I can't get the conversation I had with Rin today out of my head. Rei, this hardly classifies as abuse. How does it not? There's something fundamentally wrong about this whole system. We started some sort of relationship based on the idea that's he's half each of two other people, so I'm only with him to make up my mind. I cannot be the only person who thinks that is wrong. And even if it's not, formally, it's still logically false.

I don't know what I feel, so I retreat into theories. I lay out the logical case in my head and try to analyse it, point out the flaws in the theory, put on a finger on what it is that's bothering me so much.

1. I am in love with both Nagisa and Gou, and I cannot decide which I should choose.

2. As Gou's brother, Rin represents a person who is half-Nagisa, half-Gou.

3. Therefore, I should date Rin to determine which of the two I love more.

I seem to think the conclusion is invalid. Therefore, either my logic is unsound or my propositions are false. Well, the logic is barely sound. Just barely. With the benefit of retrospect, I'm not so sure that picking a halfway point is really the best way to figure out which side I want to stand on. I lay out an analogy in my head. If I cannot decide myself as left or right-wing on a political scale, it seems acting central is a good method to objectively judge the benefits of each ideology. While I don't think we can apply the same logic so simply to the complex figure of love, I deem it sound enough.

So my propositions must be false. My first one certainly is not. If I know nothing else, I know I am in love with both Nagisa and Gou. So, the only weak point in the argument is my second proposition.

Does Rin really represent half of Nagisa and half of Gou? Or was that just a desperate bridge that Rin and I constructed trying to pull a solution out of thin air? Because a desperate bridge is an unstable one, and thus will eventually collapse. So I must affirm the truth of this proposition before I can continue.

Genetically, he is a half Gou. But genetics don't hold much sway here, and in deeper thought, the 50% DNA they share is junk DNA that doesn't actually correspond to any physical or biological characteristic. So I discount that. They were raised in the same family and shaped by similar experiences. But he left home for Australia at the beginning of middle school – he scarcely would have been thirteen. He is now eighteen, allowing for five years of highly disparate experience. Additionally, whilst his mindset would not have been as malleable as it could be, the fact remains that the respective adolescences of Gou and Rin have been too far separated to lead them towards similar characteristics. However, by whatever conspiracy of circumstance, they seem to be quite similar now Rin has lost the aggression he had the first time I met him. So, this half of the proposition seems to be true enough – Rin is indeed half-Gou.

But is he half-Nagisa? This seems to be the tenuous join, logically. I pull each of them apart and try to decide what it is that defines each of them. I try to draw lines between the two of them, stitch them together, make them similar in any way I can. All I can find is the fact they share a gender. I try again, harder. Rin is level-headed, and calm in most situations, but also passionate. He angers easily over swimming or over Gou, and has difficulty opening up to others. Conversely, Nagisa is spontaneous and struggles to think in a formalised manner. He is almost always in an emotionally stable state of almost-improper excitement. And he is, if anything, too open with others. Thus, while it was weak enough as it stood, I have found the fatal flaw in my logic – Rin is not half-Nagisa.

Is that what was bothering me this whole time? Rin himself said that he was fine with all of our stupid little constraints and boundary conditions. So, I shouldn't feel like it's unfair to him. Even though it is. But at any rate, that shouldn't be bothering me. Even though it is. But still, there was most definitely something more. Reflection indicates this something more was the lack of Nagisa. Somehow, even without theories to guide it, my brain connects the dots. It was the lack of Nagisa that bothered me. There's something there that I just can't pass up. I can't define it, I can't explain it, but I don't need to. I just need to know that it's there. For now, that's enough for me. I can throw the theories of others to the wind for my first experiment, and analyse the results to form my own for later should I need them. Although I doubt I will. There's something here that just makes me think even this first one'll last forever. After all, we promised, didn't we?