Episode 3: Truly An Odd Thing

Naoko drummed her fingers on the table, looking clearly impatient.

“Okay, where the heck is she?” the club president queried.

Miharu, who was totally engaging in the conversation and not writing her persuasive essay at the same time, showed concern on her face. “She’ll be here soon, I’m sure of it. I saw her today. I mean, who didn’t?”

“I didn’t,” Naoko, Suika, and Jopi all in unison.

Hearing that made Miharu want to shudder. People saying things at the same time was only ever funny in movies and TV shows, not in real life. In reality, it was just freaky.

Naoko sighed heavily. “Well, I need that spellbook back. I mean, I could’ve just teleported back into Ean’s house and grabbed it but I don’t ever want to step foot in that house ever again.”

“Why? Does it smell bad?” Suika said bluntly.

“No. I’m just not a big fan of her parents, from what I heard of them. Ding.”

“Oh.” Suika blinked, face still as emotionless as ever. “What we need is to make another copy of the spellbook then. Have another backup just in case.”

“No.” Naoko and Jopi said although the timing was delayed about a second. I guess not every response can be perfect.

At that moment, Miharu had a brilliant idea. She took a deep breath and cleared her mind.

I want Ean to arrive with the spellbook in hand right now.

That’s when she felt reality-warping to her will.

Then, just like that, a knock was heard at the door.

“Come in,” Miharu chorused flatly, without hesitation.

And there she was.

Entering the room was a rather disgruntled (and tired) looking Ean, with the spellbook in her left hand.

“Um, I’m here?” Ean said, sounding completely and utterly confused. “I could’ve sworn I was just walking down the hallway to the club room and before I knew it, BAM! I had just teleported to the third fucking floor!”

The girl gave Miharu a nasty, nasty glare.

She knew that what she did wasn’t the most morally great thing in the world, but Miharu smiled anyway. After all, it amused her to no end that she had the power to manipulate reality. (Giving these girls superpowers is dangerous Seriously! Especially her! Gawd!)

So anywho, Ean caught Miharu smiling and crossed her arms, looking more than mildly irritated.

Then, in the next second, she shrugged and lightly tossed the booklet onto the table, out of her moody mood.

“Here’s your dumb booklet,” she said, smirking. “I had fun with it while I was gone. Also talked with your DILF Drew a lot. He’s a cool guy, plus he likes A$AP Rocky and the A$AP crew.”

Suika squeaked as she jerked up, then buried her head in her hands, mumbling something about Chris and the future.

Ean cringed. “Oops,” she said, feeling the slightest bit of remorse. “‘Never mention his actual name.’ My bad. Sorry.”

Meanwhile, Naoko gave Ean a stare that could stab millions from the back of the room. “Don’t you ever throw our book again.” Her monotone voice sounded even more threatening this time. “You hear me? Don’t even toss it, or I’ll teleport you to Hell.”

“Oof.” was the young girl’s response.

“C-can you really do that?” asked Jopi, concern written clearly on her face. “Does it actually exist?”

Ah, okay. She definitely seems interested too.

Naoko rolled her eyes. “I don’t know, but I bet it does. Anyway, now that everybody is here, we can now begin our meeting.”

That’s when Miharu half-tuned out of the conversation, her brain only choosing to focus on the gunk she was cleaning off her glasses with the tip of her pen cap’s pointy part. After all, she only really joined the club because it was semi-tolerable, compared to the other club she was going to join, the science club.

Miharu was a fascinating girl, and not in the sense that she “wasn’t like the other girls.” She truly was different, in the kindest sense.

No, she wasn’t a chuuni. No, she wasn’t some kind of special gender, nor did she have any special sexuality.

Miharu loved conspiracy theories. She didn’t necessarily believe in them, she was just fascinated with them. Those, creepypastas, and ARGs were also some more of her favorite pastimes.

Stuff like that.

Oh, and cringe compilations, although those weren’t related to the previous things she listed.

