"Good morning, Oara! We're your hosts, Kimura Mei…" That's me. Don't let my peppy voice fool you, I'm a radio show host in the most boring city in the world. You know what we're "famous" for? Me neither, and it's my job to know stuff like that.
"And Koda Mei! Welcome to FM 98.4 Mei Brigade!" That adorable chipper voice is my best friend. I call her Meiko. We were in the same class every year since first grade, and we've also always been neighbors. People just kind of decided that we were a set pair. Which is fine, but we're actually very different! Meiko might be less outgoing than I am, but she's super sweet and smart. I've got no shame saying she's the brains of the operation. She has a beautiful singing voice, and she has the cutest pixie cut! She's got a sort of style that would fit right in in some sophisticated French restaurant.
Oh! Sorry. I could go on and on about her, but we wouldn't get anywhere! Putting it simply, Meiko is the best! I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.
"It's the first day of April and we're live at Oara Community Center Park for the unveiling of a new mascot! More on that later!" I said, and turned the mic over to Meiko. I'd seen the mascot already. It was supposedly a smokestack from a factory. It looked… well, more odd than cute, but if it worked and brought attention to this slow city, I was already a fan.
I glanced around the park as Meiko said her bit. There was a small stage and a couple of stalls. A few people were setting up to make takoyaki and okonomiyaki. Our radio station van and our table was set up near the stage. It was shaping up to be a cute little festival, but I was really hoping that more people would show up. Kids were still out of school for spring break, so it's not like they had anything else better to do.
"First, let's get to the weather. It looks like it's going to be sunny all day for the whole listening area. Go outside and enjoy the weather while the cherry trees are still blooming!" Meiko continued, adorably, because she's the best.
"We should have a hanami picnic!" I added. Too bad the only park with more than one cherry tree in this town was down by the river, which stank. The community center park had gone with the controversial decision to only plant ume trees, which had already shed their blooms weeks ago. Still, it could be a good excuse to get out of town for the day. I couldn't even think of the last time I had been out. Something always came up.
"I'm not sure we'll make it. Today might be the best day for a hanami. Tomorrow is shaping up to be windy, with thunderstorms rolling in in the morning. I hope the blossoms will hold up…" Meiko said, sounding wistful. The chance that we'd get time off to really enjoy the spring weather was pretty low.
Well, I couldn't just let her be sad. I flashed her a smile and agreed. "Me too, Meiko. At least Puffy-kun's debut is outside at the Community Center! If you've got time, everyone, you should stop on by. It's an important moment in Oara city's history. Now… Hey! It's time for our Music Morning Driiiiiiive!" I said. Meiko switched the mixer to the playlist we had set up for the morning, and turned off our mics.
"You're really excited about this, aren't you?" Meiko asked, removing her headset.
"Of course! There's only so many times we can report the traffic and weather before it gets old," I said, lowering my headset so I could hear her, but still keep tabs on the music playing.
"I don't know. It's kind of relaxing. And besides when something does happen, you still get bored really fast," she said, adjusting some equipment.
"Slander! Name one time something happened!" I demanded. There was no way I'd get bored if something different was going on. It was impossible.
"What about…" And here she paused, and I almost felt vindicated, except a complicated expression of confusion and concern crossed her face.
"Can't think of anything, can you?" I said, teasing her anyway, although more gently than what I had originally planned.
"I don't know. I just know that you do, okay?" She puffed out her cheeks and wrinkled her nose at me.
"Nah, nah. I'd never!" I waved a hand in dismissal. "Anyway, we've got a few minutes. Want to look at the stalls? Maybe get some breakfast? I don't want to just sit here."
"Okay, but I'm pretty sure you're doing it now," Meiko smiled at me.
I ignored her and put my headset down and stood up. I caught my reflection in the van's window. I unbuttoned my orange vest so that more of the bright pink radio company shirt showed. No. That looked silly. I redid two of the vest's buttons. There. "Alright! Takoyaki!" I said, pointing dramatically towards the booths.
"Oh, so you're done making yourself handsome?" Meiko asked as she tapped her foot at me, an eyebrow raised. I know handsome isn't usually used for women, but I guess I have sort of an athletic charm. Meiko had told me once in high school that half the girls had crushes on me, but I think she was joking? I certainly never noticed.
I glanced back at the reflective window again, making sure I looked alright. I brushed aside the lock of hair that always fell out of my loose French braid club. "I don't know, what do you think?" Okay, so I'm a little vain. Shut up.
