Chapter 14:
“Hatou Manabu”
“I DON’T KNOW MUCH about quantum theory and things like that…but I think if it’s my fate to die, that’s the fate I observe for myself. My fate is mine alone, and your fate is yours alone. I think that’s how it is.”
People could only observe and determine their own fate? It was only an abstract theory with no scientific evidence, yet somehow it socked me right in the gut. Oh, I see, I thought. I’d thought if no one could observe me, no one could get in my way. I’d thought I could protect Yukari. But if Yukari was right: the only one who could change Yukari’s fate to die was Yukari herself, and no one had been getting in my way; in fact, everything I’d done had just been an imposition on Yukari.
Yukari’s fate belonged to no one but herself. For someone else to try to change it was arrogant blasphemy, yet that was exactly what I’d been trying to do. Oh, I see, I thought again, far too late.
So that was what I’d had wrong. I’d been forcing my own desires on her. I’d said it was for Yukari’s sake, while ignoring her feelings. I used her as an excuse to impose my own. I was fleeing from my own fate which I ought to have faced: the reality that I couldn’t save Yukari, plus the reality of myself and my overwhelming powerlessness.
Oh. I’m such a massive idiot.
Before I went off trying to protect Yukari, so smug and self-righteous, I ought to have told her how I felt. Instead of imposing on her, I ought to have told her: “I’m sorry I’m too weak to protect you. Just like Alice says, I’m a nobody and I don’t have any outstanding talents, and the way things are you might end up dead, but still I want to struggle with you, no matter how cold reality is.”
I’m sorry, Yukari. You’re absolutely right. I was wrong all along.
“No, I’m sorry! Again, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t gone and fixed you with a cell phone, this never would have—”
It’s not like that. It’s not your fault. There was no other way, and you couldn’t have predicted this. In the end, it was my decisions that made things turn out like this. Besides, it’s not so bad being the way I am. This “body” can be pretty useful for helping you out. I’ll be fine.
I saw it now. I’d gone far, far astray. It was too late to turn back, but—so I’d just—
“That’s not it at all!” Yukari exclaimed. “Gaku-chan, I’m truly grateful you care so much about me, but…it hurts. I can’t stand for you to be deformed like this.” Tears distorted her voice. “I can’t bear to never feel you hugging me again.”
Rushing to reassure her, I said, Wait, no, remember? Hatou Manabu still exists in this world. So don’t—
“No! That Gaku-chan is Gaku-chan, but you’re Gaku-chan too! Uh… Anyway, even if that Gaku-chan exists, I don’t want you to be like this forever, unable to be seen or to speak to anyone but me. For that to continue forever, even after I die, into eternity—I don’t want that! If you admit your sins, Gaku-chan, I think you’ve already paid the price. I’ll try harder for you, Gaku-chan. I’ll try hard to stand up to my fate so you don’t have to deform yourself like this. So come on, Gaku-chan, let’s go back, okay?”
I smiled—or I would have if I could—and told her, Thank you, Yukari. I’m grateful you feel that way.
“Then come on!”
But it’s impossible now. I can’t go back anymore. I mean…
I don’t know how to go back.
Yukari froze momentarily at my words. “How…I mean…can’t you use your cell phone like you did before?” Her voice dripped with unease.
I did my best to answer calmly. It was “Hatou Manabu” who had the cell phone. The one who insisted, “That’s how I go,” wasn’t me anymore, but “Hatou Manabu.” It’s true I might have been “Hatou Manabu” once. But now…
I remembered being an entity called Hatou Manabu once, long, long ago. However, I didn’t know what that meant anymore. What was Hatou Manabu? I didn’t know how to go back to being that being.
Before I knew it, I’d lost too much of me.
I became my mother. I became Tenjou Nanami. I became your mother, even. With my ability to become anyone, my memories grew too infinite, too countless; they mixed too much, changed too much; and 13.7 billion years of evolution is just too long. I don’t know what it means anymore to exist as “Hatou Manabu.”
“What, that’s all? If that’s all you’re worried about, there’s no problem!”
Yukari’s strident pronouncement seized me right there in my sea of memories.
With a smile, she continued: “Oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you, huh? Gaku-chan, you’re confused. Sorry.”
Huh?
“I understand. Okay, let me ask you, you were just talking about how you became so many people, but then why didn’t you become me? Did you ever become Alice-chan?”
