Chapter 1 â August 12th (Part 4)
The famed English author H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine over one hundred years ago. Since then, tales of machines which can travel through time have been told and retold countless times by countless people.
Why does the idea of a time machine captivate us so?
The reason lies in the fact that time is the most cardinal mystery of humanity, the sole confinement from which none can escape. Each person, no matter how great or small, is allotted the same 24 hours each day, and scream and shout as you might, never will the sand flow back into the top of the hourglass, or a bygone summer ever return. That is why the dream of a machine that travels through time has persistently fascinated us so. To leap through timeâto defy that inexorable tyranny, to obtain a power equal to that of Godâthat is the ultimate freedom.
So what was such an amazing device doing here?
Hanuki whistled. âThat means that Ozuâs a time traveler!â
According to Ozu, the newly minted time traveler, the transportation was instantaneous. Right as he had pulled the lever he had closed his eyes, and the next time he opened them he was in yesterday.
Akashi got in the time machine and examined the control panel.
âOzu, what time was it when you arrived in yesterday?â
âLike I said, it was right before I toppled the kappa statueâŠâ
It was currently 2:30 P.M., and Ozu had knocked over the statue yesterday around the same time.
âSo that means that youâll arrive at roughly the same time as you depart,â Akashi theorized. âAnd there isnât a dial to set the time.â
I crouched beside Akashi and looked at the panel. The year dial only went up to 99. That meant that the furthest back you could go in a single leap was the Showa period, though I presumed that once you arrived at your destination you could simply make another leap, skipping back in time like a stone over a pond. And the same was likely true of the future. I snuck a glance beside me at Akashi, whose eyes were gleaming with excitement.
âMaybe that person from before made it.â
âWho?â
âYou know, the lame looking guy.â
I realized she was talking about the guy I had been talking with earlier. No matter how positively I tried to spin it in my head, all I could imagine him being was a lovable loser who had tried and totally failed to remake himself for his college student debut. But you canât judge a book by its cover. Perhaps that dorky lameness was merely a facade that concealed a hyper-intelligent, once-in-a-generation prodigy.
Footsteps began to tap towards us from the end of the hallway.
My mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was the owner of the time machine, but instead I heard a reedy voice drawl, âMy my, we are having fun.â Walking towards us was Aijima, JĆgasakiâs right hand man in the Misogi Movie Circle and the actor who had portrayed the protagonist, Ginga Susumu, in the film shoot yesterday.
âWould you care to tell me, JĆgasaki, what this is all about?â
âNah, weâre just, you know, chilling,â JĆgasaki said evasively. âWhat are you doing here?â
âI have a prior appointment with this fellow,â Aijima said, pointing at me. âHave you discovered the whereabouts of my glasses?â
âGlasses?â
âYes, my glasses!â
But Aijima was already wearing glasses. When I pointed this out, he hissed impatiently, âI explained it yesterday, did I not? These are the glasses I use for performing. I have a separate pair for normal wear, which I lost here yesterday. And you promised me you would look for them!â
Once again, things were not adding up. I felt that same sense of unease return.
âI knew I was wrong to rely on you!â
Aijimaâs stream of complaints lasted for a minute or two, but then his gaze fell upon the time machine. Immediately he let out a gasp. âThis! This is it!â
âYouâve seen it before, Aijima?â Akashi asked.
Aijima rushed up to it. âI saw it yesterday, at this very spot. I was unsure whether it was merely an illusion, yet here it is! A time machine, is it not?â
âThatâs right. Itâs a time machine.â
âAh, but what marvelous craftsmanship. Who built it?â
Aijima seemed to be laboring under the impression that it was a movie prop. Even after Akashi informed that it was a real, working time machine, his surprise only lasted for a moment. âThis is one of those…pranks, yes?â
âNo, nothing like that. Itâs really a time machine.â
âIâm afraid Iâm not so fond of these sorts of diversions, ganging up on someone and telling them lies.â
We all told him what had happened with Ozuâs time travel just a moment ago, even showing him proof in the form of the video. But Aijimaâs eyes narrowed behind his spectacles, and he only smiled coldly. I couldnât blame him. Our time traveler, Ozu, was one of the most untrustworthy lifeforms on the face of the planet, and videos could always be edited.
