▸ Column · Konohagakure (the Hidden Leaf Village), modern grounded comic era
JIRAIYA replies.
Replied to by Jiraiya, with a rebuttal from Orochimaru.
The letter
I ended things with Kaito in March. We'd been together four years. By April I had three dating apps downloaded and was going on like four dates a week just to give my brain somewhere to be. It sort of worked — or I thought it did. Now I'm exclusive with this guy Sota. He's really sweet, honestly. He brings me coffee at the office, he remembered my dog's birthday (which, I'd forgotten to even tell him about it, so). But last weekend I had this realization that I picked him mostly because he's the opposite of Kaito in basically every way. And when Sota told me he's falling for me, I panicked. Which would be unsettling enough on its own, except two days before that I'd cried in the convenience store because Kaito's song came on. Over instant ramen. Am I leading Sota on? Or is this just what getting over someone actually looks like? I'm kind of terrified that I turned a genuinely good person into a human Band-Aid.
— Confused in Konohagakure
Jiraiya replies
Crying over instant ramen when the wrong song comes on. I'll have you know I wrote an entire chapter around exactly that scene — volume three, if you're curious, though the circumstances were slightly more romantically intentional. Research. Obviously.
All right, putting the act down.
Here's what I know about grief after a long time studying it and living it: it doesn't file a schedule. You can be completely fine for weeks, and then eight bars of the wrong song in the right aisle reduce you to rubble. That moment in the convenience store was not a verdict on Sota. It was your heart doing the slow, inconvenient work it has to do regardless of what you've signed up for in the meantime.
The Band-Aid question. Whether you're using him comes down almost entirely to what you do next. A person becomes a tool when you let them invest in a story that isn't true. But grieving while also developing real feelings? Those two things live in the same body at the same time — that's not a contradiction, that's just being human.
I had someone in my life spend years trying to outrun grief. She was very good at it. When she finally stopped running, the grief was still there — and so was she. Both at once. That's the whole lesson, and it turns out you can build something real in the same life where the grief is still working.
Your discomfort about Sota not knowing where you actually are? That's your conscience doing its job, kid. People who don't care about someone don't worry about this. The fact that you're asking means you're still in it.
— Jiraiya
Orochimaru weighs in
Kukukuku. Jiraiya tells you to confess your messiness to Sota, which is sweet and almost entirely useless. What he calls your conscience, I recognize as guilt — and guilt, my dear, serves the one who feels it, not the one you're claiming to protect.
The interesting question is not whether you used him. The interesting question is whether Sota, evaluated on his own merits, stripped entirely of "he is not Kaito," is actually what you want. That is the only variable that matters now.
I shed every attachment in pursuit of perfect clarity. I will not pretend it cost me nothing. I mention this only so you understand: clarity of that kind is available to you. I leave the price list where you can read it.
— Orochimaru
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