“Strategy meeting.”

A message had popped up on my phone. Obviously, there was only one person it could come from, especially that its contents were vague.

“Strategy meeting what?”

Confused, I asked for more information. Soon, I received a reply back from her that didn’t disclose much. What was she doing that for?

“Today.”

“Okay, when?”

“2100”

Clearly, she didn’t leave her phone for a second as her responses were nearly instant. It seemed that I had to obtain all necessary information from her by hand. Was that her way of toying with me?

“And where?”

Silence followed. Had she not had a location prepared? Anyway, she chose a quite late hour. Most stores or restaurants wouldn’t be open anymore by then. I waited for her reply with my eyes fixed on the screen.

“The small playground closest to the abandoned candy shop.”

I had been living here since I was a kid, so I knew what place she was talking about. But a playground? She was going to have fun as if she were a child again? She called it a strategy meeting, but I had already noticed that it meant pretty much nothing.

She chose a late hour, but in fact, I could be grateful to her for that. I found summer evenings quite pleasant—it wasn’t as hot as during the day, but still warm enough to walk in no more than a hoodie.

“All right. Anything else?”

“That’s all.”

“Do you want me to bring some tools?”

“Tools? That won’t be necessary…”

“Really? I think it’s more fun.”

She took a longer while to respond.

“We are not going to murder anyone, human...”

I chuckled. What was she talking about? I meant tools to play in a sandbox… I was joking, obviously.

“Oh. Too bad.”

Again, it was only a joke. I feared that she would leave me with awkward silence now, but fortunately, she responded soon.

“You would be caught instantly, so don’t go against the human law.”

“And you wouldn’t?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“But it’s too much of a pain, so I won’t.”

What a weird conversation…

“I have something important to tell you, so come prepared. Farewell.”

“See you.”

With that, I placed the phone back on the desk and lay down on the bed. The last time we met, she said something about having something important to tell me. I’d been wondering what that thing was, so I was looking forward to seeing her today.

And naturally, I was constantly anxious.

•

The hands of the clock were nearly approaching 9 pm. It was August, so despite the late hour, it was still quite bright outside.

Earlier today, she had unexpectedly sent me a message, asking to meet at a near playground in the evening. She had also said that there was something important she had to tell me, but I could only guess what it was.

A sigh escaped my mouth as I sat on my bed, emptily staring at the wall. I was wondering, but I was also worrying about that thing. It might be anything. It might be something completely irrelevant, a product of her imagination, something both me and her knew wasn’t real, yet still acted as if it was.

But it might be something serious, actually concerning the real world. Maybe she wanted to tell me that she was going to leave, that I wouldn’t see her at school in September anymore?

Or that she wanted to sever ties with me? Our relationship always felt awkward, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she were already tired of it. I was too, but I wanted to get rid of it by overcoming it rather than giving up.

Perhaps she wanted to tell me how she felt about me? No, no, impossible.

In other words, did this mean that it was going to be something most likely negative?

I knew that worrying about it beforehand had no point, because what was going to happen, was going to happen either way, but I couldn’t help it. I stretched out my hands and legs as a manifestation of my ceaseless stress and slowly rose from the bed.

•

I walked down the deserted, although not dim street that led to the small park we had agreed to meet at. It was a place I had often dropped by back in the day, since I was just like most kids and played in the playground every now and then. It wasn’t that far from my house, which might have meant that she lived closer to me than I thought.

“…”

A short sigh escaped my mouth. Pleasant warmth embraced my body, but it didn’t help to reduce my stress whatsoever. I walked slowly with my head unwittingly hanging down, and my eyes fixed on the concrete surface of the road. Sometimes I heard the quiet rustle of leaves, which I found to be the most relaxing thing at the moment.

I raised my head to look at the evening sky. I couldn’t notice any stars there, but it was only obvious since the sky was still orange. It filled me with an equally relaxing and unpleasant feeling—loneliness. I could not sense any presence of something alive nearby, which made me feel as if I were the sole person in the entire world—yet I couldn’t have been more wrong, as all I had to do to erase that thought was look at the bright windows on one of the houses that densely surrounded the street.

Finally, I arrived at the playground. There were no kids playing there, which wasn’t that obvious since parents often allowed their children to play until quite late hours in the summer.

However, most of them would most likely be too afraid to play right now since a suspicious figure was sitting on the bench under a tree, which cast a shadow and made it almost indistinguishable.

I couldn’t see its face, but it certainly was dressed in black—just as that girl would.

“Hey.”

I approached the figure, discarding the small chance of it being someone else. She turned her hooded head in my direction and merely let out a small sound as a response.

“…”

Her face was uncovered—she didn’t have any kind of mask on, surprisingly. She had the eyepatch in place on her left eye, though, and her long, blonde hair was covered by the black hood with a pair of cat ears.

Still, I couldn’t see her expression well enough to be able to confirm it because of the tree creating a blind spot where she sat. Soon, she proceeded to stand up, and approach me slowly.

“Human.”

Her frail figure stopped in front of me. Her arms covered by baggy black sleeves hung limply, and her head was slightly lowered and turned to the side, so that she could still see me without the danger of our eyes meeting.

That’s right—my name was just “human”. I had long gotten used to it, so I paid no attention to it, but had she ever called me by my real name? Perhaps she had already forgotten it? I wouldn’t be surprised. It would be too embarrassing for her to ask for it now, so she just kept calling me human.

“Yes…?”

She had something important to tell me—that’s what she said, and the way things were going so far suggested that it really was something serious.

