Sayu shouted excitedly, and a faint look of relief appeared on her cute little face.
"Sayu-chan?"
Masaka Yuko, who was sitting opposite, tilted her head and wondered: "What are you looking at?"
"Eh~? It's nothing. You don't need to worry about it, Yuko."
"But you look very happy. Did something good happen?"
"Well..."
Sayu thought for a moment, then smiled slightly and said:
"Hmm~ How should I put it? I saw something that made people angry, but fortunately it was resolved in the end, so it's a good thing~"
"Something that makes people angry?"
Masaka Yuko blinked twice and couldn't help but be curious, "What is it specifically?"
"Well, Yuko, you won't be interested."
"How do you know if I'm interested or not if you don't tell me?"
"I just know it anyway, so I won't tell you."
"It's too much! Why is it like this~~~?"
Ignoring his friend's aggrieved expression, Sayu happily picked up the sweet matcha on the table and played with his phone while drinking it.
Click "Follow" on the "TYPE-MOON" account and enter the message bar.
Searching through many private messages saying hello, chatting, and confessing, a reply with a meeting time came into view.
"If it's five o'clock in the afternoon on December 7th, I think I should be free to meet you."
After double-checking the chat history, Sayu swiped the screen to return to the main interface, and then put the phone on the table.
He raised his head inadvertently and saw Yuko Masaka staring directly at him.
"?"
Sayu couldn't help but feel a little confused about this and asked: "Yuko, what are you doing? Is there something on my face?"
"It's about you, Sayu-chan."
Even if someone noticed her gaze, Masaka Yuko did not panic. Instead, she asked directly: "Who were you chatting with just now?"
"Huh……?"
"After all, haven't you been checking your phone repeatedly since we arrived at this store?"
"ah……"
Sayu was stunned for a moment, and then said with some embarrassment: "I'm sorry, Yuko. I obviously came out with you, but I kept looking at my phone..."
"About this~~~"
Masaka Yuko's eyes rolled for a moment, then she leaned forward slightly and put her arms on the table, and asked tentatively:
"If you are really embarrassed, Sayu-chan, tell me who you are in contact with~ Could it be that you have a boyfriend?"
"--How can it be?"
"Uh-huh, answer in seconds!!"
"It's not what you think."
Sayu waved her hand to deny, "Anyway, I was just browsing SNS, not my boyfriend."
"I see……"
Yuko Masaka couldn't express her disappointment, but she agreed with confidence. Her eyes stayed on her face for a moment, and then she showed a somewhat lonely smile.
"Well~ Since you said that, Sayu-chan, I won't ask any more questions. However, I finally saw your smile again today, and I feel like it's been a long time..."
"……Huh?"
After hearing her words, Sayu blinked unconsciously, with a confused expression on his face: "Um, what do you mean by Yuko's words?"
"That's the literal meaning, although you may not have noticed it yourself..."
Yuko Masaka held her cheek with one hand, and her voice flowed out with a sigh.
"But, Sayu-chan, you haven't been in the right state recently, and I'm actually worried about this. So it's great to see your smile again like today~"
"...?"
Sayu's eyes flickered slightly, and then he pretended to be cheerful and replied: "How could such a thing happen? I feel like I am just like usual."
"Different."
The other person shook his head slowly but firmly.
"Because I've always been by Sayu-chan's side, I know it very well. Recently Sayu-chan feels like she's gone back to the past... and that's not right either."
Masaka Yuko looked directly into her eyes while trying hard to choose the right words.
"To be specific, Sayu-chan has not only stopped smiling at all recently, she also has a melancholic feeling. She often stares out the window alone in a daze, and doesn't even respond to you."
"Well……?"
"It's useless even if you look like 'Did I do that?'"
"..."
Facing his friend's scolding, Sayu unconsciously lowered his eyes, pressed his hands on the books on the table, and was speechless for a moment.
Just as the other party guessed, she is indeed a little different from before recently, and she is always thinking about something.
However, that is not something that can be told to the other party.
It’s not just Yuko, but even family members can’t tell.
In other words, even telling them would not help.
Because no one will believe her and no one can help her.
So she could only hide it silently in her heart and bear it alone.