âWhy donât we activate the time machine one more time?â suggested Akashi. âThen would you believe us?â
âWell, perhaps if I see it with my own eyes I may reconsider,â said Aijima, but his frosty smile did not waver.
âŻ
âWell then, my good fellows. Whither shall we go?â said Higuchi SeitarĆ.
Akashi raised her hand first. âWhy donât we go see the future? Maybe ten years or so?â
To see the yet-unseen future before anyone else: therein lies the great allure of the time machine. But there is one problem: there is no guarantee that the world of ten years hence will be the world one wishes to see.
âItâd kinda be a drag to find out that youâre dead though, wouldnât it?â Hanuki said glumly.
Discovering such a fate would certainly sap oneâs lust for life. You might lose your motivation to study, be forced to retake another year, and eventually drop out. With each passing moment bringing you closer to that immovable deadline, you could very well end up holing up in your room, doing nothing but eating and drinking enormous quantities every day to escape that existential horror, only to keel over ten years to the day, a victim of your own self-fulfilling prophecy.
âI think weâd be better off avoiding the future.â
âThatâs a good point.â
âHow dull to see the path that lies ahead,â proclaimed Higuchi. âThe future is what you make of it!â
The second proposal was Ozuâs suggestion to return to the Jurassic period to play with dinosaurs. The Jurassic period was roughly 150 million years ago. On the other hand, our time machine could only jump 99 years backwards at a time. That meant it would take roughly 1.5 million leaps to reach our destination; even if one were to operate the machine 24 hours a day one would likely expire before ever getting close.
The third proposal was my own, to return to the spring of two years earlier. I intended to discreetly aid my first-year self, showing him the way towards the rose-colored campus life. Above all I had to prevent him from ever meeting Ozu. But Ozu soon apprehended what I was trying to do, and quickly suggested, âThen Iâll go with you, and make your past self even more of a loser!â The idea of us two continuing our battle across time and space was soundly rejected by the rest of the group.
It was turning out to be more difficult to pick a destination than I had imagined.
âWhy donât we just make it real simple and just go to the Edo period?â Hanuki said. âLike, wouldnât it be awesome to see samurai and stuff?â
âThereâs an idea,â I agreed. âItâd only take two jumps, too.â
âWell then, my good fellows, what say you we travel to the Bakumatsu!â Higuchi enthused.
It was quite a splendid idea. In the Kyoto of the Bakumatsu, we could find the actual Sakamoto Ryoma and Saigo Takamori and the Shinsengumi prowling the streets in the real world of Slayers of the Bakumatsu. If we brought equipment we could film as much as we wanted, and get some shots that you could never get in the modern day no matter how big your budget was. âCan I go back and get the equipment?â Akashi asked, her eyes shining.
But JĆgasaki put a damper on the proceedings. âDonât you guys have any sense of danger?â
âWhat do you mean, JĆgasaki? Itâs not like youâre going anyways, right?â Hanuki frowned.
âHell no,â snorted JĆgasaki in reply. âLetâs take a step back and assume that time machine is real. How do you know itâs going to keep working? What happens if you get to your destination and it breaks down? You just gonna live the rest of your life in the Bakumatsu, huh?â
âThat bridge will be crossed when we get there,â said Higuchi loftily. âMan adapts himself to his environment…or his times.â
Maybe a cunning tengu like Higuchi might be able to survive in the chaos of the Bakumatsu, skirting the conflict betwixt the Shinsengumi and the masterless rĆnin. But for the rest of us coddled children of the modern age, survival in that time period seemed like a much dicier proposition. Everyone besides Higuchi exchanged glances.
âSo, maybe not the Bakumatsu?â mumbled Hanuki.
