The end of this story's first little arc and now our boy's out on his own. Wish him luck!


The tradeoff for Hokkaido's notoriously harsh winters were its refreshingly mild summers, especially compared to the humid weather across Japan's other islands. The more bearable season attracted sizable crowds each year and it seemed that recent events hadn't deterred much traffic through the city. Sapporo's streets were packed with people eager to experience the local summer festival─and among them moved a man with no sense of identity or purpose.

After leaving that kindly old man's apartment, the so-called Yamada Taro walked a crowded path. He followed the flow of traffic while observing street signs and landmarks for anything that stood out as familiar. Nothing did. Taro had little direction beyond acclimating himself to the largest city north of Tokyo, and eventually this led him toward the border of Toyohira Ward where he pulled off to the side.

Surveillance was heavy there thanks to recent disturbances caused by the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, and he didn't want to risk getting caught up in the mess of a police investigation without knowing what role he might have played. That burned out building in the next ward over was his only clue, a crime scene swarmed with investigators like a horde of flies. He doubted there would be much left worth poring over when the cops finished picking its carcass clean, but getting thrown in a lockup while trying to jumpstart his memory sounded like a bad use of his time.

Taro stood at a bus stop while pedestrians did their best not to bump into each other as they walked, talked, and texted. Every now and then he felt the annoying nudge of someone's arm against his backpack as he focused on the route map.

Hidden behind dark lenses, red eyes traced color-coded lines like they were trying to solve a labyrinth. Where he stood now, near the southern edge of Shiroishi Ward, was only a stone's throw from Toyohira. He had crossed a river out of Higashi Ward, where Suzuki lived, and judging by his current position Taro guessed he had been on the move for upwards of three hours.

Plotting his next course was difficult. He had no knowledge of what he might find across Sapporo's districts, nestled together like jigsaw pieces; for how little he knew, Taro might as well have been completing a milk puzzle.

If he continued east from his current position, that would land him in Atsubetsu Ward and he would reach the edge of Sapporo. There was no reason to leave the city behind, not when it held all the answers he needed, but if he doubled back through Shiroishi he would reach Chuo Ward─

"Excuse me?"

─where, according to all the advertisements he'd seen, most of the Summer Festival's activities were hosted. That could give him a better vantage of the city─

"Sir?"

─and hopefully he would have an easier time navigating if he started from the city center─

Two quick taps to the shoulder made Taro recoil. He pulled his arm away like he'd been bitten, yet looked upon the offender with more disgust than surprise.

Before him stood a younger man, mid-twenties by his best guess, sporting dark messy hair, a graphic t-shirt, knee-length shorts, and sneakers. Taro's strong reaction caused the stranger to lift both hands up in a show of peace.

"Sorry to bother you!" His smile hung lopsided as he emphasized his apology over the city noise. "I just wanted to ask if you could help me take a picture. No one else is free."

"What makes you think I am?" Taro scowled.

"Aren't you waiting for the bus?" The stranger clapped his hands together and bowed behind them. "Please! It'll be quick. Just a minute of your time."

No excuse came to mind; he wasn't under a strict deadline or occupied by anything more than his thoughts. Taro rolled his eyes, offered his hand, and received a digital camera.

Small and compact, with a silver frame and black buttons, the device wasn't much larger than his palm. He took a moment to turn the camera over, scrutinize its labels, and make sure he knew where everything was. The back was taken up by a large viewfinder which lit when he pressed a button near one of the top corners. Taro fiddled until he found the zoom, plus and minus, then the lens focus. When he took too long for the stranger's liking, the other man prompted him with directions for functions he had already discovered.

"I got it," Taro brushed the guy off.

With the viewfinder this large, he didn't need to bring the camera close to his face to frame the shot. Once he started, the younger man struck a wide stance with one hand on his hip and the other presenting a V for victory. Childish. They weren't within sight of any special landmarks Taro could identify, nor was he given any other direction.

No accounting for taste, he thought. Random requests of strangers all but ensured mediocre results.

Taro pressed the button twice and, satisfied with the false click of a simulated shutter, plainly announced, "Done."

"Thank you!" the stranger dropped his pose, "Thank you so much, sir. That was very kind."

Such a profuse expression of gratitude over something so simple formed a knot in Taro's brow. He offered the camera back with a discordant frown that contrasted with the stranger's toothy smile. Just as he proudly reclaimed his device, Taro felt the younger man's hand fumble─the younger man scrambled too late and the camera clattered to the sidewalk, followed by his knees.

Taro winced. He watched this person frantically inspect every button and angle with theatrical desperation until, suddenly, all of that concern turned to ire.

"Do you know how expensive this was?"

"No." Nor did he really care. Taro turned his attention back to the bus routes.

"Fifty-thousand!" the young man shouted, "This cost me fifty-thousand yen and now it's broken!"