And besides being involved in all this stuff that occupied /x/ (which yes, she did go on quite often) she's also interested in Wicca and Wicca culture. The possibility of magic always eluded her in life, despite her being only, oh, twelve years old.

But ho-ly crap. When she joined the literature club, she wasn’t expecting the girls in the club to have superpowers. Talk about a plot twist she didn’t see coming.

So, all in all… life had been pretty fascinating for her as of late.

“... Miharu! Miharu!” Naoko turned her back to the zoned-out girl. And waited for a beat. “She’s not listening. Ding!”

Whoopsies. I must’ve tuned out something important by accident.

“Ah, sorry! What were you guys talking about?”

Naoko rolled her eyes. “I would like us to do something for Golden Week but I need suggestions. Do you guys have any?”

“Waterworld! Waterworld!” Jopi chanted. “I haven’t been there in a long while!”

“Uh, okay.” Naoko sighed and wrote it down. “There’s one suggestion.”

Suika raised her hand. “I suggest that we all go to California.” A glassy look then formed in her eyes. “Me… today… out loud… to myself.”

“California?” Naoko chortled in a stoic way, which was somehow possible. She then blinked and realized what Suika meant. “Oh. Nope, not happening, sorry. And what’s with the long, dragged-out spaces when you talked? I’m assuming that’s a D—Chris reference?”

“I’ve been reading and writing too much fanfiction lately.”

“That’s your excuse?!” Ean shrieked. Meanwhile, Naoko just shook her head accordingly.

Miharu cleared her throat and spoke. “Well, the weather has been quite nice lately, so I say we should go to the beach.”

“‘It’s tiled?’”

Naoko clapped her hands together and then put them to her forehead. “Suika…” she said between gritted teeth.

“‘Ok ok ok…’” Suika briefly showed emotion on her face, her cheeks turning bright red. “Um, alright…”

Miharu saw that Naoko didn’t have time for the weird girl’s spontaneous, obscure quoting and turned her attention back to the conversation at hand. “That’s a great idea, Miharu-chan. I like it. We’ll do that.”

“You never did ask me!” Ean whined. “But that’s okay because I would’ve suggested the same thing.”

Naoko sighed again, this time heavily. “And that’s why I didn’t ask you. I knew you’d have nothing to contribute.”

Miharu could feel the intensity in the room, and she could have sworn she heard an “Oooh!”—undoubtedly from Ean.

After that awkward silence of sorts, Naoko continued with the mostly one-sided conversation.

“Anyway, I would like to do something today. I hope you don't mind going on a quick field trip to New York because there’s a Broadway show that I want to go see.”

Jopi raised an eyebrow. “Really? Broadway? I didn’t know you liked Broadway!” She began to look excited. “I love broadway! Oh, it’s so awesome!”

Suika attempted to say something but backed down.

Ean, however, did the exact opposite. She started to spaz out.

“Oh-em-geezies! We’re going to America? We’re going to America! Eeeee!” She put her thumb and index finger under her chin, looking smug. “And I know that Suika already asked this, but can we please go to Cali, too?”

Naoko narrowed her eyes until they were slits. “No.” She said it firmly. “Not today.”

Finally, Suika spoke up. “Um, guys? The only reason why I wanted to go there was because Drew just got back from his vacation in Australia.”

Everybody’s mouths dropped open, and if you listened carefully, you could hear Ean mutter “Fucking hell!” under her breath.

Miharu’s mouth may have dropped, but she was beyond unimpressed.

“So you finally said his real name,” she mused.

Suika shrugged. “Yeah.” Her stoic facade suddenly melted away like plastic on fire. “I’m still a little embarrassed about worshiping him, but it’s official. Over the weekend, I looked up all there is to know about him. I now love Drew—er, um—Flugle! Yeah, Flugle—what Mimo calls him—more than Chris.”

“It’s about time!” Ean huffed.

I knew she was a huge fan, Miharu thought. But worshiping him!? That’s fucking insane. I’m scared.

