2

When you know what items you need, your destination decides itself

The school day had ended, and everyone was working on festival prep.

I was sitting in the otherwise-empty library, across from Kikuchi-san.

She seemed nervous. The script was in front of me on the table. I picked it up in both hands and tapped it on the table to tidy up the stack of papers. I’d promised to read it by the end of the school day, and, of course, I had.

That’s right—as scriptwriter and assistant, we were meeting to prepare for the class play.

“Um…,” I said. I could see Kikuchi-san’s throat move as she gulped. Her small, white hands were clenched into tight fists on top of the table.

I wasn’t sure where to start, but after taking a minute to get my thoughts in order, I plunged in.

“…I liked it.”

Kikuchi-san’s expression suddenly brightened in relief. “Y-you did?”

I answered honestly. “Yeah. I read it during the breaks and downtime in class today…”

“I-in class…?”

She seemed a bit startled by that, but quickly shrugged it off and kept listening.

“Honestly, it was really interesting. I can’t wait to read the next part.”

That was the truth.

She’d cut back on the narration with the performance in mind, so now it consisted just of dialogue and simplified explanations. Considering so much had been cut out, the story had changed in several places.

Nevertheless…

“My overall impression was really similar to when I read the story.”

“I-it was…?! That’s a relief…”

It was strange, but maybe it was the realism of the dialogue, or maybe the uniqueness of the story to start with.

I wasn’t exactly sure why, but she’d done an amazing job of carrying over the mood of the story into a much more dialogue-centered format.

“It’s really impressive, since you cut away so much of the dialogue overall. How’d you do it?”

“Well…,” she said, smiling shyly. “I took some inspiration from that Andi film we went to see last summer.”

“Oh, nice!”

That made sense.

Now that she mentioned it, even though the details of the dialogue and plot were different in the movie, the general mood was still the same as the book. I remembered talking about it with Kikuchi-san at the café afterward.

“Now that you mention it, I can see the similarity.”

“Y-yes…!” She blushed and smiled a little. I could tell how happy she was.

Right—Andi’s books were what inspired her to start writing in the first place, and when I told her that her stories gave me a similar feeling to his, she’d actually cried. For her, creating something similar to his work was a real achievement.

“O-on the other hand—” Her expression grew tenser as she spoke, and the look in her eyes became more earnest. This was another facet of her passionate-author persona. “Did you notice anything that bothered you?”

“Um…” I sank into thought.

The truth was, I felt like critiquing her story would be conceited, but even setting aside my lack of confidence, I genuinely thought it was a perfect story to turn into a play. Someone with more experience than me might have seen opportunities for improvement, but as a novice, it was hard to think about what they might be.

But if I were to say one thing…

“…Maybe the characters?”

“The characters?”

I nodded. “Maybe it’s because you reduced the dialogue in the play version, but…”

“Yes?”

“…I feel like the characters have gotten a little…ordinary? Like, they don’t feel as alive anymore. I mean, that’s just my opinion…”

I was trying to choose the gentlest words possible without being dishonest.

“It’s true that they’re easier to understand now, but something felt a little off to me…”

I thought about the short-story version of “On the Wings of the Unknown.”

What made an impression on me the first time I read it was the vividness of the characters and the realistic, sometimes contradictory emotions.

But in the play version, you could almost say the characters were more like symbols; to me, they didn’t feel very alive.

“Hmm…,” Kikuchi-san said, nodding in acknowledgment. “You could be right.”

“Right how?” I asked.

She pulled the manuscript over to her side of the table. “Well, I changed the concept a little.”

“…The concept?” I considered what she meant by that word, but I wasn’t getting it.

“We talked about changing the characters to suit the people playing them, right?”

“Yeah…”

I nodded. We’d decided that she should adjust the dialogue with the actors and stage performance in mind.

“I changed the characters that Mizusawa-kun and Hanabi-chan will be playing to make it easier for them.” She lowered her voice bashfully. “But the trade-off may be…that their characters are a bit rougher and shallower now.”

“Ah, I get what you’re saying.”

I could see that.

When I first read the story, the subtleties of the characters and how they thought really appealed to me. They were never monotonous, and their internal contradictions made them feel very human.

I wasn’t sure how to explain it, but the play version felt more “theatrical.”

