Chapter 10: Hopeless me

I was completely confused.
I was looking at myself.
She looked just as shocked and bewildered as I felt.
There were two of me.
What did that even mean?
Just like Kameyama-kun had turned into a version I didn’t know...
did that mean there was now a version of me I didn’t know too?
I got it.
She was another possibility.
A version of me from a future that might have happened.
Where had we branched?
Or were we actually exactly the same?
“I see. So this is how it turned out...”
Hiroki, who had been standing in the classroom, turned around.
He looked exactly the same as Kameyama-san.
Same expression.
Same posture.
Same way of moving.
Ah...
I had wanted to see him so badly.
But I had run straight into such a shocking development that the happiness I had been waiting to feel got left behind somewhere, and now I had no idea what to do with myself.
Still.
First things first.
I had to confirm that the Hiroki standing in front of me wasn’t Kameyama-san.
That he was the person I had shared my first kiss with.
Otherwise, none of this could move forward.
“Kameyama-kun... you’re the Kameyama-kun who kissed me, right...?”
The other me looked at him and asked.
I had been about to ask the exact same thing.
Of course.
She was me.
Our thought processes were similar.
Hiroki nodded.
“Yeah. Both of you are the person I shared my first kiss with.”
There was no such thing as a second first kiss.
“Right now, downstairs, the slightly earlier version of me and Hamori-san are probably kissing.”
That was when I realized.
A year ago, I had been killing time in a second-year classroom.
I had wanted to avoid going home to Dad for as long as possible.
But I had nowhere else to go and no money to spend, so I stayed at school every day until just before they locked up, writing my novel.
That had been me one year ago.
This was a third-year classroom.
Until this exact moment, I had never questioned the fact that Hiroki disappeared from a third-year classroom.
“What point in time are you from, Hiroki?”
I asked, still confused.
The moment the words left my mouth, I realized what an awkward question that was.
“After I kissed you, I returned to one year later, then came here from the third-year classroom. From my perspective, it’s only been a little while since we kissed.”
He explained his movements simply.
The Hiroki who had come back from the shoe lockers and disappeared...
had already kissed me.
If I hadn’t hidden back then and had simply shown myself, everything might have ended without any problem.
At least now I knew that the Hiroki standing in front of me was the Hiroki I had been chasing all this time.
Next problem.
And this one was much bigger.
“So... you’re me, right?”
“Looks that way.”
The other me.
Every movement she made looked like mine.
Seeing myself without the mirror reversal was strangely fascinating.
So that was what my profile looked like.
“If you’re me, then you know we don’t need any buildup anymore, right? Want to get straight to the point?”
She looked directly at me.
I felt the same way.
“Which one of us becomes Hiroki’s girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
A love triangle.
The classic setup I had seen in countless romance manga and novels.
I never thought I would face one in real life.
And I definitely never imagined the rival would be myself.
I loved Hiroki.
She loved Hiroki too.
And both of us had experienced our first kiss with him.
“I was told downstairs that whether we became a couple was a separate issue, you know.”
“That was a year ago. We’ve both been waiting for a whole year, and we’re out of patience now, so let’s call that invalid. Also, Hiroki taking both of us is not an option.”
The other me agreed with what I said.
So she had been waiting for a year too.
I intended to do anything it took to get Hiroki.
And so did she.
And if we were going to live with Hiroki, there was no way two identical versions of me could both exist in the same life.
He would have to choose one of us.
I took a deep breath.
What mattered now was saying what I truly felt.
“I love Hiroki.”
“I think I love Hiroki more.”
She cut right over me.
I immediately fired back.
“I definitely love him more!”
“No, absolutely, absolutely, I love him more!”
This argument was meaningless.
But somehow, if I lost here, it felt like everything would be over.
“I absolutely, absolutely, ABSOLUTELY love him more!!!”
“No way! I absolutely love him more! I’ve been waiting all this time!”
“Enough.”
Hiroki, the person with absolute authority in this situation, finally stepped in.
We both fell silent.
His choice would decide which one of us became his girlfriend.
“...”
Hiroki looked back and forth between us.
Being compared to someone else like this made me unbearably anxious.
I thought maybe I should go over right now, touch him, whisper something sweet into his ear, do something—
but Hiroki stopped me with a look.
The other me seemed to be thinking the same thing.
She wanted to move too.
Neither of us could.
What would he even use to decide?
I had distinguished between Hiroki and Kameyama-san based on whether we had kissed.
But this time, both of us had shared our first kiss with him.
His artist’s eyes—
eyes trained to observe—
looked straight through us.
Minutes passed with all three of us in silence.
Those few minutes felt like standing at the witness stand in a courtroom.
Time always moved slower when you were suffering.
What did it mean to love someone?
That was what I found myself thinking about.
I hated my father.
For everyone else, that kind of feeling might have been acceptable.
But in my case, I had thought society wouldn’t approve of it.
