Chapter 2 – Reconciliation Magic

The first time I met her was in my third year of middle school.

It was Friday after class, and we had an art assignment due the following week.

“Ooh, that’s pretty.”

“Hamano… Aria-san?”

Summer, with its huge cumulonimbus clouds, had long since come to an end. As the red and yellow autumn leaves came into full color, students retired from club activities, putting the cultural festival behind them, with every single student diving headfirst into exam frenzy. I remember clearly, how for seven days a week, they hurdled between school, home, prep school, and then school again.

As exam material began to take precedence over all else, classes like music and gym became precious times of rest. Most students spent the duration of art class daydreaming or working on something else entirely. It went without saying that no one paid a second thought to art assignments and whatnot. The best art would be featured on the cover of the school’s pamphlet, to be distributed on graduation… heh, how lovely.

“Aizawa-san!? Don’t you think so!? It’s so well drawn!”

The exceptions, who considered exams nothing more than a written test, were myself, and transfer student Hamano Aria. 

My very first impression of her was small.

From a glance, one could easily tell how soft and thin her wavy, blonde hair was. Her skin was pale, her large eyes bordered by nearly white eyebrows, her arms and legs long despite her small stature. She wore the same uniform as me, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine myself as her classmate. 

“It’s almost like a photograph… No, it’s even prettier than a photo…”

“Thanks.”

Like an ancient shinto priest, who holds dear the months and years that he will nevertheless continue to forget and thus records them in writing, I remember how I drew in an effort to ward away the tedium of ever-repeating days. 

I was four years old.

Still unaccustomed to the preschool whose care I’d been entrusted to, I found friendship in crayons and drawing paper. Shortly after, I would find my knight in shining armor, colored pencils and paint, but for fear of injury or choking hazard, they were prohibited in preschool.

But regardless, art was an unforgettable magical spell I had received.

Only in the realm of art was I not a monster, but an innocent prodigy.

For I merely had to learn a technique a single time before I could replicate it at will. I no longer spent a waking moment idle. With my memory, I could put image on paper with absolution precision and photo-like accuracy. Even the magnificent art of famous painters and artists could not escape me. All it took was one look and I could recall every fine detail of any piece. And to top it all off, I had nearly infinite time to hone my skills.

“Where did you learn to paint like that?”

“Where…? Books, I guess. Or art museums?”

Hamano Aria rushed towards me.

She closed in, her perfectly round eyes sparkling. Her face nearly touched the sketchbook as she stared at it intently, seemingly forgetting about me, the classroom, and anything else in the world. She must really like the drawing, I remember thinking. Along with the fact that she was way too passionate.

“So you self-studied, huh? Who was your teacher?”

“Um, Leonardo Da Vinci?”

“I meant a living person.”

I couldn’t claim to call anyone my teacher. But if I was forced to say, it would be the classics, and then, myself.

I was alive. Indeed, if you put a hand to my chest, you would feel the continual rhythm of my heartbeat. However, there wasn’t a human there. I was far too different from what one might consider human. From what I saw, to the air I breathed, to my perception of time. And of course, my sentiments about life and death simply couldn’t align with others’… I thought.

“Sorry, I don’t really know.”

“Hmm, I see.”

Her japanese was clumsy and awkward, as if it were some artificial product, but combined with her foreign doll-like appearance, it somehow seemed to fit perfectly in place.

“Can you take a look at my sketch too?”

“Sure.”

The sketchbook she handed to me contained a painting of a courtyard, the natural formations and landscape captured vividly in the sketch. 

I could tell that she was undoubtedly one of the best artists in our grade. 

“I studied in Marseille and Dakar.”

I thought about what this small artist’s life would have been like for her to reach this point. It probably started even before Marseille. She’d received her first paintbrush in a country boasting the likes of Monticelli and Cezanne, then continued her studies in Dakar.

I wasn’t so naive to believe that we’d become friends or anything.

After all, I already knew.

That today wouldn’t be chosen.

“I suppose you like art, Hamano-san.”

“Of course!”

As I returned her sketchbook, I chose my next words carefully.

“I think it’s a really thorough and pretty drawing.” 

Suppressing the feelings of excitement at the chance of talking to this girl who’d voluntarily reached out to me, I replied briefly and dispassionately, taking great care to keep my voice low and composed.

“Yours is also really good, Aizawa-san! I can’t wait to see the finished painting! Can you show it to me when it’s done?”

“Sure.”

“Promise! Because it’ll be a match!”

“A match?”

“Yup, a contest.”

At that time, I briefly wondered if she was the type who hated to lose, but I just as quickly rejected that notion, given our interaction so far. Actually, I considered myself quite the sore loser, but as it turns out, Hamano was leagues above me.

The next day, I met Hamano Aria for the first time a second time. After taking a single look at my painting, she froze, utterly motionless.

“What the hell… is this…”

“You’re transfer student Hamano-san, right? Nice to meet you.”

I watched her reaction carefully.

“Is this… for the art assignment…?”

Would she say how much she liked it? And afterwards, maybe we’d be able to discuss our favorite works of art. For the past day, I’d done nothing but imagine the sweet possibilities that might unfold, and this was just a small fraction of my fantasies. 

“Why would you go so far for a regular school art assignment!? That’s obviously cheating!”

My painting had lit a violent fury inside Hamano.

Her eyes boiled with a mix of disgust, fear, and contempt.

She’d been abruptly confronted with my final, finished work without seeing the in-between sketch. To Hamano, it must’ve seemed like nothing short of magic.

As if I had swallowed a brick, I stiffened. No words came out of my mouth, as I could only follow her retreating figure with my eyes. There was nothing I could say.

Wasn’t she the one who had said that she was waiting for the finished painting? It wasn’t my fault. In fact, I’d only been in a rush to finish because of her words. It had all been for her. It wasn’t my fault. No matter how many times I told myself that, I never felt any better.

Maybe Hamano Aria was also alone.

Due to her eye-catching appearance, Hamano was always surrounded by people. In spite of that, she stood in isolation. Though she’d technically returned to her mother country, much of her broken japanese was unintelligible, and meaning was often lost among her words. Her only lifeline was in art. The paintbrush she’d received in her western upbringing had rescued Hamano. It was undoubtedly art that had supported and given her the courage and self-confidence to take a step forward.

As for me, if only someone would recognize me…

Thoughts of At the very least, just let the day where I first met Hamano be chosen continued to echo through my mind. Even though I well knew that days like that would never be chosen. I already was aware that in such respects, I was unlucky.

But for the day where Hamano had viciously berated me to be chosen… the endlessly cruel world was mocking me. More than a thousand days had passed since that day, yet the excruciating pain of that memory hadn’t diminished one bit.

The Eighteenth of June D

“Aizawa-san?”

Hearing my name, I turned around only to find Inaba-san’s large eyes staring at me. My heart pounded slightly at her closeness. I deliberately pretended to stretched my back, putting a more comfortable distance between us.

