Vol. 1 Chapter 10

In a trembling voice, I said,

“I’ll… figure something out.”

“Aoki, you don’t have to do anything.”

Being told that made me feel… miserable.

After thinking for a bit, I took out my phone.

I called Soyama.

“Soyama… sorry.”

“What now?”

“I want to apologize.”

When I said that, both Kasuga and Naruse looked surprised.

“That doesn’t feel sincere at all.”

“Wait a second.”

I put some distance between myself and the two of them and continued the call with Soyama in an alley.

“I’ve got a hundred thousand.”

“So? You giving it to me?”

“Can I come to your place and hand it over?”

“I’m out right now, so it’d be easier if you came here.”

“Then where should I go? Preferably somewhere not crowded. It’d be better without other people around.”

“Fine, then come to the park.”

“Got it.”

I hung up and went back home for a moment.

In the kitchen, I looked for a knife. It was good that my family wasn’t home.

I took a daikon out of the fridge and tried cutting it. It made a dull sound as I sliced it into rounds. It took more force than I expected.

I put the knife into a small waist bag so I could take it out quickly and then headed outside.

When I got to the park, Soyama was there. The first thing he said was,『So, you’ve reflected on it?』

“I brought the hundred thousand.”

I took the envelope out of my pocket and showed him the contents.

“Those aren’t blank sheets except for the top bill, right?”

『I didn’t do something like that.』I fanned through the bills to show him.

“Soyama, you really came alone, right?”

“If I brought anyone, I’d have to treat them later. That’s a hassle.”

Soyama explained it calmly.

“In exchange—”

When I said that, Soyama snorted with laughter.

“A negotiation? That’s hilarious.”

“Delete Naruse’s video.”

“Oh, so she told you.”

Soyama took out his phone while laughing and started tapping around, like he was looking for the file.

“Just so you know, this isn’t jealousy or anything. It’s just that the idea of you liking Naruse disgusts me.”

“I know.”

“I hate people who don’t know their place. You’re getting what you deserve because you’re being dishonest about your role. We’re just being proper. Honestly, I think everyone else lives much more seriously and sincerely than you do, Aoki.”

Then—

“Oh, before I delete it, don’t you want to watch it?”

“No.”

Strangely, my mind was becoming calmer and calmer.

Ever since long ago, I’d always thought it’d be better if this farce… and my life… would just end already.

So I thought this was a good opportunity.

“Here, I’ll show you me deleting it.”

Soyama showed me his phone screen and pressed the delete button.

“That good enough?”

“Yeah.”

I handed him the envelope with the hundred thousand yen.

Soyama spread the bills like a bank teller, counting them one by one, then said,『Looks right』and put them into his pocket.

“But you know…”

Soyama said with a grin,

“I’ve got a backup of the video on my computer at home.”

Don’t move yet, I told myself.

The perfect timing would come soon.

A memory crossed my mind of when we played games together at the arcade. I waited for the moment he let his guard down, like when he took his hands off the controls.

“Later.”

The moment Soyama turned his back, I quickly pressed the knife against his back.

I put force into the tip of the blade.

“Let’s go to your house.”

For the first time, Soyama seemed just a little shaken.

“You’re not joking around anymore.”

His words sounded like he was telling me there was no turning back.

I didn’t mind.

Goodbye, life.

Even so, Soyama still looked completely at ease, while inside, I was the one with no room to spare.

“Aoki, I’m gonna beat you half to death later.”

As we walked, I sent a LINE message to Kasuga

Me〉“Come to Soyama’s place.”

“By the way, Aoki… can you really stab someone?”

I didn’t know. But if Soyama died, at least the video would be taken care of… that’s what I felt.

Hiding the knife with the jacket I was wearing, the two of us walked toward Soyama’s house.

We went inside, climbed the stairs, and entered his room.

His parents weren’t home today either.

“Is this everything?”

The laptop and external SSD Soyama brought out… it felt like there had to be more.

“There’s more, right?”

Keeping the tip of the knife pointed at him, I scanned the room. With a resigned look, Soyama took out a DVD from his desk drawer.

“That’s all.”

“Put it in. Into some cheap bag or something.”

