Chapter 7: Under the Sea of Stars

Kokoro Connect Hito Random — LNCrawler · All chapters

On the first day of the school trip, Rina had seen him off at the front door with “Don’t forget to bring home souvenirs! Get me something expensive!” From there, he’d met up with Watase, Sone, and Miyagami, and together the four of them headed to the airport, where the students were scheduled to meet up.

On the way, Taichi worried that they were a bit too early, but when they got there, it turned out that a lot of people had already arrived. They walked over to the group and set their luggage on the floor.

“Dude, why do you have so much stuff?” Watase asked Sone, who had brought a backpack and a large duffel bag.

“I packed my manga. Figured we could have a little manga reading party if we find time,” Sone grinned.

Watase clapped his hands together. “Oh man, that’s a great idea! Everybody’s talking about spending the trip with their crush, but I wouldn’t mind getting together for a late-night hangout with just us guys!”

At first glance, one might not think that a popular guy like Watase and a wallflower like Sone would get along, but they were both big manga fans, so it worked out.

As the scheduled meetup time approached, more and more people turned up. One by one, the crowd expanded to include Ishikawa the baseball player, Nagase, Kiriyama, Nakayama, and Kurihara. Everyone was dressed warmly in anticipation of the chilly Hokkaido weather.

“The girls are looking gorgeous in their street clothes. It’s finally starting to feel like a school trip,” Miyagami commented, adjusting his glasses for dramatic effect.

“How are those two statements related...?”

This was by no means their first school trip, but this was their first time staying overnight somewhere with the rest of the students in their grade, and despite the unreasonably early hour, everyone was in an especially giddy mood.

“Watch my stuff, okay? I gotta run to the bathroom.”

“Oh, I’ll come with.”

As Miyagami and Sone headed off together, Taichi moved their stuff next to the wall, where it would be out of the way.

“A four-day, three-night stay in Hokkaido! I’m! So! EXCITED!” Nakayama Mariko squealed, bouncing up and down and breathing heavily.

“Nakayama-chan, I know you’re eager to go on a trip with your new boyfriend and all, but you need to take it down a notch,” Kurihara chided, shooting a furtive glance at Ishikawa.

“Wh... Y-Yukinacchan! Don’t tell everybody!”

“Wait, what?! Who is it?!” asked Watase.

“It’s... a secret! F-For now!” she stammered. Meanwhile, Ishikawa looked everywhere but at her, scratching his head sheepishly.

Taichi glanced over at Kiriyama and found her looking back at him. They exchanged a meaningful look.

Here were two people who never would have found happiness together without a little help from him. The thought filled him with an inexplicable sense of... validation.

“If even you can find someone, then I guess I’d better get my act together. Maybe I should take advantage of this ‘love craze’ that’s been going around!” Watase clenched his fist in determination.

Meanwhile, Nagase walked up to Taichi. “You doing okay?” she asked, facing away from the others. She’d been a little quiet this morning.

“Okay how?”

“Well, the love craze is at its peak, so I figured you’ve probably got a bajillion requests now.”

“...It’s definitely a lot,” he replied.

Sure enough, a swarm of people had been clamoring for his advice, all thanks to the superstition going around about him. Granted, a lot of them weren’t that emotionally invested in a serious response, but there were some who said they wouldn’t make a move until Taichi got back to them with a definitive answer... and now they were urging him to hurry.

“Feels like it’ll be an uphill battle from here, so be careful.”

Taichi glanced over at Kiriyama again. “Are you on our side, Nagase?”

“No, I don’t think so. But I’m not on their side, either. I just don’t want things to get out of hand. Life doesn’t have an undo button, you know.”

She claimed she wasn’t on anyone’s side—neither theirs nor Inaba’s. And while at first glance she seemed like a fence-sitter, Taichi got the sense that she had simply taken a third option.

“...To be honest, this really sucks,” she muttered.

“What sucks?”

“Well—”

[There’s a guy. He’s from... Group 1, was it? He’s in the airport. He’s tugging on his backpack. One of the straps is caught in a door. He tugs really hard, and the bag is freed at last. He smiles in relief.]

...Judging from the contents of the Vision, someone was currently struggling with their luggage. Is he nearby? Should I go help him? Taichi wondered. He glanced around. Then he noticed Nagase pinching the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed and realized she must’ve seen it too.

“...Did you see the same one? With the guy from Group 1?” he asked her.

Frowning, she nodded. Then she stared at the floor for a moment, perfectly still.

“Just like you, the Visions tell me who needs help.” Her side profile was hidden behind her long hair. “But I just sit back and watch while someone else helps them instead. Again and again and again.”

“Right...”

They had both seen the same Vision. They both knew someone needed help. But only Taichi had instinctively thought to act on it; Nagase had not. And for those who didn’t take action—

“Do you know how much guilt I feel because of that? Every time I hear about how much you and Yui have helped people, it feels like they’re rubbing it in my face.”

—the knowledge hurt.

Taichi realized he had never stopped to consider this. He was so busy worrying about how deeply to get involved, he had inadvertently assumed that the “other side” was just carrying on with their lives.

“I...”

“Anyway, I just wanted to, y’know... put that out there!” Nagase said in a lighter, more joking tone as she pantomimed the act of physically moving an object in his direction. “Somewhat related, I heard that, um... Fujishima-san is starting to suspect something?”

The subject change hit him like a ton of bricks.

“You... You know about that...?”

“This is really bad news, Taichi,” Nagase frowned. “If an outsider finds out about the phenomenon, there’s no way they’re going to keep quiet. And that means you-know-who is going to do something about it—we just don’t know what . Be careful.”

Evidently this field trip wasn’t going to be all fun and games. Not for him, anyway.

Later on, Taichi decided to use the bathroom before their flight.

“Oh! Yaegashi-kun! Can I borrow you for a minute?!” asked a girl from another class as she was on her way out of the ladies’ room. He recognized her as one of Setouchi’s friends; she always wore brightly colored makeup.

She dragged him to the very corner of the gate where they were waiting to board the plane.

“Man, am I glad I caught you! I’ve been DYING to get your opinion on this!”

An advice request, I take it. “We’ve got a few minutes while we wait, but... does it have to be right now?”

“Yes! Right now! I need you to solve this, pronto!”

And so she casually explained her circumstances: she was already in a relationship, but now a second guy had confessed his feelings to her.

“So who am I more compatible with: Nakajima or Makihara? Can you tell, like, who loves me more or something? Everyone says you can.”

“It’s not that simple... You’re already dating Nakajima, right? Why even second-guess it?”

“Oh, c’mon! Everybody has second thoughts sometimes!”

“Don’t you have feelings for him?”

“Sure I do. But I also kinda have feelings for Makihara, too. Like, sometimes you just get with somebody because they asked, you know?”

She was so flippant about it... and yet he knew she wasn’t exactly wrong. Humans were capable of loving someone simply because that person loved them first. And yet, it felt somehow immoral to dwell on the legitimacy of that logic.

“...Give me some time and I can probably figure out who’s more compatible with you. I just don’t know how much time it will take. And I don’t always have an exact answer,” he explained. This was the same perfunctory disclaimer he gave everyone.

“That’s not good enough. Makihara told me he wants me to give him my answer before the school trip, and that’s kind of today! Seriously, which one of them is Mr. Right?”

What am I, your horoscope?

“Ultimately only you can decide that.”

“No, I can’t! Why do you think I’m talking to you about it? If I was capable of figuring it out myself, I would’ve

by now! So which one is it? Oh, and I wanna keep this whole thing on the down-low, if that’s cool. I trust you not to tell anyone.”

“I mean, you’re going to have to pick one...”

For a moment, he questioned whether choosing one over the other was really the right answer. But then he realized he’d gone through a similar situation himself, and he’d made his choice. Well... no, technically Nagase had made the choice. Only afterwards did he realize he was only in love with the idea of her.

But once he found out she and Inaba both had feelings for him, he’d become convinced that he needed to choose. Not out of strong feelings for one or the other; he just felt compelled to make a choice. Almost like picking a dialogue option in an RPG.

Suddenly he was starting to doubt himself. Sometimes you just get with somebody because they asked...

“Uhh, Yaegashi-kun?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry.” He’d gotten lost in thought. He tried to shift his focus back on the topic at hand, but for some reason his mind wasn’t cooperating. What’s gotten into me? Hurry up and... give me the answer in a Vision!

“Come on , Yaegashi-kun!”

She was demanding an immediate answer, but Taichi didn’t have one. Unfortunately, now that he’d offered a helping hand—Do you know how much guilt I feel because of that? Every time I hear about how much you and Yui have helped people, it feels like they’re rubbing it in my face —he couldn’t just shrug his shoulders and give up. He had an obligation to fulfill.

What do I do? Oh, right... I should just tell her my opinion! I can make the call myself!

For the first time since he started “advising” people, Taichi had encountered a situation in which he was forced to decide for himself.

I can do this. I can give her my own opinion.

So, what’s my opinion?

...I don’t have one.

This realization made Taichi’s sight go dark. The girl in front of him seemed to split into two, like an amoeba—no, wait—

[There’s a girl. It’s the girl who’s talking to Taichi. She’s with a guy. They’re being flirty with each other, suggestive of an intimate relationship. Close-up of the guy’s face. It’s Makihara, the one who recently confessed his feelings to her.]

“...Fine. If you can’t do it, it’s whatever.”

He didn’t want to disappoint her. He didn’t want her to think him incapable. He could see the answer. With his power, he knew precisely what she wanted—she just didn’t realize it herself yet. He just needed to give her a little encouragement to help her figure it out. It was his duty, and one only he could fulfill.

“...Makihara, obviously.”

□■□■□

“Hokkaido, more like Hecka Tight, Yo! ”

“...I’m amazed you said that without cringing at yourself,” Kurihara sighed, shaking her head at Nagase’s goofy antics.

“C’mon, guys, we’re on a school trip! It’s time to let our hair down and have fun! Right, Nakayama-chan?”

“Right! Now let’s hear you say it, Yukina-chan! You too, Yui-chan!”

“Uhh... hecka tight... yo...”

“Oof, I can feel your embarrassment from here...”

And so the second-years of Yamaboshi High School left the airport. From there, each class boarded a bus that would take them to their destination. Along the way, they admired the wide roads and expansive plots of land; then, after about an hour, they all filed off the bus and into a magnificent stretch of prairie field. Everything about it screamed rural Hokkaido, and the students couldn’t possibly be more excited.

Idly, Taichi wondered how Inaba and Aoki were doing.

“I noticed this back at the airport, but... the air is really cold here!” Nakayama remarked.

Without missing a beat, Nagase tackled her. “Here comes my ice breath attack! Fffff!”

“Eeeek! Her breath can freeze lava!”

The two of them seemed like they were having fun. Meanwhile, the boys were goofing off, too:

“Holy crap, look at this place! How many soccer fields’ worth of land is this? How many Tokyo Domes could we fit in here?”

“I bet if you shouted something, you’d hear an echo.”

“Wouldn’t we have to be on a mountain for that to work?”

“Guess we’ll just have to try it and find out!

! ...Did you hear that?! It echoed!”

“I’m pretty sure you’re hearing things.”

“Really, bro? ‘Yodel-ay-ee-oooo’? What are you, five? Tell him, Yaegashi.”

“You’re the one trying to measure Hokkaido in Tokyo Domes...”

“Everyone does that, okay?! It’s normal! Y’know, you seem pretty quiet. Did the bus ride make you carsick?”

“Huh? I’m fine.”

But beneath his feigned smile, Taichi knew Watase was right. He was off in his own little world, fretting that the advice he’d given earlier this morning had been too simplistic. The girl was clearly attracted to Makihara, which is why he’d encouraged her to pursue him... but now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen how she felt about her current boyfriend. Was it right to tell her to dump him just because someone else was interested?

“Something on your mind?”

This wasn’t the only problem he was juggling, either. She probably wouldn’t be the only person to press him for answers over the course of this trip.

“Yeah, you could say that...”

“Listen up, Yaegashi!”

Watase grabbed Taichi by the hair, his other hand on his shoulder.

“Look at that sky!”

