That night.
After parting ways with Kikuchi-san, unusually, I was sitting alone on a swing in the park in Kitayono.
I wasn’t doing anything, really. But I had too many things to think about, and I didn’t feel ready to go back to my life. I wanted some time where I could just zone out and be alone.
✦ ✦ ✦
People seek reasons in order to move forward.
✦ ✦ ✦
If the desire to do something is an engine, and the ability to push forward is the wheels running on the ground—
—then the reason is the gears that connect those two.
Even if you have the feelings and the ability, like Kikuchi-san, losing the reason makes it hard to move forward anyway.
On the other hand, as long as you don’t lose track of your reason, you can slowly move forward even if the wheels are a mess. If you keep making progress, you might eventually reach a major milestone.
✦ ✦ ✦
At the end of the day, as long as people have some unshakable reason, they can move forward.
Conversely, if they lose that reason, then whatever they have will wind up empty.
✦ ✦ ✦
I’m sure that was the case for Aoi Hinami, too.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Our family is—a little strange.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Those words had stuck with me.
“Strange…huh.”
If the reason was the gears—then Hinami and Haruka-chan must have gotten their reasons from a family that was a little strange.
I recalled Kikuchi-san’s quiet words when Haruka-chan had told us her story.
✦ ✦ ✦
“That means Hinami-san…was able to believe in someone, or in whatever it was behind that person.
“If that single thing enabled her to understand that everything was okay…
“…then that would be like the sun to her.”
✦ ✦ ✦
If that something that was like the sun had been Hinami’s reason—the same way Hinami’s brilliance was Haruka-chan’s sun—then Hinami would also have been moving toward that brilliance at some point.
—If it had shattered to pieces—then what exactly did that mean?
When I heard those words, I had immediately thought of their dead sister. But if what had broken was the “sun that Hinami believed in,” then that conclusion didn’t quite feel right.
It wasn’t impossible for a younger sister to be like the sun, but it wasn’t the typical order of things.
So then—what had those words been referring to?
What had Hinami lost?
After what happened, I had immediately sent a concerned DM to Haruka-chan, but I still hadn’t received a response. We had clearly dug into a vulnerable part of her heart and done something pretty bad. I’d thought the conversation could be a balm or an antidote, but perhaps the poison of it was lingering quite badly.
“…Agh, what a mess.”
I had a mountain of things to consider. I did think that if I told Kikuchi-san about what was bothering me right now, if I borrowed her powers of insight and imagination, then we might arrive at the answer very quickly. But she was worrying over her own karma right now. She was probably too upset, and I figured I shouldn’t rely on her.
“So then…here I am.”
On my own, by myself, taking solo responsibility.
Maybe life is always like that in the end.
“Whoa!!”
—And then something hit my back hard enough to make my vision shake.
Sudden violence in a park at night usually means life-threatening danger, but that voice and that impact were too familiar for that. I also remembered that this was Kitayono. I knew who it was before I even turned around.
“What’re you doing, Mimimi?”
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
Standing there in a sporty windbreaker and running shoes was Mimimi.
“Ohhh! Fancy meeting you here,” she said.
“Did you happen to pass by…? Why are you here?”
She gave me a questioning look. “Hey, that should be my line, though?”
“Huh?”
She roughly grabbed the chain of the swing I was sitting on and rattled it, rattling me along with it. I made pathetic flustered noises.
“I bet you’ve been here for over half an hour, haven’t you?”
Now that she mentioned it, I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “Huh? How did you know?” In fact, it might have been more than an hour. I’m a guy who takes his time thinking.
“I knew it.” She sighed and then sat down on the swing next to me. “I was going for a run around here, but when I left, there was someone sitting on the swings who was definitely not a kid. Mighty suspicious.”
“Urk…” She’d thought I was suspicious. Man, I’ve had a lot of people suspecting me of being some weirdo lately, haven’t I?
“And then he was still sitting there even after I came circling back…so I was wondering if I should call the cops…”
“Someone almost called the cops on me again?!” I shot back as I leaped out of my seat on the swing.
“What do you mean, ‘again’?” Mimimi tilted her head.
Seems like my fate is to be reported these days. Not a fate I want.
“Anyway, I looked a little closer and realized it was you.”
“Agh… I’m glad the suspicions were cleared,” I said, sitting back down again. The chain quietly clinked, and I took a breath.
“But actually, I’ve seen you around quite a bit, Brain!”
“Huh? Really?” I said, though I was thinking, Then just say hi.
“But you were with your sister and stuff… Oh, and then, like, you started dating Fuka-chan, so it made me wanna hold off, right?”
“Ahh…” Back when I was making Kikuchi-san worried and lonely, Mimimi had resisted going home with me after school from Kitayono.
“Even now, coming over when you’re alone kind of feels a little against the rules.”
“You don’t have to worry about it so—,” I started to say, but reconsidered. That wasn’t just for me to decide. “Or… I don’t know…”
As I started to fret seriously about it, Mimimi sounded even more flustered. “A-and, like, just the other day! I went and glomped you right in front of Fuka-chan!”
“Ah…yeah, there was that.”
“W-was that okay? I—I wasn’t even thinking! What a bungle! It was excessive—excessive touching!!” She seemed to really regret that particular incident.
“I think…it’s probably fine. Kikuchi-san was laughing,” I said.
“R-really?! But girls smile most when they’re suffering…!”
“That sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience, so I’m not sure what to say now…”
Even being an otaku and ignorant in the ways of girls, I’d known Mimimi long enough to recognize that she was the type.
“But if Fuka-chan isn’t bothered by it, then I’m relieved!” she said.
As we chatted, I was impressed. Mimimi wasn’t just trying to have a good time—she was trying to change her behavior to adjust to our changing relationships.
“…Thanks,” I said quietly.
Mimimi grinned and whopped her chest. “No prob!”
And so I returned to the subject at hand, partly to direct the conversation away from that. “But then…why did you talk to me this time?”
“Ah-ha-ha. You don’t know?”
I had no idea, and when I frowned back at her, Mimimi gave me a teasing smile. “’Cause it was so clear that I could tell even from a distance that you have a problem!”
“Urk…”
Now that she pointed it out, I was embarrassed. It’s always bugged me when people take their anger out on objects or make a big deal out of being in a bad mood to get attention from others. As I realized I’d been doing something similar, my face burned. Of course someone would assume I’d planted myself on the swing for an hour because I was waiting to be found.
“If a grown man is sitting alone on a swing, you generally assume that it’s because he’s been dumped by his girlfriend or laid off!”
“Urk…but it’s neither.”
“Ah-ha-ha! I guess not in your case!” Mimimi cackled. With that natural smile still on her face, she faced forward and waited for me to talk.
That’s why I decided to tell her.
“…The truth is…”
About how I’d waited in front of Hinami’s house and met her little sister, Haruka-chan.
About our outing with Kikuchi-san and Mizusawa, and what Kikuchi-san had made Haruka-chan face there.
About the strain that had created—and about Kikuchi-san considering her reason to write novels.
On the swaying swing, Mimimi patiently listened to me talk.
“Hmm, I see.” She tilted her head and thought. “Frankly, I can’t answer those hard questions about what happened in Aoi’s past or what Fuka-chan should prioritize. Using your head is your specialty after all, Brain!” Mimimi spread a hand in front of her, palm out, to look at her nails. “But you know, I think I get some of those things better than you.”
“Like what?”
Mimimi relaxed, dropping her hand down onto her windbreaker. The dry, lonely scrunching sound rang through the crisp air of the park.