After a short silence, Akashi suggested, âWhy donât we test it with a short hop?â
âLetâs just go with yesterday,â I said.
âThatâs a good idea. That way if something goes wrong it wonât be hard to come back.â
This new plan was decidedly less ambitious, but every journey begins with a single step.
It was currently a little past 2:30 P.M. If we went back to yesterday now, the filming at the landladyâs house should still be going on. We had wrapped up filming and vacated the premises at about 3:30, so the apartments should be empty until then. We left for Oasis just past 4, and after beating a strategic retreat at the used book fair I had returned to the apartment at 6, and then the Cola Catastrophe hadâŠ
I had a sudden eureka moment.
âHey, Iâve just had a brilliant idea!â
This time yesterday, the remote control hadnât been broken yet. So if we went back in time and took the remote, didnât that mean that we could turn the air conditioner in room 209 on again? There couldnât be a better way to use the time machine than this.
âIntriguingâŠâ ruminated Higuchi. âI hadnât thought of that.â
âThatâs a great way to use the time machine. Very impressive!â Akashi glowed.
The question now was, who was going to go?
We tried all piling in, but in order to do that we would have needed to be as flexible as a troupe of Chinese acrobats, and worst case someone might be flung out in the midst of the time leap. We settled for sending three people to yesterday, holding a rock-paper-scissors tournament to decide who would go.
As a result of the tournament, the members of expedition #1 were determined to be Higuchi, Hanuki, and Ozu.
âDammit,â Akashi scowled, looking crestfallen as she stared at the scissors she had just thrown. âIâm terrible at rock-paper-scissors.â
âOi, Ozu, youâve already gone. Let Akashi go instead.â
âIâm afraid Iâll have to decline that proposal. See, Iâm the only time traveler in the whole wide world and that makes me the pilot of this here machine. Iâm simply indispensable.â
âWeâll just nip over for a quick look and be right back,â said Hanuki, comforting Akashi.
âThanks, donât worry about me. Bon voyage, everyone!â
The members of Expedition #1âHiguchi, Hanuki, and Ozuâboarded the time machine. Ozu sat and fiddled with the control panel, then turned and looked at us.
âGood day to you all. Weâll be right back.â
âOnce youâve got the remote control, you come right back here,â I insisted. âThe us from yesterday will be back in half an hour.â
âIt is with a heavy heart that I admit the pain I have caused you on this occasion. I am most contrite indeed for my mistake with the remote control. But now we have a time machine. I shall return with the remote control, even if it costs me my own life. So I beg you, worthy sir, await my return with great expectation.â
âYeah, yeah, hurry and get going!â
âBy your leave,â said Ozu, pulling the lever, and there was a flash and a great gust of wind. The time machine disappeared with all of them on board, leaving the rest of us standing there.
Only the wind chime continued to tinkle.
Thus Ozu and his crew set off for yesterday, but from the moment I watched them go, an inexplicable seed of doubt in my heart had begun to sprout.
Should we really have let them go? Higuchi SeitarĆ, Hanuki, and Ozu: now that I thought about it, that was the worst possible team we could have selected.
âŻ
The tinkling of the wind chime died away, and the hallway was quiet again.
Now that Ozu and the others had gone with the time machine, it felt like the apartment had returned to normal. All at once I felt the broiling afternoon heat return.
âJĆgasaki,â Aijima gasped, a quiver in his voice. âWhat is the meaning of all this?â
âLooks like weâve got a real time machine on our hands, dude.â
âSurely not. After all, weâre not in a sci-fi movieâŠâ He looked like he might faint any second now.
âAijima,â Akashi said. âThat might be a dangerous spot to be in when the time machine comes back.â
Aijima yelped and leaped backwards.
We all camped out at a safe distance from the spot where we thought the time machine would reappear. I was not planning on accidentally merging with Ozu into some sort of demonic human-Ozu hybrid like this was some sort of horror flick.
It was certainly a strange feeling. Higuchi and Hanuki and Ozu had disappeared from the world of today, and were now in the world of yesterday. That meant that there had been two copies of each of them running around this time yesterday.
