The sound of hooves on stone echoed. The world appeared as it would with a sackcloth of velvet over the young boy's head. It came into resolution so slowly, and the young boy felt drunk, addled. He came to realize that there was a man with a tremendous nose in front of him. That man spoke, and the young boy was able to catch only the tail end of the statement.
"Velvet Room."
The man spoke again, and the young boy made sure to pay attention. "It seems that an extremely unusual set of circumstances now surrounds you. This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. It is a place where only those who have- ah, but you have not signed a contract yourself, have you?"
"N-no," the young boy said without thought.
"And yet, someone has signed it for you. Perhaps this is for the best– the will of the heart and the will of the mind often differ. This contract, then, is something you truly desire– whether you think so or not," the man remarked.
"Someone... what?" the young boy said, the disorientation fading.
"It is your fate to determine a great truth for all mankind. I will be here to assist. I ask only that you agree to the terms of the contract which your heart has signed- that you take responsibility for your own actions."
"I..." the young boy said. A thousand different questions boiled inside of him and stilled his tongue.
"Our time here grows brief. We will meet again," promised the man with the long nose.
And then that world was not.
"Nobuyuki you absolute asshole, wake up!" said a voice Nobuyuki knew better than anyone's. "We're going to be late!"
Nobuyuki kept his eyes closed anyway. He was so sleepy, and something about the dream still stuck with him. It was bizarre and he didn't understand it and–
He felt a red hot stinging in his face and heard a terrible slapping sound.
"I'm awake, I'm awake!" he said, throwing his eyes open. His sister was standing in front of him, the handles of their suitcases in one hand and her other hand right where the stinging came from. "Sachi, you don't need to slap me awake."
"Apparently, I do! What happens when we miss our connection, huh?"
"We're screwed, I guess," he said, shrugging.
"You're hopeless. Come on, get your things– we have to take the monorail to Granny's house," she said, rolling his suitcase over to him. He stood up and pulled at the handle experimentally. It felt decidedly heavier than when he had left his home for what his parents had called "a change of pace", and it would be just like his red-headed devil of a sister to put her things in his suitcase and not tell him. He could hardly voice his suspicions, though, because she was already bolting to the exit of the train. He shook his head and followed after her, the weight of the luggage tearing at his shoulder.
Nobuyuki was briefly rendered speechless when he stepped out of the train and into the vastness of what his map called Tower Six. It glittered in the harsh florescent lights and the bright red neon from the food vendors scattered along the mall-like interior. Crowds of people exited and entered the train, or shopped along the storefronts, or came and went through the vast bulk of the complex. Tower Six did its best to make a good impression of the wealth and opulence of Sutai-no-Toshi, as the primary means of entrance and one of the largest of the twelve Tower buildings. He trembled slightly even to think that he would be living in such a bright, busy place, after spending so long in the same quiet suburb, and dearly wished to go back home. He caught sight of Sachi at the counter of a Greek place and clicked his tongue in irritation. As she got her food and departed, he dashed forwards to catch up to her.
"What happened to 'being late'?" he asked, scowling. She swallowed half a kebab and chewed noisily as she responded.
"Hey, we all need to eat, dingus."
"We all need sleep, too."
"Not as much as you do. C'mon! If you stay asleep forever you're going to miss out on the good stuff!" Sachi replied, dashing off further inside the complex, stopping only briefly to toss her trash in a nearby bin.
"Mall food is 'the good stuff' now?" he called towards her.
"Of course!" she laughed. With a roll of his eyes and a grit of his teeth, he followed after her, past crowds and past shops into a great, round elevator platform. The gleaming, stainless steel doors opened, allowing Sachi to enter and Nobuyuki to squeeze in alongside her. The elevator moved briskly,the levels and levels of the mall blurring by and giving Nobuyuki a distinct sense of vertigo. Sachi didn't seem to mind, pressing her face to the glass to look at the colorful streaks made on the windows by the passing lights, grinning all the while. It stopped with a sickening lurch, and the bustle of people assembled in the elevator platform oozed out, mixing only for a moment with the people entering like oil bubbled through water. Nobuyuki had only taken a few steps from the elevator when he had to stop, because there was something truly incredible in front of him.
The monorail station was like something out of a dream. Perched near the top of the tower, it seemed like it might fall at any moment. The rail, however, stretched proudly between Tower Six and the next, defying gravity. He could see it stretched out, high above the city, going on until it faded from view like a mountain lost in mist. Then, with a blast of wind, a train arrived, sleek and quick and stopping on a dime. He shook himself out of his trance and hurried towards it.
