“But Izumi…you like him, don’t you? Are you okay with this? Isn’t it painful? I have amnesia, and you’re more…”
“Kamiya isn’t the type to care about that kind of thing. Even if he knew about your amnesia, he would never dislike you for it. If that wasn’t the case…I wouldn’t have fallen for him. No matter what condition you’re in, he loves you and only you.”
I was still keeping it a secret that Tooru knew about Maori’s amnesia. Nevertheless, I desperately tried to convey his love for her. And…
“That’s why… That’s why he’ll never be interested in me. It’s a common story. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
When I accepted that, the reality of the situation slid easily into my consciousness. My feelings were unrequited, and nothing would come of them. It didn’t matter if the two of them broke up. He would still love her alone.
“And…yes, it hurts. If I’m being honest, it was painful keeping this from you. Because I couldn’t tell anyone how I felt. Because I thought it was wrong for me to like him.”
I had been suppressing my own feelings by telling myself they would only get in the way and cause trouble for Maori and Tooru.
But…maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe I could care for him in a way that didn’t interfere. Maybe I could still hold on to these feelings, without wanting him to reciprocate them.
That was all right, wasn’t it? To be able to feel that way about him?
I wanted to ask Maori.
The tears that I thought I’d wiped away kept falling miserably as I went on talking.
“But I was able to tell today’s you. Is it…all right…if I like him? I promise I won’t cause any trouble for the two of you. So, so…is it okay if I keep on liking him?”
When I asked her this, she started crying, too. I knew why. Because she was kind. She was crying because she was thinking about how I must feel. She hugged me before answering.
“It’s okay, Izumi. It’s okay to cherish your own feelings. I’m sorry to put you through this. But…thank you. And I’m sorry. Really, thank you.”
For a few more minutes, she kept hugging me and crying.
We skipped homeroom that day and talked on the roof instead. Some things are more important than school rules.
Without feeling any guilt or sorrow, I asked Maori not to write anything that happened today in her journal. My request confused her somewhat, but after I explained my reasons, she agreed. There’s a limit to what words can capture. If she wrote about today, we wouldn’t know how those words would affect her future selves.
For instance, if she wrote Izumi likes Tooru Kamiya, but more than that, she cares about me and him, so she wants us to be together, it might weigh on her in the future. In which case, it would be better not to write anything at all. Better if nothing changed.
“I think I was acting unnaturally before today,” I told her. “I was trying to convince you that something real didn’t exist. That’s unnatural, right? And I was suffering for no reason. But today I told you the truth…and it was such a relief when you said it was okay to cherish my own feelings.”
True to my words, I beamed radiantly at her. It was probably easier to pretend things that didn’t exist did. But doing the opposite was harder. Things that exist inevitably have a presence, a mass. If you deny that, all kinds of contradictions arise. I learned that from this experience.
I liked Tooru Kamiya. That was okay. It was okay that nothing would come of my feelings, because I realized there were things I valued more than my one-sided crush.
I resigned myself without any lingering regret. And I felt like I’d be okay. I was sure I’d be able to go on being friends with Maori and Kamiya just like before.
Maori kept apologizing, but she had nothing to say sorry for. All I felt toward her was gratitude, and I told her so.
“Thank you, Maori. I was able to meet Kamiya because of you. And…I was able to experience having a crush for the first time in my life. I finally fell for someone.”
She was silent for a while. I could imagine the myriad emotions swirling around within her. Regret toward me, anxiety about the future, all sorts of things. But out of every single feeling, she chose to focus on the most positive one.
“Wow, I really want to meet Tooru Kamiya as soon as I can. And…I want to see how I feel when I meet him.”
She smiled at me.
“To be honest, after I woke up today, I didn’t even care if tomorrow came or not. But now…I’m kind of looking forward to it. I’m not afraid to go to sleep. I have you, and this guy Tooru Kamiya who you like.”
Obviously, I didn’t tell Tooru what had transpired between me and Maori. I also tried not to think about it too much. I figured that was the least I could do, considering I’d asked Maori to forget about it.
The following day, Maori came to school seeming just like she always did. She didn’t show any sign of having written down what happened the day before, and nothing seemed unnatural. She looked like she was having fun talking to Tooru.
“Hi, Izumi.”
“Hey, Wataya.”
I was okay with seeing him by then. I was able to act normal.
“Hey. Getting along like two peas in a pod, I see.”
“Izumi, you’re starting to sound like an old man,” Maori said.
“Sometimes a geezer possesses her body,” Tooru added.
“How dare you say that to a beautiful woman like me!”
They meant so much to me. I’d found something in life more valuable to me than myself. These two humans. I prayed that I would be able to be with them forever and ever.
Winter, the season of intense studying, began. In spring, I got into my first-choice university. Tooru was hired by the city hall in the neighboring district, and although Maori still had amnesia, she graduated from high school. We laughed together a lot. We spent spring break together. But that spring, something happened that could never be undone.
“I found out my heart might not be very strong, and…”
One day after the three of us hung out, Tooru and I went on a walk without Maori. That was when he told me this, his expression serious. Although I was surprised, I managed to hold myself together. But when I learned that he’d collapsed the day before, and that his mother had died of heart disease, and that he’d had various tests done as a child, I began to panic.
“Interesting. Um, if there’s anything I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask,” I managed to say. I cared about him, and I wanted to support him.
“In that case…and I’m only saying if something happens, and the chances of that are basically zero. I just want to ask you while it’s on my mind. I’m not saying this is going to happen to me, but people do die abruptly sometimes.”
Maybe I should have never offered to help. I never guessed that he would ask me to do something so heartbreaking.
“If I die, I want you to erase me from Hino’s journal.”
In that moment, I was speechless; all words used as a means of communication vanished from my mind. After I somehow managed to retrieve them, I tried to turn what he’d said into a joke. I tried to do what I always did, which was to make light of things and laugh about them. But I couldn’t do it. Tooru was serious.
“Wh-what are you talking about?”
So I resisted. Maybe I thought that by resisting, I could prevent that reality from happening.
“This is important,” he said.
“I don’t want to do that. You should do it yourself.”
“You’re right. I should. I’m sorry to ask something like this from you. But I want you to listen.”
And then he explained, kindly and calmly. Since he’d never met Maori before she lost her memory, if he died, as long as he wasn’t in her journal, it would be possible to make it like it had never happened.
He was worried about her mental state. On the off chance that something did happen to him, Maori would grieve for him. She would grieve every day. He was right, but I couldn’t easily agree to his request. Even though my first crush was asking me to do it, Tooru, who I cared so much about, it wouldn’t have been right for me to simply say yes.
In the end, though, he smiled and said, “I’m sorry to bring this up.”
After that, I’m certain he said, “I’d better get going. See you later.”
See you later. As if we would meet again. That’s what he said. But…
The following night, he died suddenly from heart failure.
Sorrow and death are as natural as air in this world. Why did I think the two had nothing to do with me? I should have been familiar with sadness. How could I have thought death was unrelated to my life?
After Tooru died, I ultimately decided to do what he had asked me to. I removed all mention of him from Maori’s journal. More accurately, since simply erasing him would have created a sense of incongruity, I had his sister help me edit the journals, substituting incidences of Tooru with me.
That wasn’t all. I worked with Maori’s parents to convince her that she’d always written her entries on her computer rather than in notebooks. We also replaced her phone because the old one had photos of Tooru and messages from him on it.
All of this was to fulfill Tooru’s last wish. To protect Maori’s heart—Maori, who Tooru had loved and cared for so deeply.
And so…his very existence vanished from within her.