But this quality was apparently not just mine. If I paid attention to other people, I often thought that a certain person was simply responding to those around them. We kept responding back and forth in our community, turned ourselves into a character, and started behaving according to that character. I began to think that maybe nobody had such a thing as a real self.
Whenever I did something that was liked and praised, that part of me would develop, while if anyone said to me “That’s not like you,” I’d shed that part. As a result, the outline of myself was not mine at all.
"Prez, you’re drunk, aren’t you? Get some sleep,” she said.
“Okay . . .”
“Who’s talking now? Prez? Or Princess? Or Haruo?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Really? Even you don’t know?”
“I just respond, that’s all. Whoever the person I’m with thinks I am, everything else follows accordingly. I’m not the one who decides who I am. . .”
There’s nothing I want more than for time to be a physical thing, something I can split into two with my own hands, so I can turn it around, shatter it, undo all the consequences.