Episode 15: I’m Going to Stop Wanting to Be Alone
Led by Yuno’s hand, I lay down carefully on the bed.
Me against the wall, Yuno on the living room side.
Pushed to the wall side, I had absolutely nowhere to escape to.
“…Well. Good night.”
I pulled the covers up over my head, turned to face the wall, and muttered it bluntly.
“Mm, good night. Big sis.”
Her voice from behind me. Sleepy, with just a trace of something soft in it. The rustle of the covers, and I understood that Yuno had lain down too.
The queen-size bed had room enough to keep a certain distance between us, which was a relief. If the bed had been narrow, we would have had no choice but to be pressed together whether we liked it or not.
Even so, for someone who had always slept alone, the mere fact of another person being right there beside me made me feel strangely unsettled.
Someone’s warmth, someone’s breathing — so close. Just that, and my chest was restless, unable to quiet down.
How much time had passed.
Rustle.
A faint sound, a shifting of weight.
And then —
“Mm…”
A small sound, and at the same time a spreading warmth across my back.
Along with it, drifting faintly — the sweet scent of shampoo.
Yuno had pressed herself against my back.
“…Hey. Don’t come over here.”
“Oh, you were still awake?”
“I can’t sleep, so move away.”
“You’re warm, big sis.”
As though my refusals weren’t reaching her at all, Yuno slipped a slender arm softly around my waist.
A soft give. Her small, slight body, pressed flush against my back.
Her cold nose touched somewhere near the nape of my neck. Yuno’s breath fell there. Slow, unhurried. Just that, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, I was helplessly aware of it.
Thud. Thud. My heart began to beat, loud and hard.
“Hey. If we stay like this——”
Yuno’s lips came close, just beside my ear.
“I’m going to stop wanting to be alone.”
Whispered, in a voice that was slightly hoarse.
Something half-yearning, half-forlorn in that voice, and it resonated all the way into the back of my ear.
The moment her warm breath touched my ear, a current ran straight down my back.
I couldn’t say anything. I only lay there facing the wall, lips pressed firmly shut.
After a while, Yuno’s hand reached out and rested gently on my head.
Slowly, slowly, it began to move — stroking, as if combing through.
The warmth of that small palm, seeping through my head and spreading, gradually, through my whole body.
Why is it like this. Every time Yuno strokes my head, I feel whatever was wound tight in me unravelling slowly. There’s something strange about that power.
My eyelids grew heavy.
The heartbeat that had been so loud just a moment ago had, without my noticing, grown calm. I could feel my own breathing slowing. From behind me, Yuno’s own breath repeated, soft and steady.
Like that, I drifted slowly down into sleep.
＊＊＊
At some point, I woke.
The room was still deep in darkness.
I noticed that the warmth I’d been feeling against my back, right up until I fell asleep, was gone.
Yuno must have turned over, I thought.
And then —
…Snff.
Snff… h… mm…
A sound like stifled breathing. A faint voice, as though desperately suppressing something.
From behind me, it repeated, again and again.
Something stirred uneasily in my chest, and I turned toward it before I’d decided to.
“…Snff… h… mm…”
Yuno’s shoulders, turned away from me, were trembling in small, rapid movements.
…She’s crying.
Pressing down her voice, her sobs, with everything she had.
Yuno was crying.
“…don’t…”
“…throw me… away…”
Barely a sound, leaking out.
I couldn’t catch it clearly.
But.
Don’t throw me away.
I recognised those words. Knew them, with a jolt.
“Hey, are you——”
Before I knew it I had spoken.
Yuno turned slowly toward me.
Her brows were drawn down, her eyes swollen and red.
Tears beaded on her long lashes, and ran down her cheeks — drop after drop, unstoppably, soaking into the pillow.
From her slightly parted lips, trembling breaths spilled out. She looked in real pain, and yet it was clear she was trying desperately not to make a sound.
Yuno’s crying face.
Yuno, who could talk about even the hardest things with a smile — I had never seen her face like this.
Something in the back of my chest tightened. Painfully.
And at the same time — she’s human, I thought.
This girl too.
Really, truly fragile underneath, truly hurting.
Putting on brightness with all her might so no one else would see.
That struck me as so achingly earnest that I couldn’t bear to just lie there.
Before I knew it I had drawn Yuno into my arms.
The body that was sobbing was trembling, finely. That slight, fragile frame — it felt like it might shatter if I held it too tight.
As carefully as if I were handling something made of glass, I held her. Gently, gently.
The blonde hair that brushed my cheek was soft as silk. The faint lingering scent of shampoo. When I put my arms around her trembling back, Yuno’s breath broke, and there was the sound of her nose again.
Since Yuno had come to live here, I had been rescued by her presence, again and again.
That much, I could no longer pretend not to know.
And yet I had probably given nothing back.
Maybe even all those nights she’d spent alone in the living room, she’d been doing this. Crying with her voice pressed down as hard as she could.
Even now I couldn’t find the words I should be saying.
I was sick to death of my own coldness. My own clumsiness.
A stranger, when all was said and done.
Someone I’d just happened to pick up. A temporary housemate, nothing more.
Even so — I want to protect her, this girl who looks like she might disappear at any moment. I felt that, simply and clearly.
“…I won’t throw you away.”
Before I realised it, the words had come out, quiet and alone.
“Eh…?”
“I won’t… leave you alone.”
What fell from my mouth in pieces was probably the truth.
Yuno’s arms came around my back, and her fingers closed tight in the fabric of my pyjamas.
Those hands were trembling. But the grip of those small hands was strong.
We lay there holding each other, face to face on the bed. Yuno’s face, right there, so close.
Our heartbeats blurring together. Yuno’s pulse reaching me through my palms.
Little by little the sobbing grew quieter, and Yuno’s breathing deepened.
In, out. In, out.
The breath that had been trembling grew, slowly, steady.
Her eyelids closed gently.
Yuno slipped away to sleep, just like that, inside my arms.
Swollen eyelids, reddened from crying. Long lashes damp with tears. A sleeping face that was innocent and childlike.
The quiet rhythm of her breath.
It struck me, unbearably, as lovely. As dear.
Before I knew it I had brought my face close —
and gently moved the fringe from her forehead.
Pressed my lips there, lightly, in a kiss.
After a moment I lifted my lips slowly away.
And then.
Yuno’s large, glistening eyes were looking straight at me.