Clicking his tongue, Soyama stuffed the laptop and everything else into a cloth tote bag.

“Hand it over.”

What am I even doing, I thought.

Taking the bag, I said,

“And give me back the hundred thousand too.”

With a resigned look, Soyama handed me the envelope.

“Aoki, I’m gonna tell someone about this later, you know?”

“Go ahead.”

“The truth is, you broke into my house and stole my laptop. At knifepoint. That’s all anyone will hear.”

“I told you, I don’t care.”

The doorbell rang.

“My parents might be back.”

Soyama said it with a grin, but it felt like a lie.

It’s probably Kasuga.

We waited without reacting.

My heart was pounding restlessly. I wanted it to calm down.

Footsteps climbed the stairs, getting closer to the room we were in. If it was Soyama’s parents, it’d be game over.

“What are you doing, Aoki?”

In the end, it was Kasuga.

Since her clothes had been soaked, she had changed, and for some reason, she was now wearing a tracksuit. Expressionless, she took a breath.

“Take this and go home.”

I handed the bag to Kasuga. She looked confused.

“What is this?”

With an angry tone, Kasuga said,

“Aoki, are you giving up on life?”

“I’ve wanted to for a long time.”

I nodded honestly.

The next moment, the knife left my hand.

It was Soyama.

Snatching the knife from me, he struck me with the handle.

My consciousness flashed white for a moment and then the impact of the next blow brought my vision back.

A ringing filled my ears.

Kasuga was shouting something. I couldn’t hear it.

We hit each other over and over, punching, kicking, grappling.

Then Soyama slammed the knife into the floor right next to my head and said,

“Trash like you, who’s good for nothing… you should just die.”

Behind him, I saw Kasuga raising a Telecaster from the corner of the room.

She swung it full force and smashed it down onto Soyama’s head.

His eyes rolled back as he was blown backward.

I grabbed the knife.

I looked.

Soyama was crouched down, clutching his head. I thought, this is my chance.

Finally, the end.

I raised the knife—

and thrust it toward him.

Kasuga grabbed the blade with her bare hand.

Blood ran from her hand.

“Don’t.”

The moment she said that, all the strength drained out of me.

***

Later that night, in a park, I called Naruse, and the three of us held what we called the『Destroy Soyama’s Computer Festival 2018.』

Using Soyama’s Telecaster, we took turns smashing the computer again and again.

『This is kind of fun, like smashing a watermelon』 Naruse said with a laugh.

『We got lucky』Kasuga murmured darkly.

I thought so too.

If even one small thing had been different, like the timing or the length of a single step, this could have turned into something completely different.

If things had gone just a little wrong, I might’ve ended up tied up and dumped into a river somewhere… or I’d be labeled a juvenile murderer. So in that sense, I was lucky.

『So in the end, what were those『points』anyway?』 Kasuga asked.

It was a difficult question.

But points are just a kind of value that other people assign to you. And in the end, those『qualities recognized by many people』are interchangeable.

Breaking a person down into traits and counting what adds or subtracts value…that turns them into something replaceable.

If you look at people that way, they quickly become objects.

It’s not that simple.

There’s more to it.

For example, there are things in someone that only have value to you.

Seeing someone as special, or becoming special to someone… that’s probably what it really means.

“If this world tries to assign us points…I won’t go along with it. Not anymore.”

I swung the Telecaster down onto the computer.

“I believe in something that can’t be reduced to points.”

『Sorry, I laughed』Kasuga said with a wry smile.

“What you’re saying is basically…something totally normal, isn’t it?”

“…Maybe.”

“Did you really have to get this hurt just to realize something that simple?”

Hearing that, I started to feel like laughing too.

“But I won’t get lost in weird doubts anymore.”

“If that’s the case, then maybe all that worrying meant something.”

Kasuga took the guitar from me, thought for a moment like she was searching for the right line, and then—

“Goodbye, xvideos!” she shouted, smashing the computer to pieces.

***

After that, the hundred thousand yen remained.

The next day, I looked for a flower shop near my house and went into one that was still open just before closing.

“I’d like a bouquet of roses.”

“How many would you like?”

