The following weekend…
“You kids have fun,” a pretty lady told us as she left the daycare.
“You should take this opportunity to make friends, Koyomi. You don’t have many as it is.” And with that unnecessary comment, my father followed suit. Now I was alone in the daycare room with the girl from before.
“So your mom’s the director?” I asked.
That lady just now was the person who founded this laboratory, and apparently she was also this girl’s mom.
After I got back to my world, I went to my dad and asked him about the girl in the white dress. He immediately identified her as the director’s daughter, and then here I was, reunited with her at the lab.
“Is that how you knew about that machine? Because of your mom?” I’d always assumed the director was some old guy, so I was shocked to find out it was a pretty lady. She and Dad apparently went to college together.
“Uh-huh.” The girl looked at me with slight trepidation. Then her eyes turned serious, and she asked, “So, did you get to see Yuno?”
“Yeah, but…I still don’t know the value of life.”
“What do you mean?”
I told her about the famous poem and explained how I was supposed to learn the value of life through Yuno’s death, but I hadn’t yet. Then I told her I kinda felt it through the presence and absence of warmth, but in my head, I was still confused.
She listened until I was finished, then smiled like I was being silly. “I think you learned it just fine!”
“Huh?”
“You’ve got it right. I’m pretty sure that difference is the value of life.”
“But how?” I asked, desperate for her to explain.
She smiled softly. “Well, her body was only warm while she was alive, right? As long as she was warm, you could play with her, pet her, talk to her—all kinds of possibilities. But when she died, she went cold. Without that warmth, her world and all its possibilities came to an end. I think that’s what you felt.”
“So warmth means possibilities…”
“Yeah! So that warmth is the value of life.”
Now I was officially convinced. Through her death, Yuno had taught me that something as tiny as a temperature change could mean a world of difference. I needed to go back to her grave and thank her. Then, and only then, I could say goodbye for real… It felt like I had finally come to terms with her passing.
“Thanks. You’re pretty cool, you know that?” I said.
“So are you.”
Her smile made my heart beat a little faster…so I decided to change the subject. “That reminds me, what happened while I was gone?”
To be fair, that was an important question. If my parallel self was switched into my body inside that pod, she must have witnessed him with her own eyes.
“Well, for me, it was like you turned into a whole different person. You didn’t know me or where you were, and you were asking for your mommy.”
“That must have been the other me! Ugh, he said mommy? What happened next?”
“Well…it was kinda scary, and I got freaked out…so…” She got a guilty look on her face, and I knew I wasn’t going to like this. “I ran away… I’m sorry.”
At first, I was a little offended that she would abandon me there. It was hardly the responsible thing to do, you know? But upon further consideration, if I were in her shoes, I probably would have done the same. So while I could get justifiably mad at her, I just…wasn’t.
“Eh, I made it back safe, so that’s all that matters. More importantly, why were you so dead set on sending me to a parallel world, anyway?”
At this, the girl fell silent for a long time. Then, finally, she said in a tiny voice, “My mom and dad…got a divorce.”
“Yours too, huh? What about it?” I replied casually.
She looked up at me in surprise, her eyes wide. Then, perhaps reassured by my lack of reaction, she continued. “They got into a huge fight—or maybe it was just Dad who was upset. He said he never wanted to see her again, and he walked out, and sure enough, he never came back. But…I didn’t want him to go…”
It seemed like her parents got divorced under very different circumstances than mine. I could kinda tell where this was going.
“Then Mom told me about parallel worlds, and how she was building a machine that could send you to one. I thought if I used it, I could find a world where she and Dad still loved each other.”
Okay, that makes sense. But how did I factor into that?
“But I was too scared to try it out myself, so…”
“So…what, you used me as a guinea pig?”
“…I’m sorry.” She slumped her shoulders apologetically.
How could such an innocent-looking girl do something so diabolical?! Was she that traumatized by her parents’ divorce? Mine were still on good terms, so I couldn’t relate. But I wasn’t about to let this slide.
