Promptober 2026 Day 21: Carousel
“Here,” Ririko said, handing me the envelope.
Mystified, I took it. It was addressed to me, alright, but with no return address. “It came with the mail?”
“Mhm.” She leafed through another few envelopes. “It’s not too unusual. Saaya-chan and Kasumi-chan get mail occasionally, too. They both turned eighteen recently, you know. I think the credit card companies try to get a head start.”
What a pain. I clucked my tongue as I turned the envelope over and ripped it open, ready to toss the contents in the trash - but to my surprise, it was not an advertisement for a credit card, it was…
“...tickets to Tokyo Disney?” I murmured.
Ririko looked up, a blank expression on her face. “What?”
“Five of them,” I said. “There’s a note in here, too.”
“Well, what does it say?”
“You’ve all been working too hard, so take a day off,” I read, my eyes narrowing. “And it’s signed by ‘A fan.’ What on earth– Ririko-san, you didn’t…?”
She shook her head, looking nonplussed. “Not me,” she said. “Not that I don’t agree with the sentiment! But if I had ¥50,000 just lying around, I would probably buy a new road bike.”
…which is how we ended up cancelling practice and going to Tokyo Disney the following Saturday. I half-expected the tickets to be fake and the whole thing to be a bizarre prank, but that wasn’t the case - they accepted the tickets without a second look.
“You worry too much, Rikki,” Anon said between bites of a soft-serve cone. A pair of mouse ears was perched jauntily on her head. We had been in the park for less than ten minutes. “It’s just a sign that we’re actually starting to get famous! Bands probably get stuff like this all the time!”
“They do…?” Tomori frowned. “We’ll have to… set aside more time,” she murmured.
“They don’t,” I said. “Don’t just tell Tomori things like that.”
“I think it’s fine,” Soyo said. “Right, Taki-chan? Something like this is fine every once in awhile.”
“...well, yeah. We wouldn’t have come if–”
“Great! Soyorin - c’mon, I wanna see Elsa!” Anon grabbed by Soyo by the wrist. For a brief moment, Soyo and I locked eyes, then - like a hapless yet resigned victim disappearing into the jaws of the lion - she was gone.
Anon loved to complain about how strict I am with everyone, but to be honest, I had been looking forward to this. Between shows, practice, and exams, we had been working hard. It definitely bothered me that I didn’t know who had purchased the tickets for us - it would have bothered anyone.
But somehow, seeing the look of shocked rapture on Tomori’s face as she bit down on a churro in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head made my anxiety seem pretty silly.
…I guess I didn’t mind feeling silly, for once.
We found Anon and Soyo again after not too long. The day was hot, and the park was crowded, but that was part of the experience, too.
So many little things happened that I wouldn’t mind remembering forever: Soyo winning a stuffed alien from Toy Story from a crane game and giving it to the Stray. The picture of Tomori and me riding Space Mountain together where both of us were so blurry that it looked like a picture from a horror movie. Anon singing along to a song from Frozen as it blared over a loudspeaker, and then, to our collective shock, being joined in perfect harmony by the Stray, who knew every word.
It was a perfect day.
Evening fell, and then night. The park exploded around us in a kaleidoscope of light and music. Tomori spotted that one of the mounts on the carousel was a seahorse, so she went to ride it, and Anon and Raana went with her, leaving Soyo and me waiting on a bench like a couple of exhausted parents.
We sat in silence for a minute or two, watching the carousel turn.
“...Taki-chan.”
“Mmm?” I looked over at Soyo. She was wearing the smile that I imagined she wore at school: Quiet, polite, and false.
“Can I share a secret with you?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“I hate theme parks,” she said.
I laughed a little incredulously. “You… really? You hate them?”
“That’s right.” Soyo turned her smile to me. I had seen Soyo’s genuine smile, so seeing this one, the one that didn’t seem to encroach on the rest of her face, always unnerved me a little. “I always have. It seems pointless.”
“You don’t think it’s fun, walking around? All the food, the music, the rides… none of that does anything for you?”
She shook her head. “Not a bit,” she said. Her smile widened, and saddened. “Isn’t that awful? I mean, it’s such an insipid metaphor, but– look.”
She pointed at the carousel, where Anon was posing Raana and Tomori on side-by-side mounts for a selfie.
“The carousel just goes around, and around, and it never gets anywhere. It’s just a lot of movement and fuss*.* In the end, you just end up right where you started.”
I shook my head. “Why’d you say ‘yes,’ then? You could have made an excuse.”
“I came,” she said, “because I keep thinking that this time, I’ll start to like it. This time, something about me will change. This time, I’ll be able to just pay my fifty thousand yen and relax. I’ll be able to enjoy myself. I can stop… trying to be someone who deserves to have fun at a theme park, and just… have fun, instead.”
I turned my head to look at her. She looked back at me.
“You’re right,” I said, and took a sip of my soda. “It’s a pretty crappy metaphor.”
She snorted a single laugh, and looked back at the carousel.
“Anon forgave you the second you stepped onto that stage,” I said. “And so did Tomori. And so did I. The only person who thinks you don’t deserve to be standing beside us is you.”
For an instant, her eyes flashed defiantly - and then it was gone. Her placid, neutral mask returned.
“I was just talking about theme parks,” she said.
“So was I.”
“You really are insufferable, Taki-chan.”
“Yeah.”
She held out her hand.
“Give me a sip,” she said.
Smiling, I handed her my cup.