Yuri Worlds

[17] Wind

The wind pressed at them from the side, softly but insistently fluttering at their clothes. A sharp chill rushed through Misaki‘s exposed legs. It was nice to be next to Yuka, especially for her warmth.

The road ahead of them looked like the ones at the edge of town back home, where wide swaths of alfalfa grew between massive airplane hangars. Those shoulders looked like some unearthly giant had dragged a finger through the sandy dirt. This edge of the road transitioned immediately to muddy farmland, with only the most rudimentary gap and a tiny sliver of silvery pavement. Yuka stretched up on her toes to scope out their path ahead and swing around to check in the other direction. Misaki recalled that she mentioned her high school was two kilometers in that direction. Yuka confirmed.

She explained they were having an early semester administrative day despite Golden Week coming up. That didn’t mean she had the day off, but because of her obligations as a host for visitors from another world, she had a short day full of mostly paperwork back at school. She still intended to return later to help everyone clean up and connect with her after-school club. Yuka dipped her head toward Misaki and apologized that she would be unavailable for a large portion of most days because of her obligations. Misaki fanned her hands furtively and assured Yuka it was perfectly fine.

It hadn’t come up yet who would be showing them around this world, and if it wasn’t Yuka, then she didn’t know who it would be. Her mothers? Did they have other work? Yuka casually explained that Fuyuki was a children’s book author. The two of them often hosted guests, as Kei alluded to with her hopeful singer anecdote, but Kei’s main job was a mix of administrative work for their region, massage, and therapeutic care. Yuka barely dodged the threat of her strongest techniques to do something about her leg.

Attempting to keep the hairstyle that Chika gifted her from becoming hopelessly windblown, Misaki leaned towards a low wall while keeping hold of Yuka and asked, “Are you in the same club as Naoko?”

They waited there until the strongest gusts abated. Yuka slowly but firmly shook her head in reply. “She’s definitely asked me, and I’ve helped out with her club, but the kind of stuff they do is just too crazy and complicated for me to enjoy, even though they’re a fun group. I am with the Legal Studies Club. I want to be a lawyer. That probably sounds just as crazy and serious, but we mostly go over texts and try to explain them simply. And we do a lot of mystery book readings, looking for accuracy and oversights. I’m bad at pretty much everything we do, but I’m working to get better. Miss Nishikawa Kosame, who’s also in the club, has the kind of overwhelming presence to supplant all those video game attorneys. And more. Unfortunately, she tends to lose faith easily. Come on, looks like a good time to continue.”

She was right; the cutting harshness of the breeze had dwindled to a faint but steady stir that pressed her clothes against her body without the brutal fury of yanking at them. The sky was beautifully clear.

However, on the edge of the horizon, towards the dim, green mountains in the distance, she could see a peculiar blackness, as harsh and ominous as any thunderstorm. Yuka noted there was a forecast chance of rain later but assured her it would clear by morning. She took a deep breath and nodded.

The wind only gave them fleeting respites throughout their trek. It wasn’t cold or even biting, but Misaki still shivered. Yuka offered to give up her cardigan before sprinting back to the house and returning with a sports-style windbreaker and a blanket almost as fluffy and soft as the one that Haruka draped across her and even longer.

Despite asserting that she wasn’t that cold from the wind, Misaki soon completely wrapped her shoulders in the warm blanket. Unfortunately, the swaddled comfort also brought back the pervasive tiredness that her nap had only softly pushed away with adrenaline and mystery. It wasn’t long till Yuka posed the idea of wrapping up together and sharing warmth. She couldn’t keep a straight face with that suggestion, but they both eagerly huddled close.

The persistent wind felt strikingly familiar to Misaki. It was the base nature of the desert where she grew up. And feeling it here practically revealed the greenery and verdant hills as some strange mirage fostered by invisible aqueducts. She snapped a quick photo with her phone, not bothering to go through the whole circumventing method that Chika used to get back her regular apps. It still appeared to save to internal storage without any trouble. She didn’t mind if the spyware from the company knew about it, so long as she was able to keep it.

Out of curiosity, she inquired if there were any actual deserts nearby. Yuka pondered that for a while before shaking her head. Not anywhere close. Now, she qualified, the world had a many great, harsh, and visually striking deserts. Misaki listened to a handful that Yuka knew offhand. None of them sounded even vaguely familiar in name or placement on the globe. Too many differences between this world and hers.

In answer to her question, she learned that the main island chain that represented the land she knew apparently had a blank, desolate alien landscape facing the ocean. It was only about a dozen square kilometers across and the only stretch of land even remotely reminiscent of a desert. Basically, it was like a set of sand dunes. Misaki filed that away as an interesting prospect for a visit on the bullet train. Not that they were lacking in interesting locations to check out.

All throughout the trek so far, the entire trek since arriving at this world, walking to the station, and making it here, she hadn’t seen even a trace or a smudge of defaced signs or trashed buildings. She had anticipated that at least something was probably going to be visible in the deepest stretch of downtown. Maybe some lady yakuza syndicate sign. Or the hint of a tagger vaguely inspired and thoroughly anonymous. But there was nothing. Just a well-oiled hegemony of girls, she assumed. At least around here. Never mind the little wars and tribes of girls with animal ears that no one wanted. Still, she thought this had quite a few benefits compared to home.

Lawyer, huh? Misaki mulled. Not her first guess for how she thought Yuka would go. They scraped their shoes against a noisy patch of gravel and smiled idly at one another.

