Someone to Introduce Us

“So where can I read the article?”

They were on their way back from lunch. Nea looked at the phone her classmate held out. It showed a photo Kirari had posted on the Digital Media Research Club’s account. Beneath it were the game’s name and a brief comment, but nothing about where to read the full article.

“I’ll send you the link.”

Her classmate thanked her for the link and went ahead to the classroom. Still in the corridor, Nea tapped the address she had just sent. The article opened without a problem. As long as you already knew the address.

When Nea told the others after school, Red pulled the laptop toward her. The article was on WordPress, with the same title and photos the three of them had chosen yesterday. The breeze through the open window was still warm. Summer vacation was over, but the clubroom fan hadn’t had a break.

“We never told anyone how to get here.”

“We open it all the time ourselves.” Kirari put down her phone. “All I did was show people the photo, too.”

First, they added the address to the photo caption. None of them knew what to do after that. If her classmate hadn’t asked for the link, it would never have occurred to Nea that anyone needed to ask.

Red suggested a more eye-catching title. Nea thought the one they had was already quite forceful. Kirari switched back and forth between two photos. Nea started writing a short introduction, then added explanations for anyone unfamiliar with the game. Soon it filled more than a screen.

“We might need to recruit someone just to read this.”

At Red’s comment, Nea deleted the last sentence.

“Have either of you ever helped get the word out about the club?”

“Only as far as posting the articles.”

“And I’ve only shown people the photos.”

Nea was no different. She wanted to hear what her classmate thought after reading the article. But first, her classmate had to be able to find it.

Red set a blank sheet of paper in the middle of the table.

“Let’s find someone to help with publicity. Maybe someone at school has done this before.”

“Then how do we let people know we’re looking?” Kirari asked.

Nea looked at her unfinished introduction.

“That’s what we need someone to help us with.”

For a moment, all three were silent. Kirari was the first to pick up her phone.

“Well, I’ll choose a photo to start with.”

At lunchtime the next day, the three stood in front of a noticeboard where clubs could put up recruitment posters. Kirari had chosen a photo of them sitting in front of a game screen. Above it, they had written in large letters: “Help Us Introduce Ourselves!” The club’s name and the words “Publicity Member Wanted” were in small print beneath the photo.

Two passing students stopped.

“Is this a photography club?”

“We play games and write about them, too,” Red explained.

“So you’re looking for someone to be in the photos?”

Kirari pointed to the small print. The two students stepped closer to read it, then nodded. They knew someone who took photos, they said, but couldn’t think of anyone who had done publicity for a club.

The three of them had to stay beside the poster explaining it to other students, too. Nea tried to write “Publicity Member Wanted” in bigger letters. The photo took up almost the entire sheet.

Then a girl carrying three round cookie tins stopped. A single cream-colored clip sat beside her apricot curls. The stack of tins reached almost to her chin.

“If I joined, could I introduce things I like, too?”

“Yes. Right now, we’re looking for someone to help tell other students about what we do,” Nea said.

“Oh, that’s what you meant.”

The girl leaned forward to read the bottom of the poster, and the top tin slid sideways. Nea caught it while Kirari grabbed the middle one. Red pressed down a lid that was about to come loose, leaving only the bottom tin in the girl’s arms.

“Thank you. They’re empty, so they’re light, but three was a bit much.”

Kirari looked at the lid of the tin she was holding. It had a small floral pattern.

“This is pretty.”

“Isn’t it? I asked a friend if she had any she wasn’t using, and she gave me three. I tried to pick just one, but I couldn’t decide.”

The girl took out a foldaway shopping bag and accepted the tins back one by one. When Nea asked if she would like to visit the club, she looked at the photo again, her hands on the bag handles.

“Is it all right if I’m not very good at games? There are some I like.”

“That’s enough. We don’t only write about being good at them,” Red said. “You can come and play with us.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely. Where’s your clubroom?”

Red pointed to the bottom of the poster, and Kirari to the side of the photo. Nea looked under the club’s name. The room’s location was in a corner of the photo, in lettering almost the same color as the desk leg behind it.

“I put it there, and even I can’t find it.” Kirari moved her finger.

The girl stepped a little closer. While all four were peering at the poster, the warning bell rang.

“Let’s make this part bigger.”

Red held out a pen. Nea wrote the room’s location again, over a bright patch of the photo. The girl nodded, said she could see it clearly now, and headed toward the stairs.

Back in the classroom, Nea asked the student beside her if she knew a girl with apricot curls and three cookie tins.

“Nari Han? She’s in the class next door. Sounds like she’s got some more.”

“Right next door?”

“Yes. Her family runs a little bake shop. Look.”

