LUNVALE
Chapter 76 — Two Weeks
Day two hundred and sixty-one.
The festival was in two weeks.
She woke at 7am.
The city was lit.
The water was running.
The arcade was — different from the first day. Not smaller. More itself. The centre of a city rather than the only warm place in it.
She lay still.
Two weeks.
Then she got up.
The kitchen.
Ren. Two cups.
She sat.
He pushed a cup toward her.
She drank.
"The festival preparations," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"Axel has been—" He paused.
"Organising," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"Since how long," she said.
"Day two hundred," he said.
She looked at the cup.
"He started preparing for the festival sixty-one days ago," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"And he didn't tell me," she said.
"No," he said.
She looked at the cup.
"Because he knew I'd say it was too early," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the cup.
"He was right," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She drank her tea.
He drank his tea.
"Who's coming," she said.
"The city," he said.
She looked at him.
"Not just the arcade," he said. "The city. The shelter returns have been continuing. The population is—" He paused. "The professor's infrastructure team has been tracking it. As of yesterday—" He paused. "Four thousand, two hundred and eleven people have returned to Namiura."
She looked at the cup.
Four thousand.
From ninety-eight at the end of the first month.
Four thousand now.
"The festival," she said.
"They'll all come," he said.
"Some of them will come," she said.
"The festival will be full," he said.
She looked at the cup.
The summer festival at Kawanami Arcade.
Hiro at the stall.
Four thousand people returning to a city that had been forty people in an arcade.
She looked at the cup.
"The stall," she said.
"Hiro has been preparing for longer than Axel," he said.
She looked at the cup.
"How long," she said.
"Since the engineers arrived," he said. "Day thirty-one." He paused. "He knew the population was going to grow. He started planning the festival menu on day thirty-one."
She looked at the cup.
"Two hundred and thirty days of menu planning," she said.
"He's very serious about it," he said.
She looked at the cup.
She almost smiled.
She drank her tea.
The record.
She sat at the mismatched table.
The table that Ren had properly fixed in thirty minutes on day eleven of the return.
The table that had held the planning and the arguments and the decisions and the record.
She looked at it.
She picked up the pen.
She looked at the pages.
At the record.
At all of it.
She'd written two hundred and sixty-one days.
Not daily — not after day thirty-five. But consistently. Whenever something happened. Whenever the city moved in a direction worth noting.
She looked at the pages.
At what the record had become.
She wrote:
Day two hundred and sixty-one.
Two weeks to the festival.
The city has four thousand and two hundred and eleven people.
The record has—
She counted the pages.
She stopped counting.
"How many pages," she said.
Ren looked at her.
"Total," she said.
He picked up the record.
Counted.
"Four hundred and seven," he said.
She looked at the table.
"Four hundred and seven pages," she said.
"Plus the oral histories," he said. "Hiroshi's fourteen interviews. Then the second set. Then the third set." He paused. "Plus Petra's observations. Plus the journalist's three sections." He paused. "Plus Riku's notebook." He paused. "Plus the wall records Mira and Haru Two have maintained." He paused. "Plus the registry." He paused. "Plus the broadcast transcript that Axel has been keeping — every sentence, every addition, every date."
She looked at the table.
"That's—" She stopped.
"The city's record of itself," he said.
She looked at the table.
"The city of notes," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the table.
She picked up the pen.
Wrote:
Four hundred and seven pages.
Plus everything else.
The city documented itself.
From the notes on kitchen tables to the wall's three sections to the four hundred and seven pages of this record.
All of it.
All one record.
She put the pen down.
Read it.
Then she kept writing.
At 9am Axel came to the table.
He sat across from her.
He had a list.
She looked at the list.
The festival preparations.
She read through it.
It was thorough.
It was — she looked at it — very thorough.
She looked at him.
"Day two hundred," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"You've been planning this for sixty-one days," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"And you didn't tell me," she said.
"You would have said—"
"It was too early," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the list.
"Is it too early," she said.
"Two weeks," he said. "I need two weeks to execute." He paused. "It was not too early."
She looked at the list.
At the specific Axel logic of sixty-one days of preparation for a two-week execution.
