——He felt his mind clearing.
The chorus of pain that had been screaming loud enough to split his skull just moments ago fell silent, and now only a single thought remained in Subaru's head — the resolve to face the father standing before him.
"I found someone I love. Even me."
He repeated his answer to the question one more time.
By saying it aloud again, Subaru became aware that his heart had started to move.
Before him, Kenichi blinked several times upon hearing the confession — aware that the remark had broken entirely from the flow of their conversation — "...Is that so."
In a quiet voice, he listened to Subaru's words.
That attitude was a relief. Subaru had known all along that his father was the kind of person who would listen like that, yet he had kept his lips sealed all this time.
And now he wanted to end that silence.
——Because there had been someone who pushed him to do just that.
"That's right. I'm not just some kid curled up small in his room anymore."
He didn't know how much he'd really changed.
Even if he acted tough saying he wasn't a kid, he was perfectly aware that he still was one.
The courage to raise his face, the resolve to face his own weakness, the nerve to stop running from things he didn't like — he had been trying not to notice any of it.
The kid he'd been — worse than a kid, really — had only just now admitted he was a kid.
And even that, he couldn't have admitted on his own.
A silver figure surfaced in his mind, tickling sweetly at his chest. It was the radiance that had brought warmth to Subaru when he'd been frozen, stuck in place.
Silver — a color that should have felt cold, yet it sent endless heat flooding into Subaru now, giving him the strength to take a step forward. As if buoyed by that warmth — "I remembered what I was scared of, why I kept shrinking down. No — I knew all of it. I knew, and I pretended not to see... and while I was busy pretending I was the only one who noticed my own weakness, I wanted someone to..."
He couldn't even pretend it was some vague someone. He knew who it had been.
"I wanted Mom and Dad to slam it into me."
"————"
"That I was hopelessly small, a stupid insufficient waste, a selfish piece of trash — I wanted them to slam that into me and... give me permission to give up."
Kenichi gazed at Subaru in silence, his eyes unwavering.
Subaru saw his own reflection in those twin irises that shared his same color. The sharp outer corners that everyone always mistook for a bad mood were drooping weakly now, beyond pathetic.
——Pathetic, he thought.
"I was always a clever little kid, you know? Good at everything in a half-assed kind of way. Running, studying — I was decent at all of it. And since I could do things most of my friends couldn't, I started wondering why they couldn't do them. Thought it was so strange."
Childish arrogance — or maybe a cute little sense of omnipo tence, if you wanted to call it something nice.
As a kid, Subaru picked up both sports and academics faster than most. He was naturally faster than everyone around him, naturally smarter than kids his age, and naturally the center of every group —.
'Takes after his father, huh.' Adults and neighbors would say that about him all the time.
When he learned that 'his father' referred to his actual father, and that the people around him acknowledged him as that man's son — those words filled the young Subaru with pride.
His father —
He laughed easily, talked easily, cried easily, got angry easily, moved easily, worked easily.
His father never hesitated to declare publicly that he loved Subaru and his mother, and people who admired him always surrounded him, with his father always standing at the center of everyone's smiles.
For Subaru, having that father was the greatest source of pride, and knowing that the person his father cherished most was his family — Subaru and his mother — filled him with an almost arrogantly swelling sense of superiority.
——I want to be like Dad. I want to become Dad.
To the young Subaru, the size of his father's back was the size of the world itself, and the world was something you could only see from atop that back.
That was why, day after day, Subaru could spend his days inside happiness, searching for happiness.
But — "When did it start...? I don't remember exactly, but I think I lost a race to someone. Around that time, the things I'd always been best at started not being the best anymore. Kids faster than me showed up, kids who solved problems faster than me showed up. My 'best' was shrinking — slowly but surely — and I started thinking something was wrong."
The more he pushed, the more the stars that had once shone brilliantly in the sky of his heart receded.
No matter how he reached out, no matter how he ran beneath the sky, the stars that had once burned so bright around him were gone, and the darkness and silence of the night wrapped around him ever tighter.
Even within that nameless anxiety — 'Takes after his father, huh.' That single phrase had been Subaru's salvation, the hope he clung to.
Even when he lost in speed, even when he was no longer the smartest, those words kept Subaru's fragile pride standing.
