8
Yui Yuigahama’s gaze is always gentle and warm.
On that day, for once, it snowed.
It doesn’t snow much in Chiba. The wet clouds coming in from the Sea of Japan are blocked by the many mountain ranges that run through Honshu like a backbone, and the snow falls there. On the Pacific side, particularly over the flatlands of Chiba, the winds are typically dry.
But once in a while, at odd moments such as these, it will snow. In my seventeen years of experience, we’ve had sudden blizzards on New Year’s Day, on Coming of Age Day, and also at the end of March.
This snow unfortunately came exactly on Komachi’s exam day.
Fortunately, it wasn’t very windy, so the snow was just fluttering down like flower petals.
Equipped in her usual uniform, plus coat, scarf, gloves, and boots, Komachi was all ready to go out the door. This was quite a bit earlier than planned, but considering public transport was bound to be crowded, that was probably best.
“Did you bring your examination admission ticket?” I asked her. “How about your eraser, handkerchief, and five-sided pencil?”
The five-sided pencil is something our dad bought when he visited the Tenjin Shrine, shaped like a pentagonal cylinder. Well, aside from that, it’s a normal pencil. Frankly, I think a normal round pencil might be easier to write with. Most entrance exam students will write the letters A to E on each side of one of these pencils, or 1 to 5, or the vowels, and then every time they run into a multiple-choice question where they don’t know the answer, they wind up praying and rolling it for dear life. In fact, you could say this pencil was created as a kind of five-sided die.
Komachi scanned the inside of her bag one last time and nodded cheerfully. Then she raised her umbrella and gave a snappy salute. “I’ll be okay! Then, Bro…time for departure!”
“Yeah, see you later. Watch your step.”
“I will! Urk, so cold. Sine, cosine, tangent… Oh, wait, that’s not on the test.” With a shiver, babbling and hmming to herself, Komachi trudged off.
I felt a touch of anxiety as I watched her go. Is she gonna be okay…? She hasn’t studied too much and wound herself too tight, right…?
But anyway, it was finally the day of her entrance exams.
At this stage, there was no point in kicking up a fuss. The apocalypse was still a ways off, but exam days and deadlines will come, no matter how you struggle and fight it. It’s the way of the world.
All I could do now was just to pray, and I looked up at the sky.
It really looked like the thick, low-hanging clouds would not clear, silently dropping white snow from the sky. That snow might continue all day.
A shiver ran through me from head to toe, and I took a step back inside. That was when I felt a different kind of shaking.
Reaching into my pocket, I found my cell phone was getting a call. The display read Yui . It was Yuigahama. That entry hadn’t been changed since she’d put in her contact info. It had remained the same, all this time.
I waffled for a few seconds about picking up. But the ringing didn’t stop, and my phone kept vibrating. Bracing myself, I accepted the call and brought the phone to my ear. “…Hello?”
The moment I said it, I heard an inexhaustibly cheery voice from the receiver. “Hikki, let’s go on a date!”
“…Huh?”
The first thing that had come out of her mouth, with no hello or anything, was the last thing I expected. The sound that left my mouth was particularly shrill and silly sounding, if I do say so myself.
After that call, I slowly got ready to go out.
As I was leaving the house, I checked the transit info on my phone and found that the crowds on the line I was about to ride had eased a bit. I didn’t have to worry that I wouldn’t reach the place where we were about to meet up, at least.
The fact is that the Kanto public transportation network really can’t handle snow.
With Chiba prefecture, the Edo and Tone rivers are at the prefectural borders, so it’s not just an island on land—it winds up being an actual isolated island. There’s even a risk that Chiba could secede and declare independence.
Going outside, the weather looked about the same, and the snow was starting to accumulate like a faint frost fallen on the asphalt.
There wasn’t enough snow on the ground to catch your feet, but the snow was slushy and slippery. Tracing the bicycle tracks and footprints, I slowly walked to the bus stop.
I transferred from the bus to the train, then gazed out from the train car window at the sea for a while.
The snow out the window fell lightly, from right to left. The sun was already fairly high, shining whitish light through the cloudy gray sky.
The train line running along the ocean was a little packed—not just because of the weather. This line generally gets crowded every time there’s an event. For example, when there’s the Tokyo Game Show or the Tokyo Motor Show at the Makuhari Messe, or Comiket at the Big Sight, or a live concert at Shinkiba—that’s when it gets really crowded.
But the biggest reason was that this line has the station for the top-class domestic amusement park Tokyo Destiny Resort, or TDR for short.
Not to mention that day was Valentine’s.
Even with the snow, business was booming. Listening in on the chatting of the couples on the train, they were all saying it was romantic or whatever. They actually welcomed the snowfall.
True enough, it was hard to complain about this setting for a Valentine’s date.