Her classmate pulled a small card out from under her pencil case. Beside a drawing of a butter cookie were a few short lines about buying individual cookies and having them gift-wrapped.

“She gave me this when I asked her for help choosing a present. She said she made it herself.”

The back had the shop’s location and opening hours. Nea turned the card over once more. There was far less writing than in the introduction she had spent more than a screen on yesterday. Yet she knew straight away where to buy the cookies.

After the last lesson, Nea went to the classroom next door. They might have passed each other in the corridor several times. The hair was distinctive enough, but Nea didn’t remember her face.

Nari Han stood beside a desk, trying to get the shopping bag handles over her shoulder. With three tins inside, the bag kept tipping.

“Would you like me to carry one?”

Nari looked up and smiled, apparently recognizing her from the noticeboard.

“Oh, we met at the noticeboard, didn’t we? Are you in the class next door?”

“Yes. I’m Nea. I didn’t even get to ask your name earlier.”

“I’m Nari Han. Thank you for helping.”

Nari took out the floral tin and handed it over. Nea accepted it, then showed her the card she had borrowed from her classmate.

“I heard you made this. We’d like to make something like it.”

“We use it at our shop. I added things little by little, based on what customers asked.”

“With our poster, it was hard to find anything even when someone asked.”

Nari laughed softly. Nea laughed, too. It was a relief not to have to defend the poster she had been explaining all day.

Nea messaged the two older girls, then went downstairs with Nari. Red and Kirari were waiting by the entrance. After they had all introduced themselves, Red asked if Nari wanted to stop by the clubroom.

“I’d like to, but I promised to help with the wrapping at the shop today.”

“Then can we come and buy some cookies?”

“Yes, that would be nice. You might have to wait a while, though. Would that be all right?”

“We’ll probably take a while choosing, too,” Kirari said. “First I need to see what could go in that tin.”

Smiling, Nari led the way. Nea decided to carry the tin as far as the shop. Between the classroom next door and the school gate, she learned what Nari used empty cookie tins for. Nari said she hadn’t yet decided what to put in the floral one.

The shop smelled of butter. Nari took the tin back from Nea and set it with her bag behind the counter. She slipped off her cardigan and tied an oatmeal-colored apron over her shirt. Watching her knot the ties so easily, Nea thought she looked a little different from the girl at school.

Then, about to write down their order, Nari patted her front pocket twice. Her pen was in her bag. Nea had been standing up straight; only then did her shoulders relax.

Kirari asked from in front of the display case.

“Which cookies do you like, Nari?”

“The ones that are a little darker around the edges. I like how crisp they are.”

Kirari chose two of the butter cookies Nari pointed out. Red and Nea picked one each. While Nari was putting them into separate bags, a customer came in and asked for gift wrapping.

The three stepped aside to wait. Nari finished the wrapping and handed the customer the bag. Once the customer had left, Red held out her phone.

“This is the article we mentioned. Would you take a look?”

Nari read it, then laughed at the part where the player character fell into the same gap three times.

“When I can’t solve a puzzle, I turn the game off for a little while and then back on, too. It feels as if that might help.”

“Does it?”

“Sometimes. If it doesn’t, I leave it for the day.”

Nari scrolled back to the top.

“But at first, I had to look around a little to find out what kind of game it was. What if you added just one line about that at the start?”

Red peered at the phone. The explanation of the game was halfway through the article.

“Do I have to change the whole opening?”

“I’d keep the part about falling three times. I enjoyed that.”

Nari took out a notebook and tried writing something brief. On the open page, she had also recorded the dates when she had changed the information card. She said that after hearing the same questions over and over at the shop, she had read an introductory book and looked up some public lectures.

“Does changing the information make a difference right away?” Nea asked.

“Sometimes, but not always. Once I was pleased because more people were asking about things, but then I realized it was the weekend. So I write down the day of the week, too.”

Red looked up from the notebook at Nari.

“Want to try this with us? We’ve needed someone we could ask about things like this.”

“I’d like that. Just a moment—let me see which days I could come.”

Nari opened her notebook to her schedule. Her pen moved over the page, then stopped at a day when she helped at the shop. Watching her, Kirari put down her bag of cookies.

“But you said there was something you wanted to introduce, too. What was it?”

“Oh, it’s a game where you decorate a little shop.”

Nari took out her phone. There was a single yellow chair on the screen, with an empty space beside it.

“Oh, that’s cute. Did you pick that chair, Nari?”

Nari nodded at Kirari’s question.

“Yesterday I spent the whole time just choosing its color. Would it be all right to write about that? I don’t think I could write about being good at a game.”