Rather than practicing running, rather than studying hard on his homework, he started throwing himself into stupid things first.
Sneaking into the school at night with friends, dragging white tape all over town, chasing the notoriously dangerous stray dog away from everyone's hangout — by keeping people entertained, Subaru tried to protect the few stars he had left.
"Studying is stupid. Being fast at running is nothing to brag about. I'm way more impressive, way stronger, making everyone laugh like this."
To protect that misguided pride, all he could do was keep running.
He volunteered to do what everyone feared, threw himself at what everyone hated, and carefully, carefully guarded his place so he wouldn't lose it.
"But to keep protecting myself like that, I had to do bigger things next time. I couldn't do anything smaller than what I'd already done. If I did, and people thought I was pathetic — that would be terrible."
So Subaru's behavior could only escalate.
When anyone asked why he did such things, the answer was that he was
——Yes. He had to be Natsuki Subaru.
Natsuki Subaru had to remain someone braver than anyone, wilder than anyone, freer than anyone — the kind of person everyone admired.
And so he kept up the tension, held the tension, hid the tension, didn't even notice it himself, deceived himself and everyone around him that he could do more, even more.
Because he was the son of Natsuki Kenichi, after all.
"I thought I could do anything. I convinced myself I would do anything. And so I kept doing stupid things, not thinking about anything, just making noise..."
Like a moth drawn to flame, he sought out the heat without even noticing it would burn him.
If he really had been a moth, he would have chased the fire until he burned to nothing, and that would have been the end of Subaru.
But Subaru was no moth, and the friends around him were far more human than Subaru.
——Especially since, there was no particular trigger, he thought.
His reckless ideas drew friends who wore the same mischievous grins.
But the number of those friends began thinning out — like teeth falling from a comb.
"I thought they were idiots. That they'd miss out on all the fun if they weren't on my side. That they could go regret and waste their boring time — I was going to look at higher things."
As long as he kept searching for stars, he wouldn't lose the ones above his head.
But the stars that should have filled the sky were gone, and all Subaru had left was that single blinking star. He kept running with his eyes fixed on it — and then one day, glancing down from the starry sky to the earth below — "There was nobody left around me but me."
Of course.
Never once looking back at anyone around him, Subaru had chased endlessly after stars no one else could see.
At first, his friends thought it was funny. But as the escapades escalated with no landing point in sight, they couldn't keep up.
Subaru never noticed. He mocked the ones who drifted away as fools, and the ones who remained started to feel doubt and unease about Subaru's way of thinking.
And one by one, friends vanished from Subaru's side. By the time he realized it, he was the only one left beneath the starry sky.
Frustrated and angry about it, he looked up at the sky as if he'd forgotten — "The star that had been shining so brightly above me — I couldn't find it anymore."
He'd lost the light of the stars, lost the friends who'd been around him, and was left utterly alone in the darkness of night. Only then did Subaru finally realize — ——He had never been special.
'Takes after his father, huh.' The magic words that had filled young Subaru with pride, that had brought such vitality to his heart.
At some point, those words had become a curse for Subaru.
"When you go outside and wander around town, you realize it. No matter where you go, no matter what you look at, traces of Dad are everywhere. ...Of course they are."
Subaru's narrow little world had been a view from atop his father's back all along.
For Subaru, who always sought the same height as his father no matter where he went, there was nowhere in his small world where he couldn't sense the lingering warmth of his father.
Gradually, the world became terrifying to Subaru.
And at the same time, what gnawed away at his heart was the mediocrity he'd noticed in himself — and the shame of not wanting his parents, and the people who knew his parents, to discover that mediocrity.
To be liked by everyone, relied upon by everyone, smiled at by everyone.
The son of Natsuki Kenichi — Natsuki Subaru — must never be seen as a coward who cowered self-consciously, terrified by the vastness of the world.
A bad reputation for himself was an insult to the father who professed to love him, and would surely lead to disappointment from that towering father. That was the most terrifying thing of all.
Throughout elementary and middle school, Subaru devoted himself entirely to not standing out.
Classmates who'd known Subaru in his younger years sometimes tilted their heads at how quiet he'd become — but children in such a sensitive period forget the trivial details as they go about their days healthily, oblivious to the darkness lurking in their classmates' hearts.
