Chapter 149
The June sun hung in the sky, continuously generating heat, while in the tall beech trees outside the classroom window, the summer cicadas chirped their ethereal cries tirelessly, making one feel restless and vexed.
Kisaragi Chiyo lowered her eyes and stared at the formulas in her mathematics textbook. She looked up at the balding middle-aged teacher who was chattering incessantly at the podium. The example problems covering the entire blackboard made her feel dizzy, she couldn't help but feel a sense of confusion and helplessness welling up from within.
What on earth is the person up there talking about?
Linear equations and calculus? Is this something middle schoolers should be listening to?
Kisaragi Chiyo held his head with one hand, feeling as though he had forgotten something. He stared blankly at the strange yet familiar textbooks and notes on his desk, finding it quite difficult to shake the sense of strangeness in his heart.
Just as he was bowing his head in thought, a small paper ball suddenly traced a sharp arc from behind him and landed unerringly inside the open pencil case on his desk.
Kisaragi Chiyo: ".."
Kisaragi Chiyo did not touch the crumpled paper. He first cautiously looked up at the teacher at the podium, after confirming that the other was still lost in their lecture, he reached out to hide the paper in his palm while pretending to pick up a pen, then secretly opened it.
A single sentence was written on the paper ball in elegant handwriting:
[Kisaragi Chiyo, let's go to the rooftop to eat bento together at noon! I brought the wasabi shrimp my mom made~]
The person who wrote the note seemed to feel unsatisfied even after using all the tildes; they even went out of their way to switch to a red pen at the end to draw a tiny heart on the note.
Kisaragi Chiyo was sick of the cloying endearment on the note; in his memory, no one had ever addressed him that way.
Little Kisaragi Chiyo.
Thinking of that title, goosebumps involuntarily crawled all over his arms.
Kisaragi Chiyo did not look back; he felt not a shred of curiosity toward the person who had written this note. Since they had invited him, the other party would certainly come looking for him first after class.
In any case, by then, the other person's true colors will be revealed.
Kisaragi Chiyo thought for a moment, the hand that had originally intended to crumple the note back into a ball paused. Instead, she used her fingers to smooth out the creases on the paper before tucking it into her textbook.
One class period was not long, but as a math class, it was indeed a bit grueling. Kisaragi Chiyo stared at the exercises on the blackboard while recording them in her notebook, but her mind drifted away as she lost herself in thought, soon the fifty minutes had passed.
As the bell rang to signal the end of class, Kisaragi Chiyo breathed a great sigh of relief once the teacher, still lingering on stage, announced that class was dismissed.
He arched his back and buried his head in his arms on the desk, looking like a small sapling ravaged by heavy rain, half-dead and exhausted.
The world seemed to fall silent all of a sudden. As Kisaragi Chiyo kept her head buried, she heard the sound of footsteps slowly approaching her from behind.
One step, two steps, three steps..
Just as the footsteps stopped, Kisaragi Chiyo suddenly raised her head and twisted her body, catching the boy off guard as he had already reached out his hand to scare her.
“You're awake.”
The boy, having been caught, casually withdrew his hand, showing not a trace of embarrassment at having been discovered attempting something mischievous. His eyes curved as he looked at Kisaragi Chiyo with a beaming smile, saying in a teasing tone, "You look so sleepy today; was it because you stayed up late reading web novels again last night?"
Kisaragi Chiyo said nothing. He tilted his head up slightly, his misty gray eyes staring intently at the youth's youthful and immature features, asked slowly, "Have you heard of doppelgängers?"
“?” A look of confusion appeared on the boy's face. Although he didn't understand why Kisaragi Chiyo had suddenly brought up this topic, he still nodded and answered truthfully, "I've heard of them."
They look exactly like the original, even their memories and ways of behaving are virtually identical.. So, if you ever encounter your own doppelgänger, you must kill them as quickly as possible; otherwise, they will kill you and take your place.
"Is that so?" The boy blinked his beautiful purple eyes, looking at Kisaragi Chiyo with an expectant gaze, as if waiting for praise.
"There is indeed such a theory." Kisaragi Chiyo remained unmoved by the boy's sparkling gaze. He nodded slightly, only to deny the boy's answer in the very next second.
But a doppelgänger is, at the end of the day, nothing more than a projection of the self; it cannot be considered a person in the true sense. Everything about it is false, including those memories; its very existence is merely an illusion that can only exist by relying on the original body.
A mirror." The boy spoke up abruptly. "You mean like a reflection in a mirror, right?
Yes and no." Kisaragi Chiyo shook her head. "To be more precise, describing it as a dream is more fitting.
