Prologue
“JUST LIKE OLD TIMES!”
These were the first words that left Hinako’s lips as she stood on the balcony of her brand-new apartment up on the eighth floor. It was a bright and sunny spring afternoon—and nothing but ocean for miles around. Not some peaceful, idyllic ocean either. The waves around Chiba Sotobo had a mind of their own.
The ocean breeze blew against her head-on, and as the waves swelled, her body itched restlessly. I mean, just look at that one! Agh!
“Those hollow waves…!”
The lip of the waves descended steeply as they broke.
Hinako loved, loved, loved the ocean—so much so, she’d gone out of her way to apply to the seaside college back in her hometown. So what was she waiting for?!
She pulled her surfboard away from the railing, tucked it under her arm, and slipped between the piles of cardboard boxes to the front door.
Some people spent their formative childhood years in the mountains, while others spent theirs on the beach. Hinako felt that those experiences went on to have a profound impact on everything that came afterward. Depending on your familiarity with the water, your whole life could be completely different!
In Hinako’s case, she had spent the first six or seven years of her life right on Kujukuri Beach in Chiba Prefecture—where she was now headed—so the water was practically her second home.
You can take the girl out of the ocean, but you can’t take the ocean out of the girl.
Every day she longed for nothing more than to be in the water; whenever she wasn’t able to visit the beach, she was so devastated, she barely ate. Was her obsession kind of intense? Yeah. But that was just the kind of girl she was.
As her mother always said, Hinako was so comfortable with water that she overstayed her welcome in the womb by a full ten days. Only after the amniotic fluid was gone had baby Hinako finally been willing to leave.
The porpoise decal on the front of her bright orange surfboard grinned up at her as she loaded it onto the cargo rack of her dark orange bicycle. Then Hinako hopped on and breezily set off for the beach. As she pedaled, the smell of the sea deepened, and the sound of the waves grew closer. Then she entered a tunnel under the elevated toll road—affectionately referred to as “Surf Street” by the locals.
In just a few seconds, she would be mere steps away from the Pacific Ocean. Eeee, so exciting! What could possibly be more thrilling than this very moment?
And so Hinako sailed out into the bright sunshine waiting for her on the other side.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So, whatcha making for dinner tonight?” asked Kawamura Wasabi, a twenty-year-old junior firefighter, as he folded the newly dried sheets.
As it happened, tonight’s staff meal was fried chicken. But Minato didn’t answer. Instead, he climbed the metal ladder to the highest point on the top-floor terrace: the roof.
All across the world, there were plenty of pretty oceans—the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea, or the Great Barrier Reef (so large as to be visible from space!), or the clear waters hailed as a “diver’s paradise” in the Southern Hemisphere. But to Minato, Kujukuri’s chunk of the Pacific was a cut above the rest.
He couldn’t actually remember his early childhood (a natural phenomenon known as “childhood amnesia,” supposedly) but as far as he knew, he had been born listening to those waves, feeling that sea breeze against his skin, and gazing out at the horizon over that water. Even now that he was a full-fledged firefighter at age twenty-two, he couldn’t imagine ever growing tired of it. The best part of his job? This view, right here.
It was early April. The weather was unusually warm, and the ocean’s sparkle was exceptional. It was the season of short sleeves, and the firefighters were all wearing T-shirts bearing the symbol of the fire department: a snowflake, intended to represent water, unity, and purity.
Minato stood at the far corner of the roof and folded his arms. The crisp ocean air tickled his elbows.
I can’t believe it.
Amid the glitter of the afternoon sun on the water’s surface, a lone figure slid over the waves.
“Senpai?” Wasabi followed him up the ladder and walked up next to him.
“She came back,” Minato muttered to himself.
Dubiously, Wasabi looked out at the ocean. At some point the wind had shifted direction, and now the waves were headed offshore. He could make out a single surfer in the distance; her board was bright orange, and…was that a dolphin decal? She was wearing a yellow bikini, with her hair tied up in a big bun. He couldn’t make out the features of her face, but he could tell she was of slight build. She was also quite adept at her craft; she did a cutback, then followed up with a killer roller coaster.
“You know her?” Wasabi asked, blinking in surprise as he looked at Minato. Sure, Minato was a good-looking guy who could probably have his pick of the ladies, but he never seemed all that interested in women.
“She’s my hero,” Minato explained…and with that, he started humming cheerfully.