Her voice was filled with melancholy, as though she was holding something beautiful and delicate. Unable to ignore that ephemeral voice, I immediately popped those soft, sweet words between us into my mouth and devoured them.
“In that case…” I swallowed. “I forgive you, Chika.”
I had no idea that those words would linger there inside me and never leave. Or rather, maybe I did know. Perhaps for a moment I even thought that I was fine with that.
“I want to forgive you too.”
“Guess we’ll be sharing the same sin.”
“…That’s fine.” Though I could only see her eyes, it seemed she was neither happy nor sad. “I want to share the burden together.”
We could only share things with our voices. We only had the faintest picture of each other’s worlds and values. Here we were, deigning to pardon one another from totally different worlds. It was only forgiveness, and yet, it was odd.
Somehow, ever so slightly, it felt easier to breathe.
“If you’re fine with it, then let’s do that,” she said. As she spoke, I suddenly realized something. I finally realized it.
Perhaps she—Chika—could not change my life.
Perhaps she only existed for this weak, pitiful version of me. There was someone who would forgive me so I could accomplish my goals in this world just as I was right here. And if she wasn’t here, I would have stopped being myself. I would be crushed, suffocated, and terrified by the idea of being a normal, boring human. Looking back, Chika never guided, nor persuaded, nor criticized me. She was simply there, sharing her thoughts for her own sake. And she permitted me to be just as I was too.
Perhaps that was the only meaning there was. Perhaps her entire presence in my life was simply meant to support me. That had to be it. Thinking about it, it was simple.
I looked straight into her eyes, as I had when we first met. In that moment, I was sure it was fine to simply stare, no meaning behind it. Deep in my heart, I felt saved by the fact that her eyes and nails were there, looking only at me.
I had thought that people could never save each other. It felt like a fragment of those soft, sweet words had caught in my throat, but I swallowed it back down, ignoring it.
“Thank you.” I had not intended to speak, but again the words spilled from my mouth. “Thank you for being here for me. You brought me back.”
There is surely a mass to one’s true heart, something that your lips cannot bear the weight of that comes rolling out in front of others. That weight increases all the more when it’s an emotion you’ve never once felt before.
I had never been so happy just to have someone there for me. Never before had such a trivial thing brought me such joy.
“Just having you around has brought me closer to my goals. Sorry for being so loud earlier.”
I lowered my head, penitent.
If I wanted to accomplish anything, I couldn’t wallow in regret and sorrow. I could repent for what I had done, but it would never be enough. No number of apologies to Allumi would ever make up for what I’d done. Thus…there was no point in dwelling on it.
Allumi was dead. Rather than sit around mourning, I had to fulfill my purpose. That was the most just thing I could do.
Thinking about it, what happened with Allumi might have just been a symbolic event. Grieving Allumi’s death was nothing but egoism, as was fretting over Izumi’s suicide attempt. Feigning some heroic mourning over only your visible sins was nothing but a lie if you averted your eyes from the sins that others could not see.
I had taken away something special from so many other people in my quest to make myself special. I had stolen food from the mouths of so many others to live. That’s how humans live, ignoring what they cannot see. That’s why wars exist, no matter what world you live in. I could spend my entire life wanting to be forgiven by everyone I’d ever hurt, and it would never be enough. I was fully aware of this.
But there was nothing that I, a single, weak individual, could do about it.
If Chika was there, though, it was different. With Chika there, willing to forgive me, I could still fight. I could resist my own boring life being stolen away.
Chika could save me.
I could no longer deny that Chika was more to me than just a resident of another world. Yet I couldn’t figure out what you would call what I was feeling. Still, that had nothing to do with my purpose, nor with Chika. Nothing could replace the fact that Chika was here with me. But the moment I recognized that fact, worries bubbled up to the front of my mind. Just having Chika here helped me breathe, but I couldn’t think of a single way in which my being here helped Chika.
I had to repay her somehow. I looked deeply into her eyes. After several more blinks, she spoke.
“Pain probably has a big influence.”
“Pain?”
“Yeah. We can’t know whose actions came first, but lives have been impacted around us both. Lightning struck and a tree was hurt. Injuries are the same.”
“So being hurt, being broken, has an effect.”
“I can’t remember, did my accessory breaking have any effect on you?”
“This is the first I’m hearing about it.”
“Oh.” She chuckled at her own mistake. “Should we find out if that kind of thing will help you fulfill your purpose?”
“…No, let’s leave it aside for now,” I said, refusing a proposal that I would have leapt at immediately before now. All I wanted to do today was prove to myself that the conclusions I’d just come to about myself were true. And so, my next words were not directed toward Chika.
“Meeting you was my purpose.”
I stared silently into her eyes. She looked back at me, unblinking.
“I can’t say that I won’t one day try out what you suggested, but for now I just want to hear about you, Chika.”
She gave several short blinks, then her eyes slowly narrowed.
“Sure thing. Next time we meet, let’s not talk about the world or anything. Let’s just talk about me and you. That sounds good to me.”
Promises were nothing but a curse, but just this once I could, with genuine joy, nod my head and say “Yeah, let’s.”
From the way she was speaking I assumed the siren would be ringing soon, so I had replied with similar finality. But that wasn’t the case.
“Okay,” she said. “I better get going. My family’s gonna be worried.”
She stood up, oddly not making the sour face she usually did toward the siren. My confusion must have been obvious on my face.
“There wasn’t any war today,” she explained. “All those people died though, so I got worried about you.”
I was shocked.
“I don’t know if my coming here changed anything, but I’m glad I got to see some of those clouds hovering over your head blow away.”
I was surprised that Chika would do something purely for my sake, with no benefit to herself. I was happy of course, but I also felt that something dreadful might happen if I took this fact at pure face value. So the next words that rolled out of my mouth were rather absurd.
“Do you…”
“Yeah?”
“Do you…know everything I’m feeling?”
I wondered if she knew my feelings, all the emotions that I felt toward her that I couldn’t place. I immediately regretted asking, although I truly did have some suspicions. But Chika just shook her head.
“Obviously I can’t know what’s in someone else’s heart. So please, tell me.”
If I had to mush my heart up and summarize it in a single phrase:
“I think…I like you, Chika.”
By the time I realized what I was saying, it was already too late.
“Thanks. I like you too, Kaya. All right, see you.”
“Oh, sure. See ya. Try not to get caught.”
I could tell by her response that she hadn’t understood the gist of what I was saying at all—which was a huge relief. The lights of her eyes and nails disappeared into the darkness.
I had no idea how much effect both our willpower had on our connection. In that same ignorance, I no longer simply wanted to see her again—I was determined to see her again. That was why I had made that promise. Even so, how could I possibly say something like that out of nowhere? I knew that thinking about it would only make me want to claw my own chest open, so I swiftly put it out of my mind and left.
When I opened the shelter door, a light rain was falling. If Chika’s hypothesis that getting hurt had a mutual effect was correct, if I caught a cold then Chika might catch one too.
I hurried home.
Our promise to tell one another about ourselves the next time we met would never come true.