Volume 1 Chapter 3 (1/2)

This is the English translation of the third part (of four) of the first story (“Stargazer”) of the series of short stories titled “Final Days of Suotten per, and he is very excited about his work being translated to English

As always, since I havetranslation projects, any feedback on this story will help ies You can vote for this story on my survey , or even better you can leave a comment on this post, or like it I’ve received some positive coet the better odds I’ll keep translating it So if you like the story so far, please consider telling a friend (:

Thanks to Niji this chapter

contains this work’s synopsis and other translated portions You can see the entire first short story in its original japanese

Story 1: Stargazer (Part 3)

It was the fifth night I spent with Nameless-two days before the meteor shower

The sky was shrouded in thick clouds Na up into the night sky at stars barely visible through the cloud cover It ainst voicing my concern to him

After staring at the overcast sky for so

”What's with you?”

”Oh, nothing really I was just thinking about how a giant star-a whale-had taken a big bite out of the moon……”

Thus began another of his fantastic tales

According to him, all forms of life eventually shed their physical bodies and returned to the sky as stars Irrespective of how they acted during their lifetis as large stars and s for their turn to circle the Moon, finally have their life judged, and fall once again to the Earth in the form of a shell

However, it is said that all beings feel the irresistible char their lifeti into this temptation is considered the h the intensity of the te time on Earth as a plain, unattractive shell The majority of small stars never even have an opportunity to come in contact with the e ones-the 'whale' stars-can Whale stars that cannot bear this tee bite out of the Moon

”But, you see,” Na to becoy and spray water fro to prevent their wrongdoing fro discovered That is the reason those clouds are there”

I nodded from Nameless's side and looked up at the thick clouds

Was the whale on the other side of the clouds tre at us with a s look on his face? In any case, fro which

”Humans say that the sky is infinite However, we believe differently Rather, the sky is nothing more than an ocean where stars float, and our world is finite”

Narin, eyes fixed on ory of 'humans'; this was probably because he considered himself a 'dolphin'

assuiant ocean, is the bottom of that ocean on the other side of the sky? If the sky ends there and the world we live in is enclosed like the rooo? Wouldn't rockets just bump into the walls of this 'room'?

Nameless continued, his eyes still fixed on me It seems as if my face had betrayed my doubts

”But, you know, the place where the stars live is very, very far fro made by human hands could never possibly reach the end of the sky That's why humans are convinced it is infinite”

So, apparently at the limits of the place we call the 'universe', farther away than any human can reach, exists a so-called 'ocean' Indeed, if the star of a lost loved one ithin our reach, ould do anything to get them back Perhaps the absolute impossibility of this is the very reason we fear death, the parting with another e never cross paths with again

A large, dark cloud-the spray of a whale, according to Naht sky, and before long almost completely obscured the stars

I said it would rain tomorrow, and Nameless responded with a nod Hopefully this would at least keep hi a trip back to this beach the middle of a rainstorm To be honest, I wanted to just carry Nameless, unable to walk on his own, back to ether But I'm sure he wouldn't accept that; noabout dolphins again

So I went hoan Of course, Nameless remained behind on the beach, all alone

The stor the night before, it continued all through thethere was still no sign of it letting up I realized I probably wouldn't be able to make it to the beach today It was all the fault of that troubleso a bite out of the ht about these things, I felt a wave of loneliness wash over ht

My ears were tickled by the constant sound of rushi+ng rain that was oblivious tountil the rain let up had begun to extend to places I nor out a few old photo albums from a dust-covered bookshelf, I finally stopped to take a break

There was four yearbooks, and around ten photo albuh thee realization These pictures didn't actually tell row up

The albule picture I'd sent her recently; looking at it, I felt a groarmth in my chest Noabout me And yet, I never……

On the last page of this raph of ht around the tier But once this little vacation is over, I have no desire to return to that coh I thought I finally had it all

But where would I go then? Unable to close the alburet at the picture of ht

If Nameless was in the saan to consider that, a notebook suddenly fell out froes of one of the older albums

The notebook was surprisingly heavy Se, it appeared to be a journal On the cover was scribbled ”Nao's journal Moh……With a tre my memories-or perhaps I should say my secrets

I ie had an actual shell glued to it Acco done with colored pencils and soes had dates, others didn't I got the impression these ritten just for the fun of it, as opposed to being a serious record of anything

As I flipped through the pages the radually returned to ia This journal capturedon that very same beach Each day I had apparently selected e where I drew a picture of the beach When I looked at these drawings, pitifully bad by any standard, I burst out laughing in spite of rossed in drawing these pictures Flipping through them, I saw pictures of beaches, more beaches, even more beaches, and……a dolphin

A dolphin? Curious, I stopped at that page

Fros of dolphins took the place of drawings of the beach There were several co even es ahead Dolphins Dolphins Dolphins……For seven pages straight there was nothing but drawings of dolphins At the last of these, the journal suddenly ended

Playing at that beach, picking up shells-I had faint, but definitea dolphin in person……this would surely have been aabout that, the existence of a group of dolphins that appeared for a week straight, or why I had suddenly stopped writing this journal

What an unbelievable coincidence I thought back to Nameless's tales

He'd said, ”the dolphins start waiting for the meteor shower a week in advance” Could it be that the last entry in the journal corresponded to the day of theup to it, I had spent time with the dolphins, and then on the day of thehad happened?