Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 4 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: An Ending, Yet Also, an Origin

At first, I thought that I may have run afoul of some previously unknown limitation to my power. I’d always believed that Route of Origin’s ability to alter reality was inexhaustible, but maybe there was either some risk to using it or some maximum number of times I could invoke it, and I’d unknowingly overstepped that boundary. Although such a possibility may have been able to explain why my power didn’t activate...ultimately, the theory didn’t actually make sense. This was the first time I’d used my power that day. I’d held it in reserve all the way throughout our battle. In short, that hypothesis seemed easy enough to dismiss offhand.

The next theory I’d come up with was that some sort of imbalance between our powers was to blame. I pondered whether our powers worked like in Yu-Gi-Oh!, where some Divine cards had priority over others—like how Obelisk’s special ability wouldn’t work on Ra. I considered that, perhaps, Route of Origin hadn’t worked on Dark and Dark due to a discrepancy in their ranks...but I threw out that theory just as quickly as I had the first one. It wasn’t entirely impossible, but I couldn’t believe Andou would have figured that out on his own in advance.

Whatever the explanation was, I could clearly tell that Andou had known my power wouldn’t work on his. I thought through what had happened once more with that fact in mind, and I finally found my answer.

“Andou, don’t tell me... You didn’t predict all of this in advance, did you?” I asked, still holding him to the ground. Physically speaking, I held the clear upper hand, yet if you were judging solely by the tone of my voice, you’d think I was the one who was cornered. “Did you know that I wouldn’t be able to erase your power? That I wouldn’t be able to convince myself that you were meant to be powerless?”

It was all a question of perspective. Route of Origin’s abilities were dictated solely by my own subjective opinions. If I believed from the bottom of my heart that something was meant to be a certain way, I could make it so—and on the other hand, if I did not believe, my power would have no effect, no matter how hard I tried to use it.

I believed that humans weren’t meant to have supernatural powers. But that was just my intellectual belief. Deep down in my heart, it seemed I hadn’t truly been convinced after all.

“It’s not that I knew this would happen for sure,” said Andou after a pause. “I just thought that it was possible. No, actually, I thought it was likely.”

I sat there, speechless. Eventually, Andou started to squirm. “So, um, do you think you could let my arm go, for now? It’s starting to go numb.”

I had, in fact, lost track of the fact that I still had his arm in a joint lock. I released him immediately—after all, whatever was happening at the moment, our match was clearly over.

Andou stood up and began to speak, sounding a little reserved for once. “Sayumi, you talked about how you don’t think people are meant to have powers like ours. That would mean that you weren’t the way you were meant to be while you had powers either. And, well, I’ve always questioned that. Could you, having obtained a power of your own, really believe from the bottom of your heart that you weren’t the way you were meant to be?”

I took a moment to attempt some self-reflection. If someone else were in this same position, it’s possible that they could have used Route of Origin to wipe away somebody’s supernatural power with the greatest of ease. But I was not someone else: I was me, the person who wanted to be worthy of praise, the person who wanted to be perfect. I could never have accepted that I was not the way that I was meant to be. The idea was almost unbearable.

“You’re a bit of a perfectionist, Sayumi,” said Andou. “When things get complicated and contradictory, plenty of people are cool with just not thinking about it too hard, but you’ve never been like that. I figured that using your supernatural power to wipe away a supernatural power was a sort of paradox that you just wouldn’t be able to deal with.”

I was stunned. So utterly shocked that I felt a chill run down my spine. Andou had reached the conclusion that I couldn’t use Route of Origin to erase people’s powers by way of pure conjecture—and he’d been right. He’d seen through to the heart of the matter in a way that I’d been incapable of.

“Then...why didn’t you just tell me that?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “If you had, we wouldn’t have had to go through with this whole fight in the first place. You wouldn’t have had to get thrown to the ground over and over again.”

Andou hesitated for a moment, then finally muttered his response. “I wanted there to be some hope left for us.”

“What do you mean, hope...?”

“I wanted to leave the possibility that we could use Route of Origin to get rid of our powers at any time on the table. I thought that it would, well...help all of this weigh on everyone a little less.”

