Utsuro no Hako:Volume1 27753rd time (ch11)

Utsuro no Hako:Volume1 27753rd time

Soccer during P.E.
Because I have gotten a nose bleed, I am sleeping on Mogi-san’s lap.
I suddenly start to wonder about her feelings for letting me sleep on her lap. Could it be that she is trying, even if just for a bit, to attract me?
I don’t have the slightest idea; she is expressionless as ever when I peek at her casually.
“…Mogi-san”
“What is?”
“What are you thinking right now?”

“Eh?”
Mogi-san tilts her head. But her answer doesn’t seem to come. The only reaction she shows to my question is a bewildered face.
This makes me ponder a little. If it’s so hard to recognize the partner’s feelings, can love really progress?
Why did I fall in love with such a difficult girl?
In the first place — when on earth did I fall in love?
I try to remember.
“…………Huh?”
“…What’s wrong?”
Mogi-san asks when I suddenly let out a sound.
“N-No…nothing!”
My face probably doesn’t say ‘nothing’. Mogi-san is aware of that. But since she doesn’t have the skills to question me about this matter, she keeps silent without doing anything.
I stand up without prior warning to Mogi-san.
“Ah, um…it seems my nose bleed has stopped.”
“…mh.”
Our conversation ends with these plain words.
Why did I abandon such a favorable situation voluntarily? This bliss might not come a second time.
But—it is impossible.
You see, no matter what I try—I can't remember.
I can’t remember. I can’t remember. I can’t remember!…I can’t remember when I fell in love with her!
Why did I fall in love? What was the trigger? Or was I simply attracted to her before I knew it, even without any special occasion?
I should know as much; there’s no way I’d forget, but…I cannot remember, no matter how hard I try.
It wasn’t love at first sight. And except for the fact that we’re classmates, we have almost nothing in common.
And yet, why so out of the blue? Or are you telling me that it was a completely sudden awakening of love—
“—no way…”
Although hard to believe, it is the only thing I can think of. A completely sudden awakening of love.
“What’s wrong? Are you alright?…Should we go to the infirmary?”
Mogi-san suggests this with the calm voice of hers. I am indeed very happy that she’s worried about me. Simply happy. This feeling is not fake.
“…I’m alright. I was just pondering about something.”
I repeatedly ask myself whether this isn’t some mistake. But the more I reconsider it, the more it seems true to me.
I haven’t been attracted to Mogi-san.
Until when? Right—
—I haven’t been attracted to her until yesterday.
“—Ah, I see.”
I look at the transfer student who is just standing around in the middle of the yard — Aya Otonashi.
When was the occasion that made me get attracted to Mogi-san? —ah, that’s easy. It wasn’t yesterday. But today I am already in love. So when was it?
That was only possible—between yesterday and today.
Only during the more than 20,000 repetitions that occurred due to the ‘Rejecting Classroom’.
Ah, I remembered. Only a fragment, but I probably remembered more than usual. Still, it is just a fragment, so most of the memories stay lost.
I have lost the most important recollection to me — how I fell in love with Mogi-san. And surely I won’t regain this. I can’t share anything with Mogi-san. An unrequited love I can’t do anything about, no matter how much time passes; only my feelings will get stronger.
No, it may be more than that. This love might disappear as soon as the ‘Rejecting Classroom’ ends. I mean, this love shouldn’t even exist without the ‘Rejecting Classroom’.
This is strange. Such a thing is definitely strange. There’s no lie to this love.
But still this love is a fake that couldn’t exist originally?
A sudden gust blows before the lesson ends. It lifts up Mogi-san’s skirt. I wonder why? But I have a faint feeling that I already know these light blue panties.
No, I do know them.
The fact that Mogi-san is wearing light blue panties today.
And also the fact that Aya Otonashi sacrificed Kasumi Mogi more than anyone else in order to retain her memories.


Therefore I decide.
To defend this ‘Rejecting Classroom’.

