Chapter 173: Synchronized Dreaming! Part 2! (End of Volume)
Hachiman discovered a figure had appeared before him. The person had long black hair and red eyes, standing by the bedside, looking down at him. It was Horikita Suzune.
But it wasn't Horikita Suzune.
The face was much softer than in his memory; the sharp edges had been smoothed over by time. Her mouth wasn't pressed into its usual tight line but was slightly curved, carrying a hint of a tenderness he couldn't quite name.
She was wearing light-colored loungewear, her hair draped loosely over her shoulders. Standing there, she looked like someone who had walked back from a very distant place.
Hachiman stared at her, his mind a mess.
'This isn't Horikita. But this is Horikita. But this isn't the Horikita I know.'
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but found he didn't know what to call her. Calling her "Horikita-san"? Too distant. Calling her "Suzune"? Too intimate—plus, he had never called her that before.
Seeing him like this, the curve of her lips deepened slightly.
"What's wrong? You don't recognize me?"
Hachiman swallowed and finally found his voice.
"You... are Horikita?"
She didn't answer, only watched him. Those red eyes reflected his shadow, quiet and gentle, like someone looking at a person they hadn't seen in a long time.
She didn't answer immediately; instead, she glanced down at the phone in his hand, its screen still glowing, then looked back up at him.
"Isn't this something from high school?" Her voice was lower than in his memory, carrying something he couldn't define.
"Why bring this up at a time like this?"
Hachiman froze.
'High school? Isn't it high school right now?' He opened his mouth to ask, but she continued.
"When you sent that message back then, even I was stunned for a moment." Her lips quirked up slightly; the smile was faint, but it felt incredibly foreign to him—the Horikita Suzune he knew wouldn't smile like that.
"Because I didn't expect you to go out of your way to tell me."
"You... you know what I'm talking about?" Hachiman's voice was a bit dry.
"About dating Karuizawa." Her tone was calm, as if speaking of something from a long time ago. "When you sent that message, I was indeed stunned. Not because of who you found, but because you went out of your way to tell me. In that specific way."
Hachiman was silent for a few seconds. He really wasn't good at handling these things; sending a message was probably the clumsiest method. But he didn't know what a better way would have been, either.
"I thought you would be unhappy," he said.
Horikita looked at him, those red eyes reflecting his image, quiet and peaceful.
"At the time, I was a little bit," she said. "Not because you found Karuizawa, but because of the way you told me. Sending a message in the middle of the night without any preamble. And back then, we had already—" She paused, the curve of her lips deepening. "Forget it. Anyway, it's all stuff from high school."
Hachiman stared at her. That sentence, "And back then, we had already—", was left unfinished, but he had a faint feeling that the second half of that sentence belonged to another timeline he hadn't experienced. Moreover, she said "high school"—using it as a past period, as if looking back at the present from the far future.
Hachiman suddenly remembered the conversation he had with Karuizawa.
'Would the 'Inner Voice' ability change? Would it disappear? Would it become something else?' At the time, he said it was hard to tell, but now he felt that it truly had changed.
But he wasn't sure if it was the ability that had changed or something else. He only felt that the person before him was both familiar and a stranger. The face was familiar, the eyes were familiar, and the habit of slightly tilting her head when she spoke was familiar. What was foreign was that tenderness, that calmness, and the way she looked at him with no guard, no distance—with nothing in her eyes but him.
"You..." he began, "From when did you come?"
She didn't answer. She simply reached out and gently pressed her hand onto the top of his head. That hand was very warm. When her fingertips touched his hair, his entire body stiffened.
"Take it slow," her voice was very light. "There's no need to rush. You still have plenty of time."
Hachiman was stunned. He wanted to ask "What do you mean, plenty of time?", "What are you talking about?", and many other questions. But her hand remained on his head, and that bit of warmth seemed to pin his entire being in place.
"You just said your goal is to become a househusband," the 'Older' Horikita continued. "You said that for three years."
Hachiman blinked.
"You said it in the first year, you said it in the second year, and you were still saying it in the third year." Her voice was soft. "Every time an exam ended, every time you got points, you'd mention it once. As if you were terrified people would forget."
Hachiman opened his mouth, unsure of what to say. He did say it often, but that was—because it was his ideal, was there a problem?
"What happened later?" he asked.
Horikita looked at him, silent for a few seconds.
