Chapter 1: Counselling

When a thought comes to mind, act on it immediately.

I don’t know when my mind will collapse.

No, it won’t collapse.

At least for now, my mind only feels confusion, and everything is being replaced, but it’s normal.

I take out my smartphone and quickly scroll through MomoTalk.

Sharing my current state would be like stepping on a landmine.

I’d be treated like a crazy person.

At the same time, I need to find someone competent and empathetic.

Nakamasa Ichika… is excluded.

That senior is competent and empathetic, but she’s too perceptive.

If we talk, she’ll see through everything…

I should stop here.

What’s the point of worrying about my cover when I can’t even confirm who I am?

The first person that came to mind, Nakamasa Ichika, a senior who approached me first despite my narrow social circle due to her outstanding ability and popularity, and who frequently contacted me even after I entered high school, saying she was worried.

I call that senior using MomoTalk… no, I make a phone call.

“…Is that Sora-chan? I heard you collapsed in the morning… Are you okay?”

A light but trustworthy voice comes through the phone after the ringtone, with a slight distortion in quality… The conversation we’re about to have is definitely selfish and will surely make things irreversible for me.

Clearly… I’ll end up confirming myself as one side or the other… But… I feel relieved…. The memories of just three years with her make me trust her, my senior, implicitly.

“Ichika-senpai, are you free this afternoon… I mean… around 2 PM? Since it’s the weekend, why don’t we meet at a cafe? I’ll tell you about… collapsing and… other things.”

“…Sure. It’s the weekend, and the exams are over, so let’s have some fun! Hmm… The cake we had last time was delicious, so let’s meet at Cafe Melina!”

I made a mistake.

I trust her, but I’m still confused, and I might be afraid of the irreversible future, so I stuttered.

If it were the usual Ichika-senpai… she would have definitely noticed… She’s kind, so she’s pretending not to notice.

I start putting on light makeup.

I felt no resistance.

I choose a suitable outfit and skirt to meet a friend and leave the house.

It’s cold, so I dress warmly.

Cafe Melina is about an hour away by public transportation.

My house is near the center of Trinity.

Cafe Melina is a bit far from the center, and the owner is quite confident in their business, so it takes a little while for the menu to come out.

So I leave about an hour and 15 minutes early.

As the new semester approaches, the weather is getting colder, so it’s better to be warm.

“Ah! You were out early!”

After ordering coffee and black tea at Cafe Melina and waiting for about 12 minutes, Ichika-senpai opened the cafe door, greeted me brightly, and approached.

The senior hung her wool coat on the chair and sat down in front of me.

I purposely ordered the coffee and black tea with plenty of time to spare, so it had only been about a minute since they arrived.

“Welcome, Ichika-senpai. You’re having your usual black coffee, right?”

“Ahaha, you know me too well, don’t you? Oh, did you order cake in advance, too? Is it okay to be treated like this?”

Thanks to the time I spent with her… her drink preferences were already in my head.

The cake was ordered based on the conversation on the phone where she said the cake we had last time was delicious, so I ordered the fruit cake that I remembered.

As for the black tea… I don’t think I liked it before, but this body reacted naturally and ordered it.

“Since I invited you, please let me treat you a little…”

“Oh… So the reason you called me is… Did you finally decide to join the Justice Realization Committee with me?”

“Ugh… You haven’t given up yet…? No way…”

Ichika-senpai’s unique… “insider” ability? It breaks the ice, mentioning the Justice Realization Committee that she previously invited me to join, and eases the atmosphere.

As expected, Senpai is… a little dazzling.

It’s fun.

The confusion seems to be subsiding a little.

I’m scared that my past self is naturally being forgotten.

But if it’s her in front of me, if it’s Senpai, if it’s her, with whom I spent time gradually, not a hastily made relationship in a desperate moment, she will understand me, who is desperate now… and she won’t reject me as a different person…

“Hmm… So what happened this morning that made you collapse?”

“Well, the thing is… Ichika-senpai… What should I do if I wake up in the morning and I’ve turned into a different person…?”

“…? Are you writing a novel or something?”

Ichika asks with a puzzled expression.

I understand.

It’s natural.

Such a thing can’t be realistic.

It’s a little sad, but what can I do?

It’s something that’s infinitely close to unrealistic.

“Uh… Yeah, something like that… I like reading books… so I wanted to try writing one sometime, Senpai…”

“Is that so… What kind of feeling is it, specifically?

It’s a lie.

But Senpai must also know that what I’m saying is not just a story from a novel.

It’s just that it’s such an unrealistic story that she doesn’t know that the woman in front of her is the person involved.

It’s not a proper answer to Ichika-senpai’s question, either.