So I believed I wasn’t allowed to feel that way.
But through Hiroki’s kiss, I had been freed from that.
I had been allowed to feel what I felt.
Now, I didn’t want to think about Dad.
So I didn’t.
Then what was the opposite?
What did it mean to love someone?
I knew I was drawn to Hiroki.
I wanted to hug him right now.
I wanted to talk to him.
I wanted to kiss him too.
The things that separated Hiroki from Kameyama-san were simple.
He had kissed me.
He had read my novel.
That was about it.
There was also the fact that he was some kind of spacetime agent, but I didn’t think that mattered much.
This time, there was no difference like that.
Objectively speaking, the two of us were the same.
She was a version of me who had branched somewhere, but you could basically call us identical.
The only difference was consciousness.
I was here.
I could think.
I was looking at the Hiroki I loved.
But when I looked at her—
the other me—
I could only think of her as someone else.
We were not the same person.
“Hmmm...”
Hiroki was struggling.
Why was he struggling this much?
Hiroki was the kind of person who said “I like you” if he liked you.
He didn’t demand much of a reason.
He followed the direction his feelings pointed him.
“Ah...”
I understood.
For Hiroki to date me...
he would have to abandon me.
Objectively, the two of us were the same.
But one would become his girlfriend.
The other would be rejected and never see him again.
That was the situation.
Hiroki loved me.
Even an idiot could see that.
He cared about me enough to throw away the whole world.
But now he had to reject me.
Otherwise, he couldn’t become my boyfriend.
Otherwise, we couldn’t live on the same world line.
Cruel.
This was so cruel.
Why had things turned out like this?
It had been like this from the beginning.
Out of nowhere, I was told that if I didn’t kiss someone, the world would collapse.
That was just how this world worked.
Always sudden.
Always demanding something unreasonable.
No time to prepare.
No way to predict it.
And yet it came anyway.
Every time, you were forced to make some painful choice.
The silence continued.
How many minutes had passed?
I didn’t even know whether time flowed normally in this strange place.
But maybe this was what time between a man and woman was like.
I decided.
I would step aside.
I would entrust Hiroki to myself.
I didn’t want to make the person I loved reject me.
I had already received an unbelievably happy memory.
That was enough.
I thought I could live the rest of my life with that memory alone.
“I’m done.”
But I wasn’t the one who said it.
The other me did.
She kept her face blank as she spoke.
“I’m not going to become Hiroki’s girlfriend.”
Her voice trembled.
She was trying to hide it.
Failing.
Her eyes looked toward Hiroki while somehow looking somewhere else entirely.
She couldn’t bear to look directly at him.
Maybe because she was me, I understood exactly how she felt.
Just watching her hurt.
It felt like something sharp was being driven straight through my chest.
Just imagining myself in her place made cold sweat break out all over me.
If she had spoken a few seconds later, I would have been the one standing there.
“You two... be happy.”
“Wait!”
She started running.
I rushed over, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back.
Judging by the distance, I shouldn’t have made it in time.
Maybe space itself was distorted here.
I reached her almost instantly.
She looked shocked that I had stopped her.
There were tears in her eyes.
The moment I saw them, anger rose up inside me.
“That’s arrogant!”
“What?”
“It’s fine to care about the other person! But stepping aside like that is wrong!”
Even while I shouted, I wondered:
Why did I think it was wrong?
I had just been planning to do exactly the same thing.
I didn’t want to become a burden to Hiroki.
I was scared we wouldn’t be able to be happy together.
Part of me wanted to throw everything away right now.
“Before I came here, I thought I’d do anything if it meant becoming Hiroki’s girlfriend!”
The moment I shouted it, I understood.
Right.
That was it.
Right before crossing the world line, I had been told I might die.
That I might never come back.
And I still chose to jump.
Because I wanted to see Hiroki.
Because I wanted to become his girlfriend.
Because I wanted us to be together.
The other me seemed to remember too.
Her face twisted.
“Don’t erase the decision I made!”
“Then what am I supposed to do?!”
“I don’t know! But stepping aside is wrong!”
“That’s...”
Like a taut string suddenly snapping, her legs gave out beneath her.
Only after shouting did I realize what I had just done.
I had erased her decision.
Her decision to step aside.
I had made it meaningless.
How selfish could I possibly be?
I was being thrown around by my own selfishness.
What a hopeless person I was.
“I... really am selfish...”
She murmured through her tears.
I was crying too.
Hopeless me.
Dragged around by myself.
Unable to control myself.
Too scared to be brave.
Unable even to give up.
Even when I tried to move forward, I was the one who stopped myself.
And Hiroki had told someone like that that he loved her.
How happy that had made me.
My heart had gone wild.
Flown all over the place.
No one else could move my heart like that.
But at the same time...
I felt guilty.
I couldn’t even control myself.
And I was asking Hiroki to deal with me?