"This is the counterclockwise train, so we need to get on it unless you wanna take the scenic route," Sachi said as they met up near the entrance to the train.
"You? Not taking the scenic route?" Nobuyuki asked.
"Ha ha, very funny. There'll be time for looking around later– I'm excited to meet Granny," Sachi said, grabbing her stuff and storing it overhead, and then turning to him. "Need help with your baggage?"
"Sure, why not," Nobuyuki said. He wasn't weak, but he wasn't going to do any more lifting than was necessary. Sachi took his bags and stowed them too, just as a thought occurred to him. "Hey, uh, didn't you meet her in that one family reunion?"
"Nah," Sachi said, "I had food poisoning. Remember?"
Although it had slipped his mind to begin with, Nobuyuki dimly recalled Sachi's absence for his one meeting with their great-aunt Atsuko (called Granny for convenience's sake). It had been a dismal party and Nobuyuki had wished that he had had food poisoning too. The faces he was supposed to recognize, the stories he was supposed to care about- and all of it taking time away from his Sunday routine.
"You're not worried about it, at all?" he asked.
"Nah," she replied. "She's family. Can't be that bad."
The train moved underneath them and they dove for their seats. It took off like a bullet, streaking along the curved path to Tower Five. After a brief moment of lurching as mechanical engineering overtook inertia, the ride seemed calm, only the rapidly moving cityscape outside the window giving indication that Nobuyuki was moving. He leaned over his sister to better try to see the buildings as they rushed past. Tower Five slowly came into sight, and he could see the urban sprawl below undulate, gleaming towers that nonetheless rose and fell in height as he passed over the different areas of the city. The humans were like tiny smears, and with the speed he was going automobiles held still. The cityscape then became tinted in a deep purple, the humans becoming even more indistinct and the buildings becoming cartoonish distortions of themselves, reaching higher and higher, undulating madly like a bed of cilia, Tower Five looming huge and horrifying like a vast crag, the tip of the tower seeming to brush the moon. He blinked and it returned to normal.
"W-what?" he sputtered . "What the hell was that?"
"Chill. You probably just feel asleep," Sachi said. "You're kinda out of it."
"Right, right," Nobuyuki said. "My dreams have just... gotten a hell of a lot weirder than usual."
"Tell me about it. Changes in scenery will do that. Give it a year and you'll be back to having that same stupid dream where all your teeth fall out."
There came a chuckle from a man sitting directly behind them.
"Oh, like you've never had that dream before," Sachi said as she whirled around in her seat to face him. He kept chuckling, deep and hollow.
"Sachi, sit down," Nobuyuki hissed, grabbing her and pulling her down to her seat.
"Forgive me for standing up for us!" she said. The chuckling continued.
"Look, he's clearly... not all there," he said. He twisted around so he could see over his shoulder. The man sat alone, chuckling and chuckling and staring at his hands with a manic grin.
"Right," Sachi said quietly. There was a moment of queeziness and disorientation as the train stopped, and a brief moment of activity as some of the passengers exchanged themselves for those on the platform. Nobuyuki saw the chuckler being escorted gently off the train by two men in security uniforms.
"Poor guy," Sachi murmured. "Wonder whatever happened to him."
"It's a big city," Nobuyuki replied as the train took off again with another horrifying lurch. "I guess they've got their fair share of crazy people."
"I guess," Sachi echoed. She stared listlessly out the window for a while, and Nobuyuki left her to her thoughts. Soon enough, the train stopped, hard, and they were in Tower Four.
"Alright, let's go!" Sachi chirped, her pensive reflection swept away in the gust of wind that accompanied a breaking monorail. She hopped up and grabbed their bags, darting out of the door before he could raise a word of protest, like she always did.
Tower Four was, if less flashy than Tower Six, certainly no less expensive. Tower Six was built for incoming traffic and was high in neon and monorail-themed snow globes. Tower Four was situated in a residential district, near Mono-no-Aware High, and so it was more common to see specialty stores, although there was still plenty of mall food. Sachi, amazingly, managed to avoid the mall food as she stepped into the elevator. The doors were closing by the time Nobuyuki shoved his way through, and it was with consternation that he was looked at by the accumulated crowd.
"Why are you always running?" Nobuyuki asked after catching his breath.
"It's faster than walking!" Sachi replied.
"It's exhausting!"