Suddenly, I felt profoundly ashamed of myself. I had always thought of Andou Jurai as being adorably childish, though every once in a while that very childishness led to me feeling rather disappointed in him. It was clear now, though, that I’d grievously underestimated him. Andou had been considering our powers in a way that far exceeded the thought that I had put into them, and he had shown far deeper consideration for all of us than anything I’d ever managed. And, most of all...he’d been thinking about me more than even I myself had.

“I know I was being kinda unreasonable,” Andou continued. “I can talk a big game about keeping hope alive, but it’s not like I could’ve kept it a secret forever...plus, I spent all night trying to come up with a plan to beat you, and the best I managed was ‘stay stubborn and hope it works out,’” Andou said with a chuckle.

I knew very well that he was just being considerate of my feelings, and I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by my own inadequacy. I felt so pathetic that I was on the verge of tears.

“I’ve...been scared,” I admitted in a faint, almost inaudible voice. “I’m scared of my power. I’m scared of all of our powers. I can’t trust myself, and I can’t trust any of you either...”

I was weak. I couldn’t take joy in my power like Andou. I couldn’t accept it like Tomoyo. I couldn’t trust my friends unconditionally like Hatoko. I couldn’t stay positive and cope with things as they came like Chifuyu. My composure was faltering, like a string stretched so taut as to snap, and the weakness that I’d kept so carefully concealed was leaking to the surface little by little.

“All this time I’ve wondered, what should I do if one of us decides to misuse their power? What should I do if my power were to run out of control? I don’t know how to act. I don’t know what’s right,” I lamented.

Andou smiled slightly uncomfortably. “I don’t really know how to say this, but...you really are kind of a worrywart, you know? I don’t know if it’s because you’re the president or because you’re the oldest, but either way, you don’t have to feel that responsible for the rest of us.” Then he shrugged, smiled, and spoke in a truly lighthearted tone. “So let’s just have some fun! Let’s all use our powers to play around, somehow. I’ve got so much stuff I want to do with them, you wouldn’t even believe it! I’ve spent longer than you could imagine wondering when I’d finally get a power like this, you know?”

Andou smiled at me. It was a comforting, powerful smile that seemed to melt away all the fears and anxiety that had built up within me.

“I think there’s a lot that I can teach you, Sayumi. I’ll teach you how amazing supernatural powers can be! How cool they are, how fun they are...and how they’re nothing to be scared of.”

It was plain to see that he was putting on a front. Deep down, I was sure that Andou understood better than any of us how terrifying our powers really were. But in spite of that, he smiled on.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Andou continued, “I’m sure there’s gonna be a ton of stuff we’ll have to think pretty hard about. So when that time comes, I say we think about it together. And in the one in a million chance that one of us goes out of control...I’ll stop them myself,” said Andou. He made it sound like such a simple thing.

I hesitated for a moment. “With your power? What on earth could you even do to stop us?”

“I’ll just have to go through an awakening when the time comes!”

“You can’t possibly expect me to believe something that convenient is guaranteed to happen.”

“Hmm. I dunno. I have a feeling that I could go through an awakening for you guys no problem.”

How much of this is he serious about? I wondered, then chastised myself. The answer was obvious. All of it was serious, and I was starting to buy into it. I somehow almost believed that Andou really could go through an awakening or two if it were for the sake of his friends. That cool, kindhearted, pathological chuuni had all but convinced me.

“Andou,” I said, leaning forward. I was already on my knees, and now I bowed deeply, lowering my head almost all the way to the ground in an expression of apology and respect toward my opponent. “I admit defeat.”

I had been utterly bested. From start to finish, my loss had been assured.

And so, the curtain fell on Takanashi Sayumi and Andou Jurai’s supernatural battle, the match having been called in Andou’s favor.

☆

This isn’t something that most people really think about, but the words “corrupt” and “profane” actually have pretty distinct nuances. When something has been corrupted, that means that it’s been dirtied by external factors, whereas when something is profane, it is intrinsically contaminated on a spiritual level. And that makes sense when you trace the word’s origins—“profane” was originally used in a religious context, indicating something that was in defiance of religious doctrine.