Eventually, the white castle and the smoke-spewing volcano came into view up ahead of the train. The announcement told us we were stopping at the station, and the train car gradually decelerated. There was a dull swaying before the train came to a complete stop, and then the doors opened with a pshh. Cold air and snow blew in, and then the couples in my train car rushed to get off.
Then the bell rang to announce the doors closing. The special station ring, a clip from Destiny music, played as the train’s departure melody.
Listening to the tune, I leaned against the door inside the now much-emptier car. The white castle and the smoking volcano both disappeared toward the left, growing distant.
This was not the station where I would be getting off that day.
At some point, it had crossed my mind that we’d come here together eventually, but that hadn’t happened.
That promise you couldn’t even call a promise was being fulfilled, even if it was with some changes.
The meeting spot for the newly made promise was one station over.
The train went over a big bridge, and after crossing the river at the prefectural border, a giant Ferris wheel came into view. I seemed to recall it was hailed as the largest in Japan.
I remembered the phone call from that morning. It hadn’t been just confusion and surprise that had kept me from refusing that unexpected invitation. I’d been the one to make the original invitation. I’d just kept putting it off.
There wasn’t really any reason to refuse.
But I wondered—Am I okay with this? Doubts rose in my mind.
As I was searching for the answer, the train slowed, and whether I wanted it to or not, it gave one last shake and came to a complete stop.
When I came out from the ticket gates, the big Ferris wheel immediately came into view.
You could see that attraction from the fountain square in front of the station. Being celebrated as the largest in Japan, it left an impact when you saw it up close. As the snow fluttered around, it continued to turn in a relaxed circle.
With the big Ferris wheel in the corner of my eye, I began to trudge along.
I’d come here before with my family when I was little, so I didn’t get lost or anything. Referencing my memories and the info on the signboard, I hurried to my goal.
I went down the long main road that led to the beach, and eventually, a dome-shaped building came into view on my left. Beneath that was the entrance hall of the aquarium.
That was where we were meeting.
I went under the roofed area, closed my umbrella, scanned the area. It was a weekday, so maybe that was why there weren’t many people around. So I was immediately able to find Yuigahama, who was in a blue coat.
“Hikki!”
She’d probably arrived on the train right before me. When she found me walking toward her, she called my name and slowly waved the pale-pink plastic umbrella in her hand.
I nodded back at her, heading over at a mild trot.
But then my feet stopped.
“…Ah.”
Behind Yuigahama fluttered the hem of a gray coat.
The girl who’d been standing directly behind Yuigahama turned to me, and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Hikigaya…,” she muttered. It was Yukino Yukinoshita.
Wondering, Why is she here? I stood before the both of them.
“So you’re here, too…,” I said, stating the obvious. I couldn’t quite digest what was going on.
It seemed Yukinoshita felt the same. She squirmed uncomfortably and glanced at Yuigahama. Then she said anxiously, “U-um…if that’s what’s going on, then I’ll be going…”
“It’s okay! Let’s hang out, the three of us!” Yuigahama said, hugging the other girl’s arm. Yukinoshita seemed ready to leave at any moment.
Yuigahama took my arm, too. Holding both of us, she squeezed our arms tight against her chest and let her head hang. “I want the three of us to go…,” she said in an almost inaudible murmur.
She was looking at the ground, and I couldn’t see her expression. But the pleading in her voice got it across well enough.
Yukinoshita and I were speechless, looking at one another.
Yukinoshita’s gaze continued to wander around, and she sighed as if confused. But Yuigahama picked up on that, raising her chin to give her a kind look, and Yukinoshita nodded with another little sigh.
Then Yuigahama’s eyes turned to me.
If neither of them had any objections, then neither did I.
But I did want to ask just one thing. I found it hard to look straight at Yuigahama while I said it, and my eyes shifted away. It seemed incredibly pathetic to be saying something about it at this stage, and the words wouldn’t quite leave my mouth smoothly. But I did manage to wring them out. “You want it to be here?”
“Yep,” Yuigahama answered instantly—and directly, without averting her eyes, with a hint of urgency in her expression.
I hadn’t meant my question in the general way, and I think her answer probably didn’t mean it in the general way, either. Or wait, was it? Maybe there was nothing else to the meaning.
Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. I had no reason to oppose the idea, if that was what Yuigahama wanted. “All right…”
“Yeah! If we come here, it’s okay if it snows! I figured if we were all coming to hang out, then this would be best,” she answered, standing proud and tall.
It’s true that if you’re hanging out with a group, this was better than Destiny. It’d be a bit of a hassle to go there as a group of three. So then, well…maybe another time? The day may yet come when I could fulfill that promise.
“Then let’s go,” I said.
For today, all three of us.
I’d seen the glass dome from a distance, but going inside made me realize how bright the sun was. The dome, made from countless pieces of glass put together, gathered the light even under cloudy skies. That plus the high ceiling made it feel quite bright.
