4

The following day was Monday, July 24th. Kei met up with Haruki just before noon, made a save, and took action.

He called up Kusakabe Shouta’s house, introduced himself as a friend of Nonō Seika, and invited Shouta out to a nearby park. He asked Haruki to go find Nonō and explain the situation to her while he went to the park alone.

Kusakabe Shouta was a short, skinny boy with a light complexion. Everything about him, from his eyes to his skin to his hair, seemed pale. If he lined up next to the white-skinned Nonō, they just might have looked like siblings.

With a small smile, Kei introduced himself. “Sorry to drag you all the way out here. I’m Asai Kei.”

Looking nervous, Shouta responded, “What… do you want, exactly?”

“I’ve been tasked with investigating your recently acquired ability. I’m working with the Administration Bureau through my school’s Service Club.”

Shouta gasped, his eyes widening and flicking around nervously.

Kei slowly and deliberately explained the events of the three days that had been reset. “Some time around 8 PM tonight, you were going to vanish before Nonō-san’s eyes. You would leave her with the declaration that you were off to gather some moon dust.”

Shouta’s eyes dropped slightly as he bit his lip.

“I’m not here to get in your way. Our only goal is to figure out what your ability does. We just want to be sure it doesn’t put you or anyone else in danger,” Kei assured him.

The boy raised his face, responding with a sharp glare. “I have the ability to go to the moon.”

“And you’ve used this ability before?”

“I have. I went to the moon. There were no problems.”

“How long did it take you to get to the moon and back?”

“Two and a half days, give or take.”

Two and a half days, huh? “So, if you used your ability right now, you wouldn’t get back until the morning of the 27th?”

“Yes, exactly.”

July 27th, the day Shouta was scheduled to move away.

Kei spoke slowly and deliberately. “Sorry, but you’re lying.”

Shouta shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

Unfortunately for Shouta, Kei had prepared a few questions for the boy’s parents before resetting. “You’ve never been away from home for two entire days before.” If an elementary schooler had disappeared for two entire days, his parents would have been sure to notice.

Shouta shook his head. “Nuh-uh. It was probably just so long ago that my mom forgot.”

Another lie. “Your school performed latent ability tests in June. It is nearly impossible for you to have gotten your ability before then.”

Kei sighed inwardly. Ah, what am I even doing? Grilling an elementary schooler wasn’t going to accomplish anything. Surely there was a more peaceful resolution. “Please, Shouta-kun. All I want to know is the true nature of your ability.”

Shouta hung his head in silence for a long time.

Suddenly, he said, “There’s sand on the moon,” and turned around to run away.

“Wait!” Kei yelled, reflexively thrusting his hand out. He managed to grab the sleeve of the boy’s T-shirt.

Shouta looked back at him in surprise—

And disappeared before Kei’s eyes.

The texture of the boy’s T-shirt lingered on Kei’s fingers. All else about him had vanished under the moonless summer sky.

✽

At that moment, Haruki Misora was standing in front of a small shrine. She was there at Kei’s request to inform Nonō of the events that had taken place over the following three days. She had already finished her explanation and had nothing else to do, but was expecting Kei to show up later, so she had decided to pass the time watching all the cats.

Haruki rather enjoyed the bold and audacious face the cats made, looking as though everything in the world was bothersome and not worth their time. She crouched down in front of a cat, twirling her finger in front of its face, but the cat paid her no mind at all, yawning widely.

“You’re really interesting,” Nonō commented.

Haruki turned around to face the other girl.

Nonō was sitting on the wooden steps up to the shrine, resting her chin on her knees. “Do you do that no matter who you’re with?”

“Do I do what?”

“Look so, you know, indifferent. It’s like nothing could ever possibly interest you,” Nonō said, an amused smile spreading across her face.

Haruki tilted her head slightly. It was true that she had no interest in Nonō, but saying that out loud could only serve to offend the girl. Not knowing what else to do, she kept her mouth shut.

Nonō spoke back up. “Like, just now, that cat didn’t respond to your fingers, but it didn’t make any difference to you, did it?”

