Chapter 2 – Stratosphere

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I was stiffening up, Etou Mana was staring at my face silently and Hasegawa Yukari, smiling slightly, was looking off to the distance with not a care in the world.

The one who broke the silence was Etou Mana.

“I thought I was hated.”

“By who?”

My rusty limbs creaked as I adjusted my glasses.

“By you.”

“Why?”

“Even though we take the same bus to school, you’ve never talked to me.”

“Says you”, I spat back.

What the heck was I saying? “Says you”? Of course, she wouldn’t talk to someone who was more or less stalking her. If I had thought about it calmly, it would’ve been obvious; but I wasn’t calm then.

“That’s true. I’m sorry.”

Etou Mana was so mature about it, but I didn’t notice it. I wanna dig a hole and bury myself right now.

“No, I was in the wrong too. I’m sorry.”

And we’re back to silence. Apparently, Etou Mana didn’t feel bothered at all by the silence. I faced Hasegawa Yukari and asked,

“What do you call Etou?”

“Mana”, said Hasegawa Yukari. These two really like keeping their replies short. I asked Etou Mana,

“What do you call Hasega-“ “Yukari”

What the heck? Everyone’ s just using first names. Can’t go with Rucchi then, that’d stand out.

“Call me Junko, then.”

However, Etou Mana replied,

“Not Rucchi?”

She knows my nickname! Why. Has she been watching me?

It was obvious that my stalkery tendencies had no way of slipping under the radar. After all, if the princely Yukari asked anybody in class, she’d be able to get any of my info easily. That said, I could only figure that out 22 years later after the fact. The me then had her mind wonderfully jumbled up by shock and could only think that Mana had an interest in me.

“I prefer Junko.”

“I see.”

And so, Etou Mana became Mana and Hasegawa Yukari became Yukari.

“Did you move here recently, Mana?”

“Yeah.”

“You too, Yukari?”, I asked thinking she’d just say “yeah” too.

“No, I didn’t move.”

That means that at the very least Yukari isn’t a third culture kid. I don’t really care about the tagalong but I figure she might be useful for learning more about Mana.

“So why did you transfer schools?”

Right after I asked, I remembered.

“It’s a secret.”

That’s right. My friend had told me that the two of them were keeping the reasons for their transfer a secret.

“Is it something I’ll get to know eventually?”

“That…is something that depends on you. I do think you have the talent for it”

“Talent?”

Yukari spoke,

“You know, whenever I watch the news on TV, I get to thinking. That thing they call criminal motives, that synopsis the police write and announce, will become incomprehensible to nearly everyone a thousand years from now.

I’m sure you know the “One Thousand and One Nights”, also known as the “Arabian Nights”. It’s a collection of folklore from medieval Persia and other places in the Middle East. The first person to translate and thus introduce it to the West was a French scholar named Antoine Galland. Just so you know, Galland was not an honest scholar. He mixed in stories that he fabricated himself into the collection. “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”: these two were fakes written by Galland.

Now, do you know any stories from the “One Thousand and One Nights” aside from these two? If I were to garner a guess, it would probably be just “The Tales of Sinbad”, no? Authentic middle age Persian folklore stories have plots so foreign that a modern Japanese person is unlikely to understand them.

People who are used to popular plots have a lot of things they do not understand. I wonder which side you fall on.”

Ugh.

Many of my friends thought her esoteric way of talking that made her sound like she was showing off was part of her princely charm. However, I could not relate to that at all, it was just ugh to me. Even 22 years from then, that hasn’t changed; it’s just ugh. Perhaps, even now, I’m jealous of her. Of the fact that she could reach so deeply into Mana’s depths.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　＊

I somehow became friends with Mana.

Since we took the same bus to school, we had plenty of time to talk. And thanks to that, I learned a lot about what a Blessed One’s life is like.

Apparently, there were no set working hours, or whatever you want to call it. However,

“They tell me to ‘please stay at the stores an hour before closing’”

“Closing?”, I asked.

