Adachi to Shimamura - Volume 99.9 - Chapter 3.2

Adachi simply stood there, frozen in wide-eyed shock. “Was that a curveball?” 

“I can only pull it off maybe three out of ten tries,” I admitted. 

And whenever I succeeded, the ball inevitably bounced off the table. It had been a diabolical serve that flouted the rules of the game. 

“Heh heh heh,” I snickered as I went to fetch the ball. With every step across the carpet, I could almost hear the creak of dusty hardwood instead. If we were wearing uniforms instead of yukata, would it have felt like nothing had changed? 

Ball in hand, I returned to the table. 

The room was a little stuffy, but there was no dust in the air. This wasn’t the gym loft—yet there we were. We were happy then, now, and forevermore.

After a beat, Adachi grinned widely, as if in imitation of a past smile. “Nice one.”

To that smile, I whispered silently: I love you.

Toasty warm indeed. 

***

“Oh. There you are.”

Déjà vu. A second arrival approached me with cautious steps. 

“I saw you from afar and noticed something sparkly,” she explained.

“Oh, this?” 

I pointed at Yashiro’s hair, braided up in the shape of butterfly wings, then gave one a wiggle, filling the air with more sparkles—er, motes of light? It was a bit late to ask now, but what were they, anyway? The little alien let out a halfhearted screech in response to my movement. 

Shima’s well-worn shoes squeaked against the wet ground. A moment later, she crouched on Yashiro’s opposite side, examining her with interest and grabbing at her hair and cheeks. Come to think of it, if Shima had grown up in an environment like the one I had, then any human-shaped visitor would likely be a marvel to her.

“Ho ho ho! What is the matter?” asked the marvel in question, jovially ignoring the poking and prodding. 

“Are there more like you out there somewhere?” Shima inquired.

“We are everywhere.”

“No, you aren’t. Trust me,” I cut in with a dismissive wave. However I combed through my memories, not a single other person on this planet had hair like hers. Nor had any fallen out of the sky. 

“Wow. I wish I could meet them,” Shima murmured pensively. She’d evidently chosen to take Yashiro at her word. “In a different world, maybe I could go find them.”

“Believe it or not, that may be possible in your future.” 

“What? No way!” 

“Now that its malformation has been corrected, your world might stabilize.”

Shima frowned in confusion at that, and I might’ve followed suit had I not remembered the shapes Yashiro drew for me earlier. If we were the missing piece…did that mean our world was now a perfect circle? Because of Shima and me? That had to be an exaggeration. Our first encounter had by no means been world-altering, as far as I could recall… Then again, I didn’t have any reason to believe a word out of this creature’s mouth to begin with. 

Meanwhile, Shima played with Yashiro’s face, gleefully entertained by those elastic cheeks. Her new toy likewise seemed pleased as punch. Looking at them now, no one would ever guess that they’d only just met. 

After a while, Yashiro rose to her feet, her cheeks still stretched out like clay.

“Fix your face.”

“Oops.” At my words, she massaged her cheeks back into place, then looked up at me. “Anyway, it has been fun.” 

She was…saying goodbye.

“Okay.”

Not long ago I’d been questioning whether anything in this world could be fun, but now that I reflected on our uneventful journey together… It had been, hadn’t it?

“The feeling’s mutual,” I replied with a handshake. Her hand was so small, mine practically engulfed it.

“Now then, this is farewell.” And without a moment’s hesitation, she sprinted off like a rocket.

“Hey, no running! It’s not safe!” Shima called after her. 

Across the falls, I thought I heard a tiny voice shout back, “I will be fine!” The girl was a dweeb to the bitter end, and it made me chuckle.

Over time, the waterfall’s roar grew louder, and I felt my focus shift from the conversation to our surroundings. The water sounded so near that it practically dripped down my earlobes. 

Now it was just Shima and me. Without Yashiro here, we were quite possibly the only two people left on this planet.

“You’re gonna miss her, aren’t you?” Shima asked.

At that, I wiped mist from my nose and cheeks. “Well, I mean…we were together for a long time.” 

Now that Yashiro was gone, I felt like part of me had been quietly erased. It wasn’t painful, but I could detect the empty space. Knowing that I might never see her again, I couldn’t help tilting my head back. If I had to, I’d have guessed that what I felt wasn’t quite loneliness; still, I didn’t know how else to describe it. And when I exhaled, it felt as though my body might fall away with the water—

“Oh. She’s back.”

“What?”

Sure enough, when I squinted into the distance, I saw a tiny streak of blue hurtling around the edge of the falls, moving in our direction. Perplexed, I waited for her to arrive, and when at last she did…

“As it is lunchtime, I decided we should share one last meal before I go.”

