How long was it that we went without being able to even really smile at one another?
The seasons I stayed with you, dyed in white, lie thick in my chest
Ah, powder snow falls from this sky—
Now, I reach my hand out, and I’ve caught you. ¹
The warm snow, more beautiful than anything else
Fell onto our cheeks, to disappear
And just like a white flower, you were blooming
The distance between myself and the moon has no meaning at all
It made even the distance I felt between you and I hurt less ²
Ah, powder snow falls from this sky—
Now, I reach my hand out, and I’ve caught you. ¹
Cold weather stars, more beautiful than anything else
Fell onto our cheeks, to disappear
And a withered iris was quietly swaying.
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NOTES / INTERPRETATION:
oo1. I’m not completely certain, but I get the impression that this line is meant to emphasize that the actual catching of the other person is a memory. Because the line in Japanese strangely (at least from an English-speaking perspective) includes both the word ‘now’, and the one and only verb in past tense. So, literally, ‘Now I reach out my hand and I caught you’. That doesn’t make grammatical sense in English, and using “I’ve” just barely lets it squeak by. It’s the sense of reaching out in the present (towards the falling snow), but imagining a time in the past when they caught the other person—rather than the snow. Hopefully that was already pretty clear in the translation, I just thought it was interesting to bring up the literal construction of the Japanese line.
oo2. The distance to the moon meaning nothing at all is probably meant to convey that the distance is impossibly great—which makes the relative distance between the speaker and the other person seem insignificantly small in comparison.
Otherwise, it could instead be taken to mean that, despite the distance between the speaker and the moon, the moon is still visible, still beautiful. In other words, the moon is untouchable (like the person that the speaker used to be able to reach out and touch), but can still be admired (from afar in memories, for instance).
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アリス九號. ★ 銀の月 黒い星 → 銀の月 黒い星 (将・2005)
ALICE NINE. – Moon of Silver, Black Stars | From gin no tsuki kuroi hoshi (Show – 2005)
Original text translated from Japanese.
Song composed by 沙我 (Saga).
Listen on Spotify (Orig. / 2018) or Apple Music (Orig. / 2018)
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Translation also on the Alice9Lives Archive.