Touga sat once more across form the man with the thick glasses and the bad haircut. The man had the same pad of paper out, resting in his lap, and his hands were folded on top of it, making the man the very image of patience.
Touga did not share the sentiment. The couch where he was sitting had upholstered arms, the sort of material that would make only a profoundly unsatisfying, muffled thud if struck. So, he reached across one arm to tap the nail of his middle finger against the hard wood of the table next to the couch. Absently, he wondered whether it would hurt if he tapped hard enough.
He stopped abruptly, and fixed the man with a harsh look. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," he said.
The man tilted his head and smiled kindly. "Like what?"
"Living like other people, small lives full of unimportant tasks. Nothing changed."
"Something was supposed to change?"
"We were supposed to live extraordinary lives. We were supposed to remake the world in our own image." Touga laughed. "At the very least, we were supposed to have become incredibly famous and wealthy."
"You used to talk to your friends about this?" the man asked.
"That was the whole point of the dueling game, wasn't it?"
Behind his thick glasses, the man's brows drew together, either in confusion or concern. "The duels that ended with your senior year?"
Touga paused before speaking again, neglecting to answer the question. "We were so naïve. Nothing more. The future seemed so exotic, unimaginable. We hadn't seen enough days dawn to learn the pattern they follow, and so we didn't realize that, for the most part, things stay the same."
"This seems important to you," the man said. "Can you tell me about it?"
Touga eyed the man warily. The request was so crude, so obvious, that Touga considered denying it purely on aesthetic grounds.
"Our dreams were foolish, and we suffered for them. But when we invoked the world's revolution at the beginning of every duel, we had conviction."
"Do you think you were happier, then?"
Touga hesitated. How could this little man bear the banality of his own questions? Why would anyone in their right mind put it like that?
"Well," he said, "of course, it's easy to see the romance of that place. It's easy to imagine that maybe, that place is different. In that place, the future might still be unimaginable. We might still be granted the power to lead extraordinary lives, if only we go back."
The look on the man's face was then most certainly one of surprise and confusion. "What place is this?"
"The Academy where we went to school. Ohtori."