“I… I need to tell you something. It may be important for you as a human, b-but it is not important for me”, her small voice escaped her limp lips as she trembled and stammered. “I am sorry for hiding it from you until now, but I hope you understand…”

She was surprisingly unsteady and anxious. She was probably nervous just as much as me, if not more. What was that she wanted to tell me? I would learn soon, fortunately or unfortunately.

“You may get mad at me, but please do not laugh.”

I couldn’t imagine how I could get mad at her. Only such situation would be if she played a prank on me, but she didn’t really have any way of doing that. Probably.

“Okay. I won’t.”

“Then…”

Once her lips closed, they showed no signs of opening anytime soon. We remained silent and motionless, which made the level of awkwardness rise tremendously. It seemed that she couldn’t bring herself to say it as she used her hand to pull out something from her coat that seemed to have a link to her storeroom in another universe.

“Sorry. I can’t do without it.”

She explained before she put it on. It was the black mask she had brought last time when we went to the restaurant. I presumed that it had an effect on her that slightly increased her confidence—I could understand why that would work.

“Sure…”

“Then… do you remember the exam results hanging on the wall at school?”

Her voice was now muffled and she faltered, but I could hear it clearly enough.

“Oh… I recall it.”

“My name was there.”

Was that what she wanted to tell me? It wasn’t as serious as I thought, then. But… really? I hadn’t seen her name there. I would have noticed it for sure… I made a slight surprised expression.

“You didn’t recognize it, because… it’s different.”

What was different? I was confused, so I listened carefully.

“M-my human name… is different.”

“Huh…?”

She continued, having unwittingly turned her head sideways so that I couldn’t see her face anymore.

“Lumiya is my true name, b-but humans refer to me in another way...”

Did she mean that… the name she had told me, Lumiya, was made up?

“…”

What followed was silence. I couldn’t believe what she had just told me, but I didn’t even think of getting mad at her. I was rather surprised and amazed that she managed to hide it from me the entire time.

“Really…? That’s funny…”

She pulled at her cat-ear hood, subsequently taking a peek at me from behind her shily hidden face.

“You’re not mad…?”

“Not at all. Why would I? That’s… amazing.”

Lumiya was only her nickname after all. I had suspected that when I first met her, but once I erased that thought, it never came back. It was surprising, but not unbelievable, considering all her quirks I had already gotten used to.

The girl took a step back and used a hand embraced by the baggy sleeve to pull the mask off from her face. Her stare was directed at the ground I stood on.

“I’m sorry…” her low voice didn’t sound like her.

“Err, I’m not mad at you, Lumi—" I tried to convince her that she didn’t have to apologize, and I realized something.

It turned out that I didn’t know her real name. What was I supposed to refer to her as now, then?

“About that…” she didn’t return my stare as her hand pulled at the hood again. “You may still call me Lumiya, for that’s my true name.”

To be honest, it felt a little bit awkward now that I learned it was made up, but perhaps it was just another pointless worry coming from the cowardly side of me.

“Okay.”

Naturally, my curiosity woke up—I wanted to learn her real, “human” name. I recalled that her surname was Nakamura, which surely wasn’t made up since she was called that by a teacher, if I remember right.

“Y-you want to know my human name now, right? That’s the name of the person whose body I’m possessing… no, she evolved into me”, she responded as if she was reading my thoughts, her head cast down.

“You can tell me…” I responded with obvious awkwardness.

“It’s… Himawari.”

Her real name. What she was supposed to tell me instead of “Lumiya”.

“Hima… wari…?”

The real name of the girl that stood shily in front of me was Nakamura Himawari. For some reason, I liked the ring of it.

“But… I’m telling you that only to satiate your interest. Y-you shall still call me Lumiya”, she returned to her proud speech while still remaining embarrassed, which looked quite funny. “Himawari was a poor girl that’s not here anymore.”

She never had any cool name describing her pretended personality, but that was because it was simply called Lumiya all this time.

“I see. Then you’re still Lumiya.”

“R-right. And you’re still human.”

“…”

Awkward silence followed, but it didn’t feel that unpleasant. At least I knew that she was feeling the same as me.

“Err… I thought that since Lumiya is not your real… uh, so, may I drop the honorific…?”

I started using it mainly because I thought it was her first name and referring to someone I just came across just like that was too embarrassing. Since it turned out to be only a nickname, this wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

“V-very well.”

“Thanks.”

“…”

The tree let out a rustle. I didn’t know if anyone had passed by us since the street was behind me, but surely, we were the only people in the park itself.

“S-so. Lumiya.”

“H-human…”

“…” “…”

I was wrong. Even though I knew it was only a nickname she made up, saying it brought just as much pressure as if it were her real first name. Nevertheless, it was too late to take it back, so I had to bear with it. Perhaps it was better like that—it finally felt like I had made some progress with her.

“I-if there’s nothing you want to tell me, may this mark the end of our meeting.”

I forgot about this being a “strategy meeting”. She often used sophisticated terms for calling simple things.

“Sure…”

With that, she started walking. Passing by me, she suddenly stopped and said in a low voice with our backs turned to each other:

“I actually forgot your name.”

“I-it’s Takao. Fujioka Takao.”

I was taken aback at first, but I found the situation quite funny soon. Once I responded, I turned around to look at her as she walked away.

“Goodbye, human”, she didn’t use my name as she left the park.

“Bye…”

Once she disappeared from my vision, I moved on home as well. The pleasant warmth embracing me, I didn’t feel lonely anymore as I walked down the empty streets under the dim, cloudless sky.

Himawari. Her name had a pleasant ring to it.