“Before the stores close.” For the record, COMS Hakusan closes at 9pm.

She said that she usually went to receive grocery offerings while the stores weren’t crowded, made a short trip back home and would then go out again. And that it was annoying to have to do.

“I should’ve asked them to put a fridge in the backroom.”

“The backroom?”, I asked.

“It’s an area that only staff are allowed to enter.”

They kept things like spare signboards and the stock for the flyers at the shrine’s backroom. Apparently, Mana herself was in charge of the signboards, flyers, and other stuff.

When she was making her rounds around the stores, she only went into the stores associated with the Blessed Association. She wasn’t allowed to ask for offerings from stores that were not members; and anyway, those stores were usually stores that sold things that she didn’t need in her daily life. Baby goods, for example.

It seemed that it was rare for donors to approach the Blessed One, instead the Blessed One would usually call out to people and ask them for offerings. At times when no willing donors could be found, the Blessed Association would help by making an offering of their own. But then, there isn’t much difference between just using money, is there? The custom that made it so that Blessed Ones couldn’t hold money really was dubious. But I didn’t ask that question; I couldn’t.

“It must be tough approaching strangers.”

She nodded wistfully and said,

“When you called out to me that time, I was really happy, Junko.”

Even so, that agony wouldn’t continue forever. Going by the experiences of past Blessed Ones I’ve heard about, once you got at least 30–40 regulars, you wouldn’t need to approach strangers anymore.

Wait, am I a potential regular too?

“It has to be people who come to the stores every day, or those who are willing to give expensive offerings or else it’s not enough.”

Well yeah, that’s not surprising.

The more I listened to Mana talk about her experience, the more I came to understand that Blessed Ones weren’t fantastical things. The biggest hurdle to clear was to get the Blessed Association to support you, but after that, you just needed to have good handwriting and strong willpower to persevere.

I understood that in my head. But she still felt different from a human like me. Not a single cent at home or in her bag or in her pocket? It’s ridiculous. She must secretly carry money around and use it somewhere discreetly. I wanted to know the truth.

But what if she really—No, that’s impossible. I mean, no matter how you spin it, she’s still a normal human; even if she is a bit weird.

The truth is you do carry around money, right?

I couldn’t bring myself to say that simple sentence. I could just ask her casually; I knew she wouldn’t get mad about it. But I couldn’t.

During PE, I snuck out and went back to the classroom alone to look through Mana’s belongings. I made the plan to do that at least, and I was completely serious about doing it for a while too. I even made excuses to myself thinking: at least it wouldn’t be stealing, it’d just be a quick search. The plan had already been planned to every minute detail that I sometimes wondered if I’d already carried out the plan. I was undeniably a dangerous person.

Around the time I had finally managed to exorcise such delusional plans from my mind, one day around the end of January, Yukari spoke to me right when Mana wasn’t there,

“Are you free after school? Right, then let’s meet at Mana’s shrine at 4. Don’t tell Mana, okay?”

Uhh, what? What does she want from me?

“Why?”

The tagalong fell in love with me? So you don’t just look like a prince, you’re interested in that sort of thing too, huh. How dedicated to the role can you be?  For a moment, my mind came up with stupid explanations. Be that as it may, her next words were

“I’ll give you the key to answering your question.”

I was shocked. The answer that I wanted: whether or not Mana was secretly carrying around money. But I had never spoken of it even once.

“What question?”

“You’re putting me in a bind here. I can’t say which one it is. All of it is connected. The questions Mana dislikes are all the same”, Yukari said.

Questions like “Why did you become a Blessed One?” or “Why did you transfer schools?”; those were the sort that Mana dislikes.  Ah, I see now. It does seem connected.

I gave a sigh of relief. I hadn’t been found out. But the fact that I was relieved was clear as day. Yukari smiled knowingly and said,

“It seems you have a secret or two. I’m the same actually. Guess you’re one of us now.”

