Wishing World 3
When I came to, Nazuna was in front of my face, staring down at me.
“Every night must come to dawn; the sun will surely rise,”
Wistfully, you sighed to me back then
I recognized where I was. Ah… This part… I’m back here now.
Unlike my first and second visits to the wishing worlds, in the third world, I felt a clear and immediate sense of having “come back.”
The inside of the Moshimo Railway car gently swayed back and forth, keeping time with the click-clack of its wheels against the track. From the window, I saw the crimson-tinged sky of early sunset. Nazuna had begun to sing.
It wasn’t a nagging sense of familiarity; I knew I had been there before.
“My mom always sings this at karaoke. It’s by some lady named Seiko Matsuda. I’ve heard it so many times since I was little that I know it all by heart.”
“…Huh. I had no idea…”
I clearly remembered having given a vague response like that before.
Troubled times, they come and go
And some days hope feels thin
But I know that all is not so bleak
Always your hand reaches out and comforts me
Lends me strength
To carry on
As I listened to Nazuna’s song, I thought about what had occurred. The whole situation was like a movie I’d randomly found on TV…
What was the name again? The Girl Who Leapt… Something like that…
It was the story of a girl who kept repeating the same day over and over again. I didn’t know if that was the kind of thing happening to me. But every time I made a wish and threw the orb…
Huh?
I flexed my left hand and realized something felt different. I looked down to confirm: It was empty. The wishing orb was gone… I felt certain that the last time I’d been on the train with Nazuna, I’d been holding it in my left hand.
Of course, the first and second time I’d gone back, the orb had returned to Nazuna. I looked at her hands, but she wasn’t holding anything, either. It wasn’t in my pockets. Had it rolled off somewhere? I flitted my gaze around the interior of the railcar but didn’t catch sight of anything resembling the orb.
“Hey! Are you listening?”
Nazuna had finished singing and sat back down beside me.
“Um, that, uh…orb from before…”
“Orb?”
“You know, that thing you said you found in the ocean…”
“Oh, that. I think I dropped it just before we got on the train.”
“Oh… Is that what happened…?”
I remembered the orb flying from Nazuna’s hand when she’d tried to shake the man’s grip on her arm. It had seemed to fall to the ground in slow motion, and the instant it hit the rough, graveled surface of the platform, I’d burst into a run.
Then I’d grabbed Nazuna’s hand, and we’d jumped onto the train…
Maybe the orb had some kind of limit? Maybe it could only be thrown three times, and only three wishing worlds could be visited. I had no idea how such a rule would have been decided, or by whom, but maybe it was like a pass with a limited number of rides.
If so, did that mean I was stuck in this world? That I couldn’t go anywhere else?
“It was at my dad’s spot. The place I picked that up.”
“Huh?”
“The place where my dad…washed up…”
When she started to talk about her dad, my heart skipped a beat.
It wasn’t long after this… Pretty soon we’ll…
I strained my ears.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
The sound of the train crossing was growing louder.
“Get down!”
“Huh? Why?”
“Just do it!”
Nazuna hesitated. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her down with me, so we were both hunched over with our heads against our knees.
“What are you doing?!”
A bit of panic had crept into Nazuna’s voice, but I didn’t have time to address that now. I prayed for the train to hurry through the crossing.
The clanging of the bells began to die down, replaced by the calm click-clack of the train. I lifted myself up and peered out the rear window. My friends were crossing the tracks. I could see Junichi and Minoru quaking with laughter as they poked fun at Kazuhiro. Yusuke stopped walking for a moment and seemed to look in our direction. But there was no way he could see us from that distance… I felt sure we were okay.
We’ve cleared Yusuke. The next hurdle is…
“Huh?! Mom?!”
Nazuna had noticed a small car running along a road just inland from the train tracks.
I saw Nazuna’s mother sitting on the passenger side and the man in the driver’s seat. The woman was saying something while pointing at the train. The car picked up speed and started to pull ahead.
