Chapter 14 – May, 2056 — Stairwell

He never expected that, right after enlisting, he’d get time off aligned with Japan’s irregular holiday — Golden Week. It just goes to show, submitting a leave request was worth a try.

That said, having to scrape together the funds for a shuttle ticket to Earth out of his very first paycheck was painful.

He had grown fairly accustomed to fleet duty. Although, truthfully, he hadn’t boarded the new Cosmo-class interstellar battleship Nart since that rescue incident. Training at the lunar base had continued, and shipboard duty was scheduled to begin sometime in June.

As for Nagamine, like the rest of the selected members, she had temporarily left the fleet.

She said she wanted to take her time thinking about what to do next while resting back at her family home. She might request to return to fleet duty, but made it clear she never wanted to pilot a Tracer again. Commander Lokomov had praised Nagamine’s skills highly and made efforts to persuade her to stay, saying it was a waste for her to quit.

As one might guess from the fact that she was wearing a nurse staff uniform at that time, Nagamine had said that if she were to return to fleet duty, she’d prefer to work in nursing. On the way back from Agartha, she had passed the time helping out the medical and nursing staff. Of course, she didn’t have any formal qualifications, but she had absorbed a lot of practical knowledge over those four years.

She also said it might not be a bad idea to attend school to get certified in the medical field.

After all, while her official age on record was twenty-four, her subjective age was nineteen. You could say she was still young enough to start something new.

This is a completely different matter, but the recruitment for the Second Tarsian Exploration Team hadn’t begun yet.

Apparently, the entire plan was being reevaluated.

It seemed changes were being made in response to a report from Nagamine, who had participated in the battle at Agartha.

How should one interpret the vision Nagamine saw in Agartha, and the message — 『I want to entrust this to you』? Naturally, if it had happened only to Nagamine, it might have been dismissed as a dream or hallucination. But before the battle even began, many other operators had experienced the same thing — and received the same message.

Indeed, there had been an intense battle at Agartha, but it remained uncertain whether the Tarsians were ever truly intent on fighting humanity. A detailed analysis of the footage recording the battle revealed that the Tarsian side had not fought with full intent.

It was possible that the Tarsians approached humanity with entirely different reasons and goals.

Some journalists had begun to speculate that the initial encounter may have been based on a fundamental misunderstanding.

The explosion at the Tarsis Ruins — could it have been a tragic accident caused by humanity touching something that should have remained untouched? Perhaps the Tarsians just happened to be there by coincidence — or were present for an entirely unrelated purpose.

The claim that the Tarsians launched an attack may have been fabricated or at the very least a distortion of the truth, propagated by political forces seeking to exploit the incident.

Of course, such rumors and reports had existed since the beginning, but due to legal restrictions on reporting, the truth had never been fully uncovered. Now, with a second large-scale contact occurring between humans and Tarsians, a growing sentiment was emerging: Was everything we’ve done in dealing with the Tarsians over the past decade wrong from the very start?

Thanks to the persistent and detailed investigations of journalists, testimonies from individuals involved at the time were gradually emerging, supporting the theory of an accident. Was it all a scenario orchestrated by the U.S. government — which had established and controlled the United Nations Space Force — to monopolize Tarsian technology?

If we were to take the Tarsians’ message —『I want to entrust this to you』 — at face value, then perhaps they were inviting humanity to journey into the distant cosmos. Perhaps they were seeking to welcome us as fellow beings of the galaxy. If so, why didn’t they attempt a more clearly peaceful contact?

Or had they tried — and it was we who, too rigid and fearful, failed to respond appropriately, leading to a tragic first encounter?

『Pain is a necessary part of growing up…』

Could it be that contact with the Tarsians itself was a trial meant to make humanity grow? That the chaos and sacrifices brought about by this contact were the pain necessary to mature?

And that only by overcoming the trials they presented would humanity be recognized as a mature species on a galactic level?