Was she saying that seriously or was it supposed to be a joke? I couldn’t tell and it troubled me. Even after all these twenty-two years, it’s still a mystery to me.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　＊

On the first day, the notice boards at the shrine were completely empty, but now half of them are covered up in strips. Of those, more than half were groceries, and even among those, many strips displayed were for small offerings. There was even one for half a daikon radish. The donor’s names weren’t specified for every offering with many having “same as on the right” written on them.

From what I had heard from Mana, once a notice board became fully covered up, they would start throwing away the oldest ones to make space for the newer ones. When that happened, the Blessed Fudas for higher valued items would be preserved even if they were old. There was a difference in where fudas would be placed too: fudas for groceries would go to the inner part of the shrine whereas ones for clothing and electrical appliances would be put up near the entrance.

Three weeks have passed since the shrine opened. You’d think the novelty of it would have worn off, but even today there are still crowds of visitors looking at the notice boards. It seems it was being used as a meet-up place too, just like Yukari had. That’s the power of advertising, I guess.

I wondered if there were any wealthy donors aside from the tenants so I tried searching, and what do you know? There’s a Blessed Fuda for high-end earphones costing several hundred thousand yen. The value wasn’t written but this brand’s earphones cost, at the very least, 200,000yen. So, rich people really do exist. I’m guessing the donor approached the Blessed One by themselves. The Blessed One could never ask for an offering as expensive as this; most would decline after all. To think Mana was that much of a music lover.

Later when I asked about it to Mana, she explained that among the Blessed Association’s members, the stores that sold electronics were one of the biggest contributors; so, she spent quite some time making rounds at those stores and asking for offerings despite not particularly wanting anything.

The Blessed Fuda for the cookbook I donated was still there. The rest of the fudas around it were written on in standard writing so mine stood out with its cursive. Are there just a lot of people who hate not being able to read the fudas they get? Personally, I think the cursive makes it feel more blessed.

I did a quick scan of the notice boards before sitting at a bench at the shrine. The signboard had a wooden fuda hanging from it that said, “Currently out. Not at the stores.”

“Sorry for making you wait”, a husky voice said. It was Yukari. “Let’s go outside. Hmm…But the conditions aren’t so good right now.”

“What conditions?”

“I was planning to hand over the keys to you, but it looks like the requirements aren’t right. My predictions were wrong.”

Outside of COMS Hakusan, the strong wind made it hard to have a conversation. It just wasn’t the right weather. I mean, earlier when I came in, my glasses were all fogged up. The sky was clear and the sun was shining, but because it was the evening the sunlight was quite weak. Since it was raining till just now, the road outside still had wet spots here and there.

Yukari looked around at the mountainous scenery of Sama New Town and said,

“Nope, it’s no good. The conditions just aren’t right.”

“What do you mean by ‘conditions’?”

“That’s a secret.”

“Huh, okay. So, what are we supposed to do now that the conditions aren’t right?”

Don’t tell me she’s just gonna make my trip here go to waste just because of some enigmatic reason like “the conditions aren’t right”.

“Oh, do you want to go on a date with me? I’m fine with that”, she was apparently trying to make light of the situation, but I didn’t find it funny.

I asked again, “So you can’t give me the key or whatever because the conditions or whatever aren’t right?”

“I apologise.”

I went straight home.

The next day, Yukari asked to meet up again. She said the same thing, and gave the same time and place for the meet-up. When she showed up, she started by suggesting we go outside just like last time. The sky was cloudy and dark, but it wasn’t windy which made it much warmer than yesterday.

Yukari looked up at the dark cloudy evening sky and said,

“The conditions are right. I’ll hand over the key.”

She gave a pause and stood still. Then, she looked at me and said,

“Why is the sky blue?”

　　　　　　　　　　　　　＊

“Why is the sky blue?” You say this is an innocent question? Surely you jest. This is in fact a question used in interviews for PhD students. You need an hour to answer it. When I went for the interview for my PhD, they asked this exact question. Atmospheric optical phenomenon has, from the time I was an undergraduate until now, always been my field of specialty.