“As many as you have”

A few days later, it was delivered to the house. When my sister saw the bouquet, she immediately realized, 『Wait, this is my money, isn’t it? Are you kidding me?』

Then she smacked me on the head with her fist and said『Thanks』with a smile.

***

In the end, I didn’t quit school.

And it wasn’t like anything dramatic happened after that. I was still bullied like before, I just endured it. Nothing really changed.

A year simply came to an end.

First year ended, second year began and with the class reshuffle, I thought things had eased up a little.

I was wrong.

Naruse ended up in a different class. Only Kasuga and I were in the same class. Soyama was in a different class too.

After that, the three of us started hanging out together quite a bit. Just doing trivial things together felt comfortable. We took turns going to each other’s rooms, and one time, while we were hanging out in my room—

I suddenly thought.

It’d be nice if things could stay like this.

I wished the three of us could keep going like this, in a way that couldn’t really be explained to anyone else.

『It kind of feels like what we are right now is hard to define』Naruse said, like a drop of water falling from an umbrella into a puddle.

“It doesn’t make sense, but it’s fun…and that’s something rare. Almost like a miracle.”

***

That day was a school trip, and it was a pretty tough mountain. Even for me, climbing it was hard.

Before long, Kasuga started falling behind.

“Wait here a bit. I’ll go check on her.”

After saying that to a classmate nearby, I turned back along the path we had come.

Maybe about a hundred meters.

As I walked, I heard someone from the group say,『We’re going ahead.』

The sunlight was directly behind them, so I couldn’t see who was speaking at all.

『At the fork, go right, then just keep going straight』

that person said.

“Thanks.”

【Hey—】

【Hm?】

I gave a somewhat absent-minded reply.

【Out of everything that’s happened… you’re the one most at fault.】

In the end, I never found out who had said that. All I could see was a dark silhouette.

After that, I went to where Kasuga was and checked on her.

“I scraped it a bit.”

When I looked, there was blood coming from her knee. She said she had brought bandages herself, so I took one out of her backpack and put it on her knee.

When I turned back, the group from our class was already nowhere to be seen.

As we climbed the mountain, before long, we reached the fork we had been told about earlier.

“Apparently it’s this way, to the right.”

“Are you sure?”

We followed the narrow path straight ahead. No matter how long we walked, we couldn’t catch up to the group.

After about an hour, I started to realize something was off.

We hadn’t passed a single person the whole time. We were walking a path where there was no one but us.

“Don’t you think we’re lost?”

“..Yeah, I was thinking the same.”

We stopped and looked at the map printed in the excursion booklet. But we had no idea where we were.

“Should we go back the way we came?”

“I’m tired.”

Kasuga slumped down onto a large rock nearby.

“Why don’t you check the map on your phone?”

“No signal.”

“I’m hungry.”

We ate our rice balls together and took a short break.

“Do you think we were given the wrong directions?”

“Maybe.”

When I thought about it calmly, that seemed likely.

“Then we’re stranded.”

“That’s exaggerating.”

“It’d be safer to head back…do you actually remember the way?”

“What about you, Kasuga?”

“I have no sense of direction. Wait… don’t tell me—”

“No, no. We’ll be fine.”

We tried to head back the way we came, but there were more branching paths than we expected, and it threw us off.

“Which way?”

Kasuga asked at a fork.

“This way.”

I pointed to the right but Kasuga pointed the opposite direction.

As we kept repeating that, we finally realized we were seriously lost.

“This is bad, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Evening turned into night.

Kasuga stopped, as if she’d given up, and said calmly,

“Maybe we shouldn’t keep wandering around anymore.”

“You mean…”

Up until then, I had thought we’d just gotten a little separated, but it suddenly hit me how serious the situation had become, and a sense of danger rushed in.

“Stay out here overnight?”

“Someone will find us before that, probably.”

Once Kasuga made that decision, it was like she had steeled herself. She leaned against a tree and started to relax completely.

I crouched down on the ground and muttered,『It can’t be helped.』

Even when night came, there was no sign of anyone showing up.

In the mountains, with no neon lights or streetlamps, it was pitch black. No presence of people, just silence.

Kasuga and I lay down, using our backpacks as pillows.

