Chapter 46: Continuing from that day…

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Translator: Soafp

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We walked along a quiet road in the residential neighborhood.

We had no particular destination.

I simply wanted to talk with Miko, just the two of us, without anyone getting in the way.

Miko, walking beside me, had been frowning in confusion ever since I told her that we were going to continue what happened with the fake confession.

Perhaps she was wondering why I was bringing it up again now.

But maybe we were both still trapped on that rooftop, on that day.

Not just her. I was too.

That was why we needed this time together.

As we walked away from prying eyes, we eventually arrived at a small park.

We should be able to talk calmly here.

“Shall we sit on this bench?”

“…”

We sat down side by side.

“Being here brings back memories of the past. When we were kids, I was always playing with you, Miko. In fact, it's probably harder to remember the times we weren't together.”

“Yeah… it is.”

After Miko and I were separated, I spent a while wondering how to use my time.

There was no one left for me to get revenge on, and the classmates who remained didn't want to come near me, so I had no idea what to do.

“Thanks to that, I got good at exploring restaurants, and I took up investing in stocks and reading.”

“I see.”

“I don't know whether what I gained was enough to make up for what I lost, but I think I've spent my time reasonably well. So I was glad to hear that you've been doing well lately too, Miko.”

Miko didn't answer.

She silently studied my face, staring at me intently.

“Hey, I don't have anything else to say to you. What are you planning to do by ‘continuing that day'?”

“I started wondering why we ended up misunderstanding each other so badly. Shouldn't we clear away this lingering uncertainty soon? For both our sakes.”

Until recently, I wouldn't have been able to look back on Miko and our past this calmly.

I had never regretted the way I dealt with things in middle school.

Miko's disappearance had been her own fault, and as the victim, I had no reason to worry about her.

I had kept telling myself that I wasn't wrong.

But I think I had only been telling myself that.

Perhaps I simply hadn't wanted to admit the truth.

Miko, my childhood friend, had disregarded me.

She hadn't understood the feelings of someone who had supported her devotedly for so long.

I couldn't forgive that.

“I heard why you made the fake confession. But I still haven't heard why you stubbornly refused to apologize.”

“…”

“Are you not going to tell me?”

I suppose that was only natural.

If she could easily nod and answer, our relationship wouldn't have become this twisted in the first place.

In that case, I would have to force the truth out of her.

I said the words Miko would probably hate hearing most.

“I'm sorry, Miko. I should have forgiven you.”

“What!?”

She sprang to her feet and hurried around to stand in front of me.

“D-Don't say that! Why are you apologizing, Subaru!?”

“Because I believe I was wrong.”

“No! You didn't do anything wrong. It was all my fault, so don't apologize!”

“I refuse.”

“Why!?”

“You were the one who decided that you should be the one to choose whether or not to apologize. You have no right to complain. If you don't like it, then apologize yourself.”

“Ugh… I-I…”

Miko clenched her fists tightly.

A groan of inner conflict escaped from the back of her throat.

I didn't look away from her as she stood there frozen, and patiently waited.

That was when it happened.

“Woof!”

“Oh, I'm so sorry!”

A dog suddenly came running toward us, its leash having come loose.

Behind it, an adult woman—presumably its owner—was running toward us at full speed.

“Eek!?”

Miko cried out and quickly moved behind the bench, using me as a shield.

The dog waddled over to my feet and wagged its tail.

It was a Chow Chow…

It was so incredibly fluffy that it looked like a stuffed animal.

I felt an overwhelming urge to pet it.

“I'll get him away right away!”

The Chow Chow let out a sad whine as its owner grabbed its collar.

“Woof.”

“I'm so, so sorry. He's usually clumsy, but of all times, he had to run off now…”

The woman repeatedly bowed her head as she led the Chow Chow away.

It was so sad…

Still, this wasn't exactly the time to interact with a dog.

I looked at Miko's hand resting on my shoulder.

Miko noticed it too and quickly pulled her arm away.

