Book Book Book Book Book

As if on cue, the bell rang in the distance, marking the end of lunch.

Haruko stomped her foot and tilted her head upwards. "Gah! What's his problem?"

Whose problem? Time?

I laid the book in the middle of the table like an ancient text placed in a museum display case. We would have some reading to get done after classes ended. I took one last glance at the cover, a young girl standing proud, and my mind started to unravel a few old the details.

An eerie similarity between this fictional character and the girl standing in front of me started to emerge. I was probably exaggerating it in my head, but they did share a lot of traits. Maybe this is one of those psychological biases. The mere exposure effect? Comparison illusion? Familiarity heuristic? If any of those are right, I need to take psychology next year.

The door to the clubroom rattled a bit, followed by a sturdy knocking, "The bell rang, I'm not sure if you can hear it from in there." It was Takamoto's voice muffled through the wood.

Haruko flipped the lock and swung the door to reveal Takamoto standing outside, looking rather displeased. I guess he had to eat lunch alone, huh?

"Did anyone try to sneak in?" Haruko asked.

"There wasn't a soul in sight," Takamoto said.

Then, Haruko leaned against the door frame, looming over top of him. "You weren't eavesdropping were you?"

He shook his head. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Good work, Tako-moto.

Fast forward to the last bell of the day and we had all made our way back to the clubroom, except for our dear octopus friend. He'd informed me of a promise to cover for someone's cleanup duty; they had a sports meet or something. Honestly, he was the type to make that sort of promise, but I still suspected it was an excuse to get away from "keep watch" duty, not that I blamed him.

Haruko and I had arrived at the same time. Sato was already there. I had half expected her to pull the drapes closed again but they'd been left untouched. The book remained ominously placed in the center of the table. Haruko made a beeline and picked it up right there.

"It looks so… lame. Is this really it?"

"You tell me," I said.

She fluttered through the pages briefly, and then flipped back to the start and began reading in silence. I hovered over her shoulder for a bit, trying to read along. It's kind of hard with how far you're holding it from your face—"Would you just put it on the table?"

Haruko and I crowded around the book for a good 20 minutes, making our way well into the first chapter. The more we read through, the more my suspicions of potential similarities were proven correct. This fictional character was awfully similar to Haruko.

She nudged my shoulder and smiled, her eyebrows wiggling around on her forehead.

Oh good lord, what is it?

"See? You're exactly the same as the main character," she said, flapping the book in her hand.

"What? What are you talking about? The narrator?" I grabbed the book out of her hand and scanned back over the narration.

"Exactly that! I told you."

I flipped through some more pages. "He's just sarcastic. Plus, he's got that better-than-you attitude."

She looked at me in silence. Oh come on, that is not what you think of me. "Look, if anyone shares a similarity, it's you and the girl he's ogling over."

Her head tilted for a moment and she plucked the book out of my fingers, flipping through a couple of pages. "No."

"What do you mean, no? She's this crazy weirdo who came into class on the first day and—I mean, look at her!" I spun the book around in her hands. "The way she's standing on the cover is the exact same pose you had when you walked in yesterday!"

She analyzed the cover just enough to satisfy me and then smirked. "Crazy weirdo. So that's how you think of me?"

Did you not hear a single word I said?

"I can't deny the superficial similarities, but that girl and I have absolutely nothing in common. Besides our attitudes," she said.

How is that superficial??

"I mean, I read this when I was little, so she probably rubbed off on me growing up, y'know?" She wiggled her head and flopped the book back on the table.

"We're getting off track here. How does any of this, at all, whatsoever, prove you're God?" I asked.

Haruko gasped audibly, "Isn't it obvious?! It's because you're exactly like the main character! Wait wait, look."

She flicked through all the way to the end (spoiler alert) and spread it open on the table. "This part! So she's ending the world, right?"

I read through a paragraph to jog my memory. "I guess? Isn't that what the whole book's about? She's got powers but doesn't know about them."

Haruko's smile kept growing.

"What?"

"What kind of powers are they?"

"What kind? I don't know, they're—Oh." They're god-like.

"See!" She tapped at the page repeatedly.

"Yeah but that doesn't mean you're—Are you trying to say you have god-like powers and don't know about them? How is this even remotely equivalent to being a god?"

"Just God!" she corrected.

The sheer ridiculousness was dawning on me. My unimaginable frustration towards the logical leaps and bounds she took to come to this conclusion, the pure and unfiltered ire seeping from my fingertips, the carbonation of my soul ready to burst through my skin, all of it came to a sudden end. And I started to laugh.

Dropping my head to my hands and stifling my amusement, I glanced up to see Haruko's cheery cheeks glaring me right in the face. I could swear that grin lit the room up a hundred times more than the old man in the sky.

"So, do you believe her?"

Woah, I almost forgot you were there. It was Sato, from the other side of the table. Wait, isn't that the first time you've spoken to me?

"Well… I can't exactly say I believe her, but I can see her point. Kind of?"

"Aha! You admit it, I'm God!" she said, beaming with pride. "You hear that Noiji? You've got a fellow follower!"

"A what? Follower? She's your follower? Since when?"

"Hmm." Haruko tapped her nose thoughtfully. "Kindergarten?"

I guess that explains why she calls Sato by her first name.

Sufficiently satisfied with my recruitment into her church, Haruko called it a day. She snatched up the book we'd been circled around for the past half hour and stuffed it in her bag, claiming she needed it for research purposes. I guess that excuse works for a bunch of different things, huh? Leaving Sato behind in the clubroom, Haruko and I left the school in the same direction. As it turned out, we both took the eastbound train.

While we walked, Haruko kept blabbering on about something completely non-sensical. I think it had to do with how the Buddha wouldn't have appreciated most of today's religious practices, but I wasn't exactly taking notes. Instead, I thought about the percentage chance for a high school boy to find himself in this situation. I'd never expected to take the train home with a girl on my second day, let alone someone this unhinged.

In fairness, I was starting to get a better feel for Haruko. Knowing Sato had been her friend for so long was reassuring, even though a small part of me still worried about being asked to hide a dead body. The more I got to know Haruko, the more I got the impression she had things under control.

It wasn't too much later though, I would discover something even Haruko hadn't predicted. While we sat on the train together, in a rare silence, someone was watching us. And not just on the train. At school. In the hallways. By the club buildings. Inside and out of the classroom. Someone had paid great attention to each and every one of our interactions. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd tracked our scent all the way down to the riverbank.

And so, as if the entire Arakawa River were about to be lifted up into the sky and dropped right on top of my head, I was woefully unprepared for the greatest torrential downfall the world had ever seen.