My Childhood Friend Is A Reincarnator (Part 2)

“I’ve honestly been pretty lousy company lately, haven’t I.”
“Yeah… that’s part of why everyone started worrying, I think.”
“Aw, man…”

Where had the frustration and sorrow of a moment ago even gone? As if that whole mood had been a lie, Ayu paused for a beat and slipped right back into her usual pitch, same as ever.

“Well, if you’re wondering what I’ve been up to… I was going around to all sorts of places and just looking at them, like now. Sounds like this — nature, the ambient noise — those are the same as they were over there, after all.”
“…You could’ve just brought me along and told me not to ask why, you know.”

“It’d bore a young thing like you, though, wouldn’t it~? And making you spend all that time just vaguely stewing without even knowing the reason — that’s no good either, hm?”

Ayu put on a slightly clownish little act. Light as her manner was, something about it fell short of the old days; anyone could see it was forced cheer, plain and simple.

“But it’s fine! From here on I’ll be the same peppy, cheerful Ayu as always, and—”
“Hold on — I’ve got, like, two questions first… that okay?”
“…What is it?”
“First one. Those people from your past life… were kind, and they treasured the you of back then. That right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then… do you really think people like that would be okay with the Ayu they left behind torturing herself over ‘I never got to repay them~’?”
“They wouldn’t, no… which is exactly why today I was trying to properly remember that that’s the kind of people they were, and switch my feelings over as best I could — that was the plan, anyway.”
“Then… sorry, maybe I butted in where I shouldn’t have…”
“It’s fine. It made me happy, so no harm done.”

I see. More than me, who only knew it all secondhand, it stood to reason that Ayu, who’d actually lived it alongside those people, could arrive at that feeling far more naturally.

…After all, maybe someone with as little life experience as me just isn’t up to this.

“Okay… next question.”
“Go ahead.”
“…Ayu… what was it you actually wanted?”

It was probably a clumsy way to put it, but the words were out before I could stop them. All I’d done so far was hear out her troubles and nothing more, chiming in with the odd “mm-hm” at best, and I’d completely lost any sense of what might actually save her, so I just went ahead and asked her outright.

“Hmm… maybe I just wanted time to sort my heart out, like this. I mean, whether I fret over it alone or drag you into it, Gin, the things I left undone are past fixing either way.”
“So that’s… the conclusion you came to after confiding in me?”

She surely hadn’t meant it that way, but it came out sounding like confiding in me had been pointless, and that stung.

“That’s a pretty negative way to put it… well, it’s my fault for worrying you in the first place. Sorry, Gin. Thank you for listening — that alone makes me happy.”

This is enough, Ayu was telling me. But honestly, I couldn’t accept that. Because when it came down to it, nothing about the trouble in her heart had actually been solved. She’d simply resigned herself, deciding that taking her time or talking it out with someone was all pointless anyway.

“Ayu…”
“…Mm?”
“Did telling me make you feel any lighter?”
“Well, of course! It’s like the king has donkey ears — just saying it out loud makes you feel lighter, and if someone actually listens, all the more so…”
“Then let me hear more. About your past life, Ayu.”

“…”

I knew perfectly well it was a problem that couldn’t be solved no matter what. So if the regret and bitterness of her past life weighed on her, then I wanted to hear those feelings out and lighten her heart, even a little. Because that was the only thing I could do, with just one lifetime’s worth of experience behind me, and a child’s share of it at that.

“Anything’s fine — happy things, fun things, or the opposite, hard things, even just a little venting — anything, I want to hear it.”
“…It’s not really my place to say, but… you believe me? This whole past-life business is just my own subjective take in the end, and from the outside it only looks like I’ve lost my mind, or an early-onset case of chuunibyou…”
“I believe you.”
“But there’s no proof or anything, you know? It really is just me saying whatever I—”
“Then I’ll believe you halfway — at, like, a ‘yeah, that’s probably how it is’ level. I’m your childhood friend, Ayu… and I think of you as my best friend, so even a story this far-fetched with no proof behind it… believing it that much is allowed, isn’t it?”

Knowing Ayu, someday she’d probably be able to laugh her past life off on her own, a breezy “yeah, that happened, huh.” But there was no reason for her to be tormented by loneliness, all on her own, in the meantime. Believing her only halfway… well, if believing all the way would just turn into another burden of guilt for Ayu, then halfway felt like exactly the right amount.

“I see… so you’ll believe me about halfway… and on top of that, you’ll listen again.”
“Yeah… I want to hear it.”
“Yeah… yeah… I see… in that case… up we go!”

With that, she lifted her face and stood, and Ayu’s expression, at least at a glance, was the opposite of how it had looked while she talked about her past life: a little brighter now.

