[Serialized Novel] "Lute of the North Wind" Episode 2

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Episode 2: Things That Swim in the Sky (1)
[March 25, 2030, Kagami-hara City, G Prefecture]
Ah, they're swimming again today, Rei thinks, looking up at the cloudy sky.
Since spring break began, Rei has spent almost every day watching her mother, a nurse, head off to the "Kohada Clinic" adjacent to their home, before changing into her uniform and hopping on her bicycle. She will be a third-year high school student starting in April. She has chosen the science track, but she has never been forced to become a doctor, and the hospital will likely be inherited by Kai, her brother who is five years her junior. Her mother seems to think it would be enough if Rei just gets married. She can't even make friends properly, so the mere thought of having a lover or getting married makes her feel dizzy. How does everyone else find what they want to do, like their career paths or the schools they want to attend?
The special spring break supplementary classes are just an excuse. She is attending the classes, so she isn't exactly lying. More importantly, she thinks, looking back at the luggage rack. She confirms that the instrument case is securely fastened and pedals harder. She will play this in the music room. Right now, that is her only goal. It is a secret from her mother that she has been sneaking it out of the storage room.
Speaking of secrets, she looks up at the sky again.
Only when she looks up at the sky does her bangs, which usually hide her face, fall away, revealing Rei's almond-shaped eyes. Her shoulder-length, straight bob hair sways in the breeze.
Whoosh, something passes right in front of her.
Looking up at the sky is a habit for Rei, as natural as breathing.
Rei has a secret she hasn't told anyone since she was a child. To be precise, it is a secret she has given up on telling.
Even today, in the hazy spring sky, there are many things swimming that look like long, thin, transparent fish with only outlines. Like transparent hairtail fish. During the summer vacation of her first year of elementary school, she saw a taxidermy specimen of a deep-sea fish called an oarfish at a seaside aquarium. Rei thinks that is the closest thing to them. On sunny days, the sunlight is too bright to see them well, but on cloudy days, she can see them clearly.
Though for Rei, it is a familiar, everyday sight.
When was it that she realized she was the only one who could see the fish swimming in the sky?
She was taking a walk with her mother on a road at dusk. The orange sky looked like sherbet and seemed delicious. It is the oldest sunset sky in her memory. When she pointed at the sky and said, "Fish," her mother laughed and said, "They are clouds that look like fish." She etched into her young heart that they were clouds.
In another memory, she tugged on her mother's arm while she was standing and talking to someone. When she pointed at a fish crossing her mother's neck and said, "Fish clouds are swimming. Mommy, catch them," she was scolded in a low voice for saying strange things, and her hand was grabbed roughly. Only the lingering sensation of pain remains.
I think people realize things by accumulating experiences.
The turning point was during a drawing session in her final year of kindergarten. She drew her father with a big face, her mother, and herself in the bottom half of the drawing paper. In the top right, there was a sun. Above their heads, she used a light blue crayon to draw many long, thin fish clouds swimming. Maho-chan, who was drawing next to her, peeked over and pointed out that it was weird.
"Fish swim in the sea, not in the sky."
At Maho-chan's remark, the surrounding children all looked at Rei's drawing at once and attacked her, saying, "That's weird," and "Fish are in the sea." Maho-chan, taking the support for granted, looked triumphant, as if to say, "See?"
"Fish are in the sea, but they are also above you, Maho-chan. One just swam toward Saya-chan," Rei said, pointing above Maho's head, just stating what she saw, but a chorus of "Liar" surrounded her.
The next day was even worse. She was avoided, with people saying, "Don't go near the liar" and "The liar is here." She should have just ignored them. But five-year-old Rei could not accept being called a liar when she wasn't lying. She kept repeating, "They are there, I'm not lying." Conversely, she couldn't understand why everyone was lying by saying they "weren't there." The more she insisted, "It's not a lie," the more she was ostracized. When she grabbed her teacher, Natsuki-sensei, and pleaded, "Sensei, there's a fish there, right?" the teacher made a troubled face and shook her head.
Rei finally realized that everyone else could not see the transparent fish swimming in the sky, and she closed her mouth.
She stopped drawing them, too. She also stopped pointing and saying, "Fish clouds."
A year later, she encountered the oarfish.

To be continued