“What do we do? …They’re going to be waiting for us at the next station. I’m sure of it… They’re going to catch us again…”
“No. I think we’re gonna be okay…”
“Huh?”
Just then, the train let out an earsplitting whine and began to veer off to the right.
“Whoa!”
“Ahh!”
We both lost our balance. I tumbled to the floor, and Nazuna collapsed onto the seat.
The Moshimo Railway track ran in one nearly straight line from the city to its final stop at Moshimo Station. Yet, the train we were riding had just made a turn almost ninety degrees to the right. The track I knew didn’t have any tight curves like that.
The inside of the car continued to sway side to side, but I managed to regain my footing. I looked out the window. The long, straight road where the car had been was receding into the distance. The train was now heading toward the bay—directly through the lines of trees that had been planted along our coast to protect against future tsunamis.
So this is how we avoid capture at the lighthouse station.
With the train veering away from the road, Nazuna’s mother would no longer be able to catch us by car. I breathed a sigh. We’d avoided our failure in the previous world. But my relief was soon cut short by Nazuna.
“Norimichi, something’s weird…”
Her eyes were wide as she stared out the window.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look.”
I followed her finger to the lines of trees along the coast.
Our social studies teacher had explained them to us. Moshimo had chosen a species called black pine for the project. Black pine trees grew straight and tall, and they withstood pollution and salty environments well, making them perfectly suited for use as a breakwater. But as if that entire lesson had been a lie, the hundreds of black pines before us now had gnarled, twisted trunks.
It was just like the grotesque fireworks we’d seen in the world before.
“What’s going on…?”
“I don’t know…” But even as I said it, an inkling of understanding was forming in my mind.
Among the different wishing worlds I’d traversed, I’d encountered flat fireworks, weirdly shaped fireworks, round Watermelon Bars, and wind turbines that spun backward… There had always been something different from the world I’d started out in.
And in this wishing world, too, the scenes and shapes I was used to had changed. Things that were supposed to be round became flat; things that were supposed to be straight were bent and twisted… That must have been why the trunks of the pine trees were gnarled and the usually straight train tracks had bent into a sharp curve.
But if so, then where was this train headed?
As I was pondering the question, the grove of strange trees began to thin.
The train pitched slightly forward, and Nazuna and I experienced a brief moment of weightlessness. Out the front window, beyond the operator’s seat, there was nothing in sight but the sea.
“Huh…?”
My weight shifted again as the train leveled out. It continued forward, sliding across the surface of the water as an ice skater might glide across a rink. The familiar, persistent click-clack was gone, and the inside of the train was visited by a tranquil silence.
“Is this for real…?”
“…Are we…riding across the surface of the water?”
“…Seems that way.”
Moshimo Beach came into view just outside the window.
It was filled with bustling crowds of people waiting for the fireworks to begin. Beyond them were the strings of lights of the vendor stalls. Through the windows on the other side of the car, we could see Moshimo Island rising from the middle of the bay. On it were the figures of what must have been the fireworks crew.
In this world, the train appeared to run along the surface of the water, cutting right through the center of Moshimo Bay…
Does that mean the train is heading for…?
Suddenly, things seemed to click. I thought I understood why the wishing orb was missing from this world. I’d repeated a single day over and over, visiting wishing worlds where one important change had been made. I felt certain we had come to the last of those worlds.
Previously, I’d thrown the orb from the top of the lighthouse. I’d wished “If only! If only Nazuna and I could be together!!” That wish had come true. I’d been able to avoid Yusuke and Nazuna’s mother, and the two of us were still together at that moment.
But when I’d made that wish, I’d forgotten to add one important detail.
I should have wished instead:
If only! If only Nazuna and I could be together forever!!
“What… What’s going on…?”
Nazuna stood with her face near the window. She watched the beach roll by.
I approached her and said matter-of-factly, “…It’s because I threw that orb.”
“Huh?”
“The orb you picked up at your dad’s spot.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“…If… Just hear me out. If that orb was some kind of wish-granting orb, and if throwing it let you go back to any time or place you wanted…where would you go?”
