CHAPTER 1
A Reunion and a Farewell
“M-Mah?”
The nickname had risen from the deepest corners of Masachika’s memories before naturally falling from his lips. Maria slowly nodded back at him with a melancholic smile.
“Yes… It’s me, Sah.”
That girl’s face slowly emerged from the fog that had been obscuring it all these years until it was perfectly mirroring Maria’s face. She completely resembled… She resembled…
She doesn’t exactly resemble her?
Although he could finally remember what that girl—Mah—looked like, there were too many little things about her that didn’t match the other woman in front of him. At all. Of course, height and body type were easily explainable, but neither the length nor color of their hair matched, either. Even their eye color was different. The blond-haired, blue-eyed girl had changed into a brunette with brown eyes, which gave her a completely different look. The girl from his memories looked like an angel, while the older woman in front of him seemed more like a loving, affectionate older sister, and no matter how much Masachika thought about it, he couldn’t see them as the same person.
No wonder I didn’t realize it. Then again…how could I have not noticed even after knowing her for over two months now?!
He reflected on this fault of his while gazing into Maria’s eyes in almost disbelief.
“Uh… You’re Mah, aren’t you? The girl who used to play with me in this park six years ago.”
“Yep.”
“Oh, uh… Well… That’s…”
Not only was this an unexpected reunion, but the girl he once loved was actually someone he knew, so Masachika didn’t know how to react. Ambiguous filler words escaped him, and his eyes wandered until Maria eventually smirked faintly and gently took his hand.
“Let’s go somewhere where there’s shade to sit and talk, okay?”
“Oh. Yes, ma’am.”
“Come on. Don’t be weird.”
“Uh…”
As she led him to a bench under a tree, Masachika thought back and realized he had never spoken to her so formally before. Only after seating themselves did he finally begin to process what was going on, and he finally managed to form a single question.
“So… How long have you known?”
“Hmm… Since I met you in the student council room,” replied Maria in a matter-of-fact manner, still facing forward.
“You figured it out the moment we met?!”
“Yep. I was a little confused because your last name was different, so I tried to speak in Russian to check. You didn’t answer, though, so I thought, ‘Maybe it isn’t him, after all?’” she replied before shifting her gaze to Masachika. The look in her eyes was warm, and she added:
“But when I looked at you, all I could see was Sah, so I knew it had to be you. Plus…I saw this…”
“Huh…?”
Paying no heed to his bewilderment, Maria gently rubbed Masachika’s right shoulder…or so he initially thought, but it wasn’t his shoulder exactly. She was actually rubbing the old scar he had there.
“This was all the proof I needed. You got this scar when you protected me, right?”
“Uh…”
“Giggle. Are you really that surprised?”
“Oh, sorry… You’re right…” But even then, to Masachika, this person wasn’t Mah. This was Masha. He couldn’t simply flip a switch and see her as someone else, and too much time had gone by for him to start acting overly friendly with her again like he used to when they were kids. “But…like… What a coincidence, huh? It’s hard to believe this is where we’d meet again. It’s almost too perfect to be a coincidence,” Masachika said.
“It’s no coincidence.”
“What…?”
Despite Masachika trying to change the subject due to not knowing how to react, Maria’s expression became serious, and she quietly replied:
“I told myself I was going to give up by the end of summer break if you never showed up, but here you are. This…was fate.”
“F-fate…? I don’t know if I’d go that far. Sounds like something out of a movie…” Though he was disagreeing with a tense half grin, Maria’s attitude did not change, and her unclouded eyes made Masachika trail off until the smirk was wiped off his face. “What do you mean…it was fate?” he quietly asked.
Perhaps it was a very unromantic, senseless question, but Maria did not hesitate to answer honestly.
“I told you when we were at the beach, right? I told you how I felt about destiny and about having a soulmate. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
Maria was unquestionably confessing her love for Masachika. Immediately, his heart began to race, the irregular beats making it feel like it was going to explode.
“Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. This doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t right.”
He reflexively tried to argue.
“Why?”
“‘Why?’ Because there’s no reason for you to like me, and I’m not even Masachika Suou—Sah—anymore, either. I’ve never done anything that deserves your attention. If anything, I’ve only shown you how pathetic I can be…”
The self-deprecating words spilled out of his mouth, and Maria replied with a slightly melancholic smile.
“Yes… You are a lot different from the Sah I knew.”
“Right? Looking back, I was a little brat who just bragged all the time. I mean, I had to have been annoying, right?”
“Giggle. I never thought you were annoying, but you did brag a lot.”
