Do I really have a thing for female voice actors?

……

……

There's nothing wrong with welfare homes.

There are many children here who are like Toru Tazaki; some are blind, and some are born with disabilities.

In comparison, Toru Tazaki at least looks normal.

He seems to have a likable face.

Whenever a family wants to adopt a child, Toru Tazaki always manages to steal their attention immediately.

But in the end, he was always the one left behind.

As he grew older, and with his parents' prolonged absence, he gradually came to understand what abandonment meant.

When something happens repeatedly, even a fool, an idiot, or a mentally challenged person should understand.

Moreover, Toru Tazaki is not a fool, not an idiot, and certainly not mentally challenged.

Even in his small, thin body, a heart was beating.

Perhaps no one in the facility knows, not even the director, but Tazaki Toru actually really likes this place.

There's no one here wielding those dreadful baseball bats, and no arguing noises.

Aside from the fact that every now and then, a family would take a liking to him and then feel disappointed and sympathetic, and then face a separation from him forever.

The only thing he could never get used to was being abandoned.

He always carried around a broken guitar that others didn't want, his twisted and inflexible fingers plucking at the strings. The sound of the metal strings hitting the cheap wooden boards was the sound of his silent world.

The only voice.

……

……

One day, nine months after enrolling.

I learned that my father had remarried, and the other woman seemed to be his first love.

Surprisingly, it didn't stir up much emotion in me.

I silently prayed for the child unborn in my stepmother's womb, hoping he wouldn't become a disobedient and bad child like his older brother.

Is it because I was born with a heart indifferent to family ties?

I don't think so.

Perhaps in my father's eyes, I never fulfilled my responsibilities as a child, while he invested a lot of money and care in me.

This is true.

Perhaps he wondered why his first child was such a freak.

He said, "Everything you have is given to you by me."

Then let's give it back to him.

My arrogance is truly ingrained in my bones.

It may be related to the environment, but I'm more inclined to believe that I was born this way.

But I still can't bring myself to give everything back to him.

At least, not with this life.

These are the only two things my mother left me.

Cut open this half-life.

Music is everything to me.

……

……

Overall, Toru Tazaki's experience wasn't too bad.

At least we haven't reached the point of despair yet.

He grew up smoothly and developed a certain level of self-awareness.

Most importantly, he learned how to say no.

Retreat, shake your head, run away.

This is the only way he has finally learned to socialize over the past ten years.

With the dean's introduction, Toru Tazaki got a job at a bread factory.

What others might perceive as a monotonous assembly line life, Toru Tazaki finds immense joy in.

The constraints of the body could not prevent his spirit from soaring freely in his mind.

I pieced together the scattered symbols and drew them all in a notebook after I got home.

Yes.

He now has a home that belongs only to him.

The only thing he didn't like was that he wished he could work in a guitar-related field.

That would be a hundred times, a thousand times happier than working in a bakery.

……

……

After dropping out of school.

I bid farewell to my alma mater.

He became a child laborer wandering the streets of London, doing many different jobs, and it was common for him not to receive wages.

Fortunately, I am not easily discouraged. I like to work hard, and I also like people who work hard.

In his spare time, he would perform on the streets.

A 14-year-old Asian boy earned more money playing the piano on the streets of London than washing dishes.

I've also encountered people who wanted to package me.

I refused them all.

I chose to join the most prestigious musical theatre company in the area because, as a minor, I couldn't stay in London for long after being cut off from my family.

The troupe leader was willing to be my guarantor.

In the years that followed, I toured the world with the troupe.

This period had a profound impact on my life, and I gradually developed a sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo.

After I grew up, I left the theater troupe alone and traveled through Europe, visiting Rio, Vienna, Strasbourg...

I've encountered all sorts of people and all kinds of music.

I think, this time...

My arrogance finally paid off this time.

……

……

The repetitive assembly line work didn't seem to bring Tazaki Toru much fatigue.

The night shift ends, and dawn breaks.

Tazaki Toru took the train home, his long hair falling over his forehead, becoming a barrier that isolated him from the outside world.

After returning to his rented apartment, a young girl came down from upstairs. Tazaki Toru quickly stepped aside and retreated five or six meters.

Only after the girl had gone far away did he hunch over and slowly climb the stairs.

An elderly man with gray hair stood outside, seemingly having been waiting for a long time; he was the director of the welfare home.

Tazaki Toru quietly opened the door and went inside with the director.

“A few days ago, someone claiming to be your parents came to our door and contacted us.”

Tazaki Toru seemed oblivious, simply lying on the coffee table, scribbles furiously on the paper as if he wanted to pierce the tabletop with the pen tip.

"They are now in a position to take good care of you."

"Would you be willing to go back with them?"

Tazaki Toru abruptly dropped his notebook and pen, rubbed his knees against the floor, and kept moving backward, shaking his head as he retreated to a corner, tightly clutching his spotless guitar, trembling.

The dean couldn't help but sigh.

He respected Tazaki Toru's wishes and left quietly.

After the dean left, Tazaki Toru stood in a daze for a long time before picking up his pen and paper again and continuing to write words that no one could understand.

……

……

I raised my face and listened to the thunderous, synchronized applause.

The statues of the goddess of music on either side seemed to be watching me as well.

The dazzling chandeliers hanging from the flat-paneled ceiling of Vienna's Golden Hall reminded me of the sunroom in my garden.

The direct sunlight was just as dazzling.

I should have felt excited, but deep down, a question arose in my mind.

When I was young, I encountered all sorts of passersby on the streets of London. What was the most fundamental difference between them and the audience members in suits and tuxedos at the Golden Hall?

For a moment, I couldn't find a single word that matched it.

……

……