Minato no Hoshizora: Part 2
When it came, it came like a bolt in the blue. Minato shivered at its touch. A little ways above, Elnath called, “What's the matter?”
Minato realised that he was airborne, and stifled a yelp. At the next moment he was abruptly clear-headed again, and wondering dryly what he had panicked for. This was routine by now, them going out to look for potential crystals. How many times had he gone flying out with Elnath to hunt them down? Panicking was a little too anachronistic, now.
All around him the darkness was complete, and he had lost all sense of direction. He felt himself beginning to roll in space: but then the light of the stars caught his gaze, and he knew up again.
Only now did Minato finally feel calm.
Then it came again. That rude awakening, that sting of sensation so very like a sharp smack on tip of the nose. Where, what had it come from? Beneath his eyes stretched the lines of the door lamps, the houses sitting side by side in some quiet neighbourhood. The many windows were lit with a warm glow, like the outpouring of the families' happinesses. There was a girl of early primary years with someone like her father at one household, standing by the concrete doorpost with their backs to the house. The girl was staring straight at Minato's direction with saucer-eyes. As if she were seeing something absolutely strange and wonderful her eyes were shining, and her lips widening in a smile.
Perhaps it was this girl whose attention had shaken him so, with her sight – for lack of a better word – that had pierced him through like an arrow. Something like that.
“Minato?” Elnath came down to Minato's height, peering at his face puzzledly.
And that was it. That was it, of course, what else could it be? What else but him and Elnath looking for the potential crystals together? Now the scenes began to rise in reverse from this crystal hunt, back to when this first friend of his took hold of his hand and pulled him flying out of the hospital room, as he sought desperately in his memory for confirmation.
His first flight that night could not be said to have gone well. In Peter Pan the characters had taken simply and intuitively to the skies, but Minato's first experience was far to the contrary. Floundering and beating his arms and legs was no good – there was no resistance to be felt. He flopped about helplessly in the air.
“You'll get used to it soon,” said Elnath grinning, and did a cheery somersault. “This is your world, Minato. Just relax your body, like normal. Let your body move, flow by itself. You'll find it obeying you soon.”
“T…that doesn't help,” panted Minato, tussling with the air. In all his bed-bound life, flight like in Peter Pan was something he hadn't considered even in his dreams. All he knew were nightmares of rising only to fall, of painful, arduous struggle. How was his body supposed to know how to move?
“Oh, all right,” said Elnath, and grabbed Minato's hand. Then they were smoothly rising.
“Remember this feeling well,” he added. And Minato felt again in his heart the mint wind that had been blowing when he had leapt out of the window. So this, he thought, is how release feels.
“Now you just need to focus onto some place, and think firmly that you want to go there,” said Elnath. “Do that, and your body will naturally follow.”
Then just like on a slide, Minato was falling.
“Aaaaahhh!” But the slate roofs of the houses were fast approaching. He tensed his body up against the impact, and reflexively his legs were moving too, to kick hard at the air. He couldn't feel any impact on his soles, but there he was, being propelled back into the air.
“Yep, that's it,” said Elnath. “See? You can do it. People really do really do learn best through danger.”
“Don't do that!” Minato said, trying unsuccessfully to scowl. Elnath cackled in response. Then he took off, leaving Minato behind, shouting “Wait!” and trying to catch up. His long scarf billowed behind him as he flew; but after a while he would come to a stop and wait, only to take off again, and then to stop again and throw an eye behind, moving like an inchworm to Minato's slow progress.
A chase – such a simple thing and yet such, such fun!
Playing tag with friends – the chaser chasing with an expression of the most furious of mock angers, and everyone else running off and calling him names in friendship and in glee. A familiar game for those who weren't sickly, an everyday game, mundane.
Having a friend, playing tag. It was the first time Minato had ever been able to go out and play, and what an experience it was!
Now Elnath was swooping through the light spots of the lamps, brushing past TV antennas, somersaulting onto roofs and generally making a ruckus.
