Teary Promise (Part 4)
Since the day I asked for Takuya's email address, we have been keeping in contact with each other more often than before. Every morning, we would meet up with each other on the train and talk about things. He too isn't in any club, but he helps with his family at a bakery store just below his house. He told me that it's facing the shore of the vast ocean, so the air and scenery there are both quite nice to be at. I went there for the first time just after Halloween and it looks like it could look nicer in the Summer, though my favourite spot closer to my house has almost nobody there and the nearest building is quite a distance away, but there are trees and caves nearby for shelter. I haven't been there much lately.
As time passed, the less frequent meeting with my brother didn't seem to bother me much, to the extent that I forgot I even had an older brother. I had come to realization that my body had already become fully matured and somewhat become like my mother that it's kind of scary. I never wanted to become an adult, but my body seems to have become like one. It's like the stage of being a child was just like a deflated ball, and the stage of puberty is like inflating that ball. Well, that's how I would describe it. Just looking at the length of my own arms and legs is a reminder of that.
Mum: "You're starting to look more like me than your brother from when you were younger."
Me: "Mum? I've been wondering since we moved here, but why did we suddenly decide to move further inland and uphill when the housing agent showed something. I don't know what I saw back then, but we seem to have possibly lived near the seashore if he hadn't shown you that. It's as if that itself caused a major change of the house we could have moved to."
Mum stared at me for a while before sighing. It's as if she didn't want me to ask about it but was expecting me to ask it anyway.
Mum: "Okay. First, did you know that Japan is quite close to 3 different continental plates, and the movement of these cause earthquakes?"
I nodded. I learn about this in science, so I know roughly something about it.
Mum: "Well, he showed me and your dad a simulation of what happens should an earthquake happen in the northern region. As people have predicted, major earthquakes that meteorologists had predicted around Tokyo has been long overdue. Should a major earthquake happens off-shore like that in north-western Indonesia 6 years ago, the coastal region of where we are living in now would be wiped out beyond recognition by a huge tsunami, and I don't know if the waves would damage something serious along the coast that would last long after the earthquake happened. Old buildings built during your great-grandparents era is no sure indication that it would be hit. The Hanshin earthquake of 15 years ago shows us how dangerous it is to be in a built-up area with tall buildings too."
Is mum being to overreacting of the possibility of that happening?
Me: "So this particular house we live in is safe from all of that?"
Mum: "Of course! It's built on a hill and is quite some distance from the shore. The house has to be built from scratch to ensure it can also withstand around 9.5-magnitude earthquake as old buildings are not likely to withstand that much."
I don't know if mum is just overreacting, or seriously preparing for something seriously big that you don't know when it will happen until it already comes. I'm leaning more towards thinking that she's a crazy overprotective parent. I have to agree that the larger-scale earthquakes in Japan happens more frequently than any other country in the world I know of.
As time passed, the less frequent meeting with my brother didn't seem to bother me much, to the extent that I forgot I even had an older brother. I had come to realization that my body had already become fully matured and somewhat become like my mother that it's kind of scary. I never wanted to become an adult, but my body seems to have become like one. It's like the stage of being a child was just like a deflated ball, and the stage of puberty is like inflating that ball. Well, that's how I would describe it. Just looking at the length of my own arms and legs is a reminder of that.
Mum: "You're starting to look more like me than your brother from when you were younger."
Me: "Mum? I've been wondering since we moved here, but why did we suddenly decide to move further inland and uphill when the housing agent showed something. I don't know what I saw back then, but we seem to have possibly lived near the seashore if he hadn't shown you that. It's as if that itself caused a major change of the house we could have moved to."
Mum stared at me for a while before sighing. It's as if she didn't want me to ask about it but was expecting me to ask it anyway.
Mum: "Okay. First, did you know that Japan is quite close to 3 different continental plates, and the movement of these cause earthquakes?"
I nodded. I learn about this in science, so I know roughly something about it.
Mum: "Well, he showed me and your dad a simulation of what happens should an earthquake happen in the northern region. As people have predicted, major earthquakes that meteorologists had predicted around Tokyo has been long overdue. Should a major earthquake happens off-shore like that in north-western Indonesia 6 years ago, the coastal region of where we are living in now would be wiped out beyond recognition by a huge tsunami, and I don't know if the waves would damage something serious along the coast that would last long after the earthquake happened. Old buildings built during your great-grandparents era is no sure indication that it would be hit. The Hanshin earthquake of 15 years ago shows us how dangerous it is to be in a built-up area with tall buildings too."
Is mum being to overreacting of the possibility of that happening?
Me: "So this particular house we live in is safe from all of that?"
Mum: "Of course! It's built on a hill and is quite some distance from the shore. The house has to be built from scratch to ensure it can also withstand around 9.5-magnitude earthquake as old buildings are not likely to withstand that much."
I don't know if mum is just overreacting, or seriously preparing for something seriously big that you don't know when it will happen until it already comes. I'm leaning more towards thinking that she's a crazy overprotective parent. I have to agree that the larger-scale earthquakes in Japan happens more frequently than any other country in the world I know of.
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