“Then… I hereby swear!! I, Sakura Ayuri, will never lie to Gin about my past life! And so! I’ll live at least a little more positively!”

Ayu declared it brightly, out toward the sea. People can’t flip themselves over that easily, and even this might still be forced cheer. But if she was going to try to make this version of herself real, then I wanted to stay close beside her and help her live a life that was genuinely bright and happy. That much, without a doubt, I felt from the bottom of my heart.

“…Thank you, Gin.”
“It’s not like I did anything… all I did was listen, at most, and the rest is just you satisfying yourself and sorting it all out inside your own head.”
“…Honestly, when I decided to talk about my past life, I figured I wouldn’t get to stay friends with everyone the way I had been anymore.”
“Why?”
“I mean, someone like me is creepy when you really think about it, right? And even if you take it as a lie, then I’m just a weirdo moping over some self-indulgent delusion.”
“…What kind of person do you take me for?”
“Heh, sorry, Gin.”

Still on her feet, Ayu patted me on the head. Even knowing the person inside her might be older than me, being looked down at, literally, and patted by the Ayu I’d always thought of as the little one was pretty galling. But she looked so happy doing it that I let it go in silence.

“What do you want to hear first? You can ask me anything, you know?”
“You say that right after swearing you won’t lie…? Look, even if I ask, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. And… well, for today, just start with whatever you feel like talking about.”
“…Then let’s start with something that might come in handy someday, that you probably don’t know the first thing about — what a long hospital stay is actually like…”
“You got anything a little better than that?”

◇◇◇

After that, I heard all sorts of stories.

About her past life’s family, her friends… Learning that her past life had been a man surprised me, but the Ayu in front of me now was what had come out the other side of it all, so honestly, her past-life gender didn’t matter to me one way or the other.

In her past life, she told me, she’d had a little sister, the reverse of her situation now. The complete opposite of her past self, too: a healthy body, bright and lively and popular, a good kid who’d often stop by the hospital to visit and cheerfully fill her in on everything that had happened at school. I caught myself wondering whether that sister had been anything like the Ayu of now.

She told me about other things as well: the dramas and anime, the manga and songs she’d loved back then. Ayu singing those a cappella looked like she was having the time of her life, and just how much they’d meant to her carried across and filled my chest. Though for some reason, the one song she’d been singing when I first got here, she went shy about and wouldn’t sing no matter how I begged.

◆◆◆

— Whoooosh…

“Mngh…”

The sound of the waves reaching my ears fooled me into thinking I was still dreaming. But…

“…Ah, you’re up? …Morning, Gin.”
“…Morning, Ayu.”

When I opened my eyes, Ayu was peering down into my face, looking a touch more grown-up than she had in the dream, and the feel of her lap, which I’d borrowed as a pillow before dropping off, told me this was reality now, that I’d surfaced from the dream.

“Hm? Is there something on my face?”
“…I was dreaming about the past. A dream of the last time I came here.”
“…I see.”

I turned my face toward the sea. Unlike back then, it was summer now and stiflingly hot, but the sunlight, sunk a little lower than before I’d slept, caught on the water and set it sparkling brighter than it had that time.

“The little ones are gone already, huh… How long was I out?”
“Hmm… I didn’t check what time you dropped off, so I can’t say exactly, but… you were out for over an hour.”
“That’s a solid nap… hup.”
“Here, water.”
“Thanks.”

Shade and a decent breeze notwithstanding, my throat was bone-dry. I sat up and drank from the plastic bottle Ayu held out. There wasn’t much left, but it was still cold, and it felt good.

“Glug… pwahh~…”
“Ooh, now that’s a good drink.”
“…Huh, why is this a little cold? …Wait, didn’t I finish off my own water before I fell asleep?”

Was I still half-asleep? No; even half-asleep, registering water that should have been lukewarm as cold would be a bad sign. And there was no way Ayu, busy giving me a lap-pillow the whole time, had left me lying there to run off and buy more.

“Ah, that — the little ones headed home a while after you fell asleep, but just a moment ago Yuu came by and brought us some water as a little gift.”
“Yuu… oh, right, Yuuka… Hm? Wasn’t she supposed to be off in the next town over with friends?”
“Sounds like she heard from someone in town that we were here and hurried back early. Though once she saw you were asleep, she just left the water and went home.”
“Huh…”

I’d have to thank her later.

“There’s a message from Yuu, too: ‘When that girl wakes up, you two absolutely have to come by my place at least once — you’re both welcome to stay over together!’ …so she says.”
“Even if she says stay over, we’ve got nothing packed, you know.”
“She said if we do stay, she’ll get all kinds of things ready for us — and that we should call her right away if we’re going to.”
“Huh… well, let’s think it over while we walk a bit.”
“Sounds good. Up we— whoa!”

