You Who Are Wounded

During my free time, I read another paranormal story, this one titled "Footsteps in the Hallway." When I finished, I let out a long breath and listened carefully to the noisy footsteps outside the classroom.

If the footsteps in the story sounded like these, there'd be no need to be afraid at all. It was far too lively for that. But even if it were just like the book described, it would still be terribly dull. If only powerful demons and monsters really existed in the world. Then life might not be so ordinary and boring...

What was I thinking? Wasn't this peaceful, everyday life exactly what I wanted?

I cleared the jumbled thoughts from my mind and glanced sideways to check the time. It was already dusk.

Come to think of it, these stories always happened at dusk or at night. Why had I never run into anything like that? I was always under the streetlights at dusk and after dark. I was one of the few people who left campus last every day, and yet I'd always made it home safe and sound.

It wasn't that I stayed this late every day in the hope of encountering some once-in-a-millennium demon or monster. Nor was I up to anything shady. I simply hated trouble. I hated crowds.

The moment the first chime of the dismissal bell rang out from the giant clock, a flurry of movement would sweep through the building. Then a crowd would fill the school gates. Let me make one thing clear: I liked the colorful mix of people, but being part of it—or putting myself in the middle of that situation—was another matter.

So I chose to stay behind and enjoy the long stretch of peace and quiet. Of course, I also held on to a sliver of hope that I might catch a glimpse of the power of ghosts and gods.

But so far, all I'd run into were other people's secrets and incidents of violence.

Just ordinary human affairs.

Once I understood what Ichinose had meant by, "Then please remember to wait for me after school," I decided to leave the classroom first. You might not have caught the implication, but she was hinting that we should go separately and meet up. In other words, Ichinose didn't want anyone to know where we were going.

Whether she was embarrassed or not, it worked out well for me. It meant we wouldn't draw too much attention, and I could explain things to Shiratori and the others without any trouble.

The truth was, if the students in Class B caught me alone with Ichinose even once, the rumors about us would spiral further out of control. Things were already bad enough. They hadn't teased me to my face, but their malice behind my back couldn't have been clearer.

More importantly, Ichinose hadn't said anything to clear things up, either. My one-sided explanation could only muddy the waters. It might even cause more misunderstandings.

At the thought, I sped up, hurriedly getting out of my seat. But the moment I took my first step, Ichinose grabbed me.

"Did you forget what you promised me, Raku?"

"I didn't forget." So please let go of me.

"Then didn't we agree to go together?"

"..."

I see. I guess I'd been jumping to conclusions. What separate trips? I'd practically split my own head from my body.

"I thought you meant I should wait for you over there..."

"Let's go together. I want to get this settled as soon as possible."

"Th-this urgently?"

"Mm. If this doesn't get resolved, I think I'll be so worried I won't be able to eat or sleep, not even for a minute."

Get this settled... Why did that sound so strange? Was this really about a confession?

Confused, I followed Ichinose around to the back of the gymnasium. As soon as we arrived, I started looking around. There were several places to hide nearby, and more blind spots than I could count. Hardly anyone ever came here, either.

Terrifying!

The perfect place for a confession was also the perfect place for a beating. I could practically smell the bloodshed in every sense of the word. I still wasn't sure whether Ichinose was going to confess to me, but at least she definitely wouldn't lay a hand on me. Even if she really did have a ruthless streak, well, I was exceptionally good at running away.

"This is the place." Once she'd confirmed it, Ichinose turned around, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

"I'm going to get confessed to—"

At last, it was happening. I fought down the trembling in my heart, trying to face Ichinose calmly.

"Someone's going to confess to me here."

"..."

"..."

Huh? So I was supposed to make the first move after all? Then—

I took a deep breath, too, and thought about how I should respond to Ichinose's expectations. But what happened next brought to light something I experienced only once in a hundred years: being completely dumbfounded.

"This might sound a little strange, but could you read this letter first, Raku?"

"..."

What did she mean? She wanted me to confess first, but then she'd given me a love letter. Had confessions become this complicated? Or had I misunderstood something?

