Chiyoko Kamamoto, the eighteen-year-old cousin of Sun Air 678’s only surviving passenger, Hiro Yanagida, first met Ryu Takami on the forum of a popular online role-playing game. The majority of the players are otaku (slang for geeks or obsessives) in their teens or twenties, and as one of the few female gamers, Chiyoko became extremely popular.
It’s a mystery why Chiyoko chose Ryu, an underachiever and hikikomori (recluse) as her chat buddy, although this has been the subject of endless speculation. Until events overtook them, the pair messaged each other every day, sometimes for hours. The messages were retrieved from Chiyoko’s computer and smart phone after her disappearance, and leaked onto the Internet.
The original was written predominantly in ‘chat speak’, but for ease of reading and consistency, with the exception of Ryu’s use of emoji [emoticons], this has been modified. Translation by Eric Kushan.
(Chiyoko refers to her mother, with whom she had a frosty relationship, as ‘Mother Creature’ or ‘MC’. ‘Android Uncle’ or ‘AU’ denotes Kenji Yanagida, Chiyoko’s uncle and one of Japan’s most celebrated robotics experts.)
Message logged @ 15.30, 14/01/2012
CHIYOKO: Ryu, you there?
RYU: 
Where you been?
CHIYOKO: Don’t ask. Mother Creature ‘needed’ me again. Did you hear? The flight attendant. She died in hospital an hour ago. That means Hiro is the only survivor.
RYU: It’s all over 2-chan. So sad. How is Hiro?
CHIYOKO: He’s okay, I think. A dislocated collarbone, scratches; that’s all as far as I know.
RYU: So lucky.
CHIYOKO: That’s what Mother Creature keeps saying. ‘A miracle.’ She’s set up a temporary altar for Auntie Hiromi. I don’t know where she got the photograph of her from. MC never liked Auntie, but you’d never know that now. ‘Such a shame, she was so pretty, so serene, such a good mother.’ All lies. She was always saying Auntie was stuck up.
RYU: Did you find out what they were doing in Tokyo? Your aunt and Hiro, I mean.
CHIYOKO: Yeah. MC says Auntie Hiromi and Hiro were visiting an old school friend. I can tell that MC’s pissed that Auntie didn’t visit when she was here, but she won’t say it out loud, it wouldn’t be respectful.
RYU: Have any reporters tried to talk to you? That footage of them trying to climb over the hospital walls to get pics of the survivors was crazy–you hear about the one that fell off the roof? There’s a clip of it on Nico Nico. What a moron!
CHIYOKO: Not yet. But they found out where my father works. Not even something like this, the death of a sister, is enough for him to take a day off work. He refused to speak to them. But it’s Android Uncle they’re really interested in, of course.
RYU: I still can’t believe you’re related to Kenji Yanagida! Or that you didn’t tell me when we first met–I would have bragged about it to the whole world.
CHIYOKO: How would that have sounded? Hey, I’m Chiyoko, and guess what? I’m related to the Android Man. It would’ve sounded like I was trying to impress you.
RYU: You impress me? It should be the other way round.
CHIYOKO: You’re not going to start all that self-pitying stuff again, are you?
RYU: Don’t worry, you’ve got me out of that bad habit. So… what is he really like? I need details.
CHIYOKO: I told you. I don’t really know him. Last time I saw him was when he, Hiro and Auntie Hiromi came for New Year two years ago, just after we got back from the US, but they didn’t stay over and I only said about three words to him. Auntie was really pretty, but quite distant. I liked Hiro though, cute kid. MC says Android Uncle might come and stay with us while Hiro is at the hospital. I don’t think she’s happy about it. I overheard her saying to Father that Android Uncle is as cold as his robot.
CHIYOKO: Which one? There’s like a thousand.
RYU: Can’t remember. You want me to look it up for you?
CHIYOKO: Don’t bother. But how you are on camera might be different to how you really are. I think it’s a genetic thing.
RYU: What is? Being on camera?
CHIYOKO: No! Being cold. Like me. I’m not normal. I’m cold. A sliver of ice in my heart.
RYU: Chiyoko, the ice princess.
CHIYOKO: Chiyoko, the yuki-onna.
CHIYOKO: So we’ve established I have an ice princess genetic condition that can only be cured by… what?
RYU: Fame? Money?
CHIYOKO: That’s why I like you, Ryu, you always have the right answer. I thought you were going to say love and then I was going to be sick.
RYU: o(_ _)o What’s wrong with love?
RYU: You are not completely cold. I know you aren’t.
CHIYOKO: Then why do I not care more? Listen, I’ll prove it. How many people died in the Sun Air crash?
RYU: 525. No, 526.
CHIYOKO: 526. Yes. Including my own aunt. But all I’m feeling is relief.
