I closed the reading app and opened LINE.
I wanted to see what this feeling really was. No, I probably already knew, more or less. I mean, I’d discovered possibilities in this stirring in my heart.
When I opened up LINE, I found a number of messages of concern after I missed two days of school. Even if I had fewer well-wishes than Hinami had gotten for her birthday, it felt like a show of the results of my efforts thus far in working on my life.
Betting on a single ray of light, I called Kikuchi-san.
✦ ✦ ✦
A few hours later—I was in the park in Kita-Asaka, waiting for Kikuchi-san.
“…Fumiya-kun.”
She was panting a little as she trotted toward me. She must have hurried over so I didn’t have to wait. She really was far more mature than me—and so important to me. She’d stayed with me even when I suddenly rejected her, then suddenly changed my mind.
“Hey.”
That’s why I had to say something first.
“Kikuchi-san—I’m sorry.” I’d selfishly imposed my feelings on her, flinging words at her and then running away. But she was still facing me now—I could never apologize to her enough.
And more than anything.
“And—thank you.” The greatest feeling that welled up in my heart was—gratitude. “For waiting for someone like me, even after all that.”
“Oh, no. I could only manage to say awkward things then myself…”
“That’s not true at all… Besides, I think in the moment, no matter what you said to me and how, I wouldn’t have listened. I think I’d already decided in my heart that I was going to reject everything before the conversation even started. Sorry.”
“Oh, no. I’m glad we could talk again.” She just forgave me. Every one of her words was like an embrace permeating my heart.
“Hey, Kikuchi-san.”
“Y-yes?”
“I read your book.”
I figured that would tell her most of it, since what Kikuchi-san had written communicated everything more densely than talking directly.
“Since the fight the other day, I felt like nothing anyone said to me would have any effect. Nobody’s messages really reached me—not even yours.”
It was a feeling like my body was unconsciously rejecting all words—like I was cooping myself up in a cage, plugging my ears to calls from outside.
Everything in the world had become unpleasant to me, so there was no room for remarks from anyone.
It should have been an absolute fortress with no way to get out. After all, people are fundamentally alone.
✦ ✦ ✦
“But—”
✦ ✦ ✦
A certain magical power had brought that fortress crumbling down.
✦ ✦ ✦
“—your story got through to me.”
✦ ✦ ✦
When my heart had been all tangled up, the story she’d woven had moved it.
“…So I think I can’t do it myself.”
Even waiting outside Hinami’s house had done nothing, and not even honest words full of my heart and soul could reach her.
I no longer had a single thing that could break through Hinami’s shell.
✦ ✦ ✦
—But.
✦ ✦ ✦
I knew just one more way—
—to show her a message I really wanted to tell her—a theme I wanted to share.
A way to reach her that wasn’t just yelling or beating her at a game.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I want your help.”
✦ ✦ ✦
This was the great power created by Kikuchi-san’s karma.
The violent magic that had so affected Haruka-chan—and Aoi Hinami.
And a brilliant magic that had abruptly moved me when I’d become sick of everything.
✦ ✦ ✦
—The power of stories.
✦ ✦ ✦
I’d seen it with my own eyes.
Even when Mizusawa had expressed how he really felt to her during summer vacation, and even when I had tried to pry more deeply on the station platform, Aoi Hinami’s heart hadn’t changed. But the lines of Kikuchi-san’s play had shaken her and forced her to confront her darkness.
From just a few clues, Kikuchi-san had dug into the Hinami family’s past and upset Haruka-chan’s feelings.
And—when I had been unable to believe in the power of words, when I felt sick of everything—when I didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore, she had scooped me up from that dark place so deftly, it caught me off guard.
The trigger for all these things had been the stories Kikuchi-san created.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I want you to make one with me.”
✦ ✦ ✦
I wanted to involve myself more deeply in Hinami’s life, but I had lost my way to do that.
Kikuchi-san had hurt people with her magical stories and insight, and she had lost her reason to write.
✦ ✦ ✦
I had a reason I wanted to involve myself with Hinami, but I had lost the method.
Kikuchi-san had the method to involve herself, but she had lost the reason.
✦ ✦ ✦
Wheels and cogs. You need both to move forward, but we each only had one—
✦ ✦ ✦
—and now here we were, as boyfriend and girlfriend.
✦ ✦ ✦
“A story to validate Aoi Hinami.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Frankly speaking, it might be a crazy idea to believe a story could change someone’s values and the way they lived to dramatically save them. It was something a naive kid would think up.
Maybe it’s a wrongheaded assumption, basically just self-satisfaction, and even voicing this idea was embarrassing.
But with Kikuchi-san, I felt like we could do it.
I believed it.
“You really are…a bold dreamer, aren’t you, Fumiya-kun?” She giggled like a young girl.
“Urk…you really think so?” I blushed at my own dramatic declaration.
Kikuchi-san nodded readily—and finally, she gazed at me with mischievous eyes.
✦ ✦ ✦
“But—this time, I’m a little bit confident.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Huh…?”
“The truth is, I still haven’t found a reason to write. But—” As if trusting me, leaning her weight on me, she said, “This time, you’ll give me a reason to write, won’t you?”
She was entrusting me with something even more important than her body—with her whole heart.
✦ ✦ ✦
“It’s a very lovely one—the desire to save someone you care about.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Her words drew me in.
It might be weird to say this, but I even found myself thinking that this might be the reason that I had come to date Kikuchi-san at all.
“So I’d like to try it. I can start with the reason that I got from you, and in the course of it—I’d like to find a reason just for me.”
Was she speaking as Kikuchi-san the creator, or as Kikuchi-san the girl?
No—it was as Kikuchi-san the person.
“…Yeah, I think if it’s you, it’s possible.”
She shook her head. “No, not me.”
“Ah, oh yeah… You and me both—”
“Fumiya-kun.”
She gave me a chiding, mature smile.
✦ ✦ ✦
“—That’s not it, either.”
✦ ✦ ✦
I couldn’t imagine what it was she was about to say.
“The characters that appear in this story, not just Alucia and Libra…they’re all important characters with their own souls. They’re important friends for discovering Alucia’s truth. That’s why—”
As if looking back lovingly on what she had gained so far, she said, “Nanami-san, and Mizusawa-san, and Izumi-san, and Hanabi-chan…” Her tone was firmly positive and gentle. “I want all the characters who appear in your story to help.”
The brilliant ring of her words stole my heart.
✦ ✦ ✦