On the other hand, the long escalator that led down into the aquarium got darker the deeper you went.
The way the light from ground level gradually grew distant was like a movie theater before the film starts, and the sense of anticipation made my heart race. And then, after descending the long escalator, there was a large tank just like a movie screen.
Huh, pretty impressive, I thought while gazing at the tank, as Yuigahama pattered off.
“Sharks!”
As she said, there were sharks in this tank. It seemed this kind was called a tsumaguro, a blacktip reef shark. The maguro part of the name made me think of tuna sushi, but it’s not. It’s a shark. Very much a shark.
Though there were not in fact sea bream and flounder dancing, aside from the sharks, the tank had rays and pilchards swimming around. Yuigahama peered excitedly into the tank and snapped several photos.
Next, she turned to her side and giggled as she pointed at the tank again and repeated, “Sharks!”
“…Indeed.” Catching up to her, Yukinoshita gave Yuigahama a confused look. She sounded a little exasperated, too.
Yuigahama laughed an embarrassed ah-ha-ha, combing at her bun, then stepped right in to lean against Yukinoshita. “Yukinoooon, sorry I didn’t say anything. Let’s have some more fun with this!”
“I’m not going to have fun just because you told me to…”
Ignoring their conversation, I went to stand in front of the tank, too.
I didn’t need Yuigahama telling me. That sure is a shark, all right. Sharks are cool…, I was thinking as my mind drifted absently, when a particularly composed and graceful silhouette swept into view.
It was a scalloped hammerhead. Because of its characteristic shape, I knew what it was called without having to read the sign.
Every boy will be into sharks at some point in his childhood.
I mean, like, everyone’s got that period where you’re all over picture books of dinosaurs and sea life and stuff. Every boy goes through a phase where he’ll say, I’m Hachiman Hikigaya and I’m three years old and my favorite dino is triceratops and my favorite deep-sea fish is barreleye.
Eyes boring into the tank, I gave an appreciative and involuntary “Ooh.” I was now totally like a boy in front of the trumpet in the show window. Like, tutti!
“Oh, a hammerhead shark… Huh, whoa, can we take pictures?” I asked Yuigahama beside me as I pointed at the sharks, and Yuigahama nodded yep, yep with a big sisterly expression. Wow, you’re allowed to take pictures…!
As I was snapping photos, in the corner of my eye, I saw Yuigahama shuffling over to Yukinoshita. Then she whispered in her ear, “Look, Hikki’s having fun.”
“Agh…” Yukinoshita sighed in resignation. I didn’t hear any whispers after that. The strange silence bothered me, and when I glanced over, my eyes met Yukinoshita’s. She had her hand on her temple, and she was watching me.
She was staring pretty hard, so I got embarrassed. “…Wh-what?”
She swished the hair off her shoulders, then smiled a little teasingly. “Nothing. I was just surprised… I’ll take a picture of you with the shark,” she said and held out her hand. If I handed over my cell phone, I’d get a proper souvenir photo with the scalloped hammerhead shark.
“For real? I can show it to Komachi.” Taking advantage of her offer, I handed over my cell phone carefully so that no fingers would touch the screen.
“The hammerhead shark, okay? Press the button when it comes by. And if you can, get it right when the hammer part is sideways and you can get a good view of it.”
“Those are surprisingly particular instructions…” Yukinoshita’s eyebrows came together, but she tried taking a number of photos for me. Yuigahama, beside her, was grinning wide with amusement.
“How is this?” Yukinoshita asked.
I looked at the cell phone when she handed it back to me, and there it was, just as I’d asked, a photo taken at the perfect moment. The hammerhead shark looked about to bite me.
“Ohhh… This is good.”
“Is it? All right, then.” Yukinoshita sighed. She sounded a bit tired but also relieved.
Clinging to Yukinoshita, Yuigahama squished right up against her and tugged at her arm. “Then let’s move on!”
“…Sure.” Smiling back at her, Yukinoshita walked after Yuigahama. At first, Yukinoshita had been reluctant to go along with this, but now she was actually getting into exploring this aquarium.
Though I was sad to leave it behind, I said my farewell to the hammerhead and followed after the girls.
Perhaps because it was a weekday, the visitors in the aquarium were sparse.
The crowd was more on the quiet side: elderly husbands and wives and calmer-looking couples, plus I saw a few with babies, as well as young women with female friends. If this had been a weekend or holiday, it would have been awash with kids and families.
The area was dim, and many of the tanks were lit up. It was like a movie theater, making everyone naturally talk quieter.
The same went for us. The giant tank with the Pacific bluefin tuna was impressive, and we just sighed in wonder, and also at the next one, in a group of tanks titled “Oceans of the World,” which was divided into a number of different areas. The brilliance of the tropical fish section made me stop and stare.
