Ugh, what the hell? I was gonna make myself puke. “Our spirits were holding hands?” Seriously? And I was just starting to get along better with her. It was nice to have a friend who could bring me closer to my goals, but that wasn’t it: We were just becoming friends. We hadn’t actually done anything, nothing at all. There was no reason yet for me to feel any sort of satisfaction, even in the back of my mind.
I knew that well.
From that point until the siren sounded, we discussed a number of possible ways for us to spend our upcoming days. The discussion was prefaced with a warning to not let ourselves get gravely injured. Chika had said this jokingly, but we could not discount the possibility that any injury could put both our lives at risk. It was reasonable to guess that if the same level of damage carried over from one side to the other, what might leave one of us on the verge of death might take the other less resilient party out entirely.
Aside from the injury awareness, we set out some other clear guidelines. Last time, we had both tried doing things that we would not normally do. This time, only Chika would proactively do something unusual, while I would do everything within my power to live as normally as possible. This had been Chika’s proposal, as she hypothesized that there was a possibility that, just like the shared events in our worlds, each of our actions might affect the other to varying degrees.
In the case with Izumi, I had done nothing more than pick up the phone, while Chika had gone out of her way to actually see her former friend. Putting aside lightning, rain, and death, if our own proactiveness choices had any effect on the actions and outcomes, then me venting my anger on that piece of wood had directly led to Chika getting hurt. Realizing this, I had no choice but to apologize for what I had done. Still, the fact that we could proactively have some effect on one another’s lives was a happy thing. If we could intentionally affect one another, there were a lot of potential benefits.
What I needed to do was devote myself to keeping up in real time with domestic weather reports and news of other incidents, as well as any other events of global import. If Chika did this as well, then we could confirm whether there was any interference between our worlds. So now, any time I had a free moment at work or school, I was always on my phone, skimming the news.
As a result of this, or rather, because I no longer had a reason to make conversation with her, my seat neighbor Tanaka looked puzzled about my return to my former behavior. I did still reply when she greeted me, and I responded to any attempts to start chatting about her dog, but I was no longer the one to initiate these exchanges. “What’s with you?” she’d ask, but I had simply gone back to my normal self. The only new information I obtained from Tanaka in those few weeks was that her dog’s name was Allumi.
Once more, I was back to my normal life: my life in a world without Chika. My normal, boring life with my normal, boring self and the trivial people around me. Ever since I met Chika, my whole life had begun to revolve around those dozens of minutes I spent with her. I began to wonder if it was unusual for me to live like my time at the bus stop was my reality, my life outside of it like a dream, but that wasn’t true.
I had to look out for the special things in my own world.
In and of itself, my meeting Chika meant nothing after all. Even my heart skipping a beat when I was lucky enough to see her again only came from my attaining one more chance to find something special—nothing more, nothing less.
Based on the information that we shared with one another and my own investigations, it did not seem that Chika’s actions had had any effect on my world. It was unfortunate, but there was nothing we could do about that. There was still a lot I didn’t know. So, putting that aside, I decided to ask Chika what the average life was like for people of her world, when she suddenly said, “Obviously we have no way of knowing this, but I wonder, if we had been born into each other’s worlds, would the way that we each think and live have turned out different?”
I doubted that I would have turned out exactly the same regardless of where I was born, just because of who I am. There was no way someone as boring as me wouldn’t be shaped by his birthplace and surroundings and the people he knew. If I’d been born in a different place, I would simply be a different type of boring individual. If I had been born on enemy soil, I’m sure I would see Japan as an enemy by now.
“I do think I would be different, but I wonder how much you believe in your own soul, in the firmness of your character.”
“I feel that there are things inside you that never change, no matter where you are,” she replied. “But it’s different for your philosophies, lifestyle, and preferences. If I was in your world right now, my voice and appearance would be different in a way I might not even realize at first. That’s about where I’m at. The same would go for if you were in my world.”
Given that I knew her only by the shape of her eyes and nails, even if I were to see her in the flesh in my world, I doubted I would recognize her.
“If you were that different, you’d be basically a different being,” I replied.
“On the surface, that might be true, but don’t you think there are things deeper down, immovable things that we can’t choose?”
By my reckoning, if your personality and appearance and voice were different, then you were already 100 percent not yourself. Perhaps even Chika’s philosophy that there were things within us that we could not oppose was something that she had been born into her world with, that would be different in ours.
“Things that we can’t choose? Like what?”
It was a difficult question, I must say. Thus, I prepared myself to have to wait for her answer, but that turned out to be unnecessary.
“I’m pretty sure that, even if I had been born in your world, I still would have met you.”
“…You mean like fate?”
Fate—a word that carried the same meaning as resignation.
“I don’t think it’s like fate. I guess I’m saying that the part of me that wouldn’t change is good at meeting people.”
Once again, the novelty of her thought process was on full display. That said, in a way it seemed to touch on the meaningless delusions I’d been having as of late. Naturally, I never thought about this during my daily life—only at night on the evenings when Chika appeared at the bus stop. My thought was this: What it would be like if Chika were a resident of my world and we met? I had already put even more thought into that than Chika. There was no use talking about things that could have been, but still, I was curious. If she were the same sort of life-form as me and lived a normal life in my world, would we have even noticed each other? If we had ever chanced to meet, to recognize each other’s existence for even the shortest while, might we have formed some connection? Was there even the slightest chance that I would have enjoyed talking with Chika in this way if she weren’t a resident of another world?
It was pointless to imagine.
As I said before, if Chika had been born into this world, she would probably have a completely different set of values. The Chika who lived in that world met the me of this world. That was what made this meaningful, and if we could derive nothing from it, then it would mean nothing.
This was reality, though, so there was no point in thinking about things that were entirely impossible. To even speculate about impossible things like this wasn’t like me at all. I knew this.
But despite knowing it, I still kept thinking it was because, deep down, I had begun to feel a sort of jealousy for those who had been given the chance to simply live near Chika. But that simple opportunity didn’t mean anything in and of itself. I knew that as well.
However, as the days rolled by and my thirst grew, these were the thoughts that came to me. I hoped that the special one known as Chika would always be there. I wished I didn’t have to wait out these empty, boring days.
“There’s the siren. See you later then, Kaya.”
“Yeah, see ya.”
The moment we parted and I was returned to my normal life, I was consumed by a singular thought: I want to see her again.
Somehow, the scent of the rainy scene that Chika had painted on her fingertips still lingered in my mind.