Chapter Text
I was still sitting at my desk, the light was still on. It was — I glanced at my watch — half past midnight. Probably about eight hours since I came into the room. My head felt heavy, and I found it hard to think. I did remember what just happened — what, I thought, must have been a dream, but did not feel like one. I remembered her — not what she looked like, that much I never saw, but her voice, and the feeling of her hands on mine. I remembered what she’d said, and what it was like to look at Ohtori from her flying saucer. And I remembered what I’d said, too. I remembered my own choice. To “go back down” to this world, and to learn to be someone different from who I’ve been until now.
I still wanted that. I still meant to do that. I’d never really experienced this kind of desire to change myself before, and now, I felt it so strongly. Even if I still did not understand how to go about this change, all of me was lost in anticipation of it.
But it would have to wait until tomorrow. Right now, it was night, and I was exhausted. I climbed into my bed and fell asleep, and dreamt, as I remember now, of nothing at all.
In the morning, I did not feel particularly well rested. What’s more, the determination I’d felt previously had mostly dissipated. If I asked myself whether I still agreed with everything I’d told her, I supposed I could answer yes. But the eagerness wasn’t really there anymore. And I still didn’t really know what I was actually supposed to do. It was easy to say, “I will change myself,” but that alone didn’t mean anything.
“I guess I’ll just have to figure it out,” I told myself. First, I’d meet up with Hotaru and Yuki and talk to them about yesterday. Then… Well, then I would think of the next step. For now, it was time to head to class.
But Hotaru and Yuki weren’t in class that day, and I couldn’t find them anywhere at lunch, either. After lunch, I had a literature class, where I unexpectedly somehow found myself drawn into a debate about theater. It wasn’t a bad experience, nor a particularly good one, all things considered. I said some things that were somewhat to the point, and some things that weren’t; the same went for others, too. More than anything, I think people — including the teacher, who until then had barely suspected I existed — were surprised to hear me speak. And I was surprised, too. And in all the excitement, I somehow forgot to think of the twins.
At the end of the debate, the teacher mentioned a book, and I went to the library to check it out. I don’t know why I did that. Did I really want this to become my life? And on the way to the library, I thought to myself: I wanted to start making choices in my life. And yet, here I was again, doing something just because it felt like a thing to do. But still, I didn’t turn away. I got to the library, and got the book, and just as I turned to leave, suddenly…
“Hey.”
Hotaru was there, in front of me. Alone.
Suddenly, everything I’d been thinking about in the morning came back. Dammit, what the hell was I doing here? Theater? What did theater have to do with anything? I thought I had made a decision, I thought I chose to try being a better friend. And then… I didn’t. I didn’t do it. If I couldn’t make a choice and stick to it, then what was the point of all this?
“Hey, Hotaru,” I said, trying not to sound nervous, and stuffed the book into my bag. “Sorry, I’ve been meaning to catch up with you two earlier today, there was just a lot of stuff…”
I didn’t really feel like it made sense to say that. I had never been the type of person that can get caught up in “a lot of stuff”, and Hotaru knew that. But it appeared that she wasn’t really listening to me.
“Azu-chan,” she said. “I need to talk to you. About something important.”
Something important? She sounded kind of nervous, too.
“Um, yeah, of course,” I said. “What about Yuki?”
“No, she’s… It’s… I can’t talk about it to her. It’s a… Look, can we get to somewhere more private?”
“Sure. That place behind the storage sheds?” The nook between the abandoned dorm and the gym was closer, but it didn’t feel right to go there.
“Yeah, okay.”
It was a few minutes’ walk from the library to the sheds. On the way, neither of us said anything. Once we arrived, and made sure no one else was around, we just stood for a couple of minutes. Then Hotaru began to speak.
“It’s… I feel weird talking about this to someone else, even to you, Azu-chan. But I kind of have to. I need to talk it over with someone. It’s about yesterday, when Yuki went after Oshima. Remember? After that whole thing with Tsuchiya?”
Yeah, I remembered. “Sorry… I should’ve gone after you two, too,” I said sheepishly.
