I laughed into my fist, holding a gold-rimmed china plate of half-eaten strawberry shortcake in my other hand.
"Oh man, I really can't see Koharu doing that," I commented to Sasahara. He and I leaned against the kitchen counter, which the others surrounded, and I traced the random striations of the dark granite with my finger. Rain pattered onto the leaves of the small cherry tomato garden right outside the glass sliding doors. "I would have expected Michiru to go out and shop for the cake."
"Yeah, you learn something new about him every day, don't you."
"Say," I leaned towards my friend, almost whispering, "why didn't you tell me it was going to rain later today when I was chatting with you this morning?".
Sasahara smirked, then shifted his eyes towards Takasaki chatting with Michiru in the corner.
"Really?" I asked, "you really planned this all along?".
"Well, it worked, didn't it?" he countered with a snicker.
"So," he added, "are you going to tell her?".
I jerked my head towards him. "Wait, what? Tell her what?".
"If you don't want people to know, you should really do a better job of hiding it."
"Hiding what?" I denied, flustered. Even now, my defensive tone and reddening cheeks betrayed it all against my will.
"I'm telling you, you should tell her," he prompted again.
"What's the point?" I exhaled, setting aside the slice of cake onto the island and looking outside. "I'm turning sixteen today. My government notice will fall out of the sky any day now."
"Precisely, what's the point in not telling her?" he pointed out. "It's not like you interact with her much anyway or have a friendship you can ruin. And it'll be meaningless anyway, she'll understand."
That last line stung, even though it represented the truth. Especially so, actually. I appreciated my friend's honesty
"What if she feels the same way?" I asked with much more optimism than I deserved.
Sasahara chuckled and swung an arm around my shoulders to bring me in. "Look man, I want to stick up for you and all and as your friend, but we're men of science and numbers. You know what the numbers look like for a girl as hot as Misaki Takasaki."
"Trust me, you'll feel better wrapping up the whole thing before the government marries you off to whoever their algorithms and neural networks and whatever else your dad works on spit out for you."
I couldn't help but notice his indulgence in a wistful, quarter-second glance at Michiru and her short sweeps of red hair. She had gotten her government notice to someone in a different school a few weeks ago, and I still remembered the glint in Sasahara's eye when he offered her a muted "Congratulations".
"You sound like you're speaking from personal experience," I poked back without trying for too much of an explicit accusation.
"Nah, just common advice," he denied, not even acknowledging my suspicion. He patted me on the back. "Go for it."
My eyes swept for Takasaki, when I noticed her leaning against the entryway to the kitchen, thumbing through her phone, and rolling her way out. I gave Sasahara a look, who nodded, and then chased after her. When I caught up to her, she was picking out her Mary Jane shoes amongst the small pile in the entryway.
"Ah, Takasaki-san," I called out.
"Oh, Reader-kun, hey," she replied, caught unawares. "Sorry about leaving early - I invited you and stayed a bit because Michiru asked me. I have to catch some friends now, but I hope you don't mind."
"Yeah, it's fine." I averted my eyes downward, staring at the shoes pile, and clasped my hands behind my back.
"Hey, Takasaki-san, before you go, do you have a moment? To talk?" I mumbled out.
"Yeah, sure," she obliged unsuspecting, wearing her ubiquitous polite smile. "What about?".
"Do you remember what we talked about?" I asked.
"About our futures?" she clarified.
"No, no. When we first met, five years ago."
"Yeah, of course. I always remember," she replied. "It was a difficult time, anyway," she added in a lower, ancillary mutter.
I took a deep breath, and lifted my head to meet her eyes. They sparkled even in the rain-colored semi-darkness. I could do this much given what I had prepared myself to say. The rain drummed outside the door in the otherwise silence between the two of us.
I felt a chill flowing through my blood, the kind one felt before doing something they know is wrong. Time seemed to slow down enough that even my furious beating heart seemed to calm down somewhat in comparison, and my arms floated as if stuck in molasses.
"Takasaki-san," I began.
"The truth is, when you first met me in the park, I didn't want to live anymore. Abuse and endless, useless studying and put-downs constituted all of my life back then, and I know it sounds terrible to say, but maybe you can sympathize if I say life doesn't seem very worth living from that point of view if it's all just negatives. I was really prepared to…well, um. If not there, then somewhere else. But then you came out of nowhere, like…well, um, I know it sounds really cliched…but like an angel."
Takasaki blushed at the compliment, and it gave me the hope to keep going.
"I don't know what secret made you so sad back then, and I still don't know, and maybe you won't ever tell me. But every day I still see you smile and laugh and do your very best day in and day out to make every person you talk to just as happy as you appear. You could have cried and given up like me, but you decided to take a different approach. You showed me that life could be something, that there was another option available to me.
So I took that option. I gained the courage to stand up to my mom, and I imagined you, clapping for me as I did so. I didn't care how many times she said it was important for the future or success or making money or whatever. But when I stayed up bleary-eyed and half-dead until 6am poring over formulas or after 72 straight hours to finish a physics proof or to study for a test or to compete with the Americans and Chinese to the final rounds at the international olympiad in Azerbaijan, I did it because I remembered how you said it was 'cool' and I pictured you cheering me on to finish the job or win the competition. Sometimes in a cute cheerleader outfit waving pom-poms, I have to admit."
I had started to worry whether I might have sounded like I was bragging too much, but that last visual caused the two of us to laugh, and it warmed me inside that I had managed to make her do so.
