Vol. 2 Chapter 8 – March 2056, National Defense Academy Dormitory

Once it was over, I thought that even eight years passed surprisingly quickly.

Instead of continuing to wait endlessly for emails from Nagamine, I searched for the path I should walk and chose it. But that did not mean I had forgotten about Nagamine.

I still use the cellphone I used back then.

Though when I say『use』it is really a cellphone dedicated only to Nagamine, and in reality, it never rings.

Still, I carefully keep it charged and never forget to renew the contract.

So, if things go well, an email from Nagamine should probably arrive within the next two or three days.

Right now, I am spacing out in a slightly happy mood in a room at the university dormitory where I spent six years. The gentle spring sunlight is streaming into the room. The wind is still cold, but I have the windows wide open.

The six-tatami room feels strangely spacious.

I try looking back to six years ago and wonder if it had really felt like this when I first moved into the dormitory.

For some reason, the moving company showed up a day early yesterday. While I was still in the middle of packing, they tossed every last one of my belongings into containers and carried them away without giving me any chance to object.

So now there is nothing left in the room. Even my bedding had been taken away, so last night I somehow got through it by borrowing spare futons and blankets from several underclassmen. Officially, I am still allowed to stay here until the end of the week. Though there is no real reason for me to remain.

The only things left in the room were a travel bag filled with a change of clothes and the United Nations Space Army uniform hanging on the wall. At least this much, I could not stand to have lumped together with the moving boxes, so I snatched it back from the movers and brought it home myself.

Starting this spring, I had been assigned to fleet duty as a communications engineer.

I think the path I chose back in my second year of high school was probably not the wrong one.

At that time, Space Self-Defense officers were not nearly as popular as they are now, but even so, getting into the Defense Academy was unquestionably difficult, and I believe I only passed because I studied desperately in my own way. Even then, I never imagined I would end up directly assigned to fleet duty. Organizationally speaking, the Space Self-Defense Force is part of the United Nations Space Army, but actual fleet assignments are unbelievably competitive.

I applied to the Faculty of Engineering’s communications department and continued all the way through graduate school.

There was also a path where I could have remained at the university as a researcher, but I deliberately chose field work instead. That had been my intention from the start.

You could say that Nagamine was what sparked my interest in space.

That sounds nice but it is a lie.

The driving force behind sixteen- or seventeen-year-old boys is usually something much simpler and far too embarrassing to admit openly.

Yes, I chose this path so I could meet Nagamine one more time.

It was not about love or hate.

It was not even that I had some idea what I would do after meeting her.

I just wanted to see her, confirm that she was safe, and show her with my own actions that I had not merely been waiting for her emails. That was all.

And if possible, even after nine years had passed, I wanted to know whether we still had something we could share, just like we did back in middle school.

…But well, maybe I am only convincing myself of that, and Nagamine might already have forgotten all about me. If that is the case, then that is fine too.

To begin with, just because we both belong to the same United Nations Space Army does not guarantee I will ever meet Nagamine. Still, once the report from the First Tarsian Exploration Fleet arrives, a Second Tarsian Exploration Fleet should soon be organized. It is not from a completely reliable source, but I have managed to pick up information like that behind the scenes.

Besides, it is not as though I have never considered the possibility that we may never meet again.

There is a rumor.

『The Cosmonauts are carrying frozen sperm and fertilized eggs.』

Of course, human ones.

What that means is that the selected members of the First Exploration Fleet have no service term limit. In other words, they do not need to come back until the location of the Tarsians has been confirmed.

More than that, it means they may have to continue their journey of exploration across multiple generations until the mission is accomplished. And in order for the next generation of crew members to be born and raised, all of the selected members were chosen to be young women.

It is an outrageous story that completely disregards human rights.

But right now the world is under a state of emergency, and even if this rumor were publicly confirmed to be true, the backlash from public opinion might last only for a short while.

Nagamine might, by now, be a mother somewhere on some planet, raising a child. I did not want to imagine it but I would consider it as a possibility and prepare myself to accept it calmly if that was the case.

But if the Second Exploration Fleet was also going to be made up only of women for the same reason, then there was no way I would ever be called up. For a while, I had even considered undergoing sex reassignment surgery. But I quickly rejected the idea, thinking there would be no point if I could not give birth.

In any case, this young guy simply thought that being out in space would give him a higher chance of meeting her again than spacing out on Earth.

It would be a lie to say that my thoughts had never wavered during these six years.

There was a time when I thought being an ordinary salaryman might not be so bad either.

But somehow, I had made it this far.

I was grateful to Nagamine.

I was not in any hurry, but I planned to go back to my parents’ house today.

I thought I would spend at least the morning relaxing here.

My cellphone rang just as I was about to get ready to leave.

■ ■ ■

Hello, twenty-four-year-old Noboru-kun.

It’s fifteen-year-old Mikako.

■ ■ ■

It was an email of only two lines.

Everything after that was unreadable because of noise.

But I thought that the fact it had arrived at all was a miracle.

Mikako’s feelings had crossed vast time and space and reached me.

What had fifteen-year-old Mikako wanted to tell me?

Where was twenty-four-year-old Mikako now and what was she doing?

And what was she thinking?

I desperately wanted to see her.