Baccano! - Volume 13 - Chapter 4.5

Interlude

Voyage, day one Noon

Since I have my laptop with me, I’ve decided to keep a journal. Can’t connect to the Internet, though; I don’t think it’s compatible with the ship’s communication functions. But if I write up quite a bit before I get home, I’ll have a good stock of posts for my online journal.

To start off, before I talk about my first day on the ship, there’s one thing I really need to write about.

It’s Hiroko. (I’ll check with her about whether to put this bit online or not.)

Is this fate?

If not, maybe it’s some grand irony, or maybe just a really big coincidence.

I’m traveling to America on a ticket I got as a gift.

That part’s fine. Everything up to that point makes sense.

The problem is the ship. Who’d have believed that my ex-wife would be on the exact same kind of luxury cruise liner, much less the one that’s going to pass mine on the ocean?

The probability must be a million to one. When you add in the fact that I only got this ticket by chance, it starts turning from a coincidence into a miracle.

How do I make the most of this opportunity? That’s the first thing I have to consider. This miracle at sea just might make us feel the way we did when we first met again.

I don’t intend to make the same mistake twice.

To be perfectly frank, I want to do it all over from the beginning. (I’m not posting that part online. Too embarrassing.)

Hiroko’s still in America. Her ship departs tomorrow.

I’m planning to contact her tomorrow evening, and I’ll spend the time until tonight’s reception party writing about today.

Since this ship was sailing from Japan, I thought there would probably be a lot of Japanese passengers, but maybe I’m just naïve.

Almost all the passengers are foreign, and I haven’t spotted any Japanese people I could strike up casual conversations with.

There was one Japanese man who looked relatively approachable—but he was standing with a beautiful foreign woman and a man wearing some sort of ethnic mask, so I couldn’t work up the nerve to walk over. I think they might be entertainers or singers. The woman was so gorgeous it was hard to take my eyes off her—but I won’t mention that to Hiroko. (Actually, I won’t mention it in my journal, either. Might want to delete this bit later.)

After that, I saw something surprising.

There was a foreign child with his family, and he went up to another foreign boy and asked him for something.

The second boy flicked his wrist, then opened his hand to reveal a couple of bouncy balls!

I checked the pamphlet later, and it turns out he’s a stage magician, “Rookie” something-or-other. Given the name and his age, I’m guessing he’s a new hand at this. If I have time tonight, I might go take a look at his show.

What else stuck out…? I spotted a couple of really big men. Maybe. One was too far away to tell for sure, but they might have been a woman. Their face was feminine, but I don’t think many women are easily over six feet tall. Might’ve been a professional volleyball player, but I don’t think even they get that muscly.

The other was definitely a man. He had a face exactly like a gorilla’s, and he even hunched over like one.

No, wait. People are gonna give me crap if I start insulting people in my journal.

I’ll have to edit this some more.

Well, we’ll call this a warm-up exercise, and I’ll make tomorrow’s entry the first one I post online. We’ve set sail, at least.

Oh, I can’t wait to call her tomorrow night.

There’s a time difference, so I’ll have to be careful about the timing…

Finally, a toast to the wonderful photographer who provided me with this trip, and a prayer for a safe journey.

Bon voyage to myself. Good luck, Misao! Go, fight, win!

I wonder if this is why Hiroko tells me that writing turns me into a little kid. Oh well. I’ll fix it later.

Voyage, day one —Misao