"A dream?" The youth frowned, appearing not to care for Kisaragi Chiyo's casual description, but his brow soon relaxed.
"Then, if I just kill the original body, I can take its place, right?" the other person said with a smile, a certain naive cruelty in his expression.
That expression vanished from his face in an instant, quickly returning to normal.
So," Kisaragi Chiyo said, stretching his neck before rising from his seat, looking at the youth who was slightly taller than him, asked in a casual tone, "Who exactly are you?
*
“Exactly..”
The purple-eyed boy with medium-length hair complained huffily to the friend sitting cross-legged to his right, "Kisaragi Chiyo just asked me about it in that tone of voice; she must be intentionally getting revenge on me for spoiling the culprit in that mystery novel a few days ago!"
"Is that so?" The curly-haired friend on his right reached out with his chopsticks, snatching a wasabi shrimp from the half-haired boy's bento box and popping it into his mouth, though his eyes were quietly observing Kisaragi Chiyo, who was staring indecisively at her own bento on the other side.
Kenji, you deserved it." The curly-haired boy didn't take his friend's side; instead, he wore a gloating expression. "That's what you get for spoiling the manga villain's finale for me last time.
"I didn't do it on purpose." The boy called Hara Kenji pouted. As he spoke, he stole a quick glance at Kisaragi Chiyo beside him out of the corner of his eye, but seeing that she didn't even spare him a single glance, a sudden sense of grievance welled up in his heart.
By the time he pulled his attention back, Hara Kenji finally realized that more than half of the shrimp in his bento box had already been snatched away by his curly-haired friend.
"Matsuda!" Hara Kenji waved his chopsticks, angrily snatching the largest piece of fried chicken cutlet from his friend's bento box.
"Kisaragi, aren't you eating?" Matsuda Jinpei let Hara Kenji snatch his fried chicken, but more than that, what concerned him was Kisaragi Chiyo's excessive silence today.
Up until now, the other person had not said a single word to him, even the gaze she used to observe him carried a sense of distance.
Thinking of this, Matsuda could also somewhat understand the grievance Hara felt.
"No, I'm not hungry yet." Kisaragi Chiyo looked at the exquisitely arranged dishes in the bento box, but he couldn't muster even a shred of appetite. He knew, of course, that all of this was a fabrication; the moment he saw the middle school mathematics on the cover of the math textbook, he had already realized this.
Like peeling away layers of silk, his once-blurred memories instantly rushed back.
The reason he realized something was wrong so quickly was that he had never even attended middle school.
Kisaragi Chiyo thought expressionlessly; the math problems on the blackboard were clearly content that would only be learned in high school. Was it really okay to force such advanced knowledge on middle school students? Kisaragi Chiyo had already begun to calmly contemplate the reporting hotline—no, rather, the way to escape this illusion.
Are you feeling unwell?" Hara Kenji looked at Kisaragi Chiyo, biting his chopsticks, appearing hesitant to speak. "I've had a feeling that Kisaragi Chiyo has been acting a bit strange since math class started today. Could it be that you caught a cold after we walked home in the rain together yesterday?
“Yesterday?” Kisaragi Chiyo raised her head, her gaze slowly sweeping over the two people in front of her, her tone carrying a hint of profound meaning: “Have we known each other for a long time?”
"Are you indeed sick?" Hara Kenji frowned, a look of worry appearing on his face. He braced himself with one hand to lean closer to Kisaragi Chiyo, while his other hand rose as if he wanted to test the temperature of Kisaragi Chiyo's forehead.
But Kisaragi Chiyo leaned back to avoid him.
"Don't get so close to me," Kisaragi Chiyo said, frowning.
It was a somewhat stern remark.
Hara Kenji froze the moment he heard those words. His hand paused in mid-air, his drooping purple eyes widened, looking somewhat bewildered, like a puppy that had been suddenly scolded while trying to cuddle.
"I.." Hara Kenji tugged at the corners of his mouth, seemingly attempting to force a smile to ease the awkwardness, but he ultimately failed. He withdrew his hand and lowered his head, looking down at his half-eaten bento with some unease.
“Kisaragi?” Matsuda Jinpei's expression and tone were filled with astonishment. He looked at Hara Kenji, then at Kisaragi Chiyo, unable to understand how their relationship could have changed so much after just one morning.
Did they have a fight?
As soon as this thought surfaced, Matsuda Jinpei shook his head in denial within his heart.
Based on his understanding of the two of them, even if they were arguing, Kisaragi Chiyo would not show such a sharp attitude toward Hara Kenji. Not to mention, she would still follow behind Hara Kenji to the rooftop to have lunch with him.
