Going to Ai’s workplace was integral to the flow of the story. Beyond that, Akane didn’t care about the concert. It didn’t feel necessary, and she didn’t even remember the performers’ names.
But there was one band in particular, singing about how much more fun life could be when you were true to yourself, that she soon came to despise. She didn’t need someone to yell into a microphone to tell her what she already knew. And though she could see the group’s fans eagerly recording the performance on their phones, she prayed they’d never go mainstream so she’d never have to see or hear from them ever again.
A few sunrises and sunsets later, she was back to her normal routine: sitting in class, half-listening to a lecture and half-thinking about Ai. In order to get grades fitting of her character, she needed to fully understand the subject matter, so she couldn’t ignore the teacher completely.
In the back of the quiet room, inside a locker, was Akane’s bookbag containing a copy of Girl’s March and a bottle of nail polish, with an Anmanman keychain dangling from the strap.
Ai was so beautiful that day.
It had been a vignette from his everyday life. He was friendly with everyone around him, and they all accepted his brusque personality, his protective tendencies, his appearance, his chosen style—as did he himself. It was so obviously correct to live faithfully to one’s true self, they didn’t need to write songs and stories about it.
I want to be like that too one day, she found herself wishing yet again. It was little more than a dream for now, but she had faith that Ai would help her get there.
That being said, as long as she was in high school, she would have to carry out her daily life according to schedule. Even if she got to be her real self around her friends and family one day, today was not that day. In order to be liked, she would carefully conduct herself like normal.
Between classes she smiled, reacted loudly to a really bad joke, then smoothed things over. She always had multiple dialogue options at the ready—that way she could handle someone’s heartbreak or family struggles or any other anomalies. As usual, no one called her out for being fake.
When she thought about how no one would ever love her if they knew the real her, she nearly forgot to breathe. This, she believed, was a line she could never cross on her own. The same was true for The Girl, too. Even though she had so many people in her life who considered themselves her friends, she couldn’t trust a single one of them.
“Oh, I forgot!”
As she was eating lunch at a cluster of desks with her friends, she purposely raised her voice out of nowhere. Holding her chopsticks between her teeth, she rummaged around in her desk drawer and pulled out a single key, then threw it to the back of the room where a boy sat alone, eating a sandwich. But she had only bothered to control the strength of her throw, not the aim, and it collided with the bread before falling to the floor.
“Gah!”
“Oopsie…”
At the sound of her ditzy admission, he looked over; shamelessly, she pointed at the key on the floor.
“That’s from your sister.”
With the message relayed, she went back to her lunch and didn’t afford him another glance. Acting frigid to him better suited her need to be liked.
“Bayashi! You ought to be nicer to someone you’ve known your whole life! Sorry about her, Uemura-kun!”
At this, everyone laughed. It was obvious from Miyu’s apology that she didn’t actually give a damn about Uemura. Akane wondered how he reacted to being the butt of their joke, but again, she didn’t look to see.
Her need to be liked had an order of priority: family, friends, acquaintances, strangers. Each category contained its own internal hierarchy. Normally the younger brother of her longtime friend and coworker would rank decently high, but in actuality, she had sacrificed her relationship with him.
It was too risky to indiscriminately make friends with everyone. There was a chance it could come back to bite her. Therefore, she needed to make it plain who she did and didn’t like—and more people would think positively of her if the target of her hostility was a loser with bad vibes. Even those who initially found her attitude toward him strange would put two and two together once they learned the two of them had grown up together. Being childhood friends explained nothing, yet somehow was its own excuse.
Conveniently, Uemura was a weak-willed person; if he despised her for this, he had never complained to her directly. Akane’s emotions seemed to understand that this was the most cost-effective strategy, and so they didn’t stab her in punishment. But if he ever snapped—if he literally stabbed her, for instance—she was prepared to accept it. After all, everyone else would obviously take her side.
She felt no guilt toward him, because the second she did, she would want to die.
Picking at her bento lunch, she steered her thoughts back to Ai and their plans together, so that it might protect her soft tongue ever so slightly. In order to reenact the final scene, there were a handful of checkpoints that she and Ai would need to reach. She couldn’t afford to waste that energy on the old friend who now served as her meat shield.
In the girls’ restroom, once she was alone, she took the opportunity to email Ai about his work schedule. The reply was so instant, she didn’t even need read receipts: “I’ll send it to you later. Pay attention in class.”
Her face stiffened uncontrollably as she realized he had become protective of her. Luckily, the stall afforded her privacy.
“Yes, Dad!! ”
After she sent her reply, she powered the screen off—but it lit back up. She had received a new message not from Ai, but Shin, her boyfriend of six months. When she opened it, she learned that his parents were going to a relative’s funeral tomorrow night, and he would be home alone.
To avoid making him feel upset or anxious, she did a quick mental check of her schedule, then opened her calendar app to be doubly sure. Only then did she write back, filling the screen with her joy.
“Akane you reply too damn fast lol”
Sensing the embarrassed delight from the text, she was giddy to know that she had given him positive feelings. Then, as per usual, she bit her tongue.
I don’t want to make you happy because I like you—it’s because I want to be liked.
If only she could say it out loud, would the desire to die finally go away?
She didn’t leave the stall until the expression on her face was safe to be seen.