Haruki nodded. “I had no expectations towards the cat in the first place.”

“You didn’t want to play with him or anything?”

Haruki assumed that the “him” was the cat. She wasn’t aware of its gender. “Perhaps I did, but the cat has its own prerogative.”

“I guess so. I can agree with that, but it’s just that kind of thought that makes you so unique and interesting.”

“Were we not expressing the same thought?”

“Not at all. In my case, I don’t see cats as any different than people. I have respect for the cat’s place, so I let them draw their own lines.”

“I am the same.”

“No, you just don’t care. I doubt that you really like cats much at all.”

“I have a collection of cat merchandise.”

“Oh. Didn’t expect that. You like cats?”

“That may not be the most accurate description.” She didn’t dislike them, but neither did she carry a special affection for them. However, were she forced to answer, she would say that she liked them more than not.

“Why collect all the merch, then?”

“On a whim.”

“A whim?”

“Yes.” There was a specific reason, but there was no way she’d tell anyone else about it.

The cat sitting beside Nonō began kneading its claws into the girl’s blouse. It seemed to want to climb up Nonō’s body. The girl turned her kind eyes towards the cat, watching over it with care.

“Today’s events were somewhat exceptional,” Haruki noted.

“What do you mean?”

“I was the one to explain what happened prior to the reset, rather than Kei.”

Haruki lost her own memories whenever she used a reset. Ultimately, her explanation hadn’t come from her, but from what Kei had told her. The more directly that information got passed along, the more accurate it would be. Pushing in middle men would only serve to unnecessarily confuse the message. Much like a game of telephone, the more people that were used to pass a message, the more likely the message would be distorted. Kei did not like distorted messages.

“Why’d Asai have you tell me about it, then?”

“I do not know. In this case, I believe other actions took priority over the reliability of the message.”

“What actions?”

“Swiftness, in particular. Kei is currently meeting with Kusakabe Shouta.”

“Well, couldn’t he just have waited to let me know?”

“The sooner you learned, the longer you would have to think about Kusakabe Shouta.”

The cat climbing up Nonō had reached her shoulders, and appeared unable to progress further. It mewled with a feeble, anxious sound. Nonō gently reached towards the cat and placed it comfortably atop her shoulder. The cat immediately set its sights on Nonō’s head, evidently drunk on the thrill of the chase. Another cat curled up in a ball on Nonō’s lap. It seemed Nonō would turn into a large mass of cats before long.

“I have no clue what could possibly be going through Shouta’s head,” Nonō shared.

“Is that so?”

“Do you know?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you think Asai knows?”

Haruki nodded in agreement, then an idea struck her. “That may be the reason why he sent me to speak to you in his stead.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you knew that he had the answer, you would just ask him for it, would you not?”

Nonō’s eyelids widened in apparent surprise. “So, he wants me to think it through myself?”

“I find that very likely.”

Nonō giggled. “Maybe there’s more to you than indifference after all.”

“No. Functionally speaking, I am just indifferent,” Haruki replied, waving her fingers before the cat once more.

✽

When Asai Kei got to the shrine, Nonō Seika had a cat on her head and Haruki Misora had one wrapped around her right arm. “Looks like you girls are having fun,” he remarked.

“Jealous much?” Nonō responded. As she lowered her head slightly, the cat atop it leapt off. Haruki extricated the cat that was around her arm and moved to stand beside Kei. Kei opened up the box in his right hand, revealing cream puffs from the Sangatsudou Western sweets shop.

It was 3:30 PM on a summer’s day. The three of them sat together eating cream puffs under the blindingly blue sky. The slightly tough pastries were filled to the brim with custard cream.

“These are really good,” Nonō commented.

“Yeah, they’re delicious,” Kei agreed. Haruki nodded silently.

Once the cream puffs were all gone, Kei was the first to speak up. “You heard about Shouta-kun, I presume?”

Nonō nodded, licking cream from her fingertips. “Yeah, I did.”