“Like, when the characters are mainly expressing themselves in dialogue, it feels like they get simpler.”

“Yes. I did try to focus on simpler thoughts over complicated emotions.”

“Huh… I think I get what you’re saying.”

She’d used dramatic movements and expressions to clearly convey unified emotions. Instead of the internal conflict often found in real life, she chose to emphasize consistency.

And that could well be the right decision; it’d bring the audience closer to the action and make the play easier for amateur high school actors to perform. It would be more practical to ensure a certain minimum level of quality, and to ensure we didn’t lose the point of the emotions altogether.

“It’s a tough issue…”

“Do you think I can continue on to the conclusion without changing it…?”

How should she move forward with the script? Emphasize the raw humanity of the characters that impressed me when I first read the story? Or take a more realistic approach in order to make sure the play came together?

There was no “right” answer to this, which was why I felt so unsure. I mean, I had no experience with theater or writing plays, and no real reason to choose one path or the other.

But as I thought it over—something occurred to me.

“Hey…did you only mention two characters just now?”

“Um…yes.” She nodded.

“Why?”

After all, the play had three main characters.

Libra, the son of the locksmith, played by Mizusawa.

Kris, the orphan who raised flying dragons, played by Tama-chan.

And Alucia, the princess who was Libra’s childhood best friend, played by Hinami.

“…What about Hinami?”

Kikuchi-san stared at me silently. I wasn’t sure if her expression was troubled, thoughtful, or simply calm. Finally, she giggled. “Hinami-san…seems exactly like Alucia to me, so I figured I didn’t have to worry about it,” she said conspiratorially.

I chuckled. “Ha-ha-ha. Gotcha.”

I could see her point. When we’d assigned the roles, Hinami got such unanimous support to play Alucia, we didn’t even need to count the votes. Plus, since it was Hinami, we all assumed everything would be fine. She could probably play any role convincingly.

“I bet she’ll be fine with her role even if it has some complex emotions.”

“My thought exactly,” Kikuchi-san replied with a mischievous smile. “That’s why I left Alucia alone…”

I remembered something I’d noticed while reading. “I did feel like Alucia was very vivid.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” She smiled happily, interlacing her fingers on top of the table.

So what to do?

Continue along these lines, or make it rawer? We had to choose one or the other.

“We don’t have much time,” I said.

“No…”

Today was Tuesday, and the play would be performed two weeks from Saturday. If we began rehearsals at the start of next week, we’d have two full weeks to practice. We needed at least that much time, which meant we had to largely finalize the script this week.

The concept we were debating affected both the underlying skeleton of the play and eventually the ending. We needed to nail this down as soon as possible.

“Should we decide now…?”

“What do you think is best…?”

We could only choose one of the two options.

The decision had important consequences, and I couldn’t avoid it. I had to make a choice. One or the other.

“…I think you should bring the whole thing more in line with Alucia.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “Make it like it was before, with more vivid, realistic characters.” I made an effort to sound confident, which elicited some surprise from Kikuchi-san. “The actors might have a harder time, and you might have a harder time writing the dialogue…but…”

I wanted to see it.

“…it’ll definitely be more interesting that way.”

I stated my opinion passionately, then shut up to hear what she would say.

She sat there for a minute, her eyes round, then finally nodded firmly.

“I understand… I’ll try.”

Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought I glimpsed a flame of excitement burning deep in her eyes.

* * *

Since we’d agreed on a general direction, I left the script to Kikuchi-san once again and headed back to the classroom. I was on the festival committee, after all. She was staying in the library to rework the script.

On my way back, I glanced into the windows lining the hallway. Each class was at a different stage of work on their festival stall. Some rooms had whole walls covered in decorations, and some were so empty that the students seemed to still be trying to decide on a plan. The difference probably depended on the enthusiasm of the classes themselves and their committee members.

Eventually, I got to my classroom. A dozen or so students had broken into groups to work on various projects.

“How’s this?”

“A little higher! Higher! Higher! …Too high!”

In the front of the class, the kids in charge of our stall, the manga café, were talking about how to decorate the inside and outside and testing out ideas by trial and error. Personally, I felt like glittery garlands weren’t quite the right look for a manga café, but it’s a school festival—what can you do?

