Story: RCM Magic Free Popularity

 

When Nari Sammiya made up her mind to visit the nurse’s office, she expected a quiet and dignified scene. Someone lying in a clean bed, perhaps attended by a nurse who would make disapproving noises about missed classes. She did not expect to find a situation that could only be described as an indoor festival.

The hallway outside the office was positively bustling. Girls with gift bags and homemade cards clustered around the door, chattering in hushed but excited tones as though the patient within were a pop idol recuperating from overwork. It was, in Nari’s humble opinion, far too much enthusiasm for someone who had merely fainted in the cafeteria.

“Oh! Nari!” called one girl, spotting her through the crowd. The effect was instantaneous. Conversations stopped, heads turned, and suddenly the entire hallway was looking at her with the reverence normally reserved for royalty or small, adorable animals.

Nari smiled awkwardly. “Um. Afternoon, everyone. I just wanted to check on Rai, if that’s alright?”

A collective sigh of admiration followed. Several girls stepped aside, creating a clear path to the nurse’s office door, as though the sea itself had been waiting for her to pass through. Nari supposed it would have been rude to refuse such a dramatic gesture, so she inclined her head graciously and slid the door open.

The inside of the nurse’s office was worse.

Every surface capable of supporting a vase or stuffed animal had been pressed into service. The soft hum of the fluorescent lights blended with the smell of flowers until the whole room felt less like an infirmary and more like an overly cheerful shrine. And in the middle of it all, propped up on one of the cots with a thin blanket over her legs, sat Rai Yosano.

Rai was not the type of girl who usually attracted this kind of attention. Polite, soft-spoken, slightly too serious for her own good - she had always been the dependable classmate who collected homework when others were absent, not the sort to cause a school-wide uproar by collapsing mid-lunch. Yet here she was, pale and blinking against the light while an entire crowd waited for her to speak a line worth quoting in the next day’s gossip.

“Oh, Miss Sammiya,” said the school nurse, looking both exhausted and relieved. “Maybe you can convince everyone that Miss Yosano needs rest, not a parade.”

“I’ll try,” Nari said, though she wasn’t optimistic. She turned to the room and raised her hands. “Alright, everyone. I think Rai would really appreciate a little peace and quiet, don’t you?”

It was remarkable how obediently they nodded, even if most of them only retreated a few steps.

Nari moved closer to the bed. “Hey, Rai. You doing okay?”

For a moment, she thought Rai might not answer. Then the other girl’s eyes opened wider, focusing directly on her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Rai whispered.

That was not the sort of answer Nari had expected. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“It’s close,” Rai said. Her voice trembled, but not from fear alone; it was the tone of someone feeling a storm that no one else could sense. “It’s… connected to you.”

The nurse made a gentle shushing sound and came over with a cup of water, but Rai had already turned her face toward the wall again, her strength gone. The steady beeping of a heart-rate monitor filled the silence that followed.

Nari waited a moment longer, then smiled faintly. “Get well soon, okay?” she murmured, and turned to leave.

As she did, she caught a flicker of movement. Just a trick of light, perhaps, but for a heartbeat she thought the pendant resting on Rai’s chest glowed faintly pink, then went dark again.

Outside, the hallway erupted into a dozen whispered questions the instant Nari emerged. “Is she alright?” “Did she say anything?” “Was she smiling?” Nari held up her hands and delivered the simplest answer possible. “She’ll be fine. She just needs rest.”

That was enough to earn a collective sigh of relief, and before she could say anything more, someone pressed a small flower into her hand “for luck.” She thanked them politely, though she couldn’t shake the feeling that something about this entire scene was just a little bit off.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Expecting a message from one of her ever-attentive friends, she glanced at the screen. No name. No number. Only three words, glowing in pale text.

<b>FEED ME NARI.</b>

She blinked, and the message vanished, leaving her reflection in the dark glass of the screen. She didn't much care for how freaked out she looked. 

=====

Nanako Shiomi had a complicated relationship with the concept of sanity. She valued it, certainly. She admired it in others. But she had begun to suspect that, much like limited-edition hardcovers, it was something other people managed to keep pristine while hers had been slightly bent in shipping.

This morning’s discovery had not helped.

She sat alone in the library’s back corner, surrounded by the comforting scent of old paper, and glared at the notebook in front of her. On its open page she had written, in large block letters, THE “FEED ME” INCIDENT. Below it was a tangle of half-legible notes that read like a cross between scientific analysis and a nervous breakdown.

“It’s an energy phenomenon,” she muttered under her breath, tapping her pen against her cheek. “An emotional parasite. Or possibly a mass hallucination. Or possibly I’ve finally gone completely-”

“Bonkers?” said a cheerful voice right behind her ear.

Nanako jumped high enough to startle the nearby dust motes. Standing across the table was Shizu Hayama, who was to tranquility what earthquakes were to architecture.

“Do you mind?” Nanako hissed, clutching her notebook to her chest. “Some of us are conducting important research.”

“Sure you are,” Shizu said breezily. “Have you seen Kiwa Sekine? She’s missing. Again.”

Nanako frowned. “The one who thinks rhinestones are a lifestyle choice? No. Why?”

“She sent me a text last night,” Shizu explained. “Said she felt amazing and was going to a comedy show with - well -” She hesitated, lowering her voice to a dramatic whisper. “With Nari Sammiya.”

The name struck Nanako like a slap of cold air. Of course it was Nari. It was always Nari. When she looked back at her notebook, her breath caught. The writing on the page had changed. The title now read:

THE “FEED ME” INCIDENT — SUBJECT: NARI SAMMIYA.

Her pen clattered to the floor. “Did you see that?” she asked, but Shizu was no longer there. The chair on the other side of the table swayed gently, the only evidence that anyone had been sitting in it at all.

Nanako swallowed. “Right,” she said to herself. “Perfectly normal. Vanishing classmates, self-editing notes. Happens every day.”

The library lights flickered once, twice, then flared with a faint pink hue. That was enough for her. She shut the notebook, stuffed it into her bag, and marched out into the hall at top speed. Halfway to the exit, she realized her hands were faintly glowing. A delicate shimmer, like candlelight reflected off glass, pulsed in time with her heartbeat.

“Oh, not again,” she groaned. “I am not doing this again.”

She ducked into the nearest restroom and turned on the tap, splashing cold water over her fingers. The glow faded briefly, then returned stronger, defying logic and plumbing alike.

“Feed me, Nanako Shiomi,” a voice murmured. Not from behind her, but from inside her head, warm and invasive as breath against the ear.

“No,” she said firmly, gripping the sink. “I’m not on the menu.”

The mirror flickered, and for a heartbeat she thought she saw someone else standing there, someone who looked like her, but with a smile that didn’t belong to her face. Then the lights steadied, and the reflection behaved again.

Nanako stared at it for a long moment.

“Right,” she said finally, forcing a laugh that sounded far too thin. “Clearly I’m just overtired. Sleep deprivation. Stress. Nothing supernatural at all.”

Her reflection smiled again. She did not.