Chapter 2: Even On the 3000th Confession
Part 1
“Congratulations on getting accepted!”
I heard someone shout from a short distance away. Glancing in that direction, I saw several burly members of the rugby team gather around one of the accepted students and hoist him up into the air. Circling the rugby players was a girl in a sports uniform (the manager, perhaps?) who raised her hands above her head and applauded the new student.
I was at the acceptance announcement for Karima High School. It was true that the results could be found out online, and it was faster and took less effort to look it up, but despite that, quite a few students had gathered here to see the names listed on the bulletin board, wanting to see the results officially on paper.
Above me were plum blossoms, just beginning to bloom, and beyond that was the cold early March air, which still had a bit of a sting, and the painted sky.
I looked up at the bulletin board, recognizing my testing number immediately.
I then turned to a student who was handing out pamphlets nearby, and asked,
“Excuse me. Could I have…one of those?”
“Are you an admitted student?”
“Yeah.”
“Congratulations! Everyone, here’s another admitted student!”
“Wait, um…”
“Congratulations again!”
Yes―in the end, Natsuki, Shuu, and I chose Karima High School.
The girl―a beautiful girl, if you were to ask me―bent over slightly and looked up at me.
Are you going, or not?
Those were my options.
The golden axe, or the silver axe?
Since I was but an ordinary middle school student, when I had choices thrust upon me, I had no choice but to choose one or the other. One voice in my head insisted that I shouldn’t give that high schooler the satisfaction of having me go, but another advised that since I was going to come here anyway, it would in my best interests to branch out a little and make connections.
Was I going, or not?
The golden axe, or the silver axe?
I should branch out.
My reply came in barely a whisper.
“…I’ll go.”
“Alrighty! Reeled one in!”
A boy from the high school beckoned to me and told me that there were already about 10 people gathered at a family restaurant nearby.
After being told to sit and obeying, I found a gla.s.s of orange juice set down in front of me.
“Unlimited drinks. My treat.”
The boy sat himself down next to me in an over-familiar manner, and peppered me with inquiries of “What’s your name? What school are you from?”, obviously enjoying himself all the while. I nodded and smiled, while slowly sipping away at my juice.
Metaphorically speaking, what color axe do I have now, I wondered.
Raising my eyes, I looked around at the other students who were clearly also middle schoolers. Like me, they were admitted students on the track to become first-years come April. There were those who hesitated, quivering, and those who were putting on an act of gallantry; it was clear that none of us were yet quite at home in this kind of situation.
“No, not really.”
“Hm? Did you say something?”
“No, it was nothing.”
That was when I noticed that this student’s build wasn’t as burly as the others that I had seen so far.
“What club are you in?”
“Am I in? This semester, ooh, the restaurant might have a special on tea.”
“Rugby?”
“Hah, what the h.e.l.l’s rugby. I’m not with those guys from the admission announcements. I’m in season sports club, which means tennis in the summer and skiing in winter.”
I’d been thinking of just staying in the same club that I’d attended in middle school, but there was more variety to clubs than I’d imagined. I had never heard of a club where you could do tennis and skiing.
High school certainly was shaping up to be a whole new experience.
And I was going to become like these students.
And so, the next hour pa.s.sed by with idle chatter.
“Aw, senpai, that’s no fair.”
The beautiful-girl-if-you-were-to-ask-me who had talked to me earlier barged into the family restaurant none too subtly. Her unruly hair reflected her extroversion, but even more than that, her large eyes and long eyelashes commanded attention. She had looks that drew people’s attention, and she knew it. If she were to raise her voice, everyone’s gaze would be drawn to her. Therefore, the tone of her voice and every little gesture had to be precisely calculated.
She plunked herself down next to me and ordered a gla.s.s of non-alchoholic wine (there was such a thing?) for herself.
“Yo, what middle school?”
“I went to Sasayama Middle.”
“I’m from Central Nakasato Middle.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Hey, quit it with the formal talk.”
“But you’re my senpai.”
She looked taken aback for a moment, then opened her mouth and let out a great big laugh.
“Nah, I’m just another admitted student. I was accepted early via recommendation, and I ended up just loitering around the school doing nothing, so this club member here came and talked to me.”