“Ooh, that’s cute! I’m gonna draw the same thing!”

“I don’t think we need two…”

In the middle of the classroom, a group of kids including Hinami had pushed the desks aside to make space for the big sheet of vellum we planned to hang in the hallway in place of a sign. At the moment, they were covering it in illustrations. I’d caught a few glimpses of the sheet over the past couple of days, but now it was really coming together.

I glanced at the lockers at the back of the classroom and noticed a box that was labeled Class T-shirt Design Ideas at one end. I went over to read the instructions, which said that ideas were being collected from anyone interested, after which the whole class would choose one of them so we could order shirts by the start of next week. Oh right, our class did something like that last year, too. They were optional, so I obviously didn’t have last year’s T-shirt.

Day by day, the classroom was transforming for the approaching festival. It was surprising to find myself not only a part of it but also actually in a fairly central position—I’d volunteered for the organizing committee, proposed the manga café, and brought up the idea of doing an original play.

As I stood in the back of the class, surveying the activity, I abruptly heard a voice.

“How’s it coming, Boss?” Nakamura said, walking up to me.

He was wearing the casual smile of a normie, but somehow, his eyes, posture, and tone were all sending out intimidating vibes. I was capable of having a fairly normal conversation with him now, but I still felt overwhelmed. Guess that’s Nakamura’s special gift.

“How’s what coming?”

“The script?” he replied in a tone that implied he shouldn’t have had to tell me. Uh, chill, I thought, but I was too scared to say anything. This type of power-normie is so good at projecting into your brain that he’s right without even saying anything. If he actually said, I’m right, it would sound really weird, and people would be like No, you’re not! But if he expresses it through his attitude, everyone ends up being like Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right.

Anyway, it was moderately unusual for Nakamura to casually start up a conversation with me.

“Oh, the script…”

I told him that Kikuchi-san and I had basically decided on a direction, that it was partway done, and that we hoped to finish by the beginning of next week. I added that this would give us two whole weeks for rehearsals, so we should be okay.

“…Huh.”

He seemed totally uninterested. Seriously? He’d been messing with his phone the whole time I was talking. He did make a few noises of acknowledgment and glanced at me now and then, so I know he was listening at least a little, but come on—you asked me yourself how it was going! What is your deal?

“Sounds like it’s all good.”

With that completely meaningless comment, he leaned against the wall next to me and started messing with his phone again. What was with this guy? Had he only asked me about the play to make small talk?

“…Where’s Mizusawa and Takei?” I asked.

His eyebrows twitched. “Beats me.”

“…Oh yeah?”

They were always together, and they were also all on the festival organizing committee, which made it even more unusual that he didn’t know where they were.

“Said they had to go buy something.”

“…Oh.”

He was stingy with the information. I glanced at his face. He was staring at his phone with a bored expression. I peeked at the screen and noticed that he was swiping down on Instagram, refreshing the page over and over. Like people did when they didn’t have anything to do.

“Killing time?”

“Huh?”

“Sorry.”

I was just doing my thing and saying what was on my mind, and he decided to one-shot me with a single glance from his snakelike eyes. Welp, I died—better rethink. Ever since I’d dissed his dick on our summer trip, I’d been less hesitant to be quite so honest with him. According to Hinami, that was part of the reason he found me amusing.

“So…you didn’t go with them?”

“Couldn’t. She was there.”

“Who?”

“Yuzu. Obviously.”

“Oh, uh, sorry.”

Actually, I had no way of knowing that…but he’d already killed me once, so I just rolled with it. Problem was, I didn’t get it.

“You didn’t go ’cause Izumi was there…? What do you mean?” I innocently inquired.

He sighed with annoyance and explained what had happened.

Basically, Nakamura, Mizusawa, and Takei had been working on a project with Izumi, Seno-san, and Kashiwazaki-san when the masking tape and staples ran out, so they had to go buy more. But if everyone went to the store, Izumi wouldn’t make it to her job as head of the organizing committee, so he and Izumi had stayed behind.

“So then she went to her thing, and they’re not back yet. I could have made that trip five times by now.”

“Ha-ha-ha. Gotcha.”

So he’d inevitably been abandoned. And I was suffering for it.

