Otherside picnic volume.., p.6
Otherside Picnic, Volume 7, page 6
“So... When kids feel like time is longer, they’re like a computer that’s lagging, then?” Toriko asked.
“Huh? Wait, isn’t that exactly it? They can’t process all the information that they’re receiving, and so time feels like it’s slower.”
“So, our brains were working harder during this one year than they had to when we were kids?”
“Yeah, I’d say they were working pretty hard. With all that Otherside nonsense.”
“That’s not good for our brains!”
“Sorry, brains.”
We both chuckled. We’d had some unbelievably abnormal experiences this year. No one else here had lived like we had. When I thought of it that way, I felt that mixture of guilt and superiority that a child does when messing around where the adult can’t see them.
Picking away at the appetizer of sakura shrimp and lily bulbs as we talked, our first glasses were soon empty.
“What’ll you have next, Sorawo? I think I’ll have a white wine.”
“I guess it depends what we’re eating next. Can we go get food now?”
“Yeah. You go first.”
“Okay, I’ll be back soon.”
I figured we’d be safe both leaving the table at a place like this, but, you know. Given I had a gun hidden in my bag, I was worried about the worst that could happen. We took turns heading up to peruse the buffet.
I gluttonously loaded up my plate with fresh fried tempura, mussels, foie gras with strawberry sauce, Berkshire pork and mountain vegetables fried in miso, and tom yum noodles. Toriko got a chicken stir fry with chili peppers, chicken liver and bamboo shoots in garlic, a bunch of Iberian ham, and more. It was a lot of meat, but she also had a Caesar salad and yuba maki rolls, so she still succeeded in having a somewhat stylish plate overall. We both had white wine to drink.
Toriko seemed to be enjoying herself, but she was acting fidgety the whole time. I noticed a lot of awkward pauses where it seemed like she was about to say something and then decided not to. For my own part, I had the issue of how I was going to handle Satsuki Uruma in the corner of my mind the whole time. Because of that, I didn’t pick up on it at first, but Toriko would occasionally look away all of a sudden, or get real quiet, so I gradually noticed.
There’s something important she wants to talk about, I thought.
We’d gotten all dressed up for this anniversary, and come to a place like this, so it had to mean something. If it was important, then that meant she was going to say she loved me, or she wanted to go out... That kind of thing. Even I could figure out that much.
But if she said that to me, I had to tell her about Satsuki Uruma. She needed to know she’d come back.
I couldn’t lie to her... I didn’t want to. Even if I did lie, knowing me, it’d come out at some point. It had before, after all.
The fact was this wasn’t something I could keep to myself. They talk about taking a secret to your grave, but, nope, not happening, I couldn’t possibly. Toriko had a deep connection to Satsuki Uruma’s disappearance. If the woman was back, and I kept it a secret from her, it wouldn’t end with a simple talk about, “What do we do about it now?”
Ugh, I hate this. When I tell her about Satsuki, a cloud will fall over her pretty face, and she’ll start crying again. Even though she’s been looking forward to celebrating today. What gives that woman any right to come back? I just can’t accept it. I don’t want to make Toriko cry. But I gotta tell her. I must be a cruel person...
“Got something on your mind, Sorawo?” Toriko asked me, so I answered.
“I do.”
“What?”
“Uhh... Lots of stuff.”
“‘Stuff’ doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Stuff is...stuff.”
“Hmm...”
When she gave me the opening, I thought for a second I should just come out with it, but Toriko didn’t press me, so I missed the chance.
I was almost done with my second drink. As I was looking at Toriko over the rim of the glass, she finished hers first. Laying the empty glass on the table, she seemed to make up her mind and opened her mouth. “Hey... There’s something I wanted to ask you, Sorawo.”
“Y-Yeah.” I braced myself. Toriko continued, a tense expression on her face.
“Have you been to my house recently?”
“Huh...?” That wasn’t the question I expected, so I sounded silly.
