Chapter 83: Let’s think.

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Translated and Edited by: luccayn.

Common Honorifics:
-san: A polite suffix, but not excessively formal.
-kun: A common suffix among friends and younger people.
-chan: A common suffix among people you're close with, mostly used for feminine nicknames and girls, since it's cutesy and childlike.
-senpai: A common suffix and noun used to address or refer to one's older or more senior colleagues in a school, workplace, dojo, or sports club.

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I can come up with all sorts of excuses to convince myself. If I push it further, I could even claim to have a magnanimous heart willing to conceal our blood relationship, fabricate my true feelings, and deceive myself into believing them.

But of course, in order to justify the relationship between us, lies would be necessary. Can something born from such deception really be called pure love?

No matter how much she thinks of me, no matter how much I think of her, the fact that we're not strangers stands as an enormous wall between us. The kind of relationship where caring for her is only natural looms like an endless, vague stretch of time.

I'm not the kind of person who can ignore such contradictions.

…How about this kind of story?

For example, I don't believe that something is inherently happy just because the person involved is happy. Because if salvation came only from self-satisfaction, then the conclusion of a me who went mad with self-satisfaction would be inconsistent.

I'm sure Michiru's upbringing was like that too.

From the outside, it was obviously an abnormal scene, and yet she alone remained sane. In that case, who was truly more unfortunate: Michiru, who struggled against malice and writhed in suffering, or the people so thoroughly consumed that they didn't even realize they were being preyed upon?

If we're talking relatively, I think Michiru was the happier one. Because to realize something means you have the ability to choose. Whether right or wrong, the ability to decide your own actions for yourself has meaning. Happiness, when boiled down, is the right to choose.

“But a brother can't choose his sister, and a sister can't choose her brother. You know that, don't you?”

“But I absolutely hate it. I'll say it as many times as it takes—I'll never accept that.”

“…Is that so.”

“I won't give in and I won't give up. I can't be happy unless I'm with you, Shinji-kun. There's no way I'm letting you go home alone from here.”

With tear-swollen eyes, Michiru spoke firmly. She refused to let go of my hand as I tried to pull away, gripping it tightly. I know. I know that if I choose what's right, no one will be happy. And I also know that sometimes what's wrong is what brings everything to a peaceful resolution.

Even so, she's my sister.

Helplessly, undeniably, irrevocably. The protective urges that surged within me again and again prove that what I felt wasn't romantic love. More than anything, the fact that I've been agonizing ever since everything came to light is proof enough.

If I'm agonizing, then I'm in doubt. And if I form something while betraying the part of me that holds that doubt as most important, if the foundation isn't absolutely solid, then anything built on top of it will surely crumble again.

That's not the kind of single-mindedness I wanted. And if it's not truly single-minded, there's no way I can accept it.

“It doesn't matter. I love you, so I want to be your girlfriend. That's all there is to it.”

I think I'm pathetic for dithering and unable to tear myself away. If I heard this story from someone else, I'd probably tell them not to worry about it. I'd think they should just make a clean break like before, that if it's no good, then it's no good, and they should just disappear.

But here's the problem. I can't bring myself to abandon Michiru and leave this place. And yet, I also can't just grab her hand without a second thought.

So then.

Maybe I'm in the middle of resisting the despair of love not being able to surpass reason.

…

“Then… shall we think about it a little?”

“Eh…?”

Michiru's body, which had been stiff like stretched rubber, suddenly looked as if it had been struck by lightning.

“Let's think. I've been living that way until now. Then, in the end, the only thing I can cling to is thought.”

“You mean a way to make me go home?”

“No.”

“A way to make me hate you?”

“No.”

I stood up, placing a hand on Michiru's dumbfounded head, picked up my coat that had fallen below the seawall, and beckoned to her, who was still frozen. In any case, I didn't have the stamina to run away from her. A quiet fade-out wasn't an option.

I took a handkerchief from my coat pocket and handed it to Michiru when she came over, then draped the coat over her shoulders again. She scrubbed away her tears messily, then crossed her arms to grip the coat and walked a bit faster to stand beside me.