I had personally confirmed the correlation between normie-ness and time spent hanging around on the way to anywhere, so if those four went shopping, they probably would be gone for ages. I felt bad for him. And then I opened my big mouth.

“RIP.”

“Huh?”

“Sorry.”

After I candidly paid my respects, he killed me again, so I candidly apologized. I’m a master of apology speedruns.

But I found this line of conversation surprising.

“You mean this is all for Izumi? That’s…considerate.”

Since Izumi was the only one who had work to do as the head of the organizing committee, Nakamura could have gone shopping and left her behind by herself. My image of Nakamura was pretty selfish, so he would’ve done just that.

“What?” he said. “I dunno about being considerate. That’s just what you do.”

That statement was fairly roundabout for him. He must be feeling self-conscious; that sure sounded like he was trying to avoid saying what he really meant. But since he was still messing with his phone, his expression unchanged, I couldn’t really poke at him. He was swiping through his Twitter feed. Definitely killing time.

Still, this was surprising.

He was actually trying to be a nice boyfriend.

“So you do have it in you to be nice. Ah, sorry.”

This time, I still said what I was thinking, but I also preemptively apologized so I could survive this round. In Atafami terms, this is what you call an L-cancel—guarding right when you land after an attack to reduce your lag. Although, it’s different in the latest version.

“Huh? What’s with you, man?” Nakamura complained, frowning in response to my confusing apology before thumping me roughly on the shoulder. “Whatever. Let’s go get some ice cream.”

Well, that was a very casual invitation.

“Oh, uh, okay.”

He’d already started walking off, so I tagged along behind him partly because of the momentum. It was a weird feeling, being pulled forward like this, like it was totally natural for him to invite me and totally natural for me to agree. Following after him was suddenly the only thing to do. Behold the power-normie Nakamura.

That’s how Nakamura and I ended up walking side by side down the hall to the cafeteria.

This was a new sensation. I’d been hanging out with Nakamura’s group lately, but when I thought about it, I realized I’d almost never been alone with him. At least, not since the time I beat the shit out of him at Atafami.

“Well, this is different. I don’t think we’ve been alone together since I eight-stocked you at Atafami. Sorry.”

“Saying sorry doesn’t make everything okay.”

He grabbed the base of my neck and squeezed with his full strength. Owowow, I’m sorry!

* * *

In the empty cafeteria, Nakamura and I sat down across from each other at an unnecessarily large table and talked about various stuff. By the way, it was Nakamura who chose this table, reminding us all of his kingly temperament.

“What manga are you bringing?”

“Um, I was thinking of Hunter × Hunter since I own all of them.”

“Nice. I like the Greed Island arc.”

“Yeah? I’m more of a Chimera Ant arc guy.”

We weren’t talking about much of anything. But considering that not so long ago, we got along like cats and dogs, having a normal one-on-one conversation felt like an impossibly big step forward.

By the way, we got ice cream for a hundred yen at the cafeteria; I chose the ice-cream sandwich, and Nakamura chose an Ice Box, which was basically chunks of ice in a paper cup. Eating ice fits my normie image—not sure why. Reminds me of normie adults drinking alcohol from minibottles.

“Hey, I was wondering,” Nakamura suddenly said. He eyed me, pulverizing the grapefruit-flavored ice with his powerful jaw.

“Yeah?” I answered, my guard completely down.

“—Did something go down with you and Mimimi?”

Choke! A chunk of ice-cream sandwich went down my windpipe, and cookie fragments scattered across the table.

“Ugh. Gotcha, huh?” He frowned.

“Come on, you asked out of nowhere…,” I whined.

“Whatever, it’s fine,” he said, pointing to a counter with some rags for wiping the table.

He’d been so strangely agreeable; I thought he might help me out, but nope. He didn’t even make a move to stand—instead, he gestured for me to hurry up and get one myself. That’s the Nakamura I know.

I meekly went to grab a rag, thinking over what had just happened.

H-how did he know…? Well, I guess it was obvious from the conversation with Hinami at lunch. That much was certain. But Nakamura was usually dense as a rock when it came to stuff like this. If he had figured it out, then I could probably assume everyone else at the table had, too. Aside from Takei, of course. Wasn’t that a bad thing?

