(Author’s note: This story is a crossover with The World Ends With You, but you don’t need to have played it to understand this story.)
 
“Welcome to WildKat,” says the smiling boy behind the counter.
 
“Thank you.”
 
Silence. His smile falters. “... Can I, um, take your order?”
 
“Yes. Well, no. Not really,” I say. “I don’t have it yet.”
 
“What do you - oh.” The boy takes a relaxed pose. “Take your time.”
 
“Do you know what it is?”
 
“What your order is? What kind of question is that?” The boy isn’t angry. Just confused.
 
I shrug. “Worth a shot.”
 
“If you’re here for a meal, I’d recommend the pumpkin soup.”
 
I smile at him. “See? You did know what my order was. What it is.”
 
“I suppose so,” he says, returning the gesture. “U-Unless there’s more to it...”
 
We’re confusing each other, and our faces show it. “More to what?”
 
“To the order.”
 
“Hmm…” I tilt my head. “I didn’t come here for anything else. But now there are other things that I am here for. Things for that I am here. Like a straw.”
 
“A straw?”
 
“The drinking kind. One, please.”
 
“Oh. I see.” He glances briefly at my armless sides. “All right then. One order of pumpkin soup and a straw. That’ll be five hundred eighty.”
 
“One more thing, actually.” I scan the short menu for it. It’s not there. Maybe I can’t get one here.
 
“Oh?”
 
“How much is it for a conversation?” I ask, turning back to the boy. “I don’t see it on the menu…”
 
“A what?” He narrows his eyes a little, turning an ear towards me.
 
“A con-ver-sa-tion.”
 
The boy blinks twice. He looks away for a second. He looks back. “The price of a conversation is a conversation, I guess. You can’t buy them. Only trade them.”
 
“Then I’d like one.”
 
“All right.” The boy smiles and puts his hands on his hips. “Sit wherever you’d like, and I’ll bring your order out to you.”
 
“Thank you.”
 
There are many chairs in the café. They’re around tables. There are also some booths. None of them have people in them. This was a good choice.
 
I sit in a booth. It’s comfy. The café is also comfy. It looks and feels that way, I mean. The ceiling is high and there’s a lot of space in between the tables. The colors are mostly browns and blacks, save for the beige walls. It reminds me of Yamaku.
 
There are paintings on the walls. I try to think that they’re mostly a certain way, but there’s no certain way that they mostly are. There’s impressionism, realism, and abstraction. The city, the country, and the wilderness. Simple paintings and complex paintings, vibrant colors and gray. One of them is mine. I’m surprised and I can’t help but smile in pride.
 
The boy comes out from the kitchens holding a plate. The plate has a bowl on it. The bowl has a straw in it. He looks around for me and sees me. As he brings the plate, bowl, and straw to me, I study the boy himself. He looks interesting. He has messy hair that’s more orange than mine. His shorts, sleeveless shirt, and large shoes were fashionable about five years ago.
 
“Pumpkin soup, a straw…” He slides into the seat opposite me, “and a conversation.”
 
“Thank you.”
 
“First things first. You... forgot to pay at the counter.” He neither smiles nor frowns as he says it.
 
“I did?” I turn my gaze downwards. “So I stole this?”
 
“What? No. Not unless you leave the café without paying.”
 
I close my eyes and nod. “I won’t, then.”
 
“... Really,” the boy says, shifting awkwardly, “it’ll be easier if you just pay now.”
 
I shrug. “Okay.”
 
I scoot to the side, letting my purse fall off of my shoulder. I lift my legs up and reach into it, pulling out one coin each of 500- and 100-yen, which I drop onto the table.
 
“Keep the change.”
 
“Thanks.” He pockets the coins. “Anyway… I’m Neku. Neku Sakuraba.”
 
“That’s fine.” I move to take a drink of my soup before I realize I’m expected to reciprocate. “I’m Rin. Tezuka Rin. Rin Tezuka.”
 
“Tezuka?” I lean in and suck on the straw. My mouth fills with thick, bittersweet, pumpkin-flavored fluid. “That sounds familiar.”
 
I swallow, and the food feels good down my throat and in my stomach. “I paint paintings.” The words feel nice in my mouth, like the soup. “A painting painter,” I whisper, “painting paint paintings with painter’s paint.”
 
“Oh, I remember now,” he says, ignoring my ramblings. “You were in the newspaper a few days ago. For an exhibition here in Shibuya, right?”
 