I’d probably been spacing out. Remembering an old history, I’d forgotten about where I was. The alarming vividness of my memories was part of the problem. At some point, class had ended, and I was the only one still in the classroom.

“I apologize if it was just my imagination,” said Inaba-san. She reached out towards me with her right hand. Instinctively, I reached out my own hand and took it, but I wasn’t sure what to with it.

“What was?”

“Aizawa-san, just then, you looked lonely.”

Our linked hands swayed gently. Unable to meet her gaze, I averted my eyes towards the overcast, stormy sky outside the window. 

In a quiet voice, I lied. “It was your imagination.”

Her fingers curled up around mine. Her clumsy fingertips, as if searching for something to cling to, pressed against my hand.

“I see. I’m glad it was just my imagination.”

“Yeah… thanks.”

I became distinctly aware of the gentle silence that permeated the normally noisy classroom, broken only by the patter of rain. Inaba-san, always surrounded by others, had remained here for my sake. With eyes that seemed as if they could see through just about anyone and anything, she gracefully let my bluff pass. Words were unnecessary. Her squeezing my hand, sitting next to me, that was far more than enough.

Hamano was the same as me.

The completed painting had obliterated the axle supporting her heart. 

A painting that shouldn’t exist in both its speed and precision. For a girl who had total faith in her supremacy, the situation’s impossibility had shattered her pride beyond repair.

It was a reality made possible only by my curse of unforgetfulness. A curse where I couldn’t forget the slightest detail of any scene. If I, by some chance, drew something flawlessly, I would remember the exact movement of my hand and could execute that same technique over and over. Nor would I ever make the same mistake twice. A perfect memory. 

If just once, had my parents recognized my skill, surely I would have been able to confront my curse. If either one of them had said to me, just once, ‘That’s amazing, Ayaka,’ then surely I would have found a blessing in my curse. Surely that one phrase would have given me the courage to take a step forward. 

Surely I would have been able live with my chest puffed out in pride.

The Twenty-Second of June A

It was the 72nd day of the rainy season.

In the curriculum of Konohana High School, one could choose between music, calligraphy, and art for fine arts classes. Currently, Inaba-san I sat side by side in the courtyard, our knees touching, painting hydrangeas. 

The flower symbolized the rainy season, and its shape and meaning were easy to distinguish, making it a valuable specimen to draw. Its brilliant colors were all too unforgettable. When the art teacher had instructed us to choose and paint something from our school, I couldn’t imagine choosing anything but this flower.

Unfortunately, the dark, cloudy sky meant chilly weather, but other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with Inaba-san, just the two of us talking and painting. It seemed today would be another fun day. Or rather, it already was.

“Recently, my father keeps telling me stuff like I should grow up already or stop being so obstinate… Aizawa-san, do your parents say anything like that?”

Inaba-san seemed to be going through a mild rebellious phase, but even amidst her complaints, her tone was tinged with love and dependence toward her father. I felt charmed, and at the same time, the smallest twinge of jealousy.

“Not really. My parents are pretty laissez-faire.”

I lived right next to my parents, but it’d already been several years since I’d seen their faces.

“What does your father do, Aizawa-san?”

“Mine? He’s just a teacher. At a school.”

“A teacher! Amazing! Does he help you with studies and stuff?”

“N-no. We don’t really talk to each other.”

Crap.

I was overjoyed that Inaba-san took interest in me and things about me, but I desperately wanted to avoid treading on the topic of my parents. I didn’t know anything about them. Neither their field of expertise, nor about the students they taught. At home, they’d never spoken about their jobs, nor, after I’d left the house, had I ever made an attempt to find out.

Was it strange, that I knew nothing about my parents’ jobs, and was unable to answer? Or perhaps it was normal for children to take no interest in their parents lives. I didn’t know. But I knew I was strange.

For the time being though, I had to change the subject.

“Do you talk with your father often, Inaba-san?”

“Yeah. Yesterday, he was scolding me for staying up watching T.V. and stuff, but it was only 12! And he’s the one who stays up lounging around until 1 am!”

Admittedly, midnight was considerably late for a high schooler, in my opinion.

Apparently, having been scolded, Inaba-san had grudgingly gone to bed earlier than usual.

As the thought crossed my mind that her father was indeed rather strict, another thought surfaced- that Inaba-san, much like me, hid her feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction deep within her heart, where they swirled and surged and whirled about without anywhere to go. Much like an octopus frantically trying to escape from a predator by expelling a vague, formless, shapeless black ink, Inaba-san with her pent up emotions, must’ve wanted to expel them somewhere somehow. But how could one rid themselves of a smoke so indistinct that it lacked any physical form?

Inaba-san’s father must’ve wanted to tell her that staying up late and oversleeping the next day wasn’t adult-like behavior. Staying up late wasn’t a thing children could do, yet staying up late was also not something adults did. I understood what he was trying to communicate.

But during the period of one’s late-teens, one was neither a child nor an adult. You might consider it an age to learn from failures, or perhaps an age where one had to be treated like an adult to become one. 

“If you think you’re in the right, I think it’s better to get properly angry. Since humans are creatures capable of tolerating small things, and they grow accustomed to things extremely quickly. And after they get accustomed to something, changing becomes really difficult.”

After my long-winded speech, I failed to catch my breath and nearly ended up choking.

I guess it was true that elderly people tended to ramble.

At my uncharacteristically lengthy speech, Inaba-san stopped drawing, turning to stare at me with wide eyes. But only for a second. She quickly returned her focus to her half-finished sketch, a small smile forming across her face.

“Hehe, I feel like you’re the type of person who never gets angry, so somehow, imagining you getting angry feels kind of strange, Aizawa-san.”

“That’s not the point-“

I too had been angry at the start.

Why was I the only one born with this abnormality?

Whether my life would be fun or boring, whether I’d want to forget or not, I simply wanted an innocent life where eventually, everything would be forgotten. How I would welcome such a life, where memories I vowed to never forget would dull and fade with passing time, and nights I would spend crying, knowing that I couldn’t prevent the loss of my precious recollections.

When I realized that I was the sole individual who experienced the world differently, I felt as if I’d been tricked by the entire world. I had been sick with anger, feeling nothing but anger, feeling angry alone. When I despaired, I remembered that anger, letting it flare up inside me.

I was angry, then I grew weary of anger, and that’s when I gave up. I had been angry, angry that I’d been given time magnitudes higher than was necessary. But this world wouldn’t remember 4/5’s of my anger.

Underneath the thick crust of resignation that had formed over my heart was a heavy sedimentation deposit of the ashes of my anger.

That was the current me.

As our paintings steadily progressed, our conversation began to die down.

I briefly shifted my gaze away from the flower and took a fleeting glance at Inaba-san’s sketchbook, where vivid hydrangeas grew alongside large blades of grass. The graceful movements of her fingers, supported by her slender wrists, produced beautiful lines that danced across the page.

