It's not about winning the race

I think it's pretty fair to say that I'll never be any great shakes at mathematics. Not that this bothers me very much because if I wanted to be good at something, I certainly would not have picked math. I don't think many people will disagree with me when I say that doing math is horribly repetitive and dull, a lot like watching paint dry.

At the same time, you wouldn't believe how interesting math is when it wants to be. There was this time in middle school when I was really fascinated by the idea of the Golden Ratio. I carried a ruler around everywhere and went about measuring lots of things, just to see how many cases of it I could find by myself. It's the most beautiful ratio there is – it's pretty uncanny how the Parthenon in Greece fits the ratio too.

That doesn't surprise me, though. The Ancient Greeks were really obsessed with the power of numbers. According to Plato's theory about the harmony of spheres, the entire universe was defined by numbers and ratios. It's a weird thought, imagining we're ruled by numbers, but that's essentially what computer code is too.

As for me, I think I'm ruled by something a little narrower than numbers: statistics.

Statistically speaking, I don't believe I'll amount to anything special. Sure, one might bring relativism into that argument – the human race itself might not be anything special, full stop. But if we're just talking about the population of the human race, it's just like any other data set. There's a median, an upper and lower quartile and some outliers. The outliers are the special ones. They're the Einsteins, the Edisons, the Mozarts. That definitely does not include me.

As soon as I learned what the upper quartile meant, I adopted it as a sort of paradigm for myself. I thought to myself: "I'm in the upper quartile. I'll always be in the upper quartile. But never an outlier." I don't have that little self-confidence that I'd call myself stupid and believe it. At the same time, I know there's nothing remarkable about me, either.

Most of the people I know are better than me at something, and I accept that. I'm not competitive about every little thing. It's simple enough to know that someone will be better than me at something and I'll be better than that person at something else. Take Houtarou for instance. He's really exceptional when it comes to using logic and working things out, but his Japanese leaves something to be desired. On that note, Mayaka is a lot better than me when it comes to her Japanese, but I know more about astronomy than she does. I've always regarded myself as well-rounded in that sense. Call me a database.

I wasn't always like this, though. In middle school, I was always obsessed with being the best and to be honest, looking back I don't really like the person who I was. I'd rather not think back on those days unless I have to, but I think now might be the time.

If I let myself, will I go back to the person who I was? Will I revert?

For almost a year, these questions have been bothering me, but I've never exactly confronted them.

I think I'd better start from the beginning and let myself work it out from there, because that's what Mayaka would tell me to do. And I'm doing it for her, because if there's one thing I owe her, it's that.

I just hope she'll forgive me by the end.

I've had an interest in many different subjects since I was a kid. Of course, that meant right from the beginning, I was a jack of all trades, master of none. I don't know where exactly my competitive spirit came from. I think it just came naturally from within me, since I didn't really have parents who pushed me to excel. Instead, they let me pursue whatever path that interested me.

All I know is that I just hated losing. It was the absolute worst! I could almost handle losing narrowly, but the bigger the margin, the more I felt irritated.

I can't say this motivated me in any special way, though. After I lost a couple of times at something, my impulse was to give up on it and try for a new area of expertise. In that way, I ended up accumulating a lot of information for which I have no practical use for. It was even worse when I actually did win, though, because I'd just think to myself: "that's it?"

I've always been the type to escape from the things I don't like.

Going off the topic for a bit (my Japanese teacher always said I don't understand structure and that's why my essays get low marks, and if my writing is hard to read, I apologise!) I guess that's why I've always admired Houtarou for having a creed and sticking to it. Like Aristotle said, man is a goal seeking animal. In Houtarou's case, his goals are pretty puny, but that, of course, has never seemed to bother him.

In my eyes, Houtarou could be great. His life is grey but it is filled with so much potential that even I, his best friend, can't begin to measure properly. If there's one thing I should have told him on Valentine's Day but didn't, it would be this: Actually, there was a time when I wanted to punch him too. My reasons were not nearly as good as his, though.