"You're fine, come on. We've only got a few minutes. " she said, and dragged me off by my arm. We stopped at a takoyaki stand. The cook was an older man with stubble and a green apron.
"Hey! Can we get a set of six takoyaki?" I asked, handing over a few one hundred yen coins.
"Sure! Hey, lucky me, the first customers of the day are none other than the Mei Brigade," he said, flipping over takoyaki quickly before putting them in a cardboard carton and covering them with sauce and fish flakes.
"Living in color!" I said, crossing my wrists below my chin and holding up two victory signs over my cheeks. People love it when they can get me to say my sign off catch phrase. The pose is just something I think is cool. I'm pretty sure Meiko rolls her eyes at me every time I do it though.
"Ha! That's great," he added a couple of extra takoyaki with a wink. "Koda-san, are you going to be singing today?"
"Oh… No, I don't think so…" Meiko laughed and waved her hand in protest.
"You could, Meiko! I bet they'd let you, if we talked to the organizer," I said, bouncing on my heels like a dumb puppy. If anything could make the day a little more exciting, it would be Meiko singing on stage. Maybe something cute, with the weird mascot dancing along?
"I'm sure they would…" she said.
"I'll call 'er over. Hey! Katsumi-san!" The old man waved over a frazzled looking business woman with short black hair.
"Yes?" She came over, flipping through papers on a clipboard, not really looking up.
"Do you got space to squeeze in a singer? Koda-san here wants to get on stage," the old man said.
That made her look up. "Oh! Yes! We just had a cancellation. The idol group from Tenjin apparently forgot why they came here and went home early," Katsumi said, gripping her pen like she would very much like to snap it in half. "Thank you so much, Koda-san! I was ready to start pulling out my hair!"
"Ah, don't thank me," Meiko said. "Meiki, we need to get back to the van."
"Oh, right!" I said, taking the box of takoyaki from the man. It now had twelve takoyaki in it instead of six. Score! Food is the best, especially when it's free.
Just then a guy on a black motorcycle drove right into the center of the festival, which was starting to attract some people. He got off the bike and took off his helmet. He wore a fitted leather jacket that had sakura blossoms embroidered on the back, and wore hakama over jeans. It was kind of a biker samurai look. It was odd seeing hakama worn over something other than a kimono, but the loose trousers suited him. His black hair was shaved short on the sides of his head, and he had dyed the remaining mess of hair bright pink.
"Eh, cool!" I said. My personal style was more vests and tee shirts in increasingly loud colors, with lots of colorful bracelets, but his style was so unusual. I liked it.
Meiko made a disapproving noise. Of course she did.
"Agh! Him again! I'll come over in a minute to give you a schedule. Let me know if you need anything." Katsumi said, and ran off to berate the motorcycle guy.
Meiko reached up, grabbed my ear, and dragged me back to the radio van. I protested, trying to keep up without spilling the takoyaki.
"Ow! What was that for?" I asked, rubbing my ear when she finally released me.
"I don't want to sing!" She hissed at me.
"Why didn't you say so?" I said as I stared at her, genuinely confused.
"I did! I said I wasn't singing but you got all excited about the idea, you big dumb oaf!" She shoved me. Not hard. She was annoyed, but she didn't actually want to hurt me.
"Oh. I'm sorry." Have I mentioned I'm kind of an idiot? I'm a huge idiot. I'm sorry. "I'll tell her you can't do it." I waved at Katsumi-san who was deep in argument with the biker.
Meiko humphed and put on her headset, her tone immediately changing to her bubbly radio voice. She talked about the festival briefly, before putting more music on.
Katsumi came over, the biker guy trailing behind. He seemed to have a small whiteboard, about the size of a smartphone, and a marker that didn't seem to have any indication of a color. Even the cap was white.
"What do you need, Mei Brigade? I'm a little busy," Katsumi asked.
"Um, Sorry, but I was talking to Meiko and…" I started.
"Mom! Just listen! You've introduced that stupid smokestack every week last month! The ReMares are just going to show up again," the motorcyclist interrupted, sounding exasperated.
Katsumi rounded on him, her face red and her eyebrows furrowed. "For the last time, I'm not your mother! There's no such thing as ReMares or whatever you called them, and when you tried to show me your stupid toy this morning, that 'belt' of yours nearly exploded."
"I fixed it, I fixed it. It's fine. I'll show you," He held up the whiteboard, and said "Henshin!" He uncapped the marker and started to bring the whiteboard down, about to cross the white marker over it, but Katsumi grabbed both and yanked them out of his hands.