“Alright, then. We’re going to do as you like, Nonō-san.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you just want to forget the whole ordeal, we’ll reset again. Shouta-kun will be left to his devices, and I won’t interfere any more.”

“Is that really okay? This is a Service Club job, right?”

“It won’t be for much longer.”

“It won’t?”

“I’ve already figured out his ability. It doesn’t pose any danger.” Kei explained the details of Kusakabe Shouta’s ability.

Nonō remained silent for some time. The cat curled up in her lap opened its mouth in a wide yawn.

When Nonō did speak, it was in a defiant, brazen whisper. “Humans are such a pain in the ass.”

Kei chuckled. “That’s a pretty terrible thing to say.”

“Sure, but it counts, right? I’m a human too, after all.”

“So, you think you’re a pain in the ass?”

“No matter how hard I try, I can never pull off living as simply as a cat.”

That was good, in a way. “Personally, I like humans a lot more than cats,” Kei shared.

“It’s gotta be cats for me.”

“But you don’t hate humans, do you?”

“I dunno. I guess you could say I’m fond of a couple of them,” she replied, her expression impassive.

✽

Only a few clouds were scattered about that night. Nonō Seika and Kusakabe Shouta sat together on the steps of a small shrine, gazing into the humid summer sky. The moon was fully visible in the sky. It was just slightly past its half-moon phase, and would soon be reaching a full moon.

The two of them were talking about a white cat that had died half a year ago. A small, skinny, white-furred stray with yellow eyes that died before accomplishing its goal of reaching the moon.

Kusakabe Shouta stood up, looking directly at Nonō. Above him lay the silent, beautifully white moon. “I… I can go to the moon now, you know.”

Nonō wasn’t sure when it had all started. Perhaps it was the day Shouta discovered he would be leaving town, or the day the cat died. Perhaps it all started on the night they had first met.

But regardless of whenever it had started, Shouta said his piece under a nearly cloudless summer night. “I’ll go get some moon dust, just for that cat.” Then, he looked up at the moon.

Without a sound, he disappeared, blending into the moonlight and the summer air. It was as though he truly did set off for the moon. All that remained where he had once stood was the shimmering moonlight.

Nonō Seika closed her eyes. She smelled the grass and the warm summer air. She listened to the sounds of small insects chirping and buzzing from far away. The night was so quiet that even the slightest sounds could be made out.

Nonō Seika thought about Kusakabe Shouta. She had been doing so ever since noon.

Why did he want to go and collect moon dust? Why did he have to disappear like that?

She thought and she thought, and in the end, only one expression fit what was on her mind.

I don’t know.

She still didn’t know. But even so, she somehow understood what she had to tell him. She slowly opened her eyes.

“Shouta,” Nonō began. “I’ve been trying to think about what I need to do. At first, I was willing to accept your moon dust with a smile, if that was what it would take to satisfy you. I figured I’d tell you that the cat would’ve been happy.”

She continued her communication with the silent moonlight.

“But… maybe that isn’t right after all. I’m not entirely certain, but I get the feeling that I need to say something else.”

Her words echoed throughout the moonlit, silent night.

“I don’t know what you want from me. I really don’t know.”

She figured that would hurt most of all. But she didn’t know how else to say it.

“I don’t want moon dust. I never did. But I think that just like how I don’t understand you, maybe you don’t understand me.”

The pain would be necessary, because it had to be said.

“And I hate not being able to understand. I can’t simply shrug it off like a cat would. Probably because I’m human.”

Him disappearing before her very eyes made her feel… a little sad.

“I think that what I really want… is to know you a little better.”

If at all possible, she wanted to hear a reply.

“Come back home, Shouta.”

A lukewarm wind blew.

“When you’re not here… I feel a little more lonely,” finished Nonō Seika. Her voice echoed, eventually fading away.

Then, underneath the moon, a lone boy appeared. Tears silently rolled down his cheeks.

Nonō Seika stood up, walking directly towards Kusakabe Shouta. She stopped in front of him, smiling. “Welcome back.”