“Why did you fall for Soyama in the first place?”

It felt late to ask but I did anyway.

“Girls probably all like Soyama at first. The same way all the boys like Naruse-san.”

When she put it like that, I could think of reasons too, so her words made sense to me.

“But gradually, liking someone for their strong points starts to feel empty.”

“My sister once told me this—”

I said, recalling that conversation.

“When she was a kid, she liked boys who could run fast.”

Kou-chan used to brag pointlessly about always being the anchor in relay races back in his school days.

“Then it turned into liking guys who were good at fighting, then smart people, then guys with lots of friends, and now she says she prefers men with high income. But she also wondered what comes after that.”

“But even if that fast-running boy got injured and could never run again… you’d probably still like him, and that’s the problem, right?”

Neither Kasuga nor I were trying to reach any conclusion. We were just talking freely, so we didn’t know where this conversation would go.

“I think… before you fall in love and after you fall in love, the meaning of『liking someone』changes.”

Kasuga stared at her palm, then slowly reached it toward me.

“Like this.”

Her pale hand came toward me like she was offering a prayer, filling my vision.

“You fall in love and you reach out your hand.”

Without thinking, I reached out mine too.

“And when the two of you hold hands—”

Our hands overlapped, fingers intertwining.

“It might feel nice at first. But if you keep holding on forever, it starts to hurt.”

When Kasuga pulled her hand slightly, mine followed. Our fingers tangled, played against each other, opening and closing, aligning. Even when one hand pinched the other, neither let go. Sometimes gently, sometimes pulling and pushing, but still, our hands stayed connected.

“If you don’t match your breathing and change together, you can’t keep holding on forever.”

Eventually, the movement stopped and her fingers quietly brushed over my nails.

“Even then, even if this is like falling into the sky or the sea…I believe we wouldn’t let go of each other. That’s what real love is, I think.”

When I didn’t say anything, Kasuga smiled and said,

“Think about it more.”

“I think I get why Naruse-san likes you, Aoki. That kind of naive, earnest part of you…that’s your true nature.”

Kasuga held my hand gently with all her fingers, like she was embracing it.

“I like that about you. If you were just someone sly and calculating, I probably wouldn’t care that much. I like the way you struggle, think hard and come up with your own answers. Being decisive might look cooler, but even so, I still like you.”

All I had to do was answer honestly.

“I think… you saved me, Kasuga.”

All this time, no matter who I was with, I felt alone, uneasy, like I might disappear.

“Even now…that hasn’t changed.”

Little by little, for the first time in a long while, I felt like what I truly thought and what I said out loud were finally lining up again.

“Thank you.”

The next morning, some men who had come looking for us found us, and we made it safely back down the mountain.

『I’m really glad you two made it out alive』Naruse said later, and I thought so too.

***

On Sunday night, while I was walking outside, I noticed a crowd gathered at the base of an ordinary bridge. I wondered if it was some kind of event, maybe a celebrity appearance. But when I looked more closely, I realized that everyone there had their eyes fixed on their phones.

Ah… Pokémon GO.

Among that crowd, Naruse was there and for a moment, our eyes met.

“Wait a second, Aoki. I’m busy right now.”

“It’s fine. See you.”

As I started to leave, Naruse grabbed my arm.

“Wait.”

Since I had nothing better to do, I peeked at her phone. A Poké Ball flew across the screen.

“So you collect Pokémon, Naruse.”

“You walk a lot doing this, so it’s good exercise. What about you, Aoki? What’s your hobby?”

“You won’t be put off?”

“At this point?”

“I like games where you kill people.”

“That’s normal. Guys are like that.”

Naruse’s fingers moved quickly as she caught the Pokémon she was after. She muttered,『Got it』then slipped her phone into the pocket of her jeans and said to me,

“That’s not some kind of『dark side』or anything. Are you stupid?”

Hearing her say that so plainly made me feel like it was stupid of me to have felt even a little guilty about it.

“Let’s walk a bit.”

Without waiting for my answer, Naruse started walking ahead. I hurried after her.

The two of us crossed a large iron bridge, even though we had no particular destination on the other side.

