Source
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16818093079507847550/episodes/16818093081525435324
“Chika…… it’s nothing.”
Tojo approached Amamiya, who was about to leave after saying that, with a sour look on her face and grabbed him by the arm.
Amamiya turns around in surprise.
The face of his childhood friend, still in a bad mood, was there.
“You were with Karina-san earlier, weren’t you? You care about that girl, so why are you looking so sad?”
“That’s …….”
He
can’t say that he hurts Karina.
Unfortunately, he ended up doing the same thing Tojo warned him about.
“More than that, Chika, why are you in front of the station? Were you spying on us?”
Not wanting to answer the question, Amamiya deflected the conversation.
Wherever Tojo is is her own business, and since it’s the nearest station, it’s no wonder she’s passing by.
He didn’t care, but he pretended to care.
“……”
Tojo crossed her arms with a Buddha’s face and put her hand on her chin as if she had guessed something.
After a few seconds of silence, she pulled Amamiya’s arm from her grasp.
“Come here.”
“Eh, w-where?”
Amamiya tries to refuse it, but Tojo defeats him by force and takes him away.
The two were then taken away
“Araaa, Takaaki kun! It’s been a long time!”
The place he was taken to was Tojo’s home.
When he went up to the front door, Tojo’s mother, dressed in an apron, looked at him in surprise.
“S-sorry to disturb you, auntie.”
Amamiya bowed politely.
He hadn’t been up to the house in months, and it was already late, so it was awkward.
“Mouu, Chika-chan. If Takaaki-kun is going to come, you should have informed me in advance. What if my future son-in-law thinks I’m an uncaring mother-in-law!”
“Hey, mama! That kind of thing is not necessary right now! Are you an idiot?”
Tojo mother, with her mild-mannered character, put her hand on Amamiya’s shoulder as if to welcome him.
She then puffed out her cheeks at her daughter for not informing her beforehand.
I mean, doesn’t Tojo’s Mother know? That the two of them had a fight.
(Chika’s character wouldn’t …… let it show on her face or affect her personal life, would she? ……)
Tojo sometimes bares her emotions, but she is more than capable of standing up for herself.
She was a smart, proud childhood friend.
“Mama, please don’t disturb us, we’re going to be in my room. We have something important to talk about.”
“Well! Two childhood friends alone …… papa is working late and doesn’t seem to be home until midnight, so enjoy ……
“
“Mouu! shut up, mama!”
Tojo, fed up with her mother’s lack of delicacy, quickly goes upstairs with Amamiya.
A gentle mother and a strict daughter. Amamiya knew that although they were parent and child with opposing personalities, they still got on well with each other.
Tojo Chika’s room.
She’s a stiff and serious girl, but her room is just like a girl’s room.
It smells nice, the bed is organised like a luxury hotel and every corner is well cleaned.
The room has many memories for Amamiya as well, as he was taken in, made to study and watch movies.
“…… what are you trying to do, taking me to a place like this?”
Amamiya does not take offence, but his words unintentionally become sharper.
As if she had even expected that to happen, Tojo didn’t really react and just sat on the bed deep in thought.
It’s just like her.
(I thought for sure that she was …… upset about that day when I first brought Karina up to my house, but she doesn’t look angry …… .)
She is not angry, but the silence that develops between him and Tojo is uncomfortable.
After five minutes of sitting upright and waiting for Tojo to put her hand on her chin, cross her legs and think.
Even so, she says nothing.
Even Amamiya, who does not get angry very often, looks up at Tojo with a dubious expression on his face because he has been forced to go along with something he doesn’t understand.
For some reason, she was in a posture as if she was waiting for him to start talking to her.
The pressure was directed at him as if to say, “Hurry up!”
(No, it was Chika who brought me here, wasn’t it? ……)
More and more he doesn’t understand the meaning.
Is it an attack on the fact that he chose Karina instead of herself, or—.
No, it’s not.
Tojo is waiting.
The reason why he was depressed, the reason why he had a fight with Karina.
She’s waiting for Amamiya to talk to her about it.
(possibly …… Chika)
Even after all that happened, she’s still sympathising with him?
That’s why she even went to the trouble of bringing him to her house to discuss it?
But Tojo kept her mouth tightly shut and waited.
Even though she was trying to inspire him, she had spoken hurtful words to Amamiya.
So, thinking she had no right to help Amamiya, she kept quiet.
(Lame …… me ……)
Embarrassed by how depressed he was in front of the station, even the childhood friend he had fought with was worried, Amamiya took a deep breath and let it out.
“Chika, what should I …… do?”
He had hurt Karina.
Because she had tried to help him, but he had spoken words that shunned her.
Amamiya, looking restless and scratching the back of his head repeatedly, discussed the exchange that had just taken place with Tojo.
She listened and let out an exasperated sigh.
“I’m not interested in the game in the slightest, and I’ve never found it attractive. And I honestly think it’s rubbish that our relationship has deteriorated over something as trivial as that.”
Her tongue is as venomous as ever.
However, Tojo’s tone was not malicious.