He tilted Taichi’s head back. All at once, the cerulean expanse filled his vision, its color intensifying and fading in a perfect gradient. Charming little clouds dotted the sky, round and plump like squashed marshmallows. All in all, it felt like he was looking at a work of art.

“That prairie!”

An endless carpet of green (and sometimes yellow) stretched as far as the eye could see—the kind of scenery that made you want to start running until you found its end.

“That forest!”

He looked to the left, where yellow leaves rustled atop pristine white bark. Not having too many trees, this forest was not mysterious or intimidating, but quiet and welcoming.

“And that air! Take a deep breath!”

Clear, crisp, and ready to cleanse the human body of all its built-up toxins—

“......It kinda smells like cows.”

“...Yeah, I didn’t notice until after I said it. I guess there’s a farm around here somewhere. Whatever! My point stands!” Watase relinquished his grip. “Feeling better now, am I right?”

While he hated to think he was so easily fixed, ultimately, Watase was right. His dour mood had cleared to match the weather. I can’t waste this trip being miserable.

“Yeah... When you’re surrounded by nature, it starts to make all your day-to-day worries feel like no big deal.”

“Oh, good grief. Want some wine with that cheese? I’m gagging over here.”

“Sh-Shut up!”

I was trying to have a moment, damn it!

Their first order of business: visiting a research center focused on solving the environmental crisis. Next came the museum of anthropology, where they learned about the lives of indigenous peoples who built their villages on lakeshores. One such village had been recreated with painstaking detail, with thatched-roof houses, ancient medicinal plants, and even boats carved from entire tree trunks. The art gallery was pretty spectacular, too.

Because the facility was fairly small, students were permitted to wander freely without sticking to their assigned group. Taichi was traveling with Watase, Sone, Miyagami, and a few other guys.

“Hey, look! There’s a bear!” one of them shouted, pointing. Sure enough, there was a bear in an enclosed cage.

“Why is there a bear here...?”

“Let’s go check it out!”

“Kiriyama-san’s really good at karate, right? Could she take a bear? What do you think, Yaegashi?”

“Eh... I’d say she’s got a 20% chance of winning.”

“Against a BEAR?! Holy crap, she’s inhuman!”

...It was just a joke.

“Oh, hey, Yaegashi-kun!”

Right as he was about to head to the next section, a guy from another class flagged him down. With his bleached hair, he was your typical mass-produced “rebel playboy” type. This guy in particular was quite the social butterfly, and he and Taichi had spoken on a few other occasions (usually him teasing Taichi about Inaba).

“So, got any plans with Inaba-san during the trip?”

“Nah, not really...”

“Whoa. You guys having a fight or something? That’s not cool. You can’t just avoid her, man.”

Is it really that serious? Taichi wondered. Sure, they hadn’t talked much lately, be it in person, via email, or over the phone...

Now the anxiety he’d been trying so desperately to ignore had started to creep up on him once again. Deep down, he knew things couldn’t stay like this. One wrong move and the relationship could end. But at the same time, that was no reason for him to abandon his chosen crusade. He couldn’t very well sacrifice his morals for her.

“Anyway, off-topic, you know how we’re doing that tour of Sapporo two nights from now? The one where we’re free to grab dinner wherever? Well...” Glancing around, he lowered his voice. “There’s this plan going around.”

“What do you mean, a plan?”

“We’re calling it Operation Custom Tour. Basically, instead of doing the tour with our assigned groups, we’re just going to walk around with whoever we want.”

“Wait, what? You can’t just ditch your group.”

“It’s not that. Look, making time for your friends is great and all, but you gotta spend private time with your special someone too, y’know? And this is the perfect opportunity. Plus, it’ll give people incentive to confess their feelings.”

“But... what about everyone else?”

“The single people can go hang out with each other! Sound good?”

“...Are you asking me for permission?”

“Duh! Obviously I gotta clear it with ol’ Father Romance himself!”

“What for?”

“Well, everyone wants to do it, but they’re still on the fence. They only wanna do it if everyone’s doing it. But if you signed off on it, then they’d come around, y’know? So basically I want your stamp of approval!”

“I think you’re really overestimating my authority here.”

“No, I’m really not! Trust me, you’ve got enough street cred to start this trend.”

Street cred... Authority... Do I actually have the power?

“We all just wanna make some special memories while we’re here in Hokkaido, you feel me?”

“Wait, but... don’t we get a free day to ourselves on the last day of the trip? In Otaru?”

“Yeah, but that’s during the day . Nighttime’s more special, y’know?” he grinned. Evidently he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “C’mon, it’ll make everybody happy. Then we’ll all meet back up at the scheduled time, and no one will ever be the wiser.”

Everyone will be happy, and no one will get hurt. Looking at it from that perspective, Taichi really couldn’t find a reason to refuse. After all, it was nearly identical to his agreement with Kiriyama regarding the Dream Vision, right?

“...Well, if it’s what the majority of people want to do, then... I guess I don’t see the harm...”

“Aww yeah, we got the green light! Alright, I’ll go ahead and tell ‘em!”

“Tell them what? That I said it was okay?”

“Duh! That’s the whole point! But just to be clear, we’re not gonna try to pin the blame on you if we get in trouble. We’re the ones who came up with this plan. You’re just our... supervisor!”

If we get in trouble . These words sent goosebumps prickling up his arms. Did I just make a huge mistake? Is everything I’ve done... one big mistake after another?

“Anyway, thanks again! Have fun with Inaba-san!” And with that, the boy walked off.

“Inaba... Right.”

Some boyfriend he was proving to be.

□■□■□

The next day’s schedule was packed with hands-on learning opportunities. There was an agriculture tour in the morning, and in the afternoon, students could choose from a handful of optional activities, like horseback riding or visiting a ranch.

After the agriculture tour, Taichi had elected to go river rafting. Together, he and the other prospective rafters walked from the hill to the raft supply area on the riverside. There, they put on their gear: a drysuit, a life jacket, and a helmet. Then, with paddle in hand, they were ready to roll.

“This gear is so bulky... Feels like we’ve joined the army or something. Attention! ” Sone joked.

Each rubber raft could fit six people, plus one instructor. Each group, Taichi’s included, lined up in two even rows to carry their raft. During the hike upstream, for some inane reason Watase and Miyagami started arguing about whether this felt more like “an expedition” or “a mission.” This went on and on until Taichi proposed “ an adventure,” which they both agreed to accept as a compromise. Whatever .

At the starting point, their instructor launched into an explanation of the activity, taught them all the rafting lingo, and showed them how to paddle. Then, at last, it was time. They boarded the boat and pushed off onto the river’s surface. Fortunately, the rubber craft felt a lot more sturdy than Taichi had expected, though it jostled with the water’s movements. Everyone was in high spirits.

“Whoa, we’re floating! Let’s gooo!”

“You know, I thought this was gonna be kinda lame, but I’m actually really stoked!”

Here at the starting point, the river was maybe 20 meters wide. For now the current was slow and steady, but Taichi knew it would only get faster as they progressed, and they’d need to be mindful of the rapids. With heavily-wooded shorelines on both sides, it felt almost as though they were headed into uncharted territory, and the air was tense with excitement.

“You scared, Yaegashi?” asked Ishikawa next to him.

“Nah, I was just thinking... If I fell out, would the river carry me all the way to the Sea of Okhotsk?”

“Dude! That’s so morbid!” Watase retorted.

“Oh god, you’re right... That was Enjouji levels of dark...”

“Who’s Enjouji...? Well, if you did fall in, I would rescue you.”

“Ishikawa, you’re such a badass! I bet you’ll have a girlfriend by the end of the trip!” Miyagami shouted.

“Actually, I already... No, perhaps this isn’t the best time...”

I wonder how they’ll react when they find out he’s dating Nakayama, Taichi mused.

Meanwhile, their raft was steadily picking up speed, rocking with the current. They hit a bump, and a spray of water doused them all in the face. It felt like an all-natural roller coaster. This was the thrill of the wild outdoors—

“Now this is one hell of an adventure!”

“Holy crap, Yaegashi’s actually shouting for once! And it sounded like a slogan for a second-rate theme park or something!” Miyagami yelled excitedly.

“Oh, shut up!”

Partway through, the instructor suggested they use their paddles to splash water at the other rafts, just for fun. This wasn’t a spontaneous idea, but rather a game that was built into the existing rafting tour.

“Grrraaaahhhh! I’m gonna splash ‘em all!” Sone declared. Like a man unhinged, he started swinging his paddle at anyone and everyone who came near. It was... alarming, to say the least.

Watase turned around in his seat. “He may seem like your average nice guy, but when he gets all worked up, he’s like a whole different person,” he whispered to Taichi.

Just then, they heard shouting somewhere behind them. Another boat was gaining on them... a girls’ boat. And right as it passed—“Punishment for your sins! Hyaaahhh! ”—Fujishima Maiko splashed a metric ton of water at Sone with pinpoint accuracy. Then the boat sped away. “Farewell!”

“Did... Did you see that?! Those perfect wrist movements... That girl arced the water like a pro! She must have incredible arm strength!” the instructor remarked in awe. Good lord, Fujishima, is there anything you can’t do?

“Fujishima-san... She’s so hilarious! I love it!”

“Not sure what part of that was ‘hilarious,’ but okay,” Taichi snarked.

Meanwhile, Sone coughed and sputtered. “How the heck did she manage that huge splash?! I thought I was gonna fall overboard! What if I died because of her?!”

“Don’t worry. You’ll float.”

“What, because I’m fat?! Is that your joke?! Huh?! Just for that, I’m gonna exhale all the air out of my lungs and sink straight to the bottom!”

“No, I meant because you’re wearing a life jacket—uh oh.”

They had just made eye contact with someone on another passing boat. Kiriyama Yui.

She froze for a minute... and then a mischievous grin crept up on her face. “HYAAAHHHH!”

“Gyaaahhhh!”

...As it turned out, Kiriyama was pretty good at splashing, too.

At the end of the rafting course, having survived the whole harrowing ordeal, Taichi and the others stepped back onto dry land. Arriving back at the raft supply area, they returned all of their borrowed gear, then walked back to the meeting place on the hill. All that remained was to kill time until the bus came to pick them up.

“Hey, let’s go on another expedition over that way!”

“I thought we agreed this was an adventure! ”

Meanwhile, Watase and Miyagami were still bickering like a pair of ten-year-olds. Taichi started to walk off with them, but then he spotted Kiriyama standing on the edge of a three-meter-high precipice over a stretch of rocky ground a short distance away from the road. On a whim, Taichi wandered over to her. This small cliff was surrounded with vegetation on all sides; a peaceful breeze brushed past as she patted her hair dry with a towel.

“Look at this! I look like a drowned rat!” she complained, then added as an afterthought, “Sorry if I went kinda overboard back there.”

“No kidding. We suffered a lot of casualties thanks to you, but... eh, we’re all dried off now. Too bad we didn’t get the chance to get our revenge on you,” he joked.

She grinned and thrust out her chest in a show of pride. “Revenge? Heh heh! Take your best shot! Fair warning, though: I can dodge anything you throw at me!”

This was perhaps the first genuine smile he’d seen from her since the start of the Dream Vision. But it was only fleeting; a moment later, it clouded over. Following her gaze, Taichi looked over his shoulder to find a girl giving her a thumbs-up a short distance away. Kiriyama returned the gesture, but her expression was grim.

“Funny, isn’t it? All this Love Guru stuff.” Though she wasn’t as renowned as Taichi, Kiriyama was still seen as an advisor in her own right. “They already told you about the ‘plan’ tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.” Evidently they had sought out her stamp of approval as well.

“They told me you were fine with it, so I said I was too... but I didn’t feel like I could say no.”

“As long as they still meet back up at the scheduled time, it shouldn’t matter too much. Plus, this is what everyone wants.” Multiple people had come to him to ask about the plan ever since it was first mentioned to him.

“But just because they want to do it... Well, whatever.” Kiriyama sighed in defeat—to what, Taichi didn’t know. “I’m so focused on other people’s love lives, I... I’ve hardly gotten to enjoy my own.”

The look in her eyes was distant, and he could only imagine who or what she was envisioning. Then Inaba came to mind.