“S-Sorry…”

So you can apologize quickly in situations like this.

“Are you still afraid of dogs?”

“…Because one bit you on the butt, Subaru…”

“That was a long time ago.”

Miko had originally loved dogs.

When we were children, she would run up and talk to any dog she happened to see.

“I can't forget it…”

“I kept telling you not to worry about it. If anything, trying to make sure you didn't develop a fear of dogs made me start liking them myself.”

“…You've always been like that, Subaru. You've always tried to do everything for me.”

Miko sat back down on the bench, completely drained.

She looked so exhausted that she seemed to have no energy left at all.

“You know, after I made that fake confession, I didn't realize how awful what I'd done really was.”

“…”

“I genuinely thought Subaru would forgive me no matter what I did. But as time passed, and I saw how angry you were, I finally understood that I had been wrong. I really am an idiot.”

She continued in a weak voice.

“At first, I was desperate to figure out how to get you to forgive me. I thought that if I could make everyone in class stop badmouthing you, things might go back to normal. But it didn't work. If anything, you became more and more isolated in class…”

Miko lowered her head and spoke in a strained voice.

“I didn't know what to do anymore. I couldn't tell Mom and Dad that we had fallen out, so I kept wondering what I was supposed to do. Then, on that class observation day… I realized that everything was hopeless.”

“Why?”

“Because… the kind Subaru I knew would never take such extreme revenge. And it seemed strange that you would let only me—the person you were most angry with—off the hook. That's when I finally understood.”

Miko raised her face.

Tears spilled from her distorted eyes, soaking her cheeks.

“You were trying to forgive me… Even though I had done something horrible, even though I had hurt you so badly… you kept giving me chances to apologize!”

Miko sobbed as she forced the words out painfully.

“Why? You shouldn't forgive someone like me!”

“…It's not as if I was guaranteed to forgive you.”

“You had already forgiven me. Subaru, you were acting strangely the entire time you continued taking revenge. You looked more miserable at school every day than I had ever seen you. You should have pushed me away along with the other classmates. You're too kind, Subaru. If you weren't, you wouldn't have come all this way to see me after I moved so far away.”

I couldn't deny that.

If I had truly been angry, I could have immediately told her parents and created a situation where she was forced to apologize.

I could even have punished her along with Ayano and the others.

But perhaps I hadn't done that because, deep down, I never actually wanted to.

Looking back, it wasn't true that Miko had never apologized.

I simply hadn't liked the lack of sincerity in the way she apologized.

She had tried.

I was the one who pushed her away.

Miko had always depended on me so much that she couldn't even manage school life properly without my help.

Whenever she had a problem, she came to me first, and we solved it together.

So when she got into trouble with me, what was she supposed to do?

Who was she supposed to ask for help?

At the time, Miko was only a child who had graduated from elementary school a few months earlier.

Everyone makes mistakes, and that should have been the time for her to reflect on those mistakes and grow.

And the same applied to me.

In the end, I didn't even know specifically what kind of apology I wanted from her.

I was simply furious that she had betrayed me.

I couldn't forgive her.

Maybe our relationship had been unhealthy.

Miko and I had always been two halves of one whole.

I couldn't function without her, and the same was true for her.

So it was only natural that, when one half suddenly disappeared, neither of us would know what to do.

It was only now that I had finally become able to look back on Miko properly.

That was how important she had been in my life.

I had spent so much time mocking my high school classmates for letting romance ruin their lives.

But the middle-school version of me had been exactly the same.

I had lost sight of everything around me.

I had been far too immature.

But I believed I had grown since then.

I needed to teach her that.

As her childhood friend, this would be the final time I meddled in her life.

It was my stubborn way of wishing for the happiness of someone I had loved until the very end.

I took Miko's hand.

“Let's continue what happened that day, Miko. This time, it won't be a lie. We'll both be honest about how we feel. I… had always loved you more than anything. I genuinely wanted to marry you.”

“…Eh?”