âIt feels sort of funny,â Akashi murmured. âOzu and the others used the time machine today to go to yesterday. But at the point in time when they arrived in yesterday, we hadnât even discovered the time machine.â
âGives you the jitters, huh?â
âIt really does.â
âWhat is all this business with the time machine, anyhow?â Aijima asked. âWhat was such a thing doing here?â
âHow are we supposed to know?â I replied.
âHow are you supposed to know? How are you supposed to know?â he repeated wildly. âAnd yet you use it with no concern whatsoever?â
âDude, thatâs what Iâve been saying,â JĆgasaki said wearily.
âAh, âscuse me,â came a diffident voice from the end of the hall.
We all stopped talking at once and looked that way simultaneously. The person addressing us seemed a little intimidated. He looked like a real dweeb with his smooth, mushroom-like bowl cut, and his short-sleeved shirt tucked neatly into his trousers. It was Mr. Lame again.
Aijima addressed him as if they were already acquainted. âYou again? What are you still doing here?â
âA friend of yours?â asked Akashi in surprise, but unexpectedly Aijima looked back in confusion.
âI introduced him when we met yesterday, did I not?â
âYou did?â
âOzuâs cousin, no?â
Needless to say we were all taken aback. Ozu had never so much breathed a word about this.
âYouâre here to visit the school over summer break, arenât you?â
âNo, Iâm not.â
âI beg your pardon?â
âI said, thatâs not why Iâm here.â
âCome now, of course it is. You said so yourself yesterday!â
âIâve never seen you before in my life. And Iâm not Ozuâs cousin, whoever he is.â What he said next was impossible to ignore. âAfter all, weâre not even from the same era.â
Not from the same era: the implication was immediately apparent.
Akashi shoved Aijima aside. âWhat does that mean?â
A knowing smile came to Mr. Lameâs face. âNow folks, donât be alarmed by what Iâm about to say.â
Then he frowned. âHuh?â he muttered in disbelief, jogging up to the pile of trash. âI donât suppose any of you saw a strange machine here? It was about the size of a tatami mat, had a lever and a control panelâŠâ
âYou mean the time machine?â I asked.
His eyes grew wide. âYou know about it?â
âYouâyou might say thatâŠâ
Mr. Lame beamed with pleasure. âThatâs how I came here, you see. Iâm from 25 years in the future!â
âŻ
âMy name is Tamura,â Mr. Lame introduced himself politely. The way he spoke and acted seemed so innocent, which made sense given that he was a first year in college, albeit from 25 years in the future. Not only that, but he actually lived in the very same Shimogamo YĆ«suisĆ, and even in the same room as me, room 209. The building was already a ruin, so to hear that it was still standing a quarter-century from now was quite good news, if a little hard to believe.
âAre time machines common in your era?â I asked, to which Tamura proudly puffed out his chest.
âNo, not at all. We made it ourselves.â
âWe?â
âYes, the residents of Shimogamo YĆ«suisĆ.â
In May 25 years from now, the landlady (still hale and hearty) had summoned all the residents to undertake a massive operation to clean out the storeroom on the second floor. After the operation was complete, theyâd been having a celebration with the beer the landlady had paid them with when a grad student in the physics department started talking about how to make a time machine.
This grad student was always spouting some crackpot theory, to the point that heâd practically been banned from his own lab, but nevertheless he insisted that it was possible to construct a time machine. It was a tall tale to swallow, but the more he rambled the more excited everyone became, until at last they all agreed to give it a go.
Everyone spent their precious summer holiday running around gathering materials and fiddling with the parts under the grad studentâs supervision, instead of going home like they ought to have done. I could go on about their travailsâbeing abandoned by compatriots who chose love over friendship, having trouble scrounging up cash for the parts, being hounded by the landlady for rent, recruiting foreign grad students from the engineering schoolâbut as these things have no relevance to our tale I shall omit the details.
