Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 6 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Andou Jurai’s Eighth-Grade Fall, Part 2—Rain So Quiet, Feelings So Muted

The idea that new beginnings always enter one’s life unexpectedly is such a well-known tidbit, it’s hardly even worth asking people if they’ve heard the idea before. It’s a stale, hackneyed observation that gets thrown about with wild abandon, and you barely have to search at all to find a billion Japanese songs that discuss it in their lyrics. Beginnings, however, aren’t alone in their abrupt nature. Endings are abrupt as well, arriving just as unforeseen with just as little warning.

All that being said, I don’t believe that endings are a matter of chance. All that had form must someday cease to be. All worldly things are impermanent. All that prospers will someday decline. Life is ever mutable, ever shifting...and everything that begins must end. What else could you call that other than inevitable?

In my view, as soon as something has begun, its ending always lies just ahead of it. We never notice it ourselves, but our own endings—our own demises—dwell practically next to our beginnings. The moment anything comes into existence, it’s already begun the process of coming to an end. The moment a person is born into this world, they’re already walking the path to their death. It’s only in the moment that we perceive that ending, the ending that’s been with us since the very start, that we truly cease to be.

The end of the beginning...is over before we know it.

☆

It happened one day toward the end of fall—or rather, the beginning of winter. It was a Saturday right around the middle of October, the month where humanity is left without gods while they leave us to meet with their kin. As the seasons were beginning to transition, the weather grew unstable, and on that particular day, a cold rain had been pounding away since early in the morning.

“Jurai...where are you right now?”

I’d let most of the day pass me by, lazing about without doing anything in particular, when I got a phone call from Tamaki right around evening.

“Huh...? I’m at home. Why?” I replied.

“Oh, thank goodness,” said Tamaki. Even over the phone, I could tell that her tone of voice was oddly subdued. “I’m...right nearby your place at the moment, actually. Sorry, but can I stomp on in for a span?”

“Near my place?” I repeated in shock, then leaped off my bed and ran to the window.

“I, well...didn’t bring an umbrella, see,” said Tamaki as I peered outside. Just like that, there she was: Tamaki herself, standing by the side of the road, stock still and unshielded from the downpour. The big, fluffy clothes she always wore drooped heavily under the weight of the rain they’d been drenched with.

“What the heck are you doing out there?!” I said.

“Jurai...I’m so sorry, but please...let me in? The rain’s freezing...and my phone’s getting soaked...”

Tamaki spoke in a voice so somber, so faint, it felt like the rain would swallow it up whole.

“It’s all wrecked up—all of it.”

For better or for worse, I was the only one at home at that particular moment. My sister was out on the town, and my parents had both left to handle some errand or other. I let Tamaki in and gave her my old middle school gym uniform to change into.

“Ah, Jurai...?” Tamaki said in a slightly apologetic tone as I handed the uniform over. “Do you, umm...have anything with long sleeves I could snag instead...?”

I realized my mistake instantly: my old uniform consisted of a short-sleeved sweatsuit top and shorts. Tamaki looked like she was halfway to hypothermia, so of course she wouldn’t want to be wearing something like that. I sprinted back upstairs and returned with a long-sleeved tracksuit I happened to own as well, which I passed to her before showing her where our laundry room was. Then I went back into the living room, turned our air conditioner to its heater setting, and set up a space heater as well to get the place nice and warm. I could’ve turned up the heat in my room, I guess, but I figured the living room would heat up faster.

“Want something to drink?” I asked after Tamaki had finished changing. “I guess I only really have tea and instant coffee on hand though.”

“Thanks,” said Tamaki, who’d sat down on my couch. “Guess I’ll take some tea.”

I brought her a mug of green tea, then moved the space heater a little closer to her. “Is this helping?” I asked. “Just let me know if it’s too hot.”

“You’re so nice, Jurai. Really, just a stand-up guy,” said Tamaki in a dull, vacant tone. “I’m sorry... I just don’t know what I should do anymore... You’re the only one I could head to for help.”

She seemed like she was on the verge of tears—or like she’d already cried herself dry, more likely. Her eyes were terribly bloodshot, and her voice was a little nasally. Her speech had always had that flat, dull affect to it, and now it felt more than ever like her words were as thick as mud.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Shizumu dumped me,” Tamaki readily answered. It was almost shocking how simple and straightforward of a reply it was, but at the same time, it instantly explained how she’d ended up walking all the way to my house in the rain without an umbrella.

“He dumped you...?” I repeated, aghast.

“Sure did... Said he wouldn’t go out with me anymore.”

“But...why...?”

“He found some other girl he fancies more.”

In an instant, my mind descended into a state of turmoil. “Some other girl...? You mean Yusa Kokoro?” I muttered, then realized an instant later that I’d screwed up. I shouldn’t have said that name.

Sure enough, Tamaki sat up straight in a flash. “You know about her?!” she shouted. “How?! Where’d you find out?! You’re not in school with her!”

“I, umm...”

“How long’ve you known?! Why didn’t you say something?!” Tamaki demanded as she shot to her feet.

“C-Calm down,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders and coaxing her back down onto the couch. I sat down next to her and desperately searched for the best way I could explain myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a gifted enough conversationalist to cover for my mistake, nor shameless enough to lie to her face. “It was just a coincidence,” I finally said. “I happened to see Sagami walking around with some girl this one time.”

I wasn’t about to reveal that “this one time” had been the time I’d gone with Tamaki to the movies. I was a terrible liar and didn’t exactly have a silver tongue, but I could at least manage to keep secrets that felt like they’d be better off unrevealed.

“I questioned him about her...and he told me that she’d asked him out, they’d gone on a single date, and that he wouldn’t see her again. I thought that’d wrapped the whole thing up, so I didn’t think I had to tell you,” I explained. It came out sounding like an excuse, and I knew it, but somehow it seemed to help Tamaki find her composure once more anyway.

“Oh. Okay,” she said with a nod, then fell silent.

“I’m sorry I kept it secret,” I said.

“You don’t have to apologize, Jurai,” said Tamaki.

“But I—”

“Don’t.”

