Over the Dimension Read online

  After all? Everybody? I had no recollection. Which “everybody” did he mean?

  “Uhmm…I’m sorry, I don’t think I really remember.”

  “No? Yeah, I bet…Well, where should I start?”

  Haruka was acting like he knew something. I wanted to extract as much as I could out of him…or that was my intention, at least. But I couldn’t will myself to push him along too much, either.

  It was always that way. Haruka tended to run on his own pace. I nicknamed it “Haruka Standard Time” in my mind, way back when. It never bothered me much.

  “…You know, I…I always wanted to ask you about…yourself.”

  Ugh. I’m worthless. I can barely even string a sentence together. People used to berate me all the time for how mean and off-putting I was to people, and now look at me. It’s like my tongue has atrophied from lack of use.

  “Well, thanks,” Haruka said apologetically. “There’s actually something I need to come clear about, though. It’s kind of a long story, but…”

  Then he began to tell a story about the past, one that took more time than I expected to get to its end.

  His voice was just as clear as it was two years ago—on that summer when he died.

  LOST DAYS · 1

  Indian summer.

  I swung a pen around my fingers idly as I stared listlessly at the afternoon schoolyard from my window-side seat. The faint colors of fall had begun to deepen, their shadows looming closer, turning the leaves on the deciduous trees across the front lawn into a dazzling shade of red.

  Autumn is always the most colorful season of the year, and for that, I like it most of all.

  The clear blue sky was marked here and there with fluffy, cotton candy–like white clouds, while the soft rays of sun peeking through no longer boasted their summer strength…

  Where did summer go this year, anyway? It’s like it was gone in the blink of an eye.

  Every year, the question of exactly when summer ends has captivated me.

  Some people consider it over in mid-August, at the end of the Obon holiday. Others hold out until the month comes to a close, to officially declare it a thing of the past. Still others, especially my age, peg it to whenever summer vacation ends, while others simply take a vague “whenever it gets colder” view of things. There are people who even tie it to when the cicadas stop screeching from their sentry posts in the trees.

  Considering all these points people use to mark the end of summer, it seems sensible that everyone has their own definition of what summer really is in the first place.

  I brooded on this: Even if some career politician stepped up to the podium and stated, “Summer hereby ends at this hour of that day in this month,” it’d still depend on the weather, on local customs. It’d never go anywhere. Nobody would listen to that blowhard. I know for sure I wouldn’t.

  So what does summer actually mean to me, then? I didn’t get much of a chance to go out during this one, either. Something about the season just never seems to click with me.

  It’d be nice if I could go out and have a little more fun next summer, though. Maybe to the seashore or something. With friends.

  Or camping would be nice, too. I don’t like the feel of bugs buzzing around me, but if we all whipped up some curry and rice around the fire, I bet it’d taste really special.

  If I could just really bust loose and take in everything summer’s got to offer…maybe that’d help me find it. My own “summer.”

  Next year, huh…? Kinda far away.

  …Ah well. Let’s just not think about it.

  I mean, come on. I’ve got other stuff I gotta think about anyway. Besides, it’s already three in the afternoon…

  Wait. Three?

  …Huhhh?! Three p.m. already?! Oh crap—what am I gonna do? Sixth period’s about to end! Ugh. I haven’t gotten anywhere with this…! All right. All right. Just calm down, and…

  “So did you draw some enemies for us yet? Something that’ll feel really good to mow down?!”

  “Uh…”

  The quiet science storage room was suddenly rattled by a blunt voice. Rattled was the right term for it—it was pretty loud. What was the deal with that? We were supposed to be in the middle of class, too.

  As I pondered this, I turned to the teacher’s desk to find my homeroom instructor, Mr. Tateyama, slumped over it, snoring with all his might. About what I’d figured, really.

  But considering our class consisted of exactly two students, that meant only one thing: There was just a single outlet left for her whining and carrying on.

  Resigning myself to my fate, I turned toward the voice. The girl sitting beside me, her black hair done up in pigtails, returned my gaze with a mischievous smile.

  Her somewhat almond-shaped eyes were accompanied by some fairly dark circles along the bottom. I could faintly hear rock music spilling out of the headphones around her neck.

  Takane Enomoto. My one and only classmate.

  I called her my “classmate,” but the nitty-gritty behind that was actually a little complex. Technically, I was supposed to be in the Class E homeroom, and Takane should have been in Class B. We shouldn’t have attended any of the same classes at all. But here we were, our desks pushed together—all because we both had a certain “illness,” and because this was “special education.”

  Takane had a rare disease that apparently caused her to fall asleep instantly, without warning. Whatever it was, it was serious enough to get her reassigned to this class. Not that she ever really mentioned it, and not that I ever bothered asking her about it point-blank, so that was pretty much all I knew.

  But with a face as mischievous as Takane’s, I knew what came next. That face emerged only when she found a weak point—some soft piece of exposed flesh she could stab at.

  I knew because I had a fairly decent idea of what my weak point was. Takane, perhaps sensing the panic unfolding within my head, prodded me for an answer.

