“You never used to lecture people like this, Akiyoshi. You have changed for the worse.”
“And so have you!”
Her expression shifted. I could tell that deep down, her sorrow was beginning to overtake her anger, ever so slightly.
“How did you end up like this?”
“Same to you. How could you have abandoned all your ideals like this?”
“I haven’t!” she shouted, more loudly than anything she had said before. “I would never abandon my ideals! I still believe in making as many people happy as possible, that people should be able to live a life they won’t regret, that people who have found their own happiness should do good in the world, and also, if it was ever possible, that we should live in a world free of wars and poverty and discrimination!”
“Then why the hell are you masquerading as some job seeker’s club?!”
“You can’t get by on wishes!!!” she screamed again.
Her voice sounded so full of hope, but compared to what she was saying, on the other hand…
“It takes means and effort and planning to make the things you want to see come true. That’s what I’ve come to realize. There’s nothing twisted about that! I’m just trying to make things happen! You should understand at least that much!”
“…How can you call that an ideal if you no longer believe in the power of wishes?”
To hear her say such a thing disappointed me all the more.
“You…”
With a voice that was half a moan, Akiyoshi’s heavy-looking business bag slipped out of her hands and onto the ground.
“Just what have you accomplished in four years through all those cheap methods?” I asked. “How have you changed the world by helping out random job hunters? What did you change for the better by bringing in a bunch of idiots and ruining Moai’s reputation?”
In response to my question, Akiyoshi, who now seemed nothing more than just a girl, appeared to be desperately fighting back tears. So, this was where we had come to.
“Tell me, Akiyoshi.”
In part, it felt as though I was questioning the meaning of my own four years. I waited for her to reply. I prayed that she would say something of meaning.
Finally, she looked me in the eye, trembling.
“…I was wrong.”
I had expected to hear the truth from her lips, but there was not even a conversation in those trembling words. Yet, hearing them, somewhere deep down I was relieved. Even if we could not see eye to eye, at least she had come to realize the error of her own ways. I was happy, even.
I thought that she was ready to repent. Still, I wanted to hear it clearly, straight from her mouth.
“You were wrong about what?”
Now, her lips moved with certainty.
“So many times in the past two and a half years, I thought how much better things would be if you were still part of Moai, but I was completely wrong!!!”
What she was now rambling was a confession, one that I had never expected. I was taken aback. A giant question mark floated in my head; I had no idea what she was saying. In my heart I felt both joy and sorrow, but there was no time to consider this.
“But you pushed me away,” I replied, “along with the old Moai.”
“Pushed you away? What are you talking about?!”
“Your values changed, and you pushed me out.”
“You left all on your own!”
“But you didn’t try to stop me, did you?!”
“We made a deal that if you ever stopped liking how things were going you could leave anytime! That’s why I asked you so many times if things were okay with you. Every single time, you said absolutely nothing, but now you want your revenge?! I was completely wrong about you as a person.”
I was dumbfounded at this sudden personal attack.
“I’m not going to sit here and have my last four years criticized by someone like you!” she shrieked, shaking her head wildly.
I hated her new haircut down to every single swaying strand, though there was no point in my saying so. There was no need for me to stoop down to the level of someone who would attack me this way by criticizing her appearance.
“Seriously, I don’t understand! Why would you do something like that? If you didn’t like what has happened, couldn’t you have just talked to someone around about it? Or if the people around you were no good, then couldn’t you have just talked to me? Seriously, why?! I don’t get it!”
“If you don’t get it then there’s no way I can make you. The only reason you don’t get it is because you’ve never tried thinking about me, someone different from you!”
“I did! I really did! That’s why I really wanted to talk to you that time, two and a half years ago!”
“And yet you’re blaming something that you couldn’t do on me.”
Her face twisted, teeth gritting almost audibly, as though I had hit the mark.
“Whenever I tried to talk to you back then, there was always someone else there. Tazunoki or Wakisaka…san or whatever. All your groupies. So there wasn’t a time.”
Thinking back to that time made what she had been saying all the more unbelievable.
“You thought things would be better if I was there? That has got to be a lie. Even without me there, you had an endless supply of people you could rely on. And that aside, you seemed like you were trying to focus all your time on Moai, but then you were completely off in your own world mooning over that boyfriend of yours,” I said with a sneer, when…
“…What?”
Her single syllable reaction was completely different from any other she had shown me that day. She now gripped at her own hair with her freed-up hands, in a gesture clearly not of anger but utter bewilderment.
I also felt lost. I had no idea which part of my words had driven her to that point. Certainly, I was in such disbelief myself that I had in part hoped to rile her up, but I had assumed this would only enrage her. I wasn’t actually trying to hurt her.
I had no idea what it was that had so flummoxed her as she stared at me through those big, round eyes. It troubled me that her reaction was so different from what I had imagined. What I had hoped was to prompt her back into continuing the conversation.
“Wait… Don’t tell me…”
I could see a subtle twitching of her cheeks.
“Were you in love with me?”
I had no clue what she meant.
“…What?!”
The voice that came out of me was of the same ilk as Akiyoshi’s, just prior. My head was filled to the brink with question marks now. What on Earth was she saying?
“Is that…why you did this? Because of… Because of some grudge?”
What the hell was she saying? In love with her?
“Huh…?”
Love.
Obviously, I trusted in her as a friend, back then. I respected her. Frankly put, perhaps I did love her. However, it was equally obvious that it was not a love that I felt for her with the sort of nuance she was implying. She was not asking if I had loved her as a friend. She…was asking if I had loved her in that way.
“Th…that’s not…”
Akiyoshi looked into my eyes as I spoke. I had never seen her make a face like this before.
Another unfamiliar expression.
“…You disgusting creep.”
For a brief moment, her silhouette seemed to be dyed in all black. But there she was, looking at me with scorn in her eyes. My head felt hollow, and I could hear her voice resounding through every corner of it. I tried desperately to focus my ears on that reverberating voice, but each time I caught the sound, it carried the same meaning as the moment I had first heard it.
Loved her? Creep? I didn’t understand.
On what basis, on what grounds would she say such a thing? She didn’t get to decide what it was that I felt for her.
Or was it simply that I had just never realized it? Somewhere deep down, had I been looking at her in that way? Was she right? Had I just been trying to destroy Moai and make her atone out of some kind of grudge?
That…couldn’t be.
“I…I didn’t… I never…”
My blood began to boil.