"No! I'll not have some weirdo blowing himself up at my festival!" She threw it on the ground and kicked the white board. It skittered under the van. The marker ended up under our table. I reflexively knelt to pick it up.
"AGH!" The young man threw up his hands, "Fine! Forget again! See if I care!" He stormed off back to his bike.
"The nerve of some people. Anyway, girls, what was it you needed?" Katsumi said, fixing her hair and smoothing down her shirt.
"Well, Meiko said that…" I glanced over at her.
"Is it alright if I sing from over here? I like using my own equipment." Meiko interrupted me.
"Oh. Yes. Whatever you want to do. Thank you so much again, you are such a lifesaver. I'm going to go make sure our mascot is ready." It sounded like that she also meant get a drink of either caffeinated or alcoholic nature, just by the stress in her voice. She waved a hand and wandered off to an official looking tent.
"Are you sure?" I asked when she was far enough away.
"Yeah. She'll have a heart attack if I back out now." Meiko sighed.
"I'm sorry. I dragged you into this." I said, putting the cap back on the weird colorless marker just to have something to do with my hands.
"Yeah, you owe me one," she shoved my shoulder, this time in a more friendly way.
"That's fine with me," I said, grinning like an idiot. "That guy sure was a nut job, huh?" I held up the marker to show her.
She glanced at it, and then over at him. "He sounded really upset. I hope he's alright."
"Yeah, I guess. Let me see if I can reach that belt or whatever he said it was. Give his stuff back." I knelt next to the van. It was too far to just grab it, so I laid down on the ground and stretched. I was able to knock it back out from under the van. I picked it up and dusted myself off. "Can you handle the booth for a minute?"
"Sure. We've got a few minutes of commercials and then some music coming up. And Meiki?" She glanced up at me.
"Hm?"
"Be careful, alright?"
"Yes, yes, don't worry!" I waved and jogged over to the motorcyclist. He was holding himself up with the motorcycle, muttering to himself. "Hey, you um… dropped this."
"What?" he snapped and spun around. He relaxed when he saw the belt. "Oh. Thanks. Sorry you had to see that." He took his things back.
"Are you… alright?" I asked.
"Are you crazy, you mean?" he said and laughed bitterly.
"Ah, no, I didn't mean that!" I said, although I kind of totally did.
"It's fine. People just don't remember ReMares. Unfortunately." He glanced in the direction that Katsumi had stormed off in.
"That does seem very inconvenient." I agreed, just to be polite. I was already edging away.
"You've seen them too. You've been here every week for the past month for this damn festival." he said, and then paused. "You're not half bad at fighting them, but it's hard to do any damage to them as a normal person." He stared at me expectantly, as if I was supposed to do something with that information.
Information that was plainly crazy. I think I'd remember if I got in a fight. "Sorry, I've got to get back to the van," I said, and started retreating in earnest.
Just then, patches of inky black ooze bubbled up from the ground, all over the park.
"Here they come. Get ready!" he said, holding up the belt.
The piles of ooze rose up and became monsters. They were vaguely human shaped, but inky black, and looked… sticky. People screamed, and ran. A bigger one, this one still inky black but with a vaguely dog-like head and a droopy tail, appeared behind the motorcyclist.
"Look out!" I said. Several of the inky things were surrounding the booth where Meiko was sitting. She was valiantly fending them off with my folding chair, swinging it wildly. One of the inky things touched her, and suddenly changed. It had bright blue eyes now, and some odd blue markings over its body. "Meiko!" I shouted. She slowed and looked confused.
"Hen-" the biker started to say. The dog monster flailed its arm out, knocking the young man in the head. He stumbled and dropped the whiteboard and marker. The monster grabbed him, and the biker seemed to faint. The monster gained pink markings, and its form solidified and pink armor appeared.
"Oh, Rou. Did you really think you could get away with taking things from the High ReMares? Poor foolish boy," the monster said, his voice soft but rumbly, like distant thunder. "We'll be taking the driver back now," he crooned, kneeling down to stroke Rou's cheek. The pink markings spread.
"W-what are you?" I demanded, slowly skirting around the monster. I had to do something.
"What am I? That's a rude question, child. I am Anubis, servant to the High ReMares. But that doesn't matter. You'll forget again soon enough," he said, grinning a doggy smile that might have been cute on a normal dog, but on this thing, it was terrifying.
