30 All Together: Camping 4

The sun has set.

"Ooh! Ooh!"

Mio raises her excitement to the sky as she lights the firework Jin prepared in abundance.

"Look, look, Tōyaku! So many fireworks!"

"O-oh. Yeah, that's right."

"Now Mio's had fireworks too!"

"Good, huh?"

Shou tilts his head, wondering why she's telling him specifically.

He has forgotten that he once visited Mio at a camp and talked about fireworks.

In that sense, Mio might have a better memory.

Or perhaps she's tenacious.

"Belwair, you idiot! Don't point fireworks at people! It's dangerous!"

"Fufu. The sight of Kou helplessly fleeing. Quite entertaining."

"May. You should stop. The little ones are imitating you, aren't they? Come on."

Though a bit risky, the trainees seem to be enjoying themselves.

"Put the used fireworks in the bucket properly when you're done."

In front of the stove still warm with dying embers, Jin and Jake clink their cans of beer together, along with Sharon.

"Today was exhausting. Both of you were a great help."

"No, no. We had fun."

"I hadn't played with a lady like this in ages. Good to be back."

Jin thinks, then.

"Drinking together like this—this is the first time, isn't it?"

"Ah… right, that’s true."

"Come to think of it… maybe it is."

With the loosening of the alcohol ban, things had changed. Gathering together as three had become rare.

In fact, meeting like this—only a few months old.

Even more so.

"If it weren’t for Mio, we wouldn’t be here like this at all."

"Thinking about it, it feels strange."

"Still, we were both busy."

Graduating from training school at eighteen.

Jin and Sharon parting ways at twenty.

Jake became non-combatant at twenty-one.

That was when the relationship among the three became irreparably severed.

Correspondence with Jake continued, thin and intermittent.

It took nearly two years to restore the relationship between Sharon and the rank of Lieutenant and Staff Sergeant.

By then, Jin had met Rei.

Two years later, they would never meet again.

Reflecting on his own experiences, Jin thinks, quite a lot has happened.

Two years.

The time spent with Rei, and the time since losing Rei, had finally caught up.

From here on, the time since Rei’s passing would stretch endlessly.

At the same time, the days of time spent with Mio would accumulate, step by step.

Now, as the three had gathered again.

Mio’s presence would surely draw Jin toward new human connections.

Something to look forward to.

And yet—why, again, does he wonder?

Again and again.

Only when he lets his guard down does the thought surface.

Why isn’t there a command here?

"They’d say the same thing if I told them Mio connected them."

Watching children playing with fireworks.

Mio’s friends, naturally. The trainees too—everyone.

"Probably without Mio, none of them would be here today."

The trainees are here only because Mio established goodwill.

Not because they’re Jin’s students.

"He somehow… always brings us to new places."

In that sense. Mio and the command are clearly not alike.

The command wasn’t someone who showed new worlds—more like someone who illuminated the ground Jin had overlooked.

They share a restless curiosity, a tendency to move first—but at the core, the difference feels substantial.

"Looking forward to what the future holds… sounds old-fashioned, doesn’t it?"

"Likely to hear ‘worry about your own futures first’ in return."

They laughed—three in their late twenties.

Older than the younger, younger than the older.

A most incongruous age for all three of them.

"Ten years from now… what will we be doing?"

"Stop talking about the future."

"Yeah. I’m more concerned with what happens the day after tomorrow."

The two at the training facility, burdened with accumulated work, rubbed their temples.

"Expedition training. Feels like old times."

"That’s right. That’s when we started talking to each other."

"I thought we were done for when we crashed."

The incident that brought the three together.

Just like the current trainees, they had gone on expedition training—then ended up stranded together, alone.

Even though the planet had been surveyed, not every region had been fully examined.

After a failed orbital descent, they crash-landed in an uncharted zone. They survived a week of hardship before returning to the main unit.

"Then after that, you started making strange things and testing them."

"We got dragged into it too, so we became known as the delinquent trio. Honestly, that's not what I wanted."

"Objection! You were marked long before that—skipping lectures, flirting with girls. You're trying to make it seem like it was just me. That's unfair."

Thus, the notorious trio of troublemakers, whom their instructor would spend the entire graduation period trying to manage, came into existence.

"Those days are good memories now."

"Yeah."

"I thought I was going to die back then."

But since we're alive now, we can look back on it like this.

"I hope it was good experience for them too..."

"Speaking like an instructor, Lieutenant."

"Speaking of which. What about that girl in the meantime? Two weeks, right?"

"Find a babysitter. The sergeant is coming this time."

"We'll be going with the trainees interested in maintenance work."

During that time, Mio will be on duty.

A brief worry flickers, but she thinks, if there’s a professional sitter, it shouldn’t matter.

“Daddy, look! Eight at once!”

Mio spins in place, fireworks clamped between her fingers, igniting all eight in one motion.

“Don’t burn your hair!”

“I know!”

Inspired by Mio,

the others try to light multiple fireworks at once.

Colors bloom across the night sky.

Their light glints on Mio’s cheeks.

“Ah…”

Jin lets out a small sound, seeing her expression.

Another memory of Mio overwrites the old one within him.

The smile he saw two years ago is already gone.

Instead, now.

“She’s smiling.”

“Huh?”

“Really, she is.”

“Ah, girl. Yeah, she looks happy.”

Jake doesn’t hear Mio’s words.

He doesn’t see the strained face that claimed not to understand a smile.

That’s why there will always be a difference in temperature between the two of us.

“Good, Mio-chan. Good. Lieutenant.”

“Ah… I’m relieved.”

Mio’s smile.

It fell naturally—among all the expressions Jin had seen from her, the most tender.

And surely, it was Mio’s alone—different from anything he had known.

Seeing Mio begin to show her own expression, Jin felt tears welling.

“Did you see, Otō-san? You saw?”

Mio ran to him after the fireworks ended.

Her cheeks, flushed with excitement, had already returned to their usual state.

But the expression she’d worn earlier—there was no mistaking it.

“Ah. I saw clearly. You were laughing—really, joyfully.”

“Laughing? Who?”

“Mio.”

“Mio?”

She didn’t seem to realize it. Fiddled with her cheeks, twisting them gently.

“Did I laugh?”

“Ah. Clearly.”

“Hmm. I didn’t see it.”

Jin smiles. "You can't see your own face, can you?"

"Pop, make sure to take a photo next time!"

"Ah? Yeah."

Jin thinks suddenly. He's never taken a photo of Mio.

A decision forms—this time, he'll use a proper camera.

"Next time, I'll bring sixteen!"

Mio dashes off.

Rushes toward her friends.

Holds up fireworks, gesturing with her hands to explain what they'll do next.

Ah, she's smiling naturally again.

Emissa, Ya, and Mamoru notice.

A moment of surprise. Then they, too, smile.

Chi sees that smile.

"What is it? You're not like her, are you?"

A sensation like waking from a dream.

His sister never laughed so freely, he thinks.

Or perhaps—Chi thinks—she only smiled that way in front of the man who was supposed to become her brother-in-law.

That answer will never be found.

"There are no sisters in this universe, after all."

That is precisely why.

"The Laitera Project must be carried out."

A new resolve had taken hold.

Holding one question within her chest—toward finding its answer.

Knowing full well it was a path with no return. Chi turned her back on the light and slipped into darkness.

If she stayed any longer in that beautiful place—

she might begin to believe she truly belonged there.