“Same here,” he muttered. “I’ve barely spent any time with my girlfriend. Feels like I’ve been neglecting her.”

At this, Kiriyama looked up suddenly, scrutinizing him as though she’d found something unexpected. “We’re actually really alike, aren’t we?”

“We are?”

“Yeah... It’s like, Aoki and Inaba are both one hundred percent certifiably in love with someone, right? But we’re different somehow.”

Silently, Taichi agreed. There was a distinct difference between their two groups... but what?

“Like... a lot of it has to do with the fact that they fell for us first, don’t you think?”

He definitely had feelings for Inaba—but why? No, he knew the answer to that. There were plenty of reasons. He knew that.

But compared to the way SHE feels about ME, I feel like a total impostor.

Despite his silence, the look on Kiriyama’s face suggested she understood completely.

“So I can’t help hesitating, like, doesn’t Aoki deserve better than me? Someone who can love him with the same... passion?” The wind blew past, tousling her long hair; the damp strands clung to her lips and cheek. “It just feels like... like our feelings don’t... match.”

He could feel her hesitation, and while she probably didn’t intend for it to come off this way, it felt as though she was asking for help. But as much as he wanted to help her, he couldn’t. He didn’t have the answer.

It was a perfect representation of his own inadequacy towards Inaba. He wanted to do something. To help her. To treat her right. But he didn’t know where to start. Nor did he know how to solve his own problems.

“Man, we really are alike.”

All he could offer her was the knowledge that she wasn’t alone in feeling the way she did. He still meant it, though.

Kiriyama gave a tiny laugh. “Man... If only «Heartseed» hadn’t come along and screwed up our lives... You never know, maybe you and I would’ve ended up dating instead.”

She was the person who stayed by his side when he stood up for what he believed in. Hypothetical romantic feelings aside, she was the most approachable of the other four; everyone else was far beyond his maturity level. So perhaps, in another timeline where «Heartseed» had chosen a different club, the possibility was in fact there. Thus, he responded:

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Oh,” said a flat, unemotional voice.

Taichi froze on the spot. The air around him turned to ice. Kiriyama’s mouth hung open. Behind him, the crunch of gravel underfoot sounded like a deafening rumble as it approached. And then Inaba Himeko walked out from behind the overgrown vegetation.

She wasn’t angry or hurt, though admittedly Taichi almost wished she was; at least then he’d know how to react. Instead, her expression was perfectly blank, outside of a single twitching facial muscle—probably from trying to suppress her emotions.

“Is that how you feel? Both of you, apparently?”

“W-Wait! Hold on, Inaba! I don’t know how much of that you heard, but I wasn’t serious about it! It was just a... you know, like, a what-if scenario!”

“Exactly. We didn’t mean anything by it... I don’t have feelings for her or anything like that!”

They were both desperate to explain themselves. But ultimately, they never should have let Inaba hear that last part of the conversation. Or any part of it, really.

What is she even doing here? Did she just get back from rafting? I didn’t even know she picked rafting in the first place.

That alone was proof of how little they were speaking to each other. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, but more importantly, they were on opposite sides of an ideological debate.

“Nah, I know there’s nothing weird going on between the two of you,” Inaba replied casually.

“Oh, okay. Cool.”

Clearly Inaba understood him after all. But right as he heaved a sigh of relief—

“Dumbass! ” she hissed. “Did you really think I’d just be... totally okay after... hearing that?”

Her voice was watery, despite her best attempts to keep herself together.

“Do you... Do you even pay attention to me? At all?”

He made an active effort to, at least, seeing as he’d failed Nagase in that regard.

“Do you actually l—”

But before she could finish the question, she fell silent, her mouth closed. Sniffling, she took a deep breath to calm herself. Just like that, all excess emotion vanished—or so she wanted him to believe, anyway.

“You... You people are just running away from reality.”

“No we’re not...”

“Well, that’s how I see it,” she declared, then added in a low voice, “Not that I have any room to talk.” She smiled sadly. “I bet you’ll get people asking you for advice over the trip, too. And you’ll drop everything to go deal with it. Including me.”

“I mean... yeah, I might get a request or two, but I haven’t forgotten about you—”

“Taichi’s... He’s put a lot of work into this,” Kiriyama cut in, timidly vouching for him.

Meanwhile, Inaba smiled as though she had it all figured out. But this only served to make Taichi anxious, because he knew that her calm composure was only a cover for the storm of emotions brewing beneath.

“I’m just trying to look out for you. But you? You never look out for anyone. Not even me.”

“What? I’m looking out for everyone —”

“I know you, Taichi. You may think

you’ve chosen everyone, but in reality, you’ve chosen no one at all.”

Then another student waved Inaba over, and she walked away.

□■□■□

That night, they stayed at a hot spring inn. After bathtime came dinnertime, followed by bedtime; together, Taichi and the four other boys changed into their pajamas and laid out their futons atop the tatami flooring in their assigned room.

“Not that we’re actually going to sleep!” Watase exclaimed.

“You’ve been shouting since this morning... How do you still have so much energy...?” Sone muttered.

“You build up a lot of stamina when you’re part of a sports team! Right, Ishikawa?”

“Mm... I suppose so,” Ishikawa mused. Compared to the others, the two jocks seemed wide awake.

“...Forget it,” Taichi mumbled to himself as he flung his cell phone down onto his pillow.

“What’s the matter?” asked Watase.

“...It’s nothing,” he replied.

He’d sent Inaba a handful of emails apologizing for what had happened earlier today, but she had yet to reply. He wanted to do something to fix the situation, but there wasn’t much he could do. He couldn’t exactly barge into a girls-only room at this hour; he’d have to wait until tomorrow. Yeah... it’ll work out .

“So, what should we talk about? Girls? Okay, Watase, you go first,” said Miyagami, the only person who was wearing one of the yukata supplied by the inn.

“Well... with this dumb ‘love craze’ going around, it feels like this trip is a huge opportunity to make my move on Fujishima-san, but... nothing seems to be working out. I just can’t seem to make any progress.”

“You know, Watase, you may seem like a total ladies’ man at first glance, but when it comes to the girl you actually want, you’re totally clueless, huh?” Taichi remarked.

“Nngh... Let’s just say that goes to show how serious I am about her. Otherwise my reputation’s gonna take a hit.”

“Oh, please. Your reputation’s worth about as much as Sone’s extra padding. Which is to say, absolutely nothing.”

“The hell did you just say?!”

“You wanna go, huh, punk?!”

From there, Watase and Miyagami started to “wrestle.” At first Taichi was content to merely watch, but before long—

“Hey! The point of an armlock is to compete to see if you can break out of a two-handed clutch! Why are you half-assing the best part?! Oh my god, you can’t just brute-force it! The audience will never buy it! Let’s see some creativity, damn it!”

“...I’m not sure I understand what’s going on. Are you upset about something, Yaegashi?” asked Ishikawa, looking rather alarmed and more than a little uncomfortable.

“Oh... uhh... sorry. Disregard that. Just a reflex.” His inner pro-wrestling fanboy had taken over for a minute there.

“I heard what you guys said about my ‘extra padding’... Leave me alone... I don’t want to fight you...” Sone murmured as he lay sprawled out on his futon. “So, Yaegashi, do you have a girlf—wait, of course you do. I knew that. Okay, what about you, Ishikawa? I get the sense that you don’t care about much outside of baseball.”

“No, I have a girlfriend.”

“Oh, cool... Wait, WHAT?! You have a girlfriend?!” Sone leapt up into a sitting position.

“What?! ” Instantly, the other two stopped fighting and scrambled over. “With who?! Since when?!” they asked in perfect unison.

“Since a little over a month ago... But she doesn’t want to go public just yet, so I can’t say who it is.”

Ishikawa shot a furtive glance at Taichi, who nodded silently. Sure, I’ll play innocent .

“Dang, that’s recent... That reminds me, I heard Nakayama started dating someone recently, too. And she won’t say who it is, either. Not that there’s any chance it’s you, though! I couldn’t even begin to imagine that! No way!”

You’d be surprised , Taichi thought, tilting his head down to conceal his expression, lest the look on his face give it away.

“Let’s play cards! Someone go get a deck. Whoever loses their chips has to answer any question we ask!”

“Alright, Miyagami! Our main target is Ishikawa, followed by Yaegashi! Let’s take ‘em for everything they’re worth!” Watase declared.

“Why am I a target?!”

A few hours later, the midnight card tournament ended in a historically uncommon major loss for Miyagami, who had proposed it in the first place.

□■□■□

The next morning, Taichi rubbed his tired eyes as he ate breakfast in the main hall. The card tournament had kept him up late, and he was grateful for a little homestyle Japanese cuisine.

“You look a little sleep-deprived, Yaegashi. What’re your plans for this morning, anyways? We chose different activities this time, right?” asked one bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Watase sitting across from him. Seriously, does this guy ever get tired?

“Uhhh... Glasswork, apparently.”

“Ooh, right. Yeah, I’m going hiking.”

“...Cool.”

“You doing okay, buddy? You better get your energy levels up by tonight! Don’t forget, we’re doing Operation Custom Tour!”

The mere memory was enough to send Taichi’s mood spiraling further.

Evening fell, and it was time to split into their groups for the Sapporo tour. Each group was allowed to walk around from 4:00 PM to 7:30 PM, during which time they were expected to have dinner together at some point. To streamline coordinated traveling, each group consisted of five same-gender students.

“Remember! Follow the rules, and don’t get into any trouble! And be sure you’re back by the scheduled time!”

Following a brief overview from the teachers, the students were free to go.

“Boys with boys and girls with girls. Nice and chaste! Now, don’t you kids even think about meeting up and having some kind of co-ed touring party, got it? If I find out about anything like that, I’m going to be so jeal—I mean, furious!” declared Gotou Ryuuzen, the (technically) grown man who was supposed to be supervising the students.

“...Is there something you’d like to talk about, Sensei?” asked class president Setouchi on behalf(?) of the other students.

“Setouchi, you angel! You’re gonna let me vent?! Okay, so get this. I was at a party—”

“Actually, I changed my mind.”

“I barely even started!”

Apparently there were some things she simply wasn’t willing to endure, obligations be damned.

Together, Taichi and the four other boys set off into town. The sky was clear—perfect weather for an outing. But it was bound to get chilly after sundown, so Taichi had packed a light jacket in his bag.

Suddenly, Watase came to a stop. “...Okay, let’s get something out of the way. What’re your plans for today?” he asked Taichi.

“Plans? I’m gonna be walking around with you guys, like we talked about.”

“C’mon, Yaegashi. People are going to be ditching their groups tonight, right?”

“And I’ll bet you wanna go canoodle with Inaba-san, am I right? Lucky you!” Miyagami grumbled.

“Well... I mean...” He’d sent Inaba a few more emails today, but still no response. And they’d chosen different morning activities, so he hadn’t seen her in person at all.

Then Miyagami changed targets. “What about you, Ishikawa? You still won’t tell us who your girlfriend even is! Sure, you beat us all at cards, but can’t you be a bro and tell us anyways!”

“You guys are gonna go somewhere together, right? Wait... She is a second-year, right?” asked Sone.

“She doesn’t want me to tell anyone just yet,” Ishikawa frowned, slumping his burly shoulders. “Anyway, we have no plans to meet up right this second. We’re meant to be traveling in our assigned groups.”

At this, Miyagami and Sone took turns praising him:

“That’s our jock for you!”

“He’s got old-fashioned values!”

“The hero of the baseball team!”

“He’s our guy!”

“...That said, tomorrow’s trip to Otaru is a different story.”

Naturally, Miyagami and Sone completely changed their tune:

“Bald loser!”

“Womanizer!”

“Go play with your balls, you creep!”

“You’re not the Ishikawa we know and love!”

Seriously, make up your mind.

“Whew... Well, I’m actually planning to meet up with a girl myself, so I’m gonna be scarce for the last hour or so. You guys hold down the fort for me, okay?” said Miyagami of all people.

“...What? WHAT?! Et tu, Miyagami?!” Sone wailed.

