Strange Memories With You, My Dear

Chapter 01.03

Unknowable Memories

Translated by KuroNeko
Edited by Omkar

I parked my bike in the bicycle parking lot of a sports park with many streetlights and several uncles and aunts who appeared to be cycling home from work, and discovered several people stretching and conversing in a brilliantly lighted area. Some of them, like myself, may have been called up, and some are not far away. Mineko was nowhere to be seen. She was most likely running on the track.

    I walked over to them.

    One of the club’s male members raised his hand and said, “Oh, Yukinari,” to which the club’s younger female members responded, “Yukie-senpai.”

  I set my sports bag down. I had already put on my running shoes, so I began stretching.

    The sky had already darkened, but the LED lights that had been installed around the park shone brightly, illuminating the running track and the surrounding trees.

    “Mineko, we’ll be out of here shortly.”

    This was said by a guy in the same grade standing next to me, and soon after, Mineko and two members of the women’s club went past us, making rhythmic footsteps. I looked at the wearable device around my wrist, which had a stopwatch and a heart rate monitor, then smiled at him. He, too, greeted me with a glance. I sat down, stretched my ankles, and walked away.

    “Do you have a plan to get Mineko back from Satou?”

    Teasingly, the guy standing next to me whispered.

  “Shut up.”

    I jokingly left it, walked out to the jogging track, and began running casually. I was already used to getting teased about it by the club’s male members. I decided to run a couple of small distances before doing a leisurely circuit around the two-kilometer course.

    Mineko and the others appeared to have finished their practise and began wiping away their sweating with towels after a period of working out. She trudged over to me and started talking to me.

    “What have you been up to today, Yukki?”

    “Nothing. I read books, played video games, and sat in front of the internet to follow the news.”

    “It’s kind of nerdy.”

    “What about you?”

    “They’re similar, to be sure.”

    Then Mineko laughed.

    I ran a couple of short dashes to check my form. Mineko stood there, watching me stretch my thighs and calves.

    “Are you done for the day?”

    I didn’t want to be silent, so I spoke to her and she said, “Yeah. Maybe a little jog.” She shook her head and asked, “How are you feeling?”

    “I’m not feeling well today. This morning, I awoke early. I slept till noon since I felt tired in the morning. That’s why I’m feeling sluggish.”

    “You’re unhealthy. You can’t do well in competitions like that.”

    “I’ll be careful.”

    I responded. However, whenever I had problems sleeping, like today, it was typically when I was having the “dream” with Yuuko and the others, and since I couldn’t control my dreams, there was no way for me to be careful.

    “Do you ever experience the same dream repeatedly, Mineko?” As I asked this, I had the impression that I had never asked a girl this question before. But I had questioned a couple of my male friends about it.

    “What? Did you have a nightmare today that made you lose sleep?”

    That’s about it, I replied. With a Hmm, Mineko then continued, “I’ve been looking at one of these since kindergarten…”

    “What is it?”

    “A dog walked slowly first, followed by a cat at the same pace, and a white bird perched on the cat’s back. The bird was staring at me, and it’s quite creepy.”

    “What the hell is that?”

    “It’s so surreal. It makes me wonder what’s going on inside my head.”

    With a half-smile, Mineko murmured. I, too, gave a brief smile.

    I was also curious about what was going on in Mineko’s unconscious, but I suppose everyone’s unconscious isn’t always ordered, and I guess most impressive dreams are like that.

    Mineko stretched one more after finished stretching her legs, took a big breath, and wiped the sweat from her face. She then remained silent for a few seconds while holding the white towel. After a few awkward seconds of silence, Mineko turned to face the club members behind her and murmured quietly, “Nakayama-kun.” She continued as I looked up, surprised to hear her call me by something other than a nickname for the first time in a long time.

    “I’m sorry. At that time, I couldn’t answer clearly.”

    I felt a pounding impact all of a sudden. I had the sensation that something heavy and painful had been stuck in my throat.

    “Okay,” I murmured after a few seconds of awkward pause. I couldn’t figure out what was good about it, but it was “enough” for me. Don’t bother telling me that, I thought. It made me feel miserable to be told that.

    I said nothing, but I was so frustrated and enraged that I sprinted as fast as I could from my starting position.

  The white light of the streetlamp stretched like a line in the darkness, and the wind whistled about my ears. It was almost as if I was trying to run away from Mineko, which I found funny. I jogged for a few minutes after finishing my fifty-meter run.

    ――In the end, it’s already gone.

    I lost the possibility of going out with Mineko. The time I had dreamed when I was truly in love with her, holding hands on the way home, going on holiday dates, and studying together―had disappeared completely as an illusion, but our awkward relationship had went back to normal, and we could speak openly as fellow friends who had been involved in the same club activities since junior high. That’s plenty for me, I feel.

    I came to a halt and looked around to see Mineko standing in the same spot she had been watching me exercise.

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It was physics class in sixth period. Tanigawa-sensei, the physics teacher who, for some reason, always wears a lab coat even though he doesn’t perform any experiments, was discussing the double-slit experiment.

    Fire one photon at a time at the screen behind the two apertures in the wall. Since photons are particles, if they reach the screen without being blocked by walls, they will pass through one of the slits, and after firing many particles, there should be two lines parallel to the slits on the screen, but as it turned out, the “mountains” and “valleys” of the waves interfered with each other. As a result, a shading pattern, or interference fringes, appeared on the screen.