On August 12th, after three months of blood, sweat, and tears, they finished building the time machine. And the person they chose to be the first pilot was none other than Tamura.
âNone of them wanted to be the first person to take it for a spin. And, you know, I was the new blood.â
âSo you mean you were a test subject, like Laika the space dog.â
âExactly, exactly!â
Tamura didnât seem to mind having been made into a guinea pig.
So it was that Tamura, the first time machine pilot in the history of humankind, arrived here in the apartments at 10 in the morning on August 12th, precisely 25 years earlier than he had departed.
It had been very quiet, which was appropriate considering that it was the morning after the all-night wake for the air conditioner. The few people who remained here had all been snoring like logs.
âI knocked on all the doors, but no one answered!â claimed Tamura. Now that he mentioned it, I seemed to remember having heard a knocking sound somewhere in that hazy realm between wakefulness and sleep.
âYeah, that was my bad.â
âI was expecting more of a welcome, you know? But there wasnât much I could do about it, so I decided to take a look outside. I was interested in what the Kyoto of 25 years ago was like. Iâd just come back after walking around when I met you all earlier.â
âWhy did you run away?â Akashi asked.
Tamura grinned dolefully and scratched his head. âWell you see, when I saw the Master I was just so shocked.â
âBy Master, you mean Higuchi?â
âI thought heâd come here in a time machine, too. He still lives here in Shimogamo YĆ«suisĆ 25 years from now…ah, maybe I wasnât supposed to tell you that.â
âDudeâs still here 25 years from now?â JĆgasaki snorted. âUnbelievable.â
According to Tamura, Higuchi SeitarĆ was still living in room 210, was referred to in hushed tones as the Fallen Tengu or the Guardian of the Tatami, and was revered as the most venerable student in this apartment. In other words, he hadnât changed a bit.
âI just thought that he was repeating a year, so I wasnât expecting to see him in this era too. He never said anything about this.â
âBut whyâd you have to run away?â
âGuess I just lost my head, haha,â Tamura chuckled. âI guess I do have that side of me, donât I.â
âShouldnât we keep this from the Master?â Akashi asked. We all thought about it. Even if Higuchi SeitarĆ were to learn that his fate was to still be living in this apartment a quarter century hence, heâd probably do nothing more than stroke his chin and say, Well, isnât that grand. Then again, it felt like meddling to tell him something that he hadnât asked to know. We all agreed to keep it a secret from him.
âBy the way, where is the Master?â inquired Tamura.
âOh, heâs just, uh, gone to yesterday,â I told him.
âWe used the time machine,â Akashi said. âIâm sorry, we donât know it was yours.â
âAh, I see. That makes sense.â
âIâm really very sorry for using it without asking.â
âHey, itâs no skin off my nose.â
âBut wonât people worry if you donât come back soon?â
âNot to worry. Itâs a time machine! All youâve got to do is go back right after you left. That way, hardly any time will have gone by over there.â
âCan you even set the time of day on that machine?â I asked. If it had such a dial, I hadnât seen it.
âCanât you?â Tamura sounded surprised.
âThere are only controls for year and day.â
âWell gosh, I hadnât noticed that.â Tamuraâs jaw hung open for a moment, before he bounced right back. âWelp, guess thereâs no helping that.â
âYouâre awfully casual about all this.â
âI guess I do have that side of me, donât I, ha! I guess for now Iâll have to wait right here,â chuckled this lame time traveler from the future, plopping himself down on the sofa.
âŻ
It was quiet for some time. From far away I could hear the cries of the cicadas.
ââS hot, isnât it?â Tamura finally murmured, wiping away sweat with an arabesque-patterned handkerchief. His personality was really lacking in the futuristic-time-traveler department. There was no question that we all shared this impression, but Aijima in particular didnât even try to hide his skepticism.
âYou really are lame, arenât you?â
âAm I really?â
âYou donât look like a time traveler. No, definitely not.â
âBut I am one, donât you see?â
Even the way he talked seemed slightly out-of-date, let alone his fashion sense.