“Aoki, do you think that playing games where you kill people makes you able to kill people in real life?”

“But the Columbine shooters played games, right? You hear that all the time. That people can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy and end up killing others. That’s what they say on TV.”

Naruse let out a small laugh and stretched both arms up toward the sky as she walked.

“Adults are quick to jump to conclusions about things they don’t understand, without bothering to look them up, experience them, or even listen properly. They just rely on their own vibe and imagination. In that sense, there are people who can’t distinguish between their own imagination and reality. When you think about it, humans are kind of living inside their own imaginations.”

The lights of the city reflected on the surface of the river below, shimmering.

『But love is like that too』Naruse said, and I realized she was about to say something important.

“You don’t really know the other person but you imagine things about them and fall in love with that version inside your head. Without ever knowing the truth about them. Just like how you liked me. Just like how I liked you.”

As we kept walking, the ordinary scenery flowed past us like the end credits of a movie.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while…I don’t think we fall in love because there’s a reason. I think we fall in love first, and then we go looking for reasons afterward. And we want to believe those reasons because it gives us a sense of security. The more 『reasonable』our reason for loving someone seems, the less it threatens our sense of survival.”

“If I put it the way you do, Aoki, I think everyone is looking for『points.』If you can’t see someone’s points, it feels like their outline starts to blur and disappear… and that’s scary. The reason I liked you, even though your points were lower than Soyama’s, was because I thought you wouldn’t do anything awful to me and you probably liked me, and more than anything, I thought I could control you. But then you fell apart like that, and even so, I still kind of liked you…and I kept wondering what that even was. The persona you used to show me disappeared and everything else fell away… and I thought about it.”

Naruse stopped walking and looked at me.

Her beautiful face was clear, like an empty sky.

“I think what I like is… how genuinely pure you are, Aoki. More than the version of you back then, trying to protect that purity by covering things up… I think I like the you right now, just as you are. So, Aoki… stay pure. 

I don’t want you to feel like you have to date me just because it somehow seems like that’s what you’re supposed to do. Don’t decide like that. I want you to think about it fairly.”

To me, Naruse looked incredibly composed.

“Okay.”

When I answered seriously, Naruse lowered her gaze shyly and muttered,

“I’ve never felt this unsure before. My heart’s pounding.”

For a while, neither of us said anything.

A bicycle passed by and the breeze it stirred made our clothes flutter. That was the moment we turned back and went home.

***

When I got home, my sister, who should have been busy preparing for her wedding, was sitting on the veranda drinking canned chuhai.

When I sat down next to her, she gave me a look like, 『what is it?』I returned a nothing look and casually asked

“Hey… did you ever have guy friends back when you were in school?”

“Yeah, plenty.”

“Are they coming to your wedding?”

When I asked that, she laughed.

“As if they would.”

“But now that you mention it, I wonder why. The only men I’d invite are people from work. It’s not like everyone ends up like that, though…”

『Why not invite them?』I suggested casually.

Surprisingly, she said,『Maybe I will』and started fiddling with her phone.

“Hey, sis.”

I decided to ask something that had been on my mind for a while. I felt like this kind of moment, just the two of us talking like this, might never come again.

“Why are you marrying that guy?”

“Because you can’t live without money.”

She answered without looking up from her phone.

“That’s reality. I’m just not at an age anymore where I can live believing only in pretty ideals forever.”

“And you’re really okay with that?”

When I asked, she looked at me, slightly annoyed.

“I want kids. And there are things you need to raise them. That’s just how it is.”

Then her expression softened a little and she turned her gaze toward the sky outside.

“But when I have kids…I’m going to raise them on nothing but beautiful ideals.”

My sister picked up the nail clippers beside her and started trimming her toenails.

“If it’s a girl, she’ll probably fall for a boy who runs fast first.”

While she seemed to be picturing some kind of future, only the sound of nail clippers echoed.

『It’s tough, isn’t it』she muttered, letting out a small yawn.

“But you can keep believing in pretty ideals. You’re still a kid.”

Saying that, she lightly tapped my head.

“Yeah.”

I stood up to head to my room, but just as I put my foot on the stairs, I couldn’t help but ask,

“Do you still like Kou-chan?”

