Vol. 2 Chapter 1.2 – July, 2046, after school

That day, I did not notice at all that Nagamine was different from usual.

No, this might sound like I am making excuses but at the very least, when Nagamine was waiting to ambush me as usual at our usual place, the stair landing after school, there did not seem to be anything particularly strange about her behavior.

Still, looking back on it afterward, maybe her spirits had been just slightly higher than usual. Nagamine Mikako was, if anything, the calm and gentle type. She was on the shorter side, and it was not like she was one of the top one or two beauties among the girls in class either. She was not very noticeable. But contrary to appearances, she was a girl with a strong core. Having spent a little over two full years together in the same kendo club, watching her practice up close, I knew that better than anyone.

She was not especially quick to learn, but she practiced harder than anyone else and steadily improved without anyone realizing it. While the other girls in the club gave up one after another before even reaching the spring of their second year, complaining about the harsh training and the gymnasium floor in winter that felt as cold as a freezer, Nagamine never uttered a single complaint and persevered through it all.

Because of that, she became the vice captain starting in the second semester of our second year. Honestly, compared to me, who had reluctantly accepted the captain position only because our advisor personally appointed me, even though I would have preferred to shove the responsibility onto someone else, Nagamine should have been valued far more highly.

Though she was called the vice captain, in reality Nagamine ended up devoting herself entirely to supporting the boys’ club members from behind the scenes, like a manager. After all, she was the only girl left in the club by the end, and even after adding new members, there still were not enough people to enter team competitions. Because of that, her skill was never once shown in an official match.

I felt bad for Nagamine, who had ended up drawing the short straw. It would not have been strange at all if she had seriously snapped and shouted,『You’ve got to be kidding me! Do it yourselves!』then hurled a mountain of sweaty laundry at us, slammed a withdrawal form down in front of me, and stormed off. But Nagamine never voiced a single complaint and kept doing her best for the kendo club.

So because of all that, even though I have never actually said it aloud, I am grateful to Nagamine.

I really am grateful to her. The reason I never said it directly is because it feels embarrassing to say things like that face-to-face and whenever I end up alone together with Nagamine, serious conversations like that somehow stop mattering.

I never had difficult conversations with Nagamine. Mostly, she would talk about trivial things, like what happened at school that day or a drama she watched yesterday, while I listened to her one-sidedly. But it was not painful or anything. I do not really know about other girls, but I think Nagamine probably was not that talkative. If anything, she might have been rather quiet. Otherwise, I would not have kept getting caught so easily every single time she waited to ambush me.

Yeah, that day’s Nagamine was probably more talkative than usual.

And yet, as if she were trying to divert my attention from something, she restlessly skipped from one topic to another at a dizzying pace.

The afternoon sunlight poured mercilessly through the open windows onto the wall of the stair landing. Leaning lightly against that wall, Nagamine waited for me as I came down exhausted and completely drained after finishing supplementary English lessons.

“Noboru-kun, how were your final exams?”

Nagamine asked that in an unusually cheerful voice.

“Somehow, except for the subjects I have supplementary lessons in…How about you, Nagamine?”

“Nagamine did perfectly.”

“Then, do you think we can go?”

“To the same high school.”

After saying that happily, Nagamine added,『Ah, I’m sure…』in a less confident voice.

I decided on my own that those words must have been out of consideration for me. I could not say I was not a little annoyed, but I let it pass.

Unlike me, whose results swing wildly between hits and misses, Nagamine’s grades are stable. They are not so excellent that they make you open your eyes in amazement, but she almost never falls apart badly. She must not have had much time to study, since she was busy with club activities, but despite how she looks, maybe her concentration when it really matters is outstanding.

If she keeps this pace, I think Nagamine can smoothly pass into Jouhoku High School, the school she is aiming for. For us to go to the same high school, I will have to stretch myself. To tell the truth, I am a little anxious.

Together with Nagamine, I went down the stairs and headed toward the bicycle parking area behind the school building.

On the way, I imagined Nagamine in a high school uniform. Based on grades, Jouhoku High School is a college-prep school ranked around second in the school district, but in terms of name recognition, it is a proper high school with a proud tradition that stands above the rest. If I remember right, it should have celebrated its one hundred fiftieth anniversary two or three years ago.

