CH 2.3

(3)

A wave of hot air washed over him the moment he left the hospital.

“So damn hot…” he mumbled inadvertently.

He looked behind. The girl was following right at his back. Her expression was blank as usual, as if she hadn’t noticed the change in temperature—Nah, maybe she doesn’t even feel that sensation.

For some reason, that dearth of human emotion was irritating to see.

“Come here.” Soji walked ahead, pressing her on. 

He could feel her soundless movement behind him.

The cicadas’ cries were deafening. It further fueled his irritation, despite him knowing that it was to be expected during summer.

Kotaro’s car was parked within walking distance. Meanwhile, the man himself was enjoying a smoke at the smoking area right next to it. He spotted them the moment they came over and let out a “Wow.”

“Check this beauty out.”

“Enough chatter, let’s go. We can’t just be standing around, can we?”

“You have a point.” Tapping the side of his head playfully, he snuffed out the cigarette and kept it into his portable ashtray.

The windows of Kotaro’s car were all heavily smoke-tinted. Simply getting inside greatly reduced the risk of them being noticed.

“Nothing ever fazes that granny, eh. Even when you bring an unknown creature to her, she still conducts a proper checkup.” Such was Kotaro’s opinion upon hearing of his prior discussion at the hospital. “I was totes expecting a reaction like ‘I can’t allow something which science cannot explain to exist!’, as she whips out a machine gun.”

“Don’t go expecting something like that. I don’t want to end up as swiss cheese.”

“But you see, that’s when you end up surviving somehow, due to the power of love or whatever.”

“Like hell that’s going to happen. And don’t say ‘love’, it’s nothing like that.”

“Buuut look how cute she’s become. Can’t you feel the buds of love blooming?”

“The one who looks good is Sakimi, not that thing.”

“If you’re a young, healthy man, that doesn’t matter at all to your lower half, does it?”

“That’s—” For a second, all the blood rushed up to his head, and his chest tightened. To clear the lump in his throat, he breathed in deeply and exhaled. “—not true at all.”

That’s absolutely out of the question, his words implied.

“My bad.” Seeming to notice his faux pas, Kotaro apologized.

A moment later, however, his easygoing and shady smile returned.

“Anyway, I’m glad it turned out like this. You may not be able to tell, but I was quite worried, you know?”

“About what?”

“All this time, you’ve only been helping out random scumbags, haven’t you, Mr. Ema.” He grinned crookedly. “Any normal guy out there has gotta have an ulterior motive if they’re putting their life on the line for someone. ‘Hot girls and ladies only’, so to speak. And well, sometimes things like friendship, or standing up and being a man, that ain’t so bad either.”

“What’s with the sudden spiel…”

“No, no, I’m just saying it the way it is. A man only wants to be a hero when there’s a heroine. That’s nature’s law,” he asserted. “That’s why you’re such an oddball. Who else but you would reach a hand out to weirdos like a shitty brat who doesn’t know how the world works? Or that fat old slob who doesn’t understand human language, or that haughty bespectacled matchstick? You’re saddling on unnecessary baggage, and going so far as to risk your life that I’m starting to think you’re a masochist.”

With his hands still on the steering wheel, Kotaro shrugged. “I was even wondering if you’ve got some special fetish where such guys appear as damsels in distress to your eyes. I was thiiis close to believing it.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad we got to clear up that misunderstanding,” Soji groaned. “What’s everybody’s problem? Worrying about this and that.”

Kotaro guffawed heartily as he clutched the wheel.

Meanwhile, the outside view flashed by.

Hagamine City had a less-than-fortuitous history. During the real estate bubble, a huge plan was drawn up to convert the city into a tourist spot, and all the old wooden buildings were torn down in favor of sparkling new structures.

That included an eight-storey hotel with sea view, a modern waterfront shopping street packed with gift shops, an aquarium-cum-local history museum, a food court with numerous famous restaurants, and palm trees lining the streets to evoke a sense of the Bahamas.

Thus, the streets themselves were pleasing to the eye. And despite the decades that had passed, the facade that was meant to rival famed tourist spots still retained some of its former lustre.

As a side note, the plan to convert the city into a center of tourism failed spectacularly with the bubble’s collapse. While the projected footfall had been in the thousands, the reality was that less than a hundred people walked the streets at any one time.

Maybe that’s why this mundane, everyday view sometimes feels so empty.

“By the way, did the old lady say anything about me?” Kotaro asked as he adjusted the car’s audio. A slightly dated but staple summer song began playing.

“No, not really. What, you’re still not good with her?”

“If anything, I’d say it’s the opposite? She’s the one who looks at me as if I’m a cockroach. I mean, she pretty much treats me like one? Like, she rolls the newspaper up into a club and whacks me with it, and even sprays the insect repellant at me.” He laughed. “Oh well, I guess I’m just reaping what I sowed.”