“Oho... Sure, knock yourself out. We all know it’s probably just a group hangout with the rest of your club,” Watase replied pointedly.

“I mean... yeah, but...”

“Oh, so you’re basically just an afterthought?” asked Sone.

“N-No! I’m the main dish, damn it!”

Meanwhile, Ishikawa turned to Taichi. “So what are your plans, then?”

“I... don’t really have any,” Taichi answered honestly.

“Oh, really? So I’m the only one sneaking out? I heard a lot of people would be ditching their groups, though... Hmm... Maybe I shouldn’t after all,” Miyagami mused.

“Yeah! Stay with us! This group is locked down—nobody gets in or out!” shouted Sone.

“Bros before hoes!” added Watase.

“I think it’s best to follow the rules,” Ishikawa nodded.

Likewise, Taichi was inclined to agree. “Yeah, I—”

“Do you guys mind if I borrow your friend here for five minutes or so? ” Inaba Himeko cut in, her voice dripping with venom.

“Go for it,” the four other guys answered in perfect unison, all without missing a beat.

She dragged him by the collar into a nearby alley.

“Can you slow down for a m—whoa, what the?”

There stood Kiriyama, looking awkward, and Aoki, scowling angrily. Inaba glanced at them, then released Taichi with a forceful shove.

“What the fuck is this about everyone ditching their groups to hang out with whoever they want?! And you put them up to it?!”

“What? No, I didn’t...”

But he’d given them the green light to do it, so he could see how it could be interpreted that way. Thus, he decided to explain what had happened.

“They knew you were a soft touch, so they took full advantage... No, that’s not it. You weren’t thinking about their needs. You just didn’t want to rock the boat!”

“What do you mean...?”

“Tch... Whatever. My point is, I’m not going to sit back and let you encourage this flagrant rule-breaking!”

“Taichi, Yui, c’mon. Going against the rules? That’s really not cool,” Aoki scolded, his expression stern. “What were you thinking? I know you don’t agree with that crap! Especially not you, Yui!” Granted, his tone was more composed by comparison, but he was still just as upset as Inaba.

“Wh... What’s your problem? Either way, it’s none of your business,” Kiriyama snapped.

“I beg to differ!” Inaba shot back. “You used the Dream Vision to gain influence over the school. And now you’re influencing them to violate school rules! What part of that is ‘none of my business,’ exactly?”

Kiriyama shrank back under Inaba’s fierce glare. “We’re... We’re doing what’s right.”

Truth be told, it wasn’t something they approved of wholeheartedly... but at this stage, they couldn’t afford to back down.

“...I acknowledge that the rules are there for a reason. But sometimes breaking the rules is the best course of action,” Taichi argued.

“Sure. In practice, maybe there are circumstances in which the rules should be broken. But is this really one of those circumstances? Is it that kind of emergency?”

Of course it wasn’t.

“Well, but... it’s going to make people happy, and it’s not going to cause problems, so...”

“Y-Yeah!” Kiriyama chimed in.

“Oh? It won’t cause problems?”

“...Huh?”

“Not a single person will be inconvenienced by this? Can you say that for a fact?”

“Well, if everyone’s free to walk around with whoever they want, then—”

“What if it prevents someone else from touring with who they want?”

“Well...” Taichi fell silent. Likewise, Kiriyama moved to say something, but couldn’t quite find her words.

“And that’s where your logic fails you, isn’t it?” Inaba sneered. “Now that we’re on the same page, what’ll it be? If you sent an email around to everyone, I bet you could still stop some, if not all, of the rule-breakers.”

Seeking an answer, Kiriyama looked up at Taichi.

Stop them and uphold the rules? Or let them do as they please? With these two options before him, Taichi found it odd that he was being asked to choose at all. Who was he to decide this?

“...It’s not about what I want. It should be up to everyone to decide for themselves. And if they want to leave their assigned groups to walk around with someone else, so be it.”

“When are you going to take a fucking iota of responsibility for once?!” Inaba roared.

As if I haven’t been responsible this whole time? Taichi balked. “It’s not that. But if it comes down to whether or not I’m going to stop them, then... no, I’m not going to stop them.”

“Taichi...?” Kiriyama sounded surprised by this for some reason.

“They’re free to walk around with whoever they want,” he continued. “If it turns into a tug-of-war, then they should put in the effort to make things work in their favor. Nothing about that will cause problems for other people.”

“You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you?”

“I’ve had dozens of Visions today. All of them were wishing to make fun memories with the person they have feelings for.”

At this, Inaba’s expression twisted in pain—anger mixed with grief. This gave him pause. As her boyfriend, he was meant to make her smile, not grimace.

“I guess you’re just completely hopeless, aren’t you? You can’t let go. You have to help whoever crosses your path. Is that it? Is that who you are?” she asked, staring him directly in the eye.

Meeting her gaze, he declared firmly: “Yes, that’s who I am.”

She opened her mouth to reply... then closed it.

Meanwhile, Aoki turned to Kiriyama. “And you’re totally okay with this?”

“Okay with... with what?”

“Do you think this is the right thing to do? Have you paused to think about it? Have you reached your own conclusion?” he asked, and it felt like he was trying to get her to have an epiphany. Of what, Taichi didn’t know.

“Well... um...” Kiriyama hesitated, so Taichi stepped in to help her.

“We agreed that we were going to make people happy, remember?” That was the condition under which they acted upon the Dream Vision.

“But... it feels like we’re talking about two separate things here...”

Kiriyama was clearly confused, so Taichi decided to point out the most important detail:

“This is what’s best for them.”

Kiriyama flinched.

“According to you, anyway,” Inaba growled.

“We’re not forcing anyone.”

“Look...” Inaba took a deep breath, then exhaled. “This decision—is it a choice you’re actively making? Have you thought about the consequences? Are you prepared to bear the brunt of it?! Maybe you were back when this whole thing started—but what about right now?!”

Choices. Consequences. Surely he’d had that level of conviction from the start—otherwise he wouldn’t be feuding with Inaba now.

“Go ahead! Answer me... if you think you can!”

“Well, I’ve made people happy, haven’t I?”

Did that count as conviction? He wasn’t sure.

But for some reason, this answer seemed to frighten her.

“Please... I’m begging you... Snap out of it...!” Her tone wasn’t critical; it was pleading. Her eyes shimmered with emotion. “For as impressive as you are during a crisis, I know you can’t be trusted with this kind of power under normal circumstances... but still, I have to ask... please...! ”

Impressive during a crisis, but can’t be trusted with power? Is that how she sees me?

“Please, Taichi...” She paused, summoned up her resolve, and looked him square in the face. “Help me.”

He wanted to help her. But at the same time, he wanted to help everyone . These two desires were in direct conflict.

So who do I choose? What do I base that decision on? Should I prioritize my girlfriend? Prioritize the needs of the many? Prioritize the greatest amount of good? Prioritize... whatever I feel like doing? I wish there was some sort of guiding principle that could help me make the right choice. Do I have to look inside myself to find it?

But he already knew it wasn’t worth checking there, because—

“Forget it. It’ll be faster to email everyone ourselves... Let’s go, Aoki.” And with that, Inaba started walking.

“Real talk? Up till now, no matter how hard I disagreed with you guys, I could still see where you were coming from,” said Aoki. “But this? There’s no real argument for this.”

Neither Taichi nor Kiriyama had a comeback.

The conversation had taken a lot longer than “five minutes,” but fortunately the rest of his group had waited for him regardless.

“Hey, welcome back. Did you finish your chat? You guys gonna meet up later?” asked Watase.

“...No, I’m staying with the group,” Taichi replied, trying his best to act normal. It’s not showing on my face, is it?

“But you’re practically the poster boy for the whole scheme... Alright, whatever.” And that was the last anyone spoke of it.

Touring in a group of five guys proved to be surprisingly fun in its own right. They got into arguments over tiny details and teased Taichi and Ishikawa about their girlfriends, all while enjoying the beautiful Sapporo scenery. But every time they spotted a two-person or co-ed group, it made Taichi feel sick to his stomach with vertigo.

Once tour time was nearly over, they decided to grab dinner.

“We gotta have ramen! Sapporo is famous for its miso ramen!” Miyagami declared.

“What? I thought it was Asahikawa that was famous for shoyu ramen,” said Sone.

“You’re both correct. And Hakodate is famous for its shio ramen,” Taichi added.

“Wow. Thanks for that useless tidbit, Yaegashi,” Watase joked.

“We could get ramen anywhere. Since we’re in Hokkaido, we should try the seafood. Maybe we could go to a conveyor belt sushi place,” Ishikawa suggested.

Since it was obvious they weren’t going to come to a consensus, they decided to play rock-paper-scissors for it... and in the end, it was Taichi who won.

“Oh my god! Oh my god!”

“Wh... Why are you freaking out? You’re freaking me out!” said Miyagami, leaning away from Taichi.

“It’s just... I’m notoriously bad at rock-paper-scissors, so this is the first time I’ve ever won against multiple people in a row...”

“Feel free to marvel at the serendipity of life, but first you have to pick something for dinner,” said Ishikawa.

“Oh, right... Uhhh... Well, I’d definitely like to get some Hokkaido cuisine while we’re here...”

“Which means miso ramen!”

“No, shoyu ramen!”

“Sushi.”

“Guys! The whole point of doing rock-paper-scissors is that the winner gets to decide!” Watase pointed out. They nodded.

“Okay, well, what’ll it be, Yaegashi?” Sone prompted.

“Let’s see...”

As they walked down the street, Taichi looked around at the restaurants and mulled it over. Some people wanted to eat ramen, while at least one person wanted sushi. Taichi himself was fine either way, but he wanted to make everyone happy... So what guideline would he use to make this decision? If he went with the majority opinion, that meant getting ramen—but those people each wanted a different kind of ramen, so they’d need a restaurant that could cater to both. In which case, the best possible option—

“Hurry up!”

“Hurry!”

Miyagami and Sone were demanding an answer.

And right when he needed it—

“Oh!”

“Hmm? See something?” Watase asked.

Taichi pointed to a sign outside one of the restaurants.

“What’s that say? Ramen, sushi, jingisukan, curry soup... Oh, I get it! It’s a buffet restaurant themed around Hokkaido cuisine! Well, that solves everything!”

If only life was this easy all the time.

The meetup location was a parking lot, where they were scheduled to board a bus to their hotel. On the way there, Taichi’s group encountered some classmates sitting around in a park.

“Aren’t you guys going to the meetup spot?” Watase asked.

“Oh, well... We’re missing somebody from our group, so we kinda can’t head over there until they come back.”

Once they arrived at the meetup spot, each group was obligated to check in with their teacher. And if they checked in without all members present, it would become obvious that the missing student(s) had intentionally split away from the group.

Taichi checked the time. 7:10 PM—just twenty minutes left until the scheduled meetup time.

“I wonder if the teachers caught anyone breaking the rules. I know a lot of people said they’d rehearse an excuse beforehand, just in case, but yeah... Plus, it’s gonna get chilly once the sun sets,” Miyagami remarked.

Taichi was already shivering.

At the meetup spot, Taichi and the others checked in with Gotou, then boarded the bus. About one-third of the students had returned, with two-thirds still yet to show up. Meanwhile, Taichi prayed that everyone would make it back safely... but sure enough, the outcome he dreaded came to pass. 7:30 rolled around, and there were still a few groups missing.

Naturally, the teachers decided to search nearby. Naturally, they found the groups who were still waiting for their missing members. And naturally, it quickly became apparent that some people had left their assigned groups on purpose.

“The hell is going on here?!” one of the male teachers shouted. But he must have realized that yelling at the non-missing students wouldn’t lead to a resolution, because he composed himself and added, “Anyone who has any information on the missing students’ whereabouts, please let me know.”

Obviously these students all knew full well where their missing friends had gone off to, but they weren’t about to narc, so instead they pretended they would “try to get in touch.”

Taichi watched the events unfold from his seat on the bus, all the while quaking down to his core. His blood ran cold with fear as his mind played out all the worst-case scenarios.

“You look like you’re shivering. Are you cold?” asked the person in the seat next to him. All he could manage was a vague nod.

