Chapter 2.2 (1/2)

Chapter 2: Even On the 3000th Confession

Part 2

I hadn't heard that voice in a long time. As the face that it belonged to popped into view, the world changed once again into monochrome, and Maki-chan appeared on the seat across from me.

”Hmm, isn't this kind of too many wishes?”

Maki-chan propped her chin onto her hands, peering at me with an exasperated look in her eyes.

”Did you see all that?”

”The whole thing.”

Dejected, I continued shoving Suzuki fish into my face. Since the taste was strong, I shoved some rice in along with it.

”Fhy hanchu jhus rheefbe awwon?”

”Huh?”

My words couldn't make it out of my mouth, what with how stuffed with food it was. I swallowed it down with the help of some water and spoke.

”I said, why can't you just leave me alone?”

”Now now, I came all the way here because I was worried about you. No need to be so cold about it.”

Maki-chan pursed her lips in displeasure, then reached over and plucked a french fry from my plate, eating it with only her front teeth.

”Hey, don't take my food without asking.”

”Calm down, it's just a fry or two.”

”I thought I could get a perfect life with just a reset or two, y'know. And no matter how many times I did it, certain things just remained impossible. With this I'll never have my perfect life. You gotta lend me a hand here.”

”Just because your life is reset doesn't necessarily mean that others' hearts are reset.”

”Yeah, I know. Well, I realized that... But isn't it possible that within the infinite possibilities, there's at least one chance of success? Can't you give me a hint to, you know, find the correct choice to make?”

Uh-uh, murmured Maki-chan, as she folded her arms. Of course, she still took a fry. Defeated, I pushed the fries plate towards her.

”The possibilities are infinite, yes, but the chances you get are limited.”

Maki-chan looked as if she were struggling over choosing between talking to me and eating fries. She munched on them, deep in thought, occasionally nodding her head to show how delicious they were. It p.i.s.sed me off.

”Yuuto, I think you ought to think a little more before making your decisions.”

”The h.e.l.l, are you saying that I don't think before making them?”

”Well, kinda. Anyway, can't be helped. You made a wish as strong as that time you s.h.i.+t yourself and wanted to start all over, so...”

”Stop talking about that! Not to mention, I'm eating here!”

It was kind of annoying that Maki-chan had to be the one person in the universe who knew about my s.h.i.+tting my pants.

”Yuuto, I told you this once before, but you know, resetting your life is essentially nothing more than switching out your memories. Don't forget that.”

”And when I asked about what happened to my memories, you told me that nothing about them would change, that I wouldn't forget.”

”It's not like I know exactly what's going to happen to you. If you just use that thing w.i.l.l.y-nilly, it might run out just when you need it, you know?”

”Hey, I'm looking towards the future here. The past exists in order to make the future perfect. So if we must sacrifice the past for the sake of the future, then so be it. I've been perfect up until now, and must maintain this tidiness.”

Without warning, Maki-chan clasped her hands together and raised them above her head, then brought them down upon the table's surface. The table split cleanly in two, and from the resulting crack erupted countless cards. Was this another magic show of my memories? She moved her hands around in the air, deftly puppeteering the cards, fanning them out in midair. She singled out one of the cards, moving it into the path of a stream of light coming from the window.

”Do you remember this?”

It depicted me from my elementary school days.

There I was, on the verge of tears, because I couldn't finish the carrots in my school lunch. I guess I had to finish my lunch before going to play. Then, elementary school Natsuki came by and ate my carrots for me, and we played together in the school yard for the rest of lunch break with some other cla.s.smates. We looked so happy.

”You remember?”

”Whether I remember or not, this is weird. This never could have happened. I was never bad at eating carrots. I ate them like any normal kid. I'd never leave them in my school lunch. I mean, sure, back then it took me a long time to eat lunch. But I ate everything like I was supposed to and then went and played with everyone.”

Maki-chan gave a defeated sigh, and gathered up all of the cards, a.s.sembling them neatly into a deck and setting it on the table.

”These are the memories you have lost.”

She turned the cards around, making the thickness of the stack apparent. ”It's already this many, you know? You've already lost this many memories.”

Forgotten? Impossible.

She held the stack between her thumb and forefinger. It was easily as thick as five regular 52-card decks combined.

”What do you mean, forgot? I haven't changed at all, right?”

I tried to remember if I had forgotten anything. If I really had been bad at eating carrots when I was little, and had been helped by Natsuki, if all that had really and truly happened, I ought to at least have a sliver of memory of that.

But no matter how hard I wracked my brains, not even the smallest fragment of recollection came to mind.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed the cards from Maki-chan's hand and held them up, one by one, to the light. Yes, the person in the cards was certainly myself, but it was as if I were looking at a totally different person; a Yuuto I never knew doing things I never did. There wasn't a single card that rang a bell.

Maybe, while I had been aiming straight for perfection, and going on about how the future was important, I had done some things with consequences that could not be undone―

”You're not exactly wrong about that. However, the choices you make are just as important as the memories you've lost. When the time comes for you to make a truly important decision, take care not to take a path you'll regret.”

Maki-chan lectured me while eating another fry. At some point, she had added parsley to the fries, making them a little more charming. She put her hands together and prayed,

”Thank you for the food...”

Was it appropriate for her to be so reverent in a place like this?

”What you wished for was to ”do it over,” and I merely granted that wish. The b.u.t.ton is the tool you use to that end, but the one that decides whether your resets allow you to move on or stay stuck in a rut forever is you, Yuuto.”