Seeing the grandeur, strength, and beauty of nature up close, all we could say were things like “Wow” and “They’re so beautiful” and “Looks yummy.” Wait, yummy…?
But of course, there were exceptions.
When we passed in front of the tank of a certain fishy, Yuigahama’s feet froze. And when she stopped, so did Yukinoshita and I.
At a glance, the tank was dark and plain, nothing to grab your attention like the fish tanks around it. There was no light shining into it. There was mud piled in it, with one thin tree sticking up alone.
And in the water was a rather vacant-looking fish that seemed kind of dumb, swimming around lazily. No, maybe it wasn’t quite accurate to say it was swimming. The thing wasn’t moving much, just bobbing aimlessly, almost drifting.
“Whoa, gross…,” Yuigahama muttered carelessly. Then she looked at the sign for it. “It says it’s a nurseryfish.”
“‘It lives in muddy rivers and doesn’t swim around very much’…?” Yukinoshita read the explanation, then looked at me.
Why’s she looking at me? I thought, and then my eyes slid over to the sign to see there was more. Oh-ho… So when a shrimp or something comes by right in front of it, it’ll swallow it in an instant, huh…?
“Sounds like the life…,” I blurted out.
“You can sympathize with it?!” Yuigahama was shocked.
Yukinoshita’s lips quirked into a smile as she listened to us. “Now that you mention it, this fish does look quite similar to someone, doesn’t it, Fishigaya?”
“It’s not similar at all. And that nickname is kinda weak…”
Why’s she smiling at me, come on… Well apparently, the nurseryfish is also called the komori-uo. The komori there is probably supposed to mean “babysitting,” but if this were a hikikomori fish, I guess it would be kind of similar to me… Well, I am pretty good at child-minding, you know. I love kids!
At some point in the course of our idle chatter, Yuigahama started ignoring it and leaning forward to gaze into the tank. Expression entranced, she giggled, then said gleefully, “Wooow, so gross.”
“Don’t call it gross; it’s doing its best.” It’s our friend on Spaceship Earth, isn’t it? Hey, why does she seem kind of pleased…?
As Yuigahama continued to stare at the nurseryfish, Yukinoshita came up beside her and squatted down. The two of them kept talking to each other and discussing how gross and creepy it was.
But suddenly, Yuigahama got a smile on her face. “But…maybe a little cute.”
“Possible cuteness aside, it does have its own kind of charm,” Yukinoshita said, and then she and Yuigahama looked at each other and giggled.
“If you’re calling it creepy, then how is it cute…?” I grumbled.
Bottom line, the nurseryfish was just ugly. How can you call something like that cute?
I don’t really understand girls’ sensibilities. This is just that thing, right? Like that stuff you say to boys when introducing your friend at a mixer, like Her gestures are cute or Her hair is cute or Her voice is cute, right? It’s what you say when you’re indirectly communicating her looks aren’t cute, right? I’ve seen that on the Internet, you know.
It really is true what they say: You can’t trust what girls call cute.
Porcupine fish and clown fish. Seahorses and leafy sea dragons. Lefteye flounder and righteye flounder. And even largehead hairtail and Japanese sea lilies…
Walking around, looking at the many fish from the oceans and deep seas of the world, we continued along the route as it led outside.
After being in the dark for a while, the light of the sun was dazzling even beneath a cloudy sky. When we passed through the automatic doors and reached the outside walkway, the cold ocean wind stroked my cheeks, and at the same time, the strong scent of sea salt hit my nose.
It looked like there was a reproduction of a tide pool here. They had a whole bunch of beach creatures, like crabs, acorn barnacles, and sea stars on display.
Go a little farther, and you’d leave the roofed area so you could look up at the sky.
There was a lull in the snowfall, and it was just a mild flutter coming down now. I’d heard the recent cold wave was causing weather fluctuations, so you couldn’t say how it would be later. But regardless, it seemed like we didn’t have to worry about the weather at this time of afternoon.
“Oh, there’s a bunch of people over there.”
As I was considering the weather, Yuigahama turned back to us and pointed ahead. There was a little crowd gathering down the way, calling out excitedly.
“Guess we should go check it out,” I said. Heading over to this little hotspot, I found a tank like a small pool extended in a long line along the outside walkway. Unlike the other tanks, it didn’t have a lid on it, and the water was exposed to the air.
Looking over at the sign, it read, TOUCH GENTLY WITH TWO FINGERS. So this was like a petting-zoo experience.
What sort of ocean creatures are here for the petting? I wondered as I peered into the tank.
Sharks.
That was what was there.
Small sharks and rays drifted around. I looked at the sign, which read, BROWNBANDED BAMBOO SHARK (ALSO KNOWN AS THE “DOG SHARK”); BULLHEAD SHARK (ALSO KNOWN AS THE “CAT SHARK”); RED STINGRAY; and PITTED STINGRAY.