A painful silence fell over the room. This was my home, but it felt like I’d wandered my way into some completely unknown estate. I felt alienated and shut out in the most agonizing sort of way, and I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I could’ve talked crap about Sagami, or I could’ve tried to comfort Tamaki, but the words just wouldn’t come. It felt like a hole had been opened in my heart—though of course, the hole in Tamaki’s heart was sure to have been far wider, deeper, and darker.

“You know,” Tamaki eventually mumbled, “my folks used to bully me.”

I stiffened up. Her voice sounded almost hollow, and it was such an abrupt change of topic I was totally unprepared for it. It felt like I’d just been sucker punched in the back of the head. Her folks bullied her? If she meant what I thought she meant, that wasn’t the sort of thing you could write off with a word like bully. It was something far more unpleasant, far more dreadful than that word implied.

“My mom played around a lot... She had guys all over the place. She never even knew which one was my dad. Thanks to that, my home life’s always been awful complicated. Mom never had a job, so she’d amble ’round from guy to guy and cart me along with.”

That would explain why she’s transferred schools so many times. To think I’d just casually assumed that her parents’ work was at fault...

“I guess my first dad was a real peach at first, but then he goofed up at work and ran out on us. I was still a tyke back then, so I don’t remember any of it. The second one was the worst—he was basically an alcoholic. He’d send me out to shop for his booze, but kids can’t buy that stuff, obviously. He’d beat me up if I came back without anything though, so I’d have to think up whole plans to get my hands on a bottle... The third one wasn’t a talker. Didn’t seem to care a whit about me or my mom—felt like they were only married on paper—and they called it quits last year. They’re bashing it out about the divorce these days—you know, who gets what. That’s why they had me go roost with my grammy and gramps.”

Her story spilled out in a single, unbroken stream. It was like listening to a newscaster read off a teleprompter, her voice cold and stiff. Finally, she raised up an arm—an arm almost entirely covered by the long-sleeved sweatsuit I’d lent her.

“I’ve still got the marks. From the punches, and the cigarette burns too. On my arms and legs. Wasn’t ever a mean enough state to send me to the hospital, but, well, you can still tell at a glance...”

I’d always assumed that Tamaki had favored bulky, flowy clothes on account of her fashion sense. I’d thought she’d just liked dressing that way, and I’d never even questioned it. What the hell have I been doing all this time? Have I been paying any attention to her at all? There’d been all sorts of hints I could’ve caught, but I’d been so happy and complacent with the status quo I didn’t notice even one of them. I don’t mean to say I could’ve done something about it even if I had noticed, but the point stands.

“I told Shizumu about all this,” Tamaki said as she lowered her arm again. Her tone was so indifferent, so cold, it was like some part of her soul had frozen solid. “When I asked him out and we started dating...I told him everything. About my transfers, why I only wear long sleeves—all of it. And Shizumu said he didn’t care a whit...”

It seemed that when he’d finished listening, all Sagami had said was, “Oh, really? That’s rough. So, what exactly does all that have to do with our relationship?” He couldn’t have cared less, from the way he talked about it. I could vividly imagine him saying something like that—it was so perfectly consistent with the peculiar distance he kept from other people.

“I was so tickled... I thought I’d really picked out a good one to fall for,” said Tamaki. The two of them had started dating, and not all too long afterward, they met me. “I’d always thought my life was just a big old waste...but lately, I’d been starting to have a little fun. Shizumu became my boyfriend, I made friends with you and Hatoko... But then...he threw me away.”

Tamaki’s gaze dropped to the floor. She gripped the hem of my sweatsuit, squeezing it so hard it was almost painful to watch.

“Was it all...too heavy, after all? I worked so hard for Shizumu... I never knew a fig about anime, but I watched as much as I could so I could keep up with him... I would’ve done anything to make him happy, but...” Tamaki paused, clasping a hand onto her left arm. Her long sleeves hid whatever it was she was grasping at, but I had a feeling I could guess what lay beneath them. “I guess...Shizumu didn’t want a girl that’s all busted.”

“No!” I shouted. “This isn’t your fault! Sagami’s in the wrong, not you!”

“Jurai...”

“It’s okay, Tamaki—none of this is your fault at all!” I insisted with a vocabulary so pathetically limited I was embarrassed with myself. Offering empty clichés in place of encouragement was the best I could do though. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t even have the beginnings of a plan that could let me do so. All I had was the mess of emotions roiling within me, and those were what finally spilled out in a pointless mess.

“Hey, Tamaki...why not try talking with Sagami one more time?” I said. “I’ll go with you! We can talk with him together! We can even bring Hatoko—why not, right? You don’t have to worry about her, I’m positive she’ll take your side! Then we can all—”

We could all what? What could we do? Hatoko and I could chew Sagami out, sure, but then what? Would everything be all better again if Sagami bit the bullet and went back to dating Tamaki in spite of his disinterest? Of course not.

Could we drag Sagami down, then? Pull that Yusa Kokoro girl into some scheme or another and wreck the hell out of their relationship? But even if we did, what would that accomplish? Could I just beat the hell out of Sagami first, and figure things out later? Sure, but it’d be pointless. Ugh, this is hopeless! It was already too late to do any of the things I could’ve once done.

This was just conjecture on my part, but I was pretty sure that Sagami had already moved on from Tamaki. The fact that he’d broken up with her to her face was proof enough—I knew Sagami well enough to know he’d never do that unless he was totally done with her. Their relationship was utterly and completely over.

“It’s fine...” said Tamaki in a voice so quiet, it was practically a whisper. “No matter what I do, Shizumu won’t come back to me. I know it already.” She knew Sagami even better than I did, and she could feel that truth even more keenly than I could. “Thanks for lending an ear, Jurai,” she continued as a look of resignation passed over her face. “I’m...glad I dropped on out here. Didn’t even know where I was going, really—I was just tromping around and ended up here before I knew it.”

“But... But, I—”

“You really are a stand-up guy,” Tamaki said. Tears pooled in her eyes, her voice shook—and she hugged me, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me close to her. Just like I’d done to her before.

“Wha...? T-Tamaki?” I gasped. She was leaning all her weight onto me, and it took everything I had to not tip over and fall flat on the couch. This wasn’t even remotely the time, but I found a part of my mind preoccupied by the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra at the moment and cursed my stupid, obnoxious male instincts. She smelled of shampoo and the rain, and both aromas hit me at point-blank range.

