“Um, do you know what an umbrella is?”
“Yeah, you pull them out when it rains.”
“This probably isn’t much of a story, but—”
“I love hearing whatever you have to say.”
For a moment, I was lost for words.
“It really isn’t much of a story. The day after the last time we met, there was a huge downpour, and a person I don’t normally talk to didn’t have an umbrella. So I struck up a conversation and lent her mine.”
So what? I thought. Most of the time, the world around me did little to defy my boring expectations. Still, maybe it was because I was here at the bus shelter, or because it was Chika I was speaking to, but words I never would have expected came to me out of the dark.
“You see? That wasn’t nothing.” It sounded to me like she was smiling, tinted with vague surprise. “That very same day, I happened to pass close by a career military fighter. Normally, I wouldn’t talk to them at all, but it had started raining, so I lent them my umbrella.”
“Seriously…?”
It was still too soon to confirm that the two worlds were experiencing things in parallel. Chances were still high that these happenings were just coincidence. However, I could no longer readily dismiss it, either.
“Why don’t you usually talk to them?” I asked, realizing that it was a fundamentally pointless question. It only concerned me because I was hoping that her reason wasn’t discriminatory. If I’d wanted to keep the peace, I should have just avoided asking—but if I was going to associate with someone, just as I should give them the benefit of the doubt when possible, I also shouldn’t overlook their faults.
“I’m afraid…afraid that we might pick up the scent of each other’s consciousnesses.”
“The scent of your…consciousness?”
“Yeah, the scent. I’m afraid that some trace of my own philosophy of living for my own impulses will attach itself to them, and it’d interfere with their will to live for others, particularly when their lives are truly in danger. Likewise, I’m afraid that their own personal philosophies of fighting and living for others will contaminate my room, my brain. I know it’s selfish of me though, so I don’t usually talk about this.”
“So then, why?”
Why did you talk to them? I didn’t need to clarify what I meant.
“Because that day, there was only the smell of the rain.”
For the first time, I thought how cruel it was that I could not see her face—for a reason besides a simple desire for easier comprehension. Her voice conveyed far more than I could ever understand.
I wanted to know what was going on around her narrowed eyes. I wanted to know how her excuses, and penitence, and kindness, and mirth all factored into her expression. Or was it perhaps because I could not see her face that I perceived so much emotion within her words?
I had no idea, but regardless…I truly wished to see her face.
“What kind of person did you lend your umbrella to, Kaya?”
“Hmm, how should I describe her… We run into each other at the same place every day, but I’ve never spoken to her, nor had I ever planned to. She keeps her head down, and she’s always quiet, never saying more than necessary, so I don’t really know what sort of person she is.”
As I spoke, I felt I was describing the exact same sort of person as me. I started to walk it back but was interrupted by Chika.
“So, someone who’s completely different from you. Just like the person I lent my umbrella to.”
“Oh yeah, for sure.”
I was suddenly worried about what sort of person Chika thought I was if she saw Saitou and me as clear opposites. Just as my seat neighbor Tanaka had said, I was fairly convinced that she and I were two peas in a pod.
“Whatever the connections between both our worlds though, could they really affect one another in that intricate of a way?” I wondered.
“Well, if you and I are the starting point, then what starts off as these smaller coincidences might grow into larger ones as you move farther away.”
If that were true, we needed to figure out how big of a deal these smaller coincidences were, and what they could grow into. Were they pure chance? Or would we be able to intentionally influence each other in some way? For example, was it nothing more than coincidence that we had both lent out our umbrella, or had one of us lent their umbrella because the other had already done so first? If it was the latter, then both of our actions started to take on a deeper meaning.
However, I couldn’t bring myself to share Chika’s opinion that the thing connecting both of our worlds might be the two of us. There was no way the catalyst that could send ripples through our entire world could be a boring person like me. Even if this connection was real, the origin was not us but this bus stop and Chika’s bunker. The worlds themselves had to be connected somehow—that seemed far more likely. These places were far less boring, so it made much more sense for them to be the connection.
“Before the next time we meet, let’s each try doing something that we wouldn’t usually do.”
“Good plan. I’ll try to think of things to do that are easy to understand.”
And with that, I realized I had once again made a promise that would bind us to this tenuous relationship that could end before we even knew it. Human relationships were built on the knowledge that one day, whether it’s tomorrow or decades from now, one of you was always destined to betray the other. Thus, I wanted to see her as many times as I possibly could, though my intentions had nothing to do with the separation that would inevitably occur.
After all, there was no telling when someone or something entirely unrelated might spell our doom.
There was no way I could possibly prepare myself for such a moment, and yet it came.