“Hey, Hikki! It says this is called a dog shark!” Yuigahama smacked at my upper arm excitedly before taking a closer look. Then she poked at the creature with her finger.
The so-called dog shark didn’t really react, calmly letting itself be touched. Eventually, Yuigahama nodded like she was convinced of something. “…I think it’s a little like Sablé!”
How? Like the fact that it’s light gray? This shark is literally nothing like a dog; are you okay? Like, if you’re so sure it’s similar, are you certain your dog is actually a dog? Not a shark?
Anyway, why would they call these things dog sharks…? I wondered, tilting my head, and it seemed someone else had a similar question in mind.
Yukinoshita was right beside me, hand on her chin with her eyes locked on the bullhead sharks.
The bullhead sharks, or “cat sharks,” were a size or two smaller than the dog sharks, with characteristic striped patterns on their bodies that made them easy to identify.
“Cat shark…,” Yukinoshita muttered as she stared hard at the bullhead sharks swimming around. “Inscrutable… Just what about these is catlike…? If they’re naming them cat sharks, then something about them should be similar…”
Oh-ho, so she feels compelled to react to anything with cat in its name, huh? She’s really got the friskies for kitties.
Yukinoshita rolled up her sleeves as if she’d made up her mind, then cheerily reached out to a bullhead shark and petted it for a while. Then a satisfied smile broke on her face. “…I think it feels a bit like a cat’s tongue.”
“That’s just shark skin,” I said, but Yukinoshita wasn’t listening. She was utterly absorbed in petting the “cat shark.”
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty shark… Meow… No, perhaps it’s sheow…”
“I strongly doubt that’s the sound that shark makes…” I mean, sharks don’t make noise at all…I think.
That was when Yuigahama began looking for a new target after the shark, her hand wandering around in the water. “Oh, there’s rays, too!” Yuigahama said, ever a ray of sunshine herself. Eyyy! …Fine, so it wasn’t my best.
“Eeep!” But then she immediately cried out and yanked back her fingers. “It was slimy! Yuck!” She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.
Yukinoshita, who’d been entranced by her cat sharks all this time, rushed up to Yuigahama’s side and said with concern, “What did you touch? Hikigaya? You should hurry and wash your hand.”
Hey? Could you not treat a person like a sea creature? There’s no mucus coming out of me, you know. Admittedly, when I’m touching a girl, I definitely get sweaty hands, so maybe we’re not so different. All girls, if you touch me, make sure to wash your hands!
But you don’t get a chance to touch sharks or rays and stuff every day. I rolled up my sleeves as well and petted them with my fingers.
As I was enjoying the roughness and sliminess, Yuigahama drew back her hand. She just watched the sharks with a loving gaze.
“What, you’ve had enough?” I asked her.
“Yeah, I don’t want to tire them out.”
“Ah. That’s very you.” I couldn’t help but smile. It’s true—from the animal’s position, getting petted excessively by thoughtless humans would be pretty stressful. Like when I pet my cat, he swats at me and stuff. It genuinely feels nice to me when Yuigahama shows consideration like that.
That was all I’d meant when I’d said that. But Yuigahama’s shoulders twitched, and she glanced away, her gaze trending down. “…What is?”
My eyes followed her gaze to see what she was looking at. Snow was fluttering downward, making ripples on the surface of the water.
She slowly lifted her head to examine me. “…I’m not as nice as you think I am.” There was a delicate, wistful smile in her eyes, as if she were telling me of our parting, and those whispered words sounded more for her than for me.
Hearing that, my breath caught. What, exactly, was I pointing to when I said that gesture was “like Yuigahama”?
That feeling like something was wrong once again crawled out from inside me, slithering around in my chest and disturbing the peace as I wondered if I wasn’t overlooking something serious. I clenched my fists.
I opened my mouth anyway—because I had to say something—but the right answer wouldn’t come out. Yuigahama just looked at my trembling lips, smiled sadly, and lowered her eyes.
Without our voices and words, the noises around us sounded that much louder.
And among them was a shrill cry. Nooot!
Yuigahama’s head jerked up, and she jumped to her feet. “Oh, that’s a penguin! Hikki, Yukinon, let’s go!” she said in a cheery voice.
When I looked at Yukinoshita, she was regarding us with a vacant expression, but then she snapped out of it with a gasp. Her eyes wavered between Yuigahama and me, as if she was worried about us.
“Let’s go?” said Yuigahama.
Yukinoshita replied to Yuigahama’s excitement with a weak smile. “Y-yes… Let’s.”
Had she been listening to our earlier exchange? Maybe she’d gotten a glimpse of the expression on Yuigahama’s face.
Yuigahama took Yukinoshita’s arm, then marched off for the rocky mountain. Her steps were light.
From what I could tell from behind, along with her extra-cheery attitude, she seemed to be saying that talk was now over, and we were all going to have fun.
