Slum Online Read Free Page B

was scrawled Etsuro Sakagami, but the other was blank. It was the only spare blue card I had, but I didn’t really care.
    Her eyes opened wide behind those tiny glasses. “Today’s blue,” she muttered.
    “What?”
    “Today’s cards. They’re blue.”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “The cat’s blue. The one in Shinjuku. If you find it,” she said with a smile, “all your dreams will come true.” It was an unlikely smile. The sort of smile you’d expect from someone who’d just returned from a grueling ten-year journey and stumbled upon the blue cat of happiness. If you sold that smile in a hamburger shop, it’d sell better than the fries. That was what it looked like to me, anyway.
    I stood there holding my bag as Professor Uemura pounded at the blackboard with a nublet of chalk not long for this world. I had about twenty seconds before he turned around to face the class. I was fairly certain the blue animal from the urban legend to which she was referring was a bird, not a cat, but instead of pointing out her mistake, I forced a smile. “Whatever you say. Thanks.”
    “Um, your notes.” A quarter-filled sheet of paper still lay there on the desk. The fluorescent lights turned it the same shade of sickly green as that guy’s shirt.
    “Toss ’em. I don’t need ’em.”
    I turned away before she could speak and made my escape.
    I hadn’t given her the card to be nice, and I wasn’t flirting. It just didn’t seem fair that I should get credit for attending because I had learned to game the system, while this girl who went to class and actually paid attention would be counted absent. It was that sigh of hers , I thought. It planted the seeds of guilt in me. Giving her one of my cards was the only way I had of paying penance.
    Almost-empty bag and soggy umbrella in hand, I opened the door that led out into the hallway. I pushed a button on my music player to skip to the next track—I needed something more upbeat. Rain drummed against the windows rhythmically, like water from a sprinkler, as the chill of the air folded itself around me.

     
    I walked along Ome Highway toward Shinjuku. It was 8:57, that strange time when the Shinjuku of the night prepared for sleep, and the Shinjuku of the day crawled out from under its collective futon. The only people wandering the streets at this hour were university students, the homeless, and people on their way home from jobs in the sex trade.
    When it wasn’t raining, I was actually fond of tramping around Shinjuku without any particular destination. If I’d had someplace to go, I would have gone there, but RL—real life—was vast and confusing, and I couldn’t figure out where I should be. In this city, there weren’t any NPCs standing around to hint at where the next big event would be, no online guides to point you in the right direction. Since I had nothing better to do, I resolved to walk around until I wore myself out and I couldn’t lift my legs another step. There wouldn’t be any battles, no objectives reached or quests completed, but the exhaustion would make me feel as though I’d done something with my day. Or just maybe, if I walked off every last bit of the grid that made up this RL city, I’d stumble across something special.
    A dream world reflected in tiny drops of rain surrounded me. A low mist hung in the sky, obscuring the skyscrapers and the looming hulk of Tokyo City Hall from view. The only thing that seemed real in the haze was a sports car parked illegally with one wheel on the sidewalk. The car was blood red. I quickened my pace and vaulted across a puddle of water.
    My university was in west Shinjuku. I turned right along Ome Highway in front of the Shinjuku Police Station and continued walking south past Keio Plaza Hotel. I turned again just after the Shinjuku Monolith Building, and from there it was a straight shot to the trains. The scenery in west Shinjuku could get a little monotonous. There were plenty of freaks hanging around to