That being so, if we were to interpret that question literally, my daughter would have picked the most suitable person she could have to answer the question. Of course, I would not start with lectures on wave equations. That would be ridiculous. I would start by conducting a fun little experiment.

First, you must take a cup of water. Then, you must mix in polystyrene latex of sufficiently small particle size. Lastly, you would shine white light from the side of the cup. Once this has been done, the water will shine blue. This is what is called Rayleigh scattering; it is the reason the sky is painted blue. If you were to mix whipping cream instead of polystyrene latex, the water would shine white. This is what is called Mie scattering; it is the reason clouds look white.

But I am certain that is not the answer she wants to hear. When this question came out of her mouth, she had a mischievous grin on her face. It was almost as if she were playing a practical joke on me. That was something not foreign to me, for I had once done so too.

Bodenheimer articulates on this using the example of the child’s question, to the father: “Father, why is the sky blue?” — the child is not really interested in the sky itself; the real stake of this question is to expose the father’s impotence, his helplessness in the face of the hard fact that the sky is blue, his incapacity to substantiate this fact, to present the whole chain of reasons leading to it. The blue of the sky thus becomes not only the father’s problem, but in a way even his fault: “The sky is blue, and you’re just staring at it like an idiot, incapable of doing anything about it!” A question, even it refers only to a given state of things, always makes the subject formally responsible for it, although only in a negative way — responsible, that is, for his impotence in the face of this fact. (1)

Long ago when I had asked that question to my dad, he answered thus,

“Huh? What the heck are you saying? The sky is black. It’s a jet-black darkness.”

“But…”, I hesitated to continue. If I insisted that the sky was blue, then it it would no longer be a hard fact, it’d just be an opinion.

My father continued with more energy,

“Don’t be fooled. The sky is black. Above every human’s head is a jet-black darkness.”

My father was a free man. For him, there were no such things as hard facts. Not even the colour of the sky.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　＊

“What?”, I said and pointed at the sky. “You call that blue?”

Beyond where I was pointing was a sky the colour of lead. That reminds me, wasn’t it sunny yesterday?

Yukari smiled.

“Wonderful.”

Looks like I gave the correct answer. So the right conditions or whatever for handing over the key was this cloudy sky.

“What is?”

Yukari ignored my question and continued,

“This is the key: ‘Why is the sky blue?’. Just try asking Mana this question. Ah, but do it when I’m not there.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“That so? Look at this.”

Yukari took out a key. It seemed to be a house key, and not one for a Sama New Town house. As someone who was born and raised here, I know that the houses in Sama New Town have only three types of keys, and none of them match the key that Yukari was showing me.

Mana and Yukari were keeping their addresses a secret. Even so, this whole time, I had thought that Yukari lived somewhere in Sama New Town. ‘Cuz she had been accompanying Mana to school every day. But if she doesn’t then that must mean—

“The teeth of this key, do they make sense to you?”

That she had unintentionally revealed a secret of hers was something that Yukari didn’t seem to realise yet. In turn, I pretended to not notice and said,

“So what you’re saying is that ‘Why is the sky blue?’ is some sort of password?”

“In a sense, yes. But that’s not all.

As a celebration gift for your obtaining the key, I’ll tell you one secret.

My house is…not in this neighbourhood.”

I already knew that the moment Yukari showed me the key.

Sama New Town is a big place; by bus it takes 20-30 minutes to get here. The bus stop they wait at every morning is by COMS Hakusan and in the near centre of town.

In other words—

“I have to, in order to accompany Mana to school every day, spend 30 minutes every day to come here. Now, what are your thoughts?”

Are you trying to brag about how close you are with Mana? But if we’re talking about devotion, dogs are pretty devoted too. Plus, dogs are cuter and more loyal. What was it you’re supposed to do when dogs try to show off something to you? Stroke their head or something?

Well, if I said all that, I’d just sound bitter so I won’t.

“That’s tough”, I said.

“Yes, it is”, Yukari replied while nodding. “I’ve given you the key. The rest…is up to you. Bye.”