Being that profanity is a more spiritual than physical concept, it follows that just about anything—time or space, the mind or the body, ideology or action—could be called profane so long as it is in some way not in its ideal form. In other words: “profane” is a word that indicates something is not the way it’s meant to be.

It seems reasonable, then, to say that Sayumi’s power, Route of Origin, was the power to purge the profane and restore it to its rightful state. It was the power to wipe all of creation clean of that which renders it wrong: the power of purification. And that power...was unable to wipe away our abilities. There’d be no dispelling this magic.

I had predicted that in advance, yes, but I have to admit that when Sayumi actually did use her power, and it actually did fail to erase Dark and Dark, I was a little happy about it. Oh, good, I thought. Sayumi doesn’t consider our powers to be profane after all. She really is too kindhearted of a person to reject that side of us—and that side of herself. I’d known all of that about her already, but the extra certainty still felt nice.

“The sunset on that evening was just as vibrant as today’s, wasn’t it?” said Sayumi. We’d walked a short ways away from her place, came to a small, nearby park, and taken a seat on a bench. Sayumi was looking up at the sky, her gaze distant and her tone laced with nostalgia. I could only assume she was thinking back to the day we’d fought it out.

“Yeah, I won’t forget that any time soon,” I replied. “I mean, you bowed down to me and everything!”

“That was not ‘bowing down,’” said Sayumi. “That was a formal gesture of respect commonly performed in tea ceremonies.”

“And how does that make it different?”

“It’s a matter of nuance.” Sayumi sounded ever so slightly sulky, but then she closed her eyes and continued, her voice taking on a much more gentle affect. “As of now, I can say with confidence that I don’t regret missing my chance to become the student council president in the least. Those are my unvarnished and genuine feelings, I assure you.”

Sayumi paused for a moment, and I silently waited until she spoke up once more. “When I was in middle school, my pursuit of perfection resulted in my own isolation. At the time, I was convinced that I was in the right. The apathy of my fellow student council members irritated me to no end...but looking back, it is now clear to me that I was mistaken. I was so obsessed with results and efficiency that I disregarded my coworkers. My way of doing things...could hardly have been more unlike yours, Andou.” She turned to look into my eyes, her gaze carrying a certain sense of warmth. “You have something, Andou. Something that I don’t.”

“Well, that’s, uh...kinda embarrassing to hear. I don’t think I really did much of anything,” I awkwardly admitted. All that time that Sayumi spent scolding me and messing with me made it feel really weird when she came right out and praised me to my face.

“You might say that my decision to become the student council president in high school was motivated by my desire to wipe away the trauma of my experience in middle school. It was an attempt to atone, and an attempt to take responsibility for my failings,” said Sayumi with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Pathetic, isn’t it? In the end, I was still only ever thinking about myself. My sole motivation to run for the position was a desire for self-satisfaction. Somebody like me would never have been worthy of that sort of leadership role.”

“Okay, but who cares if you were doing it for self-satisfaction?” I countered. “Just because you were trying to satisfy yourself doesn’t mean that other people won’t be satisfied with what you do in the process.”

Sayumi didn’t reply. She just gave me an ever so slight smile that I couldn’t quite read, then moved the conversation along. “The whole thing was ridiculous, really. How could anyone possibly consider me worthy of praise?”

“Sayumi...” I muttered.

She had told me about how her grandmother always used to say that to her—that she should “become a person who is worthy of praise.” I didn’t want to speak ill of the deceased, and I definitely didn’t want to insult somebody who Sayumi so clearly looked up to. Even so, though, I had something I couldn’t just leave unsaid.

“What’s so bad about not being praiseworthy?” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “You’re you, Sayumi. Nobody lives their life in an absolutely praiseworthy way, and there’s no such thing as a perfect person. Still, though, I think you’re great the way you are, no matter how praiseworthy you might be.”

For some reason, Sayumi’s eyes widened with shock. Then, a moment later, she let out a laugh. “‘Become a person who is worthy of praise.’ Those were my grandmother’s words, and she said them more times than I can count. But that wasn’t all she said.”

