Prove Your Eternal Love. There Shall Be No Heroine Correction. - Chapter 1 Part 4

“Oh, Suguru-senpai, thank you for your hard work. …and Aogashima-senpai too.”

August 25th, Wednesday. Nagisa was waiting in front of the school gate at a late hour, as the long summer sun was about to fall. When I and Aogashima-san, who was walking next to my left, stopped, Nagisa spun her bag around behind her back and came up next to my right.

“What’s the matter, Nagisa? I thought you had something to do today.”

“I canceled. I really wanted to see Suguru-senpai. …Am I interrupting something?”

The model-like upward glance shot through me. Of course, she wasn’t in the way, but…I glanced at Aogshima-san. Aogashima-san was staring at Nagisa with an expressionless face as if she were an object of observation. It was awkward for the three of us to go home together, even if we were going to the station.

“Ah, Aogashima-san. Let me introduce you. This girl is Tokiwa Nagisa, a first-year student. We’ve been going through some stuff and got to know her.”

“I see …Well, umm…nice to meet you, Tokiwa-san.”

Aogashima-san’s expression softened a little, and after mumbling something she wanted to say, she asked Nagisa to shake her hand. Nagisa also stretched out her hand nervously and said, “Oh, yes. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” For a while, Nagisa looked into Aogashima-san’s eyes as if she was searching deep into her.

“Ah, so, Aogashima-senpai…”

Before Nagisa’s call could reach Aogashima-san, she tapped her bag.

“Oh, no. I forgot something. …Shirase-kun. You two can go home first.”

Without waiting for our reply, Aogashima-san took two steps backward while turning toward us. I was sorry that I have made her feel uncomfortable.

“Shirase-kun, don’t look at me like that. It is not any big. I really just forgot my diary.”

“N-No, sorry. I see, you used it as a memo in the meeting earlier.”

Aogashima-san nodded her head. A diary the size of a notebook that she carried around with her at all times. She bought it at a grocery store the day she and I became friends.

—Because she wanted to record the process of our relationship.

Aogashima-san, who was smiling so brightly, must have been expecting a future with me, and I was sure she didn’t expect such an ending. Then what was written in that diary now? It was in bad taste to be concerned about the contents of someone’s diary, but I just couldn’t help but feel it was stuck in my mind.

“Then, Shirase-kun. See you on Friday.”

“Yeah. See you Friday.”

Aogashima-san smiled and waved her downed hand in the air as she would do in a classroom. I caught her hand in my vision and simply nodded without waving back.

“Umm. …Are you two meeting on Friday?”

As Aogashima-san walked back to the school building, Nagisa looked up at me with concern.

“We just have to help the student council. We’re way behind schedule, and some of the committee members have been sent out on business.”

Last week, Aogashima-san was sent out to check the arrangements, and this week he checked the contents of the pre-printed data of pamphlets and other materials. It seems that it is now an annual tradition for the executive committee members to help with the enormous amount of paperwork.

“We haven’t…seen each other alone since then.”

To reassure her, I told Nagisa as we started walking. Nagisa, with her eyes downcast, looked somewhat pained.

“I-I didn’t say that I didn’t want the two of you to meet…”

“More importantly, Nagisa. Are you sure it was a good idea? As I recall, you’re having class karaoke today.”

I heard about this from Nagisa yesterday when I accompanied her to the store for her class exhibit, “Baked Pudding Cafe”. In the process, I asked Nagisa to share her favorite pop music.

Yes, even so. When I thought of Suguru-senpai and Aogashima-senpai working together, I kind of didn’t feel like joining.”

“Ours is a committee member’s job, so don’t worry about that and just go have fun…”

“I don’t mean that…But I don’t know how to put it.”

Nagisa turned her head down. Her tone of voice was somewhat similar to Minagi’s on the phone a few days ago.

“I couldn’t stand the thought of Suguru-senpai being with that person.”

Nagisa pinched the edge of my shirt as we tottered along. Her face was still downcast and I couldn’t see her face clearly. But I could guess her emotion.

I guess this was what we “jealousy”.

Minagi was not the type of person who would do such a thing, so it was new and ticklish to have such a feeling directed at me. Ah, this girl was really cute, I thought from the bottom of my heart.

“Don’t worry about it.”

I answered bluntly, anticipating Nagisa’s anxiety.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really. You are my only.”

Nagisa kept pinching my shirt, but her grip weakened a bit. We proceeded in step, trying not to break the connection with her. Along the way, a lovely humming reached my ears.

“Ahh— 『My Destined Is Next To Me』 isn’t it? That’s the song you taught me yesterday.”

“Bingo! Have you listened to it yet?”

“Of course. It was very good. The simple lyrics about love, it was so touching.”

It was just the opposite of what I do. How much easier it would be if we could rely on such a simple word as destiny. I looked up at the darkening sky and hummed the rest of the phrase pleasantly.