Oh, so she was the same age as me. My anxiety melted away. I shifted my sitting position, and instead of sitting with my shoulders drawn in, I puffed out my chest a little. I lifted my gaze a little higher. The girl who I’d though was my uppercla.s.sman was simply a cla.s.smate.
“My names Risa. And you are?”
“Hashidate Yuuto.”
“Yuuto, huh. You got a girlfriend?”
She dropped the honorifics right off the bat, and used my first name, to boot.
This sure is different from middle school, I thought. In my three years of high school, I had only met one girl who had come to call me by my first name. I had always thought that was the norm, but upon my entering high school, here came this girl who spoke to me like we’d been friends for years. I was surprised, to say the least.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled with that. After all, this Risa girl didn’t seem like she would be of any help in getting me to my ideal of perfection.
She was accepted on recommendation, so she loitered around the school? And that guy’s club roped her in? Not to mention, that she was beautiful?
No doubt about it, she was going out with some senpai already.
For the second time, I looked around the family restaurant. Is it him? Maybe him?
If I were to approve of such a fulfilling lifestyle, it would be a grievous insult to my perfect life thus far.
…Well, might as well go along with her for a bit, just to see where the conversation takes us.
“Okay, which one do you think is my girlfriend?”
“You don’t have one. You seem like the grim-future type.”
“It’s not grim, it’s bright as anything. I’m popular, you know.”
“Liar~ That’s a total lie. You don’t have to put on a mask, you know. Tell big sister the truth.”
“That doesn’t even makes sense.”
“Hey, I was born in April. I’m older than most everyone in my grade.”
“April what?”
“Second. In elementary school, I was always first on the roster.”
“April 2nd, wow, that’s about as early in the school year as it gets. I’ve never met someone like that.”
“And it’s the truth, I swear. Anyway, do you have a girlfriend? C’mon, spill.”
“Shut up.”
For some reason, this back-and-forth was kinda fun.
I myself was astonished at the rate at which I said unexpected things.
This is pretty nice, I thought, being free to carry out a conversation without getting all caught up in worrying about stuff like slight changes in facial expression or nuances. Stress-free conversations were nice.
“…I have to bounce back in college entrance exams.”
Risa didn’t miss what I said with a sigh.
“Hmm? Don’t tell me, you’re one of those who got in despite dropping in rank?”
“Wait, not really―”
My cellphone sounded from the depths of my pocket. A text. When I saw the contents, I responded with a sigh of relief.
“Your girlfriend?”
“Nope.”
Not yet, anyway.
“Mom?”
“Not her either…I’ve gotta get home.”
I stood up. Risa looked up at me with surprise written all over her face.
“What happened? You have something you gotta do?”
“…By talking with you, I have deviated from the path to perfection. Seeya.”
I grabbed my bag and left the restaurant. It never struck me to turn and see the expression Risa had as she watched me leave.
There was something that required me to take my leave.
The text had simply read, “I got in too.”
And that was why I had to go to the residence of the sender of that text.
―That is, Natsuki.
There was something that I wanted to tell her, should we both be admitted into the school.
At this point I sent a text to my brother. Earlier, I’d discussed with him what I was about to do.
“You’ll be fine. Move forward and don’t lose your way.”
I had my brother’s seal of approval.
I have all of his weight behind me, I thought.
My home was in a town called Hachiougi that was a one hour train ride from the inner city. It was neither in the coastal nor mountainous area; just some little rural town nestled in the suburbs. The center of Hachiougi life was Hachiougi Station.
The appointed meeting place with Natsuki was the Hachiougi Station concourse. On either side of the tracks was an overpa.s.s going north-south that had been turned into a concourse, and in the middle was a fountain and bench that was often used as a meeting place.
It was about a ten-minute walk from my place to the station.
It was the path that I would be using for my commute to my high school.
After crossing the intersection I went up the stairs that led to the station interior. Since the station had just been remodeled, all of the equipment were of the newest models. Finally, there was some beautiful stained gla.s.s embedded at the foot of the stairs.
Before the station’s transformation, in order to get from the north side to the south side, one needed to travel down a narrow underground pa.s.sageway; now, since there was an area for the ticket turnstiles on the second floor, one could simply cross the concourse from one side to the other.
The station was busy. For a weekday afternoon, it was quite the crowd.
My anxiety swelled in the bustling throng of people. Deep breaths. You have to calm down. Aim for perfection.