Well, how could I recover…? I thought about it and decided it was pointless. I mean, thanks to that little lunchtime chat, everyone realized something had happened, and they knew who was involved. This could go one of only a few ways, and realistically speaking, pulling the wool over every single person’s eyes was probably impossible.

So was this checkmate?

I got the rag as slowly as I could without arousing suspicion, then went back to my seat. What to do? Gradually change the subject?

I started to wipe the table, constructing my strategy.

“Oh, by the way—”

“So? What’s up with Mimimi?”

My sad attempt at changing the subject was crushed to death by a direct application of pure force. Of course it was. Cheap tricks don’t work against an opponent with this playstyle.

Now what to do? Well, why not steal Mizusawa’s strategy from lunch?

“Um, it’s a secret.”

Admit that something did happen, then switch to a firm stance and refuse to say any more. That way, I’d only give away what he already knew, which would prevent me from accidentally telling him the part I actually shouldn’t tell him.

“Really.” To my astonishment, Nakamura backed down immediately. “The real question is who said they liked who. And since you won’t fess up, that means…”

Nakamura was silent for a few seconds, like his own words had shocked him.

“Wh-what?”

Nakamura covered his mouth with his hand in total disbelief. “Mimimi said she likes you…”

He lowered his hand, his lips trembling in shock. A chunk of ice fell from his mouth and shattered like crystal on the table.

“Wow, really? You seriously think it’s that impossible?”

“Damn… This is Mimimi we’re talking about.” He stared at me appraisingly.

“So now that we’ve established that, can we move on…?”

I made a small attempt to resist, but Nakamura ignored me, tilting his Ice Box to pour the rest into his mouth and crushing the contents between his jaws like a crocodile demolishing the skull of the fish he’d just caught.

Finally, after swallowing the ice, he turned back toward me.

“Whatcha gonna do? Go out with her?”

“That’s a very direct question…”

The signature Nakamura gut punch took me out.

“Yeah, well, it’s not the kinda thing you need to waste a lot of thought on.”

“…I guess not.”

“Just keep it simple, man. Don’t overthink it.”

Easy for him to say, but apparently, hard for me to do. I mean, I needed a whole week just to choose two people I was interested in, and if I included the time it took for me to believe I even had the right to choose anyone at all, it actually added up to more than six months. Talk about wasted brainpower.

“‘Simple,’ huh?”

Thinking back, when Nakamura had decided to date Izumi, he’d just done it. He asked her out almost like he was going with the flow, they started dating, and now here they were. The way he made snap decisions was so powerful—the polar opposite of me being stuck in my own head.

In which case…I might be able to get a few hints on something that was bothering me.

“…Uh, Nakamura?” I tried, somewhat stiffly.

“What?” He threw me a sharp glance, like he was wary of any potential annoyances. I know I keep calling him the power-normie type, but he’s not completely oblivious to the nuances of human behavior.

I looked him straight in the eye, scary as it was, and asked my question. “Why’d you decide to go out with Izumi?”

A bit too honest and slightly embarrassing. But considering I’d been telling him every rude thought I had the whole time we’d been together, this question wasn’t actually that bad. It was just embarrassing for me. The wait until he replied was super awkward. I wish he’d hurry up and answer.

Nakamura frowned and made his displeasure extremely clear. “…Weirdo.”

“Hey!!”

Since I was so focused on my own embarrassment, my guard was completely down. That one word hit me in my weakest spot, and he hit me hard. It was like he’d paralyzed, burned, and poisoned me all at the same time.

“I mean, I have no idea why you’d ask that. Where the hell did that even come from?”

“It wasn’t out of nowhere. We’re talking about relationships,” I insisted, desperately hoping to rescue the situation.

He ignored me and sighed loudly. “You should watch yourself. You really cross the line sometimes.”

“I—I do…?” I asked, but the truth was, I kind of knew that. Actually, that’s the real me, or to borrow Hinami’s term, my “special skill.”

“Anyway, what? You want to know why I decided to date Yuzu?”

“Yes!”

Very surprisingly, it appeared I might even get an answer. I thought he was going to weasel his way out of it, but this reaction was promising.

“…Honestly, it was a lot of things.” He scratched his neck.

“So there wasn’t any one thing?”

“No, not really.”

