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“Chief Chrome, do you know what a raccoon is?”
I asked, pretending it was just idle curiosity. Chief Chrome immediately perked up, straightened his back, and launched into an enthusiastic explanation about the differences between raccoons, raccoon dogs, and tanuki.
Apparently, there are wild raccoon populations in Japan nowadays—but they were originally brought here from a place once called North America, more than three thousand years ago, during the age of “globalization.” With their incredible adaptability and fertility, they established themselves as an invasive species, now living somewhere far across the northern seas beyond Ishigami Village.
I’ve never cared much for geography, but I gathered the gist: it’s a small, chubby creature from overseas. They got their name—araiguma, literally “washing bear”—because they wash their food in running water before eating it.
Because of the bear part, I had always imagined them as some omnivorous animal similar to black or brown bears.
Chief Chrome pulled up a picture of a raccoon on his tablet to show me.
That was exactly what I needed—because now I finally had a lead to investigate who Deputy Director Winfield’s lover had been.
A few days ago, while researching in the institute library, I discovered a small card tucked into an old book.
It was an A6-sized greeting card, on which someone had written in elegant cursive English:
Come back, my little raccoon! I admit it—I miss you, all right?
The signature was a single letter: X.
No one could mistake that letter. I daresay it’s become the second-most recognizable character of the alphabet in the Stone World—right after A, since everyone still starts their English studies with “Abandon.”
The “X” could belong only to one man: Dr. Xeno Houston Wingfield, the first deputy director of the Time Machine Research Institute.
Brilliant aerospace engineer. Infamous schemer. Self-styled politician. A capitalist out of sheer curiosity.
He was known for signing unofficial documents with a grandiose single “X,” instead of the full X.H.W.
He never married. I’d always assumed it was because he despised women.
I once attended one of his lectures, back when I was very young. Looking down at us “post-cataclysmic humans,” he seemed overcome by a sense of duty and destiny, preaching how free and fortunate we were—how we’d been spared the oppression of the “United Nations” era.
In short, Xeno was an insufferable old fart.
So when I found that card, you can imagine my unholy glee.
That pompous, self-righteous genius—turns out he had loved someone after all! And loved them pathetically, no less!
Then I remembered he’d never married, and reconsidered my interpretation of “pathetic.” Perhaps the addressee was a female graduate student or subordinate—a secret affair, with Xeno lowering himself only out of guilt.
Still, “my little raccoon”… It made me wonder what kind of person she or he was.
I started by thinking of appearances.
Everyone at the Institute looks perpetually sleep-deprived, dark circles and all. It’s not that we’re unhygienic—we just don’t see the point in “beautifying” ourselves.
Sure, we wear lab coats and shirts to follow the dress code, but unlike the people of the pre-cataclysm era, we don’t smear our faces with white lotion or rouge our cheeks.
Sometimes, in the elevator, I’d meet one of the elder scientists—faces powdered, cheeks tinted—and momentarily think they were stage actors hired from Ishigami Village for some evening matsuri.
Those elders carried the habits of the pre-disaster “civilized world” into our so-called “New Free World,” giving us a fleeting glimpse of its wealth and vanity.
I suppose the people of the 21st century must’ve had an excess of both material comfort and free time—to wake up early just to paint their faces.
Tying my hair back already feels like paying tribute to their memory.
So, judging from the raccoon’s photo Chief Chrom showed me, perhaps “my little raccoon” was a short, plump, round, catlike, endearing man or woman.
I asked around, discreetly—whether any of Winfield’s close colleagues from the old days fit that description.
But looking through the old group photos, every single one of them was lean, tall, and perfectly proportioned, tall models of composure.
Why were all of Ishigami Village’s scientific elites so slender?
Why were there so many shirtless, muscular men around here?
Mrs.Kohaku once said it had something to do with the Tsukasa Shishio—and a place called Shinjuku Ni-chōme.
Geography again. I gave up.
Maybe I could analyze the raccoon’s behavior instead.
They’re omnivores, known for rummaging through garbage.
At our Institute, the trash bins are all locked—not to keep raccoons out, but bears. Recent construction has disturbed their habitat, leading to more bear-human encounters.
Scavenging, though, isn’t rare among the villagers. Some of the elders see the Time Machine Institute as a kind of shrine, and treat our discarded scraps like relics.
“Director Ishigami turned trash into lightbulbs! Into cars! Into giant ships and rockets!” they’d say, eyes shining.
Inspired by those legends, a few amateur inventors even tried building helicopters from our junk—and crashed into their own fields.
Now we have all scrap metal sent to a recycling plant, pressed and reprocessed.
Still… maybe I should just ask Director Ishigami himself. Would he know who “the little raccoon” was?
I happened to run into him at the break room.
From what I knew, Director Ishigami and Deputy Winfield had been… very close.
Though not in any way I could comprehend.
Men can be strange like that—close enough to share drinks and slap each other on the back, yet silent when their mothers die.
No invitation to the funeral, no explanation for their melancholy.
I knew they were intimate collaborators. Nothing more.
Because compared to Xeno, Ishigami was the colder of the two.
Not cold in a worldly, selfish way, but in an otherworldly one—like he was never quite living on this planet.
He’s only thirty-six years older than me, yet talking to him feels like speaking to someone three thousand seven hundred years my senior.
He often mentions things like Doraemon, Gundam, and Einstein.
The odd thing is, he’s not showing off. Unlike Xeno, he doesn’t care whether we understand him or not.
He just recites facts, flatly, mechanically.
He isn’t embarrassed or proud. He’s… unreachable.
Ask, “What’s Doraemon?” and you’re doomed—he’ll start chanting:
“Doraemon is a children’s science fiction manga created by Fujiko F. Fujio, serialized since December 1969. It tells the story of a robot cat from the future who returns to help a boy named Nobita Nobi—”
Ever since that day, I’ve avoided using words like “who,” “what,” or “why” around him. They’re triggers.
So I was careful.
He nodded at me; I nodded back. Greeting complete.
He took a bottle of diet barley tea from the warmer, sat at the low table, and began to drink.
I raised my laptop screen as a makeshift barricade—so we wouldn’t have to talk.
And then, all at once, I understood everything.
A few minutes later, Ishigami stood up.
He walked to the sink, poured out the rest of his tea, and filled the bottle with tap water.
At first, I thought he just didn’t like the new product. But then he emptied the bottle again.
And filled it again.
And emptied it again.
He was washing the plastic bottle.
In that moment, revelation struck me like lightning.
I watched in silence as Ishigami Senku, founder of our scientific age, walked over to the recycling bin and tossed the spotless, perfectly clean bottle inside.