“But that’s just my subjective opinion. Since that day when I denied Takaaki’s hobby, I’ve cooled down a bit and thought about it. People’s feelings and sensitivities are very different, and even if they are incomprehensible to me, they may be irreplaceable to that person. I study to get a high score, that’s why I like it. On the other hand, there are people who get high scores but don’t like studying.”
“That’s understandable though.”
“You hurt Karina because you haven’t been able to do it. Like me. ……”
Amamiya looked up quickly and saw Tojo.
It was as if she was warning herself.
“I think that Karina’s “partner” in her mind is more irreplaceable and bigger than Takaaki thinks.”
(……!)
[I’m glad I met Rain-san. I’m really happy to have met you.]
[……Hee? What’s going on all of a sudden?]
[Well, if I hadn’t become friends with Rein-san, I wonder what I would have done until now.]
[You don’t make such a big deal of it,…… it’s true that if I hadn’t met Dragonhead san in the guild, well,…… I might not have been able to enjoy this game in the way I did.]
[Right? For Rain-san, I am an irreplaceable partner!! Without me, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy every day of your life!]
[I don’t think that much! Don’t decide on your own!?]
[Hehe, there’s no need to be embarrassed.]
[I’m not embarrassed. Really…….In any case, I would have liked to be told those lines by a girl or something, not an old man like Dragonhead.]
[I agree. As for me, if I hadn’t met Rein san, I probably would have quit logging in after the first few weeks. I don’t think I can find a friend other than Rein san who I can talk to so freely …… I’m happy to be your partner, and I enjoy every day of my life.]
[…… O-ou]
[For such Rein san — How about we have an offline meeting just the two of us sometime?]
Dragonhead san is a good person.
He doesn’t have a better friend than her, and he guess that’s what she thinks too, as she says to him almost every day, [I’m glad that I have Rein-san as my partner.]
(And yet I was …… playing with dragonhead-san with a light heart.)
The guild leader forced her to put on voice chat, and Rein, aka Amamiya, covered for her, and he and Dragonhead became good friends.
Amamiya came to know much later that Dragon Head was actually Karina, who was a junior high school student at the time, and didn’t want let other people hear her real voice because she had a complex about her voice.
Amamiya does not know how Karina, whom he had protected at that time, was feeling.
But if he had been in her shoes, he would have respected the person who sheltered him from a bad feeling.
want to get closer, want to get to know them.
He likes her, he might have had those feelings.
(And yet …… I underestimated my relationship with her as a partner. I thought it was a relationship that might one day break off)
“Karina san is an honest girl who can say what she wants to say. But unlike most people, she’s more likely to be crushed if you hold on to things. To prevent that from happening, you have to let out whatever you’re holding in. That’s the solution I think. ……”
“……”
“You can take whatever feelings you have, that’s what a partner is for, isn’t it ……?”
The “partner” that Karina refers to isn’t just in-game.
Even in real life, she want to have that kind of relationship.
That’s why she was hurt by Amamiya’s words and that’s why Amamiya hurt her
In reality, they did not fully understand each other’s feelings.
They were unable to accept them.
“Chika’s right, I’m a dark-rooted, shady guy who’s quick to run away. I’m the kind of bastard who can’t even go after Karina, who was crying …… within arm’s length of me. I ran and ran and wouldn’t take it.”
Tojo, who usually warned Amamiya not to be pathetic, not to cry, and to be so careful, just watched quietly as he said in a trembling voice, with tears streaming down his face.
“All the things I thought were for her, all the times I kept my distance because I was an unworthy man for her, they were all convenient excuses for me,……! I was afraid to get close to her, so I just kept running away and running away …… so ……–“
Amamiya wiped his tears with his sleeve and looked at Tojo, who still looked at him straight in the eyes.
(From now on, what I do may not be the right thing to do. It might be a temporary belief born in this place ……, but that’s okay. No matter what my kicker is ……)
Amamiya took a deep breath and then clearly announced.
“I won’t run away anymore.”
To be able to accept the ‘feelings’ that await him at the end of the road, he wants to walk straight ahead.
—I’m your partner and your resident wizard Rain! If you need help, call on me anytime! No matter what happens, I’ll always come running!
Once off the record, he want to make good on the declaration he made.
Tojo’s lips parted happily, even though she looked sad for a moment, as she was given a gaze with no hesitation.
Because the Takaaki she knew was no longer there.
“I see, although I don’t approve of your relationship. Well, as a childhood friend, I should at least give you a helping hand.”
“……Thank you, Chika.”
“What? I didn’t mean to give you advice for free. Next time, buy me a parfait, the expensive one…”
Amamiya laughs at Tojo’s embarrassed tone.
He had a big fight with her, but that doesn’t mean he hates her.
He is grateful for everything she has done for him so far.
“Well then, I’m going to go now.”
Amamiya says this and tries to leave the room.
“…… wait.”
Tojo stops her.
When he turns around, he sees his childhood friend sitting on the bed with her arms and legs crossed.
Her expression, which raises the corners of her mouth thinly, shows a faint sadness.
This might be the last time he goes up to her room like this, or sees her sitting on her bed.
At least, let’s listen to her for the last time.
“— You’ve grown up, haven’t you?”
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