Chapter 122

* * * …Ah, how long have these two people been waiting for this moment? They’d probably both dreamed about it, time and time again. They had a lot to talk about, no doubt—I felt a little guilty about being here. But I couldn’t just make myself disappear. Ugh, this is so frustrating…! “…So,” he began. “Do you think you could tell me a little bit about what’s gonna happen now?” “Sure. Let’s start with that ‘clearing’ guy…” Yeah. True. “Clearing” comes first. I bet she’s been aching to discuss it for ages. First off, “clearing” and its… “…Huhh?!” My astonished shout echoed across the classroom. The two of them, now seated and ready to begin their strategy conference, both shot dirty looks at me. “Wh-what, Haruka? Are you in pain or something?” “Yeah, just get some rest, okay? Don’t push yourself too hard.” This felt needlessly mean to me. I didn’t need “rest” in the Kagerou Daze. My bed had disappeared while I wasn’t paying attention anyway. “It’s not that!” I complained as I waved my arms excitedly. I sure had never acted that way before. I guess I’m starting to appreciate black humor a little, too. “I just mean, you haven’t seen each other in forever, right? So, um… You know? I figured you had other stuff you wanted to talk about…” Shintaro gave me a puzzled look, as if I were speaking a foreign language. Ayano, meanwhile, brought a hand to her chin, thinking something over, then looked into Shintaro’s eyes. “…Maybe once this is over?” Shintaro returned the gaze, not really following her. “Yeah, once this is over, I suppose?” I began to wonder what the point of this conversation was. I wasn’t asking them to get all lovey-dovey with each other. They were just leaving me to wither on the vine here. But ah well. Even I knew now was no time for messing around. But if they didn’t see any need for even a bit of pleasant chat, then it was time to face up to cold reality. I can’t say we have a lot of time, but we aren’t totally out of it yet. This is the Kagerou Daze. Thanks to my having both my perspective and Konoha’s, time passed totally differently for me between the two worlds. I had been biding my time here, really—chatting, hanging out with Ayano, and such—and it had seemed like I had an almost unbelievable amount of time on my hands to do it. I hadn’t seen a clock over on the other world lately, so I couldn’t be sure, but it definitely seemed different over there. In fact, I’d probably guess that, in the whole time Shintaro’s been here, not even a second of time has passed over there.