Chapter 11: “Rafaela’s Birthday and the Call of Bermuda”
ep.13 Chapter 11: “Rafaela’s Birthday and the Call of Bermuda” (Scheduled)
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Chapter 11: “Rafaela’s Birthday and the Call of Bermuda”
(From the memoirs of Oliver Jones)
It had already been eight years since that very first prom party.
Ririka was working as a doctor in the academy’s medical wing, while Emile, Katie, Rafaela, and I myself were all in our final year at the Gifted Academy.
As for Maharaja, although he had already graduated, he showed up at the academy almost every week, sitting casually on the salon sofa sipping chai.
No one bothered to stop him—well, because he was Maharaja.
I still remember clearly that morning when Rafaela turned eighteen.
At the Bird Estate—Katie’s home that was like a botanical garden—the house was unusually quiet.
Normally, orchids and carnivorous plants would be blooming from early morning in what felt like an “explosion of flowers,” but that day was different.
The reason was simple: it was for Rafaela, the younger sister.
Emile had been awake since before dawn, already standing in the kitchen.
By the time the rich aroma of butter and eggs drifted through the house and I woke up, he had just finished making French toast.
Crisp on the outside, meltingly soft on the inside—it was the ideal version.
“Good morning, Rafaela,” Emile said gently to her, as she pushed her hair back sleepily and sat down at the table.
She smiled and breathed in deeply.
“Thank you, Emile… mmm, that smells wonderful.”
Emile only nodded silently and handed her a plate of French toast.
At that time, I was sitting at the corner of the table fiddling with a small device.
It was the sleep gun that the Gifted Academy kept under strict secrecy—scheduled to be delivered to the Marine Research Institute the next day. I was making some adjustments.
“Rafaela, you’ve always wanted to ride the Harley, right? Could you take this to the Marine Research Institute tomorrow afternoon? Everyone seems to be waiting for it.”
When I said that, Rafaela lifted her face.
“You mean I can ride it?”
“Yeah, I’ve already reset the settings. You can even go for a two- or three-hour tour ride today if you want.”
“That’s wonderful… thank you.”
She didn’t say anything more, but I think something inside her had already been decided.
Even at that moment, she was probably planning to “just deliver” the sleep gun to the sea.
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By the afternoon, Katie had locked herself in the greenhouse.
“I want to make a special flower bloom for her birthday,” she said, looking more serious than usual.
Beside her, Emile was struggling with Fei-taro, who was trying to dig into a potted plant.
“No! This is Michelangelo No. 4! Don’t you remember we got scolded last time?”
“I can’t help it—it’s instinct…”
Fei-taro hunched his back and cackled “kuk-kuk-kuk.”
Watching him, Hachikō sulked and turned away on the sofa—thinking back on it now, the scene still makes me laugh.
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As the sun began to sink, a notification came to my terminal from headquarters.
It reported the occurrence of “periodic energy anomalies” in the Bermuda region.
That in itself wasn’t unusual.
Once every three years, the crust would tremble, the ocean currents would shift, and the area around the Crystal Gate would react abnormally.
It was one of our research subjects.
But at that moment—I felt an oddly unpleasant premonition.
“…Strange. Rafaela hasn’t come back yet. Just when the flowers were starting to bloom too,” Katie said with a clouded face as she returned from the greenhouse.
By then, classmates had begun gathering in the living room.
A huge strawberry cake made specially by a Japanese patissier. Sparkling non-alcoholic champagne. Flowers and balloons.
Everyone had gathered for Rafaela, preparing everything.
But the main guest—the star of the day—did not return.
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Later, I remembered the words she had said:
“…I forgot. That day was my birthday, wasn’t it?”
Smiling as though exasperated, but also a little shy, Rafaela had said that.
I’m sure that at that time, she wasn’t simply heading toward the sea to “deliver” something.
Something was calling her.
Perhaps the deep, quiet voice of Bermuda was reaching only her.
That sea region reflects the past.
Forgotten memories, fragments of days long gone—it calls them back without allowing them to be severed.
Rafaela must have remembered too.
The night of the prom.
The days when we all first met.
The warmth of someone who once held her hand.
I don’t know what meaning that held.
I only know that at that time, all of us were praying for her safety.
And from that night onward—
I could no longer call her simply a “friend.”
That was how large her presence had grown inside me.
(To be continued in Chapter 12)
