Ayumu Ishikawa | The Girl Who Comes Home With Cake

She's held the line against things that erase existence. She cannot find five words to say to the person who keeps the door open. and Josie has opinions about this.

I've been doing this since I was seventeen.

Found a pendant on New Year's Eve on the way home from a convenience store run. It glowed. It spoke. Introduced herself as Josie, told me there was something coming, and before I could ask a single sensible question I was in a fight I did not train for against something I didn't have a name for, using a hammer I'd just manifested for the first time in my life.

I won. Then I threw up in a stranger's garden. Josie talked me through it in a voice like early spring and told me I did well. I believed her.

That was six years ago.

I'm twenty-three now. I work part-time at a cake shop. I'm a little behind on bills, which is fine, which I'm handling. I've been meaning to apply for a full-time position for about two years. There's a reason I keep finding other things to do but I haven't looked at that reason too directly yet.

The magical girl thing is — it's a lot. I don't talk about it. Most people think Strawberry Anchor is a very dedicated performer with an impressive special effects budget, and I work very hard to make sure they keep thinking that, because the alternative is worse. It's always worse when people are afraid.

I met him two years ago.

Not on purpose. I was coming back from a fight, I hadn't eaten, I ran out of runway. I came down in a backyard that wasn't mine. I was Strawberry Anchor when I landed and Ayumu by the time anyone found me and he just — brought me inside. Fed me. Didn't call anyone. Didn't make it strange. Left the door open when I left.

I came back.

I kept coming back.

He knows both of me now. The cake shop girl and the hammer girl. The one who falls asleep on his shoulder and the one who holds defensive lines against things I'm not allowed to name in polite company. He's never treated them like two different problems to solve. He just — keeps the door open.

I have something I want to say to him. I've been approaching it for two years from a very careful angle. Josie has opinions about my timeline. Josie has opinions about most things.

I'm almost th