"The noticeboard," she said. "The First Record. What happens to it during the festival."
He looked at the list.
"It stays," he said. "Where it is. On the wall." He paused. "The festival happens around it. Not despite it." He paused. "The festival schedule is on the First Record. The festival happens because the First Record said it would."
She looked at the list.
"The six names," she said.
"Stay," he said. "Always."
She looked at the list.
"The three new names," she said. "On the noticeboard."
He looked at her.
"The three names I'm adding," she said.
He looked at her.
"The people from the first fog hour," he said. "The three names Petra wrote on the piece of paper."
"Yes," she said. "I want them on the First Record. Not just on the wall in the fifth building." She paused. "On the First Record. On the arcade's noticeboard." She paused. "They were here. They were the beginning. Their names belong on the beginning's record."
He was quiet.
He looked at the First Record on the wall.
At the space available.
"Below the children's harbor," he said.
"Yes," she said.
He was quiet.
"I'll add them," he said.
She looked at him.
"Today," she said.
"Today," he said.
He went to the First Record.
She watched him add the three names.
Below the children's harbor.
In a careful hand.
She looked at the First Record.
At the festival schedule.
At the children's harbor.
At the six names and now — with the three from the first fog hour — nine names total.
She looked at it.
Then she went back to the table.
Wrote: Nine names on the First Record now. The three from the first fog hour added below the children's harbor. They were here. They were the beginning.
At noon she went to the wall.
Left: ten.
Centre: two.
Right: a hundred and fourteen.
She stood in front of it.
Haru Two was at his coordinator's table.
She went to him.
"The festival," she said.
He looked up.
"Two weeks," she said. "When four thousand people come back to the city — some of them will have names for the wall. Open searches. People they've been looking for." She paused. "The wall needs to be ready."
He looked at the wall.
"The system can handle it," he said.
"The intake process," she said. "During the festival — we can't do full intakes for four thousand people."
"No," he said. "But we can have a festival-specific system." He paused. "A table near the entrance. Simple forms. Name you're looking for, last known location, your contact information." He paused. "Quick entry. Full processing after."
She looked at him.
"Can you build that," she said.
"In two weeks," he said. "Yes."
She looked at the wall.
"The two remaining in the centre," she said.
"They've been there since the early weeks," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"The festival might find them," he said.
"Yes," she said.
He looked at the centre section.
"We keep looking," he said.
"We keep looking," she said.
She went back to the arcade.
At 2pm she went to find Kai.
He was at the map.
The complete city map — he'd made multiple copies now, Saya had archiving them, but this one was his. The working copy. Still annotated. Still being updated.
He was adding something to the harbor ward section.
She stood beside him.
"What," she said.
"The harbor ward restaurant," he said. "Official open date. Week seven." He looked at the map. "And the boat route from the harbor to Minatocho." He traced it. "Week eight."
She looked at the map.
"The festival," she said.
He looked at her.
"What do you need," she said.
He looked at the map.
"The route from the shelters north," he said. "People coming back for the festival — they'll come on the main road. I want to mark the safe routes in case of traffic." He paused. "I've been thinking about crowd dispersal."
She looked at him.
"You've been thinking about crowd dispersal," she said.
"Four thousand people," he said. "In and around the arcade." He paused. "The streets aren't—" He paused. "The upper district can hold that. But the routes in and out need marking."
She looked at him.
At the fourteen-year-old who had mapped the entire city in eleven weeks and was now thinking about crowd dispersal for the festival.
He was fourteen now.
He'd turned fourteen three weeks ago.
She'd written about it.
Hiro had made something.
Kai had said okay and eaten it with the flat certain expression of someone who found birthdays adequately marked by food.
She looked at him.
"Axel's list," she said. "Have you seen it."
"Yes," he said.
"Is crowd dispersal on it," she said.
"No," he said.
"Add it," she said.
He wrote it on his own list.
She looked at the map.
"Kai," she said.
He looked at her.
"After the festival," she said. "Arc 3." She paused. "I'll need you."
He looked at the map.
"What for," he said.
"The coast," she said. "Sable said there are other points that need watching. Along the coast." She paused. "I'll need a map."
He looked at the map.
