Kimiko Comes to Help, Hopefully

“Kimiko, is it? It’s so nice to meet you dear, Katsuo here has told us so much about you.”

His mother looked upon them with a huge smile on her face, seemingly genuinely pleased by Kimiko’s presence. Kimiko bowed to his mother.

“Yes ma’am, I am Kimiko. Hayami Kimiko.”

“Hayami eh? A rare beauty indeed.”

She said the last a little quietly, almost as if she was thinking out loud. But they both definitely heard, Kimiko was blushing so hard that she almost looked red. Hayami, Hayami Kimiko. Katsuo hadn’t known her full name until now, and he had to admit, he liked it. It rolled nicely on the tongue, but the names also didn’t quite fit together. Perfect in his estimation. Much like symmetry, there was something about names together that sounded like one name. It was too good somehow. Kimiko’s embarrassed stammering brought him back.

“Oh, uh, thank you ma’am.”

“But of course dear, and you must know it’s true. I see now why Katsuo took such a liking to you.”

“Alright mom, that’s enough. We’re going to go work on some stuff now.”

Katsuo grabbed Kimiko by the arm and began pulling her towards the stairs. Kanna had been standing off to the side for the whole exchange, wearing a strange look on her face, making little sighs and giving the occasional “Hhmph.” She followed them with her eyes, cheeks puffing out into a pout as she did so. His mother smiled after them. Kimiko was so flustered that she was barely comprehending the whole ordeal.

“Okay dear, I’ll be making dinner in the meantime. Kimiko, will you be staying for dinner dear?”

“What, oh no. I couldn’t possibly intrude.”

She sounded so flustered, and still embarrassed.

“Nonsense, we have plenty of room. I even got extra groceries at the store today. You simply must stay.”

She managed to work out some kind of noncommittal sound as Katsuo continued dragging her up the stairs.

“You kids have fun now!”

He could hear Kanna whining to their mother about the unfairness of something or other. When they reached Katsuo’s room, Kimiko just stood there for a moment and looked around.

“It’s surprisingly clean, for a boy.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“I just haven’t seen you do anything with your hair yet, and your uniform wasn’t the best yesterday. Plus, I’ve just never been into a boy’s room before, I always imagined they’d be much less well kept than this.”

“I see, well I do try I suppose. Although, I feel that yesterday was a bit of an exception.”

She still stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. As he sat down on his bed, he couldn’t help but notice the silence was starting to grow; he attempted to break it.

“So, where do we start?”

She turned, eyes closing, a little color back in her cheeks.

“Probably on the floor will do, we will need plenty of space after all.”

Her voice sounded slightly strained, as if uncomfortable or embarrassed. Man, he really wasn’t even going to have to try to get her like this here. It just seemed to happen naturally. He did, however, decide not to goad her any further.

“Okay, sounds like a plan.”

“Now, I brought some notes, books for references, and a couple of writing pads.”

She then proceeded to pull a seemingly endless number of things out of her bag. A couple of notepads, large pad paper, and – were those light novels? And Manga?

“Woah, what’s with all the-“

“What, is there a problem?”

“Uh no, just surprised by all the manga and stuff. That’s all.”

“Well perhaps I like that sort of thing. It’s not weird, is it?”

She was squirming a little, and not making eye contact. There was also definitely some color to her cheeks again. It’s crazy how she becomes a totally different person when she’s not around other people. He realized he hadn’t answered her.

“Not that I need your opinion or anything, or that it matters.”

Too late. He was really going to have to start being more present when she was around, or he’d never catch a break. First her email, now this? Be more present, right.

“No, it’s cool. I read them too, see.”

He gestured towards the visible copies lining his shelves above his desk. She got up and began skimming through the titles, tracing the backs with her fingertip as she did. Almost as if she was guiding her eyes with it. She spoke, almost to herself.

“Huh, apparently we read a lot of the same stuff. Interesting.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She turned, and sat back down on the floor, facing him. She set a few of the books before him.

“So, we’re currently operating under the assumption that you were transported here from your world. Correct?”

“Uh yeah, I guess.”

“Do you have doubts?”

“Well, no, it’s just… I’m a little surprised that you believe me. That’s all.”

She sighed and looked at him seriously.

“Well, it’s not like there’s really any better alternative at present. My entire class, Miss Nakajima, and many of the other students as well, all seemed to know who you were. So, it’s either you were suddenly transported here, and everyone gained memories of you, or… Or I suppose I woke up yesterday morning without any memory of who you were.”