“I’m sorry... Just put up with me for a tick... Please...”

“Tamaki...”

“Now that I’ve lost Shizumu...you’re all I have left...”

I more or less reflexively returned Tamaki’s embrace, hugging her with all my strength. She was wounded and trembling, and hugging her was all I could do. For some time, the only sound to be heard was the quiet patter of the rain outside.

Finally, Tamaki broke that moment of quiet. Without letting go of me, she whispered into my ear. “Jurai...you said that I’m cute, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you...love me?”

“Yeah,” I said, agreeing without a second thought.

“Oh, good. Thank you,” said Tamaki. Her voice was bright, clear, and for once, completely devoid of her usual characteristic flatness. It was the first time I’d heard her speak so clearly.

Tamaki slowly released me, pulling away from me once more. Her hair was still slightly damp, her eyes moist, and her cheeks flushed. Her gently curved lips were as red as could be. The Tamaki before me looked so unlike the Tamaki I knew, it felt like she’d reached into my chest and physically grabbed hold of my heart.

And then—as if it were the most natural thing in the world—Tamaki closed her eyes. I had no experience with girls at all, but even so, I understood what this was all building toward. I knew what she intended. I sat there silently as Tamaki raised her hands to my cheeks. They were terribly, terribly cold, and I felt a desire to warm them up for her.

I’d finally figured out the one thing I could do to help Tamaki. I just had to love her.

All I had to do was give her all the love she needed to make up for Sagami’s absence—to make up for her parents’ neglect. I could stake my everything on loving her, and I could continue to love her come what may. I could make sure that nobody ever had the chance to hurt her again. It would work. I knew for a fact that I could treat her better than Sagami ever had. After all: I was in love with her. Surely, that was the emotion that burned away within my chest—

“No. That’s wrong.”

A voice rang out. It cut through the dim static of the rainfall like a knife through butter. I’d heard that line before. They were the same words he’d spoken during our first encounter.

“What you’re feeling right now isn’t love, Jurai. It’s condescending pity, nothing more. You’ve succumbed to the intoxicating appeal of getting to save a pitiful girl who’s been placed into tragic circumstances, and you’ve come out on the other side as a narcissistic, self-absorbed white knight. Basically, you’re jerking off to your own sense of self-righteousness.”

There he was, standing in the doorway to my living room. He looked down on us, spectated us with eyes so keenly perceptive, it was almost scary.

“This isn’t really my responsibility, but just so you know, I’d recommend you stop trying to be nice in this sort of way. It’s only a matter of time before some other tragically misfortunate girl shows up, and you’ll end up drifting to her before long for sure. This is exactly how guys end up getting dragged into a web of lies of their own making,” he said, picking my actions apart like he was analyzing a character in a story.

I looked up and shot him a glare. “Sagami...!”

“Please, don’t be a stranger! Call me Sagamin.”

“Shut your trap.”

I was disoriented and bewildered, to be sure, but I wasn’t that confused by this development. After all, I was the one who’d called Sagami here in the first place. Tamaki hadn’t told me that he’d broken up with her yet, so my first thought had been that I should call him over, and I’d texted him while she was changing. I’d still been under the impression that helping her through whatever struggle had sent her out into the rain was his duty at the time. Still, though, he’d certainly picked the worst possible moment to walk in on.

“Sh-Shizumu?! Wh-What’re you...?” Tamaki stammered in stupefied confusion, her eyes wide. Unlike me, she seemed shaken to her core. Her gaze darted frantically about the room before finally falling on me: the guy she’d been hugging just a moment ago. “N-No! No, it’s not what you think!”

Wham! Tamaki shoved me with all her might. The impact was strong enough to send me sprawling out onto the floor, where I totally failed to break my fall. A sharp pain shot through my back as I landed hard, but Tamaki didn’t even spare me a second glance as she rushed over to Sagami.

“This isn’t what it looks like! It...It was all Jurai! I told him I wasn’t game, but he just wouldn’t drop it! He just stuck onto me out of nowhere!”

Wha— T-Tamaki...?

I sat partway up, lifting my head off the ground to look at the girl I’d been prepared to stake my life on protecting just moments before. Tamaki, however, wasn’t looking at me at all. She had eyes only for her former lover, gazing hopefully at him as she flashed him a flirtatious smile.

“Hey, Shizumu...you trust me, right? It’s like I told you before—you’re the only one for me, honest,” said Tamaki, her pleas interspersed with uncontrollable sobs.

Sagami, however, didn’t so much as acknowledge her presence. He completely ignored her, as if so much as looking at her would sully him, and instead directed his words to me as I still lay on the ground. “You get it now, right, Jurai? This is the real her. She just wants a man, and it doesn’t matter at all to her who that man is. She’ll open her heart and legs to any old schlub, as long as he treats her like his pretty little princess. She’s as easy and flighty as could be.”

With that, Sagami spun about on his heel and walked away.

“Wait...Shizumu, wait!” Tamaki shouted. She sprinted after him and grabbed onto his arm. “I’m sorry! Please, I’m so sorry... Just give me another chance!”

Sagami stopped in his tracks and slowly turned to face her. A moment later, Tamaki shivered and flinched back. I understood why the moment I saw his face: the look in Sagami’s eyes was colder than the deepest pits of hell itself. Those were the eyes of a man who’d lost all trace of interest in what he was looking at. It wasn’t the sort of look you’d give a human being. It was the sort of look you’d give a piece of trash left discarded by the side of the road. Or rather...it was the sort of look you’d have in your eyes while watching a scene in an anime in which your least favorite character had just talked, and talked, and talked for what felt like an eternity. A look that spoke of anger, exasperation, frustration, and disgust all packed in and condensed into their most potent forms.

“I...ah...” Tamaki babbled. She was trembling. The way that Sagami looked at her—no, the way he looked straight through her seemed to terrify her, and it left her shaking uncontrollably. She looked like she was freezing, even more than when she’d been out in the rain.

“Give it a rest,” said Sagami. “I’m through with you. I might’ve loved you more than anyone before, but I can’t stand you now. I can’t even see you as a girl anymore.”