I dove at the belt and marker, rolling and coming up at a crouch. "That's what you think! That guy said this would defeat you!" That guy, who I had been certain was crazy just a few minutes ago. Oh well. If he was crazy, I was crazy, because this was a nightmare.
"Rou did? How cute," Anubis laughed, and it sounded like boiling water. "I doubt it even works, after he's put his grubby little paws all over it."
What had he… Rou said? I stood up, holding the whiteboard part of the set up in the air. I popped the cap off of the colorless marker and said "Henshin!" I brought the whiteboard down and swiped the marker across its shiny surface. I put the white board part against my waist. Suddenly a white belt with a black stripe wrapped around me. Ah. So that was why he had called it a belt. A small round slot lit up on the side of the whiteboard buckle. The marker also lit up. "Does this go in here?" I put it in and bright white light appeared in front of me, swirling around me in big loopy circles, like someone was scribbling in 3D.
"This is your YEAR! Let's go! Let's go! Yeah!" The belt said with an energetic guitar riff. When the light faded, I was wearing some sort of weird white armor.
I looked down at myself, "Eh?! Eh?! What's this?!" It was light and flexible like spandex, but it felt like it was stronger than that. It had black lines down the front and arms. I had a helmet covering my whole face. I could tell there was something on my back, so I twisted around. "Sweet! A cape!" I said. It was white with patterns that looked like dragonfly or butterfly wings.
"So it does work. I was so hoping he had tinkered with it too much. Oh well," he said, shrugging. "If you want to be crushed like a bug, that's fine." He advanced, reaching out to grab me by the head.
"I don't think so!" I grabbed his wrist and pushed his hand away, punching at the dog monster with my free hand.
He took a step back, looking stunned that I had dared punch him. He was definitely more offended than hurt, if he even was hurt at all. "Excuse me?"
"You're excused! Bye!" I turned and ran over to Meiko. I kicked the blue monster away from her. She stumbled back, looking confused and terrified.
"Wha… who are you?" Meiko asked.
"It's me, Meiki!" I said.
"Who?" She asked.
I felt a sharp pang of dread, but now the blue monster was fighting back, and I had to block its attacks. "Never mind! Hide in the van, Meiko!" I shouted. She nodded and climbed inside, shutting the door. "Alright, jerk, come at me!" I punched it squarely in the face and it gave a distressing squish and stumbled back. The thing's entire face was mashed in, the blue lines on its face dripping down. It stumbled over to where a young kid was hiding in the bushes. The boy screamed, and the monster grabbed his arm. The monster's face repaired itself and now there was red lines patterned in with the blue. The boy looked dazed, and sat down on the ground.
"That's not…" I said, feeling crestfallen. Worse, Anubis seemed interested and was coming towards me.
"What a promising Blot." Anubis patted the thing on the head affectionately. "Defeat this girl, and consume her memories. Evolve to your true form!" Anubis laughed. It lifted its armored hand in the air and howled. The other Blots that were milling around the park aimlessly gathered around the red and blue Blot. The two toned Blot absorbed the others, and grew bigger. Their head became shark like. "What's your name, child?"
"SHARKY!" They barked out.
Anubis stumbled to the side and put a hand up to his face. "Sharky. Your name is Sharky."
"YES! SHARKY!" The two toned shark monster nodded vigorously.
"Oookay. I'm done here. Sharky, destroy this…" Anubis gestured vaguely at me.
"Year." I said, remembering what the belt had chimed as I had transformed. "I'm Year! Living in color!" I did my cool crossed arms pose to go with it.
Anubis rubbed the bridge of its dog nose as if it had a headache. "Alright. It's fitting. Idiots, please destroy each other." With that, Anubis collapsed into a pile of pink light and black ooze, absorbing back into the ground.
"YAY!" Sharky cheered, and charged at me.
"Oh shit!" I said, dodging out of the way. The shark ran past, spun around and attempted to punch me again. This time, I blocked with my arm. They grabbed that arm and promptly put it in their mouth. "HEY! I'm not food!" With my other arm, I struggled, punching the thing in the nose repeatedly. Turns out that trick to get out of a shark attack doesn't work on oozy shark monsters. Who knew?
From my belt there was a ping and a cheery sounding guitar scale. "Prism Charge Complete!" It said.
"What now?" I grumbled. I was now using one of my knees to push at Sharky's abdomen. I probably looked ridiculous. And what's worse, my attacks were not doing much. Each blow just squelched grossly and then Sharky healed itself. I glanced down at the belt. The marker was glowing and flashing.