"For you, maybe. I'll try to slow down if you try to keep up?" Sachi proposed. Nobuyuki nodded slowly, and the doors chose that moment to release themselves, sending the crowd into a small lobby, through which the pair powerwalked until they were out in the deserted night streets.
Walking with Sachi Shinohara through an unfamiliar city was decidedly not a pleasant experience. Nobuyuki had a small map with the route to their Granny's house outlined in red. It was only a short distance, it was fairly straight, and it involved trafficking well lit main streets. Sachi demurred.
"But Yuki! I bet there's, like, a carton full of puppies in this one!" Sachi said as Nobuyuki kept her from slinking into yet another disused alleyway.
"Don't care."
"Yuki! I think this one probably has a back-alley clinic!"
"Why would you even want to go to that?"
"For the sake of adventure!"
"That's nice."
Sachi whirled around in place, leaning forward and invading Nobuyuki's personal space. "You're not any fun, Nobuyuki. This is exactly the kind of bullshit that got you sent here in the first place! 'I don't wanna study abroad,' and 'Osaka sounds like such a pain, I'll skip it' and never asking out any of your little crushes– when are you ever going to do anything new?"
"Maybe I'll join a sports team," Nobuyuki said with a shrug. He kept walking. Sachi skipped after him with a scowl.
"Not new enough! Like, right now– I bet I could climb up this fire escape and get over to Granny's in like, no time at all!"
"For the four hundredth time, I can't freerun, or, whatever you do."
"It's parcour, it's French, it's a sport, and who's fault is that? You sat around being boring while I learned to do that stuff!"
"I was taking kendo, like our parents told me to!" Nobuyuki shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "And so were you, until you dropped out to climb around on trashcans."
"It was boring, painful, and we both hated it. Then I learned parcour, and because of it, I've never been late to school once! What's kendo ever done for you?"
"I'll tell you what kendo is gonna do for me if you don't walk to Granny's house without dragging us somewhere stupid!"
"I–" Sachi said, but it was too late to mount a reply, because Granny's house was in view and it was time for her to have an adventure. It was a tiny, one-floor, old-fashioned dwelling with an old, rusty metal gate built into a short, encircling wall, nestled in between two large skyscrapers. Sachi's response was to leave all her bags with Nobuyuki on the sidewalk and jump over the wall to knock rapidly on the door. Nobuyuki opened the old gate with a sigh, and lugged all their bags to wait on the porch with his sister. The door swung open slowly, and a short, white-haired woman with her hair in a bun opened the door. She resembled Nobuyuki's sole faded memory of his Granny well enough that he decided it was probably her. Her face lit up when she saw the pair.
"Oh, Nobuyuki," she said with a wry smile. "I was so pleased when your father gave me that call. And..."
"Ehem. Sachi. Twin sister. Remember?" Sachi coughed.
"Oh, of course! How could I have forgotten!" Granny said with a chuckle, which Nobuyuki figured was better than whatever other reaction she might have given to her unexpected guest. "Come inside! I'm sure you're tuckered from all those train rides..."
"I am, but Yuki's probably not. Big baby slept the whole way!" Sachi said as she bounded inside.
"I'm fine," Nobuyuki muttered. The interior of the house was basically the exterior of the house in furniture form. Very traditional, very rustic, and very much a far cry from the neon lights of the Tower.
"Your room's down the hall. You'll have to share, of course," Granny said, her brow furrowed.
"Cool! Thanks Granny!" Sachi said. She raced down the hall as quickly as she could manage, which reminded Nobuyuki once more that he was still carrying her things. He sighed and trudged on after her.
"Oh!" Granny said after a moment, "don't call me Granny! I'm not that old! Call me Atsuko!"
"Sure thing, G-Atsuko!" Sachi called from their room. Nobuyuki opened the door tentatively and looked around. It was plain and sparsely furnished, with two small futons in opposite corners of the room and a tiny wooden dresser that would probably be unsuitable for anyone but the Shinohara twins, who had about six outfits between them. One boxy window opened out and up, facing the moon, and they could see the tops of far-off towers if they strained their eyes.
"School starts tomorrow, which is bullshit," Sachi remarked. She stood on her futon with a poster and a roll of tape, the origins of which Nobuyuki didn't bother trying to figure out.
"Yes, it does, and it's after midnight. We should be sleeping, Sachi," Nobuyuki said.
"I guess. You know, Nobuyuki, this... I don't know, whatever it is? Fear of the unknown? It can't last forever."
"Whatever," Nobuyuki said. He flopped on the futon for a second and was asleep again.