What he was saying seemed obvious, but at the same time, hearing about it straight from an experienced guy my own age was making me weirdly aware that love wasn’t just a fantasy. It actually existed in the real world.

“But other girls have asked you out, right?”

“Yeah, now and then,” he said, casually confirming the fact. Friggin’ A-tiers.

“And I bet you’re interested in people sometimes… Oh yeah! Like that girl Shimano-senpai! I mean, she dumped you, but— Owowow!”

Since I was clearly about to step on a land mine, Nakamura reached across the table, grabbed my arm, and lightly twisted it.

“You were saying?”

“Uh, oh right, um…”

I didn’t like the way he was pretending he didn’t just attack me, but I didn’t like pain, either, so I decided to also pretend that the Shimano-senpai incident never happened.

“What I’m saying is—there are other girls out there aside from Izumi. I was wondering if you had some special reason for deciding it had to be her,” I asked, remembering my conversation with Kikuchi-san.

To my surprise, he rested his chin in his hand to give the question serious consideration.

“A special reason? Do I need one?”

He raised his eyebrows and stared at me intensely. I think my question was fairly embarrassing, but he didn’t seem to be making fun of me. Mizusawa was the same—normies seem to be nicer when they weren’t in a group.

“You don’t need one, but…I’m not just talking about Izumi,” I said. “If you don’t have a reason to feel like the person you’re dating is the only one for you, then you may as well date someone else, right?”

“Oh…well, if you’re gonna be all logical about it, then yeah. Man, you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Thought so.”

I doubt many people treat love as an abstract theory quite the way I do. Well, Hinami takes it all the way to robotic analysis, but that’s probably because she’s a gamer.

“You said ‘a special reason.’ Like what?” he asked. He sounded bored, fiddling with his phone. I had a feeling he didn’t really want to get into the topic, but we had nothing else to talk about. After all, poor Nakamura had been abandoned, so he was willing to play along with this random conversation for now.

“Let me think. Maybe like…if she’s really bad at something you’re good at, and you’re bad at something she’s good at.”

I was half parroting what Kikuchi-san had said about her ideal, but at least I came up with something.

“Oh, gotcha. What else?”

“Uh, what else?”

I thought I’d given him the perfect example, but he still didn’t seem to quite get what I was saying. All I could do was apply my perfect example to specific situations, but whatever.

“Well…like if one person has some kind of trauma the other person can make better, and vice versa…or if they both have the same crazy hobby that no one else has… That kind of thing.”

“Okay, yeah, I get it.”

Despite my worries, Nakamura latched on to my specific examples with great interest. Interesting. The thought had occurred to me multiple times now, but Nakamura’s brain and my brain seemed to work in completely different ways.

Anyway, we were on the same page. All I had to do was ask what I wanted to know.

“So then…what was your special reason?”

I dived into the central issue. Maybe if he had something new to say, it would help me untangle the meaning of dating for myself.

I waited hopefully, but his answer was nonchalant. “Nothing in particular.”

“What?”

He acted like that was normal, too, which threw me off.

“I mean, it just happened,” he said.

“R-really?”

“Yeah, really. That’s how it usually goes, right?”

I’d kind of suspected as much, but I guess that was indeed the norm.

But in that case…

“So you’d be just as happy dating someone else…?”

He frowned. “Huh? Why would I?”

We were getting to the root of the matter. Maybe I was too much of an overthinker, too meticulously thorough to think like a normie, but that was exactly why I thought I could get some hints from his perspective.

“Well, if there’s no reason why it has to be Izumi, then it doesn’t have to be Izumi, right? And you might as well date someone else, right?”

I was sure I’d said the same thing three times in a row now, but I couldn’t think of any other way to explain myself.

“The hell does that mean?”

Yeah, no dice.

But as I was trying to come up with a better way to explain it, Nakamura mumbled something. “I mean, I get what you’re trying to say…”

He smiled wryly. He must’ve thought it through himself and figured out my point. He’s simple, but he’s not an idiot like Takei. Note that I did not say he was not an idiot.

“Well, th-that’s all that matters.”

He snorted and scratched his nose. “Anyway, a reason—I guess mine is kind of like memories?”

“Memories?” I didn’t get what he meant by that.

“You said a reason it has to be that one person.”