She brushed me off. “It’s fine. It’s not that. I went after her, and I saw her talking to Oshima. Well, a bit of it. I heard her talking, and saw her face. And, well, that’s when I understood. How she really feels. About Oshima, I mean.” She paused for a while. “She likes her. Not in the… Really likes her, I mean.”
I stood there, saying nothing.
“You already know, don’t you?” she said quietly.
“Yeah… I mean, I noticed.” Except that I didn’t, not until it was pointed out to me. But I couldn’t tell Hotaru that.
“That makes me feel a little better,” she smiled weakly. “You’re our best friend, but it still felt kind of wrong telling you this type of stuff about my sister… But you’re right, I guess, it couldn’t have been that hard to see.”
“So that’s what you were worried about,” I said. I understood something of how Hotaru must have felt — I myself must have been feeling some of it last night, when I realized it — but there was something else here.
A weighty silence followed. There were a lot of things to be said, but I didn’t feel comfortable saying any of them. Neither did Hotaru, probably.
“I mean, I don’t think it’s bad…” she said, unsure of herself. “To feel that way about a girl. It’s just…” She trailed off.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Oshima might not agree, though.”
“No — well, yeah, that’s true, but that’s not what I… It’s just that…” Hotaru looked pained and pensive. “I don’t feel the same way about her, you know? About Oshima. I understand how Yuki feels, but I can’t share it. And that’s probably the first time this happened…”
So that’s what it was. I had not really considered this about the two of them before. I always saw them as two separate people — that’s what I wanted to tell myself, at least, but at the same time, I always thought about them together, as “the twins”. I wasn’t sure what to think of the matter. But if I was going to put my money where my mouth was, I’d have to say something. To be a friend.
“But it’s fine, isn’t it?” I said, “You don’t have to love the same person she does. You and her are two separate people…”
“I know that!” She raised her voice suddenly, but there was little anger in it. “I… I’m not an idiot. I know she and I are not magically bound together. I always knew we would have to start being our own people eventually. Not sharing everything. Doing stuff separately from each other. Having secrets from each other. I knew it couldn’t be like this forever, us two perfectly synchronized. But now it’s happened, and it’s this huge thing, and… I guess I wasn’t prepared.”
“You can still be close, though, right? Even if you’re not ‘synchronized’,” I said. What was it she’d told me? It’s all about stories? “Maybe it’ll hurt like this for a while, but once you’ve started seeing Yuki, uh… well, you know, separate from yourself… You’ll see that you two still have so much in common. You’ll still be there for each other. It’s not an all or nothing thing — it doesn’t have to be.”
She said nothing.
“It might even be easier that way,” I went on. “I mean, sharing everything, that’s a big burden. It might be easier for you rwo to stay close if you don’t expect yourselves to… to, well, always be like this.”
She still said nothing. I had no idea if I was talking any sense. What if I was saying the last things Hotaru needed to hear now?
Suddenly, she hugged me.
“But what about you, Azu-chan?” she whispered. “I think that… I feel that… I don’t show it enough, maybe, but you… You are out dear friend. Well, our… my… I…” She seemed to be struggling to fight the right words. “You’ve been there with us all along, and I know I wouldn’t want it any other way. I don’t want to lose you, to grow apart from you. But I can’t help thinking… If I don’t feel about Oshima the way Yuki does, what if she doesn’t feel about you the way I do? I… I just wouldn’t know how to deal with that…”
An overpowering, deathly cold washed over me. I felt it, in between the chill of January air and the heat of Hotaru’s body, her arms tight around me, her chest rising and falling. I felt her, a warm blob of flesh, her body an object in the vast world, the air escaping her mouth, hot against my skin. And I felt her thoughts, pouring and pouring over the two of us. The way Yuki feels about Oshima… The way Hotaru feels about me… And in my head, I could only hear her voice, repeating: “You must have noticed, right? You must have noticed, right? You must have noticed, right?”