It was Naoko’s turn to clear her throat now. “Can we get going now?”

Like the true leader she was, the girl stood up and surrounded Naoko (not in a scary way though).

“Thank you. The show is gonna start soon. I’m getting extremely impatient. Ding! A sin for myself.”

Thus, rather reluctantly, the girls drew (tee-hee!) their hands together in a circle, and with Naoko’s teleportation power, they were off.

★

The place they ended up teleporting to was on Broadway, which felt pretty obvious to Miharu. I’m assuming we’re going to see the show there?

The girls followed Naoko into a line that was already stretching out for about a mile or so on the sidewalk, and Miharu sighed. She was considering using her reality warping powers to make the time pass, but she decided against it as she had never actually been to New York before so she felt like she should take in the surroundings instead.

Meanwhile, Naoko was acting pretty out of character, as she looked mildly excited about the show. “Yessss, I can’t believe we’re here! I’m super excited! The last Broadway show I went to was when I was eight!”

Ean raised her eyebrows and also acted out of character. “Yeah, that’s cool and all but I’m gonna wait in this long-ass line for, like, ever and also—do you even have tickets?”

“Shhhh,” Naoko hushed and gestured for the girls to form a group huddle.

“I would like Suika to summon some legit-looking tickets and Miharu to warp the workers’ brains so they think five seats near the front are for us.”

Miharu sweat-dropped. “Umm okay, buuut—whatever happened to ‘personal gain’ and all that?”

Naoko blinked. “Ah. You’re right. Well—” The senior pivoted around her heels and smiled a very cute smile. “I think this time’s a good exception.”

Awww. That was surprisingly cute!

“Can we sho~p?” whined Ean. “You can like, wait in line or something while the rest of us look at some on Broadway, is that okay?”

Naoko put a finger to her chin. “Uh, sure? I’ll just text you when I’m halfway up the line so you can make those tickets, Suika.”

Suika gave her friend a thumbs up and the girls began to walk down the sidewalk, looking at shops.

While looking at the surroundings, something popped into Miharu’s mind that she completely and utterly forgot about.

Something all too important.

Yes. The Conspiracy Club. A club that she had just formed the week before, one that always met on Mondays at her house, in the basement.

It was one of her greatest achievements, in her opinion.

The members included her, Bryan, Nick, Allie, and Tory. All they did was eat snacks in the basement and talk about theories and other paranormal stuff that they found interesting.

So, yeah. Now that she remembered, she suddenly wanted to be there much more than someplace in New York that she could, in theory, go to any time she wanted.

I don’t wanna disappoint my friends.

Right as Miharu slid her phone out of her handbag, it ended up being grabbed by Ean and dragged to some fancy-schmancy-looking store called Forever 21.

Oh, God. If there’s anything I hate more than fashion and clothes, it’s a store full of them. (By the way, Miharu’s way of buying new clothes was being dragged to a clothing store by her mom every four months).

Oh, and the music was pretty abysmal too.

“Hey hey, Miharu-chan! Check out this top!” Ean let go of her hand to show her a baggy white long-sleeved top that had black and white stripes on it.

Miharu’s face was flat. “Nice.”

She was not impressed.

A little more lolling around, Miharu found that she was bored out of her mind. Being in a clothes store felt akin to sitting in class and listening to a boring-ass lecture about conjugations or something, it was that boring.

Miharu did consider leaving, but she didn’t want to get lost in a city that she was remarkably unfamiliar with, so she decided to stick around.

This is the worst endurance test ever.

A minute after she thought that, Miharu spoke up.

“Hey, guys?”

The girls stopped looking at a bunch of chunky bracelets and looked up at her.

“I’m gonna teleport back to Naoko and do the thing that she wanted me to do, and then I’m gonna go back to my house. I just remembered that I have something important to do this afternoon.”

A look of concern grew on Jopi’s face. “Um, okay? That’s a bummer, but I get it. We’ll let you know how the show is after it’s done.”

