Two weeks later.
After spring break was over, I was in front of the full-length mirror in my room, putting my blazer on.
Still thinking of that night in Osaka, I patted the ends of my hair, styling it the way I always did. I’d spent the rest of spring break mostly doing nothing, but I still hadn’t gotten anywhere with sorting out my feelings.
I left my room, went down the stairs, and squatted by the entrance. I slid my feet into my nicely worn-in loafers and sighed for no real reason.
“…Heading out,” I muttered at no one in particular, then set out into the morning.
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From the Tobu Urban Park Line, I got off at Higashi-Iwatsuki Station and walked alone down the ridge between rice fields toward Sekitomo High School.
I really had changed a lot, and it hadn’t even been a full year.
If they’d known the guy walking along this path the day of the opening ceremony last year, some people wouldn’t even recognize me as the same person. My posture had improved, I’d done my hair, and I had confidence in my expressions. But those are really just the superficial aspects of the changes that happened in me.
What’s really changed is on the inside— No, more importantly, it’s the way I look at people.
Compared to back then, when I generalized people as normies and losers, now I looked at people as individuals. I’ve had people feeling for me in ways I’d never known before, and I returned those feelings—or was unable to return those feelings, even if I wanted to. But I’ve responded to all their words and actions with sincerity to build irreplaceable relationships.
Those relationships have changed the way I think.
And this new way of thinking has changed the way I act.
And the new way I act has changed the situations around me, one by one.
The changes in my world have been enough to change the whole color of my life.
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And—Hinami has always been there in the middle of it all.
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After that exchange with Hinami under the night sky in Osaka, I’d returned to the party room to meet up with the others. Everyone had seemed confused by Hinami’s outburst, and she was still nowhere to be seen. Eventually, the travel group’s LINE chat got just one message:
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[Sorry. I’m not feeling very well, so I’m going to bed. I don’t want to get anyone sick, so I’ll see if I can get a separate room.]
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And so she left her suitemates, Izumi and Kikuchi-san, to sleep in her own room.
The next day, she had gotten a mask and worn it the whole day, and the whole way back on the Shinkansen, she hardly talked with anyone. That was the right thing to do if she was feeling sick, of course, but it just made me remember the very first assignment that Hinami had given me: to put on a mask and pretend to be sick, then talk to three girls. Well, specifically, what I recalled was the “guarantee” that had come along with that assignment:
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“If people think you’re sick, then they won’t be suspicious, even if you can’t really manage a conversation.”
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It was the perfect excuse to avoid any conversation you didn’t want to have.
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“…Going up a grade, huh,” I muttered, my voice swept away by the spring wind.
When I looked around, there were a number of students wearing the same uniform of Sekitomo High School.
They must’ve been going through changes on a daily basis, too—and not just that of the new school year.
Their friends, hobbies, perspectives, and goals would change, and eventually, who they used to be would be forgotten in turn.
But what sort of reasons did they have to feel satisfied with who they were now?
What sort of reasons did they have as a guarantee to believe in the way they were?
No—I actually knew the answer to that.
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Most people just drift through life on the currents around them.
They don’t even consider whether they’re really right or not.
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The rays of the sun shine down on their cheeks as they walk along with sleepy eyes.
Things like why we go to school, why we try to make friends, and why we’ll get jobs in the future—how we live, and how we should die—most people hardly ever think about any of it too seriously, myself included.
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Everyone is just kind of doing it, because it’s common sense.
Because if you don’t, then you’ll stick out.
—Because even if you don’t think about it, as long as you’re having a good time, you’ll be fulfilled one way or another.
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It’s easier to go along with the world and let the flow swallow you. You can still be fulfilled. You can live a stable life that way, so you don’t have to worry. Before you even know it, the value system known as “common sense” gets instilled into you, monitoring your behavior and moving your body as if a controller is connected to it.
Eventually, groups of people like that will create a single large trend. That’s what makes up the world.
But.
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She’s the one person—Aoi Hinami is the one person—
—who sought a reason for everything.
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She’s engraved the inevitable on the path she’s walked, as if to leave proof that she’s lived in those steps.
She finds her fulfillment in the sheer determination to turn all the results she’s earned into something right.
With that righteousness nourishing her, she’s believed in herself.
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But then one day, Aoi Hinami—told me that she didn’t understand her own way of life.
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“…I…”
Many times, I’d thought about that moment and regretted my failure to answer her. When she confided her loneliness in me, I think that wasn’t just a confession of her true feelings, but also a cry for help.
But once again, I felt the same despair I had during that summer farewell.
I hadn’t been able to take Aoi Hinami’s hand after all.
If you can’t connect, then you’re still alone.
That’s something important that I learned from my relationship with Kikuchi-san.
But then to what extent do we have to connect? To what extent do we have to be able to involve ourselves with each other in order for us to be together?
If you just have enough words, or an emotional connection, or even a physical one, does that mean you’re together?
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At least to me, it felt like both of us were alone.