Chapter 38

AFTERWORD It happened one cold day. I was in my first year of high school. The future was full of dreams and hopes, and my skin was glowing with firmness and sheen. Sadly, both are unrecognizable today. Time is cruel. “This cold is brutal! I can’t stand it.” However, my habit of complaining about everything remains unchanged, and on that particular day, I was grumbling away to my friend A. “Really? I think the cold is wonderful.” Incidentally, A was a cool, intellectual beauty whom you’d never expect to be friends with someone like me, who takes three steps forward and can’t remember what they were talking about. “No way, this feels like some kind of punishment.” “Of course. No pain, no gain.” “I didn’t know you were into that kind of thing…” “Seriously, it’s like a warning to us so we don’t die.” I threw her a questioning look. She continued as if her point were completely obvious. “What I mean is, this system has been set up so human beings can survive. And since you just complain about it without doing anything, that means you’re no longer human.” She was right. I didn’t have the heart to crack a sarcastic joke about how Osamu Dazai would be rolling over in his grave if he could hear her, so I simply stopped into a convenience store and picked up a nikuman bun to use as a makeshift hand warmer. I got in the habit of buying nikuman after school, and my midriff started to show it. Around that time, when the flu was going around school like some sort of winter rite of passage, A came up to me with a deeply mystified look on her face. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” she began. “Why does the flu virus weaken its host? All living organisms instinctively try to proliferate, don’t they? And if something happens to the host, then the virus won’t be able to survive, right? So doesn’t that make their strategy a failure for a living creature?” What the hell are you talking about? Sadly enough, that was my response at the time. If she had asked my current self, who still lacks intellectual knowledge but has at least been pummeled by the rough waves of the world enough to gain some communication skills, I would have diverted the conversation by saying something sensible like, “I think we have to start by asking the eternal question—is a virus even a living thing?” Or if she had asked my university-aged self, who was a great admirer of Richard Dawkins, I would have pretended to know way more than I actually did by saying something like, “It must be a case of the selfish gene.” To make yet another embarrassing confession, my dream at the time—albeit a hazy one—was to become a biologist or something. “Biologist” sounded really cool. That was the only reason. (Looking back, the “or something” should have been a tip-off that my interest wasn’t that deep.) That’s probably why my friend’s words hit me so hard. She embodied my vision of the “ideal researcher,” and I realized then that no matter what I did, I would never have that sort of perspective on life. That was the moment my frail, unrealistic dream crumbled. I think that was the first time I ever learned something about myself through another person. I was surprised by how much my world changed in that moment, but I remember that, for some reason, it felt incredibly refreshing. Many years have passed since then, but I am grateful to be able to say that this novel has given me the same experience. Although I’ve leaned on many people for help, received much encouragement from my readers, and occasionally flailed in the unexpectedly huge ocean of this project, I secretly hope that one day, I, too, will become an “ideal researcher.” I’m still being twisted around the finger of a certain Miss C on a daily basis, but more than that, I’m humbled by the awareness that I would never have been able to do this work without the support of so many people. I’d like to yell “Thank you!” from the rooftops to all those people, and to be honest, I’m already yelling it in my own head. They might not hear me, but I’m yelling it. The truth is, it’s thanks to them that I managed to finish this second volume of this story. I am deeply grateful. Once again, my editor guided me straight to my destination (with headlamp strapped on, of course), Yu-nagi provided illustrations that capture the reader’s heart at a glance, and Momoyama did such a fabulous job with the comic version, it makes me cry. Finally, I’d like to tell all my readers who have stuck with me through the second volume that I think of us as “one team.” I hope you don’t mind! (And as usual, I’m behind the curve on my use of buzzwords.) I look forward to seeing you all again next time. Kujira Tokiwa