dmims Chapter 197 Caught in the Cracks of the World
Chapter 197 Caught in the Cracks of the World
Chapter 207 Caught in the Cracks of the World
Sachiko first clearly felt the changes in the world when she was five years old.
Everything seemed to change shape in an instant, yet it also seemed to have been the same for a long time.
That day, she was watching TV. A talk show was on, and the host had invited a Pokémon professor and university scholars to argue endlessly about the topic of "time travel."
The professor tells the audience that there is a green Pokémon called Celebi that has the power to travel through time, and in a distant region, there is another mythical Pokémon with superpowers that can use rings to lead people through time and space.
On the other hand, the university professor looked down on him, shaking his head roughly and denying the Elf Doctor's statement, while repeatedly muttering complex and difficult terms such as "quantum physics," "wormhole travel," and "grandmother paradox."
Sachiko couldn't understand those things at the time, but that didn't stop her from watching the adults arguing on TV with great interest...
Just like when she used to watch her parents argue at home.
That day, something happened, and neither her father nor her mother came home. Sachiko watched TV for a very long time.
Late into the night, the TV station broadcast the time travel interview again. The girl had memorized almost all the strange terms the university professor used, and only then did she hear the familiar sound of a lock being opened at the entrance.
It was a rare occasion that Dad and Mom came home together today. They seemed to walk through the door at the same time, their steps heavy as they entered the house.
This is truly unusual, because although Mom and Dad work in the same place, they've been arguing a lot lately, and even when they get home from get off work, they try every possible way to avoid each other. It's as if the two adults are engaged in a silent, childish competition, doing their best to evade each other's lives.
Sachiko hadn't seen the two of them arrive home at the same time in a long time.
Dad changed his shoes, not releasing his Pokémon—he probably left it at his workspace as usual. He saw Sachiko still watching TV on the sofa, and a strange expression instantly crossed his face. Sachiko thought he was angry because she was eating snacks on the sofa, but that wasn't the case.
She saw her father approach her, half-squat down, pat her head, and then silently walk towards the balcony—where he used to smoke before he quit.
Throughout the entire process, he didn't even glance at his mother, who had entered the house at the same time as him.
“Mom, Dad has started smoking again…” Sachiko wanted to tell her mother this, as it was a pledge the whole family made together when Dad decided to quit smoking in the past. But she couldn’t say it because her mother looked strange too.
After entering the room, Mom didn't say a word. She sat down next to Sachiko and stared blankly at the TV with her.
When Dad approached her, blocked the TV with his body, and reached out to touch her head, Mom didn't react at all—it was as if her gaze could pass through Dad and directly see the TV program on the screen behind him.
"Sachiko," her mother said without warning, her expression incredibly serious, "from now on we'll be living on our own."
alone?
Sachiko remembered the meaning of the word in the picture book dictionary, but she didn't understand what her mother wanted to express with the word.
"What about Dad?"
She naturally pointed to her father smoking on the balcony—
"Don't you live with your father?"
"Sigh, he used to smoke there." The mother's face showed sadness that even a child could see.
Looking at her mother's face, Sachiko had a premonition that a great disaster was about to befall her.
“From now on, it will just be the two of us.” Mom gazed at Sachiko and said in a more serious tone, “Dad will never come back.”
"Dad...isn't he there?"
Sachiko pointed to the balcony again. Through the transparent glass door, her father turned around and looked at his daughter, who was pointing at him, with some confusion.
"What did you say?" Mom said, her gaze fixed on the balcony as if she were staring into empty air.
"Sachiko, what's wrong with you? There's nothing there."
Perhaps because her face showed too much fear, her mother immediately hugged Sachiko: "I know you're scared and don't want to accept this reality, but I will always be by your side."
Sachiko stood frozen, unable to move, unable to believe what was happening before her eyes.
When she came to her senses, her father was already standing in front of her—he had finished his cigarette.
"Have you been watching TV alone all day?" Dad asked expressionlessly.
Sachiko's mother was sitting right next to her, so no matter how you looked at it, she couldn't really be considered "alone," which is why Sachiko shook her head heavily.
"Oh, I see. You did other things too."
As before, Dad didn't notice Mom's presence at all. He ignored Sachiko's denial of being "alone," looked at the somewhat messy comic books in Sachiko's room, and nodded understandingly.
"You must be a little hungry too, let's go out and get some late-night snacks together."
"Should we call Mom?" Sachiko asked, looking at her father in front of her, then at her mother who was watching TV beside her.
Dad didn't answer, but just sighed silently, patted Sachiko's head, and took her hand to leave the sofa.
The mother looked at Sachiko, who had stood up, with a puzzled expression, as if asking, "Where are you going?" but she didn't say it out loud.
Dad turned off the TV and the lights, leaving Mom in the dark. He slammed the door shut and walked with Sachiko to their usual restaurant.
Before eating at the restaurant downstairs, Dad said something similar to Mom's—
"From now on, it will just be the two of us."
The next day, Sachiko saw the news about the accident on television, and she began to understand the reason for this strange phenomenon.
Just yesterday, a serious accident occurred at my parents' workplace. A huge Pokémon suddenly went berserk, causing injuries and deaths to several staff members.
The television did not broadcast the names of the dead and injured, but both my father and mother looked very serious while watching it.
The three of them were sitting side by side, but they looked incredibly lonely and sorrowful.
"Even though Dad is gone, we must live well."
"I need to work harder from now on, and do it for my mom too."
Listening to her parents' words, Sachiko finally understood her current situation.
The father cannot see the mother, and the mother cannot see the father; their conversations cannot be conveyed, and their actions are ignored. Most importantly, they both believe the other has died in a work accident.
Only Sachiko herself can see both of them at the same time.
I remember that arrogant university professor on a TV interview once said—if you put a cheetah in a magic box, with a 50% chance of it dying and a 50% chance of it surviving, the moment the box is opened, two different worlds will appear. In one world, the cheetah can stand up and meow cutely at us, while in the other world, the cheetah will die a tragic death.
Dad and Mom live in two completely different worlds.
In one world, the mother survived and prepared breakfast for Sachiko; in another world, the father was the one who survived and bought her a sandwich from the convenience store downstairs.
Sachiko didn't know which one to eat, so she ate half of each. Her mother asked her, puzzled, why she ate so little, while her father didn't ask any further questions and helped Sachiko finish the rest of the sandwich.
The girl travels between two worlds, able to see both her living father and her living mother. She doesn't know how she manages to do it, but she is incredibly grateful that she hasn't lost either of her parents.
This is the truth behind Sachiko's time travel.
.
"We are in the parallel universe where Sachiko's mother lived."
The little boy, who was in preschool, tried his best to explain the principle of parallel universes to the agent detective, making Bilan feel as if she were in a dream.
"However, Sachiko's ability to travel between parallel universes is not permanent. According to her, the two parallel worlds are like two intersecting straight lines. The further along you go, the farther apart the worlds become, and the more difficult it is to travel between them. And recently, Sachiko can no longer see both her father and mother at the same time—she is very worried and afraid that one day in the future she might lose either her father or her mother."
The little boy looked at the kind detective with utmost sincerity and pleading.
"Is there any way to keep Sachiko's parents by her side forever?"
That concludes the contents of this commission.