Why did Tooru ask Maori out that day in our second year of high school, when he didn’t know her and seemed to have no interest in her? I wondered about that for the longest time.
It was a dare I took to protect a friend who was being bullied.
Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t find out right away. If I had, I probably would have resented him, because I didn’t know what he was really like at that point. I might even have told Maori she should break up with him right away. But Maori seemed to have guessed that it was a dare. It was exactly because she knew he didn’t have feelings for her that she was able to say yes and try something new, even with her anterograde amnesia.
In other words, they didn’t start dating because they liked each other. Tooru had his reasons, and Maori had hers. Since she started this all on her own, she hid the fact that they weren’t a real couple from me. That was part of why I was suspicious about him at first. I even suspected he had an ulterior motive for approaching her. My personality also played a factor. Unlike Maori, I didn’t get along with everyone. I was amicable on the surface, but I didn’t trust people easily.
I was afraid of people.
Unlike the characters in a novel, real human beings don’t always share what they’re thinking. The only way to get to know someone is by talking to them or reading their emotions through their face, but words and expressions can easily be faked. That was why I tried not to get close to anyone except for a few specific people. Instead of being popular, I’d figured I would get really close with that small circle of friends.
In high school, that was Maori. She was never two-faced. We had the same class in our first year. She befriended me despite my cold exterior. Before I knew it, we were best friends. I also respected her. She was a hard worker through and through. Sometimes between classes, she would stare at the middle finger of her right hand. I think I was the only one who noticed. She had a callus there from holding a pen. We went to a public college-preparatory high school, and everyone there had done fairly well in junior high. She kept grinding away after she was accepted to make sure she didn’t fall behind. That was why her callus never disappeared. I think she used to stare at it to judge her own efforts.
But she was only able to keep working like that until her accident. After she got amnesia, she couldn’t study anymore. No matter how much she studied in one day, the information never stuck. The next day, she would forget everything. But she still kept up a positive attitude. Thanks to the national disability policy and the cooperation from the school administrators, all she needed to do to graduate was attend school for a certain number of days. So she kept coming to class, and it was better for her mental health than taking time off or quitting and just sitting at home day in and day out. Inevitably, though, there were times when it was emotionally difficult for her. She would wake up in the morning and learn all over again that she had amnesia. She had to accept that and somehow go on with life every day. Naturally, it wasn’t easy. And she didn’t always feel the same way.
“There’s no point in living like that.”
She’d said that once. When she didn’t show up at school, I got worried and stopped by her house. She was shut up in her room. I think she’d been crying.
Maori must have felt like she’d been robbed of a future. So long as she had amnesia, she could never build anything up over time. No matter how hard she worked on any given day, everything was reset when she went to sleep at night.
The person who alleviated some of that pain…was Tooru.
Tooru, who wasn’t even supposed to like Maori, was able to do what I couldn’t do. Even though he was a fake boyfriend, he stuck by her side. And continued to stay there.
Maori’s parents and I thought we were supporting her as her family and best friend. But there are things family can’t do, things a friend couldn’t help with.
But a boyfriend, now, that’s different.
I’m going to show tomorrow’s Hino a good time.
At some point, Tooru truly fell in love with Maori. It was after he found out about her amnesia that she’d hidden from him.
Maori recorded her daily life in her notebooks and binder, using her diary to keep track of her memories. She wrote good things and bad things in them. Some of the entries made her happy while others made her sad. Tooru figured that out and tried to fill her diary with as many fun things as possible.
He did it in hopes that every morning when Maori was confronted with her anterograde amnesia, her diary would give her courage so that she wouldn’t be overcome with hopelessness. He ran himself ragged doing that. But she began to smile naturally when she was next to him.
I observed the two of them silently. I watched on as Tooru was transformed by their relationship, and even Maori, who couldn’t form new memories, changed. But maybe that’s the wrong way of putting it.
All I could do was watch silently.
I’d read a lot of books up until that point. I thought I understood life. But as obvious as it sounds…books can’t replace reality.