Autumn Bonus Chapter: To the Ends of the Earth

How many people, I wonder, can a person actually love, between birth and death?

The number of women I’ve spent a night with — honestly, I don’t remember.

There have been two people, up to now, that I’ve fallen for. But the one I’ve loved from the very bottom of my heart — that seems set to be just one, for my whole life.

That very first person I fell for — I think, thanks to her, I came to properly understand that I’m gay.

For eighteen-year-old me, parting with my first girlfriend was a genuinely painful thing. But now, looking back, compared to the parting I’d go on to experience with Kanata a few years later, it feels like nothing more than a minor ache.

If I hadn’t broken up with my ex, if I’d kept dragging that relationship on all the way through college, I might have found some excuse to turn down the idea of living with Kanata. And if that had happened, I never would have met this precious girl at all.

They say life is full of chance encounters — I find myself agreeing with that, sincerely, deeply. That a day like this would come, meeting someone I could treasure this much — if I’d told that to myself at eighteen, drowning in despair, having given up on everything, she’d have been utterly astonished.

Worn out, I pressed my lips to the long lashes of Kanata, sleeping soundly beside me, and gently stroked her soft cheek, careful not to wake her.
Pulling her pale, round shoulder in close, I found it a little cool to the touch, so I pulled the blanket back up over her shoulder and hugged her slender body tight.

Kanata’s loungewear, stripped off and tossed aside in the rush, had probably ended up somewhere under the bed, but there’d been no time to retrieve it and dress her again before she’d fallen asleep in my arms, so I gave up on getting dressed myself too, and decided to just sleep like this tonight.

Autumn nights run long.

We’d promised to go get pancakes together tomorrow, and yet sleep feels like such a waste that Friday nights, I always end up staying up too late.
Waking before me, Kanata puffing out her cheeks in annoyance while shaking my shoulder awake — that’s always been our usual Saturday morning routine.

Well, can’t be helped.

Kanata might not realize it, but just holding her like this while she sleeps is enough to leave my chest so tight it aches, love piling up, thick, like falling snow.

That snow, piling and piling, never once melting — it strips away every bit of pain and suffering in my heart.

I want to live together, soon. I want to fall asleep in each other’s arms, every single day. If you’re beside me when I wake in the morning, I don’t need anything else at all.

If I said something like that out loud, Kanata might laugh at me — but honestly, I’m always seriously thinking about things exactly like this.

*

I wish spring would just hurry up and come.

*

The moment we ran into Shinji — I noticed something. That Kanata carries real guilt over this relationship.
I remember her hand, laced with mine, trembling faintly, and how much that squeezed my chest.

I’d sworn I’d never hurt her again, and yet, here I am, causing this precious girl pain all over again.
Thinking about it properly, of course it would be like that. Unlike me, Kanata’s serious, sincere, the type who thinks things through carefully before acting.

There’s no way, honestly, that Kanata’s the type who could easily accept infidelity.

However true it is that there’s zero love between me and Shinji, there’s no way she wouldn’t struggle with being in a relationship with someone who still has a fiancé.

And yet she accepted my feelings anyway — I know that’s purely out of love.

I couldn’t hold back. When Kanata said she wanted to be my secretary, that she didn’t want to hand that role over to anyone else — that’s when I became certain her feelings were still turned toward me.
Ever since then, my chest has been so full it’s kept me up at night — I love her, love her, unbearably. I couldn’t wait until spring anymore.

*

Three years ago, my promise to my father — “I’ll deliver results, no matter what” — was both a resolve I made for myself, and, at the same time, a selfish demand.
That first year as a working adult, I threw everything I had into the Holdings company’s business planning office.
Working myself to the bone on weekdays, studying late into the night once I got home, sparing no sleep, and on weekends, crashing at Yuki-nii’s place, bowing my head, begging him to teach me.

Because I’m the president’s daughter. Because I’m the next president. I know I drew curious stares for it, know there was whispering behind my back too. But none of that mattered to me at all.

There were times I resented the position I’d been born into, found it a burden. But now, looking back, maybe that was actually a stroke of good fortune.

There’s not much I can actually give Kanata.

But right now, I have social standing, financial security. Things I’d always felt bound by, restricted by — turned out, in the end, to be strengths too. If something ever happened to me, going forward, there’s something I could still leave behind for Kanata.

Of course, I want us to grow old together, side by side. But life is fragile. Parting comes suddenly, without warning. Fair to everyone, without exception.

How painful it must be, leaving someone you love, going somewhere far, somewhere unreachable. Now, I can imagine, painfully, exactly how my own mother must have felt, leaving behind a beloved husband, a young child, with such regret.

Because I’ve found someone precious, the fear of losing her now sits right beside my happiness, always. This is a feeling I never knew until I met Kanata, until I fell in love with her.

Right up until we reconnected, I was always rushing, anxious. Not every choice I made was the optimal one. Even so, I couldn’t stand doing nothing at all.

I wanted to go find her, quickly. This time, with nothing left tying my hands. That single wish was the engine driving me forward.

What if Kanata already had a partner? What if she was already married?

There were nights just thinking about it left my chest twisted painfully tight. Unbearable, suffocating, and more than once, I made the trip to Osaka, where Ritsu was, to cry and vent — and every time, she’d slap my back like she was whipping a racehorse. I don’t know how many times that painful slap on the back saved me.