  “Hey, y’know, I’m pretty sure you said you’d draw up the enemy graphics today, right? How’s that coming along? Don’t tell me you haven’t drawn anything, now.”

  I took my eyes away from her impish gaze and stared at the drawing paper in my hands. It contained none of the “enemies” she requested, nor any other evidence that I had even touched a pencil to it yet.

  And why would it? I had no memory of drawing anything in the first place. If there was some artwork down there, I would’ve been the most surprised of all.

  “Ummmm…Well, not too much yet, I guess. Ha-ha…”

  I tried flipping the paper over as I gave that wishy-washy reply. I was late by a country mile. Takane craned her neck over, gave the paper a good once-over, then snorted at me.

  “Pft. So ‘not too much’ means absolutely nothing in your vocabulary, huh? I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”

  There was something theatrical about the act, almost. She sat back down in her seat and yawned like a sleepy grizzly bear, the word “restraint” clearly absent from her own.

  “This is so ridiculous,” she muttered.

  Her act of dominance was as practiced as it was devastating to my psyche. I had no confidence in myself to start with, but even if I did, I think it would’ve just been blown to smithereens.

  Not even that was the full brunt of her abuse, however. I could only wish she’d leave it at that, but, of course, I figured this girl wasn’t having any of it. She’d probably say something to me again shortly. Nah, no “probably” about it. She totally would. Had Takane ever ended it with just one withering observation like that? No. Never.

  I tensed up, expecting the inevitable. Unsurprisingly, she soon had another question:

  “Hey, could you remind me who it was who was all like, ‘Oooh, I’d kinda like to run a shooting gallery’ just a bit ago?”

  “That was…uh, me, right?”

  “Sure was! And now there’s only a week until the school festival. Are we still on the same page here?”

  “Y
-yeah…but…”

  “Okay, so why are you just staring out the window instead of working? What are you, stupid?”

  The twin-pronged tongue-lashing still wasn’t as sharply honed as what she was truly capable of. I really wished she’d stop throwing around words like “stupid” and “dumbass” all the time. It wasn’t nice, using them on people. You’d think she’d be more aware of that, being a girl and everything. I mean, if that becomes a habit of hers, what’s gonna happen when it’s time for her to get married?

  …A shame I was incapable of saying this to her face. Instead, I merely groaned a little in reply. It was nothing Takane was willing to forgive.

  “So, Haruka, you got anything to say in your defense?”

  “…I was just spacing out a little. I’m sorry.”

  One week left until our first school festival. This was starting to look bleak.

  Our school’s festival had a fair amount of history to it. Around the local area, apparently, it was a pretty well-known event. Or so I was told. The school sunk a lot of effort into it each year, too. I was a bit surprised when they held this peppy kind of “Stand Up and Help Your School Festival” assembly on the day the construction for the festival began.

  All this was in part because last year, the school managed to host a rock concert headlined by the kind of band you or I actually had a decent chance of knowing. It was a riot, I heard. Takane was a fan of theirs, even, and she paid for her own concert ticket as a nonstudent at the time. Whether that motivated her to join our school or not, I couldn’t say.

  And now we were halfway done with the festival construction period. Each class had their fourth, fifth, and sixth periods free to use for whatever they liked during these two weeks, so once lunch was over, the halls came alive with students prepping food stalls or other structures. The final week before the festival saw a lot of courses either cease entirely or put in only a token effort, freeing most classes to devote their entire school day to festival work.

  Most normal classes, anyway.

  Since ours was placed in somewhat different circumstances, it was up to us as individuals whether we joined things like the festival or the school track meet. That was out of consideration for our health issues, of course, but as students, we weren’t exactly the most eager of participants in school events anyway. There was no way we’d proactively try to join in this event, either. It barely even registered in Takane’s mind at first, and when she said “I really don’t want to run a stall,” I figured that was the end of it right there.

  The expectation from me, at least, was that it’d be business as usual in our class—that we didn’t have to worry about prepping for any kind of festival at all. That was the initial plan, at least. I figured our main concerns would be what order we’d visit all the stalls in, or how many servings I’d allow myself from each of the food sellers.

  Until yesterday morning, anyway, I had no plans at all of being suddenly forced into constructing a rickety stall out of plywood and finding some kind of cheap dish I could sell at a huge markup.

  “Well, I guess I can’t blame only you for this,” Takane reluctantly offered. “It’s really our teacher’s fault, you know? Coming up with all this outta nowhere.”

  She whipped her finger at Mr. Tateyama, still sprawled out over his desk.

  Something in me wanted to say, “I know it’s called a pointer finger, but you don’t have to point that hard at him,” but I shut it down with a wry smile.

  That’s because, by and large, I agreed with Takane. The reason we had to come up with something on such short notice mostly had to do with a little bit of sucking up Mr. Tateyama did the other day.

  “Ugh! Why do we have to put up with Mr. Tateyama trying to earn a bunch of brownie points for himself? Just because he wants to impress the administrator doesn’t mean he had to say, ‘Ooh, we’re gonna knock your socks off!’ Talk about raising the bar for no good reason. Like, if we haven’t done anything to prep at all, don’t go around acting like we’re the supreme gods of the universe!!”