The clever thing Subaru did during all those years of burying himself was that while he stayed in the shadows among his classmates, at home he still played the same mischievous son as before.
The tall tales he told after coming home from school would make the mother doing housework's lips curl into a smile, and bring a grin to the father who'd returned tired from work.
——Had his parents realized that all of it was made up by Subaru? The current Subaru didn't know.
And so, throughout elementary and middle school — the bulk of his life — Subaru painted over his time with lies, building the false image of a person called Natsuki Subaru.
Everyone forgot the many misdeeds of the old Subaru and came to see the inconspicuous classmate as nothing more than someone whose name they knew.
While harboring a small pang of loneliness at such a shallow relationship, what truly gripped Subaru was the terror beyond that — a certain dread of the power held by the Natsuki surname.
"Thinking about it now, it was a pretty dark way to live. But that's how I barely made it through elementary and middle school. And after that... high school. Even though it was a local school, there were the entrance exam cutoffs or whatever. Most of my classmates didn't end up going to the same school..."
Subaru had developed the habit of thinking about everything negatively, but he still had a sliver of courage — enough to try seeing the drastic change in environment as an opportunity.
Mustering that meager courage, Subaru clenched his teeth and raised his face.
High school. A new place. Faces he'd never seen before. Completely unknown relationships.
There, no one would judge him as Natsuki Subaru, or see him as 'the son of Natsuki Kenichi.' And in that place — maybe, just maybe, he could find again the starlight he'd once let slip through his fingers.
That courage was what decisively tripped Subaru off the path.
"I think my high school debut was a spectacular failure, looking back. Obviously. When someone who'd never properly built human relationships in elementary or middle school goes to a place full of strangers, hyped up and pushing his energy beyond its limit, doing reckless things... what the outcome will be is obvious to even an idiot."
And if he hadn't even understood what was obvious to an idiot, then he had to acknowledge he was something less than one.
He didn't want to go into the details. He'd spare everyone that.
For Subaru, who had no model for human relationships beyond his own father, the only reference he had for building new connections in a new environment was that father.
——In younger years, those same behaviors might have served as amusing icebreakers, but for classmates already undergoing the emotional shifts of puberty, they were nothing but poison.
"Poison, plain and simple. Deadly poison. The kind that's unmistakable at a glance — white cap with red spots, the 'deadly poisonous, eat this and you'll die in agony' kind."
How was someone like that supposed to get along?
His very first step in the new environment tripped, and Subaru plummeted to the bottom of the abyss. Establishing himself as the unreadable weirdo, he spent his isolated days until one morning he suddenly thought — ——Man, I really don't want to go to school today.
"I think both Mom and Dad happened to be out that morning. I thought 'what a hassle,' stayed lying down when I should have been getting up... panicked, sat up, and it was almost noon. When I scrambled to get dressed, I noticed something."
His heart and body were perfectly calm.
Sitting in the window seat at school, pretending to sleep while passing the time in silence, Subaru's heart was constantly tormented by anxiety and fear.
From the moment he'd arrived, he'd been thinking only of going home — no, from the moment he'd woken up, he'd been thinking only of going home from school.
He wasn't being bullied. He wasn't being ignored.
He was the one building the wall. He was afraid of touching someone's kindness and kindling hope. The thought of seeing the light of a star again kept him on edge.
A day without that painful time. The sense of liberation, relief, and exhaustion drew him in, and Subaru's feet gradually — gradually — pulled further from school.
"Skipping once a week became once every three days, then once every two days, and... it took less than two months before I stopped going entirely."
What came after went without saying.
Subaru's heart was filled with relief. There was the liberation of being freed from the school where he had to endure such suffering, but what dominated Subaru's heart even more was a certain resignation and acceptance.
Subaru, who'd become a truant without any real reason, clinging to his own selfishness.
No one would look at Subaru and think 'takes after his father' — and above all, if his parents would only be disappointed by how pathetic Subaru was, then surely both of them would stop 'loving' him.
The mediocre evaluation of a son they didn't love meant nothing to those two.
If they were told their beloved son was worthless, they would surely be angry. They would be saddened. And seeing that, the people around them would pity and further belittle the pair.