He wondered how Nagase and Kiriyama were reacting to this. He knew they were seated somewhere behind him, but he didn’t dare turn to look.

The minutes flew by, and soon 8:00 rolled around... but there were still students missing.

The teachers had worked tirelessly to locate most of the missing people, and with some help from the other students, they managed to get in contact with almost all of them... except for two: a boy and a girl.

“Yes... They’re still missing... and also...”

Worse still, one eyewitness claimed they’d seen the pair “walking with a shady-looking older guy.” This information quickly spread through the bus full of students. Meanwhile, the teachers grew more desperate than ever, placing calls left and right as a few volunteered to search the city.

“Dude. Yaegashi.” Watase leaned forward and whispered to Taichi from the seat directly behind him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, man. Relax! This isn’t your fault, my guy.”

“I know,” he nodded, but in his heart he just couldn’t agree. What if the two missing students were kidnapped or assaulted? Sure, he wasn’t directly at fault, but if he hadn’t encouraged everyone to break the rules in the first place, this never would have happened. This was his responsibility.

Inaba’s words revived in his mind: When are you going to take a fucking iota of responsibility for once?!

He’d never meant to shirk the responsibility. He was only ever focused on taking action that would benefit everyone as a whole. But this, without a doubt, was a mistake of his own making. And if I screwed up... then I need to fix it. I can do this. I have to.

He rose from his seat.

“Uh, Yaegashi?”

“...I need to use the restroom.”

With that, he walked off the bus and over to Gotou, where he explained that he was just running to the bathroom. Then he walked over to the nearby rest stop.

There, once he was safely concealed behind the building—he broke into a sprint.

He needed to get this situation under control, ASAP. As he ran, he contemplated how he would try to find them. He knew where they were last seen; could they still be there? Could he call them? No, he didn’t have their numbers. Could he get their contact info from someone else?

“—ichi!”

The students of Yamaboshi weren’t local to this area. Plus, it was nighttime. All things considered, it was possible that they’d gotten lost somewhere.

It was at this point that he stopped to wonder how it was that he came to hold so much influence over other people. Obviously the Dream Vision was a huge factor, but... how would his old self have handled it? Given this same power, would the Yaegashi Taichi from a year ago have taken it upon himself to help other people? To bring them happiness?

“Ta—!”

All his life, he’d been a “goddamn martyr” with self-sacrificing tendencies. But even then it was nothing extreme, and thus no one had ever pointed it out to him... until Inaba came along.

Over the past year, he had changed. Matured as a person. How many times had he thought about “fixing” or “saving” people over those twelve months? It was a notion that wasn’t commonly present in the average person’s life... but his martyr personality had deeply colored his outlook and affected his way of life. Was that a bad thing?

Arriving at the bus stop, he checked the posted departure timetable. Hmm... The next bus won’t be here for quite a while. Maybe I should just take a taxi? If I’m only going downtown, it shouldn’t cost that—

“DAMN IT, TAICHI, I’M TRYING TO TALK TO YOU!”

He whirled around just in time to see a black blur fly forward—and latch itself to his abdomen.

“Whoa!”

He felt a pair of arms wrap around him and looked down to find a head of dark hair and an accompanying floral scent.

“Inaba...?”

“Give me... a minute to... catch my breath,” she wheezed, still clinging to him. He could feel her heart pounding. Inaba Himeko was alive, and she was his girlfriend, and she was right here.

The only light was that of the fluorescent bulb overhead, as though the bus stop was the sole oasis in an ocean of darkness.

Meanwhile, he could feel her breathing slowly settle... and yet she didn’t pull away. Instead, she continued to press her cheek against his chest.

“Why the fuck did you run off like that, you moron?! I mean... I get why, but...”

“I’m more impressed you managed to catch up with me.”

“I had a feeling you’d pull a stunt like this, so I was keeping an eye on the buses to see who came and went.”

He felt bad for worrying her... but...

“Listen... I have to go, so... could you let go of me?”

Inaba whipped her head up to look at him, a single tear clinging to her lashes. “Why?”

“Because... I need to find them before something bad happens.”

She gave him a hard shove, putting space between them. “So your first instinct is to run off blindly?! You don’t have the first clue where they might be!”

“You’re right; I don’t. But I still need to look for them. I have to help them.”

“You’ll only make things more complicated! We’re all supposed to wait on the bus, remember?!”

“Sometimes following the rules means you can’t—”

“WILL YOU PLEASE JUST GET A GRIP?!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs. “You’ve been like this ever since you first started acting on your Visions! You decided it was okay to break the rules as long as you approved of it! And now look where that’s gotten us! You refuse to consider that maybe you ought to rethink your choices!”

...Was he really refusing to consider it? To him, he was simply choosing to remain on the path that matched his beliefs. This path had put him at odds with Inaba, so he needed to see it through for it to be worth it. That wasn’t “refusing to consider” an alternative. He’d looked at the options and made a choice. Of his own volition.

“Look... I get that I made the wrong choice, okay? But right now, I need to take action! To help people who might be in trouble!”

Inaba’s expression twisted in deep misery. She wasn’t full-on crying yet, but he could tell she was close.

Please... Please don’t cry. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone.

“Why...? I know you’re not usually this stupid... Come on, Taichi, please... Just stop this...!”

“I... I want to do everything I can.”

Inaba’s eyes flew open in a rage. “That’s not what I’m talking about here! You can’t be like this! It’d be one thing if you were a normal human fighting to solve your own problem, but you’re not! You have a superpower, and you absolutely cannot act like this!”

Act like what? She was speaking so vaguely, he couldn’t understand what she was getting at... and yet somehow he could sense that there was indeed a critical difference between a normal person and someone with a superpower.

“Can’t I just... act the same way I always have? I mean, how am I supposed to act any different? I was born this way!”

At this, she began to tremble. “I get it... That’s the same thing I told you, once upon a time. That the two of us were just born this way, and there are parts of ourselves we can never change.”

She was referring to a conversation that had taken place during the body-swap, nearly a full year ago now. Taichi was a “goddamn martyr”; she had anxiety and trust issues. These traits weren’t the result of some traumatic event—they were simply innate. And because of that, they couldn’t be changed. But together, he and Inaba had reached the conclusion that perhaps these things didn’t always need to be changed in the first place.

“Maybe I was wrong about that,” she continued in a shaky voice.

“What?” His sight blurred slightly. Was he shaking, too? Why?

“Be honest with me... Is that what’s been holding you back this whole time?”

Somehow, it felt like this question wasn’t completely directed at him. “What are you getting at?”

“Do you just... shrug your shoulders and tell yourself you were born this way? Is that your excuse?”

“I’m not making ex—”

“Yes you are! And that’s how we got trapped in this nightmare!”

The word nightmare hit him like a ton of bricks all over again. The path he had chosen for himself had resulted in a nightmare for others. Was it really because he had made excuses? Excuses for what, exactly?

He’d been fighting his way forward all this time... and this was where it led.

“Don’t put your head in the sand! Think about it!” The look in her eyes beseeched him. “You’ve always been an incredible person. Not a day goes by that I’m not impressed with how much you can accomplish without even trying. And I admit, it was that natural drive that... that made me fall for you... but I need you to stop shrugging off the responsibility! Stop telling yourself that this is the only way you can be! That you’re doing it for their sake! That it’s for their own good! Start thinking for yourself! Form your own opinions!”

Her boiling anger seared the chilly night air around them.

“Look at us! We can’t stay children forever—we have to grow up! Don’t you realize what «Heartseed» is capable of?! Quit with the fucking selfless hero act and focus on what you want!”

Focus on myself? Wouldn’t that be MORE childish? Or does she mean something else?

By the end of her tirade, Inaba was gasping for breath. Her emotions had surged over him, consuming him, pulling him under. He wanted to say something in response, but somehow he just couldn’t find the words. And since he couldn’t think of anything, he simply let his mouth move on autopilot.

“What I want is to go find them. I’ll think about changing my ways once that’s taken care of.”

“There you go, acting on reflex again. Great.”

Her disparaging tone was starting to piss him off.

“Just because I’m ‘acting on reflex’ doesn’t mean I don’t think about what I’m doing!”

“Everything you do is on reflex! You help people entirely on reflex! You get involved only if you think it’ll make things better! And when someone tells you they love you—” She stopped mid-rant, eyes wide, realizing what she was about to say. Then, after a moment, she steeled herself and finished, “When someone tells you they love you, you date them purely on reflex!”

“No... That’s not true. I mean, yeah, you made the first move with me... But back when I had feelings for Nagase, I was the one who... who confessed first,” Taichi pointed out, though he was unsure if it worked as a valid argument.

“That was only because Iori flirted with you first!”

At this, he thought back to the conversation he’d had with Kiriyama yesterday. Inaba and Aoki had each actively fallen for someone, but the same couldn’t be said of himself or Kiriyama. Their feelings were of a different type. A different quality. Was it still equal, then? Did it still count as “loving them back”?

Evidently some part of this was showing on his face, because Inaba’s teary expression shifted to realization.

“I guess it’s no use... You won’t change,” Inaba murmured slowly. “You once changed me, but... apparently I can’t change you.”

“I changed you...?”

Hadn’t they come to the consensus that someone could change their behavior, but not the person they truly were deep down? Or was he misreading this somehow? Inaba had changed... but what about him?

“Oh... I see now... Maybe this is a me problem.”

The look on her face said she’d figured something out.

“Yeah... It makes sense that I’d interpret it like that... This is my world, and I need to change it,” she declared, then faltered for a moment. “See, I... When I’m with you... I can feel myself start to cling to you. I become overly dependent on you. Then I get tunnel vision, and suddenly nothing else matters... and at that point, I can no longer make rational decisions.”

It was clear she cared for him a great deal.

“That’s why I can’t manage to stop you this time around... in spite of every promise I ever made to myself.”

It sounded an awful lot like she was admitting defeat. The game was over. No, maybe it was something else—

“Maybe I’m just not fit to be your girlfriend.”

—like their relationship.

He wanted so badly to put his fingers in his ears and drown her out. He didn’t want to break up, especially not right now. As much as he’d managed to hide it, the truth of the matter was, he was falling apart. Slowly but surely, all of this had taken its toll on his mental health, wearing him down, and now he could feel something inside him threatening to burst. He couldn’t handle another devastating blow—come on, why am I being so pessimistic? It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine—

“Maybe we... shouldn’t be together.”

Never, in all his wildest dreams, did he imagine he’d hear those words from Inaba Himeko. He just... couldn’t believe it. He’d actively put effort into this relationship, and cared a lot about it, but here she was, ready to throw in the towel.

“I believe that a good relationship involves two people building each other up, and... we’re not exactly doing that, are we?”

“That’s...”

But he couldn’t deny it.

“Personally, I’m content to let you take the reins... but you have no vision for our future together. We’re just not going to last.”

“Are you serious...?”

At this, her eyes welled with tears until they threatened to spill down her cheeks.

Just then, he felt his phone buzzing. He put his hand to his pocket; Inaba saw this and fell silent. Someone was calling him. He hesitated.

“Answer it,” she prompted him.

It was Watase Shingo.

“Hey, Yaegashi! Where are you, man? You’re not looking for the missing students, are you?”

“Huh? Oh, uh... Yeah, kinda...”

“I figured you might be. Listen, the teachers finally got ahold of them just now.”

“...Oh, really?” Relief flooded his chest. They’re safe. Thank god. Now the worst-case scenario was safely off the table—

“Apparently the girl suffered a nasty fall and had to go to the hospital. But it wasn’t too serious, so they’re on their way back now. Anyway, point is, the bus is gonna head out here soon, so you need to haul ass back here, stat.”

She fell. She got hurt. All because of him—because he didn’t stop everyone from breaking the rules.

“Also, have you seen Fujishima-san at all? She left the bus a while ago and we haven’t seen her since... Uh, hello? Yaegashi? You still there? Listen, man, just head on back, alright?”

“Oh... okay...”

After he hung up, he glanced back at Inaba to find that she was looking down at her own phone.

“Just got an email from a friend. Apparently they found the missing people and the bus is about to take off.” She gave a sardonic laugh. “If they were smart, they would’ve bussed everyone else back first, THEN focused on the missing kids. Our teachers are incompetent, I tell you.”

