Chapter 667

After Natsume Chikage greeted her politely, he habitually reached into his pocket, preparing to take out his phone to use this commute time to write.

And just at this moment.

Yukimura Suzune beside him, seeing his action out of the corner of her eye, coughed lightly, almost inaudibly.

Natsume Chikage paused and turned to look at her with some confusion:

"Hmm? Yukimura-san, do you have a cold?"

A very faint blush flashed across Yukimura Suzune's jade-like fair cheeks.

But she quickly suppressed the abnormality, pretending nothing had happened, and denied it in a flat tone:

"No."

She immediately changed the topic stiffly, but her gaze drifted slightly elsewhere.

"By the way, I remember... weren't you reading that copy of 'Cicada Shower' I lent you before? Now... how is it going?"

Natsume Chikage recalled and answered with a smile:

"I just finished it last night."

Hearing this, Yukimura Suzune's long eyelashes trembled slightly.

She raised her head, and in those eyes that always seemed cold and distant, the reflection of Natsume Chikage was now clearly visible, carrying a trace of subtle expectation that even she herself hadn't noticed.

"Can you... tell me your thoughts after reading it?"

Her voice was a little lower than before.

Natsume Chikage thought for a moment, his gaze cast toward the flowing city morning scenery outside the train window, his voice steady and clear:

"In 'Cicada Shower', that boy who always wanders alone along the Kamakura coastline..."

"When you described him burying the cicada corpse by the abandoned train tracks, you specifically mentioned that he stuffed a keepsake he took from his mother—an old glass bead—into the crevice of the rusty tracks."

"On the surface, that bead is the boy's repentance for his mother's suicide. But the recurring imagery of the Enoden train, every time the wheels roll over the tracks, it's like simulating the farewell he couldn't say—not a farewell to his mother, but a farewell to a 'normal' life."

"The most intriguing part is the fireworks festival in Chapter 7." Natsume Chikage continued, "When everyone was looking up at the fireworks, the boy was squatting under the dim embankment, staring at a cicada that had been trampled to the point of dying by the crowd."

"When the protagonist picked up the cicada and handed it to him, the boy smiled—that was the only time he smiled in the whole book."

His voice lowered a bit, carrying a probing meaning.

"At first, I thought that smile was because he found a kindred spirit: equally ignored, equally silently heading toward the end in the hustle and bustle."

"But if you look at the story backward..."

Natsume Chikage paused, his gaze becoming deep.

"If that cicada is not a 'kindred spirit', but a 'mirror'?"

"What the boy saw was himself being trampled. He smiled, not because he found comfort, but because he accepted his fate—so the ending of being alive is like this, being crushed by invisible things, unable to even make a cry."

"And that glass bead thrown into the sea," he continued, "if it wasn't 'thrown into' the sea, but 'sank into' the sea?"

"The surface of the text writes that the boy walked out of the sea and walked toward the crowd. But all the descriptions carry a kind of unreal lightness—too clean, too much like the 'ending that should be'."

He looked at Yukimura Suzune, his tone gentle yet firm.

"So I was thinking, perhaps the real story is hidden in reverse reading."

"The boy didn't walk toward the crowd, but walked into the sea."

"When he picked up the cicada, it wasn't relief, but confirmation of his own ending."

"As for his mother..." Natsume Chikage's voice was even lower, "The book only says 'suicide'. But if the boy believes deep down that his mother's death was not liberation but escape—escaping the fate of being trampled like a cicada, then his 'repentance', could it be that he regrets he hasn't been able to 'escape' yet?"

"The whole story backward is a process of a boy gradually recognizing that he has nowhere to escape. The surface healing ending, instead, became the cruelest irony—because hope itself became another kind of despair."

Yukimura Suzune's pupils dilated uncontrollably when she heard the last few sentences.

She felt her throat tighten, and her heart accelerated uncontrollably in her chest.

He... actually noticed.

