“Are you really fine with how this all turned out?” On the bullet train home from Tokyo, Aina had been staring out the window without uttering a single word to Kai (despite being the one who demanded they sit together) until, suddenly, she spoke without any prior notice.
“...How what turned out?” Kai asked.
“If you legitimately don’t understand, then I’m switching seats,” she told him pointedly. “And if you’re playing dumb, then I’m seriously going to hate you.”
“...I’m sorry,” he apologized.
“Hmph,” Aina huffed in a foul mood, hurrying him to answer.
Kai knew what situation Aina was referring to—not even he was that dense. After the Summit judging had concluded, he’d stood there exchanging looks with Nanaka. They had both worn the same lost expression on their faces, and the fact that they had been standing together drew even more stares from the crowd, so they’d taken their seats in a panic.
Then, Eru had thrown him a lifeline. “Just so you know, dear,” she’d pointed out, “this project isn’t yours alone.”
Those words had brought Kai back to reality. That’s right! he thought belatedly. The game itself wasn’t something that Kai had made on his own. His contribution was only the starting point. From there, Nanaka, Eru, Aya, and Aina had all done their parts to give form to a single end result. An outsider like Hifumi Tetsuya may have understood it to be something akin to a love letter, but that wasn’t necessarily true.
That train of thought had formed the basis for Kai’s explanation to Nanaka, who’d been wrapped up in this mess with him. It was a fact that he’d been thinking of her during development, and perhaps the sentiment that came through in the final product was what had been misconstrued as a love letter.
Kai had never once written such a letter in his life, but he couldn’t deny that what he’d done was similar in the sense that it was aimed at a specific person. Still, he hadn’t intended it, and he certainly hadn’t aimed for what Hifumi Tetsuya had suggested. It just so happened that the outcome came to be understood in such a way that—and so on.
“Right,” Nanaka had replied. “That makes sense.” Peculiarly, her faint smile as she spoke remained stuck in Kai’s mind even now.
Was he fine with how things had turned out? Truthfully, Kai hesitated when faced with this question.
“I won’t ask a second time,” Aina pressed. She peered into Kai’s eyes from the seat beside him as if to confirm his answer.
The only means of answering was to confront the question head-on. “...I don’t think I told any lies,” Kai finally said. He didn’t think he’d been wrong. But, on the other hand, he wasn’t quite sure if he’d been right. None of what he’d said was baseless or fraudulent, so that was the extent of what he could assert in his answer.
“...Is that so? Well, fine, that works for me.” The displeasure in Aina’s voice rang out from the window seat as she turned away and once again gazed outside.
There was a brief sound by the glass as the train entered a tunnel. In the darkened glass, Kai could see that Aina’s eyes were fixed on none other than herself.
In a quiet whisper, she added, “Nanaka-chan invited me.” Locking eyes with him through the glass, she announced, “I’m going to the fireworks, too.”