She cleared her throat.

“I find that unlikely. Especially since you also have no memory of any of them.”

He stared at her, with a blank expression on his face. Did she really think it was more probable that he was somehow transported here from a parallel world, rather than her experiencing some sort of amnesia? Was that even possible? His thoughts must have been clear on his face, because she gave him a stern look.

“Do you have a better explanation for all this?”

He didn’t, and he shook his head in agreement with her. There really wasn’t any plausible explanation for all of it. She continued.

“So, this brings us to figuring out what your theme is.”

“Huh, my what?”

“Your theme. Presumably, if you indeed have been Isekai’d, then you went through some kind of transformation. Did you meet a goddess that granted you a single gift, for example?”

She asked this, holding up a somewhat familiar manga.

“In this story, when the main character got hit by a truck, he met with a goddess in an in-between world where she apologizes for his death and sends him into the next world with one granted wish. Such as a magic weapon, or magic powers.”

He stared at her. Was she actually serious about this? Being Isekai’d was one thing, but being given magic powers, that was on a whole other level. But then again. When you’ve been transported to another world, who was to say what else was possible?

“Uh, no. I don’t remember meeting any goddess.”

He reached out a hand and tried to summon a fireball. He scrunched up his face and tried to imagine pouring his energy into his palm. Nothing happened, obviously.

“And no magic powers.”

She nodded at him, as if this was perfectly logical.

“The next thing would be a literary RPG. The protagonist also sometimes meets a goddess, but usually ends up with a weapon or at least some kind of inventory.”

She looked at him to ensure he was following, he nodded in return. He was all too familiar with the different themes of traveling to other worlds. He’d been reading them in excess as of recently. He couldn’t help but smile at the irony of that. Kimiko continued.

“Sometimes they also receive a skill chart, right? Or some kind of stat menu?”

She nodded affirmatively at him.

“Look in your peripheral for a prompt or a character logo.”

He started looking around, moving his head as he did so.

“Try not to move your head so much, your view would move with you line of sight.”

Made sense to him. This time he held his head in place, peering around with his eyes alone. Still seeing nothing he tried another angle.

“Menu.”

Nothing.

“Inventory, open stats.”

He frowned, then an idea occurred to him. He swiped his hand up, and then over. He grinned. Kimiko gasped.

“What, do you see something?”

“Yeah, I see my skill list.”

He frowned, peering at seemingly nothing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just only have one skill.”

“Well, that would make sense, you’re probably only level 1. But, what’s the skill?”

He peered closer, then made another motion with his hands, muttering as he did so.

“Hmm, X-Ray vision. I wonder what that does?”

“Wait, what?”

“Activate Skill: X-Ray Vision.”

Kimiko froze in disbelief. He looked around curiously, going from the bookshelf to the wall, to the door.

“What do you see?”

She sounded a little nervous. Then his eyes landed on her. He peered at her, as if to get a closer look.

“Oh, so that’s what it does. So, you like black huh?”

“Wha- Katsuo stop right now!”

Her face flushed and she threw an arm across her chest. Then hurled a book at him with her free hand, hitting him squarely in the forehead. The book didn’t have enough force to knock him over, but his instinct to back off sent him toppling backwards anyway. However, this didn’t lessen the impact.

“Oww, that was my face.”

“Hhmph, serves you right. Besides, you don’t have a skill, do you?”

He sat up, rubbing his forehead. Noting he was fortunate enough to be struck by a manga and not something heavier. He frowned a little at her.

“How did – Ah, so you don’t like black then.”

She continued to blush profusely, turned her nose up at him, and then cleared her throat before responding.

“That is none of your business.”

“Still, I did get you to call me by my first name. And without an honorific too.”

She blushed, not meeting his eyes, and not responding. He decided not to prod her any further.

“So, no goddess, no skills, and no magic weapon or device of any kind. What’s next?”

She appeared to get a handle of herself, making it quite clear that she didn’t feel the need to cover herself with her arms anymore.

“Well, sometimes they are granted a special power.”

“Like coming back after dying?”

“Precisely.”

She looked at him meaningfully. He blinked.

“Uh no, I won’t be testing that one out.”

“Oh, how disappointing.”

She almost sounded serious. Maybe she was? He shrugged it off.

“Well, I’m basically out of ideas. As far as I can tell, you might just be here for no reason at all. As disappointing as that may be for you, I am somewhat relieved to learn that I’m not an NPC.”

