Hoshi wo Taguru Pt. 4

Now after having newly joined the Astronomy club, it was time for Subaru’s first culture festival, and he felt restless. Every year, the Astronomy club would hand build a planetarium and display it in the biggest audiovisual room. The display included a blackout curtain where they showed their planetarium projection on it and filled up ⅔ of the audiovisual room. They saved the rest of the space to be dedicated to a simple exhibition that changes every year.

This year, the space was dedicated to a model of planets from the solar system, which hung from the ceiling. Pictures of celestial bodies were pasted onto the wall, and it was first-year Subaru’s task to explain them. The Astronomy club’s planetarium was scheduled to run their exhibit five times a day, each lasting about thirty minutes. Second years were in charge of commentary. Just now, they turned on their projector, and their exhibition started.

Until recently, there weren’t many people in the exhibition room, but once the planetarium projection started, everyone flocked to the room. Subaru, who had just become free, sat down in a chair that was placed nearby. He began to look absentmindedly at the solar system display that was hanging from the ceiling. The ones who made the solar system display were the third years.  The beautiful globes were painted in fine detail despite the small size. You’d never get tired of looking at them. Subaru preferred to watch the upperclassmen make them as opposed to walking around school grounds. While he was wondering who had painted Jupiter, he heard a slight knock on the door. Subaru took his eyes off the display and looked at the door on the other side of the room. Since the door was half glass, Subaru could see who it was.

“Huh, Tokizawa?”

“Sorry for intruding…”

“This isn’t a house or anything. Come on it and take a look around.”

“Okay.”

The frozen apologetic Tokizawa took a step in and closed the door behind him. His eyes darted around the room. He looked at the display that was hanging with admiration in his eyes.

“Subaru, did you make this?”

“Of course not! The third years did. Tokizawa, are you interested in stars? Right now, they’re doing a planetarium next door. I think it’s worth seeing it. This display here is gonna be here the whole time anyway so you can always come back afterwards to look at it.

“Ah… Um, I don’t know anything about stars. Sorry… But I heard you were doing the exhibition during this time.

“Did we talk about that? Well thanks for coming all this way then.”

Tokizawa nodded his head and returned to look back at the display. He had not taken a single step from when he entered the room. He was unsure on whether or not he should move so he ended up standing where he was.

It’s been half a year since the entrance ceremony , and since then, Subaru felt like he was beginning to understand Tokizawa. First, while his appearance was very showy, his insides were very plain. Because his facial features were quite set, he looked very cold when he stayed quiet. And because of that, his classmates didn’t really talk to him. Tokizawa also didn’t initiate conversation. The only exception was Subaru. 

Since that time they talked after the entrance ceremony, Tokizawa would sometimes initiate conversation with Subaru. Even though the contents of the conversation were pretty trifling, he always looked really nervous. In other words, it wasn’t that he was cold, it was just that he was extremely shy around people.

Whenever Tokizawa did talk to Subaru though, Subaru couldn’t help but feel delighted. He even felt a little sense of superiority over his other classmates.

On a beautiful day such as this, Tokizawa came here by himself after finding out that Subaru was here. Meanwhile, out of the friends Subaru considered himself to be close with, not a single one showed up.

That’s why when Tokizawa came, Subaru was so happy that he beckoned him to come closer.

“Come closer and take a look. Look how well this is done. I’m in charge of explaining so if you have any questions, you can ask me.”

Subaru showed the star decorated name plate stuck to his chest that read “guide”. Although a little certain of what to do, Tokizawa finally walked into the center of the room. Then, in a rather hushed tone he said, “Okay,” and asked, “Why is it that you like stars?”

“Huh?” Subaru’s eyes widened at the fact that he got a question that he wasn’t expecting.

Of course Subaru had said that he could ask him anything star related, but he did not think for one moment that it would be about him.

“Oh, um, so when I was young, I went on a camping trip with my family. The night sky I saw that time was so unbelievably mesmerizing… Pretty normal story, right?”

He only kinda answered the question but Tokizawa shook his head seriously, “It’s not!”

Subaru continued.“At the time, my father told me he chose my name from the stars. After that, I began to like stars more and more. Since then, I always loved them, and I wanted to go to a school with an astronomy club. Although it takes like 2 hours just to get here.”
Now that he thought about it, Subaru felt like he was a rather simple child, intrigued by even the simplest of things.

As Subaru recounted that memory of his childhood, he seemed to have a wry, pained expression on his face. Tokizawa nodded and listened intensely.

“That’s so far away!”

As Subaru watched Tokizawa’s surprised reaction, he himself wondered something.

“Tokizawa, you didn’t go to junior high school around here, right? I heard there was nobody else from the place I went to school. Is your home far away too?

 “Ah… yeah.”

Most of the information that he’s heard about Tokizawa wasn’t from Tokizawa himself but from rumors that circulate in the school. The girl’s information network is amazing. Subaru couldn’t help but be impressed. But he could tell that Tokizawa was bothered by it. Just from hearing Subaru say the words, “I heard”, Tokizawa’s face clouded over.

Tokizawa changed the subject back to stars, “I’ve only heard the name Pleiades before. What kind of star is it?”

“Hang on a second.”

Tokizawa quickly went back to normal and Subaru went to the corner of the exhibit. He pulled out a thick reference book and flipped the pages, opening to a page with the Pleiades constellation and showed Tokizawa.

“Here. This constellation is located within Taurus. The Japanese name for it is Subaru.”

“Oh, so it’s not just one star,” Tokizawa pointed out. 

“Yeah. The constellations are big enough to see 6 or 7 of the stars. If conditions are right and your eyes are good, you can see more, but I can only see six stars.”

The picture in the book showed a bunch of pretty shining stars. Out of all the celestial bodies, Subaru especially liked the one that shared his name.

“It’s such a pretty star,” Tokizawa spoke out, his tone sounding completely mesmerized. He was so immersed in the book, looking at the photograph of the constellation. 

Subaru thought to himself how lovely his side profile looked.

“Subaru is a perfect name. Uh, um…By Subaru, I mean you, not the star.”

“Me?”

“It suits you.The name of a star suits you perfectly.”

Being told that with such a dazzling smile, Subaru felt unsure how to respond. The fact that he said such an embarrassing thing with a straight face made Subaru feel like Tokizawa was from a completely different world.

“You also have a space related name too, Tokizawa. Your name Asahi means the light of the sun, right?” Subaru asked, glossing over Tokizawa’s compliment, and in a way to change the conversation.

Tokizawa made a strange expression and then shook his head.

“…It’s my first time hearing about this. Subaru, you know everything.”

“Out of everything in our solar system, I like the sun the best,” Subaru said as he opened up to a page about the sun. “If all the living creatures on the Earth were to get too close to the sun, they would die in an instant. That’s why there aren’t any living creatures in the sun.”

“Yeah.”

Somehow, Tokizawa’s tense expression and the placement of the picture of the sun on the black backdrop created the depiction of him emitting warmth, as if he was shining. Subaru kept talking while looking at his side profile.

“But even with today’s technology, we still don’t have a clue about the sun’s core. So we can’t understand much about it.  No matter how many millions of years pass, earthlings may never be able to catch up with either technology or knowledge. There could be aliens that have completely adapted to the sun’s heat and radiation in the same way we have adapted to the earth here. But we don’t know, since no one has been able to go to the sun.”

Subaru has said all that in one breath. He feared he might have spoken too much, especially since he never had anyone outside of his club who was willing to hear him talk about stars. He got excited and ended up talking more than he usually did. Tokizawa took a peek at the room next door and then looked at the picture book with a very interested expression. He lifted his head. It was his turn to look at Subaru.
“Subaru, do you really think there are aliens living in the sun?”

Subaru nodded with stars in his eyes.

“It wouldn’t be strange if there were I think. And if there were…”
But Subaru stopped himself there.
He was about to say, if there were, they might be like Tokizawa. But he thought that would be too rude, so he stopped.

Beautiful and wise. A lone existence that interacts with no one. That’s the image that Subaru had of the aliens that lived on the sun. 

Just as he had thought that, Subaru realized something.

This guy is like an alien. Up until now, the expression that was on Tokizawa’s face was completely relaxed. It usually wasn’t. 

Even though Tokizawa was so fascinating, no matter how much time passed, he never really fit in with everyone. Subaru always felt bad for Tokizawa since he always sat down like he was ashamed of something. He always looked like he didn’t have a place where he belonged.

Tokizawa made a strange face as if waiting for the continuation of Subaru’s sentence, but he didn’t press any further.

“How far is Pleiades from the sun?” Tokizawa asked.

“Hm? I don’t know that much… but the distance from the earth to the sun is about 150 million kilometers. And from earth to Pleiades is farther, about 400 light years away.”

“That’s so far…”

Subaru had answered while looking at the page of the book, Tokizawa nodded with a bit of a lonely look on his face.
“Yeah but even though they’re so far away, we can still seem both of them from earth, and I think that’s amazing.”
Because Subaru noticed the lonely look on Tokizawa’s face, he said that to offer some consolation.

Then Tokizawa lightly put his hands together.

“…You’re right. That is amazing.” 

Tokizawa showed such an unrestrained smile. It was rare to see Tokizawa smile in such a carefree manner that Subaru, without thinking, started to stare before realizing it. Once he did, he promptly averted his eyes. Tokizawa continued to examine the reference book.