“No... I haven’t.”
“Yeah... I knew it.”
“What...? Uh, what’s this about?”
“So, listen, you did come. At night.”
“I did? At night? When?”
“The day before yesterday.”
“I didn’t go, though...”
The day before yesterday was when I encountered Satsuki Uruma at the abandoned building in Oomiya.
“It was maybe two or three in the morning. I happened to wake up. I sensed someone there, and I was like, uh oh, and when I looked over, you were standing in my room.”
“No. No, I wasn’t. Not a chance.”
“I was thinking you’d never come too, but there you were, a little way away from the bed, silently looking down at me. It really surprised me, so I sat up and asked you what was going on.”
“And?”
“You hung your head and wouldn’t answer me. There was something really gloomy about you. Like you were feeling down, or disappointed, or something.”
“Scary...”
“Looking back at it, it should’ve been scary, but it didn’t feel that way at all at the time. It was more like, ‘Sorawo’s looking down. What happened? Is she all right?’”
“Y-Yeah?”
It was pretty common in true ghost stories to experience a situation that should have been terrifying but react to it without any fear for some reason. I wasn’t sure whether to think this was one of those cases, or if it was just Toriko’s own kindness, so I sort of vaguely nodded along.
“So, what happened next?”
“I thought there might be something you were having trouble talking about... So, I told you to come over. When I did, you obediently approached, and when I lifted up the covers, you got under them...”
“Wha?!”
“Then we laid down together, and I patted your head—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. Stop right there.”
“The next thing I knew, it was morning. You were gone, and I thought it was a dream, but there were these blackish stains on the floor and sheets... Oh, and your scent was still lingering a bit.”
“Listen, you!” That was a bit rude, but I couldn’t restrain myself. Toriko seemed to snap to her senses and looked at me. For some reason her eyes were sparkling a little—wait, wasn’t she getting kind of excited here?!
“Wh-Why didn’t you say something before now?” I asked, and Toriko ducked her head awkwardly.
“Even if it was a dream, it was a little too convenient for me, so I was embarrassed to tell you...”
Yeah, I’ll bet you were!
As I clutched my head, Toriko pressed me one last time. “So, you’re sure you didn’t come?”
“I didn’t...”
“Okay. But it didn’t feel unpleasant enough for me to think it was something from the Otherside. I mean, I could only imagine it was you. Sure, you felt different, but...” Toriko trailed off, cocking her head to the side at me.
“Wait, is this sounding like something you recognize?” Toriko asked.
“I think...that was my doppelganger.”
“Doppelganger... Er, what’s that again?”
“Another you. It’s a thing where you get told you’ve been in places you haven’t gone, or you actually see yourself. It’s a phenomenon people have talked about since long ago, and in some stories if you meet your own doppelganger you’ll die.”
“That’s scary!”
“Yeah, kinda.”
“Still... You don’t seem that surprised by it. Am I just imagining that?” Toriko asked.
“Nah, I’ve seen mine. Multiple times,” I asked.
“Huh?! This is news to me!”
“Pardon me, but can I get you ladies anything to drink? We have water as well, if you prefer.”
“Oh, well, I’ll have a glass of red wine. You, Sorawo?”
“Uh, I’ll have the same...”
“Very good.”
As the server walked away, we looked at one another.
“You think we were being loud?” I wondered.
“Maybe... Mind if I go get food?”
“Oh, sure.”
It was a good chance to recompose myself. We both went to the buffet and came back, having gotten gratin, paella, beef curry, and other heavy foods that would pair well with red wine.
We headed back to the table and said cheers again before we got back to talking.
“So, what’s this about you seeing her multiple times?” Toriko asked between bites of roast beef. It was the type the chef cuts as you watch, and I’d gotten some too. This was supposed to be one of their best dishes here and the taste reflected that.
