As the May light bleached Dragon God’s Lake white, a small commotion had broken out in front of Spice’s workshop.
“What is this, another glitch?”
Spice clicked his tongue and looked up at the black box mounted on the workshop wall. The sensor had been shaking intermittently since morning. The readings weren’t abnormal. Just — too regular.
“It’s bees.”
Kopo called down from the top of the bridge railing . Beyond the bridge, along the edge of the rapeseed field, a golden swarm was forming a procession .
“…Bees?”
“You don’t know? Today’s the day the whole world thinks about bees. Minico said so in the morning paper.”
Spice frowned and watched the swarm. His sensor had been picking up their wingbeats . Each individual beat was tiny. But stacked together, the vibration built into a wave large enough to silence even a machine.
“They’re taking a detour .”
Kopo pointed with his chin; the bees weren’t flying in a straight line but making a wide loop around the weeping cherry’s branches toward the flower field.
“There’s a shortcut right there.”
“Wind conditions, maybe,” Spice answered shortly, copying the sensor’s numbers into his notebook. “Bees know the shortest distance. But sometimes they don’t take it.”
Just then, Keromi’s humming drifted from along the river. aimless , half-asleep melody. And one bee at the front of the line changed course. As if drawn by Keromi’s voice, it circled once around the edge of the bridge railing before rejoining the line.
Kopo kept his eyes on that one bee the whole time.
“…I wonder if, because of that detour, it’s carrying something to someone.”
Spice didn’t answer. Writing “0520, resonance from wingbeats, maximum amplitude ” in his notebook, he only tapped the tip of his pen once toward the rapeseed field.
Before long, Keromi crossed the bridge. With one bee perched on her fingertip, she walked slowly over.
“It’s been following me forever. It came when I sang.”
“Did it sting you?” Kopo asked, stepping back.
“It doesn’t sting. It’s just riding.”
The bee on Keromi’s finger eventually took off on its own. It didn’t head for Keromi — it headed for the blank notebook Kopo had set down beside him. It landed on the cover for about a second, then vanished toward the rapeseed field.
Kopo picked up the notebook and looked at its cover. There was no trace of the bee’s footprint. Just — when he opened it, the first blank page carried the soft scent of early summer.
Margin note: That night, Spice noticed that when he overlaid the bee wingbeat data, it matched the outline of the town map exactly — but by the next morning, only that page’s numbers had shifted into a different arrangement.
【Today’s Motif】
- World Bee Day: Observed every May 20th. Established by the UN General Assembly in 2017, marking the birthday of Anton Janša, a pioneer of modern beekeeping (born May 20th, 1734). An international day calling for the protection of bees, which pollinate over 70% of the world’s food crops.
This is an English translation of “羽音のまわり道”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).