“Ngh… I knew it…”
It was something even he was well aware of, but having her confirm it made him want to run away, and the unbearable embarrassment had him fidgeting restlessly. Maria, on the other hand, was staring off into the distance as if she were reminiscing about old times.
“You were always laughing and smiling, saying things like, ‘What do you think of that?! Pretty amazing, huh?’”
“Ugh…”
“And whenever I complimented you, you would smile from ear to ear as if you were the happiest you had ever been… Giggle. You were so cute.”
“O-oh…”
Masachika hunched over, and he seemed to gradually shrink into himself, feeling as if she were treating him like a little kid. However, Maria’s lips curled into a different kind of smile.
“Deep down inside, you were hurting, but you made yourself believe that you didn’t deserve to feel hurt, so you always forced yourself to smile…”
“…?!”
Masachika blinked in astonishment at the sudden change of course in the conversation. She gazed right into his eyes and said in the sweetest voice imaginable:
“But there is nothing in the world that I love more than your smile.”
“…!”
“You are always unbelievably kind and considerate, and yet you won’t admit it. On the other side of that smile are the scars from the wounds you inflict on yourself…and whenever I see you like that, I just want to hug you as hard as I can. I want to hold you, rub your head, kiss you on the cheek, and say, ‘You don’t need to hate yourself anymore. You have already done more than enough,’ as many times as it takes.”
Her eyes were brimming with passion and sympathy.
What? So she’s into terrible, hopeless guys?
That was the first thought that came to mind, as if he were trying to divorce himself from reality, but he almost immediately shook that tactless assumption out of his head.
Hmm… But maybe this means that she finds guys cute when they try to hide behind acting tough? Or something like that?
After interpreting it in a way that he could vaguely comprehend, Masachika smirked as if he were trying to avoid Maria’s intense emotions.
“I’m no dark hero with a troubled past or anything cool like that…”
To him, there was nothing especially tragic about his past. He simply had a fit, ran away from home, and never went back. He was merely someone who refused to forgive and forget. That was it. And it’s pathetic, he thought.
But in the midst of his self-deprecation…a shudder went through Maria, as if she couldn’t take it any longer.
“If you keep making such a cute face like that…”
“Huh?”
Masachika was wondering what she was whispering to herself…when all of a sudden, she wrapped her arms tightly around him.
“Big hug!”
“Whoa?! Why?!”
“This is your fault, Kuze, for tempting me with that cute face of yours!”
“When?!”
He was in utter shock as she squeezed him tightly in her arms while rubbing her cheek against his. Every thought he had left his head, never to be seen again, as this older woman expressed herself with her very direct body language. A flood of information filled Masachika’s mind—the curves of Maria’s feminine figure against him, her sweet fragrance tickling his nose, him overheating in the blink of an eye.
So soft… Smells good…
His overloaded brain had him thinking like a caveman.
“You really are Sah…”
As her soft voice caressed his earlobe, he suddenly felt a tight pain in his chest, which magically cleared his mind.
Now that I think about it…
Maria said that meeting in the park wasn’t a coincidence. In other words, that meant that she had been visiting this park from time to time with hopes of being reunited with an old friend, despite there being absolutely no guarantee that she would ever see him again.
Seriously? That’s… That’s…
The courage it took to do that made Masachika start to tremble, and tears suddenly welled in his eyes. A fire was burning in the depths of his heart, urging him to hug this person sitting right next to him.
“Masha, I—”
He lifted his arms, giving in to his emotions, when—
“Oooh! Maria’s on a date!”
Masachika instinctively turned in the direction of the high-pitched, bold, uniquely childlike shout and discovered a group of seven elementary school kids around ten years old. Maria shyly scooted away from Masachika, leaving his arms to hang in the air momentarily before he returned them to rest on his lap.
“O-oh my… How embarrassing. ♪”
“…Do you know them?”
“Ha-ha… They’re friends I sometimes play with when I’m here…”
That was when three girls from the group ran over with sparkles in their eyes. The four remaining boys soon followed, albeit with skeptical gazes.
“Maria, Maria, Maria! Is this the boy you’ve been telling us about?” the girl in the lead enthusiastically asked as if the curiosity was killing her.
“Yes… This is the boy I like.” Maria, although bashful, nodded firmly.
“““Aaaahhh!”””
The three girls squealed shrilly in excitement, but at the same time—
What was that sound? Did I just hear the sound of hearts tragically shattering? It sounded like a quartet, too…
One look at the faces of the four boys in the background was more than enough to prove that Masachika wasn’t simply imagining things. Each of their expressions was frozen, and they seemed to have forgotten how to blink.