Matsuda racked his brain but still couldn't figure out exactly what had gone wrong. If it weren't for the class reshuffling at the start of this semester, which meant he wasn't in the same class as those two, he might have been able to figure out the reason.
“It's nothing.” Kisaragi Chiyo felt a bit unsettled seeing Hara Kenji looking so distressed, even though he understood in his heart that after he had set off alone, he had likely fallen victim to the trickery of that black bronze mirror called [Bō] without even realizing it.
But even though he understood that everything before him was fake, seeing his lover's overly youthful face wear such a pitiful expression made him feel, inevitably, as if he were bullying a child.
"You two continue eating." Kisaragi Chiyo recapped the bento box, which he hadn't touched a single bite of, stood up from the picnic mat that Hara Kenji had specially brought and spread across the rooftop floor.
Perhaps because he was feeling irritable, he didn't look at what the two of them looked like at that moment; he simply turned his head and said in a cold tone, "I'm leaving first."
Having said that, he was about to turn and head downstairs.
"Wait!" Someone grabbed his wrist forcefully from behind, the youth's voice clear and carrying a sense of stubbornness.
"Kisaragi." Hara Kenji looked at him, his grip tightening firmly on the wrist, refusing to let Kisaragi Chiyo leave.
“No matter what, you should at least let me know exactly what I did wrong, shouldn't you?” Hara Kenji could not stand it; the friend who was playing along just fine yesterday was treating him with such an attitude today. He clearly hadn't done anything wrong; in fact, even this morning, he had shared a ham and egg sandwich that his mother had made with Kisaragi Chiyo.
Kisaragi Chiyo had even promised him that she would come to his house this weekend so the three of them could watch a movie together.. So, why did it end up like this?
Even if she wanted to break ties with him, she would need a reasonable excuse, wouldn't she?
Hara Kenji stared intently at Kisaragi Chiyo, his gaze burning with a look that suggested he wouldn't rest until he got an answer from her.
Matsuda quietly put down his chopsticks and bento, then walked around the two of them and stood at the rooftop entrance, pretending to be nothing more than a tree passing by chance. Because he didn't know exactly what had happened between the two, he didn't even know where to begin with any persuasion.
However..
Matsuda Jinpei lowered his eyes, his teal eyes looking at the concrete floor, which had become exceptionally clean after being washed by yesterday's rain, he unconsciously pursed his lips.
He could still sense it.. It wasn't that he was insensitive to others' emotions, he just didn't care much of the time. Therefore, when Kisaragi Chiyo showed him indifference and estrangement, he could feel it too.
Matsuda thought that the person Kisaragi Chiyo wanted to sever ties with wasn't just Hara, but him as well.
But at the same time, Matsuda also couldn't understand—what had he done wrong?
Thinking of this, a look of confusion appeared on Matsuda Jinpei's face, mixed with a hint of anger and grievance. He raised his eyes to glance at Kisaragi Chiyo's cold and somewhat impatient expression; it was the first time he had ever seen such an expression on Kisaragi Chiyo's face.
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Author's Note: The River God asks: Did you drop the little pine on the left, or the big pine on the right? While writing this chapter, one sentence kept playing in my mind: Don't laugh; once you start laughing, you don't look like him anymore.
Thanks to all the little angels for your support, mwah 030
Chapter 150
“Let go.” Kisaragi Chiyo tugged at his arm, attempting to break free from Hara Kenji's grasp, but he was unsuccessful.
"No," Hara Kenji refused stubbornly through his tightly pressed lips, his chest heaving violently from the surging emotions. His beautiful purple eyes carried a heat that could burn, because of his fair skin, his slightly reddened eye sockets appeared exceptionally piercing.
Kisaragi Chiyo froze for a moment.
“Are you going to cry?” Kisaragi Chiyo's expression was one of disbelief; he likely hadn't expected that the Yuan in the illusion would actually make such a face.
I am not." Hara Kenji sniffled, denying it completely. "I'm not going to cry just because you suddenly hate and reject me, then want to cut ties with me forever, never to see me again until death do us part.
Listening to Hara Kenji's accusations, Kisaragi Chiyo fell silent for a moment. In a daze, he couldn't help but ask himself: had he really been that excessive?
“I didn't say those terrible things later, did I?” Kisaragi Chiyo was almost caught out by Hara.
You're just overthinking it.
Liar," Hara muttered softly. "Even if you didn't say it, that's clearly what you were thinking.
"Don't label me based on your subjective assumptions." Kisaragi Chiyo shook her wrist, trying to break free, but it only resulted in Hara gripping her even tighter, with no other effect.