Episode 46: Disappear. Just Disappear. Please.
“…Would I not be enough?”
A hesitant voice, and yet a direct one, reached my ear.
“…Eh?”
I turned toward her without meaning to, and a small sound slipped from my own mouth, unbidden.
The moment our eyes met, Matsuyama startled, as if snapping back to herself, eyes flying wide. Her cheeks coloured, fast.
“…Um, ah, s-sorry! What I just said was… not… I, what am I even saying…”
Matsuyama’s flustered voice receded, somewhere distant.
The next instant, an image flickered through my mind.
Yuno’s figure, held in Saeko’s arms in front of the apartment, that day.
The scene shifted — Yuno and Saeko, gazing at each other, lips meeting. Reaching for each other, again and again, on a bed.
It doesn’t matter anymore. Yuno doesn’t matter anymore.
How long are you going to drag this around like an idiot?
She has nothing to do with you now.
It’s over.
A voice, mocking, sneering at me from somewhere, whispered.
“President, sorry. I should prob— go home a—”
Matsuyama grabbed her bag and started to stand, flustered, and before I knew it, I’d caught her arm.
Off balance, her body tilted toward me, her face drawing close.
Our lips touched. Just barely.
“Eh……”
Matsuyama’s breath caught. A small, bewildered murmur, exactly the sound of confusion given voice.
We pulled apart immediately. But again, neither of us quite decided it, and our lips met again.
A few times, lightly, like small pecking kisses.
The softness of those lips called up a different memory.
The kiss with Yuno.
That kiss, like a small bird pecking.
Those eyes, smiling faintly each time our lips parted.
Ah. Again.
Trying to erase it, I kissed Matsuyama deeper.
Pressing in. As if to paint over the memory of Yuno.
And yet.
It surfaced behind my closed eyes.
Yuno’s sweet breath.
That drug-like, numbing sensation when her tongue wound around mine.
Those heated, full lips.
That night I held her so tightly my fingertips went numb.
Stop.
Why am I remembering this now.
She’s never coming back.
Forget it.
Forget it.
Forget it.
As if to scrub away the rising sensation, I wound my tongue with Matsuyama’s. Deeper. More fiercely.
Slipping my fingers into her hair, stroking slowly.
“Nn… fha… Presi— dent…”
Matsuyama’s breath grew ragged.
Beyond that voice, Yuno’s lewd expression bled through. Those large brown eyes, wet with heat.
That voice, smiling, calling “Reina” gently.
That sweet voice whispering “I like you, I like you” — maybe a lie.
Why.
Disappear.
Just disappear.
Please.
Don’t come out anymore.
As if to shake the image from my head, I undid the buttons of Matsuyama’s blouse, one, two.
And still, she surfaced, as vivid as if she were right there.
Straddling me, undoing my buttons, looking down at me with that glossy expression.
The flush of her cheeks. Her tousled blonde hair.
Pulling off my underwear, tilting her head, smiling that bewitching smile.
Yuno.
Yuno.
Yuno.
I want to see her.
I want to talk to her.
I want to kiss her.
I want to hold her.
By the time I noticed, I’d pulled my body away from Matsuyama’s.
“…President?”
“Matsuyama-san… sorry. I can’t do this.”
“Eh……?”
“I… after all…”
The voice I forced out was, even by my own judgment, shaking.
At some point, tears had begun running down my cheeks.
I’m the worst.
I thought sleeping with Matsuyama might let me overwrite it. Thought I could forget Yuno.
But my body was honest. The memory soaked into me didn’t disappear — if anything, it seeped out from inside, slowly, from under my own skin.
Matsuyama’s eyes widened slightly, her brows drawing down, troubled. Then, softly, her eyes narrowed.
“I see… that makes sense.”
“Matsuyama-san, I’m sorry… truly. I’m the worst.”
“No, it’s my fault… I said something strange. I’m… sorry.”
Her mouth trembled for a while, and then she said, quietly:
“Um… President.”
A small pause.
“What.”
“That day…”
“That day?”
“The day I said I’d overheard Saeko-san and Yuno-san talking.”
I let out a small breath.
“Ah… right. What about it?”