"Later..." She gave a soft sigh. "Later, you stopped mentioning it."
"Why?"
She didn't answer. She just looked at him; that smile was still there, but something in her eyes was trembling slightly.
"Because it wasn't necessary anymore," she said softly. "In the second year of high school..."
Hachiman wanted to press for more, but white light surged from all directions. Her figure began to blur in the light. He suddenly felt he couldn't just let her go, so he abruptly reached out—
"Wait—"
He grabbed her wrist.
The touch was very real—warm, and he could feel a pulse thrumming beneath his fingertips. Horikita looked down at the wrist he was holding, then looked back up to meet his eyes.
"What is it?"
"You haven't told me—" He paused, not knowing what to ask. Ask who she was? She had already told him. Ask where she came from? He felt she probably wouldn't say. Ask what happened later? She likely wouldn't say that either.
He thought for a moment and asked a seemingly nonsensical question.
"Are you doing well?"
Horikita was stunned for a moment. Then, she smiled.
That smile was completely different from the Horikita Suzune he knew. It wasn't polite, reserved, or just a slight movement of the lips; it was a smile where her eyes crinkled and her lips parted slightly—a smile that seemed to overflow from the bottom of her heart.
"Yes," she said. "Very well."
The white light surged completely, swallowing her figure. That touch of warmth vanished from his fingertips, flowing away like water.
Hachiman snapped his eyes open.
The ceiling. The fluorescent light. The ponytail palm on the windowsill swayed gently in the night breeze, making a faint rustling sound. His phone had slipped beside his pillow, the screen still lit, displaying the line he had just typed: "Horikita, as you know, my goal is to become a househusband..."
He stared at the words for a few seconds, then sat up and picked up the phone. The words were still on the screen; it had been sent. He checked the time—three minutes ago. He looked at the chat box; there was no reply.
Hachiman placed the phone on the desk and leaned against the headboard. He touched his right hand—the one that had grabbed Horikita's wrist. A lingering illusion of warmth remained on his fingertips, yet it also felt like nothing was there.
That Horikita was far softer than the one he knew, far more peaceful. The way she looked at him had no guard, no distance—only a kind of "treasuring" he didn't quite understand, as if looking at something precious. She said "back then we had already," she said "you said it for three years," and she said "later you stopped mentioning it."
Like someone who had spent a long, long time with him.
He reached up and touched the top of his head. There seemed to be a residual temperature there, yet also nothing at all.
He suddenly remembered the question Karuizawa had asked him: "Will this ability change? For example, suddenly disappear, or turn into something else?"
At the time, he said it was hard to tell. Now he knew.
It really had changed.
He didn't know what he had just seen. A dream? An illusion? Some kind of mutation of his 'Inner Voice' ability? Or something else entirely. But he remembered the expression she had when she spoke, the warmth of the hand she pressed on his head, and those few words she said.
'Take it slow. No need to rush. There is plenty of time.'
He repeated the phrase in his mind once, and then again.
At the very least, she said "in the second year," and mentioned he had said it for "three years," which meant he would successfully stay here through the first year. It even suggested he might have the chance to escort the class through to the third year.
If this was true, then this intel was vital.
He then closed the window, walked back to the bed, and lay down. The phone lay quietly on the desk, not lighting up again. As he closed his eyes, the last image that surfaced in his mind was those red eyes reflecting a tenderness he didn't understand.
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At the same time, in the girls' dormitory.
Horikita Suzune snapped her eyes open.
The ceiling. The fluorescent light. Several open reference books were scattered on the desk. Everything was exactly as it was before she fell asleep. But her heart was racing—so fast that she had to press her hand against her chest and take several deep breaths to recover.
She had dreamed of someone.
No, it wasn't a dream. That person had appeared before her. Hikigaya Hachiman. But it wasn't him. He was a bit more mature than he was now; his face didn't have that lazy expression, and his eyes weren't half-lidded, but were looking at her very seriously, with an urgency she didn't understand.
He grabbed her wrist and asked a nonsensical question.
"Are you doing well?"
She had smiled then. She remembered that she smiled. That kind of smile wasn't an expression she was capable of making—it was too relaxed, too natural, as if she had smiled at that person countless times and didn't need any defenses.
She said she was doing very well.
And then she woke up.