“It wasn’t...?”

“‘Become a person who is worthy of praise. So long as you do, then surely, you will find someone who will tell you that you don’t have to be worthy of praise at all.’”

I was now very, very confused. Wait, what? So, are you supposed to be praiseworthy, or not? Thankfully, Sayumi wasn’t finished explaining herself yet.

“This world is full of kind and compassionate expressions of reassurance. ‘You don’t have to try so hard.’ ‘Just be yourself.’ ‘Try to be the only one, not number one.’ Etcetera, etcetera. Wonderful expressions, all of them, yet they all have one thing in common: they must be used out of admiration or gratitude—not out of compromise or resignation. I believe that is what my grandmother wanted to communicate to me.”

They’re words to be used out of admiration or gratitude, but not compromise or resignation. In other words, Sayumi’s grandmother was telling her that phrases like “you don’t have to try so hard” were meant to be told to you by other people, not for you to tell to yourself. I would never have told Sayumi that she didn’t have to be praiseworthy if I hadn’t already been under the impression that she’d been living a praiseworthy life up to this point.

“I certainly never imagined that you would be the one to say it to me, though,” said Sayumi with an amused snicker.

Well, crap. Somehow, it felt like Sayumi’s grandmother had set me up for this. Having that sort of impact on the world of the living even after you’ve passed on into the afterlife? She must’ve been one hell of a woman.

Sayumi sighed, then returned to a more serious tone as she spoke on. “You’re not wrong, Andou. Nobody is praiseworthy all the time, and there’s no such thing as a perfect human being. Nevertheless, I choose to make perfection my goal. I may never become a person who is worthy of praise. I may never even get close to that ideal. However, I do not believe that the effort I put into becoming that way is necessarily wasted, regardless of the results.”

The look on Sayumi’s face was cheerful and free of doubt. There wasn’t a trace of regret to her expression—she simply faced forward with drive and optimism. Just...damnations, seriously. Sayumi’s so hella cool, I don’t even know what to say about it. She was strong, wise, and courteous, but never arrogant. She was always as humble as could be, recognizing her strengths and weaknesses with the utmost of objectivity. She was a role model who had well and truly earned my respect.

“Y’know, if I were a girl, I seriously think I would’ve fallen for you just now,” I commented offhandedly.

“Andou...” Sayumi said, her gentle smile shifting into a severe frown in the blink of an eye. “You should know that you have a bad habit of saying almost unimaginably indelicate things on occasion. You should work on that,” she added with a pointed glare.

H-Huh? But that was supposed to be a compliment!

While I was busy sweating bullets, Sayumi let out a long, heavy sigh. “Really, Andou. I’ll freely admit that you’ve taught me quite a few things, but it seems that I still have much, much more to teach you in exchange.”

“L-Like what?” I asked.

“Like, for instance...how to understand the workings of a woman’s heart, I suppose,” said Sayumi with a mischievous chuckle.

Hmm.

I see now that I still don’t understand any of this.

But I do know that this autumn sky that could never be grasped within the palm of my hand...

...is the womanly heart.

Nah, not gonna use a whole page on the gag the second time around. At a certain point, you’re just wasting paper.

“Well, in any case,” said Sayumi, “I thank you in advance for your continued guidance and encouragement.”

“Likewise,” I replied.

☆

Soon after that, our conversation came to a close. More specifically, Andou said, “Okay, I’d better get heading home... Oh, crap, my bag!” then sped off toward our school.

I, on the other hand, stayed seated on the bench and took a deep breath as I watched him go. When all was said and done, this entire affair had turned out to be nothing more than Andou getting worked up and making a fuss over a problem that hadn’t actually existed. I’ll admit that my own behavior was perhaps a touch misleading, and I did feel some degree of responsibility for that, but Andou’s jumping to a hasty conclusion was by far the bigger factor. He had called me a worrywart, but in my view, that term suited him to a far greater degree.

Upon further reflection, though, it struck me that his particular method of worrying about his friends was ever so slightly peculiar. After all, what had just happened between us fit the same pattern as what had happened with both Hatoko and Chifuyu. In every case, Andou had assumed the worst to an extreme degree and blamed himself beyond the point of reason. It seemed to me that he had an intense fear of losing his friends, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether something had happened to him in the past to prompt that fixation.