As I stared at this decidedly un-futuristic time traveler, I began to think about the world of the future, 25 years from now. What was my life like? Assuming I was still alive Iâd be halfway through my forties. Iâd probably be a socially accomplished Renaissance man, with a wife and a kid and a respectable amount of life experience under my belt. That was all well and good, but the problem was that I couldnât see how my current life, cooped up in my 4œ room, could possibly lead to that one. Of course, everything was Ozuâs fault.
âWhatâs the Kyoto of the future like?â asked Akashi.
âThatâs a fine question,â replied Tamura, squinting into space. âIt really is not so different. They still have the used book fair at Shimogamo Shrine, and the Kamo River and Mt. Hiei look just the same as ever. The Gozan no Okuribi is coming up soon, isnât it? Thatâs the same for us, too.â
âThatâs Kyoto for you,â I said.
âAh, but there was one thing that brought a tear to my eye. Thereâs that bathhouse called Oasis across the Takano River, isnât there? In my time, itâs turned into a convenience store. Gosh, how happy it made me to see the real thing with my own eyes! My old man used to go there a lot, see?â
âYour father lived in Kyoto?â
âThatâs right,â said Tamura, leaning forward. âAnd that was right around this era, too!â
According to Tamura, he had only come to live in Shimogamo YĆ«suisĆ because his father had picked it for him during registration. I could easily imagine how much more dilapidated this place would be in 25 years. As Tamura reluctantly stood at the entrance to Shimogamo YĆ«suisĆ, his father had whispered but one thing in his ear.
âSink or swim, kid.â
You had to admire the principle of it.
I thought about the shoe cubbies at the entrance, but I didnât recall seeing the name Tamura there.
âHe may have been living at a different apartment,â said Tamura. âAnyways, mom and pop must be hanging around somewhere nearby.â
âJust a second,â interrupted Akashi. âYour motherâs here too?â
âThey met during their college days. But theyâre always lying about all sorts of things, so I donât know if thatâs really what happened. So when I got in the time machine, I decided Iâd come to this era. I wanted to find out how they really met.â
âSounds interesting. Alright then, letâs go find your dad!â
Once again, it was JĆgasaki who poured cold water over the proceedings.
âDonât do it. His parents catch one glimpse of lameass over here, theyâll probably swear off ever having a kid.â
âHow could you even say that?â Even Tamura couldnât help but get offended at that. âTheyâre my own parents! Theyâd never think something so awful!â
âOkay, look dude, you havenât even been born yet. Your parents are in college, so theyâre not even ready to think about having a kid. You wanna be a time traveler, you gotta have a sense of danger. You do something stupid and split your parents up, youâre gonna poof out of existence!â
âMe? Poof? But why?â
âYou change the present, you change the future. Duh!â
JĆgasaki suddenly seemed to come to a horrible realization. âHold up,â he muttered, staring into space. As I looked at him an ominous feeling began to spread through my chest.
Akashi suddenly jerked up. âThe remote!â
That was where the ominous feeling came from.
Ozu and the others had gone back in the time machine to yesterday. If they retrieved the remote before it was broken, the flow of time would change. Today, which had come about as a result of the remote control being flooded in cola, would cease to exist, which meant that all of us here would also wink out of existence.
âWeâre all going to disappear,â I stated.
âYou donât say!â JĆgasaki grabbed me by the collar. âThis was all your idea, dumbass!â
âYeah, but what am I supposed to do about it?â
âHold on. That might not even be the end of it,â JĆgasaki muttered direly, thrusting me away. âLetâs say they get the remote. We donât know what thatâs gonna do to the timeline, but anything could happen. Say, getting the remote sets off a chain reaction of tiny changes that ends up getting the Ozu from yesterday killed in an accident. That means that Ozu died yesterday, so he never would have been able to get in the time machine and go back to yesterday. And that becomes a huge paradox, right? If Ozu couldnât go back to yesterday, then he wouldnât have died in the first place.â
Akashi frowned and murmured, âThat is a paradox. It breaks the laws of space and time.â
I finally understood what JĆgasaki had been getting at all along.
