Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [30]
As it was, Wataru got sad every time he thought about the incident. It was simply a case of bad timing. It was nobody’s fault, but he felt bad just the same. As for his small allowance, Wataru accepted it as a fact of life. Sure, it was occasionally inconvenient, but there was an upside as well. People always said that waiting for something made you appreciate it more, and Wataru was a living example of that. He could walk by the store, gaze at the Eldritch Stone Saga III poster, save his money bit by bit and excitedly count the days until the release date. Kids like Kenji would never experience happiness like this, no matter how many copies of the game they could afford with their huge allowances.
Wataru tried to force the mysterious girl’s voice out of his head until the pictures were developed. But the more he tried to not think about her, the more real she became in his mind. His every thought veered between rose-colored dreams and all-consuming dark fantasies.
Who is she?
Where does she come from?
What does she look like?
Is she human?
A ghost?
A fairy?
That was it. She had to be a fairy, like the one that was supposed to guide the player in Saga III. In the previous game of the series, she was just a minor character who showed up now and then for comic relief. In the first game of the series, however, Neena the Fairy had been a major member of the cast. The hero would never have made it up Wight Cliff without her help. Without question, she had been Wataru’s favorite. He had spent hours raising her strength to the point where she could face the last dungeon of the game, but just before the climactic battle, there was a fully animated scene featuring Neena that confounded his strategy.
“This is as far as we fairies can go,” Neena said, and just like that, she dropped out of the game. Wataru nearly threw his controller to the floor. In the throes of disappointment, he had called Katchan for moral support.
“What, you didn’t know?” Katchan asked incredulously, making Wataru feel even worse. “The last boss monster, the Elemental Guard, used to be chief of the fairies guarding the Kingdom of Toma. If you had her in your party, it’d be fairies fighting each other! Of course you had to get rid of her.”
“I didn’t know!”
“Well, did you trigger the event at Noru Spring? No? Well, that’s your problem. You learn the whole deal there. Looks like you screwed up. Sucks to be you, man.”
In the end, Wataru had to start all over again. All the time spent building up Neena’s powers had been a waste.
In the world of Eldritch Stone Saga, fairies were tiny enough to fit on a child’s palm. They wore pretty, ballerina-like dresses and had wings on their backs. Neena fit the typical fairy profile. She wouldn’t ever think of doing evil. She talked back sometimes, but she also knew a lot of things. She was chipper, kind, and cute—and always would be, thanks to a lifespan far exceeding that of humans.
What if she’s a fairy, like Neena?
Waves of hope and anxiety washed over Wataru. He knew he couldn’t tell anyone about the voice, not even Katchan, not yet. It was all too fantastic sounding. If there was anything to see, Wataru planned to show the pictures to Katchan right away. But without photographic evidence, his friend would laugh him out of the room. He might even start worrying about him.
Wataru ran to the drugstore the moment school let out. He found himself checking his watch at every stoplight and crosswalk. Five to four, four to four, three to four…
Wataru reached the photo counter at ten seconds to four o’clock.
Only one customer was ahead of him: a plump, middle-aged woman. She was locked in some sort of negotiation with a clerk wearing a white lab coat.
Wataru craned his neck to see behind the counter. He spotted a rack of long envelopes containing finished pictures. There were a lot—maybe twenty total. Each had a tag listing the customer’s name. Wataru strained his eyes looking for “Mitani.