Tamaki’s stammers ceased. She stood there, silent, as Sagami carried on. “I won’t ask you to give back everything I bought for you. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all yours now. If you want the stuff you gave me back, you can have it. And with that, I think we’re done here,” he said, then paused. “Oh—except for that film strip. I’m keeping it no matter what you say.”

Part of me wanted to ask just how much he’d wanted that stupid thing, but this was obviously not the moment.

“Ah, right! I almost forgot one more thing,” said Sagami. “About your accent... I thought it was cute at first. A novelty, you know? But now that I’m used to it...? Nah. Doesn’t do it for me at all.”

Those were the last and worst words he spoke to Tamaki. With that, Sagami said a perfunctory goodbye to me and departed from my house, leaving us behind. I was still lying on the ground, while Tamaki was just standing there, frozen stiff. The look on her face... Well, honestly, I don’t know how she looked. I couldn’t see her face from over on the floor.

“Dammit... Hey, Sagami! Wait!” I shouted as I took a knee, forced myself upright, and sprinted after him, rushing right past Tamaki as I went.

☆

Among all my bitter memories of my time in the eighth grade—within all the shadows that consumed the darkest point in my life—that single moment is what I’ve always regretted most. The truth is, I wasn’t chasing after Sagami. I was running away from Tamaki. I was too scared to look her in the eye—too scared to learn her true nature—so I pretended to let my anger overtake me and chased after my chosen villain instead, leaving her behind. I refused to so much as look at her.

That was the end for me and Tamaki. We never saw each other again throughout the rest of middle school. As such, that was the final scene in the story of my greatest regrets in which Futaba Tamaki will make an appearance. I ran away, and thanks to that decision, this wound up being the note on which our time together had come to an end.

☆

The downpour had let up considerably by the time I ran outside. It was one of those drizzles that was just weak enough to make you wonder if you should even bother bringing an umbrella but just strong enough to make your face unpleasantly damp after a few steps. I hadn’t even considered grabbing one when I’d sprinted out of my house, but Sagami had different priorities and was casually strolling along, umbrella in hand. I charged up to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him around to face me.

“I said wait!” I shouted.

“Oh, Jurai. Need something?” Sagami asked with a puzzled stare. He really didn’t seem to have any clue why I’d chased after him.

“Are you friggin’ kidding me?!” I snapped. “You need to get back in there and apologize to Tamaki right now!”

“Why?” Sagami asked.

“What do you mean, why...? Do you have any idea how badly you hurt her feelings?!”

“And would apologizing do anything to fix that?”

“Would it—” I began, then faltered. It wouldn’t. It could never.

“Let’s imagine I did apologize, for a moment,” said Sagami. “It might help relieve the incredibly minuscule and insignificant pinprick of guilt I feel about this whole situation, I suppose. Meanwhile, it would be like pouring salt in the wound for Tamaki. Her feelings would be more hurt than ever. Do you really think I should go apologize to her anyway?”

I fell into silence as Sagami’s words sank in.

“I meant what I said a moment ago, Jurai. You can’t just go around being nice to anyone and everyone who’ll let you force your kindness onto them. That sort of kindness is purely superficial, and all you’ll accomplish with it is getting yourself taken advantage of. That, or accidentally hurting the feelings of the person you’re being kind to.”

He made it sound so convincing—even though I knew he was full of crap—that I found myself sick to the stomach to think that I could be smooth-talked so easily. I was disgusted with myself for being too stupid to come up with anything better than an emotionally driven tirade to argue against him, and I was disgusted with him for being able to keep up that air of cool, composed indifference even after everything that had just happened.

“You’re the one who cheated on her, so where do you get off acting like you have the moral high ground?” I growled. “Tamaki really loved you, you know? And then you went and stabbed her in the back!”

“Even if we assume that were true, I don’t believe it would give you any right to criticize me,” said Sagami. “I’m a busy guy, and I don’t have the free time to keep dragging out a relationship with someone I’ve lost interest in. If you buy Jump once, does that mean you’re obligated to keep buying it week after week? Of course not. You can stop reading it whenever you feel like it, and relationships are the same way. If you grow to dislike your partner, you can just break up with them. If you find someone better, you can date them instead. Personally, I think this is all really obvious.”

“Y’know what they call people who behave that way? They call them—” I began, then abruptly fell silent as I realized that something about what Sagami had said was off.

Wait a second. What did he say just now, right at the beginning? “Even if we assume that were true”? What does he mean, “even if”? What does he mean, “assume”?

“Hey...Sagami,” I said, “what are you talking about? Where’s all this ‘even if’ stuff coming from?”

“Oh, whoops—slip of the tongue, I suppose,” said Sagami. “But, well, I’d rather not waste any more time on this than I have to, so I suppose I might as well just tell you everything and get it over with. I don’t know exactly what Tamaki said to you back there, but I think I can more or less imagine, and I have a feeling you’re probably under a misapprehension right now.”

“What misapprehension?”

“I dumped Tamaki—that part’s true—but I didn’t do it because I liked Kokoro better than her. I did keep my promise to you, for whatever that’s worth. I had absolutely no contact with Kokoro whatsoever from the moment I made that promise to the moment I broke up with Tamaki.”

“Wait...but no, that doesn’t make sense!” I insisted. I’d been certain that Sagami had swapped girlfriends on a capricious whim. Tamaki had done everything she could to be the best girlfriend possible, and he’d betrayed her. Plus, he’d chosen a girl who was more or less her exact opposite to go out with instead, as if to spite her. But now he was saying that I was misunderstanding things? That I was wrong? “But then...why did you dump her?” I asked.

Sagami readjusted his grip on his umbrella.

“Because she cheated on me.”

The rain started picking up again.

“She was seeing somebody else behind my back, so I dumped her. I think discovering that your significant other’s been cheating on you is a perfectly valid reason to break up with them, wouldn’t you say?”

My train of thought had ground to a halt. My mind was such a mess, it was like I’d overloaded my brain. She cheated? Tamaki cheated? Not Sagami?

“That...can’t be true,” I stammered.

“But it is,” said Sagami. “I saw the texts myself.”

“The texts?”

