Chapter 386: Ayaha |
The boy repeated his earlier question. This time, Shirayanagi Ayaha listened earnestly and finally restrained the baffling excitement on her face.
"Of course I am human!" Shirayanagi Ayaha first confirmed this firmly, then thought seriously for a few seconds before continuing, "But I do not know what happened either. I was minding my own business in my city, and in the blink of an eye, I suddenly appeared here. Others cannot see me, and I cannot touch anyone else..."
As she spoke, she moved closer to the boy and reached out to touch his face.
The boy instinctively wanted to dodge, but he was so full of curiosity about Shirayanagi Ayaha's words that he suppressed the urge. He merely raised a hand to block her. Then, just as Shirayanagi Ayaha had said, she could not touch anyone. Her extended hand passed right through his blocking hand and rested on his cheek.
Furthermore, it merely looked like they were touching. In reality, neither Shirayanagi Ayaha nor the boy felt any physical contact.
Shirayanagi Ayaha awkwardly withdrew her hand, her tone carrying a hint of helplessness. "See, it is just like this."
But she immediately perked up and became lively. "But it is actually fine now! At least there is you who can see me and hear me speak. At first, I was truly a bit scared! After all, if I really became an invisible person who no one could see, touch, or hear, I would probably break down before long—"
The boy felt a bit of sympathy for the girl. He asked, "Where is your home?"
Shirayanagi Ayaha looked at the boy, who shared the same monochromatic tone as this world, and the black-and-white world behind him. She opened her mouth, but ultimately only said, "In a very, very faraway place."
"Of course I do, but there is no way. I cannot go back."
"Is it because others cannot see or touch you?"
"I suppose that is barely part of the reason—" Shirayanagi Ayaha twirled a lock of hair by her ear around her finger and pouted. "More importantly, it is just too far away."
"How far?"
"About a whole world away."
"..." The boy was rather confused, so he simply stopped dwelling on the subject and asked with even more curiosity, "What does home feel like?"
Shirayanagi Ayaha blinked, replying strangely, "What else could it feel like..."
Halfway through her sentence, she stopped. Right, the boy in front of her was not the familiar young master of a financial group who had undergone reincarnation into the Hoshino family. Right now, he was just an orphan with nothing—no home, and certainly no family.
Did her heart ache? Of course it did! Not just because of the boy's current situation, but even more so because Shirayanagi Ayaha knew exactly what his future held.
Just how intense could the yearning for a home be for a child born as an orphan?
This was probably something anyone from a complete family would find hard to imagine. Perhaps, on lonely nights, they would construct and harbor fantasies of a home of their own in their hearts, hoping that one day they could bring these fantasies into reality.
With the arrival of every night, this anticipation would only grow stronger.
Did the boy eventually get his own home? Shirayanagi Ayaha knew the answer was yes, of course.
It was just that, that home...
Recalling bits and pieces of her childhood memories, the lonely figure sitting in the classroom staring up at the sky, the figure spending his birthday all alone in an empty house—they all overlapped with the boy in front of her right now, who was looking at her with clear eyes filled with curiosity and hidden anticipation.
Shirayanagi Ayaha took a deep breath. It took an unknown amount of effort for her to finally squeeze out a smile. "A home is made up of people. Since there are no two identical people in the world, the feeling of every home is probably quite different."
"A person has two chances to choose a family in their life. One is at birth, and the other is through marriage. None of us have a choice for the first one, so some will always be fortunate while others are unfortunate. But that is okay, because there is still a second chance, and then you can choose for yourself."
"And after that, you will naturally know what a home truly feels like."
The boy looked at the girl in a slight daze, seemingly not expecting this previously silly-looking girl to say such profound words. He blinked, then suddenly laughed as well. Still a child, his laughter carried a bit of innocence. "Big sister, are you trying to comfort me?"
"But if I really have the chance, I will choose carefully!" he promised the girl.
"Hehe..." Shirayanagi Ayaha scratched her cheek with her index finger, feeling a bit embarrassed. Then, abruptly changing the topic, she said, "By the way, do not keep calling me big sister. Once or twice is fine, but if you keep doing it, I will really feel uneasy. My name is... um, just call me Ayaha."
"Ayaha?" The boy repeated the name, as if committing it earnestly to memory, before replying, "Ye Xingyuan. My name is Ye Xingyuan."
"Mhm! I know!" Shirayanagi Ayaha nodded. Then she reached out her hand and smiled happily. "Then we are officially acquainted now, Little A-Gen~"
"Ah..." Ye Xingyuan was clearly taken aback by this overly intimate nickname. Although the monochromatic color scheme of this world made it impossible to tell if he was blushing, he definitely avoided Shirayanagi Ayaha's gaze at that moment, not quite daring to meet her eyes. However, he still raised his hand, imitating adults, to shake hands with the girl in front of him, even though the two of them could not truly touch each other...
...
After meeting Ayaha, Ye Xingyuan's life did not change much. He continued his dull and mundane routine day after day, just as he always had, and still enjoyed sitting on the roof to look at the sky as before.
Only, the loneliness was gone.
"Little A-Gen!"
Shirayanagi Ayaha phased through the window and arrived next to Ye Xingyuan's school desk in the classroom, her face puffed up in anger. "When you return to the dormitory, do not go straight to your bed! Those little brats... they caught a toad and hid it under your quilt!"
"Dammit! Dammit! Why can I not interfere with reality? I want to beat them up so badly! How can a bunch of little brats be so mean!"
Her intense words and the sheer anger in her expression were something Ye Xingyuan was seeing for the first time since meeting her. He even felt like she was so furious she was about to cry.
He let out a sigh of helplessness. He was the one being bullied, yet now he was the one comforting Ayaha. "It is fine. I am already used to it. Thank you for the warning. I will carefully check my bed when I get back to the dormitory and just throw it out. They would never dare to do anything to my face."