The more distant the relationship between Subaru and his parents became, the less he'd have to worry about any of that.
And so, Natsuki Subaru — "I don't love you. I hate you. You're not... you're not my son. That's what I wanted — I wanted you to say that, to throw me away. I wanted you to give up on me."
Hoping for a star that could never exist, Subaru would look up at the sky with fragile hope.
That sniveling, pathetic person called Subaru — that foolish being unworthy of being Natsuki Kenichi's son — Subaru wanted to be released from all of it.
——That was what lay in the deepest part of Subaru's heart, something even he himself had never noticed.
Facing each other and laying bare his heart, Subaru realized for the first time — only by speaking it aloud — just how ugly his own heart truly was. Not wanting to admit his weakness, his stupidity, averting his eyes, and even trying to push the burden of cleaning up after himself onto someone else — the smallness of it made him nauseous.
And yet Subaru hadn't given up on himself, hadn't been abandoned — because he'd had support.
'
It blew a gentle wind through Subaru's heart and brought warmth to his hands and feet that had been growing cold.
'Let's start from here. From scratch... no, from zero!' Those were the words she had spoken, pushing the back of Subaru who had thought it was already over.
She had raised the face of Subaru, who'd been looking down believing he could no longer walk. She had taken his hand, embraced his back, pressed her lips to his forehead, and given him courage.
Drawn by the silver radiance and given warmth, pushed forward by the blue gentleness, Natsuki Subaru — who should have been finished — was starting over from zero.
Because he had realized that, because he had remembered it, because he had decided to start walking from zero — he had to settle things from before zero, from the negative.
Having listened to Subaru's long monologue, Kenichi closed his eyes in thought and fell silent. Watching his father like that, Subaru desperately suppressed the disappointment in his own weakness that felt like it might leak from his throat at any moment.
It was precisely because he'd been given this chance to look back, because he felt even slightly changed, that he could see the ugliness of his true feelings.
In the end, Subaru had always — past and present — pushed the burden of cleaning up after his deeds onto others.
Because he couldn't muster the courage to give up on himself, because he didn't want to be the villain in his own world, because he wanted to be the tragic hero — he silently waited, never saying a word, for someone to step forward and play the villain.
Not going to school, spending his days slothful in his room, continuing to be that foolish self — he had believed that one day Kenichi would burst through the door and end Subaru's world.
Deep in his unconscious, in those days of laziness, he had been expecting that kind of resolution.
Arriving in another world from such a deadlocked state of mind — even there, Subaru had indulged his selfishness, and finally — "——Subaru."
Kenichi's eyes, which had been closed in thought, opened. He called Subaru's name.
Subaru, who'd been sinking in a sea of contemplation, was pulled back to consciousness by that voice, brought from the past he'd been recalling back to reality — and right before him, his father's face. And then — "Father Head!"
"What the—!?"
Blindsided by a devastating impact to his forehead, Subaru screamed as sparks flew. Clutching his stinging forehead and stumbling back, he saw Kenichi had risen from the bench and was looking down at him.
"See that, Subaru? That was my Father Head — a strike fueled by love."
"You say 'head' but it was a heel drop! You faked me out by getting in close — real subtle moves!"
"Only a trick I could pull since you were sitting and I was standing. But yeah, you're stiff. Can't do it like the old days at all. You've been skipping stretches after the bath, haven't you?"
Kenichi began stretching with a dissatisfied expression. Before him, Subaru rubbed the spot where he'd been hit, half in tears. He truly hadn't expected this reaction. What Subaru had been hoping for was something more — "Still, Subaru... you're pretty dumb, aren't you?"
"Whuh..."
The brutally direct statement cut him in two, and a sound almost like a sob escaped his throat.
Looking down at Subaru, Kenichi crossed his arms and exhaled through his nose.
"Moping, moping, moping... Where exactly did you inherit that from me and your mom, to end up with such a beaten-down way of thinking? That's entirely your uncle's genes. You know — the short, bald, fat one with the face that always looks like he's worried about something."
"That's going too far... Although, I will admit that setting my life goals as 'don't go bald' and 'don't get fat' was because of him..."
The father and son made merciless remarks about a relative in unison, leaving the uncle — totally uninvolved — to metaphorically catch fire.
