Episode 15: For Only the Light to Reach This Far Is Just Too Convenient.
“I-it’s been a while… I’m here with, um, my childhood friend…”
“Oh~ yeah? Me, I just broke up with my boyfriend recently, so I’m here with friends~”
Hiiragi-senpai’s face showed no particular concern about anything.
The stall lights lit her face in orange.
She was smiling.
Genuinely, just smiling. Nothing more than that.
I couldn’t even manage to feel envious.
Just — far away. That’s all it was.
Like she didn’t even remember that old stuff anymore.
…Lucky.
That’s what it must be like, on her side.
Her voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away.
Stall vendors calling out, someone’s laughter, the sound of drum practice in the distance.
All sounds I should know. And yet.
Huh.
Something about my breathing…
All at once, I couldn’t hold onto the shape of things anymore.
My head swayed, unsteady.
The ground looked slightly warped.
Somewhere, I thought I heard a voice.
Low. Muffled. Something like laughter.
No, wait. That’s not it.
That was more like—
The smell from that day came rushing back to the back of my nose, all at once.
Behind the gymnasium.
Someone’s sweat.
A sweet, sharp smell.
A smell I didn’t know.
◇◆◇◆◇
A glass bottle.
Someone’s laughter.
Low. Muffled. Laughter.
Middle school.
Right before a basketball tournament.
The back room of the inn at our away-game lodging.
I’d sort of known, somehow, that I shouldn’t go.
But a senpai had called for me.
It wasn’t the kind of atmosphere where saying no was an option.
Huh.
What was that.
Alcohol…?
The instant I understood, the pit of my stomach went cold.
“S-senpai…?! Wh-what are you…!”
My voice shook.
My legs tangled under me as I tried to stand.
The next day.
The coach’s low voice.
The cold of the gymnasium floor.
The hardness pressing into my knees, kneeling formally.
The whole team’s eyes on me.
Suspended from competition.
Only those words echoed at the back of my ears.
Suspended. From competition.
“You’re the one who said something, right?”
Someone’s voice.
I remember it.
“Th-that’s not true…! I never…!”
I remember.
I can’t remember the face.
But the voice. Just the voice.
I didn’t do it.
I didn’t do it.
I never said anything.
The words froze partway up my throat.
Nobody listened to me.
Nobody.
Nobody?
The gymnasium door.
The evening light, the moment I pushed it open and stepped outside.
That light still flickers at the back of my eyes, even now, for some reason.
I couldn’t stay there anymore.
I couldn’t breathe.
I quit.
Even though it should’ve been their fault.
It’s your fault.
Your fault.
Your — fault—
Just those words.
Even now.
Spinning around and around in my head.
But, was that really—
Was that really what this was?
I don’t know.
I don’t want to know.
Round and round.
Round and round and round…
◇◆◇◆◇
“Hey, Yotsuka. Are you okay? You look pale…”
The voice sounded close by.
But far.
It kept sounding like it was coming from somewhere far away.
“Ah, Maki…? S-sorry. Just a little…”
The words wouldn’t come out to the end.
Something in the back of my throat had seized up, narrowing the path for air.
By the time I noticed, my legs were already moving.
I was running.
Behind me, I thought I faintly heard Makina’s voice — “—Yotsuka?”
Stall lights streamed past on either side, one after another.
People’s faces blurred, unrecognizable.
I just—
I wanted distance.
From here.
From that smile.
From that smell.
From that voice.
◇◆◇◆◇
A little way from the festival grounds, at an empty stretch of steps where no one else was around.
I’d sat myself down there.
My breath wouldn’t come in properly.
No matter how much I inhaled, it kept stopping somewhere shallow in my lungs.
My hands were shaking.
My fingertips were cold.
My heart was making a strange sound.
Not the familiar, sweet kind of pounding I get in front of the girl I love.
Something more irregular, colder, a sick kind of unease.
The edges of my vision flickered white…
“Yotsuka!”
Makina’s voice, getting closer.
“Yotsuka, where… ah, there you are.”
Out of breath, Makina ran up to me.
Still hugging the cat plush in her arms.
“Are you okay? You’re completely white.”
“…I-I’m fine.”
My voice was shaking.
It sounded like it wasn’t even mine anymore.
“Guess it really was a good thing I didn’t wear a yukata after all, huh.”
She said it lightly, joking, but her eyes were properly, steadily looking right at me.
“…Sorry, I, um, that, that…”
The words wouldn’t connect properly.
I didn’t know where to start.
No.
More than that — could I even say it at all?
“Yotsuka.”
“…!”
Makina wrapped her arms around me, plush and all.
The thing she’d been holding so carefully because it looked like my face was now pressed flat between us, squeezed tight along with me.
Held tightly, firmly.
In that warmth, I realized I was still shaking.
The breath that had been stuck shallow in my lungs finally started sinking a little deeper.
“…Ehe. Today it’s my turn to be the one holding you.”
Makina said it quietly.
The instant she said it, something inside me broke.
The tears wouldn’t stop.
“Uh— uh, ah…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. Okay?”
Makina just gently stroked my back.
Asking nothing.
Pressing for nothing.
Just—
She stayed there.
It was the same back then, too.
That day, in middle school.
Back when I couldn’t say a single word to anyone, Makina had stayed right beside me, wearing her usual face, asking nothing, just there.
There are so many things I love about her.
But this — this part of her, too.
I love this about you, Makina.
From somewhere far off, a sound echoed.
The fireworks must have started.
A low boom, and the night sky briefly lit up.
We couldn’t see it from here.
But the light reached us anyway, faint and thin.
We just sat there, listening to that sound, for a long, long time.