But for the time being, I was far more concerned about how the phone in my hand wouldn’t stop vibrating after the man fell silent.
Slowly, reluctantly, I shot it a look. There I saw a trembling Ene, her usual light-blue tones now replaced by a crimson red, right up to her earlobes.
“Whoa, what’s up with—”
“Dahhhhhh!! Yeaaaggghhhh!! Just stop! It’s nothing! Don’t talk to me!!”
For a moment, the room froze. I noticed the man pulsate for a moment, startled, in the edge of my vision. Not even that was enough to change his expression.
Even for someone as used to her behavior as I was, watching Ene’s emotions bubble so bluntly to the surface like this was a first. It riveted me to the spot.
Ene was lying down onscreen, hands on her head and legs flailing furiously in the air. Then, suddenly noticing my gaze, she looked up, plastering a pained, sweaty smile on her face.
“…Please? Master?”
She was trying to compose herself, but the result was just an awkward silence. I didn’t know if this was her attempt to act like everything was normal or not, but it didn’t really work.
It was just as awkward for her, judging by the red tones that gradually reappeared on Ene’s face.
“Uh, is this a program bug or something…?”
I tried whacking my cell phone a few times. It sullenly whirred in response.
“Who do you think I am, master?! I’m not like that!!”
Watching Ene loudly bellow her surprise and shock convinced me she was in decent enough health. But if it wasn’t a bug, then what? Some kind of cold…? Okay, not a cold with her, but…
She was always more than a little weird, but today she was diving into completely new depths of weird.
“It, it’s a free country! Everyone’s got a right to get upset sometimes, right?! He looks a little bit like someone I knew, so I…Okay, I guess I said some weird things, or remembered them or…anticipated something…?”
“I don’t get what you’re saying, Ene, but is this, like, you getting all excited ’cause he looks like one of your kind?”
My observation was enough to quell her mumbled ramblings. She looked dumbfounded, or exasperated, or something else I couldn’t even gauge.
“Dahh…It’s getting so obvious why nobody ever wants to hang with you, master. You’ll probably be like that for the rest of your life. Well done.”
“Huh?! Did I really say something that bad?! And why am I that unpopular? Tell me why!”
“Um, could you just not talk for a while, m(dis)aster?”
“Hey! You just called me a disaster! You tried to kind of mix it into the end of the sentence, but I still heard it!”
“Shut up! You know I have ways of making you not talk to me—”
Just as Ene wrapped up her latest puffed-cheek threat, a loud clang! echoed from the examination room, the one with the boy who the white-haired young man had been cradling at the park.
It was accompanied by the sound of assorted medical equipment crashing down on the floor.
“Gah! Master! That sounds bad!”
“Yeah, I know…!”
I strode across the hall with a single step and opened the door, only to find the boy carted in earlier on the floor.
He had rumpled brown hair and a white vest, and judging by his size, I surmised him to be eleven or so. Thermometers and other medical equipment were strewn around him, and even as he tried to stand, lifting his torso up from all fours, he was having a rough time stringing the required motions together.
“Hey…Hey! What’re you doing?! I dunno what your problem is, but you gotta stay in bed…!”
I crouched next to him, extending a hand of support. He slapped it away, trembling in fear.
Taking a clear look at his face for the first time, I saw that it was covered in tears. His eyes were dark and flushed, as if faced with some unspeakable catastrophe, and were a deep jet-black in color.
“Who the hell’re you…? Stay out…of my way…!”
The boy wobbled a bit as he stood up but finally managed the feat as he turned toward the door.
“Whoa, wait a second! You can’t just go out by yourself!”
“Hiyori…I gotta get to Hiyori…”
The boy sounded delirious as he muttered to himself, paying my warning no mind as he left the room.
I followed him out, only to find him face-to-face with the white-haired youth beyond the door.
“This is your fault…It never would’ve happened without you…”
He stared the young man down as he spoke. Tears began to fall down his face anew.
