“What is it?” I turned back slowly.
She stared down at her still-empty glass, straw in her mouth, carefully avoiding my gaze. “You are technically Takasaki Koyomi, right?”
Technically? From my perspective, I was the only Takasaki Koyomi. “That’s me.”
“Then you know what he’s thinking, right?” she asked.
“…I mean, I know what I’m thinking…”
“Yes, and you’re Takasaki Koyomi,” she said again.
“Well, yeah…technically.” Ugh, now she’s got me saying it!
“Then help me, would you? I don’t understand the way he thinks… And at this rate, we might break up soon.”
It was a bizarre request. What should I do when my other self’s relationship wasn’t going well? What advice could I offer? Unlike him, I’d never had a girlfriend.
“We keep having these misunderstandings, and it feels like we’re fighting…” she began.
“Wait, uh, slow down a sec,” I cut in.
Loath though I was to admit it, I once read a romantic advice column—not that I was expressly searching for it, I assure you; I just randomly saw it online and accidentally clicked on it, and I was really bored at the time, so I lightly skimmed over it—that warned never to interrupt a girl while she was talking. But…I probably didn’t need to worry about that right now, since she was technically already dating me.
“What is it?”
“I just, uh, wanna make sure real quick: you’re Takigawa Kazune-san, right?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“High school first-year?”
“Yes,” she said.
“In my world, it’s July—three months since school started back in April. What about yours?”
“It’s the exact same. There’s never any time lag when parallel shifting—didn’t you know that?”
“Yeah, I know. Okay then, did you and I go to the same elementary or junior high?” I asked.
“No…”
“So we met for the first time here in high school?”
“Correct.”
That was everything I wanted to double-check…but the conclusion it led me to was unfathomable. I mean, I understood it, but I didn’t accept it—didn’t want to accept it.
“So you’re saying that…over the course of the three months since we’ve met, you and I started dating, now it’s going poorly, and we might break up?”
“Two months. We started dating in May,” she answered matter-of-factly.
Wasn’t that moving a little too quickly? Or was I just an old-fashioned prude? “Um… Could I ask you how the two of you got together?”
Now I’d gone and asked the big question. But eh, it felt like the right moment, and since it was 85 entire worlds away from here, it was basically all fanfiction to me, anyway.
“I’m not sure how it went in this world, but in mine, right after the school year started, the whole class decided to go out to karaoke as an icebreaker.”
“What? Our class?”
“Yeah.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Not everyone showed up, obviously, but I’d say about half of the class did, including me and Koyomi. But then it got late, and someone even brought in alcohol. I didn’t want to get in trouble if we were caught, so I snuck out by myself.”
Compared to scolding them or joining in, that was possibly the smartest choice.
“Then, as I was walking downtown, some weirdo started harassing me,” she said.
“What kind of weirdo?”
“He was dressed in dirty clothes and wearing sunglasses at night. He kept following me, asking me if I wanted to buy…something, I don’t know what. I tried to ignore him, but then out of the blue, he grabbed my arm and tried to drag me into an alley.”
“Scary,” I commented, like I was watching a crime report on TV. Hard to believe there were any genuinely dangerous people in a city as rural as ours.
“But then, Koyomi rescued me.”
“What…?” For a second, this didn’t process.
“Before I could scream, he came charging into the alley. Then he tackled the weirdo, grabbed my hand, and took off running. We ran all the way to a busy area, and once we caught our breath…that was when I realized who saved me. When I asked him why, he said he noticed my absence, and since it was late, he followed me out so he could walk me home. Then he laughed about how he totally made the right call.”
“He who?” I asked.
“Takasaki Koyomi.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”
Granted, we were an entire 85 worlds apart, but I could absolutely never see myself doing something that badass and manly. Otherwise, I had no excuse for being the pathetic nerd I was now.
Please, tell me you’re joking!
“I’m serious.”
Damn it!
“That was at the end of April… At the beginning of May, I asked him out.”
“You asked him out?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Him, as in…?”
“Koyomi,” she confirmed.
Nope. Couldn’t be a parallel of my world. At this point, this was like a straight-up isekai story.
“He said yes right away, but…”
Her tone went dark, and when I glanced over at her, I saw that the girl who was gleefully gushing about her boyfriend’s bravery just moments prior was now looking much gloomier. After that classic rom-com start to their relationship, how could it possibly be going poorly?
