Original subtitles

I repeat. Today at approximately 10:20 a.m., all contact was suddenly lost with JAL flight 538,

which was requesting an emergency landing due to engine trouble...

experienced right after the take-off from Narita airport, with a total of 225 passengers and crew on board.

This is the second accident involving aircraft this month following the Air Zimbabwe incident yesterday.

This has been the news at noon.

Fish?

Fish!

Fish!

Fish!

Next, today's top story.

Today at approximately 2:35 p.m., JAL flight 005,

en route to Narita airport from the Netherlands via Anchorage,

suddenly lost contact in mid-flight.

A search is still being conducted on land and sea,

but as of 6 p.m., nothing has been discovered.

This incident is the 17th aircraft disappearance this month alone.

This has been the evening news.

Stay tuned for the time signal.

This story has been prepared for you, my successor...

who should be visiting this room in due time.

I know that you, who is reading this now, are not only an impoverished private investigator,

but have also accepted a case of unclear purpose.

And continued your investigation and surveillance of myself and this little girl.

In order to explain why I know this, and what thoughts and doubts drove you to break the unspoken rule...

that you must never directly meet the subject of your investigation by entering this room, I begin my story.

That summer, high above the city, aircraft continued to vanish one after another.

With the break of day, the sun beat down upon the heads of people with all the heat it could muster,

making the hours drag on until noon and searing off the boiling drops of sweat it itself had caused.

When all shadows disappeared from the ground, people grew tired of discussing,

"When will this summer end?"

And the sun would waver, as if it needed to be talked about to exist, and dissolved into a haze.

Once more, people in this newly-created ghost town forgot about their clocks and watches,

losing sight of yesterday and not caring about tomorrow...

and cradled in their belief in the fact that they were truly alive, repeating the same daily routine.

At the time, I, being a private investigator, put down roots in that city...

and waited for a job that might never come.

A colleague?

Perhaps not.

Incidentally, there is one and only one ability,

which is absolutely necessary to keep oneself well fed in this business.

It is not one's kung-fu skill or pistol marksmanship,

nor is it some 3-D ability to spot a criminal hiding in a web of complex riddles and intrigue.

I believe that you, being in the same line of work as myself, know what it is.

Yes, it is the ability to locate a client.

One stakes his career on this ability, doesn't he?

I held that to be true for a very long time.

That's just how much time I had on my hands.

Enough time to wonder when my last case was...

whether it was so far in the past that I had simply forgotten,

or whether I had never actually had a single case since the day I was born.

Work was scarce enough to make one think that way.

Still, as odd as it may seem,

I never once entertained the thought of washing my hands of this occupation.

My groundless conviction that I was a private investigator and my willingness to wait...

for an interminably long time undoubtedly speaks volumes about my personality and life,

but for the time being, let's move the story along.

Setting aside for the moment the issue of faith in one's role as a detective,

authority is what's really necessary to make a living.

Pressed upon by the daily pressures at the office,

having even my phone line, the detective's lifeline, disconnected...

and lacking the income to even afford the noodles...

that I ate at the ramen stand for every meal, I was stretched to my utmost limits.

This is no joke.

I was just beginning to think that there was nothing else open to me,

barring possibly becoming a pro at eating at noodle stands,

when the case I had long awaited finally came in.

It was a surveillance assignment monitoring a father and child...

living in a certain run-down apartment in a certain city,

namely the residents of the very room in which you now stand.

Yes, it is identical to the case you yourself accepted.

Suppose you must have come to think it's an odd coincidence by now.

At this point you could simply stop reading this text, return home, eat cold noodles and go to sleep if you'd like.

Whether you continue onward or return...

is a decision you may make (although it's not a very meaningful phrase here) of your own free will.

From this point onward, there is no turning back.

I feel compelled to praise your tenacity in coming this far,

but speaking from personal experience,

it is that very tenacity which dragged me into this labyrinth in the first place.

This being something I would eventually come to realize only much later,

I began my investigation that very same day.

It was a strange father and child that I researched.

As it is customary for this sort of investigation,

I started with a background check into family records.

However, this turned out to be a complete dead-end from the start.

I had already given up on the idea of pinning down their true names.

It goes without saying, but in order to make a living in the city one needs a name.

Even if only an alias, one must have some sort of appellation in order to carry on a normal life in society.

There should have been any number of ways of discovering the real names of my subjects.

However...

In the case of this parent and child, no mail ever arrived, even by direct delivery.

Aside from those two, the apartment had no other residents to question...

and even the identity of the superintendent was unknown.

Gas, water, electricity...