“Way to ruin it, genius.” Watching her was like watching a falling star change its mind and go backward. 

She handed each of us a red fruit she’d plucked from who-knew-where. “One for you, and for you.”

“Why, thank you,” said Shima.

Yashiro watched her eat with great satisfaction, then sank her little teeth into her own fruit. “Tastes like destiny!”

Now it was Shima’s turn to watch in wide-eyed alarm as the girl devoured her fruit, core and all. 

Once she’d finished, Yashiro raised a hand into the air. “Now then, this is farewell once more.”

“Oh, okay,” Shima replied with a small wave. 

Yashiro offered one final smile in response, then dashed away.

“That kid sure doesn’t waste time, does she?” 

I waited a few seconds, just in case, but she didn’t return. I couldn’t be sure she was really gone, though, so I gave it a few more minutes…

“Guess she’s not coming back.” What a free spirit. 

When I glanced over at Shima, I saw her staring down intently at the uneaten core of her fruit…and then she put it in her mouth.

Crunch!

She worked her jaw a few times, then grimaced. “How in the world did she eat this part?”

“I don’t recommend taking any cues from her.” 

“She made it look so tasty, I figured it must be edible. Shame.” Disappointed, Shima cast away the thoroughly gnawed core. I was starting to suspect she might be a bit of a ditz. “Think she’ll come back?”

“No, probably not.” 

“Another shame,” she replied with a laugh. She raised a hand from her knee and stretched her fingers toward the errant droplets sprayed onto the rock wall. “I like to come here myself from time to time.” 

“So all those footholds…”

“I made them, yes. But then I got busy with other things and couldn’t finish what I started.” She scratched her neck idly. “Nice and cold here, isn’t it?”

“Maybe a little too cold.” 

But rather than being the literal temperature, the cold might’ve had a visual element as well. The space was cast into shadows unpenetrated by the endless sunset. It looked to my eyes as though we’d crossed into an entirely separate world—one of nothing but darkness engulfed in unfeeling stone. And, to a girl who’d spent her whole life seeing the same old thing every day, it felt so new. Maybe there was more to discover in the nooks and crannies, provided someone was willing to put in the effort to find it. 

For a while, I silently faced the waterfall, its unending roar like that of a wild animal…

…Okay, I lied. Yashiro had made this girl sound so important that I couldn’t help stealing glances at her face in profile. Unlike me, however, Shima was truly zoned out, her eyes fixed on the spray in front of us. She even looked a little sleepy. While I was partly glad to avoid awkward eye contact, its absence saddened another part of me. 

Now that I got a good look at Shima, she was… My eyes and brain kicked into high gear, attempting to wax poetic, but nothing came to mind. I could only think of simple adjectives at best. And while I wasn’t sure whether the term was good enough, ultimately…

Deep down, I thought she was beautiful.

That was the kind of compliment anyone could pay—commonplace and readily understood. But perhaps it was human nature not to stray beyond the basics at a time like this. There was arguably no description more accurate, after all. 

I pictured Shima floating in the bottomless basin far below us, her arms outstretched, smiling with contentment, long hair swaying as if one with the water. And even though I was only imagining it, my heart pitched sideways for some reason. If I reacted like this to a mere thought, how much worse would I respond if I saw that for real? My pulse quickened, as if in pursuit of something. 

Then my hopes reached my throat. “Have you ever been down to the basin?”

“No,” she replied.

“What if we went to see it?” I suggested without missing a beat.

Her eyes widened. A moment later, an exasperated smile spread across her face. “Don’t be silly. We’d die going down there.”

“Well, what if…uh…we were really careful?” I asked, unable to think of a better way to phrase it. 

What would she think of my new ambition? Would it seem like a waste of time? Because for me, this was the first time in my life that my heart—my body—had truly understood how it felt to be alive. And I wanted to act on that feeling. 

Gazing down into the crater from aboveground, it seemed impossibly dark and distant, as if descending into it would be a voyage into space itself. But if we could reach space on our own two feet, hey, that came off as a hell of a bargain. 

She let out a laugh like a balloon deflating, and I realized that she might be as nervous as I was. “That might not be so bad.”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking.” 

I no longer needed to travel some great, endless distance, for what I wanted to see was now close at hand. I wanted to keep living life together with her…until the day our “not so bad” became “good.” Going forward, we could talk it out for as long as it took. Whether we moved forward, or backward, or down, or sideways, or even straight into space—we’d never stop. 

When she offered me her hand, I gingerly took it…and nostalgia for something not my own made my lashes tremble faintly.