As if aware of her embarrassment, Masaka Yuko did not ask further questions on this issue and took the initiative to change the topic.
"Okay, okay, I'm just talking casually, Sayu-chan, you don't have to answer me... By the way, let's talk about something else, shall we?"
Her eyes wandered around, and finally landed on the book in the girl's hand, and her eyes lit up slightly.
"Ah~! Speaking of which, Sayu-chan, you seem to be carrying the novel "Numa Man" with you a lot lately, right?"
"...Hey, that's right. Is there any problem?" Sayu raised his gaze and asked.
"Nothing, nothing~have you finished reading this book?"
"I've finished reading it."
"Is that so? Can you tell me the story behind it?" Yuko Masaka asked in a cheerful tone.
Sayu tilted his head slightly, looking alternately at the book in hand and the other person's face. After thinking for a while, he said, "Yes, yes, but if you are interested, I can actually lend you the book."
"Well, that's good, but it's not possible now. After all, the exam is coming next month, and I don't dare to be distracted at this time. So~"
Masaka Yuko put her hands together in front of her face and asked, "Just to satisfy my curiosity, Sayu-chan, can you tell me about it first?"
"I'm not bad...then what do you want to know?"
"Let me think about it. Look, didn't we talk about it last time at Disneyland? For example, the shadow will replace the original body and live on."
"Well, that's right."
"So what happened in the end? What happened to the protagonist in the book, Higa?"
"It's not Higa but Hikaru. The protagonist's name is Sagimori Hikaru, right?"
Sayu smiled helplessly, paused and said, "As for what happened to her later...she probably died."
"died??"
Masaka Yuko opened her eyes in shock.
"Yes."
Sayu stretched out a hand, gently stirred his sweet matcha with a straw, stared at the vortex that appeared in the cup, and slowly said: "The ending is that the protagonist finally sinks into the furnace."
"Wow...what kind of inexplicable plot is this? Where is Hizuru-chan's shadow?"
"He is also dead. He was killed by the protagonist himself from the very beginning."
"What is this all about..."
Yuko Masaka's interest suddenly dropped sharply, "To write such an anticlimactic development, what on earth was the author thinking?"
Seeing the other party's reaction, Sayu couldn't help but laugh.
"Although I can't answer you about the plot, but regarding what the author of this book was thinking, this is the publisher's evaluation."
As she spoke, she took out her mobile phone, searched for the details of the novel on Amazon, and then handed it to the other party.
"...What is "I"? Questioning the independence of the self. Ryunosuke Nagumo's current masterpiece?"
Masaka Yuko read out the slogan above and couldn't help but feel confused, "It's so annoying, what does this mean?"
"Simply put, the theme of this novel is to explore who you really are and question your own identity."
"Identity...?"
Sha You nodded in affirmation.
“For example, isn’t there the original ‘I’ and the ‘I’ as a shadow? I think the author is probably exploring the identity of the concept of ‘I’, right?”
Masaka Yuko frowned when she heard this, and after thinking hard for a while, she tentatively asked: "...Does this mean, which one is the real 'me', the original body or the shadow?"
Before Sayu could speak, she asked herself again and asserted: "Do you even need to ask? Of course I am who I am! How can a fake like Shadow be me!"
"But, for the shadow, does it think that it is a substitute? Or does it firmly believe that it is itself, that is, the original "me"?"
Sayu couldn't help lowering his gaze and whispered softly: "If one day, you find that everything you have always believed in is false, will you want to find out the truth?"
"Everything I have always believed in is false...?" Yuko Masaka repeated her words, with many question marks floating around her head.
Sayu pondered for a while and continued.
"For example, Yuko, have you ever had any strange dreams? There are some things that you have never experienced before, but you still feel like you have seen them before, as if they really happened."
"Is this..."
Masaka Yuko raised her head unconsciously, put an index finger on her chin, and said with some uncertainty: "It seems like there is, but it seems like there isn't...I don't know very well myself."
"That's right..."
Sayu narrowed her eyes slightly and asked: "There is a saying called the "Mandela Effect." Yuko, have you heard of it?"
"The Mandela Effect? What is that?"
"It means that people's collective memory of history is inconsistent with reality, and there is a deviation."