While evidence of their use was obvious, not a single account or overdue bill was to be found.

Even more surprising, fund-raisers for national public television never once knocked at their door.

In my search for this parent and child whose every detail was unknown,

I engaged the services of a contact in the real estate industry,

while I personally made myself intimately familiar with the daily habits of these two.

To tell the truth, I had already figured out from the start...

that these two were some sort of counterfeit parent and child, unrelated by blood.

I'm certain that you had the same impression, and you were correct.

This is because the father of this girl, who you have investigated so diligently,

is none other than myself, your colleague.

However, at the time there was nothing I could do to confirm my suspicion but to see what was going on with my own eyes.

You must have been the same.

After all, as another who has spent a full week in an empty apartment building...

with his ear pressed to the wall of the next room,

alone with the unknown subject of his investigation, I applaud your efforts.

At this point, I should have simply washed my hands of this whole ridiculous case...

and taken my losses, but I became stubborn.

Naturally, I had already marked the father as suspect.

The kid was just a kid after all, and something about this old man clearly stank.

Supporting my assumption, the two did nothing all day but eat and sleep.

Rarely setting foot outside the room, and showing no indication of ever taking a bath.

Even going to the toilet was a simple act completed from the window.

With no opportunity of investigating the room while they were out,

a week passed with no success,

until, just as I was beginning to consider starting over from scratch, that incident occurred.

Fish! Fish!

I don't suppose that anyone can explain exactly what happened on that day...

in a clear blue sky which nobody was watching.

No, even if I had somehow taken everything in with my own eyes,

it would only be comprehended as the truth in a fairytale, something that would forever reside in my imagination alone.

That evening, the man took his little soldier girl and went off to battle.

That was the first and most ideal chance I ever had to enter the room.

I couldn't bring myself to believe that this was the room I had spied on every day from the other side of the wall.

While the two were absent, it was as if they had disappeared back into the tapestry of time.

The room's interior returned to its original dilapidated state...

and no one looking at it would believe that anyone had ever lived there.

It was a ruin in every sense of the word.

When the two were not around, this room, no, this whole apartment returned to its original state of ruin.

Standing in the stale, lethargic air strong enough to rob the entire body of its strength...

I finally began to become aware of the true nature of this bizarre case.

However, it only hinted at a more horrible truth...

which would eventually rear its ugly head before me.

The next day, I stopped by the office and found a report from my real estate contact.

In a very concise manner, it provided an answer to part of the incomprehensible riddle...

that the condemned apartment presented,

while at the same time pushing the rest of the riddle further from my grasp.

The apartment in which I held my daily vigil was located in one of several areas...

selected for use in a land reclamation project several years ago.

However, due to some sort of financial problem that arose,

the plan was never realized and everything ended without incident.

That's right. According to all maps, the place where you, who is reading this story, now stand...

is nothing but open sea.

Jets continued to disappear frequently in the sky over that city,

but people gradually ceased to take note,

as if they had completely forgotten what an airplane was.

Despite feeling a strange unease and knowing full well that I was rapidly losing interest...

in everything outside of that father and child, I pressed on in my investigation.

It was as if those two were magical creatures, a false father and child,

living alongside other people, yet inhabiting a realm outside of reality.

Quietly continuing to live in a condemned apartment which doesn't exist on any map, unknown to anyone else.

The little girl who shows unusual interest in airplanes, calling them "fish".

The great number of jets which seem to just vanish.

When put into words, it sounds far too unrealistic and very unbecoming to a private eye,

but I developed a hypothesis regarding these two.

The aircraft disappearances being concentrated in an area directly above that reclaimed land...

A giant fish scale found by a search party...

A statement by one of the scramble fighter pilots,

claiming that he saw a giant ornamental carp floating 10,000 meters up in the air...

Every last shred of evidence lent unanimous, decisive support to my unrealistic hypothesis,

propelling this whole case into the realm of utter fantasy.

On top of that, the "reality" I had been so carefully trying to preserve,

started to change day by day into something vague and formless.

Yes, that odd uneasiness I felt from the outset of this case turned out to be the fear...

that this riddle enfolded with a greater riddle, and again swallowed up by yet another,

greater riddle until it became impossible to answer,

might someday encroach upon my own existence, and that I would discover that my very life...

was in fact nothing but one of the parts of the riddle I continued to chase.

I was already aware of it by this time.

Since I had started pursuing this pair... Just how much time had actually passed?

Several days?

Weeks?

No, had several months even passed?

Was that summer still not over yet?

And what was the name of this town?

No, more importantly, what was my name?

Age? Birthplace?

