01 One month ago 1

1973 December 9.

Why hadn't she stopped it that day?

Mio asks herself.

That day was no different from any other morning.

"Otō-san, morning."

As always, Mio wakes her father.

She wonders, when exactly did this become routine?

Why she thought of that at that moment, she cannot say.

Looking back, she recalls being the one who used to be woken by her father as a child.

Father—Jin—had started waking up later only in the past few years, she realizes.

More precisely, around the time she began feeling shy, began asking to have a bed in her own room, like everyone else.

"...Could it be that I have a sleep-enhancing effect...?"

Mio suddenly realizes such a function might exist.

Or perhaps—

"Excellent as a body pillow...?"

She recalls, thinking back, that she had often been clutched tightly by Jin, Emisa, and Ya.

Jin had forgotten that he once asked to be held as a child.

Mio smiles faintly, recalling how, at fifteen, she’d unexpectedly realized a hidden talent. This was something worth boasting about.

That aside.

"Otō-san! Breakfast’s ready!"

"Ah—got it. Coming."

A voice, firmer than expected, replies.

Unusual, Mio thinks.

As she’d previously thought, Jin had been slow to rise in recent years.

"Good morning, Mio."

"Good morning, otō-san."

Still in her sleeping clothes, but her eyes are not the usual half-lidded, drowsy gaze.

Clearly already awake.

"Studying again today?"

"Yeah."

"Then I’ll do the dishes."

"...You break a dish once a month if I leave it to you, so no."

"Have been doing better lately."

"Because I’ve been doing it myself lately..."

She makes a small, pouty face—something amusing to watch.

She feels she only ever sees her father in pitiful states, inside the house.

Yet it’s strange—outside, he’s a master of the convoy defense force.

Mio, having already finished breakfast, struggles with her own hair before the sink.

This smooth, silken silver hair, cared for by so many, is her pride—yet too smooth to manage.

She sometimes wonders if she should just cut it short, but those who tend to it insist, desperately.

They say it’d be a waste—after all that time growing it out.

Mio, who thinks she might as well use nanomachines to accelerate growth anyway, is clearly influenced by her father.

“Ah, Mio. Come home early tonight. I have something to tell you.”

“What? Have you finally decided to marry Sharon?”

“No! Stop making those kinds of jokes!” “It’s not a joke…”

Mio thinks of someone ten years her senior—her older sister, though not by blood.

Shirley Byron. One of the few who meticulously tends to Mio’s hair.

Not just hair—Mio believes she learned one-third of what Emissa calls “feminine grace” from Shirley.

The remaining two-thirds came from Emissa.

Mio is certain that without the two of them, she would have been running around with boys much more—far more.

Since childhood, she’s been looked after in ways that made Shirley the closest thing to a mother.

In fact—Mio once wished she could have been that kind of sister.

Unfortunately, that never came to pass.

By now, she understands the world isn’t so simple.

But still—

She could have been that kind of sister. Unfortunately, that never came to pass. By now, she understands the world isn’t so simple. But still—

She huffs, her breath sharp, as if demanding Jin, who has been showing this behavior for nearly ten years, would understand how it feels to be in her position.

“Dad’s getting old, Sharon’s getting old—things like this happen.”

“…You’re starting to sound like Nastin.”

“Nastin’s got nothing to do with this. Besides, Dad! May’s already ahead of you! You should be more desperate!”

Mio corners Jin, who’s chewing on toast.

No—actually, there’s no time for this.

She glances at the clock. Morning study session starts at 7:30. It’s 7:00 now.

Click-click in her mind, calculating. It’s fine. Five more minutes. Five more if she runs.

“Things are complicated. Really complicated.”

Complicated—yes. Mio has something she’s wanted to ask Jin for a long time.

Childhood.

Now, the memory is blurred, distant—faint.

The day Jin took her in. The first time she came to this house.

Back then, Mio had not found it strange.

But now, looking back, she thinks it is odd.

A question lingers in her mind: why did Jin have such a large house?

No matter how she considers it, this house is not sized for one person.

The furniture in Mio’s current room—those pieces she has loved for ten years.

Who were they prepared for?

The room designated as Jin’s bedroom is the same.

That bed is far too large for one person.

She cannot bring herself to ask.

Could this house have been meant for someone else to live with?

That thought crosses her mind.

Perhaps Jin and Sharon never married because he took her in.

An idea Jin would laugh off if asked.

But Mio cannot ask.

If she were to be told—her own fault, her own doing, the happiness of the one she loves shattered.

She would not be able to bear it.

“Stop pretending like that.”

Mio, too, pouts her lips, as if to mask the fear she keeps buried inside.

“Anyway, get back soon.”

“Yessir. I’m heading out now. Put the dishes in the dishwasher—carefully!”

She’s fond of this mug. It would be painful if it broke.

She’s been searching for a replacement, but it’s a gift from Emisa—she doesn’t know where it’s sold, so there’s no spare.

—If she realized it wasn’t something she’d normally use every day, Mio would likely be shocked.

“I get it, I get it. Be careful. Don’t follow dangerous people.”

“Dad’s such a worrier.”

“And don’t follow guys like Higata either!”

“? Tōya-kun isn’t dangerous.”

It’s dangerous!

Mio closed the front door, though she didn’t fully understand why.

A well-worn penguin keychain.

In the Third Fleet, where biometric authentication was standard, using a physical key was uncommon—but this one, she had no intention of letting go.

I’m off then.

She walked toward middle school. Four months remained until graduation, and before that, high school entrance exams.

How many more times would she wear this uniform? she wondered.

The uniform, slightly large when she first enrolled—still slightly large now.

It was frustrating, the fact that her height hadn’t changed much in these three years.

She was the shortest by far among her friends.

……Mmm?

Perhaps the earlier pillow suspicion. Maybe she was thought easy to embrace because of her small frame.

She resolved then to stop boasting about it.

The future, she saw, would only bring mockery.

Hey—Tōyama!

"...Tōyama-kun."

A childhood friend approaches, waving lightly.

She thinks, perhaps he's starting to resemble an older brother.

Looking up at Mio, who stands in a jogging suit, slightly sweaty.

Yes, looking up—Mio feels a faint pang of humiliation. I'm the leader... yet I'm looking up at him.

Tōyama Mamoru, still not free from his role as Mio's Number One subordinate, has grown rapidly in height—opposite to Mio.

How small his school uniform has become—there's no way to verify it anymore.

He'll never wear that uniform again.

"Running again today?"

"Yeah. You know how it is."

"From the training academy to here every morning—tough."

"Ah, you get used to it."

"Hmm."

Mamoru entered the training academy through accelerated placement.

That meant, just like his older brother and Mio's father, he had been recognized as having the potential to become a pilot.

Since the incident on Planet Mercury, he had been recognized as having the aptitude for piloting—just like his older brother and Mio’s father—and there was no reason he should not have advanced.

He graduated from middle school one year earlier than Mio.

They had met on the first day of elementary school, shared the same class through sixth grade, and again for two years in middle school—a rare bond.

He had never doubted it.

He had believed, at least, that they would graduate together.

There were days when he thought, just slightly, how sad it was that this would never happen.

Yet every morning, seeing her running through this area, that sadness vanished entirely.

“Why run every single day?”

“To build stamina. Haven’t you heard? The old man from Higashiō said pilots are first and foremost about physical strength.”

“…Maybe.”

He could have sworn she also said to eat Cube Food. It was complete nutrition, after all.

Regardless, I have to become stronger.

Murasaki murmured with an expression imbued with resolve.