Episode 16: Unable to Reach Their Backs (Ia’s POV)
The lanterns of the summer festival blur faintly in the distance.
Even the noisy chatter, the drumbeats — all of it feels somehow far away.
Like I’m the only one standing just outside the circle.
When Yotsuka and Makina invited me to come along, I turned them down, honestly — I had my favorite streamer’s live broadcast that day.
But sitting around at home doing nothing, I got restless somehow.
…Well, showing my face for a bit wouldn’t hurt.
I came out to the festival grounds without really thinking much of it, but there were way too many people, and I couldn’t find the two of them anywhere.
Walking along, glancing between my phone screen and the crowd.
Ah.
Found them.
A little ways into the crowd, near the line for the shaved ice stand, there were Yotsuka and Makina.
Let’s go join them — I’d just started to move when I stopped, without meaning to.
There was someone else standing in front of them.
A face that looked somehow familiar.
…A face I knew.
Hiiragi-senpai.
Even from a distance, I could tell — Yotsuka’s back had gone the tiniest bit rigid.
Why is she here.
Of all places, here.
Without realizing it, my hand had already curled into a fist.
◇◆◇◆◇
The first time I ever talked to Yotsuka was in our first year of middle school.
Our seats in class were close, and I just sort of talked to her without thinking much of it.
When I joined the basketball team right after, I remember being a little happy that Yotsuka was there too.
“Yotsuka, get out further, come on.”
“Ehh, but the senpais are scary…”
“You’re way too much of a scaredy-cat.”
I figured ordinary, unremarkable days like that would just keep going forever.
Autumn of our second year, the day of the away trip before the tournament — I was out sick with a fever that day.
If I’d been in that room with everyone, would something have gone differently?
I still catch myself, even now, wondering about that pointless “what if.”
At the time, I had no idea what had happened.
The day after we got back from the trip, the whole team was called into the gym.
The coach’s voice was low. Frightening.
Everyone was made to kneel formally on the gym floor.
Even watching from a distance, I felt like I could feel the hardness of that floor under their knees.
Right as everyone was filing out of the gym, heading back to the locker room to change—
“You’re the one who said something, right?”
Hiiragi-senpai said that.
“I— I didn’t say anything…”
Her voice was shaking.
She had the kind of face that made you want to look up at the sky in despair.
But nobody was listening.
The whole team was looking only at Yotsuka.
Like they were looking at something filthy.
I couldn’t say anything, in that moment.
I should have said something.
That it was on them, not her.
But my voice wouldn’t come out.
I let Yotsuka be alone.
The team got suspended from the tournament.
I just watched from nearby as the looks aimed at Yotsuka got sharper and sharper, day by day.
Nobody tried to find out what had actually happened.
A few days later.
“I think I’m gonna quit.”
Yotsuka said that, and her back looked a little smaller than usual.
“…Huh?”
I felt like I had to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out right.
“It’s fine, really. I’m just… kind of tired of it all.”
Yotsuka smiled, weakly.
Or more like — she couldn’t quite manage to smile at all.
“You love basketball, though.”
“Yeah. I did love it.”
Past tense. Something about that made me irrationally angry.
Before I knew it, I’d already said it.
“This club’s full of boring, gross people. I’m quitting too.”
“Wha—? Even you, Ia…?”
“Let’s quit together.”
“Wh— why. It’s got nothing to do with you, Ia.”
“It’s got everything to do with me. There’s no way I’m staying in a club with people like that.”
Yotsuka made this strange face.
The kind where you can’t tell if she’s about to cry or laugh.
“…Why.”
“Why, nothing. This club’s not worth anything anymore, that’s all.”
That was half true, and half a lie.
The truth was, I hated the thought of Yotsuka being left alone.
With the whole team turning her into the villain, I wanted to be the one person still standing beside her.
…That was really all it was.
◇◆◇◆◇
Yotsuka tears her eyes away from Hiiragi-senpai and takes off running.
Makina scrambles after her, chasing her back as it disappears into the crowd.
Still clutching tightly to that cat plush Yotsuka won for her earlier.
“—Yotsuka?”
Makina’s voice gets swallowed up by the noise of the crowd.
I couldn’t move.
I knew, in my head, that I should chase after them, but my legs wouldn’t listen.
Running over there — that’s not my role to play.
I can stand beside Yotsuka and hurt right along with her, but I’m probably not the one who can actually save her from that wound.
That’s just what I felt, somehow.
…It’s always been like this.
The role of listening to Yotsuka’s crush drama, the role of being her punching bag — I’ve always been the one to take those on.
As long as I got to stay by her side, being the convenient childhood friend was fine by me.
Because, somehow, that position felt comfortable.
Somewhere in the distance, the drums started up.
Sounds like the fireworks show has already begun.
I just stood there, rooted in place, watching the two backs that had vanished into the crowd.
“…Well, guess I can’t catch up. Not from this distance.”
I muttered it to no one in particular.
And I didn’t move from that spot.