Strange Memories With You, My Dear

Chapter 01.02

Unknowable Memories

Translated by KuroNeko
Edited by Omkar

I walked out to the field after school, changed from my sneakers to my uppers, and bent forward slightly to stretch my leg muscles.

    Previously, all the students wore long sleeves, but today, many of them wore short sleeves. I, too, felt the cool breeze blowing on my arms, which had been covered by the fabric for so long. Students from the soccer and tennis clubs walk out of their respective club rooms one by one.

    We, the track and field team mostly use the rear part of the playground as our own area. In that area, there is also a 100-meter track and a sandbox for long jumping. A square concrete building was there divided into three rooms: one for equipment and the other two for men’s and women’s dressing rooms. This is also where we stretch and hold meetings.

    I heard footsteps and turned to see Sugitani Mineko, a long-distance athlete, walk out of the women’s dressing room. She nodded her head and sent me a greeting gesture, dressed in running shorts that looked to only cover her waist and short-sleeved exercise clothing. I returned the nod as well. We were both on the same junior high school track team before. So we’ve been together for almost five years.

    Mineko sat down around a metre away from me on the blue sheet in front of the clubroom.

    “How did the midterm go?” I called out to her.

    “Nothing special. The same as before.”

    “Oh. Is that to say you’re the top student in science subjects again this time, too?”

    “I don’t know. I didn’t ask for the rankings.”

    I’ve always enjoyed reading science books, and I’ve always scored in the top ten in my class in physics and mathematics. I enjoy reading physics books in paperback and new books, technical commentary, and science fiction novels. In comparison, what was written in the science textbooks at the school appeared easy. The other subjects were average. It’s sometimes good, sometimes awful. I once got a red dot in World History because I was irresponsible and slacked off on my studies, therefore I’m not a particularly serious or intelligent guy.

    “What about you?”

    “It went up a lot. In English, I received 30 points.”

    “It’s only because the previous one was so awful.”

    When I told her, she laughed, jokingly said, “Awful,” and tapped me on the shoulder. I laughed along with the flow.

    It took me over six months to get back to her and to this point in our relationship. We’d known one another since junior high, and throughout the years we’d become close, almost like best friends, but I broke it off last year.

    In a nutshell, I asked her out, and she rejected me.

    After months of worrying, weeks of pondering, and days of preparing and practising to convey my feelings as honestly as possible, a ten-second silence fell, and she awkwardly and apologetically said, “Sorry. I still have a few years of club activity ahead of me… But we will always be friends, as we have always been.”

    It wasn’t so much the words of denial as it was the pained look on her face when she spoke them that broke my heart. And every time I reflected on it, it was what made me feel more and more anguish later on. Whenever we encountered one other at club activities or elsewhere, it was awkward, and we seldom spoke to each other for a while.

    Even if I tried, the memory of that exchange was difficult to erase, and there were moments when I would suddenly recall and ponder her words.

    The words “I still have a year of club activities left” were the most perplexing to me when I thought about it. During those restless nights, I couldn’t stop thinking about that interpretation. I assumed it meant she couldn’t date me while she was involved in club activities because it would interfere with her other relationships, but she could date me after she retired from club activities, so I had a glimmer of hope despite my shock and sadness, but after I was promoted to third-year, Mineko started to date a guy named Satou from the basketball team.

    When I found out about it, I was surprised, but not as surprised as I expected to be. It had been a long time since I had been rejected, and the awkwardness that had been hanging between us had gradually faded, and we were getting back together. Or maybe it was that my own feelings for her, in terms of a male-female relationship, had become much more distant than when I had confessed my feelings to her.

    But every now and again, when I envision Mineko and Satou holding hands or doing whatever, I get a strange sense of confusion. I’m meant to be blown away, but for some reason, I’m not.

    ――Adolescent Confusion

    I’m certain it is. Everything will be OK. My club activities will end in about a month, and I’ll most likely be focusing solely on studying for examinations after that. After that, a new life will begin, my university life, which I can’t even imagine what it would be like. But I am sure that my thoughts and memories of what is passing will fade away with time.

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The prefectural track and field meet was scheduled for early June this year. Third-year students who lost in the regional tournament in April are retired, but they attend practise sessions until the prefectural tournament, performing mild physical training and cheering on the surviving participants. Some of my classmates, like the seniors I’d seen in the past, attended the club activities that day. In the prefectural championships, I ran the 100 metres and Mineko raced the 3,000 metres.

    After the entire group had stretched enough, they were separated into their respective events and began practising. Thigh lifts, followed by track training with a ladder and mini-hurdles. We practised starting with the starting blocks and then ran a few hundred metres after a quick break. The retired third-year students acted as starters and stopwatch staff for the second part of practise. After exercising until around 6:30 p.m. The entire group then jogged and stretched again before gathering around the advisor to say “Thank you for your hard work,” and then dismissed.

    The boys changed outside, while the girls in the clubroom, which was right next to the equipment room. I changed out of my training clothes, wiped away my sweat with a towel, and put on a shirt and slacks while I watched the soccer team’s game-style practise in the centre of the playground with the other male members of the club.

    It was already becoming dark outside. The sun had gone down, and the clouds in the western sky had become a reddish-black tint. The shadows from while I was at the club have faded into the darkness.

    I grabbed my stuff and, after a little conversation with the third-year short-distance club member, we began walking together towards the station. I noticed Mineko and Satou standing about talking as I went out of the school gate, as if they had been waiting for me. They weren’t standing next to one other, but they were holding hands.