“That’s absurd. Why would it do that?”
“I’m just saying what if that was true. What would you do?”
“…How am I supposed to answer a question like that right out of the blue…? I don’t know.”
“Would you go back to before your dad died?”
“Huh…?”
“I mean, what I’m trying to say is that…I already threw it…earlier…”
“…When?”
“Well, I mean…I threw it a bunch of times.”
“…You did?”
“After school, at the fork in the road near your house. When your mom found you and dragged you away.”
“…Huh?”
“That was the first time I threw it.”
“Hold on a minute. What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“No. When did that happen?”
“Today.”
“Today?”
“In the evening.”
“It’s evening right now. And when my mom caught me and was about to drag me away, we were at the station. Just a little while ago.”
“No, I’m talking about the first wishing world… I’m trying to tell you. We’ve been repeating this day over and over. Don’t you remember?”
“You’re not making any sense. Norimichi, are you feeling okay?”
“It’s ’cause I threw that orb…”
“…”
“Do you believe me?”
“…”
“…You’re right. This sounds completely insane, doesn’t it?”
“…Explain it again. From the beginning.”
“Okay… You invited me to the fireworks display because I beat Yusuke when we raced in the pool, right?”
“…That’s right.”
“But really, I lost to Yusuke.”
“…”
“At first, you invited Yusuke to go see the fireworks.”
“Azumi? Ew. I would never invite him.”
“But you did. You invited Yusuke instead of me. And after school, you went to Yusuke’s house. But he stood you up, and I ended up going to his house instead… And then, we were walking together, and you got caught by your mom, and I picked up the orb when you dropped it and just hurled it as hard as I could, wishing, ‘If only I’d won against Yusuke in the race’… And everything around me started to go all whoooooosh…”
“‘Whoooooosh’?”
“Or maybe not so much whoooooosh as like…nyeeeeeew…”
“Those aren’t even words.”
“I’m trying to explain! …Anyway, so after that, I found myself in the pool again, swimming…and that time I won…and you invited me, and so we were gonna go to the fireworks display together…but then…”
“Then you stood me up instead?”
“No, I didn’t! …A bunch of stuff happened, but when we were about to get on the train, you were dragged away again. By your mom and her fiancé…”
“And then?”
“And I ended up going to the lighthouse to see the fireworks with Yusuke and the guys. But the fireworks we saw were flat, and…it just wasn’t right. Fireworks aren’t supposed to be flat. I figured the world I was in was the wrong one, and so I threw the orb again, wishing, ‘If only I could have gotten on that train with Nazuna.’”
“…And?”
“And we managed to get on the train, but that time, Yusuke and the others saw us, and your mom was chasing us, too. We ran away from everyone, all the way to the lighthouse… But when the fireworks started, they weren’t round—and they weren’t flat. They were this super-weird, wiggly shape, and so I figured that world wasn’t right, either…”
“So you threw it again?”
“Yeah…”
“What did you wish for that time?”
“Huh? Um…well…I, uh…”
“Say it.”
“Uh… Okay, so…I said, ‘If only…Nazuna and I…’”
“What? I can’t hear you.”
“…All right! ‘If only Nazuna and I could be together!!’”
“…”
“…That’s what I was wishing when I threw it…”
“…And now we’re here?”
“…Yeah.”
“Well, what about the train? Why’s it running over the water?”
“I don’t know exactly how it all works, but…in the last world, your mom was waiting for us at the lighthouse station, so…”
“So the train went in a different direction for us?”
“That’s what I think… I know it sounds unbelievable…a story like this…”
“…Does that mean you created the world we’re in now?”
“No, I didn’t exactly create it. It’s just that in these, um, wishing worlds, as I keep calling them, things are always a little different than they were before. Like, the fireworks become flat—or weird shaped, I guess. I don’t really know…”
“Huh…”
“That’s why I was asking you.”
“What?”
“If you could go back to some point in time, where would you go?”
“Huh?”
“I mean… I was thinking. The place where you picked that orb up… It was, um… It was the place you last saw your dad, right?”