"Should have been more careful with it."

"You're the one who broke it!"

"What was that?"

The stranger picked himself off the sidewalk. "You dropped my camera and now it's broken! You're not even going to apologize?"

"The hell I did. What do you take me for?" Nothing but a patsy; this must have been a damn setup.

"You're selfish, you know that? It's only right for you to pay for the damage." He brazenly intruded into Taro's space and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. "Take some responsibili─"

Out of pure reflex, Taro snatched the man's wrist and rammed his shoulder into the scammer's chest. His back slammed against the bus stop wall and he stared, stunned, as Taro snatched the broken camera from his hand.

With one arm pressing his full weight against the guy's sternum, Taro inspected the camera himself. Thick plastic held together better to a cheap disposable and proved far more durable compared to those high end professional cameras. Its outer casing was scuffed and one of the corners chipped but, with a few button presses, the viewfinder lit up clear as day.

"I broke it, huh?"

Sweat beaded across the younger man's forehead.

"Ah─y-you must have fixed it! My mistake…" His smile twisted nervously. "Thank you. Really!"

"No."

"Eh?"

Taro let the camera fall to the pavement then brought one heel down like a hammer. The frame shattered, spitting plastic splinters at their feet. Gasps peppered the small crowd that had grown around their altercation.

"Now it's broken," Taro snarled, "You want to try that again?"

The scammer slumped beneath his weight, now stricken by a cowardly silence. Taro shoved him upon release and watched the man return to his knees among the debris. Outside of a few dirty looks, their onlookers kept to themselves and began to give the two men a wide berth.

"Be grateful I didn't break you," Taro warned before leaving the crook to lament his failure.

Damn vultures.

Grateful as Taro was for these supplies, the backpack and everything else made Taro look out of place. Pickpockets and swindlers preferred the naivete of tourists over well-informed locals when picking their targets. His injuries didn't help either, all the bandages and wraps just painted him as easy prey for slimeballs like them, and he truly would be if he didn't get his bearings in this city soon.

Convenient as a taxi would be to avoid these situations, they were far too expensive even if he had a destination in mind. Not like cab drivers were exempt from ripping people off, either. That left the bus and metro systems as his best bets for now, given they were priced about the same. The ache in his body had caught up with him after several hours on his feet already, and now his bruised shoulder had another reason to be sore. Tired and exasperated, Taro retreated from the spotlight down the nearest subway tunnel to escape the crowded streets and overbearing sun.

As it turned out, Sapporo's underground was more elaborate than he anticipated. Wide paths wound throughout the station, giving ample room for everyone to move and breathe. Along the walls stood all sorts of outlet stores that made the structure feel more like a mall than a place of transit. Taro took up one of many circular benches in a designated rest area and hydrated with one of several water bottles packed in the bag. They were small and bulky amongst the rest of his things, but each bottle he discarded would make room for other items he might acquire, like the tourist pamphlet he pocketed from an information kiosk.

Summer Festival advertisements hung on the walls down here as well, and one attraction in particular caught his eye; the Beer Garden in Odori Park. His stomach had begun to complain from all the walking he'd done, and a beer didn't sound half bad to help him cool off from that disgraceful encounter. At the very least he didn't see any harm in checking out the prices and admission fees since he would be heading for Chuo Ward anyway, and pairing a real drink with his lunch sounded like a nice reward for all the trouble he'd been through.

After some pacing through the underground, his attention settled on a route map that stood illuminated like a monument near an intersection. Odori Station seemed to be the most accessible stop on his path to Chuo Ward anyway, and even if he needed to switch trains at any point the trip would be exponentially faster than anything above ground.

Taro shrugged off his rucksack and set it on the bench. There was no telling where else he might go when there was so much daylight left, so he might as well pick up a 24hr pass. He dug through the bag's pockets and was counting up yen when a wave of gooseflesh spread across his back─followed by a comforting warmth.

His attention whipped to a couple walking briskly past him, a woman on her boyfriend's arm. She laughed with genuine mirth, then turned to look at this unremarkable stranger with a curious fascination. Their eyes locked, and in that brief moment his mind flooded with potential.

She was a zoanthrope herself, obviously, but the way she stared… Could there be a chance she recognized him despite his attire? Was it possible she knew him? If she were alone, would she approach him? Would she risk it anyway just to see? Just to be certain?

His heart thrummed with anticipation. The woman shook her head.

"It's nothing," Taro heard her say to the man accompanying her, "I just got distracted." She passed one last curious glance over her shoulder before they disappeared around a corner.

Their resonance faded without a trace, leaving him in a windswept stupor. Just a distraction. Nothing important. Nothing at all.

Quietly, he began recounting yen.