    “Oh, Nakayama,” Satou called out to me when he spotted me before I could even think about it. When I was a freshman, he and I were in the same class, so whenever we saw each other, we would at least stand around and talk.

    “O-oh Satou.”

    I was a little upset, but I managed to respond. I casted a sidelong glance towards Mineko. Long, thin limbs, typical of a long-distance runner, protruded from her summer attire. Her hair, which had been tangled while participating in club activities, had been loosened and was now hanging straight down her back.

    I couldn’t see her expression well since it was barely lit, but “Good work, Yukki,” Mineko said in her usual tone, referring to me by the nickname used by the club friends. She used to call me “Nakayama-kun” until middle school, but when we started high school, she changed my name to a new moniker she had made for herself.

    “Good work.” 

    “Let’s go,” I said, motioning for the rest of the group to walk. “See you later,” they also said farewell to Mineko. I was slightly irritated. I don’t know how to talk to someone who once rejected me while holding hands with her boyfriend and looking happy. I’ve known Mineko for a long time, yet I still do not know what she’s thinking.

    A tea plantation was located just beyond the school’s gates. I walked between them and caught the train from the station just off the main street to the five-stop train station nearest to my house. At this time of day, the trains were packed with high school students and workers heading home, and there was rarely room to sit. I stood near the entrance and stared out the window in  a daze, my face expressionless. The countryside of farms and the lively residential sector with high-rise apartment complexes co-existed in this area. I’d run for a while in front of a dark forested region just as I believed I was staring at the sparkling scenery in front of the station.

    I eventually arrived at the nearest station, Irisawa-station. A small station surrounded by convenience stores, taverns, and flower shops. My residence was roughly about a five-minute bicycle ride away. I rode my bike back to my apartment late at night, left it in the bike parking lot with the warm-coloured lights turned on, and took the elevator to the fifth floor. I quickly took a shower to get rid of the sweat, heated some leftover curry, ate dinner by myself, and fell on my bed in my room.

    It was quite silent. I closed my eyes, exhausted from the day’s work, and felt the softness of the bedding on my back. I then felt a faint ringing in my ears and saw Mineko walking with Satou in the darkness behind my eyelids, and then I saw the image of the girl from my dreams.

    What if, I thought.

    I wonder what my life would have been like if I had met her like in my dreams. In my dreams, I always seemed to have fun talking and playing with her and the other children around me.

    When I thought about it, my existing existence seemed dull and faded. It’s not that I don’t feel fulfilled every day, but the girl I liked rejected me, and I’m not the type of person who can make a mess of things, so I’m not particularly having fun in my high school life.

    I opened my eyes. White walls and ceiling, a desk I’ve been using since junior high, a laptop, a bookcase full of books and periodicals, and a magazine rack. It was the same room as usual.

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The next Sunday night, I saw in the news that the amusement park in the next town over had decided to close.

    My mother had gone out to dinner with her friends, so I had to have dinner by myself. After that, I walked to my room and started up my laptop to check a news website. That’s when I came upon the article.

    According to reports, only the famous swimming pool will remain, but the old amusement park section will be demolished to make way for a new entertainment complex with an emphasis on event spaces that will use cutting-edge AR and VR technology.

    The amusement park had been around for a long time and was well known among the locals. I used to hear my elementary school friends talk about how they went there with their families or how they went to the pool with their friends during summer vacation when I was in elementary school.

    I moved my hand from the mouse, reached for a glass of iced coffee, and took a sip. My cheap desk chair made a squeaking sound when I leaned back in it.

    ――There, it will be destroyed.

    I had never been there before. I’d passed by it a few times, but I’d never been inside, at least not yet. Of course, I have no memory of anything about it.

    And yet, somehow, that article stayed with me.

    I reached for my laptop’s keyboard and searched for and accessed the amusement park website. And then when I was looking at the page introducing the facility, I got a strange sensation of déjà vu. It was a first look at the park’s swimming pool.

    There was a wave pool, a flowing pool, and a water slide. As I glanced through the images, recollections of myself as a child playing there flashed through my mind. The impression of lukewarm water that has been warmed by the summer sun. A dribble of water, the chirping of the cicadas and the bright sunlight.

    I closed my eyes and waited for the image to fade from my mind.

    It was a very real memory that seemed to bring back even the senses. But this amusement park’s pool was where my friends from school and neighborhood used to go every summer vacation, so I’m sure that what I imagined from their stories stayed in my head.

    I thought about it and closed my laptop.

    Even the faint sound of my laptop’s fan was gone, and I was struck by the sensation of loss that I had usually felt in the silent nighttime room.

    In my mind, I envied myself for playing in the pool. I spent my summer vacation by myself, reading and doing homework. I occasionally went to the mall, game store, or bookstore with my neighbourhood friends, but I don’t have many recollections of an elementary school summer vacation. However, because of the many scientific books for children that I read at the time, I was able to save a significant amount of money in my subsequent study of science subjects.

    I was thinking about this when my phone started ringing. I opened my messaging app and read a message from a track team acquaintance.

    <We’re practicing with the long-distance team. Why don’t you come too? Mineko is here too>

    A pretty irritating graphic of a character giving a thumbs up was attached to the end of the message.

    Although it is unknown that I was rejected, among the guys on the track and field team, they think I am still in love with Mineko. It was too much of a hassle to explain everything, so I just left it at that.

    The club was closed on Sunday, and I had done no physical activity all day. Looking at the clock, It was not yet eight o’clock. My apartment was approximately a twenty-minute bike ride away from the park where they were exercising. I decided to go, changed into my training clothes, put on my wrist watch wearable device, packed my towel and wallet in my sports bag, and left the home.

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