By the time I was finally set free, it was 8 p.m. Now it was time to accomplish my other goal—interacting with parallel Kazune. A long-distance shift was the perfect chance to test if I could truly love every her.
It had been hours and I still hadn’t glimpsed her yet. Part of me wondered if maybe she had a different job in this world, but when I checked the employee roster, sure enough, she was on it—she was just on a different research team. The system said she was still clocked in though, so I decided to sit in the lounge by the entrance and wait for her.
Approximately twenty minutes later, she arrived at the lobby, bustling along at an unusually fast pace for someone in heels. As she headed for the door, I gave chase and called after her like it was any other day.
“Kazune!”
“Hmm? Oh, Takasaki-kun. How was your day at work?”
It felt so deeply, viscerally wrong. She called me Takasaki-kun—a term of address my Kazune hadn’t used since before we started dating back in our first year of college. Even in World 9, she always called me Koyomi. If I was “Takasaki-kun” here, then…
“Did you need something?”
As I tried to think of how to answer, my eyes wandered to her left hand.
The aquamarine engagement ring…wasn’t there.
I had anticipated something like this. I knew that beyond a certain point, there would be worlds where Kazune and I weren’t engaged. And World 35 was well beyond that point, so the possibility was always there. But when I saw her naked ring finger, I couldn’t suppress my shock.
“…Takasaki-kun?” As she frowned dubiously, I silently raised my IP band for her to see. The moment she noticed the number displayed there, her eyes went wide as saucers. “Thirty-five?! That’s quite a journey… It’s the highest I’ve ever seen!”
This reaction reminded of the time she tricked me in high school. Back then, she had laid a sticker over her IP band screen to convince me she was from World 85. It totally worked—and as a result, we became friends. But what about in this world? Were those memories gone too? Thankfully, it was her next words that saved me from a panic attack.
“You’re not trying to get back at me for what happened in high school, are you?” She reached out and ran a fingernail over the screen. “Doesn’t seem to be a sticker… So you really shifted across 35 worlds? Where did I say I was from again? Was it World 35?”
What a relief. Those memories still existed here. I didn’t know at what point this world had branched off from my past, but it was safe to assume that she and I were still friends. I was too overcome with emotion to speak, but when she noticed my silence, her first thought was the same as mine.
“Did…that not happen in your world?” she asked.
From the concern on her face, I could tell that those memories were as important to her as they were to me, and that really meant a lot.
“…It wasn’t 35, it was 85,” I said.
“Eighty-five? Was it really that far? How in the world did you fall for it, then?”
“Well, I… I didn’t know as much about parallel worlds as I do now, obviously…”
“Riiight.” She smirked at me. Evidently, Kazune 35’s personality was much the same as mine. I hated it, but god, I loved it.
“Great work, you two!” a colleague called out, walking past to the door.
“Oh, uh, you too…” I’d forgotten we were loitering right in front of the entrance. “Instead of standing around, would you wanna get something to eat?”
“Hmm… Oh, I know! If we’re going out, why not do some karaoke like old times?”
Like old times. Those words made the distance between Kazune and I in this world palpably clear. In mine, we went for karaoke every other week or so.
“Yeah… For old times’ sake,” I answered carefully.
And so, after we grabbed a quick meal, we went to our usual karaoke lounge. First, we toasted our boozy drinks and sang a few songs to get the stress out. Then our appetizers arrived, so we took a break from singing to catch up.
Personally, I wanted to find out which critical juncture this world had branched from. I could see she and I weren’t engaged—were we still dating? Or were we just friends? Just coworkers? Obviously, I was curious.
“Are you seeing anyone right now?”
“No, sadly. What about you? I don’t suppose your situation’s anything like the one I made up when we were teens, is it?”
“Well, I can tell you I never rescued you from a weirdo in an alley.”
“Oh, I remember that part! Mmm, that takes me back,” she said with a wistful smile on her face.
Evidently, she was single in this world—we weren’t together at all. Would that put the branching point at our first year of college? Back then, she asked me to be her boyfriend so she could avoid excess male attention. Had that not happened in this world? Now that I thought about it, that was the point at which she started calling me Koyomi, so… Yeah, that fit.
“So you’re saying we have the same sort of relationship 35 entire worlds away? Well, that’s not much of a parallel world, now is it?”
We’d paid for our drinks, and she was already a little tipsy. Even here, she was still a total lightweight. So what was I supposed to say? I hesitated to admit that we were, in fact, engaged to be wed back in my world—because for some reason, part of me felt like it might have a butterfly effect on this one. Not that I was especially opposed to Kazune and I getting together in this world as well, but…
No, that wasn’t it. I very nearly overlooked something important. Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner?
“What? Is there a bug in here?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“You’ve got a glint in your eye like you just spotted something.”
“Oh, uh…sorry, it’s nothing.” She looked at me suspiciously, so I donned my best evasive smile.
“Now tell me, what’s the story? What’s our relationship in your world?”
“Welllll… Some things are better left unsaid.”
“Oh, come on!” She pouted her lips.
The reason I was better off not telling her about our engagement in my world was because…Koyomi 35 might be in love with someone else.
Sure, the possibility was infinitesimally small, but it wasn’t zero. And if that was the case, then I couldn’t risk putting ideas in this Kazune’s head. Honestly, the same was true even if Koyomi 35 wasn’t in love with someone else. He and Kazune 35 had their own lives to live. I didn’t want to blow it all up by dropping a bombshell where it wasn’t needed.
“In all seriousness, I’m fairly certain you and I must be dating somewhere, you know, out in one of those distant worlds,” she said.
“It’s possible, yeah.”
Yes, in this world, Kazune and I getting together was only a possibility—one that the two of them had perhaps spent many a cold, sleepless night dreaming of. And for me, this was a possibility—the possibility of me not choosing her, or her not choosing me. With my entire being, I represented the possibility of choosing Kazune, and as such, under no circumstances could I reject a world where I didn’t.
Just then—
“Oh.”
The fog lifted, and I saw my answer clear as day. Possibilities. Loving someone and all their possibilities!
“Of course… I get it now!” I said.
“Hm? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I just…had an epiphany, that’s all.”
“Oh…?” She cocked her head, puzzled, and I started to find her adorable.
Could I marry this Kazune? The answer was clear to me. No. Well, I could, but if I truly wanted to marry Kazune, then it wouldn’t be right.
“Hey, Kazune?”
“What is it?”
“I can’t get into the details, but…I’m happy with where my life is headed. Are you?”
“Well…if I had to choose, I suppose I’d say yes.”
“Gotcha. Glad to hear it.”
I raised my glass to that. And for some reason, I felt the desperate urge to go home and see my Kazune.