Huh? Uh, I never managed to become you or Alice…but that’s because Alice is a foreigner…
“No, that’s not it. I mean, setting Alice-chan aside, you became my mother, but you never became me, right? I’m Japanese, and I’m my mother’s child. I thought you could become anyone genetically linked. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
It did, now that she mentioned it. When I realized I could become other people, of course I did try to become Yukari. I figured that being Yukari might be the best way to protect Yukari. (It seems to stray from the point when you look at it, but at the time I was willing to try anything.) But even though I’d been able to become Yukari’s mother, I wasn’t able to become her flesh and blood, Yukari. At the time, I just figured that was how it worked and didn’t think too hard about it.
Do you know why that is, Yukari?
“Mm-hmm.” Yukari smiled with a hint of melancholy. “Well, I’m guessing, but I think you knew it deep down. You knew you’d never be able to see what I saw. You knew no one would ever be able to see what I saw.”
You mean…
Absolute Parallelism.
Yukari and I could never intersect, could never truly understand each other, but we had to admit that to be friends with each other. That was the fundamental premise of everything. I did know that. I’d admitted it and accepted it.
“Likewise you knew you’d never know how things looked to the genius Alice-chan. So you couldn’t become Alice or me—I mean, you couldn’t pretend to be us. You never actually became Ten-chan or my mother. You looked like Ten-chan or my mother, you were in their position, and you thought you were them, but really, you were just Gaku-chan pretending to be them. So you never knew what Ten-chan or my mother saw either. No one can really share what they see with others. If you could, I think you’d have become me.”
I just thought I became others? I was still “Hatou Manabu,” even now? And that’s why I couldn’t adopt the identity of Yukari or Alice, because I knew from the start I couldn’t see what they saw?
That would explain why I hadn’t been able to become Yukari or Alice. But—
So what, though? I objected weakly. Even if you’re right, I still can’t remember who I am!
Yukari shook her head. “Look, you don’t have to remember! You don’t need any qualifications or anything. You could never be anyone else to begin with. Gaku-chan, you’ve always been Gaku-chan. I can’t be anyone but myself either. I can only see things the way I see them.”
“Yukari…”
“Right? No matter how deformed you might be, you’re still Gaku-chan. You don’t have to agonize yourself over remembering or things like that. Don’t think too hard; you can just feel.” She stopped to think, and then continued with a bashful look. “Gaku-chan? Do you remember when we first met, in the hall of our junior high school?”
Of course. I was walking down the hall, and you suddenly ran into me and stole my first kiss.
“Oh—oh—Gaku-chan, you’re the one who turned around all of a sudden! It was my first time kissing someone too…” Yukari turned her slightly reddened cheek and looked down at the model robot in her hands. She stared at it. Then she smiled and said, “Gaku-chan? I don’t need some godlike entity that will grant my wishes. What I want is a friend who will pray with me.”
Then she continued on.
“So let’s meet one more time, okay?”
Yukari softly kissed the robot in the palms of her hands. And the feeling I’d once experienced came rushing back to “my” brain I didn’t think I had, “my” body, “my” nonexistent arms.
It came back to life.
✦ ✦ ✦
I remembered. Yes, that was when we had met. That was when everything started.
What made an impression more than her lips was the feeling of her in my arms. She felt hot. She felt soft. I was panicked yet calm. Feeling the rigid Yukari over my whole body, I wondered what would happen next, how she would react once she regained her senses, and it kind of excited me. Thrilled me. The feeling of a sign of something about to begin overcame me, and I felt as if it was just us in the middle of this vast world.
That was how we met.
Yes, we must have been alone there then. We met miraculously—improbably—in this wide world. No matter how many people there may be in the world, no matter how many hugs, no matter how many kisses, that encounter of ours, that kiss, belongs to us alone. That feeling when we embraced and looked into each other’s eyes, belongs to me alone, my qualia of purple.
Hatou Manabu’s treasure.
That is how we, Marii Yukari and Hatou Manabu, met.
✦ ✦ ✦
I see, I thought as I fell through the infinite darkness. When I look at an apple, infinite versions of me look at the apple the same way. The countless “mes” in infinite universes see the same apple and feel the same thing. I think all the versions of myself looking at the apple at the same time resonate in some part of “my” brain, interfere with each other, link their images together in “my” head like a hologram. That’s qualia. Qualia are like strings through the countless overlapping membranes called “me.”
It’s the evidence that no matter how many “mes” there are in the universe, that all of them are the same me. No friend, no matter how close, can share that which only I understand—the proof that I am me.
I have no need to remember. That which I feel is that which only I can feel.
I’m no one else but Hatou Manabu. My qualia must be the proof.
The world was bathed in white light.