It was a fine morning in late April, bordering on May. RIko had once again insisted on accompanying Aimi from the train station to the school, and Aimi had acquiesced under the pressure.

“Alright! And this time we hold hands, Aimi-chan,” Riko proclaimed with a menacing grin, making grabbing motions towards Aimi. She watched her warily, but Riko never came close enough to warrant a telekinetic push.

“Stop calling me that, and stop asking.” Aimi huffed in reply, even though she knew Riko would keep up this ritual every time they made their way to or from the train station. Once they had gotten to school, however, Aimi made a renewed effort to distance herself from her would-be lover:

“I’m going to write an essay about meditative techniques for control. Ishihara suggested it. I don’t require your help.” Riko opened her mouth, as if to insist on some way she could help, but then her brain caught up with her lips. Riko did have a lot to do. She could come back to Aimi later. This was a war of attrition, after all.

For now, she had her new journalistic hobby to focus on.

Nana’s plan had been simple: the Jiyuuna Kokoro would be a zine, one that could claim advertising revenue. Lots of people wanted to advertise services like fortune telling, communing with the dead, Reiki massage, and psychic detective agencies, and a web-based blog would make pennies at most from that. They could charge more with a print publication, distributed in alternative bookstores, psychic paraphernalia shops, and the gift shop at the Okura Hachiman Shrine. One of the priestesses at that last one was Nana’s cousin.

The school didn’t frown on student enterprise, and in fact encouraged it as a club activity. However, the school’s newspaper team saw things differently. When Riko came in and proposed they allowed the parapsychology club to put out a large run of a revenue-generating zine, using their equipment, they had to wonder: would the entire school come to them for everything the library forbade?

“If you want to use our printers for another club’s business, you need to be a writer here as well,” the editor had told Riko. “If we have more writers, we get a bigger budget.”

Riko had agreed without hesitation. She was going to do whatever it took to make the parapsychology club a success.

Besides, Riko had a scheme to optimize her efforts: she’d write some profiles on espers around school. The school had a fair number of espers who had no interest in the parapsychology club for one reason or another. Kagakujo recruited espers aggressively, due to the public funding the Harbor High School award earned them, and thus had a large number of them per capita relative to the population at large. The material she collected by interviewing them could be published in both the Jiyuuna Kokoro and the school newspaper. She just had to track one down.

Riko quickly managed to strike up a conversation with someone from her homeroom class by the lockers, who was busy swapping into her uniform shoes. “An esper who’s not with your group? Well, my friend in the botany club mentioned a strange girl. She sings to the plants, and it works! They grow super fast, like a time lapse video.”

Riko looked amazed. “Wow, really? So everyone thinks she’s really cool, right? Star of the club and everything?”

The girl shrugged. “Well I think botany is supposed to be about stuff like photosynthesis and the pH balance of soil. Singing to plants to make them grow isn’t really something you can teach, like those things.”

“Oh? I always felt like you can teach anyone to sing,” Riko replied with a giggle, feigning ignorance of her meaning.

The girl shrugged again and said, “I’ll see you at homeroom, Nomura,” heading down the hallway leading towards the culture club rooms. Riko soon wandered out in that direction as well.

Riko thought about growing plants, as she sought out the botany club’s door. Her grandmother had some farmland on her property, where she would grow vegetables and sell them at the local market. She always liked going out to the countryside to visit her, and helping out with the farming while she was around. Would that land be hers someday? Maybe she could be Japan’s #1 Farm Idol!

Riko knocked at the door, and was swiftly met by one of the members. “How can we help you? Are you looking to join?”

Riko peered inside. She saw a planter holding flowers in every color of the rainbow by the windowsill, but no one was singing to them.  Aside from that, it was your typical science club room, with a shelf of topical books, some posters about stuff like the makeup of a plant cell, the different varieties of apples, and flower language. “Hello, I’m Riko Nomura with the school newspaper and the parapsychology club. Where’s the uh, the singing girl?”

The girl sighed. “Oh, you’re looking for Kaneko. She’s at the greenhouse on the roof if you need her. Is that all?”

Riko tilted her head inquisitively. “Why isn’t she down here with you guys? Or why are you not up there with her?” The other students in the room, watching the conversation, now began to glance at each other.

The girl at the door rubbed her head as she thought about her response, before finally replying. “She likes it better up there. She contributes enough to the club, so there’s no reason to make her come down.”

Riko stepped closer into the face of the girl at the door. “But wouldn’t she be happier spending time with you guys? Why leave her all alone up there.”

“Tch. Ask her yourself if you’re interested. We’re not going to force her to come to meetings unless she doesn't participate in activities. We should get back to business, unless there’s something else.”

Riko fished around in a pocket. “Take my card. I’m the #1 ace journalist of the Kagakujo Shimbun! Contact me if you need anything.” It was just a slip of cheap printer paper with Riko’s name, number, and email on it. The newspaper team hadn’t given her card stock privileges yet. She forced it into the botany club member’s hand and made her way towards the school roof, where her real objective was.

