“—If I were in Aoi’s position, I think I would’ve been saved a long time ago.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Saved…?”
Kikuchi-san was looking closely at Mimimi’s lips.
“I mean, she’s amazing. She’s at the top of everything she does, she gets all the results and the numbers, and everyone’s celebrated her. I’d definitely get carried away with myself and start thinking I’m the center of the world!”
“Well, if you’re not satisfied with that, then you couldn’t be satisfied unless you dominated the major leagues in both pitching and fielding,” Mizusawa said jokingly.
It’s true that Hinami had plenty of results. If her motive was purely to prove that she was right, then she should have fully achieved that goal.
But despite that, Aoi Hinami went beyond herself as an individual, even switching her controller over to another character—me—to prove she was right.
It was just so extreme.
“It’s…not enough for her.” Mimimi squinted a little, as if she was looking into the distance.
Even Hinami’s incredible achievements for years on end.
Even the dazzling smiles and sincere gratitude from everyone around her.
And—even her proof she was right, in reproducing it through me.
Even the massive acknowledgments she’d constantly received had not been enough to fulfill her emptiness.
“It is difficult,” Mimimi said, furrowing her brow.
✦ ✦ ✦
“If someone can’t be satisfied even if they have everything, how do you save them?”
✦ ✦ ✦
I found myself thinking:
—I’m sure that’s Aoi Hinami’s karma.
Suddenly, Mizusawa crisply addressed me. “Hey, Fumiya.”
“Hmm?”
“What did you talk about with Aoi before?”
He said it like it was nothing, but that remark struck right to the core of the matter. Kikuchi-san’s head twitched, too.
I didn’t have to ask to confirm just when he meant by “before.”
“…Oh yeah.”
Under the night sky in Osaka.
Hinami had only revealed what she had because she’d been talking to me, and she would have expected it to stay with me.
But.
“—She said she tried to force herself to believe.”
I told them the most substantive part frankly and briefly.
“She tried to force herself to believe that being what everyone wanted and continuing to win was right…but it was a mistake.”
I believed…that it was okay to share with these three.
“She wound up believing in a fake story.”
“A fake story…,” Kikuchi-san repeated thoughtfully.
Mimimi tilted her head. “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“…I don’t really understand very well, either,” I said.
Unexpectedly, Mizusawa interjected. “—I kind of do.”
“You do?” I asked.
“I think I’m the same type of person,” he said. He was being serious but somehow nonchalant, too, acting like it was obvious. “Look, I talk about how I want to be a beautician, but I actually never meant to pursue it.”
“Really?!” Mimimi reacted dramatically, but I’d heard that before, so I gave a little nod to blend in.
“So does that mean you didn’t really want to be one…?” Kikuchi-san probed a little.
Mizusawa’s lips curled up as he answered, “Not that I wasn’t interested… But there was no reason for me to go out of my way to pursue it as a dream. Actually, to be honest, there’s nothing I really want to be.”
Nothing he wanted to be.
That was similar to what Hinami had said after the summertime fireworks festival.
“I think I’ll get good enough grades and get into Waseda or Keio or something, and I can handle myself okay, so I’ll do fine in university.”
He was painting a very realistic picture, though he sounded uninterested about it.
“I’ll get a job somewhere decent, successfully marry some decently pretty girl, enjoy myself moderately, live out an average lifespan, and then I’ll die decently satisfied. I believe that living the ‘right’ life like that will make me happy.”
“Ah-ha-ha. You seem like the type, Takahiro,” I said.
“I think with a life like that, everyone would say they’re jealous of the life you have…” And then he said something that I felt like I’d heard somewhere: “But it’s the same as not choosing anything…isn’t it, Fumiya?”
“…Yeah.”
It was the obvious gesture, but I was able to nod right away. It was the same complaint that Mizusawa had once levied at me.
If you were just watching as the grains of sand spilled from your palm, then it was no different from choosing nothing.
Had those words been directed at me?
“So none of that is real at all. I have nothing I can be truly passionate about, so I could never seriously believe in a life like that. But I think I’ve always ignored my failure to believe.”
“…Something real, huh.”
“…Hey, guess that got a little serious, didn’t it? Ha-ha,” Mizusawa said, trying to mask his shyness a little.
“Takahiro…” Mimimi was looking at him with surprise.
“Anyway, I thought Aoi might be like that, too.” I could hear the passion in his voice, and I knew what he was saying. “It’s like you’re making a choice, but you haven’t chosen anything. You think you believed, but you were just drifting with the current.”
Mizusawa grinned as he came to his conclusion. “—A fake story. I don’t really know, but I feel like what she wanted to say was something like that.”