As a result of this new direction in reevaluating the Tarsian Exploration Plan, the second expedition team would be smaller in scale than originally planned. Its purpose would now be limited mainly to environmental surveys and archaeological investigations at Agartha, and the name was revised to the more restrained First Agartha Ruins Survey Team.

The truth is still unknown.

The world continues to live under a state of emergency, and the Tarsians remain a potentially threatening presence to humanity.

***

Running up the concrete stairs, a flood of emotions surged through him.

That summer evening when Nagamine had told him she’d been selected for the elite team.

The endless days spent waiting for an email from Nagamine that never came, no matter how long he waited.

That autumn rain when, insolently, he had broken up with his younger, beautiful girlfriend.

The moment he hardened his heart and swore to become an adult…

All of it — all of it — unforgettable memories born in this very place.

Nine years had passed. He had grown nine years older, and Nagamine had grown four.

Each of them, in completely different environments, had overcome — or simply endured — different trials and matured in their own ways.

And somehow, as if their prayers had reached one another, they had managed a miraculous reunion in space.

During the ten days until the rescue ship returned to the lunar base, they tried to make up for the nine-year gap in one go, talking even at the cost of precious sleep. Though truthfully, it meant squeezing conversation into brief stolen moments — between apprentice duties and fending off absurd demands from senior crew members — just to carve out tiny windows of freedom. Even finding a place onboard where they could be alone took effort.

Just like always, Nagamine did most of the talking, and he mostly listened.

For the first few minutes, they were stiff and awkward, unsure how to bridge the gap between the people they had become — but before they knew it, they had settled naturally back into their old roles.

As he listened quietly, he found himself enchanted by Nagamine’s voice — hearing it again after nine long years was like listening to a beautiful melody.

At the lunar base, they had parted ways. Nagamine boarded a shuttle back to Earth. He stayed at the base, beginning his service with the fleet. An emergency call-up had forced him to use up all his remaining leave before enlistment.

Now, after a month apart, they were to meet again — and for the first time, truly free. A whole day with no duties, no meddling supervisors, just the two of them, back in their beloved hometown. Still, he was a little anxious about the meeting spot he had chosen. He hadn’t walked this street once in the six years he’d lived in the dorms.

But when he reached the top of the stairs, he saw it — the fit together shelter by the bus stop — stubbornly standing as if defying the passage of time just for them.

Though now six years older and almost dilapidated, it was still there.

A cool breeze rustled through the empty street.

Dandelion fluff blooming by the roadside was carried off by the wind, scattering into the sky.

He matched his steps in front of the shelter and casually peeked inside. There sat Nagamine on the bench, waiting.

She wore a wide-brimmed hat and a one-piece dress, dressed like a scene from early summer — her white arms glinting in the sunlight.

Not in a kendo uniform, not in a tracksuit, not in her service uniform — it was the first time he saw Nagamine in casual clothes. She looked so grown up it was like seeing a completely different person.

“Where should we go?”

“To the convenience store. I want ice cream,” she said, deliberately in a childlike tone.

“Reviewing your junior high days?”

“Just for today. Tomorrow, I’ll try the high school course…”

As she stood up, she adjusted the hem of her skirt.

“To catch up with twenty-four-year-old Noboru-kun, I need a little more time.”

Leaving the shelter, Nagamine began to walk.

But the one who needed time — was me.

Trying to catch up with nineteen-year-old Nagamine, I followed after her.

—

Until【Voices of a Distant Star】Reaches You

by Makoto Shinkai

It was the summer of 2000 when I moved into my current apartment, not far from the elevated railway line. At the time, I was still working at a game company, and I had just finished writing the first plot draft for Voices of a Distant Star.

From the window of my new apartment, I could see into the windows of an apartment building across a narrow street. One room in particular seemed to belong to a junior high or high school girl — now and then I’d catch a glimpse of a uniformed figure passing by the window. That room, among all the windows in the building, was usually the last one to go dark at night.