Acting on instinct, I pulled it out of the socket, and with a bright flash, it changed in my hand. The marker became bigger, although it was still a white cylinder shape. Now it looked more like the hilt of a sword. There was a button at the top. I pressed it, and a beam of white light shot out of one end, like a sword. "Prism Blade! Prism Blade! GO GO GO!" The belt cheered, music playing again.
Wasting no time, I slammed the blade into Sharky's face. They squealed and staggered back, releasing my arm. I held the sword in front of me, ready to attack again.
Sharky clutched at their face for a moment, and then dropped their hands. Where the blade had touched their face there was a twisted bright white scar. "THAT HURT SHARKY!" They started crying and I relaxed my battle stance.
"I'm sorry. Maybe don't bite folks?" I said, feeling kind of bad for the shark monster. I'm pretty weak against tears. Meiko has said that's a good thing, that I have a good heart. Most people say I'm just dumb and naïve.
"DOGGY SAID DESTROY," Sharky said sobbing in between words.
"Doggy's not very nice is he? Let's not do what doggy says, okay?" I said. Sharky looked warily at my sword. "Ah, is it too scary? Here." I pressed the button and the light blade disappeared. I put it back on the belt. "All gone, okay?"
"BAD LIGHT GONE!" With a sudden roar they lunged at me, hands becoming wickedly sharp claws. I flinched, raising my arms up to protect myself.
There was a loud thunk. The claws stopped short of my body. I lowered my arms to see what had happened. Sharky had stumbled to the side, and a motorcycle helmet lay on the ground. I looked over at Rou. He had pulled himself up by his bike and somehow managed throw the heavy helmet. He looked like he was sweating hard, and shaking.
"Hey! Thanks!" I shouted, giving him a salute.
"Don't drop your guard, idiot!" He shot back. "You've got to finish that thing off!"
"But they're scared!" I said, gesturing at the shark monster, who was now roaring and shouting "BAD!" at the helmet while attempting to stomp it into the ground. "I can't kill them!"
"And what are you going to do with them instead?" Rou demanded. "They're not a pet. They eat memories. Are you going to starve them to death instead? Or let them eat your memories?"
"Meiko's memories… And that boy's…" I said to myself, thinking hard about what he said. I didn't like it. Sharky didn't seem that smart, and it seemed cruel to attack them when they seemed so upset about getting hurt.
"Don't you want to protect them? Don't you want to keep their precious memories safe?" Rou hurled the questions at me like weapons and they hit me hard. I had said something like that in third grade, with all the earnest passion in my tiny body. Someone had stolen some of our class photos off our bulletin board and I played hero, giving dramatic playground speeches until it had turned out that another teacher had taken them to make a surprise memento for our pregnant teacher. Some kids had made fun of me for getting so worked up about it, which was embarrassing, but in the end, the experience had become a precious memory itself.
Meiko might not remember it.
I didn't like it, but Rou was right. I couldn't just let this be. "Dammit," I muttered, and rounded on Sharky, fists up and ready.
The only thing there was a busted up motorcycle helmet.
"Eh?! Where did they go?"
"They're gone?" Rou looked around desperately before getting in my face. "This is because you hesitated!"
"Sorry…" I said, cringing back.
"You took my belt and you let the monster go!" Even though I was in the Year armor, his angry glare that close to my face was intimidating.
I glanced around, looking for an escape. I spotted his bike. "I'll go look for it."
He followed my gaze and then shook his head. "No. Not that too. You're not taking my bike. They probably went back to Under to report to Anubis."
"Under? Under where?" I asked, feeling kind of dumb.
"It's just Under. It's where they live." He sighed and stepped away. He walked a circle around me, looking me up and down. "How was it?" He lifted my cape to inspect it.
"How was what?" I said, trying to look over my shoulder at him.
"The belt! The transformation! You're stronger right? You're not hurt? Have any dizziness? Nausea? Are you exhausted?" He grabbed the arm that Sharky had bitten and examined it. "Any loss of memory? That thing bit you, did it hurt?"
"I'm… Fine? No, I feel pretty great! I am a lot stronger. What is all this?" I said, catching a glimpse of myself in the car window. "Dang, I look cool." The helmet was white as well, with black lines down the center and around the black, bug-like eyes. I had antennas too, that stuck out of the helmet and curled like a butterfly's.
"Yes, of course. I designed it after all. It's a highly advanced tool to fight the ReMares. You may transform back now." Rou said, letting go of my arm and coming back in front of me.
"How?" I asked.
"Cap the Memoka and wipe the Time Driver off."
