Episode 37: I Can’t Be Glad About This.
The second-term closing ceremony was on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve — which until recently had held an entirely different meaning.
Invited by Sasaki-san, I was walking along the illuminated street in front of the station.
Couples passing by, groups of students laughing together.
Through the noise, on the far side of a pedestrian crossing, I spotted a familiar figure.
Hiyori.
Waiting for someone?
Standing there with her eyes on her phone, looking faintly bored — flashy as she always was, and yet dissolving into the scenery like any other high school girl.
The light turned green.
Without looking up, Hiyori passed me by, and vanished into the crowd.
Our eyes didn’t meet. Not even once.
It’s really over.
“Senpai, the tree is beautiful, isn’t it!”
The voice of Sasaki-san laughing brightly beside me sounded, for some reason, very far away.
◇◆◇◆◇
After that, the winter break was the picture of an ordinary life.
Cram school. The train home.
Open my phone, and Sasaki-san’s notifications were there without fail, one after another.
The new year came, and the two of us went to the first shrine visit together.
“I prayed that I’d be able to go to the same university as senpai! Oh, I’ll work hard at studying too, of course?”
“Well… I haven’t even decided where I’m applying yet.”
To her, clutching her fortune slip and smiling bashfully, I kept giving back only gentle answers.
◇◆◇◆◇
And then, the last day of winter break — January 6th.
The two of us had come to the large seafront park with the Ferris wheel.
The sea wind was cold.
The enormous steel frame rising into a winter sky.
The memory of that day — sealed inside a gondola, taken apart with that sweet smell — surfaced in my mind without warning.
The sun was beginning to set.
We sat side by side on a bench in the plaza under the Ferris wheel’s long shadow, and Sasaki-san glanced over at me.
“That Ferris wheel is huge, isn’t it. …Have you ever ridden it, senpai?”
“…No. I don’t think so.”
A lie slid out, smooth and effortless.
“Then we should ride it together sometime!”
I shoved both hands into my coat pockets, pressing something down.
“…Um, Yamami-senpai. School starts again tomorrow, and I wanted to say this properly, today.”
Suddenly the Sasaki-san beside me turned her body to face me.
“Thank you for spending the winter break with me. I was so happy. Every time you smiled… I thought, oh, she’s coming back to herself, little by little.”
“Sasaki-san…”
“So… if you’d like, I was wondering…”
In the cold wind, the colour rose in her cheeks.
She drew my right hand from my pocket, and her two hands wrapped around it, gently, carefully.
Again.
Even through gloves, a pure, warm body heat.
“I want to be with you more. …That kind of meaning.”
Her voice cracked with how much she meant it.
“The hurt that was done to you, and… the frightening memories… all of it, I’ll overwrite it… I won’t ever let anything like that happen to you again…!”
Unclouded eyes, looking straight at me.
She’s trying to save me.
If I held on to these warm hands, I could probably go back, I really could.
Sasaki-san leaned slowly toward me on the bench.
Chu.
Cold lips met mine.
Gentle. Soft. A kiss like touching something breakable.
The pure, human warmth of someone handling something precious.
The taste of sweet lip balm.
Just a kiss.
— Different.
“…I’m sorry—!”
I jerked my face away on pure reflex, shook her hand free, and was on my feet off the bench before I understood what I’d done.
“Senpai…?”
Sasaki-san, pushed away, looked back and forth between her own empty hand and me, her wide eyes trembling.
“Sorry, I… I—”
I covered my mouth with both hands and stepped back.
It was such a gentle kiss.
And yet every part of my body was refusing it.
I knew I was hurting her. And yet.
No matter what, I couldn’t accept it.
The cruelty of my own reaction horrified me more than anything.
“I’m sorry, senpai… I was too sudden… I’m so sorry…”
Left on the bench, Sasaki-san’s voice shook with hurt.
“No, I’m sorry — Sasaki-san hasn’t done anything wrong, I’m the one who’s strange—”
“…Is it that you’re still frightened? After everything that was done to you… being touched at all, like a trauma response…”
Sasaki-san rose, her face anguished.
“I’m so sorry, I rushed… I just wanted you to know how I feel today…”
“Sasaki-san, I’m really sorry, it’s not that—”
Different.
It’s not trauma.
Watching me hedge and back away, Sasaki-san’s eyes spilled a single large tear.
“…I see. I understand.”
“What—”
“…Even after everything Asahina-senpai did — forcing you, all those awful things—!”
Her anguished cry rang through the winter park.
“Using a video to blackmail you — doing all those things to you—!”
“Stop, Sasaki-san… please don’t say it—”
“I would never hurt you — I would treasure you more than anyone—! So why, Yamami-senpai—!”
Tears spilling and spilling, she reached toward me, desperate.
Different.
Different, different, different.
Why? How?
Sasaki-san has done nothing wrong.
Kind. Warm. Genuinely trying to treasure me with her whole heart.
But.
I can’t be glad about this.
Why, why, why can I not —
My head was spiralling in panic, and I couldn’t find what was right anymore.
I only shook my head.
“…I’m sorry.”
That was all I could wring out. I turned on my heel.
“Senpai—! Yamami-senpai—!!”
Her voice, crying out, chasing after me from behind.
I didn’t look back. Running out from under the shadow of the Ferris wheel, just running, without thinking.
The cold winter wind cut at my cheeks.
I ran until I couldn’t breathe.