“Yeah…?”
“The orb came to me, and I ended up throwing it a bunch of times, but…what if that orb was really a gift to you? What if it was from your dad…? I mean, I’m not saying there’s, like, a ghost or a spirit hanging around, but, um…what if there’s some world beyond our own, where your dad is waiting to reunite with you…?”
“Huh? Are you saying we’re being called to the afterworld?”
“No, no, I’m just… How should I put it…? If… If that day at the ocean, your dad hadn’t…”
“If he hadn’t died?”
“…Yeah.”
“…”
“…”
“…I wouldn’t go back.”
“Huh?”
“I miss my dad. I feel lonely now that he’s gone, and sometimes I really want to see him again, but…”
“Yeah…?”
“But if I tried to go back to that moment, I think it would make him sad.”
“…Why?”
“’Cause I already see him and talk to him, whenever I go to that spot on the beach.”
“…”
“Whenever I have some good news or whenever something bad happens, I always go there. I talk to my dad and tell him about everything that’s happened.”
“…”
“And when I do, I can hear him. My dad’s voice floats to me in the sound of the waves, from somewhere beyond the ocean. It always tells me the same thing.”
“…What does it say?”
“‘Live.’”
“Huh?”
“He says, ‘Live.’ Just that one word, every time.”
“…”
“I heard it this morning, too.”
“…”
“That’s how I know I’m doing okay.”
“…”
“I’m doing okay, Norimichi.”
“…”
“…Huh? Are you crying?”
“…I’m not crying.”
“You are, aren’t you?! Look over here!”
“I don’t want to!”
“Look at me.”
Nazuna grabbed my shoulders and turned me toward her. I didn’t know how long the tears had been streaming down my face. Not wanting her to see, I tucked my chin against my chest.
“You know what else…?” Nazuna continued.
“What?” I snapped, a bit defensively.
I wiped my face with the backs of my hands. When I looked at Nazuna, I saw the large droplets that had welled up in the corners of her eyes. Then they were streaming down her cheeks.
“If I went back a whole year, I’d be shorter than you again.”
As she cried, she flashed me a radiant smile.
Of all the expressions I’d seen as I’d looked up into Nazuna’s face that day, that one was by far the most beautiful.
When the train had cut all the way across Moshimo Bay, it veered again suddenly. The brakes screeched, and our speed fell. We slowly rolled to a stop.
The station we’d arrived at…was Moshimo Station.
In this world, the Moshimo Railway line seemed to run not in a straight line but in a large circle, looping endlessly around the same locations. I’d never ridden on the Yamanote loop in Tokyo, nor had I even seen it in person, but I’d heard about it. Maybe the line we’d just ridden was like a tiny version of the Yamanote Line.
The doors opened, and Nazuna and I stepped out onto the platform.
“We’re back where we started.”
“Yup.”
I scanned the ground, wondering if the wishing orb was lying somewhere nearby. I couldn’t see it anywhere.
“Looks like the train can’t take us away anymore,” Nazuna said.
“Yeah…”
“Because you threw the orb.”
“Seems that way…”
I aimlessly looked up at the sky. Just the slightest hint of orange still lingered there among the indigo expanse.
Pretty soon, the fireworks display would begin—the last fireworks display of the day.
We headed out from the unmanned ticket gate. Leaning against the station building was my bike. I couldn’t help but laugh.
There had been a time when Nazuna and I were on that bike together, riding to the station. I didn’t know exactly when it had happened anymore; I just knew that it felt like a long time ago. Back then, I’d had no idea where I was going. I’d just pedaled as hard as I could. But now, neither Yusuke nor Nazuna’s mother was chasing us anymore, and the worn-out bike was still there, as if it had been patiently waiting for our return. I stood it up and motioned to Nazuna.
“Shall we?”
“Let’s.”