    When the same experiment was repeated using an observing device to identify which slit the emitted photon travelled through, the interference fringes typical of a wave vanished and a trail of dots emerged, showing that it was actually a particle. This is a well-known experiment that occurs frequently in quantum theory commentaries, demonstrating that tiny particles like electrons and photons have both particle and wave characteristics.

    Several ideas have been proposed over the last hundred years or more to explain the duality of particles and waves in matter. The Copenhagen interpretation, which states that the location of a particle is not determined before it is observed and can only be expressed in terms of its probability, but that its position is determined at a point when it is observed, has long been supported as the standard theory in the world of quantum theory. The Copenhagen interpretation has long been accepted as the mainstream theory in quantum mechanics, but it has failed to adequately explain why a particle’s position is determined as soon as it is observed. This gave rise to a number of hypotheses, including the Everett interpretation, which evolved into the Many Worlds interpretation (simply put, the idea that there are as many possible worlds as there are possibilities). However, now that a quarter of the twenty-first century has gone, the once-heretical many-world interpretation is gaining traction.

    The bell sounded just as I was ready to depart after Tanigawa-sensei had told us that much. I left the physics lab, carrying my notebook, textbook, and writing tools, and headed to class.

    Thursday was a change day for our track and field team. We were given the option of resting or practising on our own.

    Short-distance competitors frequently train hard on Wednesday and take a day off from practise on Thursday to allow for maximum recuperation. I was still experiencing stiff muscles in my legs, so I decided to skip the game and stayed at home. Athletes in the high jump and long jump events, as well as those competing in the long distance, were warming up on the field.

    I walked to the train station by myself and then went to the shopping centre to look at books and clothing.

    While I was browsing at short-sleeved shirts in a clothing store, many girls from the same high school were trying on items in front of an AR fitting mirror. When you present the barcode of your clothing to the scanner, or choose a specific product by operating the interface section of the mirror, which is also a touch panel, the mirror will display your picture wearing the clothing. It’s a little odd compared to the actual statue wearing, but that’s about all I need to know about my appearance.

    I saw many carnations put out in front of a flower shop as I strolled throughout the mall, visiting various establishments. A homemade sign with the words “For Mother’s Day” was placed next to it.

    This year, Mother’s Day fell on the following Sunday. After considerable consideration, I bought a set of cut flowers for 500 yen.

    My mother, who typically arrived home late, was strangely already home from work, when I entered the residence on the fifth floor of the apartment building a little after six o’clock. She murmured, “Welcome home,” as she sat on the sofa, fidgeting with her tablet, without even looking at me.

    “You’re home early today,” I commented, to which my mother answered, “Since it was a no-overtime day.”

    “Yeah―Here, I bought this.”

   I placed the carnation in a plastic bag on the table. My mother shifted her gaze away from the tablet after noticing the rustling sound.

    “What? Flowers?”

    “Because it’s Mother’s Day.”

    “It’s not on Sunday?”

    My mother furrowed her brow.

    “I have club activities on Sundays. It’s okay, isn’t it?”

    “Oh yeah,” she replied as she sat up from the couch, tossing her tablet.

    “Then, I’m gonna go get changed.”

    I walked inside my room and left it at that.

    I turned on the remote control for the LED lights, took off my uniform, hung it up, and changed into the sportswear I used as loungewear.

    I sat in my desk chair and read for a time, a book for the general audience by a physicist named Fukuhara Shohei, who is a personal favourite of mine.

    Then I went back to the living room, where the aroma of curry filled the air. The carnations I’d placed on the table had already been put in a vase and were on display near the kitchen. What had previously been a bleak environment grew a little more well, festive.

    “How long do you have to be at the club?”

    My mother, who was seated across from me, asked me this as we were eating and listening to the news. Before responding, I swallowed what was in my mouth.

    “Unless I wake up in the next few weeks and drastically cut my time, I’ll most likely be done after the first competition in June.”

    “Hmm. How fast are you running now?”

    “My best time in the 100 metres is slightly under 11.4 seconds.”

    “That’s fast.”

    “It’s not very fast. There are a lot of guys in the prefecture who can run in the ten-second range.”

    “Is it really that big of a difference?”

    “Yeah,” I said, nodding. In a world where tenths of a second matter, there is a gap of nearly a second between us and the prefecture’s top class. To get to the point where you can go under eleven seconds, you must be naturally fit and athletic, besides working hard. We finished second in the spring regional qualifying round to qualify for the prefectural tournament, but based on our track record in past years, we will most likely not qualify at the prefectural tournament level.

    “Athletics, this is your sixth year, right?”

    “Yeah.”

    “You’ve done well.”

    I didn’t answer, but instead shook my head, ate a mouthful of curry, and walked into my room. I felt drowsy as I sat in bed reading the rest of my book, so I closed my book and closed my eyes.

    In my hazy mind, I pondered if I’d experience the same dream today, with Yuuko, Tomoki, or someone else in it. Normally, I’m fine, but when I have those nightmares, I feel oddly agitated and a sense of melancholy, and I don’t sleep well, so I wanted to sleep well the day before the competition without dreaming.

    What happens in the dream world remains in the dream world. I didn’t want it to impact the real world that I had built so far.

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