Editing City Series:Volume7 Layer 11 (section)

===Record 34: I Don’t Really Know===

'''10/01/1997

'''17:30

It was the day after the Mountain closing ceremony. We had stayed an extra day for the process of joining the Chancellor’s Officers. My instructor left the Mountain and went off somewhere the day I defeated Snowy, so I was stuck doing that process and all the other work on my own.

Once I was finally freed from it all that evening, the dorm manager gave me a handmade carving of a bear and I started home.

I walked between wooden buildings with the forest and mountains in the background. After passing through the dirt clearing, I found the mountain road. Two people were standing there already: you and Snowy.

Were you two waiting for me?

I adjusted the luggage on my back and picked up my pace to catch up.

Snowy turned around and walked on ahead without a word.

I exchanged a glance with you and then looked to Daitarou on your head.

He looked me in the eye and tilted his head while you smiled below him.

“This has gotten weird, hasn’t it?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Maybe so. We still don’t have some officers, like the head of PR, so they say we’ll have some additions later on. Until then, all that extra work will be forced onto us.”

“We’ll manage.”

I started to walk and Snowy looked back when she heard my footsteps.

“Hard to believe.”

“That I became Vice Chancellor?”

“No.” She faced forward again. “That I became the Vice Chancellor’s aide.”

“You didn’t want to be?”

“It wasn’t my goal.”

''She sure sets her sights high,'' I thought, but was that only because I had won? No, it wasn’t.

“If it were me, I’d be glad I got to be the aide at least. It’s better than nothing, right?”

“Do you feel the same way about your position as Vice Chancellor?”

I thought about that. And…

“Yeah, I do”

Snowy turned toward me again and smiled bitterly.

“You set your sights high, don’t you? People like that scare me most of all.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“My goal here was to be Vice Chancellor, but what about you? Were you okay with any role you got? Training with that mindset is the same as having no limit to your goals. And…” She took a breath. “It means you want to be anything and everything.”

She faced forward and resumed walking. I honestly didn’t think what she was saying fit me as I walked after her.

We reached the end of the forest and the city lights came into view in the distance. The sun had already set, so the western sky was simply colored red. You walked up next to me.

“The mountains are dangerous at night. Daitarou is nervous, so we need to hurry home.”

You passed me, tapped Snowy on the back and pushed her. She gave you a look of surprise, gave me the same, and smiled bitterly.

The wind blew as her bitter smile took off running.

It was the West Wind.

“So it is already autumn in the mountain,” noted Snowy while she ran.

Yes, we had been in the mountains for a long while. We had experienced a spring and summer so unlike what we knew from Tokyo.

We ran toward the lights visible in the distance. There was a train station there and a train there would take us to Tokyo.

If we hurried, we might make it in time to see the end of the Tokyo summer.

'''Author Comment:

Snowy doesn’t change her behavior much depending on whether she accepts you or not.

Maybe because her actions and her surroundings so rarely change.