“All right, that should do it...or close enough, anyway,” I mumbled to no one in particular since I was all alone in my room. I was oddly amused by the sound of my own voice, but, I mean, pretty much anything can feel amusing when you’ve just finished studying for an exam.
I hadn’t prepared enough to give my efforts the big ol’ “that should do it for real” stamp of approval, but taking into account my own academic ability, my level of motivation, my place in society, and a bunch of other factors, it seemed like as good a place to wrap up as any. At least, that’s what I told myself as I stared blankly at the notebook on my desk.
I mean, studying with a bunch of honor students was all well and good, but when all’s said and done, how you do on a test is at least seventy or eighty percent determined by whether you know the basics and what sort of attitude you went into your actual classes with.
Getting super fired up ’cause you can’t go to your summer training camp if you fail’s pretty standard in manga and stuff, but I wasn’t in a club and didn’t actually have a camp to go to. Besides, if a certain high and mighty homeroom teacher who lived only to bully her students was to be believed, I was already locked in for summer school. It was too late for me to put in the effort anyway, so why bother?
“Uuugh, I’m friggin’ tired.” I tossed my mechanical pencil onto my desk and dove into bed. By “bed,” I mean “my futon,” of course. It wasn’t the bounciest of landings, but it was still nice, soft, and satisfying. A massive wave of drowsiness swept over me the second I touched down, but midway through a yawn, my phone started vibrating. I had a text.
Kiryu: Have you reviewed what you learned today? Knowing the material is important, but putting it into practice is just as vital.
No emojis, actually ending the sentence with a period, cutting straight to the point in the simplest way possible—yeah, this is pretty much how I figured she would text. She couldn’t hold a candle to me when it came to brevity, though.
Kou: sure did
If I were in public I would have to act hyped about getting a text from a girl to the point of literally dancing a jig, but since I was by my lonesome, I could tap out a two-word reply at a rate of approximately one word per minute and send it off.
When I really think about it, Kiryu might’ve changed more than anyone over the past several days. Or rather, more accurately, it’s my relationship with her that’s changed. Saying that we get along now would be both an oversimplification and maybe a little premature, but considering how we used to be around each other, it’s undeniable that we’re doing a lot better these days. She never would’ve sent a fussy, nosy text like this before, that’s for sure.
But yeah, on second thought, she hasn’t really changed at all. Big events that change people’s personalities on a fundamental level don’t just come about every day, and I sure can’t remember anything of the sort happening to her lately. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that this caring, attentive side of her was cultivated by her relationship with her little brother. And, like, she’s kinda cold and snappy with Kotou every once in a while, but she’s never been cruel.
In short: people don’t change that easily, and I’m no exception. I came to this world with magical powers that aren’t supposed to exist, and even now that I’m here, I’m still totally capable of using them. Erasing memories is the one trick I can manage, of course, but it’s still one thing that makes me truly different from the people around me, and it’s an ability I’ve made use of, for better or for worse.
People don’t change that easily. However much I’d hoped and wished to change myself, in the end, I was still doing all the same things I’d done up until that point. My true inner nature might not’ve changed in the slightest since the time I lived in that other world.
“Huh...? She replied already? And ugh, talk about long-winded...” Kiryu’s next text was long enough it didn’t even fit on a single screen. Just looking at it was enough to induce a powerful sense of fatigue.
TL;DR: “‘Did’ in past tense, meaning that you’ve already finished reviewing, meaning that you didn’t study for anywhere close to long enough, you pathetic, pig-like man-child?” That was the gist of it, anyway. I didn’t actually read the whole thing, so there very well might’ve been more to it than that.
“Man, how am I supposed to reply to that?” The little princess was clearly pissed—I could tell from the way she was typing alone. A half-baked reply would probably prompt an even more intense counter-reply.
“Hmm...”
I crossed my arms, sat cross-legged upon my futon, and racked my brain for a solution. Needless to say, all thoughts of studying more had flown completely out the window.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
“Mmm...”
