Kikuchi-san and I were walking around Kita-Asaka.
“…I really am sorry for today,” she said.
“No, it’s okay. I mean, I was the one who invited you, so it’s my fault, too. And I did kind of think that something like this might happen.” While I was nodding, my feelings were complicated.
I still hadn’t sorted out how I should take it all—the things that had happened that day, Kikuchi-san’s words, Haruka-chan’s tears.
“Before I knew it, I was going out of control, and I couldn’t stop…,” Kikuchi-san said regretfully. “…I really am the worst.”
What should I say to her?
Should I admonish her for the things she had said? Should I say tell her she went too far and caused what had happened?
Or should I thank her instead for doing a good job?
No—more than that.
“…I think maybe it was unavoidable,” I said.
“Huh…?” Kikuchi-san’s eyes were wide as I looked back at her.
“I think…that’s probably your karma.” We just had to face it.
Just as I bore the karma of taking responsibility on my own, with no choice but to live in solitude in exchange for freedom—
I think that a certain type of person will have something like an unchangeable kind of karma.
If boldly driving into others’ hearts to weave her stories and deepen her world was Kikuchi-san’s karma—then I couldn’t reject that about her.
That would be like rejecting myself as a gamer.
“…You put so much emotion in it, and you were absorbed into it. Writing stories really is your true desire, after all.”
I didn’t know if this could be called the right thing, or if it was something she should be pushing forward with. But I honestly believed this was her real nature.
So then at the very least—I couldn’t do something that would reject her very way of being.
Surely, we should be considering how to coexist with it.
“I…hope you’re right.” Her expression did not clear.
I was a little troubled, but I put on a smile. “Yeah, I am.”
“Um—Fumiya-kun.”
“Yeah?”
“Recently…I said there’s just one thing I don’t understand, didn’t I?” she said, head hanging. “Rewriting the novel Pureblood Hybrid and Ice Cream and looking at the characters, there’s still one thing I don’t understand.”
Now that she mentioned that, I recalled our conversation the other day. “That was Hinami’s motive, right?”
“Yes.” She nodded, and then her expression stiffened up as if she was steeling herself.
Eventually, her feet came to a stop.
“That’s what I thought it was, too, back then.” Her voice seemed to make the shadows shiver.
Just a few steps ahead, I halted and turned to face her.
As she stood there, her back was hunched and her head hanging, and she looked rather small.
“…I was mistaken,” she said regretfully, biting her lip. “The motive I actually need to know isn’t that one… I realized that today.”
“Not…that one?” I repeated.
She nodded like a small, weak creature. “It was never Hinami-san’s motive.” Her voice was quiet and beautiful, but it gave a sense of deep despair.
Kikuchi-san gazed at her palms with clear eyes, as if she would gently scoop up that sunken sediment—
—so that she could paint over her own heart with the mud she’d stirred up and scooped out.
Her voice was cold.
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“—It was my motive.”
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I could feel that chill close to my core.
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“I think I’m making it seem as if I regret hurting someone. Really, I was pretending not to see—”
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Her lips were upturned in self-loathing.
She gripped the hem of her clothing tightly, regretfully.
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“I was pretending not to see that words don’t only bring color to the world. That they can also bring pain.”
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Decisively, as if engraving a hidden truth into herself, she said:
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“I was pretending not to see that the messages I placed in those stories, the words I had those characters say—would hurt someone. Multiple people.”
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That was surely a confession—
—of her karma—or of her insincerity.
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“This isn’t just about Hinami-san. Even today, just because I was curious about people’s motives, I dug up painful feelings from a girl younger than me. I told myself that I didn’t have a choice, since it was for my writing.” She bit her lip regretfully. “…I hurt her so badly.”
It’s true. It painted a shocking picture.
Kikuchi-san’s words had manipulated a girl’s feelings in a direction that wasn’t necessarily good. With the engine called karma, driving the caterpillar tread of her imagination—with the power of words that were cruel enough to crush everything—she had ground Haruka-chan’s heart into a mess.
It had been Kikuchi-san’s words that had pulled out the sad memories lurking within Haruka-chan. Maybe some of those feelings had been purified and sublimated by those tears. But it was still a rough way to treat the wound, like burning off the affected part with liquid nitrogen.
“I love Andi’s works, and that’s why I wanted to write…”
Kikuchi-san had said that when we first met—that she loved Andi’s books for showing her such a colorful world. That she wanted to write books, too.
“…but those are just the aspirations of a child.” She shook her head. “I think the world of a child is too small for what I’m trying to do now…”
“Well…” I started denying it, but then I stopped.
The way Kikuchi-san felt about her book and the words that resulted from that had already gone beyond what one person could take responsibility for. It was affecting others.
“…Will you tell me, Fumiya-kun?” Kikuchi-san bit her lip, and imploringly—weakly, like a swing with one chain broken, like she was relying on me—
“What I want to do—”
Pasting on a crumbling smile, she said:
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“—writing a novel—is it something I should really prioritize over people’s feelings?”
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Her question was like a hollow cry echoing into a dark ravine.
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“I don’t know. All I have is my love for it. I don’t have any reason beyond that.”
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And then as if turning the gray scenery into words—
—she voiced her tangled, twisted struggle.
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“—Why do I write stories in the first place?”
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Her question was filled with urgency, as if she was questioning the root of her own existence.
“If I don’t know that…I may not be able to proceed.”
At the same time, I had a feeling it was similar to the important thing I was searching for right now, for someone else’s sake.