That is why everything is old, from the school buildings to the school rules and everything else. The uniforms are no exception. I do not know when it was decided, but even though the twenty-first century is almost at its halfway point, they stubbornly continue to preserve the boys’ gakuran and the girls’ sailor uniforms. Though, it is not only old-established Jouhoku High School that has left everything old. It is because the aftereffects of that Tarsian Shock are still lingering…

No, the Tarsian Shock does not matter.

Ever since I became aware of the world, society had already become that kind of system.

Most of the local and national budgets are completely swallowed up by Tarsian-related matters and only a tiny amount of repair funds can be put toward public works. Roads, bridges, railways, bus routes, schools, hospitals, police boxes and fire stations all look exactly as they did long ago. As if time has stopped, the townscape has not changed at all for the past five or six years. I suppose it is because we are under what people call a national general mobilization system, but once that drags on and becomes normal, you can get by without feeling much inconvenience.

My thoughts had wandered off again.

The issue was Nagamine in a sailor uniform.

Would it suit Nagamine?

I could not picture it well.

One year later, Nagamine at fifteen years old. Would she have grown taller properly?

Or would she still be small, just like now?

Only students from some distant areas and club members who have morning practice are allowed to commute by bicycle.

So, according to the rules, I should no longer be riding mine to school but I still use it anyway. Nagamine is serious about that sort of thing or maybe just inflexible. From the very next day after she handed over the vice captain position to an underclassman, she immediately switched to walking to school. Because of that, whenever I go home with Nagamine, I have no choice but to match her and push my bicycle along. Even when I tell her I will give her a ride, she absolutely refuses to get on anywhere near the school.

Matching Nagamine’s pace, we would walk home while lazily talking about things that did not really matter, and even make detours along the way. For exam students, for whom every minute and every second is precious, it was an outrageous waste of time, but I actually enjoyed that waste quite a lot.

Pushing my bicycle, I went out into the schoolyard.

On the field, the football club members were chasing the ball while raising loud cheers. Even though the sun was starting to sink, their energy showed no sign of fading. Heat haze rose from the completely dry ground and wrapped around the soccer club members.

Caught inside that swirl of heat, all the players looked distorted and gooey, like melting cheese. They should have been moving nimbly, but it felt sluggish, as if I were watching a slow-motion screen.

It felt as if even we were going to be turned into cheese, so we avoided the heat and headed toward the school gate through the shade of the trees planted along the side of the schoolyard. Nagamine kept talking to me again and again. But even Nagamine’s voice seemed to melt in the heat, losing its shape as words before it reached my ears.

As if she did not care at all about this unbearable heat, Nagamine kept talking to me smoothly without pause, and I barely managed to slip in half-hearted replies. Then, a sound with a pitch clearly different from both Nagamine’s voice and the shouts of the soccer club members began ringing in my eardrums.

A heavy, low sound that seemed to shake my whole body.

The sound poured down from the sky and shook the earth. The feet of the soccer club members chasing the ball stopped, and one by one, everyone looked up at the sky.

“Oh!”

Drawn along with them, I looked up at the sky and ended up letting out a slightly drawn-out voice.

It looked like a tiny stray cloud floating alone in the clear blue sky.

“A spaceship…”

Nagamine noticed it too and looked up at the sky as if dazzled.

“The Cosmo Interstellar Nart Space Battleship, Lysithea…The United Nations Space Force’s newest ship…”

Its pure white, smooth exterior, shaped with graceful curves, made it seem less like a steel structure and more like a supple creature of the sea.

The dream spaceship that made sub-light-speed travel possible was flying slowly and gracefully through the atmosphere, as if proudly showing itself off.

The news that the Lysithea had come to Japan as part of a crew recruitment campaign had aired two or three weeks earlier. Even so, the Lysithea had remained docked at some Air Self-Defense Force base somewhere and had not been shown to the media, so honestly, I was surprised to see it in person without any warning.

Maybe the selection meeting had been held inside the base?