That was the cold core she buried under her beautiful words, which even many deep book reviewers on the internet, and even some professional readers, hadn't truly touched.

She didn't leave any direct hints in the text, and even the subtle metaphors were deliberately faded to almost non-existent.

As long as you don't try to deduce backward from the ending, and don't thoroughly "reverse" interpret every seemingly "positive" thought and behavior of the protagonist, it is impossible to touch the dark core of this story.

He... isn't his grades at the bottom? Clearly, he doesn't seem to care about his studies...

Why couldn't those people whose grades were better than his and whose thinking was recognized as agile see it?

Why didn't so many people who interpreted her work touch it?

Why... was it him?

Why... only he seemed to understand the real ending hidden behind the story?

Also at this moment.

The broadcast sound of the train arriving at the next station sounded mechanically.

The train door opened, and the crowd surged in and out like a tide, bringing brief noise and flow.

But Yukimura Suzune's gaze seemed to pierce through all the flowing images, only firmly and focusedly fixed on the side profile of this teenager beside her.

After Natsume Chikage finished his interpretation, he seemed to realize that this might be too "unorthodox."

He smiled, his tone softening:

"However, it might just be my personal over-interpretation."

"As the saying goes, 'there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand readers' eyes'. I think this interpretation is quite interesting... you, the author, won't mind me interpreting it this way, right?"

Yukimura Suzune paused.

In those cold eyes, some kind of hard-to-suppress excitement and joy were clearly flashing at this moment.

She endured the heart that was beating violently in her chest, almost jumping out of her throat, and subconsciously raised her hand to gently tuck a strand of black long straight hair falling by her face behind her fair ear.

She tried hard to maintain her surface calmness, but her voice was a point softer than usual:

"Well... this interpretation angle... is still okay."

"It can be considered... a bit interesting."

She seemed to feel that her evaluation was too "enthusiastic," paused, and quickly added in a colder tone, and deliberately cleared her throat:

"I'll give you... 9 points."

"Out of 100... don't misunderstand."

Natsume Chikage couldn't help but laugh:

"So low?"

He secretly thought that Yukimura Suzune's equally intelligent good friend Saionji Nanase would probably give a much higher score than his "over-interpreted" version, right?

After all, his understanding, when thought about carefully, is indeed a bit off the beaten path.

There are almost no clear hints in the text, and the story narrated according to the surface of the words might be the more "normal" interpretation.

Yukimura Suzune's cold cheeks flushed again.

She didn't dare to say that other people's interpretations in her heart didn't even reach the passing line of 5 points.

School.

The cherry blossom path leading to the main building.

The blooming season had long passed, and most of the cherry blossoms on the branches had withered, looking a bit sparse.

Only sporadic, late-falling petals were still spinning in the breeze, falling reluctantly.

Natsume Chikage and Yukimura Suzune walked side by side on the path covered with shallow petals.

Yukimura Suzune walked silently, but she already had a plan in her heart.

When her novel, which she truly poured her heart into and hasn't been published yet, comes out in the future, she must stuff it to him to read.

After all, this interpretation of "Cicada Shower" might just be a flash of inspiration by chance...

But if, even the deeper and more obscure metaphors in that book, he can also notice...

Just as her thoughts drifted away.

From the direction of the art building on the right side of the school, a melodious orchestral ensemble sound suddenly came.

Natsume Chikage and Yukimura Suzune beside him couldn't help but stop and turn to look at the source of the sound.

I saw outside that bright music classroom on the first floor on the right, the members of the orchestral club, just like at the opening ceremony, were conducting morning practice.

Obviously, there will be a group performance soon.

And among those focused playing figures, Natsume Chikage saw Tsukishima Rin at a glance.

She sat elegantly at the position of the concertmaster of the violin, her posture graceful and her expression focused.

The violin bow seemed to have life in her hands, and what flowed out was not just notes, but a calm and powerful aura that led the entire section.

It also happened at this moment.