“Someone's going to notice us if you make so much noise!” called Minato. Seeing all the people beneath them crowding to get home made Minato nervous.
“It'll be all right,” said Elnath. He approached a salaryman and waved an end of his scarf in front of his face. “See? No one can see us.”
“Very well!” Minato's face stretched into a grin. “Then I won't hold back either!” He swished his coat back, out of his way, and then leapt at full speed at his friend. Elnath shot up hurriedly, barely avoiding his touch, crying “Stop!”
“Well, I did say I wouldn't hold back,” called Minato.
“That's not it,” said Elnath. “I've found one.”
“One what?”
“A potential crystal.” Elnath's eyes, roving frenetically in search, had alighted on a household. Swift as a swallow he dived, to land nimbly in a narrow space between fence and kitchen window. Minato followed suit, narrowly avoiding crashing into a boiler unit, and together they peered into the house.
There was a little girl across an old sink, who looked to be the age when children begin to talk. She was tugging at her mother, who herself was taking groceries out of a supermarket bag. “I will become one, I will!” said the little girl, her voice high.
“And what'll you become?” The mother spoke very kindly to her, despite being busy and still having a suit from work on. “A giraffe? A panda?”
“Teacher, kindergarten.”
“Oh, so you want to become a kindergarten teacher, Ricchan?”
“Yes! Teacher!” The girl hopped up and down in delight. “I look after children and say bye-bye to them! Fun!”
“Were you playing in groups today?”
“Right.”
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Yes.” The girl nodded so hard she seemed about to topple over. At Minato's side, Elnath was rubbing his hands expectantly and said, “It's coming.”
What's coming? But even as he was about to ask, an arrow of light shot out from the girl's chest.
“Now!” Elnath held his right arm high. The light swung by the girl with dizzying speed, then shot itself out at the window, and Elnath caught it deftly. “Score one! Welcome onboard, potential crystal!” Elnath opened his hand: a pink candy-crystal sat at its centre, giving off a faint, gentle glow.
“It's really beautiful,” said Minato, his face bathed pink as he peered in at it.
“It is, isn't it? The younger the child, the clearer the crystal. You know, because they're more innocent.”
After a moment of thought, Minato opened his mouth to ask a question. “Crystals of potential are released by a choice that isn't taken, right? But what choice did the girl not take? Didn't she decide to become a kindergarten teacher? And at her age it's not like saying it will decide her future anyway.” Elnath chuckled at his words.
“Strictly speaking,” he said, “that's not any of my business. But if you really want an answer, well―” and as he spoke he dandled the crystal lightly on his palm “―well maybe you could say that what she had discarded was the choice of not thinking at all. Her mother asked her if she wanted to become a giraffe or a panda, didn't she? She must still have thought that she could become an animal at that time.”
“Oh, so she grew out of her childish innocence and became a little more of an adult?”
“That's one way to put it,” said Elnath. “But put another way―” and then he broke off and said instead, “Well, whatever.”
“Another way what? Elnath, you have this really bad habit of cutting off in the middle of your sentences.” But by then Elnath had already slipped his scarf out of the reach of Minato's grasping hands, and was airborne. “It'll have to stay a secret,” he called. “Forget about that and let's just collect more potential crystals already!” Minato sighed lightly in defeat, and flew up to join him.
“It's coming.”
“You're not going to have it this time! Not on my watch!”
Lit orange by the setting sun, the two were engaged in a heated aerial battle. They had been charging at each other high above the football goal, but now they curled up and shot off for the school building, whooping wildly as they flew. Coming close up to a second storey window, Minato peered in and regarded the neatly lined desks and the blackboard and the colouring pinnings on the walls with interest. And Elnath, taken with Minato's behaviour, flew circles around him and prodded him, pulled on his coat.
“So you want to go to this… this school place as well?”
“Of course I do. I want to have fun studying and playing together with friends and all.”