Thanks to this unexpected interruption, they’d each had enough time to get their emotions under control. The tension had eased, and Taichi was grateful for the chill of the northerly wind. Now they wouldn’t need to revisit their previous conversation.

Inaba turned and headed back to the parking lot. It was time to rejoin the others. For now he just needed a little time to get his thoughts in order, and then they could—

“You only love me because I love you, don’t you?” she asked casually, her back still turned.

It was so sudden, so flippant, he nearly agreed offhand. Hastily, he struggled to come up with a reply... but Inaba didn’t wait for his answer.

“Well, here’s something you should know.”

She turned back to face him, smiling softly.

“I don’t love this version of you.”

Taichi remained frozen in place as Inaba walked away. Slowly but surely, she vanished into the darkness of night. They used to be so close—both physically and emotionally—but now they were light-years apart. How did this happen? He couldn’t bring himself to chase after her. Not when he knew he could never catch up to her.

There he stood, alone. Abandoned. He had single-handedly caused the worst-case scenario to come to pass. Someone had gotten hurt. And now Inaba—the one person who believed in him more than any other—had given up on him entirely.

He’d never felt so pathetic in all his life. Could it get ANY worse?

“...Yaegashi-kun?”

How? Why are you here?

Come to think of it, Inaba would always turn up at the most bizarre moments, too—oh, I get it. They’re keeping tabs on the enemy.

Next to the sidewalk was a weedy, gently sloping hill. And at the top, standing between the uniformly planted roadside trees, was one Fujishima Maiko.

“I saw you get off the bus and had a feeling you were up to something, so I tailed you,” she explained. Evidently Inaba hadn’t been his only pursuer. “I have to apologize, though—I feel like that conversation really wasn’t meant for my ears. I’ll do my best to forget everything I heard.”

But Taichi wasn’t really listening. His mind was a blur.

“Granted, there were parts I couldn’t quite make out, given the distance.”

If she’d heard their whole conversation, then so be it. C’est la vie . All he could do was pray she hadn’t overheard anything critical. Surely this situation couldn’t get any worse than it already was.

“But I will say this... I think I’ve uncovered the two keys to the truth.”

Oh god, what now? Please, no. If «Heartseed» started targeting her as a result of her incessant prying, there would be no saving her. He just didn’t have room on his plate for that.

“ ‘Visions’ and ‘«Heartseed».’ ”

These were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the two things they were supposed to keep secret at any cost.

“I get the feeling there’s something more to these keywords. That they’ll lead me to the reason behind the Cultural Research Club’s odd behavior.”

What am I supposed to do, now that she knows this much? What can I possibly do?

“Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m really not trying to kick you while you’re down.”

He could only imagine what his expression must have looked like right now. Was he crying? Entirely possible. But if not, then perhaps he simply lacked the energy.

Him versus Inaba. Him versus Fujishima. In both cases, he had suffered a crippling defeat.

“I won’t ask you to explain everything right now, obviously, but... I do expect an explanation sometime in the future. Understood?”

He could only nod his head.

□■□■□

As a result of the crisis, the students arrived at their hotel a little over an hour late. Naturally, once they arrived, they were all “treated” to a half-hour lecture about how “friends don’t let friends break the rules.” After that, the individual rule-breakers were singled out and lectured again , this time by their class advisors directly.

At some point during this interrogation, Taichi and Kiriyama were implicated as co-conspirators, and so they were called in to speak with the second-year chief advisor.

“...I understand what happened. You didn’t plan it, nor did you take part. But you did encourage it, and that’s still extremely unacceptable.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir,” said Taichi.

“I’m sorry...!” Kiriyama sniffled.

The two of them bowed apologetically.

“It’s late, so go on and get to bed. And be warned that Gotou-sensei himself may wish to have another talk about the subject once we’re all back at school.”

After a thorough tongue-lashing, they left the teacher’s room. Kiriyama had started sobbing partway through the lecture, and she didn’t show any sign of letting up.

“You okay, Kiriyama?”

“Yeah... I’m okay...”

But right as they arrived at the elevator lobby—

“Hold it right there!”

—they were accosted by a girl with her hands on her hips, almost as though she’d been waiting in ambush.

“Who’s this?” Kiriyama asked, her voice still watery. Evidently she didn’t recognize her... but Taichi certainly did. It was the girl who had asked for his advice right at the start of the trip—the one who was torn between her current flame, Nakajima, and another guy who had recently confessed his feelings to her, Makihara.

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh, you’d better believe something’s wrong!” she shouted, her fake eyelashes trembling with rage. She stormed up and seized Taichi by the collar. “You’re the one who... who told me to go with Makihara!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the heck is going on?!” Kiriyama stammered as she tried to separate the two.

“You told me to choose Makihara! And I trusted you! But what do I get? ‘Oh, it was all a test!’ ‘Oh, he was in on it the whole time!’ I can’t believe this!”

“Start from the beginning! What happened?!” Kiriyama was so distracted with this new problem, her tears had dried up completely.

Clucking her tongue, the girl relinquished her grip on Taichi. “Ugh, I just don’t get it! And now my life is over!”

Baffled, Taichi stared back blankly. He honestly wasn’t sure if he had the right to get angry at her for her behavior.

“You remember when we talked? And I told you another guy wanted to get with me, but I already had a boyfriend? And then you said I should dump him for the other guy?”

At this, Kiriyama looked at Taichi in shock. Her eyes seemed to say, did you actually say that? He knew he needed to come up with an excuse.

“Well... I could see that, you know, it was what you wanted, deep down...”

“Excuse me? What does that even mean? My point is, I followed your stupid advice—and then my boyfriend told me he’d put Makihara up to it as a test to see if I really had feelings for him! Apparently Makihara doesn’t actually like me in the least!”

What the hell?

“So now I’m single again! My ex was like, ‘I always suspected you might leave me for another guy, and now I see I was right. If you don’t love me, then let’s end it.’ Thanks a lot, asshole!”

Had he failed? Had he misread her Vision? Had his actions... ruined her life?

He knew for a fact she’d wanted to be with Makihara. And if that was what she truly wanted, then Taichi was inclined to encourage it. But naturally, he’d had no way of knowing that it was all a setup.

“But... I mean, your ex sounds like kind of a jerk for tricking you like that,” said Kiriyama.

“Oh yeah, he’s definitely a scumbag. Only an insecure loser would test their girlfriend like that... but I wouldn’t have fallen for it if it wasn’t for you , Yaegashi!”

Her anger was directed entirely at him. Truth be told, no one was truly blameless in this situation, but admittedly it was Taichi who had given her the final push. If it wasn’t for him... if he hadn’t been there to pull that trigger... then she never would have made that mistake.

“Rrrrrgh! Damn it! The whole trip is RUINED because of this! And it’s all YOUR fault! Whoever spread that rumor about you being trustworthy was full of shit! You’re worthless! Now go away!” After tearing into him for a bit, she seemed to decide he wasn’t worth the effort. “I’m done with you!” she shouted as she stormed off.

Meanwhile, Taichi fell to his knees in despair.

He really, really didn’t feel like going back to his hotel room after that. Instead, he decided to step outside to clear his head and take in the night air, so Kiriyama followed him out onto the terrace.

The hotel was situated at the top of a mountain, right on the edge of a cliff. Beyond the wooden railing lay the city nightscape below; even Taichi had to admit it was a beautiful sight.

Kiriyama took a seat at one of the little round tables and looked over at him. “Um, Taichi, are you okay? Because judging from what I heard just now, it sounded an awful lot like that girl dug her own grave. She was, like, super pushy.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I influenced her to do it. And I have to take responsibility for that.”

“Well... I mean... yeah, maybe...”

“I can’t believe I misread her Vision like that... and then I gave her the completely wrong answer... What’s gotten into me...?”

“Come on, Taichi, don’t be so hard on yourself. Like, obviously I don’t know what kind of Vision it was, but if even you couldn’t manage to decipher it, then I doubt I—oh.”

“What?”

Kiriyama trembled slightly, balling her hands into fists. “All this time, we’ve been giving people answers to their problems... but were they actually the right answers?”

“Huh?”

“Were they all correct? And if they were correct in that moment, did they stay correct? In the beginning, we always found out about the results of our advice later on down the line, but... what about now?”

No, Taichi wasn’t aware of how his advice worked out in most cases. After all, many of the problems didn’t have quick fixes.

“We saw their Visions... heard their prayers... learned their deepest desires... but were we right about all of it?”

The Dream Visions didn’t come with an answer sheet, so they had no way of knowing if they’d correctly interpreted what they’d seen. And even if they had interpreted it correctly, it didn’t necessarily mean the desire itself was correct...

Man, how am I only realizing this now? Taichi cursed himself for his ignorance.

“There’s no way for me to fix it... I made a mistake and damaged someone’s life. I hurt people.” And it was possible he’d done even more damage on top of this without realizing it.

“Um, Taichi?” Kiriyama asked as he wallowed in his misery. “Do you mind if I cry?”

“Haven’t you been crying?”

“No, I mean, like, really cry about this! I need to throw myself a big fat pity party and whine about what a loser I am!”

It was a bizarre request, to say the least.

“Okay, here I go... Nnn... But just so you know, I’m totally fine. Once you’re feeling better, you can... you know, head on in without me.”

True to her word, she took out a little washcloth and started sobbing into it—hard . For a moment Taichi hesitated, but eventually he decided she probably needed to get it out of her system. So he sat with her in silence, quietly regretting his own actions. Her convulsive gasps nearly made him tear up along with her, but he narrowly suppressed it.

At one point he broke the silence to ask “Are you cold?” to which she replied “No, I’m okay” through sniffles.

Together, the losing team sat out on the terrace for who knows how long, the night breeze ruffling their hair. Then, eventually, Kiriyama spoke up.

“...We really screwed up, huh?” she muttered. Her voice sounded more composed now... but Taichi’s mind was still a blur.

“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say we did. We’ve caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people.”

“They were right. Inaba and Aoki, I mean.”

But Taichi wasn’t ready to admit that just yet. He could acknowledge his own failings, but he didn’t want to believe that the path he’d taken was completely erroneous.

“We have to accept it, Taichi.”

“I mean... considering the situation we’re in, yeah...”

He knew it full well, but he was too scared—too pathetic—to face the truth. Everything weighed down on him at once: he’d failed to guide the other students, he’d failed in his relationship with Inaba, he’d failed to throw Fujishima off the trail, and now he’d failed to give the proper advice to that girl. He didn’t even know where to start anymore.

“We tried to make use of our power, but... in the end, it consumed us.”

“The last thing I wanted was to let it corrupt me, but... yeah.”

“I think we probably should’ve thought a little harder about what it really means to wield power, you know?”

Everyone had cautioned them about this. And for all Taichi’s good intentions, he’d fallen short of the mark.

“That, and... I think we let ourselves go with the flow a little too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it! There’s sooo much pressure when everyone’s excited for something. And when they start talking about how great you are, it spreads like wildfire, and suddenly you feel like you just can’t say no anymore, you know?”

“...I admit, there were definitely times when I felt obligated to agree.”

They’d started this mission with the sole intention to “help people in need,” but somewhere along the way it had evolved into “help anyone who asks, no matter what.” And by the end, it had felt as though they couldn’t function at all without the Dream Vision.

How had it led to that? Well, put simply:

“We lost sight of ourselves, didn’t we?”

“Haha... Yeah, that’s definitely one way to put it. We put on a tough front whenever people came to us for help, but deep down... we were just happy someone needed us.”

It felt so good to live up to their expectations. And once he’d had a taste of the forbidden fruit, he couldn’t stop coming back for more... until ultimately he was consumed by desire. Chihiro must have experienced something similar during the Phantom Projection phenomenon. What sort of senpai was Taichi if he couldn’t even set a good example for his kouhai?

“In the end, I was too quick to rely on the power, and so I misread the Vision I saw. I was careless.”

“We kinda started to forget just how risky it all was.”

Together they took turns expressing their regrets. And there were a lot of regrets to be had.

“Do you think if we’d kept it together... if we’d thought it through a little more... the power wouldn’t have consumed us like that?”