We followed the leisurely slope down to the sea. As we rode, we looked around at the strange sights that world had to offer. Like the black pines we’d seen along the coast, the trees growing along the roadside were gnarled and twisted. The walls of the old homes lining the road were not straight but instead bulged outward, like a scene I remembered from a picture book about a house made of gingerbread.
The wind turbines still stood along the mountain ridge, but their propellers now had odd, compounded layers of blades, some spinning vertically and others horizontally. The moon, which hung just above the mishmash assortment of propellers, was a weird, wiggly shape, not unlike the fireworks from the last world.
“Norimichi.” Nazuna’s voice came from behind.
“What is it?”
“Was this whole world created by you?”
“I dunno. I guess so. Maybe.”
“It’s like the world in Alice in Wonderland.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“It’s like I’m Alice, and you’re the White Rabbit. Don’t you think so?”
“Huh?”
“Hey, and the White Rabbit threw something, too. Just like you. What was it, again…? A stone? Or some kind of orb?”
I’d heard the title before, and I had some vague idea of what the story was about. But ever since I was old enough to remember, I’d been reading Shonen Jump comics. The kinds of books girls read were foreign to me.
“How does that story end?” I asked her.
“Huh?”
“Like, there’s a girl named Alice, and she goes to some strange wonderland, right?”
“Obviously.”
“Cut it out! I’m trying to ask you how things turn out for Alice.”
“…Hmmm, what did happen to her? I forgot.”
For a while after that, we rode in silence.
Everything we saw in that world seemed strange. But at least one thing hadn’t changed: the refreshing ocean breeze that cut its way through the muggy summer air as we rode.
It was the same breeze that had greeted me that morning as I zoomed off from my house and down the slope leading to the sea. As the thought occurred to me, my heart was suddenly stricken with a small, curious fear: Would I never return to what was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill summer day…?
I was enjoying my time with Nazuna, but what would happen to Yusuke and the others, and to my dad, my mom, everyone at school…? Would I never see them again? Would I never again have idle conversations with my friends, or be scolded by my mom, or play at school, or experience that beloved taste of curry left out overnight…?
“Hey, what if…?” Nazuna’s voice came from behind. “What if you threw that orb one more time and said you wanted to put things back the way they used to be? What would happen then?”
“Huh?!”
Can Nazuna read my mind in this world?
The idea plagued me for a moment, but I managed to regain my cool and respond. “I guess…the world would go back to how it used to be, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh…”
Perhaps Nazuna had been wondering the same things. A moment ago, she’d claimed she couldn’t remember what happened to Alice in the end, but based on how those kinds of stories usually went, I doubted the heroine ended up staying in Wonderland forever. I didn’t know how things turned out for Alice back in her real world, but it seemed Nazuna was contemplating our own outcome in terms of that story.
If she was right, then when Nazuna went back…
“But if I wished for that…,” I began.
“Hmm?”
“That would mean you’d be going away, wouldn’t it?”
“…”
“I don’t want that… If that’s what going back means, then I’d rather stay in this weird world, together with you.”
“…”
Nazuna remained silent.
The next words I wanted to say would have felt far too embarrassing if we’d been standing face-to-face, able to see each other’s eyes. But riding together on the bicycle, both facing forward, just maybe I’d be able to get my true feelings out. Maybe I’d be able to entrust my words to the ocean wind whipping by us, and that wind would carry them back to Nazuna’s ears.
I tried saying it inside my head once, for practice.
Nazuna… I…
No, I just couldn’t get it out! I couldn’t make the words come out!!
The bicycle came to the bottom of the slope. When we turned onto the road following the coastline, I finally heard her speak again.
“Hey, how about we go for a swim?”
Following Nazuna’s suggestion, I brought us to the far edge of Moshimo Beach.
We walked side by side as we descended the concrete steps leading down from the road. In the twilight, we had to carefully feel our way forward, checking each step with the toes of our shoes.
On the opposite edge of the crescent, we could see the lights of the vendor stalls and the crowds waiting for the fireworks to begin. Nearly the entire population of Moshimo seemed to be gathered there, enjoying the atmosphere.
“Wow. It’s true. Nobody comes to watch from this end of the beach.”