“Hey, hey, Suguru-senpai are you perhaps…tone deaf?”

“…What’s important in music is heart, right?”

“It’s harmony. Well, Suguru-senpai’s existence is not much harmony.”

When I sang the rest of the song through the rude junior’s comment, she forcibly covered my mouth and stopped me.

When we arrived at the station, the next train was five minutes away. We looked at each other and sat down next to each other on the bench provided. Nagisa took something out of her bag on her lap.

“This is to thank you for accompanying me to the market yesterday. …Please eat it later.”

Suddenly she handed me a neatly wrapped bag. Inside the transparent bag was heart-shaped cookies packed tightly and carefully tied with a red ribbon in a bow.

“…Eh. Did you make them?”

“Hey, wait, Suguru-senpai, what’s with that rude reaction!?”

“Because you know, your cooking…”

I often received damage reports from the time I was dating Minagi. Soup curry, crunchy pancakes, and purple egg rolls. Minagi had told me she would definitely make me eat them one day. I had never thought this day would come around so fast, but in a way, I was moved.

“No way, did you hear it from my sister? Gnnnnn, that was unnecessary…”

“It’s not unnecessary. It’s life-saving wisdom.”

“It’s regrettable that I can’t deny it…I’d like you to try it here and now if you’d like. Of course, if you collapse, I’ll call an ambulance at my own responsibility.”

“…Right. I’ll take it since it’s a good opportunity. Though the premise was too scary.”

I was ready and shuffled off the ribbon. The cookie was removed, and there was nothing strange about it, neither the texture nor the aroma. I brought it to my mouth and ate it. It tasted slightly of cocoa.

“Eh? …It’s delicious?”

“Hey, what kind of rude question mark is that!”

“No, because it’s so different according to prior information.”

It was not too hard or too soft, and it was really cooked just right. I had made some for Minagi in the past, but I couldn’t do it this well.

“Ehehe, it’s a mystery to me, but somehow it turned out well. It’s a miracle.”

Nagisa laughed happily and took one of the cookies from the bag and put it into her own mouth.

I suddenly remembered what Ocupido had said about the 『Confession Quartet』. Maybe Nagisa made cookies in the same way in that game. So even if she don’t remember, she was still able to make it well…That might be something engraved in her.

“Come to think of it, I bet it…visited you too.”

While tying the mouth of the bag back together with a ribbon, I started to talk to Nagisa.

“Visited…Could it be that the angel, Ocupido, came to Suguru-senpai’s place too?”

“Yeah. Did you hear the one about the world being rewritten?”

It has been several days since that thing appeared before my eyes. During that time, I did not talk about it to anyone. The process that the other me left behind for me. I was still trying to understand the meaning of it.

Finally, I came up with an answer. The process that there was no process, for the unresolved question of my mysterious love.

“Yes, I heard that. I wonder what we were like before the game.”

“I’m sure it’s no different than now. I like you, you like me.”

“I would be happy if that were the case. But then, why did we join the game? If we were in love with each other, why didn’t we just go out with each other?”

“…Somehow, we had to resort to the game. The relationship probably had become so strained that it couldn’t stand on its own. So it was necessary.”

“Fufu, that sounds quite like us.”

The next thing I knew, the train was slowly slowing down in front of me. The doors opened, then closed, and we watched it go by in silence. After waiting for the train to disappear, I opened my mouth.

“…Nagisa. I like you. But I still don’t know why. No, I have no way of knowing. Because that’s the feeling I had in another world—before it was rewritten. It has nothing to do with the feelings we have now.”

Sitting in my chair, I crossed my arms and leaned forward. I heard the hands of my watch ticking. Feeling Nagisa’s gaze on me, I somehow managed to put my thoughts into words.

“The process is more important than the result. That is my unwavering principle, and I have no intention of changing it. Therefore, my feelings for you are clearly contradictory. An outcome without a process is wrong.”

My mumbling voice must have reached Nagisa. Her breath seemed to be tinged with sadness. I paused for a moment and then continued.

“It’s an embarrassing story, but I misunderstood Minagi at first. I fell in love with Minagi by mistake.”

Nagisa, somewhat bewildered, said, “So, it was?”

“But I didn’t think my love for Minagi, born of a wrong process, was a mistake. Perhaps it was because there were many more things I liked about Minagi at that time. If I had not made a mistake at the very beginning, I probably would not have even known about it.”

I didn’t think that deeply about it at the time.

“The result of a wrong process, of skipping the process, may indeed be a mistake.”

I clutched my shirt in front of my chest.

“But you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen just because it was a mistake. That’s exactly what’s wrong. If you know it was a mistake, you should accept the mistake, accept the consequences, and correct them. From now on, you can go through the correct process. You can’t change the result once it’s out there.”