By seeing the real thing with their own eyes, the applicants’ enthusiasm and morale would rise even higher. What I did not understand, though, was that even though it was advertised as an open public recruitment, neither the application method nor the selection criteria had been revealed at all. The only information I knew about the selected members was the Japanese quota. If I remember right, out of the one thousand recruitment slots, two hundred twenty seats were supposed to be taken by Japanese crew members, distributed in proportion to Japan’s investment in the Tarsian Project.

“If the Lysithea is flying, does that mean the member selection is already over?”

The Lysithea had been a hot topic, especially among the boys in class.

There were even a few guys who were simply drawn to its heroic appearance and were seriously thinking of applying, as long as there was any chance they could ride it. Even though the selection criteria had not been revealed, no matter how you thought about it, there was no way middle school students would be included in that category.

Still, for hot-blooded middle school students, becoming a spaceship pilot was certainly something to admire, and being chosen as a member while carrying the nation’s prestige on your back was an incredible honor. On top of that, there were even rumors, sounding almost believable, that in terms of treatment, an annual salary on par with a popular idol’s was guaranteed. So maybe it would not be strange if applicants came flooding in.

But why were they recruiting from the general public at all?

Even if it was an exploration team on the scale of one thousand people, if specialists were provided from the space forces of each nation making up the United Nations Space Force, would that not be a number they could reach immediately?

Well, I knew that Tarsian-related projects were more or less full of mysteries and even if one middle schooler raised questions about them, it was not as if any answers would come back…

“Doing a rough calculation, I guess that means four or five people would be chosen from each prefecture. Maybe one person from this town might even have been chosen…”

Honestly, I did not know whether becoming that one person would be lucky or unlucky.

When I turned back toward Nagamine, she replied, 『Yeah』in an ambiguous way that was neither agreement nor denial, then lowered her head.

“Ah, Nagamine. You’re not interested in this kind of talk, are you?”

Sensing that an awkward mood was about to settle over us, I hurriedly changed the subject as if trying to smooth things over.

“Want to stop by the usual convenience store?”

“Yeah, let’s stop by.”

After we left the school gate, our conversation continued for a while in a somewhat mismatched way.

Trying not to bring up the Lysithea on purpose, I kept walking without looking up at the sky.

At the JR railroad crossing, we got caught by the crossing gate. A chorus of cicadas could be heard from somewhere. On top of that came the shrill clang-clang sound made by the crossing gate.

It was a performance of irritating sounds that made the heat feel even worse. No, there was one more.

A heavy bass sound pressing down from above. Just as I was about to look up, a passing container train blocked my view. Clack-clack, clack-clack. When my view opened up again, the Lysithea was directly in front of me. It had dropped much lower than before. I wondered what altitude it was flying at. I could not get a sense of the distance. Even so, it was probably still flying quite high. Though it looked larger now, it still only looked about the size of a pencil case.

If it was going up and down in altitude, was it on a training flight?

Or was it making a journey around the country, picking up selected members in different places?

“Let’s go.”

Nagamine tugged on my shirt sleeve.

The crossing gate had already gone up and the warning bell had stopped ringing long ago.

Even when we talked about making detours after school, since we were middle school students, the range of places we could go was nothing special.

The convenience store that slightly filled our hungry stomachs after club activities was one of the few sacred places for us middle school students. The usual time, the usual convenience store. A line of familiar faces forming in front of the register. And lively voices chatting away. But the moment we quit club activities, that commotion started to feel annoying. So we began deliberately stopping by a convenience store a little off our school route.

It was a subtle time of day, long past dismissal time but still a little too early for club activities to have ended. There were few customers, so it was quiet and still, and we never ran into any familiar faces. That slightly guilty, secretive sense of freedom felt unbearably pleasant.

There, we would slowly make one round through the store, browse comic magazines while standing around to catch our breath, then make another round and carefully choose what we wanted before getting our target items. Though, now that we had quit club activities and escaped the state of being starving, what we chose was usually something modest, like a single can of chilled juice.

“Where should we go?”

After leaving the convenience store, I looked up at the sky. In just that short time, the Lysithea had disappeared. In its place, black clouds were hanging low and beginning to cover the sky.