“No...I’m overthinking this,” I told myself, then reached over toward my bag. Today, I had neglected to attend my club activities in favor of paying a visit to my ophthalmologist and the contact lens shop, where I’d made a certain purchase. I pulled my acquisition out of my bag, rested it on my knees, and spent a moment staring at it.

Really, now. Why did I go and buy these? I felt a deep sense of regret and an intense, burning sense of shame as I opened up the package and pulled out its contents: a pair of ruby-framed, ever so slightly eye-catching glasses. I had no need for them. I had no intention of breaking my habit of wearing contact lenses, and the prescription of the glasses I wore at home was still up to date, so why on earth had I—

“I’ve never seen you in glasses before, but, well...they really suit you, Sayumi.”

Suddenly, it felt like my face had caught fire. The fact that I’d been so transparently influenced by such an obviously empty compliment was laughable beyond all belief. Surely there was some rational limit to how unsightly of a manner I would allow myself to behave in? All I could do was laugh at myself. But, of course, I had bought them, so I took a deep breath and raised the glasses to my face—

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

—and froze. A man’s voice had just rung out from behind me.

“Wearing glasses is a surefire way to throw the game. The glasses girl always loses, trust me—they’re the secondary heroine to the bitter end. It’s an unwritten rule of fiction these days. Couldn’t tell you why, but for some reason, glasses-wearing heroines just never end up with a decent fanbase.”

I jumped up from the bench and spun around.

“Hey there,” said the boy who’d appeared out of nowhere behind me. “It’s me, Sagamin, aka Sagami Shizumu.”

And it was indeed. Sagami Shizumu: Andou’s friend, and a remarkably handsome young man. He was wearing a jinbei, a sort of light, traditional summer clothing, and had a pair of equally traditional sandals on his feet. In one hand, he held a plastic bag, and in the other, a half-eaten popsicle. Everything about the way he presented himself practically screamed that he’d just popped out to the nearby convenience store for an evening snack.

“Yes, I know you...Sagami, was it?” I replied.

“That’s me,” said Sagami. “This is our first time talking, though, Takanashi.”

“What brings you here?” I asked.

“I live right nearby, that’s all. Total coincidence,” Sagami explained. “Sorry, one second. Have to finish this,” he added, then scarfed down the remainder of his popsicle and glanced at the leftover stick. “Oh, not a winner? Shame. If I’d won another popsicle for free, it would’ve felt like I’d stumbled into some sort of event and set myself off along the Takanashi route.”

“He he he! A shame indeed,” I replied. He played himself up as quite the womanizer, it seemed. Andou had described him once as “the natural enemy of the women of the world and the fated nemesis of the men,” and I was finally starting to understand what he had meant by it.

Of course, that was far from the first thing on my mind at the moment. No, I was preoccupied by a much bigger question...

“So, Sagami. Were you listening to my conversation with Andou?”

...that being the question of whether he had heard the two of us discussing our powers.

“Yes,” Sagami readily admitted. “Well, I think I heard most of it, anyway. I guess if I wanted to try to make myself sound like some sort of hero, I’d say, ‘I’ve heard everything, and I’m here to help!’”

“How strange,” I replied. “When you put it that way, it almost makes you sound admirable for eavesdropping on a private conversation.”

“Oh, and I heard something about superpowers,” Sagami added offhandedly. I instantly felt myself tense up and began to prepare for the worst, but then he continued. “You really have it rough, Takanashi. I sure wouldn’t want to have to play along with Andou’s cringey nonsense. I mean, really, superpowers? Who would even pretend to believe in something like that?”

My concern lapsed into relief. It seemed that Sagami hadn’t taken anything that he’d heard seriously. For once, Andou’s chuunibyou had actually proven beneficial.

“Anyway, it was a pretty long conversation, but I think I got the gist of it all,” Sagami continued. I was only half listening as I breathed a brief sigh of relief, but then his next sentence caught me entirely off guard once again.