I slipped a coin into the drink vending machine in the middle of the concourse. Rather, I tried, and fumbled the coin. With a clink, the coin rolled underneath the machine.
Deep breaths. This was not the time to get excited over nothing. I mean, it’s just a hundred yen.
I should at least actually insert a coin, and get my black coffee.
I let out a sigh and raised the can to my lips.
I made my way slowly to the fountain. Natsuki wasn’t here yet.
A sudden cold wind swept the concourse. It was still early March, after all.
As the appointed time of 3 o’clock approached, I could see Natsuki making her way towards me. The way her hands were stuffed in the pockets of her coat, and how she fixed her gaze on the ground revealed that she was not enjoying the cold.
“Natsuki!”
She raised her head. Having spent the entirety of our middle school years together, somewhere along the line we had started calling each other by our given names.
“Oh, it’s Yuuto! Congrats on getting into high school!”
“Ah, yeah. You too, Natsuki.”
“Thanks! …We’ll be together again in high school, then.”
The fact that Natuski, too, had noticed that we had been friends ever since elementary school raised my bliss to uncontainable heights.
“Too bad. Must be fate.”
“I’m glad that Shuu got in too.”
“Shuu’s got brains, ‘course he got in.”
“Yuuto, you settled on Karima High School in the end, huh?”
“Nothing I could do about it, the teacher told me that I’d never get into Kuwahara East.”
There wasn’t any chance I could admit that I’d only applied there so we could all get in together.
“Oh. Well, it all turned out okay, right? Yuuto, you’re the only who’s gone to the same school with me all the way from elementary school.”
Ah, so Natsuki thinks of me in a special way, probably. This is what they’d call a “match made in heaven”, I’d say.
Now, for someone who was aiming for perfection, the goal was not going to high school with her per se, but in this case, it was an important prerequisite. After all, I should be able to redo in case I had a hard time getting into college, and more importantly, I should work on having a perfect high school life with Natsuki and the others. This much I understood.
Once Natsuki had seated herself on the bench, I moved to do the same. We sat, staring in the general direction of the ticket turnstiles.
The people who pa.s.sed through the turnstiles were swallowed up by the stairway heading to the platforms. In the opposite direction came those who hurried off the train and up the steps―salarymen, housewives carrying shopping bags, elementary- and middle-schoolers on the way home from school, young office ladies clutching their large suitcases. A young couple, on their way to have some fun. There really was an extraordinary variety of people who used the station.
Time pa.s.sed as we gazed at the turnstiles.
What was Natsuki thinking? Was it maybe the same thing I was thinking?
My b.u.t.t kind of started itching, and my heart began beating faster.
If Natsuki stood and left, all of my chances would be lost. My perfect plan would crumble.
I breathed slowly three times, and opened my mouth.
“Um…”
“Hm?”
“Um, well, Natsuki…I like you.”
I said it. Somehow.
No matter how much one practices, confessions are nerve-wracking. Ask anyone from any number of thousand years ago or whatever, they’ll say the same thing.
Natsuki swung her legs a little and gathered her courage, then stood up from the bench. She pivoted, her gaze turning from the turnstiles to meet mine.
“Yuuto, I consider you a very good friend of mine. We’ve been together since elementary school, all the way up to taking high schoool entrace tests together. I don’t want what I say to be misconstrued in any way, or make you think anything about me that’s not true, so I won’t mince my words. I’m sorry. ―I could never go out with you, Yuuto.”
Could never… Could never go out with me…
Those were words I had never imagined I would hear.
Just seconds ago I had been racking up points in the game of life. I thought I was well on my way to perfection.
“Sorry, there’s somewhere I have to go.”
Natsuki rose from the bench and picked up her bag, then walked towards the south exit.
I couldn’t bring myself to run after her. After all, it was useless, I thought.
The sound of her footsteps was swept into the wind. The breeze that had moments ago carried hints of spring and good thoughts now pierced through my clothing with a chill.
After that first confession, there was nothing I could do.
15 minutes after the heartbreaking confession. Location, the family restaurant in front of Hachiougi Station.