As she approached the greenhouse, it was hard for Riko not to think about stereotypes, when it came to a plant-loving esper. Would she summon up roots and vines to wrap her up in? Feed her to a gigantic fly trap? Use a lasso of elongated rose stems to drink her blood? There had to be a reason the others wanted to keep their distance. Thankfully, fear never got in the way of Riko’s curiosity, especially when it came to hard case espers.

Riko knocked at the greenhouse door. No reply. There was a muffled sound of singing and a guitar being played inside. Figuring she wouldn’t have been able to hear her, Riko went on inside.

By design, it would be difficult for the greenhouse to have looming shadows, but this place came close. Rows of sunflower stalks created natural partitions, and as Riko looked at them, they seemed to look back. The song, an appropriately titled pop tune named ‘Spring Flower’ resonated nicely off the crowded glass interior. She seemed good enough for a school band, thought Riko. She might have to settle for Japan’s #2 Farm Idol, if it came to that.

Looking closer at the plants, it did seem like they could be under the effect of a psychic power. Leaves grew bigger, petals opened up, and the stalks rose up as the music played. The flowers even seemed to sway a bit to the beat.

“Haru no hana,”

Riko saw the stems of the sunflowers grow an inch, or so, and it looked like some hanging melons were beginning to swell.

“Watashi ni hana-”

A row of tulips sprung open in sequence as the lyrical hook began to crescendo.

“-shikakete kudasai!”

A tall stalk of valerian blossomed in Riko’s face all of the sudden. She gasped and reflexively grabbed the stem as if to push it away. This seemed to cause the stamen to swell up, and then erupt, showering Riko’s face in sweet-smelling dust. Her vision started to blur, and she spontaneously decided to take a short nap on the floor of the greenhouse.

A shaking at RIko’s shoulder woke her up moments later. Looking up, she saw a pleasant looking girl with a short, stylish haircut and big green eyes looking down at her with concern. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Y- yeah,” replied Riko, sitting up. She didn’t feel bad at all. Just like she had a short, but refreshing nap. “What was that?”

“The concentrated root of the valerian plant makes people sleepy. I sort of um, well, helped it adapt this quality into a defense mechanism. I like to help the flowers. You’re not mad, are you?”

Riko shook her head, surprising the girl with how quickly she accepted this explanation. “Help me up, would you?” The girl offered a hand, and Riko took it, the two of them getting her to her feet quickly. “My name’s Riko Nomura, how about you?”

“Kazuko Kaneko.” Kazuko moved in closer, examining Riko with her big, green eyes. “What brings you up here, Nomura-san? Not many people come to the roof during morning club time.” She even had a nice smell to her, Riko noticed, appropriately earthy, and tinged with rose.

“Oh, right,” Riko said, and took her phone out, looking for the little app she had set up for recording. “I’m writing articles for the school newspaper and the parapsychology club’s Jiyuuna Kokoro. I’d like to interview you.”

“Interview… me? About what? I am no one special. I just help grow the flowers for the arrangements.”

Riko shook her head and smiled. “Everyone’s special. Everyone has something about them that makes them beautiful. That’s Riko-chan’s philosophy!”

Kazuko’s eyes widened. “Even me?” She was blushing a little. Riko wondered if she had laid it on a bit too thick there. It was the truth, that’s how she felt about people, but was it too much truth? She could never be sure if Aimi wasn’t secretly watching her. Well, to be precise, she hoped Aimi was secretly watching. ‘I’m not doing it because I like you, Nomura,’ Riko fantasized about her saying, ‘I’m just making sure you’re not causing trouble for us.’

Riko took a step back. “Of course. Like I said, everyone is special.” She reached behind herself, rubbing her neck. “Say, would you like to go for a walk around the campus? And do you consent to being recorded?” That was one thing the news team had drilled into her, to always get permission from her fellow students before recording them.

“Oh, um, but I always spend time with my friends in the greenhouse.” Kazuko looked over the rows of vegetation. Well, if ghosts and apparitions are real, and manga can give you an accurate horoscope, maybe plants can be a human’s friend. “But no, I don’t mind if you record me. I think?”

“RIko-chan would never publish anything embarrassing! The Jiyuuna Kokoro is a zine for science and justice! Not gossip!” That seemed to get a giggle out of Kazuko. “Anyways, I think your plant friends will understand if you want to go for a walk with a friend.”

“I’m your… friend?” Kazuko’s mouth started to hang open a little bit. “Ok, I guess a little walk might be nice.”

This was not what Riko had pictured at all when she heard about a girl isolated from her clubmates. She imagined a gloomy aura like AImi’s, radiating out of a greenhouse full of man-eating plants, or perverted prehensile vines. Sure, there had been the sleep pollen incident, but she apologized for that.