For a while, she didn’t answer.

The sound of the clippers stopped.

It was quiet.

After a long pause, she said,

“That’s a secret.”

『Good night』I said, and went upstairs.

***

At lunch break, Kasuga and I were eating bread together, sitting on a bench in the schoolyard.

“Aoki, you’ve changed lately.”

“Have I?”

“I feel like you’ve stopped caring about what other people think.”

“Well…”

I took a bite of my bread.

“A lot’s happened.”

“Yeah, it has.”

“Maybe it’s because of you, Kasuga.”

When I said that, she smiled, looking a little pleased.

“Does that mean I win?”

“Were we competing?”

When I said that, Kasuga stared at me.

“Fine.”

The sunlight was dazzling.

“I lose.”

Just then, Naruse spotted the two of us and came over.

“What are you guys talking about?”

“That Aoki’s starting to look kind of cool.”

At that, Naruse made a camera frame with her thumbs and index fingers, closed one eye, and looked at me through it.

“Let’s see…”

Then, as if something had just come to mind, she said, 『I want to do something fun together, the three of us, before the end.』

“Make some memories.”

Kasuga and I looked at each other.

“How about going to a summer festival?”

Naruse pulled out a flyer she must’ve gotten somewhere and showed it to us.

***

The line was ridiculously long. I felt like I was going to die.

On the day of the summer festival, when the three of us—Kasuga, Naruse and I—got off the train, we saw the pedestrian bridge from the station to the venue packed with people, shoulder to shoulder.

『Isn’t this a pain?』Naruse said first, even though she was the one who suggested it.

“I might not be able to do this either.”

“Me neither.”

So we ditched the festival and just walked away.

That’s how we drifted away from a『normal』youth.

We found a frisbee lying around in a nearby park and started tossing it. We got bored quickly and sat down on a bench, drinking juice together.

『Aoki’s a 7-Up guy, right?』Naruse had bought it for me.

『Let’s play【who can say the most pointless thing wins】Kasuga said.

“My sister got a boyfriend again and broke up right away.”

“I grew two centimeters since last year.”

“I broke a plate yesterday.” Kasuga won.

“Let’s play rock-paper-scissors.”

To make her stupid idea at least a little funny, Naruse and I both, without saying anything, expressionless, instantly threw scissors at the same time.

“Look, I’m good at making funny faces”

Kasuga said and started doing them, and I finally snapped,

“Are you someone who’s afraid of silence or something?”

“Because—”

The moment Kasuga fell silent, the park suddenly became quiet.

“Silence is scary.”

Her eyes seemed to grow clearer and clearer, and it caught me off guard.

“Silence brings out the truth.”

Maybe that’s true. Maybe all of us are afraid.

But I already knew that keeping your heart closed off was even scarier. If you keep deceiving others, eventually you start deceiving your own heart too. And before you know it, you can’t even tell what you’re feeling anymore, and you stop feeling anything at all. I didn’t want that.

“Aoki—”

Naruse, who had been quiet until then, spoke up.

“Which one do you like?”

“I…”

It’s really hard to say something honestly, in the truest sense.

If you’re not careful, you fall back on easy, familiar words.

Even when expressing feelings, there are countless convenient『confession lines』out there. But finding words that aren’t like that… is difficult.

“I like you, Naruse.”

How do I make this actually reach her?

“I like how honest you are, how even though you’re scared, you still show who you really are… how you genuinely care about people and think about them.

But—

I really like Kasuga too.

I like how you’re kind of a mess, how you cry easily, how you get stuck over things… how you charge ahead without thinking, but you’re always struggling inside.

Even when the day comes when pretty ideals aren’t enough anymore… I think you’re the one I could keep struggling with.

Kasuga… I want to keep struggling together with you.”

“…I see.”

Naruse let out a long, deep sigh and covered her face with both hands.

I got worried and leaned in to look at her.

“I thought I’d be so sad I’d cry…”

Naruse was smiling.

“I’m surprisingly okay.”

She stood up lightly and said in a clear, refreshed voice,

“But everything up until now…it was really intense. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”

Just like that, Naruse started walking out of the park on her own.