“Should we go to the bus stop?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

The place we headed for was a bus stop called 『Kaidan-ue.』

[Top of the Stairs]

Along the way, the clouds grew more and more suspicious. Just when the surroundings suddenly darkened as if night had arrived, large drops of rain suddenly began falling.

“Hurry!”

The dry asphalt, which had turned whitish as if dusted with powder, was immediately covered in black spots. Pelted by the evening shower, we ran at full speed.

“We got soaked, huh?”

Choosing the bus stop as our resting place ended up being the right decision. As a waiting area, the bus stop had an old, roofed shelter attached to it. It was the perfect place to take shelter from the rain.

When we rushed into the shelter, Nagamine gave a small laugh, sat down on the bench, and while still breathing hard, began taking off her drenched shoes and socks. I should have been used to seeing girls’ bare legs sticking out from under short uniform skirts, but this was the first time I had seen Nagamine’s feet up close, exposed defenselessly all the way to the tips of her toes, and my heart skipped a little. They were so pale it was almost sad, and so thin it was almost pitiful.

There were no earlier visitors in the shelter. The two of us had it all to ourselves. While silently watching the rain grow heavier, I poured cold juice down my dry throat.

Probably, no next customer would come. No matter how long you waited at this bus stop, no bus would come. After all, even though it was called a bus stop, the route had been discontinued several years ago. It was not that the bus company had gone bankrupt, but because they had reviewed the routes in the name of management rationalization. It had been a pretty big shock. To think even the bus no longer came through. I had thought of our town as fairly urban, too.

Even though no buses passed through anymore, for some reason, the bus stop and shelter were left behind.

I do not really know whether the company was too stingy even to pay the removal costs, or whether they had accepted the requests of nearby residents who wanted it kept as a convenient landmark for giving directions, but I had heard a rumor that during the day, cats made great use of it as a meeting place.

Either way, when I was in this shelter, I felt the illusion that time had not just stopped, but might actually be flowing backward. Maybe only this place had really gone back to the Heisei era, or no, to the late Showa era.

“Nagamine, you’re going to keep doing kendo even after you go to high school, right?”

Watching the rain as it began to ease, I asked her that.

“Who knows, I wonder…”

“You’ve got real skill, so it’d be a waste. You should keep going.”

“But unlike you, Noboru-kun, I never really got to shine in kendo and I kind of feel like maybe I’ve had enough of it…”

“That’s exactly why I want you to keep doing it. Jouhoku High has a solid kendo club and there are lots of girls in it too. You’d definitely be able to shine there…”

“I don’t really care about standing out or anything… Besides, I genuinely enjoyed middle school club activities…”

“Stuff like doing laundry…?”

“Yeah, things like laundry and cheering everyone on. More importantly, are you going to keep doing kendo, Noboru-kun?”

“Of course.”

“Hm. You say that, but really you just want to join the same club as me, right?”

Nagamine said that with a mischievous look in her eyes.

“What are you even talking about?”

She was half right. As I hurriedly tried to cover it up, she grinned happily with the proud expression of someone who had just scored a point.

The town after the rain breathed calmly, as if it had come back to life.

With Nagamine riding on the back, I pedaled through the evening town while cool air washed over my whole body.

Nagamine, who usually hated riding double on a bicycle, climbed onto the back without any hesitation today alone.

What kind of face was Nagamine making right now? Through my half-dry shirt, I could faintly feel her warmth from the hands she had gently placed on my shoulders.

“The sky is beautiful, isn’t it?”

We looked up at the sky glowing in the evening light.

The clouds, the high-rise apartment buildings, and even the utility poles were shining crimson.

The scenery I should have been used to seeing looked strangely fresh to my eyes, as though I had come to this place for the first time. If possible, I suddenly thought, in the mood of some kind of poet, that it would be nice if time could stop just as this beautiful scene was.

But that irreplaceable moment of happiness did not last long. That unpleasant heavy bass sound pressed down from overhead once again.

This time, it was even more intense. My hair stood on end, and goosebumps spread across my whole body. Unable to ignore it, I hit the brakes, stopped pedaling, and looked around the sky for the Lysithea. But the graceful white ship was nowhere to be seen.

Then, from behind us, skimming directly overhead, a white object suddenly filled my vision.

