7
And as for Hachiman Hikigaya…
The summer was over, but only by the calendar. The final day of summer arrived, and school was starting the following day. The cicadas that announced the fall were chirping loudly, but it was still hot. It would probably be a little longer before the weather cooled.
The last sunset of August was descending. In the remaining light, I prepared for the start of school the next day. I stuffed the homework that I had finished long ago into my bag.
Among my papers was Komachi’s independent research project. I had apparently gotten them jumbled together when I had printed everything I needed for submission. I flipped through the report I’d done on flame reactions one last time.
It’s the flame reactions that give fireworks their color. If you touch metals or salts to a flame, each element will burn a characteristic color. Blue-white flame will also look different depending on which elements it touches.
It’s actually kind of like people. When two people come in contact, you’ll get some kind of reaction. And there’s a range of color possibilities. Even a single person will display different reactions depending on which person they come in contact with. You create completely different colors each time, just like multicolored fireworks.
For example, when Saki Kawasaki met her, she said she was difficult to approach. Though the two girls were of the same type, and they both kept others at a distance, Kawasaki didn’t feel like they could become friends. So perhaps the best form of communication for them was noninterference.
Or when Taishi Kawasaki saw her, he described her as beautiful but also scary. If you were to just skim the surface in expressing what she is, you couldn’t be more accurate. Seen from afar, she may indeed be as a cliff reigning over an icy sea.
And then there was Yoshiteru Zaimokuza. When he was faced with her, he concluded that her bluntness meant she would have no reservations about hurting him. If we were only talking about that specific aspect of her, I’d say he was hitting the nail on the head. Nevertheless, I don’t believe it’s a question of whether she has reservations; she simply may not know any other way to be.
And then, when Saika Totsuka approached her, he called her a dignified and serious person. And that was true: She was. She is faithful to rules and principles. Though her rules and principles are based on her own internal sense of justice.
When Komachi Hikigaya came into contact with her, though, she felt that the older girl seemed somehow lonely. Both the person leaving home and the ones left behind experience the ache of solitude. Of course, Komachi’s judgment was nothing more than sympathy from an outsider. Nobody knows how she really feels, probably herself included.
By contrast, Shizuka Hiratsuka watched over her, believing she was a kind person and also often righteous. Miss Hiratsuka also said the world is neither kind nor right, so it must be a difficult place for her to be. Indeed, that was true—nearly everything around her could well become her shackles. Only one thing might save her, the teacher had said: “friends.” But she has most likely been tormented a dozen times more by those same “friends”—no, hundreds of times.
And Haruno Yukinoshita, who lived with her, had laughed as if to say she was worthless. With a callous smile, she commented that her little sister had always been chasing after her, and that’s why she is always the loser. She is Haruno’s pitiful, adorable, unchosen little sister. I don’t know who it was that didn’t choose her. Maybe it was friends, family, parents, or perhaps even fate. Whichever it is, only a strong person like Haruno Yukinoshita could feel sorry for her. I’ve never once felt that way.
But then Yui Yuigahama, having been by her side all along, cried out that she liked her. There was nothing flowery about the clumsy, tactless, frank way she had howled her feelings, but I’ve never heard a confession so beautiful. Even Yui Yuigahama felt a wall between her and the other girl, but that only made her want to overcome the distance all the more. She longs to help her, so strongly that she would even ask for assistance from someone like me.
And as for Hachiman Hikigaya…
Had I seen nothing at all?
Sometimes, I could indeed get a vague grasp of her actions and the psychology underlying them. But that didn’t mean I understood how she feels. It’s just that we were in similar positions in similar environments, so that led me to make analogies. Those analogies are nothing more than offhand approximations.
People only ever see what they want to see.
I think I was honing in on something familiar to me within her. The way she persists in her aloofness, in her own sense of justice, and doesn’t lament about how misunderstood she is or how she’s given up on understanding others. She unquestionably had that perfect superhuman nature I was attempting to master.
I…don’t feel any desire to know more about her.
The Yukino Yukinoshita I’ve seen is always beautiful and honest and never lies—her brusque statements often say more than necessary. She has no one to rely on, and yet she continues to stand on her own two feet.
The way she stood there, beautiful like frozen blue flame, so ephemeral, even tragic…
That Yukino Yukinoshita…
…was the one I admired.
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