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Chapter 110 – Waiting for You
What determines someone’s identity?
Was it their name? Genes? Mind? Body structure?
For example, when it comes to identical twins, their insides are what determine their identity.
Other people had to try to converse before they could distinguish them. The things they knew, the things they experienced, those were what determined their identity.
In other words, their memory. An important element in establishing one’s identity was through their memory.
Arina’s confession was a testament of this.
This was the reason why I couldn’t feel happy when I heard her confession.
My other classmates probably thought that this was inevitable. My relationship with Arina had been good, I could even say that we had crossed the line of ‘friends’ since a long time ago.
I imagined a timeline in which I immediately accepted her confession. In that timeline, I would be haunted by the poisonous rose’s existence as she looked at me with a sad look on her face. I didn’t want that.
Of course I knew that poisonous rose and the current Arina were the same person. The only thing she was missing was her memory of me. I knew that, yet, I still felt this way about her. Why couldn’t I just treat her like I used to treat the poisonous rose?
That said, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Tsuru showed me a concerned look. She knew what was going on, so she probably understood my feelings about all this.
*   *   *
I’ve never got into a relationship during all my life and I felt proud about it.
If I were to accept her confession, I would be betraying the lifestyle I always lived. But before that, I had to deal with her admirers first.
“I heard of it! I heard everything!”
During the recess, when I was mulling over my thoughts while listlessly staring at the bulletin board in the hallway, Shirona approached me.
“It’s finally happening, huh?”
“What is?”
“Jeez! What’s wrong with you? Arina-san has been looking forward to this day for a long time, you know?”
“How did everything manage to spread this quickly?”
Shirona didn’t know anything about Arina’s situation, that was why she showed her dismay at my hesitation.
“Look, it all happened so suddenly. I was surprised that I couldn’t think straight. My mind just went blank like back when you confessed to me.”
“Why are you bringing that up now?!”
“I was kidding, sorry
 I’m just overwhelmed
 That’s all
”
“Why the long face? Aren’t you happy about this?”
“I am, but
”
I was actually mad at myself for being so indecisive. Part of me wished that I could just stop thinking and accept her already, but

“Do you not feel the same way about her?”
“That’s my main concern currently, yeah
”
“You’re lying. If it’s you, it should be easy for you to find the answer to that question.”
“I know, right? It should be easy for me, but still
”
The bell rang. Time to go back to the classroom.
“Get yourself together, Sui. Also, don’t run away, okay?”
“I won’t run away
 I won’t
”
*   *   *
In the end, I couldn’t make up my mind until after school finally came.
Like I said to Shirona, I wasn’t going to run away. I knew that Arina would definitely come to that place, so I wouldn’t leave her there alone. Besides, I had some questions I wanted to ask her.
After cleaning up, I packed up my things and left the classroom. As a member of the going-home club, I trained myself to do HALO quickly and all that training was worth it. No one could beat me when it came to taking off the classroom. (T/N: HALO is High altitude, low opening, a military technique they use while dropping from a high altitude. Basically you freefall for a while before opening your parachute. It’s commonly used for delivering supplies from the air, though recently it became more popular for non-military purposes and people have been using it for skydiving. As for the correlation in the sentence, there was a joke that doesn’t translate to English at all and I don’t have enough braincells to translate it properly, so sorry about this.)
I felt Arina’s eyes on me, but I ignored her and left anyway. I knew that I was rude to her, but I hoped that she could forgive me for this.
I knew she would follow me.
I sat down on one of the chairs and looked at the clock inside the room. I knew that the clock was off by three hours and there was no point in looking at it, but I had to do this or else, I would go crazy.
The useless clock ticked, probably trying to make up for the three hours delay. I wonder what happened to it? The clock used to show the time properly back when Arina and I used to come here often.
Knock-knock.
Someone knocked at the door.
I could see a familiar silhouette on the frosted glass.
“Come in.”
I said to the person behind that door.
Then, the door slowly slid open as Arina stuck half her face and peered inside.
“I knew it, you’re here
”
She let out a sigh and her shoulders that had been looking tense started relaxing. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.
The girl approached me with a steady gait as the sound of her footsteps echoed through the room. Then, she sat down on the chair as she lowered her gaze to face mine.
Then, there was silence.
I didn’t know how to start the conversation and she was probably in the same state as me.
The room was so quiet to the point that I could clearly hear the sound of our uniform’s rustling from our slight movements. I managed to meet her gaze for a moment before quickly averting it. When I tried to make eye contact with her again

“Why did you do that back then?”
“
Do you hate it?”
She said that in a whimper as if she was a child that was being scolded.
“I don’t. It’s just, the mood was strange
 Hell, you were acting even before that. First you said that you were bored, then you said that you felt impatient and anxious
 Then, you did that out of nowhere
”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t in the right state of mind back then
 I know that I didn’t act like myself
”
“You don’t need to apologize, but
 Were you serious?”
She turned her gaze down, hiding her eyes within her bangs.
“Mm.”
She quietly answered.
“Arina, think about it properly. There are plenty of men better than someone like me.”
“Stop looking down on yourself. I’m not here to compare you with anyone, you know?”
“
That’s
 Okay
”
She furrowed her brow, her expression looked sad.
“When I first met you, the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘I want to know more about you’. It was strange. I didn’t even know anything about you back then, yet strangely, there’s something inside you that made me drawn to you
 After I read my note, I figured that before I lost my memory of you, I fell in love with you. Even after I lost my memory of you, I came to fall in love with you again
 Maybe it is fate?”
Tears started welling up in my eyes, but I resisted it as hard as I could.
“I know that you don’t want to hear this from the current me, but my other self who remembers you. I understand that feeling as I would do the same if I were you
 But, you know
 The moment I remembered everything except you, my thoughts started to change. I’m the same person as I was back when I still remembered you but my thoughts and experience are different from her
 I guess that’s what it’s like to lose my memory
 I became a different person than I originally was
 That’s why I wanted to tell you everything. I wanted to tell you, as the person I am now, before I get my memory back, that I love you. I love you so much. I’m sorry for being selfish, but this is my wish
”
I carefully opened my mouth to prevent my voice from shaking.
“Sorry, Arina.”
“Why are you–?”
“It’s painful for me
 For a long time, I wanted to talk about everything we experienced together with you
 I wanted to talk about it with you so badly, but I knew that I couldn’t
 Sometimes, I wished that we never met each other in the first place.”
I knew that what I was saying was terrible, but I had to get this out of my chest.
“Every single day, whenever I see you
 I always wonder if your memory came back or not
 I always hoped that it would come back
”
“I’m sorry
 I still can’t remember anything about you
 But, it’s the truth that I love you
 And I don’t want to leave you
”
Arina reached out to touch my hand.
But she stopped right before they touched because of my words.
“At the end of the summer vacation, I’ll give you a proper answer. I promise.”
“
You promise?”
“Yes. I’m not joking, neither am I running away. I’ll give you a proper answer by then.”
“Thank you. I’ll be waiting for you.”
She then pulled her hand away and slung her bag over her shoulder.
I would be waiting for her too. No matter how long it took.
TL: Iyo
ED: Dodo