Before they knew it, the sun had set, and it came time for the four girls to leave the cafe. Akane had explained in advance that she had something else to take care of in the area, so she saw them off.
Yes, The Girl had important business to attend to.
The streets were so bright, one would never know the sun had set, and she walked them alone. Her next destination was a different flower shop from the one she had visited previously. Of everything she had done today, this was the only part that resembled the protagonist of Girl’s March.
In the story, The Girl didn’t start to like flowers until Ai introduced her to them. As Christmas approached (described in the narration as “a special day to spend with family”), The Girl stumbled upon a flower shop and decided to order flowers to be delivered to her family as a gift. After that, she headed to the place where she’d agreed to meet up with Ai, but instead of calling out to him, she simply gazed at him from afar. Alone, she fled into her own little world and prepared to leap into a shadowy void from which she could never return. This was what took place at the climax of the book.
Unfortunately, Akane didn’t know where she could find Ai today. Instead, after she left the flower shop, she decided to take a stroll around the district.
For starters, she walked up the hill, then traced the outer rim of the basin, gradually arcing back toward the bottom. It drove home how surprisingly big this district was. She spotted a familiar music venue and cafe along the way, but there was no sign of Ai. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t gotten her hopes up, but at the same time, she had known this was going to happen, so she accepted it.
On second thought, no—she had come to terms with it long ago.
Apparently, she wasn’t the protagonist of Girl’s March after all. Unlike The Girl, she didn’t have a life adorned with special things. The book must have been written for someone else, because neither she nor anyone she knew was a character in it. And so she spent an unremarkable day as the unremarkable Itobayashi Akane, walking through the district and feeling very calm.
Must be about time now. She took her phone out to check the time, then put it back into her pocket. She had a few missed calls, but at this point she didn’t feel the need to strengthen her relationship with a fellow nobody.
It all felt like an eternity ago.
She walked past the yellow record store where she had first deluded herself into thinking they were characters from a book. Gradually, the crowds of passersby were growing more dense. Twenty meters in front of her, at the very bottom of the bowl shape, she could see the crosswalk light at the big intersection. She adjusted her pace to match, and when the time came, she stopped short.
The woman directly behind her reacted with surprise at the girl who had stopped without warning in the middle of the sidewalk. As she passed, she shot a vicious glare over her shoulder. Likewise, a businessman let out a loud scoff, even though he hadn’t been impacted in the slightest.
Perhaps some people in this world were born with thick skin, impervious to such things, but Akane wasn’t one of them.
Please don’t scowl at me like that. Please don’t get upset. Look at me—I’m sweet and friendly, and sometimes a little lazy, but when push comes to shove, I know how to roll up my sleeves. I love other people just as much as I love myself. I care about romance and friendship. I don’t always get along with my family, but I’m grateful they brought me into the world. I haven’t figured out what my dream is, but I believe I can take it one day at a time and have fun along the way. With everyone I’ve met thus far, and everyone whose paths I’m sure to cross, I feel like a happy life is waiting for me somewhere out there. See? I can show you an Itobayashi Akane you’re sure to like, I promise. I promise!
The need to be liked was slowly crushing her, and now she knew she could expect to be suffocated like this every single day for the rest of her life. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to escape from this stark white void of isolation.
Please…please…!
But she wasn’t going to find her courage from merely begging, so to psych herself up, she shouted—as briefly as possible.
“AAAH!”
Then she took off running—suddenly, it would have seemed, to an outside observer. With her bookbag still dangling from her shoulder, her ungainly gait made her brush and bump into several different people in front of her. Her actions were making them annoyed and suspicious. But she wasn’t forced to look at their faces, so she didn’t. Though the obstacles hindered her momentum, she kept going.
Each step brought her closer to the destination she had chosen. The place where she met someone she could believe was Ai, at least for a little while. The place where her dream was born.
She was waiting for the precise moment the crosswalk light turned red—the brief window of time in which the cars would race by at less-than-modest speeds. Conveniently, there was a gap between the crowds of people waiting at the corner for the light to change. She could run there. So she did, barreling toward her destination.
Right as she arrived, however, something happened against her will.
All the people and things she’d seen today—all the smiles that were directed not at her real self, but the façade—rose and faded in her mind, over and over, until just one remained. Not her family, not her friends, not even her ex-boyfriend, but the girl she saw every morning in the mirror, glaring at her.
“Die.”
She stepped forward to the final landing: the oncoming traffic.
Fortuitously, there was a car rapidly approaching.
At long last, she would be free of this ugly, embarrassing compulsion to be liked.
The world she’d always dreamed of was right in front of her.
Happily ever after.
It didn’t match the story anymore.
But that was fine.
“Like hell it is, you moron.”
At that exact moment, of all possible times, she caught a whiff of sweet poison.