“No, it’s not the same,” she continued. “But I’m sure that I’ve felt the same thing you did.”
“Don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
Her expression changed. She had the calm of someone who had seen the monster’s true guise and was no longer afraid. What gushed forth from me in the face of this was rage, pure and unadulterated, the first I had felt in so long.
“Don’t you dare compare her to some meaningless artform…!”
“That girl means just as little to me. But she’s someone irreplaceable to you, isn’t she?”
“What could you possibly know about us?”
The earnest shrug she gave was like nails dragging down my back.
“I don’t know anything. I could never understand the things that are important to other people when I don’t even really know what music, which I cherish so much, is to me.”
“And you’d put that on par with what I—”
I coughed, cutting myself off. At first, I thought my own anger had crystallized and torn a hole in my throat. Even in that moment, though, I still minded the engrained societal edict that you should turn away from other people’s faces when you cough.
“It’s too big for me to really understand, but I’ve been thinking about it this whole time. How much did you really understand that girl, Kaya-kun?”
“I…”
“I’m guessing you’re held prisoner by her because you don’t have the slightest idea what she really is to you.”
“You’re wrong.”
Saying that I was held captive implied that if Chika were to vanish from my heart I could actually come to value something else. I could not. I had made it this far only by the warmth of those feelings deep inside me, feelings that nothing else in this world could give me. There was no one more important than Chika. There was no one as precious as her. Only I could fully understand these feelings, entirely unique to me. I wasn’t like Saitou, who just had some vague admiration for someone else’s creations. I was nothing like someone of that ilk.
How dare she sully my light with her cheap sympathy?
“I really thought that music saved me. I thought that as long as I still had a love for it, I would be fine. But when I realized that I didn’t really understand anything about it, and that it hadn’t been trying to save me, it broke my heart. So I’m still trying to determine what it is that music means to me.”
I noticed something like joy wrapped up in her expression, which riled me all the more.
“I don’t even have to think about Chika and me. I’m not like you.”
“What did you like about her, Kaya-kun?”
“All of her.”
I didn’t have to think twice. I knew just what to say. I adored Chika’s very existence.
“I don’t mean something that vague. I want to hear it in your own words.”
“You…”
Why was she coming for Chika like this? Why was she trying to stand in the way of my light? Did she doubt what I was saying? Or was she just jealous of Chika? If she wanted to know so badly, I would tell her. I searched back in my memories.
“Chika is the only thing inside of my heart that could never fade away. She affirmed the whole of my being.”
“And she wasn’t just making you think that?”
I found myself utterly at a loss for words at this insolence.
“It’s impossible to fully understand another person, to affirm them utterly and completely. Basing your feelings entirely on someone else’s affirmation of you isn’t the same as loving them.”
What could have possibly possessed her to keep piling on? I had evolved beyond rage to sheer vertigo. How utterly could Saitou—could this Sunou Sanae—lack any kind of judgment? Had she always been this hopelessly thoughtless?
“People fall in love with even the parts of the object of their affection that they can’t see. It’s the same whether you love a person or a thing.”
Maybe for all of you. I thought. For you Tanakas and Saitous. But my feelings for Chika are different. They’re special. Special. No matter how worthless I might be, these feelings matter.
“I had certain ideals when it came to music, something shapeless, formless. I even thought that it affirmed me to the fullest. But, even with that love, I still have to keep moving forward on my own two feet. Hearing you talk about Chika, you reminded me of how I used to be. Y’know, together we could…”
I heard a switch flip within me.
“That’s enough.”
It wasn’t for dramatic effect or any other particular reason that I cut her off. There was simply no need for me to listen to anything else she had to say.
“You can stop right there, Saitou.”
It made sense, if you thought about it. Why was she spewing all these incomprehensible things? How could she be so misguided as to think that her own experiences could apply to me? The things I had experienced were special, something that no one else had ever experienced. She just had no self-awareness. I had always believed myself to be a boring, run-of-the-mill individual, and I suppose I truly was.
But my encounter with Chika was a miracle.
Thus, perhaps it was inevitable that Saitou, who lacked any shred of real understanding, would make logical conjectures from commonplace sources—from the myriad of things she had experienced in her own life or what she had heard from others. What was I even getting so angry for?
What more could I have expected of her?
She was nothing more than a simple Saitou.
She wasn’t like Chika at all.
“Just leave, please.”
She looked at me, surprised. It was an utterly boilerplate reaction.
“I don’t think we should have anything else to do with each other.”
I had fully predicted her next reaction as well. Something like anger, a sense of betrayal, crossed her face, and then she said something completely off the mark.
“You aren’t going to tell me anything…?”
“If that nothing of a response is the best you can give me, then I don’t need to tell you anything else about Chika.”
With that, the dam of her anger finally seemed to burst.
“Why would you say it like that?!”
I said nothing.
“Why are you acting like you’re the only one who understands anything?!”
I wasn’t. The only thing that should have read on my face was boredom at having to put up with such drivel from someone who hadn’t even yet tasted their gale.
She glared at me. “You arrogant little…” I didn’t think that I was making a face that would have warranted such hostility. “You’re just hung up on some girl from the past!!!”
“That’s right.”
I could have just sat there and accepted her abuse, but my keeping silent wouldn’t be enough to make her back down. I affirmed her assertions as she hurled her insults as though to wash my hands of her, and simply waited for her to fall back on her own.
“You are 100 percent correct. Enough of this already.”
I looked away. I figured she might toss the coffee that was close at hand in my face or maybe sling more abuse in an attempt to elicit a reaction from me.
“What the hell is this Chika?! You say she affirmed everything about you? She’s just as stupid as you are.”
See what I meant?
“Maybe.”
“You aren’t upset that I’m making fun of a girl you used to love? If you only saw her eyes and nails, doesn’t that mean that you fell in love with your imagination? What if you filled in the rest of her based on what you wanted to see?”
“You’re probably right.”
“The only thing you actually shared was conversation, right? You never really saw eye to eye, so you probably just got fascinated with whatever you selfishly interpreted her to be.”
“That’s entirely possible.”
“And was that girl even actually there? It’s seriously twisted to say you’d never forget someone that you just made up in your head.”
“That is also true.”
“Get angry!”
She stood up, huffing through her nose. I saw her hands trembling out of the corner of my eye.
“If this girl was so important to you that you’d say there’s no point in living, that you’d say that all the time we spent together was a lie, if you’d say that back then was the only time of your life that ever mattered, then at least have the decency to be true to your old self!”
Just how mistaken could one Saitou be?
Of course I was being true to myself. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about Chika. Obviously, I was being incredibly sincere. I just didn’t think there was any use in trying to argue this with Saitou.
“What would that Chika girl think if she saw you now?”
“Who knows?”
It was pointless to even consider, given that I was never going to see her again. And also…
“I don’t care about how people see me anymore.”
“Just… Jeez, forget it.”
With that, she moved away, picking up her coat and shoes and heading toward the front door. I picked up the coffee cup in front of me and took some into my mouth. The taste was weak.
“Y’know something?” Her voice crashed down on my head, making me wish she would just leave. Was she going to give some canned parting remark? Well, this was the last time. I supposed I could at least hear her out.
“You…”
“Yeah?”
“By pinning all your own wretchedness on that girl, all you’re doing is sullying her.”
This time, she actually seemed to leave the living room. I didn’t look up, but I could tell by her footsteps. I heard the front door open and then close.
Before I realized it, I had tossed the coffee mug I was holding at the wall. I sat there silent, gazing at the shards of the cup and the dripping brown liquid.