I finally returned to World Zero two days later. After absorbing as much of World 35’s research as humanly possible, I got into the IP capsule and had them send me home. My IP went back to 000 without incident.
When I climbed out of the capsule, the researcher who was operating the magnetic field apologized profusely. I was fine with it as I had accepted this risk back when I first consented to take part in the trial. Besides, nothing bad had happened—in fact, the failure provided useful data in its own way. I explained all this in order to put a stop to the apology, because quite frankly, my mind was elsewhere anyway.
In my world, Kazune and I were on the same research team. She was one of the colleagues currently surrounding me. And I knew she had just spent the past two days in close contact with Koyomi 35.
After work, we went home together and had a conversation in the bedroom.
“First off, welcome home,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“What was I like over there?”
“Hardly any different. Good at singing, bad at booze,” I said.
“You went to karaoke?”
“Yeah.”
“So did I. Takasaki-kun took me out for old times’ sake.”
“I suspected as much.”
Somehow, I knew they’d make the same choice, and evidently, so had Kazune. We shared a chuckle.
“What did you talk about with him?”
“Oh, we had a lovely discussion about Does God Play Dice: The New Mathematics of Chaos.”
“Chaos theory! Nice. Very thematically appropriate too.”
“And you? What did you discuss with her?”
“That there’s no such thing as wave function collapse.”
“The Everett interpretation?” she asked.
“I’m talking about our present and future,” I replied with a straight face, and her smile vanished. The whole reason we volunteered to do these optional shift experiments was to answer a single question. Was it still okay to get married even if one of us parallel shifted on the big day?
“I…still haven’t found my answer yet,” she said after a pause.
“Well, I have.”
“Tell me.”
The pleading look in her eyes was practically unthinkable coming from a woman who normally carried herself with such confidence.
I smiled back at her. “On our wedding day, we should take our IP bands off.”
Her eyes widened. She probably wasn’t expecting to hear that.
“That way, it won’t matter what our IP is,” I continued. “I want to marry you for the human being that you are, the way people have done for thousands of years.”
“But…then I won’t know who exactly I married…”
“Me. You’re going to marry me. Every version of me, possibilities and all.”
“Possibilities and all…?” She furrowed her brow like she didn’t understand what I was saying.
I decided to make use of something she’d mentioned earlier. “Let’s say I’m a single die. The instant you toss me, the world splits into six—one for each of my sides. 1 is the one where you and I get married, and the rest are all parallel worlds. With me so far?”
“Yes.” She nodded without protest. She always turned quiet and meek whenever she was feeling vulnerable.
“The thing is, you’re marrying the whole die, not just one side. The others don’t stop existing just because the 1 is facing up. If anything, the only reason we’re getting married at all is because those other sides exist. Without them, there wouldn’t be a 1.”
She listened to me speak in perfect silence, gazing at me innocently. The version of me in this world was just one small fraction—and I wanted her to love the whole package.
“So let’s take off our IP bands. Let’s marry each other for every side of the die—all those possibilities included.”
“All those possibilities…” She was sounding more and more convinced.
We couldn’t get married at all if it wasn’t for the possibilities where we didn’t choose each other. That’s why I wanted to include them in our marriage.
“Granted, if there’s a long-distance shift on the big day and the visitor doesn’t want to go through with it, then we’ll stop the ceremony. But frankly, a shift that huge is next to impossible without the IP capsule, anyway.”
“What if it’s a close shift, like one or two away…? That’s not impossible. Then I’d be marrying the Koyomi from a world next door.”
“True, but close shifts tend to revert back quickly. And I mean, if the shift is that close, there’s basically no difference between our worlds. Would you suddenly no longer want to marry me if I cut my hair? Or if I drove a different car?”
“Of course not,” she replied.
“Then it’s fine! Every me within close range has chosen to marry you.”
“You’re completely fine with me marrying a different you from another world?”
“It’s just a different side of the same die—Kazune 1 marrying Koyomi 2. But the dice are still getting married at the end of the day. You and I are getting married, period.”
“A different side of the same die…”
Judging from the look on her face, 90 percent of her initial fears had been allayed—but that last 10 percent was still there. Thankfully, I had just the tool to wipe it away.
“Kazune.”
“Yes?”
“I want to love every you. And I want you to love every me.”
“I know…”
“So, will you marry me?”
“…I will.”
I pulled her glasses off and wiped away the single tear that streaked down her face.
✦ ✦ ✦
And that was how we decided to marry our possibilities.