Boy Meets Boy
Welcome back, Renga-kun!
Y-Yeah…
Congratulations on winning. I am extremely proud of you.
The advertisement worked wonders. We’ve gotten so many inquiries about our tour that I can hear Nayuki screaming all the way from the office. You did well.
Niiiice, congrats.
That was incredible, Renga.
I-I’m so moved, Renga-san! A-As a fellow pauper…! Everyone’s talking about you ruining your image, but I think it makes you more relatable…!
Yachiyo-kun! We promised not to talk about that!
Ah! Oh no…!
(Millions of people just watched Renga-kun get drunk and ruin his image… It must be a big shock to him.)
……
Um, I’m sorry. I already knew about the trends. My manager was kinda happy about it…
Huh, really?!
You destroyed the entire image you had up until this point, but it didn’t do any damage to your reputation?
Hmm… I was surprised too. But, yeah, I’m kinda relieved. I guess it’s better for me to be myself…
I started doing the whole rich kid thing because I thought I had to. It worked, so I kept it up, but…
I knew that it’d fall apart at some point, so maybe this was a good thing. My manager told me that I can go in this direction too, although I don’t really know what that means.
But…I think the old me wasn’t the real Nishizono Renga.
Hm? What do you mean by that…?
……
Listen… To be honest, I’m not the real, actual Nishizono Renga.
……
(Oh?)
…I wanna talk to everyone in the team about that. Is that okay?
C’mon, Ren! Are you still picking up stupid junk off the ground? You’re not gonna make any money from the stuff here anymore.
I don’t care. I like it here.
Just let him do his thing. Kid got abandoned in a warehouse around these parts. This place is probably comforting to him, like being a baby in his mom’s belly.
What does that mean? We don’t have moms like that!
Every human comes outta their mom’s bellies, idiot. But, yeah, I guess your mommies didn’t want you kids around after that.
*laughter*
(Why do they care about what I do? That’s not even the reason why I like it here.)
Ah, this little brick chip… It’s a perfect square… I can take this, right?
I was born as a little boy without a name. The first memories I had were about living with the people who inhabited that alleyway.
Everyone called me “Ren.” I guess it was short for renga,1 since they found me abandoned near a brick warehouse.
I didn’t know who my parents were or if I had any siblings, and I never cared to find out. It took everything I had just to survive.
I wanted more than anything to have somebody I could be close to, even if it was just a single person. But I knew someone like that didn’t exist.
…The sun shines on everyone equally, but the spotlight never landed on me. I was fully aware of that.
It’s like I’m looking in a mirror! We look exactly the same!
…Who are you?
That day, I met a boy who looked like me. His name was “Nishizono Renga.” He snuck out of his house to play around the city.
Hey, what are you holding?
Um… A flower. I made it using some paper I found on the ground.
Oh, it’s origami? Wow… You’re really good at it.
…You can have it.
Really? Why?
Your eye… The red one. It’s so sparkly. It looks like the sun.
Haha! You have the exact same one, y’know!
…!
Let’s be friends!
Renga was the first person to ever say that to me. I thought he was lying, but he kept coming back to see me.
We played together, and I learned so much about him—his family, his relatives, his friends… The things he was studying, the things he liked… Everything.
Renga was the first friend I had made after being brought into this world.
Ren, do you believe in destiny?
Destiny? Umm… I dunno. I’ve never thought about it.
I do. I know it’s real.
Hm?
Ren, you’re my destiny. I just know that we met somewhere else a long time ago, in a different world. We were always together.
…Like we’re two halves of the same person.
…? Oh.
I bet I was happy, since I was with you.
……
Ren… Do you wanna try swapping places?
Swapping…places?
We look exactly the same, so nobody will find out. I’ll pretend to be you, and you’ll pretend to be me. Whoever gets caught first loses.
Does that mean I’m gonna live in your house? I can’t do that! They’re gonna find out and kick me out…
And if that happens…you won’t be able to come see me anymore…
Don’t worry about it! I told you what eggs benedict is, right?
It’s what you eat for breakfast at your house, right…? The really yummy egg thing!
Just swap places with me for one night. I’ll make sure they serve it for breakfast!
After you finish eating, I’ll drop by, and we can go back to normal, okay?
……
But you said that they give you a bunch of different spoons and forks, and you have to be careful about which ones to use. I don’t know how to do that.
I’ll teach you! My dad and my grandma will never find out. You can practice it a whole bunch, and when you get it perfect, we can swap places. It’ll be like a final exam!
Mm… You promise it’ll be over after you stop by?
Yeah, I promise. As long as you pretend that you’re me, you’ll be fine.
I started practicing to become “Nishizono Renga.”
I liked Renga, so it wasn’t hard to memorize everything he taught me. I was just happy to be getting closer to a friend whom I loved so much.
It was like we were morphing into one person…
Late one night, we swapped places.
I climbed into Renga’s bed, my heart pounding against my chest. It was so warm and soft that I ironically couldn’t fall asleep.
When morning came…they actually did serve eggs benedict for breakfast.
(It’s eggs benedict…! The runny egg looks so good…and I’ve never had this much meat before…!)
(There’s so much…! It’s so yummy! Everything tastes amazing!)
*clank*
Ah… I-I dropped it…
……
……
(They’re looking at me! Did they figure out that I’m not really Renga…!?)
Hmph… So clumsy.
Urk…
Take your time eating. The food won’t go anywhere. We can prepare as much as you like, so have your fill.
(She’s patting my head… Grown-ups never do that to me…)
(I guess grown-ups can be nice when you’re family…)
(This kindness belongs to Renga… Is it really okay if I borrow it? I’ll give it back soon…)
I expected Renga to show up that day.
But he never did. I waited for another day, and then another, over and over again…
One day, Grandmother told me that she would start being strict with me. I went along with it.
I decided that I had to play the perfect “Nishizono Renga” until the real Renga came back.
Everyone called him a prodigy. He was such an amazing guy, but I couldn’t do anything right. We looked the same on the outside, but we were completely different on the inside.
Since I didn’t do well in school, I tried to look for something else… So I got scouted and went into entertainment.
I wanted to act as a proud Nishizono until the real “Renga” came back.
Now that I think about it, I feel like he wouldn’t have approved of how I did things…
I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m telling the truth.
I’m still waiting for him to come back.
I’m waiting for the real “Nishizono Renga.”
Footnotes
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Means “brick” in Japanese. ↩