“I wonder when it started... Right, back when you went off to the Otherside on your own. That was the first time she appeared. I’ve seen her two or three times since then too,” I replied.
“Why didn’t you say anything? You’d heard you’d die if you saw her, so weren’t you scared?”
“Hrm. It’s hard to explain this, but it kinda made sense to me.”
“Made sense?”
“You know how messed up my home life was in middle school, right? Well, sometimes I’d see myself doing things from an objective perspective, like I was watching someone else do them. I didn’t see a doppelganger, I was another me, watching myself... Is this making sense?” I asked.
“Yeah...”
“Oh, don’t make that face. It’s not a particularly sad story. Anyway, because I had that experience, when I saw my doppelganger, I was like, yeah, of course I’ve got one of those, makes sense to me. Thinking about it now, sure, it’s strange. But the other me’s been pretty useful, you know?”
“How so?” Toriko asked.
“My doppelgänger’s the one who brought me to you.”
Toriko’s eyes widened. “Huh?”
“My doppelganger seems to know stuff I don’t. Is she my unconscious self or something? I followed her, and there you were.”
“I never knew...”
“It was the same with Kasumi. She was pointing into the mound of trash, so I went inside and found the kid there.”
“Oh! That’s right! You were able to see something I couldn’t see then!”
“Yeah, exactly.” I nodded, impressed she remembered.
“That’s how it’s been, so I was never all that afraid. There’s a theory that doppelgangers aren’t a paranormal phenomenon but a misfiring of the brain. So, the reason some people died after seeing them might be because they were hallucinations caused by a brain tumor...”
“That’s worrying in and of itself.”
“It’s just one theory. I mean, they gave my brain a thorough checkup at DS Research, so I figure I should be fine on that front.” I took bites from a little plate of beef curry as I continued. “The me you saw seemed gloomy, and she’s generally like that in front of me too. She’s like a concentration of all my dark elements, so she was probably pretty shocking, right?”
“Hmm... Wait, wait, hold on. If only you could see your doppelganger, we might have been able to write her off as a hallucination that helps you out from time to time, but doesn’t me being able to see her change things?”
“Yeah... It does.”
She was absolutely right. I’d been able to just barely explain her as a phenomenon inside my brain before, but now someone else could see her... And, what? She got into bed with her? Slept by her side? What was I going there to do? Toriko shouldn’t have let her do it, but there was something wrong with me too. No, not with me, with my doppelganger, but still. Even if she was a product of my unconscious, she was showing way too little restraint.
“I didn’t think that the other you was dark. She just seemed to be in a lot of pain. She didn’t say anything, but I think she felt guilty towards me.”
“Wait, why do you understand so much?”
“You thought I didn’t know?”
I’d asked with a half-smile, but she came back at me totally serious. Damn it...
Toriko’s eyes narrowed happily as she looked at me and spoke like someone certain they had the upper hand. “So? What are you feeling guilty about? Care to enlighten me?”
“...”
“Sorawo.”
“...”
The conversation had bent in a weird direction, but I was going to have to tell her in the end, huh? I resigned myself to it.
“That afternoon, I was in Oomiya.”
“Oomiya? That’s unusual. What for?”
“I went to that place from the day we met, the abandoned building where—”
“Ohh! That place, huh? The one with the gate that disappeared.”
“Yeah. I went to check on it since it had been a while.”
“What a blast from the past. Huh? Had it come back or something?”
“Uh, no. What came back instead was...”
“Was...?”
“...Satsuki Uruma.”
Toriko froze up. With her eyes on me, I slowly nodded.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s Satsuki-san. Your precious monster.
“Satsuki...” Toriko murmured, not so much as blinking.
“Yeah.” I gave the bare minimum response I could manage. Would she cry, would she be happy, or what...? I was on edge because I didn’t know how Toriko would react.
“Satsuki showed up?”
“Yeah.”
“Was...” Toriko’s expression changed greatly. The corners of her eyes drooped, and she leaned in closer to me. “Was everything okay?”
