Kuzu to Kinka no Qualidea - Volume 1 - Chapter Ep2

Haruma-1

Her wide eyes were directed at the window behind me.

“Oh my, what is that…?” Yuu murmured as she stared at the unfolding scenery outside.

When I looked over my shoulder to follow her gaze, the setting sun was far redder than usual, and the sky was burning bright red as if a pillar of fire had engulfed the city.

That stardust-studded light appeared to me like millions of gold coins falling from the sky.

Yuu-1

We left the house and walked along at a creeping pace.

There was not a soul to be seen around us. There were only bent telephone poles and hellish flames springing from the ground, as if seething with impatience. If all life on Earth were suddenly wiped out, I am fairly certain that it would look like this.

Gazing up at the heavens, the evening sun burned bright red as if it was madly, passionately in love, and the red moon dripped with fresh blood. It was as if the two were putting on a joint performance to paint the scene of the end of the world in all of its brilliance.

And yet, there were things both visible and invisible to the human eye that indicated that the world had certainly come to its end. As far as we who lived only in our subjective bubbles were concerned, it was impossible to distinguish between how the world was established and how it would liquidate.

We, who had been oppressed by this narrow-minded world, had no obligation to spare a thought for how the world would end. It was only important to us that we were living in the moment, that we were holding hands, that we walked in step with each other.

“Was this where the Random Crossroad started?” he mused.

“Who knows? Which path shall we take?”

“Let’s go with right, then.”

“In that case, I’ll choose left.”

“We’ll take the middle path and go straight ahead.”

We smiled and huddled closer, before walking down the path towards the urban legend.

And thus we arrived at the place where it all began.

Haruma-2

We stood with our shoulders hunched together, battered by the wind.

“…What a nice scene.”

This place, which should have been so familiar, now appeared to us as a scene of the world at its very brink. If I had been looking at this sunset glow alone, I would not have seen so much worth in it.

If one could visualise the end of the world, then I imagine it would be a tranquil sight like this. As if gods were falling from the sky through some mechanical manoeuvre, or how the most beautiful women you’ve ever seen plunged from the sky in flames. I was fond of the latter in particular.

I’m sure that if all the variety were to die out on this planet and individuality ceased to be, this girl would not be any less beautiful to me, I thought as I looked at the falling sky and then at her. That caused her to giggle.

“Have you fallen in love with me all over again? I believe you fell in love with me at first sight, Haruma-san.”

“Well, at first. Then I realised what a bitch you were, and I still thought you were a bitch in the middle of the story, and now I think that even though you’re a bitch, I ended up getting used to it. And so, well, yeah. It was love at first sight.”

“I wouldn’t call that love at first sight…”

“Pretty sure I said I fell for you in the beginning.”

“You didn’t. Do you hear me? I’m saying that love at first sight is more like, well, you want to be with the other person from the moment you first meet, you resort to desperate means to go out with that person, you get angry at the most inconsequential things, and you do all sorts of incomprehensible things.”

“That’s specific,” I said.

She puffed out her chest proudly. “I’m a specialist, you see.” She chuckled. “Haruma-san, you’re the exact opposite, I see.”

Her hand touched mine. Our fingers intertwined in an awkward, irregular manner.

We bumped against each other, fumbled against each other, yielded to each other, opened up to each other, and finally we became one.

That’s how we fell in love.

(fin)