I Drink Every Night With a Lookalike of a Popular Idol on the Riverbank
A point of light slowly crossed the night sky. We were standing on the riverbank as usual, two bottles of canned chu-hi apart, looking up at the sky.
“Hey… Is that a drone?”
“Nah, that’s no fun. Maybe it’s a shooting star?”
“Are there shooting stars that flash like that?”
“True. Maybe it’s not a drone, but an airplane.”
“An airplane…”
There were hundreds of people on board that light, each with a different destination. Thinking about it that way, it felt kind of strange.
“Where are they going?”
“I don’t know. Maybe somewhere in the country, or maybe overseas.”
Nanase-san looked up at the sky and said that in her cute voice.
“Overseas, huh. That’s nice. I have a passport, but the last time I went was for my college graduation trip.”
“Where did you go?”
“It’s pretty standard, but Taiwan. I ate xiao long bao. And the smell of the night market was amazing. All the different smells mixed together and were so intense.”
“I get it. Smells are the strongest link to memories, I think. When I smell osmanthus, I remember the path to school in high school, and when I smell the asphalt before it rains, I remember summer vacations as a child.”
“Yeah, I get it. When I smell crayons, I remember my grandmother’s house. Because of my job, I smell all kinds of art supplies, but the smell of crayons is special. It makes me think of my grandmother…”
The conversation flows like a trivial association game, with words scattered here and there. I liked the balance between the silence where you don’t have to force yourself to find words and the casual conversation that starts at random moments.
“Hey, Yosuke. When you think about it, airplanes are amazing, aren’t they? A chunk of metal flying through the sky.”
“Yeah, it’s like magic.”
“Magic, huh. I wish we could really use magic.”
“Is there a spell you want to use?”
“Avada Kedavra.”
Nanase moved her fingers lightly, like a conductor.
“The killing curse!? Am I going to be killed!?”
“Haha… Just kidding. By the way, what about you, Yousuke?”
“Me? I’ve already decided. Teleportation.”
“Isn’t that more like science? Warp, right?”
“Let’s assume that teleportation is possible with magic. They say that advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. Paradoxically, that means magic can also teleport.”
“That’s cheating. Is there somewhere you want to go?”
“Work, maybe.”
“Wow, you’re a company slave.”
“But you know… every morning, it takes me an hour to commute to and from work. That’s about 20 hours a month. Over a year, that’s over 200 hours? If I had that time, I could read so many books, watch so many movies, and play so many games. My quality of life would skyrocket.”
“That’s true. Commuting time is like unpaid labor, isn’t it?”
“Right? Plus, it’s convenient when you forget something. If you realize, ‘Oh, I forgot my phone!’ you can go back home in a second. During lunch break, you could fly to Hokkaido, eat ramen, and be back at the office by the afternoon. And… I could come here quickly too.”
“Hou…”
Nanase let out an odd sound and looked ahead. Her ears were red—was she drunk?
“Wait, I see! You want to come here so quickly? What’s the reason!?”
“The reason… Well, there’s a steep staircase on the way here. It’s tough to climb, but if you avoid it, you have to take a detour, so teleportation is easier.”
When I honestly explained the reason, Nanase glared at me.
She puckered her lips and repeated, “Abada Kedabra! Abada Kedabra!”
“I’m glad Nanase can’t use magic…”
“Well, but Yousuke doesn’t seem like the type to be affected by magic. Illusions, status ailments, and spells that lower stats—he’d probably nullify all of them.”
“Hmm, maybe…?” I don’t really get it, but it’s kind of embarrassing…”
I scratched my head while laughing. Nanase smiled slyly and muttered, “You’ve got a double-A in sarcasm resistance.”
“So that was sarcasm…”
“Well, I’m not asking you to say what I want to hear. That’s just Yousuke being Yousuke, and I like that about you.”
“By the way… what kind of comment would you want?”
“Well, for example… like, ‘I want to teleport to see Nanase-san sooner.’”
“Ah… I didn’t realize that was a given… I’m always in a hurry because I’m excited… or rather, I’m running here.”
“A-Avada Kedavra!”
Nanase-san blushed and cast another death curse.
“Why!?”
“Defense! I’m defending myself because I’m under psychological attack!”
“Well… that’s how it is for me… What about you, Nanase? Is there anything?”
When I asked her, Nanase suddenly erased the joyful expression and turbulent emotions she had been showing earlier and fell silent.
She held a can of chu-hi and stared intently at the lights of the city spreading across the river. The lights reflected in her eyes like tiny jewels.
After a long silence, she said softly,
“…Invisible person, maybe.”
I was a little surprised by her unexpected answer. It’s not something convenient like teleportation. Rather, it’s a kind of magic from a story with a slightly dark tone.
“Invisible person, huh…”
“Yeah, invisible person. The type where your clothes become invisible too. You don’t end up naked.”
“Do we really need to specify whether you’re naked or not!?”
“Well, it’s important, right? Whether I’m an invisible person naked or an invisible person with clothes on. If it’s the former, the clothes would float, so it’s definitely naked. Since you can’t turn off invisibility wherever you want, it’s definitely the invisible person with clothes on.”
“Wait… now that you mention it, isn’t being naked and invisible a disadvantage? It’s a downgrade.”
“Yeah. That’s right. If anything, it’s about satisfying personal preferences, right? Well, I don’t have those kinds of preferences, so I’ll stick with being clothed and invisible.”
“…By the way, what would you do? Setting aside personal preferences… like secretly doing something bad?”
When I joked about it, she shook her head weakly.
“No, it’s not that kind of thing.”
She paused for a moment, then continued slowly and quietly, as if she were pulling something precious from the depths of her heart.
“I want to walk around the city all day long, without worrying about anyone’s gaze, just as part of the scenery.”
“Naked?”
Nanase laughed and said, “I’m wearing clothes~,” as she slapped me on the shoulder.
“I also want to sit at a café terrace and stare blankly at passersby for hours. I want to go into a bookstore, sit on the floor, and spend the whole day smelling the books without anyone bothering me. I want to stand in line at a famous store.”
It was a simple yet heartfelt wish.
The freedom we take for granted, unnoticed by others. For her, it was something special that could only be obtained through magic.
Living as a “look-alike” means being constantly exposed to others’ gazes. Being compared to the “real thing,” evaluated, and sometimes subjected to curious stares. It might be a much more suffocating world than I imagine.
The magnitude of what she carries and the depth of her pain are things I can never truly understand. But I can see that she is sitting right next to me, looking a little lonely.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just blurted out my feelings.
“…If you’re invisible, you’ll skip the line, right?”
“Haha… That’s true. It doesn’t make sense. So… a magic spell that makes no one think I’m me?”
“You mean a spell that makes people not think you’re Ynagi when they see Nanase?”
“Yeah. That’s right. An illusion spell.”
“I see… Then you wouldn’t have to be invisible.”
“How did Yousuke get enchanted? According to the setup earlier, illusion magic shouldn’t work.”
“That’s something Nanase decided on her own… Besides, am I even enchanted!? By what!? Since when!?”
“Hehe, Avada Kedavra~”
Nanase laughed as if to say she wouldn’t spoil the surprise, then poked my cheek.
Maiasa