Piling up days like that, one after another, my resolve solidified, before I even fully noticed.

Once everything’s settled, I’ll go find Kanata, and if, at that point, someone else was beside her — even if she’d already married — whatever it took, I’d steal her back. That’s what I’d decided.

I don’t care what anyone says about it. Unfortunately, unlike Kanata, I’m apparently not exactly a person of good conscience.

However wrong that might be, by the world’s standards, I loved her enough to leap right over that line without a second thought.

Burning with that ambition, in the spring of my third year, Kanata appeared before me, wearing that same unchanged smile from back then.

Maybe God really does exist — I found myself thinking, uncharacteristically.

Spring passed, summer came and went, autumn arrived, and now, Kanata is here, in my arms. Could there possibly be a happiness greater than this? I don’t think I could ever let go of this warmth again, not now.

*

Honestly, all I really need to do is tell my father, quickly, that I’m gay, and have him call off the engagement with Shinji.
He’d surely be shocked, and, in his heart, disappointed — but I don’t think he’d force me to marry Shinji regardless. My father, the man I know so well, is clumsy, but that’s exactly the kind of person he is.

But the reason I haven’t done that yet, the reason I’ve kept Kanata waiting — it’s because I want to deliver real, undeniable results first, so my father truly understands that this isn’t some half-hearted feeling. That I’m serious.

Since my college years, my father’s probably sensed that I was never especially enthusiastic about running the company. He’s apologized to me for it, over and over, at every opportunity. “I’m sorry, for putting this responsibility on you.”

That’s why he matched me with Shinji. Shinji’s hunger for social status must have seemed like a perfect fit for someone as unambitious as I was. If I’d never met Kanata, I probably would have chosen to marry Shinji without a single complaint.
He never demands “love” from me. That made him convenient. Far more convenient than someone who wanted an actual romantic relationship.

But I met Kanata.

Which means I can no longer marry Shinji, and that whole notion — “I have to have children” — has completely, cleanly vanished from inside me.

The only thing I can give back to the father who raised me alone is delivering real results at work.

At the very least, I want to put my father’s mind at ease. Kanata understands that feeling of mine.

Which is exactly why Kanata never says anything to me about it. Never once complains about this suspended, undefined relationship — just trusts me, and stays by my side.

Which is exactly why I want to properly answer that kindness, that feeling of hers.

Once spring comes — I’ll finally be able to say it, proudly, hiding nothing from anyone: that I love you, from the bottom of my heart.

“Mnh…”

Maybe I’d unconsciously tightened my arms around her, because Kanata gave a small groan against my chest. Her slender arm pulled tight around my back, her long, glossy chestnut hair tickling my collarbone.

Careful not to wake her, I patted her back gently, soothing, and soon, the steady rhythm of her sleeping breath returned.

Sorry, Kanata. But I’m never letting go again. I’ll treasure you for the rest of my life. As long as you stay by my side, until this heart stops beating, I’ll — always, always.

Nuzzling my cheek against her soft hair, I closed my eyes. If “happiness” has any physical form in this world, it’s undeniably, right now, held in these arms. I truly believed that, in that moment.

*

The next morning, right on schedule, I overslept, and Kanata woke me, shaking my shoulder, lips pursed in displeasure. Her fingertip brushed the bite mark on my shoulder — one I’d long since stopped noticing — and it ached, faintly.
That was definitely on purpose, I thought, but decided not to point it out, blinking a few times to reboot my still-groggy brain.

“Hey, Yui-san, wake up. It’s already nine. If we don’t hurry, the limited pancakes will sell out…”

“Mn… yeah, I’m up. Morning, Kanata…”

I’d set my alarm for eight, but going by this, Kanata must have turned it off herself. Reaching out to pull her close, my arm still weak from sleep, she slipped away easily. My hand fell, anticlimactic, onto the still-warm sheet where she’d been.

“Wait, where’s my good-morning hug…?”

Displeased, I said it, and Kanata got out of bed, gathering up the clothes I’d tossed aside the night before, and turned pointedly away.

“No time for that. Just hurry up and get ready.”

Watching her fumble, clumsy, reaching behind her back to hook her bra, I laughed, faint, and reached out to help. Still as adorably clumsy as ever.

Hugging her from behind, she pinched my arm, hard. “Ow,” I protested, and she just glared back at me, harder still, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“If it’s sold out, it’s your fault, Yui-san. I told you there’d be a line. You promised to take me…”

Remembering how, just yesterday, Kanata had stared at that photo of pancakes — fluffy, thick batter piled high with syrup and whipped cream — with such sparkling eyes, I genuinely regretted having overslept.

“It’s fine, I’ll get ready right away.”

Overslept a little, sure, but… it’ll probably be fine.

Kanata must have woken at eight herself, and yet she’d let me sleep, right up to the last possible minute — that’s Kanata’s own kindness, showing through.

To answer that kindness properly, I resolved, right then, to get ready at full speed.

If it’s what my beloved girl wants, I’m ready to take her anywhere at all.

*

Even if it’s to the ends of the earth.

*

If Kanata wishes it, I think I could probably even fly.