He nodded. He couldn’t fault her logic either. Being an NPC? That would suck, at least, if you knew that you were anyway. In the lull of silence that passed, he could hear people chatting downstairs. He checked the clock; it was almost time for dinner. His dad had probably gotten home.

“Next, we need to figure out what to do about your lack of memory of everyone.”

He just kind of stared. Somehow, he had completely forgotten the initial reason for their meeting. He had no memory of anyone that knew him, whatsoever. Well excluding his family, sort of. He had surmised that basically everything with them was the same as he remembered it, just a little different with him and his sister having their ages basically swapped. This proposed a new line of questions.

“What year is it? And are we in Japan?”

Kimiko paused, then nodded.

“I hadn’t considered that the time would be different. Today is May 9th, 2014. And yes, we live in Japan. Atakoro, Japan.”

2014? It was in May of 2015 in his world, he was pretty certain. And Atakoro, Japan? He’d never heard of it before, at least not as a town. She must have noticed his expression.

“Not the same, I take it?”

He shook his head. The date didn’t seem to be an issue, at least not at first. But places being different? That struck him as a problem. He could still use signs and maps to find his way around, sure. But the names of cities?

“Is Tokyo the capitol?”

She nodded.

“I suppose some things will be the same. But we’re definitely going to need to figure them out. People are going to think there’s something wrong with you if you can’t even remember the name of the town you live in after all.”

She put a finger to her chin in thought, then continued.

“Hmm, we’ll need to go around town a bit to familiarize you with everything.”

“I was going to take my sister to the mall tomorrow?”

“That could work, as long as she doesn’t mind me coming along?”

He’d have to ask her, he hadn’t said just the two of them, but he also had made it sound like a brother and sister bonding trip. He shrugged,

“I don’t think she’ll mind, but she might be a little jealous.”

Kimiko gave him an odd look.

“Nothing like that, I just get the impression that her memories of us aren’t that close. It kind of makes sense, me and my sister – that is the older version of my sister. Her and I were never really close. Just your typical older sister and little brother.”

She nodded at this. He was grateful she didn’t press further. But thinking of his family did make him think of something else, or rather someone else.

“Uh, Kimiko. My mom…”

How was he to approach this? I mean it wasn’t like they were together or anything but asking a girl about another girl was always a bad idea in his estimation. Well, there was nothing for it. Kimiko was the only person he could rely on in this world currently. She was looking at him, patiently waiting for him to continue.

“My mom mentioned someone today. Her name is Kame, do you know her?”

Kimiko tensed a little but nodded.

“I do, Kame Ito. But I’m not sure why your mom would know her. Is she a friend?”

Katsuo shook his head and shrugged.

“I don’t know, my mom asked about her. She made it sound like I would know. You don’t think that we’re –“

He paused, swallowing. Kimiko gave him an annoyed look.

“What, dating? Ha, get real. As if Kame-san would date you. Or anyone for that matter.”

She added that last under her breath, and almost as an afterthought. It didn’t sound spiteful, but it wasn’t exactly nice either. Katsuo hoped he hadn’t landed in the middle of some girls' spat.

“This does pose yet another problem.”

He looked at her, questioningly.

“I can show you photos of everyone and tell you who they are and what they’re like. But I’m not sure what we’re going to do about their memories of you. Sooner or later, someone is going to think something is up.”

She began gathering up the books around her, stacking them to one side. He began helping her.

“We’re going to have to come up with a believable story for your lack of memories. I just don’t see another way around it.”

She was right. Someone was eventually going to start asking questions, and probably soon. His mom already thought something was off, if for different reasons. As he reached for another book, his hand landed atop Kimiko’s. They both stopped and looked up at one another. Their faces were only inches apart. Kimiko’s cheeks started to glow, and Katsuo’s started to open his mouth. Then the door flew open.

“Katsuo, your mom sen-“

They both turned to the intruder, hands still making contact atop the book. They both gasped and backed away from each other. Now realizing what it probably looked like. She, the intruder, was a girl about their age. She had short coppery-tan hair and was a little shorter than Kimiko. She had a big smile on her face when she entered. Now she looked as embarrassed as Kimiko, and was sputtering.

“Wha- I mean, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to barge in like that.”

Katsuo was lost for words; he didn’t even know who this girl was. But apparently Kimiko did.

“Kame-san, what- what’re you doing here?”