[To whom it may concern, Miss Pink Caterpillar.
If you happen to dislike that form of address, then please allow me to call you Miss Gotō Hitori instead]
[By the time you read this letter, I should already have reached an ending that is, frankly, absurd beyond words]
[Please don't feel sad for me, and don't be surprised. More importantly, don't shoulder my departure as your responsibility. This was something I decided from the very beginning. It has nothing to do with you, with the band, or with Yamada. I've always been someone who acts on my own conclusions—that's something you know well. It hasn't changed, from start to finish]
[Everything I wrote in that notebook was true, all of it straight from the heart. But there were also some rather private things I wanted to tell you alone, so I asked Yamada to deliver this letter to you. I'm not good at expressing my emotions, so I won't be able to write anything particularly sentimental. Please forgive me for that]
[You might not believe this, but ever since the moment I saw you again, my life had already begun moving inexorably toward its end. A body ruined by cigarettes and alcohol, and a mind dulled by exhaustion—those things meant I was always going to finish the game earlier than everyone else. But it felt like a race against the clock, one where I couldn't afford to slow down for even a second. So within the limited time I had left, I kept thinking about how to make the most of my remaining life, and how to end it myself at the right moment—getting ahead of death by just one step]
[I wanted to stand on a dazzling stage together with you, but by your side there were already other companions]
[I wanted to keep talking with you like we used to, about anything and everything—but what came out in the end were cold, hurtful words that pushed you away]
[I wanted to go back to the past, but that was the one thing most impossible of all]
[I've never liked exposing too much of my private feelings in front of you. That's one of my worst flaws. I just felt that laying bare all of one's longing and affection can become a burden to the other person, which is why I tried not to express it excessively]
[After all, praise and admiration can be exaggerated without limit. Only longing and love are so sharply directed, so intimate, that they make people shy away]
[I understand your dream. I know what you like and what you dislike. I knew you before the vast majority of people in this world ever did. And yet, I was never destined to walk alongside you all the way—never even destined to hold on long enough to see you become a truly radiant guitarist with my own eyes]
[If I could, I would have liked to become someone like your bandmates. To turn into a close friend who supports you as you move forward, to witness your growth step by step, and to watch you transform—from a caterpillar who could barely speak to strangers, into a butterfly capable of dazzling everyone present]
[But I don't have that kind of time anymore]
[So the only thing I could do was desperately think about how, in the little time I had left, I might create something of greater value for you]
[After turning it over again and again, I made the stupidest decision imaginable]
[I decided to become the kind of person who forces growth too quickly—the one who drags seedlings upward by brute force. I used every irritating, unpleasant method I could think of to push you out of your comfort zone, even if it meant you would come to hate me]
[In fact, being hated by you might have been the best possible outcome. If I had remained that gentle figure from your childhood in your heart, then with your personality, you might even cry at my funeral—and that's a scene I really don't want to see]
[If I became someone you disliked, perhaps the pain you felt at my departure would be a little less, and you'd be able to forget me a little faster. But at the end of the day, I'm a selfish person. That's why I'm writing you this letter now—so you can understand why all of my baffling behavior happened in the first place]
[I'm sorry for hurting you again and again on my own initiative, even though asking for your forgiveness now feels shameless]
[I'm sorry that even though I knew everything you liked and everything you hated, I still chose to ignore it all and pushed you further into doing things you never wanted to do]
[I'm sorry for always deciding what was 'for your own good' all by myself, even if you never needed my so-called help. But I truly didn't have much time left]
[A report about a teenager ending his own life should at least make it into the local news, right? After I die, the name of Kessoku Band will probably rise along with it. Don't feel guilty about the attention coming from my death—grasp this opportunity firmly, and don't let it slip away. This is the most useful thing I can do for you at the very end of my life]
[Don't be sad about my departure. This was always a foregone conclusion. I kept it from you only because I was afraid you wouldn't be able to accept the truth]
[Forget all the unpleasant things connected to me and move forward without hesitation. Fulfill your dream. Become a shining guitarist—even if you're still socially anxious, that's fine. Even if you still stutter and blush when talking to strangers, that's fine. Even if you can't become a bright, outgoing extrovert, that's fine. As long as you're still you, it's all okay]
[Because your dream coming true is my dream]
[I didn't intend to get sentimental, but somehow I ended up writing all this anyway—sorry about that. Still, not every movie has a happy ending, so my exit was inevitable]
[Half an hour before I decided to put a full stop to my life, I wrote you this letter. While dancing with death, I finally realized that life may be nothing more than a brief miracle of waking, nestled between eternities of deep sleep]
[Good night, Caterpillar]
[Perhaps when I wake up next time and open my eyes, I'll be able to see you again]
The densely written letter, filled line after line in ballpoint pen, ended there.
Gotō Hitori and Yamada Ryō sat across from each other in a family restaurant, staring at the handwritten pages in silence.
Plop.
Something wet dotted the paper, causing the boy's neat handwriting to blur and bleed.
"…Eh?"
After a long while, the pink-haired girl—tears spilling uncontrollably—finally lifted her head in a daze.
"Why…?"
"This is the letter he left on the table and asked me to keep before the police arrived," Yamada Ryō said flatly. "He told me to hand it to you myself after the memorial."
Despite being a regular at this family restaurant, Ryō had ordered nothing at all today. Her face showed no visible fluctuation of emotion.
"Seriously… he really left me with a troublesome job."
So the boy's mysterious behavior that day had been meant to summon her—to have her deal with his corpse.
"He was a self-centered, authoritarian egomaniac."
"Why… are you only telling me all of this… now…?"
"Because he wanted you to hate him."
Ryō's expression didn't change, her voice as calm as ever.
"I… the day before this happened, I went to see him…"
"When?"
"Probably… in the evening. I knocked, but no one answered, so…"
Bocchi's voice grew smaller and smaller. Before she could finish the sentence, the light in Ryō's eyes dimmed noticeably.
"Evening… That's the time the medical examiner estimated as the time of death."
"…Eh?"
Gotō Hitori's face drained of color in an instant.
During the period when the boy had been barely clinging to life… she had been outside his door, venting her emotions—she had even said something as cruel as 'I never want to see you again.'
Were those the last words he heard, at the very edge of death?
Gotō Hitori trembled as she clutched her own arm, staring at the handwritten letter for a long, long time, her mind completely blank.