Boarding the train presented a challenge when dozens of people had the same destination in mind. They all crammed into the train car like sardines, and he overheard discussion of the Beer Garden in earnest. Taro grimaced, his already shallow breath unsteady against the assortment of bags and body parts pressed against his injuries. Every time he breathed just a little too deep his cracked ribs protested with enough spite he felt the train tilt, so he held one of the ceiling hooks to keep from toppling over.

Taro concentrated inward, attempting to put the discomfort out of his mind by immersing himself in the dark sea behind his eyes. All that did was threaten a nauseating vertigo. He earned a similar sensation from shifting his focus on the windows, so Taro diverted his attention higher to the advertisement banners spread across the upper walls.

Film and live performance ads were plentiful alongside products like coffee, sports drinks, and neti pots. Real estate and debt assistance sat hand in hand with warnings of train car etiquette, automatic door safety, and 'no smoking, no eating, no drinking' signs. Inconsistent displays of straight laced businessmen with no emotion beside wacky eccentrics giving the performance of their lives. This dissonance struck him the most with a driving school ad; presented as a driver's license, the man in the photo looked far more proud of himself than any department of motor vehicles would allow. The fake license holder's name was printed clearly, twisting what should have been an accomplished grin on the accompanying stock photo into a repulsive sneer.

Yamada Taro.

A disgusted snarl slipped between his teeth. He needed a different name.

The instant he was clear of the doors, he elbowed his way through the crowded platform and found another bench. Here this once-again nameless man sat and drank, held onto and leaned against his backpack like a cushion, and let the ache dissipate from his body before he braved another maze of tunnels.

While the shade of the underground had given him some relief, he was quick to welcome the sun on his skin upon his return to the surface. Directions for Odori Park were clearly marked around Chuo Ward, where the roads were more densely packed with delivery trucks, buses, and taxi cabs. Music echoed distantly from the moment he exited the metro, and as he drew closer to the park's lush greenery his other senses came alive.

Odori Park stretched from one side of Chuo to the other, cut into twelve individual blocks that sported two-to-five lane roads, large intersections, and crosswalks. At one end sat the Sapporo City Museum with the city's TV Tower at the other, and every block in between was treated as an individual park with their own unique attractions. One section was used as a picnic area with a large fountain as its centerpiece, another made an easy space for flea markets and festival stalls, and yet another had room to host live performances. Music played loudest from the speakers here, a disjointed arrangement of top forties hits that managed to maintain a respectable volume.

The scent of hops and barbecue was inescapable; he had to swallow to keep his tongue from swimming. Fortunately for him, the park had no admission fee─everyone was free to mill around Odori at their leisure─but the enticing food and drinks were not merely restricted behind a paywall. This Beer Garden, designed to advertise domestic and imported varieties, had different stalls and arrangements per brand. Each one took up its own block within the park, displaying signage that offered history lessons on Sapporo's local breweries and incentive to visit the Hokkaido Beer Museum.

This entire trip he'd been envisioning a cold bottle in his hand, the crisp liquid coating his throat, but nothing could be that easy out here. Every section of the Beer Garden was cordoned off by waist-high fences and packed with huge crowds. The lines were long and required an entry free, on top of the meal prices. While there were some that allowed walk-ins, it seemed a considerable amount of patrons had reserved their spots in advance and every visitor was expected to commit to their stay. He would have to get used to disappointment. Still, being denied a simple beer was nothing compared to the real defeat of being so close to all the delicious food he couldn't justify purchasing. The sides of each Beer Garden structure were pasted with their menu, large pictures of well-seasoned meat and vegetables far out of his price range, and he could smell their marinades on every breath.

The old man made sure he wouldn't go hungry this first day back on his feet, with a generously packed lunch box and thermos full of soup. He was grateful. That didn't make it any easier to wrestle himself away from the featured Genghis Khan platters that tempted him to jump the fence just for a taste.

His most difficult trial yet would be finding a place to eat his lunch without these other enticing meals taunting him─or so he thought. Through all the grill smoke and city noise, a faint and all-too-familiar tingle crept beneath his skin. He paused to lift his chin, scanning over the crowd to no avail. As he stood still, the sensation weakened. He resumed walking and his resonance renewed. There must have been some proximity trigger.

Before this he had been walking leisurely but now he moved with purpose. The nameless zoanthrope weaved through a mass of strange bodies, playing hot and cold to track the source.

His pursuit was single minded, though to what end he wasn't sure. Perhaps just to confirm his understanding of how resonance functioned and the role it played between zoanthropes. He certainly didn't know what he might do once he found them; anything he could say would be awkward at best, and chances were low they would even want to be engaged in public like this.

The tingle beneath his skin, that spark of interest in the air, grew stronger with every step until he was sure he could pinpoint them. Strangely, unlike the instance at the metro station where they both responded, this person didn't. The feeling most strongly emanated from a man with short cropped hair who looked only a decade his senior. He walked closely with a woman about the same age while carrying a small child in his arms.