“We were out on a date today, just like usual, when Tamaki went to the restroom and forgot her cell phone. I knew that looking at it would be a dick move, but I gave in to temptation and did it anyway. Just like that, I found conclusive proof she’d been cheating, and just like that, I lost all interest in her and broke up with her on the spot.”

I could hardly think of a less surprising way to have your infidelity get found out. Peeking into somebody’s cell phone was a major violation of their privacy in my book, even if you were dating them...but if your snooping reveals the fact that your partner’s been cheating on you, the culpability of the situation would be turned on its head.

“So then...who was it?” I asked. “Someone from your school?”

“You know him, actually,” said Sagami in a tone utterly devoid of interest. “It was Aragaki Zenya.”

I felt myself stiffen up. A vertigo-like sensation washed over me, and for a second it felt like I might fall over. Aragaki Zenya. Never in a million years would I have imagined that his name would crop up here. It was the most inconceivable moment for him to reenter the story.

“You know, the douchebag from way back whenever,” Sagami continued. “I didn’t know his name was Zenya until today, actually. I learned it from Tamaki’s texts. She was calling him by his given name—she sounded very familiar with him, actually. Heart emojis all over the place and everything.”

“What...? But...why? Why would Tamaki...? With Aragaki...?” Of all the people it could’ve possibly been, why did it turn out to be one of the most irritating people I know?

“Your guess is as good as mine. I didn’t scroll all the way up to see how they hit it off. I stopped caring the second I realized she’d been cheating on me...but, well, I can’t say I don’t understand how you feel right now. Goes to show that it doesn’t matter how much of a douche you are as long as you have the looks,” said Sagami. It wasn’t an explanation that I could ever possibly accept, but he seemed totally convinced. “To me, that day back in spring was the day I had my first meeting with you. To Tamaki, though, it was also the day she met Aragaki Zenya. I don’t think either of them had a good first impression of the other, but I imagine they probably went through all sorts of drama with each other while I wasn’t watching. You see it all the time in shojo manga, right? Love blooms from the worst first impressions.”

“That can’t be true... It can’t be,” I moaned over and over like a broken record. It was unbelievable—I didn’t want to believe it—but deep down, part of me was convinced.

I flashed back to what I’d seen from my living room floor moments before, remembering the attitude Tamaki had taken toward Sagami. The pleading, ingratiating way she’d spoken to him wasn’t the tone I’d have expected from a girl who’d just been unilaterally broken up with for a terrible, selfish reason. It was the attitude of a girl who was desperately begging forgiveness for her recently uncovered infidelity.

“It’s like I told you before—you’re the only one for me, honest!”

She’d said that she only loved Sagami...and implied that she’d already said it before I was in the picture, when the two of them were alone. That, more than anything else, all but confirmed to me that she really had cheated on him. Much as I couldn’t believe it—much as I couldn’t accept it—Tamaki’s own attitude told an exceptionally clear tale of the truth of the matter.

“But then, why...?” I muttered in a daze. I almost pitched forward, but I planted my hands on my knees to keep myself upright. “Why didn’t Tamaki tell me about all this...?”

“Like I said before, that’s just the sort of girl she is,” said Sagami. “I assume that she figured out I wasn’t on the table anymore and decided to give you a try next. What a scummy excuse for a woman, really. It doesn’t matter what abuse she went through growing up—it doesn’t justify her using her backstory to lure guys into supporting her. I honestly can’t stand it when girls try to pass themselves off as the tragic heroine like that.”

“Oh, you son of a bitch!” I shouted. Sagami had finally pushed me over the edge. His words were so appallingly insensitive, I saw red and reached out reflexively to grab him by the collar. Sagami, however, dodged backward, and my arm swung fruitlessly through empty air.

“You should really learn to be more skeptical about the things people tell you, Jurai,” said Sagami with a look of profound exasperation. “Judging by that reaction, I assume she told you about her abusive family history too. But, tell me—did she actually prove it?”

“Huh?” I gasped.

“I’m asking if she showed you any evidence. Did you ask her to roll up her sleeves and show you the scars?”

“Do you seriously have to ask...? Of course I didn’t,” I said. From a common sense perspective, there’s no way I ever possibly could’ve. Nobody could listen to a story like that and respond by asking to see some solid proof she was telling the truth. Nobody could...and she knew that too. “So...you’re saying it was all just a bunch of lies?”

“As I said, I don’t know. I haven’t had the chance to check either. I’m just raising the possibility, that’s all. The real problem at hand isn’t whether or not she was lying—it’s the fact that, regardless, you bought into her story without even thinking to question it. You were sympathizing with her like you’d never sympathized with anyone before, right? Can you imagine what might’ve happened if I’d shown up just a minute or two later?”

“I...”

“Not that it really matters to me, of course. I couldn’t care less about her anymore, and I don’t give the slightest hint of a crap about whether or not her story’s true. And, hey, if you still want to date her after hearing all this, I won’t try to stop you! I’d actually be happy for you! Congratulations! She’s used goods, sure, but do try to take good care of her anyway.”

I imagined her face, and I imagined myself asking her a question. Hey, Tamaki. What were you trying to accomplish with all this? Is Sagami right? Were you really just trying to trick me? When you told me about your past, about how you needed me—was all of it just a lie? And above all else...why did you cheat on him?

Oh. Oh, I see.

I took in a sharp breath as a revelation struck me. It fell on me like a pile of bricks. It was hardly even a question in the first place. After all, the answer was standing right in front of me. This was all because of Sagami Shizumu. She’d been tempted by another man because her boyfriend was an irredeemable piece of human waste.

“Being considerate’s tiring.”

“Consideration’s a heavy burden emotionally.”

Tamaki had once excused Sagami’s behavior by saying those things, and I was certain she’d sincerely felt like she was being treated fairly—in the sense that she was hoping her feelings would change if she believed hard enough. She’d probably told it to herself over and over again, convincing herself that she shouldn’t expect his consideration. In truth, though? Of course she’d wanted him to be considerate. Of course she’d wanted him to take on that burden. Even if she’d been okay with Sagami’s outlandish behavior and utter disregard for the people around him, surely she’d wished that he’d pay at least a little attention to her needs.