Miharu smiled and nodded. “Thanks. See ya!”

And with that, the reality warper went to an isolated area of the store and teleported beside the building where the musical was being held and met back up with Naoko. After doing a little warping in the ticket master’s brain and on the computer that was in front of him, Miharu was off.

★

Miharu was at her house, in her bedroom, more specifically. The time was how it was before the girls left for New York, so she had plenty of time to spare to change out of her school uniform into some comfortable casual clothes. After getting out some snacks for her clubmates, she texted them all individually to tell them that their meeting was starting at ten.

A little more than ten minutes later, she heard knocking at the door and ran down the stairs to open it.

“Coming!” she yelled, mainly because her parents weren’t home yet.

Thump, thump thump.

Ka-chack.

What she was greeted with were the faces of four foreigners, which made Miharu grin with joy.

“Hey,” she said in an unusually cheerful voice.

“Hey,” replied Allie, who smiled back, albeit wonky. (She was never really good with smiling.) “How are you? Oh my God, today was so crazy, Miharu! Nick got a black eye!”

“I sure did,” the young man replied, pointing to the injury that now occupied his face. “It still hurts like hell, too.”

“The guy who did it is totally a psychopath,” Tory continued, her sharp features settled in a serious expression.

“We’ve even got proof!” Bryan said, hyper about the situation for some reason. “We’re gonna catch this guy!”

Miharu nodded as her friends were filling her in on the situation. Once the clubmates filed into the house, she shut the door and locked the deadbolt.

“Aw man, you have Doritos! Sweet!” The boy who wasn’t Drew said, a little too happy about a simple snack. “I like that you’ve got Blue Ranch, too. Those are the best!”

“They sure are,” Miharu replied, grinning.

After the teens picked out their snacks and drinks, they all headed into the basement, where the real fun was going to begin.

Ka-thunk. Miharu closed the basement door and cleared her throat dramatically.

“Okay, everyone! Let the meeting begin!” She made sure to do a big, sweeping arm motion as she said that at the top of the stairs.

Allie raised her hand, looking like she wanted to start the meeting. “I think we should talk about that Brent guy possibly being a psychopath.”

“Possibly!?” Tory sputtered. “More like totally! And Brent is his name? Fitting for a jerk like him.”

As the teens began to discuss the possibly-yet-total psychopath, Miharu got out her phone to make sure she didn’t have any texts from her friends.

That was when Allie got all up in her face.

“Woah!” she exclaimed. “What’s that?!”

Miharu jerked up and showed the tech item in her hand to the excited girl.

“Uh, it’s a smartphone.”

She then remembered something.

I never did tell them.

Her friends weren’t actually real. In fact, the week before she manipulated reality so that she could form this club and invite them to it.

The foreign teens in particular were from this short-lived TV show from 2003 called Black Sash. The only reason Miharu knew what it was was because one day, she found a bunch of old tapes (as in VHS tapes) in her mom’s bedroom closet and decided to watch them. She, for whatever reason, liked the characters so much (except for the mullet-haired guy) that she brought them to life with her powers.

During the time that she’d spent with them, she thought they all seemed super nice and chill. And, in the mother of all coincidences, Drew Fuller (aka Flugle, aka Chris) was in a few of the episodes as Nick, so she technically had The Man, The Myth, The Legend himself in her house. (Oh, and she was able to communicate with them because her mom was from America, making her bilingual, as her dad was from Japan and she knew both languages.)

Innyway, back to the whole cell phone debacle.

“How neat!” Allie squealed. “It looks so futuristic, too! Can I touch it?!”

Miharu was reluctant at first, but she gave it to the blonde teen to ogle over anyway.

“So… are we going to continue talking about the theory or what?” asked Nick, fidgeting in his seat.

“Actually,” she said coolly. “I’m going to tell you guys a story really quick if you don’t mind. Um… Allie, phone.”

“Awww. Fine, fine.” Allie pouted, then gave it back to her.