She gave a slight wave and walked towards the bus stop.

I felt utterly unmoved. My only impression is ugh. The know-it-all way Yukari talked was absolutely insufferable. That she wasn’t all talk, that she sometimes did mean what she said, was something that I had yet to know. “Why is the sky blue?” The dreadfulness of this question was something I had yet to know.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　＊

The first of February this year is a Sunday. Damn it. Damn it all.

The first of February. It’s the day that our school holds its entrance exams. If it’s on a weekday, we get the day off school, but this year it isn’t.

By the way, people who took their middle school entrance exams at Tokyo would know our school since its entrance exam is on the first of February. It’s because this date is the same as the entrance exam dates for two big name private girls’ middle schools. Namely, Fut*ba (has the most brand power) and Ou*n (has the highest Tokyo U acceptance rate). That being the case, our school can’t be used as a back-up choice for the big two. Not that our school is enough of a big name compared to them. Oh, but it shan’t be any worry. Why, our school just isn’t for those types, but I’ll have you know our beloved school is the best fit for raising proper young ladies such as myself! (Why the sudden rich girl act?)

That first of February, I was relaxing at home after breakfast when my dad suddenly said,

“I’m off to see the pandas. Be back by tomorrow.”

Then, he left. My dad has a habit of going on these sudden trips. They’re sudden but he never goes too far, his destination is never overseas and he always come backs within 3 days.

Pandas? He means the giant pandas, right? The black and white ones. I wonder which zoo has pandas right now. No actually, I was surprised that it wasn’t just Ueno Zoo that had them. While I was thinking about stuff like that, I suddenly got an idea.

My dad’s gonna be gone for a whole day. That means…I can invite Mana over, and Dad won’t find out I’ve been talking to her.

I won! It’s the chance of a lifetime! Now’s not the time to be lying about. I got up and walked around in circles as I racked my brain.

Why is it such a big deal, you ask? If I manage to invite Mana over once, next time she’ll probably invite me over to her house too. Even if she doesn’t ask me herself, all I have to do is ask her to let me come over. And then once I’m there, I can look for traces of money use. Boxes from mail orders, pizza boxes, convenience store receipts, bank ATM receipts: if there’s anything like that, it’ll be solid proof. There’s no doubt that she’ll have slipped up somewhere in trying to cover up her tracks. In fact, maybe I’ll even see a piggy bank on a desk. There I go again imagining laughably convenient situations.

As I let my imagination run wild, I also racked my brains for ideas. Nothing came out of it though so I stuck to just sending Mana a message, “Do you wanna come over today?” An instant reply:

“Will you be treating me?”

Definitely. I have no problem with using food as bait. Oh yeah, speaking of which, Mana makes all her daily meals by herself. That must be tough.

With all that said and done, Mana came to my home.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　＊

“Why is the sky blue?”

I left this key for last. Nah, I actually just forgot it until then. Anyway, I had no interest in some dubious spell given by that heartthrob prince.

Since it was a Sunday, Mana was in her casual clothes: a dark grey coat with a scarf of the same hue, an off-white-coloured tall collar shirt matched with a V-neck sweater and a brown necktie. Her legs were in cotton trousers. I was always so used to seeing her in her uniform, so it felt like she had suddenly become mature which made me so nervous I started fiddling with my glasses.

Now that I think about it,

“Aren’t you always wearing green outside of school?”, I asked.

Mana nodded. “It’s so that it easier for the customers to remember me and pick me out of the crowd”, she explained.

That makes sense.

When she noticed the game console in the living room, Mana jumped on it. She said that she hadn’t been able to play games ever since she became a Blessed One.

“The game store didn’t want to join the Association.”

She must mean the Blessed Association. It’s forbidden to ask for offerings from stores not part of the Association. Oh right, that store wasn’t in the member list. COMS Hakusan’s electrical appliances store didn’t sell any games.

At noon, we had pizza. You know how it is, having a friend over means you get to order pizza.