Ayu tried to push up off the picnic sheet, pitched forward, and dropped to her knees. Probably from holding a lap-pillow for me so long, her legs were trembling like a newborn fawn’s.

“Wa-waaah~! I can’t stand uup~…!”
“Honestly, hopeless… here, I’ll lend you a shoulder.”
“Thank youu~…!”

I quickly cleared the sheet away and lent Ayu my shoulder. For a second the thought crossed my mind, I’ve been out this whole time… do I reek of sweat?, but I decided that if I really did stink and she called me on it, I’d just leave her standing right there where she was.

“…Ayu.”
“What’s uup~?”
“Having that dream about the past left me with two things I want to ask… that okay?”
“If they’re things I can answer.”
“First one, then. Feels like you’ve stopped mentioning past-life memories lately… why? Run out of material?”

Last time we were here I’d heard a ton, and back then it had felt like she still had plenty left to tell. Lately, though, it was only the occasional slip; I couldn’t recall Ayu ever bringing it up on her own.

“…Can I say it?”
“Say what…? Sure, but…”
“Then I’ll say it… I guess it was around our third year of middle school… whenever I talked about my past life, Gin, you’d look a little lonely, so I figured I’d hold back.”
“…Seriously?”
“Dead serious.”

If it were only recently, I might have caught on to it myself, but she’d noticed even before I did, huh. Am I really such a lonely-hearts type? Knowing it had been written all over my face for that long left me hot with embarrassment, and to shake that off, I hurried to change the subject.

“Okay, next question… no, wait, is this one even okay to ask…?”
“It’s been a while since one of your grillings… unless it’s really out there, I’ll answer.”
“Then I’ll ask… you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, okay? … The you of your past life — how did you die?”
“…Like I told you before, just an ordinary traffic accident?”
“Come to think of it, I never actually heard what kind of accident it was. You’d think a car that killed you would’ve left you with some kind of trauma… but for something you call an ‘ordinary accident,’ you don’t really seem to carry anything like that around.”

“…”

“If you’re actually pushing through it, I’d want to be careful about it too… I mean, if you’d rather not remember, or it’s painful, then never mind…”
“Nn-nnhh… it’s not that, exactly… you want to hear it?”

What was that reaction about? Hard to get out, sure, but not exactly painful, was that it? If anything, she looked more embarrassed than pained, bashful, even.

“I want to hear it.”
“You won’t laugh?”
“Laughing at how someone died would be about as low as it gets, wouldn’t it.”
“You won’t get mad?”
“Is there anything here to get mad about…? Enough already, just spit it out.”

Why did recounting her own death need that kind of preamble?

“Th-then I’ll say it… back then, I was out shopping for all kinds of things with that friend I mentioned before, getting ready for university.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And then… honestly, even now I don’t get how it happened, but… it seems I’d gone and made that friend angry.”
“…No way.”
“…That friend left me behind and marched out onto the crosswalk, and a car came tearing through, blowing right past the signal… you get it?”
“…So — you died shielding the friend you’d angered.”
“W-well, more or less…”

Honestly, this girl. She’d died a death like that and STILL sunk into all that gloom over “repaying people” or whatever?

“…”

“A-are you mad?”
“I’m too dumbfounded to say anything.”
“Fair enough.”
“No — I’ll say this, since you seem to have it backwards… I don’t get how you can beat yourself up that badly over a death like that.”
“…You wouldn’t get it, Gin. Booo.”

Ayu turned her face away, sulking. And that, I had to admit, really was fair enough.

“Sorry, sorry — okay, I’ll do something for you to make up for it.”
“Something like what?”
“Let’s see… we stay at Yuuka’s place tonight, and I clean your ears for you… how’s that? We could grab an ear pick on the way.”

Ayu’s steps came to a dead stop, which meant mine, lending her my shoulder, stopped right along with them.

“…Really?”
“Well… seems I made you give me a lap-pillow for ages… ah, I’ve never done it for anyone, so I might be terrible at it — if you’d rather not, then…”
“Nuh-uh! That’s fine — no, that’s exactly what I want!”
“…I-is that so?”

I hadn’t expected it to land quite that well. I’d said it half as a joke, but if it made her that happy, then I didn’t mind.

“…Don’t you dare complain if I’m so bad at it that it hurts.”
“You’ll be gentle, Gin, so it’s fine.”
“…If you say so.”

With her leaning on my shoulder, we passed through the thicket and out into town, the sun tilted a little lower now. From here we’d have to call Yuuka, swing by a convenience store or a supermarket, and get everything ready.