A Midsummer's Equation

ELEVEN

Kyohei was just looking in the window of a small gift shop close to Hari Cove Station when he heard someone calling his name. He turned to see Narumi approaching on her bike.

“What you up to? Buying souvenirs for home?”

Kyohei shook his head. “I just ran out of things to do, so I came here looking for something fun.”

“Ah, I guess the beach plans fell through?” Narumi asked, a frown passing across her face.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Are the police still up at the inn?”

Kyohei shrugged. “They were there most of the afternoon, so I don’t know. How was your meeting? You have fun?”

Narumi chuckled dryly. “Fun isn’t exactly what I’d call it. Are you heading back to the inn?”

“Nah,” he said. “I think I’ll walk around here for a bit more first.”

“Okay, well, don’t stay out too late,” Narumi said. She got off her bike and started the long walk up the hill.

Kyohei bought a cola from a vending machine and sipped it, considering his next move, when he spotted Yukawa walking down the road. He had his jacket slung over his shoulder.

“Looks like you didn’t make it to the beach after all,” Yukawa said.

“How do you know?”

He pointed at Kyohei’s face. “You aren’t tanned one bit.”

Kyohei sighed. “My uncle was too busy with all the police.”

“That’s unfortunate. I wonder what they’re hoping to find.”

“How should I know? I checked out the rocks a little while back, but they’d already cleaned all that up, mostly.”

“The rocks?” A glimmer of interest shone in the physicist’s eyes. “You know where it happened?”

“Yeah, sure. My uncle told me. Right before he told me to stay away.”

Yukawa nodded. “Show me.”

“Who, me?”

“Do you see anyone else here?”

“Well, okay, but there really isn’t anything left.”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s go,” Yukawa said, stepping out ahead of him.

Several minutes later, the two of them were standing by the seawall. Yellow tape had been stretched out in front of the wall, but there were no policemen in sight. Yukawa ducked under the tape and kept walking, so Kyohei followed suit. Reaching the seawall, he jumped up and lifted himself to the top in order to look over.

“I think that’s where he fell,” Kyohei said, pointing toward a rock with a reddish stain. “They couldn’t find one of the sandals. Probably dropped into the sea.”

“One of the sandals? So he was wearing the other?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

Yukawa nodded and adjusted his glasses with his finger. He was staring down at the rocks with great interest, as though there was something there to see.

“What is it?”

Yukawa blinked, shaking off whatever thought he had been lost in, and said, “Nothing. It’s nothing.” His eyes went out across the water. “Quite the view of the ocean from here. I can see why Narumi is so taken with it.”

“It looks even better earlier in the day. Do you know why this place is called Hari Cove?”

“I assume because of volcanic activity in the area,” Yukawa replied.

“Volcanoes? What do they have to do with anything?”

“Well, hari is an old word for the amorphous substances found in volcanic rock.”

Kyohei furrowed his eyebrows. “No, that’s not it,” he said. “Here, the word hari means ‘crystals.’ You ever hear of the Seven Treasures? Buddhists say there are seven great treasures in the world, and one of them is crystal.”

Yukawa slowly turned to face the boy. “Is Buddhist trivia a hobby of yours?”

Kyohei grinned and scratched his nose. “My uncle told me last night when we were shooting off fireworks.”

“I see. So what about this crystal?”

“Well, when the sun gets to the middle of the sky, it’s supposed to light up the sea and make it look like there are a lot of colored crystals at the bottom. So, Hari Cove.”

Yukawa’s mouth opened partway, and he nodded. Then he turned back out toward the water. “I see,” he said after a moment. “The water here must be very clear, then. Thanks for telling me that. I’ll definitely try to come back here at noon one of these days.”

“Yeah, except you can’t really see it from here. It’s too shallow. You have to go out about a hundred meters first.”

“A hundred meters? No problem, I’ll swim it.”

“Yeah, except you’re not supposed to swim around here.”

“Then I could go to the swimming beach.”

“Yeah, but then you’d have to go even further out from the shore till you got to the place where it’s really pretty. Like two or three hundred meters. Past the buoys that mark where you’re allowed to swim.”

“Right, then I just need to go on a boat.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Kyohei said, his shoulders drooping.

“What, is there something wrong with that too?”

Kyohei leaned against the seawall, folding his arms and resting his head atop them. “I can handle big boats, but not the little boats around here. I get sick right away. My mom says it’s because I’m a picky eater, but I don’t believe that for a second. I’m pretty sure it just has something to do with my body. I’ve got friends who are way pickier eaters than I am, and they don’t get sick.”

“You’re correct. It does have something to do with the body. It’s because your semicircular canals aren’t functioning properly. But there are techniques you can use to remedy it, sometimes completely. How do you do in cars?”

“I’m okay in the car with my dad, but I get sick on buses sometimes. That’s why I sit toward the front whenever I can—it shakes less up there.”

“It’s not just the shaking, it’s where you put your eyes that’s important. For example, if you’re on a very curvy road, inertia forces your body toward the outside of the curves, correct? If you allow your eyes to look toward the outside of the curve at the same time, the information coming from your semicircular canals and the information coming from your eyes don’t line up, your brain gets confused, and you feel sick. But if you fix your eyesight in the direction the car is moving, the effect is far less. That’s why most people who get carsick don’t have a problem when they’re actually doing the driving, because when you drive you’re always looking forward.”

Kyohei lifted his head and looked at Yukawa. “You study that too, Professor?”

“It’s outside my specialty, but I have looked into related technology.”

Kyohei grunted. “Sure sounds busy being a scientist. But I’ll try that next time I’m on a bus. Still, that’s not going to help with the boat.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I want to see the ocean. That’s the whole point of going out, right? If I’m always looking forward, I won’t be able to look down.”

“That is true.”

“My mom doesn’t let me take medicine for seasickness ’cause of allergies, so that’s pretty much that.” Kyohei stepped away from the seawall, heading back to the road.

“You’re just giving up?” Yukawa asked behind him. “You don’t want to see the crystals at the bottom of the sea?”

“I do, but I don’t want to get seasick even more,” Kyohei said, walking a little further, then stopping. He looked around. Yukawa was still standing by the seawall. “You’re not going back to the inn?”

Yukawa took his jacket off his shoulder and put it on. “You go on ahead. I’m going to be here for a bit, working on my plan.”

“What plan?”

“My plan to show you the crystals at the bottom of the sea, what else?”