RYU: ??(·_·*)
CHIYOKO: Okay… let me explain. Since the crash, since she heard about Auntie Hiromi and Hiro, MC hasn’t been on my back about going back to cram school once. Is that a bad thing to think? That because of someone’s tragedy I get some peace in my personal life?
RYU: Hey you have a personal life. That’s something. Look at me.
CHIYOKO: Ha! I knew it was too good to last. Never mind, you can be my own personal hikikomori. I like to picture you locked in your small room, the curtains shutting out the light, chain-smoking and messaging me when you get tired of playing Ragnarok.
RYU: I am not a hikikomori. And I don’t play Ragnarok.
RYU: I just don’t like that word.
CHIYOKO: Are you going to sulk now?
RYU: _|7O
CHIYOKO: ORZ????? Neraa! How long have you been saving that one up? Do people even use that any more? You sure you’re really 22 and not 38 or something? And when are you going to grow out of posting all that ascii shit?
RYU: <(_ _)> Let’s change the subject. Hey… when are you going to tell me about your life in the States?
CHIYOKO: Not again. Why do you want to know so badly?
RYU: Just interested. Do you miss it?
CHIYOKO: No. It doesn’t matter where you live, the world’s messed up. Another subject please.
RYU: Okaaaay… The message boards are still going wild about why the plane crashed into Jukai. There’s this whole theory that the captain crashed it on purpose. The suicide captain.
RYU: I don’t know. Some of the things they are saying might be true. The forest does have a history and it’s miles off the Osaka route, why crash there?
CHIYOKO: Maybe he didn’t want to land in a populated area. Maybe he was trying to save more lives that way. I feel bad for his wife.
RYU: You feel bad? I thought you were the ice princess.
CHIYOKO: I can still feel bad for her. Anyway, that Sun Air corporate drone mouthpiece said the captain was one of their best and most reliable, that he would never have done something like that. Also, they said he had no money worries, so he didn’t need the insurance and his medical showed he was in good health.
RYU: They could be lying. And anyway, maybe he was possessed. Maybe he was made to do it.
CHIYOKO: Ha! Brought down by hungry ghosts.
RYU: But you have to admit… Why so many planes on the same day? There has to be a reason.
CHIYOKO: Like what? Don’t tell me, a sign that we’re facing the end of the world?
RYU: Why not? It is 2012.
CHIYOKO: You’ve been spending way too much time on conspiracy sites, Ryu. And we’d know by now if it was terrorism.
RYU: Can the real Chiyoko come back now please? You are the one who is always saying the government and the press use us like pawns and lie to us.
CHIYOKO: Doesn’t mean I have to believe some half-baked conspiracy theory. Life isn’t like that. It’s dull. The politicians lie to us, of course they do. How else are we going to be their little good soldiers and not step out of line?
RYU: You really think they’d tell us the truth if it was terrorists?
CHIYOKO: I just said they lie to us. But some secrets are too big even for them to hide. Maybe in the US, but not here. The cover-up would have to go through eight levels of bureaucracy first to be approved. People are so lame. Do they not have better things to do than talk all day about conspiracy theories? Malign a dead man who was more than likely trying to save as many people as he could?
RYU: Hey… I’m really getting worried now. Could the ice princess be thawing? Is this a sign she really cares after all?
CHIYOKO: I don’t care… Okay, I half care. But it still makes me mad. The freaks on the conspiracy sites are as bad as the useless girls who witter all day on Mixi. Can you imagine what would happen if they spent as much energy talking about the things that really matter?
RYU: Like what?
CHIYOKO: Changing the system. Stopping the nepotism, stopping people turning into slaves. Stopping people dying, people being bullied… all of that stuff.
RYU: Chiyoko the ice princess revolutionary.
CHIYOKO: I’m serious. Go to school, go to cram school, study hard, make your parents proud, get into Keio, go to work every day for eighteen hours straight, don’t stray, don’t complain, don’t be a non-conformist. Too many don’ts.
RYU: You know I agree with you, Chiyoko. Look at me… But what can we do?
CHIYOKO: Nothing. There’s nothing we can do. Just suck it up or drop out or die. Poor Hiro. He has a lot to look forward to.
RYU: ( _ _ ) .……… o
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES:
Ascii: The term for text art (such as that used by Ryu above). It was popularised on forums such as 2-channel.
ORZ: A popular Japanese emoji or emoticon that denotes frustration or despair. The letters resemble a figure banging its head on the ground (O is the head; R the torso and Z the legs).
Yuki-Onna: (Snow woman). In Japanese folklore the Yuki-Onna is the spirit of a woman who died in a snow storm.
Hikikomori: Someone who is socially isolated to the extent that they rarely (or never) leave their room. It is estimated that in Japan there are almost a million socially isolated adolescents or young adults who have chosen to cut themselves off from society in this manner.