There was barely any room for conscious thought left. I was terrified. It took all of my self-control not to tear myself away from Hotaru right at that moment. But I didn’t. I tried to summon up the right words to say, but nothing came to me, so I just stood there, muttering: “It’s fine.. It’s fine… It’ll be okay… There’s nothing to worry about…”
Little by little, the terror started to abate. It was still there, but I was now able to think. I understood that rather than empty words, I should tell Hotaru something concrete. That I consider her a dear friend as well, that I’ll be there for her no matter what… that kind of stuff. Even though these were small things, and obvious ones — surely, she understands that I consider her a friend — I felt they would be the right things to say. But I couldn’t bring myself to say even that much.
Hotaru, at least, didn’t seem to mind me not saying anything of substance. After a while, she let go of me, and smiled.
“Sorry, I guess I made a scene,” she said. “But thanks for listening, Azu-chan.”
I just nodded.
“I should go catch up with Yuki,” she went on. “We haven’t actually talked to each other properly since yesterday. I think she, you know, knows that I know.”
“You’ll talk to her about it, then?”
“I kind of have to, right? But man, what do I even say… And what are we gonna do then? Well, I’ll just have to figure it out. It’s really scary, though.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I get it. Sorry, I don’t have much in the way of advice. All I know how to do is to drive people away.”
Hotaru’s smile widened into a huge grin. She ruffled my hair — just like she had done before — and spoke, her voice suddenly so much stronger and more cheerful: “Aw, come on!”
Then, after a few moments, she added:
“Sorry we didn’t get to hang much today. Tomorrow, let’s meet up before classes, okay? All three of us.”
“Sure.” Deep inside, I was still terrified. But I don’t think I could have answered any other way.
Hotaru nodded and ran off.
I stood there. For a while, I just stood. There were sounds all around me, wind and far-off voices and footsteps. And inside me, there was the same terror — and with it, new things, too. Anxiety, doubt, wistfulness… Self-loathing. I stood there, and, without letting my mind think about anything, simply perceived it all, the sounds and the feelings. It was like a wide expanse of bright color, except invisible; like a great wave crashing into me, except it did not move me; like a flame scorching me, except the pain was not in any part of my body. There was a grandness about it all, and I somehow felt that, if I could keep going long enough, something amazing would happen.
But I could not. My brain could not keep going like that, unfocused, and I slipped back into thought.
They were not particularly pleasant thoughts, but they also were unavoidable. For the most part, I was wondering. If Hotaru really felt that way about me, what did I feel for her? Did I feel differently about her and Yuki? I enjoyed their company — I liked spending time with them, both of them. I always felt better, easier, with them by my side. I came back here to this world for them — didn’t stay up there with her for them — well, not just for them, but let’s be honest, mostly for them…
But this was all stuff about both, about the two of them. If I were to think about differences… Maybe it was normally easier to talk to Hotaru about important things — well, no, not easier… And it’s not that the things I talked about with Yuki weren’t important. But then, Hotaru did more often ask me about what I felt deep inside, get into the stuff that was uncomfortable — then she’d always get embarrassed and apologize for making it weird. Even just now, that’s kind of what happened. And I liked that about her. Right?
Or maybe not. Maybe everything I was telling myself was wrong. Maybe I just wanted to believe this stuff because it would make for a prettier, more convenient picture in my head.
I was getting nowhere. It felt impossible, to make sense of everything. A thought occurred to me: I can’t do this on my own. But who even was there for me to ask for advice? It’s not like I had any friends besides the twins.
Maybe I could throw myself at Reika’s feet and beg for her help. “Sorry, senpai!” I would tell her. “I was wrong, and you were right! I’ve decided to start taking things more seriously — but I’m confused about everything. Please, help me out!”
No, no, I could not do that. So instead, I decided to go with a much more absurd option.
That’s how I found myself in front of the door to the rose garden.
I breathed in deep and went in. The chairman’s sister was there, as usual. She looked up and gazed at me in surprise.
***
“Hoshino-san? Did you want something?”
“Um… Himemiya, right? I have something to talk to you about. If you have a couple of minutes.”
