ep.4 Night of that school

Huh?! Does that mean you can even look like Furusawa Ryo?!¹

WOAAAHH!! Damn!! You look hot as hell!!

Oh, your old face is back.

I prefer this face of mine more.

Oh, you’re pretty attached to it. Who was the model for this one?

The mystique of Timothee Kalamet, the prettiness of Lee Dohyeon, the beauty of Anya Taylor-Hey, and just a pinch of Nakaizumi Yo.²

Woah, that’s way too much…! All of them already have unique faces, and there’s even a woman in there!

I picked up on them whilst I was watching movies and TV shows. I have excellent taste, do I not?

I guess. Besides…

Besides?

You could always turn into Furusawa Ryo again, right? Maybe you can add Umesaka Tori³ too.

Hohhh, mayhaps I will mix him in next time.

Y’know, people always notice your face first when they meet you. If you’re not attractive, then…people might judge your character badly too.

But you never need to worry about that, Netaro. You’d definitely be popular!

Popular…

Yeah! Man, I wish I could be popular too… I mean, I was kinda popular when I was on the second string.

What does it mean to be “popular”?

Huh? Oh… It means that a lot of people like you.

Liked by many… And that is what you desire?

Everyone wants that!

Everyone?! All of humanity desires to be “popular”?!

You read all of the books I take out from the library for you, right?

Like, you read them so fast that I don’t have time to take out more.

Yep!

You’re so smart, but you don’t know what “popular” means? Haha… That’s kinda weird.

I just now learned that being popular means being liked.

But why do you wish to be popular?

Well, ‘cuz… I’m lonely.

Lonely.

…Do you not know what that means either?

I do! I see the word quite often. The novel I read recently had the word “lonely” in it.

Yes, here it is. This Schoolgirl book.⁴

“I stood in a corner of that dim kitchen with a feeling of intense loneliness…”

It states that she felt lonely to the point of death. Do humans expire from loneliness? I looked it up in the dictionary you brought me, but found nothing of the sort.

“I go about saying how pained and tormented, how lonely and sad I feel, but what do I really mean by that?”

This is my favorite Dazai work.

Maybe you just never feel lonely, Netaro. That’s why you can’t understand it…

I cannot understand!! Ahahaha! I was chased away because I understood too much in the first place! That is very good to hear!

Do tell me what “loneliness” is, and how it poisons so many humans and leads them to their graves!

Huh…? You want me to tell you?

You are not popular, correct? And you are unbearably lonely as a result.

……

So you must be able to tell me, I presume.

Um… Well…

Why do you wish to be popular? What is the source of that desire? Why must you wish for that?!

Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me!

Ah, uhh…

Because I wanna be loved!

Ohhh! You wish to be loved! Thus, if you are not loved, then you are “lonely”?

Well, yeah! I want someone to love me… I want us to treasure each other, and I wanna tell them that I was born to be with them. I want us to love each other!!

If I don’t find that, then I’ll never be satisfied with my life…!

Ugh… God, this is embarrassing… Don’t make me say this kinda stuff.

Why is your face turning red?

I’m just going through puberty.

DIIING! Wait, I have discovered a connection! “Love”, “loneliness”, and “satisfaction”…

Through being loved, humans feel happy and fulfill a sense of well-being. I did read about that before.

In this book…

“When humans feel happiness, several chemicals are secreted from the hypothalamus of the brain, including serotonin…”

“Adrenaline, endorphins, GABA, and many others totalling to over 100. In particular, one substance called oxytocin is responsible for the feeling of love.”

Woah…

Hmhm. Therefore, when humans interact with other humans and feel love, the brain secretes oxytocin.

From there, they feel a sense of happiness.

Oh, okay… I’m not really good at science-y stuff.

However.

Although there are many different variations of love, such as romantic, platonic, and familial, romantic love releases the most dopamine.

This happiness hormone dubbed dopamine… If an increasingly strong stimulus is not constantly applied, it stops being secreted. This often leads to the development of an addiction, similar to an alcohol addiction.

Love is the same! The amount of dopamine secreted by falling in love decreases after approximately two to three months. After three years, it falls to zero.

This leads to the so-called “three year itch”!

I-I don’t really get it, but… Are you basically saying that romantic love goes away after three years?

Precisely! From a neuroscientific standpoint, romantic love alone is unable to grant you eternal happiness.

N-No way!!

In essence! Your ultimate goal should be to form oxytocin-esque platonic and familial bonds, as they will retain their value perpetually.

…Platonic and familial love…

If you do, you will no longer be lonely.

…You’re amazing, Netaro.

I was so impressed that I forgot what I was gonna say. Ahaha.

I am a genius, after all!

Yep!

However…

Humans, unable to understand the science of their bodies, feel anguished, depressed, and lonely.

And at the end of it all, some of them even decide to take their own lives.

Although they are one of the very few intelligent life forms in the universe, they are quite strange creatures indeed! Ahaha!

Ahaha! Yeah, you’re right!

DIIING! Genius eureka!

I will create oxytocin and jab it into your brain for you!

Noooo, that’s so scary! No thank you! Ahaha!

It won’t take very long to make it. I am a genius, after all!

Come on, cut it out! Hahaha!

*sigh…*

Netaro…

What is it, Ono?

…Let’s do it next week. I’m gonna leave.

Hmm? Did you not also tell me that last week?

……

That is fine by me.

We should at least pick a night when the stars are beautiful!