She gently laid a hand on his cheek, whispering, “You’re shivering. Was it cold on the moon?”

The boy closed his eyes. Shaking his head, he answered, “I never could… go to the moon.”

✽

Friday, July 28th, 11:30 AM. Asai Kei and Haruki Misora sat beside each other on a park bench. They were in the park with the clock that was five minutes late. Kei had never told anybody, but he was quite fond of that clock.

Any created save would expire after 72 hours. Due to that limitation, Kei and Haruki would meet up once every 72 hours to create a new save. In roughly 20 minutes, their last save, created on July 25th, would officially expire.

The park was rather empty. Two boys sat together in the sandbox, and that was it. Kei had been watching the slowly building sand mountain created between the two of them.

“If I may ask…” Haruki interjected. When Kei turned his attention toward her, she continued, “There are a few things that I still do not understand regarding Kusakabe Shouta.”

Nearly three days had passed since their involvement with the boy. Kei doubted that she had any kind of real, pressing interest in him. But she seemed interested enough to want to kill time talking about it.

“What about him?” Kei asked.

“Kusakabe Shouta’s ability ultimately had nothing to do with traveling to the moon, correct?”

“Right. It just allowed him to disappear.”

As long as nobody was the wiser, the ability to disappear may very well have been the ability to travel to the moon.

“Did that mean he was lying about his purpose to go and acquire moon dust?”

“Evidently. The moon dust being real or not was never really the issue, though.” At the end of the day, all it was about was a boy trying to find the perfect present for a girl.

Haruki tilted her head slightly. “Would it not have been more effective to pretend he traveled there and came back immediately?”

It was a fair question. He had planned to be gone for two and half days, after all. “Well, the crux of his plan relied on meeting with Nonō while the moon was out, for the effect. The fact that it finally happened on the 24th was only happenstance, really. No matter when it happened, he needed to keep the whole situation under wraps until the day he moved away.”

“Why require so much secrecy?”

“Well, he needed to hide the truth behind his ability. He couldn’t let it be known that he lied about going to the moon. In the end, he was mostly hiding from the Bureau.”

He had planned out the entire escapade with the purpose of hiding a single, almost entirely pointless lie.

“How did you discover the true nature of his ability, then?”

“Well, it’s a little bit ridiculous, actually.” He didn’t want to share it initially due to the laughably simple way he found out, but it wasn’t something he needed to hide, either. “When Shouta-kun disappeared in front of me, I was grabbing onto his T-shirt.”

“And?”

“When he vanished, I could still feel his T-shirt in my hand.”

If Shouta had really gone to the moon, such an interaction would have been impossible. So, Kei knew the boy was still there, even if he couldn’t see him.

“I understand now,” Haruki said, nodding in acceptance.

Kei checked the time on his cell phone. He had roughly ten minutes before they could save.

Just as he was slipping the phone back into his pocket, it started ringing with the notification of an incoming call. Pulling it back up showed Nonō’s name on the display. He quickly pressed the answer button, and Nonō’s voice met his ear.

“Are you hungry for anything in particular?”

It was quite a sudden interrogation, but Kei answered honestly. “I could really go for some ice cream right about now.” It was a hot day, so even just sitting on the park bench was making him sweaty.

“Gotcha, it’s on me. Long as you’re good with Häagen-Dazs, anyway.”

Kei was surprised. The whole situation was odd. He never thought he would hear the words “Häagen-Dazs” coming from Nonō of all people.

She continued, “Ask Haruki if she wants anything, too.”

Kei turned towards Haruki. She was staring at him with no particular expression. If anything, she seemed a little displeased.

Speaking into his phone, Kei asked, “What’s going on with you?”

“It’s about Shouta.”

“But he already moved away yesterday.”

“Yeah. That’s neither here nor there.”

Her tongue was as sharp as ever.

“But, I have a rule that when someone guides a lost child for me, I give them their favorite food. Last time, it was cheese,” Nonō said with a giggle.

The Boy Who Sought Moon Dust – END