She looked at me. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“Of course. What is it?”
“This is a bit awkward…” I began. It was, but I’d had a few minutes to rehearse. “I’m sorry for coming here out of the blue and talking like this — it’s not like we know each other. But I’m kind of going through a weird time right now, and I need some advice. And, well… I don’t know what exactly the deal is with you and these duels and everything else that’s going on here, but something makes me feel like you would be a good person to ask. That you understand these things.”
“You… You know? But you’re not…” She was evidently confused; then, in an instant, her voice changed, and her face relaxed in an expression of understanding. She glanced upward and smiled a tiny smile. “Ah, I see what it is. Well then, go ahead.”
“It’s probably a stupid question,” I stammered. “It’s not a life or death matter, or anything like that… It’s silly, but I don’t have anyone to ask this kind of thing. It seems a bit out of place to be asking…”
The more I went on, the more awkward it felt. Himemiya said nothing, just looking at me expectantly.
“The question is,” I said, deciding to try and get this over with quickly, “how does one know when one is in love? And, further, how does one figure out how to act towards… towards the object of that possible love? When, no matter how you consider it, no choice feels right?”
She raised her eyebrow at that — only very slightly, I barely even noticed it.
Then, she asked, “You’re not asking out of idle curiosity, are you?”
I shook my head.
“I see,” she nodded. “Well, Hoshino-san, there are only two possibilities. Either what you are feeling is love, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then you’re more or less free to pursue whatever course of action you end up selecting. It might not be easy to make that choice, but at least, the choice will be yours. If it is love, on the other hand, there will be no choice for you.”
“No choice?”
“Love isn’t something you can walk away from. You cannot choose who you love; and, once love is there, it does not stay or go at your pleasure. Everything has already been decided for you.”
“Isn’t that a scary thought?”
“Indeed.” She paused for a moment. “They sometimes talk of love as if it were something that came from outside you. A strange force that invades your mind and subjugates it. But it doesn’t really matter, I think. Perhaps love is akin to hunger. When your body is hungry, no one is imposing their will onto you. You are free to eat or to starve, but you can’t simply choose not to feel hunger. It might be the same with love.”
I considered.
“But if that’s how it is… Then, if I did feel love, why would I agonize so much about what to choose? If the choice’s already made for me, then that’s that. But I don’t see only a single choice. There are many, and I have no idea which one is the one.”
“Perhaps that’s because you haven’t accepted it yet,” she replied. “If you have accepted that you’re in love, there is nothing more to it than following wherever it takes you. Without acceptance, there is no clarity.”
“So I need to accept it?” Accept that I don’t get a say in my life, is that it? There was something karmic about that. All along, I’ve been avoiding decisions, refusing to live my life all so that I wouldn’t have to make difficult choices. And now, these choices would be taken away from me. There was nothing just or comfortable in that thought.
“Of course, it could also be that you’re not in love at all,” Himemiya went on. “In that case, there is nothing for you to accept, nothing to surrender to. I’m afraid I don’t have much advice for you on how to tell which one it is.”
She was silent for a few seconds, then, said, her tone suddenly different.
“I’ve never known what it’s like not to be sure about this. If I had…”
She didn’t finish.
I sighed and rubbed my temples.
“Well, thank you for explaining it.”
“It was nothing, Hoshino-san. And,” she turned to look directly at me, and her mouth briefly went into a half-smile, “thank you for taking the time to come see me. I don’t think we will get another chance to talk like this.”
I blinked. What did she mean by that?
Before I could ask her, she had already turned her back to me and become completely engrossed in her flowers. I stood there for a couple more moments, then finally left the garden.
***
I was back at my usual spot, on the hill at the edge of campus. I fell down onto the cold ground and looked into the clouds drifting by. Was I in love with Hotaru? All the terror and pain I’d been feeling were because I wasn’t sure of it, because I wasn’t sure what to do. Was that how it was? If I could just surrender to this, make myself accept that I love her, all the anxiety and indecision would go away. If I could just do that…
But was that worth doing? Was it worth it to throw away my ability to choose my way in life? For what, some peace of mind? How cowardly… Yet, the way Himemiya had said it, it sounded inevitable. You can eat, or you can starve.
