Brave Story (10 page)

Wataru’s neck and back were soaked with sweat. His hands were trembling. Twice he tried picking up the camera he had dropped in his lap, but both times it slid out of his trembling fingers.

I think you already know.

How could he? The voice sounded too nice—nothing like any of the girls in Wataru’s class. He would know if it were one of his friends.

Who in the world could it be?

Wataru suddenly felt abandoned. Or was it he who had abandoned her? Somehow, it felt like both.

The money left over from Wataru’s monthly allowance wasn’t enough to pay for one-hour development for the disposable camera. He would have to take it to a drugstore and pick it up the next day. And since the store wasn’t open when Wataru went to school in the morning, he would have to drop the camera off in the afternoon, further delaying the process. This, he thought, was the disadvantage of being a kid.

Wataru had hidden a secret stash of money in an empty cookie tin, which he kept behind the comic books on the shelf next to his desk. He was saving up for
Eldritch Stone Saga III
, the latest installment in one of his favorite video game series, due to go on sale in September. If he dipped into that money now, he could develop the photos more quickly. He slid the comic books from the shelf to reveal the illustration on the side of the tin: a cream-colored bunny happily munching cookies. Wataru stared at the bunny for a while. Finally he shook his head and replaced the comic books. It was the middle of June. If he spent the money now, he wouldn’t have time to save up enough to buy the game when it came out.

In the end, Wataru slipped the disposable camera into his school backpack and took it to the drugstore the following afternoon. The slip of paper the clerk gave him said the pictures would be ready for pickup after four o’clock the day after tomorrow.
The day after tomorrow!
He read the slip again and again, his heart sinking. How could he stay in that room for so long without knowing?

Wataru trudged out to the neighborhood shops, finding himself in front of the video game store he often frequented with Katchan. The windows of the small storefront were plastered with video game posters. Peering inside, Wataru could make out rows and rows of game software along with monitor screens advertising newly released products.

A poster for
Eldritch Stone Saga III
had been placed right next to the sliding door at the front of the store. The game magazines had already run images of the main characters and even some screenshots, but the poster featured a far simpler design: fluffy white clouds hanging in a blue sky. In the center of the scene was a sailboat, its sails full of wind, flying above the sea through the air. Wataru had already determined that the boat belonged to the main character.

A handwritten note on the top of the poster read, “On Sale September 20th! Preorders Begin August 20th!” Someone had used a thick, red marker to add the words “Price: ¥6,800.”

Wataru considered the price. He knew he had made the right choice by not using the money in the cookie can. He didn’t know about other kids, but Wataru thought ¥6,800 was a lot of money. That’s why he’d started saving up the moment he had seen the ads in the magazines.

As a general rule, pleading and begging fell on deaf ears in the Mitani household. Promises of future good deeds, such as “I’ll do better on my next math exam” or “I’ll get up early every day during summer vacation” never seemed to work. It was the same with citing past successes, like “My grades were good last semester!” or “I did well on my last exam!” The one and only exception had been the time his parents agreed to buy the fourteen-inch television for his room. Wataru had celebrated at first. Finally, he’d managed to talk his parents into buying him something. But quickly he realized they had their own motives for buying it.

“We think you’re old enough to choose what to watch on your own,” they had said, “and we’re interested to see what it is you’ll choose.” If he had to report to his parents about every show he saw, that was no better than sharing a TV!

Akira was particularly strict when it came to money. “I don’t want you thinking along the lines of ‘I did this much work, so I deserve that much in return’ when you make important decisions in your life,” he would say. “You’ve got to work for yourself, not for rewards.”

“Wow, your parents are super strict!” was Katchan’s comment when he heard about it, and Wataru couldn’t deny it. He understood why they did it: if his parents never listened when he pleaded for more allowance, he had to learn to be pragmatic about his money from an early age. The things Wataru
wanted
to buy weren’t necessarily the things he could
afford
to buy, so he had to adjust his desires to match reality.

Katchan wasn’t the only one who thought Wataru’s parents were “super strict.” His uncle did too.

“He’s just a little kid, Akira! Why not cut him some slack?” Uncle Lou would occasionally argue on Wataru’s behalf. “It feels good to get a reward after working hard, just like your friends—right, Wataru?”

“You don’t have any kids, so you don’t know what it’s like to raise one,” Wataru’s father would say dismissively. “As a parent, you can’t always take the child’s side. It’s irresponsible.”