A lonely girl being this kind didn’t sit right with Riko. Plus, it kind of felt like she was being exploited. She doubted those girls from the botany club shied away from the greenhouse when harvest time came.

“Tell me about your special ability,” Riko said as they approached the roof’s exit stairway. “What you do to affect the plants.”

“Um… that’s my Phytokinesis, I think that’s what they call it. I’m not sure how it works. Strange stuff happens to plants when I’m near them.”

RIko nodded. They made their way out the front of the school, and onto the lawn. Riko noticed that the grass gently bent itself out of the way of their feet as they proceeded, protecting both the grass from damage, and their uniform dress shoes from grass stains.. Riko took a wooden pencil out of her pocket, where she also kept her special new journalist memo pad. “Can you make this pencil hover, or stuff like that?”

“Um… maybe? But doing stuff like that hurts my head. If I want to make a pencil move it’s easier just to hold it and write.” Kazuko gave Riko a gentle smile.

“So… why music, then? I’ve never met an esper who used a technique like that. I know someone who uses manga to focus their ability…”

“Really? That’s so cool! Can I meet her?”  Kazuko’s eyes opened in amazement.

“She’s uh… shy. But you should check out the debut chapter of her manga when the Jiyuuna Kokoro comes out.” Riko wasn’t sure whether to encourage her; Chiyoko could be very timid around strangers. “Tell me about the music.”

“Well, one time I tried to make an apple tree grow all of its apples really fast. I was thinking about how I wanted a big juicy apple really badly… and I passed out for a few hours. The doctor told me that using psychic powers on living things is different than on inanimate objects. That’s it’s very exhausting to do things like accelerating the natural growth of living things.”

Riko thought about the school counselor, and her healing ability that caused her to take on the ailments she treated, or lose her vital fluids expelling them. In general, it seemed an ability, with the potential to feed or heal large quantities of people in need, came at a greater cost than an ability that let you hurt people. She made a mental note to talk to Kyo about it, who undoubtedly knew a lot more about the laws of energy than Riko did.

“I saw you making the flowers and melons grow in the greenhouse, though. So it's different when you use music?”

“Yeah. I don’t think about how much I want to eat a melon, or see the flowers bloom. I just try to make the plants happy. And I can feel when the plants are happy. When the plants are happy, I’m happy too, and it’s easier to make the plants happy. It’s a big happy feedback loop. And sometimes happy plants grow faster, and it doesn’t make me pass out.”

The two of them had approached an azalea tree as old as the school itself. “Do plants have thoughts? Do you have plant telepathy?”

Kazuko thought about the question. “The little ones like in the greenhouse, no. They only get happy or sad, they don’t think about complicated things. This tree though… It has a kodama inside that I can talk to. I think.” She walked forward and placed her hand on the trunk.

“A kodama? Those creatures that live in trees and make noises?”

Kazuko giggled. “She doesn’t like to make noise at students, though, not when they’re trying to study, or eat under her shade.”

Riko moved closer to the tree. “It’s a girl tree? Did she tell you that?

Kazuko nodded. “Technically, the azalea is a hermaphrodite, so it’s a question of preference, and that’s what she likes to be called.” Kazuko gave the tree a pat.

“Hello, Tree-chan.” Riko bowed gently. She didn’t really feel silly doing so; she did get the feeling like there was something there in the tree, something that liked living at the school, and liked Kazuko.

Kazuko smiled. “You can also call her Tsuji, short for Tsutsuji. But she doesn’t mind being called Tree-chan if it’s you, Riko.”

As they began their return to the school’s main building, Riko asked, “Do you ever wish the other students at the botany club would spend more time with you?” She looked over at Kazuko. She didn’t seem unhappy, at a glance, but Riko felt like she had a mission to bring her closer to other people. Sort of like Riko’s mission to bring Aimi closer to herself.

Kazuko had to consider the question for a while before answering, her finger going to her chin. “I would be happy if they came to hear me sing, and watch how the plants look when they’re happy. But if the sight of my Phytokinesis makes them uncomfortable, I don’t want them to feel forced.”

An idea began to form in Riko’s head. “Hey, do you think any esper could learn to do what you do? Use music to help control their abilities?”

Kazuko tilted her head. “Um… maybe?”

“Are you going to be busy with your club after school?”

Kazuko shook her head. “Not after I’ve checked on the greenhouse.”

When the two of them parted ways, Riko stormed her way into the parapsychology club.

“Alright, everyone’s coming to karaoke this afternoon!” announced Riko to the room of girls toiling away at their various projects. Chiyoko especially had a lot to work if she was going to get 16 pages of Mahou Shoujo Hikaru: Ghost Befriender sketched and inked by the Jiyuuna Kokoro’s layout deadline.

Aimi glared at Riko intensely. Ah, it was good to be back, and to be missed, Riko thought.

“This is a very important parapsychology experiment. There’s no opting out.”