“You’ve tried deliberately fitting in before, haven’t you?”
“I have. But afterward, the atmosphere in the group would turn strange every so often. They’d always pick someone to exclude. I joined the others in excluding people too, and then it was my turn. When does something like that ever end?”
“It doesn’t.” Yukinoshita answered her directly. “What’s happening now will keep happening in the future.”
“I see…”
Rumi Tsurumi seemed a little downcast when she heard that.
“The formation of a group is, in essence, a dynamic dialectical process.”
“The thesis is the individual’s independence and uniqueness. The antithesis is the desire to fit into the group, and the pressure to conform. And what people usually call the ‘synthesis’…” She paused slightly. “More often than not, it is the partial dissolution of that uniqueness in exchange for the temporary satisfaction of belonging.”
Tsurumi’s eyelashes trembled faintly. This went beyond the same old comfort adults always offered. It cut straight into the core of what she had long been observing.
“You saw very early on how this ‘antithesis’ negates the ‘thesis.’ You saw the price that has to be paid in order to fit in—hiding what you really like, going along with boring topics, even taking part in excluding someone weaker. You rejected that negation and chose to remain at the stage of the ‘thesis.’ That isn’t weakness. It’s a kind of… clear-eyed refusal.”
Tsurumi’s hands tightened slightly on her knees. No one had ever described her situation with such precision before. It was not sympathy, not persuasion, but calm… understanding.
“But,” Tadayana’s voice flowed like a cold spring, washing the dust from her thoughts, “remaining in a pure ‘thesis’ and refusing to be negated by the ‘antithesis’ can itself become a deadlock. Absolute isolation is also a closing off of possibilities.”
This time, Tsurumi raised her head. Those clear yet distant eyes looked straight at Tadayana as she asked the question she had been thinking about all along. “Then where is the real ‘synthesis’? How do you avoid being assimilated without being isolated?”
The corner of Tadayana’s lips curved into the faintest, knowing smile.
“You found the answer to that question yourself from the very beginning, and you already asked us about it.”
“Perhaps it lies in realizing that ‘loneliness’ and ‘connection’ are not absolute opposites. Like shadow and light, they depend on each other.” Her gaze swept over Yukinoshita’s cool back, Hikigaya’s lazy figure, and finally returned to Tsurumi. “There exists a possibility: maintaining your complete uniqueness while, in that unique form, finding people or a ‘field’ that can understand, even appreciate, that uniqueness. That is no longer fitting in. It is… selective resonance.”
“And besides, you’ve already found us, haven’t you? We are your future selves, and we’ve managed to become outstanding among our peers. Our existence proves one thing to you: even if you keep your own style, society still won’t abandon you. The only person who can abandon you is yourself.”
Tadayana paused, then gave her final dialectical view. “So loneliness itself is not the goal, nor is it a curse. It is a temporary state, a ‘state’ that allows you to preserve yourself and think deeply.”
“And true growth does not lie in simply negating it—running toward the group—nor in stubbornly clinging to it—rejecting everything. It lies in taking your complete self as the foundation and actively seeking the antithesis that can lead you into a higher synthesis. Perhaps that is someone who understands you. Perhaps it is something you can pour your passion into. When that time comes, you will still be yourself, while also forming a deep connection with the wider world.”
Tsurumi fell fully into thought. Tadayana had not given her a simple answer like “go make friends with people like you” or “just stay alone and keep being yourself.” Instead, she had laid out before her a complex dialectical picture of the relationship between the self and the world.
At last, she understood. Her loneliness was not the end point. It was a stage, a starting point from which she could move toward a richer way of existing through clear awareness and her own choices.
The dinner whistle sounded, and Tsurumi stood up. This time, her steps seemed a little less heavy. In those eyes, which had seemed somewhat lost and helpless before, there was now, besides their original clarity, an added glimmer of thought toward “possibility.”
She looked at Tadayana and gave a small nod. It was not thanks. It was more like… a salute between thinkers.
Tadayana returned the same look. She knew that for a child like Tsurumi, real help was not giving her a warm hug, but offering her a clearer set of lenses so she could see more thoroughly where she and the world stood. That was precisely where the power of dialectics lay.
“Looks like she chose me. Which means there’s no need to trouble all of you with any complicated performances.”
Tadayana spoke in an apologetic manner.
“Uh—you already said everything, so yeah, there really isn’t anything left for us to do. Is there anyone here who can beat you when it comes to making grand pronouncements like that?”
Hikigaya broke into a cold sweat.
“I thought it was pretty good. How was my lofty theory?”
Tadayana asked Yukinoshita beside her.
“Probably because you were saying that seemingly profound line of reasoning to an elementary schooler who would have trouble even understanding thesis and antithesis. Do you expect a child with no social experience whatsoever to understand it and then put it into practice to the same degree as you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then it does sound like you’re preaching lofty theory. If she can’t learn it, then it’s the same as not learning it.”
“Wha—”
“Isn’t this what you taught me? Learn it, then apply it.”
“Fine—I was wrong. In that case, what do you think my odds of success are if I go grab that child right now, kneel down, and beg, ‘Please, be my friend’?”
“Don’t embarrass yourself. Be serious.”
“Whew—Ta-chan, when you were saying all that just now, you were so serious. Every time Ta-chan talks about these things, I always feel like I can’t breathe while listening. But Ta-chan like that is really cool.”
Yuigahama let out a breath, unable to quite understand Tadayana’s occasional depth.
She did not really understand how Tadayana could become so utterly absorbed the moment she started talking about dialectics, almost like she had turned into a different person. Could being too absorbed in something really change a person that much?
“Wha—”
Tadayana sank.
Today, she was having a day of being disliked.
“All right, all right. Let’s hurry up and go eat too.”
“Yeah, unless you want me to tell other people what you just said to an elementary schooler.”
“I get it, I get it.”
This is a fan translation of 转生白毛的我开局被雪之下拒绝告白 by 暗影之中 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!
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