A world where things hadn’t gone so wrong.

“You mean, if we had the willpower and commitment and determination? I don’t know... Were we short on any of those things when we started?”

He couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to imagine—that they were quite that thoughtless.

“We might’ve had some , but we didn’t have enough . That’s how we ended up here.”

But what did a decision look like when it did have all those things in ample quantity?

“Maybe we never should’ve done anything.”

“That’s not true!” Taichi shouted reflexively, then flinched at the sound of his own voice.

“Wh... Where did that come from?”

“Sorry... It’s nothing.”

He’d rejected the idea purely on instinct. He didn’t want to admit it; he regretted the outcome of his actions, but that was one thing he couldn’t accept. After all, if he told himself that everything they’d done was a mistake... what would he have left?

“We still made a lot of people happy, so... I don’t think it’s right to disavow all of it,” he hesitated.

“R-Right, but... still, we probably should’ve had more concrete guidelines and stuff, you know?” Kiriyama asked timidly, possibly in fear of another volatile reaction from Taichi.

“W-Well... true.”

“I was wondering, actually...” She paused, summoned all of her courage, then continued, “Are you planning to... to keep acting on your Visions?”

He ruminated on this for a moment. If he did continue, then he had the potential to make someone happy... but at the same time, the possibility of another catastrophic failure loomed over him. Could he risk it? Did the martyr in him want to risk another plunge to rock bottom? Another taste of despair and emptiness?

...No.

“I can’t say I particularly want to.”

The idea was... terrifying. It felt as though there was something inside him that he was barely managing to keep in one piece, and if he suffered another failure, it would shatter for good. That was Taichi’s biggest fear of all.

Kiriyama heaved a sigh of relief. “Right! Totally! We should officially call it quits after this... To be honest, we really should’ve listened to Inaba and Aoki a lot sooner.”

Taichi had been too hell-bent on pursuing his mission to pay Aoki or Inaba much heed. Now here he was at a dead end, unable to continue. If Aoki and Inaba were indeed correct, then where exactly had he gone wrong?

“Aoki was right. We really didn’t have enough room on our plates for this,” Kiriyama muttered.

“What if we did have room, though? Would it have been different?” Taichi mused aloud to himself.

He didn’t mean anything in particular by this comment, and yet she looked at him in shock. “What?”

“What?”

“That thing you just said. ‘If we had room on our plates, would it have been different?’ ”

“I don’t think it’d be that simple, Kiriyama.”

“Wh... You’re totally the one who suggested it!” she shouted, jumping to her feet and gesturing wildly with her hands. Then she froze, looked down at herself, realized just how childish she was behaving, and turned bright red. “Look... I’m not very smart, so I don’t know if this is the right answer, exactly,” she began again—hesitant, but nevertheless willing to be vulnerable. “But for starters, I think we should focus on solving the problems right in front of us.”

If you can’t see the bigger picture, start by fixing the problems you CAN see. It was so simple... and yet there was something appealing about that simplicity.

“If we start there, I think... maybe we’ll start to figure out all the places we went wrong.”

She didn’t want to sit around and feel sorry for herself—that wouldn’t change anything. Instead she wanted to take steps to rectify the situation while also maintaining an introspective look at her own faults.

“In which case, I guess I should start with... that thing I’ve been avoiding.” She balled her hands into tight fists and exhaled slowly. “I never meant to dodge around the issue for this long; I just kept worrying that it wasn’t right. And I wanted to do it the right way. No excuses.”

Taichi had a feeling he knew what she was referring to.

“But when it comes to Aoki...”

Sure enough.

He paused to reflect on his own immediate problems. There was the rule-breaking thing, the mishandled advice thing, the Inaba thing, and... the Fujishima thing. So where do I start?

“...I don’t want to give him any BS excuses. Like, that’d be a total copout. He’s the kind of guy who’ll be completely honest with me, and I want to be just as blunt right back.” She smiled, her puffy eyes illuminated by the dim terrace lights.

“Wait... Isn’t this kind of sudden?” Taichi asked. The timing struck him as odd.

“Yeah, I know. We’ve got all this other crap going on that we need to be worried about. But I think this is where I need to start... to start over.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it’s been stressing me out for way too long! And besides, if it wasn’t for his dad’s crisis, I might’ve made a different choice about acting on the Dream Vision... I mean, sometimes personal feelings make you biased!”

That he couldn’t deny.

“But most of all... I just don’t want to keep holding out on him forever. This is a good opportunity to put it all out there. I’m gonna speak my truth... Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“W-Wait a minute. Isn’t that moving a little too quickly? I mean... what about me? What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, you were supposed to do it literally forever ago, so you’d better hurry. Just think long and hard about what it is you should be doing... and after you get it done, we can meet up again to have another pity party, okay?”

She’d been knocked down, but now she was trying to pick herself back up again. And if he didn’t hurry, she was going to leave him in the dust. But Taichi didn’t foresee himself getting up anytime soon; he didn’t have anything to support himself with. He needed a little help to get started.

“Oh, but... maybe I gotta do an apology tour first... Ugh, Inaba’s totally gonna rip me a new one...”

He needed to do something, fast. Kiriyama had already admitted to her mistakes and was now trying to turn over a new leaf... but Taichi couldn’t take that step. He didn’t have that power.

All he had left was fear.

□■□■□

When Taichi returned to his room, he found Watase and Ishikawa waiting for him. He apologized for all the drama he’d caused, to which they replied that it wasn’t his fault. Then they told him that the guy who had originally spoken to him about the plan had come by to apologize while he was out. Apparently, his plan was to come back another time while Taichi was around so they could talk face-to-face, but Taichi already felt loads better just knowing the other guy didn’t hate his guts.

He had no desire to stay up late. He was exhausted. The others seemed to intuit this, because they encouraged him to go to bed early. So Taichi climbed into bed... and yet, part of him kept wondering if he was allowed to go to sleep. Wasn’t there something else he was supposed to be doing right now?

Both his muddled thoughts and the less-than-comfortable pillow he was using were working against him. Time passed, and he drifted in and out of consciousness in fitful bursts. The events of the day had completely invalidated his beliefs. And if the path he’d traveled thus far was wrong, then where was he meant to go from here?

A vague sense of unease set in. Truth be told, this low hum of anxiety had been plaguing him for a while now. He tried to recall when it started; it felt pretty recent, but still long enough for him to have grown used to it being there. The earliest he remembered it being there was back when they first handed out the career planning surveys—

[There’s a girl. The one who got dumped because of Taichi. She stands alone, grumbling to herself, “If only it wasn’t for him.” The world around her is fuzzy and unfocused, almost like... an actual dream...? She’s complaining about someone. “If it wasn’t for him, I never would’ve gotten dumped.” She imagines the scapegoat in her mind. It’s a familiar face—Taichi’s face. “This is all Yaegashi’s fault. If it wasn’t for him—”]

Taichi jumped upright in bed. Neither Watase nor Ishikawa reacted; presumably they were fast asleep. What was that Vision?

His mind reeled. The way the images and sounds had blurred together, it felt as though his dream had fused with someone else’s while he slept. His brain felt like mush, and he couldn’t think straight. He needed some air. Pulling a jacket on over his pajamas, he left the room.

Bathed in amber light, the hallway was silent, save for the thump, thump of his footsteps.

Her Dream—her desire—was for Taichi to disappear. Granted, it was possible she didn’t consciously want this; maybe it really was little more than a regular dream. But on some level, she did in fact want it. That was how the Dream Vision worked.

This knowledge weighed on him more heavily than any Vision he’d ever seen. Come to think of it, she’d told him as much directly, hadn’t she? Go away. In other words, disappear. Cease to exist. He had screwed up so badly that someone who originally came to him seeking help now sought his erasure.

All this time, they’d been granting people’s wishes—as long as it was reasonably doable without too much direct interference, and as long as it would make people happy. And the act of helping someone was a goal Taichi had aspired to his whole life. He was greatly empathetic, and if he didn’t do something to solve the problem, he’d feel their pain as if it were his own.

Empathizing with others... Projecting onto others... Everything he’d built thus far... Every choice he made regarding the Dream Vision... If he wanted to hold onto it... If he wanted to protect his sense of identity... then his next move would be...

With no set destination in mind, Taichi wandered down the stairs and out onto the windy terrace. Somehow the nightscape felt more peaceful now than it had when he was out here with Kiriyama earlier.

Weaving through the little round tables and chairs, he walked toward the wooden railing. On the other side was a steep incline—a cliff. If he fell, he would most likely lose his life. Everything would come to an end. And that act would make someone’s Dream come true, in which case—

“TAICHI, STOOOOOOOOP!”

“Whoa!”

Out of nowhere, someone grabbed him from behind and performed a double leg takedown. Caught off-guard, he lost his balance and fell over. Then he felt his attacker climb on top of him. He quickly rolled over onto his back to see who it was.

Nagase Iori.

“Not okay! What are you THINKING, Taichi?! Just because someone wants you to—you don’t even know if she actually wants it—I mean, not that it matters! You’re not allowed to do that, whether she wants it or not! Absolutely not allowed! ” Nagase shouted down at him as she straddled him, her silky hair dangling in his face.

She was wearing a yukata beneath her jacket, but her obi belt had come loose, giving him an ample view of her chest—

“Wait, what are you looking at?! You perv!”

“Gah!”

Her palm collided with his cheek in a slap, and it hurt.

“I... I didn’t mean to, okay?! You’re the one putting it in my face—Whatever! It’s not important! Now what the hell’s gotten into you, Nagase?!”

“Huh? What do you mean? I saw that look on your face as you were walking out here—you were going to throw yourself off the cliff! I bet you saw that same Vision I saw!”

“I was going to... do what?”

“Th... Throw yourself off the cliff, obviously! To grant her wish or whatever!”

“Dude, come on. You know I’d never go that far. You really think I’d kill myself just because someone else wanted me to?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Oh... Right...” Nagase stuck out her tongue and bonked herself on the head in a playful show of self-deprecation.

“No, seriously, this isn’t funny.”

“Okay, I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! I jumped to a dumb conclusion, okay?!” She jumped off of him and prostrated herself dogeza-style right there on the terrace floor. “I was just... worried you might actually consider it, that’s all...”

“What kind of nutjob do you take me for...? Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time I was willing to throw my life away,” he muttered.

“See?! Exactly!”

They both got to their feet.

“Aren’t you cold out here in that yukata?”

“Nah, I’ve got a jacket. Besides, they wouldn’t give these out if they didn’t want us to wear them. I figured I owed my adoring fans a free fanservice scene!” She hiked up the skirt to flash some leg.

“Wh... Stop that! I thought you didn’t want me looking!”

“There’s a world of difference between you objectifying me and me objectifying myself, Taichi-kun.”

“If you say so.”

The slap had knocked him out of his funk, and it felt good to have a normal conversation for a change.

“So, what are you doing out of bed?”

“Well, I had a Vision, and in it... you’re not going to like this, but...”

“It’s okay. I saw it too.”

“Okay, so you did see it! I figured you were more likely to have seen it since it was about you, y’know? And after everything that happened today, I knew you were having a rough time, and... I got scared. So I started wandering around, and then I spotted you, and here we are! Anyway... I’m sorry for getting the wrong idea. That was dumb of me.”

“Nah, that’s okay. You were just worried about me, and I appreciate it.”

“Awww, you’re such a nice guy!”

Her saintly smile warmed him to the core, and before he knew it, his lips were moving.

“I really screwed this up, didn’t I? And not just part of it. All of it.”

He knew it was obvious that he wanted her consolation.

“I wouldn’t say you screwed it all up. Some of it, definitely, but yeah.” Though her tone was forgiving, by no means was she trying to sugarcoat things. “Hmmm... That look on your face tells me you wanna get something off your chest. Go ahead and vent to your big sister!” she joked, and Taichi laughed.

Bit by bit, he told her about the conversation he’d had with Kiriyama, and how he felt. How he’d worked hard to carve his own path, a path that ended in failure, but nevertheless, he still believed his viewpoints were at least somewhat valid... and so he was having trouble figuring out where to start over. Surprisingly, he found he wasn’t all that embarrassed to admit it.