It was finally enough to make the white-haired guy betray at least an attempt at emotion. He looked confused, unsure what to do next and unable to articulate a response.
“That’s it. I’m going…I have to go…”
The moment he stopped speaking, the boy turned his body around and tore off, running full-bore down the hospital corridor. With the lights dimmed for the night, it wasn’t long before he began to blend into the darkness.
“M-master, what’re you doing?! He’s gonna be in serious trouble if you don’t follow him!”
“Uh, y-yeeaaahhh, I know, but my legs are…”
My legs, now about as sturdy as a pair of day-old celery stalks, picked this exact moment to cramp up on me.
“Daahhh!! Come on, master! What are you, a newborn deer or something?! How can you be so useless at a time like this…?!”
“Hey, lay the hell off! This is all you guys’ fault anyway! I’m not some gofer, you know! I’m more delicate than that!”
The boy fell totally out of sight as we continued our inane debate.
If he kept running like that, he would be beyond the hospital grounds in a few minutes. Once he did, that was it. There was no guessing where he’d go.
“We’re probably too late for the nurse-call button…Look, man, could you at least try to help out a little, too?! I don’t know what’s up between the two of you, but you’re related to him, right?! You wanna see him just run away like that?!”
The white-haired man nodded to himself, chastised, as he spoke in his usual slow-paced monotone.
“Yeah…I made Hibiya really angry…I gotta do something…Can, can you come with me?”
The constant tempo changes to his voice were starting to aggravate me, but at least I knew that boy’s name now. That, and this guy seemed to appreciate, at long last, the danger in the situation. There was even a slight suggestion of suspense to his slack-jawed expression from before.
“Uh, yeah, sure, I don’t mind, but my legs aren’t in very good shape right—”
“Come on, master, you’re acting like you need a handicapped license plate or something. You’re just not getting enough exercise, is all.”
“—but I guess I could run a little more, if you…Uh?”
The white-haired young man very efficiently cut me off midsentence as he drew right up to me and gave me an overwhelming feeling of weightlessness, the likes of which I hadn’t felt in years.
“Wh-whoooaaa?!”
The man, picking me up as easily as a mother playing upsy-daisy with her toddler, propped me over a shoulder.
“Sorry…This might hurt a little.”
The moment he finished, there was an explosion, a shock wave, then the sight of the hospital hallway whizzing past my eyes.
It took about half a second for me to realize that the man had planted his feet down and sprung forward a good several dozen yards in one bound.
“Yaaaaggghhhh!!”
I lost my voice for a moment, but soon after, I found a scream leaping out from the pit of my stomach.
“L-l-let…let…me…Ooof!”
My feeble attempts at forming intelligible speech were silenced by the ensuing touchdown, leaving me gasping for air instead.
“S-sorry! Hang on just a bit more.”
The next moment, the scene jarringly shifted again. This time, instead of high-speed
forward motion, I noticed the floor zooming away from me. He was jumping straight upward this time. The realization almost made me faint.
I turned toward the phone I clutched in my hand in an attempt to stay conscious. Ene was onscreen, holding a cushion over her head in preparation for the next landing as she kept her eyes tightly shut.
“What’s the point of thaaaaaaaaat?!!”
Just as I shouted, I heard a sudden whoosh of air as we soared into someplace notably chillier. The roof of the hospital was now below us, the open skylight we zipped through already small and distant.
This must be what skydiving feels like. Or, actually, it felt more like that roller coaster I lost my lunch on a few scant hours ago. They were roughly the same in that, once we reached our next landing point, I was undoubtedly going to be slingshotted back up, or down, or sideways toward more dazed nausea.
“Found him…!”
The man readjusted his grip on my waist as he whispered to himself, moving me from above his shoulders to underneath one side to brace me for the landing.
I was greeted by another zero-gravity experience for a moment. Then, the ground began to approach us.
“We’re gonna die if we fall from this high up,” I prayed to myself. “Thanks for everything, world.”