I remember I made friends with Houtarou back in middle school partly because he didn't stand out and he didn't work hard. It's hard for me to believe that now because I have genuine affection for him. But Houtarou was different in those days, too; nobody could have dragged him out of his shell. He wasn't a bad person at all, especially once you got to know him, but it was so easy to compare yourself favourably to his grey existence. In a twisted way, being with him filled me with relief.

We got along too well for me to mention any of this to him. I don't think he ever figured it out, even now. Whenever Houtarou beat me at something, I'd get especially irritated because it wasn't like he was ever trying, certainly not as hard as I was. None of these incidents ever blew up into actual conflicts because that was never in Houtarou's nature. After I decided to renounce my competitive ways, spending time with him felt more and more natural. If there was a word to sum up our friendship, it would be this: "comfortable."

It's not like that all the time, though. It has nothing to do with him and everything to do with me.

I wanted to punch him for how well he handled the Juumoji case. For one brief, sickening moment as I was watching him, the jealousy in me flared to an almost untameable level. I hated myself for it. Why was I feeling this way? Hadn't I decided not to compare myself to other people like that? Why couldn't I control my obsessive personality?

I knew it was because of the expectations I had of Houtarou. I cared about him and wanted him to do well. I know everything about him because I happen to be a database. And by having these expectations, I realised I had given up on being an outlier.

In the end, while I managed to suppress my negative feelings, watching Houtarou succeed was both painful and fulfilling. Houtarou is the one who makes me revert to my old competitive self without me even realising it. I think it's because he's such a close friend that this happens from time to time.

The root of obsession is love, after all.

That's where Mayaka comes into it. At first, we were just classmates in middle school. Mayaka let me borrow her notes (like everything about her, she tried to be perfect with them; they were very concise, though her constant corrections revealed her inner frustrations) and since that's as good a reason as any for me to make friends with someone, I chatted with her about all sorts of things.

I've come to respect Mayaka in many ways, but first and foremost for me is the power of her imagination. That goes hand-in-hand with her wit. The first time she called me "Fuku-chan", I asked her, "What about a nickname for Houtarou?" and she said, "I'll call him 'Garden Slug'. If there's an animal motif that fits him, that'd be it." (Personally, I'm glad that name never stuck.) Mayaka is a very good writer and artist too, pretty close to the best of our grade when it comes to the clarity and depth of her ideas. She's as hard on herself as she is on others. Unlike me, whose only idea of quality is through comparing myself to others, Mayaka's ideals are something that she constructs herself. That says the most about her imagination. It's something I'll never have and it's one of the things about her that I'm attracted to.

One of the other things I noticed early on about her is her bravery. She always holds her head high and looks the other person in the eye when she talks to them. She was never afraid of being different or being hurt. I think this made her unpopular with the other girls. I'm not sure if they ever bullied her or not, but they always seemed at a loss with her, not sure how she'd react to anything they said. She had a tendency of taking things much too seriously and personally for her own good.

Once, I was talking with a girl and mentioned the things I thought about Mayaka in passing, hoping to improve her reputation in the class somewhat. I didn't realise Mayaka herself was listening to this little conversation until I heard her slam the desk and exclaim something at the top of her voice.

"I like you, Fuku-chan!" Can you believe she confessed to me like that, right in front of everyone? All of our classmates stared at us (except for Houtarou, who I think was snoozing at the desk). Mayaka just went on: "Go out with me!"

Needless to say, this put me on the spot. I had no idea how to respond to something like that so suddenly. Looking back, it was obvious that she had a crush on me well before then, but I had never stopped to seriously consider the idea.

I did what any normal person would do in that situation. I just said, "Uhh." It was all very uncomfortable. How I wished I could spontaneously combust!

That particular encounter was cut short when the teacher arrived, though from then on, Mayaka never failed to make her feelings for me obvious whenever we spoke. What's more, she was clearly expecting some sort of response from me. She was very insistent about it. "When are you going to tell me how you feel?" she'd ask me every day after school, looking at me sternly.

I think maybe an outsider would have gotten the wrong idea about this. I wouldn't call Mayaka's behaviour outright obsessive, at any rate. I knew her well enough to be aware that she was like this about everything. In fact, I couldn't help but admire her bravery more than ever. She was setting herself up to be hurt, but she was either oblivious or wilfully determined to persist anyway. I don't think you could find another girl like Mayaka.