Letting out a sigh and trying to change gears, I followed after them.
After walking awhile, we came to a wide rocky mountain.
On it were a whole bunch of penguins merp-merping at each other, splashing as they jumped into the pool or pressing up against each other in the shadow of the rock to keep warm.
“Wow, so cute!”
“…They are.”
Yuigahama was bouncing around, taking a whole bunch of pictures, while beside her, Yukinoshita was smiling. Though she was more reserved, she snapped the shutter a few times, too. Girls really love penguins, huh?
I was also madly in love with their plump yet streamlined bodies, their cute, round eyes, and the way they waddled. “Aw, what the hell. They’re so cute… I’ve gotta send pics to Komachi.” Getting as close to them as I could, right up to the fence, I snapped a bunch of photos.
As I was doing this, an idea struck me.
If I showed a picture to Komachi after she finished her exams, she would most definitely be like, Komachi wants to go too! and then if I said, Okay, then how about we go together? she would easily agree, and then I’d be able to have a legal date with my little sister, shleh-heh-heh-heh.
As I was wickedly scheming, Yuigahama and Yukinoshita had already gone on ahead. Ah, oh no, they’re about to leave me!
I abandoned my photo taking and chased after them. They were following the standard route, down the stairs that led to the semibasement.
In the penguin zone, in addition to the standard route, there was also a space where you could see into their big pool from the side and watch the penguins swimming in the water.
The penguins here had a totally different vibe from the slow, pengy waddles they did on land.
In the water, they made fine turns and swam with incredible guiny speed, almost as if they were flying.
Watching them, Yuigahama cried out in wonder as she kept tugging on Yukinoshita’s sleeve. “Wow! Wow! Look at ’em swimming! They remind me of birds like this!”
“…Penguins are birds, though,” Yukinoshita said, sounding exasperated. She pressed her temple with her free hand.
Yuigahama’s mouth dropped open dumbly, but she snapped out of it with a start. “…Huh. I—I knew that,” she hurried to add. Yukinoshita smiled softly at her, and I cracked a wry smile, too. Oh well, it’s not like I can’t understand the feeling.
After enjoying the penguins elegantly swimming around, we continued to the stairs that led up from the semibasement.
From there, we headed to the rock mountain where the Humboldt penguins were. You could get a good view of the busy little huddle.
There were two penguins in the group that happened to catch my eye. They pressed close in an intimate way, grooming each other and constantly making those merp, merp noises at each other.
Feeling rather charmed as I watched them, I looked at the sign ahead that had explanatory notes. When I read it with interest, the girls both leaned in around me. “Lemme see, lemme see.” I took half a step back to yield the space to them as I traced the sign text with my eyes.
The sign said the two cuddling penguins were a mated pair. Generally, with Humboldt penguins in captivity, so long as one of them didn’t die, they would continue to stay with the same partner.
After reading that, I looked at the pair of penguins once again and saw Yukinoshita in front of me. She swayed a little, and then her breath caught. Then she quickly left.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, curious as to why she was rushing ahead.
Yukinoshita turned halfway back. “…I’ll be waiting inside,” she said briefly, and then without looking back again, she returned to the aquarium.
The penguin zone was outdoors. Considering the weather, it was a good time to go back inside.
I was turning around, about to say we should move on, too, when I saw Yuigahama still watching the two Humboldt penguins. Her eyes were soft and gentle.
“…Wanna get going?” I asked her.
“Oh, yeah… I’m gonna look a bit more before I go… I-I’ve got to take a picture of those tiny ones, after all! …I’ll go soon,” she said, pointing to the fairy penguins and holding up her phone for me to see before turning back to the pair again. It didn’t look as if the cell phone in her hand was being used—she was just squeezing it tight.
“…Okay.” I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more. With that brief reply, I went on inside.
Behind me, the conversation between the two penguins sounded a little sad.
Perhaps because we’d been outside for a while, when I went back indoors, the warmth drew a sigh from me.
Following the course onward from the penguin zone led down the stairs to another floor.
There was bigger size tank there. The sign called it a “seaweed forest,” with large waterweed and giant kelp, and even from a distance, I could see the giant kelp’s arms reaching wide, drifting to and fro.
This floor was darkened, and aside from the pale-brown kelp, there were also various red and green sea anemones and coral under brilliant illumination.
They’d gone to the trouble of setting out benches in front of that tank, just like a little movie theater. But it was deserted.
Meanwhile, the light seeping out from the other side of the tank dimly brought into view the figure that stood in front of the glass.
The one standing there couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else.
It was Yukino Yukinoshita.
Under the pale light of the tank, she looked like a painting, and I couldn’t call out to her. The breath I’d need was stuck in my chest. So I just stopped there.
She must have noticed my footsteps halting, as she turned back to me. Once she gave me something resembling the barest nod, I was finally able to start walking again.