He just wasn’t replying. A sigh tried to slither its way out from my lips, but I swallowed it back and let out a groan instead, staring at my phone as I waited for a notification that just wouldn’t come.
“Maybe my message was a little too long? But what else was I supposed to say...?” I felt unusually timid as I toweled off my hair. Long or not, that message had been necessary—I wrote it that way because it had to be that way.
And besides, he was in the wrong in the first place! He was moaning and groaning all throughout our study session about how his summer lessons were already set in stone, so studying was pointless, but for all he knew, getting good enough grades on his finals could very well overturn that decision. He just wouldn’t take things seriously, no matter what I said.
“Should I send another text to check if he actually read the first one...? Oh, or I could give him a call...? That might come across as too pushy...”
I spent a while longer glaring fruitlessly at my phone, wasting precious time that I could have used to further my own studies. I was so preoccupied that I’d jumped in and out of the bath after a mere five minutes when I’d usually soak for somewhere in the vicinity of a half hour.
“Kotou-san always replies to my texts right away, so why won’t he...? D-Don’t tell me I’ve made him hate me?! N-No, that’s far too negative. Keep yourself together, Kiryu Kyouka!” I tried to talk myself out of it, but unfortunately, once the idea had sprung to mind, it proved difficult to let go of.
I was never the most sociable person to begin with. Ever since I was little, I’ve had to deal with boys constantly clamoring for my attention and girls teasing me relentlessly. I quickly came to the conclusion that people were scary. I only had a few real relationships—with my mother, my father, my little brother, and the boy my brother was so attached to, Kou-kun. Actually, it might be better to say that he depended on Kou-kun.
Eventually, my parents—my father, in particular—decided that they had to do something to remedy my introversion. They made me take Aikido lessons to help me become stronger and had me attend a particularly strict cram school. It goes without saying that neither of those activities were well-suited for me in the slightest, but I knew that they would be upset if I said I didn’t want to go, and that conflict drove a rift between us.
Then on top of it, Kou-kun—the boy I now realize was my first love, albeit a childish and immature one—disappeared from my life without even the slightest of warnings. Then my brother, Daiki, the person dearer to me than anyone else, passed away... I had nobody left to support me.
Losing Daiki was so intense of a shock, I wasn’t sure at the time if I had any reason to live on myself. My parents were hit just as hard, of course, and his passing helped shorten the distance between us to an extent, but admitting that fact felt like acknowledging his death, and I couldn’t stand it...
In the end, I was never able to mature past it. I threw myself into my studies as a means of rebelling, of running away from everything I couldn’t face up to. I’d do anything as long as it meant that I could forget all the awful things in life and gain even the slightest degree of self-affirmation.
But heartlessness is an inherent aspect of human nature. Over the course of time, both my parents and I began to recover from the state that Daiki’s death put us into. We never forgot him, but we learned to accept reality. When an opportunity arose for my father to transfer to a new workplace, we bade farewell to Shusen City, the town I’d lived in for all my life. One might claim that moving was just another means of running away from it all for us.
I’d kept practicing Aikido out of sheer inertia up until that point, but I finally stopped after we moved. I could say the opposite of my studies, though. I threw myself into them with more focus than ever. It was something like a routine for me—a daily ritual that helped me keep myself together.
“I really haven’t changed, huh... Not even after all this time...”
I lay down on my bed and hugged a stuffed animal that’d been my favorite since I was a child. That was another routine of mine...well, more of a habit, really. It’d be humiliating if anyone saw me do this, but that’s part of why it made me feel like I was well and truly alone, which helped calm me down.
“Hah, I wish it did that. I’m not calm in the slightest.”
However hard I tried to make myself relax, it just wasn’t happening this time. All my attention was focused on my phone, and by extension, on Kunugi-kun. If the nickname granted to me by my classmates really rang true, I wouldn’t be swayed by emotions like this. I’d be a cool, aloof ice queen. But the truth was, that was all just a persona that I worked frantically to put on in public.