"Time Driver?" I asked, "Memoka?
"The whiteboard," he said as he pointed at it, "and the marker."
"Um, okay." I glanced around for the cap. I looked back at him and ducked my head, feeling a little foolish.
"Did you lose the cap?" he sighed.
"…Yes," I said reluctantly. "I was in a hurry."
"Here, I've got extras." He reached in his jacket pocket and tossed me one.
"Thanks," I said, and capped the marker. Next I held onto the whiteboard with one hand and swiped the other across the front.
"Erase. Bye Bye!" the belt did another guitar chord, this time going lower towards the end, powering down. The belt part disappeared and I was back in my regular clothes.
"Here. Sorry again," I said, holding out the Time Driver and Memoka for him. I didn't really want to give it back. The power and fighting those weird monsters was exhilarating. "That was pretty cool. Sorry I doubted you."
Rou looked at it but made no motion to take it. He sighed. "Keep it. It's attuned to you now. It'll only work for one person."
He looked so disappointed, like I had just eaten his whole birthday cake and told him puppies weren't real. "I'm so sorry! I didn't know, I just wanted to help my friend." That's right! She was still in the van. "Meiko!" I said and ran to open the door. "Meiko, are you alright?"
Meiko was on the secondary mixer, busy at work. She glanced up at me. "What? Of course I am. What's wrong?"
"The ReMares attacked you, and I was Year and I had a laser sword and it was so cool…" I slumped when I saw her confused expression. "Wait, maybe you don't remember… Do you know who I am?"
"Of course I do. Are you alright, Kimura-san?" she said. "Do you want to help me get the primary mixer fixed so we can broadcast the mascot's debut?"
"Kimura..." I repeated dazed. I don't think she'd ever called me that. "Yeah, alright." I said, and went back to the table. I shoved the Time Driver and the Memoka into my vest pocket. It looked like the small crowd that had scattered when the blots had shown up was returning. Katsumi was at the stage, setting up a microphone.
"She didn't remember." Rou said.
"No." I knelt down to fuss with the cables. Some of them had come undone in the struggle.
"Does she know what's going on today?"
"I think so. She's getting ready for the mascot reveal," I said.
"Good. If I had to repeat this day one more time…" He trailed off. "Are you alright?"
"Just… I don't know." I brushed my hand over my hair. "I should be happy. She remembered me, but…"
"What?"
"She called me by my last name." I put my head in my hands, trying not to cry.
Unexpectedly, he put his hand on my shoulder. I looked up, surprised, and a little suspicious. "What, aren't you going to say I told you so?" I asked.
"No." He sighed. "You could have done worse."
"Gee, thanks." I said, but at least it seemed like he wasn't as angry at me.
Meiko came out of the van, "Who is this guy?" She tilted her head at Rou. He quickly put his hands in his jacket pockets and looked away, in an attempt to look like he just happened to be there casually. Someone thought he was too cool for friendly feelings. Idiot.
"Oh. His name is Rou, I think," I said, when he didn't seem inclined to introduce himself.
At that, he looked alarmed. He pulled his hands out of his pockets. "Rou?" He asked. "Is that my name?"
I shrugged, "How am I supposed to know? That's what that big guy called you."
"Is that what he took? Annoying bastard," he mumbled as he pulled out his wallet from his jeans pocket from under his hakama and opened it. "You're right. I'm Meiji Rou." He pulled out a business card and handed it to me. It was an average white card, but behind his name and information there was a pink sakura printed on it.
"Your name is written with the kanji for sakura?" I asked.
"Yeah?" He said, rolling his shoulders like he was ready to fight about it.
"That's cool," I said, and he relaxed.
"Okay…" Meiko said, sounding dubious. "Kimura-san is everything set up and ready to go?"
"Yep. Looks good to me," I said, trying to sound cheerful, as I handed Rou one of my own business cards. It had a cute little cartoon version of me and Meiko that we used for our logo. He nodded and held it up, as if saying he'd get in contact, before going back to his bike. He left. I wished he hadn't. He was the only one who knew what had happened. I was tempted again to insist that Meiko believe my story, but I didn't want her to think I was crazy too.
From on stage, Katsumi started talking in a cheery announcer voice.
"Looks like she's ready to introduce the mascot, I guess…" I looked away and sighed. After that fight it was not very exciting.
"Don't sound so bored, Kimura-san. We've got a show to do," Meiko said.
"Right." I said, gathering my confidence. I'd find a way to get Meiko's memory back. "I'm living in color!"