SUMMERTIME RECORD SIDE -NO. 2- (4) “Okay, I’m calling.” Legs spread out, looking kind of uncomfortable, Hibiya began concentrating his mind on Kisaragi’s phone. “He has to pose like this,” Marie explained, “or else he can’t focus enough to connect.” We watched him for a few moments. Then, out of nowhere, Hibiya screamed “Big Bro!!” and handed the phone to me. “Huff…huff… We’re connected…” It was a pretty goofy act Hibiya put on, but then, there was nothing average about what he was doing. Over the past little while, Hibiya had been developing his “focusing” skills to make them work over mobile phone waves. That allows him to connect directly to phones in the Kagerou Daze—way out of range usually, to say the least—and speak with people on the other side. “I swear, that girl thinks up the craziest things. We pulled it off that one time, but she didn’t explain anything to me about it… I had to spend, like, a whole week shouting ‘Big Bro’ at random.” The apparent intention was to help the technologically illiterate Hibiya make the call by having him use voice recognition to call a number from the address book. Apparently Ene, in the midst of explaining this, abridged the story a little too much. “Hey, you want him to hear you? You’re gonna be calling the guy himself in a second…” In that battle, we lost most of our gang to the Kagerou Daze. I’d never expected to hear from them again. The idea of just calling them up on the phone was something that, honestly, still didn’t seem real to me. “So,” Hibiya said, “are you gonna talk to him? About what we’re doing now? It’s, like, just as I told you.” “…All right.” Finally, I took the phone from Hibiya. My call’s destination was on the screen, along with a clock counting the seconds of our chat. He must have anticipated it’d wind up like this. He’d known that we—the survivors, the people they’d sacrificed themselves for—would see that we had a chance to choose a future for ourselves, and thus hesitate to act. I gave Marie a glance. Noticing this, she gave me a nod back. “It’s all right. I’m just like you, Seto. I want to live for tomorrow…with everybody else.” Her eyes were strong, unwavering, as they looked straight ahead. I was no longer lost. I put the phone to my ear, ready to talk about my feelings. Once, I tried to forget about my friends. My friends had risked their lives in battle, and I didn’t want to desecrate that effort anymore. They could berate me all they wanted, and we wouldn’t have any defense to turn to. But Marie knew all that, and she still let me be the one to tell everyone on the other side what had happened. The answer was clear now. The question was, would he—would they—be willing to forgive us…? “…Hello? Can you hear me?” Ever so slowly, I opened my mouth. Apparently, he had already used this method to speak with Marie once before. So he must’ve known. He knew full well that I’d tried to put all my friends behind me, once. “…Seto?” Shintaro’s calm voice made me tense up even further. I ignored my racing heart and tried to stick to the script. “Y-yes… Shintaro, I have to apologize to you. After the battle…I tried to forget all about you guys.” The sound disappeared. The silence lasted for less than a second, but it may as well have been hours to me. “…Yeah. Well, you probably figured you were doing it for Marie’s sake or something, right? I guess I can’t blame you.” “…Um, what? I mean…yeah, but…?” He hadn’t changed a single bit from how he used to be. He was cold, he was blunt, and he had an insight into the depths of people’s minds that beat anybody else’s in the world. But I couldn’t depend on his kind words forever. What I’d done couldn’t be that easily forgiven. I mean, look at me. “So what do you think you’re gonna do? …Because everybody over here’s ready to leave it in you guys’ hands.” …Everybody? “By the way, are you…? Hey! Wait a sec! Stop pushing me! I told you, we’ll all go in order… Dude, give it back!” I could hear a group of people griping at each other in the background. Then: “H-hello? Kousuke?! Can you hear me? It’s your big sister! Ngh, I’m—snif—I’m so sorry… Coming over here all by myself…” “…Sis?! Whoa, this is too sudden…Uh… Huhh?!” “Ooh, wait a sec! I’m gonna pass it on to the next person! Um, talk to you later, Kousuke!” “You swiped the phone just so you could say that? Hey!” More shouting and carrying on. But all the voices were familiar to me. “Hey, Seto. It’s me. Kido… Sorry I couldn’t see you over there.” It was that husky voice, one I had spent ages living with. Even over there, it remained as reserved and monotonous as always—and even after she’d died, she was being so nice to me. “K-Kido,” I said, my voice going faint. “I’m sorry, I-I’ve been so bad to all of you…”
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“…Whoa! Agh! C’mon, Sis! I’m used to talking like this! It’s fine! …Oh, sorry! My sister, not yours!” “Dahh! Come on, let me go up next! You already talked with him a little, master! Sshhh!!” “Kousuke! Do you remember me? We had some flan together once? …Oh, you better talk to Shuuya too after this! He’s too embarrassed to get on the phone, but I’ll bring him around later, okay?” “Ha-ha-ha! Seto, can you hear me? Lemme talk to Marie once you’re done, okay? I wanna chat with her for a little while!” “Guys, shut the hell up! Shoo! Go away!” …What was that all about? It was sort of how…like, it’s New Year’s Day, so you call your family out in the country and they all try to come on the line at once. But we kind of have some serious stuff to talk about, don’t we? Are we even prepared for this at all? “Whew… Seto, you still on? It’s Shintaro.” “Oh! Good. I was wondering how long we’d be able to keep this up…” Fatigue bled through Shintaro’s voice now. Guess things were just as exhausting for him in that world, too. “I swear, nobody here ever listens to a word I tell them. But…sorry about that, Seto. Didn’t mean to bother you.” He let out a large sigh. I didn’t mind it. At least he seemed to be looking out for me. He could read people’s minds that way. He’d seen how I was troubled, hesitant, so he’d let me hear everyone else over there before continuing. I bet that’s what that was. “So…uh, I guess you can hear how things are over here. Nobody’s got a grudge against you or anything. So no regrets, okay? We just want to hear your take on all this.” Then he made one final confirmation with me. “What do you want to do with your future?” “…Seto?” I looked over at Marie. She had taken my hand, her crimson eyes upon me. I gently squeezed hers. “Well, what do you think? Our future’s gonna be…”