The battle had been just that over-the-top, after all. We’d clashed, power versus power, in an exchange so heated you’d think we were willing to burn out our very lives to take each other down. In the end, we’d been reduced to tearful, tattered wrecks as we’d resolved our differences through the one means of conversation left to us: our fists. Point is, I was hoping to not have to see him again for about another half decade or so.
“From what I hear, he just went back to college,” Sagami explained. “The same college that Takanashi’s going to, if I recall correctly.”
“Seriously?” I said, gaping at Sagami. “Oh, right—I’d actually sorta forgotten that Kiryuu was supposed to be really smart.”
“Yup, yup. He’s been sharp as a tack for ages. That’s part of why he’s so hard to deal with, in all sorts of ways.”
“Those two going to the same college, huh...? That sure is weird to think about.”
“He and Saitou have started dating as well.”
“Huuuh.”
He went back to college and got a girlfriend straightaway? It sounded so...normal, I guess. On the other hand, that was probably for the best. Neither he nor I could keep up our chuuni ways forever, after all.
“Speaking of dating,” Sagami said as he gave me a long, appraising glance, “Andou...have you taken an interest in someone?”
“Bwuh?!” I gasped. More of a full-blown spit take, really. I was not making it hard to tell that he’d taken me by surprise. “Wh-Where’s this coming from?!”
“Oh, come now! Surely you must realize how easy to read you’ve been lately? You’ve been very conspicuously focused on a certain girl in particular. The way you talk when you’re with her is just so clearly different.”
I had no clue what to say, so I just broke eye contact. Sagami let out an exasperated chuckle in response.
“So even Andou ‘Dense as a Rock’ Jurai’s finally fallen in love! Ahh, man, now I’m actually feeling a little jealous of you! If only I could fall in love too! Maybe I should just go ahead and get back together with Tamaki!”
“Dude.”
“Ha ha ha! Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Not funny, I know,” Sagami said with his usual flippant smile. All I could do was sigh.
We walked on for a while longer until we passed by a bus stop, where Sagami came to a halt.
“All right—I’ll be heading to the hospital, so see you later, Andou,” he said.
“Got it,” I replied. “Say hi to your mom for me.”
“Will do. You should come visit again sometime. She’s been saying she’d like to see you.”
“Sure,” I said with a nod.
Right around the time the Fifth Spirit War ended, Sagami’s mother—who’d been in a coma for years—woke up again. She was still hospitalized for the time being, but from what I’d heard, she was due to be discharged in about a month. The spirits hadn’t intervened on her behalf, to be clear—she’d just simply, naturally woken up on her own. Whether that was a convenient plot twist right out of a storybook or just one of the many extraordinary coincidences that happened around the world every single day was all a matter of perspective, I guess.
The Barnum Effect. The Simulation Hypothesis. Schrödinger’s Cat. They were all just a matter of perspective, in the end. It all just came down to how we saw the world around us.
“All right,” I said to myself after saying my goodbyes to Sagami. I set off once more, strolling along the well-worn road that I took to and from school.
“Have I ‘taken an interest in someone,’ he asks...? That guy really is too perceptive for his own good,” I muttered with a slightly strained smile. “Though, then again...I wonder what he’d say if I told him we were actually going out already?”
I guess not even Sagami can see through me quite that deeply.
Slowly but surely, my casual stroll intensified. Before I knew it, I was practically running through the streets—and when I arrived at the park where we’d agreed to meet up, she was already there waiting for me.
“Ah... Well, uhh,” I mumbled. I couldn’t seem to find the right words.
I was trying my hardest to act natural and talk like I always did, but of course, the more I focused on acting natural, the less naturally I actually acted. She was in the same boat, and both of us ended up descending into awkward incoherence. We’d pretty much been like this nonstop since we’d started going out.
“So, umm... Ready?” I finally asked.
My attitude wasn’t showing any sign of improvement, but I at least managed to suppress my embarrassment enough to hold out a hand, which she took with a bashful, red-faced nod. She squeezed my hand tightly, the heat of her palm striking me as far hotter than Dark and Dark had ever been.
Our whole story had been a ridiculous, absurd, over-the-top joke of a fairy tale. It was easy to think that it had all been made up now that it was all over...but even if it had been fiction, it’d still happened. It was a true work of fiction that had led us to our futures.
We couldn’t tell in what precise ways our lives had changed, but the fact that they had changed was something we could be certain of, and that was what allowed us to move forward. We’d put our story firmly to rest, which meant that now we could move on to the next one.
The end of the beginning...was over. It was over, yes—but that’s exactly why we could now begin again. The end of the beginning takes a split second, but it lasts a lifetime.
And so, to let our pasts be the past—to let our futures be the future—we stepped forward side by side, savoring every moment of a present that would never come again.