That sort of change was inevitable...but Kiryuu had fought it with everything he had anyway. He’d wished with all his heart to stay the same fanciful, idealistic child as ever—and the effort was just as doomed as if he’d tried to keep speaking in the same tone as ever, even after his voice had started to deepen. He’d tried to make the inherently transient perspective that was chuunibyou into something that would last an eternity. He’d done it because letting himself change felt like it would be no different than letting his current self die—like it would mean betraying everything that had made him himself.
But it didn’t work. People change. Time moves on. Even if you have the power to do anything you want to—even if you can stop time or reshape the world itself with total impunity—the one thing you’ll never be able to stop from changing is yourself. Maybe you could brainwash yourself into an unchanging state, sure, but at that point, you wouldn’t be you anymore. No matter how broken and cheat-like of a skill you might have...you yourself will always be the one exception.
“So I thought, hey...if it has to end one way or another, I might as well go out with the biggest bang I possibly can. I decided to carve the name ‘Kiryuu Heldkaiser Luci-First’ as deeply into this world—and more importantly, into myself—as I could. That’s the mindset that I went into coordinating the Fifth Spirit War with...and, well, you already know how that turned out for me. Turns out that when a chuuni writes a novel, all they get is something to look back on and cringe at.”
Such was a novel written with chuunibyou, not for chuunis: a self-centered story that paid no interest in the slightest to its readers, and a work that you could only ever view as a blot on your history when you grew up and looked back upon it.
“Seriously, though—what should I have done?” Kiryuu asked, the words seeming to spring from his mouth unbidden. “And...what am I supposed to do now?”
I couldn’t answer his question. If he hadn’t asked it, I might’ve done so myself. The moment we became aware that we were going to change and wished we could remain the same, that very wish would prove to us that the change had already begun. What’s a person supposed to do when they find themself stuck in that dilemma? What could we do to make sure that we’d keep liking the same things we always had?
“Why not just grow up already?”
Suddenly, Tomoyo spoke up. Her tone was as kind and compassionate as that of a mother gently consoling a lost child... Okay, no, not really. She actually sounded more like a mother whose kid had just asked her “Why does one plus one equal two?” replying “Because it does. You’ll just have to live with it.” Her tone was cold, exasperated, and above all else, blunt as all get out.
“You’re really glorifying the hell out of all this crap, Hajime...but basically, you’re just throwing a tantrum because you don’t wanna grow up and don’t wanna get a job, right? Well, shut up and do it anyway. Get out there and contribute something to society for once. That’s what being an adult means. Deal with it.”
A moment of silence passed as Kiryuu and I gaped at her, completely lost for words. It felt like she’d driven the hefty fist of common sense right into my solar plexus.
“W-Wait, Tomoyo, no,” I said. “Framing it like that ruins everything, doesn’t it? You’re making it sound like Kiryuu’s conflict and mental anguish is exactly the same as what jobless shut-ins go through... Like, it degrades this whole thing into a ridiculous farce, y’know?”
“What do you mean, ‘degrades it’? This whole thing’s been a stupid farce from the start,” Tomoyo quickly and curtly huffed before walking over toward Kiryuu, who was still sitting on the ground. She stopped right in front of him, looking down on him with all the intimidating presence of those guardian statues that loom over the entrances to Buddhist temples. “You’re a total moron, you know that, Hajime? You haven’t changed at all for as long as I’ve known you.”
Kiryuu didn’t reply.
“So, look—there’s basically no way you could’ve missed this, but I used to be a chuuni too,” said Tomoyo. “I came up with all sorts of wild fantasies, gave myself ridiculous titles and aliases, ran around in the park wearing your coat and sunglasses, and basically made a huge, cringey idiot of myself...but in the end, I got over it before I graduated from middle school. By the time I started high school, I was a totally normal girl. I’ve been living the normie life—the total opposite of what chuunis go for.”
“Wait,” I interjected. “You? A normie...?”
“Shut up, Andou!” Tomoyo snapped, shooting me a death glare before turning back to Kiryuu. “Nowadays...I see my chuuni period as a super embarrassing phase that’s better left forgotten. Just thinking about it makes me so embarrassed, I wish I could drop dead and get it over with. Why did I have to act like such a freaky nutjob? I have so many regrets...but on the other hand, it also feels like it was for the best. I went through a chuuni phase in middle school, got all that crap out of my system, went on the mend, and ended up making a total and complete recovery, resulting in who I am today.”
“I mean...it kinda feels like you’ve still got some latent chuunibyou aftereffects lingering in your system, so I’m not sure I’d say you’ve made a complete—”
“I-I said shut the hell up, Andou!” Tomoyo roared again.
Look, it’s not like I want to undermine you here, okay? You just keep saying stuff that makes it totally impossible to resist butting in! Your story’s so dubious, questioning it is literally reflexive for me!
“A-Anyway, what I’m trying to get at here...is that even a stain on your personal history is still part of your personal history. Even the stuff that we’re most embarrassed about and the stuff we wish we could go back and undo are part of what makes us into the people we are today. Putting together all those experiences is what makes us change, mature, and grow into adults,” Tomoyo concluded.
“Hmph... That’s a pretty condescending thing to say, eh? Not to mention pretentious,” said Kiryuu.
“Well, I get to condescend to you. I get to be pretentious when I talk to you. I’m a step ahead of you in life, so I’ve earned that right,” Tomoyo declared, sounding just a little proud about it.
When she put it that way, it struck me that Tomoyo really was a step ahead of everyone else present. Kiryuu and I were still obsessing over an illness that she’d gotten over ages ago. She’d made peace with her chuunibyou in her own way.
“I don’t really know how to put this, but...I guess you’re just being too all-or-nothing about this, Hajime. You and Andou both, actually. You’re acting like doing away with your chuunibyou would basically be the same thing as killing the person you’ve been up until now, right?”
Kiryuu stayed silent.
“I mean, I get it, okay? Letting yourself change really does feel like denying the person you’ve always been. But think about it this way: No matter how much you change, the old you never just disappears, right? This moment’s never going to stop having happened no matter what comes after, right?” said Tomoyo. A somewhat bitter smile came across her face. “I got over my chuunibyou...and I’m super embarrassed about all the crap I did back when I had it. I’d undo every bit of it if I had the chance, but no matter how much I deny that part of my life, I can never actually erase the chuuni me from my past.”
There’s no undoing what’s been done. No matter how much you disavow your past, and no matter how hard you try to erase it, it will never really change.
“A stain on your past is a stain because you can’t just wash it away...so you can rest easy and let yourself change, the way I see it. Just let yourself grow up. Even if the grown-up you ends up rejecting the you from right now, he’ll never be able to erase you. And on the flip side, no matter how hard you try to preserve the current you, it just isn’t possible to keep it going all the way into the future. The only moment you’ll feel exactly the same way that you do right now is right now,” said Tomoyo.
Her words struck me as incredibly idealistic, but at the same time, unwaveringly pragmatic as well. The present moment will never disappear, no matter how you try to deny it down the line...but moreover, the present moment is just the present moment, and it can never be preserved and brought into the future. All we can do is leave our present feelings and perspectives behind, sequestering them in the annals of our memories.