After a little while passed, Yamazaki broke in on my thoughts. “You should breathe. You’re dying.”

I breathed. I came back to life. Sincerely thanking Yamazaki, I pondered the way that the world was wrapped in love. I bowed my head to say, “Thank you, thank you.”

However, as if to balance out my return to life, Yamazaki abruptly acted like he was in extreme physical distress. Clutching his throat, he rolled about on the floor, writhing in agony. When I asked, “What’s wrong?” he just uttered an inhuman cry and, without speaking, continued convulsing.

Finally, he picked up a notebook and ballpoint pen in order to communicate the problem to me. Hands shaking, he wrote something down in the notebook.

Taking my time, I carefully deciphered his letters: “I forgot how to use my voice.”

Yamazaki gripped his throat, looking miserable. I whacked his back as hard as I could.

“Ouch!” he said, and then he gave me a thumbs-up. His broad smile returned.

I decided it was time for us to head out. It was already the middle of the night, so I wasn’t afraid that we’d be seen by the police or any neighbors.

We headed toward the neighborhood park. Yamazaki was walking like a robot. Maybe he really was a robot. In the end, could I have such thoughts and also be human? I found the idea a little mysterious.

At that point, I tried banging my head against the streetlamp in the park. This was bad: It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all. I am actually a robot….

Thus, I discovered a new truth.

Be that as it may, the park at night was wonderful. Though the streetlamps were the only light source, the park shone and glowed like a photograph taken using a long exposure. The park was full of life. Everything there pulsed with life: the gentle creaking of the old bench, the steady breathing of massive trees lining the road, the dynamic twists of the branches and leaves. All this, every last thing was alive.

While I was transfixed by the scene, Yamazaki said, “I can hear music.”

I heard it, too. From somewhere in the park, inexplicably beautiful music was playing.

We were looking for the music’s source—pushing our way through the grass, shoving our heads under the bench, combing the park for quite a while—when, at last, we found a speaker. It was buried in the roots of the largest tree by the road.

However, it was strange. We didn’t really understand the speaker’s mechanism. Yamazaki and I considered it together. We concluded that the speaker was a “white hole”, which pushed out matter rather than sucking it in.

We walked into the white hole and emerged near a beautiful lake. Yamazaki slowly shed his clothing and dove headfirst into the lake. However… “Argh! It’s a sandbox!”

It seemed that the lake was, in reality, just a plain old sandbox. It really had looked like a lake to me. I decided that I couldn’t trust what Yamazaki told me.

In any event, it felt as if time had been playing tricks on us. First, we were going back in time, and then we were headed forward into the future. I thought about this. When could “now” possibly be?

“Hey, Yamazaki. What day of the week is today?”

There was no answer. It seemed as though he had gone back home already.

Having grown sad, I climbed into the brush, picking the spot where we had detonated Saturday night’s bomb.

In the brush were Yamazaki and myself—from three days ago!

“Okay, it will explode after three minutes. Please, back far away from it.”

Me, myself, and Yamazaki retreated.

“I wanted to be a revolutionary, but that dream didn’t come true. I wanted to be a soldier, but that dream didn’t come true. My father is dying, and then I’ll have no choice but to go home. I wonder whose fault that is. I think there’s some evildoer out there somewhere. I wanted to blow him up, like in a Hollywood movie, with this bomb. You know…”

As I could see only our backs, there was no way for me to check Yamazaki's expression as he said that. But I already knew.

“Huh? Three minutes already have passed, but it didn’t explode.” Yamazaki walked over in the direction of the bomb. As he did, I heard a loud bang, and Yamazaki fell over.

I knew. I knew that he had been crying. “This has no force at all. This bomb I worked so hard to make only has the power of a few firecrackers. This is no good. I’m going back home. See you.”

And then, he went back home to the countryside.

When I returned to my apartment, only the life-sized anime doll that Yamazaki had left was waiting for me. She asked, “Aren’t you lonely?”

“No, I’m not lonely….”

On that warm, sunny day, I had gone on the date with Misaki. It unfolded as wholesomely as a date between middle school kids in the countryside would have.

We took the train into the city. There were large crowds, so we nearly lost sight of each other. Neither of us owned a cell phone; so, if we were separated even once, it would be the end of everything. In this large city, we never would be able to find each other again. We had to be careful.

Even so, Misaki was wandering heedlessly. I, too, was mostly just plodding along. “Where should we go?” I asked.

“Somewhere.”

“What about lunch?”

“We just ate together, didn’t we?”

“What about a movie?”

“Okay.”

We watched a movie. It was an astounding Hollywood action flick. Someone was being blown away by bombs, and he swung his arms around in circles as he floated high up into the sky. Then, he died. I longed to be like him.

“That was very interesting. Do you think I should buy the informational pamphlet?”[33]

Misaki was blown away by the thousand-yen price tag, though, so she didn’t end up buying it. “Why are they so expensive?!”

“That’s the price they usually are, isn’t it?”

“Hm, really?” It seemed that she hadn’t known.

When we exited the movie theater, we were once again at a loss over what to do.

“Where should we go?”

“Somewhere.”

“What about lunch?”

“We just ate, didn’t we?”

We kept walking aimlessly. We had no place to go, and I didn’t know what to do. Misaki felt the same way, and we both were troubled by it.

Eventually, we arrived at a needlessly large city park. There were a lot of people there, of course—and in the very center was a large fountain. Pigeons fluttered around us.

Seated on a bench, I was dazed. We chatted amiably until sunset. Finally, we ran out of conversation topics; when only our restless silence remained, Misaki pulled her secret notebook from her bag.

“Let’s walk toward our dreams!”

I responded, “It doesn’t matter anymore. This stuff isn’t going to change anything.”

“Don’t say such negative things.”

“Even if I try to believe these lies, in the end, there’s nothing I’d be able to do.”

“Actually, they’ve made me quite normal.”

“What part of you?”

“You don’t think I seem normal?” she asked.

“You’re strange”, I stated. “You’ve always been strange. Ever since I first saw you, I thought you seemed rather off.”

“Really…”

We both grew silent.

In front of us, a pigeon waddled by. Misaki tried to catch it. Naturally, the pigeon escaped. She repeated her attempt several times; after they all failed, she simply stared at the fountain in front of us.

Then, she said, “Satou, when it comes to you and me, and the idea of which of us is more worthless, you must be more worthless then I am, right?”

I agreed with her completely.

“Well, that’s why. That’s why you were selected for my project, Satou.”

It seemed she had finally decided she wanted to discuss the heart of the matter. At this point, though, it really didn’t make any difference, as nothing was going to change. At least, that was my conviction.