radishes and sweet potoes

It’s a warm, sunny day in Otohama. Birds sing, flowers bloom, and the population count is more like a countdown.

Toshi walks next to the cliff. He just went to the single grocery store in town. He appreciates elders’ gifts, but he has eaten so many radishes and sweet potatoes lately that they’re beginning to feel like poison.

Speaking of–there’s a limousine in the distance. In fact, there’s several, all in various shades of pink. Fujinomiya Koharu walks out, then rolls the cars into a ball. As they get assimilated, the pink ball grows menacingly. Toshi watches this with resigned detachment until he remembers that cars shouldn’t be turned into giant pink spheres.

Unfortunately, it’s too late; as Koharu pushes the ball forward, it begins to assimilate nearby houses. There goes the Sato property, then the Oda property, then Matsueda’s. Slowly, the town becomes part of the growing pink ball. “I’m picking up litter at the beach!” Koharu calls out. “I’m helping the poors!”

People run. Upon playing his groceries next to the fence–not against it or said fence could collapse–Toshi marches towards her. “Fu. Ji. No. Mi. Ya.”

“Nagumo!” She picks up the pace. “Quickly, take a picture.”

Gift baskets begin to rain from the sky. As he approaches her, he replies, “No.”

“And why not?”

“Because you’re not helping anyone.” Once he reaches the ball, he pushes against it. “Go away you–wretched beast!”

“How can you call me that? Didn’t I hold your hand?”

“That’s not–”

“What, you’re gonna pretend like you didn’t like it?”

“But–”

“Follow me and I’ll let you see my–gyah!”

He pushes harder than intended; the ball rolls forward, right in front of Koharu, then above her.

Something crunches.

Toshi jolts awake to Fenrir pawing at his hand while something crunches. A quick glance reveals that it’s Cookie munching on her kibbles, not celebrities getting flattened by game references. “Yes,” he tells Fenrir. “I know.”

Time for a walk.

Time…

Toshi paws around until he finds his phone on the floor; it must’ve fallen off the couch somewhere during the… night? Everything gets murky after a sixteen-hour nap, a walk back home, a forty five-minute bath, ten uninterrupted hours of videogames, and then more sleep as soon as one hits something semi-comfortable.

It’s 9:16 AM.

“...oh, no…”

It’s ONLY 9:16 AM.

They gave him three days off, and it’s only been one and a half.

Toshi walks the dogs. He has a cigarette and a piece of fruit for breakfast. Since there’s nothing else to do, he cleans the house, but it was already tidy, so it takes less than half an hour. If he shows up at the clinic, they’ll kick him out. Since it’s a weekday, none of his friends are available. They live hours away anyway. He reads half a book and it’s not even noon yet.

It’s.

Excruciating.

Knowing this backwater hick village, most of the residents already know about his incident at the clinic, so if he goes to anyone’s house to kill time by watering their backwater hick plants, they’ll also kick him out.

He has a cigarette for lunch, but he has to drag himself to the beach to do so. Nicotine is bad for dogs. He checks his phone to see he won the lottery, but no, there’s just some spam bot trying to…

NotKoharu1: Mrs. Matsu told me what happened!!!

…to…

NotKoharu1: I didn’t know I’d cause a fire hazard! (°ロ°)

…there’s no way.

He’s still dreaming.

Actually, no–it’s probably hunger. He should eat something.

NotKoharu1: I’m really sorry about that. I couldn’t return the gift baskets because some of them were damaged, but Matsu’s helping me distribute them!! She’s very nice ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡ I met her when

“No,” Toshi mumbles, putting the phone down to cover his face.

One day.

He’s absent.

For.

One.

Day.

And this happens. Still, life goes on, and so he continues to read.

Gaillard was helping other patients. Matsu says that she used to be a nurse, so it’s fine!

NO IT’S NOT?

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I’m very sorry and that it won’t happen again. I hope you get well soon!!! ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

There’s a picture of herself attached, smiling while making a peace sign. So yes, this is actually Fujinomiya Koharu DMing him. Why? How? Some things are best kept as a mystery.

As he tries to block her, he realizes, too late, that his thumb is brushing the bottom of the screen, so he ends up sending a 0:00 voice mail instead. It could happen to everyone. It’s a very human thing. The problem is that he just sent that to Fujinomiya Koharu.

Nagumo heads home while brainstorming. What if he rolls her down the stairs? No, because he’d have to clean that mess. Therefore, the only solution left is to confront the situation. Due to his latest marathon at work, he didn’t sleep in a dangerously long time, and because of this, not only did he casually exchange playlists with her, but he also fed her pizza.

In a vacuum, that’s not… well, no, it’s not good, but it’s not like anyone in Otohama cares about protocol. That’s the problem. Fujinomiya Koharu is not from Otohama. She’s not, as the old timers say, a regular. Yet he treated her like one.

As he reaches the kitchen, he receives a new message: I just wanted to apologize. Besides, you’re not working right now, and it’s not like anyone will see this anyway.