Her innocent hydrangea flowers were vibrant and filled with life.

Who could have known how brightly these flowers sparkled in her eyes, flowers that commuting students passed by daily without a second glance? By coincidence, I had discovered it, and I found it irresistibly radiant. Alas.

Neither enjoyable moments nor peaceful moments were eternal.

From behind us, I heard soft footsteps, then a harsh shadow of a single person fell over us.

“What a empty painting! It’s like an elementary schooler drew it!”

I didn’t even need to think about who it was. I knew from the voice alone. Hamano Aria…

Everything about her appearance was cute, from her dress to her features, yet her lips were drawn into a tight frown, not even bothering to hide her radiating hostility. I hadn’t forgotten. That this girl utterly despised me. It was a face I truly dreaded to see.

“Are you planning to submit that as your final painting?”

The painting peeking out of the sketchbook tucked under Hamano’s arm was certainly well drawn.

The technique was there, and she’d chosen a lofty scene to boot. It was a magnificent image of the school building as viewed from the school gates. A spectacular work of art that demanded closer inspection.

However, after her scathing remarks, I wasn’t about to gush praise for her art. Nor was she expecting any.

Rather, perhaps she was picking a fight…?

My frustration built as my precious time with Inada-san dissipated in front of my very eyes. But at the same time, I was equal parts wary. Why had Hamano come here?

I remained alert, studying her carefully. But nothing could have prepared me for her next words.

“-Inaba-san.”

“What?”

Had she not been talking to me?

I froze. Like a goldfish out of water, I felt my lips disgracefully flapping open and closed. My mind turned completely blank. Where my voice should have been, there was nothing but emptiness. 

“But I think it’s a perfect fit someone as ordinary as you.”

Ah. So that was it.

She hated me. So she was intentionally targeting the person by my side. Because that way, she could hurt me. I didn’t understand others’ emotions well, but this much I knew.

“It’s a masterpiece no matter how you look at it.” Hot anger rushed to my head, thawing my frozen limbs. I swiftly rebutted her words.

“Ah, I don’t think. It doesn’t look that way to me.” Her reply came just as swift.

“You must be mistaken. I have quite the discerning eye when it comes to art, you see.”

All the while, Inada-san looked completely crestfallen.

She hadn’t done anything wrong. I, sitting next to her, with my hopelessly thin memory, knew that. 

Ah but still. Why did Hamano have to be here? Obviously, she went to the same school as me, and advanced grades alongside me, but why did she have to suddenly barge in? And why now? At least if I was alone…

My thoughts kept turning negative. I was fed up and frustrated, both with the miserable-looking Inaba-san and the pretentious Hamano, and just about everything else.

I had to drive Hamano away before she ran her mouth again.

“That’s a lovely drawing.”

As I spoke those words, I turned my body away from Hamano, throwing out those words of praise while keeping ‘that’ ambiguous. “Mind if I take a closer look?”

Bewilderment surfaced on Hamano’s face. Probably due to my sudden change of subject despite traces of anger still clearly evident in my expression. 

It was Hamano’s turn to be wary. However, there are some people in society whose craving for attention surpasses their self-control. Hamano was undoubtedly one of those people. 

And as it turns out, my appraisal was spot on.

“H-here you go.”

In an instant, all her previous haughtiness vanished. Hamano reached out timidly to hand me her sketchbook. She’d just fallen for this wicked witch’s trap.

“Hehe. I wasn’t talking to you though.”

I forced a scornful laugh. I was only half acting.

Hamano Aria’s cheeks turned bright red.

“Wha-“

I wasn’t planning on turning this into a pointless back-and-forth. I’d end it with one line.

“You’re way too self-conscious, aren’t you?”

Hamano Aria was speechless.

I called out to Inaba-san to flaunt my point.

“So, do you mind if I take a look? Inaba-san.”

What a cute expression Hamano-san was wearing! You intentionally messed with a witch who can’t deal with personal relationships, and this is what you get! I wonder if she was the type of person to bury her face in her pillow late at night and scream in embarrassment.

“I-I-I’ll remember this, idiot-!”

Worry not. Even if you one day forget, I could never possibly forget about that laughable parting threat which sounded more like a throwaway joke than anything else.

I watched her departing figure apathetically, then turned back to Inaba-san. Noticing me, she put on a forced smile, as if trying to hide her feelings. She clutched her sketchbook tightly in her arms, almost embracing it. It seemed that she wasn’t going to show me her painting. 

My precious time wasn’t going to come back.

At some point, it started to rain.

We quickly evacuated the courtyard and fled under the eaves near an entrance, silently watching the frothing sprays of rain. On that early summer day, my feet frigid and damp, I concealed the smoldering flames of revenge beneath my summer clothes. As I stood under the eaves, shivering in the biting cold, I silently thanked the rain. Because without it, those flames would have spread like wildfire.

Incidentally, I wonder how many tens of years it’d been since I’d snapped like that.

The Twenty-Second of June D

Three days had passed since the twenty-second of June A, and it was now the twenty-second of June D.

The weather was overcast today as well. Obviously. Because today was a repeat of yesterday. In preparation for the rain, I wore a cardigan over my summer clothes. I hated the cold.

Inaba-san’s eyes were opened wide, as if to say that she had seen something unexpected. 

“Are you wearing that ’cause it’s going to rain soon?”

“Deja vu again?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Her eyebrows knit together as she tilted her head in a cute fashion.

I wish I didn’t know. I wish I didn’t know that today was the fourth day. I wish I didn’t know about the previous todays, which I had studied to no end over and over again for the sake of today. 

Like the first day, we took up position in the courtyard and began our painting. However, this was the fourth time already, and I’d also prepared from the second and third days as well, so as long as the same subject was chosen, I easily completed it much faster than the first day. I couldn’t let Inaba-san know that I’d already finished though, and with so much extra time on my hands, I found myself staring at Inaba-san’s profile.

A serious expression stretched over her shapely features, giving off the air of a dignified prince. Her skin was lucious and smooth, and the beautiful bridge of her nose separated the two sides of her face, creating two separate worlds… perhaps that might’ve been too poetic, but nonetheless, that was the only way to describe the extent of my captivation.

Inaba-san turned towards me. Very clearly suspicious of my stare.

“Wh-what is it? It’s embarrassing when you stare like that.”

“S-sorry.”

I reflexively looked away. 

So cute. I tried to conjure up her profile within my mind, only to feel a condemning pressure from the blush spreading across my cheeks and a tightening in my chest. I’d seen the forbidden. My heart is right here, I fiercely insisted, and it felt a little painful, but a pain not entirely disagreeable.

I knew instinctively, because right now, I was in utter bliss. That right now, I was at the very top of a roller coaster ride.

“What a mediocre painting.”

There it was.

Each time, Hamano Aria passed by here when her work was done. And each time, seeing me, she couldn’t help but ridicule me. Today though, I was prepared. 

