, before the sun had really risen.

“You’re as ready as you can be,” she said. “After today, you will not see me for a good while, Fujiko.”

“You’ve taught me how to fight,” I sighed, “but I don’t think I could beat you or Natsuko in combat, let alone kill you.”

“I’ve taught you how to defend yourself against an Egregore,” Fang Fang said. “You know what you’re capable of. That’ll be enough for when it’s time.”

“You and Natsuko keep saying that,” I replied. “When it’s time.”

“There’s no hidden meaning if you’re wondering,” Fang Fang shrugged. “When it’s time, we’ll tell you that it’s time.”

“How do you know I’m going to do what you’re asking of me?”

“Fujiko,” Fang Fang said, “for the last three months, I’ve trained you the way that I was trained. I’ve given you more wounds in this time than all the children in this city have experienced in their lives. That you are still here means you intend to see your story through to the end.”

Fang Fang offered me a reassuring hand on my shoulder and departed. Natsuko had not come to the park to observe that day, so I began the half hour walk home.

Someone had dusted Sapporo with heavy frosting. Barren trees flexed their branches weighed with mounds of snow. The buses waded carefully. Couples held hands to prevent each other from slipping.

It occurred to me that this was the first time I had seen the city look this way.

When I returned home. It was not yet noon, and I heard shouting as I approached the front door.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I heard Reiko’s voice. “Put it in a way that I can understand for once!”

This was my chance, I realized. If I inserted the key now, turned the lock, and pulled open the door, I would finally see her, see Reiko. But when I fetched the key from my pockets, I realized that it didn’t fit the keyhole.

“Like I said, I’m leaving this room to you. I’ve changed the locks as of today.”

That wouldn’t stop me. I had learned to unlock the door in the event that I forgot my keys inside. But my hands froze over the door even as I opened my left eye to rend the door open. Something told me I couldn’t open the door. Not right now.

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” Reiko shouted. “Why are you leaving the room to me? More importantly, why leave at all? We’re close to cracking the Brideskiller case.”

“No. It’ll be a while before we catch the killer,” Natsuko murmured.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that tonight, I have to be back in Tokyo.”

“Are you going to see him?”

“Why is that the first thing you always think of?” Natsuko scoffed. “I have business there, Reiko. That’s all.”

“How can it not be what I think when you act like I’m never seeing you again?”

“I never said that,” Natsuko replied. “We’ll meet again.”

“See? That’s what I mean,” Reiko snapped. “That cryptic tone. You always say shit like that when you don’t want me to know what’s going on. It’s like I’m just a part of your little plot, Natsuko, like I’m just a character. What are we, Natsuko?”

“I didn’t want to be Egregore. It’s easy to say no if I pretend to be a careerist and a mother,” Natsuko sighed.

“Not what I asked. What. Are. We?”

“Of course, we’re special, Reiko. How could we be anything but that?”

“If you believe that, then when I brought up adopting a child–”

Natsuko sighed.

“Is it too much to think that perhaps there are things that you might not understand just yet, that you have to trust me?”

“I’m an Egregore candidate, Natsuko. Try me.”

“Not this time.”

“If not this time, then when?”

“...In ten years time, maybe.”

“Natsuko!”

“I’m sorry, Reiko,” Natsuko said. “I really am. I won’t ask for your forgiveness, because I don’t deserve it, and I don’t need it. I have to be in Tokyo tonight.”

Footsteps approached the door.

“Natsuko, if you walk through that door, consider this over.”

“...then it is over.”

“Natsuko!”

I jumped back as I heard the click of the door. I retreated into the shadows, so that when Natsuko looked at me, I could not see the room behind her.

“Fujiko,” Natsuko whispered. “It’s time.”