“Naruse-san—”

Kasuga called out to her back.

“Let’s go shopping for clothes together next week.”

Naruse stopped, thought for a moment, and then—

“Okay” she said.

“See you.”

And she walked off by herself.

***

In the now completely quiet park, it was just Kasuga and me.

For a while, we said nothing and looked up at the night sky.

“Why don’t you come a little closer?”

Kasuga said, so I did.

“Why is it that I ended up going out with you, Aoki? It’s kind of strange.”

She said it like she was at a loss, and it caught me a little off guard.

“Feels weird.”

“I think…”

I took Kasuga’s hand and brought it up in front of us.

“I started changing from the moment we first talked.”

When I gently tilted her wrist, she relaxed her hand to match.

“Being with you, Kasuga… I think I can come to like the version of myself that keeps changing.”

Kasuga pulled my hand toward her.

“Change is scary.”

Our bodies drew closer.

“But…I think I might like the version of you that keeps changing, too.”

We looked into each other’s eyes.

“Do you think we can stay together forever?”

“Depends on how hard we try.”

“Yeah.”

And then we both sighed at the same time.

“Hey, what do you want to do with me? I wanted to go to a night pool.”

“That’s such a dumb dream. Why?”

“I kind of want to try doing stuff that feels like we’re actually living a fulfilling life.”

“Like riding a merry-go-round at an amusement park?”

“Or eating shaved ice until your head freezes.”

“Our idea of a『fulfilling life』is kind of… underwhelming.”

“Well, it can’t be helped. We’ve always been kind of underwhelming.”

“We can make it better from here.”

“Yeah.”

Kasuga’s face was right in front of mine, watching me closely.

“There are going to be lots of fun things ahead.”

I hoped that was true.

***

A few months later, the morning after I got slightly injured, I opened my closet and something caught my eye.

A green sweater with a skull on it.

That sweater.

Kou-chan’s sweater.

I decided to wear it.

Even if I’m not good at reading the room, even if I can’t talk to people well, I don’t have to force myself to say things I don’t want to say or do things I don’t want to do. I figured I’d just live honestly.

Why hadn’t I understood something so obvious until now? Kasuga was right.

As I was putting on my sneakers at the entrance, my sister saw me and spoke up.

“That sweater… nostalgic. But what’s with you?”

“Nothing. I just stopped internalizing what other people think of me. It matters, sure, but I’m not letting it define me anymore.”

“Uh… does that mean you’ve graduated from your 『second-year syndrome』?”

After everything—the pain, the struggle, the loneliness that made me feel like I might cry—I didn’t want it all to be brushed off with some simple label like that.

“But sure, if you want.”

I put on my shoes and stepped outside.

***

This isn’t a story about me living some『moderately okay』life.

And it’s definitely not some kind of success story where I become a hero through some strange power.

No—it’s something more real, more raw… and, in a way, completely ordinary.

This is the story of me getting myself back.

And the story of me learning what something truly special—beyond『just okay』—really is.

***

I ran into Kasuga at the school gate and it caught me off guard.

“Your outfit today looks pretty good, Aoki.”

“Your fashion sense is completely hopeless, Kasuga.”

We both laughed, then headed toward the classroom.

“By the way, Aoki… what’s with the crutches?”

“I tripped somewhere and broke a bone.”

“That lie is way too much.”

At the classroom door, I took a deep breath.

My legs almost gave out.

Kasuga smacked my butt hard.

That was way too strong, I thought—but right now, that didn’t matter.

“It’s okay. I’m with you.”

Kasuga said that, and I smiled.

“You’re reliable.”

“Oh, by the way, Aoki… what’s xvideos?”

“Oh… you were saying that without knowing?”

I chose my words carefully.

“It’s like YouTube.”

“You were going to spread videos there? That’s seriously messed up.”

“Yeah.”

To be honest, even now, sometimes I can still see the points.

If I stare too long, it feels like I might slip back into my old self.

That sly part of me shows up again. I start seeing points and before I know it, my mind is taken over by calculating gains and losses.

That scares me.

When that happens, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

Then I think of different faces, one by one—my sister, Kou-chan, Naruse, Kasuga…my parents.