✵

This time Aya Otonashi doesn’t come approaching me.
No, I think it was the same the time before. I can only remember slightly, but it’s been like this for a while now.
During lunch break, Aya Otonashi is alone, chewing her bread really wearily.
This time it is me who approaches her.
Just by doing so, my body stiffens and my heartbeat accelerates. Otonashi-san’s rejection of others has amassed to a giant barrier, enough to apply pressure by itself.
“…Otonashi-san.”
I ready myself and call out to her. However, Otonashi-san doesn’t even turn around. But there’s no way she didn’t hear me from this distance though, so I continue without caring.
“I have something to discuss.”
“I don’t.”
She turns me down without batting an eye.
“Otonashi-san.”
No reaction. She just continues chewing her bread halfheartedly.
She seems to plan to ignore me no matter what I say. In that case I simply have to make ignoring me impossible for her.
It’s immediately come to mind when I thought about it.
“…Maria.”
The chewing movements of her mouth stop.
“I have something to discuss.”
Despite this she doesn’t even look at me. She doesn’t say anything else, either.
The classroom is dead silent. Our classmates are only looking at us while holding their breath.
And finally Otonashi-san seems to have lost her patience and sighs.
“I never thought you’d say that name. Seems like you’ve remembered quite a lot this time.”
“Yeah, so—”
“Even so, there’s nothing to discuss with you.”
Once again she begins to chew her bread listlessly.
“Why!”
The glances of my classmates focused on me when I reflexively start shouting.
“Why?! Am I not the one you have to do something about?! So why don’t you even try listening to me!?”
“Why, you ask?”
Otonashi-san sneers.
“You honestly don’t know? Ha! Right. You’re always dumb, acting like this. You don’t think for yourself. Why should I keep company with such a person?”
“…well, I don’t know what I have done sometimes.”
“Sometimes? Foolish. What’s different about the current you, huh? You’re just the same, aren’t you?”
“How can you assert this? Maybe I’m going to offer you my help. In that case—”
“Virtually doesn’t matter.”
Otonashi-san spits out these words without even letting me finish.
I am about to object reflexively. But this objection is erased by Otonashi-san’s following words.
“Because you haven’t made this proposal just two or three times already.”
“Eh—?”
I am so stunned that my face might have even looked funny. Curling her mouth up slightly, Otonashi-san puts her half-eaten bread back and speaks:
“Very well. This time is full of useless things anyway. This isn’t just the second or third time I’m explaining this as well, but let me tell you anyway.”
Otonashi-san stands up and starts walking away.
I don’t have a choice but to follow her quietly.

