“What you choose in life is actually less important than you think,” my father said. If I’m being honest, at the time I was a little upset. It felt like the path that I had chosen myself as a third year in middle school was being dismissed as not that important.
“...But why not?” I asked him. “Choices are really important, aren’t they? Aren’t there a lot of choices in your life that can affect your future?” Life is a series of choices, and the series of choices you make is your life. The things that you choose will determine your life. Going to college, finding a job, falling in love... There’s a lot of important choices in life.
“That’s right. What you choose is, of course, very important. But there’s something more important than what you choose.”
“Something more important...?”
“It’s what you do after you’ve made your choice. It doesn’t matter if you follow in my footsteps and run this clinic or choose another path. What you choose is up to you. What’s important isn’t which path you choose, but what you do after you’ve chosen.”
“...”
“Life isn’t like a quiz show, where you have two choices and one is right and one is wrong. It’s up to you to choose the path you take, and you may find success...or maybe you won’t be rewarded no matter which path you take or how hard you try. That’s just life.”
Because of his age, my father used a quiz show for his metaphor, but for me, choosing the route in a visual novel made more sense. If this were a game, then there would definitely be a correct route. As long as the game wasn’t a really twisted one, if you continued to make the right choices, you’d always end up at the good ending and avoid the bad one. But life isn’t like a game, and there won’t always be right choices. And even if you keep making the right choices...
“The bottom line is, there’s no such thing as a correct path that guarantees your success just because you chose it,” my father said with a deep sigh. They were the kind of words that only a man more than twice my age could say with such sentimentality and sadness. “No matter what path you choose, the most important thing is what you do after you’ve chosen it. How hard you can work and how long you’re able to remain steadfast on that path... I guess those are what determines your future.”
“...” I got lost in thought about his words and remained silent.
“...Ha ha. Maybe it’s the same as when you’re choosing a wife,” he said jokingly, laughing to himself. “Happiness from just being together, soul mates... Things that are that convenient probably don’t exist. No matter who you choose, what’s most important is how the two of you live together after you get married.” Both his tone and expression were bright, but his eyes had a hint of melancholy. “Kozue told me something when we got married.”
“Mom did?”
“A lot happened with her being pregnant with Kaede, and right when we finally got married and I thought we could relax, Kozue said to me, ‘Don’t think that this is the end.’”
“...” On their own, those words sounded scary. They sounded like something the final boss in a video game would say at the very end when they’re swearing revenge on the world after they’ve lost to the hero. But that wasn’t all she said.
“‘It all begins from here.’”
Taken together, those words had a nice ring to them. Marriage isn’t the end. It’s not like the goal in a race or setting one foot in the grave. It’s where everything starts.
“My mom has a good point.”
“Yeah. Well...things didn’t last too long after they began, though,” my father added, and there was an indescribable sadness in his voice.
♡
“Shigeru-san said that?” After hearing my story, Kisaki-san got a pensive look on her face.
“I think my dad mostly wanted to talk about my career path and just mentioned marriage and choosing a wife while he was at it... However, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how the most important things in love come after you start dating.”
They come after you start dating, after you’re married, or after you choose your partner.
Some time ago, I told Ibusuki, “I don’t know what the past me would have chosen. Myself right now, however... Even if I could redo my life a million times, I’d want to fall in love with Orihara-san.”
Even if I could redo my life over a million times, I’d want to fall in love with Orihara-san. I would want to choose her every one of those million times.
However, even if I was able to choose Orihara-san a million times, that wouldn’t be the end. Everything would start from there. If you choose someone a million times, you have to face them a million times with sincerity. The choice itself is neither right nor wrong, but afterward, everything will change. No matter how wonderful that person is, if you don’t treat them with sincerity, they’ll hate you. By the same token, even if that person is someone who isn’t a good match for you, or even if it’s a forbidden relationship that the world is really opposed to, you may be able to make it work depending on what you do.
“What’s most important is what you do after you start dating, after you get married, or after the two of you start your relationship. So, I think it’s pretty rare that a relationship’s success or failure is decided right when you start dating.”
“...”
“Um, so what I’m trying to say is...” I scratched my head as I spoke. I didn’t know if saying something like this was the best conclusion for this conversation or if I even should say it. However, I thought that I’d say the thing I most wanted to tell Kisaki-san right now. “L-Let’s both do our best from here on out.”
“Both of us?”
“You and I... We both probably feel like the person we’re in love with right now is our soul mate, and no one else could take their place.”
“...”
“But it’s probably like you said: love is making us blind, and that’s a mistake that a lot of people who fall in love make. Still, let’s just accept that we’re blinded by love and do our best. It doesn’t matter if they’re our soul mate or not. What’s most important is what we do from now on.”