Talking With Izumi

Now that we had reconciled, it was finally time for me to have the much awaited talk with Izumi.

Of course, I hadn’t forgotten that there was a limit to what she could say, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to test the waters and see what I could get out of her.

So I began by asking her more simple questions that I thought she undoubtedly was going to answer. The first one was something she was undeniably going to respond to — partially because I had heard her say it far too many times already.

“Hey, Izumi. What do you think of Khrom?”

“Khrom’s magnificent, isn’t he?”

Right. Magnificent was quite a strong word. There weren’t really any others I could think of that could top it.

I wanted to test her and see what she thought of me. Well — Sabar.

“So…ummm…Izumi,” I stammered a little for no reason. Her answer wasn’t going to represent how she viewed me in any way. Besides, as with everything, whatever she was going to say was what the creators had made her say, not what her as a conscious and sentient being would have said.

Again, not like that would’ve provided much of a difference anyway.

I cleared my throat and started again.

“So, Izumi…what do you think of Taro — I mean Sabar?”

I waited for a second, anticipating that something positive was going to come out of her mouth. Didn’t I just tell myself that whatever she said had no bearing on my chances with her? I don’t know why I was letting my subconscious thoughts get the better of me.

“Izumi?”

She remained silent, and continued walking forwards. Disheartened, I realised that she didn’t have a response to that question. Clearly she didn’t care enough about Sabar.

The quiet that hit right after was unpleasant. I could see her still smiling as we continued forwards. She wasn’t even taking any notice of me, so I tried reigniting our bland conversation.

“So…Izumi, tell me about your sister. What is she like?”

Izumi snapped into action, actually facing me this time and excitedly spoke for longer than usual. “Maki is the best sister in the world.”

How stupid of me. I hadn’t even asked for her sister’s name this whole time. Not a great start.

“She’s strong; she’s fierce; she’s absolutely gorgeous. She’s everything you could ask for in a sister.”

Though I tried to focus, I couldn’t help myself but imagine what she looked like.

“That’s why the evil Overlord took her away. He saw that she was the strongest, prettiest, most capable person in all of the land.”

I found this interesting, so I stepped in, and asked another question before she carried on.

“Is there another reason why this Overlord desires to marry her? Are you guys from another world where you're royalty or something?”

She ignored me once again and continued. Clearly the answer to that question wasn’t known by her or, by extension, the game developers themselves. It seemed as though they were simply characters with a restricted backstory and that’s what players, including us, had to accept.

Ren and Junpei clearly had, considering the amount of times they’ve claimed to play this game.

“Sabar,” she grabbed me and softly cushioned her hands on my forearm.

I blushed a little. She motioned towards my face, with a sad and desperate look on her face. It edged closer and my head began to slowly tilt back. I wasn’t really sure what was going on. Nevertheless, it was an experience to remember.

“Khrom,” she turned to look ahead at Ren. I groaned.

“You both have to help me save her. If we do not reach her soon, she’ll be married to that monster and taken away from me for good!”

I was taken aback from the last thing she had said. I was too intrigued to wait for her to finish, so I cut her off like the gentleman I was.

“What do you mean ‘taken away’ from you for good? What happens if he marries her?”

Izumi took her hands off of me and returned to her neutral position. I was left standing like a fool for a moment, looking around to see if anyone had seen what had just happened. Ren was too far away, seemingly walking much faster than us; he didn't stop to listen in to our strange conversation.

It seemed as though I wasn’t going to get much out of her, so I began to talk to her about some of my own problems. I made sure Ren wasn’t close enough to hear.

While I’d like to talk to Ren about these things, I thought it would be easier to do it with Izumi. She couldn’t do anything with the information I was about to tell her, and, realistically, she wasn’t listening to me anyway.

“You, know, Izumi, now that I think about it, I wonder what Junpei thought of me as a person. I could never really figure that out. Although, I guess it was kind of my fault for not interacting with him very much. At least Ren and I were stuck with each other at times because we were twins. What do you think?”

I gazed forward and awaited a response, soon remembering that wasn’t going to happen, and how that was the whole point of this.

Nevertheless, I blurted out more until I felt I had said enough.

“The thing is, Izumi, I feel bad sometimes. You know, how I usually lock myself away from my family and hide in my room the whole day. I completely ignore them and do whatever I want in my room. They probably think that it’s because I don’t love them — or value them for who they are”.

I sighed and my gaze was dragged to the floor.

“The problem is that all that I’m doing…there’s a contradictory notion to it, isn’t there? In reality, all that I do is for them. Or at least, that’s what I say. I claim to be doing everything I can to help the family I have around me, yet the process to achieve that goal requires me to never be there with them.”

I looked back up to make sure Ren wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. To my fortune, he was still too far away.

“But it’s hard to make them understand it. Yet it’s also so hard to really justify it as well.”

A brief pause hit me, as I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“It doesn’t just affect my relationship with them, though. It has an impact on everyone else around me as well. It’s hard for me to make friends, or even if I have friends, commit to doing something with them.”

I side-eyed Izumi a little, wanting to see how she’d respond to what I was about to say.

“Even worse is the fact that it plunges my chances of getting a girlfriend to zero. If I’m not even able to make friends, how can I expect myself to find a girlfriend?”

Her expression remained the same.

“Sorry about that, Izumi. What I just said wasn’t really necessary, was it?”

“Khrom’s magnificent, isn’t he,” Izumi plainly dropped those seething lines out of nowhere.

My face dropped and my eyes drooped. It wasn’t quite anger I was feeling, but it also wasn’t sadness.

What was it that I said that made her say that? Whatever, it doesn’t matter.

Though our conversation ended rather unsatisfactorily, I still made sure to thank her for being so quiet and letting me talk to her, because it made me think about it more deeply than I had before.

Maybe after we save Junpei, I’ll try being a little more out there. Talk to people more. Be someone others actually want to be around — not just someone they keep close because I’m useful to help with their schoolwork.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll also manage to find someone who actually values me for who I am. Not for what I can do, or how convenient I am.

Well — I guess that’s how Ren, Junpei and my parents already did. I had just blinded myself to that obvious fact for so long.