anyway.'
'I see,' Haruko said, biting into her spicy curry roll. 'Don't buy bread from the convenience store. This is a bakery, you know.'
The robot, standing in the garden, watched Mamimi leave.
The next day, on their way home from school, Naota, Gaku, and Masashi went to look at charred ruins again. They'd heard rumors that there had been another fire last night, and that it probably had been arson.
'You can smell the smoke still, huh?' Masashi said.
The remains were surrounded by police tape; several police-related people sifted through the ashes inside.
It had been an abandoned house. Although Naota had seen the site fairly often, now that the ground no longer contained a building, it looked strangely small.
When they moved closer to the scene, one of the workers signaled not to come beyond the tape.
'This isn't merely arson,' Gaku said meaningfully. 'It's the work of a UFO.'
'A UFO?'
'You haven't heard? Recently, a strange object's been sighted in the skies above Mabase. Its picture has been in the paper, too.'
Gaku apparently had taken a particular interest in the fire incidents, which was fine—but Naota really wanted to avoid the UFO subject.
'These fire outbreaks,' Gaku continued, 'they're probably caused by that UFO.'
Silently, Naota reflected,
The reason Canti—as Mamimi had christened it—was here remained a complete mystery. The weird robot had come out of Naota's head; it would zigzag elusively across the night sky, lighting up its shining head. It certainly wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that the robot was responsible for the fires.
Naota recalled the night it had emerged; there had been another robot Canti had defeated. That one had been pretty violent. It might be only a matter of time before Canti became like that. No one had died in the recent spate of fires, but who knew what might happen? He had to do something.
Carefully, Naota retied the bandana in such a way that his classmates wouldn't notice.
When he left the others at the ruins to go home, he took a different route than usual. Although normally he wouldn't cross the bridge, Naota walked toward the riverbank, thinking he might swing by the hangout.
Mamimi might be there—and if they were alone, maybe he wouldn't feel as irritated as he'd been last night. Maybe he could be nicer.
He reconsidered at once.
His irritation battled his desire to see Mamimi. If he saw her, he knew he'd get angry right away. He'd get angry, but he still wanted to see her. Unsure how he felt, he looked at the water flowing under the bridge.
Something brown floated there: Shoes. And two legs.
Looking closer, he saw several high school girls standing at the edge of the river. One girl was surrounded by the others. The girl who was surrounded sat in the flowing water, her skirt billowing in the river. The shoes that had washed away seemed to be hers.
It looked like the others were bullying her.
The bullies left her sitting in the river, mocking her as they walked away. Naota sighed at this intense scene; then, he froze when he caught a better look at the girl slowly standing up in the middle of the river.
She wore the familiar uniform of Mabase Shinda High School. The girl in the river was, without a doubt, Mamimi.
Mamimi silently wrung out her soaked skirt.
Stunned, Naota watched the scene unfold. He thought back to the other day, when Mamimi had called him because her shoes were missing. She had told him the shoes had been washed away while she was playing with Takkun.
When she'd said it, Mamimi had given her typical giggle. Seeing her smile, Naota had thought spitefully how nice it must be for a high school girl with nothing to worry about.
Last night, when Mamimi had walked away, Haruko had asked if it was okay to leave her like that. 'Why not?' Naota had answered. 'Nothing bothers her, anyway.'
Standing in the riverbed, Mamimi looked in his direction. When she spotted Naota standing on the bridge, she stopped. Halting in the midst of wringing her wet skirt, she didn't move.
For a short time, the girl and the boy simply stood there, staring at each other.
Chapter 3
How much time passed?
The two of them perched on top of the bridge. The town soon was covered in a thin darkness, and the cold air chilled their skin.
'My skirt dries quicker this way,' Mamimi had said, sitting down on the bridge. Naota couldn't do anything but silently sit next to her.
The headlights of cars passed over them.
This bridge was smaller than Mabase Bridge, where he and Mamimi usually met. There weren't as many cars, and there were fewer streetlamps.
Naota felt like he was in a fleeting dream. If someone had painted this scene, it definitely would be a gloomy picture. Since Mamimi had sat down, she hadn't uttered a single word. Cigarette in her mouth, she silently played her handheld game.
She was like a robot that had been programmed to play a game. The cigarette between her lips glowed red, and that was the only way he knew she still was breathing.
Naota felt as though his heart had been ripped out.
Last night, Mamimi had come over, carrying her photos of Lord Canti, greeting him with a cheerful smile. It seemed so long ago.
Naota felt as if hundreds or thousands of years had passed. Whether something had happened in the ancient past or just yesterday, once the moment ended, it became a part of the inseparable past. 'A long time ago' referred to something in the past that would be impossible to experience again. That was why Mamimi's innocent expression was nothing more than a distant memory to Naota now.
She smashed out her cigarette and stood up.
'Is your skirt dry?'
As soon as he asked, he regretted it so much that he felt like dying. Could he have said anything worse? At that moment, he was the most terrible person in the world.
Mamimi gave him a cold, sidelong glance, as if she didn't know him. Remaining silent, she dropped her game next to Naota. It was exactly the same gesture she'd used to discard her cigarette butt.