The Lysithea was flying at an ultra-low altitude.

“It’s huge!”

I stupidly hung my mouth wide open and blurted out words with absolutely no creativity whatsoever. There was no other way to react.

For a moment it completely filled my field of vision, then the Lysithea shot forward at tremendous speed. As it passed by, the Lysithea launched black objects from both sides. Five from each side, ten in total. Each one traced its own flight path as it chased after the Lysithea.

“Tracers!”

The Tracers carried aboard the Lysithea were humanoid manned exploration machines. I had heard their original models were developed for Mars exploration. The Tracers loaded onto the Lysithea were the newest next-generation models. They were all-purpose machines capable of moving freely not only on land, sea, and air, but even in outer space, and there were rumors that Tarsian technology had been applied throughout them.

“Ah, so the operator training really has started…”

Forgetting even that Nagamine was right beside me, I became captivated by the trails the Tracers were drawing.

The tragedy of the Mars investigation team, which had once felt completely unrelated to me, along with the chain of Tarsian Shocks afterward, the Tarsian exploration teams, and even the member selection process, suddenly began to feel real.

It was just as I started pedaling again, trying to chase after the Lysithea.

“Noboru-kun…”

Nagamine leaned closer against me.

I felt her hair brush against the back of my neck and realized she was moving her face closer.

Her breath touched my ear, and I tensed, wondering what Nagamine was about to say next. But the words that came from her mouth were completely different from anything I had imagined.

“You know… I’m going to ride that.”

It probably took me less than five seconds to grasp the meaning of Nagamine’s words, but subjectively, it felt like I spent about two hours in confusion.

I do not really remember the order in which I accurately understood the situation and accepted it as fact but I am sure my first reaction was something realistic, like, 『You’re kidding, right?』A story that sounded so much like a joke was impossible to just believe.

After all, Nagamine was a middle school student, a girl, and not someone who possessed any especially extraordinary talent in terms of intelligence or physical ability. Why would an ordinary middle school girl have to be chosen as a Tracer pilot?

Nagamine herself did not give a very clear explanation about that selection process.

I asked her straight out,『Did you apply?』but of course, that was not the case. Apparently, on the first Saturday of June or so, an agent from the Ministry of Defense came to her house, and with her parents present, persuaded her by saying,『We would very much like you to take the selection test.』Judging from the circumstances before and after, it seemed to me that her parents had already been notified beforehand.

And then, the selection was held at some place called the Saitama branch of the Air Self-Defense Force Public Relations Department. She thought difficult intelligence tests and physical fitness measurements would be waiting for her, but all that happened was a simple interview in front of five interviewers, and the selection test ended in about ten minutes.『It was kind of anticlimactic』Nagamine told me with a laugh. No, that is not something to laugh about.

“What kind of other people came to take it?”

“The only one there at that time was me” 

And then, the acceptance notification came almost immediately.

『Wait a second』I said, taking about ten seconds to sort the whole story out in my head before asking, 『Didn’t you have the right to refuse?』Nagamine answered with a blank look, almost as if it had nothing to do with her.『I never even thought about that.』

According to the【Tarsian Special Act】which was passed by the Diet five years ago as a special clause under emergency legislation,【all citizens have a duty to cooperate as much as possible with all Tarsian-related projects involving the state.】Ah, yeah, I guess that was true…

If they brought up the law, maybe there was no choice but to obey. But I could not accept it. No matter how I thought about it, it was unreasonable. Around the time I had half taken in the situation, I gradually started getting angry. Part of that was because Nagamine had kept it secret from me until now. Making such an important decision without even saying a word to me…

“But they told me I had a duty of confidentiality. They said it would interfere with future selection work, so I must not tell anyone until the enlistment day. The agent in black clothes made sure to remind me.” 

Nagamine said that with sad eyes. The enlistment day was still quite far away, but she told me because she could not keep it secret anymore.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t like people making a fuss…” 

Apparently, she had not even told her close female friends yet. That meant only I was being treated specially. That itself made me happy but when I thought about what would happen to Nagamine from now on, I could not possibly feel cheerfully pleased.

