Tap-tap.
I hear kimagure. It is tantalizingly familiar.
Tap-tap, tap. Tap-tap.
What sound is this? I know it.
The sound of my mother making breakfast? The knock when we’re playing hide-and-seek and she’s found me? The sound of me rapping on the window of the nurse’s station when I want her to know I’m there? The crash of pebbles blown by the sea wind hitting the windows of our house?
Tap-tap, tap.
No. It’s the sound of a wooden hammer. Then this must be the day of my fourth birthday.
I open my eyes.
My mother is hammering in the garden. In our house’s tiny yard, my mother is sitting cross-legged in the sunshine on a piece of cardboard she’s laid out. She’s making something. Around her are planks, poles, and a toolbox with planers and a coping saw.
“Mom, is it ready yet?” I ask with the sweet, lisping voice of a child.
“Not yet, not yet,” she answers, singsong. The golden light forms a halo around her long hair and sits like water droplets on her long eyelashes and full mouth, much fuller than mine.
She sets me on the veranda and measures my legs with a measuring tape. She cuts several poles with the saw. With an electric drill, she bores holes in the planks. My mother is good at everything—cooking, driving, creating.
“Which do you like better: pink, blue, or yellow?” she asks, lining up cans of paint.
“Yellow!” I answer. I choose that color because a yellow butterfly is flitting behind her just then, and I think it’s incredibly cute.
She pops the can open, and the thrilling smell of paint fills the air. She dips her brush in it and paints the two planks, which are square and about thirty centimeters on each side. The glossy yellow reflects the May sunshine, scattering bright light everywhere.
The two of us eat stir-fried udon for lunch. By afternoon, the paint is dry. The bright-yellow planks feel strangely smooth and plasticky under my fingers. She fits the poles into the planks and taps on them with the hammer. Again, that tantalizing sound.
“Is it ready yet?” I ask, a little bored, as I line up pebbles in the flower bed. I’m full and sleepy.
“Just about,” she says teasingly. Tap-tap, tap-tap. She looks at me and grins.
“All done! Happy birthday, Suzume!”
She hands me the yellow chair.
“Wow!” I’m delighted, I really am, but I feel like something’s still missing. The chair is very simple, with a square seat and back and four legs. My younger self had been hoping for something a little more exciting.
“Is this his face?” I ask, pointing to the backrest.
“Huh? It’s a chair, sweetie! Just for you!” she says, smiling wryly. Then, “Wait a minute.”
She picks up the chair, thinks for a moment, and draws two circles on the backrest. Then she takes a chisel from the toolbox and carves two indentations. When she’s done carving, she smooths the indentations with sandpaper and paints them. The backrest is now a face with two little eyes.
“Done! Like it?”
“Oooh!”
This time I’m genuinely excited. Now that it has eyes, the yellow chair might start talking at any moment. Maybe it wants to be my friend. My sleepiness and boredom disappear instantly.
“It’s just for me!”
I sit on the chair. It’s the perfect size. “For me!” I repeat. “Thank you, Mom!”
She’s squatting next to me, and I throw my arms around her, still seated in the chair. Tangled together, the three of us topple into the garden. Lying on my mother’s chest, I say with confidence, “I’m going to keep it forever and ever!”
“Forever?! Well then, that was a worthwhile project!” she laughs. I laugh, too.
It’s all right here, clear as day—our laughter, the sun in the garden, the sound of waves crashing on the shore, the occasional chirping of bush warblers. I’d thought the memory had left me, but here it is, so vivid I almost shrink back.
Reluctant to give up this sleep that holds me like warm mud, I slowly wake from my dream.
The low howl of wind fills my ears, mixed with the gurgling of a stream. I open my eyes.
I’m surrounded by darkness. Far overhead is a pale, greenish light. It’s so faint I wonder if it’s a random pattern projected behind my eyelids. I begin to doubt whether my eyes are actually open. I blink a few times.
“……”
Eventually, my eyes adjust to the dark, and I begin to make out hazy forms. The ceiling is as high as a four- or five-story building and weirdly bumpy, like it’s pieced together from giant blocks. Light shines faintly through long, thin gaps here and there. I’m lying on my back, looking up at a huge space, too disorderly to be man-made and too geometric to be a natural cave. The stones beneath my back are slick with moisture.
“Where…,” I murmur, sitting up. I stick my hand in the pocket of my culottes and take out my phone. The rustle of the fabric echoes loudly, like I’m in a tunnel.
“Where am I?”
I push the button on the side, and the screen flashes brightly. I squint, then open a map. It takes a little longer than usual, but the topography appears. A river takes up the whole screen, and the symbol for my current location is right in the middle of it.
“I’m under a river?”
I pinch my fingers on the screen to zoom out—but it suddenly goes black. A red empty-battery icon appears and then disappears right away.
“Damn!”
The battery is completely dead. My brain is still fuzzy. The reverberations of my dream echo faintly in my ears. Still sitting on the damp ground, I peer around.
“Oh…!”
In the distance is a small point of light. Several passages branch off the room I’m in, and at the end of one of them is that faint green light.
“Souta…?” I mumble without thinking. I will my legs to stand up. Something feels off. I realize my left shoe is missing.
“Oh yeah…”
As I walk toward the light, I gradually remember. My shoe fell off when I was riding the worm into the sky. And then I plunged the chair—the Keystone—into the worm. The worm vanished right after that, and I fell out of the sky. And then—
“…!”
I step out of the passage and gasp at what I see.
Ruins. Ancient, sprawling, underground ruins.
“This must be…”
Everything is made from wood and stone. The roofs are tile, the posts timber, and the walls stone. In the center of the ruins, a castle gate stands by itself, larger than everything else. Amid the crumbling buildings, it’s the only thing still holding its original form. The gate has large double doors, and inside is a starry sky.
“…Tokyo’s Gate?!”
I take off running. My feet splash through water. The gate is surrounded by a cold, shallow pool.
“Aaah!” As I stand in front of the gate, I gasp in surprise. Inside are the glaring stars of Ever-After and, below them, the black silhouette of a hill. Something small is stuck into the earth at its peak.
A chair.
Its legs are buried deep in the hill—which is actually the body of the worm.
“Souta!”
I run toward him. The hill appears both far away and close enough to touch; the concept of distance starts to blur. I keep going. I’m nearing the gate. I burst through the door, but just when I think I’ve reached the foot of the hill—
“Huh?!”
I’m back in the dark ruins, and I look over my shoulder. There’s the castle gate and, inside it, Ever-After. It’s exactly like the first door I encountered, the one in Kyushu where I pulled Daijin out of the ground.
“I can’t get in…!”
Still, I can see it. He’s so close. I start running toward the gate again.
But the shoe still on my right foot catches on something, and I fall into the water. Cold, grainy liquid fills my mouth. I sit up, spit it out, and peel off my shoe. I start running again in my socks, and then I’m through the gate.
“—!”
It doesn’t work. I’m still in the ruins. I look back. Souta is inside the gate, on top of the black hill.
“…He’s in Ever-After,” I whisper in despair. But—but I can see him!
“Souta!” I scream.
No answer. The strength drains from my legs.
“Souta, Souta…!”
Unable to stand any longer, I sink to my knees in the water.