“That’s a lovely painting.”

“Huh?”

I pointed to Hamano’s sketchbook.

The fresh, eye-catching violet of the iris flowers shone brightly, supported by the slightly dulled colors of the flowers around it, enhancing and pushing the iris flowers to the forefront. Hmm, so that’s the subject she’d chosen ‘today.’

“T-thanks.”

It seemed like she’d grown accustomed to receiving praise. Apparently, even a haughty, insolent girl like her could blush. Not that I cared.

“I mean, just look at those colors. It’s hard to believe that someone like you could draw such bold art.”

Hamano reacted to my poisonous words as if she’d been slapped. “That’s… what do you mean…”

“Here. Strange, isn’t it? Is yours a photocopy? What a well-done illusion.”

I flipped through one page of my own sketchbook and showed it to her. It was the exact same as her painting, an identical copy.

“W-what, is this…”

The blood drained from Hamano’s face.

Just try accusing me of cheating, I gloated internally. I assure you that I haven’t moved a single step from this place. I’ve been here this entire time, right next to Inaba-san so I can hold her hand. Not that I’d been holding it, though.

“Aizawa-san.. how… you’ve been sitting here this whole time…”

“Hm. I decided to draw something different, I suppose…”

Hamano left, and after a short while, returned with a painting depicting koi fish swimming in a pond.

A beautiful page, the ripples of water seeming to glide across the pond’s transparent surface. Even I was impressed at how she painted it in such a short time. She’d even deliberately went all the way to the park next to the school where the pond was.

Wordlessly, I flipped to the second page of my sketchbook. Hamano was gaped. She stood dumfounded, motionless. Her expression was filled with disbelief. She didn’t understand.

But there was nothing to understand. Not for a human who had lived through today merely once.

It was simple. I had followed Hamano Aria around ‘today,’ pretended to walk past her, and stole her sketchbook. All I need was a single glance. That was plenty enough. My memory was photographic. When I woke up ‘this morning,’ I’d replicated her painting before going to school. Waking up early wasn’t particularly difficult for me, and the painting was created by an absolute memory. One couldn’t get superior results if they traced the original. Nor did the technique pose a problem. I hadn’t let any of the techniques I’d learned grow rusty. As long as I had the time and the budget, I could flawlessly recreate any famous painting. And in this case, both my budget, and of course, my time, were plenty.

This was the revenge I’d chosen…

Ducks on a lake, the school building as viewed from the school gates, the scene of a pond and a gazebo… I’d investigated anything that Hamano Aria might draw, and I’d anticipated everything correctly.

Revenge of a painting by a painting.

I handed a sheaf of paintings to the speechless Hamano. 

“You did a really nice job.”

All copies, of course. All of subjects Hamano had chosen, painted in her exact style. From the most minute of brushstrokes to the perspective, from field of view to the brush and paint manufacturers, I hadn’t overlooked a single detail anywhere.

Nor had I been worried about time. Naturally, I could only use paintings I painted today, meaning that I had only a few hours to complete everything. However, as much as I hated repeating the same procedure over and over again, that was also my greatest strength. For someone like me, whose mind and body could never forget the endless amounts of grueling practice they’d undergone, I could easily produce this degree of art within an hour.

“How’d you manage it? When did you have time to photocopy it all?”

At my vicious tone, tears began to form at the corners of Hamano’s eyes. She faltered, completely at a loss.

Clearly, I’d taken it too far, but that thought never occurred to me… or at least, I tried my best to push that thought out of my mind.

“I-I… didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Who knows.”

Ahh. I was taking out my anger on her.

In retaliation for the insults to my precious friend, I was now taking out my anger on a completely different person wearing the same face as the perpetrator in an effort to make myself feel better. I’d initially only intended on mocking her slightly, yet ended up inflicting unbearable wounds on today’s Hamano. 

“Why… why… how did you…”

“That’s what I want to ask.”

“Um, Aizawa-san, isn’t that enough?” Came Inaba-san’s voice.

But even her words didn’t reach me.

“Hey, Hamano-san. Do you like art?”

“Of… of course, I do.”

“Oh? That’s unexpected. I thought that surely someone must’ve been forcing to you draw. ‘Cause for someone who claims to like drawing, going this far is, well-“

Today’s Inaba-san wouldn’t know why I was upset.

I didn’t know why either. I never knew I could get so angry on behalf of someone else, never imagined that Inaba-san being ridiculed could cause my heart this much pain.

And in my rage, I had forgotten the fatal difference between the others, whether it be Hamano-san or Inaba-san, and myself.

That’s why, with sparks dancing between my eyes, it finally dawned on me. That while the others were human, I was nothing more than a filthy witch.

When I opened my mouth again, no sound came out. From the sharp sensation on my cheek, I knew I’d been slapped, and I knew who’d slapped me, and the words about to leave my mouth suddenly reversed direction, pushing with them the flames of my anger, until my throat caught fire and burned.

“Ah.”

“Stop already. You’re hurting her. She’s crying.”

Only now did I realize how foolish I’d been. I’d made a mistake.

Inaba-san’s lips were drawn together, her beautiful eyebrows knit together forming a complicated expression. There was anger, there was sadness, there was disappointment. I trembled, confronted by the reality that I had made the compassionate, kind-hearted Inaba-san angry.

Even if I regretted my actions, it was too late. My actions couldn’t be chalked up to just poking fun at someone else… The instant I realized that, my slapped cheek began to burn with dull pain. I felt it swell hotly with shame.

“Hamano-san, are you okay?”

But rejecting Inaba-san even as she tried to comfort her, Hamano Aria fled. As if fleeing a monster. 

“That’s not like you, Aizawa-san… You can’t do stuff like that.”

Sharp disappointment dripped from her voice as she rebuked me.

Was there anything I could say?

Of course not.

My actions had merely been an attempt at distracting myself.

Like a child, I’d touted ‘revenge for an injustice’ as an excuse to use Hamano as a sandbag, deluding myself into believing my actions to be morally justified no matter how many times I punched and kicked her. 

Inaba-san dashed towards the school, leaving me and my lack of response behind.

Abandoned, my cheeks burning, my vision began to blur. How I longed to cry, but I clenched my teeth and stopped myself. What right did I have to cry like a child? I knew my place. I wasn’t so shameless that I’d let myself cry here.

Eventually, beneath the rainy sky, the hydrangea flowers began to flutter and dance as droplets of rain sailed past them, yet I didn’t move a single inch. I stared off into space as I became drenched head to toe.

I don’t remember how I ended up in the classroom after that… Somehow, it felt like a convenient lapse of memory, because there was no way I could’ve made it by myself.

My mind was in a haze for the entirety of homeroom and I took no notice of the conversations around me. Class was dismissed, and I trudged miserably home.

