Touri lowered their voice, turning their face away as they uttered their final words, but Anya still overheard. Anya gave Touri’s head a little knock, and Touri let out a small “Ouch.” Anya, being told by someone of her child’s age, “That’s how young people are these days.”
“… ‘That’s how young people are these days,’ you know?”
“…What now? Touri-kun?”
While rubbing the spot on her head where she was tapped, Touri continued speaking.
“Those words, you see… I often see them on TV or in letters to the editor. Don’t you think? Most of you were born later than me! …And!”
“……Yeah.”
“……Well.”
Touri took a sip of her black coffee, gulping it down. The bitterness seeped into her throat. And then she opened her mouth again.
“Kids nowadays make fun of my hobbies as ‘old,’ treat me like a child from the older generation… and even people from younger generations treat me like a child. What am I supposed to do?! Damn it!”
“Well, calm down…”
Touri, with her fiery red hair, continued to vent. Her lack of flexibility in character made it difficult for her to accept the generational gap caused by reincarnation.
“Because even though I’m still a child, there are times when I’m not taken seriously, and rude people belittle children who don’t understand the harshness of society. Originality and creativity are things I don’t really get, and the definition of truly excellent music is so ambiguous. The more I think about it, the more I don’t understand!”
“Oh, the conversation took a turn, huh?”
Touri spoke with a low voice, squinting her eyes. She was still struggling with her unique performance.
“We’re getting closer to a big competition!”
“Doesn’t really have anything to do with the generation gap.”
“Ugh, seriously! What’s with overthinking, making the performance stagnant!?”
“You’re in quite a mood.”
It seemed that Touri was still deeply immersed in the maze of music.
“Rain, do you ever feel the generation gap due to reincarnation or something like that?”
“Uh, well… me?”
To change the topic, Zeke directed the conversation to Rain.
“I… don’t really feel the generation gap much.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah…”
Rain scratched his cheek, looking a bit embarrassed.
“I don’t really fit into the current era or the past era…”
“Quite pessimistic, huh?”
Rain, both in this life and the previous one, was very oblivious to current trends.
“But having these talks about the past is fun. It’s not easy to talk to people about memories from our past lives, especially since many who knew about those times have already passed away.”
“If we talk about Zeke-sensei’s past life, he’s more than ten years older than my past life. He’s already deceased.”
“Even if you talk about floppy disks, today’s kids wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, nostalgic, Rain-kun. Yeah, floppy disks.”
“Yeah, those capacities were impressive back then, considering.”
They all chuckled.
“Yeah, it’s nostalgic. Speaking of which, the school lunches… when did wild boar cutlets stop being served? Those were delicious. Right?”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Oh… Zeke-sensei, that’s a story from my time, which is more than a decade ago, so you guys wouldn’t know.”
“…Feels like I’ve been betrayed by a comrade I just found.”
Despite Zeke talking enthusiastically, Touri and the others smiled wryly, and Zeke crossed his arms with a slight smile. There was a subtle generation gap between these three.
“…Oh, right. If that’s the case…”
Suddenly realizing something, Zeke exclaimed.
“Zeke-san?”
“Wait a moment.”
Saying that, he left and returned to his room. Wondering what it could be, after waiting in the living room for a few minutes, Zeke came back holding a small box.
“Do you remember this?”
Rain and Touri peered into the box in Zeke’s hands. However, the first one to react was not the reincarnated Rain but Anya.
“Oh! That’s nostalgic! It’s a magical music box!”
“Oh…”
Rain and Touri nodded at Anya’s words. When Zeke opened the lid of the music box, a high and beautiful sound began to play. The sparkling sound of the music box permeated the living room.
///
scene transition
///
“Oh, it certainly became a boom for a while, magical music boxes…”
“… When I was really small. … By the time I was around ten, I hardly saw them anymore. I only saw them occasionally.”
“Rain-kun might be like that. I was at my peak in producing them during the time of my past life.”