"Um, this letter..."

"A l-love letter... Someone wrote it to me..." At my insistence, Ichinose was forced to explain.

A love letter someone had written to Ichinose... Ha. Haha...

I knew it. How could a goddess who was practically a school idol confess to an ordinary student like me? It had all been a fantasy. Just when real life had finally started to feel like a romance novel, I'd failed more spectacularly than ever.

Even though my heart was aching, I didn't show it. Instead, I put on a calm expression and reached out to take the letter from Ichinose. I supposed that was a man's final shred of dignity.

"But are you sure? You're letting me read a love letter someone else wrote to you."

"If you haven't read it, I don't think you'll believe me, no matter what I say..."

Believe her? At this point, what could I believe?

I opened the letter without permission and read the whole thing. There was nothing wrong with it. It described when the writer had first started paying attention to Ichinose, when they'd realized how they felt, and how they'd decided to confess.

So what was the problem? What did Ichinose need my help with?

I read it two or three times, but still couldn't find anything wrong. Then I started looking at the smaller details around the edges of the letter.

There was no name... So she didn't know who had confessed to her. Come to think of it, this handwriting looked familiar...

"Could this letter have been written by Shiranami?" It was hard to believe, but Holmes had been right. A deduction was simply a matter of sorting through the various possibilities, examining each one, and eliminating them one by one. Once you eliminated the impossible, whatever remained—no matter how improbable—had to be the truth.

"Have you figured it out already, Raku? It was Chihiro."

Ichinose, was your "damage potential" as a human being really that high?

"May I ask what you want me to do, Ichinose?"

"I want to turn Chihiro down this time... I've always thought of her as both a little sister and a friend. But now that this has happened, I don't know if we'll still be able to have the same relationship afterward. I want to avoid hurting either of us as much as possible, so I came to you for help, Raku."

"...I understand the situation now. But you must be pretty experienced at dealing with confessions by this point, Ichinose. Do you still need help?"

"I'm not experienced at all! This is the first time anything like this has happened to me."

"Has nobody ever confessed to you before? Not even in middle school?"

"N-no, never! That's why I came to you for help, Raku."

That had to be a lie. Had Ichinose gone to an all-girls' school before this? How could something like this... No, if I couldn't explain this sort of thing, then my relationship with Ayanokoji would really be impossible to explain.

"The problem is, I don't have any experience, either. Or have you already thought of a plan?"

At the moment, two people without any romantic experience were gathered together to discuss how to end a relationship from the start, with as little cost to either side as possible. Based on what I knew about Shiranami, there was no way to turn her down without hurting her.

Then I heard the plan Ichinose had come up with.

"Mm. I've already thought of something... I... I'd like to ask you to pretend to be my boyfriend, Raku. W-would you?"

"...Sorry, I didn't catch that."

"Would you be my boyfriend, Raku...?" Ichinose mustered her courage and said it again.

So I ended up being confessed to after all, even if it was only pretend.

The Wounded

Why did people feel hurt?

When I started thinking about the question, I suddenly realized that even after thousands of years, the human mind hadn't evolved. Over the course of two thousand years, the only thing that had changed was how people expressed themselves. The fundamental meaning remained the same.

People felt hurt because there was a little self inside everyone. That was the root cause of their pain.

Whatever you cared about was a weakness.

Even what you didn't care about could still hold you back.

People were fragile things, and whichever way you turned, there was pain.

We were hurt because we cared. The same was true of others. You cared about their feelings and, in trying not to hurt them, turned yourself into the victim instead.

And so the cycle of tragedy continued in this world, as people's hearts slowly lost their way once more.

Maybe everything would be resolved if people simply tried to hurt one another as little as possible. Of course, choosing to turn yourself into a heartless creature, like a certain someone, wasn't a bad option, either.

Once escape became reality, nothing could ever defeat you, right?

So it was simple.

"Actually, I've done a lot of research lately, and I've found that saying 'I'm already seeing someone' is the best way to minimize the hurt."

