James's Stage
In a huge hall packed wall to wall with people, a handsome white man took the microphone. Bright pin spotlights poured down on him as he stood there in a black velvet jacket and a dashing gentleman's hat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the next act is the highlight of the Las Vegas show! Prepare yourselves for James Kane’s spellbinding magic performance!”
At Colt’s cue, the stage curtain swept open, and a man stepped forward with both arms spread wide.
He was still young, with a confident face and gleaming black eyes. But in a Las Vegas theater, he was an unusual sight: an East Asian man with black hair. It was James Kane’s entrance.
“Waaaah!”
James was Asian, but he was already a famous figure in this Las Vegas theater. He was known not only here, but among aspiring magicians and even working professionals who dreamed of learning magic and becoming performers themselves. Because of that, plenty of videos of his shows had already spread far and wide.
To the roar of the crowd and the thunder of applause, James lifted the hem of his long coat, let one arm fall elegantly to his side, and bowed with exaggerated nobility.
Then he launched straight into the show.
Shall I start with my trump card?
The first trick he was about to perform was an ordinary card trick—one that could be seen anywhere, not just here in Las Vegas.
But first, let’s warm them up a little.
If he started with card tricks right away, he wouldn’t be able to seize the audience’s attention. That, too, was simply part of a magician’s show, no different from any other night.
With a rustle of fabric, he threw off the black coat he was wearing—and instead of falling to the floor, it shot upward toward the ceiling, vanishing from sight above the stage.
Flap, flap.
“Oooooh.”
Before James had even appeared, the audience had already guessed that some invisible wire must have been attached to his coat. Thanks to that, their cheers were relatively restrained.
That’d be boring if it ended here.
James reached up toward the ceiling again, and the coat that had flown up began to descend once more.
“Ooooooh!”
Then, in time with James’s gestures, the coat fluttered around the stage like a bird. It flew beyond the stage and out over the audience seats.
Flap. Flap.
The crowd stared in wonder, feeling the breeze stirred up by the coat as it beat through the air.
“How is the coat flying around?”
Finally, when James lifted both hands, the coat that had been fluttering above the audience returned and slipped back onto him.
“Whoa!”
“Hahaha!”
Magic was fascinating precisely because a magician’s trick was so hard to guess. With the coat flying around like some enchanted carpet, all of the audience’s excitement and attention had been pulled squarely toward him.
The mood is hot enough now...
James, used to receiving applause and cheers, calmly continued with the main performance.
Snap. Fwip. Snap. Fwip.
From the magician’s empty hands, countless cards appeared one after another. But this was no ordinary card trick.
Fwap.
Because all the cards that had emerged from the magician’s hands were now circling around him. It wasn’t a sight one saw every day, and the audience’s cheers swelled accordingly.
“Woooooooah!!”
Colt’s voice rang out to match the moment.
“The star attraction of the Las Vegas show! Right now, the mysterious magic performance of the Psychokinesis Magician James Kane is beginning!”
James’s nickname was the Psychokinesis Magician.
Hoo. We’re almost done now.
He had already shown nearly every prepared trick that could be performed with cards. What remained was a dazzling finish.
The final trick of the performance was the coat illusion he had used at the beginning. The coat fluttered and shot upward again, but this time it did not disappear above the stage. Instead, it fell to the floor.
Flap. Thud.
“Uh...”
“...”
The audience began murmuring over the magician’s coat lying on the floor.
“...Did something go wrong?”
With a troubled look, James brought a hand to his forehead and walked toward the direction where the coat had fallen. Thanks to the host’s remark and the magician’s awkward reaction, it really did look as if the trick had failed.
Step.
Twists are always fun.
James didn’t pick up the coat lying on the stage. Instead, he stepped onto it. Then, as if the coat were refusing to listen, he stamped on it in annoyance.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
“What is he doing?”
“What’s going on?”
“It seems the coat isn’t following the magician’s instructions. Hahaha...”
James spread his arms wide and swept them around his body, proving there was no hidden apparatus anywhere, and then slowly raised one hand from below to above.
“Oh!”
At once, James’s body began to rise together with the coat.
Flap. Flap.
The coat fluttered as if riding the wind, and James, standing on top of it, no longer looked like a magician at all. It seemed less like a fake performance and more like true magic.
He touched two fingers to his brow and delivered his final line.
“Goodbye, everyone.”
Then he flew off toward the side of the stage atop the coat.
“Woooooooah!!!”
As James disappeared from the stage, the curtain fell, and the host once again raised his voice in excited declaration.
“What an incredible performance! Ladies and gentlemen, were you satisfied!”
“Yeah!”
“That was amazing!”
“I see him every day, and it still feels new! With that in mind, let’s bring him out again!”
“Encore!”
“Encore!”
“Encore!”
“James! The audience is calling for you!”
James, waiting backstage for Colt’s cue, appeared once more.
With a rustle, he moved.
Step. Step.
This time, unlike when he had flown off the stage atop the coat, James walked out from the side of the stage. He didn’t disappoint the audience’s expectations; instead, he stopped for a moment and held his foot suspended in midair.
!
Then he began climbing upward, stepping onto thin air as though it were a staircase.
Step.
It looked like mime, yet it was a mysterious sight that could not be dismissed as mere mime.
!!
Step.
With every step James took up the invisible staircase, the audience’s eyes followed the empty space beneath his feet, but no one could tell what trick he was using. James was really walking on air.
After climbing several steps, he even turned around and lay down on the staircase completely. Reclining on the transparent steps, he casually waved to the crowd.