Maki-chan took her cards back from me and shuffled them in a magnificent show of dexterity, then clapped her hands together once. The stack of cards vanished into thin air.

”Yuuto, do you really wish for it?”

”Yes, I do.”

”Really? Then, will you move on, or stay stuck?”

Is the axe you dropped a golden axe, or a silver one? Or was it...?

I had to make a choice. To move on or to stay. I had to decide what I would wish, what I would give up on, what I wanted to receive, what I would cast aside.

”Maki-chan, you...”

”Hey, look outside. A brand new choice has opened up for you.”

Hearing this, I turned my head to the monochrome world outside.Just as I let my gaze take in the world, it returned back to its old colorful self. I turned back around quickly, but Maki-chan had already vanished.

What did she mean by “choice”? While I mulled it over, I took another peek at the outside world. There was nothing strange about it…no, wait, this was weird. The station shutters were closed.

The newly-renovated Hachiougi Station’s concourse area was also meant to serve as an evacuation site in case of emergency. People would evacuate to the site, and the shutters on the north and south gates would close.

I saw people huddled behind the shutters. A fire, perhaps? No, there was no smoke anywhere.

Seconds later, a fire truck and police car drove up and parked in front of the station, sirens shrieking. However, the shutters showed no sign of opening, and the firemen showed no intention of entering the station.

I stopped an employee of the restaurant as he walked by my table and asked him what was going on, but he, too, was completely out of the loop.

No doubt, something had happened, but what? I couldn’t figure it out.

My phone buzzed, notifiying me of a new text. It was the girl who had just left me…well, we weren’t even dating, so you could hardly call that “leaving”…okay, that’s not the type of “left” I meant in the first place―it was Natsuki.

Subject: looks like we’re trapped in here

The shutters suddenly closed, and everyone’s stuck in the concourse. Are you outside?

I thought it’d be faster to talk to her directly, so I dialed her number, but the call wouldn’t connect. I had no choice but to reply by text.

“I’m outside. It’s a real commotion out here. The police are here but they dont seem to be able to get inside.”

Natsuki may have just rejected me, but she was still important to me. I might be able to help somehow, I thought, and headed towards the station.

I paid my bill, and the second I was out the door, I was engulfed by the mob of people. I slowly weaved my way through the crowd towards the station, only to be stopped by the police.

“My friend’s in there.”

“The police and firemen are currently doing their best to control the situation. Please step back.”

Meekly stepping back when told to by the police made me frustrated, but I pulled out from the crowd.

There had to be some other way to get to Natsuki.

There was a high wall between me and the concourse, and I didn’t think I’d be able to make it over. In order to make it inside the station, I’d have to walk along the old train tracks that led inside.

That, of course, was absurd.

An announcement blared over the crowd, “Due to a problem that has occurred at Hachiougi Station, we are postponing all traffic activity.”

“This is my only chance!”

Some biting feeling in the back of my mind spurred me to gather my energy and shout that out. Somehow, I had to get inside that concourse. Aware of the impossibility of the task before me, I walked towards the railroad crossing.

Natsuki was special to me.

It was back in fourth grade. When I wasn’t yet bullied by my cla.s.smates, when the divide between the girls and boys wasn’t quite so strong. I was playing with Natsuki and bunch of our friends after school.

That was the day that we met “that boy”.

All of us had been engrossed in playing hide-and-seek until the bell** signaled for us to go home. The other kids left, one by one, until it was just Natsuki and me.

“Let’s go home with the crows.”

Natsuki hummed that part of the song.

Down on the sports field was the baseball team, still practicing. They were under adult supervision, so we couldn’t just go down there and talk to them. As for the poeple left in the schoolyard, other than Natsuki and me, there were only a little boy playing by himself and and old man who was for some reason sitting on the swings.

The atmosphere was getting kind of awkward with only us around, so I nudged Natsuki to get going home. That was when the old man on the swings beckoned towards me. He seemed suspicious yet kind of caring, and was dressed like a father on his day off―maybe like a teacher, you could say―and so Natsuki and I were drawn towards him.

“Could you play with that child, please,” he said, and pointed to the little boy. He then drew two bars of chocolate from his briefcase.

“I’m his dad, but I don’t know how to play with him.”

We accepted the chocolate without a single shred of suspicion, and approached the boy.

“What grade are you in?”

“Second. What do you want?”

he answered, as he picked up the stones in the schoolyard, examined them, and piled them up. We learned that his name was Takeru.

Natsuki squatted down next to him.

“Takeru-kun, what are you doing?”

“Researching.”

“Oh, I see.”

We had been told to play with him, but all that happened was that Takeru continued playing by himself, Natsuki talked to him, and I loitered around aimlessly. I didn’t notice when, but at some point the old man got up and left.

Eventually, a teacher came around and told us to go home. We responded with an “Okaay~” in a goody-two-shoes kind of tone. It was getting dark, and I was already itching to go home for real.

“But what do we do with Takeru-kun? Where did his dad go?”

“He went home. Anyway, if we don’t go home both of our parents will get mad.”

“We can’t just leave him here.”

As we discussed his fate, Takeru completely ignored us.

“Did you play with Takeru?”

Some old man I had never seen came up to us. He was of roughly the same statue as the other one, but even in the fading light I could tell that this was not Takeru’s father.

“Who are you?”

“I came to get Takeru. Let’s go.”

“No!”

Takeru retorted while piling up stones. “Do you know him?” we asked. “My uncle,” he answered.

“Let’s go home, Takeru.”