Why Not Make Both Twins 'Girlfriends'?-Chapter 11Volume 1 .3 - The Present and the Past...?
The Present and the Past…? 3
The homeroom teacher felt something different about Sakuto, something foreign compared to other children.
He was above average in studies and sports and not particularly clumsy with his hands. He just carried out tasks quietly and calmly.
Compared to energetic children, he was well-behaved and never caused trouble, even excelling to the point of being too competent.
Perhaps due to his lack of emotional expression, others found him somewhat creepy.
However, the boy himself didn’t show signs of being troubled, and the teacher, seeing that he wasn’t struggling, just watched over him.
But he had a heart too.
He couldn’t express his emotions, but he understood that the adults were cautious around him, and he knew he was someone who couldn’t fit in with others.
But he didn’t know what to do about it.
He was above average in studies and sports and didn’t particularly struggle, even when alone.
When required to act as a group, just being in the same place or acting together was enough.
His opinion wasn’t sought after, and he could get by without influencing others, like air.
So, at that time, Sakuto didn’t even feel ‘troubled.’
Then one day, a turning point came for Sakuto.
“Hey, wanna play together?”
During lunch break, while reading a book in the classroom, a girl from his class spoke to him.
──That girl was Yuzuki Kusanagi.
He hadn’t talked to her much but knew her name as a classmate.
She extended her small white hand towards him──He was being invited to play.
Seeing her carefree smile, Sakuto felt troubled for the first time.
‘What kind of face should I make in this situation’──
From then on, Yuzuki often invited Sakuto.
She shared various stories she had heard and seen, showing Sakuto many things.
Sakuto wondered why Yuzuki was spending time with him.
He couldn’t particularly tell interesting stories or do anything fun.
Yet, why──?
Feeling curious, Sakuto asked her one day.
“──Ah? I just want to be friends with Sakuto-kun.”
Looking at her, tilting her head in wonder, Sakuto also felt puzzled.
“Why?”
“Why… why, I wonder?… Because our houses are close?”
Then, he felt like he finally understood what he was lacking.
So one day, Sakuto consulted his mother──
This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.
“──I want to be a normal person.”
Sakuto’s definition of ‘normal’ was to have friends like everyone else, express feelings normally, and live a normal life.
Just ordinarily, like everyone else.
His mother used her connections to meet with a pediatric psychiatrist.
There, it was revealed that Sakuto had ‘inherent traits’──
With a higher IQ and memory than average and perceiving excessive information as painful, he was unable to express emotions due to this stress.
Beginning to learn how to organize information under the doctor’s guidance, he visited various specialized institutions with his mother, starting to gather the missing pieces for himself.
What should be the correct response when others are happy or sad?
What should be his correct response when he is happy or sad?
However, his expressionless and reticent attitude did not change.
A year into the training, Sakuto was now in fifth grade.
He continued to spend time with Yuzuki, but a turning point came again for Sakuto.
One day, Sakuto and Yuzuki witnessed a car accident.
A car, for some unknown reason, veered off its lane and hit a telephone pole, which then fell onto the front of the car.
He saw a woman remaining inside, slumped over.
At that moment, Sakuto faintly heard a popping sound in his ears.
Instantly, the structure of the car and images from TV news flashed through Sakuto’s mind──
Electrical wiring short circuit, fuel leakage, fire in the engine compartment, approximately 4,000 vehicle fires annually in the country…
──Sakuto’s mind formed a list of possible scenarios.
Sakuto then calmly instructed Yuzuki to go call an adult.
After Yuzuki left, Sakuto, alone, headed towards the smoking car──
When Yuzuki returned with an adult male, smoke was rising from the car.
Sakuto was dragging a limp woman on the asphalt, holding her from behind.
The adult man took over from Sakuto and carried the woman away from the car.
Suddenly, flames burst from the driver’s seat.
Someone said the woman might not have been saved if it were a little later, but──no one noticed that the side window of the rear seat was unnaturally broken.
“Amazing! Just like a hero!”
Only Yuzuki was excited.
She seemed to have seen Sakuto pulling the woman.
“I didn’t do anything special.”
Sakuto didn’t disclose how the woman escaped from the car.
“No! If it weren’t for Sakuto, that person──”
“No, it’s because Yuzuki called for an adult…”
After this exchange, Sakuto thought a little about what it means to be a ‘hero.’
He disliked TV heroes.
Even though it was in the name of justice, they resolved things with violence.
What they did seemed no different from evil.
Why is violence tolerated in the name of justice if there’s a just cause?
Sakuto didn’t understand, but if being a hero meant saving people in trouble, he thought that was good.
He had been aiming to be a ‘normal person’ from a ‘robot’, but maybe changing his goal to becoming a hero was an option.
Right, if he couldn’t become a ‘normal person’, then he should aim to be a hero.
To become a hero, daily effort is important. He decided to work hard to become a hero.
Thus, Sakuto resolved to put in three times the effort from then on.
Sakuto graduated from elementary school and entered junior high school.
From around this time, Sakuto’s relationship with Yuzuki gradually began to fade, contrary to Sakuto’s wish.
Moving from elementary to junior high school, the tests changed significantly.
Wider test coverage, more questions, detailed scoring──what used to be perfect scores for others suddenly began to drop.
Meanwhile, Sakuto always scored perfect marks in all subjects.
He thought it was natural to score perfectly on tests, and he felt no discomfort hearing average scores or others’ marks.
He was proud of putting in three times the effort.
However, Sakuto’s intelligence was perceived by others as ‘strange’, ‘weird’, ‘abnormal.’
Yuzuki, too, seemed to be on that side.
She never mentioned it in front of Sakuto but praised him with a forced smile, saying ‘that’s amazing.’
Yet, Yuzuki’s response was still better compared to others.
One day after school, in the classroom, a classmate named Shun Matsukaze was talking with his friends──
“Takayashiki is like, kind of like a robot, huh?”
“I get it. Like he’s got AI or something.”
“He’s introverted, always alone, and just does what he’s told, that’s not normal, right?”
Robot-like, introverted, alone, not normal──that was the assessment of Sakuto.
