Once Minoru had excused himself and left, Hideki, Suu, and Fumi sat on the stairs near Kazuo’s apartment.  Hideki was still quietly seething.  Suu looked upset, but was quiet, unsure what to say.  Finally, Fumi broke the silence.

“Do you think he’s there?” Fumi asked, “This ‘Zero Line’ business?   Do you think that he followed the payphone rumor, and now he’s trapped in the same sort of place as Suu?”

“If he is, how would we even find him?” asked Suu.

“We were lucky to stumble on you at all,” Fumi said, “I suppose I must ask, how did you know to lead us to that inn?  How did you know where we’d find that ‘shadow’ of you?”

Suu looked down, a bit sadly, and said, “To be honest, um… well… When I was a little girl, my family owned that inn.   It was one of the few parts of historic Kibitani that hadn’t been destroyed by the flood, and it was really important to us.  When the rest of Kibitani was building up, several companies made offers to buy the property from us… We never would’ve sold it, but… well, something happened, and we had to.  I think that’s why I knew it would be some place important.  At least... it felt important to me.”

“Something happened?” Fumi asked, a painted eyebrow raised.  She looked at Suu, who had fallen silent again, and soon realized that she was in no mood to expound on the story she’d already told.  Fumi shook her head, sighing softly, before saying, “Regardless, that doesn’t help us much for finding Takahashi-kun.”

“We won’t find him at all if I don’t go looking for him,” said Hideki.

Fumi and Suu both looked at Hideki, their heads snapping his direction sharply.

“If you don’t go looking for him?” Fumi asked, “I could almost be certain you used the word ‘I’ instead of ‘we’.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hideki said, “You saw what kinds of things are in that ghost world, just as clearly as I did.  We were running from monsters, from demons… You don’t even have a way to defend yourself, but at least I have Legion.”

“And Shamhat,” Suu said quietly. When Hideki and Fumi both looked at her, she flinched a bit, glancing away shyly, and said, “There’s my Shamhat too.”

“No, no way Suu-chan,” Hideki said, shaking his head, “Not after everything you went through in there.   I can’t ask you to go with me.”

Suu smiled softly at him, cheeks faintly pinkened, and she said, “You don’t have to ask.”

“Then it’s settled,” said Fumi, “We’re all going.”

Hideki said tensely, “Quit inviting yourself to this stuff! You have no way to defend yourself.”

“And yet somehow, I made it through unscathed once before,” Fumi said as she stood up, dusting off the back of her skirt.  She folded her arms and looked back at them, saying, “I am the class representative of 1-B, therefore, it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of my classmates.”

“That excuse again?” Hideki grumbled.

“Furthermore,” Fumi added sharply, as she pointed an accusatory finger toward Hideki and Suu, much to their surprise; “It would be unseemly for me to knowingly allow the two of you sneak out and meet up at midnight without a chaperone.”

Suu’s face turned no less than five increasingly intense shades of red.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” barked Hideki, his own cheeks faintly flushed.

“It means I’m going,” said Fumi as she started to walk toward the bus stop, with Hideki in hot pursuit, and Suu stumbling off the stairs to follow after them.

All throughout dinner that evening, Shion stared at Hideki.  He was eating as voraciously as usual, but he wasn’t used to seeing his brow knitted so sharply.  Hideki hardly even noticed the attention he was receiving, as he glared down at his food.  He didn’t even notice the pair of chopsticks that Shion was raising toward his face, until a small sheet of nori poked him in the forehead.

“Eh?” Hideki asked, blinking out of his angry stupor.

Shion released the sheet of nori, and it fluttered down into Hideki’s rice bowl.  She huffed and muttered, “Damn... I was positive your forehead was creased deep enough to hold it.”

“Huh?” grunted Hideki as he rubbed his forehead, “Was I scowling?”

“You were looking at your food like it started a nasty rumor about you,” Shion replied with a smirk, “Something’s gotten on your nerves.  Do you want to talk about it?”

Hideki sighed faintly, before saying, “Fake people.”

“Fake people?” Shion asked, surprised.

“It just seems like people use the word ‘friend’ too easily,” he mused aloud, “It’s almost like a ‘friend’ is a convenience.  Someone to hang out with and chat with and mooch off of as long as they’re around, and when they’re not, they’re quickly forgotten.”

Shion watched him, her expression a bit saddened.   She sighed softly, and lifted her bowl of soup to her lips, saying, “Kids grow up way too fast these days,” before taking a long sip.

“Huh?” Hideki asked, blinking at her, “...isn’t this the part where you give me some kind of reassuring advice about real friendships?”

Shion sat her bowl down, and said, “Welcome to the world of adults, kid.   People generally build professional relationships based off of what they can get out of people.  They keep themselves surrounded by ‘work friends’ who can help them move up the ladder.  If someone leaves their company and moves on, everyone says, ‘oh we’ll keep in touch’, ‘let’s go out for beers soon’, but aside from being on someone’s New Year’s card list, you’ll probably never see them anymore.”

“Thanks a lot, auntie,” Hideki grumbled, “You just made my entire future sound way more depressing than I ever imagined.”

“Hey, settle the attitude,” she replied, picking up her rice bowl, “It’s not all like that, just most of it.  While you’re in highschool you’re going to make dozens of friends.  You’ll have three years worth of classrooms to meet people, not to mention clubs and sports activities. You’re going to go on field trips and camping and at the end of it all, you’re all going to sing together at graduation and cry and talk about how you’ll stick together.  But five years later when you’re graduating from college, you’re going to have just one friend from high school show up at your graduation party… and you’re going to know that they were a real friend, and they’re still going to stick with you into the future.”

“Do you have any friends from high school?” asked Hideki, giving her a skeptical eye.

Shion laughed and said, “Don’t use me as a measuring stick. I met by husband in high school.”

“Really?” Hideki asked, surprised.  He wasn’t used to hearing her talk about her husband, who had been travelling for work ever since before Hideki moved to Midorioka.

“Yeah, though I wouldn’t say we ‘stuck together’,” she replied with a smirk, “We drifted apart for years, then came back together after college. It’s funny how life works.”

That evening, Hideki said goodnight to Shion, and finished up some studying before going to bed.  However, after what amounted to little more than a nap, Hideki’s alarm began to vibrate on his nightstand at 11:40pm.

He slipped out of bed, pulled on his jeans, a t-shirt, and an overshirt, before sneaking down the stairs and out the front door.  He kept his head down and walked quietly, cautious to slip behind corners whenever cars passed by, knowing he was well past his curfew.  A few blocks up the road, he spotted the familiar blue and green motif of a FamilyMart corner store, and across from it, the bank of five old payphones, with two feminine figures loitering nearby.  Even before he could see their faces, he recognized them by their statures; Fumi was slender, in a dark blue dress with gray leggings, and Suu plumply filled out her jeans and pale green blouse.

“I’m fine with going alone,” Hideki said as he approached the girls.

Fumi and Suu looked at each other a moment, before looking at Hideki. Suu smiled softly and said, “We’re not.”