“That’s right,” I say between gulps.
 
“Mr. H - uh, my boss - he’s going to show up. He loves art. As you can see.” He gestures to the paintings above us on the wall.
 
“That’s nice.”
 
“What kind of paintings do you do?”
 
Now we’re talking about art. Regrettable. “See that one over there?” I point with my arm.
 
He turns to look. “Which one?”
 
“That one.” I point again. “With the face.”
 
“Oh, I see it. What about it?”
 
“Paintings like that.”
 
Neku turns back to me and raises his eyebrows. “Wait, is that one of yours?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Oh, wow! I’ll have to tell the boss that you stopped by!”
 
I lean back from the bowl, its contents halfway depleted. “Can you not?”
 
“Not… tell him?”
 
“Yes.”
 
He’s disappointed. “Well, okay. But why? Aren’t artists supposed to be happy when people are interested in their work?”
 
“They are. Artists are, I mean. And I am. That’s the thing.”
 
He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “I don’t follow you.”
 
I lean backward, resting my head on the back of the seat, and close my eyes. “Has anyone ever asked you a question you can’t answer?”
 
“Yeah. More often than I’d like.”
 
“Well, it’s like that. It’s exactly that.” I open my eyes and stare up at the mahogany ceiling.
 
Silence. Maybe he’s thinking. “You don’t like talking about your art?”
 
“No.” I roll my head back and forth.
 
“Why’s that?”
 
So many questions. “It’s already a way to talk without talking. To talk about it is to talk about talking without talking. What we’re doing is talking about talking about talking without talking, and it only gets worse from there.” I sigh and frown. “Then there’s postmodernism, which is talking without talking about talking without talking.”
 
Neku chuckles. “I can see why that would be confusing.”
 
“It is.” I lean forward again to see that he’s crossed his arms behind his head. I consider returning to my soup, but decide against it. “It’s just… I don’t get people. Never have. Never will.”
 
Neku says nothing for a moment, then laughs, his shoulders bouncing.
 
“Was that funny?”
 
“No, no. It just sounds like something I used to say.”
 
Neku sounds like he’s about to say more, so I begin drinking the remainder of my meal.
 
“Rin, I have a question. Do you like people?”
 
I swallow, my mouth fills, and I swallow again before I answer with a shrug.
 
“Hm. Well, I guess I’ll keep it short.” He closes his eyes and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I used to be kinda… emo. Didn’t like people at all, because I didn’t ‘get’ them. But then I was forced into a situation where I had to work with people, and they showed me some… something new.”
 
I pull my mouth from the straw with a pop. “That’s really vague.”
 
“I guess I don’t understand it myself. I just found that as I worked with my partners, it didn’t matter that we couldn’t always understand each other.” The boy looks up at the ceiling, smiling. I follow his gaze. There’s nothing there. “‘Trust your partner,’ someone said to me. He was right. So long as we trusted each other, we got by.”
 
I look back down to him and close my eyes as I say, “I understand.”
 
He looks back down to me, smile gone. “Oh, I’m sorry. I got kinda carried away there.”
 
“You did?”
 
“I think so.”
 
“I don’t mind.”
 
“Well,” says Neku, not making eye contact, “conversations are supposed to be two-sided.”
 
I nod as I suck the last of the soup into my mouth.
 
“So…” He crosses his arms and leans on the table again. “I guess I can keep this a secret.”
 
I’m confused for a moment. Then I remember what I asked him. “Thanks.” The straw makes hollow slurping sounds. “Also, I’m done.”
 
“Oh. I’ll take care of these, then.” He takes the dishes and stands up. “How’d you like it?”
 
I furrow my brow. “The soup or the conversation?”
 
He chuckles. “Either one.”
 
I smile. “It’s just what I was hungry for.”
 
He returns the expression. “Good to hear.”
 
Neku takes the dishes back to the kitchen. I slide out of the booth and walk to the door. But before I push it open, I turn around for another look at the paintings on the walls. I don’t understand them. Or why there are so many kinds all mixed together.
 
I feel better now, though. Less nervous. More un-nervous. Even though the exhibition is tomorrow. I hope it goes better than my first one.
 
Outside the café, I realize why Neku’s words rang true to me.
 
“Trust your partner.”
 
I do.
 
I don’t understand you. But I trust you.