To You, The Liar, One Irrefutable Truth

“Sanjō-kun, people don’t dislike you because you have a bad personality, right? You act like you have a bad personality because you want people to dislike you.”

Anyone would be irritated if a classmate they had barely spoken to suddenly said something like that to them. Even more so when she had hit the nail on the head.

“What the hell do you want?”

It was September, shortly after summer vacation had ended in our second year of high school, with the cultural festival just around the corner.

She had approached me while I was endlessly hauling supplies around for the preparations.

She had large, round eyes, a bob cut, and a slender figure made all the more striking by her prominent chest.

I was probably the only guy who had ever responded so sourly when Nene Komaki spoke to him. Any other guy, no matter how miserable his life was at the time, would probably have forced a smile in front of her.

But I didn’t. I glared at the girl who might have been the prettiest in our class, our grade, or maybe even the entire school with the same look I gave all the other stupid brats around me.

“I’m interested in you.”

Komaki continued without showing the slightest sign that my attitude bothered her.

“Hey, would you be my friend?”

“No.”

Somehow, I already had a bad feeling about her back then.

—This girl is dangerous.

If I let her get too close, she would surely expose everything about me. The lies I had built up to protect myself, and the filthy, rotten person underneath them.

So I decided to keep her away.

That was the day my battle with her began.

First came the cultural festival. During preparations, the festival itself, and even the cleanup afterward, whenever I looked around, Komaki was beside me. When I was alone, I could just brush her off with a “Get lost,” but when Keiji was around, that wasn’t an option.

“Hey, Sabu! How dare you treat Komaki-san like that! Die and apologize!”

He would make a ridiculous fuss like that. Komaki would then take advantage of it and add,

“Exactly. If you keep being this cold to me, I might have to tell a teacher you made me cry.”

And with things like that being said, I couldn’t drive her away.

Much to my displeasure, several photos taken during that year’s cultural festival had the two of us together in them.

When the slideshow shown during the closing ceremony revealed that fact to the entire school, all the male students who had been enjoying themselves until then collapsed in unison.

“My cultural festival…!”

“My brain is being destroyed…”

“I hate this life…”

Watching them weep bitterly, I, being the awful person I was, naturally looked on with a smile. Seeing people fall into despair always brightened my mood.

And Komaki did not let that opening slip by.

“So? Being with me isn’t so bad, is it?”

“Maybe not.”

She already knew my personality was beyond saving. Even so, she apparently still hadn’t given up on becoming my friend, and on top of that, she somehow considered me kind. I had genuinely wondered whether she had been raised in some hellish land populated entirely by demons and monsters.

Even after the cultural festival ended, our strange, easygoing relationship continued.

She obviously wasn’t beside me every waking moment, but she would wander over from time to time, and we gradually reached the point where we could casually chat. Before I knew it, I had opened up enough that I could spend time alone with her even when Keiji wasn’t there.

There is no man alive who dislikes bob cuts and big boobs (gross exaggeration), so once my initial distrust faded, I certainly didn’t mind having her around.

Komaki really gave me a lot of time.

Even Keiji, who had initially spent all his time glaring at me as though trying to curse me to death, eventually started wearing an expression that basically said, “Just do whatever the hell you want, you two.”

Christmas passed without anything happening, the New Year arrived, and as our second year of high school drew to a close, our relationship finally changed.

After the closing ceremony, she called me out to the emergency staircase and confessed.

“I like you. Go out with me.”

“No.”

By then, I was already in love with Nene Komaki. She had undoubtedly realized it too.

I had vaguely noticed that our feelings were mutual sometime around February, but even then, I hadn’t wanted us to become a couple. If anything, it was the opposite.

The more I liked her, the more I wanted to push her away.

Komaki had probably anticipated even that inner conflict. Without looking surprised or hurt, she quietly nodded and said,

“Okay. Then let’s have a contest, Rokurō-kun.”

“A contest?”

“If you fall in love with me, you lose. If I start hating you, you win. You’re good at that kind of contest, aren’t you?”

It was so stupid that I was left speechless. After all, if those were the rules, I had already lost.

Without waiting for an answer, Komaki continued.

“I’ll teach you something, since you’re such a liar. There are people in this world who will never hate you, no matter what happens. And my feelings for you are completely, absolutely real.”

“I know that. I know, damn it… I already know.”

I said it while staring up at the sky. Strangely enough, I couldn’t imagine this girl ever hating me, no matter what I did. —And I didn’t even want to imagine myself doing something that would make Komaki hate me.

I clasped my hands together and looked down.

“I can’t do anything for you.”

“I never asked you to.”

“I couldn’t even celebrate your birthday properly.”

“You told me happy birthday, didn’t you?”

“We can’t even go anywhere on dates. While other girls are going to cafés, taking photo booth pictures, or walking around amusement parks holding balloons, you won’t get to go anywhere. That’s what dating me means.”

“That’s only how things are right now.”

She laughed away everything about me as though none of it mattered.

As though she could blow away all the pitch-black darkness of an uncertain future.

With unwavering strength.

“Someday, we’ll definitely be able to do all that. Cafés, photo booths, amusement parks. We can save all of it for then.”

“When the hell is ‘someday’?”

“Someday is someday. I’m talking about a future that will definitely come.”

“Will you still be with me when that day comes?”

“Of course.”

“…I see. Okay. I lose.”

The only person I had ever truly trusted was Yūha. She was the only person I had ever wanted to believe in, and the only person whose trust I had wanted in return.

Komaki became the second.

I had covered everything about myself in lies and kept everyone at arm’s length, yet she reached out to me and took hold of me. Komaki had given me enough time, enough feelings, to earn my trust.

“I like you too. Please go out with me.”

“Okay. I’m looking forward to it.”

She smiled as though she had known from the very beginning that things would turn out this way.

“Damn… what am I doing?”

While I had been lost in my memories, the sun had begun to sink. The rim of my glass had completely dried, and the café had mostly emptied out.

I picked up my bag, stood, returned my glass, and left the café.

In the end, not once while we were dating had I ever gone to a café with her.

And yet today, we had met at a café as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world. I could sit there drinking a four-hundred-yen iced coffee and talk with her—

But now that the future we had waited for had finally arrived, Komaki was no longer beside me.

Getting sentimental over it was ridiculous. Two years had passed. Whatever wounds there had been had long since healed.

Maybe I would call that idiot Keiji later. Knowing him, he probably still wanted nothing more than to talk about Nako-san. Hearing that obnoxious voice of his would probably blow away whatever feelings were lingering inside me.

At the very least, I couldn’t let Yūha see me looking like this.

I had never wanted people to like me, so I was terrible at pretending to smile.