I felt utterly disconnected with reality. The events today felt like a single, flimsy piece of paper. As if foolishly trying to lose myself and flee this reality, wishing I could escape the weight of my problems.

“Why…”

When I got home, I sat down and took off my shoes, then stopped moving entirely.

Why had this happened to me?

The answer was obvious. It was because I wasn’t normal. If only I hadn’t wished for ordinary friends from the beginning. Looking back, it was obviously impossible for someone like me.

If only I hadn’t tried to change my fate and continued to live my life enduring each passing day.

If only I had resigned myself to a life where only one of five days would come to pass, if only I had allowed my soul to be murdered and sentenced to the excruciatingly slow march of time. If only I had done that, then I could have avoided this pain at the expense of trifling amounts of happiness.

For the first time in a long time, I was afraid of tomorrow. 

If today was chosen, then I doubt I’d be able to face Inaba-san for a long time. Maybe even forever. Maybe every time our eyes would meet, I’d turn away in fear. I wouldn’t be able to stand that. So what could I do? How could I repair our relationship? I didn’t know.

…I didn’t know how to repair a relationship. I didn’t know how to apologize.

I became aware of how self-degrading my thoughts were becoming. It was at times like these that I felt sick.

My insides churned with fear and apprehension. I was sitting in my home, yet I felt like I was drowning, unable to breathe. I couldn’t even gasp for air. My throat felt cold. My legs trembled and strength fled from my body until I could barely control my limbs. 

My thoughts always turned self-degrading when I felt sick like this.

Faster than I imagined, I dashed to the bathroom and emptied out the contents of my mostly empty stomach. My muscles contracted as vomit was violently expelled from my body. Stomach bile burned my throat, tongue, and mouth, and at the same time, burned away my thoughts, clearing my mind.

“Hallo~ Yuuka-san has come to visit~”

From the front door echoed a carefree voice, along with sounds of approaching footsteps.

She was probably here for dinner. I suppose it was already that time of day. I found myself neither capable of moving my body nor having the strength to reply.

“A-ya-chan? …Aya-chan!? What… what happened!?”

Yuuka’s voice grew hysteric upon seeing my face.

“Your face is so red! And your forehead is burning. I’ll carry you to bed.”

She nimbly lifted me up, one hand wrapped around under each of my knees, handling me as if I were a child, but I had no energy left to protest. I mean, what was she even doing? Her face was deathly pale. Wasn’t she supposed to say something like, Morning sickness? Ah, guess we’ll have to get married, Aya-chan? Wait, but she was the pale one, not me…

Ugh. I felt so pathetic that tears welled up in my eyes.

My body was sluggish, my heart had been shattered, and now I was being nursed by someone who mocked me day in day out…

Ah. I have to make dinner.

That’s why she’d come in the first place.

But in spite of that thought, my consciousness was abruptly cut off.

The Twenty-Third of June E

I’d had an argument with Inaba-san, and as if to add salt to the wound, I’d caught a cold.

Five days had passed as I lay bedridden, unable to muster the strength to move. Nor did I mind. Just the thought of doing anything made me extremely weary.

I often caught colds with the changing of seasons. Especially since I’d gotten caught up in the freezing rain, this was more or less an inevitable outcome. Though it wasn’t definite proof that the day where I’d been drenched from head to toe had been chosen. 

I’d always had a weak body. I was small, and ate only about half as much as others. To make matters worse, I hated sports and exercise, so my constitution had never been healthy.

But the fundamental reason for my condition was due to, as with many things, my abnormal nature. With the changing of seasons, normal people adapt by changing their clothes when they go outside or adjusting their blankets when they sleep. But in my case, each day seemed to drag on multiplicatively. I found it difficult to judge the changing of seasons or weather. When it suddenly turned cold or hot, most would wear heavier or lighter clothing. But by the time the fourth or fifth iteration of the same day came, my mind would’ve already grown accustomed to the temperature. I wouldn’t notice anything wrong, but unlike my mind, my body would be woefully unprepared for the weather.

“Are you feeling okay, Aya-chan? I’m going to wipe your body down, okay?”

As I lay in bed, the twilight sky reflected in my window, my mind occupied by rambling thoughts, Yuuka came to visit like always. Not once in the past five days had she failed to visit. She was that worried about me. Hehe, that makes me happy… It must’ve been my fever causing such delirious thoughts to cross my mind.

I tried to clear my throat. “Sorry, but could you do me a favor and order takeout for dinner?”

Despite that, my voice came out rough and congested. 

With her back to the entrance, Yuuka replied. “Aya-chan, that’s the first time you’ve really sounded like an old woman.”

Leave me alone already.

“Your voice sounds terrible. Did you go to the hospital?”

No, and I’m not going.

The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have an insurance card. I wasn’t that irresponsible.

Instead of laying in bed and pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist, I could’ve grit my teeth, gone to the hospital, received an IV drip and medicine, then I would’ve been cured. No doubt it would’ve been effective. 

But today was the fifth day. Hypothetically, if I’d resolved to go to the hospital starting from the first day, I would’ve had to drag myself to the hospital five days in a row. Five days in a row of confronting my thoughts and fears. That was far beyond the limits of my endurance. 

Besides, I hated hospitals. 

“I haben’t…”

My voice was nasally, my nose congested, and it hurt to talk. My eyes burned and my mind was trapped in an eternal haze. I’d been like this for five days in a row. My mood was at an all time low.

“You’re just going to suffer more if you don’t go, Aya-chan.”

She sat down on the bed next to me and gently caressed my head. She held my hand.

When I was little, I often came down with fevers and each time, my mother would hold my hand. That was before she had come to despise me. Yuuka’s touch, in tandem with my muddled consciousness and my perfect memory, revived that vivid memory, and in my stupor, I couldn’t control the words slipping out of my mouth.

“Mother…ah.”

It was completely on reflex. The touch of Yuuka’s hand felt identical to my mother’s.

“Aya-chan?”

I knew. That this hand gingerly holding mine wasn’t my mother’s. But I so desperately wanted it to be, and once the dam broke, there was no stopping the flood.

Nothing ever went well, and I couldn’t even seek refuge in my dreams because I didn’t dream, and all the regret and pain of the past few days were still lodged in my creaking heart refusing to leave, and then I felt myself hating myself again enveloped in self-loathing, and that’s when I remembered the fact that I was utterly helpless. And then I realized that that was the hardest thing to accept about myself. In my foggy, clouded mind, I realized the rotten, spoiled nature my true self was composed of.

“Thirsty? I’ll get you some water.”

Her hand slipped from mine- wait, she’s gone? My hand fumbled, reaching out. My desperate fingers begging, pleading, only to grasp air. –No, please. Don’t leave me by myself. Frantic, my hand stretched forward towards the figure of Yuuka, trying to somehow some way latch onto her blouse. 

“What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t say it. That I was helpless, so stay with me.

But my meaning still got through.

“…Ah, you’re really something else.”