“I stumbled down the wrong path... grew dependent on my power... but that’s just the kind of person I am. I can’t stop myself wanting to help people.”

“Okay, I’m gonna have to stop you there.”

Until now she’d been content to simply nod along, but now she was actively halting his progress. “What for? Oh, right... It’s getting late. I should let you get back to bed.”

“Nope! I’ve got plenty of time to spare. I just wanna ask you something... because I think it might be important.”

“What is it?”

She pressed her index finger to her lips and fell still. Around them, the silence of the night seemed to reverberate in his ears, growing more and more tense by the second. Then, finally—

“Tell me, Taichi. Is that really who you are?”

“...What?” He didn’t quite... understand... what she was getting at.

“I mean, okay. I definitely think you have a hero complex, or as Inaban would call it, ‘martyr’ syndrome...”

Yes, exactly.

“But is that really a part of you that you can’t fight?”

Of course I can’t fight it. It’s who I am.

“Because, I mean, I’m pretty sure you could hold yourself back if you wanted to. Not like you’d go through ‘helperitis withdrawal’ or something, right?”

“Hold myself back?”

“Think about it! This isn’t the Liberation. Your body isn’t moving on autopilot. So all you have to do is stop yourself! You don’t literally need to help people. You can hold it back if you just try.”

...Taichi couldn’t exactly argue with that.

“So basically, I think you’ve convinced yourself you ‘can’t stop it’ when that actually isn’t true,” she shrugged.

This struck him as completely presumptuous, and he was inclined to push back on it, but he couldn’t think of a counter-argument. Not only that, but something about this conversation felt... familiar, somehow—

“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That’s because the two of us had a conversation like this just last year.”

...Of course . One year ago, he had explained to Nagase that her various personas were all equally valid sides of her. That she was simply more expressive than the average person.

“That conversation gave me the push I needed to change who I was.”

Nagase... changed? Does that mean I can, too?

“And now it seems like fate’s led us to have this same conversation again,” she mused to herself.

“I... I admit... it might be... all in my head,” Taichi stammered, his voice shaking. “But then... why... why did I...?”

He knew what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t quite get the words out. He was on the cusp of a major revelation, and he only needed to take one more step to get there... but for some reason... he just... couldn’t. Something was going to break.

“...Who have I been, all this time...?” Was it all just a preconceived notion? Unbelievable. Was I just fighting imaginary demons this whole time?

“I mean, don’t get me wrong! I do think you’re pretty badass, the way you stick your neck out for just about anyone—”

“Only because that’s how everyone already sees me!”

“What, so you were just putting on an act? Like I was?”

Indeed, that was who she was. But him?

“...No. I wasn’t acting. It’s more like I was... clinging to... that version of me...?” The words left his lips unbidden. Clinging? What does THAT mean?

“You look like you’re on the verge of an epiphany, Taichi.”

“...Maybe, but... I still don’t quite understand...”

“Speaking from experience, the best advice I can give you would be to strip yourself bare.”

“Wh-What? You want me to get naked? I have a girlfriend, you know.”

“Ha ha, very funny! Don’t be such a ditz! What I mean is... Ugh, forget it! I’ll do it myself, okay? I’m gonna break you down!”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m going to break you, Taichi.” She moved closer until she was standing directly in front of him, then continued in a singsong voice, “Get ready... I’m gonna take everything inside you... Build it up reeeeal high...”

“Uh... You’re doing what now?”

“It’s a metaphor, okay?! Just picture it in your mind’s eye! Okay, here we go!” She took in a deep breath and raised both hands over her head.

What is she doing? What is she about to do to me?

Then she brought both hands down hard onto each of his shoulders and shouted at the top of her lungs, “BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! ”

“Ow! That was loud! My ears are ringing...!” Taichi complained, grimacing.

“Well, there you go! I’ve destroyed the old you!” she declared in response.

“You... what?”

“Listen up, kid: as of this very moment, the old you is dead and gone! Now take a hard look at it! Contemplate it!”

“Hold on a minute. Look at what? If you already destroyed it, then what’s left?”

“Trust me, there’s always something left,” she insisted firmly. “No matter how hard you break yourself down, there’s always some part of you that stays. You can feel it.” Her unwavering gaze drew him in, consuming him. “I promise you, it’s there. All you have to do is find it... and follow it wherever it takes you.”

Her impact left him speechless, opening and closing his mouth like a beached fish. Smirking, Nagase turned away and looked out at the city lights, as if intentionally giving him time to be alone with himself.

She had broken him down; now he was destroyed. He could hear the pieces hit the floor. He had lost the battle, and as a result he had been crushed into dust. But with that obstacle gone, he could see past it... to the world beyond.

He had lost everything he had once believed he needed to protect. But now he could break it down and sort through it... until he found what really mattered.

He wanted to help someone. Contribute to something. It was a desire he felt on a visceral level, that much was true. But the reason he was constantly looking outward for validation was because—

Because he was empty on the inside.

A single tear rolled down his cheek, as though freed from whatever had been holding it back.

He had no real self . How did someone generally define their identity, anyway? Their opinions? Their agency? Beliefs? Viewpoints? Ambitions? They all seemed to fit, and yet none of them seemed quite right, either... Regardless, whatever it was, he was finally prepared to accept that he didn’t have it—though admittedly he’d known it all along, deep down.

Without that “self,” he couldn’t make decisions. His opinions were generally safe and centrist. He never really got angry about much—he was tolerant of everything, good and bad. And in a sense, that meant he didn’t really care one way or the other.

Lately, with the career planning surveys and the Dream Vision, he’d been given a lot of opportunities to examine himself as a person. And every time he tried, he inevitably started to panic—because there was never anything there. But he didn’t want to lag behind the others, so he rushed into the first decision he came to. That way he could have a “path” of his own.

Someone like him was ill-suited to wield the Dream Vision. He was in no position to influence other people’s lives when he couldn’t even get his own under control. But Taichi didn’t want to admit that he didn’t have a self. That was why, once he made the choice to act on his Visions, he couldn’t bear to give up partway through. It was the sort of decision he was normally never able to make, and he wanted to keep it alive. Otherwise, he feared everyone would realize he didn’t have an identity of his own, and he was pretty sure that was embarrassing.

But Taichi was capable of helping other people. He could take a negative back to zero; that much was easy to comprehend, self or no self. But going from zero to a net positive? Out of the question. There were too many options—too many paths to take. He would have to pick one, and without a self, it was a choice he was incapable of making.

He wanted to help. He wanted to do something to make people’s lives better. But he had no sense of direction. So if he got lucky and his actions led to some sort of half-assed result, he took it to mean it was the right thing to do. That was how he skated by all this time, and without it, he was afraid he wouldn’t have anything left—so instead of trying to change himself, he clung to it. After all, change involved giving something up in exchange for something else, and Taichi didn’t have the courage to let go. Everything he’d built... The path he’d traveled... It wasn’t much, but it was his .

During the body-swap, he’d learned that his compulsion to help people was born of the desire to sate his own needs. But he never bothered to examine it further—until now. Now he knew there was another reason behind it: his desire to fill the void inside with validation from other people. That was who he really was... and he was finally ready to accept it.

Only now did he realize just how hard it could be to understand himself as a person. Suddenly, it struck him: How was I able to figure all of that out in the span of a few seconds just now? Oh... Right.

All this time, he’d been surrounded by criticism from various people in his life—Fujishima, for example, but most of all, Inaba Himeko. These people had basically told him the answer; Inaba had literally told him to change, and that he was capable of it. But nevertheless, Taichi had somehow bumbled along all the way here—

“Hey, Nagase?”

“Hmm? What’s up?”

“I think I’ve finally... figured myself out.”

First, he asked if he could borrow a bit more of her time tonight—to which she responded with an enthusiastic “Of course! Trust me, I’m more than happy to help you level up!”—and then he told her everything that had crossed his mind just now.

“...and that’s where I screwed up. I was never worthy of wielding the Dream Vision like that.” Now that Nagase was up to speed, he paused. “If anything, Inaba and Aoki were the worthy ones,” he muttered a beat later. After all, they each had a solid identity.

“I mean... Yeah, they’re both great and all, but I honestly don’t think they’re that far beyond you. They just knew it would be super easy to get carried away, and sure enough, you did. If they were really that amazing, then they would’ve made the same choice you did and beaten you at your own game.”

“...Yeah, maybe so... Either way, I had no business acting on the Visions, and for that, I’m truly sorry. I know I’ve caused a lot of trouble for you, but I promise: from now on, I’m done. I won’t make use of my power ever again... Easy for me to say since I’m a coward, but yeah.”

“Oh, please! It’s fine! After everything that’s happened, it’s finally starting to feel like it was all worth it in the long run. And honestly, I don’t think you need to swear off your power.”

“What?”

“If we’re reeeeally being honest here... I don’t think it’s a crime to use our powers. I mean, after everything «Heartseed»’s put us through? It’s our bonus stage, dang it!”

“But...”

“Besides, I could never have helped you find yourself if it wasn’t for you acting on your Visions! ...Then again, it all started with me thinking you were suicidal, and in the end, all I really did was shout ‘BOOOOOM!’ really loud...”

Something about this tickled Taichi’s funny bone, and he burst out laughing. “Classic Nagase. You’re a real piece of work, alright. Wait... That thing you said just now about ‘beating me at my own game’...”

“Sounds like my old perfectionist side talking, doesn’t it? It’s something I’m still working on, but for now my motto is ‘don’t sweat the small stuff and just do the best you can’!” She giggled, and he could tell that there was no weight on her shoulders. She had made her decision free of bias, be it fear or allure.

“You really thought this through, huh? You always blow my mind, Nagase.”

“Took me a ridiculously long time to figure it all out, but yeah.”

Still impressive, though , Taichi thought to himself.

The conversation petered out, and silence descended between them. During that time, he (and probably Nagase, too) fell deep into thought.

“Anyways, we have more important things to be worrying about,” she said after a moment. “About your lack of self... It sounds like it’s in the same vein as my own personal lack of direction.” That was the problem that had plagued her since childhood, wherein she had learned to adapt her personality to suit each person. “So we really need to figure this out.”

“Figure what out?” Taichi asked, though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

“Our life’s purpose. Our value as people.”

Her long, silky hair danced on the breeze as though it was obeying the wind’s call. Under the moonlight, she stood tall and proud and beautiful, her eyes brimming with determination.

“...Gah, I can’t believe I just said that out loud! Too deep, bro!”

“I hate the way you always take a beautiful moment and completely ruin it.” But that’s our Nagase for you.

“Aww, man! If I’d known we were having a moment, I would’ve tried to think of something cool to say!” she laughed. “Anyway, my point is... you can start over, Taichi. Right here.”

“You know what? I think I will. And eventually I’m going to catch up to you, Nagase.”

“No rush, though! I don’t have much of a head start! And if you start doing laps around me, I’m gonna look like a total poser!”

Though they never made it to the dating stage, the two of them were still undeniably cut from the same cloth, and Taichi sensed a close-knit, if tumultuous, friendship in their future.

So where do I go from here? Where do I start? He had made up his mind, and now he needed to take action.

“From now on, I’m going to think for myself when I make decisions. That, and... I’m going to start thinking about my aspirations for the future,” he added, recalling his still-blank career planning survey.

“Future aspirations, huh?” she mused.

She looked up at the night sky, and Taichi followed suit. Above them twinkled a sea of stars, as far as the eye could see. Some were closer; some were farther; some were even overlapping.

He reached up into the air and pretended to grab a handful.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me. I haven’t told anybody about my career ambitions yet... Wanna be the first to know?” Nagase asked, her face still tilted up at the sky.

“Sure, if that’s cool with you.”

“I wanna be a schoolteacher. Or something in that field, anyway—I haven’t decided. But what I do know is that I want to help kids who are struggling. I want to guide them and help them grow, you know?”

Countless tiny lights, shining down on countless tiny lives.

“I want to be a lighthouse for all those lost at sea.”

Nagase was moving forward, and Taichi wanted to follow in her footsteps. But first... he needed to pen the ending to the story he had started.