✵

As usual she leads me to the backside of the school building. And just as usual Otonashi-san leans against the wall.
“I’ll say this right now at the beginning. I won’t have a conversation with you. You will just listen to my words like an idiot.”
“…I can decide that on my own.”
I say so to be a bit rebellious, but Otonashi-san just darts me a cold glance.
“Hoshino, do you know which time this is? No, you don’t know. This iteration’s the 27,753^rd.”
It is a way too outrageous number.
“…did you specifically count each time?”
“Yeah, since there’s no way to affirm this once I stop counting even just one time. If I forget to do so, I’ll lose the sight of my standpoint. Therefore I’m counting.”
Certainly, it’s slightly calming if one knows how many steps one has taken towards an unknown destination.
“I have repeated just this much. I have already tried almost all possible ways to approach you. I’m in a situation where I can’t even think of anything I haven’t tried already.”
“That’s why you think there’s no meaning in talking to me?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not even trying to persuade me to hand over the ‘box’ to you?”
“I have given up on that already long ago.”
“Why? Somewhere within these recurrences, there should have been a supportive me.”
“Yeah, of course. There were times you treated me with hostility, and there were also times you cooperated. But you know? It doesn’t matter. You don’t hand out the ‘box’ either way.”
I didn’t hand out the ‘box’ even when I was cooperating?…but well, that’s logical. If Otonashi-san had obtained the ‘box’, then this «now» inside the ‘Rejecting Classroom’ wouldn’t exist.
“Just confirming: it’s for sure that I have the ‘box’, right?”
“I’ve been doubting that constantly myself. But the conclusion is always the same. Kazuki Hoshino is, without a doubt, the ‘owner’.”
“Why do you think so?”
“There aren’t as many suspects as you may think. The explanation would take too long so I’ll abbreviate it. It’s impossible for the few suspects to deceive me for 27,753 times. Hence, you’re the only possible ‘owner’. Furthermore, unrelated to the ‘Rejecting Classroom’, there’s unarguable circumstantial evidence, isn’t there?”
As she said. I had met the distributor of the ‘box’—“*”.
“Even so, you don’t take out the ‘box’ at all. Rather, you can’t. I’ve marked you as the ‘owner’ more than 20,000 times ago.”
“So you’ve given up?”
This Otonashi-san who spares no effort in order to obtain a ‘box’?
“I have not given up. I just cannot attain the box. Let’s assume you’re searching for a 100 Yen coin that should be in your wallet, but you can’t find it however much you turn the wallet inside out. Searching every corner of the wallet is easy. Still, you don’t find it. In that case you have to assume that those 100 Yen aren’t there anymore. Just like that, in these 27,753 recurrences I’ve come to the conclusion that «I cannot attain the ‘box’ from Kazuki Hoshino».”
Otonashi-san scowls at me for a moment and turned away.
“Well then, the side show has ended. Still want to say something?”
“…Yeah! That’s why I wanted to talk to you in the first place.”
I have to say it.
I have decided. I have decided to defend the ‘Rejecting Classroom’.
Otonashi-san, who has come to kill Mogi-san countless times, I make her—
“I make Otonashi-san, no, Aya Otonashi—”
“—an enemy?”
“—huh?!”
What I was about to say with the determination of leaping into the dark, Otonashi-san guessed in advance. And she is still uninterested and not looking at me.
When she sees that I am speechless and shocked from the bottom of my heart, Otonashi-san lets out a sigh. She turns to me reluctantly.
“Hoshino, have you still not understood? How much time do you think I’ve spent together with the idiot you are? This is just another pattern that I’ve already repeated so often that I’m tired of it. There’s no way I wouldn’t see through it, is there?”
“W-What—”
I’ve made such a strong determination countless times already?
Why did it turn out meaningless all these times?
“Incidentally, I’ll tell you this as well. Even if your basic values shaped your determination of making me an enemy and then tried to take over your memories each time; in the end you’d revoke this hostility against me. Dead sure.”
“T-There’s no—”
After all that would mean that I’d come to terms with her killing Mogi-san; that I’d choose to erase my feelings for Mogi-san.
“You can’t believe me? Want me to tell you the reason I’ve heard countless times from you?”
I bite on my lips.
Otonashi-san considers the conversation as over and turns away.
“These basic values of yours could outlast more than 20,000 repetitions without problem. I’ll acknowledge just that about you.”
I raise my face spontaneously.
She’s said that she «acknowledges» me just now, right? This Otonashi-san has?
“Wait a moment.”
There is one more thing I have to ask no matter what.
Otonashi-san turns only her head to me.
“You’ve stopped trying to retrieve the ‘box’ from me, right?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I say so?”
“Then…what are you planning to do from now on?”
There is no change in Otonashi-san’s expression. She still gazes straight at me without averting her eyes.
I am the one who averts his glance unintentionally upon this extremely straightforward gaze.
“Ah—”
In that instant…Otonashi-san walks away without saying anything.
Without having answered my question.

✵

Otonashi-san didn't return to the classroom after this - maybe she went home.
Fifth lesson, Mathematics. I can’t understand the formula right away, although I’ve probably heard it for a gazillion times already, and instead watch Mogi-san all the time.
Will I really abandon Mogi-san? Will I really break off these feelings for her on my own accord?
No. That isn’t possible. It doesn’t matter what the me of the past thought.
The current me won’t give up on Mogi-san. That’s all that matters.
The fifth lesson ends.
I head to Mogi-san immediately afterwards. She notices me and looks back at me with big eyes. My body stiffens like a stone just by this. My heart loses its usual rhythm.
Just by looking at her. That shows how special the thing I am going to tell her is to me.
An action I would certainly not take in the usual everyday life.
But I can’t help it. I can’t think of another way to retain my memories.
I can’t think of another way but confessing to Mogi-san.
“…Mogi-san”
I guess I am making a pretty strange face right now. Mogi-san looks at me wondering and inclines her head.
“Err, there’s something I’d like to—”

«Please wait until tomorrow.»

