31. The Floating Diner
Just seeing the starport didn't mean we could enter right away.
It took another month before we finally reached the moment to knock on its door.
During that month, Kana, perhaps weighed down by guilt for accidentally "napping" for "three seconds"—actually 94,608,003 seconds—talked incessantly, either to keep me from getting bored or to keep herself entertained.
But within a day, she began to learn the charm of silence.
I've always been fond of silence, and I'd hoped to teach Kana its value eventually. I didn't mind listening to her chatter, letting her talk as much as she wanted, but deep down, I wished she'd notice my preference for quiet over conversation.
After a day, Kana seemed to pick up on it and stopped talking.
I felt a slight loneliness in her silence, but I could keenly sense that she was enduring it for my sake, even though she didn't like it. That sparked a faintly sadistic pleasure, and her selflessness was so endearing that my initial loneliness faded completely.
After about fifteen days, I realized Kana had truly come to appreciate the charm of silence.
I gained a new insight: silence can only be learned through silence.
Even for Kana, who always needed to be doing something to feel at ease, this period seemed to deeply imprint the fulfillment of doing nothing into her thought circuits and CPU.
As we shared this comfortable silence, our turn finally came.
The moment to enter the floating diner, the starport, had arrived.
The long, pleasant silence reached its finale here.
Kana, like a child emerging from a breath-holding contest underwater, flashed an excited expression for a moment and let out a huge sigh, releasing all her pent-up patience.
"We made it!"
We exchanged a high-five and stood before the floating diner.
The first thing that caught my eye was the pool filled with the emerald liquid that had been pouring from the diner, which had intrigued me all along.
Pointing at it, I asked Kana, "Want to take a quick swim?"
She shook her head almost reflexively.
"No way, I don't have a swimsuit. I don't want to get my uniform wet."
"Fair enough. Shall we head in, then?"
"Yeah!"
Some kids in the pool splashed water at us, but they were quickly scolded by a nearby parent and started crying. "Serves you right," I thought as we stepped onto a platform.
The platform had a design like a coaster for an ice-cold draft beer, and when we stood on it, a refreshing sensation, like being part of the beer's foam, coursed through my body, accompanied by a carbonated tingle.
That sensation lifted us, forcing us into aerial levitation.
We ascended straight to the entrance of the floating diner.
I knocked on the wooden door labeled "VERY OPEN" and opened it, only to be met with an overwhelming flood of dazzling light pouring from inside.
Kana and I had no choice but to cover our eyes with both hands.
After about eight seconds, our eyes adjusted to the intense light, which felt like standing near the sun. The light softened, like a sunset, and we lowered our arms to peer beyond the door.
Then, a voice echoed from inside.
"Welcome."
It was an astonishingly calm child's voice, one I'd never heard before.
The voice was so serene it made me wonder if such a tranquil child's voice could even exist, and for a moment, I froze. But the invitation continued.
"Come in, come in."
Though the tone was eerily calm, the phrasing was innocent and childlike. The contrast hit me like an upgrade, as if my thought circuits were being reconstructed.
I gently set Kana down from my back, where I'd been carrying her, took her hand instead, and together we stepped into the floating diner.