“Where’s Yuigahama?” she asked without looking, still gazing into the tank as I came up beside her.
“She’s taking pictures of the fairy penguins. She said she’d come soon, so we can just wait here.”
“I see…”
After that, no words were exchanged. We just stared into the tank in front of us. At the giant seaweed beneath the light, with multicolored fish swimming all around.
Countless fish came and went among the unsteadily wavering kelp. Tiny fish with bluish scales hid behind the seaweed, while particularly attention-grabbing red fish sailed around, fearing no one.
Eyes following the fish, Yukinoshita suddenly spoke. “…Some are free, aren’t they?” she said quietly, like she was talking to herself and not anyone else. But she was probably looking at the same fish I was.
So I naturally responded. “Mm. Yeah, those fish are big, after all.”
She let out a faint sigh.
“If you have no place to go, then you can’t find where you belong… You just hide, follow the current or whatever else there is to follow…until you hit an invisible wall.” She started gently reaching out her hand to touch the glass. But before long, her hand lowered weakly, soundlessly. When I examined her with a sidelong glance, her eyes weren’t focused on anything. They were just pointed straight ahead.
“…Which fish are you talking about?” I asked. I didn’t know what she was looking at.
She didn’t answer immediately, sighing peacefully.
“…I mean me,” she said, cocking her head a smidgen as she smiled sadly and touched the tank with a gentle hand.
With her arm extended, she looked as if she would be sucked into the water, but the wall prevented her from going back to the home she’d found.
She looked so delicate and ephemeral, as if she were about to turn into bubbles and vanish.
That floor was utterly silent. The glass prevented the bubbles popping and welling up inside the tank from sounding on this side.
As I watched Yukinoshita gazing into the tank, thinking about that separate world, there was the tap of a foot on the floor.
When I turned around, there was Yuigahama, watching Yukinoshita with peaceful eyes. Her expression was utterly gentle, maybe even close to tearful.
“Sorry to make you guys wait!” When Yuigahama noticed me, she waved an arm wide and called out to me with her usual smile.
After going through the floor with the giant kelp display, it got suddenly bright inside.
Perhaps for the sake of lighting, the upper parts of the walls were glass, and the ceiling was high. In place of the earlier black carpets, cream-colored floorboards lay under our feet.
The tapping of Yuigahama’s energetic footsteps sounded cheerful on them. Those footsteps suddenly stopped as she discovered something. “Oh, hey, c’mere, come on!” she said, beckoning to me and Yukinoshita.
The place she called us to had a number of cylindrical tanks. Pink, purple, marine blue. The tanks were lit up in all sorts of colors, and inside were jellyfish, wafting and drifting.
Yuigahama grabbed on to Yukinoshita’s arm, and the two of them gazed at the fish, side by side. The tank was like a round window, a little small for all three of us to look at, so I peered at it from a step farther away.
“They’re kinda like fireworks, huh…?” Yuigahama murmured fondly as she gazed at the undulating jellies.
“…You think?” I said.
But a jellyfish is a jellyfish. I gave them a good look, wondering just what about them was like fireworks.
Yuigahama turned back to me and pointed to one part of the tank with a hnn. “You can’t see it? Look, like that one, it’s all zoooom, baaang…”
The jellyfish where Yuigahama was pointing folded and then spread its star-shaped body, folded and then spread it, over and over. It did kind of look like fireworks.
“Huh, I get it. I kinda see it, when the round things spread out,” I replied.
But Yuigahama gave her head a little shake, and then she tried again, this time tapping the glass with her finger. “Not that one, this one…,” she said. The jellyfish Yuigahama pointed to was a long-armed one at the back.
It brought its long tentacles together for an instant, then opened them all up again in a burst. Under the lights of the tank, it traced sparkling threads that then dangled down and spread out in the water like a fall of golden light.
We had seen fireworks like that before.
Back in the summer. In a park teeming with crowds, there had been a bunch of giant star mines reflecting in the half mirror of the tower. I seemed to remember they’d fired up those golden rain fireworks for the finale. They’d sparkled in the night sky, leaving droplets of light that lasted forever.
Yuigahama leaned on Yukinoshita’s shoulder. We were all remembering that sight as we looked into the tank.
“…Okay, that’s enough.” Yukinoshita squirmed around like she didn’t know how to deal with it.
“Eh-heh…” But Yuigahama didn’t seem to care. She tugged Yukinoshita’s arm to bring her close, taking up position in front of the tank. Eyeing my reflection in the glass, she made sure I was behind them.
And then Yuigahama closed her eyes for just a heartbeat. “I’m glad the three of us could see this together…”
Those words were like a sigh of relief.
Strangely, they felt right. Yukinoshita drew her chin back slightly, too, and nodded.
I wanted to believe that even if it went unsaid, the feeling we had in our hearts that moment was probably not all that different.
