After school, I decided to go to the Rose Garden despite telling Arina that I had no plans for today.
"Hello~"
I opened the door and said my greeting cheerfully.
"Didn't you say you have no plans for today?"
"I made some just now… C'mon, don't give me that look."
The trigger for her personality switch was probably her past.
For example, meeting someone she knew back in the day, like Aki-senpai. Aki-senpai must have been someone important to her since her personality switched for two whole days after looking at her picture.
Nothing happened when she met up with Nakatani Taku, who harbored feelings for Arina. This meant that he wasn't an important person for her, even though they had known each other since middle school. What a tragedy, I felt bad for him.
I could try to experiment on this more, but I decided not to. Her condition was classified as a mental disorder and playing around with it was pretty much a scummy move. Besides, it might burden her mentally if I were to carelessly trigger her personality switch.
"Arina, what do you think of your other self? Give me your honest opinion."
"Why are you asking this out of the blue? Did you fall in love with her or something?"
"Yes. Deeply so."
"You creep…"
Arina hugged herself with both hands and shuddered.
"Honestly, she's like a little sister to me."
"So she is underaged? In other words, I'm a lolicon now? Should I turn myself in to the police?"
"She is not underaged. She introduced herself as seventeen years old, the same age as me. I just think of her as my little sister."
"I see."
"You have a little sister, Ugin-chan, right? Yeah, my feelings for the other me should be the same as Ugin's feelings toward you."
"Ugin's feeling?"
"I adore her as family. There, I said it. Why am I telling this to you again? I feel like I made a fool of myself…"
Ugin? Adore me? I doubt she does, but, maybe? I should ask her about it when I get back home. She'll probably kill me if I do, but hey, worth a shot.
"Then, what will you do if your other self disappears?"
"What will I do if she disappears?"
"Yes."
"…"
She went silent.
"…I'm fine with that…"
She said that with a voice so small that you had to listen to her very carefully to catch on what she said.
"Are you fine with that?"
"Yes. I know that my other self appeared because of my grief. I've seen her pictures on my phone. Her smile looked heavy… She might look like a cheerful girl, but I know that she's really fragile… That's why, I want to put her to rest. I want to tell her that everything is okay…"
"That's a surprising answer, coming from you."
"You really have a knack to piss me off, don't you?"
"I mean, think about it, what would happen to you if I didn't meddle in your life?"
"Well, people will still be hating me, I guess."
"Nah, they don't really hate you. The girls are just jealous of you because the boys are all fawning over you."
"The boys are only after my body, aren't they? They should kill themselves."
"I'm an exception though. I'm anti-social after all."
"Shut it. Anyway, sooner or later, the boys would start to hate me too. I guess meeting you was a turning point in my life."
Akakusa-sensei told me that Arina's other self was begging for help.
The other Arina asked for a conversation partner for her real self. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I was the right person for that, after all, there should be a better person than me to fulfill that role.
But hearing Arina say that our encounter was a turning point in her life made me feel slightly happy. Everything that I did was meaningful for her, after all.
And that was enough for me to decide on what to do next.
To make Arina feel like she belongs here.
It was my speculation, but to make her real personality stay permanently, she had to feel that she belonged here. I had no proof for this and I had no way of confirming it, yet all I could do was to try.
"Arina, I've decided what we are going to do for tomorrow."
"Which club will we be helping next?"
"I'll tell you about it tomorrow."
This was a tough decision.
* * *
Next day.
"Yooo."
I went to the Rose Garden during lunch break and, as expected, Arina was there. I guess it was pretty much the law of physics that she would be there.
"So, are you going to tell me what you're up to?"
She closed the book she was reading. This was supposed to be a perfectly normal action, but it was the first time that she did it. Normally, she would just ignore me and continue reading her book.
"We're going to make you some friends."
"Huh?"
"We're going to make you some friends, Arina-san."
"I don't need friends."
"Umu, I expected that reaction from you, so I'll back off for now. Then, what we are going to do next is, to live a normal school life."
"I assume that you got ridiculed a lot by other people, didn't you?"
"I guess, yeah. People had been ridiculing me ever since I was born and recently those ridicules had increased in frequency ever since I met you. But that's that and this is this. I said that we're going to live a normal school life. Since you're smart, do you know what that means, Arina-kun?"
"…No…"
"You really don't know?"
"I have a vague idea, but I don't know…"
"Well, I'll tell you then. The Rose Garden will be dissolved."
The Rose Garden had served its purpose.
Dual personality disorder, abuse, bullying. I didn't know about any of those when I first met her. I did everything I could to interact with her in the Rose Garden, a space made for me and her. But it had served its purpose. We wouldn't solve anything by staying here.
That was why, dissolving it, would be for the best.
Even if this place was gone, we would still be able to meet up and talk. It was just this place that shackled her, which would be gone. I didn't want to take it away from her, but she had been overly dependent on this space for a while now.
At first, I didn't think it was a good idea to force her to make friends. After all, if you were to force someone to have a relationship with another person, that relationship normally wouldn't last long.
But after meeting her, I was proven to be wrong. Meeting up and getting to know someone could still have a certain amount of impact on you. After all, people had their own experiences, thoughts and interests. Little by little, those things would leave their marks on your heart and influence you in one way or another.
My meeting with Arina was pretty much forced on me, but she left such a huge impact on me that I started to change how I lived my school life. I started to think that spending time with someone after school wasn't so bad. This made me aware that if you wanted to change yourself, then the best way was to meet with more people.
"This place is no good, Arina."
"Why?"
"It is nothing but a place for you to run away from people, Arina. I want you to find out what you really want to do, so I have to do this. You have to be more friendly toward other people, not everyone is out for your blood. You know there are people like me, Tsuru, Shirona, Makoto, the student council members and Akakusa-sensei, there might be more people like us somewhere. You don't need to worry about bothering other people, that's a normal thing to do. Just don't reject others, stop being a poisonous rose. Humans are social creatures, no matter how much they try to reject others, they'll still feel lonely deep inside their heart. If you keep your thorns around, you'll only make it harder on yourself. Be true to yourself, Arina. That's how you'll find the answer that you seek."
That somehow, turned into a sermon. Arina stared at me with her face void of any expressions. Then, she let out a series of giggles.
"Did you come up with that on the spot?"
"Of course. Even if I write it down I won't be able to remember it."
"Haha… That's just like you."
Arina stood up and patted her skirt.
She let out a deep breath before she looked up at me.
"Got it. I'll believe in you."
"Sorry."
"Why are you apologizing, you cockroach?"
"At least compare me to a mammal, please."
"That'll be an insult toward mammals."
She spoke with her usual tone. For the first time in a while, I felt excited.
"The Rose Garden will be dissolved, but our relationship will stay the same, I assume?"
"Ah…"
Arina smiled and showed me her middle finger.
"Alright, I'll be in your care, Sakaki Sui."
"Likewise, Hiwa Arina."
I raised my middle finger in response.
We really are a pair of idiots.
But I think we're a great match.