“—ah”
A picture passes through my mind. A voice starts replaying arbitrarily. A sensation so clear and bright, it hurts as if glass was thrust into my eyes, ears and brain.
My chest is pulsating aggressively as if it were beaten by a hammer.
N-No—
I don’t want to remember. Even though I don’t want to remember. Even though I wanted to consider it as having not happened countless times, it doesn’t disappear. Even though I can forget any other important recollection, only this one I cannot forget.
Yeah, that’s right—
A long time ago — I already confessed to Mogi-san.
“…what’s wrong?”
“……sorry, it’s nothing.”
I put some distance between myself and Mogi-san. She raises her eyebrow suspiciously but doesn’t question me any further.
I return to my seat and let my upper body fall prostrate on the desk.
“……I see.”
Now that I think about it, it’s obvious. After all, I’ve come to repeat this day for over 20,000 times.
I confess to Mogi-san. But I forget. So I confess again. And forget again. In order to resist the ‘Rejecting Classroom’, I’ve made this confession I didn’t even want to do, over and over and over and over again, and forgot it like that.
And each time I got the answer I didn’t want to hear the most.
It’s always the same one. It’s decidedly always the same answer. Well, there’s no way it would change. Mogi-san can’t retain her memories and thus her answer can’t change either.
That answer—
“Please wait until tomorrow.”
Truly cruel. Mind you—this tomorrow will never come.
Getting a peerless determination, plucking up the courage I originally wouldn’t be able to have, stretching the nerves to the limit — and still, these honest words of mine disappeared entirely as if they never happened. And then, just like now, I had to meet her, who had lost those memories of my confession countless times, again.
…I see. They don’t become void.
There hasn’t been anything to begin with.
There’s nothing in this world from the start. There’s no value in anything in a world where everything that happens becomes void. There’s equally no value in beautiful things, in ugly things, precious things, shabby things, beloved things, hated things.
For that reason there is nothing. Only emptiness.
The elusive emptiness called ‘Rejecting Classroom’.
I feel nauseous. I am being forced to breathe in such an environment. While feeling the urge to empty my lungs of all air, I can’t, as I wouldn’t be able to continue living in here then. I can’t live without breathing. But if I continue to breathe emptiness, then my body will become empty as well. I’d become as hollow as a sponge.
Or—has it been too late for me long ago and I am already empty?
“What’s wrong, Kazu-kun? Are you feeling sick?”
When I hear a familiar voice, I raise my face slowly while lying on the desk. Kokone is standing in front of me, frowning.
“That reminds me, you had a nose bleed during P.E., right? That might have been caused by it as well, you know? If you don’t feel well, should we go to the infirmary?”
“There’s no need to worry about him, Kiri. I bet the origin is rather the lap he slept on than his nose bleed,”
Says Daiya, who stands near me without me noticing.
“Lap…?…ah! I see! So that’s it! Whaaat, just love-sickness…”
Then she grins and slaps me on the shoulders encouragingly.
“Yo-u! You you! Isn’t this a bit saucy, considering it’s you? Please do not do something mature like looove.”
“Swayed by such a plain seduction — ludicrous.”
“N-No! I’ve always loved—”
I stop midway. That was a verbal slip in various ways. For one, I’d admit my feelings for Mogi-san doing so, but first of all—
“Ha? You didn’t have any special feelings for Mogi until yesterday, did you?”
—it would not be the truth.
As a matter of fact, I fell in love with her today. At least from Daiya’s and the others’ point of view, it was a sudden awakening on my part. And that’s why no one knows of my affection towards her, even though it is clearly visible from my attitude.
“Hey hey, Daiya, it rather looks like this guy just admitted his unrequited love for Kasumi. Uhihi.”
Kokone grins and pokes her elbow at Daiya.
“Yeah. In the best case this might entertain me a bit longer.”
“Uhehe…the love of others is fun after all! Mh, Mh. Don’t worry. Onee-chan is supporting you! I’ll give you advice and help you! If you get dumped, I’ll even console you! But should you succeed, I’ll kill you, since I’d get irritated.”
“No worries. When the two of them start going out, I’ll steal her from him.”
“Uwaa, that sounds funny! The misfortune of others and muddled love triangles! Superb!”
Those two really are cruel, ignoring my sub-par condition.
Well, but fortunately XX is not here. If he were, then he’d tread on the opportunity and lead the conversation in a way that would end in a—
“—huh?”
“Mhh? What’s the matter, Kazu-kun?”
“No, just…I was wondering where he is. Is he taking today off?”
“Who are you talking about?”
Daiya asks with a suspicious face. That is odd. I thought Daiya would know who I am talking about when I speak like that.
“You don’t know? Naturally it’s——”
——err, who?
Huh? Wait a sec! I am…I myself am about to say a certain person’s name. So why can I not only not remember the name, but the face as well?
“…Kazu-kun? What’s wrong? Who were you talking about?”
I feel sick as if I had swallowed something half-liquid like a slime which makes me want to scratch off my gullet. But I am lucky, still being able to feel that disgust. If I gulped it down completely and excreted it, then XX would disappear.
“H-Hey…Kazu-kun!”
No problem. I can remember it. I can remember thanks to the disgust.
“—Haruaki”
The name of my dear friend. The colleague that has pledged to be my ally forever.
…it is only a bit, but I hope. Hope that only I forgot Haruaki for some reason. But I really am an idiot. That hope—
“Oi, Kazu. Who is this ‘Haruaki’?”
—could never be fulfilled.
I grit my teeth upon this vexing sensation. Daiya and Kokone frown at my strange behavior.
Those two have forgotten. Although they’ve known him far longer, being his childhood friends.
The fact that «Haruaki» does not exist here is thrust at me with no mercy, and—
“I’ll go home.”
—is a fatal wound for me.
I stand up, take my bag, turn my back to them and walk away to leave the classroom.
I can’t endure being here any longer.
Why isn’t Haruaki here?
I know why. I know it. Haruaki has been ‘rejected’.
By whom? That is certain. He was decidedly ‘rejected’ by the «Protagonist» who caused this ‘Rejecting Classroom’.
I got it all wrong. I thought the ‘Rejecting Classroom’ was to continue the everyday life forever. How foolish. There is no way it would be like that. Everyday life is called everyday life because it flows continuously. If you stopped the flow of a river, then mud would gather and paint it black. It’s just like that. Sediment has gathered here as well.
Aah, I see. I guess I’ve noticed this fact many times already. No matter how much I repeated it, I always rediscovered this fact. And then I stopped being hostile to Aya Otonashi.
Aya Otonashi will destroy the ‘Rejecting Classroom’.
And knowing what I know now, why would I stop her?
The chime rings. Probably most of my classmates have already returned to their seats.
So before leaving the classroom I turn around.
An empty seat. Another empty seat. Another empty seat. And another one over there. Aah…I have guessed it already, but no one is doubting that unusual amount of empty seats.