“Woooooah!!”
All right, enough. Wrap it up, Colt.
James gave Colt a subtle glance, and Colt hurried to continue the introduction.
“The magician James Kane, who captivated everyone to the very end with a dazzling display of magic, will now take his leave to thunderous applause and cheers!”
“Wooooooah!!”
James, still floating in midair, waved in farewell.
As the curtain closed, James slipped down from the air.
Tap.
All around him, the cards used during the performance lay scattered messily across the stage floor.
How am I supposed to pick all this up...
James bent to gather the cards, then straightened and reached out toward them.
Whoosh.
All the cards flew into his palm like pigeons returning home. There were an enormous number of them, yet one after another they vanished into his hand as though they were being swallowed by nowhere at all.
That was when something unplanned happened during the show.
Fwip.
Suddenly, the stage curtain opened and the area brightened.
!
Startled by the sudden opening, James, standing in the middle of cards drifting through the air, froze awkwardly in place. The cards froze in the air with him.
Colt... what the hell are you doing now...
James glared resentfully at Colt, who had triggered the curtain. Then, with exaggerated pointing and gesturing, he made it look as if this, too, were part of the performance for the audience.
I hit it by mistake.
Despite his blunder, Colt kept right on talking as if everything had been planned.
“The Psychokinesis Magician was tidying up the cards. Of course, even the ending of the show is psychokinesis!”
“Woooooooah!”
The audience was delighted by the unexpected bonus performance. James, in response to Colt’s line, waved to the crowd and continued gathering the cards.
Whoosh.
Then he walked off the stage, and the cards in midair followed after him like children chasing a pied piper. To the audience, the two of them still seemed to be in perfect sync, and so they accepted it as part of the show.
“All cleaned up.”
Tonight’s show was truly over.
“...I’ll deal with Colt later.”
James’s performance was finished, but he still had something to settle with Colt for that backstage blunder.
Click.
James opened the door and stepped inside. It was already past midnight, but for him this was just an ordinary, everyday time to come home. The Las Vegas show was always held at night, and their quitting time was arranged around that schedule.
“Mmhm.”
James stretched his arms, and behind him was Colt, who had hosted the performance onstage. The two of them were carrying brown paper bags in both hands, apparently after grocery shopping.
“...Jimmy. That settles it.”
“Heh. Colt, make another mistake sometime. Works out great for me when my money doesn’t have to go out.”
Thanks to tonight’s mishap onstage, he had covered all the food they’d need for quite a while.
“Tch. You make more than I do, and you’re still...”
By the nature of the show, the magician who actually performed onstage earned more than the host. On top of that, James was a famous magician in Las Vegas. But as Colt had introduced him to the audience, he wasn’t merely the highlight of the performance. Las Vegas had too many magicians and star performers for that.
“Whose fault is it for making such a ridiculous mistake? Why did you open the curtain while I was cleaning up the stage? You really lost your mind.”
“Anyway... drop it already. I’m still getting dizzy thinking about it. Let’s eat and sleep.”
“Col-col-col, Colt.”
It was the same teasing line James used sometimes when he mocked Colt’s name.
“......”
When Colt glared at him with a terrifying face, James quickly accepted the bag he was holding and said cheerfully, “Colt bought it, so I should be the one to set it out, right? Heh.”
“......”
Rustle. Whoosh.
Then James casually tossed the bag he had just taken into the air.
“Come on.”
What should have hit the floor instead neatly arranged itself on the table: beer cans and all sorts of food items, settling into place as if by habit. It was a strange sight, but Colt accepted it as perfectly normal.
“That one’s the refrigerator. Put that in later, too.”
“Oh. So that was for later?”
Whoosh.
The refrigerator door opened on its own, and the things Colt had pointed out were sucked inside.
“You don’t even lift a finger, do you?”
“This is just easier.”
James wasn’t a trick magician; he was a real wizard who used psychokinesis. Following James’s fingers, the bags floating through the air folded themselves and turned into paper airplanes before flying into the trash can. Even the food that needed heating warmed up on its own. Thanks to James, the microwave in the house was gathering dust.
“What if somebody else finds out...”
“There’s only the two of us here.”
Colt was the only person who knew James was a real magician.
“Anyway!”
“You and your nagging...”
It wasn’t the first or second time James had heard that tone from him.
“I was worried the American agencies might come for you...”
“And yet the guy who knows all that still opened the stage curtain while I was clearing the cards?”
“......”
Colt had made a huge mistake tonight, but he wasn’t entirely without a defense.
“It happened because you keep using magic for everything!”
“Then how exactly was I supposed to recover all those cards? The next show was about to start right away.”
The cards James had used onstage were the equivalent of dozens of decks. If he had picked them up one by one, there was no way he would have recovered them before the next act began.
“Ah...”
“And if you’d opened the curtain while I was bent over picking up the cards, you think the audience would have loved that? Hm?”
If that had happened, it would have been the same as admitting the entire magic show was real. Of course, magic shows clearly used tricks, but being exposed was a very different problem.
“......”
Colt remembered, as he always eventually did, that he had never once won a war of words against James.
“...Let’s just eat dinner. I’m hungry.”
“There you go again.”
Their hands reached not for food first, but for beer.
Click. Click. Sizzle. Sizzle.
“Cheers.”
“That was a good show tonight, Jimmy.”
“Except for Colt’s mistake?”
“Aw, come on! Shut up already.”
“Col-col-col, Colt!”
“Hey!”
The night in Las Vegas was passing by.