Maybe, in truth, she thought that him needing his girlfriend to protect him from some random douchebag was pathetic. Deep down, she must’ve hoped that he was going to spare the time to pay her a visit when she’d had a cold. She must’ve hoped that he’d prioritize her over Comiket, even if it had been the biggest event of the summer for geeks like him. Maybe she couldn’t stand all his geeky hobbies to begin with. Maybe she didn’t want to go to a movie made solely for people with that sort of special interest. Maybe she knew how lame his fashion sense was and had been really put off by it.

Tamaki loved Sagami from the bottom of her heart...and that’s exactly why it must’ve been unimaginably painful that he’d never shown her the same sort of love in return. The strength and depth of her feelings were exactly what had led her to stray into the arms of another guy.

I’d thought that Tamaki was the ideal girlfriend. She’d always prioritized her boyfriend, following along after him and bowing to his every whim. She’d held his opinions in the highest of esteem, and she was never too aggressive about asserting her own. I’d thought she was cheerful, laid-back, understanding, and mature. But I was wrong. It wasn’t that she was like that naturally—she’d been trying her hardest to act that way. The real Tamaki was a perfectly ordinary, kinda needy girl, just like everyone else.

“It’s not too late to start over,” I said, my voice trembling.

“Give it a rest,” said Sagami. “That’s out of the question.”

“No, it isn’t! She really loves you, you know?!”

“Correction: you think she really loves me. That’s all you can say for sure, isn’t it?”

It felt like he’d seen right through me, and his words cut me to the quick. They were devoid of consideration, and devoid of mercy as well.

“You thought that we were some sort of ideal couple, didn’t you?” he continued. “That’s why you’re so freaked out right now—your supposedly perfect pairing’s been broken. You’re scared of the disillusionment that’ll bring about in you. I hate to say it, but this is just how it goes between men and women. Love’s just like this.”

“So...you really don’t like Tamaki at all anymore? You really can’t stand her?”

“Right.”

“Why?”

“How many times have we been over this? Because she cheated on me.”

“But you cheated on her too! What, it’s okay for you to cheat, but not for her?! That’s messed up! You...You have no right to judge her!”

For once, Sagami fell silent.

“A-And besides... Cheating could mean a lot of different things, right? Did you even ask how far she went? Maybe she just went on a date like you did—that’d barely be cheating at all! Real cheating’s more—” I said, desperately pressing my point until suddenly, a chill ran down my spine.

It was his eyes. Sagami’s ever-vibrant eyes were fixed on me, and there was something in that gaze of his that froze me on the spot. It was subtle, and I couldn’t quite pin it down, but if I’d had to hazard a guess, I’d have said it was something close to fury. Sagami was always smiling, always flippant, always so noncommittal, it never felt like he was seeing you even when he was looking right at you, but now, I felt like the two of us were seeing eye to eye for the very first time.

“You shouldn’t underestimate how seriously I take matters of purity,” said Sagami, his voice tinged with anger. It was almost a cool line, but somehow, it didn’t make him seem even remotely cool to me. “I am only interested in girls who are unblemished on a deep, profound level. I’m not just talking about physical virginity—my standards demand mental virginity as well. A physical virgin who’s lost her mental virginity can’t be called a true virgin at all.”

“Mental virginity”? What the hell is he even talking about?

“It’s not about whether or not she’s broken some membrane. A true heroine preserves her mental virginity at all costs. She must be completely devoted to the man she falls for. Not only is a girl who gets tempted by other guys not a heroine in my book, she’s not even a girl. As far as I’m concerned, she’s just another guy.”

A guy? He’s saying Tamaki’s a guy? I wasn’t following Sagami’s logic at all, but there was one thing I knew for certain: according to his personal standards, the rules of conduct that he held himself and others to at all times, Tamaki didn’t count as a heroine. In Sagami’s mind, she could never be one.

By those same standards, though, I could say one other thing with certainty: he was no hero either. A guy like him could never serve as a story’s protagonist.

“Quit putting yourself up on a pedestal,” I spat. “Have you taken a look in a mirror lately? Are you even hearing all the self-important, pretentious bullcrap that’s coming out of your mouth? You’ve got some nerve to stand there and mouth off about your stupid standards like that! You think a self-centered dick like you has any right to criticize Tamaki?!”

“Yes, I do,” said Sagami. He said it without a hint of hesitation and without an iota of remorse. He said it in a placid tone, like it was only natural—like it was simply, obviously just the way things were. “After all, I’m a reader.”

And then Sagami went off.

“Readers are selfish, egotistical, and irresponsible by nature. They swap waifus on a seasonal basis while demanding complete, unfaltering devotion from their heroines in the same breath. They put their own looks on a pedestal and refuse to take girls who aren’t beautiful into consideration in the slightest. They follow dozens of series at a time without batting an eyelash, but the second a 2D heroine cheats or an idol’s past romances are discovered, they’ll flip out and lose interest in her in a heartbeat. They’re slaves to their tastes and take no interest in anything that doesn’t immediately suit them. Even if they get obsessively into someone, there’s every chance that within three years or so they’ll have totally lost interest or their tastes will have changed, and they’ll move on to obsess over a new heroine. They drop series halfway through on a whim, for no reason whatsoever. They buy a single volume of a series’ Blu-rays to get a ticket to an event that came as a pack-in, then never bother completing the set because without that ticket, they’d never have bothered buying the Blu-ray at all. They criticize books and manga they haven’t read, and they criticize shows they haven’t watched. They bash anime based solely on the light novels they get adapted from, trash songs based solely on the people who sang them, and declare games garbage just because their loading times are a little on the longer side. They refuse to read manga on the sole basis of not liking their art, and they refuse to read light novels they think have gross covers. They pick anime to watch based on the voice actors in them, not whether the stories sound interesting. They praise shows they watch to high heaven and then don’t bother buying the Blu-rays, extol the virtues of light novels they borrow from friends and never buy, and shower manga they buy used with praise. They read Jump every single week without fail, but they do it in the convenience store so they don’t have to actually pay for it. The things they like will constantly shift for no particular reason, and the things they hate will change at random without any justification. If one story’s even slightly similar to another, they call it an inferior rip-off. They ramble about page layouts and art styles despite never having drawn a manga themselves. They freak out about unfaithful adaptations without ever considering the strengths and limitations of different types of media. They brutally mock QUALITY-tier animation without even considering how hard animation is and what awful conditions animators work under. If a series sells a little better than most, they say it was the work of a stealth marketing campaign, and if a series lags just a little behind in sales, they say it was a disastrous flop. They completely ignore all the relationships that authors painstakingly build up in their series and draw smutty fan comics where stories’ heroines get mindbroken—and then they jack off to them. They pair any two male characters together and turn them into BL-bait. They indulge in the wildest of fantasies and delusions and plumb the depths of debauchery, then justify it all by saying ‘So what? It’s all just entertainment, anyway.’ They assert the right to love what they love and hate what they hate. They have no obligations and the ultimate luxury to choose and reject whatever they see fit.”