This other Takasaki Koyomi must have revealed his true colors. He probably only saved her purely by happenstance, and now she was starting to see just what a loser he actually was. That was the real Takasaki Koyomi. Sad, I know.
“But now things aren’t going well, you said? How come?” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer, but I needed to keep the conversation rolling.
“He’s always hanging out with other girls. And when I ask why, he said it’d be silly to stop hanging out with his friends just because he has a girlfriend.”
Nope. Couldn’t be me. Who the hell was this guy?
She continued. “I said, ‘Well, could you at least not hang out with them one-on-one?’ But he was like, ‘It’s not cheating!’ So he tells these girls that he has a girlfriend, and then he tells me whenever he hangs out with them… I just don’t get it. It’d make more sense to me if he was hiding it.”
No kidding. I didn’t get it either.
“Look, you’re Takasaki Koyomi, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Tell me, what in the world is he thinking?”
I wanted to ask him that myself! At this point, all I had to rely on was that other advice column I randomly saw online and clicked on by accident and only read because I was bored—Ladies Tell All: Why Do Men Cheat?
“Well, uh… No matter how much you may love…curry, for instance, if you eat it every single day, you’ll get sick of it, you know…? But if it’s your favorite, then you’ll always come back to it, so, um… They say a woman’s strongest skill is her patience…” I rambled out.
“How very pedestrian.”
In the same way that I was struggling to believe her boyfriend was really Takasaki Koyomi, I was starting to question whether this lovestruck damsel was really Takigawa Kazune.
However, her icy glare was exactly like the Takigawa-san I knew. “Well… Maybe you’re right.”
“Huh?”
“Maybe he is sick of ‘curry’ every day.”
“That, or…maybe he just treats his female friends the same as his male friends?” I suggested.
“What?”
I couldn’t possibly imagine what some fanfiction version of me was thinking. But I was technically Takasaki Koyomi, so…maybe it was up to me to cheer her up a bit.
“Well…based on what you’ve told me, it seems like the other me hangs out with girls whether or not he’s dating them—same as with his bros. I bet they’re all in the ‘friend’ category. And the…you know, romantic stuff he wants to do with you because you’re his girlfriend—he probably doesn’t think of anyone else that way at all, so he can probably hang out with them like normal without it being weird… Maybe?” That was the best I could manage entirely off the cuff.
“…Is that how it is for you?” she asked.
No, I don’t have friends. But obviously I couldn’t tell her that. “Yeah, more or less.”
“I see.”
It was just a little white lie, though I had no way of knowing if it actually helped. She averted her eyes and went quiet once more. But as she gazed at her empty glass, it seemed as though her expression was just a bit brighter.
Likewise, I sat there in silence. At times like these, it would have been helpful if a love song was playing in the background, but instead, some old guy was crooning a sad enka ballad about drowning his sorrows in whiskey. If only I was old enough to drink.
“You can leave now, if you like,” I heard her say.
Part of me wanted to stay, but I shook the thought away and rose to my feet. Don’t get it twisted. She’s not your girlfriend. The Takasaki Koyomi she loves isn’t you.
“Okay then, I’m gonna head out,” I said.
“Oh, and you don’t owe me anything. I’ll pay for the room.”
“You sure?”
“My family’s rich, so I have a lot of spending money.”
“Yeah, but that money belongs to this world’s Takigawa-san. You shouldn’t use it without her permission.”
“What? Oh, you’re right. I suppose I shouldn’t…”
Her eyes widened like she was caught off-guard. It was adorable, but I chose to disregard this observation. Otherwise it would add fuel to a flame I didn’t want burning.
“Are you leaving too?”
“No, I think I’ll stay and sing a little before I go.”
“Oh, so you actually like karaoke?”
“What are you talking about? Don’t you remember all those times we— Oh.” She hung her head guiltily, though in my opinion she’d done nothing wrong. If anything, the reminder that she wasn’t from this world would help me stay in mine. “…Would you like to sing something?”
“Nah, I’m going home. See you.” Once again, I turned that bulky knob—
“Thank you, Takasaki-kun.”
I froze in place.
“Since there’s a chance I won’t see you again…I just wanted to let you know I appreciate it,” she said. “Because of you, I feel a little better now, so…thanks.”
Without saying a word in return, I opened the door and walked out.
It was the coolest moment of my entire life, if I do say so myself.