Chapter 431 - To Your Side
A short while after my 'talk' with Natsume-san, I was back in my room, once again thanks to Chitose-san, sitting on the living room sofa in a daze.
Tick, tock—without making any sound at all, the second hand of the wall clock swept smoothly and silently onward. I watched it, repeatedly picturing the scene, playing out my part, and judging my own performance.
No matter how many times I ran the simulation, no matter how many times I replayed it with different words, I couldn't see a future where things were resolved cleanly. I was truly at my wit's end.
To say things weren't going my way... probably wouldn't be accurate. This was who I had always been, after all. No matter how much I polished my exterior, my core self would never change.
And yet, I was sure it wasn't a matter of being 'unable' to change.
As long as I struggled, as long as I kept kicking my feet pathetically—forward, sideways, or even backward—as long as my flailing feet landed somewhere, then just a little bit...
The view was bound to change.
—'Thirty Minutes Later'
A terse message appeared on my vibrating phone. I pushed myself up from the sofa. My body, which should have been heavy, felt surprisingly light.
I left the living room, walked down the hall, and entered my bedroom, where two beds greeted me.
Of the two beds lined up side by side, I approached the mechanical ark. As I did, a faint operating sound, so subtle it seemed to exist solely to 'inform the master of its activation,' began to hum.
I lay down in the VR rig, a place now utterly familiar to both mind and body, and watched as a string of glowing characters materialized on the closed canopy.
—Ready—
—Stand by—
"Drive on."
I whispered the activation key, a phrase now second nature to me.
◇◆◇◆◇
There was a small window of time after I got home from school and before I had to start preparing dinner.
The reason I dove into Arcadia without a second thought, despite the hassle of having to log out again soon, was simple—there was someone I wanted to see.
Because when I looked at his face, when I stood next to him, I had been able to be no one other than myself.
When did that become the past tense?
When was it that I created this version of 'myself'—not the 'me' I wanted to look away from, not even the 'me' who was nobody... but the 'me' who was so tightly bound by my own suppressed emotions that I could no longer breathe?
It wasn't that I was avoiding the virtual world; I couldn't. I wasn't allowed to.
The reasons I had thrown myself into that world remained unfulfilled. Far from being fulfilled, I hadn't even managed to grasp a fragment or a trace of them.
I had been lost from the very beginning, with no destination in sight.
That was why I clung to the dazzling 'innocence' I met that day.
As a guidepost, a haven, a bonfire to light my way—I relied on him, depended on him, even though I knew that something like this was only a matter of time.
I couldn't look away, not for a second.
I was always transfixed by his brilliance.
Without resistance, without hesitation, so hopelessly and strangely that it became frightening, we reached for each other's hands.
And so, I stopped. I froze, unable to move.
'He' is the same as me—and therefore, different.
Faced with a flood of the unknown, of surprise, of bewilderment... and probably, of avoidance, he did not stop.
No matter what anyone said, no matter what he himself thought, I alone saw his 'steps.' I never missed them; they were clearly reflected in my eyes.
He never, ever stops. Even if he gets lost, even if he meanders, even if he sometimes retreats, he never stops moving.
Even when he complains, even when he looks down, even when he's looking up at the sky, unable to bear his self-loathing, he's always searching in his heart for 'what to do.'
Even if he can't change right away, he never gives up on trying to change.
We who are reluctant to take a step toward someone... to let someone take a step toward us... we are 'the same,' and yet, he and I are fundamentally 'different' in that one regard.
I don't want to leave, but I want to leave.
I want to touch you, but I can't.
I don't want to hear your voice, but I want you to call my name.
I want to see you smile, but I don't want to see you smile at someone else.
"...What should I do?"
I already know the answer to that.
I've known what I should do from the very beginning. The reason I can't make a move, the reason I'm frozen, the reason I'm selfishly hiding myself is—
"...Drive on."
—the self-deception of the sadly, hopelessly cowardly Sora Yotsuya.