I finally realized that, with the sole exception of my conviction that I was a detective,

I was losing every last memory from my life before I got involved with this case,

including my own name and history.

I was finally drawing close to the heart of the problem.

Who on earth was I?

In order for that town which I believed I had lived and worked in to be real,

this landfill and its residents must not exist.

That would even include me, the man investigating these two as well, I suppose.

Thinking that I would know with certainty which was true...

only if I myself saw the two inhabitants of that place which wasn't supposed to exist,

I turned and slowly began making my way towards the apartment.

The man, and the little girl, were both there.

I don't need to tell you what happened after that.

After all, you are repeating now what I and my predecessors experienced.

By now it should bear no explanation,

but the man who I investigated, the man who pretended to be this little girl's father,

was in reality my client, and a former detective himself.

Now I have become the same thing to you.

There was no way I could possibly have determined the origin of this horror story,

in which the client turns out to be not only the subject of the investigation,

but a former investigator as well, no way to know when it started or when it will end,

nor how many men lived with this girl before me...

God alone knows.

However, I can picture one thing clearly.

Both I and the man before me were not victims,

who through their own helpless curiosity ended up in this plight, being a father to this little girl...

We were created because we were destined to play this role.

I, as an investigator, did not select this case of my own volition.

Rather, this case required an investigator and selected me.

It is not a matter of what is fact and what is fiction.

It is a matter of which better explains your existence.

I humbly suggest that, in the same way as I and my predecessors did,

you continue to play the father for this little girl,

eventually writing your own story on this word processor for the sake of your successor,

who will come someday to relieve you.

As for the hypothesis I developed concerning this girl's true nature,

I think I will leave that for you to look forward to discovering yourself.

You'll understand once you live together with her for a while.

Finally, regarding the fish which is probably still lying there on the floor:

If you have enough courage, please boil it in a pot and eat it.

I ask only that you do not think about the other face in the aquarium as you do so.

Although this girl requires very little special attention, please wake her up to go to the bathroom once during the night.

The little goddess has a habit of wetting the bed.

I pray for your investigation.

Today at approximately 10:20 a.m., all contact was suddenly lost with JAL flight 538,

Hello? Is this Urayama-san? It's me.

which was requesting an emergency landing due to engine trouble...

Yep, I finally finished it.

experienced right after the take-off from Narita airport, with a total of 225 passengers and crew on board.

I really sweat it out this time.

Huh? No, really?

This is the second accident involving aircraft this month following the Air Zimbabwe incident yesterday.

Again?

No way!

Content? It's so full that filling's coming out of both ends!

I repeat. Today at approximately 10:20 a.m., all contact was suddenly lost with JAL flight 538...

Hang on a sec.

Okay, so a private dick who can't get enough to eat accepts a case,

only to find that, lo and behold, he's spying on a goddess.

No, goddess. Goddess, the Great Maker, creator of Heaven and Earth and all that.

Anyway, this goddess just happens to be what you'd call a dim little brat,

who turns one airplane after another into ornamental carps.

Not crap, carp! One in a million, black spots on a white and or—

No, it's nothing. Just got bit by my kid, that's all.

It's the same thing everyday.

Anyway, back to what I was saying:

As this private eye goes around investigating various stuff,

he becomes aware that he doesn't know anything at all, not even his own name!

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Exactly!

When he finds out that the middle-aged guy who lives with this girl used to be a private eye as well,

he realizes not only that he must have been created specifically to be a father for this little brat,

but that the entire world including himself has been created just for her...

and is completely crushed!

And she's continued doing this for hundreds, maybe thousands of years!

Of course, that's because one day to a goddess is a real long time to us,

and she's still a little brat with a very poor memory.

Hold on a sec, okay?

So what do you think? Not bad, huh?

This is gonna really sell!

I call it... "The Eternal Case."

...A more normal story?

You don't get it?

What do you mean you don't get it?

After I pulled an all-nighter checking it over one last time...

That's enough!

I don't need you anymore!

We may be eating cold noodles, but we're nobility at heart!

As long as we two have each other, nothing can stop us...

Not enough protein?

Screw you!

Burn in hell!

It's dinner time.

Today we're having your favourite – fish!

Doesn't get it...

If it's not one thing, it's another...

A bird with no soul dropped a single egg...

...which was swallowed up by the night and lost

A little lost fish in the sea...

...runs into it among the coral

Sky is the sea of the sea

Sea is the sky of the sky

Birds and fish trade places with one another...

...never having even said hello

Sky is the sea of the sea

Sea is the sky of the sky

The birds and the fish pretend not to notice each other

Won't it be nice when they learn to get along someday?