“Well, I get the playing,” Elnath observed, assuming a cross-legged and upside-down position in the air. “But you're being stuck in a room, just like farm animals, if farm animals that study.”
“That's only because there're too many students,” Minato shot back, offended at the slight. “This way just maximises efficiency. And anyway, when communications technology becomes more advanced we'll be able to learn wherever and whenever we want.”
Elnath, upside-down and scarf-ends dangling, only looked away. “What mode of learning best suits Earthlings is a question I could hardly care less about,” he said. “But this homogeneous form of education is just ridiculous. You should just learn whatever interests you; what doesn't, you leave to someone else who is; and with all your knowledges you can help each other whenever the need arises. Surely that's more efficient for the social creatures you are.”
“I think that's what happens in university anyway, since people branch out and specialise in all kinds of fields,” said Minato. “This is just high school after all, so they only focus on the foundational knowledge instead.”
Elnath only scratched at the area around his goggles. Now he lowered his body to an angle and moved away from the school building, still tilted. “Well, there certainly is still some good to being in a group. Look there.” He jerked his chin downwards, at a group of football club members on the ground. Practice had ended and now they were gathered in a half-circle around their advising teacher, in the middle of a meeting. Then there was the sound of clapping, as one tall student stood up and bowed deeply to the teacher and the team.
“Now!” cried Elnath. A sky-blue crystal darted out from the group below, and he caught it still upside-down with the use of only one hand. “Score again.”
“Hey, that's unfair! You were distracting me!”
“All's fair in love and war,” smirked Elnath. Now he took the crystal and, holding it up to the light of the sunset, squinted at it earnestly with one eye closed. “It's bigger than I thought it would be. I guess that that one boy was selected for something, while the rest who weren't had to give up their dreams of becoming professional players. Minato, you want this?”
The sky-blue crystal caught the light on its uneven surface and flared in the sunset.
Minato turned his head. “No, no thanks.”
“Hey, this isn't loser's charity or anything, you know? There's no need to hold back.”
'No, it's not that. And I don't care what size it is either; I just don't want it.
Elnath turned to look directly at Minato. “Any reason why?”
Minato said, “I just don't get it, how they can let go of their potential crystals after just not being chosen. I mean, of course they'd be disappointed about it, maybe even get depressed over it, but if they really want to become a footballer there're still plenty of opportunities ahead. They just need to keep working at it. I'm no football expert, but I'm sure there're high schools they can join with strong football teams, or professional football team auditions that they can try out for, and plenty of other things besides. This isn't the only chance that they'll ever have. If they give up now then it's all over. There's more that they can do, more that they can try, just―more, so long as they're still healthy…”
Elnath nodded. “I see.”
And now that he had finished with what he had to say, Minato slumped, drained and despondent. “That's what I would do, if I were them,” he said. “If I weren't sick, I… wouldn't give up.”
Elnath eyed Minato's bowled figure for a few moments. “Well, these things happen. Everyone's different,” he said lightly, dropping the potential crystal into his pouch with a clink. “Minato. Do you happen to know anything about an electron cloud's energy levels?”
Minato raised his eyes briefly, but lowered them again, shaking his head.
“Electrons occupy the space around the atomic nucleus in layers of shells,” said Elnath. “Quantum theory dictates that every shell can only hold up to a certain fixed number of electrons.” At this, Minato lifted his gaze, uncomprehending.
“Now, electrons normally exist in their ground state, meaning in a low energy shell. If, however, they gain energy from absorbing a photon, they jump up to a higher energy shell.”
“They jump?” interrupted Minato. He was caught up in the explanation now.
“Yup. They get excited by the photon's energy. The thing is, this change is fundamentally a temporary one, so after a while a photon will be released and the electrons will return to their normal energy levels. So even though you can make electrons reach incredible heights by shining light on them, they'll still sink back eventually.”
“Wait. So you're say...” Minato furrowed his brow. He began again. “So you're saying that potential crystals are like those photons? That they are literally the released manifestation of the people's dreams? So basically that those people down there never actually had the potential to become professional players in the first place?”