Somewhere far away, beneath the same sky, being bad-mouthed by his own family without even knowing it, Kenichi continued with an irritated look — "There's a lot that gets under my skin, but the biggest thing is this — you clearly want me to reject you, but you take that passive attitude. You shut yourself in, stop going to school, get apathy syndrome, and figure 'eventually Dad will blow his top and lecture me.' ...Are you an idiot? You want to be scolded? Are you some girlfriend who thinks she doesn't get enough physical contact? After that whole display this morning, it's still not enough for you?"
"Every word of that is wrong, but the core is so right I can't argue..."
"Besides, if you really wanted me to give up on you, at least try harder. Who abandons their own kid just because they hole up in their shell? If you want me to hate you, go commit genocide on half the human race for no reason. Then I'll hate you."
"What kind of villain is that? You don't see that in shonen manga! What kind of impossible standard is that?!"
"——That's exactly how impossible what you've been asking of me is."
The words hit him so cleanly that Subaru was rendered speechless.
Kenichi leaned down to meet his eyes and said, "Listen, okay?"
"Even if you're as slow as a snail, too dumb to do multiplication, so stupid you'd hurt yourself for attention and brag about it on a blog..."
"I'm not that slow or that dumb..."
"Even if you were all of those things, I wouldn't hate you or abandon you. Obviously. I'm your father, and you're my son."
With a sigh of exasperation, he straightened up. Subaru looked up at his standing father. Meeting that gaze, Kenichi — "Even so, how ridiculously high a bar have you set for me? From the way you were talking earlier, you made me sound like some high-tech, super-skilled, perfectly complete Superman."
"That's way too many redundant synonyms."
"Because you don't know, but I've had my share of worries and regrets and failures and tears and heartbreak and getting rejected... Ah, not really though. I'm good-looking like that. You didn't inherit that part, sorry."
"Congratulations on your narcissism."
"The point is, I was immature when I was your age too. Sure, I had a bit of a reputation, but I wasn't anything special. I'd say I was about 'stop time for a little while' level."
"Use that power the next time you get hit by a car."
A three-part joke.
The banter had landed so well that Kenichi held out his hand, and Subaru reluctantly high-fived him — only to have his hand firmly grabbed.
"I could twist this wrist of my stupid, dumb, troublesome son and snap it back into shape, you know..."
"Ow! That hurts! Hey, you're really cranking my wrist — it hurts!"
"——But it seems like you've already been broken and put back together well enough that I don't really need to."
The wrist was released. Subaru stood up, shaking his hand and wincing. Kenichi watched him with one eye closed, then quietly snorted.
"This morning I noticed, but you just changed again right now. What's with that face?"
"...I told you. I found someone I love."
The silver radiance had taken Natsuki Subaru by the hand.
"And there was someone who said she loved someone like me."
The warm blue light had gently pushed Natsuki Subaru's back.
"Those girls don't know me as the son of Natsuki Kenichi. In front of them, I'm just Natsuki Subaru. ...No."
He shook his head, staring firmly at the father standing right before him — "I've always been Natsuki Subaru. I was the one who arbitrarily decided I was carrying some heavy banner, crushed under a weight that never even existed. And I've finally figured that out."
"That took you long enough. I'm the pillar of this household, you know. You haven't even inherited the family name yet, so stop acting like you're carrying a banner on your own. I'll smack you."
"I've had way worse than a smack just now!"
Stamping his foot to protest the overzealous attack, Kenichi laughed it off with a "Sorry, sorry." Then he narrowed his eyes and said — "Anyway — you said you found someone you love, and then said there's someone who loves you back. So what, are you two-timing people? You — Natsuki Subaru?"
"Don't say it like I'm beneath you! I know it's an absurdly luxurious situation! But so what! If there are two morning stars, what's wrong with that?"
He wasn't trying to be defiant — that was simply how he honestly felt right now.
He loved
The starry sky that had once covered Subaru's sky — the brilliant stars he'd looked up at back then.
Each of those two was now shining with a light above his head that rivaled any of those stars. And around that morning star, the stars that should have disappeared were glowing with a new brilliance.
It was the starry sky Subaru had earned by desperately struggling outside the room where he'd shut himself away — in a world he'd been unexpectedly invited into — by suffering, grieving, crying, screaming, shouting in anger, laughing, running, rejoicing, and pressing forward.