“Thanks. Anywho, um…”

★

By the time she was done telling her Black Sash pals the truth, her mom was already home. Luckily, just like last time, she never did question why there were four American teenagers speaking fluent Japanese, wearing outdated clothing and hairstyles, and saying outdated slang in her basement.

But besides that, the four kids were so fascinated by the future, as opposed to their own timeline, that Miharu agreed for them to stay in 2016, and to go to the high school that the original CDAC is currently going to. (Something told her that it was for the best.) She even made them a small house to stay in near her own.

She was just that kind.

★

The next day, Miharu came up with a brilliant idea—but also one that could be potentially destructive.

She was going to sneak into the older CDAC’s school during lunch to introduce Nick to Mimori.

It was pretty simple, actually: She’d just morph her body into a high schooler’s, complete with their school’s uniform (Yoshima High School), and teleport in during lunchtime, Nick holding her hand as she was doing that.

BAM. Instant chaos.

★

Mimori wasn’t really looking forward to lunch as much anymore since she didn’t have her lunch hour with as many of her friends as she used to.

Thank God Kasumi at least has lunch with me. At least it’s someone!

Today’s lunch in particular was an ordinary one—in fact, it was pretty boring, besides her and Kasumi watching YouTube Poops on her phone (Kasumi’s phone, that is).

However, that was until she felt someone’s presence behind her, so she turned around and looked.

H-huh?!

“But… how?” she accidentally said aloud.

Kasumi elbowed her hard.

Then, Flugle(!!!) spoke.

“I hope you don’t mind if I stand next to you guys,” he apologized in his beautifully soft voice. “My friends aren’t at this lunch.”

“Nah, that’s fine,” Kasumi said casually before Mimori could make a stupid outburst.

Drew shouldn’t have been there, he really shouldn’t have.

This Drew looked just like he did back when he was on Black Sash for three short episodes, placing his age at twenty-two. (Dawson’s Casting, ya know?) The weirdest thing, however, was that he was wearing the Yoshima High School male’s uniform.

Oh, and the fact that he was apparently attending said high school.

Mimori took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down as best as possible before speaking. “So, um, what’s your name? You seem new here.”

Flugle chuckled. “Yeah, you could say that. My name’s Nick Reed. Second year. And you two are…?”

“Kasumi Nakayama, first-year. And this is-—”

“MIMORI HAMASAKI! F-FIR-FIRST-YEAR!”

Kasumi rolled her eyes. “Sorry. My friend here has Tourette’s.”

Mimori pouted. “Do not!”

“Do too! Why did you just shout out of the middle of nowhere?” An incredibly smug look formed on her face, one that made Mimori want to slap her across the face.

Mimori glanced at Flugle again, still freaked out. He looked beyond amused, watching the two girls duke it out.

★

Meanwhile, towards the back of the cafeteria, Miharu was watching the three teens chat amongst each other. Nick predictably stood out like a really pretty sore thumb, being taller than probably 99% of the population of the school, which amused her greatly.

Alright. It’s my time to shine.

“Here we go,” she said quietly as she made her way toward the group.

“Hey, Nick! What’s up?"

It was simple but super effective.

“Oh. Hey, Miharu. I’m doing good. You?”

“Oh, you know. Pretty good. Heh! So, um. How’s your first day here, and who are these people?”

“School’s fine. These girls are hilarious, I’m telling you!” (Oh, and by the way—yes, she did give him the ability to speak in Japanese.)

Miharu chortled. “Nice. Nice to see you, Mimori and Kasumi!” She then looked at a pretend watch on her wrist. “Welp, looks like I’ve gotta evacuate the dancefloor. Bye!”

“Uh, bye?”

As Miharu left in a (pretend) hurry, she could hear, however, Mimori and Kasumi loudly whispering to each other.

“Hey, Mimori—Do you think that’s the same Miharu from Naoko’s club?”

“Um, yes! Who else would it be?!”

Miharu laughed to herself and teleported out from behind a pillar.