“Basically, you’re in love with Andou. Right?”

I felt my breath catch in my throat so suddenly and intensely that for a moment, I literally couldn’t breathe. Sagami, on the other hand, smiled at me in the same vague and flippant way he’d been smiling that whole time, and carried on.

“You went over all sorts of quibbly nonsense to justify what you did—‘be praiseworthy’ this, ‘atone for my mistakes’ that—but in the end, it all boiled down to the fact that you wanted to be around the guy you fell for more than you wanted to be the president of the student council. That’s all that really mattered in the end, right? You chose love over your dreams. It’s a classic plot development.”

My mind had gone entirely blank. The way he spoke made it sound like he thought he’d seen right through me, and it sent my emotions into a seething boil. Hearing him reduce everything that Andou and I had agonized over into such a painfully simple conclusion was infuriating beyond all measure.

So why? Why was it...that I couldn’t bring myself to say that he was wrong?

“Oh, speaking of which, I heard about how all you literary club people made Andou a game for his birthday. And I think you were the one who suggested it?” Sagami continued, speaking with an air of utter indifference. “Let me guess: you thought that if you wrapped all the others up into giving him a group present, you could make sure that nobody would try and get ahead of you by using their gift as an excuse to ask him out on his special day? You’d kill the competition by having everyone cross the finish line at the same time. Maybe you should’ve handed out some participation trophies while you were at it! I have to say, Takanashi, you really rigged this one up good.”

I didn’t say a word. I “rigged” it, he’d said. These days, people associate the word with scams, using it to mean “to give oneself an unfair advantage,” but in its original usage, it just meant “to put something together,” often in a makeshift way. As to which meaning he was using it in, well, I had already drawn my own conclusion.

“Oh, don’t glare at me like that, Takanashi. It’s such a waste of a pretty face. And please, don’t get me wrong—I have absolutely no intention of teasing you. We’re not grade schoolers, and I’m not interested in making fun of someone else’s budding romance. To the contrary, I was hoping to help you.”

“Budding...romance?” I repeated incredulously.

“Right. You see, I’m actually hoping that you and Andou hook up. I want you to end up with him.”

Once again, I was reduced to standing there in silence. This time, though, it wasn’t out of rage—it was due to the fact that I could not even begin to understand where his line of thought was coming from, or where it was going. Sagami paid my silence no mind, though, and carried on his monologue.

“Technically speaking, I’m going against my own personal policies by doing this. Speaking as a reader, I’m definitely out of my lane here...but that just goes to show how big of a payoff I think this could bring,” Sagami said, his mild smile as steadfast as ever. “If you, the obvious least popular heroine in the whole cast, could end up winning Andou’s heart...well, just imagine how novel and ever so slightly twisted of a rom-com that could make!”

I couldn’t understand a word that he was saying. He just kept smiling at me—a smile so horribly natural, it came across as incredibly unsettling. I felt a sense of fear building up within me that I couldn’t even begin to explain. “Who...are you, really?” I asked.

“Oh, just myself,” said Sagami. “A simple reader who wants to see something entertaining and original, that’s all.”

I lapsed into silence once more.

“So, how about it? You, Takanashi, have fallen hard for Andou, and I’m offering you my help. Feel like accepting it? If you do, I’ll make you into the main heroine,” said Sagami, holding out a hand to me.

And what did I do?

I...

☆

I first met Hatoko after we got into high school. We’d spent a year together as clubmates, and we’d grown to get along really well with each other. She was a kind, pleasant girl, and simply being around her felt like it cleansed my cynical soul. She had the aura of a caring, affectionate mother, and I started considering her a close friend before I knew it.

Hatoko had a childhood friend. That friend was a boy, and an exceptionally lively one at that. He was also an irredeemable dumbass, and he also had a nasty case of chuunibyou, which—though I really hate to admit it—was probably why the two of us hit it off so well. Like, it was almost scary how well we hit it off. I’d actually met him once before, back during my own chuuni phase, but neither of us had told each other our names at the time. I only learned his after we happened to end up in the same high school club together. He was called Andou Jurai, otherwise known as Guiltia Sin Jurai.