“Oh, no, no, our crystals aren't quite as simple as that,” said Elnath, “though you are welcome to think of them that way. At their ground state electrons can become excited by photons again. So you see, it's not all over even when you lose the crystal. And that concludes my lesson.”
Minato understood now that Elnath had been trying to reassure him. To tell him that even if you did lose your dream, you could always become inspired by something new. But even so… Minato raised his eyes to the sky, looking to see if there was any of the crystal's blue in the colours of the sunset. But even so, he thought, he wouldn't have given up at all. Not if his body was fine. He looked up at Elnath, drifting ahead lazily. At his backpack, at the potential crystals within.
He took off. A kick at the air brought him to Elnath, and he reached out and grabbed a backpack strap as he flew by. Elnath cried out, “Hey, what're you doing?”
“Now – score one!” said Minato, after Elnath's fashion. “Both the crystals and Elnath are back in my hands!” He laughed, his laughter loud enough to banish any cares.
“You really are an uncivilised bunch, you earthlings!” cried Elnath, frantically waving his arms and legs in his newly-made harness. Minato bust into laughter again at the sight. Yes, why worry about the deep stuff? For once his body was fine, and he had a friend to play with, and there wasn't any more of a miracle that he could ask for. Why not just hunt for those shining crystals and have fun? Why not just put aside the true nature of the crystals or thoughts on how long this magic could last, for now at least, and simply enjoy the moment? So Minato danced on in the air, his coat billowing and with Elnath in tow.
And for a time, they passed their days in delight. They laughed with each other, argued with each other, chased around each other, ran afoul, sometimes, of cats with each other. The day that Fujiwara-san had said he could leave the hospital came and went, but Minato's spirits could no longer be dampened. He could he, when he had a friend to be with him?
At dinnertime once, Minato put aside the strawberry that came with the desert, and shared it later with Elnath. Tonkatsu would probably have been more of a treat, but, then again, they could hardly serve that in a hospital. Elnath took up the strawberry and held it before his eyes, entranced by its jewelly redness. The strawberry then, together with a friend, was the best that he could ever remember tasting.
The girl was still staring wide-eyed at Minato in the air. He himself, back in the present again, blinked hard and squinted to see if she really was looking at him. She had her hands clasped at her front and her mouth a little open, looking for all the world as if she might begin sighing again for wonder. It was the first time Minato had ever been looked at with such awe. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dancing. Surely this was precisely how girls looked when they met with their favourite idol.
He really was a prince at that moment then, one who was friends with a magician and could fly, the Little Prince.
There was a warm feeling spreading through his chest. All this time, he had been someone to be pitied, someone without anything to his name, but now here was a girl looking up to him and it was so embarrassing, but also so happy. Here she was, the first person to admire him for his own freedom!
The flash of awakening that he had felt when his and the girl's eyes had met, as well as the ease with which he dove into his memory after a trail to the present, were surely an outcome of the drifting, dreaming state that he had been in from the moment that he'd first put his princely coat on. And being observed by the girl had turned him, someone absolutely peripheral to the world, into a definite certainty. The great tree of the forest could now claim its existence in the world, for it had been seen by man.
“Elnath, someone's looking at us.”
His friend turned his head sharply back, then grinned. “No way.”
“No, look.” Minato turned to point at the door with the girl. But now the girl was being herded back into the house by her father, and although she was pointing up at them and evidently trying to convince him of their presence, he himself only smiled indulgingly.
“You must have been seeing things,” said Elnath. “Both you are I are invisible to the rest of the world.”
“But―” Minato broke off, as the girl raised an arm to him and waved a reluctant farewell.
But perhaps he wouldn't speak of this to Elnath. Wasn't Elnath fond of the idea of fate? Even their meeting was a fated one, according to him. If indeed the girl was able to see him….
He cried out his wish, then, his silent prayer. Because wouldn't it be nice if they could meet again, before the magic was gone?