Sagami paused for just a moment to silently smile.

“They are a uniquely privileged class, allowed to be as sleazy, base, cruel, and sinful as they desire. They are the readers, the viewers, the spectators, the customers, the consumers, the masses—and I count myself as one of them.”

After that—after all that, I lost the strength to stand and crumpled to my knees, which were immediately soaked by the puddle I landed in. I’d come to understand a terrible truth: Sagami and Tamaki’s relationship hadn’t ended today. It had been over since the beginning. The two of them had been finished since the very instant they’d met. Their relationship’s demise had been there since its earliest moment—it had just taken until now to rise up to the surface.

Nobody could have had a functional relationship with a guy like him. Falling for someone like him—for a boy who stubbornly and persistently asserted his status as a bystander and refused to consider himself an involved party in anything—was a fatal error in and of itself. Futaba Tamaki only took an interest in awful guys, and Sagami Shizumu never took a personal interest in the girls he dated. She was too blindly devoted to love for the sake of love, and he was too obsessively dedicated to viewing his own romance as just another form of entertainment. Sagami Shizumu would be Sagami Shizumu to the bitter end, and Futaba Tamaki would be Futaba Tamaki to the bitter end as well. And so, their relationship came to a definitive, catastrophic conclusion, without either of them coming to understand the other in the slightest.

“Bye-bye, Andou Jurai,” Sagami said, then went along on his way. His words were so weighty you’d think we’d never see each other again, yet so casual you’d think we’d be hanging out again the very next day.

The rain fell harder still.

By the time I got back home, Tamaki was nowhere to be seen. The clothes I’d lent her were lying on the living room floor, and hers were missing from the washing machine. I’d gone into a fluster and tried calling her, but her phone was off. Well, either it was off or she’d blocked my number. Or maybe the rain had shorted it out—wrecked it up, as she would’ve put it.

“Huh? Juu...?”

I’d been dazed and at a loss, and before I’d known it, I’d found myself walking over to Hatoko’s house. It’d been Saturday, of course, which meant she’d probably been at school practicing with the soft tennis club. They’d had a tournament coming up soon, and on rainy days, they’d use a nearby indoor tennis court to keep training in spite of the weather.

Unsurprisingly, Hatoko hadn’t been at home, and her door had been locked. I’d ended up just standing in front of her house, waiting in the rain for hours on end. I’d sat with my back up against her door, my gaze glued to the ground, watching raindrops pelt the earth.

“Juu?! What’re you doing?! You’re sopping wet!” shouted Hatoko. She dropped the tennis bag she’d had slung over her shoulder and dashed up to me, holding out her umbrella to keep me from getting even wetter than I already was.

I understood very well now how Tamaki had felt when she’d shown up at my house. I understood the urge that had driven her to make her way to someone who could give her the emotional support she’d so desperately needed.

“A-Are you okay? What happened, Juu? Did you forget your house key? Or did you have a fight with Machi?” Hatoko asked. She sounded genuinely concerned as she pulled a handkerchief out from her pocket and tried to dab away the rain from my face and hair.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, so I spoke facing the ground. “Sagami and Tamaki broke up.”

I heard Hatoko gasp. “No way... Sagami and Tamaki? That can’t be right—why would they...?” she muttered. She was reacting in pretty much the same way I had. Most likely, she’d seen them as the perfect lovey-dovey couple, just like me. That impression, however, had been a superficial one.

“Tamaki cheated on Sagami.”

Their relationship was over the moment it began.

“And Sagami cheated on her too.”

No matter what they did, they could never have been happy together.

“They...cheated? Huh? Wh-What... What does that even mean...?” Hatoko stammered, as if I’d just started talking in some foreign language. I’m sure she knew what the word meant in this context, but she’d probably never heard it get used like that outside of the context of manga or TV shows. We were still kids, living in a kids’ world where that word had no reason to carry that meaning. Cheating was an adult concept used to describe adult situations, and we were still too young to grasp it.

“People are pretty scary, aren’t they, Hatoko...?” I said, torn between crying and laughing at the same time. “I thought they were my friends. I thought they thought of me as a friend too... I thought we’d opened up to each other and could tell each other anything. We ate together and played together...and the whole time, I thought we were getting closer and closer.”

I’d never been the sort of kid who wanted to make a hundred friends. I didn’t ever try to learn English and use the internet to meet people from all over the world. I had, however, thought that I could make friends with people I knew in person. Some of them would get on my nerves, and I wouldn’t even want to be friends with some of them, but I’d thought I could at least get a grasp on what sort of people they were in spite of that.

“But in the end...I didn’t understand anything about them at all...”

I hadn’t understood the first thing about Sagami and Tamaki’s true nature or true feelings. I didn’t understand anything at all. I had no idea what either of them had been thinking anymore. I didn’t know what feelings they’d been hiding away behind their smiles or what calculations had been driving their actions. I didn’t know what sort of intentions Tamaki had had when she’d looked at me, or what perspective Sagami had seen me from when he had, and now, I was too scared to even consider the possibilities.

“The whole time I was hanging out with him...Sagami was betraying Tamaki like it was nothing. And in the end, Tamaki wound up betraying him too. They made it look like they were having so much fun together, but that whole time, they were stabbing each other in the back.”

“Seeing as we’re here and all, wanna hold hands?”

“It turns out having friends isn’t really that bad after all.”