“What are you going to put beside it?” Nea asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. Would you like to have a look with me?”

Nea moved closer. She thought a dark brown chair might make the yellow stand out. Just then, the bell on the door rang. Nari saw the customer coming in and put down her phone.

“Shall we look at the rest in the clubroom next time?”

Nari said she didn’t have to help at the shop tomorrow. Nea decided to think about which chair would go well with it before then.

When Nari arrived at the clubroom the next day, Nea moved a chair beside her own. Nari took out the floral tin and a folded sheet of paper. The tin held four individually wrapped cookies. On the paper was a short line introducing Red’s article.

“A relaxing adventure for everyone.”

Red read it aloud.

“I wasn’t relaxed.”

“I tried putting it that way so it wouldn’t seem too difficult to someone seeing it for the first time.”

“There are places where you have to time your jumps right from the start,” Nea said.

Nari looked at the sentence again.

“You’re right. I didn’t quite understand that from reading about it. I should take out ‘relaxing.’”

Her voice was gentle, but her pen didn’t move so readily. Nea had thought that once she pointed out what was wrong, they could write the next sentence together. Only now did it occur to her that Nari was struggling on her own to describe a game she hadn’t played.

“Would you like to try it for a little while? It doesn’t take long to get to that part.”

Nea held out the controller. Nari took it and examined the buttons. Red showed her how to move.

Nari cleared the first gap and fell at the second. The next time she reached it, she jumped too early. Nea was about to point to a button when Nari spoke, her eyes on the screen.

“I’ll try pressing it a little later this time.”

Nea lowered her hand. On the third try, Nari made it across. Instead of going straight on, she turned her character around to look at the platform she had just crossed.

“Oh, I made it.”

“There you go.” Red leaned back.

Nari put the controller down, then picked it up again.

“It isn’t relaxing, but I’d like to try it again next time.”

“You could write that.”

Nari unfolded the paper and crossed out “relaxing.” She wrote that even after falling, she wanted to try again, and added a sentence above it explaining what kind of game it was. Nea added where the player restarted after a failed attempt. Kirari chose a photo that showed the platforms clearly.

“Oh, now you can tell what kind of game it is straight away.”

Nari looked between the photo and the writing. This time, Nea read the part about Nari’s own successful jump before looking at the line she had corrected earlier.

“I’d like to try your game now, Miss Han.”

“You can just call me Nari. We’re in the same year.”

“Nari, then.”

“And may I call you Nea?”

When Nea nodded, Nari took out her phone. On the screen between them, the yellow chair still stood alone.

Nea placed the dark brown chair she had thought of yesterday, but it caught the eye before the yellow one did. She changed it to white. Nari looked for a moment, then zoomed in a little.

“I think this one’s too white. Could we look at some others?”

They opened the list again. Nari even compared the shapes of the backrests. Nea remembered how carefully she had pressed the jump button earlier. Here, Nari was much more at home.

“You know more about choosing chairs than I do, Nari.”

“Taking a long time to choose is something I’m good at.”

Nea laughed and tapped a pale green chair. Nari moved it beside the yellow one, then held her phone a little farther away.

“I like this one. They look prettier together.”

Kirari leaned in to look at the screen.

“Show the ones you picked when you write about this game. I want to try doing that, too.”

“And mention how we used up the whole afternoon choosing one chair,” Red said.

Nari laughed, then glanced at the clock on the wall. She turned off her phone and lifted her bag onto her lap. But she didn’t stand up just yet.

“I’ll have to leave it there for today. And… I’d like to join the club.”

Red put down her pen.

“I’d like to help with publicity, and write about games like this, too.”

“Great. Next time, we’ll start with your game.”

“All right. I won’t be able to come every day, though. I help at the shop on some days.”

“Then we’ll do it when you’re here.”

Nea opened the calendar. Nari pointed to a day the following week when she could come. Kirari agreed to take photos that day. Nea could be there, too.

When Nari opened the cookie tin, Kirari reached over. First she picked out a cookie with dark edges and handed it to Nari. Then the other three took one each.

“You said you liked these.”

“You remembered. Thank you.”

Holding her cookie, Nari looked at the empty tin.

“May I leave this here? I’ll bring more cookies next time.”

Nea cleared a space at one end of the desk. Nari set the floral tin there.

As they headed downstairs toward the entrance together, Nea suggested meeting again at lunchtime tomorrow.

“To choose more chairs?”

“No. To have lunch together.”

Nari came down one step to stand beside Nea.

“I’d like that. I’ll come to your classroom.”

“Then I’ll be waiting.”

Nea closed the photo of the recruitment poster still open on her phone. Tomorrow, Nari would come over from the class next door.