AFTERWORD

Hello, I’m Yukako Kabei.

As I write this afterword, I’m right in the middle of packing up to move, and my apartment is almost a jungle. I’ve somehow managed to carve out a place to work and a place to sleep—that’s all—and I move around by weaving between cardboard boxes, trash bags, and mountains of books I need to throw away. Sometimes cardboard boxes stuffed with books block the doors, and I’ve been trapped in the bathroom—I can be stranded in my own home. (But if you were to tell me that I’ve never had the ability to organize and keep things in order, so it shouldn’t be much different from normal, you would be right.…)

When I think about how I met with such incredible good fortune and was allowed to write three books in this apartment, it gets a little hard to leave it.

This book, Kieli III: Prisoners Bound for Another Planet, is the third book in the Kieli series and is a continuation from volume two. If anyone read the prologue to this book and then went right to the afterword to see what was going on, I apologize for the misleading opening. This book is most definitely Kieli.

This time, the main setting is a mining town that has giant exhaust pipes spewing smoke, and that clings to the rocky wall of a fault. The ruins of a spaceship show up, too, so it’s got a subtle sci-fi feel. Storywise, like the previous volumes, it’s a story about a girl with a complicated personality and a man with a tiresome personality, getting together and being separated, and about a man, who’s tired of living, being immature and getting kidnapped.

Rather than traveling, they’re settled in one place, and the narrative has lost some of its episodic nature and gotten more like one long story, so it might have a somewhat different feel than the first two books, but I hope you enjoyed it.

Now then. Again, I have much gratitude for everyone who put forth effort to publish this book, and to my editor, who is so busy but still makes time for my whining and selfish requests. I’m still always running around in confusion, and I’m sorry for all the trouble I cause.

To Taue-san, who was kind enough to provide the wonderful, even more polished illustrations for this book: As usual, I’m sorry for being so fussy about all these weird machines like Harvey’s prosthetic arm and the mad scientist’s monocle. From the first volume, we’ve both said to each other, “Please don’t abandon me!” but it’s thanks to you that I’ve been able to write three volumes. Please don’t abandon me…!

To my family, friends, and acquaintances: Once I’ve moved and settled down, I’ll reform and practice better living habits.…But I do wonder when things will ever settle down. I foresee having piles of cardboard boxes for at least six months.

To all the readers who sent letters to a novice author: I am truly very grateful as I read all of them. I pick them up when I visit the editorial department, and it’s my secret joy to read them stealthily on the train ride home, but as I read, I can’t help smiling bashfully or wryly, and I must be a very suspicious-looking passenger.

And I give my highest heartfelt thanks to you who are holding this book in your hands. I hope we get a chance to meet again.

I can hear the sound of the first train outside my window.

Soon I’ll be saying good-bye to this five-story, rebar apartment, three buildings from the train tracks.