“……Hey, we are definitely going with this.” ……Or so she had declared at the end of a school day last summer.
Today is September 1st.
The morning air carried a peculiar heaviness—a sensation where the vast “freedom” of summer vacation evaporates in an instant, transmuting into the “gravity of obligation” that defines weekdays.
Through the gap in her sharply leveled, straight-cut bangs (the patsun style), Okazaki peered out with a look of profound melancholy. In front of her stood her friend, Seto, whose back was hunched as if crushed by gravity. It was likely the result of an all-consuming gaming binge. Her posture—a severe curve in her spine from extreme gaming addiction—looked like a scar carved into her body by an excessive immersion in “freedom.” To that back, which seemed to yearn for the “pure and savage freedom” of one more game, Okazaki threw out her voice, hiding both her pride and her unfinished homework.
“Did you do your homework?!”
Seto looked up with eyes like dead fish. Beneath them were faint, dark circles—the price of days spent in “free immersion.” Her fingertips trembled slightly, perhaps from gripping a mouse for too long.
“……Yeah. Homework? I finished that back in July. I knocked out my independent research and then helped you with your ‘Dissection of Freedom.’ ……Ugh. I want to play games.”
At that moment, Okazaki’s bangs twitched violently. Seto’s words shattered the “Map of Freedom” inside Okazaki’s brain.
(I researched freedom. I dissected freedom. Then how do I explain my current lack of freedom… the fact that I haven’t done my homework!?)
Inside her mind, Okazaki screamed in a vortex of panic. However, she immediately retreated into the theories derived from her “Dissection of Freedom.”
“……Wait, Seto. I should have transcended freedom by now. Therefore, in this very moment, I must be in a state of ultimate liberation, enjoying the ‘freedom to do nothing’!”
Seto’s eyes widened.
“……Huh?”
“You mean… you haven’t done it?! The independent research.”
Okazaki panicked. Yet, the more she panicked, the more her words draped themselves in academic ornamentation, gaining a veneer of hollow beauty.
“Listen! Remember the conclusion I drew! In the modern era, freedom is the ability to shut out noise and choose ‘to do nothing’ by one’s own will! Therefore, my failure to do my homework is not mere laziness. I am currently an exceedingly high-level practitioner of freedom, consciously blocking ‘social and educational noise’ to return to a state of ‘pure existential silence’!“
Okazaki affirmed herself. Her eyes glittered with a philosophical madness.
However, Seto watched her in silence for several seconds. Then, she opened her mouth with a slow, steady sense of murderous intent.
“……Oh? So, as a result of your ‘high-level practice of freedom,’ you plan to continue savoring the ‘freedom to do nothing’ even when you’re forced to stay after school today for failing to submit your homework?”
“Yes, precisely. I am, after all, a seeker of freedom.”
“Then, in order to maintain that ‘freedom’ of yours, you will settle the debt of the ‘unfree time’ I have spent until now.“
“……What?”
Okazaki faltered at the counterattack from her usually composed friend.
“Listen. This summer, I saved you from your ‘unfree situation’—the fact that you couldn’t decide on a theme—through the self-sacrifice of my own freedom under the guise of ‘friendship duty.’ I sacrificed my liberty to build the foundation for you to research freedom. ……In other words, the obligation to submit this independent research is a ‘joint responsibility’ established by my devotion.”
Seto thrust a notebook of consultation records toward Okazaki’s bangs.
“According to your own definition of ‘freedom,’ this sense of unfreedom I feel—being forced to deal with your homework—is the result of your selfish freedom. ……Therefore, as the price for maximizing your freedom, you will use your ‘free will’ to shoulder my unfreedom for me.“
“……!!”
Okazaki nearly collapsed to her knees, overwhelmed by a despair deeper than anger. Having dissected freedom, she had slammed into the massive wall of reality: that “freedom carries a cost (responsibility) that carves out the freedom of others.”
“……Fine! I’ll do it! As a responsibility toward freedom, I will finish this unfree homework using my free will in the shortest amount of time possible!!”
“……Oh, people call that ‘motivation.'” (Flatly)
And so, in the classroom at dusk, the girl who had researched freedom began to move her pen with frantic intensity. Occasionally, she would tell herself with a look of mad sincerity: ‘I am writing this by my own free will.’
On her back, the pride of having dissected the “freedom of independent research,” the “gravity of obligation” in modern society, and—most importantly—the humiliation of being logically crushed by her best friend, were all intricately intertwined.
(The End)
【Appendix: Final Independent Research Report (Additional Items)】
Item: On the Correlation Between Freedom and Responsibility
Freedom is not merely the choice to “do nothing.” Freedom is the act of bearing “responsibility” for the choices one makes.
During this research, the author attempted to enjoy the “freedom to do nothing,” but it was discovered that such an act leads to the exploitation of the freedom of others. Freedom is not something that concludes in a closed space (one’s own brain); it only exists within the context of relationships with others.
【Conclusion】
The reason I couldn’t decide on a theme for my independent research was that I was fleeing from the “responsibility of freedom.” I am now executing the “free decision” to finish my homework through tears. This is my frontier of freedom.
end of Sequel: “Since I Couldn’t Decide on a Theme for My Independent Research, I Decided to Dissect ‘Freedom’ Itself” — The Homework as the Price of Liberty —
