Ch.182IF Side Story: Galactic Love (7)

After barely getting my body under control, I crawled into the tent, and Pang Pang came in and lay down beside me.

Slipping into the sleeping bag made things a bit better. The ground was still hard, but at least I had an air mattress underneath and the sleeping bag itself had some thickness to it.

James was still tinkering with the generator. So, there were only the two of us inside the tent.

The tent was still a bit cramped. But maybe because we’d been staying inside it so much, I honestly found it somewhat familiar now.

Though I couldn’t say I was completely used to it yet.

“Should we run away?”

As I was lying in my sleeping bag with my eyes closed, Pang Pang suddenly asked that question.

“We’re already running away.”

When I corrected her thought, I heard a rustling sound as Pang Pang shook her head.

“No, I mean far away. Beyond Earth.”

“Beyond Earth?”

Was she talking about the camping story I mentioned before?

I couldn’t help but snicker a little.

“How would we run away?”

“That thing over there, the generator. If it can produce energy, couldn’t we build a spaceship?”

Her outlandish idea surprised me a bit.

Right, escaping to space. That makes sense. Space is vast, after all.

In this country, everyone has a resident registration number, and they even take your fingerprints when you make your ID card.

Even just going to the neighboring country of Japan, people talk about how someone can vanish without a trace. So it’s possible to run far away without leaving any trace. If you were in a country like America that spans half a continent, you could disappear into some corner and truly no one would know.

Of course, that’s impossible if you’re a criminal, but that’s just how it is.

If that’s the case within a single country, what about beyond Earth—on a galactic scale? If we ran far enough, would truly no one know?

I wonder if there are people like boat refugees in space.

“…We can’t.”

But in the end, the conclusion is similar.

I don’t know about this country’s government, but I’ve drawn the attention of both the Galactic Federation and Noir Corporation. In that situation, even if I ran away, I’d be a fugitive for life.

I’d probably have to give up on the leisurely life of traveling around space.

…Setting aside whether we could build a spaceship or not.

And above all,

“…Creating energy isn’t an easy thing.”

That’s right.

This energy is created through despair. It’s a powerful force, but that’s all it is.

We can’t just keep feeling despair the entire time we’re running away. If I survive this fight, I want to live a more relaxed life.

“I see…”

Pang Pang replied.

“Do you want to run away for the rest of your life?”

The thought suddenly occurred to me, so I asked.

Pang Pang got caught up in this situation despite having little connection to it initially, and now she’s come all this way.

In that situation, I don’t think she’d want a life of running forever.

“…Hmm, I wonder.”

Pang Pang thought for a moment before speaking.

“I’ve actually run away before.”

“I see.”

That’s right.

She came all the way to Earth to live. What parents would want their child to live such a life?

…

But does Pang Pang have both parents? That’s important to consider first. Thinking about it, Pang Pang hasn’t talked much about her family.

And that’s something we have in common. I don’t talk about my family either. From the beginning, in this world, I only have… well, strictly speaking, maybe one person I could call family.

Not talking about family usually means there’s a reason for it.

I decided not to ask about it.

*

When I woke up in the morning, James was sprawled out inside his bag.

He must have been fiddling with the machine all night.

Going outside the tent, I saw wires scattered around the generator, with something like a radio at the end of those wires. The reason I identified it as a radio was because it had an antenna attached to it.

Since I had no reason to talk to anyone, it was clearly designed to receive transmissions one-way.

I turned on the device and adjusted the frequency a bit—

[“…Let’s summarize yesterday’s terrorist attack…”]

That’s what came through.

An announcer and an expert were analyzing yesterday’s incident.

The story about the black magical girl who attacked the Noir Corporation building. Even though magical girls went to capture her, the suspect managed to escape smoothly—

Smoothly, huh.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

It wasn’t “smooth” at all. I got hurt in many places. I was thrown to the ground trying to protect a falling magical girl.

Thanks to the power of the circuit, no major injuries remained, but it was impossible not to feel pain.

Well, I suppose that’s how it would look from someone else’s perspective.

“…”

I changed the frequency, looking for a broadcast with more pleasant content. I’m not usually the type to listen to the radio, but sometimes funny radio programs where they read hilarious stories would be uploaded to internet video sites, so I thought it would be nice to find something like that.

While I was doing that, I heard rustling behind me.

Pang Pang had come out of the tent and was preparing something.

She took out plates and opened canned food, trying to arrange the contents as presentably as possible. Honestly, it didn’t look very “presentable” no matter what she did.

But somehow, I understood why Pang Pang was doing this.

Even in this situation, did she want to maintain a sense of normal life? Maybe it was thanks to this mindset that she could keep her sanity intact even in a place like this.

By the time Pang Pang handed me a dish with food, I had finally found a frequency.

It was a program reading stories so ridiculous that they made you laugh even in this situation.

To be honest, I couldn’t believe the stories. But, well, there are all kinds of people in the world.

And what does it matter if they’re not entirely true?

Isn’t it important that we could laugh together, even briefly, this morning?

Thanks to that, I could forget, if only for a moment, that our food supplies were running low.

*

“It’s the same this time too.”

I told Pang Pang before leaving.

“If I don’t come back, you need to run away. Go to the nearest town.”

“Okay.”

Pang Pang nodded at my words, but somehow I felt she wouldn’t run away so easily.

I really hoped she wouldn’t stay—but then again, Pang Pang is Pang Pang.

“…Can I trust you?”

Even as I asked that, I wasn’t sure what exactly I was trusting.

Was I trusting that Pang Pang would run away if I didn’t return?

Or was I trusting that Pang Pang would run away for me?

I hoped it was the latter. The former would be too… shameless.

Pang Pang nodded once more.

As if wanting to give me confidence.

So, without specifying which one, I simply decided to trust.

Yes. At the very least, Pang Pang isn’t the type to betray me. Right?

*

I repeated this routine several times.

Stopping Kaijin and coming back.

Going out to show off my power to people.

James used the generator to create weapons for me, and those weapons were by no means weak.

I went wild as if I could destroy everything in the world by myself, then returned.

Upon returning, I would collapse and sleep for hours.

When I woke up, Pang Pang would be by my side, watching over me.

And looking at her like that, I realized that what I was trusting was indeed the latter.

No matter where I went, somehow I knew Pang Pang would be here waiting.

“…Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you keep watching over me like this?”

“…”

One day, after waking up, I couldn’t hold back and asked her that.

Pang Pang fell silent at my question. Was she wondering how to answer?

“…Is it not okay?”

Pang Pang asked cautiously.

As if afraid of my answer, she looked at me carefully with her head lowered and eyes raised.

It was the first time I’d seen Pang Pang make such an expression toward me.

Wasn’t she always a cheerful girl? She was so excited about being on Earth that I gave her the nickname “Earthaboo”—like an otaku who moved next to Akihabara, eagerly eating, drinking, and indulging in her fandom.

Ah, right.

She can’t “indulge” anymore. All those things she collected were left behind when she ran away with me.

But even so, I was too curious to bear it.

“…”

However, seeing Pang Pang’s expression, I couldn’t press further.

I couldn’t say it wasn’t okay. Because from the beginning, Pang Pang following me like this wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place.

Somehow, I felt that if I pursued this conversation, it would end in disaster.

No matter how close you are to someone, you have to be very careful when you’re stuck together in a difficult situation. You never know what might set the other person off.

“…It’s okay.”

I finally said.

“…It’s okay.”

Feeling a sense of frustration, as if an opportunity to get closer had slipped away.