My stepmother's burden is my ex-girlfriend.

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Me two years ago...

It was unknown that he would return to his hometown during this period to attend the local summer festival.

How I wish you would ask me to stay!

When we were just classmates...

When I was his girlfriend...

Then, ever since we became a family.

Various perspectives on the Irito Mizuto...

Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they are pieced together and connected—gradually forming a three-dimensional image.

I didn't know that at first.

Becoming lovers isn't enough for me to know.

Every person's existence has its predetermined form.

He had no way to change it.

Everything unfolds naturally.

That's how others understand it, demand it, and describe it.

The parties involved also admitted this.

It was completed by a person named Irito Mizuto.

Therefore, it must have been a form of resistance.

It is a last struggle against fate.

At that time, Ayai Yume was his only weapon.

What is it used to fight against?

Does this need to be said?

A trap set by God

In other words, it's fate.

"……I……"

and so.

Together with him, having been manipulated by that nemesis until now, I naturally said:

"I'm going to find him."

Upon hearing this, my cousin Yuanxiang immediately gave me a giggle.

"Okay. Be careful on the road."

The call records from that time are still on this phone.

◆ Irito Mizuto ◆

I've never had any real feelings since I was old enough to understand.

They feel like nothing concerns them.

Everything seems detached from reality.

What others call life, everything feels like an image on a monitor.

I didn't want to play the lead role in "No Longer Human".

However, I cannot resonate with it.

I can't empathize with my classmates when they are happy, sad, or angry.

It's probably because I know.

That's great.

How pitiful.

I know that saying these things to the person in question will only bring endless emptiness.

Because I've heard it countless times.

—It's so good that you were born safely.

—It's so pitiful that you don't have a mother.

Over and over again—repeated again and again—it just never ends.

I do not care.

I truly don't care.

I'm just living a normal life and breathing normally, so why should I be praised or pitied?

I don't understand.

Because I didn't understand, a huge, empty hole in my heart kept expanding.

Everything I saw and heard passed silently through that hole, leaving no trace...

Of all these, the only one that truly resonates with me is the world of words.

The impact of reading my great-grandfather's "The Dancing Girl of Siberia" for the first time still lingers in my memory.

It's just a page full of black and white text, yet it contains a vibrant tapestry of life, emotions, and humanity that surpasses any cinematic masterpiece.

Having previously been unable to resonate with anything I read, I finally understood for the first time what could fill the emptiness in my heart when I came into contact with the world transformed into words.

"The Dancing Girl" made me realize the fragility of human beings.

Rashomon taught me about human selfishness.

"The Tale of the Mountain Moon" taught me about human dignity.

But "Heart" taught me about the human heart.

The relationship between reality and fiction has long been reversed.

For me, the fictional world is the real world, while the real world is an illusion.

So... the relationship with Yui Ayai was just something that happened naturally at first.

It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing that led me to talk to her.

After we started meeting in the library, it always felt like we were talking through a screen.

But...yes, the key moment should be during the first date, when we went to the summer festival.

That slowpoke got separated from me, got lost, and started saying discouraging things on his phone.

I was furious from the bottom of my heart.

There is such a weak race in the world.

This is the kind of people who, without someone else by their side, seem unable to even breathe.

If I abandon her, she will surely weep forever in the shadows where no one knows.

Sigh──

—That's so pitiful.

It was then that I finally understood... what other people really meant by their thoughts about me.

I've known for a long time that Ayai is slow-witted and weak, and can't do anything without someone by her side—but that's just superficial information.

Just like when I read a novel—no, even more intensely, it's imprinted on my mind.

That's you, Ayai.

For me, only you give me real feelings.

I know. It must have been just a temporary confusion, an illusion caused by the brain.

Now it's all over, and I know exactly how things are.

But—

—For some reason, the feeling I had back then is still etched into my soul.

Why? It's clearly just returning to the original state.

Why? It clearly won't cause any problems.

Why……

The past romance refuses to end—

◆ Irito Yume ◆

There is a narrow fork in the road, off from the main path.

I'm not sure if this is the place.

But, urged on by my intuition, I pushed through the crowd and stepped onto that road.

It's just a forest path paved with the most basic stone slabs.

I walked along the road in straw sandals that I wasn't used to wearing, and saw a small shrine.

It was dark all around.

The bright lights of the shrine seemed like an illusion, the narrow grounds shrouded in darkness. Although there were old, fixed lanterns, they appeared to have been unused for a long time. Instead, moonlight streamed down from the sky, illuminating the basketball court-sized grounds.

In front of the approach road that runs through the center of the estate...

Irito Mizuto sat in the middle of the steps leading to the worship hall.

With nothing to do, Shuidou gazed absently at the night sky.

So I stomped hard on the stone slabs with my straw sandals to assert my presence and walked toward him.

"You really like dark places."

That's in line with my current style; I'm spouting sarcastic and cynical remarks.

"Are you a bean sprout reincarnated or something? No wonder your arm was shaking when you were holding the toy gun."

Mizuto turned his gaze from the night sky down to me, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

Yes, you have to look at me.

Whether you reject me or hate me.

Because I am no longer your girlfriend.

"...Did you come here specifically to mock me? To laugh at me for being an outsider who can't even get along with my relatives?"

"Of course not. I already knew that, it's just a waste of time to talk about it."

"snort."

One step, two steps, three steps.

The closer you get to him, the more strongly and clearly you can feel his breath, his scent, and his body temperature.

I don’t think it was a miracle that he was born safely from his sickly mother’s womb.

That's just the result of hard work. It was Ms. Irito Kawana who struggled to bring the child into the world. This little one was just born; there's no reason for her to be praised.

I don't think it's something to be pitied for not recognizing one's mother's existence.

Indeed, I may be pitiful without a father. Because I already know. I already know that the life of a family reunion can one day be suddenly lost. And I... have already tasted that sorrow.

However, not knowing from the beginning is another matter entirely.

He didn't know what it was like to have a mother in the first place, rather than being deprived of her later.

If that's the case, then the idea that being without a mother makes one pitiful is probably a forced acceptance of a certain value system.

It's like condescendingly telling someone who doesn't know what love is that they've lived a wasted life if they've never been in a relationship.

It's merely a one-sided attempt to force the other person to accept one's own pity, because he doesn't know what he does know.

Whether he thought "That's great" or "That's pitiful" was none of his business.