I, Kaito Ando, made up my mind to confess my feelings on a summer day during my first year of high school.
It was a confession after love at first sight.
Her name was Shino Nishichino.
Her light-colored, softly wavy hair was natural. When she smiled, she looked like a goddess. Perhaps because her grandfather was a foreigner, her porcelain-white skin was unlike that of most Japanese.
Nishichino-san was as charming as a small animal, loved by everyone. She was like a foreign princess, and her reputation even reached students at other high schools.
Always by her side stood Kira Tenkawa, a childhood friend.
Tenkawa-san was a stunning beauty with long black hair and a tall, slender figure like a model. She wasn’t in any sports club, but her body was graceful and healthy, like a knight standing by the side of a princess.
Just by standing together, these two created an atmosphere so extraordinary that it changed the air around them.
Whether you were on team Nishichino or team Tenkawa, liking one of them was a big deal.
Naturally, there were many rivals in love.
As for me, I became part of the Nishichino faction after falling in love at first sight.
A race for love? — Unfortunately, I didn’t even feel like entering. Just watching from afar was enough for me, and that seemed like the most sensible opinion.
Honestly, I didn’t stand a chance.
There was nothing special about me. I was average in everything. I didn’t have the will to fight a battle I had no hope of winning.
However...
Life is a strange thing.
A series of coincidences occurred between me and Nishichino-san, moments so unlikely they could never be recreated if time were to rewind.
Miracles happen unintentionally.
That’s why they’re called miracles.
I was about to learn this firsthand.
◆
It all began on a rainy day.
Nishichino-san had a stroke of bad luck.
She was walking with her umbrella when a truck sped past on the road beside the sidewalk, splashing water that had accumulated on the road all around.
As a result, a wave of water, like a tidal surge, crashed over her from head to toe. If it weren’t so terrible, the scene might’ve been mistaken for a surreal gag. I witnessed the moment by chance just as I turned the corner.
Normally, I would’ve ignored something like this, but the situation was so bad that I couldn’t help but step in to help.
After all, there were two soaked beauties standing there.
If I had made a joke about “drenched beauties,” I would’ve likely been punched for it.
Before speaking to them, I handed them a sports towel my parents had told me to carry in my bag.
Nishichino-san’s wet uniform shirt was see-through, so I gave her my blazer to cover up. I handed Tenkawa-san the tracksuit top I had brought with me.
Nishichino-san was deeply embarrassed, and it was striking to see the usually cool Tenkawa-san flustered. Especially since the fabric stuck so closely to her chest that it was practically just skin-colored.
Once things settled down, Nishichino-san bowed her head.
“Thank you... We go to the same school, right? What’s your name...?”
“Oh, uh, it’s Ando. Kaito Ando...”
This was my first conversation with Nishichino-san.
An incident that brought me, who had only watched her from afar, suddenly closer to her.
Just hearing her pink lips say my name was more than enough for me.
It was the best moment of my life, and I thought it would be my first and last stroke of luck.
And yet, that wasn’t the end of it.
What else could I call this but a miracle?
For example, one day Nishichino-san didn’t have enough change for a vending machine, and I happened to be passing by. I lent her just 10 yen. The next day, Nishichino-san and Tenkawa-san from another class came to mine and handed me a small bag.
“To thank you for yesterday, we baked cookies together.”
It was like something out of a dream.
A thank you from two of the most popular girls in school.
The help of 10 yen was repaid a hundredfold, a miracle if ever there was one.
Another time, I happened to pass by when Nishichino-san and Tenkawa-san found a stray puppy abandoned under a bridge. We ended up searching for someone to adopt it together.
Or the time I helped them when they were being harassed by some flashy college guys on a weekend. Later, they thanked me by inviting me to a cake buffet with them.
I was simply lucky.
Coincidences turned into inevitabilities.
If I had any advantage, it was nothing more than my miraculous luck.
According to what Tenkawa-san told me, Nishichino-san’s type wasn’t someone like me.
She liked the prince-like type: tall, charming, good at both studying and sports, like a character from a shoujo manga.
So honestly, my confession should’ve ended as just an act of self-satisfaction.
It was more of a gutsy challenge done on impulse.
“Nishichino-san, I’ve liked you for a long time...! I know I’m not your type. But would you go out with me...?”
A hopelessly lame confession — but Nishichino-san gave me a small nod.
“For the first time, I’ve fallen for someone who’s not my type. I think this is what it means to really fall in love.”
It was a response I couldn’t believe myself, but it wasn’t a dream.
At the time, I reported the news to Tenkawa-san, with whom I had become quite close, through a chat app. After all, before confessing to Nishichino-san, I had consulted her so many times that I couldn’t count them on both hands.
She even set up strategy meetings for me on our days off.
But there was one thing that puzzled me.