âŻ
Iâd like my readers to think back to the movie, Slayers of the Bakumatsu.
The changes in the timeline brought about by the time traveling college student Ginga Susumu eventually resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the entire universe. At first glance it seemed like a throwaway plot twist, but that was the logical conclusion all our theorizing had led us to.
Let us say that the Meiji Restoration was thwarted by the actions of Ginga Susumu. In that case, he never would have had that accident during one of his experiments and traveled back in time, invalidating the premise that he had brought the Meiji Restoration to a halt. If we took this reductio ad absurdum further, the logical conclusion was that it was impossible to build a time machine. But the film relied on the premise that it was, indeed, possibleâotherwise, there wouldnât have been a plot to film.
How then to resolve the paradox of a time machine?
Akashi and I had debated hotly about this point. I will spare the details, but the conclusions we came to are as follows:
Time machines exist
Time machines fundamentally bring about paradoxes
Therefore the universe we live in (in which time machines exist) is completely broken
This was the logic that had led to the tragic outcome of Slayers of the Bakumatsu. Even if the reasoning was sound, it did force one to question whether it was good filmmaking, which was why I had asked Akashi so many times whether she was sure about making it.
It was easy to see the frightening parallels with the situation we currently found ourselves in. True, as far as scale was concerned the Meiji Restoration and an air conditioner remote were orders of magnitude apart. But the possibility of bringing about a fundamental paradox remained the same.
The universe now teetered on the brink of annihilation.
âŻ
JĆgasaki had gone white as a sheet. âThatâs why I told you not to mess with it!â
âWhat is everyone so worried about?â Aijima sniffed. âItâs not even a real time machine, anyways.â
âShut up, just shut up!â JĆgasaki roared, cowing Aijima into silence.
âThis certainly seems like a pickle,â observed Tamura.
The way he said this, as if none of this was his concern, rubbed me the wrong way. âShouldnât you be a little more worried about this?â I said reproachfully.
He looked bewildered. âWhy, Iâm not even from this era.â He didnât seem to be aware that he was the source of all these spacetime woes. All I could say is that he was severely lacking in the ethics department when it came to the spacetime continuum.
He continued, âI only came here in the time machine to observe this era. It wasnât me that decided to take it for a joyride, right? Why is this my fault?â
I had to admit he had a point.
All those discussions with Akashi, and yet when faced with a real time machine I hadnât stopped to think for a moment, blinded by my own greed. I had placed the entire cosmos in peril, all for the sake of a single remote control. It wasnât Tamura who lacked ethics, it was me.
âI donât think we should give up just yet,â Akashi said calmly. âOnce Ozu gets back with the remote, weâll go right back to replace it. It only got soaked with cola after you all came back from the bathhouse, which if Iâm not mistaken was just past 6. If we can replace the remote before then without being seen, then everything will be back the way it was.â
But Ozu and the others didnât come back. The minutes ticked steadily by. It was quiet, as if we were awaiting the end of the world, and the surroundings began to feel like they were frail as glass.The sultry heat of the apartment, the tinkling of the wind chime, the faraway cries of the cicadas: none of it felt real.
I glanced at Akashi. She was sitting up, her back straight, staring resolutely at the spot where the time machine was supposed to arrive. As usual, there wasnât a single bead of sweat on her face. If the universe was destroyed, this singular individual, too, would disappear.
Not thinking twice I called out to her.
âAkashi!â
The very moment she turned to look, a sound of thunder reverberated through the hallway. Thinking that the Ozu expedition had finally returned, we all rushed over to the time machine, only to stare at each other, aghast. The time machine was empty.
âBut why?â Akashi murmured. âDid something happen over there?â
Looking at the seat I noticed a sheet of paper stuck there. On it was written, in a hand which resembled the unintelligible scribblings of a tengu, the following message:
Come join the fun
Higuchi SeitarĆ
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