But what would it even mean to “starve”? If these feelings were really love, then I’d been ignoring them for a long time. I had been friends with Hotaru and Yuki for three years. All that time, I’d been keeping this bottled up. I could just go back to that. I could return to that way of living, keep on ignoring myself and others. I could go on living like that for a long, long time.
But I’d made a choice, hadn’t I? To become a better friend, to get involved in the world. Wouldn’t another retreat from the world mean going back on that choice? And wasn’t it because of that choice that I became aware of it all in the first place?
No, wait, it wasn’t. That was just a coincidence, right? The thing with Oshima just happened to go down now, and that’s how both Hotaru and I learned about Yuki’s feelings, and that’s what brought it all to the surface.
But… It’s like she had said. I must have noticed. There were times like this before, too. Yuki’s feelings were not particularly well hidden, and neither were Hotaru’s. The reason I could see how Hotaru felt this time, when I couldn’t before, was precisely because I had made the choice to not walk away from it anymore.
Still, even though I had made that choice, it was never final. I could always go back on it, it would always be possible. I might not have thought that I should do that, but I could. And then… Then, once I did go back on it, it would always be possible for me to go back again, and make that choice once again. And so on, and so on…
That’s right, no matter what I chose, I’d always be able to change my mind later. Wouldn’t it be like that with love, too? Yes… Himemiya had said otherwise, but that’s just a comforting story. It would be comfortable to no longer have to worry about this. All I needed to do was to believe that love was as overpowering and ineluctable as Himemiya had told me. And then keep on believing it forever.
Until I changed my mind, and stopped.
I groaned. It would just keep going on and on, wouldn’t it? Tomorrow, in the morning, I’d meet with Hotaru and Yuki, and I’d have to choose, how to talk to them, how to look at them, when to be together with them and when to leave them alone. I’d have to choose what to be like with Hotaru. And then, the next day, I would have to choose all of that all over again. And not just with the twins, either, the same would also go for Reika, and Chisato, and maybe Oshima, or Himemiya, too, maybe for everybody at this school. It would never be enough. It would never be done. I had opened Pandora’s box, and now I would have to live with what I’ve let into my life.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear going on like that. It was too much for me. I needed to turn it off. To find a way to live without this anxiety, without always having to be unsure about everything. I imagined Hotaru’s face, and my mind was filled with pain. This time, it was clear: I loved her. That much I understood. But I could not bear this; going on and on, seeing her every day, and always having to think, to figure out what it is that I feel, and what it means, never knowing if this is all it is, if this is enough, always having to make choices and live with their consequences, and still never being freed of the weight of that choice. I could not do this. Other people probably could. To normal people, this was simply what life was, so ordinary they never even noticed. I wasn’t like that.
So I stared at the sky, and screamed.
“I was wrong!” I yelled. “I change my mind! I can’t stay here! Please, take me back!”
And it came, just like last time. She came. First there was the light, and then, the stairway. I began to walk up.
And as I walked, I suddenly understood that even this was a mistake. Even up there, in that flying saucer, I would not be free of this world. No matter what I did, how I changed myself, nothing would be irreversible. Even for her, though she said she couldn’t go back to how she used to be — she was wrong about that, I was sure. I could go up there, and change myself, become like her, and still, every day, every moment of every hour, I could decide to come back to this world, or to intervene in it. I would still keep thinking of Hotaru and Yuki, and everyone else I had known down there. I would never be just an observer. Himemiya had been only half right. It wasn’t love that I could never walk away from — love could come and go, just like me — it was the knowledge that I could be a part of the world. Neither at Ohtori nor out there in space would I find any solace from that knowledge.
And even as I realized that, I did not turn around. I kept walking, and reached the top of the stairs. The door opened, and I stepped over the threshold.
As for what happened after that, well…
Do you know, do you know? Do you know what it was?