I casually replied, but then I realized something. That wasn’t the only time I’d eaten takoyaki yesterday...was it?
“Yesterday, you told me about how this Makoto Koyama girl fed you takoyaki, and you mentioned how she put them into your mouth, but you never once said anything to me about how hot they were. Usually, they’re so hot they can burn your mouth. If she did actually feed you takoyaki, then your mouth would’ve been burned and you’d still be feeling it.”
“S-Sorry...” Irido-san said, an awkward look on her face.
I wasn’t sure why she was apologizing, nor did I have the mental bandwidth right now to ask.
“So, Kawanami, tell me, did you burn your mouth after eating takoyaki at karaoke yesterday?”
“N-No...”
I couldn’t remember that happening. When I had takoyaki at the American Village, I noticed that I almost burned my mouth, but I couldn’t remember anything about burning my mouth at the karaoke place.
“There’s another contradiction that’s even stranger,” Irido said, continuing despite me still being confused.
“You said that this Makoto Koyama girl sat next to you when bowling, right? But that’s impossible.”
“Huh...? How can you be so sure?”
“Well, first off, you said that there were four spots. Usually when you go bowling, there are four people to a lane, so that makes sense. You also said that all the guys from your mini reunion were there. So, logically that’d mean that Shoma, Sota, Yamato, and you would be there, right?”
“Yeah, but what are you trying to...”
“There were four spots at the lane, and each of you sat next to one another, right? If each of you had a seat, where could the fifth person sit?”
I gasped. Wait...yeah. But— “What if we switched seats with whoever’s turn to bowl it was? Then it’d make sense that Makoto sat next to me, right?”
“No, because you said that Makoto Koyama was already sitting next to you, and then Shoma got up to bowl. If he was getting up for his turn, then at that point all four seats should have been filled. How could she have been already sitting down if all four seats were full?”
But then... That can’t be... But now that he mentions it...
“This is just my own theory, but there was probably another set of seats in front of your group and that’s probably where she was sitting. You interpreted that in your mind as her sitting next to you and that’s what you told me. To you at that moment, that was the truth. But delusions have limits to them in terms of details.”
“So it was all in my head? Is my head that messed up?”
“It happens to everyone,” Irido said nonchalantly. “Some people think they said something another person said, or think that something that happened in a dream was real, or just in general have unclear memories. You don’t have to be so bothered by it.”
“But...”
“Of course, I doubted you at first, but I understood after hearing about your allergy. What you experienced yesterday was essentially anaphylactic shock.”
“Huh? Is that the thing that you get when you’re stung twice by a bee?”
“Yeah. Yesterday night, when I told you that someone else had been in your room, that was the second sting for you. It made your allergy go into overdrive. Every little thing became blown out of proportion and even the slightest touch would make you think that someone had feelings for you. If I’d known that’d happen, I never would have said anything to you. I’m sorry about that.”
A second...sting. But that makes it sound like there was a first.
“Irido... I don’t remember anything, but are you trying to say that I don’t remember the first time Makoto did something to me three days ago?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What do you mean, ‘maybe’? You already know, don’t you? You know that Makoto was in my room, what happened that night, and why I was sleeping basically naked in my room.”
“Well, all I can really say is...” Irido said, stopping as the turnstiles came into view. “Your clothes were in the washer because they got dirty.”
Huh? They got dirty? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Minami purse her lips.
“I can’t tell you any more than that. You would need to ask the person who actually knows about all that.” Irido turned around, moving a little out of the way of the turnstile, the path back to Kyoto. “What’s your choice?”
I... I... I don’t want to be stuck like this without ever being able to move forward. Not one bit. If everything I saw was just a bunch of delusions, then what really happened couldn’t have been as malicious as I thought. I want to know. I need to know the truth.
I took out my train card and touched it against the reader.
Kogure Kawanami: The Reason It’s You
We got back to Kyoto a little after noon. When we got off at Sanjo Station, Irido-san asked if we were hungry, so we had lunch. Though it was a pretty busy station with all kinds of different foods, we settled on something a little more familiar and went to a family restaurant.
“How was the trip, Yume-chan?”
“It was more relaxed than last year. It’d be nice if I became even more used to it. There’s a lot of nature.”
“Yeah, and after a few days you’ll get bored because there’s nothing to do.”
“All you did there was read books like you already do here.”
“Hey, I played some video games this year.”
As the three of them enjoyed their conversation, I sent a message to Makoto.
Kogure: We need to talk. You free?
After finishing lunch, the Irido siblings left. I couldn’t have them sticking around. They knew what I was about to face, but neither of them mentioned a thing about it. They seemed no different than usual when they left.
“See you,” Irido said shortly.
It was rare for him to say bye at all, but it felt like he was trying to reassure me that everything was going to be okay. He was trying to reassure me that it wasn’t over—that my world wasn’t over. I could live today normally, as well as the next day and the day after that. It was really simple what I was doing. I was just going to get the truth. All I had to do was say my true feelings.
“Well...I’m gonna go home,” Minami said, stopping as we walked. “You’ve got another stop before coming back, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s just a stop, right?” It felt like she was worried about me, but maybe that was just me overthinking things.
“Sorry, but I’m gonna give that answer to Makoto first.”
It might’ve been just a stop on the way, but that was where I needed to be right now. Minami seemed to relent, but she looked happy and nodded.
“Yeah, that’s for the best.”
Then I watched as her small back disappeared into the distance before turning around and going to the meetup place. It was the place we’d graduated from long ago. The very same middle school that Makoto and I had both gone to.
I could remember clearly when I’d met Makoto Koyama. In our second year of middle school, the guys and I had really gotten into playing chicken. It was a really stupid thing we’d do where we’d bring our game consoles to school and play as long as we could without getting noticed, since we weren’t technically allowed to bring them to school. It was a weird game, since we could’ve just played games on our phones, which were allowed at school. But even so, we specifically tried playing on our game consoles because the risk was more thrilling.
During lunch, we would go behind the dojo that the kendo and judo club used, since they wouldn’t be there during lunchtime, and neither would any teachers. It was our own little hideout. One day, we were silently playing games with each other as usual when suddenly...
“Hey, what do you guys think you’re doing?”