Chapter 21: Pandora’s Guilt and a Secret Kiss

I was engaged in something truly shameful.

Having spread the mattress on the floor, I surveyed Watanabe Hayato’s bedroom, my eyes inevitably drawn to the computer resting on his desk.

In that moment, the tale of Pandora’s Box sprang to mind.

According to ancient Greek myth, Zeus commanded Hephaestus to sculpt a girl from clay, whom they named Pandora.

In ancient Greek, her name signified “the woman endowed with all gifts.”

The gods bestowed upon Pandora a myriad of presents: beauty beyond compare, a voice like a nightingale’s song…

But most crucially, they endowed her with a particular nature.

A woman brimming with “curiosity” and “willfulness” seemed to possess a fatal allure for men.

She was like an endlessly unread book, mysterious yet utterly captivating.

Yet, it was precisely this nature that made opening the fated box an inevitable choice for her.

Undeniably, this was Zeus’s ultimate purpose in bringing Pandora into existence.

To unleash upon humanity a torrent of calamities: sickness, misfortune, war, old age, famine, and countless others.

Even if the tale were to unfold a hundred thousand times over, its conclusion would remain unchanged.

Thus, there was nothing to lament if everything was predestined.

I was not attempting to defend my own actions.

However, to chastise me now would be akin to questioning why a stone is not soft to the touch.

So, then.

Let me see if Watanabe Hayato’s hidden folders have been updated.

Powering on the machine, I entered the password, then with practiced ease, clicked through the layers of directories within the local disk.

The most recent file update was two weeks prior.

“…”

Scrolling through, I swiftly scanned the titles and thumbnails, my experience akin to poring over countless books.

The primary genres still featured adorable girls, mainly childhood friends and younger sisters.

Something felt amiss; a few seemed to be missing.

Yet, a full month had passed since my last routine check.

I had absolutely no recollection of which works were absent.

Could it be that Watanabe Hayato no longer favored that particular genre? But which one?

I held my breath, listening intently.

Footsteps echoed from outside, their rhythm and frequency indicating that Watanabe Hayato had finished his shower.

I hastily shut down the computer, retrieved the tower from the adjacent cabinet, and placed it back on its stand.

Before the boot-up was complete, before the main interface had fully loaded, the bedroom door swung open.

Feeling a pang of guilt, I instinctively drew my head back.

A small, dark shadow squeezed through the crack in the door first.

Then came Watanabe Hayato.

He held a half-frozen bottle of barley tea.

“Here, want the other half?”

Drinking a cold beverage after a shower was a habit of Watanabe Hayato’s.

In my current state, I felt utterly undeserving.

The right to privacy was a fundamental one, after all.

If anyone were to discover my own collection, I would undoubtedly be consumed by shame and anger.

Putting myself in his shoes, Watanabe Hayato likely felt the same.

Though I had never witnessed him truly angry.

It was difficult to even imagine what might provoke his wrath.

The mere thought of such a scenario filled me with an unsettling dread.

Perhaps such a future would never come to pass.

I gently declined Watanabe Hayato’s offer and handed him the other controller.

He settled onto the mattress I had just laid out, and we began playing a racing game.

From this angle, could he truly see the screen? I shifted my body slightly.

For some reason, the atmosphere felt strangely awkward.

Only the sounds of the game emanating from the speakers filled the room.

“Ren, you lied to me, didn’t you?”

Without warning, Watanabe Hayato launched his sudden attack.

My drifting trajectory immediately spun out of control, my character skidding endlessly after hitting a banana peel.

Then, several AI characters zoomed past me with lightning speed.

I tensed my body, while Little Black Cat Lingling on the desk tilted his head, staring at the screen with curious eyes.

‘He… he found out?’

‘Were my previous excuses for borrowing Watanabe Hayato’s computer too clumsy, leading him to discover the truth?’

‘Alright, I’m ready to prostrate myself in apology.’

Watanabe Hayato’s next words sent a shiver down my spine.

“The Magical Girl you transform into, she’s not some kind of kiss maniac, is she?”

Watanabe Hayato’s voice came from behind me, his tone as casual as ever.

Since my back was to him, I couldn’t discern his thoughts from his expression.

‘…Could it be that I’m terrible at lying?’

I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

If I admitted it, then my kiss yesterday, and Watanabe Hayato’s kiss this morning—one active, one passive—

‘Wouldn’t it seem as though I were merely toying with him?’

It was because Watanabe Hayato believed my lie that he had initiated the kiss.

Whether driven by friendship or familial affection, he had acted with the sincere intention of helping me.

In doing so, I felt as if I had squandered his genuine kindness.

“I’m sorry, for doing something so strange this morning.”

‘Eh?’

This was entirely unexpected.

Why was Watanabe Hayato apologizing to me instead?

I was clearly the one who had erred and deserved chastisement.

The race was already in its second lap; I was in second place, and Watanabe Hayato in third.

He had been distracted from the very beginning.

“So, that’s why Ren has been avoiding me all day, isn’t it?”