Yuuka settled down next to me on the bed once more, stroking my hair and head just like her. She held my hand, just like my mother used to do for me. Without even knowing what I was doing, I brought her hand to my face, pressing it against my cheek. If I kept my eyes closed, it was like I was rewinding time. I longed to return to those days that I could no longer return to.

The fever and nostalgia threatened to loose tears from my eyes. Trying to stop them, I forced my eyes open.

“Aya-chan, you’re such a spoiled child.” Yuuka was grinning. 

“Ah, Aizawa-san, your fever looks awful.” Standing shoulder to shoulder with her was Inaba-san.

“Eh.”

Standing… shoulder to shoulder… was Inaba-san.

It was Inaba-san! In my room!

With all the remaining strength I could muster, I shoved Yuuka, hard. She let out a soft cry of surprise and tumbled across the room.

Inaba-san, at unexpected sight of her classmate’s utter idiocy, stood stock still, at a loss for words. Well, what else was she supposed to do. 

“Wh-why-whywhywhywhy.”

My head burned like hell.

Not because of my fever, though you could argue that I was feeling feverish for another reason. Taken completely by surprise, I couldn’t suppress the words that flew out of my mouth.

I wanted to bury myself in a hole and never come out.

“Well, I found a student fidgeting awkwardly outside the gate, so I let her in. I hear her name is Inaba-chan.”

I caught sight of Yuuka’s face across the room, her tongue stuck out as if mocking me, her entire body ready to burst into laughter. There wasn’t a trace of guilt in her. There was absolutely nothing funny about the situation. I was going to properly punish her after this.

“I wasn’t fidgeting. I just got lost.”

Inaba-san’s voice was unusually stiff compared to normal. Was she perhaps nervous, standing in front of Yuuka? That was possible. Still, that was nonetheless surprising, considering that I’d assumed Inaba-san was the type of person who could speak openly with anyone.

“There’s a test next week, and you weren’t in class so I brought the notes but… sorry for barging in when you’re in such a bad condition.”

“It’s fine. My condition… it’s bad but I’m fine. It’s fine. More importantly, thanks for the notes.”

But something was odd… her tone didn’t seem awkward or strained.

For someone who’d slapped me and abandoned me, her tone seemed strangely normal. Which meant, that day hadn’t been chosen. The yesterday in which I had maliciously driven Hamano Aria into a corner and made her cry hadn’t been chosen. It hadn’t been chosen.

“Ooh, nice books.”

Inaba-san turned to examine my room. It seemed like she’d been curious from the moment she’d stepped through the door. After all, my room was quite a bizarre spectacle.

In one corner were mountains of books stacked on their sides. Some mountains stretched high into the sky, their elevation reaching over fifty centimeters, on the verge of collapsing in on themselves.

“They all belong to her.” For some reason, Yuuka felt obligated to open her mouth, as she flashed me a peace sign.

I didn’t use to have this many books, but I continued to bring them home one after another, calling them ‘reference material,’ until they accumulated into these massive mountains.

Obviously, Yuuka never read a single page, opting instead to ask me to summarize. As for me, who possessed five times the free time of a regular human, I couldn’t help but read the books, and with my inherent memory, I’d never forget the contents. And thus, Yuuka managed to score herself a walking encyclopedia, while I was granted temporary reprieve from my perpetual boredom. A mutually beneficial relationship.

“Alrighty. I don’t want to get in the way of you two youngsters, so I’ll go buy dinner. Inaba-chan, are there any foods you don’t like?”

“Ah, no, I’m the one intruding, so I’ll be on my way soon.”

From within my futon, I quietly slid open the curtain and glanced out the window. It was already dark outside.

“I see. But you know, while I’m not at home, if something happens to Aya-chan it’ll be too late for me to do anything about it. If only someone would watch her while I was gone…”

W-what the hell was this person going on about… hadn’t she left me alone for the entire day?

“T-that’s-!” Inaba-san sputtered.

“Then, see ya!”

The room returned to its former, quiet self the instant Yuuka left. So quiet that the chirping of a single cricket hiding in some corner of the garden outside became painfully audible. Our relationship wasn’t deep enough where either one of us was comfortable with such a silence. Not yet, at least.

A feeling of unpleasantness that I wish I didn’t have to experience, a feeling comprised of loneliness.

“Can I see your notes?”

The asphyxiating atmosphere was too unbearable, and I said the first thing that came to my mind.

Inaba-san ruffled through her bag as she spoke. “You can look at them when you get better. Just return them to me when you come back to school. I wrote them on loose-leaf.”

“I’ll just look at them and return them now.”

I flipped noisily through her notes, each one fastened to the next by a set of binder rings. I vaguely thought about how this amount of notes was quite copious for a single day of class.

“Aren’t you going to take pictures?” Inaba-san seemed worried about me.

“I never forget things I’ve seen already. That’s my disease.”

It slipped out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying.

Would she notice? I faltered, wavering over whether I should explain myself, or claim that I’d misspoke. But in the first place, I didn’t even know today would be chosen, and thinking was such a pain with my raging fever.

“You never forget… Wow! That’s not a disease at all. That’s an amazing ability! Aizawa-san, that’s amazing!”

My hands abruptly lost their grip, and Inaba-san notes fell onto the top of the futon with a quiet thud.

My face flushed. 

Tears formed at the corner of my eyes.

It wasn’t because of the fever, but I was extremely feverish.

I noticed how close her face was. 

“That’s the first time I’ve been told that. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“U-um, your hand…”

When had she started holding my hand? I didn’t have to pretend anymore. She knew about my memory. The reason my face flushed was because Inaba-san was holding my hand.

“Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

She gently let go of my hand, moving instead to stroke my cheek.

My heart leapt.

“…Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

No. Not in the slightest.

What was going on… I was baffled, but a single, large scar that lay across a shallow part of my heart had a clue.

“Aizawa-san, I know you’re not the type of person to do that kind of stuff. There must’ve been a reason for it. But still, I…”

My eyes burst open. My breath caught in my throat.

I’d stopped dwelling on the events of that day. But the reality which I’d averted my eyes from wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily. 

That day… had been chosen. The day where I had plotted and connived, the twenty-second of June, where I had driven Hamano Aria into a corner and made her cry, had been chosen.

It was always like this. The past that I wanted to erase forever was always chosen. That’s why I couldn’t let down my guard for even a second, but I had, and a single mistake had slipped by, unnoticed. How laughable.

Only precious memories would cease to be, deleted from this world. Working hard meant nothing. It was unfair. It was unfair, but no one else in this entire world would experience this unfairness… no one else but me. Ancient feelings of anger that I had given up on long ago suddenly flared to life. Because giving up is the quietest form of anger.

“I’ll hear you out, Aizawa-san. Because I believe in you.”

I’d unmistakably commited a crime, evident for all to see.

Yet she would hear me out. I had to tell her everything. About my cursed memory, how I repeated each day again and again, about the reality and experiences I’d faced, everything.

