Bottleneck

After daybreak, a new day began.

When Jon and Stephen emerged from the laboratory, they heard someone reciting poetry on the beach not far away.

Of course, that was perfectly normal. There was no internet signal here, much less any novel distractions.

No games, no television—only poetry collections to ease the loneliness of being cut off from the world.

Of course, it would have been even better if the person had not been reciting "Petrel."

"I hate this feeling most of all. I know people gave me a nickname, yet these inexplicable coincidences always make me uncomfortable."

Stephen did not share his view. "At least the poem has a good meaning, doesn't it?"

"You don't understand. The melancholy in my heart isn't because of a poem."

Jon sighed as he looked at the rising sun where sea and sky met.

In this world, language was actually a very wondrous thing.

Because it was merely an outward tool of expression, not a genuine and effective means of communication.

When people communicated, they did not truly understand language. They directly understood the meaning within it, then reconstructed what the other person had said in the language they were familiar with.

And Jon's language was Chinese.

It was the word order he used most often, though he was equally proficient in Latin.

Yet when communicating with others, he would usually first run the meaning of their words through his mind before answering.

So when he heard someone reciting "Petrel," the first thing that came to mind was not the poem itself, but a well-known comedy sketch.

No one else could understand that sense of awkwardness.

Stephen had already grown used to Jon's inexplicable changes over the past day. At times like this, he felt as though he had returned to their first year,