"Well, fine. Do what you want. As long as you stay out of trouble and keep things smooth, I won't oppose you that much. You do seem to have a knack with people, after all."
"If I had that, I wouldn't have failed my high school debut, bombed spectacularly, and ended up isolated. I can't do it as smoothly as you, Dad."
"I don't think that's true, actually? You're my son, after all. Besides, there are a lot of things you've got wrong, but the worst misunderstanding is right there."
"There?"
Wagging a finger while his arms remained crossed, Kenichi nodded at the tilting Subaru.
"You're all lively around me and your mom, but that's because Dad properly reads the room and adjusts his energy, you know? Since I'm always like this around you, you might not realize — but if you act like Dad with everyone from the get-go, people are going to back off. Seriously."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa..."
"Obviously! If someone showed up at first meeting with this kind of energy, you'd keep your distance too. Get your act together until you've gotten close. Don't unbutton the shirt until it gets a bit warmer — if you're starting in April, tough it out until the end of June."
A shocking revelation. In truth, his father was a reasonable person who actually adjusted his behavior depending on who he was talking to.
Without knowing this, Subaru had taken the everyday version of his father as the reference model, believing that if he acted like Dad, he'd surely become popular with everyone — how naive he'd been.
"What was all that stagnant time for, then..."
"Well, I wouldn't say it was wasted. Because of that time, you are who you are now. The stars you found — aren't they worth what you went through?"
Kenichi's words to Subaru, who was clutching his head in regret. Subaru raised his face and answered immediately. That, he could say with absolute certainty.
"No — I don't think so. I believe that no matter how many chances I had, I would have run toward the starry sky I have now. So I'm glad I became who I am."
"Is that so? ...Then, wasn't it a good thing after all?"
Hearing Subaru's heart find its resolution, Kenichi smiled with relief.
Seeing that smile head-on, the heavy lump that had hardened inside Subaru's chest crumbled with a sound. The darkness he'd been carrying cleared away, and the cramped emotions inside him were washed clean.
It was a self-centered, self-absorbed realization, but right now Subaru was being saved.
Being able to face his past, being able to say goodbye to the self he'd been, being able to walk forward as his present self while still carrying that past — he felt pride in that.
And so — "I'm sorry for keeping quiet about everything. I was drowning in feelings I couldn't even sort out, and that led to me dropping out and causing trouble. I'm truly sorry. Really."
"Don't worry about it. I'm the one who should apologize — for not realizing how much you idolized a great guy like me. Sorry for being too much of a presence in your life!"
"There's a part of me that still doesn't want to admit the truth!"
"Ha ha ha, don't be shy about it. After all, you're my son, with my blood in your veins. You've definitely got the potential to be at least half as cool as me."
"Only half? With each generation, people normally get more refined, don't they?"
"Half of you comes from your mom, though. When I think about combining my coolness with Naho's elements, the minus modifier on those parts feels way too strong."
"I can't even defend Mom! Sorry, Mom!"
Unable to defend his absent mother, Subaru pressed his palms together and apologized to the empty air. Watching this with amusement, Kenichi shook his head with a sigh — "But still, that's taken some weight off your shoulders. What's done is done — from here on out, okay? From here on."
"Yeah. And, um, I'm sorry for causing trouble —"
"If you feel sorry about it, then take your time and pay us back properly. Provide for me and your mom when you're older, all right, son?"
——That was why, when he heard those words, Subaru froze.
"————"
He'd had the resolve to apologize for everything he'd said, and the determination to tell his father how he felt now.
He'd thought that once he did all of that — once he'd poured out everything about his past self — he could finally dissolve the knot that had been lodged inside him for so long, and face his father and mother with a clear heart.
Telling his father everything about who he had been — "——hngh"
Because — the moment he was told about the 'from here on', the thing that surged through Subaru's entire body was — "...I'm... I'm sorry."
"Subaru?"
"I'm sorr... I'm sorr... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm so... sorr..."
Kenichi's confused voice came from straight ahead. But Subaru couldn't see his face.
Torrents of tears flooded his vision, blurring the shape of the world. He pressed his palms to his face, desperately wiping at the tears. But no matter how many times he wiped, more tears kept spilling out. They wouldn't stop. They wouldn't stop.