“Maria! What do you like about him?!”
“Stop it. She’s on a date.”
“Yeah. Um… Enjoy your date, you lovebirds!”
“Ha-ha-ha! You’re so funny.”
The three girls noisily took off into the distance while impressively not forgetting to take the boys with them.
“…Girls are really maturing quickly these days,” muttered Masachika in a daze, taken aback by the storm that had suddenly come and gone.
“Giggle. You can say that again.”
But Maria’s voice instantly pulled him back to reality, reminding him of what she had just said.
“Um… So… Like…”
He fidgeted.
“Hmm?”
“Ngh…! That thing… You know, when she asked about who you liked…,” he mumbled timidly. Maria nodded, her lips curling into a mature smile that made his heart skip a beat.
“I like you. I’ve always had feelings for you and only you.”
Her confession was the epitome of genuine and direct…and yet Masachika’s heart filled only with sorrow.
“Then why…?”
“…?”
“Why did you…abandon me that day?”
“What…?”
As she blinked multiple times in confusion, Masachika continued to bitterly regurgitate those painful memories buried in the back of his mind.
“You told me that day that we couldn’t meet anymore. You said that I wasn’t your soulmate, so you weren’t interested in playing together!”
“Wh-what?!”
Maria’s eyes widened, and she leaned back in shock, but after a few moments went by, she shook her head wildly.
“I—I didn’t say that! I never said that!”
“But I can remember that day so clearly…”
“I did tell you we had to say good-bye and that we couldn’t meet anymore, but what I said after was, ‘If you aren’t my soulmate, then we will never meet again, but if you are my soulmate, then I know we’ll meet again someday!’”
“…Huh?” Masachika grunted in disbelief as he traced his memories…until he realized that she was right. He had simply been so shocked when he heard that they couldn’t meet anymore that he could hardly process anything she said after that. In other words, he’d misheard her.
By the time he had come back to his senses, Maria was already gone. Even after that, he continued to stop by the park as often as he could, believing it had to be some sort of misunderstanding, but he never saw her again. Masachika refused to face reality, refused to think deeply about it, and refused to accept any answer other than his tragic, knee-jerk conclusion that she must have betrayed him like his mother had. And just like that, his recollection of interactions with her had been labeled “bad memories” and were sealed away in the back of his mind. Perhaps if he had never run away, and actually thought hard about it, then he would have realized the truth.
“Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha…” Masachika laughed dryly, as if he had been thrown into a pit of despair. The thought that he’d hurt himself unnecessarily over such an absurd misunderstanding was simply too funny to him. On the other hand, Maria’s brow furrowed sympathetically, as though she was feeling genuine guilt.
“I… I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you good-bye in Japanese because it was really important…but it looks like I caused a misunderstanding since I wasn’t really that good at Japanese back then…”
“Oh… No. It was my fault for jumping to conclusions, so there’s nothing you need to feel bad about…”
Maria could have been correct. After all, it was highly possible that her halting, non-native Japanese was the cause of this misunderstanding, but it was just as likely that Masachika’s pessimism negatively distorted his memories. Recollections from one’s childhood could easily be twisted to suit one’s own bias. Regardless, there was no way to check what had really happened, so any more speculation was a waste of time.
“I’m really sorry…,” Maria said once more, and she gently embraced him. Masachika surrendered to her unbelievably comforting touch…until her confession suddenly played back in his head, making his heart race.
“Uh… I…”
Despite his inarticulate delivery, she nodded as if she understood everything he wanted to say.
“It’s okay… I’m not expecting an answer immediately.”
“…!”
“I mean, you’ve never thought of me as anything other than a friend, right?”
“Errr…”
It truly was as if she could see right through him, which made Masachika uncomfortable for a different reason from his earlier one. Although he froze with an awkward look on his face, Maria giggled, let go of him, and softly added:
“Besides, I’m sure you’ve already noticed how Alya feels about you, right?”
“…!”
Her unexpected comment took his breath away. As he tried to come up with a response, she continued:
“Giggle. It doesn’t look like Alya has even realized it herself, though… Maybe we fell in love with the same guy because we’re sisters.”
“…”
Although most people might expect a bloodbath if siblings fell in love with the same person, she spoke as if it weren’t a big deal, and that made Masachika feel odd.
“How…?”
How can you be so calm about this?
Maria somehow knew exactly what he wanted to say, despite his inability to fully put it into words.