And somehow, the more I do that, the more those 『points』start to feel completely meaningless.

It’s strange.

Because of those faces, I’m still able to stay… human.

I opened my eyes.

People have invisible『points.』

And we’re always on the verge of being swayed by them.

Maybe those points matter.

If you want to survive in this world.

Even so, I want to live valuing the things that can’t be turned into points.

That’s what I truly believe now.

If we turn around, despair and cold cynicism are always there, waiting to swallow us whole.

But I won’t let that despair take away the time we have right now.

I believe in ideals.

Somehow, things will work out. I throw that careless hope onto my future self a few moments ahead, stop overthinking, and focus on the single step in front of me.

And then, I walked into the classroom—a place filled with both the good and the bad.

Afterword

The first time I became aware of my own『points』was around my fourth year of university.

While job hunting, I was browsing the internet and came across the term employment deviation score. There were pages where countless companies were assigned points and ranked based on things like compensation and size. The higher the points, the harder it was to get in. A ranking of job difficulty. It felt just like university entrance exam scores.

But it wasn’t just that. Just like there are both university deviation scores and your own academic score in entrance exams, the students being interviewed were also assigned very detailed『points』. Using the deviation score of the university they attended as one benchmark, their points would fluctuate based on factors like TOEIC scores, whether they were in athletic clubs, achievements in clubs or volunteer work, possession of difficult qualifications, or whether their major was related to business.

As I read those kinds of posts online, I gradually started to think that, in job hunting, it might be best to apply to companies that matched my own『points』. If you aimed too high and kept applying to companies you had no chance of getting into, you’d just waste time and end up with what’s called『no offers』—in other words, unemployment.

At the time, I was a no-skill student attending a private university with mediocre scores, and in the literature department at that. When I calmly assessed my own 『points』I was shocked.

I realized I really wasn’t anything special.

I had never thought that before.

Facing how low my『points』were made me feel like, this isn’t how it was supposed to be.

In the end, I decided to look for a company with decent benefits, not too much overtime, and one that would leave me at least a little time to write novels. When I read past interviews with novelists, many of them had taken that kind of path. I didn’t really care about the job itself. That’s how I searched for a company that matched my『points』kept going to interviews, got hired, and became a working adult.

At the time, I think I had internalized those『points』.

Just like Aoki-kun in this novel.

Meanwhile, people around me took all kinds of paths. Some couldn’t find jobs and became part-timers, some became manga artists, some got into clearly high-ranking companies, others ignored『points』 altogether and chose companies they actually wanted to join even if their『points』were low, some started working freelance, some suddenly went abroad, some went on to graduate school aiming to become researchers. Everyone was doing what they wanted.

When people heard that I had gotten a normal job, for some reason, most reacted in a way that felt deflated, almost bored.

I felt like I had become a terribly uninteresting person.

While working at the company, I eventually stopped writing novels too and I began telling myself this every day:

It’s not the best, my dreams didn’t come true, but it’s not such a bad life.

Accept it. That’s what becoming an adult is. Get it.

But at certain moments in life, when I had to make choices—whether to get married or break up, or even trivial things like whether to make an expensive purchase—the version of myself from my teenage years would always flare up inside me.

You haven’t accomplished a single thing yet, have you?

Your life is zero, isn’t it?

I found myself sitting on the kitchen floor, stunned.

I admitted it. My life really was zero.

I had thought I was building up『points』in my own way. But while those points might have had value to society, they had no value to me.

When I realized that in the depths of that despair, those 『points』suddenly became meaningless all at once. And only what truly mattered to me remained.

I sat in front of my computer and, in silence, started writing a novel.

Acknowledgements. To loundraw, who handled the illustrations—this is always the case, but seeing the artwork gave me confidence and pride in my work. To my editors, Mr. Yuzawa and Mr. Endo—I’m sorry I couldn’t write. To everyone who worked hard to bring this book into the world—thank you very much.

By the way, I recently moved to the outskirts of Tokyo. It’s been a while since I lived alone, but I don’t really meet anyone and just stay shut in at home. Recently, I bought a pretty nice desk and chair. I’ll keep doing my best.

Tetsuya Sano