“Why did you suddenly decide to think about it?”

“Because you said you'd never give up, right?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Then it's pointless to try to convince you. Seriously, I've never seen such a stubborn and strong-willed heroine.”

“Fufu. I'm flattered…”

“I was planning to make this a standard tragic parting where I throw everything away and walk away. And now the whole tragedy's ruined.”

Michiru smiled for the first time that day, and I answered with a sigh. Right now, I still don't know who I should think about, what I should think about, or how I should think about it. Let alone whether I can act on what I come up with, or if doing so will actually improve anything.

“Let's get something to eat.”

For now, let's face forward. Even if I stop and give in, nobody's going to come save me. Then I'd rather reach into the unknown darkness ahead—there's more hope there.

“Yeah!”

We walked into a 24-hour gyudon place in the city. I ordered two regular bowls to keep spending down, and because Michiru didn't have any money on her.

I like gyudon. Eating it makes me feel happy.

“Still, it's dangerous for a high school girl to be walking around alone at this hour. If something happened, it'd be too late.”

“It's because Shinji-kun tried to throw me away, isn't it? It's not my fault.”

“…You make it sound terrible.”

“Also, you quit school and don't have a home—what exactly were you planning to do?”

“I wonder. I was so self-destructive after he died that I didn't even know myself.”

Michiru looked like she was about to say something but closed her mouth. She was probably going to insult that man, but she must have realized I still hadn't fully come to hate him.

“What kind of person was our father?”

“Irresponsible and worthless. But he was unbelievably cool.”

“He can't be cool. A grown-up who'd do such horrible things to us can't possibly be cool.”

“If I'm speaking personally, his essence was no different from mine. He just kept chasing whatever made him feel like it was okay for him to be alive.”

…That was a misstep. It made me sound weirdly like I was defending him.

“Well, no matter what, he was scum. Because of him, we've had to deal with a ton of trouble. Honestly, it's only natural he died. I don't feel sorry for him at all.”

At that, Michiru relaxed and started munching on her gyudon. The contrast between a beautiful girl and gyudon was, personally, a very appealing mismatch. In the back of the shop, probably a foreign exchange student—the Southeast Asian staff member who brought our food—was watching something on their phone with earbuds in.

There's no one around to overhear. Sorry, but we'll rely on this place to get through the night.

“But… do you really think this can work out? I mean, ultimately, isn't this all about how Shinji-kun feels?”

“It's about closure. I've come to carry too many people's feelings to be with someone just because I love them.”

“Hmm… ah! It's kind of like Marmalade Boy, isn't it?”

“Don't just randomly throw in a shoujo manga reference like that.”

The sadness from earlier had vanished. Michiru's light teasing was more normal than usual. It didn't feel like something directed at a man who had killed someone.

“Still, the fact that you said you'd ‘think about it'—that's the strongest thing I could hope for.”

“You're overestimating me.”

It was a phrase I hadn't used in a long time. But no matter what, this was a problem far beyond the scope of what high schoolers could handle.

“That's not true. Because now, I can believe that at least we won't end up with an unhappy ending.”

“What if I fail?”

“Then I'll stay with you until failure turns into success.”

That's Michiru for you. Unrelentingly positive and absolutely unbreakable. Apparently, she's the kind of person who charges forward for what she believes in. I wonder who she takes after.

“Then first, can I hear about what happened today and what happened back then? There might be a hint for how to break through this.”

“Today aside, don't you already know about what happened at the kyōkai?”

“I probably know what happened. But I don't know what you were thinking. I don't want to guess—I want to hear it from you directly.”

If she didn't want to, I'd settle for just hearing about today, I added while sipping some tea.

“…Alright. Then, it might take a while.”

And then, after swallowing her last bite, Michiru quietly set down her chopsticks.

Still, I thought, if my final act of helping someone ends up being for myself and the girl I care for—then this really is too perfectly scripted a scenario.

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