She had no experience of her own, so she'd simply taken other people's words at face value.

People's feelings were like this: deception was often the most hurtful thing of all. Even a straightforward rejection couldn't compare to the cruelty of a lie.

"...We're not really a couple, though. If we start acting like we normally do, the lie will come out sooner or later. Wouldn't that hurt Shiranami even more? She might think, 'Ichinose didn't want to accept my confession, so she just found some random guy and used him to pretend she's taken.'"

"Some random guy... But people in our class already mistake us for a couple sometimes, so nobody will find out..."

At least, I figured Shiranami wouldn't become suspicious in the short term.

But I wasn't planning to follow Ichinose's script. I'd have to help her understand a few things in the future, too. If I wanted an ordinary, uneventful life, then I had to act openly while hiding my real intentions.

With that thought, I stepped closer and backed Ichinose up against the gymnasium's tall wall.

"Raku?"

"Actually, I think your plan has a lot of flaws, so I have a suggestion."

"What suggestion...?"

I slowly put my hand against the wall beside Ichinose, bending my arm as I moved closer to her. We were so close our faces nearly touched. I could feel the warmth of her breath, hear her heart pounding, and see the nervousness in the way she swallowed.

"Um, Raku..." Ichinose hurriedly put both hands on my chest, trying to push me away, but she didn't clearly reject me.

"Pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend might be difficult, so here's my suggestion—let's actually date."

"Huh?"

"I mean, I like you, Ichinose." I thought I'd put every ounce of sincerity I had into those words, but all I got in return was silence from the depths of my heart.

"Don't joke around at a time like this, Raku..." Ichinose turned her head away and couldn't bring herself to meet my eyes. Her hands against my chest began to unconsciously tug at my sleeve. I pinched her cheek, forcing her to look at me.

"Joke or no joke, maybe I fell for you the first time I saw you on the bus. So please be my girlfriend."

Faced with my earnest attitude, Ichinose finally began to waver. Her eyelids fluttered as she stood in front of me, and her gaze darted about in confusion. I could feel her doing everything she could to stop me from moving closer, but her little hand gripping my collar only pulled me nearer.

There were many ways to confess, and confessions delivered with someone pinned against a wall had the highest success rate of all. That was because the aggressive gesture gave off a uniquely masculine charm while also creating a sense of pressure.

That pressure easily made people feel flustered, speeding up their heartbeats. And because the subconscious couldn't tell what had caused that reaction, there was a strong chance they'd mistake it for "falling in love" and accept the confession.

In other words, an answer given while someone was pinned against the wall couldn't be called the truth. At best, it was just animal instinct.

"C-could you give me some time to think about it?"

"No. I want an answer right now."

"H-how can you say that...?"

"So, what do you think, Ichinose?"

"I-I'm sorry... I don't feel that way right now... At least—"

"That's all I needed to hear." After getting my "answer," I let go of Ichinose's chubby cheek and stepped back, relaxed. "You just need to tell Shiranami the truth, like you did just now."

"..." Ichinose still hadn't recovered from what had just happened. She stared at me, completely blank.

"Sorry. Did I scare you?"

"What was that just now...?"

"Just a rehearsal before the real thing."

"Th-that was too much. Who rehearses something like that?!" Ichinose glared at me in an exasperated, almost tearful way.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to put you through that, but I had to do it to let you experience the difference in how it feels."

Behind the gym was a wide path, with rows of tall ornamental plants growing along its sides.

"After that rehearsal, at least you know how hard it is to say 'I like you' or 'I'm sorry, I don't like you,' right?"

"People who've fallen in love are eager to express their feelings. But they don't know what will happen if they confess on a whim, and that leaves them terrified. So they can only turn their unrequited feelings into fantasies they think about day and night, imagining scenes of intimacy in their heads."

"This can only be a temporary strategy. As the saying goes, the truth will out, and people with unrequited feelings will eventually say the words 'I love you.' But does a simple confession really rush out like water overflowing from a bucket?"