ALL NOVEL Chapter 32
【Placing the notebook on your lap, you first dial Chitose Kazumi’s number. As you expected, she too is out of reach, having conspired with Asano Nao for this day.】
【Putting down the phone, you open the document in the folder.】
【At noon, the autumn sun, no longer intense, shines on you, bringing no warmth. You pull the curtains in the living room, sitting in their shadow as you go through the final volume.】
【”NEET” has now reached its fifth volume, with the plot progressing to the band competition featuring a female lead modeled after you.】
【This final volume doesn’t continue the competition’s events; instead, it contains disjointed scenes.】
【The first scene is your graduation. Underclassmen wait at the auditorium entrance, offering flowers and blessings. You smile and thank them, then return to the Asano household.】
【The second scene shows you facing your parents. With your help, Asano Nao manages to complete the meeting safely.】
【The third scene depicts your job celebration party. Family members are allowed, but Asano Nao is not by your side. After attending the party, you return home, and Asano Nao apologizes to you.】
【The fourth scene is your wedding. To avoid upsetting Asano Nao, you opt for a simple ceremony with only close friends and family.】
【As you flip through each scene, you notice a consistent theme: you are always helping Asano Nao, and she is constantly apologizing to you. Your kindness grows more encompassing, while her remorse deepens.】【This is indeed the future from the previous life simulation.】
【Without delving deeper, you skim through the remaining text. The story’s development shocks you; in one scene, Asano Nao writes about you planning to invite colleagues home to avoid work gatherings, hosting them with her.】
【Except for minor details, the events in this scene match those from your previous life simulation exactly. At the end of the hosting, Asano Nao, overwhelmed by mental anguish, hides and cries. You find her and decide to quit your job.】
【Her writing borders on prophetic.】
【Moving further, you reach the last scene, where both of you are in old age, lying on the floor of a sealed house with a burning charcoal brazier.】
Memory scene appears.
Minami Yuuki sits on the sofa. The sun is obscured by thick clouds, and the faint sunshine offers no comfort. The door is open, letting in a cold wind, making his limbs cold from inactivity.
He looks at the notebook screen.
The novel is written in the first person; “I” represents Asano Nao, and “she” represents Minami Yuuki.
“My eyelids grow heavier. The sunlight outside is intense, the sun seemingly approaching, filling the room with blinding light. I turn my head to the right. I think I turned to the right; my brain is muddled, my eyes can’t see clearly.”
“In the dazzling light, I see her face. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted. The marks of time on her face blur at the boundary between life and death. The wrinkles gradually fade, and color returns to her cheeks. Her gray hair falls out, revealing dense, black hair like wet crow feathers.”
“She has returned to her sixteen-year-old self, to the time we first met, opening her bright black eyes and smiling at me.”
“‘Get up!’ she calls with a pure, cheerful voice, smooth and free of worry. She moves her youthful, vibrant, and mischievous face close to mine.”
“I look into her black eyes, reflecting me—a decrepit old man lying on the worn floor.”
“I am horrified by the ugly, shrunken, wrinkled old man. The deathly aura in his eyes makes me shudder. I recall the dead mouse I saw as a child on a country road, flattened by a car. Its body was flat, with gray flesh smeared everywhere, but its fleshy tail remained plump, curving grotesquely on the ground.”
“I am terrified by this endless horror, my eyes fixed as if held by tweezers, unable to look away. I see the reflection in the old man’s cloudy eyes—it is the girl before me.”
“The old man suddenly smiles, opening his toothless mouth. The deathly aura breeding in his body and spreading through his abdomen escapes through the open passage. The gray deathly aura, clawing and grasping, aims to pounce on the girl before me, to penetrate her seven orifices, corroding her flesh, wearing down her spirit, turning her into another horrific old person decaying in a dark grave.”
“‘Don’t look at me!’ I muster the strength to push the girl in front of me.”
“I push at empty air; the girl does not exist. I did not extend my arm. What I am holding is her gray, old hand. Lying beside me is her body, already decayed with me. This house has long become a gigantic tombstone. Once the girl stepped in, she could not escape becoming a dried corpse within.”
“Tears flow from my eyes as I let out one last howl towards the window.”
Clicking the touchpad, the document stops scrolling. This is the ending.
【The notebook slips from your lap. You stare ahead, covering your cold face with your hands. Asano Nao’s writing makes you acutely aware of her inner despair, her love for you, and her self-loathing.】
【She left you, not wanting to drag you into decay with her at the Asano house.】
On the sofa, Minami Yuuki covers his forehead, not knowing when he had sat up. His spirit is captured by Asano Nao’s words, unable to move for a long time.
Until a thud sounds beside him.
He looks over, and in reality, Asano Nao is clumsily picking up a book that had fallen, blocking the camera in the cabinet.
Suddenly, he feels an impulse to run forward and embrace Asano Nao with his strong arms.
He does so, but halfway, changes his hug into a face rub: “Caught you red-handed, what does sister have to say for herself?”
Asano Nao struggles but cannot break free, whimpering as she closes her eyes, letting Minami Yuuki have his way.
Looking at her closed eyes, still mentally immersed in the simulated life, his emotions surge.
“I want a snack. Go make me one, sister,” Minami Yuuki stopped and said.
Asano Nao, as if granted a pardon, rushes into the kitchen.
Watching her back, Minami Yuuki rubs his forehead and sighs.
He needs to calm down.
Sitting back on the sofa, he thinks, in the simulated life, Asano Nao left because of him.
This overly sensitive woman accurately grasped their future together and was frightened by it, deciding to leave.
She believes in Minami Yuuki. Precisely because she believes, she knows this future is inevitable.
In the previous simulated life, Minami Yuuki chose to join the NEET society, so Asano Nao could endure their future decay together.
But in this simulation, he is a student at Misaki Arts University, a promising performer, so Asano Nao does not want to drag him into a decaying coffin.
Minami Yuuki continues to look at the simulation panel, surprised that despite their separation, the simulated life has not ended.
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