We went down a bright corridor and came out on a floor with a restaurant and a shop. Turn left there, and it leads outside. It seemed the course ended here. Continuing on up the stairs would lead to the exit.
Glancing farther in, if we went right from the earlier floor, that was the tank with the hammerhead shark we’d seen at the beginning. In other words, now we’d done a full circle.
“Goal!” Yuigahama hopped energetically and turned back to us. “Hey, let’s do another round!”
“No…there’s no point in circling around the same stuff,” I said.
“Y-yes… And I’m a little tired…” Unlike Yuigahama, Yukinoshita was lacking in energy. We’d walked around quite a bit, and Yukinoshita, who had difficulties with endurance to begin with, seemed worn out.
I gave Yuigahama a look that said, See how she’s doing?
Yuigahama fiddled with her bun, looking down the path we’d come. She didn’t want to go. “I guess… I think it’d be fun, though… And besides, we still have…,” she said as she checked the time.
Then it seemed something caught her eye.
“Ah!” With a cry, she pointed to the big Ferris wheel that rose up in the distance.
The Ferris wheel was the biggest in Japan, and it earned that title.
When I pulled the ride ticket out from my breast pocket, it read, Diameter of 111 meters, total height of 117 meters. I can’t think of a precise example to describe how tall it actually was, and it’s difficult to express, but if I had to say it in a word: tall. And scary. Scary enough that I needed to add it to my one-word summary.
We didn’t have to line up long for this Ferris wheel we were going to ride on Yuigahama’s whim, and we were able to get on soon after buying a ticket.
And I was immediately assaulted by fear.
Thinking about it, it had been ten years since I’d last ridden a Ferris wheel. Were they always this shaky? I wondered as the floor underfoot started to wobble.
The gradual rise in altitude felt just like a bizarre adventure. With every gust of wind, the car swayed slightly, and I really worried that this might be the end of the road for me.
“This is terrifying…,” I muttered without thinking.
But I kept that to just a whisper because I couldn’t be losing my cool in front of two girls: the act of a gentleman. If I’d been riding this thing alone, I would’ve been curled in a trembling ball.
As for how those two were doing, they were sitting side by side in front of me.
“Wow! So high! Scary! And, like, this is swaying a lot!” Yuigahama was practically standing, pressed up against the window as she gleefully enjoyed the ride. Thanks to her, my quiet, fearful mutter was drowned out.
Meanwhile, Yukinoshita was white as a sheet, avoiding looking at the scenery outside as she focused her gaze at her feet.
“Look, I just asked you, didn’t I? I said you didn’t have to go if you didn’t want to,” I said carelessly, smirking at her reaction.
She gave me a little glare. “Th-there’s no problem… We’re all together, after all,” she said, then jerked her face away. That must have brought the view of below into her field of vision. She choked silently and reached a hand over to where Yuigahama was standing, seeking her help. Firmly grabbing Yuigahama’s hand, she forced her to sit.
“Yuigahama. Did you not read the caution sign saying that you shouldn’t jump around on the Ferris wheel?”
“Yukinon, don’t glare at me like that! S-sorry, I was just having fun…” Yuigahama apologized with an ah-ha-ha.
“I don’t mind if you enjoy yourself, but…in moderation, please.” Yukinoshita chided her coldly but showed no indication that she would let go of the hand in her grasp.
Yuigahama noticed Yukinoshita holding her hand and squeezed back tight, scooting closer to Yukinoshita with a smile. Then she pointed to the right, from their perspective. “Look, over there! Your apartment is probably around there. Oh, maybe we can see if we lean more that way.”
“…I’m fine. I can see it just fine from here.” Yukinoshita stubbornly stayed in her spot. But she did, with trepidation, peek out the window.
Then, a satisfied-sounding ahhh slipped from her lips.
Still leaning my cheek on my hand, I looked at the scenery outside, too.
Spread out below was Chiba, with the snow falling on and on. Crystals sparkled under the light peeking out from between the clouds, and from a distance, you could get a good view of the townscape sprinkled with a white layer of snow.
“It’s so beautiful…,” Yuigahama said.
I nodded my full agreement. “Yeah, that’s my Chiba.”
“When did it become yours?!”
“We’re actually in Tokyo right now, though…,” said Yukinoshita.
“If you’re around Kasai, that’s basically like Chiba. People don’t treat Edogawa like Tokyo, right?” I said, making Yuigahama giggle and Yukinoshita smile in exasperation. Then we gazed out at the scenery spread below, without ever tiring of it.
It was our usual conversation, with an air of the mundane, and I think you could say it was like us. But the floor under my feet was uncertain and wobbling.
The Ferris wheel slowly came down.
Hiding its instability, it continued to slowly circle around. Never moving onward, just going around and around the same place, forever.
But even so, in the end.
“…It’s just about over, huh?” she said quietly.
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