I had to say something. Yet I felt that if I let my voice free at this moment, everything would burst out uncontrollably, and so I couldn’t say anything. After all, what right did I have to cry or grieve? 

I had no intention of letting my tears out, even if I stood on the precipice of death.

I was the one at fault, and yet Inaba-san was the one showing me kindness. She’d gone so far as to believe in me. It dawned on me that I’d betrayed that trust, and that truth turned into a deadly poison, its tendrils reaching out and taking hold of my entire body.

“Why are you crying?”

She and I were two vastly different species. A human who could forget, and I who could never forget. There was no common tongue between us. We used the same words, but functioned with different grammar.

“Sorry.”

I could only shake my head.

Inaba-san hugged my head to her chest and stroked my hair, as if carefully handling a fragile object.

She must’ve gotten the wrong idea. She must’ve believed that she was looking at a cute, innocent high school girl, crying because her good intentions had been wrongfully misunderstood by her dear friend. 

But she was mistaken. That reality didn’t exist. Because that wasn’t what happened. The truth was far uglier. The truth was a but a comedy, starring a witch with a repulsive heart who hurt another for the sake of her own satisfaction, then flew into rage at the unfairness of the world when the result hadn’t turned out like she imagined. 

We were too far apart.

Inada-san’s chest was extremely warm, without a doubt due to the exceptionally warm heart that lay underneath. The cold-blooded me was different. 

What excuses could I make, what words could I use to deceive her, what path could I take to swindle Inaba-san, I arrived at the answer instantly. I opened my mouth, ready to spew my ugly lies and spin my deceits, when-

“I’m back! I forgot my wallet… Wahhhhhhhhh!!”

I had been one step away from losing my way completely. Yuuka, catching sight of Inada-san embracing the tear-stained me, had ruined everything beautifully. I suppose I had to punish her thankfully later.

The three of us sat around a portion of spaghetti, plum rice porridge, and a bento box which Yuuka had bought from the convenience store, and began to eat.

Other than the fact that I’d been forced to eat the spaghetti, it was an otherwise pleasant dinner. Yuuka had defended herself, saying that garlic would make her breath smell bad, but then why buy something you weren’t going to eat in the first place?

“Aya-chan, wrap your arms together behind your back.”

I looked at her dubiously. Was this some sort of digestion exercise to get the blood flowing or to cure my sickness? 

“Like this?”

I felt my upper body pushing outwards in reaction.

Inaba-san, who sat diagonally across from me, mimicked my pose. What the hell was Yuuka trying to do?

Yuuka roved her eyes from me to Inaba-san, then back to me again.

“I already figured as much, but your chest is really pitiful, isn’t it?”

BACOOOOMM!!!!

With a sound effect that could surely find its place in a Marvel comic, I delivered a slap straight to Yuuka’s face.

I’ve been told that I had quite a long fuse, but if you were going to deliberately incur my wrath, you’d better be prepared for embers to fly.

It was the fastest my hand had moved in my entire life. It left a red, hand-sized mark on Yuuka’s face, and was starting to sting. It must’ve stung for the receiver of the slap as well, but Yuuka acted like nothing was wrong.

I glared at her. “It’s hereditary.”

“Oh really? But your mother is quite big, isn’t she?”

“It’s from my father’s side.”

“Sorry.”

“There’s a hand-shaped mark on your face, so you don’t need to apologize.”

After a moment of silence, Yuuka spoke up again, sounding like a myna bird. “Sorry, Aya-chan.”

She was playing a game of chicken with my boiling point…

“The next time you apologize, I’m gonna make your face go through the same thing as Gobutori Jiisan’s lump, and you’ll regret being born even more than Momotaro’s demon.” (T/N: Traditional japanese folktales- Gobutori Jiisan and Momotaro)

“…” 

But still, Inaba-san looked so pretty. In my mind, I could still clearly visualize her slim body lines as her upper torso stretched out. 

“Aya-chan, your face is red.”

“‘Cause I’m feverish.”

“I wonder which feverish you’re feeling.”

It’d definitely be a punishment afterwards. I chuckled good-humoredly. Obviously, it was but an act.

As the conversation continued, I grew more and more agitated, all while wearing my true face behind my back. Inaba-san, perhaps sensing that, forcefully changed the subject, trying to steer it towards more pleasant waters.

“By the way, Aizawa-san, your family is really wealthy, aren’t they. You guys have a huge house and everything.”

It’s not your fault, Inaba-san. But you just steered the ship straight into a land mine.

“My parents are the rich ones. Not me.”

“It’s because Aya-chan’s been disowned.”

“Ah-“

Given that I’d hidden from her all this time, Inaba-san reacted instantly, like she’d just heard something she shouldn’t have.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I threw away my parents, not the other way around.”

Doing everything in my power to make it seem like nothing, I spit out my bluff.

“There you go again. I’m fairly certain you got into a fight with your parents then ran away from home.”

“Yuuka. I swear to god…”

“I dream about it even now. How you and I, living under a single roof-“

Even after being hit, Yuuka’s spirits couldn’t be dampened. Not when she finally could gush about her ‘beloved Aya-chan’ to someone else.

“You two are cousins, right?” Came Inaba-san’s composed voice, checking to make sure.

“Yeah.”

Our parents weren’t particularly close, but Yuuka had come to understand my abnormality even before I did. She’d probably also guessed the circumstances surrounding my banishment. And yet, she never made a fuss about it, and in that respect, she had saved me.

“The first time I saw Aya-chan, I was entranced by her beautiful eyes. Ah, it was love at first sight.”

You realize I was ten years old then, right.

“And she’s still just as cute now. Plus she’s even developed some added benefits over time.”

“I… didn’t know anything about you, Aizawa-san.”

Inaba-san’s words spilled out of her mouth, mixed with tones of sadness and regret. But from the beginning, I’d never intended on telling her about my trifling, insignificant life. Even if it meant that we’d never be able to grow close. Even then.

“I bet you could write a whole series about the great war between Aya-chan and her parents,” Yuuka said, looking amused.

But even if you glorified it, calling it a great war, this war would be the most fruitless war in all of history, without a single victor.

“Thinking back on it, you were in such a frenzy to prove yourself, weren’t you, Aya-chan?”

It was when I still lived with my parents.

Our relationship had worsened, on the brink of total collapse, and yet I still had my mind set on earning back their love by showing them my brilliance. With my gift of memory that I’d possessed since birth, I scored perfect score after perfect score on tests in all subjects. I was treated like a child prodigy. I got recommendations to top schools across the nation, and a well-renowned overseas college professor even personally came by to visit me. My parents promptly turned away that professor before he even stepped foot onto our porch.

I should’ve recognized it then.

I strove to become a beloved daughter that my parents could be proud of. But I should’ve recognized it then, that such a daughter could not possibly fit into the shadow of the child that my parents had wished for.

