Saying “aside from Kris” was a roundabout way of putting it, but there was no need to read deeply into what she meant.
It was about who Alucia really was.
She’d wanted to flesh out the other character that she hadn’t been able to fully depict in On the Wings of the Unknown, so she had made a story starring Alucia, a character by the same name. That was Pureblood Hybrid and Ice Cream.
Without that story, maybe I still wouldn’t have understood why Hinami had helped me try to master the game of life.
In it, a “bloodless” girl gains the knowledge absorbed from purebloods by the Pureblood Hybrid boy to make her way through life at the Royal Academy, and through that success, she proves that her way of thinking is right.
The psychology of Alucia, who filled the void within her with her proof, helped me understand Hinami’s fixation on “character change,” and I was able to figure out why I was mastering the game of life, too.
In that sense, Pureblood Hybrid and Ice Cream was like a magic mirror, reflecting the characters of the world of reality better than I knew it myself.
“The truth is that lots of people are involved in the publication process, so if I’m going to write, it has to be up to par. I can’t leave it unfinished,” said Kikuchi-san.
“…Guess so, huh.”
“But…though I don’t know the specifics, I feel like the situation Hinami-san is in right now really is deeply worrying…”
“Yeah, I agree.”
Kikuchi-san shared her doubts, putting them into words. “I don’t want to repeat the same thing over again.”
During the play at the cultural festival, Kikuchi-san had directed Alucia—no, Aoi Hinami—to say certain things.
“I gathered material on Hinami-san’s past, and then…I took what I thought were the core parts and made them into her actual lines to recite…”
Alucia’s lines had hit me as if Aoi Hinami had been actually speaking them herself.
“But despite that, I was only able to cast light on it with a simplistic conclusion,” she said, lamenting her mistakes. “Back then, I was too inexperienced as a person and as a writer…”
She frowned, unusual for her, and I didn’t know if it was regret or general sadness. “I hurt someone with my story. But I was unable to create the plot, the ideas, the reasons—the words to resolve the darkness I had depicted. I unfolded these issues, and then I couldn’t fold them up again.”
She seemed more embarrassed about her abilities rather than about anything immoral she might have done. I suppose that’s the remorse of a creator.
“…Writing that story, there was just one thing I didn’t understand.”
“…What was that?” I asked.
She nodded. “—Motivation.”
I knew immediately what she was referring to. Ever since she wrote both On the Wings of the Unknown and also Pureblood Hybrid and Ice Cream—
No, since even before that—
—she had been very concerned about it, insistently so.
“You mean…Hinami’s motivation.”
Kikuchi-san nodded. “When I write stories, all I think about is character motivation,” she said. I could hear her experience in the way she spoke.
It was true that from what I’d seen and read thus far, she’d always stuck to that aesthetic in the worlds she depicted.
Ever since Mimimi and Hinami competed in the student council election, Kikuchi-san had been interested in the motivations behind their efforts. During the sports competition, when we were trying to get Erika Konno more involved, she had put Konno’s and Kamimae’s motivations behind their behavior into words and explained them to me.
And when Tama-chan was being harassed by the class and worrying about how to deal with it, Kikuchi-san had compared the class to a story for Tama-chan, who wasn’t interested in people. Motivation had been a theme then, too.
Kikuchi-san observed the story of the world we lived in, thinking through the motivations of the characters in it and putting those into words, and then she reflected those thoughts in her own stories. She moved the characters—us—in the stories in her head and analyzed their structure.
Her perspective was that of a novelist with a bird’s-eye view of the world.
It was her devotion to thorough analysis and putting that into words that had made the culture festival play resonate with everyone, and that was why she’d gotten sudden interest from a publisher for a novel she had posted online for the first time.
But even she hadn’t completed a full portrait of Hinami.
“It’s always been on my mind… Hinami’s motivation especially.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The one character in our real-life story whose motivation had yet to be revealed:
That was Aoi Hinami.
✦ ✦ ✦
“…She’s the one person I still don’t know about.”
And you could think and think, but you wouldn’t be able to figure it out.
She was a black box who didn’t open her heart to anyone; the doors were stubbornly shut.
In order to complete the story—in order to take responsibility for this story that was linked with the real world—in the future, she would have to face the dark lord.
“So that’s why…”
Pureblood Hybrid and Ice Cream was like a magic mirror.
And now that we could no longer be involved with Hinami, its magical nature was backfiring in a sense.
Since Alucia—Hinami—was the main character of that story.
“…You don’t have any other stories that you’ve actually written? The editor might like that, too.” But even as I said that, I was immediately aware that my suggestion was completely inadequate.
On the Wings of the Unknown and Pureblood Hybrid and Ice Cream shone as narratives precisely because Kikuchi-san, who already reflected the world around her in her stories, drew out things about Aoi Hinami and me, or herself. She even did interviews and turned the answers into flesh and blood for her characters.
If you replaced them with some other story, then you would never get the same brilliance.
Kikuchi-san eventually seemed to have come to a decision. “…I’m going to try asking if they’ll wait just a little.”
“The editor?”
She nodded. “If I don’t make it in time, then—I’ll write another story.” She put on a smile.
“But then…this opportunity…”
Her first full-length novel, basically, had caught the eye of a professional editor, and they would likely talk about publication soon. This stuff didn’t happen every day. Of course, Kikuchi-san’s skills were a prerequisite, but luck would also be a part of it—fate and timing happened to be on her side, too.
At the very least, I knew that the game of life wouldn’t afford her the same opportunity again so easily.
There was no more tea left in Kikuchi-san’s cup as she brought it to her lips to cover her discomfort. “So then…that will be a test of my abilities!”
Her smile as she said those optimistic words was somehow fragile.