That was embarrassing.
That was why I had tried to leave the room.
And that was why I had stopped myself.
Round and round.
Going nowhere.
“Hamori-san.”
Hiroki came over and took both of our hands at the same time.
“I’ll date both of you.”
“What?”
“That’s impossible...”
There were two identical versions of the same person.
What would life even look like?
I had a family.
How would I explain this to Mom?
And you couldn’t exactly just add another identical person to the family register.
What about school?
There should only be one student ID.
One enrollment number.
“We’ll figure something out.”
“Oh. Right. You’re a spacetime-hopping agent.”
That explanation actually made sense to me.
I didn’t know the details of Hiroki’s position, but if there was an organization managing spacetime, they probably knew some way to deal with problems like this.
“...No. I’ll probably be removed from my position as a spacetime investigator.”
“What? Why?”
The other me peered anxiously at Hiroki’s face.
“Because this would violate the rules.”
“Hold on.”
“Wait, wait, wait.”
The two of us grabbed his cheeks and squashed them between our palms.
“That’s not okay.”
“We’re standing here crying because we don’t know what to do for your sake. We’re not letting you sacrifice yourself.”
“It wouldn’t be a sacrifice. I’m responsible for causing this tragedy. That’s why I’m saying I’ll take responsibility and make both of you happy. And honestly, I never want something like this to happen again, so I was thinking of quitting anyway.”
The two of us looked at each other.
We communicated with our eyes.
He’s saying that. What do we do?
It took less than a few seconds.
““No. Choose one of us.””
“No matter which one I choose, objectively it’s the same thing...! My choices are basically ‘YES’ and ‘yes’!”
He was right.
Whichever one he chose, one of us got rejected and one of us became his girlfriend.
From an outsider’s perspective, nothing changed.
The only difference was whether my consciousness continued or not.
Something measurable only subjectively.
Hiroki cared about that.
That was why he couldn’t choose.
He kept postponing the decision, searching for some way where no one had to be sacrificed.
But there was no such way.
Something had to be sacrificed.
AAAAAAAH!
THIS AGAIN?!
THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE FIRST-KISS THING!
Sacrifice.
Sacrifice.
Sacrifice!
SCREW YOU, WORLD!
MAKE A WAY FOR EVERYONE TO BE HAPPY!
Why the hell did you branch me into two people without asking?!
Are you stupid?!
Of course this was going to cause problems!
“Want to decide with rock-paper-scissors?”
““ABSOLUTELY NOT!””
We shot down Hiroki’s suggestion instantly.
After all the bad luck and unreasonable crap we had already been through, there was no way I was leaving the parts I could control up to chance too.
“Then I won’t date either of you.”
““ABSOLUTELY NOT!””
“Then what am I supposed to do...? I don’t like this either.”
If we knew that, we wouldn’t be struggling.
I didn’t know what to do either.
I wanted to be Hiroki’s girlfriend.
And I didn’t want anyone to be sacrificed.
“Then as warriors, shouldn’t we settle it with a duel?”
“That’s it...! In the end, all you can rely on is your own fists!”
“Do not decide who becomes my girlfriend with violence! You two aren’t samurai!”
““Then choose one of us!””
“Ghh...”
Hiroki fell silent.
This man’s biggest problem was that he was too kind to me.
When there was only one of me, that caused no problems at all.
But with two of me, apparently this was what happened.
If we had been two different girls, he would have been unbearably dishonest.
But since we were literally the same person, I couldn’t even blame him properly.
“So this really is the only thing I can do...”
Hiroki stepped back a little.
I thought he was about to start drawing.
If he disappeared into concentration mode now, this conversation would never move forward.
So I was ready to stop him.
But that wasn’t what he did.
“Please. Let me take responsibility for both of you.”
Hiroki dropped to his knees and bowed all the way down.
A full dogeza.
His forehead pressed against the floor.
He lowered himself as far as physically possible and apologized to both of us.
“Um...”
“Please. I don’t want to lose either of you. I’ll treasure both of you. No matter what kind of future comes, I’ll make sure both of you can live. So... please.”
It felt like someone had dumped cold water over my head.
My mind cooled instantly.
What had I—
what had we—
been doing this whole time?
I had heard somewhere that love was a matter of posture.
That your respect for another person’s individuality appeared in the attitude you took toward them.
This was his posture toward me.
Come to think of it...
the first time he asked me to kiss him, he had bent at a perfect ninety-degree angle and bowed his head.
No one around me had ever treated me like that.
So I hadn’t understood.
What about me?
All I had done was keep making selfish demands.
“I’m sorry. We... were wrong.”
I hadn’t come here to make him lower himself like this.
I hadn’t forced him to choose because I wanted him to apologize.
But maybe this was what love was like.
The two of us reached out and took Hiroki’s hands.
He raised his head.
“From now on... please take care of us.”
And the two of us bowed.