I couldn’t see Nazuna’s expression clearly, but her voice was strangely cheerful.
I felt the ground under my sneakers change from concrete to the wood of the boardwalk. I recognized exactly where we were. This was where I’d seen Nazuna at the water’s edge… We were standing at the place where she’d last seen her dad.
Mixed in with the bustle from the far edge of the beach was the quiet lapping sound of waves coming ashore.
Nazuna shuffled several steps down the boardwalk and began to take off her shoes.
“You’re not seriously going swimming, are you?”
Nazuna ignored me and hopped down from the boardwalk to the sand. When she was a little ways away, she turned in my direction.
Nazuna grabbed the hem of her black dress and slowly began lifting it over her head.
“!!”
Her figure was little more than a shadow. I couldn’t see clearly, save for the fact that the color enveloping her body had changed from black to a lustrous silver. It lit up her face ever so slightly, and I saw that she was looking at me—shy and bashful, but smiling.
I didn’t know what to do. As I averted my eyes, Nazuna turned away from me and began to run into the sea.
“Hey!!”
I found myself sprinting after her.
She ran in her bare feet. My sneakers sank into the sand with each step. The distance between us grew larger and larger.
Wait!
I started to shout, but my voice was drowned out by the splashing sounds of Nazuna’s legs kicking in the water. Eventually, those too faded, and I was left with only the same quiet lapping that had greeted us when we arrived at the water.
I was up to my ankles in water. My sneakers were soaked through. But I didn’t care. I was worried about Nazuna, now gone from my sight.
“Hey!! Nazuna!! Are you there?!”
The only thing I could see was the sea, pitch-black like spilled ink, quietly pushing against the shore.
Then, fifty feet out, Nazuna suddenly poked her head from the surface.
“!!”
Her long black hair clung to her face. She didn’t bother to pull it away. She stood straight up out of the ocean, looking off in some other direction.
Nazuna’s unexpected actions had left my body frozen, but finally I managed to call out, “Don’t do anything reckless!”
Nazuna still didn’t turn toward me. She looked up at the sky.
“Hey, Norimichi.”
“What?”
“What kind of fireworks do you think they have in this world?”
“Huh…?”
“Do you think they’ll be round? Or flat? Or some wiggly, weird shape?”
“Umm…”
The distance between us was frustrating. It felt so far from the water’s edge to where Nazuna floated out in the sea. I’d been through all those worlds where we had been pulled apart, and I’d rewound just as many times to get her back. At last, I’d found a world where we were alone, but…
No, wait… This might be my chance…
At this distance, where we couldn’t see each other’s faces, maybe I’d be able to finish saying what I’d tried to on the bike. No, I had to say it! Before the first firework went up!
“…Nazuna!”
My voice rang loud enough to surprise even me. Nazuna turned away from the sky to look my way.
“Huh?”
I’d managed to call out to her, and I had her attention, but the next words wouldn’t come.
“Um, never mind…”
“What is it?”
Soon the fireworks would start. We’d both look up, curious to know what shape they were. Their sparks would flicker as they fell across the night sky, and there would be light—enough for us to see each other’s faces again.
The thing I was trying to say was absolutely, categorically impossible for me to say to her face. I’d gone through the day performing all sorts of acts of courage. Stuff I never could have imagined myself doing. Stuff a hero in a comic book would do. But those actions all paled in comparison to this new task. The stress was on a whole other level.
“What is it? Say it.”
Nazuna’s tone had grown a bit more forceful.
I have to say it. Here I go. Just say it. Say it!
I waded a little farther into the water, hoping for Nazuna to hear me even a tiny bit more clearly.
“Nazuna! I—”
The whistle of a single, small firework interrupted me. It rose up directly behind Nazuna’s back, streaking into the night sky.
“!!”
“!!”
Nazuna and I both followed its course.
From our distance, the pace of the little ball of fire seemed leisurely, and its tail of light wavered as it climbed. Our eyes were pulled up with it, as if they were attached by strings.