"You know, my mom almost forced me to go to a better science-oriented high school, and I really didn't want to listen to - "
"Shuu's school?" Takasaki queried. "I always wondered why you didn't go there, it seemed so obvious for a genius like you."
I smiled. "I heard you were going to Kasugayama, so I applied there instead."
Takasaki said nothing in stunned silence.
"Maybe it's a dumb reason, but all I needed was a reason. Do you remember what you told me back then? I still remember the exact words: 'Maybe one day you'll get lucky too, and you will. Maybe you'll be better than me and have enough courage to tell whoever it is.'"
Takasaki's expression changed to one of confusion as she recalled the words, their meaning, and her guess for what I was about to say. I grabbed one of her soft, plush hands and wrapped it in mine. I leaned forward and gave all my attention to her wide-open eyes, my legs and arms shaking as if bare outside in winter snow.
"That day came, I got lucky, I know who it is, and now I worked up the courage to tell her."
My heart raced as I raced towards the punchline, scanning her for any hints of a reaction.
"You saved my life. You've given me the motivation to go on and you light up my darkest days when nothing else would. I owe you so much already, I don't know how I can ask this. But nevertheless, I know how it feels now, I know what you were talking about now. I fell in love with you, Takasaki-san."
She took a moment as her face flushed roseate, not that I expected her to respond right away. The temptation to look down did occur to her eyes, but she forced them back to me.
"Reader-kun, it touches my heart that I brought you so much happiness and that I mean so much to you, it really does."
She withdrew her hand from mine.
"I wish I could tell you something else, but I don't have a choice. I hate people feeling sad, I hate making them sad myself even more. But I only have one heart to give, and there's nothing I can do about it. I wish it weren't like this."
My entire body slumped, as if something flexed and splintered inside, and my hands felt cold. My heart nearly stopped, as if I had just gotten back an F on a test and hoped it was a mistake. As crestfallen as I was, though, it was all my fault. She literally told me she loved someone else the first time we had met, after all.
"Is it the eraser boy?" I asked.
"Yes," she confirmed. "We confessed to each other already. We even…we even kissed." The last admission caused her to blush and cover her lips with her fingers, and it further ground to sand the already shattered shards of my heart.
I gave a weak nod and a weak half-grin, my image of Takasaki blurring away as my eyes watered. "I'm happy for you that it finally happened, in a way."
She gripped my shoulder and squeezed it.
"You're an amazing guy, Reader-kun. You're super smart and have a good heart. Whoever your assigned wife turns out to be will be lucky to have you and will love you a lot, I'm sure of it."
"Thanks," I responded, looking away and trying to hide the tears welling in my eyes.
The door unlatched at the worst possible time. My father swaggered inside in his tech engineer jeans and blue t-shirt getup that turned back his age by a decade, and Takasaki stepped aside.
"Hey, Reader, happy sixteenth birthday my kid!" My dad called out, arcing in and pulling me into a firm hug that I really needed in this moment. I wrapped my arms around his back and squeezed him in return, wiping the moisture from my eyes in his shirt and leaving wet stains.
"Happy birthday," Takasaki added in a timid whisper.
"Oh yeah," my dad remembered, backing away and pulling something out of his back pocket. "Usually it's the counselors who handle this sort of stuff, not engineers, but the ministry let me do a one-off since I'm your father. Technically it's all from our algorithms and I'm not supposed to comment, but I think you're going to really like this one."
He smoothed out the nondescript manila envelope against his chest, then presented it to me with both hands and a bow. I took it, and inspected its outside. I knew what it was, and I needed it now more than I ever thought I did. I shared a glance with Takasaki, took a deep breath, and decided I'm more than ready to finally move on.
"Hope you like your present," he prefaced, as I prepared to tear open my government arranged marriage notice.
Then my father sized up Takasaki from head to toe one more time and snapped his fingers.
"Ah, you're Misaki Takasaki, right?".
"Oh, Mr. Reader," she replied with a surprised, automatic bow. "How do you know?".
"Reader mentions you a lot at home," he stated, and I almost crumpled my marriage notice in embarrassment as my cheeks flushed. It really was time to end this and move on to my new assigned partner.
"Here you go," my father handed Takasaki another manila envelope.
Wait. No.
That only meant two possibilities, and I knew my father, despite working for the Ministry, did not usually handle notifications. Which meant only one possibility, really.
I tore off the top of my envelope in one swift motion and dumped out the papers into my hand. Several disclosures and disclaimers and brochures with relationship advice drifted to the floor, but I gripped the important one so hard I nearly pulled it apart.
Staring back at me, from the picture and name printed on the government assignment notice and in person two feet in front of me, was Misaki Takasaki. I fixated on her, jaws agape.
She didn't even bother to open her notice, my expression told her all. Her sad eyes mustered the best politician's smile she could, and it mouthed a congratulations so tiny I couldn't hear it.
My dad beamed in ignorant pride and Silicon Valley optimism with a thumbs up.
I covered my eyes and ran away past my friends to lock myself in my room.
Author's Note: In the face of market inefficiencies resulting from externalities, Coase's theorem states that market participants can overcome them through negotiation provided transaction costs are low. Nowhere are transaction costs higher than two manga characters trying to confess how they feel to each other. They say every people gets the government it deserves, so it was only a matter of time before we got a manga (and anime) where its characters' marriages are assigned via government intervention.
And a happy new year.
See disclaimer in chapter 1.