Genesis… 007
I want to dance very high up… 035
At the end of the orbit… 075
I want a universe that doesn't expand... 109
The Prayer Left Behind… 137
Saturday Morning Greetings… 159
Epilogue: Saturday, To You… 197

Author's Note … 204

So this is,
It is a record of solidarity that did not let go of each other until the last moment.
A chronicle of love that will never disappear, even if the world ends.


From the far reaches of space, an asteroid is flying towards us.
Its diameter is about 800 meters, and it is large enough to destroy most of civilization if it hits.
Genesis, a leading institution in space engineering and a school that selects and trains excellent students to become researchers, is trying to change the asteroid's orbit, but it is not easy.

Genesis' children have no parents or guardians.
These are children who have no one waiting outside, and who must find someone to love, trust, and rely on only within the fence.
They strive to protect something from an impending disaster.
A very ordinary daily life, a precious person, or a world that a precious person wanted to protect.

And one Saturday, Yuria, a member of the Genesis Aircraft Maintenance Team, witnesses the moment when the Earth is covered in dark clouds while on a solo business trip to the moon.
It's already been six months since I last stayed on the moon, watching the Earth, which is no longer blue.
On the shattered Earth, someone writes a letter to Leah.

“We all agree that it won’t be easy.
There are also criticisms that we are wasting resources that could save the lives of many people on Earth for the sake of just one person.
But you, Yuria, are the person Genesis tried with all his might to save.
“I will pick you up.”

This novel, which seems like a memoir of the end times, is closer to a 'story of miracles'.
It was a miracle that was possible because the orbits of people who did not give up their 'loving hearts' until the very last moment overlapped.
This novel shows that even if individual love is not recorded in history, the miracles created by love are bound to be recorded in some way.
The novel clearly records the voices of the 'children outside of orbit', who were almost forgotten forever like the far side of the moon.
Like Leah's story, engraved on the moon, free from weathering and erosion, and never to be erased.
Even as we witness the tragedy of the Earth being destroyed, we can read love and solidarity.
Even though it was only one person's safety, that one person was someone's world.

"Young queer people who feel lonely
I hope this book will be one that allows readers to experience the softness of a sense of connection. _ Jeon Sam-hye

The motif presented by Jeon Sam-hye in the past has evolved into a grand orchestral epic by Jeon Sam-hye in the present.
The worldview of coexistence of deficiency and longing, isolation and solidarity, pessimism and optimism is beautifully portrayed in Jeon Sam-hye's characteristically calm and lyrical sentences.
The novel is ultimately a story about imperfect and weak 'humans'.
People who choose what they must protect and move forward, even if it means stumbling, to protect it.
Characters who know full well that protecting love is the only option in a pessimistic reality are all attractive.
It is a novel that talks about loving with all your might, a novel that makes you want to love.

What should I add?
To you and me, who live in an age filled with hatred.
In the midst of that hatred, the best we can do for a better life than before is to unite and love one another, like deflecting and scraping the surface of an asteroid hurtling toward Earth.
_From the author's note