Chapter 177

He seemed to have picked up on the double meaning of her word heavy. Mahiru hadn’t said anything about the other meaning, the true meaning, of heavy, so he might not actually have known. But for Mahiru, his answer was perfect. Amane accepted her, and that was all she needed. “Um, so listen, if you’re ever having a hard time, or if you’re overwhelmed by anxiety, please say something. I mean, I probably won’t be able to do much about whatever’s causing it, and I can’t exactly take on your suffering for you…but what I can do is be by your side for as long as you need. I can stay with you until you make it out the other side.” “…Okay.” “If things will get easier if you vent, you can vent to me, or if you’d rather not talk about them, you don’t have to. I’ll accept whatever makes things easier for you.” She could count on Amane to respect her wishes. From the bottom of her heart, she felt glad she had fallen in love with this person, as she let her body relax into his. “…I’m all right.” She wasn’t planning to talk about her parents with Amane again. She’d already done that the other day. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to fully process this jumble of gray feelings all on her own. However, with Amane by her side, Mahiru felt like she could accept the negative emotions and memories that were lurking deep inside her and move forward. “Listen, it’s not about putting on a brave front or holding on to grudges… This is something that I have to grapple with in order to be able to move forward, I think.” The frustrations and sorrows of her younger self had poured forth seemingly without end, no matter how much she had vented. In the end, as long as nothing really changed, even if she did share those feelings, they would just come back again someday. In order to move forward with Amane, she would need to digest and release the warped ideas surrounding parental relationships that had been hammered into her heart from a young age by her unfulfilled yearning for her parents’ love. So that she would not make any more mistakes. “…Okay.” Amane responded quietly and rubbed Mahiru’s back. “Just having you by my side is enough. I feel like your presence is what’s keeping me afloat.” “That’s a real overstatement.” “It’s true, you know?” If Amane wasn’t around, if she had never met him, Mahiru was sure her future wouldn’t be so bright. It seemed to her like she would never have trusted anyone, and she would never have been able to love anyone from the bottom of her heart. She would have gone on living shrouded in the hopeless gloom left in her by her parents. Certainly, she would have walked through her life in solitude, under a cloudy sky. “…I feel really blessed to have met you, Amane,” Mahiru mumbled earnestly. Amane didn’t say anything further; he simply wrapped Mahiru up gently and held her close.