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Chapter 134: A certain boy’s tale 3

Both of those things had happened on my birthday.

After they\'d heard everything, Natsunagi, Saikawa, and Charlie were quiet. "Sorry. I know it\'s not a very interesting story."

I thought of those old memories every year, when that day came around, but I\'d never told anyone about them. I hadn\'t needed to.

Even if I didn\'t, it wasn\'t as if I\'d forget. I couldn\'t forget.

Danny\'s voice still lingered in my ears. The eyes of the dead were always watching me, a breath away. ...Not that it was scary or anything.

It was just that on May 5, I remembered Danny Bryant\'s words—the thoughts he left with me.

But that didn\'t mean this was a tragedy, far from it.

I got past his death, learned his last wish, and turned my focus toward the future.

As a result, this was really the story of how I—Kimihiko Kimizuka—came to be.

It wasn\'t a sad story. At least, I didn\'t think it was. Yet...

"Why... Why?" In the silence, Saikawa was the first one to speak. "Why don\'t you ever tell us these things, Kimizuka?!"

Maybe it\'s rude to say I wouldn\'t have expected it, but I wouldn\'t have: Saikawa was crying.

"That\'s not it! I\'m angry!" She thumped the table and stood up, forcefully filing her complaint.

I\'d heard of tears of joy, but apparently, it was possible to cry with anger, too. If I told the idol that and joked around a little, would she be nice and stop crying?

"Tell us more of these stories, please. Don\'t just banter all the time. Tell us more, more... And don\'t say we didn\'t ask you. That\'s no excuse." Saikawa gave me a resentful look.

Saikawa had lived worrying about family twice as much as the average person

—she might have sympathized, and maybe she\'d wanted to share these memories with me as well.

"Sorry, Saikawa."

She was wiping away her tears with her hands. I winced a little with guilt. "But listen, Saikawa. From my perspective, that wasn\'t a special story."

Danny had told me as much, way back when. Not having a family, not having friends.

My background, how I grew up, and even losing him. He\'d told me none of that was anything special.

He\'d said I didn\'t even need to tack it onto the end of my profile. Because he\'d said that to me, because I\'d promised, I—

"...I still wish you\'d told us sooner." Saikawa lowered her head, speaking in a small voice as she resumed her seat.

With a small smile, Natsunagi gently stroked her hair. "You really are dumb." Charlie looked away, snubbing me.

Of this group, she was the one I\'d known the longest, but I\'d never told her about my past, either. I wasn\'t the only one who hadn\'t shared much about themselves, though.

"You never tell anyone about stuff, either, Charlie." Right. For example: "Your parents\'..."

"Now\'s not the time for that story." The agent shut me down before I could finish. The wind blew, and her blond hair hid her profile.

Yeah, I know.

We\'d still only taken the first step toward making a change.

For Natsunagi, the past. For Saikawa, her parents. For Charlie, her mission, and for me—the dead. We\'d all overcome the spells that bound us and started to move on. At this point, none of us had managed to fulfill the wishes that lay beyond that in the truest sense. Not yet.

And so we\'d start now. We were still just getting started. "Ms. Gekka, hm?" Natsunagi murmured the name quietly. Gekka Shirogane.

More than four years ago, I\'d spent a week working with the self-styled Fiend with Twenty Faces.

Because she\'d been there, I\'d discovered the truth behind Danny Bryant\'s death and received the last present he\'d left for me.

Where was she now, and what was she doing?

"No, it couldn\'t be..." Natsunagi seemed to have an idea, but then she shook her head. "Well, anyway. You\'ve met all sorts of people, huh, Kimizuka."

"Yeah. Not by coincidence."

When I used that word, for a moment, Natsunagi\'s eyes widened. Then she smiled.

Danny had said something else once.

He\'d said I\'d meet the people I needed to meet. He\'d told me that was how I was wired.

My encounter with him probably hadn\'t been an exception.

Seven years ago, a guy who called himself my teacher had come to a police station to pick me up.

A year after he\'d died, I\'d met the Fiend with Twenty Faces.

Soon after that, the white-haired Ace Detective had taken me along on her journey around the world.

A year after her death, in a classroom after school, a girl in my grade had woken me up.

I was sure all of it had been inevitable for me.

"But that\'s not just true of you, Kimizuka. It works that way for all of us." Natsunagi gazed at me, then Saikawa, then Charlie. "We keep meeting people, forming a chain of intentions, wishes, and names as we go through life. It\'s always been like that, and it always will be."

Siesta, Alicia, and Hel. Nagisa Natsunagi had accepted their last wishes, her pulse had raced, and now here she was. As she looked up at the sky, her eyes were filled with dauntless determination.

"Yeah, you\'ve got that right." I looked up at the sky with her. That was where it had all started.

Long ago, my dazzling adventure had begun in that blue sky, at ten thousand meters.

If you wanted to fly, however, you had to have a runway. You needed enough

room to build speed. Someone had given me the push I needed, and her last smile rose to the surface of my mind.

Four and a half years ago, on the day I\'d parted with Gekka Shirogane, there was one thing I\'d forgotten to ask her.

Two days before that, over the phone, Gekka had said she had something important to tell me. She\'d wanted to meet and discuss it in person. But right after that, I\'d gotten kidnapped by Krone and ended up in mortal danger. That incident had distracted us, and Gekka and I had lost our chance to have that important conversation.

What had she been planning to tell me?

What had she meant to say, before she chose to leave instead?

The faceless, nameless Fiend. She\'d never shown me her true face, and when I asked if we\'d see each other again, she hadn\'t given me a clear answer.

I\'d promised to break her mask, but I still hadn\'t done it. It had been more than four years, and I hadn\'t even managed to see her again.

...No, I doubt I would have recognized her even if we had met. Her face, her voice, her figure, and what she\'d told me about herself had all been fake. We might have passed each other on the street, and I never would have known it was her.

We did have that password, though.

It might have been different before, but at this point... Now that I was able to use those words openly with Natsunagi, I might be able to use our password to find that other girl again. I didn\'t have any real grounds for thinking so. But still. "It\'s important to keep a promise," I murmured quietly. Natsunagi, Saikawa, and Charlie all gazed at me curiously. I shook my head. "It\'s nothing. ...The

weather\'s great today, huh?"

Until I meet her again, though, I\'ll keep traveling with this noisy group of friends. As I looked at the blue sky, no trace of the rainclouds from that day, I just had that feeling.