gravity | dr. stone

gravity 1: peaches & spring onions

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"Gravity is a force that draws objects towards its center. The force of gravity is what keeps the planets in orbit around the sun," a child whose bedhead still hadn't been taken care of recited as she walked along the river bank. "Anything that has mass also has gravity. Objects with more mass have more gravity. Gravity also gets weaker with distance; so, the closer objects are to each other, the stronger their gravitational pull is."

"Ten-chan, where do you even learn those things?" An adult a few meters ahead of the child gave the little one an odd look. Ten-chan paused and blinked at the adult, before a massive grin stretched across her face. "The internet! And there's a few books at the daycare lying around about science... or something. I think it was physics though? It seemed interesting so I read it, Auntie Atari!"

Yagami Atari watched as her niece picked up her pace and reached out for her larger hands. That small and cold hand holding onto her caused a smile to break out on her face. "You're really something, aren't you, Ten-chan?" Neither of her parents were interested in things that intrigued Ten-chan, after all, so Atari wondered where her little niece got that passion from.

"Of course, I am! Ishibashi Tenma will definitely rule the entirety of Japan! They'll see how great I am and stuff like that. You'll be there to see it, right, Auntie Atari?" Her sparkling and determined eyes earned her Atari's laughter.

"You know I will, Ten-chan. But you've got to start on the basics first. You know about gravity but do you know what science is?" Almost instantly, the little one threw her a sheepish look, one that Atari found adorable. "Science... is the study of the world around us. We pursue the unknown, trying to find out the mysteries of our home, the planet Earth, and even the things beyond! Did you know-"

Atari suddenly stopped walking and crouched down in front of her niece, holding both her tiny hands in hers as Atari gestured at the sky. "- why the sky is blue?"

"There's a reason why the sky is blue?!"

Upon hearing that, Atari grinned. "Of course there is! Remember that rainbow we saw a few days ago? The thing we saw when it rained? The one with lots of colors?"

"Uh huh! Rainbows are pretty and you said it's because sunlight hits water droplets!"

"Very good, Ten-chan. It's almost the same kind of principle. This time, instead of sunlight hitting the water droplets, it hits the air! Instead of all the pretty colors, blue light is reflected. That's why the sky is blue!"

Ten-chan paused before giving her a look of suspicion. "Air isn't even there. How can sunlight hit air?"

"Fufu, you have to read more physics book to find out."

"Auntie! Tell me please!" Sometimes, Atari hated how Ten-chan kept using that puppy-eyed look on her. She was really weak against it and it looked like Ten-chan took advantage of it ever since she noticed. "Air isn't invisible, Ten-chan. They're just really, really far apart from each other and not all the lights they reflect can be seen by our eyes. Our eyes are picky, you know?"

"Why are our eyes picky?"

"... let's go home first, Ten-chan. It's almost dinner time for you."

And Yagami Atari wondered where her niece's passion for science came about. Apparently, it was her doing after going all nerdy after Ten-chan asked her about that rainbow.

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"What about you, Ishibashi-san? What do you want to be when you grow up?"