Beyond the Horizon

Episode 11. Love Knows No Name

Tomo felt a vibration in his pocket. He put his hand in it and picked up his phone. After scrolling through the notifications, he read the message, before putting back in his pocket.

"What are you grinning about, Momo? Got a message from a girlfriend? A boyfriend, maybe?" Tatsumi had stopped to wait for him. They were walking home together since they lived in the same direction from school.

"I've already told you I don't have any of that, Tatsumi," Tomo said as they started walking again.

"So it's from senpai then?"

Tomo got embarrassed. Why did he need to bring up Ken? Had he been that obvious? Or maybe Tatsumi was just guessing, as it wasn't actually from Ken.

"No, it's from Shouji."

"You've mentioned that name a few times but I don't remember why. Was it your uncle?"

"No, it's my father. Shouji doesn't have any siblings."

"Wasn't it Nao-something?" Tatsumi looked confused.

"Naomichi, written with the character for 'more' and 'road', so it can be read as Shouji too," Tomo explained. "Shouji likes alternative readings. He calls me Kyouki, and my sisters are Yukiyo and Chinatsu."

"Why do you call you father by name?"

Tomo tilted his head. "I wonder why..."

"You don't know?"

"I don't remember. I guess it's because my mother says Shouji and he was rarely home. Chika and Chiyo call him Shouji too." His friend took a couple of steps forward to keep walking. "Just a moment. I'll just message Ichirou-san that Shouji's coming so he can air out the futon."

Tatsumi stopped with a puzzled look.

"Your father, which is your mother's ex-husband, is coming over to your house and sleeps there and your mother's new husband is okay with that?"

"Why not? Sawa and Shouji divorced on good terms and Ichirou-san already knew he'd get Shouji as part of the deal. Sawa is a little special."

"You call your mother by name too?"

"Oh..."

He tried to not use Sawa's name around people because it was pretty odd, and he had made an effort to not call her 'Sawa' in front of Ichirou. Had done so ever since he first met Ichirou.

"I guess I do sometimes. Maybe because I say 'Shouji'?"

That seemed like a reasonable explanation. It was more complicated than that though. Or perhaps it was actually simpler than that. It depended on how he looked at the situation.

Tatsumi was quiet while his friend wrote the message.

"Can I have your username? It's hard to ask senpai, Yuu or Hana-chan to send you messages for me, and they refuse to give me your username."

Tomo was surprised by the question, mostly because he hadn't expected it. Most in his class more or less avoided him, even if they didn't ignore him.

"Sure."

Since he felt pretty comfortable around Tatsumi by now, he didn't see any problem with it. He had gotten Yuu's username not too long ago so they could message each other. In fact, his first friend in his class had demanded they befriended each other on Horizon Social. Which was the same as being able to message Tomo, since he only allowed messages from friends and to be invited into group chats. He didn't want to get random messages from people.

"Can I borrow your phone?"

Tatsumi got his phone out of his bag, unlocked it and handed it to Tomo. He opened the social app and typed in MomoKyouTomo into the search user field, and tapped 'friend request'. He then went back to the search field and typed in Momo-san_Yoshimi and tapped follow.