So she’s just assuming that he won’t report this, huh? He won’t, because it’s a hassle, but still. How did she even find him?

Wait, what if it’s a trap? The moment he responds, she’ll just say that she was harassed. Famous people do these things all the time. Their boredom has to be everyone else’s misery.

He’s brewing curry when another text drops:

NotKoharu1: Just in case: I’m using another phone, a VPN, and a clean history, so it’s not like my main account can be traced to this one.

After Toshi successfully blocks her this time, there’s a powerful, meditative moment where he realizes that Fujinomiya has no solid proof about anything but the audio which, all things considered, could be dismissed as a finger slip.

However, the moment that he properly responds is the moment she’ll go back to Tokyo crying about how a nurse in Otohama tried to fu–

“Ow.”

After he takes his hand off the pot, he rinses it under cool water. Come to think of it, there’s that lawyer that owes him a favor. Just in case. Fujinomiya is a menace. He could also just be paranoid. That’s what he tells himself, even when his phone rings again.

NotKoharu2: (╥﹏╥)

…yeah, no. This is war.

***

Amelia Gaillard takes Koharu out for a ‘walk’ during her fourth day at Otohama. It’s a good thing because her suite had begun to feel claustrophobic, but bad because she’d been busy spreading misinformation.

Internet detectives are no joke and she shows it; they’ve already narrowed down the coordinates, even with how blurry the clip was. Nagumo’s stupid dialect doesn’t help, although, based on her research, it looks like there are differences between his city boy accent and the locals.

Truth be told, she can’t tell. She really can’t. Koharu could ask Gaillard about it, but wouldn’t it be depressing for a foreigner to know more about the topic than her?

Regardless, this is still an unintentional, but appreciated, advantage.

“Ms. Fujinomiya?”

There’s only a handful of regulars on the threads related to finding Koharu’s location, which is good, because it means that most of her fans have something useful to do with their lives.

“Ms. Fujinomiya, I’m not trying to be mean, I promise, but how about you look up for a moment?”

The ‘walk’ consists of getting rolled down a yard that’s smaller than Sharky’s tank, and so Koharu isn’t interested. The beach is right outside of the fence surrounding the medical center, yet Gaillard refuses to take her there. Still, because she’s Koharu’s second favorite nurse, Koharu looks up. “Pretty,” she says, then goes back to her phone.

“Right? Otohama is so… orange. I’m not sure if trees change colors here, but they should, right? It’ll be even more orange. All of it will look like a sunset.”

Shockingly, Kerochanfan isn’t here. He must be using an alt. Koharu is roughly a third of the traffic, so she has to pick arguments with herself to make her intrusion less obvious, careful to change her syntax and keep the timestamps in check.

She hasn’t made a stream since The Leak. Perhaps she should. For the most part, she has been active on her arts and crafts channel, but her fans refuse to engage with it.

“Um, well, I guess it’s time to go back.”

“Gaillard,” Koharu says, “I need your help.”

“Eh?” Despite her attempts to be a soda nurse, Gaillard’s eyes light up.

“One: I’ll do a stream soon and you’ll be speaking in the background with… no, never mind, people might recognize you (because her case is so bizarrely specific). In that case, let’s go with two: do you think a man blocking you means they might like you?”

Gaillard’s wide-eyed look is frozen in place, plus her smile. “... Ms. Fujinomiya, I don’t think that’s how that works.”

“Maybe not in France.”

“Or anywhere.”

Thus Koharu concludes that Gaillard has never had a boyfriend. “What if he’s a tsundere?”

“Uhh…” Gaillard trails off, pushing her back into the clinic, towards that screeching elevator of doom. “I would say that if someone blocks you, it just means that they don’t want to talk to you again.” Her hands visibly tighten on the handles, but not because the elevator cries in agony, no; it’s because, as soon as they exit it, she blurts out, “Is it true that you’re in an affair with Yukida–”

“No!”

“I’m sorry! I know you guys have to keep that as a secret and I just asked an invasive question please forgive me.”

“Not Fumito.” Koharu just threw up in her mouth a little at the idea. “Or anyone. I just asked a hypothetical question. You’re forgiven.”

Gaillard lets out a sigh of relief.

The Fumito x Koharu rumors are the worst thing that has ever happened to her. Ever. He’s a demon–not even Nagumo demon, just an asshole all around.

Speaking of, after Nagumo insolently blocked her twice, she decided to stop messaging him. He probably got very nervous and didn’t know what to do. She understands.

Still, his resentment from a few days ago seemed genuine, which is strange. The nurses back in Tokyo smiled when she gave them gifts. Her employees smile. Her backstage staff in her shows smile. So why didn’t he?

Koharu knows better than to try that again, and she hasn’t drawn her lucky stones since. She’s been trying to eat whatever they give her. She’s talking to Matsu-approved locals (who won’t leak her location).

Like Nagumo said, it’ll be fine. He’s just shy. He even sent that obviously fake “accident” voice mail.

Regardless, one thing is certain: Koharu will win the war.