“And it’s a memory?”

“Yeah, normally.”

“Huh?”

What was he saying? I felt like we were having two different conversations. A reason equals a memory?

“What’s not to get? You’re talking about the reason it has to be this one girl. Normally, it’s like, we had a great time eating dinner at that place, or I was happy when she said whatever, and that’s enough, right?”

“Uh…?” It was weird—I got what he was saying, and I totally didn’t.

I could follow his basic point…but the way he was talking, the person in those situations might as well be anyone.

For his part, he didn’t seem to understand why I didn’t understand, and now he was getting frustrated. He and I were coming from completely different foundations—so this is what happens when we try to talk.

I decided to try to pin down my uncertainty with concrete terms; maybe that would help.

“I mean, for example…if it was a different girl you were having dinner with that time, then wouldn’t that different girl be the special one?”

That’s what was bothering me.

I do think the “memories” he was talking about could be a reason for dating, but not a special reason.

“Yeah. And?”

Unbelievably, he agreed with me. Now the gears of this conversation were really grinding to a halt, and Nakamura’s replies were getting more abrupt.

“Well then, that’s not a reason it has to be that specific person, right? It could be whoever you had dinner with. It could be anyone…” Once you chose someone, you had a certain responsibility toward them, and his reason seemed too flimsy for that.

“Huh? You keep talking about imaginary situations, but that’s stupid.”

He continued on confidently.

“I’m not imagining something. The person I actually had dinner with was Yuzu, so for me, Yuzu is the only one, all right?”

He paused for a beat.

Then he realized his mistake. “…”

“…’Kay. Gotcha.”

I had no idea how to respond, because he’d just announced with quite a bit of force that his girlfriend was “the only one.” I’d been talking half in hypotheticals the whole time, but suddenly, I’d stumbled upon Nakamura’s mushy side.

“Anyway…that’s my point.”

“O-oh, okay…”

There was an awkward silence.

Nakamura stared out the window like he was trying to pretend he didn’t see the awkwardness. They say to root yourself in reality or whatever, but to literally pretend you don’t see a certain topic? That doesn’t quite work.

After a while, Nakamura stood up.

“Wanna get going?” he said, stiffly wrapping up the conversation before he turned away and started walking off.

“Uh, okay.”

His face was a total blank, but this guy was definitely panicking.

Thanks to his little slip-up, though, I kind of understood now. He wasn’t interested in abstract principles or structures. His thought patterns were super concrete and reality-based. The polar opposite of my own.

To put it the other way around, that might be what I was lacking when it came to love.

I tagged along after him, mumbling to myself.

“Nakamura really does think Izumi is the only— Owowowow!!”

He whirled around and grabbed my neck. We may look like friends, but you’re just beating me up now.

* * *

After that, we met up with Mizusawa and Takei, and the four members of the Nakamura Group headed home.

When I got to my house, I toppled onto my bed and thought over the day.

It was so eventful, it was almost too much.

I’d said the names of two girls I was interested in out loud and received a super, super-hard assignment from Hinami.

I’d failed to make eye contact with Mimimi starting in the morning, and at lunch, our friends basically figured out what was going on.

Kikuchi-san had let me read her script and gotten me thinking about the ending and what dating meant to Libra.

Nakamura had told me about the “special reason” he went out with Izumi, and I’d gotten some hints about the meaning of dating.

Yeah. The thing with Mimimi only happened one day earlier, but so many other things had happened afterward that my head was about to explode. I had plenty to do and plenty to think about—things I wanted to do and think about.

I probably needed to figure out what was next on the docket, at least as best as I could. I slapped my right hand on the bed with a thump.

The thing I most wanted to think about right now was what dating meant to me. And about choosing Mimimi and Kikuchi-san, and about the ending of the play. Those were the most important things. I wouldn’t make any progress until I had my thoughts on those in order. According to Nakamura, this is the annoying part of my personality, but I think it’s what I need to do to eventually reach a conclusion.

“…The meaning of dating…”

My conversations with Kikuchi-san and Nakamura echoed in my mind.

What was a relationship to me?

If I could figure out an answer, who did I want to be with?

Mimimi or Kikuchi-san?

Or—

As I lay there lost in thought, the night wore on.