“So… I was living a normal life, and then I woke up and found myself in the body of a person I’ve never seen before, and the memories of the owner of that body and my original memories are mixed up,

so I don’t know which one is me, and I keep leaning towards one side… and it tells me to be comfortable, and at the same time, something somewhere else is whispering not to give up…

I’m dizzy and confused, and I don’t know what’s what, and my original memories are pushed to the back burner.”

“…-chan”

“And the memories of the body’s owner gradually take over my mind, and I become assimilated, but in a corner of my mind, the original memories remain,

and I can clearly hear the whispers telling me to forget them, but I can faintly hear a voice telling me not to… and I don’t know what to do…”

“….ra-chan”

“While I’m confused, things that I can’t accept as common sense are taking root in my mind as common sense… As if it were normal, as if my original memories were just a memorable movie, as if it were nothing, it denies everything…”

“Yumetsubasa Sora!”

“Y….Yes?!”

“Calm down, Sora-chan… You’re not usually like this.”

“Ah… Yes, I’m sorry…”

I thought I was normal, but it seems that my mind is still confused and far from normal.

“Um….I’ll call you Sora for convenience’s sake.”

I nod silently.

Does she believe this fantasy-like story?

It’s hard.

Senpai is… kind.

“Um… Did you have any regrets?”

“Regrets…?”

“What do you want to do?”

Did I have any regrets?

My parents separated early.

I couldn’t achieve it, but I had a dream I wanted to achieve.

I gave up in the middle because I didn’t know what was what, but I was sad, but I let it go without any lingering feelings.

How many people in the world lived their lives fulfilling all their dreams?

Still, I was satisfied with that job.

If there’s any regret, it’s probably the friend I’ve been with since high school, through college, and even at work, thanks to an incredibly unlikely coincidence upon coincidence.

She said she was saved by me, but in the end, it was me who was saved.

“Not really… I don’t think I have any lingering feelings.”

“Then it’s fine, isn’t it?”

“Yes…?”

“I’m not telling you to throw away everything from your original self.

If you look for lingering feelings, you’ll probably find some.

It might be convenient, but you know how there are stories where people remember their past lives?

Think of it as a misunderstanding of something like that.”

“But… isn’t that just denial…?”

“You could think of it as denial, but on the other hand, if you get caught up in those memories, wouldn’t you be denying the 14 years of life you’ve lived now?”

“Ah…”

A gasp escapes me.

Even though the person in front of me might be someone completely different from the person I’ve seen before, she acknowledges me.

I don’t know about identity or confusion, she says, in her eyes, there is just a friend-like junior [Yumetsubasa Sora]

who has been with her since the second year of middle school, studying together, playing together, laughing, talking, and even arguing a couple of times.

I feel like crying.

The faint voice I heard from within, the shout that I shouldn’t forget, becomes clear.

But it’s not the same meaning as before.

Instead of 27 years, it suggests living 14 years, enjoying the school life I couldn’t enjoy.

I feel like crying.

No… I think it’s already flowing down.

Fortunately, I didn’t put on too much makeup, so it won’t be too ruined…

“Well… since I made you say all this, you should buy me another cup of coffee….W…Wait, are you crying?

Ahhhh!!

Did I do something wrong?!!!“

“Yes… No… Nothing..sniffle… Thank you… I…!”

“Uaaaaa!! It’s like I did something wrong!! I don’t need a nickname like the Justice Realization Committee  member who makes juniors cry!!”

I think I probably owe her a debt I can never repay.

“Are you feeling better? You put on light makeup, but it’s all ruined, sigh…”

“I’m sorry… sniffle…”

●

Suddenly, Sora-chan… started crying a lot… It was not just unusual, it was beyond extraordinary, it was almost a fantasy.

I heard a story that was almost like a fantasy.

Well, just listening to it, it seems like you’ve been through a lot of emotional hardship… The habit of not stopping talking when you’re mentally pushed or having a hard time is her own habit.

Thanks to that, it stopped quickly.

In that sense, at least in my eyes, Sora-chan is Sora-chan…. It’s a hard story to believe, but she doesn’t have a lying habit, and she’s a kid who can’t lie to save her life.

She’s a kid who’s so naive that she’d choose death over lying.

It’s not like she can lie, so I have no choice but to believe her.

“Well… at least in my eyes, Sora-chan doesn’t look like a different person. So stop crying and tell me the story you stopped telling me last time!”

“Y…Yes!”

After that, Sora-chan and I spent time chatting about our usual trivial things.

What’s the difference?

You said you were a different person, but you’re the same as usual.

Did you suddenly develop a lying habit?

When we first met, you were surprised and said, “Eh, the mastermind!”

That Sora-chan is the right one.

You said you were confused, but you’re proving it yourself…

“Yeah, so at that time, Serina-senpai and Hanae…”

It’s starting to feel normal now, and it feels like we’re just chatting…