Then I shut my eyes, copying Ene’s pointless act.
Then, with a violent bang, I felt an impact—one far lighter than the splat I expected. It was nonetheless more than enough to bring my thoroughly agitated stomach to its knees. Once he recovered from the landing, the young man flashed me an ever-so-slightly concerned look.
“You okay?”
“Pfaaahh!!” I whooped loudly in response, still cradled by his arm.
“Ur…urrgghhh…”
…Then I got an inside look at my stomach contents. So much for dinner.
“Aagghh!! Watch your aim, master! That’s gross!!”
“Huff…huff…You could at least pretend you’re worried about me…”
“I’m sorry. I figured we needed to hurry. I must have scared you…”
How many people were there in the world capable of leaping the length of a football field into the air just because they were a bit pressed for time?
I removed myself from his grasp and gave the young man a sideways look as I attempted to regain my balance. The eyes on his desolate face shone a very light pink color.
“Those eyes…There’s something up with you, too, isn’t there? This is just getting ridiculous…”
I had suspected something even before this performance, but between his eye color and that shockingly unadvised behavior, he must be “special” the way Momo and the Mekakushi-dan guys were.
My previous experiences with Momo and Ene had given me a false sense of security. I figured I could deal with well near anything by now. But running into all these “special” cases in a single twenty-four-hour period? This was nuts.
And what is with those eyes, anyway? I know I shouldn’t let my idle curiosity make me even further involved with him, but…
“Who…are you…?”
“Master! That kid’s getting away!”
My attention hurriedly turned toward the direction Ene pointed. At the end of the long path between the hospital’s main gate and front entrance, I could see the boy from earlier running away.
He was far enough that he’d easily make it through the gate before very long.
“Hibiya…I’m going to lose you again…!”
The young man placed a hand on my shoulder as he spoke. I knew what was coming next.
“Aaahhhh!! No, no, no! I can’t do that anymore! Seriously, stop!”
“Ah…sorry. I won’t.”
The youth, startled by my outburst, removed his hand. I was freed from another ride on his one-man scream machine, which I appreciated, but he was right—we were about to lose the boy. Once he made it to the city streets, we’d have some serious issues.
“Look, just stop him yourself! We’ll catch up with you afterward!”
“I, I can’t! I’m too scared to do it by myself…nngh…”
The movie-star man of action I knew a second ago was gone, replaced by an indecisive, namby-pamby coward.
“Yeah, but if he gets away…”
I flashed another look at the front gate as I attempted to give chase. My legs, as expected, refused to cooperate.
Just as I was ready to give up, a certain fact popped into mind. My eyes shot back toward the phone in my hand.
“Hey, Ene! Call up Momo for me!”
“Eh? Your sister? …Oh! I gotcha! Comin’ right up!”
With an “Aha!” clap of the hands, Ene made a cross in the air with her fingers. The screen switched over to phone mode.
After about two-and-a-half rings, the screen flashed “Connected” in green.
“Uh, hello? Shintaro? Did Ene wrap up whatever she had to do?”
“Yeah, but, uh, we’re kinda in the middle of some other crap right now. Where are you right now, Momo?”
“Me? Uhh…Hey, boss, where are we at the moment? Oh, thanks. Um, Shintaro? So, uh, we’re under this tree that’s right next to the front gate of this hospital…Whoa, who’s that kid? Man, look at him run.”
Momo’s boneheadedness notwithstanding, I saw that my hunch was right.
“Yeah, him! Stop that kid for me! Now!”
“What?! Why?!”
“It’s urgent, all right?! Just do it!”
“Urgent?! Ummm…All right! I’ll try!”
CALL COMPLETE flashed in red onscreen. Momo had shut off on her end.
“Do you think your sister will be all right?”
“Well, she’s kind of an idiot, but once she moves, she really moves.”
“Really…? I suppose we have something in common.”
Squinting, I could see the boy right by the gate, just about through. Then, just before reaching it, he lost his balance, as if tripping over something.