"A coastal map," he said.
"Yes," she said.
He was quiet.
"I can do that," he said.
"After the festival," she said.
"After the festival," he said.
He went back to the city map.
She went back to the record.
At 5pm she walked to the gap between the two houses.
Not to the arcade.
To her own street.
Higashimachi.
She stood in front of the gap.
The two houses.
Her house. Ren's house.
Both standing.
Both inhabited — not by them, not yet, but by the people who had come back to the upper district, the families returning to their own apartments, the city filling itself back in from the center outward.
Her house had a family in it she didn't know.
His house had a family in it she didn't know.
She stood in the gap.
Looked at the two houses.
Thought about September — the festival — and what happened after.
Going home.
The apartment.
The third floor window that faced the road.
She thought about what ordinary mornings looked like from here.
The 7:14 bus.
She thought about whether the 7:14 bus was running again.
She thought it was. Hiroshi the professor had overseen the transport infrastructure restoration. The buses had started running three weeks ago. Reduced routes. But running.
She didn't know if the 7:14 route specifically had been restored.
She hadn't checked.
She stood in the gap.
Then she heard footsteps.
She knew them before she turned.
Ren stood beside her.
They looked at the two houses.
"The families," he said.
"They've been there since the sixth week," she said.
"I know," he said.
"They'll move out when we ask," she said. "There's enough space in the city now. They can find their own places."
He was quiet.
She looked at the houses.
"After the festival," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the gap.
"We come home after the festival," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the two houses.
The gap between them.
The specific space that had been there for seventeen years and had held everything she'd been carrying for seven of them.
She looked at it.
"Two weeks," she said.
"Two weeks," he said.
She looked at the gap.
"The record section closes with the festival," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"And then," she said.
"And then Arc 3," he said.
She looked at the gap.
"The coast," she said.
"Yes," she said.
"The Watchers," he said.
"Yes," she said.
He was quiet.
She was quiet.
"I'm going with you," he said.
She looked at him.
"Arc 3," he said. "The coast. Whatever it requires." He paused. "I'm going."
She looked at him.
"You said that about everything," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"In September 2024," she said. "When you got on the 7:14 bus into a dead city."
"Yes," he said.
"And in every chapter since," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the two houses.
"I know," she said.
He looked at the houses.
"I know you know," he said. "I'm saying it anyway."
She looked at the gap.
At the two houses.
At the space between them.
"Two weeks," she said.
"Two weeks," he said.
She looked at the houses one more time.
Then she turned.
Walked back toward the arcade.
He walked beside her.
At a distance that was not accidental.
At 8pm she wrote.
The festival preparations.
Axel's sixty-one days of planning.
The three names added to the First Record.
The two houses on Higashimachi.
She wrote:
Two weeks.
The festival in two weeks.
The section closes.
The record marks it.
And then:
Home.
And then:
Arc 3.
The coast.
The Watchers.
What comes after the becoming.
What the city is now that it has become.
Two weeks.
She put the pen down.
Read it.
Ren was across from her.
He looked at the pages.
"What comes after the becoming," he said.
"Yes," she said.
He was quiet.
She was quiet.
The arcade around them.
The warm room.
The First Record on the wall.
The record on the mismatched table.
Two weeks.
She picked up the pen.
Kept writing.
Author's Note
Two weeks.
The chapter that gathers the threads before the festival. The city at four thousand and two hundred and eleven. The record at four hundred and seven pages. Axel planning for sixty-one days. Hiro planning since day thirty-one.
The three names from the first fog hour added to the First Record. Below the children's harbor. They were here. They were the beginning. Their names belong on the beginning's record. The First Record now holds nine names — the six original losses and the three from the first fog hour. The beginning made complete.
The two houses on Higashimachi. The gap between them. She goes there alone and Ren finds her. I'm going with you. Arc 3. The coast. Whatever it requires. He says it. She says she knows. He says it anyway. That's who they are.
Kai thinking about crowd dispersal for four thousand people at the festival. Of course he is. He mapped the city. He knows what four thousand people in the upper district looks like in terms of route management.
After the festival: home. After home: Arc 3.
Two chapters to the festival.
— Nayuta