“Anyway, so, my dad doesn’t like eating this kinda stuff, and ordering a whole pizza for yourself means it lasts like two or three meals. I mean, by then, you get tired of it, ya know?”

“It’s my first time having delivery pizza. Thanks.”

So, I guess she’s under enough of a tight watch that she can’t order delivery.

After that, Mana was engrossed in reading manga. According to her, manga was quite hard to ask people to donate. No games, no manga; Blessed Ones really have it tough.

“What do you do at home in your free time?”

“I read the books I borrowed from the library.”

I forgot that that was an option too. You don’t need to use money to use the library.

When it was time for her to go home, Mana took out a bundle of paper strips and a fude pen. I was still confused when Mana said,

“You did give me an offering of lunch.”

“That was just me treating you to a meal as a friend. I wasn’t giving an offering to a Blessed One.”

“That isn’t how it works”, she replied.

She said it so decisively that I couldn’t say much back. I don’t know how or why things are like that but I wasn’t about to get into a verbal tug-of-war over a paper strip.

She finished writing with a practiced hand and handed it to me,

“Your fuda”, she said politely.

Woah.

Katakana characters are easy to read even in cursive so I was able to read about half of the item name. Just until “Lunch: Pizza”. The rest of the strokes, two or three characters, looked like Arabic to me. I couldn’t take my eyes away. It was beautiful.

“Will you be keeping it?”, she asked.

“Put it up at—Ah, wait, no. I’m keeping it”, I took the Blessed Fuda from her hands. If it were put up at the shrine and my dad saw it, he’d find out that I talked to Mana.

“Well then, I’ll be taking my leave. Thank you”, Mana said.

Something happened to my brain then and I suddenly remembered. I remembered that dubious spell the heartthrob prince had told me.

“By the way…”

I didn’t have much interest or anything in the way of expectations. I just said the spell casually. And yet, when I tried to recite that spell, I fumbled. It felt like my mouth would go rotten the moment I recited it; that’s just how unpleasant those words were. Even though I hadn’t thought of them like that until the very moment I tried to recite them.

“What is it?”

“Why is the sky blue?”, I said.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　＊

“You, who are you?”

Mana didn’t do a single thing.

Her eyes weren’t suddenly shining, there weren’t any speed lines in the background, her long wavy hair didn’t start defying gravity either. Her face didn’t turn red or white, her eye didn’t go wide, nor did she click her tongue.

She meant it.

She wasn’t angry, or in pain, nor did she look like she was full of hatred. So much so that no emotion could occupy her, she was serious.

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh. That was the sound of my excitement level going up. Not Mana’s but mine. I adjusted my glasses.

“Never mind, it’s nothing”, I said.

“I see.”

Just like nothing had happened, Mana put away the fude pen and bundle of paper strips into her tote bag.

“Are you going to COMS? Can I come with? Need to do some shopping for dinner.”

“Sure.”

You. Mana never used that word like that. It was always “Junko”.

Who. I doubt she was asking for my name when she said that.

And then there was that other unforgettable thing that happened. The moment I started to recite that spell, an unpleasant feeling spread throughout the inside of my mouth. Perhaps, just as I felt that unpleasantness in my mouth, Mana felt the same in her ears.

After reaching COMS Hakusan and parting ways with Mana, I tried whispering it: “Who are you?”. Despite not knowing what she meant when she said it, once I whispered it, it felt like the unpleasant feeling from the time I recited that spell started to disappear.

While I whispered those words, I thought about why reciting that spell felt so unpleasant; and it became clear. It was because I had no interest in the meaning of the spell. Saying something you don’t mean will always feel unpleasant. The next time I meet Yukari, I’ll ask her what it means. A spell you don’t understand isn’t any use as a key.

I don’t understand either of them, so why is it that Mana’s words felt good? I whispered under my breath,

Who are you?

References

(1) ^The Sublime Object of Ideology. Author: Slavoj Zizek, Trans.: Suzuki Akira, Published: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2000.

Text is a direct quote with slight changes from pg. 69, Section 5 of the English text version.