nazunyan427

Chapter: Black Bunny - Mitsuru to Escape 2

Writer: 西岡麻衣子 Nishioka Maiko

Season: Fall

Location: ES Practice room

The next day after that.

Hajime: Sorry for being late...!

Nazuna:

Oh hey, Hajime-chin. All finished with work for today? Good job!

Tomoya:

Don’t worry about being late. We just stopped to take a break.

Hajime:

Oh, I’m glad! ♪ All right, then I’ll go get changed.

Mitsuru:

*sneak sneak*...♪

Tomoya:

Mitsuru! Come. On! Don’t think you’re gonna be able to pull the same tricks on us over and over again! Today for sure there’s no way I’m letting you get away!

Mitsuru:

Ungh?! Tomo-chin, you’ve got hold of me like a cat again! Lemme go~!

Tomoya:

It’s ‘cause you always escape on us?!

Tomoya:

Why won’t you keep practicing with the rest of us? We haven’t got much time left before the concert!

Mitsuru:

Huh? But I’m doing all I need to do as a stand-in! I’m just a temporary helper after all! And I already learned all your dances and songs!

And besides, I’m an athlete—that means I’ve gotta go run! So lemme go already, Tomo-chan!

Tomoya:

A stand-in... A temporary helper, huh... Well, I know that I’m the one who said that would be okay, to see yourself that way, but...

But aren’t you an idol? Well, at least you were before you lost your memories.

We’ve always stood on stage together and sang and danced... Together... We’ve come this far side by side, haven’t we?

Mitsuru:

I’m tellin’ ya, I dunno about any of that! I don’t get any of this! Whether I’m an idol or not—I dunno!

This is all crazy! I’m the only me here!

Hajime:

Mitsuru-kun...

Mitsuru:

So I’m gonna do what I want! I wanna run, so I’m gonna run! Dash, dash, dash~!

Nazuna:

Ahh! Mitsuru-chin!

Tomoya:

Wait! Mitsuru!

...Mitsuru.

Hajime:

...Oh, so that’s what it was. Yes... I finally understand now.

Nazuna:

Hajime-chin? What do you understand?

Hajime:

Ever since Shinkai-senpai told me to “find what is real”, it’s been on my mind ever since.

I felt like the answer was right in front of me, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around whatever it was, and it was making me feel super uneasy.

But thanks to what Mitsuru-kun just said, I feel like I’ve finally figured out what it was.

We weren’t looking at Mitsuru-kun as he is right now, were we?

Tomoya:

Mitsuru as he is right now...?

Hajime:

Yes. We desperately try to force Mitsuru-kun to get his memories back, because that’s what we wanted... But Mitsuru-kun is still Mitsuru-kun, no matter what state he’s in.

Hajime:

Just because he’s lost his memories, doesn’t mean he’s a fake.

Both the Mitsuru-kun with his memories and the Mitsuru-kun without them are still equally the real him.

Tomoya:

I guess... But don’t you want Mitsuru to remember everything too, Hajime? I mean, we have so many memories together...

Hajime:

Yes. I’d love it if Mitsuru-kun got his memories back.

But that’s just us focusing on being sad about Mitsuru-kun forgetting about us.

That’s no good. We have to look things in a different way - “We want Mitsuru-kun to get his memories back, but only if that’s what he wants for himself”. For his own sake.

When you look at it this way... I believe that if Mitsuru-kun doesn’t end up remembering anything, then everything will still be fine.

I believe that just looking for traces of the old Mitsuru-kun in the current Mitsuru-kun... Not taking into consideration how he is now is just getting hung up on the past and not looking towards the future.

If he doesn’t remember everything we’ve been through up until now—even if he’s forgotten all of our memories together—then we’ll just make new ones all over again. This time around we’ll make even more than we had before.

I mean, look at the way Mitsuru-kun is still by our side even now... ♪

Tomoya:

Hajime...

Nazuna:

...You’re right. Yeah, it’s exactly as Hajime-chin says. We weren’t taking the future that we’ll share with Mitsuru-chin into consideration at all.

Tomoya:

Yeah... We were so desperate to get the idol Mitsuru back...

But, yeah... Even without his memories, he hasn’t changed.

Then we’ll just have to do everything over. We can make a bunch of new memories together...

Hajime:

Yes...! If anything, we might become even closer than we were before.

Nazuna: