Strange Memories With You, My Dear

Chapter 00.03

Prologue

Translated by KuroNeko
Edited by Omkar

The plan was to leave the pool around four o’clock in the afternoon. When it was time to leave, we returned to the plastic sheeting, deflated the floats and beach balls, stowed our belongings, and returned to the locker room.

    We quickly removed our swimsuits, cleaned our bodies, changed our clothes, collected our bags, and exited the tent that had been transformed into a changing room. Again, the girls kept the boys waiting for approximately 10 minutes or so. The sunshine, which had been clear when we arrived, had begun to become yellow, and the clouds had started to turn red. The shadows cast by the trees, the arches of the doors, and the people appeared to be darkening. My body was exhausted after a full day of play, but it was a weird and comfortable fatigue. My clothing appeared to be a little dry on my skin, fresh from the water, and I felt a little different than usual.

    We eventually strolled out of the tent with the girls towards the amusement park section, which was connected to the station.

    Although the pool was packed, the amusement park did not appear to be quite as crowded. The bustling people and background music from the pool in the distance could be heard vaguely.

    While we were walking, Tomoki suggested, “Let’s get some shaved ice.” There was a food stall nearby, as well as a bench in the shade. We were all in agreement.

    In the tepid July wind, a flag with the phrase “Ice” fluttered. The man at the shop was preparing something like yakisoba or okonomiyaki. That white smoke and fragrance were also flowing in the breeze.

    There were posters for the Tokyo Olympics as well as event information on the bulletin board next to it.

    Since the beginning of the year, there has been a lot of discussion about the Olympics. There were a lot of shows on TV, and even though I wasn’t going to be in any of them, as the opening date approached, I started to feel strangely buoyant. I hadn’t been especially interested in it until then, but it was a bizarre sensation, as if I was being carried along by the environment surrounding me. There were numerous Olympic shows airing every day once the games began, and when a Japanese athlete won a medal, it was major news.

    I put the ice cream into my mouth with a plastic straw spoon. Along with the ice, the sweetness of the melon syrup melted in my mouth.

    “Lemons and blue Hawaii, they’re only different in colour, but they all taste the same,” Tomoki said next to me. “Don’t lie!” the girls murmured suspiciously. They took a bite out of each other’s ice cream to be sure.

    Yuuko smiled happily as she said, “When you put it that way, it makes me feel that way.” As I looked at her, I ate my melon flavoured shaved ice and looked up at the sky.

    The sun was becoming darker by the time. The clouds, which had been crimson from the setting sun, had turned grey, and the first hints of darkness were starting to appear. The wind temperature seemed to be slightly lower than during the day. I kept reapplying sunscreen during breaks, but my arms were still a little red and itchy. The twilight breeze caressed my arms.

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That night, I was drinking barley tea and watching an Olympic soccer match, “About the camping, you can go,” Mom said as she walked from her room to the living room. She said that she had just contacted Yuuko’s father and asked about it.

    I was overjoyed and thanked my mother.

    “Be careful not to cause trouble for Yuuko-chan’s father.”

    When I nodded, she smiled warmly and murmured to herself, “It’s the last summer vacation for elementary school children.” She then pulled out a pot of barley tea from the refrigerator and poured it into a cup and gently drank it.

    I returned to my room and scribbled the camp dates on my calendar. There were just five days till that fateful day.

    I did some Internet research on what to bring to camp and where to camp. By down train, the region was around forty minutes away from this metropolis. I had mostly taken the train to Tokyo, so this was my first trip to the western part of Saitama Prefecture.

    I told Yuuko about it at the next cram school, and on my way home, I stopped by her house to get a “bookmark” for the camp. When I showed it to my mother, she handed me 5,000 yen cash and told me, “Go purchase anything you need with this.”

    “Thank you, mom.” I thanked her, grabbed the money, and proceeded to a local shop to buy a sleeping bag and a flashlight.

    By the way, Yuuko had invited Misato and Takashi, who didn’t have any arrangements at that time of year, but their parents refused to give them permission, so it was only me and Yuuko who went camping with her father in the end.

    Her dad came and picked me from my apartment to camp on the morning of the camp day.

    “Hello,” he said as he stepped out of the vehicle. Yuuko’s father was dressed comfortably in long slacks and a sports-style polo shirt.

    “I’m sorry, he’ll be in your care then.”

    My mother accompanied me to the front of the apartment building, bowed to him, and said as much.

    “Sure. I will take care of him responsibly.” And the uncle, too, bowed respectfully to my mother and said, “I’m off,” I muttered to my mother as I hopped into the back seat of the car. Then Yuuko murmured, peering out from the passenger seat, “Hello.” She had her seatbelt on and a red backpack on her lap.

    He then returned to the car, started the engine, and began driving. My mother was waving at me from the window. The car pulled out onto the roadway, heading westward. I’d never traveled on this road before, and the scenery was new to me. I gazed out the window while I sat calmly in the car.

    Yuuko and her father were having a little talk. After a while, he began to converse with me as well.

    “What do you usually do at home, Yukinari-kun?”

    While staring out the window, I quickly shifted my eyes forward and responded.

    “I usually play games or listen to music…… I also read a book before going to bed.”

    “Do you like to read?”

    “Yes.” I nodded.

  “I get what you mean. As a kid, I was also not particularly sporty and spent much of my time at home reading books, so I can relate with you” He said. Then Yuuko suddenly interrupted and  said, “But Yukinari-kun is fast.”

    “Oh, really?”

    “Every year, he’s picked as a relay runner for the sports day.” Yuuko looked back at me and said.

    “Uh-huh.” I nodded, a bit uncomfortably. I felt sorry for Yuuko’s father who had made me feel so close to him.

    I remained silently in my seat for approximately thirty minutes till we left the city and entered the mountain route. On the twisting route, he drove at a slower speed. Around us, I could see a lot of greenery, rivers, and farmland.

    We finally arrived at our destination. The campers were congregating as we approached the parking area at the bottom of the mountain. The majority of the people were about Yuuko’s father’s age, and the kids varied from preschoolers to older children like us.

    He appeared to recognise a few people and was conversing with the other adult attendees. Yuuko and I talked while we waited for the time to go.

    When it came time to go, we began climbing the mountain after ensuring that all of the participants had arrived. I went on a walk with Yuuko and her father.

    I could hear several cicadas buzzing and the sound of water running close from a nearby creek. It seemed colder in the mountains, shadowed by the many trees’ leaves than it did in the city.

        We arrived at an open location after climbing the slope for about thirty minutes. Then the participants proceeded to set up their tents since it appeared that we would be staying there. We joined the other participants in setting up the tents.

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We were planning to have a barbecue with the other family for tonight. A fourth-grader kid was there with her parents, and she and her mother were in charge of chopping veggies and meat with knives, while uncles and adult men prepared the griddle and other stuff.

    We started preparing as the western sun began to shine, and ate grilled meat and veggies on the griddle as it began to fade. Then we cleaned up, and it was time to look at the constellations.

    Yuuko’s father appeared to be the teacher of the hour as he stepped forward to explain various things about the stars and the universe, sketching figures and numbers on an illuminated whiteboard with a magic marker.

    “Do you know how fast light travels?”

    He then scribbled “approximately 300,000 kilometres per second,” on the whiteboard as the children’s voices echoed.

    “How quickly is it to orbit the Earth seven and a half times per second? It’s a ridiculously fast speed, however, we use it to calculate the distance between stars in the vast cosmos. A light year is a unit of measurement that represents the distance light travels in years. 10 light years, for example, is the distance that light travels in ten years.”

    On the whiteboard, he then drew a slightly deformed triangle.

    “There are three stars called the Summer Triangle that may be joined like this, try to find them,” he said, pointing to the distant starry sky with his finger and said. “Around there.”

    “Did you manage to discover it? Vega, the star at the top, is twenty-five light years away from Earth…” As he spoke, he drew a circle on the whiteboard with Earth written on it, connected it to Vega with a straight line, and wrote “twenty-five light years” next to the line.

    “How long did it take the light to reach our eyes?”

    “Twenty-five years,” a boy’s voice replied to his question.

    “Yes. That’s why the light we’re seeing now came from that star 25 years ago.”

    Baffled, the children’s voices echoed through his explanation.

    “Which one? I’m not sure.” Yuuko, who was seated next to me, said. “That one.” I replied, tracing a triangle with my finger.

    “Oh, that. Thanks.”

    I nodded and stared at Vega.

    The light I see now is the light from twenty-five years ago. It has been travelling through the cosmos since long before I was born, and I am witnessing it right here. It seemed unusual to consider it in that manner.

    “By the way, how long ago do you think this universe was created?”

    Nobody answered Uncle’s following question. He continued, after a few seconds of silence, “It is estimated to be around 14 billion years old. It is believed that there was a kind of explosion known as the Big Bang, and that it has since propagated at the speed of light.”

    I tried to imagine 14 billion years and a universe that was expanding at the rate of seven and a half times the speed of the earth per second, but my mind couldn’t keep up.

    Such a question arose unexpectedly. The uncle chuckled and casually lifted his hands, as if to say, he gave up. “I’m not sure. Everyone can conceive their own approach,” he answered, drawing laughter from the grownups surrounding him.

    For a time, I stared at the starry sky, wondering how the universe began, how light came into existence, and how the speed of light had reached 300,000 kilometres per second. Then I felt an unexplainable unease, as if the footing that had been there had suddenly vanished and I was being pulled into the bottomless nothingness beyond the sky, and I frantically shook my head to clear my mind.

    “What’s wrong?”

    Yuuko asked, tilting her head to look at me. With a timid smile, I responded, “It’s nothing.”

    Following Yuuko’s father’s talk, an astronomer showed each of the children the moon through a large astronomical telescope. I was delighted when I could plainly observe the moon’s bumpy surface.

    After that, we had some free time until it was time to go to bed. I sat in the midst of the plaza with Yuuko and her father, having a drink, as there was a space in the middle of the area where we could make a fire. We chatted about our schools and cram schools as we threw twigs into the fire and watched them burn, and he listened intently.

    It was great to look at the night sky and the moon, but I found it more intriguing to watch the three of us carefully light a fire. With a crackling sound, the fire swayed and the burning wood slowly converted to charcoal. As I could occasionally hear night birds and insects chirping.

    We entered the tent around 10 o’clock in the night. The sleeping tents were separated into men’s and women’s sections, and I joined a group of boys and uncles I didn’t know, spreading down the sleeping bag I’d bought. I was so exhausted that when the lantern light went out, I fell asleep easily amidst the buzzing of the night insects.

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After breakfast the next day, we left the campground and hiked to a lookout point high in the mountains.

    It was a beautiful day, and the view from the observatory was beautiful. White clouds were floating in the blue sky as I could see a city stretched out in the distance.

    While the women were conversing on the observatory seats and the children ran around, Yuuko, I, and her father were standing along the fence in front of the cliff, taking in the sight.

    As I gazed at the city, which appeared smaller, the clouds, which were much closer than normal, and the dense green of the mountains, I felt a chilly but gentle touch on my hand.

    I looked at her hand, surprised, and saw that Yuuko was grasping mine. I attempted to glance at Yuuko’s face, but she kept her head down.

    Her father was nearby staring down at the city through his binoculars, saying something like, “Oh.”

    “What’s wrong?”

    “It’s too high,” Yuuko said when I asked her. I felt it was scary, so I continued to hold Yuuko’s hand, worried.

    Yuuko suddenly released my hand when the uncle lowered his binoculars.

    “Take a look, Yuuko and the others.”

    “Uh, yeah.”

    Yuuko, as if in a panic, lifted her newly put-on face, grabbed the binoculars from her father, and began to gaze at the scenery. Even more perplexing was the fact that Yuuko didn’t appear to be scared of heights now when she exclaimed, “Wow!”

    I could still feel Yuuko’s hand in my hand, which was slightly colder than my body temperature, as if it were an illusion. I felt a burning sensation deep in my chest as I saw her with her backpack on her back and her short hair braided.

    Then we ate the lunch that the attendants had prepared for us and descended the mountain. By the time the sun went down, the whole event had ended, and I asked her father to drive me back to my apartment. Yuuko appeared to be asleep, with her head down in a clammy position.

    I’d been told to call her when I arrived home, so I did so in the vehicle, using the smartphone I’d taken with me.

    I stepped out of the car when we arrived in front of the apartment building, thanking Yuuko and her father for waking me up. My mother, who was there, placed her hand on my shoulder and thanked him, saying, “Thank you very much,” before asking him, “I hope he didn’t cause you any problem.”

    “No way. I also had a good time talking with Yukinari-kun. I don’t often get to chat with boys my daughter’s age―― Then, see you later, Yukinari-kun.”

    The uncle said this to me before returning to his car. Just as I was about to say “See you later” to Yuuko, the passenger window opened and she looked out.

    “See you later, Yukinari-kun.” she said with a smile.

    I waved my hand, my heart was pounding for some reason. The vehicle then began to drive away, straight into the driveway and out.

    “Yuuko-chan’s father is a good man,” my mother said. Then, pushing me, she said, “Come on, let’s go back home.” We then entered the apartment building, took the elevator to the fifth floor, and entered the house.

    Dinner had already been prepared and was waiting on the table. I cleaned my hands and sat down at the table with my mum to eat. My mother kept asking me questions about the camp the whole time.

    “Did you have fun?”

    “Yes.”

    “What did you do that night?”

    “Staring at constellations, looking through a telescope at the lumpy parts of the moon.”

    “Oh, that’s great. Ah, Did you express your gratitude to Yuuko’s father for everything?”

    “I did.”

    We continued to converse in this manner, and then I took a bath. As I bathed in the warm water, I became tired and drowsy all of a sudden. I was almost asleep in the bath as I cleaned my body and hair, got ready for night, and rushed back to my room to go to bed.

    I was meditating, feeling the lethargy in my legs, when I suddenly felt Yuuko’s hand come back to me. My heart began to pound again at that instant, exactly like it had before. But I wasn’t nervous or excited; instead, I felt soft and serene, which was unusual.

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The camp had ended a few days before, and the Olympic Games were just a few days away. My mother had not yet returned home from work that evening, so I ate dinner alone in front of the television. Then, in the midst of the celebrations for the medal win, Yuuko’s father’s face appeared.

    <A local industry-academia collaborative research group led by Professor Fukuhara Shohei of Japan’s Tokyo University of Advanced Science and Technology began developing a new sort of quantum computer two years ago. So far, the development has gone smoothly, and the group hopes to put it to use within the next five years. The new D-F quantum computer is expected to make significant breakthroughs in physics and computational science during the project, as new discoveries are discovered not only in applications after development, but also during development. Fujisawa Yoshihide, a Japanese physicist, proposed the idea that provided the foundation for this world-renowned research 10 years ago…>

    Following this narration, a video interview with the uncle was aired. He was talking in a courteous tone of voice while drawing something on the whiteboard, but I wasn’t sure what he was expressing.

    However, it appeared that the same was true for the people on TV, the newscasters, who were arguing with each other. “I’m not sure how you feel about it, but I’m impressed. I’m delighted to see Japanese people excelling not just in athletics but also in science and technology.”

    I had no idea what the uncle was researching into, but I knew Yuuko’s father was a man who was doing something incredible that would make the headlines.

    I had no idea that uncle was such an amazing person. The prospect of knowing such a person made me feel somewhat happy.

    I told Yuuko about it at the following cram session. Yuuko then told me what her father had said to her. “‘Your perspective on the world may alter dramatically in your lifetime, Yuuko.’ That’s exactly what my father said. He stated that humans in the future may have to go through changes that no one in history has ever experienced.”

    “Really?”

    I don’t know, but it’s amazing.

    “It’s amazing. I wonder what’s going to happen.”

    “Dad wrote a book, and he said I’d understand if I read it. Oh, but…”

    “Do you think I’ll understand?”

    “He mentioned that he wrote it so that people with a high school degree could read it. However, it may still be challenging for us.”

    “That’s not gonna work.”

    Despite my disappointment, I headed to the science books area of the bookstore on my way home from cram school that day. After some searching, I found the name “Fukuhara Shohei.”

[Advanced Studies in Modern Physics: The Development of Interpretive Problems in the Twenty-first Century and the Framed World――]

    The only word I could make out from the title was “understanding well.” I leafed through the book. The book was written in a spoken language, with many drawings and images, and it appeared to be more simple to read than I had anticipated.

    However, when I turned it over and looked at the pricing, I saw that it was 1,500 yen. When I peered at it, I was reluctant. My summer vacation money would be significantly reduced. I couldn’t ask my mother for additional money because she had already given me some while I went camping.

    I was browsing the wonderful graphics and pictures as I flipped through them. I began to crave it more and more as I pondered whether I should buy it or not.

    I made my decision, took it, and proceeded to the checkout.

    When the clerk handed me the book in a paper bag, I felt excited and happy, and I was glad I had purchased it. I was certain I wouldn’t understand, but I hoped that with the aid of the teachers at the school or the uncle himself, I may be able to figure it out. When I question Yuuko’s father about it, I’ll make sure to have him autograph his name on the book as well.

    My allowance had been cut, but I could live with the sweets and drink. I strolled down the street with my books in my bag to my house.

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