I had a four-person booth to myself. On the table were drinks, a hamburger entree, a j.a.panese-style mushroom doria, a margherita pizza, and a Suzuki grilled fish set. Simply put, I was binge eating. Well, even complexly put, I guess there was no other way to describe my current state other than “binge eating”. Even a stranger, simply by looking at that table, could tell that I was binge eating―that was simply how truly and irrevocably obvious my binge eating was.
Simple, I thought.
I had confessed to the childhood friend whom I had liked for so long, and had gotten rejected. This was the simple act of binge eating to distract me from the pain.
…As if I could ever just be distracted from that pain.
I had thought that I was racking up points in this run. I’d had little slip-ups, sure, but no big failures. So naturally, I had thought that my confession would go smoothly as well.
I stabbed my fork into the yolk of the sunny-side-up eggs on top of my hamburger, dragging the tips of the p.r.o.ngs around in the yolk that bled out and changed color as it mixed into the meat sauce. Then I pushed the meat around in that and ate it.
So delicious. And bitter. And painful.
I was trying to calm myself down, but my stomach was having a riot. Just maybe, now that my stomach was full, if I confessed again she would change her mind. Since it’s not like her lack of affection for me was written all over her face.
Nah, who am I kidding, she said “I could never go out with you,” didn’t she?
That was fact of the matter.
Hm…wait.
The hand holding my fork stopped in mid-bite. The thought popped into my mind―maybe, just maybe…
Natsuki saw me as someone special. That much was clear. She’d said herself that I was the only one who had been by her side all the way from elementary school. And we had even studied for school entrace exams together.
Naturally, she would have had some fantasies. Like, what if I were to become her boyfriend.
In that way, she had come to the conclusion that she “could never.” Well, maybe my problem was something that happened before she formed that conclusion.
Anyway, it was possible.
So wouldn’t that meant that I had a one in a hundred, one in a thousand, one in three thousand chance of success?
And given that there is some chance, wouldn’t that mean that if I were to try again and again and again, eventually I would get an OK?
A reset was something that selected one other possibility out of all of the possibilities available. I wouldn’t be able to pull this off on my own, but since there was that possibility, I’d expect that someway down the line, my wish would come true.
I pulled the reset b.u.t.ton from my bag, and pressed it without hesitation.
―Reset. The world wavered.
After confirming my acceptance into high school, I made a beeline for the station concourse.
I sat on the bench, waiting for Natsuki. What should I do? How should I confess so as not to be rejected?
I ran through my options in my head, and with my words still flying around in my mind, I spotted Natsuki approaching and ran towards her.
“Natsuki!”
“Wh-what?”
Natsuki’s reaction to my rapid and unexpected approach was to take a few steps back.
“I like you, Natsuki!”
“Eh? Eh? Eh…um…sorry. I could never go out with you, Yuuto.”
―Reset. The world wavered.
“Natsuki, I want you to calm down and listen to me.”
“Okay.”
“I like you a lot.”
“…Sorry. I don’t think I could ever go out with you.”
―Reset.
I dived into the fountain. With water dripping form my hair and everyone’s gaze on me, I turned to Natsuki and shouted,
“I really like you!!”
“Sorry, I can’t go out with you.”
―Reset.
I bought a bunch of carnations at the flower stand in the concourse.
“Natsuki, you are more beautiful than these flowers. I want to go out with you.”
“Sorry, I could never go out with you.”
―Reset.
I made my move directly from the front. Grabbing both of Natsuki’s hands in my own, I said in a low voice,
“I love you. Go out with me.”
“No, I can’t do that.”
Reset.
“Natsuki!”
“Sorry!”
―Reset.
―Reset.
―Reset.
―Reset. Reset.
―Reset. Reset. Reset.
―Reset. Reset. Reset.
……………….Reset………………………Reset……………….
Even on the 3000th confession, the answer was still “I could never go out with you.”
There was just the immutable fact that there was a vast chasm between us that I could never cross, no matter how gallantly I tried.
In other words,
“I’m not her type.”
Not her type…not her type, huh…
That’s how it was.
Once again, I sat in the family restaurant, binge eating.
Three thousand times, thirty thousand times, no matter how many times I tried, nothing would change the fact that I was not her type.
I pierced the Suzuki grilled fish set violently with my fork. I knew it was rude, but I was just so tired of everything. I deftly separated a bite of the white flesh with the tips of my fork and was just about to shovel it into my mouth.
"Will you wish?"