"I'm sorry... I... I can't... ever give you back anything... I'll probably never see you again... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
——He had known.
Somewhere in his heart, Subaru had known all along.
From the moment he'd been summoned to this other world and squinted against the sunlight — as if it had been revealed to him in that instant — Subaru had known.
——He probably could never go back to his original world.
Having told his father everything in his heart, having confessed the dark emotions he'd been holding inside, having been forgiven for all of it, having his resolve to walk forward supported — having been raised up to the point where he could do all of that.
"Even so, I... I can't give anything back... I'll never see you again... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The tears wouldn't stop. An overwhelming emotion gripped him, threatening to collapse him to the ground on the spot.
The only reason Subaru could still remain standing without crumbling was the body that embraced him, head-on, while he sobbed.
Those large, firm hands held his son — who had grown to nearly the same height — tightly, and while his back was patted as if soothing a crying child — "No matter how much time passes, you're always going to be a handful, son. Honestly."
Saying that, he held the sobbing Subaru for as long, as long, as long as it took — soothing him, loving him, holding him forever.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ "Calmed down?"
"Yeah. Sorry. I really just keep causing you trouble."
"You said it. Look at my shirt — the front is completely stiff with snot and tears. I can barely show my face around the neighborhood now."
Kenichi flicked Subaru's forehead with his finger and cackled vulgarly.
Subaru stared at his father's laughing face with eyes still red from crying. In the gaze filled with both sorrow and guilt, Kenichi sighed.
"I don't know why you broke down like that, but it's probably embarrassing, so I'll keep it a secret. Be grateful, at least."
"...Yeah. I'm grateful. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, more than anyone in this world."
"Okay, now you're making even me blush."
Kenichi scratched his cheek, grinning bashfully. Subaru couldn't look at that face for long and looked away.
Shrugging at this, Kenichi waved his hand as if swatting a bug — "Come on, crybaby — get going, get going. Dad feels like continuing his walk, so I'm going to take the long way home. Walking with a crybaby like you is going to start rumors."
"Two grown adults walking around together — what would people even say?"
"Exactly. And if I went home with you looking like that, and my friends heard about it, that'd be embarrassing too."
"You might want to be careful with lines like that — depending on who hears it, that could be fatal."
The reflexive retort escaped before Subaru could stop it, and a nostalgic ache pricked at his heart. Biting it down hard with his molars, Subaru turned his face away and managed — "I'm heading back. Be careful so you don't get stopped for questioning or anything."
"Hate to disappoint, but all the officers around here know me by face. Even if they were primed to stop me, they couldn't do it."
"That's not what I was hoping for."
Kenichi's unchanging attitude. There was comfort in that too, which made Subaru grow tired of his own unchanging weakness. How much longer would he need to rely on others, to be protected before he was satisfied? Hopeless.
He didn't want to show any more weakness in front of Kenichi.
Subaru let out a sharp breath, then steeled himself and turned his back. He started walking at a brisk pace, wanting to disappear from here as quickly as possible — "Hey, Subaru."
That voice caught his back, and his feet stopped involuntarily.
"You've got your own things to deal with too, I'm sure. So I've got just one thing to say."
"————"
"Keep going. I'm counting on you — my son."
He had been terrified of being counted on. Terrified of being disappointing.
The fear of betraying his father's expectations — that anxiety had gripped Subaru and never let go. That was why his father's expectations had been a symbol of terror — "Yeah. Leave it to me, Dad."
Without turning around, Subaru pointed a finger toward the sky.
"My name is Natsuki Subaru. Son of Natsuki Kenichi. —That's why I can do anything. And I'll do everything. Your son is pretty amazing, you know."
"Yeah, I know. After all, half of you is made of me!"
Kenichi's laughing voice — hearty and unabashed — washed over Subaru's back.
Hearing it, a smile quietly surfaced on Subaru's own lips.
Without turning around, he kept walking.
His knees didn't shake. His heart didn't waver. He simply looked straight ahead and walked.
——From now on, he would walk with the person whose back he'd always watched seeing his own back.
And as he walked, never once stopping, Subaru thought about just how much strength that one thing could give him.