At a certain point, the story of Girl’s March began to accelerate rapidly. After making friends with The Girl and spending time with her, Ai sensed that she was hiding something and began to question her carefully constructed exterior. When he discovered her true self locked behind it, he understood and accepted her, then tried to rescue her from the prison of her heart. The Girl was afraid at first, but in the end, Ai’s steadfast determination inspired her to choose a life of sincerity from that day forward.
When Akane imagined this happening for her, she was overcome with a freeing sensation unlike anything she’d ever felt before, immediately followed by fear. Not because she was scared of taking that step, or scared of the friendships she’d lose over it, but because Girl’s March didn’t detail what happened to the main character after the decision was made. On the final page, The Girl thanked Ai for being her one source of never-ending support, and the story ended.
Disregarding any subtext and extrapolating from The Girl’s personality as depicted throughout the book, Akane couldn’t possibly imagine all the other characters cheerfully carrying on like nothing had changed. Likewise, she herself would surely walk the same path as The Girl, but her heart was so poisoned by the hunger to be liked that she wasn’t sure she could handle it, and she was terrified of finding out. Compared to a lifetime of this continued charade, however, it was nothing she couldn’t handle. Thus, she engrossed herself in the story in order to make her wish come true.
She was prepared for the timeline to get a little off-kilter, of course. For instance, it was possible that the botched reunion with Gotou Julia had achieved what it needed to, even if it wasn’t an exact match with the book. Judging from the way Julia had reacted, it would seem she and Ai were more than mere acquaintances. Perhaps that detail would become important later.
At this point, she was spending nearly every day with nothing to sustain her but Girl’s March and the need to be liked.
That was when Ai shot an invitation her way.
“I need to talk to you. When are you free?”
Just like in the book, she was suddenly hurtling toward the climax. Even an idiot could tell that this was no ordinary meetup, and it made her heart quiver.
✦ ✦ ✦
Itobayashi Akane
“Today, for the first time in her life, someone had seen through her disguise.”
GIRL’S MARCH, PAPERBACK EDITION, PAGE 152, LINE 12
TODAY, FOR THE FIRST TIME in her life, someone was going to see through her disguise.
Lightly bleached hair. Just enough makeup to technically be against school rules but not incur punishment. A sloppily donned uniform with the skirt rolled up a few centimeters shorter than she would prefer. Lastly, a school bookbag decorated with an oversized pass case plushie slung over her shoulder. This was Akane’s default look on a school day. Add on the navy blue coat she’d started wearing now that it was getting cold out, and the end result was classy without being tacky.
Morning and night, she stood in front of the mirror and wondered who this girl was staring back at her. Then one day she realized. This was the prison guard holding her true self captive—the wretched creature who overwrote all her other feelings with one singular compulsion.
If she went to school dressed like this, she could say hi to a handful of friends, share a laugh, commiserate, sometimes even fight, and all the other things that were necessary to build connections. She put on this act not for fun, but because she was just so desperate to be liked. Same with her boyfriend, and her family, and all the people she’d likely never see again, like passersby on the street, store staff, other diners at the same restaurant, random Twitter accounts, musicians, pop stars, and even authors who held autograph signings at her workplace. No matter who was with her, she only ever thought about what expression or word choice would win the most points. Everyone else could express their friendship and love without the need of such a filter, and she hated hers so much that she wished she could kill it dead. If only she had the guts.
Starting today, however, the story would progress. Ai was going to find the real Itobayashi Akane—cowardly and calculating, perhaps, but surely still capable of genuine love, just like in Girl’s March.
“Die,” she whispered to her sickening reflection. There was no response, so she reached for the doorknob and sculpted the sleepy expression she reserved for her family.