Episode 35: I Think I’ll Call It Done.

A few days later.
The returned report card, wretched and undeniable, was the answer key to my own life.

“Yamami-san. …This term’s finals — what happened? These numbers really aren’t like you.”

The career guidance room, after school.
Spread out in the teacher’s hands: scores the likes of which I had never once received in my life.

…Of course.
Recently, even when I sat at my desk, even when I had a test sheet in front of me, I had stopped being able to follow the words on the page at all.

“I’ve been watching how hard you’ve worked to keep your grades up since first year, and I think I understand something of what that’s taken…”

The teacher’s quiet voice needled into the depths of my chest, one small prick at a time.

“…You’ve been spending a lot of time with Asahina-san and her friends lately, haven’t you.”
“…Yes.”
“I don’t want you to misread me — I’m not saying Asahina-san is a bad student. But the two of you are… well. Different, aren’t you?”
“Oh…”
“I don’t want to see everything you’ve worked for undone by something like this.”

Different…?

Yes. I’d always known that, hadn’t I.

But I thought it wasn’t quite like that, it was more…

I looked up from where I’d been staring at the floor, and the teacher’s gaze was painful to meet.

“…Yes. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure to do better from now on.”

It was all I could manage, in a voice barely there.

◇◆◇◆◇

The career guidance session over, I stepped out into the corridor on heavy feet.
The ground felt treacherous beneath me.

“Good work, Maya. That took a while.”

Hiyori was leaning against the cold corridor wall, and looked up with her usual smile the moment she spotted me, lacing her fingers through mine.

“Ah… Hiyori.”

Hiyori’s fingertips were cold as ice.
But the moment I touched her skin, the words that had been said, and whatever I was afraid of — I felt them quietly, slowly dissolve.

After that, for several days.
Hiyori was entirely, perfectly her usual self.

Still clinging to my daily life as she always had, painting me over with a heat I could barely breathe through.

But the last day came, cold and sudden, on the back of a cold rain.

◇◆◇◆◇

After school on a rainy day.
A short message came from Hiyori: “Come to the back gate for a sec.”
Not the discipline room, not her apartment — an oddly unnatural summons.
I went with my umbrella, and there was Hiyori, standing alone by the little-used back gate, not bothering to get out of the rain.

“Hiyori—? What are you doing out here, come on—!”

I hurried over and pulled her in under my umbrella, and without meeting my eyes, Hiyori opened her mouth.

“…The teacher’s conversation. In the career guidance room the other day.”
“Hm?”
“I heard all of it.”

A coldness — not the rain — dropped down my spine.

“Ah… Hiyori, look, the teacher wasn’t saying anything bad about you—”
“She was, though. I’ve been making your grades drop.”
“That’s not — I don’t think of it like—”
“It is. Why are you even defending me? Doesn’t that seem strange?”

Her voice was low, and cold, and cut through the rain like a blade.
Hiyori turned to look at me slowly, and in her eyes there was not a trace of the heat that had always been melting me.

“…I think I’ll call it done.”
“…What?”

For a moment I couldn’t understand what she’d said.

“Like I told you at the start — I was just curious about what it was like, between girls. Kissing, the deeper stuff, trying different things… so I think I’m good now.”

The rain was loud, but my ears were straining desperately to catch only Hiyori’s voice.

“…Why — it was supposed to be until Christmas Eve—? Look, there’s still a month—”
“No. It was if I’m satisfied by Christmas Eve. I’m already satisfied.”

The end of Yuri Girlfriends was declared.
Is blackmail really something that ends this easily, this suddenly?

“The perfume too. You don’t have to wear it anymore.”
“…!”

Hiyori took out her phone and turned the screen to face me.

“Look. I’m deleting the video.”

A rough series of taps.

Delete.
Trash.
Empty.

And just like that, the one and only thing that had been holding me down — the single greatest threat — became digital dust and vanished completely.

“Right, so the committee chair is officially a free woman. Congratulations~”
“That’s — so sudden—”
“…Let’s go back to how we were before? A well-behaved discipline committee chair and the problem student she has to manage. That suited us, didn’t it.”
“W-wait, Hiyori—!”

I didn’t understand. I should have been free, and yet my hand was reaching out without my permission, trying to catch the sleeve of Hiyori’s uniform.
Clinging desperately to the sweet musk smell that had tormented me all this time.
But Hiyori shook my hand off, cold, and stepped out into the rain.

“Bye. …Thank you, Maya.”

A retreating back.
Hair, growing wet.
She didn’t look back once.

I stood under my umbrella, staring at my own empty outstretched hand, unable to move.
By the time I noticed, only the sound of cold rain had come back to fill my ears.

◇◆◇◆◇

The video was gone. The blackmail was over.
No more being ambushed in the discipline room after school. No more weekends invaded.

I came to school in my neatly ironed blouse, not one thing out of place, the discipline committee chair as she should be.

I walked into the classroom and sat at my desk.
I glanced toward the window seat, and there was Hiyori, laughing with her friends.
When our eyes met, Hiyori gave me the kind of empty, polite smile you’d offer any classmate, and looked away immediately.

…Oh.

It’s really over. Truly.

I opened my textbook quietly.
I’m free.
From now on I can concentrate on studying again.
A proper, normal school life with nothing wrong — that’s what’s waiting for me.

I’ve been released.
The video is gone, and I can go back to being the honour student I was.

And yet.

Without thinking, I drew in a deep breath —
and realised in that instant that the sweet musk smell wasn’t there.

At that moment.

The words I’d been reading blurred and warped before my eyes.

(…hm?)

A gust of cold air — hollow, abrupt — blew through somewhere near my heart.