IX — Naoji Was Sane by Anna Kanzaki

All of a sudden, even after the collision of our heads, his expression shifted.

By the time those words were uttered so clumsily yet clearly, his eyes had widened.

Maybe, just maybe... in his mind, he had never expected a doll that could speak.

I had already imagined and run through the monologue scenarios that could possibly be happening in his head, such as:

"Wait, could it be that I mistook her for a mute?"

"Oh God, she actually can speak..."

"Does she have some kind of speech impairment?"

Either way, any of these would leave me out of breath.

Dying. Yes. Exactly.

As someone who had always seen herself as an empty vase, this felt a bit too overwhelming.

For the first time, I could finally look at him from this close.

I mean, this-only-a-few-centimeters kind of close.

Yesterday? It wasn't even this close.

"No... I mean, it's alright."

My monologues were cut off immediately by his slow response.

The one that took more or less a few moments before he finally realized.

He was looking up at her. Me, the girl he had tried talking to for those two days.

And never received any answer or response until today, when I finally spoke.

Without any hesitation, I rose from my seat and offered him a hand.

I could feel a soft, faint smile drawn on my lips.

He took my hand and got up from the floor, soon brushing the dust off his pants.

"I was helped. Thanks, Kanzaki-san."

I nodded gently.

"Mhm. You're welcome, Reita-kun."

Soon after, a few moments of silence followed.

Calming, yet nauseating.

Suffocating.

It was like reading a manga that barely had any progress.

Though, it didn’t last too long.

"Are you studying for today's lesson?"

He definitely wanted to ease the awkwardness...

And awkwardly so.

His eyes glanced at my notebook. No, it was a diary.

"Uh, yes. I am."

That sounded awfully too cold, Anna...

"I see." He replied faintly.

Even much colder. My throat felt like it could lose its voice at any moment.

Or perhaps I would rather not speak if it were going to be this way.

Though I could feel the air shifting instantly after that.

A delicious air, as Kazuko's mother would describe it.

Other than that short and concise reply, Riku Reita did not speak another word after my blatant, cold response. He only nodded and walked away.

Again, as if this conversation had never happened.

I watched his back as he moved to his desk, sitting down and reading.

The classroom had slowly begun filling with noise again.

Chairs dragged across the floor.

Someone laughed loudly near the hallway.

A boy from another class passed by the door carrying a convenience store bag that smelled faintly of coffee bread.

Normal morning sounds.

Yet somehow, they all felt far away from me.

I lowered my eyes toward the diary again.

The corner of the page had folded slightly from how tightly I had been holding it earlier.

How embarrassing.

No, humiliating.

I had finally spoken to him properly, and what did I do afterward?

Act cold.

Wonderful.

Absolutely wonderful, Anna.

I pressed my forehead lightly against the notebook.

The paper smelled faintly dry, mixed with old ink and the artificial sweetness of the strawberry hand cream Kazuko forced me to try last month.

She said it would make me “feel more feminine.”

Whatever that meant.

Maybe she was right, though.

Right now, my heart was beating so loudly that even I felt annoyed by it.

Was that what Naoji meant to tell Kazuko? 

Or perhaps, as if he was right about what he said in his Moonflower Journal.

The one I wrote in my own notebook using his love of logic.

Pretend to be crazy, and you'd be called crazy.

And here I was, the Kazuko of today, behaving as composed as ever.

Sitting here, pretending those things had never happened.

To be honest, I would definitely hate getting divorced because of Naoji's weed-taking behavior.

However, just like me, she had her head in the clouds and was quite easygoing.

Though, I wondered... had she ever been put in my place?

Would she change her mind about Naoji?

I knew he was mad. A drug addict who genuinely thought he was far more gifted as a writer than the likes of Goethe. A man who pretended, yet fell into the very snare of that pretense.

However, in spite of such an abundant mess, he was right.

He had a point: to detest people and be detested by them for his own pretension.

Maybe Naoji was sane...

And Kazuko would definitely loathe me for muttering that sentence, as she threw that journal out of the window.

I mean, maybe Naoji getting addicted to weed was justified. Or maybe him ending up becoming an alcoholic after genuinely considering that logic was, inevitably, the love of logic.

The Setting Sun. Shayou.

A self-destructive journey disguised as a novel about a post-1940s family.

Of silence, struggles, and hopeful moments.

Hence thus, all of these random, unrelated thoughts were spent easing this empty vase.

The one constantly longing for intensity, yet never sharing it, let alone speaking of it.

If I were Kazuko, I might be able to change that destiny, thus finding a better husband.

Or at least, preventing the divorce as his wife, no matter how long it took.

No matter how many years. No matter how many periods, perhaps even a few decades longer.

But would The Setting Sun still be The Setting Sun after that?

I really doubted it. What made it special were thoughtful yet emotional lines like this:

I did not know what love was.

I did not even understand simple affection.

Those words of hers lingered in my head like a bunch of needles.

So sharp that I could taste them. Imagine their voice. Feel their logic.

Hence, the Kazuko of yesterday disappeared into silence.

Replaced by her reincarnation, inspiration, or perhaps the one who could change her destiny.

Or else, someone who understood her far better than anyone else.

And that someone was me, Anna Kanzaki, who was, has been, and will always be Anna Kanzaki.

Irreplaceable, authentic, and gentle.

Or, at least, that's what an empty vase would hope for.