"That's it~"
Yuko Masaka nodded repeatedly as if she understood, and then tilted her head in confusion: "So, what happened to the Mandela Effect?"
After a brief silence.
Sayu raised his gaze again and considered his words: "...If I said that Iwanami-san did exist, what would you think?"
Masaka Yuko suddenly froze on the spot.
No one spoke between the two, and they both fell into silence.
After a while.
"Sayu-chan..."
Masaka Yuko murmured and stretched out a hand, with a worried look on her face: "Are you okay? Are you feeling uncomfortable somewhere? Or are you too tired recently?"
A hint of sadness briefly passed through Sayu's eyes.
"I'm fine." She said, and gently pushed away the other person's hand reaching for her forehead.
"But……"
Masaka Yuko looked worried.
"You have said this more than once...
There is no Iwanami-san in Asahi, not even anyone with the same surname. Haven't we already discussed this issue many times?
You just talked about it before, why are you suddenly talking about it so seriously today... something is really wrong!"
'See, I knew it was useless...'
Sayu groaned secretly in his heart, then put on his usual expression and responded.
"Okay, I was just joking, you don't need to pay attention, Yuzi."
"joke?"
Masaka Yuko blinked blankly, puffed up her cheeks and said, "...Really! Stop making such jokes, it's so scary."
Sayu smiled and said sorry, stopped trying to find anything from his friend, and started chatting with him casually.
In the summer of her sophomore year in high school, a boy named Iwanami broke into her life and changed her life.
The other party not only saved Yuko, but also saved her mother. He pulled her out of the days when she couldn't see the light and gave her a life that was nothing less than a new life.
——But it is not remembered by anyone.
Even she herself kept searching carefully from the fragments of the dream and putting the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, and then she managed to piece together the non-existent past.
But except for her, everyone else is still the same.
'I don't know who is the fake and who is the shadow...'
Sayu thought silently and vaguely, and there was a moment of confusion in his eyes.
"Ah, you're showing that expression again."
A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts and brought her back to reality from her dazed state.
Look up and look over.
Masaka Yuko's expression was half helpless and half worried, and she rolled her eyes at her pretending to be angry and made a joke.
"Should I say that you really deserve to be Sayu-chan? Even though you have such an ugly expression, it makes people want to take more care of you. It's really annoying!"
"Well……"
"But."
Masaka Yuko sighed softly and continued:
"Although I don't know what Sayu-chan is worried about...
However, whenever you feel that you need my help, no matter what, I will do my best to help Sayu-chan.
This is the only thing that will never change~"
Sayu was stunned for a moment, and her expression gradually softened.
"...Well, I understand. Thank you, Yuko."
She said softly, feeling a little ashamed of her previous guess.
In the final analysis, Yuko is just worried about herself, and is still a kind person in essence.
Thinking of this, Sayu stopped thinking about it and put some things aside for the time being.
After that, the two chatted for a while in the coffee shop.
Because the date of the college entrance examination was approaching, Masaka Yuko did not dare to stay outside for a long time. She quickly said that she would go back to study and said goodbye.
Sayu continued to stay in the store.
◇
Before I knew it, the time came to 4:45 in the afternoon.
A man wearing glasses and a down jacket entered the store.
The man looked around, then came to a booth in the corner and stopped.
A pair of beautiful amber eyes looked over immediately.
"I'm sorry, I'm waiting for my friend, there's already someone here."
The girl sitting alone by the window said this, probably thinking that he was someone to strike up a conversation with.
The man stared at the other person for a moment, then smiled and sat down on the seat opposite.
This behavior aroused the girl's dissatisfaction. Her thin eyebrows like willow leaves could not help but frown slightly, and she slightly opened her cherry-pink lips, preparing to say something.
"You are Ms. Sayu Ogiwara, right?" the man said first, taking out a business card and handing it over.
"Let me introduce myself. I, Aizawa Yuichi, am a reporter from the newspaper Sports News. I have been on a business trip to Hokkaido recently."
"Huh?"
Facing Sayu's slightly stunned expression, Aizawa smiled and explained.
"So, you said before that you wanted to know about Kato-kun, right? Although I don't know much, I can still tell you.
In addition, I have actually heard about your deeds, Ogiwara-san. So in exchange, can you allow me to do a simple interview with you?"