No, how could I ever avoid Watanabe Hayato?

Under normal circumstances, I was indeed the type to message Watanabe Hayato and bother him the moment I felt bored.

Only then would it be Watanabe Hayato’s turn to respond.

We rarely had opportunities to speak face-to-face on campus.

Normies had their own circles.

Otaku had theirs.

My presence before Watanabe Hayato would leave his friends unsure of what to say.

After all, a friend of a friend isn’t necessarily a friend.

Today’s chat frequency had significantly decreased compared to the average.

In a sense, once you’ve told one person everything you want to say, there’s no need for other social interactions.

“I’m sorry.”

I apologized to Watanabe Hayato.

Setting down the controller, I turned to face Watanabe Hayato.

After the battle with the D-rank monster that morning, Watanabe Hayato’s first question to me had been whether I was hurt.

At that time, “I” had wondered why, even after my confident reply, Watanabe Hayato’s spirits remained low.

Even now, Watanabe Hayato had not questioned me.

Like Aunt Chinatsu, he harbored an unconditional trust in me.

When I expressed an inexplicable desire to sleep in Watanabe Hayato’s bedroom, Aunt Chinatsu had not pressed for details.

They were waiting for me to reveal the reason.

And if I chose not to speak, they would not question my actions.

Yesterday, not only had I deceived Watanabe Hayato with the “kiss maniac” persona, but I had also evaded his genuine concern.

Magical Girls were destined to fight monsters.

They faced dangerous monsters, creatures driven by intense destructive urges, utterly beyond the capabilities of ordinary people.

Even a wild beast escaping from a zoo would make headlines, causing widespread panic.

How much more terrifying, then, were monsters harboring intense malice towards humanity?

While Magical Girls were undoubtedly figures of aspiration, worshipped as symbols of beauty and hope.

However, if one were the family member of a Magical Girl, they would likely feel no excitement or pride.

Instead, they would be consumed by an uncontrollable worry.

The fact that Watanabe Hayato had come to my room last night, rather than me seeking him out, further confirmed this.

“…Watanabe Hayato was clearly worried about me, yet I lied to him.”

Yes, even though at the time I had so vehemently declared, “Would true friends ever deceive each other?”

I had exploited Watanabe Hayato’s trust.

It was precisely because we were friends, the best of friends, that he had believed such a fabrication.

Recalling my blustering facade from last night, I was now utterly overwhelmed by guilt.

I gazed down at my hands, clasped on my knees.

“Um, Watanabe Hayato.”

“Hm?”

“We’ll always be the best of friends, won’t we?”

The so-called “eternal best friends, an unbreakable pact” might be impossible to maintain by myself alone.

Human relationships were always a two-way street; if a rift appeared on either side, the connection would inevitably break.

“More than that, we’ve been family since that day.”

Watanabe Hayato replied.

“…”

That was the day I realized I had lost everything.

Watanabe Hayato had pulled me, who was gradually drifting away from Earth’s gravity, back to his side.

I cherished this relationship, this emotion, beyond measure, praying it would never change.

Move a little closer, and the moon would collide with Earth; move a little further, and it would no longer orbit.

“Before I explain everything, I have a question.”

I clasped my hands tightly.

“Yesterday… was that Watanabe Hayato’s first kiss?”

“No.”

Watanabe Hayato’s answer was swift and decisive.

‘Should I be relieved?’

Why had Watanabe Hayato never told me he had been in a relationship?

Even at that very moment, I had unilaterally assumed it was his first kiss.

I had believed it right up until a second ago.

A first kiss was significant.

Or rather, any “first” experience left an indelible mark.

For some reason, I couldn’t feel happy at all.

My gaze lingered on Watanabe Hayato’s face, and an inexplicable sense of injustice welled within me.

‘Watanabe Hayato was the one who kept secrets from me first, wasn’t he?’

In that case, my transgression of lying to Watanabe Hayato yesterday could be considered a one-to-one offset.

“I became a Magical Girl for someone very important, but it wasn’t my mother.”

The words I had intended to reveal entirely now felt vague and misdirected.

“The person I become after transforming, while still me, has the personality of my eight-year-old self.”

I withheld the fact that my friendship with Watanabe Hayato had transformed into a possessiveness that “I” perceived as love.

“So, that kiss meant nothing; it was just a childish prank.”

Though I had fled in disarray afterward, since I, the real me, had said it, Watanabe Hayato had no grounds to refute it.

“Is that so?”

Watanabe Hayato tilted his head slightly.

“Yes.”

Anxiety churned within me.

Unsure of the source of this agitation, my reply to Watanabe Hayato was curt, almost dismissive.

If it were yesterday’s me, I would have found more excuses, but for now, I decided against it.

The racing game concluded with neither Watanabe Hayato nor I having a score.

After I put down my controller, Watanabe Hayato also stopped playing.

As if I were sulking with someone, I had no desire to start a second round.

‘—Yet I had only done all this to protect him.’

Therefore, I resolved not to watch anime with Watanabe Hayato tonight.

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