The next moment, I saw Momo appear, practically out of nowhere. The boy, stunned by this sudden development, attempted to wriggle his way out of her grasp, but Momo’s grip was too much for him to escape.
“Whoa! Nice job, Momo! Ooh, man, she’s practically smothering him…”
“Yeah, looks like she roadblocked him right when she had to. Better get over there quick, though…”
“I would if you weren’t so slow, master.”
Ignoring Ene’s hushed stab at me, I made my way to the gate, where I saw my sister all but suffocating the child as she struggled to keep hold of him.
“Ah! Shintaro! Who is this kid…Ow! Will you stop squirming like that…!”
“Thanks, Momo. Hey! Kid! I don’t know what’s going on, but you’ve got to calm down, all right?! What do you think the hospital’s gonna do when they find you missing?”
“Whaaa? This kid’s a hospital patient?!”
Momo’s surprise made her relax her iron grip just enough for the boy to slip out. He took a deep breath, the redness still evident on his face, but his breathing was still ragged as he stared Momo down.
“What are you doing, you fat old granny?! Why’re you gettin’ in my way?!”
Momo stared back blankly for a moment as her brain went through the slow process of parsing the boy’s words. Once it completed the program and output the results, her face turned just as red as his.
“H-huhhh?! F-fat old…What was that?!”
“What, am I speakin’ a foreign language?! I said, you’re a fat! Old! Granny!! I’m in a hurry right—”
Before the boy could take off again, Momo reacted before anyone else, grabbing him by the hood and thrusting him back toward her.
“Look…you’re sick, all right?! You can’t just run from the hospital like this!! That and I’m not a…f-fat…”
Momo was shaking, her breathing audibly quicker. That blow must have hit home.
Flashing another glare at Momo, the boy pulled his hood back up and turned back toward her.
“I tol
d you…!! Stay out of my way! I’m not sick, and I’m not a patient here!! If anyone needs a doctor, it’s you, gran! You look like a cow! That’s gotta be some kinda disease!”
The boy attempted to point toward Momo’s chest. I heard Ene snicker “Pfft! …Uh, sorry,” from the phone in my hand, not to mention the sound of Momo’s brain literally crackling with rage.
“I, I stopped you because I was worried about you!! You stupid little…!”
Momo, her face bright red as the grade-school kid brought her to the brink of tears, made another grab at the boy. This time, the back of Momo’s own hoodie was pulled back by some invisible force, stopping her bull rush before it started.
“L-lemme go, boss! This kid’s a villain! A total villain! The Mekakushi-dan needs to take action! Let me goooooo…!!”
The effect of the boy’s verbal barrage, coupled by the sight of Momo bucking like a rodeo bull, made me snort despite myself. Momo must have heard it. Instantly, her eyes bore into my face.
“What are you laughing about, Shintaro?! Who is this freak?! Why do I have to put up with all this crap?!”
“Uh…Okay, okay. I’m sorry, all right? Chill out. Hey…your name’s Hibiya, right? What are you in such a hurry for, anyway? Do you have to go right now?”
Hibiya stared at me. He showed no signs of running now, but it was clear by his sneer that he still viewed us as the enemy. He spoke in a calm deadpan.
“…There’s this girl. I think she may have died. She’s really important to me…but I was the only one who got away. I have to go help her, now!”
Everyone within earshot gasped.
Even Momo, seething with primal rage a second ago, looked on in shock, her mouth still half-open.
“Um…hang on a sec. She’s dead…? Were you both in some kind of accident? ’Cause if so, you should really talk to the police or a doctor or something first, right? Where were you planning to go by yourself?”
Before Ene forced me toward the hospital, I saw no sign of an auto accident at the site where we first came across Hibiya. He had no noticeable injuries, and if you looked at him, it didn’t seem like he suffered from anything more serious than heat exhaustion. That was my take, at least.
The Children Reason Page 4