It would be the first firework I’d seen from below that day.
At long last, the ball of fire slowed and reached its apex. A moment later, the whole sky was filled with one grand explosion.
Boom! Boom-boom!!
The firework spread out in every direction. The sparks drew their arcs across the night at one perfectly uniform speed.
“Wow!!”
“Whoa!!”
It wasn’t flat. It wasn’t grotesque… It was beautifully, perfectly round.
After that first flourish, the floodgates had opened: New fireballs streaked up one after another and bloomed into all colors throughout the garden of the sky.
Every one…was round.
For some time, we continued staring up at those round flowers opening up to us… Or rather, I think we were unable to do anything else. But little by little, we were dragged back to reality by the shouts of “Whoa!!” and “Amazing!!” coming from the far edge of the beach.
“Huh? They’re…”
“…They’re round, Norimichi.”
“…How?”
According to the rules of all the wishing worlds so far— Of course, I didn’t really know if there were “rules” to begin with… But if there were, the fireworks in this world weren’t supposed to be round.
The railway line had curved when it was supposed to be straight. The trees had grown in weird, twisted directions. All sorts of things had been shaped differently than they should have. The fireworks we were watching weren’t supposed to be round like in the real world…
Unless this means…
“We’ve come back…”
“Huh?”
“I think we’ve come back…to the real world…”
I quickly scanned the ocean and opposite bank. The homes on the mountainside no longer looked like gingerbread houses. They were square and angular as they were supposed to be.
The trees growing around them were standing straight and tall, and the propellers of the wind turbines along the ridge were back to the shape I was accustomed to—even turning clockwise as they always had. And the moon hanging above the turbines…was round.
Did someone else throw the wishing orb?
I felt sure it must have fallen into the sea after I’d thrown it the last time. Then, why had things gone back?
Boom! Boom-boom!! Boom! Boom! Boom-boom!!
Fireworks continued to explode in the sky, as if laughing at my confusion.
I retraced my thoughts. If there really were rules to the wishing worlds, then maybe—just maybe—if the orb went back to the place it came from, things would go back to the beginning, like hitting the reset button on a game console. Maybe the orb’s return to the sea meant the wishing worlds were over, and we had been returned to the world as it was.
Splash! Splash!
A new sound came, joining those of the fireworks. Nazuna was cupping handfuls of seawater and throwing them against her face. She repeated the action over and over, like she was trying to wash some intangible thing away. Eventually, she stopped and turned toward me.
Her dripping face shone with the light of the fireworks. Her expression was mysterious. She seemed to be crying and laughing all at once. She spoke to me.
“…I guess this is where we say adieu.”
“Huh?”
For a moment, the word didn’t register. It was only because of the sorrow in her voice that I managed to parse the meaning.
My mind flashed with images of things that had happened in the “real world.”
I saw the words FIREWORKS DISPLAY written on the calendar hanging in the bathroom. I heard the voice of the weather girl. I saw the yolk of the egg resting on top of my bowl of curry. I was racing down the slope on my worn-out bike with the ocean breeze whipping past. Nazuna stood at the water’s edge with the glittering waves behind her. She was staring at my eyes in the classroom. She was lying along the edge of the pool in her swimsuit. The dragonfly rose from her breast and flew languidly into the sky. Nazuna’s hand held out the orb for me to see. I heard her voice. “You guys racing? I’m in.” The pool’s water cascaded in great splashes as the three of us dived in. Nazuna swam ahead. I saw her from behind. She turned and headed back my way, and her eyes… She wore no goggles, and her eyes were looking at me.
Nazuna had been watching me. Always, since long ago, she’d been watching me…
I felt a dull pain in my right foot. I lifted it up out of the ocean water and saw there was a wound on the ankle. Skin had torn away, leaving an exposed patch that was light pink.
We came back… We really came back…to the world we started at…
I looked up. Nazuna was…staring at me, smiling. But in her eyes I could see drops welling up that weren’t from the sea. It seemed they might come gushing out at any moment.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
I hollered, throwing off my T-shirt and kicking off my shoes. Without any idea of what had come over me, I found myself running into the water toward Nazuna.