“Now that I’ve lost Shizumu...you’re all I have left...”

“I mean, really—why on earth would you believe me?”

“This isn’t what it looks like! It... It was all Jurai! I told him I wasn’t game, but he just wouldn’t drop it! He just stuck onto me out of nowhere!”

“After all, I’m a reader.”

“And they...they betrayed me too!”

“Juu...”

“I...don’t know what I’m supposed to believe anymore...”

It would’ve been easier if they’d been a pair of terrible, unknowable monsters. If I’d known from the very beginning that I could never understand them, I never would’ve approached them at all. But they hadn’t been monsters. They’d had the same humanoid form as me, spoken the same language, lived in the same era and the same town as me. I’d been sure that we could learn to understand each other. I’d been blissful in my own ignorant misunderstanding.

Suddenly, my mind flashed back to the moment I’d given up my chuuni habits. Back then, I’d felt that fiction had betrayed me. I’d realized that all those worlds I’d aspired to live in were nothing more than convenient illusions put together by adults for their own interests. And now, it hit me: this was the same thing. My current situation was just that same experience all over again. I’d discovered that the couple I’d looked up to was a fabrication, that everything about them had been a lie—that in the end, it had all just been fiction. Fiction had betrayed me all over again.

“Hey, Juu.”

A kindly voice called out my name, and I finally looked up. Hatoko had squatted down and was now right in front of me. I was slumped over on the asphalt, but she’d brought herself down to my level, and we were finally seeing eye to eye.

“Don’t cry...please?” said Hatoko as tears began to spill from her eyes. I couldn’t really tell whether I was crying or not, what with all the rain, but at the very least, I was positive I wasn’t crying as much as she was.

“What’re you talking about...?” I muttered. “You’re the one who’s crying, aren’t you? I don’t get why, though.”

“Yes, I’m crying. Of course I am!” said Hatoko. “Hey...Juu? Don’t leave me out of the loop, okay? I’m friends with Tamaki and Sagami too, aren’t I?”

Thanks to her club keeping her busy, Hatoko hadn’t spent as much time with the two of them as I had. Still, though, we’d gone to the arcade together, we’d gone shopping together, we’d gone to a festival, we’d explored that park in the middle of the night—Hatoko had spent plenty of time with the two of them over the past several months. I couldn’t say if it had been easily enough time to go from being acquaintances to being friends, or not even close to enough, but one way or another...

“Of course I’d be sad if Tamaki got hurt... Of course I’d be upset if Sagami didn’t think anything of it at all... And if you’re crying, Juu, then I... I...”

Hatoko spread her arms wide and pulled me into a hug. Her umbrella fell to the ground, and once again the rain pattered down on me. It didn’t feel cold this time though. Hatoko’s warmth had enveloped me and driven the cold out from my body.

“Don’t keep all this pain to yourself, Juu,” she said. “I’ll feel it with you. I can’t do anything to fix this, but the least I can do is cry with you... So...don’t keep it all to yourself...”

Her voice was so purely, profoundly kind, it almost felt wrong for me to hear it.

“Hatoko...”

“It’s okay, Juu,” said Hatoko. Her words were kind, yes, but they were also powerfully reassuring. They sunk into me, and I felt them make an impression deep within my heart. “I’ll never betray you, no matter what happens. And I...I didn’t understand Sagami or Tamaki either. I don’t think I even understand you. I don’t understand the things you like, and I can’t convince myself to like them...but I’m trying to. I don’t understand anything, but I’m trying my best to understand anyway.”

“H-Hatoko,” I said in a choking gasp.

“I know I told you not to cry a moment ago, but...yeah. Ha ha ha...I guess that’s asking the impossible, huh? So instead, let’s cry together,” Hatoko said as she pulled me closer. She wrapped me up, encompassing my everything. My weakness, my pettiness, my foolishness, my immaturity—all of it was bundled up in her kindness. She accepted everything about me.

Sagami once explained to me that I’d been disappointed in myself for not being disappointed by something else. Now, though, I was truly feeling disappointed. I was despairing. I was indulging in my disappointment. I was wallowing in it. I intended to explore my disappointment fully, leaving nothing unsettled. I was going to chew it to pieces, drink every last drop of it, force it down, and shut it up inside me forever. I was going to make sure that Sagami Shizumu and Futaba Tamaki would leave an indelible mark upon my very soul. And as the tears streamed down my face, I let loose a wail of despair, crying out so loudly it felt like I’d tear my throat to shreds as I huddled in Hatoko’s arms.

☆

And so, Hatoko and my relationships with Sagami and Tamaki came to an end. Whatever it was we’d had—not a social square or a triangle, just a scattering of people with loose connections to each other—was over. Our story had begun in the spring of my year in eighth grade, and it had come to a patently miserable end that very same fall.

Looking back on all this from a more detached perspective, it might not’ve been that big of a deal at all. Maybe it was just your bog-standard ill-fated love affair. Middle schoolers’ relationships start and end with almost hilarious speed and frequency. That’s just a fact of life, and all that really happened was me getting dragged into the middle of one of those countless quarrels.

The truth, though, is that I can’t look at any of it from a detached perspective. My viewpoint is relentlessly subjective and relentlessly pessimistic. I can never be like him.

Back then, during the blank, gaping void in my history, I’d lost faith in Sagami, I’d wounded Tamaki, and I’d been saved by Hatoko. If Hatoko hadn’t been there for me in the end, I’m honestly not sure what would’ve happened to me.

By that same token, though, I have to wonder: what had come of Tamaki when she’d run out into the very same frigid rainstorm I had? I’d had Hatoko, but Tamaki had had no one at all. Nobody had reached out a helping hand to pull her back into the warmth. Sagami had discarded her, and I’d run away from her.

In any case, this was where the darkest era in my life came to a close—or so you’d think. The truth is, there’s actually one more episode to this story. You can think of it as a silly little bonus chapter, I guess. Just like Pandora found hope left within her box at the end of it all, so too did a single ray of light shine through into my era of darkness. Deep within those depths, a strikingly brilliant, silver presence arrived to light up everything around it.

Alternatively, I guess I could put it this way: No, no, this isn’t the end! Not by a long shot!