✵

I probably could’ve guessed. But I didn’t think about it because I didn’t want to admit it.
Aya Otonashi has come to the conclusion that it is impossible to retrieve the ‘box’ from me.
In the first place, it is easy to end the ‘Rejecting Classroom’ as soon as you know the culprit. It is in order to retrieve the ‘box’ that she’s been repeating those 20,000 times.
So…what should she do?
Isn’t it obvious?

My limbs fly around as I am run over by the truck. It seems extremely comical to me to see my familiar right leg lying far away from me. Somehow I am laughing.
“So it ends here…”
I get «killed». I let myself get killed.
“27,753 meaningless recurrences. So this time ends in completely wasted effort? I have to…I have to admit that even I am tired now.”
To be exact, I’m not dead yet. But lying in my own pool of blood, I know. I will die. There is no rescue for me. And indeed I’ve been killed by her.
“Ugh…! I’ve spent this outrageous amount of time and what I get is this. I’ve never hated my own inability more than now…!”
She murmurs so in bitter regret.
“…let’s move on. Since I couldn’t find the ‘box’ here, I just have to seek the next one.”
Aya Otonashi’s eyes aren’t perceiving me anymore. No, surely those eyes have never perceived me in the first place.
From start to finish Aya Otonashi has just been looking at the ‘box’ inside me.
Will this also be declared «void»? No, it won’t. If the ‘box’ called ‘The Rejecting Classroom’ is inside my body, then it gets smashed along with my death. And like my flesh was smashed by the truck, this ‘box’ is already smashed as well.
It won’t repeat anymore.
Aah, what irony. If this is the only way to end the ‘Rejecting Classroom’, then death is the only thing that’s been decided from the start. Well, naturally it’s empty. This world was surely—the world after my death.
But with this, our fight comes to an end.
It was a one-sided fight with no surprises, but it has come to an end here.

Yeah…that’s what you’re convinced of. Right, Otonashi-san?

You’re pitiful. I feel so from the bottom of my heart, Otonashi-san!
I guess it’s because you disregard me all the time. If not, you wouldn’t have made such a misunderstanding.
That’s why this meaningless time has continued.
Listen, Otonashi-san. It would’ve been simple enough if you had thought about it. There’s no way that a usual person like me could be the «Protagonist».
I want to tell her, but that isn’t possible anymore. I can’t even move my mouth.
My consciousness fades away. I die.
And then—nothing ends.