It seemed she couldn’t perceive her own needs and nature in a positive light, so she projected them onto others and regarded them with needless aggression. Right as he began to suspect she was just being too strict on herself, however, her next answer threw him a curveball.
“Also, I hate clueless idiots who tell me that I’m ‘still me,’ or that they want me to open up and be my ‘real self’ with them. Idiots who constantly flaunt that they’re sooo perfect and never tell lies…and wear women’s clothes.”
Ai, who had just taken a drag at that moment, exhaled a little harder than usual. “Suddenly this is about me? How specific. Well, okay.”
“And I hate being called a moron.”
He must have upset her a great deal, because even though she was clearly referring to him, she refused to look him in the eye. Guilty as he felt, he couldn’t help but laugh—not out of derision, but self-deprecation.
“I don’t know how true the rest of it is, but I gotta correct the record about myself.” He found himself gazing down at the bottom of the stairs, though he wasn’t sure if it was because he felt bad or merely a whim. “I do lie. In fact, I told one earlier today.”
“……”
“It was before I met up with you. As you said, I’ve always felt it’s best to be fully honest when communicating…though to be clear, I wasn’t intentionally trying to flaunt anything,” he carried on in spite of her silence. “I always believed the best-case scenario would be for each person to make their decisions based on their honest thoughts and feelings. But today I was asked to make a decision that wasn’t compatible with that, so…I lied.”
Faced with his own emotional response to an action which felt anomalous to him, he was able to reflect logically, and the inexplicable haze in his chest got a tiny bit clearer.
“I thought I’d hate myself for doing it, but believe it or not, when I stopped to think about it, the answer was…no, not really. I was the one who wanted to play it cool, after all, and I suspect the other person felt a little better because of it. Plus, if I’d been honest, I wouldn’t have made it in time to stop you.” He could tell he wasn’t making a ton of sense, so instead of trying to explain his philosophy, he spoke more vaguely of feelings, taking advantage of her silence to sort his own thoughts. “Sure, maybe it’s no excuse. But even if you were lying to me every single second up ’til now, I had a fun time, so I’m fine with it.”
He was just converting his heart into his voice, so she didn’t need to answer.
“I wish I could help you with…y’know, whatever’s got you chained down, but I’m not really sure what to do. It’s not like I can just gut you and cut you out of there like it’s a mascot costume.” He glanced at the bookbag sitting beside her and pointed to it with his cig. “Sort of like how your Anmanman’s only filled with stuffing or…beans or whatever.”
Without a word, she swiftly moved her bookbag behind her. He realized maybe she was afraid he’d burn it with his cigarette, so he apologized just in case.
“Sorry.”
“…hh…”
She started to say something, but fell silent once more. He didn’t know if she had changed her mind or just needed more time to think it over, but nevertheless, he decided to wait. After he finished his cigarette, he didn’t even pull out his smartphone—that way she would know she was free to speak her mind at any time. Eventually, around the time he figured the Impatiens concert was probably ending, he heard her voice again.
“…Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“How am I supposed to keep living?”
For the first time in ages, their eyes met. He ruminated on her question fully before giving an answer:
“Beats me.”
“Oh, come on!”
“How the hell am I supposed to offer a solution when I can’t even understand your problem?”
Again, he couldn’t lie to her.
“But if you don’t mind hearing my personal outlook, well…even if your personality or perception makes you so scared you want to die, I think you should keep living and do whatever makes you happiest, as much as you possibly can. This isn’t me trying to pity you, by the way. I love all my friends, and none of them are perfect! That includes you. Or if you believe your inside and outside are two different people, then both of you.” As he spoke, he thought of all the most frustrating aspects of each of his friends, and he smiled. “Obviously, I’m not perfect either. So to be a little more honest…if you’re still willing to be friends with me, despite knowing I’m a simple-minded, tactless liar, then we should hang out again sometime when you’re feeling up for it.”
His thoughts turned to his own selfish view of the future.
“Once you come of age, we can go out drinking together, and a few years after that, we can bitch about our jobs to each other and see who has it worse. That’s what I want for us, Itobayashi Akane. But like you bookworm types would say, it’s just my own personal ‘headcanon,’ right? It’s not in the source material. So if you don’t like it, you’re free to ignore it.”
It was the honest truth of how he felt, but he was afraid it would backfire, coming across as heartlessly self-centered rather than the constructive advice she wanted. At times like these, he wished he could make a good impression…but as usual, he was too blunt.
Akane appeared to agree with this evaluation, because she turned away and fell silent yet again. And since he lacked the grace to be able to think of anything that could cheer her up, he simply sat there next to her.
Since she showed no signs of turning back to him anytime soon, he lit up a third cigarette and held it in the hand furthest from her. Then, on a whim, he used the closer hand to rub her back. In response, she slid down to the step he was sitting on and ran her hands up his body until her arms settled around his neck. His cigarette nearly brushed against her clothes, so he hastily rubbed it out on the concrete.
“Whoa, whoa!”
She didn’t respond. All he heard was her breath in his ear. As he tried to figure out what to do, he thought back to the day his coworker warned him not to make a move on an underage girl. He was pretty sure he was overthinking it, but he decided to tell her upfront, just in case. It was important, after all.
“Sorry, but my heart belongs to someone else.”
“It’s not like that,” she shot back swiftly, and he chuckled.
Sure enough, he had nothing to worry about. In that case, at the very least, he had enough tact to be there for her as a friend for as long as she needed.
Before he knew it, a great deal of time had passed. Once their position started to make his back hurt, he called out to her, only to realize her breathing had fallen into the rhythm of slumber, and no amount of shaking her or calling her name would wake her. Chuckling to himself, he finally pulled out his smartphone and gave it a tap.