It was a magical music box, a device that operated with human magic power, called a magical music box. While spring-driven music boxes inevitably had short playing times, magical music boxes could continue playing as long as stored magic power allowed.
An untouched music box could play for hours, making it popular as background music during work or a moment before bedtime.
“… But wasn’t this music box a trend in my past life? Why is Anya-san feeling nostalgic about it?”
Rain asks, tilting her head. Magic-powered music boxes should have been obsolete in Anya’s era.
“In terms of time… but, the music box here, we made it when I was in high school with Zeke and the others,”
Anya says as she casually takes the music box from Touris hand.
“You managed to find that from back then pretty quickly, Zeke,”
“I’m good at organizing,”
Curiously examining the music box, Touri asks,
“You made it when you were in high school?”
“Yeah. It’s nostalgic, the Magical Music Box Incident. It was really tough,”
“Nah, it wasn’t that big of a deal,”
“No, you can ask Sophie. We all agree that it was a big deal because Zeke was a bother! “
“It’s not my fault, though.”
Zeke sighs. Although Rain and Touri seem puzzled by the conversation, Zeke seems to notice their confusion and speaks up.
“…Want to hear about those days?”
“I’m a bit curious,” Touri responds.
“I’ll tell you, but it’s not that big of a story, okay?”
With that, Zeke sits down in a chair and takes a slow sip of his coffee,
reminiscing about the past.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT GADGETIZEDPANDA.COM
“Ugh…”
“Don’t make such an unenthusiastic sound, Paris. It’s contagious.”
“Come on! It’s summer vacation, after all.”
“…Give me that recovery item.”
“Okay, Costas. Survive, okay?”
“Yeah.”
It was a hot summer day. This was when Zeke was a freshman in high school.
It was late July, and school had just entered summer vacation. This was Zeke’s room, and his school friends, Paris and Costas, were visiting, lying down lazily and playing handheld game consoles together. They pressed buttons while munching on snacks, fully enjoying their freedom during summer vacation.
“By the way, Zeke, Costas, have you decided on your summer vacation research projects?”
Paris, occupying Zeke’s bed and hitting buttons while lying down, asked.
Unusually, the high school they attended had assigned summer vacation research projects. These were tasks that required higher precision than the research projects in elementary or middle school. Students were required to raise questions, conduct their own investigations, and draw their own conclusions.
“Well, if it’s low quality, they’ll make you resubmit, right?”
“It’s definitely a challenging task.”
What the school was looking for was a research paper written in an organized manner. It could be in the field of science or social issues, but students had to take up a problem, investigate it logically, and draw their own conclusions. Thus, even the freedom-loving students felt the constraint creeping up on them.
“I guess we don’t need to ask Costas, huh?”
“…Poisons.”
“Well, that’s true for you.”
Costas was a guy who had a strong interest in poisons. Although he would go on to achieve success in the field of pharmaceutical research and development as an adult, he was considered eccentric at the time.
“Even the same poison can become a medical tool or a weapon depending on how it’s used. I plan to proceed with that argument,” Costas said.
“Hey, Costas, if you’re going to bring up your expertise, it’ll be a breeze. You already have all the materials, right?”
“I’m planning to conduct thirty experiments over the entire summer vacation.”
“…Damn, that sounds like a pain!”
Costas, who was passionate about poisons, intended to dedicate his high school summer to poison.
“…Just make sure you don’t accidentally poison yourself during the experiments, okay?”
“Yeah, let’s meet up at school after summer vacation.”
“Is Sophie helping you?”
“No, she refused.”
“Well, that’s a wise decision…”
Sophie was Costas’s childhood friend. Her refusal to help meant that Costas would lack an important device to control him, but no one blamed Sophie for running away.
“Ohh! Isn’t there an easy and quick way to finish the summer break assignment without putting in too much effort?”
Paris whined while lying on the bed. His attitude of wanting to finish the assignment with minimal effort and enjoy his summer break reflected the typical behavior of a healthy and straightforward teenage boy.
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