When Misaki brought up her career choice, Yuka shrugged but didn’t appear indecisive. “It seems like the best way to help everyone. Learn the laws, figure out the system, and work on it to do what I can. I am close to a good score on my mock exams. Relatively close. Naoko is freaking out about hers. She has her club, and she’s also starting at the very best cram school in the area. She’s so smart. She’ll have options for whatever university she wants. I’m terrified. Relatively terrified. I want to get into government and take over the world… mwhahaha… heh. I mean, make the world a better place. Order is good, structure is important, but the old women in charge of things can be so frustrating. There is a crucial balance between change and preservation. You need to bring everyone together in harmony. But not everyone is for that, and it probably sounds weird. Your travel group seems so independent. But it’s important here to have a healthy order to life. Thank you for listening to my opening statement. Haha…my gosh, I talk too much. Sorry, Miss Takano.”

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Misaki fanned her hands, but not with as much flapping intensity as for her roommates earlier. She assured Yuka it was perfectly fine, noting, “I like your words. Yeah, things are really different where we come from. We talked to Naoko about all sorts of little differences with television programs…” And she elaborated with specific examples, wielding that ‘chuusei’ word Chika latched onto to help illuminate the cavernous differences.

Yuka slowed her pace and took a breath. “Yeah. We chatted a little around lunch prep. Most of the stuff she tends to say when she’s really excited is absolutely beyond me. And she is very excited today. So much. Could you help me with it?”

Misaki didn’t feel especially confident about her ability to replicate Chika’s insights, but she agreed to listen to her questions. Yuka asked, “Do Goddesses exist in your world? What about dead spirits? What about nature spirits and other forms of typically unseen intelligences?”

Those were several complicated questions, and Misaki found herself up against a mental wall about what to say. No, she understood exactly what she should say. The problem was fear and uncertainty about doing it. She didn’t consult Franklin, but instead imagined what Misaki would say and let it roll off her tongue.

“We don’t know. Some believe in divinity, spirituality, and strange entities. It’s like what I mentioned with figures people think are from space or from forests. It’s not proven or scientifically known. There’s faith and hope. But our world is made of a massive patchwork of so many different things that we listen to and many that we ignore. However, so many are materialistic, or they don’t go looking.”

Yuka hung on her words even though Misaki would’ve denounced so many of them as rambling and incoherent. In response, Yuka marveled at the fact that this other world had managed to create a pathway between realities. Yes, science is a huge factor in life and so important, but not at the expense of a healthy spiritual awareness. It absolutely boggled her mind that anyone could ignore goddesses, their ancestors, or the flood of companion spirits that surrounded and emerged from human inspiration. Yes, again, the world she lived in was swift and busy, with a lot of different kinds of girls possessing a myriad of different thoughts, but acknowledgment of a spiritual side was a cornerstone of life itself.

She held out her hands. “There’s darkness and there’s light. Sickness and healing. Memory and creation. Though I talked up order, chaos must also exist. Wouldn’t that leave your world painfully out of balance to ignore such a large portion of itself?”

Misaki agreed with this premise, even though she had no idea what to do about it. Another breeze hit them, battering her hair and sending it flapping across her eyes and into her mouth. It was supremely annoying. Sometimes Franklin let it get this long, at the worst point being long enough to flip around but not quite long enough to feel comfortable contained by a tie. Yuka received a puff of wiggly static from her loose bangs.

The path rose up a slight hill, which afforded them a look out across the region. It was not as majestic as the roughly tugged, tan blanket of the desert back home, but the grassy undulations drawn by whimsical, insistent, invisible hands across fields and marshes still inspired awe.

They passed the occasional covered bench stop for buses. A series of trucks rumbled along the narrow road. Past a little dip in the distance, Yuka pointed out a traffic circle flanked by a feed shop, a general store, an old restaurant, and a small apartment complex. Before that, she could see a clearly marked clinic. It was fair brown with a dark roof and reminded her of a modern Norse longhouse with aesthetic elements borrowed from a fire station. It was low, a single story, with a simple roof and a handful of windows on the sides. A covered garden and a stout greenhouse flanked one end, with a simple parking lot on the other.

Through the automatic sliding door, Misaki saw countless colorful, educational posters along the walls of a small reception area and waiting room. The cut-out section of the receptionist's desk displayed a gigantic teddy bear that occupied an entire office chair, with a cape and an open book sprawled across its face. Further back, Misaki could hear incoherent yelling and screaming. Words gradually emerged.

“…and tell him to go stuff it down with a radish where the moon can get a great tax rate. You send it over! It’s gotta be sent over! No, I don’t care what they say! It’s gotta be you. Send it, fax it, cram it up their asses, staple it where it hurts! It’s gotta happen now! Then, I can go back with the temp documentation and I can fill in the missing requirements. I know what they said, but they are so full of fragrant fecal matter. This… listen to me… Listen to this part, if you listen to anything I’ve said. Everything, every last thing needs to be in by this afternoon. Yes, the radiological results are still being delayed. I asked them four hours ago. I don’t know what’s going on. I just need a minute. I need some time. I need you to follow up with that other case…. She knows what she did. She always knows what she did, and she knows that I’m watching her. I’m about to be a parkour ninja assassin wingsuit mothershrieker on her roof with a magnifying glass, and I’ll be hunting her down every moment I can! All right… All right… Love you too, you piece of shit.”

Soon after that finished, one of the back doors creaked open, and a girl walked out with her head bent forward, ravenously sucking on some wretchedly colored ooze-green concoction. She half swallowed, coughed, choked a little, cleared her throat, and said, ”Sasaki! What can I do for you? Is this one of your guests? I recognized the hardware on her wrist. Looks very secret agent in the flesh. How are you doing, Miss? I hope that travel company…stuff isn’t hurting you.”