  Takane rattled her desk to emphasize her high-decibel rant. I felt the need to pacify her.

  “Well, I dunno, I’m kind of looking forward to it. Besides, it’s sorta fun, working on it like this.”

  The pouty expression on Takane’s face softened a bit. “Well…whatever,” she said, slumping over her own desk. “You’re the ones doing all the hard work.”

  All the other classes were nearing the climax of their festival-display efforts. To be frank, starting this late in the game was insane. We were beyond short on time. Thinking about it rationally, there was no way we could knock anyone’s socks off. I wasn’t sure we could even cobble together the bare minimum for a display.

  But just like Takane put it, if we were gonna do something, we didn’t want to half-ass it. It had to be the most exciting thing on school grounds. I couldn’t help but agree with her. I even caught myself saying “Of course.”

  Amid all the competition we were going to have display-wise, I didn’t want something that looked like it was put together with thumbtacks and duct tape. If we were in this, we were going all the way.

  Still, though…

  “Still, though…Takane…”

  “What?”

  “Well, I mean…Creating a whole shooting game in the space of a week? That sounds kind of impossible.”

  Takane had just spent half a minute complaining about the hurdles Mr. Tateyama put up for us. But the one she put up—the “most exciting thing” one—was higher than anything our teacher had.

  He was probably sleeping off the all-nighter he just pulled, if I had to guess. Which seemed logical enough. No way we’d make the deadline otherwise. After all, Mr. Tateyama had to program a complete shooting game, start to finish, in the course of a single week.

  Even from my willfully ignorant “how hard could it be” perspective, this didn’t seem like an easy job. It was his fault for sucking up to his boss, pretty much, but I still felt kind of bad for him.

  Takane, meanwhile, couldn’t have cared less.

  “What’re you talking about? It was Mr. Tateyama who put us in this mess, remember? And you wanted to do the shooting gallery, right? It’s not like either of you guys are do-it-yourselfers, so making a video game’s just about all we got.”

  Then she glared at me, like a dog trying to figure out why its master was dangling a set of keys in front of it.

  I had to admit: She was right. I did say that. But we had no experience creating the kind of props a shooting gallery required, and in terms of personnel and budget, we were working with almost nothing.

  A video game, on the other hand, seemed within our grasp. If we had some graphics and a programmer, it sounded possible, at least. Assuming we could stop time for a few months.

  “But…look, if you’ve got time to whine about this crap, start drawing! The clock’s ticking!”

  Takane clapped her hands a couple times to hurry me along. I hastily recalibrated the grip on my pen. Right. We really didn’t have time at all. After all, I had a quota of twenty enemy characters that’d appear in the game, and so far I had drawn exactly zero.

  Two hours since one o’clock, and I still hadn’t done anything except stare at my drawing paper. If I couldn’t even draw one character, twenty before the end of the day was nothing but a pipe dream.

  But…I just couldn’t.

  I couldn’t draw.

  It wasn’t that I was bad at drawing. I thought I did a pretty good job, actually, when it came to landscapes and things. But trying to come up with characters—or anything, really, that matched the “enemy” keyword I was working with—seemed to create a mental block.

  All this self-targeted moaning and groaning drove an exasperated Takane to prod at me again.

  “What, can’t you even draw one bad guy?”

  “I guess I can’t, really. I don’t play games like these very much, so it’s kinda hard to picture what these enemies should look like.”
>
  I tried to be honest with her, but Takane replied with a light sigh and a finger pointed straight at me.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter what they look like. Just as long as it looks like it’d be fun to blow them away, anything’s fine. Games are all about relieving stress anyway, so the idea here’s to design characters to help with that. You get me?”

  I didn’t get what was fun about blowing anyone away, but even a nongamer like me could see the logic in Takane’s explanation. Mr. Tateyama said she was some kind of whiz at 3-D shooters, and now I could believe it.

  But I had no experience with shooting games, much less blowing things away. I had no way of figuring out what kind of foes would look ripe for filling with bullets.

  “Hmm…So, like, what kind of enemies usually appear in these sorts of games?”

  “Well, for example…in terms of some of the more popular shooters, I dunno…like, zombies?”

  Zombies.

  The mere word was enough to make me shudder. It made me recall this zombie-laden panic-horror film I saw on TV a while ago. Man, that’d been scary. All these villagers, helpless against the mob of undead that crawled out of their graves and formed giant hordes…and then…

  “Uh, I-I’m sorry, Takane, but…something besides that would be nice…”

  “Huh? What’s the big deal with zombies? You got a problem with them?”

  “Not a problem, but…I mean, z-zombies don’t exist in real life, so it’s just kinda hard to imagine what they look like…and stuff.”

  Takane raised an eyebrow at my pained attempt at self-defense, but not for long. Soon, she looked up, suddenly realizing something, and pointed a finger at me again.

  “Well, why don’t you base them on animals and things? I mean, the monsters in video games are usually inspired by parts of animals and stuff.”

  “Monster animals…? Hmm. Maybe I could do that.”