There was no right love between my parents. There were times when I felt that I was born from them and that I was wrong. Now I understand that the way to resolve such self-contradiction was to focus on the process.

The past cannot be erased. You cannot change the past. The heart, time, and everything in this world were always irreversible and finite.

“Therefore, we must correct this wrong feeling. We have to prove it again, based on the rules of our world now.”

I stood up slowly. I turned around and reached out my hand to Nagisa, who was still sitting down.

“So, Nagisa.”

“Y-Yes.”

The moment Nagisa took my hand, I pulled her to stand up. About a head down, I stared straight into her round reddish eyes. She didn’t look away. Yeah, I really was such a hassle. I could have made it so much easier, but what a roundabout way to go.

But still, I have to do it.

“He” must have chosen this troublesome and roundabout process with that kind of determination.

This was the answer that you came up with after all your troubles, right? The Shirase Suguru that I don’t know.

“I’ll fall in love with you again. I want you to wait until I can confess my feelings to you with the feelings I have now, not with the feelings I inherited from the distant me, which have no basis in reality.”

Who can judge that? There was no way to clearly distinguish between feelings. I think such an answer was contradictory. It has been a long time since I have tasted the flavor of mint. Sweet and bitter, contradictory tastes. A taste that I used to hate, but now I think it was not so bad.

A moment of silence. Nagisa’s eyes were shaking and she looked like she was about to cry.

“I think it’s a very good answer, fitting for Suguru-senpai. If you promise such, I’ll be happy to wait for you. …but I don’t think this feeling in my heart is wrong. I can’t see the world that way. …So, just one thing, please, can I?”

“Yeah. If it’s something I can do.”

I nodded, and Nagisa fidgeted, rubbing her fingers together in front of her skirt.

“I think it’s about time for me to have a proper, named relationship with Suguru-senpai.”

Now we were certainly in love with each other, but not at the same time. Yeah, how contradictory. She was not just my ex-girlfriend’s sister. We were not just seniors and juniors. Yet we were not lovers. We have a special relationship that cannot be expressed in words. Still, it was the closest thing we have.

“Candidate, huh? Fufu, right. …then is this safe?”

Nagisa changed our clasped hands into a lover’s knot. I thought for a moment and then nodded my head slowly. But I didn’t know the right amount of force to use, so I held her hand tightly and then loosened it again, feeling each other’s pulses.

By the time we got back to the nearest station, it was past dinner time. Nagisa checked the notification on her phone with one hand and turned to me innocently.

“I heard that today’s dinner was stew. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I hope they left enough for you. Minagi might eat it all.”

“My sister wouldn’t do something like that to me!”

“On the contrary, you do…”

Streetlights standing at equal intervals illuminated us, and each time they do, we saw that each other’s faces were bright red.

“U-Um, Suguru-senpai, it’s really okay, you don’t have to walk me home.”

“But…I’m worried.”

Yeah, perhaps it was the elation of having put our feelings into words, even though we were not yet dating, but we were both in a state of excitement. Walking her home was just a pretext. I wanted to be with Nagisa for even one second longer. That was all.

“I use this road a lot, and I sometimes pass by it at this time of the day, so it’s fine.”

“But you never know what might happen. I won’t feel safe until I get you home properly.”

What a travesty. I have not the slightest intention of letting go of our joined hands. Neither mine nor hers. Everything between our fingers was sweaty. The same was true of the blatantly slowed pace of our steps. We were thinking the exact same thing, and we were both equally on edge.

If we turned right at the two-story round hat, we would already be at Nagisa’s house. Our steps become even slower and we talked less. I wished this time could last forever.

I know that if I let go of her hand, she won’t go anywhere. Her tightly entwined fingers were like a part of me. So I fearfully and carefully untangled them.

I looked up at the Tokiwa family residence. A light was leaking from the second floor. I know that was Minagi’s room.

“Nagisa, then, here—”

Saying goodbye, I waved the hand I was holding earlier. Nagisa put her small palm on top of mine with a bashful smile on her face. The temperature was still the same. And then…

“I love you, Suguru-senpai.”

Nagisa tip-toed while leaning her weight on me, turned her face as far up as she could, and tried to kiss me. I felt a jolt of rejection go through my body. Ah, this feeling again. Following the stiffening of my spine, I gently grabbed Nagisa’s shoulders and pushed her back until her heels touched the ground.

I think that this reaction was also a remnant of the game. There must have been a rule against kissing between us. But I didn’t show any such consideration and replied rationally.

“It’s too early to tell.”

“I’m kidding. I know.”

Instead, Nagisa buried her head in my chest and rested her head on it.

“Let’s both work hard so that we can be true lovers. Suguru-senpai.”

“…Yeah. Right, Nagisa.”

I was about to put my hand gently on her back but decided it was too soon to do that.

—And so, I made the wrong choice.