Much like the other two zoanthropes he encountered since leaving the hospital, there was nothing especially noteworthy about this man's appearance; to anyone else he was just a regular citizen, perhaps even to his partner, but this primal sense led straight to him. This guy, unlike the woman in the subway, didn't spare him a glance. He didn't even flinch. Had he learned to suppress it somehow? Suzuki didn't seem bothered by their resonance either, but of course he knew to expect another zoanthrope in his home. Maybe this man had grown so accustomed to the feeling he learned to tune it out.

As his mind began to wander, his eyes did too─until he found the child staring at him over her father's shoulder. The moment his attention settled on her, even behind his sunglasses, she smiled and reached a tiny hand out toward him.

His stomach sank.

This kid couldn't have been older than three and here she was, a zoanthrope when neither of her parents were. How dangerous could that be for her? What would that mean for someone so young in this political climate?

She strained for some reaction from him, waving, grasping, and whining for attention from someone she wanted to know. Her parents didn't seem to understand. They clumsily checked on her as if she was fussing about something unknowable when she was looking directly at him.

He pulled the brim of his hat down. Even with a handful of people between them he wasn't equipped for that conversation. If their daughter was giving off resonance so young, there was a chance they already knew what she was. His mind stalled there; he had no idea if there was some kind of limit to when resonance began to be expressed in zoanthropes at all. Would they need to have transformed first or was that sense present from birth?

Dammit. This had nothing to do with him.

The longer he stood there like a deer in the headlights the more this little girl fussed, so he turned on his heel and made away from the group. A shrill wail of protest followed. He grimaced, feeling a tight knot sink further into his gut.

Great. First day out and he made a kid cry just to avoid an awkward conversation. Truly stellar work.

Further down the block, music drowned out any noise from the child and their resonance was gone. Every time that feeling died he was left strangely hollow. He surveyed the park for a good place to sit and eat that empty feeling away, and to his luck there was an open spot near the picnic area with a nice view of the crowds. It was close enough to the speakers that the beeping crosswalks didn't interfere with the music and he wasn't in the way of anyone's walking path.

With one strap of the backpack over his arm for safety, he laid out all of the food Suzuki packed for him; out of the six water bottles he started with less than half remained, that bag of rice crackers he'd already opened was sealed tight with a rubber band, and a thermos full of lukewarm miso soup was set beside a lacquered bento box. Inside the lunch box was an assortment of the previous night's leftovers and freshly cooked food that provided a good balance of nourishment.

Not only would this be the last well-balanced meal he would have, it was also the last meal he would eat for free. After this he was on his own─so he damn well had to make it count and not waste even a single grain of rice or drop of soup.

That was his own fault, he knew. He should have just pocketed the damn camera and taken it to a pawn shop. Even if it had only been worth a few hundred yen compared to the thousands that guy wanted, at least it would have paid for something. His impulse to smash the offending object was too strong, and the vindication he felt afterward made him incapable of questioning that decision until he now had to take stock of his dwindling resources.

Stupid.

Grumbling to himself as he ate, he pulled out the pamphlet he claimed from the subway and unfolded it across his lap. Each of Sapporo's wards and their major attractions were highlighted, as well as the color-coded rail lines for the metro system, bus routes, and even the local tram. Based on street names he heard from the news, he could roughly triangulate the general area of Toyohira Ward where the burned out building was located. His mind kept returning here for lack of any other direction, but sniffing around an active crime scene would only get him thrown into a police lineup. He supposed that was one way to recover information about himself.

Maybe his best course was the hospital after all. He could return there and ask if they had any of his belongings. There was a high chance he misunderstood what was going on and panicked unnecessarily. Would it really be so bad if the police just needed to hold him for questioning? If nothing else, it would keep a roof over his head and they would be obliged to feed him.

Then again, Suzuki had no involvement with that incident and he didn't trust the cops either. It wasn't like they had the best interest of zoanthropes at heart.

He couldn't help but sigh. Was his only course to wander aimlessly and scavenge for food until something happened to trigger his memory? And what would he do for shelter in this city still smoldering from violence?

Damn it all. He was stranded out here.

Until further notice he was a ghost─a destitute shell of a person with no name and no life. That made every minute from this moment on key to his very survival, even just one day to the next. Any mistake he made out here could be his last.


Just a couple cultural notes to help with ~immersion~

» Putting aside any recent shifts in the market, exchange rates for dollars to yen generally sit around the 100JPY = 1USD mark, so cut off the last two zeroes from the camera price and it would be about $500. Beer from the Garden costs around $10 and a 24hr day pass for public transportation could run under $5 for the bus or subway, so our boy's got to be frugal.

» Milk Puzzles are a type of jigsaw puzzle with no picture or defining characteristics. They're often completely white, hence the name, which means they're like Hard Mode for jigsaws.