“It makes me really happy that Alya, of all people, has finally found someone she loves, and that person happens to be someone wonderful like you,” she replied with her unchanging, soft voice.
“…”
“I’m truly happy…because I care about both you and Alya so much… And that’s why…”
She swiftly lifted her chin and gazed into the sky.
“I really don’t want to compete with Alya,” she muttered as if she were truly taking in this moment. The words echoed what she had said that one day in the hallway illuminated by the evening sun, but this time, they rang with a different meaning.
“Does that mean…?”
Did that mean she was going to give up for her sister’s sake…?
Maria smiled softly at Masachika’s wide-eyed astonishment.
“And that’s why I want you to truly consider how Alya feels about you without running away.”
“…?”
“I want you to come to terms with how she feels about you…and then if you still end up choosing me…”
She paused.
“…I want you to ask me out. Could you do that?”
Her endlessly sweet, brave words tied a knot in Masachika’s chest.
“Masha… Are you okay with that?”
Maria perfectly understood how both Masachika and Alisa felt, and she’d decided to back down and prioritize their feelings. Masachika couldn’t help but think it was an unbelievably self-sacrificing proposal. She easily picked up on that and frowned as if slightly troubled.
“Don’t look so sad. I’m doing this for me. Because the last thing I want is to hurt Alya or you.”
Her smile was rueful.
“…I’m sorry. I knew that telling you how I felt now would be hard for you, but I couldn’t hold back these feelings any longer. Still, I really don’t want to hurt either of you. I promise. I want you two to be able to make a choice you won’t regret,” she confessed somewhat sorrowfully. She then raised her index finger in front of her lips and continued, “And that’s why…I want you to keep this a secret from Alya. Please don’t tell her what happened here today or about our past, okay? Because if she knew you were Sah…then she would most likely bow out and bottle up her emotions.”
Masachika’s heart was suddenly overcome with a loneliness he couldn’t describe, for it was a feeling he had never known. Despite his bewilderment, he nodded.
“…All right.”
“Thanks.”
After subtly nodding back, Maria faced forward once more. Silence followed, but there was strangely nothing uncomfortable or awkward about it. However, the indescribable loneliness continued to spread throughout Masachika’s heart, and Maria seemed to stare sorrowfully into the distance.
“…Now, then,” she abruptly muttered after some time passed. She got to her feet and looked down at Masachika with a cheery expression. “I think we said everything we needed to say…so maybe we should start heading home.”
“Yeah… Good idea. Uh… Want me to walk you back?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m sure you have a lot on your mind, so let’s part ways here.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Although somewhat deflated by how easily she said good-bye for the night, Masachika stood and realized Maria was holding her arms out to him.
“…? What are you doing?”
As he hesitantly braced himself for another hug, Maria let out a vaguely bitter laugh, then asked:
“Do you think I could kiss you on the cheek just like old times?”
After thinking about it for a moment, Masachika recalled that she had always said good-bye with a kiss on each cheek when they were kids, and that nostalgia pushed him to agree without really putting any more thought into it.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Thanks.”
Once he turned to face her, Maria swiftly approached him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders before placing her right cheek on his, followed by the left.
This really brings back memories…
The familiar sensation made Masachika relax, but right as her left cheek began to slide away—
“Huh?”
He froze with his eyes opened wide, taken aback by what was now touching his cheek. “I’m sure Alya would forgive a little peck,” Maria said impishly, gazing into his eyes.
“Uh…?”
“Giggle! Anyway, see you around. Let’s just act the same way we always do the next time we see each other!”
With a bashful grin, she waved good-bye to Masachika and began heading to the park entrance.
“Yeah…”
He waved back in an almost trancelike state until Maria left the park and disappeared into the distance. Only then did he finally understand why he felt such loneliness in his heart.
Oh… That’s why…
It was the sorrow of a tale that had finally reached its end. The fleeting love story between Sah and Mah, which had been left incomplete for years, had finally come to a close. The great pretender Sah and the exceptionally sweet, innocent Mah no longer existed. Even if Masachika and Maria were to fall in love all over again, they would not be continuing where they’d left off, for that tale from their past was now nothing more than a concluded story and a memory they would tuck away in their hearts.
“…”
He quietly looked back at the park and vividly saw memories of their past play out before his eyes: how they had talked endlessly on the playground equipment, how they used to hold hands and run all over the park with smiles, and how their good-bye had been tainted by a misunderstanding. It was the finale to the tale of his first love, which ended in sadness…
“Good-bye.”
After bidding farewell to the two mirages of his past, Masachika exited the park, alone.
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