Akira’s child-rearing methods weren’t the only bone of contention between him and Satoru Mitani. In fact, they saw nearly everything differently. Uncle Lou tended to look at the big picture; Wataru’s father was methodical and precise. Uncle Lou didn’t have a lot of patience for extended arguments or discussions; Akira would happily debate until his opponent collapsed from exhaustion.

Which isn’t to say the two brothers didn’t get along. They hardly ever fought, and seemed to enjoy having a drink together during the holidays. By most standards, they had a pretty good relationship.

Wataru noticed, however, that something was changing of late. Normally, his uncle would back down when an argument got too heated. But now, when they discussed Wataru’s business, Uncle Lou never gave up.

These conversations made Wataru more uncomfortable than either he or his uncle ever realized. But, he loved his parents and he loved Uncle Lou, so he was confident that things would work themselves out.

Whenever Wataru visited Chiba, his uncle would often slip him some pocket money. “Don’t tell your dad,” he would say, but Wataru always did. Starting the year before, the amounts had grown to sizes too large for him to feel comfortable keeping quiet about. Whenever Wataru reported another gift to his parents, they would take it and put it in his bank account. Every once in a while, they showed him the balance so that he knew how much he had saved. This tradition had begun when Wataru received his first gift of New Year’s pocket money at the age of four.

“We don’t want him getting used to carrying around a lot of cash,” his father would explain to Wataru’s grandparents when he took the gifts for safekeeping.

Wataru’s grandmother in Odawara would occasionally give him even larger gifts than his uncle. She was also more secretive about it, as though she were wary of what Wataru’s father might think. Regardless, Wataru always dutifully reported the gifts, and they went into his savings account straight away.

All this meant that Wataru didn’t have money to burn. Katchan wasn’t the only one who was surprised at Wataru’s situation. One of his classmates reacted in shock when he heard the story. “I’d flip out on them if I were you,” he had advised with all seriousness. It made Wataru uncomfortable because it sounded like code for “you’re acting like a total wimp.”

One time, Wataru tried asking Kuniko about his allowance. “I don’t feel like you and Dad are too strict,” he had begun, “but all my friends say you are.” Were his parents really strict? If not, why were they so different from everyone else’s families?

It had not been the best timing. It was right in the middle of the uproar over the Kenji Ishioka joyriding incident, and Kuniko was furious. Kenji spent money like water. Rumor had it that Kenji got so much money in allowance every month that he could buy
ten
copies of a game like
Eldritch Stone Saga III
and still have some left over. Kenji himself claimed he had no idea how much he spent. There was no need to keep track—his parents gave him money any time he asked for it.

Worse, Kenji’s mother was proud of it. “Our son will never have to worry about money,” she had boasted during the very PTA meeting called because of her son’s wild ride through the schoolyard. To the other parents, the meaning was clear: “our son will never have to worry about money because we’re rich, and we’ll pay whatever it takes to patch the problem up.”

Kuniko had been furious. She couldn’t believe her ears.
No wonder their kid is out of control!
But PTA meetings—along with the rest of the country—are run democratically, and freedom of speech is guaranteed. No matter how much you wanted to, you couldn’t just throw someone out for having a condescending attitude. Kuniko was unable to take her frustrations out on Mrs. Ishioka directly, so she came home frustrated, seething like a witch’s cauldron on the verge of boiling over.

And that was when Wataru decided to ask about his allowance.

“Oh, so you want a big allowance, just like that Ishioka boy?” Kuniko snapped. “You really disappoint me, Wataru.”

Wataru didn’t know—couldn’t know—how he might have disappointed his mother, but he reflexively apologized just the same. Retreating to his room, he felt like a sinking ship, plunging to the bottom of an unfathomably deep sea. He resolved never to broach the subject of money with his parents again.

Wataru was a logical kid; he had his father to thank for that. He knew it wasn’t right for children to carry around large sums of money. And he knew it was better to work for himself rather than focus purely on financial rewards.
Okay, Dad, fine, I get it.
Still, it was only natural for him to want some kind of reassurance. All he needed was an explanation, something that he could parrot when classmates accused his family of being overly strict. He never really doubted his parents’ good intentions, anyway. A simple conversation would have been all he needed to turn the situation around and wear their strictness as a badge of honor.

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.