Nazuna seemed taken aback by my abrupt cry. When I closed in, I tried to throw my arms around her in a great, big hug, but I stumbled when the sand dropped away beneath my feet more quickly than I’d expected. I ended up slamming into her and pushing us both underwater.
It would have been pitch-black under the surface had it not been for the shimmering fireworks blooming high above. The spray of sparks dancing through the sky blended in with the sight of the bubbles all around us. It felt like we were swimming among the fireworks themselves.
Everything moved in slow motion in this private world for Nazuna and me. Our bodies drifted about through the underwater fireworks. Nazuna reached forward and clasped both my hands. She slipped her fingers between mine and looked into my eyes.
I held mine open wide and stared back. I was seeing her face clearly under the water, without any goggles.
Her smiling face slowly drew near.
Her eyes closed, she pulled herself even closer, and then…she pressed her lips against mine.
“!!”
It was like I’d blown a fuse from her bold, unexpected action…the first kiss of my entire life! My first, instantaneous thought was about the sensation of her lips; they felt soft and squishy, like the yolk of a raw egg. But the thought had hardly registered before the panicked realization I’d just had—that I was having my first kiss, and suddenly I was dangerously low on air. I broke away from Nazuna’s lips and pulled myself up to the surface, desperate for breath.
I stuck my head straight up toward the sky and opened my mouth to pull in a big lungful of fresh air. A joyous, round explosion filled the sky in greeting.
Turns out fireworks are round from below…and round if you see them from the side, too…
It was something I’d probably known all along. Perhaps at that moment, up on the top of Moshimo Lighthouse, Yusuke and the others were seeing that same firework from the side and having the same realization.
The thought prompted me to turn in the direction of the lighthouse. Just then, Nazuna surfaced within my field of view. Embarrassed, I looked away.
Even though she’d been the one to instigate the kiss, I didn’t have any idea how I was supposed to look at her or act around her now that it had happened.
“Wow! It’s gorgeous!!”
Nazuna paid my hesitation no mind. She nimbly pivoted in the water so that she was now floating on her back, taking in the whole of the fireworks display.
Everything from her shoulders down sank gently into the water. Only her face remained above the surface.
“It’s wonderful… It’s like we’re floating among the fireworks themselves…”
Nazuna’s murmur echoed the thought I’d had under the water. My mind eased. I relaxed, floating on my back like her, and entrusted my body to the sea. The movement of the waves naturally carried the two of us near each other.
The night sky continued to fill with round firework explosions, but it seemed natural to me that they wouldn’t last forever.
In another ten or twenty minutes, the show would be over. The people on the beach would head back to their houses. Yusuke and the others—probably at the lighthouse at that moment—would go home, too.
Even Nazuna and I would have to.
For two thirteen-year-olds like us, there was no other place to go back to.
Other worlds to escape to, like the ones we’d been to that day, didn’t really exist.
“Hey, Norimichi.”
Nazuna spoke to me, still looking up at the fireworks in the night sky.
“Hmm?”
I wanted to turn my head toward her, but I knew I’d get seawater in my nose and mouth. So I continued looking up like she did.
“I wonder what kind of world it will be, where we see each other next.”
“…”
“I’ll be looking forward to it.”
With those words, Nazuna tilted herself onto her side and began slowly swimming back to shore. Her receding figure blended in with the light of the fireworks reflected off the waves. It was such a beautiful sight—all I could do was watch.
Or perhaps I felt as if there was nothing I could say that would change that image of Nazuna swimming away.
Nazuna was headed toward the one and only true world, where there were no “do-overs,” “what-ifs,” or “if onlys,” and she was going there at a calm and steady pace.
If… If only I was able to see Nazuna again… No matter what kind of world we were in when it happened, I’d let her know how I really felt.
Calling out just like I had each time the wishing orb was thrown, I shouted…
“Nazuna, I love you!!!!”