“Can we talk about something sorta serious for a little?”

The two of us were alone in our club room together, and Hatoko had a really serious look on her face, which was a rarity for her. I took just a second to prepare myself, and in the meantime, Hatoko spoke up again.

“Oh, well, hmm. I guess it’s not really that serious?” she said.

Suddenly, I felt the slight tension that had been building up in me drain away again. “C’mon, make up your mind, girl,” I jabbed.

“Ha ha ha, sorry! I’m not really sure if it’s serious or not anymore,” said Hatoko. “I just wanted to gossip about love stuff with you a little!”

“A-About love?” I stammered. Okay, yeah... I’m not really sure whether or not that counts as serious either. Love, though? Seriously? I never would’ve expected Hatoko to bring up a topic like that.

“Hey, Tomoyo—do you have a crush on anyone?” Hatoko asked, leaning forward with a look of keen interest on her face. The way she was acting reminded me of something, and a second later I figured it out: she was behaving just like a kid gossiping with their classmates on the night of a school trip.

“N-N-Nah, I don’t. N-Not really,” I replied. This topic was waaay out of my comfort zone, and I’ve gotta admit, I was panicking pretty hard.

Ugggh, I just know I’m blushing right now... This sort of girl talk stuff just really isn’t my thing! I’m the sort of girl who feels most at home literally at home, sitting in my room in front of my computer! Again, though, I really was a little surprised. Frankly, I’d sort of assumed that Hatoko would be just as uncomfortable about this sort of topic as I was. The two of us had never talked about love or crushes or anything like that before.

“Oh, okay,” said Hatoko with a nod. “I do, though!”

Her expression didn’t slip for a second. She had on the same smile as ever, as bright and cheerful as a sunflower in full bloom.

“I have a crush on Juu.”

And time came to a screeching halt. It just stopped dead, in a far more profound and irresistible way than Closed Clock was capable of inducing. My breathing, my movements, even my heart—everything, and I mean everything, came to a halt.

“I really, really love Juu,” Hatoko continued. Juu. That was what she called Andou. She was the only one who called him that. It was a special nickname, just for her. “I want to spend way more time talking with him. I want to go out into town and go shopping with him. I want to do all sorts of things in all sorts of places with him!”

“...”

“I want to spend every day with him. I want to make him breakfast every morning, and hold hands with him, and go on dates with him.”

“...”

“I even want to try...k-kissing him,” said Hatoko, blushing bright red and fidgeting bashfully.

As for me? I had no idea how the hell I was supposed to react to any of this. I couldn’t even begin to guess what sort of face I was making. I wasn’t cold at all, but I could still feel myself starting to tremble.

“Why...” I said, the word falling unprompted from my quivering lips. “Why...are you telling me this?”

At first, I thought she was going to ask for my help. I figured she’d ask me to step in and play cupid for her crush. It didn’t take me long to figure out how wrong that assumption had been.

“Because you understand Juu better than anyone else,” said Hatoko.

I understand him?

“And...because I’m the one who understands him the least,” she continued, her smile taking on a tinge of sadness. “I understand him the least, and you understand him the most. So I know that I have to tell you this now, before anything else.”

Hatoko was speaking in the same old voice she’d always spoken with. It was her voice, after all. But that said, the way she was forcing herself to push all the emotion out of her tone made that voice sound incredibly unnatural to me. She spoke in a way that sounded mostly detached, except for an ever so slight hint of tension and fear mixed in.

“I want to be his chosen one,” said Hatoko.

“You...what?”

“I want Juu to choose me,” she repeated, her gaze taking on a certain sharpness that struck me as extremely unlike her. That pointed glint was wavering, though. It was the gaze of a girl who was desperately battling with her own worries and fears. The gaze of a girl who was forcing herself to stay in high spirits, even when she might break down in tears at any moment.

“I’ll ask you again, Tomoyo,” said Hatoko. “Do you have a crush on anyone?”

As the pressure of her words bore down on me, I finally realized what was really happening.

Oh, okay. I get it now. This is a declaration of war. She’s telling me that she’d never lose to a rival who can’t stand tall and declare her love.

