But I never tried to reach towards Touko.
At least, not now.
“So, next year…” I started saying something but then forgot where I was going with it. “I hope we get some good underclassmen.”
“Yeah.”
I wondered what kind of person Touko would consider to be a good underclassman. Personally, I was hoping for someone who was a hard worker.
I thought about what I had actually wanted to say next. So, next year, let’s give it our all? No, that wasn’t right. We needed to give it our all right now.
So next year, let’s be more honest. But more honest about what?
I felt like the answer was right there, but it was stuck in a corner of my mind and wouldn’t budge. It was a bit irritating.
Time drifted by sluggishly, and a very pleasant temperature wrapped around us, perfect for inviting drowsiness. We rested a while in that quiet space, almost dozing off, until eventually we checked the time on our phones.
“Apparently, the music club has a performance in the gym this afternoon,” I repeated the details of a poster I had spotted as we left the school building. It was just the right time for it. “Want to go?” We wouldn’t be standing on that stage this year, but that was all the more reason.
“Yeah.” Touko stood up. She didn’t start moving right away though, simply narrowing her eyes as though she were staring into the distance. “Next year is so far away…”
I pretended not to hear Touko say that to herself as I started walking.
We walked by the edge of the forest and cut through the middle of the clamoring crowd to get to the gym. The pre-arranged chairs were mostly filled. I sat down beside Touko in seats a little more than halfway back.
Light gathered at the stage, and the audience seating grew dim. Before long, the curtain rose and the performance began. My ears weren’t discerning enough to tell the difference between good and bad music, but when the sound built up, it was powerful. It made me remember my time in the choir club. These days, thinking back on that didn’t feel quite so painful.
As Touko quietly listened to the performance, she murmured something that was part resolution, part prayer. “That’ll be us next year.”
“…Right.”
I wondered what performance she would put on while standing on that stage and what she would see. I looked at Touko, who was staring straight ahead at the stage. Perhaps her eyes were seeing her deceased sister. Touko was trying to fill that outline with herself. It was like she was trying to fit the wrong key into a keyhole, searching for a twisted exit without hesitation.
I almost found myself getting the slightest bit jealous of the sister Touko longed for so much. It didn’t seem likely that she would ever think of me to that extent.
The flow of the concert shifted. The fierce percussive performance took a rest, and the melody moved to the main woodwind section. As though the lighting were responding accordingly, the harsh lights dimmed and grew faint.
When the lighting changed so drastically, I looked down at Touko’s hand, which lay idle with nothing to hold on to.
Touko was bound to her sister by the word love . In addition to all the expectations of those around her, she was convinced that she had to do something for the person she loved. Even if the intensity of her feelings were different, I had once been the same.
“………”
If someone based all their actions on such feelings, I wondered if they might become a different person entirely.
I had no siblings, so I couldn’t speak to it, but I imagined that most sisters were alike. Being raised in the same environment and by the same parents, they had to end up sharing a lot in common. And yet, the fine details of their preferences, appearances, tastes, and personalities still wouldn’t entirely match. Even if they started from almost exactly the same place, right down to their blood, they would never be exactly the same.
So I didn’t believe it was possible for someone to replace another person, no matter how much of themselves they changed or chipped away.
Back in junior high, when I was in love and tried to change myself, I seemed almost like an entirely different person. I was losing myself so quickly that I felt like I was melting away and turning into an entirely different creature. But even so, my mistakes, those feelings, my rage, that pain, my disappointment, and helplessness—all of it—made me who I was today. It was me. It was all me. My own choices, my desires, were what made me who I am today. And because I had those experiences, I knew Touko’s wish would never come true.
You can’t be anyone but yourself, no matter how much you might change over the course of your life. And the only role we could perfectly perform was that of the person we were born to play. If you tried to replace someone, no matter how well you mimicked them, your imperfect performance would only lead to your own disappointment.
Touko would likely eternally be unsatisfied by her attempt to become her sister.
That was why…
Yes, that was why…
“………”
…If I had said that…
…If I had told Touko that, would things have been different?
My thoughts raced, filling my head with one line after another. Endless ideas and words filled my brain. I wanted to turn this torrent toward Touko. I wanted to tell her what I really felt. I wanted to reach out to her heart, which even now was shrinking sadly in isolation.
But I caged those thoughts. I pressed my lips together so I would never let them out. Because I knew Touko didn’t want that change.
After the lively performance carried by the woodwinds’ tempo, the music baton ferried the band to the next musical piece. I found myself steadily sinking into a daze and couldn’t follow the flow of the music. At some point, the lighting on the stage felt as though it had turned to me and was illuminating my mind.
I…I was terrified that Touko would reject me, and I would no longer be able to be by her side.
I loved Nanami Touko beyond all reason—both her strengths and her weaknesses. Even if I saw her weaknesses, her ugliness, her cowardice, her inferiority complex, her jealousy, her trauma, her real self, her public face, her hatred, her timidity, self-denial, her biases, her disposition, her hostility, her spitefulness, and all the many other dark things hidden inside her, I was certain now that I would be able to say I loved her even more.
But what Touko wanted was a good friend. She wanted someone who would respect a mutual sense of distance, who wouldn’t pry into her most private secrets just as she wouldn’t pry into theirs. That was the closest I could get to Touko as she was now, and I didn’t want to give up the progress I had made towards that boundary. I wanted to be by Touko’s side. I didn’t want to change her, or change myself, as long as it meant I could stay beside her.
That was why…
Yes, that was why…
…I wouldn’t cross Touko’s path.
I would stay by her side anywhere she went, but on a parallel track. As long as I stayed on this unending track, I could continue on as far as I wanted. And it would always be the same distance from the track it ran alongside.
As long as I was by her side like that, someday—someday—I would be able to do what I needed to when I felt Touko had changed.
I could only wait and trust that time, or someone, would bring that someday about. I would just keep waiting for my chance, coward that I was. That was what Touko wanted, or so I told myself.
And so I said nothing.
I swallowed what I thought was right and chose to be wrong.
That was the decision I made, that I thought would allow me to stay by Touko’s side and someday connect with her.
I will never forget that choice.
I must never forget.