Horikita sat up, threw back the covers, and leaned against the headboard. The night outside was deep, and the dorm was silent. She picked up her phone; the screen lit up, showing no new notifications. She opened her chat with Hachiman; the last message was still from back during the VIP (Resource) Exam.
She stared at the chat box for a few seconds. Just as she was about to exit, a new message suddenly popped up at the top of the screen.
It was from Hachiman.
[Horikita, as you know, my goal is to become a househusband. However, I have a target I want to conquer, but I lack experience interacting with girls, so my "conquest ability" is basically zero. Therefore, I want to find a girl to practice with as a dating partner. And the person I've chosen now is Karuizawa... No, we're actually dating to see how it goes first.]
Horikita stared at those words for a long time.
It had been ten-odd days.
Since they ran into each other at the movie theater, they hadn't contacted each other for over ten days. She thought he wouldn't say anything. After all, this matter concerned him and had nothing to do with her. Who he practiced with or who he dated was his own business. She had no standing to interfere and no right to demand to be informed. So when he didn't mention it for ten days, she didn't ask. Not asking wasn't a lack of curiosity, but a feeling that she lacked the right to ask.
But he said it anyway. In a very clumsy way, in the middle of the night, sending a long message explaining his goals, his plans, and why he chose Karuizawa.
It was incredibly stupid.
She stared at the screen, waiting for some emotion to surge up. Like anger—that he had dragged it out for ten days before speaking. Or sadness—that he really did find someone else. Or jealousy—why Karuizawa? However, after waiting for about ten seconds, she found there was no emotion. No anger, no sadness, no jealousy. She just felt—Oh, he finally said it. He finally told me.
She turned this discovery over in her heart several times, confirming that she really wasn't angry. This wasn't right. She should be angry. She had collaborated with him for so long, helped him with so many things, knew his plans, his goals, and all his inner thoughts. Yet he found Karuizawa, and she had to find out from a message. Shouldn't that be infuriating?
But she really wasn't.
She remembered the scene at the cinema. Karuizawa standing next to him, the distance between them a bit closer than ordinary classmates. The curve of Karuizawa's smile wasn't the polite one she showed everyone; it was a very natural curve that only appeared in front of a specific person. She had understood back then. She didn't find out from the message; she found out from that visual. So receiving the message wasn't "learning" a fact, but simply "confirming" one.
She continued to stare at the screen. There was a phrase in his message—"we're actually dating to see how it goes first."
'Dating to see how it goes.' Not "practicing," but "dating." The difference between those two words was something he probably didn't even realize himself. Practice is one-sided, a preparation for the future. Dating is something between two people, walking forward with the person in front of you. He used the word "dating," not "practice."
Horikita placed the phone beside her pillow and stared at the ceiling.
She probably did care about him a little. Otherwise, she wouldn't have had that dream, wouldn't have frozen at the theater entrance, and wouldn't have been waiting for this message for the past ten days. But she wasn't angry. It wasn't out of magnanimity or indifference—it was that she felt he should tell her, and he did tell her. In a stupidly clumsy way, in the middle of the night, without any preamble. But he told her.
That was enough.
The phone vibrated again. She picked it up; it was a second message from him.
[If the message I just sent feels hard to reply to, don't force yourself. I just felt I should let you know.]
'I just felt I should let you know.'
Horikita looked at these words, her lips moving slightly. This person's way of doing things was forever awkward. He didn't think about whether it would make someone uncomfortable before sending it, and only after sending it did he say they didn't have to reply if it was awkward. But she knew he meant it. He really did just feel he should tell her; as for what she thought, he likely hadn't considered it.
She thought for a bit and typed two characters.
[Understood.]
After sending it, she stared at the two words for a few seconds. It seemed too cold. But she didn't know what else to say. "Congratulations"? Too fake. "Thank you"? For what? "I don't care"? Even faker. Forget it. "Understood" was enough.
She put the phone back by her pillow and pulled up the covers. The night outside was still deep, and the dorm was so quiet she could hear her own breathing. She closed her eyes, and the images from the dream surfaced again.
However, a dream is just a dream, and a message is just a message. She knew she wasn't angry; she just felt—he really is that kind of person. He has to explain everything for ages, as if afraid others won't understand him. He could have said nothing, yet he insisted on sending a long message, explaining his thoughts from beginning to end.
Yet, a version of him like that wasn't exactly dislikeable.
She closed her eyes, her breathing gradually leveling out.
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