Matsuyama didn’t go on for a while. Eyes fixed on the floor, hesitant, she slowly let the words out.
“There was one important thing I never told you.”
Bit by bit, Matsuyama began to speak.
＊＊＊
That day.
Saeko had been holding Yuno.
Yuno gently pulled away and said:
“Saeko, I’m sorry.”
“Eh?”
“There’s someone important to me.”
Saeko said nothing.
“She’s different from anyone before… being with her settles something in me, but it also makes my heart race.”
“The person you live with?”
“…Yeah.”
A small pause, and then Yuno went on.
“She’s blunt, and clumsy, but underneath she’s kind, and sweet.”
“…Do you like her? This person?”
“I don’t know. But — probably. I think I like her.”
Yuno said it, eyes lowered.
“She said she’s done with love. So I keep thinking about what she’d say if I told her I might have fallen for her. Just thinking about it scares me — I haven’t told her yet.”
＊＊＊
Matsuyama stayed silent for a while after finishing, not lifting her face.
“Eh……”
My own voice sounded distant, far away.
My heart was beating, loud enough to be unbearable.
Matsuyama bowed her head, sharply.
“President. I’m truly sorry! If I’d told you properly from the start, none of this would have——”
I stayed quiet for a while.
I don’t know how long. Then, quietly, the words came.
“…It’s fine.”
A pause there.
“It might have been true then, but I said some terrible things.”
“Terrible things?”
“That I didn’t like her. That I shouldn’t have picked her up.”
The words came out, even to my own surprise, quiet and even.
“…There’s nothing left that saying anything would fix, I think. By now she’s probably had Saeko’s kindness, and her feelings have gone back to her.”
But.
I see.
So that’s how it was.
I’d thought it was just my own one-sided feeling.
But even for a moment — Yuno had felt the same way too.
The tears spilled over. My chest ached, and I couldn’t breathe properly.
The feelings I’d been holding back broke loose as sobs.
“…! …Hh… Yuno…”
To say I disliked her.
I want to apologize. I want to take those words back.
If I could go back to that day, I want to face her properly.
I want to tell her the truth.
But it’s too late now.
I have to give up.
Only the sound of my own crying echoed through the wide room.
Matsuyama said nothing, only rubbing my back, gently.
In the silence——
Grooowl. Gurgle.
A foolish, ill-timed sound rang out into the quiet.
My own stomach.
Only now did I remember — I hadn’t eaten anything since last night.
“Pfft——”
Matsuyama couldn’t hold it back and burst out laughing.
Heat rose to my face, despite myself, from embarrassment.
“President, at a time like this——”
To me, still sniffling, Matsuyama grinned and said:
“Let’s eat.”
＊＊＊
She brought me to a chain café near the station, full of young people.
I opened the menu and froze.
“…This.”
“Yes. The Extra-Large Parfait. The signature item here.”
What arrived looked nearly the size of a serving bowl — corn flakes, a riot of colourful fruit, ice cream and whipped cream piled mountain-high, almost defiantly.
It looked heavy enough to sit in your stomach just from looking at it.
“Matsuyama-san, I’m nearly thirty, you know.”
“You’ll be fine. You can eat more than you’d think.”
“I’m not great with sweet things…”
Matsuyama said “my treat,” and somehow I found myself swept along regardless.
Each spoonful brought a slow wave of sweetness.
“…It’s good.”
“Right?”
“But this is… definitely going to come back to haunt me.”
“That’s fine. Just for today, let’s eat.”
Matsuyama smiled and broke into the mountain of cream with her spoon, taking a big bite.
I gave a small, wry laugh and took another bite myself.
Something deep down felt, slowly, warm.
About halfway through the parfait, my eyes drifted, idly, toward the window.
The night street. The flow of people passing by.
And among them——
A small, slight figure, walking unsteadily.
Blonde hair, swaying in the night wind.
Eh……
My heart nearly stopped.
“…Matsuyama-san, sorry, one second.”
Before I knew it, I’d stood up, fast.
“President?”
Matsuyama’s voice receded behind me.
I grabbed my bag and pushed open the café door.
The cold night air brushed my cheek.