“The hell’s that guy’s problem?” said one of them.
“Yeah, no need to be such a drama queen, jeez,” said the other.
The boys ran off again—but now everyone in the vicinity was staring at me. God, this is so embarrassing… Ugh. Wish I could just crawl into a hole and die. How depressing was it that one little momentary accident like that could completely kill my good mood? Why did I need to come here and subject myself to this torture every day?
“You don’t ‘need’ to do anything. A high school education’s not compulsory, you know.”
All of a sudden, I could hear Uncle Kurehiko’s words echo through my mind. Come to think of it, his 49th day memorial service was coming up here pretty soon; I almost couldn’t believe it had already been that long since he passed. He’d been an awfully stubborn, jaded old man for a guy who’d only made it to age thirty-nine, but I had to admit that it felt pretty lonely to have lost the only person I knew who could relate to my more negative feelings about life and the world at large. I missed him pretty bad sometimes.
At the same time, I also felt like I’d become a bit more of an optimist lately—if only because I’d found a lot more to look forward to. Even just the little things, like a new chapter of my favorite manga, or the next episode of a really good anime, or an upcoming game release I was looking forward to. All pretty minor events in the grand scheme of things, but I’d begun to feel like when you took those little sources of happiness and gathered them together, that alone could almost make tomorrow feel worth living for. Not that I didn’t still catch myself wishing I were dead every once in a while—but it was something, at least. Enough to keep me going.
I walked out the main entrance of the school building.
“Brrrr… God, it’s cold out…”
It was already wintertime, and the skies were overcast with dark gray clouds. As an icy breeze blew past, the bitter chill crept down the nape of my neck, and I shivered convulsively. I pulled my bike out from the bike lot and wheeled it off campus. But just as I passed through the main gate and lifted one leg to straddle the seat…
“Mugino!”
Somebody called my name.
I turned around to see a girl in a baseball jacket standing there, just a little way down the sidewalk. With her shaggy, shoulder-length black hair, she gave off slightly tomboyish vibes. As she ran over to greet me, a relieved smile spread across her face.
“Phew, there you are…” she said. “Thank god.”
I just kind of blinked at the girl, unsure what to say—not that she gave me much of a chance, as she immediately launched into a breathless monologue.
“Man, you would not believe what a crazy month I’ve had. Feels like it’s just been one headache after another… But I think things are finally starting to calm down a little bit. Oh yeah—so that guy I injured? He totally lived. Said he doesn’t wanna escalate the situation, so he’s not gonna press charges. And I mean, he knows what he did, so I think I’ll probably get off scot-free on that front. Though, boy, lemme tell ya, my mom was pissed.”
She let out a little chuckle as she rubbed the reddened tip of her nose.
“Had to work my butt off to afford a plane ticket so I could come back down here to Tokyo, by the way—got a part-time job and everything. Oh, and I’m not skipping class either, FYI! It’s just our school’s anniversary holiday or whatever. Requested time off from work too, even though I’ve been going in almost every single day. Not that there was a huge rush or anything, I just, I dunno… Wanted to see you as soon as possible, I guess.”
As the girl bashfully averted her gaze, I just stood there confounded.
It didn’t seem like she had the wrong person—yet I had no idea who she was. At first, I wondered if maybe she was a relative I’d met at my uncle’s wake or something, but no such connection came to mind. And now she was alluding to a potential lawsuit from someone she’d injured, apparently? I couldn’t help but feel a little unnerved, given some of the words that were coming out of her mouth. Just who was this girl?
“Oh yeah, so I dyed my hair black. What do you think?” she asked, her expression still irrepressibly ecstatic as she twisted a finger through her bangs. “Figured it was about time I tried something a bit more mature, y’know? Um… D-do you like it? Think I’m still having a little trouble getting used to it, honestly.”
“S-sorry, but…” I cut in nervously. “Do I…know you from somewhere?”
The girl looked at me the way you might look at someone who’d just pushed you off the edge of a cliff—completely astonished.
“Wh-what are you talking about?” she asked. “We went on a whole adventure together, remember?”
“We… We did?”
“Yeah, you and me! We went through the Seikan Tunnel together, and then you took care of me when I got sick… We slept in that department store, and went ice skating, and all sorts of other stuff… C-come on, you can’t expect me to believe you don’t remember any of that! So just…quit messing with me, already…”
“S-sorry… I don’t know what to tell you.”
The girl’s face dropped, and the last sliver of hope drained from her expression.
“…No, that’s okay. It’s not your fault,” she said, gently lowering her gaze. “Sounds like you really did lose all your memories, then… Heh. Not sure what I was expecting… Was gonna ask you why the heck you left your notebook behind, but I guess you wouldn’t remember that either, huh? Ha ha, man… That’s so messed up, though… How come I remember everything just fine? It doesn’t make any sense…”
I could only watch as the girl stared fixedly at the pavement.
“Damn it…” she said with a sniffle. “Told myself I wasn’t gonna cry…”
I didn’t know who this girl was or what in the world she was talking about. But I could still tell that she was in distress—and that whatever it was she was going through, it had to be pretty rough. I wished there was something I could do to reassure her, but I didn’t know what that might be. And so I just looked at her.
The two of us stood there in silence like that for a while, letting the other students pass us by as they walked out the main gate to begin their homeward commutes. With her eyes still glued to the pavement and her lips tightly pursed, the girl looked to be trying her very best to hold back some particular emotion—or waiting in vain for me to respond in some way we both knew I never could. Eventually, she looked up and emphatically shook her head as if to break free from this depressive spiral.
“Well, I guess that’s all I really wanted to say,” she said. “Think I’d better go now.”
“Wait, but—”
“It’s fine. Just means you found your hope, right? And that’s all that matters to me. See you around, Mugino,” she said, forcing a pained smile as she turned her back and started walking off down the sidewalk.
I stood there watching her go, still feeling awfully bewildered by the whole encounter—when all of a sudden, I felt a warm surge of emotion boil up from somewhere deep within me. You can’t just let her leave like this, said a voice inside my head. And then out of the corner of my mind’s eye, I caught a glimpse of something hazy and indistinct—no more than a tattered fragment of a memory, now faded and worn.
I cried out.
“Akira!”
The girl turned and looked at me.
And for a moment, time stood still.
She looked stunned. And I was too.
Akira? Was that this girl’s name?
I had no clue. I’d never met her before.
All I knew was that I couldn’t just let her go.
Every fiber of my being was telling me I had to make her stay.
“Listen, um… I don’t know who you are,” I said. “Or at least, I don’t think I do, but… Ugh. Man, this is so weird… I’m not sure how to explain it, sorry… I just got this strange feeling all of a sudden, like I really need to talk to you—and I don’t even care about what.”
The girl’s eyes went wide.
“So I guess all I’m trying to say here is…if you’re not too busy right now…would you mind if we just went somewhere and…talked, for a little while?”
She looked me straight in the eye—and I watched as tears started streaming down her cheeks.
Flustered, I ran over to her. “Are…are you gonna be okay?”
“…Yeah. Yeah, I think I am,” she said, smiling through the tears. “There’s just…a lot that I wanna tell you too, is all. Not even sure where to begin…”
I reached into my pocket and offered her my handkerchief—but as she held out her hand to take it, a shimmering speck of moisture fluttered right between our noses, and we both gazed up into the cold December sky. Far above us, I could see that the dark clouds overhead had begun to lay a blanket of soft white powder across the earth.
We just stood there for a while, watching the falling snow.