I asked every question that came to mind like an idiot, and when it was completely dark, I walked Nagamine home to her high-rise apartment. When I said with a serious face,『Anyway, take care of yourself』she laughed and said,『It’s still too early for goodbyes.』 

Nagamine herself seemed to have already steeled her resolve.

The apartment building Nagamine lived in was a super high-rise and apparently, her home was almost near the top floor. When I walked her home, I only ever went as far as the entrance, and of course, I had never once been invited inside. Thinking about it carefully, I did not even know what her parents looked like. I think I had heard that both of her parents worked at the prefectural office. Aside from that, I only knew that she was an only child. Nagamine and I had gone to different elementary schools and even in middle school, we were in different classes until our third year. Now that I thought about it, I seemed to know Nagamine, but in reality, there was so much about her I did not know.

On the way back from Nagamine’s apartment building, it frustrated me that I did not know what her parents looked like. I could not imagine what kind of expressions they had when they accepted Nagamine’s enlistment. Had they smiled and congratulated her? Or had they comforted Nagamine with faces full of grief?

That night, I had too many things on my mind. Not only could I not focus on studying for entrance exams, I could not sleep at all. I did not know what kind of face I should make when I saw Nagamine in the classroom tomorrow. Either way, summer vacation was only a few days away. It did not seem that difficult to keep the secret until then.

In the end, what I kept thinking about was what I could do.

I wondered what I could do for Nagamine. While trying to think concretely about what I should do, I realized how little I actually knew about the Tarsian exploration team Nagamine was joining.

I thought I could look things up in the school library, but I could not wait until tomorrow, so I accessed information service sites on my cellphone and gathered every related piece of information I could find. No matter how I searched, I could not find the selection criteria. The only thing I learned was that before the Tarsian exploration journey, the selected members would undergo training on a Mars base next spring.

Mars!

That Nagamine was going to Mars!

It felt even less real.

I started thinking it had to be some kind of prank after all.

But Nagamine was not the type of girl to joke around like that. She really was probably going to Mars.

And after going to Mars, where would they take her after that? To begin with, where had the Tarsians even come from?

Of course I knew. The reason the exploration team had been organized in the first place was because nobody knew, and because people wanted to find out. But ever since the tragedy of the Tarsis ruins investigation team, the Tarsians had not appeared on Earth or even on Mars, and yet why was there a need to go out of our way to search for their whereabouts?

And besides, how long would a journey searching for aliens who might not even be anywhere continue? When would Nagamine, dragged into the exploration team, be able to come back to Earth?

Only then did I finally begin to understand, one by one, the true meaning behind Nagamine’s behavior earlier that day.

Far from going to the same high school, by the time I became a high school student, Nagamine would already be far away in outer space. Surely, in space, there were no high schools, no kendo clubs and probably not even convenience stores where you could stop by on the way home. I realized such obvious things.

Still, it was not as though the journey would last forever. Nagamine would surely come back soon.

Surely, very soon.

But when was『soon』?

During my first year of high school?

Or…?

No matter what kind of face I was supposed to make, I ended up going to school the next day with the miserable face of someone suffering from lack of sleep.

But unexpectedly, Nagamine was not in the classroom. She was absent that day. Worried that she might have caught a cold from yesterday’s rain, I sent her a message during break time. But no reply came from Nagamine. I messaged her again after school. Still no reply.

The next day was the last day of the first semester.

Nagamine was absent again.

I thought about visiting her apartment building on the way home but I hesitated.

No matter how many times I repeatedly sent messages, there was no reply. What was going on? Had she gone on some kind of farewell trip with her family?

I should have asked when her enlistment date was. But surely it could not be before the end of compulsory education. There was still the second semester and the third semester left. There was no need to panic. Before then, I should still be able to see her many more times, and there should still be chances to tell her the things I needed to say.

The things I needed to say?

Words of encouragement like,『Take care of yourself』?

Words of gratitude for all the trouble I caused her in club activities?

Or something else, something more important?

At the very least, I had to say goodbye properly.

And maybe hold a small farewell gathering with close friends.

But every one of those expectations of mine was completely betrayed.

The first message I had received from Nagamine in a long while arrived on the fifth day of summer vacation.

It had been sent from aboard the Lysithea, in lunar orbit.