Chapter 13

“So how do you plan to get close to such a paranoid girl?” You asked Satou once you were done with your classes for the day. She gave you a broad smile before stopping as you passed a bulletin board.

Amid all the official-looking advertisements for clubs and circles was a lime green flier titled, “Bermuda Circle.” A majority of the flier was filled with a spiral of nonsensical letters. Below the image, in tiny letters was the message, “To meet me, remove what separates you and I.”

“Cryptic,” you commented with a single raised brow as she plucked the weird flier off the corkboard. “What does it mean?”

“Do you have a pen?” She asked. You nodded and pulled a black pen out of your book bag. She started writing something in the empty space on the poster. “There are multiple U’s and I’s amidst the gibberish. If we take out the letters between each pair of U and I, then we geeet… An address!”

“I don’t think she’s gonna get a lot of new members by making her advertisement a puzzle.”

“That’s not important to her. It’s less about the quantity of members and more about the quality of each one.” She plugged the address into the GPS on her phone before turning the screen to you, showing you it was only a fifteen minute walk away. Definitely student housing. “You ready to meet Yuma?”

…

It was seedy student housing. You knew for a fact there was nicer, cheap student housing. You knew because you went looking for a while before Minoru told you in no uncertain terms you were living in the house she bought.

This looked like something out of a horror movie. You made a face at the enormous dead bug on the floor of the entrance way. “Hi!” It seemed to say. “I died here and so will you!”

There was no lobby, no buzzer or lock to keep you out of the building if you didn’t live there. You walked right up to the suite listed in the advertisement without anyone stopping you.

“Satou, I don’t like this,” you told her. If ever there was a place to be kidnapped or murdered, it would be this. You heard screaming coming from a room down the hall. Hopefully the occupants were just making love and not doing anything more sinister.

“Don’t be such a baby, Y/N!” She said dismissively before knocking on the door. “Hello?”

There was the sound of frantic footsteps on the other side of the door. The peephole darkened, as if a shadow fell over it. “What’s the password?” Whoever was in the suite was using a voice changer to add distortion to their voice.

Satou scowled suddenly. “The flier didn’t say anything about a password! We’re here about the Bermuda Circle. Let us in!”

“No password, no entry,” the disembodied voice answered.

She threw her arms up in the air before digging the flier out of her bag. She turned it around in her hands, examined it front and back, but there was no clue for the password.

“Maybe we needed to find a second flier with the passcode on it?” You suggested. This seemed too easy anyway.

She clearly wasn’t in the mood for helpful suggestions, though. She started pounding on the door. “Yuma Goto, we know where you live! Stop wasting our time and open up this goddamn door right now!”

You were quick to pull her away. “You’re gonna scare her.”

She huffed, crossed her arms, and pouted childishly. She obviously had the patience of a gnat.

What could the password possibly be? You wondered to yourself.

“I want to believe,” you said. Then, when that didn’t work, “Area 51. Aliens. Bigfoot. Loch Ness Monster, Nessie. The moon landing was faked.”

“You’re just embarrassing yourself. Leave,” the voice on the other side of the door drawled.

No. You had one more guess. “Academic Pursuits.”

There was a long silence before you heard the scrape of metal against metal and the sound of multiple locks being unlocked. Then the door swung open.

The short girl standing in the doorway had a wild, almost feral, look to her. She had a deep, dark brown skin complexion with cool undertones. Her skin was clear but dull. You wondered if some of that wasn’t intentional. It fit her overall vibe.

Her coils were mostly bright green and black on the ends. Her baby afro formed a perfect circle around her head, like a neon halo.

Her eyes were the same vibrant green color as her hair. You were pretty sure she was wearing contact lenses. Video game or not, you hadn’t met anyone with literal stars in their eyes until now.

She didn’t wear any makeup other than a black lipstick. There were deep bruises under her eyes, as if she’d been socked in the face or hadn’t slept in days. Given the borderline-crazed look in her eyes, it could have been either.

Speaking of eyes, she was wearing a t-shirt covered in them under a set of black, denim overalls. She also wore a silver eyebrow piercing and a number of black and silver chokers.

“You know, too,” she said in awe. Her voice cracked, as if it had been a while since she used it. “Get in. I have so much to talk to you about.”