“My condolences.”

“You’re so nice, Mr. Ema. Even if no one else acknowledges me, your words are enough to make everything alright.”

Yeah, sure thing.

Letting Kotaro’s insincere words in one ear and out the other, Soji glanced outside the window. A world in gradations of transparent blue filled his vision. Through the tinted window, the skies were so clear last night’s downpour seemed like a lie.

All of a sudden, he realized it was strangely quiet and turned to look at the back seat.

That thing in the young woman was staring at the outside scenery with a blank face, the interest obvious in her eyes. A convenience store, a built-for-sale house​, a multi-tenant building, a set meal restaurant, a bus stop, another convenience store, a mailbox, a person out on a walk with their dog… Her eyes followed every single thing studiously, her pupils darting around.

I still can’t tell what she’s thinking, but I guess she really is fascinated by the scenery outside.

Even though she said she could read Sakimi’s memories, she has had barely any experiences of her own ever since she gained self-consciousness, making her no different from a newborn baby. Everything in this world, everything she sees and touches must be a first for her.

“Speaking of which, in the end, what’s her name?”

“What do you mean?”

“Sakimi of the Sanakuras is the name which belongs to her body, but the one in control now is someone else, right? So, we need a name to call this child right here.”

Perhaps she had sensed that they were talking about her, as she stopped looking at the outside scenery and faced forward to look between the two.

“…There’s no need.”

“Look now, Mr. Ema.”

“It’s not necessary, is it? Not like it’s caused any trouble so far.”

“No, no, no, it is rather troubling. Are you planning on calling her by ‘You’ or ‘Hey’ the whole time? That’s only allowable between an aged couple from the Showa era, y’know?”

“…” That’d be undesirable. He thought for a while. “I read this from those research reports. Apparently, the lab rat which was implanted with the same cells as this thing was called Algernon.”

Algernon—the name of the world’s most famous lab mouse, which appeared in a short story published in the middle of the 20th century. In the tale, the mouse had gained high intellect after a brain surgery was performed on it—albeit temporarily. For a rat which similarly showed increased intelligence after a surgical procedure (if they could even be placed under the same category), perhaps it was rather fitting. Zero points for creativity though.

Soji pondered. In the story, there was a young man who underwent the same surgery as the mouse. His intelligence also increased, and he learned new things, understood things he didn’t understand before, felt new emotions, forgot emotions he knew, and spent a period of time acting like a different person altogether.

How about we borrow that young man’s name? Just as he was about to say it—

“Oh, I think that works,” Kotaro interjected before he could speak. “Algernon, or ‘Al’ for short? Or is ‘Non’ better? Combine it together for ‘An’ instead? It’s got that foreign-sounding vibe to it, and all those characters make it sound kinda chuuni.”

“What’re you saying, I mean—” It sounds foreign precisely because it’s from an American writer’s work. And when a word’s converted between two languages that don’t share phonemes, of course it’ll have a lot of characters. And it only sounds chuuni to you because you’ve got the mentality of a gradeschooler. In the first place— “That’s the name of a white mouse, you know.”

“So what if it’s a mouse’s name? Sure, it might not work if the mouse was black or blue or yellow, but it’s fine if it’s a white one. Say, don’t you agree?” He casually tossed the question over to the back seat.

Still wearing the same blank look, the thing in the back seat turned toward them. “Al…gernon…” She rolled the word around her tongue. “Am I, Algernon?” she asked Soji.

He hesitated to answer.

Algernon was originally a masculine name, which, if he remembered correctly, derived from a word meaning “with moustaches”. On that point alone, it clashed greatly with her outer appearance of a nineteen-year-old girl.

But, in a sense, that’s why it fits.

She was a completely different being from Sanakura Sakimi. Thus, it was apt that her name called to mind the difference between body and soul.

“Whatever you prefer…” He replied with a deep sigh.

“…Algernon.” The girl nodded. “My name is, Algernon.”

She repeated it over and over again. Her expression was as unreadable as ever, but somehow she looked overjoyed.

The song from the car’s radio came to a stop. Through the closed windows, the cicadas’ cries seemed to get louder.

The male radio host spoke without pause in his low voice. Now, let’s follow it up with a summertime hit number fit for the hot days ahead. Burn it all to ashes with the blazing emotions behind this song. I present White Sheep Q’s “Magnesium”.

After a bouncy intro, the female singer group started singing rapturously, their volume on par with the cicadas outside. Neither overpowered each other, and of course they didn’t cancel each other out either. In other words, both were terribly noisy.

For some reason, Kotaro seemed to be enjoying himself as he smirked.

In the back, Algernon continued to murmur her own name to herself.

Unable to make up his mind over what to feel, Soji chose to scowl.

Each of the three were left to their own devices as they cruised down the summery streets.