This unexpected reaction left me confused. “Huh? Was what okay?”
“Were you okay? She didn’t do anything to you, did she? You’re not hurt or—” Her hand, extended with concern, touched my cheek. I stared back at her vacantly, in the same position as I’d been with Satsuki Uruma that day.
“I was more or less fine.”
“Thank goodness...” Toriko’s face collapsed into a silly grin. Then she started rubbing my cheeks.
“Um?”
“Let me check to make sure you’re all right.”
“Uh, I am... I’m fine, as you can see.”
Normally, I’d have shaken her off, but I was just sort of sitting there, letting her get away with this. When she touched me in the same place as Satsuki Uruma, I felt a tension that had been there the whole time melting away.
Still, she was doing it too long. “That’s enough of that.”
When I pulled my face away, Toriko finally withdrew her hand. She looked like she hadn’t gotten enough rubbing in for her liking. On the rebound from the tension I’d been feeling, I was now too relaxed. I wanted to wet my dry mouth, so I downed the rest of my glass. I called over the server to order another glass of wine.
“I was expecting a different response from you, Toriko,” I said once I’d settled down.
“Because it’s about Satsuki?”
“Y-Yeah.”
Toriko smiled a little. “I’m sure I would have before. But...last time I saw Satsuki, she was like a monster. I think the person that I knew is gone now.”
The last time Toriko had seen Satsuki Uruma, she’d been a monster in human form, tearing Runa Urumi’s mouth and crushing both her mother’s eyes. Fair enough. Seeing someone do a thing like that might be enough to destroy any romantic feelings for them. But I wasn’t completely certain. For all this time, I’d been assuming that Toriko was still holding a torch for that woman.
I was wrong. Sorry, Toriko. I misjudged you. She was stronger than I thought. She was someone who could put her past behind her.
“So, Satsuki showed up, and then what?” Toriko asked, her expression serious.
“She talked to me... Said some stuff I didn’t get.”
“Like what?”
“About mountains...”
I was about to say more, but recreating the conversation from that day wasn’t going to get the point across. Using my own interpretation to translate, I reworded what she’d said. “I think she was telling me that she went into the Otherside and became a part of it. That’s more or less what I thought already, so no surprise there.”
“Oh, I see...” Toriko lowered her eyes sadly. “Do you think she came to tell you that? And she appeared in front of you instead of me... Sorry, to be honest, that makes me sad.”
“Well, yeah, that’s gotta be what it was.”
“If she didn’t hurt you, it’s fine, but she really didn’t do anything? There are no gaps in your memory, are there?”
“Yeah...”
Toriko didn’t miss the momentary delay before I answered. “What happened?”
“She tried to seduce me...”
“Huh?”
“Satsuki Uruma tried to seduce me. Me.”
Toriko froze up for the second time tonight, and all I could do was watch. As we stared at one another, unmoving, the server subtly set down our third glasses in between us, then left.
“Huh...” Toriko said in a low voice. “Oh, did she now?”
“Um, are you mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“Well, that’s good then.”
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not mad at you, Sorawo.”
“Uh, okay...”
Toriko picked up her freshly arrived glass, draining it all at once. She laid it down when she was finished, then abruptly got up.
“I’m gonna go get food.”
“O-Okay.”
I watched, bewildered, as she strode over to the buffet table.
Scaryyy. Huh? Hold on. If you think about it calmly, I didn’t do anything she should get mad at me for, did I? Yeah, that’s right. What am I so tense about? I think I’m worrying over nothing.
That’s what I thought, but when Toriko returned I couldn’t look her in the face, and took my turn getting up as she got back.
I was already full, so more food was a pass. I got a tiny cake and a confection called nerikiri, then poured myself a cup of black tea. When I got back, I saw that Toriko had just gotten herself a bit of each thing she hadn’t tried yet.