“Okay then, it’s your turn to get in the pod. Right now!” I said.
“Huh?!”
“Well, we know the machine works, right? I’m living proof!”
“But…!” she protested.
I wasn’t suggesting it purely to get back at her. She may have used me like a lab rat, but I was grateful for the experience. Thanks to her, I got to have one last day with Yuno, and it taught me something important. Really, this was only half revenge. And to be honest, she probably needed a parallel world just as bad as I did.
As she continued to waver, I gave her one final push. “Don’t you want to see your parents in love again?”
She encouraged me that exact same way when she told me to get in the pod. Surely she’d take her own advice, right?
“Because of you, I got to see Yuno one last time,” I said. “That parallel world was exactly what I needed.”
After another long moment of contemplation, she finally nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Awesome.”
Now that we were in agreement, there was no time to waste. She led me back to the room with the pod, and after asking her how to operate it (and quickly deciding she was definitely pressing buttons at random), I told her to get in.
“Just lay there and pray to go to a parallel world. That’s what I did.”
“Okay, I will.”
She closed her eyes and dutifully clasped her hands in prayer. Meanwhile, I closed the glass door and walked to the desk. I had no idea how the machine worked, obviously, so I just flipped and tapped at random, like she did for me. It didn’t appear to be doing anything, so after a while, I gave up and walked back to the pod.
“Hey, can you tell if it’s wor—”
My words petered out, and I rubbed my eyes.
Was I seeing things, or…did the girl look fuzzier than usual…?
“What in the world are you doing in here?!”
The sudden voice behind me made me jump and whirl around. “Oh… Hi, Director Satou…”
“You know you’re not supposed to be in here unsupervised! And my daughter’s with you? Come on out of there, young lady!”
The director didn’t look too angry, but I couldn’t say for sure. When she opened the pod door, her daughter sat up and hung her head in shame. She didn’t look weird anymore, and her mom didn’t comment on it, so maybe I was just seeing things after all.
“What were you two getting up to in here?” the director demanded.
“Trying to go to a parallel world,” the girl answered honestly. Incidentally, neither of us told anyone that we’d already succeeded once before. It was our little secret.
“Silly girl, the machine isn’t finished. It’s not even powered on.”
“…What?”
The girl and I exchanged a glance. The machine wasn’t finished? It didn’t even have power?!
“Wait, but—”
“You’ve inherited my innate curiosity, I suppose. And you must have gotten it from your father,” the director continued, shooting me a glance. “I admit I’m not a perfect mother, but as an adult, it’s my job to punish misbehavior. Both of you, go ahead and kneel down.”
“What?”
“Kneel down.”
“…Yes, ma’am.”
And so the two of us kneeled on the hard floor and listened to the director’s pedantic lecture for the next hour.
✦ ✦ ✦
After we were finally set free, we went back to the daycare room and waited like good kids for our parents to get off work. No one else was there, and there was an awkward tension between us as we sat there in silence.
“It’s your fault we got in trouble,” I grumbled.
But she wasn’t about to sit there and take it. “You’re the one who made me go in the pod!” she protested angrily.
Unfortunately for her, I was having none of it. “Yeah, well, you started it, missy!” I hissed back, glaring at her. After all, she was the one who took me to that room to begin with.
But then, her eyes filled with tears, and I instantly regretted it. Making a girl cry was the absolute worst thing a boy could do! Did I really need to fly off the handle like that? Sure, she used me as her test subject, but I would never have reunited with Yuno without her! Was there some way I could apologize?
As I was searching for the right words, however, the girl glared back at me. “My name isn’t missy.”
At this, I suddenly realized something. The two of us had never introduced ourselves. I remembered what my dad told me earlier…
“…Sorry. I’m Hidaka Koyomi, by the way.”
Take this opportunity to make friends, my dad had said to me, and so I introduced myself. That was the first step.
When I extended my hand, the girl’s eyes widened…and then her face lit up.
“I’m Shiori! Satou Shiori.”
We shared a handshake…and that was the moment it all went wrong.