The clock struck eight.

Yuuka would always laze around my room until about this time, so I wasn’t particularly surprised that the two were still here. Though the fact that I’d gotten used to Yuuka probably meant I was losing my touch. Still, it was rather late for a high-school girl to be out by herself. 

Earlier, I’d almost asked Inaba-san if she had to make curfew or not before catching myself, realizing how childish that’d sound. And then almost immediately after, Yuuka went out and posed the same exact question to Inaba-san without a second thought. Inaba-san didn’t seem offended, and, laughing, replied that her curfew had been extended to 9 pm now that she was in high school. I also learned that if her grades fell, she’d promised her parents that she’d attend cram school. Inaba-san provided me company as I lay in bed, talking with me, and from time to time, even holding my hand. 

Without a doubt, there would never be a single twenty-third of June more fun and pleasant and beautiful than today. Which is why I already knew that today wouldn’t be chosen. The today where I had reconciled with Inaba-san wouldn’t be chosen. The day Inaba-san had first visited my home would cease to exist.

At my request, Yuuka agreed to walk Inaba-san to the station. My parting words were selfish, spoken without a single shred of consideration for Inaba-san. 

“Forget about today. I’m sure you can do it, unlike me.”

About how you came to visit me, about how you called my curse an amazing ability, about how you tried to believe in me, just forget about everything. Because what right did I have to tell her Don’t forget? What right was there for a witch who abused Inaba-san’s misunderstanding in an attempt at reconciliation all while donning a mask of innocence?

The Twenty-Ninth of June G

The more I wanted a day to be chosen, the less likely it would be chosen. Business as usual. No surprises that that day hadn’t been chosen.

The surprise was instead that when I finally got back to school, for six days in a row, I’d been able to reconcile with Inaba-san.

Today was the seventh. I knew today would be no different.

The classics teacher passed out a printout summarizing the conjugation forms of auxiliary verbs. As the papers were passed back between rows, Inaba-san, sitting in front of me, passed back a folded, loose-leaf paper craftily hidden underneath the printout.

Which girl wouldn’t have instantly recognized the loose-leaf as a note? Concealed inside was a single line of text:

Can you stay after class?

The words had been identical for seven days in a row. Even though the only things that weren’t supposed to change between days were the weather, and the fact that no matter how many times I thought about it, I always reached the same conclusion.

Inaba-san was thinking about me, and went so far as to carefully hide craft secret message for my sake. As I entertained those wild delusions, I refolded the paper along its crease and carefully placed it into my bag.

“Sorry, Aizawa-san. I did something terrible to you.”

Those were the first words out of Inaba-san’s mouth after class. Her head was bowed deeply. 

Even though I clearly remembered the day that Inaba-san had come to visit me, that had never happened, so for her, this would be the first time that she’d spoke such words.

“I know I really hurt you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I went overboard.”

Inaba-san must’ve been concerned about me for the entire time I’d absent from school. That alone was far more than enough.

Today, on this day, Inaba-san would try with all her might to repair our relationship. Following the pattern from previous days, she would apologize, then say ‘In return, slap me!’ She’d pull her cheeks together, as if motioning me to hit her. But that Melosian kind of friendship was a little… (T/N: reference to Run, Melos!, a short story often read in japanese schools)

“I’m not gonna hit you even if you ask me to.”

“…huh…”

Inaba-san’s mouth hung half agape, looking shocked from the bottom of her heart.

“Aizawa-san, can you read people’s minds?”

“It was written all over your face.”

That was obviously a lie, but since I couldn’t tell her that today was already the seventh today, I had to go with this explanation.

The next thirty seconds were filled with an awkward silence. Abruptly, Inaba-san began to talk. About something that, in the six iterations of the twenty-ninth of June before, had never been mentioned.

“Aizawa-san. I was a lot different in middle school than now.”

“Different?”

“…Um, I was gloomier? Something like that.”

I tried to imagine it. A younger, more immature Inaba-san who spent her days inconspicuously tucked away in the corner of a classroom, much like me. The only image I could conjure up in my mind was a vague, indistinct human shadow sitting on a chair. It was a person so different from the current one that I couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

“You’re kidding. There’s no way.”

“It’s true. But, I changed after coming to high school.”

Why was she confiding in me?

That Inaba-san had done a one-eighty in high school was something I’d never considered. In stark contrast to me, who had lived in the sun’s shadow since birth, I’d assumed that Inaba-san had always basked in the sun’s bright, warm rays.

“Was it because you entered high school?”

“No, it was more like, because I came to know what the weather would be like, I guess.”

This so-called witch occasionally said some strange things, huh. Seeing my dubious expression, Inaba-san grew slightly frantic, her words coming just a little more rushed.

“It was like, I alone knew something that no one else knew, and just thinking about that gave me courage, I guess? No matter what anyone said to me, or what what they thought of me, I knew more than anyone else about what it’d be like from noon to evening, and I’d have packed an umbrella in my bag. Didn’t that make me invincible?”

She said it all in a single breath, and I detected a trace of maliciousness in her very last phrase.

Something like a small, superiority complex. I knew it all too well. The world only you knew about where you lived all alone, the world only you knew about where you told yourself that you were content with being alone.

“Oh, are you trying to to say that even someone like me can change?”

“N-no. Rather, that I think Aizawa-san doesn’t need to change. That she can stay the way she is.”

I felt uncomfortable hearing those words while being stared down by those clear, honest eyes. If I can change, I want to change. I’d always believed that. And yet.

“No matter who’s watching you, or how much they ostracize you, you’re always able to remain as Aizawa-san. I think that makes you invincible.”

I felt my heart grow warm. That Inaba-san would go this far and say this much for my sake, that she didn’t mind even if I never changed… it somehow, made me so happy that I couldn’t take it in stride.

“It feels so strange. I mean, you called out to my on the day of the entrance ceremony, right. I never would have thought that someone who called out to me like that would be a timid, gloomy girl…”

Before I knew it, my tone had nearly turned accusing. It wasn’t that I’d doubted her, but that I simply couldn’t comprehend. It just felt too convenient for someone like me.

“I guess… I just felt like I had to do it.” Inaba-san’s eyes fell towards the floor, her tone suddenly losing all of its previous confidence. “T-the instant I saw your face, and called out to you, I just felt like I had to become friends with you.”

I felt an uncomfortable, prickling sensation in a soft part of my heart.

It was a sensation not unlike a stabbing needle, or perhaps a concentrated, sweet acid. But whatever it may be, I felt an itch somewhere in my heart that I couldn’t reach. 

Inaba Michiru, just who are you? …or something.

A friend I’d made in high school, who I knew would be there for me even ‘tomorrow,’ a companion that was utterly irreplaceable in my heart. Sociable, popular among our classmates, and yet fretted over someone like me… a self-proclaimed witch.

A person dear to me I should know well. A figure whose true nature I still knew nothing about.

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