Why did she go to such lengths to help with my consultations?
As Nishichino-san’s childhood friend, Tenkawa-san must have known that I wasn’t her type.
Why would she support a confession doomed to fail and go along with it until the end?
“Kaito: Tenkawa-san! The confession worked!”
“Kira: I know, haha. Shino told me too.”
“Kaito: Really, thank you! It’s all thanks to your advice!”
“Kira: That’s not true. I didn’t do anything. It’s the result of you persistently building up your feelings.”
Persistently building up my feelings—yeah, that’s what it was.
A series of coincidences turned into inevitabilities, and that’s why the confession succeeded.
On the flip side, if I had taken just one wrong step, I wouldn’t have met Nishichino-san at all.
If time were to rewind, I might never have reached the same outcome again.
When I thought about it that way, I realized that this result was a product of an unbroken chain of miracles.
We started dating during the summer vacation, and when school resumed after the break, news of my relationship with Nishichino-san spread through the school like a shockwave.
I got a lot of resentful stares, but they quickly faded once I ate Nishichino-san’s homemade lunch.
At first, we called each other “Ando-kun” and “Nishichino-san,” but soon enough, we started calling each other “Kaito-kun” and “Shino.” Tenkawa-san often teased us about it.
“I’m feeling lonely now that Shino’s been stolen from me. Maybe Ando-kun should start calling me ‘Kira’ too, huh?”
During those moments, Shino would always pout with embarrassment and say, “Hey! Kaito-kun is my boyfriend, so that’s not allowed...,” showing her jealousy.
That made me so happy, I felt like I was on cloud nine every time.
Those days were simply the best.
Every day was filled with happiness.
I thought I didn’t need anything else.
But life can shatter in an instant.
I learned that the hard way.
Winter.
December, when the city is dyed with Christmas lights.
Shino—was in a traffic accident and lost her memory of the past few months.
◆
They say there are several kinds of memory.
Unconscious memory.
Memories ingrained in the body.
Memories intentionally learned.
Among them, episodic memory refers to the memory of events, including the emotions associated with life events.
In early December.
On a night when light snow was falling, Shino was the victim of a hit-and-run accident.
The perpetrator was caught quickly, but Shino suffered a severe head injury and remained unconscious for four days.
I went to the hospital every day with Tenkawa-san.
Tenkawa-san held Shino’s hand and cried uncontrollably.
She was so distraught, it was hard to believe she was usually the cool and composed one.
“Why... why did this happen?! Shino...! Please wake up...!”
As for me, I spent those days in a haze, feeling like nothing was real.
I thought that maybe, without even shedding a tear, everything would just disappear like a dream.
It had all felt like a string of unbelievable events, as if I had been living on a cloud. This was just the result of that. It wouldn’t have been strange for it all to vanish at any moment.
However, reality was crueler than I had imagined.
On the fifth evening after the accident.
When I visited the hospital room as usual with Tenkawa-san, Shino was already awake, sitting up in bed.
She looked at us curiously.
“Shino!”
Tenkawa-san rushed to the bedside and embraced Shino.
“You’re awake! Thank goodness...! Thank goodness!”
“Whoa, Kira-chan, that’s too tight... Hey, where am I? Is this a hospital? Why am I here...?”
“Do you not remember anything? But still, I’m so glad you’re awake...!”
As the two of them talked, their faces close like sisters, I approached with a sense of relief—and then, I fell into despair.
Shino looked at me and frowned.
It was a look of discomfort, as if she were seeing a stranger.
I froze in my tracks.
Shino opened her mouth.
“Um, who are you...? Kira-chan’s friend...?”
“...What?”
Was the voice of confusion mine? Or was it Tenkawa-san’s?
I never found out the answer.
The only thing I did understand was this:
After a detailed examination, the diagnosis was retrograde amnesia.
She had lost all episodic memories from the moment she entered high school until now.
In other words.
All the miraculous events I had built up with her.
For her, they no longer existed.
◆
It was a living hell.
For both me and Shino, it must have been.
After all, her memories from before middle school were perfectly intact.
She even remembered the first month or so after starting high school.
But all of the memories from the months after meeting me had been completely erased.
To have a male student—someone who wasn’t her type at all—suddenly claim “I’m your boyfriend” when he didn’t exist in her memories must have been nothing short of a nightmare for her.
I wanted to talk to her alone in the hospital room, but Shino strongly objected to that.
With Tenkawa-san standing beside her, Shino, looking confused, asked me this:
“Um, were we really... dating?”
At that, Tenkawa-san cut in.
“How many times do you need to ask, Shino? I wouldn’t lie to you, and neither would Ando-kun.”
Tenkawa-san, perhaps sympathizing with my feelings, raised her voice with an unusual amount of emotion. But that seemed to have the opposite effect, as Shino would always become even more bewildered or upset.
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