So why didn't I accept her feelings? I guess her passion intimidated me a little. I didn't deserve it in the slightest, in my opinion. But most of all, I just didn't feel ready to commit to something so drastic because I was convinced it would fundamentally change who I am. By the time Valentine's Day came around, I was already trying to turn my back on my own obsessive tendencies. The twinges of envy I felt with Houtarou were bad enough, but Mayaka's earnestness had the potential to dig much deeper. I couldn't allow myself to grow so attached to her.

It feels cold of me, putting it like that. Simply put, I've been selfish when it comes to Mayaka. I want her friendship – I want more than her friendship – and I want her near me, but I can never let myself indulge in my feelings for her. I can't help but think I've been leading her on ever since the day she confessed to me, because I've never given her a straight response to that and I'm not sure if I ever will.

One thing is for certain: I'll never forget this year's Valentine's Day, not for as long as I live. Houtarou asked me if I hesitated before I stole Mayaka's chocolate, and to that I will have to say – yes, yes I did. I even felt sick in the stomach. I knew there would be consequences, but there was nothing else I thought I could do. It was the only answer I had in me.

A strange sense of calm then came over me as I held up the homemade chocolate Mayaka had lovingly prepared for me – and, physically and metaphorically, broke her heart.

Mayaka and I are normal these days. We've spent a lot of time together in the Classics Club along with Houtarou and Chitanda, and I think the four of us make a nice group together. After the Valentine's Day incident this year, I explained to Mayaka some of the things I've written down here, though I still couldn't be direct about my feelings. For her part, she accepted the explanations. It's comforting to think that she's always understood my extremities.

She even said to me that she knew how I felt about Houtarou. "I understand, Fuku-chan. That's how I felt about my senpai in the manga club. I know how hard it is when you compare yourself to someone else."

"But it's fine," I told her. "It's okay not to worry about those things. That way's better."

"I don't think your way of thinking is right," she replied seriously, and of course I knew she was being honest and critical like always, no malice intended. "But I don't think it's wrong either."

That last part felt important to me. It felt like an affirmation of every emotion I've ever strived for since high school began. I wanted to take Mayaka into my arms and hold her against me right then and there, but I didn't. I just laughed.

"That's awfully vague of you for once, Mayaka."

"It's because there's no other way to describe it for you, since you're such a vague person yourself."

That was certainly true. It made me smile.

Whatever relationship we have right now, I think it's fine. We can take steps when we need to. I've been doing a lot of thinking these days, and I can tell Mayaka has been doing the same, along with Houtarou and Chitanda.

It feels like, since the end of the school festival last year, we haven't been the same group we have been. We've all been starting to change a little (in Houtarou's case, a lot!) and in our own little ways, we've been drifting and yet also becoming closer to each other. By that, I mean it's starting to feel as if our group is dividing in two: on one hand, there's Mayaka and I, and then there's Houtarou and Chitanda. On the surface, we're clearly still a fearsome foursome, but it's the two pairs that are starting to define our group dynamics for me. It's not something I've been so sensitive to before. I mean, I've always noticed Houtarou's had a crush on Chitanda since he met her, but it's only lately that they seem to have gotten close.

I'm proud of him, and this time I can say it without reservations or private feelings of envy.

As for me, I suppose I'll probably look back in time and think my reasons for rejecting Mayaka in middle school were trivial and inconsequential, but it's hard to imagine any kind of future at all as I am. My feelings right now are what I believe to be the most important things I hold dear in my life. I'd hate to think of such strong emotions as meaningless.

It's not perfect, but it's the rose-coloured high school life I've always dreamed of, and I'm not letting it go for anything.

fin

Author's note: This story is dedicated to mayfairs. I really like her. She even happens to share the same birthday as Arthur Miller, the writer of The Crucible and Death of a Salesman. A staunch intellectual, his other claim to fame is that he was Marilyn Monroe's former husband. Strange couple, huh?