Whenever I saw a light on late at night, it reminded me of my own student days more than ten years ago. I’d shut my door, telling my parents I was going to study. Of course, I never opened a textbook — instead, I’d listen to late-night radio broadcasts while devouring foreign sci-fi novels, letting my thoughts drift into the vast, hazy expanse of outer space. Emotions like longing, anxiety, and loneliness felt far stronger than they do now — so vivid and tangible, I felt like I could reach out and touch them. In those quiet, late-night hours, it felt like I could hear a precious kind of “voice” — something I couldn’t get from friends at school or even my own family.

Then, in the summer of 2001, a year after writing the first plot, I quit the job I had held for five years and decided to devote myself fully to completing Voices of a Distant Star. (For those who may not know, the original Voices of a Distant Star was a 25-minute animated film I created.) There were several reasons why I chose to leave my company to finish this small story, but one major reason was that I wanted, this time, to become the one who sends a “voice” into those lonely, late-night hours.

The animated version of Voices of a Distant Star premiered in February 2002. Fortunately, it was received warmly, the DVD sold beyond expectations, and I was lucky enough to meet people who helped make this novelized version a reality. Though Voices of a Distant Star began as a purely independent project, I’m truly grateful for the incredibly fortunate path it has taken.

Even now, as I type out this text, the light in that room across the street is still on. I don’t know whether Voices of a Distant Star will ever reach that room. But I do believe that, each time I see a lit window in the middle of the night, I’ll keep wishing — with all sincerity — to send my voice to someone out there.

Early Summer, 2002

***

Afterword

by Waku Ōba

When I first saw the original anime Voices of a Distant Star, which was handed to me by the editor as reference material, I was struck by three things.

The first was the high quality of the animation — the powerful battle scenes, the beautiful, light-filled backgrounds. The second was the astonishing fact that Shinkai-san had completed this entire animation by himself. And the third was the poetic richness and perfection of the story.

While the premise is based on first contact with extraterrestrials, the main theme centers on the emotional connection between a boy and a girl separated by time and space — and their growth into adulthood. If I had to sum up the story in one phrase, it would be: a tale of ultra-long-distance love.

Despite its solid sci-fi foundation, what allows viewers to feel so personally connected to the story is the presence of a very familiar item — the cell phone — which plays a crucial role in driving the narrative forward. However, this phone only transmits text — no voice, no images — and this limitation ironically becomes a bond that both connects and separates Noboru and Mikako with a force far greater than any real-world long-distance relationship.

Another element, unique to animation, that draws everyday life into the story is Mikako’s outfit. Realistically, it would be quite a stretch for her to be piloting a Tracer in her junior high school uniform, and yet, when shown in animation, it feels completely natural — even moving. Mikako’s feelings come across vividly and directly.

The original story derives its sharpness as a short film by limiting its cast of characters. In novelizing it, I knew that expanding on the story would inevitably dull some of that sharpness. Even so, I chose to add a minimal number of supporting characters to gently flesh things out. On Earth, Noboru, left behind and powerless, becomes submerged in the flow of everyday time, and gradually absorbed into calm, ordinary human relationships (though, of course, he tries to shut himself off, thinking “this isn’t right”). To contrast that, I applied a rather bold restriction to Mikako’s situation in space — no presence of men around her.

Also, while the original concludes with a powerful climax — the two voices crossing the vastness of space and time — this novel includes a “soft landing” that goes a step further, with Noboru’s secret plan. I understand some might call that meddling, but I did it fully prepared for the criticism.

…Well, putting the behind-the-scenes talk aside, I truly hope you enjoyed this novelized version of Voices of a Distant Star. If even you, as an adult, found yourself touched by a sense of wistfulness, then perhaps somewhere deep in your heart, the pure version of yourself from middle school is still quietly resting, lovingly preserved.

Lastly, I look forward to the continued success of the original creator, Shinkai-san — speaking now simply as a fan.

November 2009