Hatoko was asking me for my true feelings. She wanted to know the truth about Kanzaki Tomoyo’s innermost thoughts, which not even I myself totally understood.

And what did I do?

I...

☆

“A-Are you okay, Chii?”

Nice to meet you. My name is Kuki Madoka, and today, my best friend in the whole world, Chii, came over to my house to play. At first, she said that she was going to the literary club today, but then she changed her mind and came over to my place instead. Chii changing her mind at the last second was an everyday occurrence, so that didn’t seem like a very big deal to me. What did feel like a big deal, though, was the fact that something seemed weird about her.

Chii had looked really, really worried when she arrived at my house, and the first thing she said to me was, “I...think I might die.”

She was sitting on the couch in my living room, shivering with fear and squeezing her favorite stuffed animal, Squirrely, tightly in her arms. Speaking as her friend, I was worried sick about her...though she did finish off all the sweets I’d served her before I knew it, so she had an appetite, at least.

“Help me, Cookie,” Chifuyu moaned.

“Of course!” I replied. “It’ll be okay, Chii! You know I’m always on your side! You can tell me anything at all! What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been weird lately,” said Chii, raising a hand to her breast. “My chest...”

“What? Got bigger?” I guessed.

“No, it didn’t.”

“Oh, okay.”

“It’s the same as yours.”

“Oh. Okay...”

Well, now I’m a little sad. But no, it’s fine! That’s just for now. We still have the future to look forward to.

“I’ve been feeling my chest get all thumpy...”

“You mean...your heart?”

“It gets thumpy, and then it’s like it’s getting squeezed...and my face gets red, and I can’t focus...”

I was astonished. After all, I had a pretty good idea of what she was describing. It could only be one thing—there was no mistaking it.

“Chii...that means you have an irregular pulse!” I’d read about it in a book just recently, and the symptoms all matched up. Oh no, this is awful! Chii’s really seriously sick! “O-Oh no, oh no... We have to call a hospital right away!”

“Yeah...” muttered Chii.

“Hey, Chii, when does your chest start hurting? Is it when you wake up in the morning? Or right after you eat?” I asked.

Chii turned away from me. “When Andou...”

“Huh?”

“When Andou’s nearby. Or when I think about him. My chest gets really thumpy then,” said Chii. Her face was as red as an apple.

A flushed face is another sign of an irregular—no. No, that’s not it. This isn’t an irregular pulse after all.

“Cookie,” Chii groaned. She sounded like she was about to cry. “What should I do, Cookie? Am I sick? Am I gonna die...?”

“Chii...”

I’d read about this in a book too. It was love. It had to be. When she thought about a boy, her heart started pounding, and her face got all flushed... It had to be love. And she was in love with...

I gasped. Oh, no. Chii’s gone and fallen in love with a lolicon scumbag!

☆

“Achoo!”

Halfway to our school, I let out one hell of a sneeze.

“Oh, boy, here we go... Looks like the hosts of Hades are plotting my downfall all over again! And that means...it’s going to be war. How many lives will have their flames snuffed out on the battlefield this time, I wonder...?” I muttered to myself in the coolest friggin’ way possible, though I took care not to slow my pace as I did so. I had to get back as soon as possible—I’d feel really bad if I kept Tomoyo and Hatoko waiting around in the club room much longer, after all.

Oh, wait, though. Maybe I could just ask Hatoko to bring my bag back for me? That’d be a lot quicker for both of us. Ah, but on the other hand, I’d feel kinda bad about asking a girl to carry my bag home. Yeah, okay, I’d better go pick it up myself after all!

My resolve renewed, I set off once more, my path lit by the red glow of the sunset. I wasn’t even running, but my slightly faster than usual walking pace still had me a little sweaty. The faint buzz of cicadas echoed from somewhere far off in the distance.

My seventeenth birthday had come and gone, and July was halfway over. Summer was finally beginning in earnest, and once our final exams were done with, a fun-filled summer vacation awaited us. What sort of summer are we going to have this year? I wondered, and then I paused.

It was strange. For some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this year’s summer would burn hotter and brighter than ever before.