Episode 48 — That Girl I Can’t Stop Thinking About

Shion’s call always comes at exactly the moment I’ve just finished writing and stepped out of the shower. Right around when Otonashi-san’s comment has arrived.

I don’t know how the timing is always that good — but navigating effortlessly to the right answer with that breezy ease is somehow very Shion.

Thinking that, I pressed the trembling phone to my ear.

“I’m ho-ome.”

Shion’s voice is even more melted than usual. Drawn out at the end, sweet and clinging, and that shamelessness of it has me thinking adorable without even trying. I hate how easily I fold.

“Welcome ba-ack.”

And yet my own voice melts too, drawn along by Shion, turning soft and indulgent. This is hopeless — pretending to be cool in front of Shion might be beyond me at this point. I decided to accept it as my fate: having encountered a beauty and a tone of voice powerful enough to change a person entirely, it was over for me.

In that spirit of resignation, I kept talking.

“You sound pretty tired today.”

I asked, remembering her usual buoyant voice, the puppy running toward me.

“Yeah. Tired. Mama’s been fired up lately.”
“Is that right?”

I can’t quite picture that cool, beautiful mother of Shion’s being fired up.

“Yeah. The practice schedule has gotten harder. And she’s kind of — come alive.”
“Come alive?”
“Like, she asks about you sometimes. ‘Are things going well with Uta-chan?’ She never used to initiate conversation before. I think it’s strange.”

Even as she said it in a slightly complaining tone, there was equal parts bewilderment and embarrassment in her voice. That small change in the Kanzaki household was, somehow, endearing.

“That’s nice, isn’t it.”

I found myself answering in an involuntarily coaxing, soft tone — the kind you’d use with a small child. At that, Shion seemed displeased.

“It’s not nice. Lessons are tiring without you there, Uta.”

And she says something that dismantles my expression all over again. Though it’s true — I haven’t heard Shion play in a while, and thinking about it that way, it is a little lonely — when:

“So I’ve been doing my best lately, looking forward to the day after tomorrow.”
“The day after tomorrow…?”

The day after tomorrow arrived from an unexpected direction, and I raised a questioning voice. Shion told me, as if it were the most natural thing in the world:

“Yeah. The day after tomorrow, we’re going out.”
“I haven’t heard anything about this.”
“I’m telling you for the first time right now.”
“That’s outrageous.”

I lamented, helpless before a Shion who showed not a trace of remorse. Utterly free-spirited, entirely natural.

“I was hoping we could go out together — is that not okay…?”

The moment that small, tentative voice grazed my eardrums, I answered on pure reflex.

“It’s completely okay!”

It really is hopeless, I think. Shion has reduced me to something completely boneless — I’m fairly sure I’d accept any demand from her, however unreasonable. Like the suitors in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. It struck me now, belatedly, that there must be any number of people who’ve tried to get close to Shion — boys and girls alike — and yet she seeks me out like this. The question surfaced with fresh force.

“I’m so relieved… I can’t do my best without you, Uta.”

She said it with heartfelt relief. Why she directs so much feeling toward me — I have no answer.

I can think of countless reasons why I treasure Shion. Not a single one why Shion would be attached to our relationship.

“What do you want to do, the day after tomorrow?”

I pulled out the shallowest edge of that question mark and asked instead. And then:

“I want to go to the sea.”

Something straight out of a coming-of-age novel.

“Fine by me — but what’s brought this on?”
“I looked it up on my phone and it came up. ‘For a date with the girl you can’t stop thinking about — the sea is recommended.’”

At those words, my heartbeat multiplied several times over. The room was suddenly very hot again, and there were frogs somewhere outside, and the fan was grating on my nerves. But none of it was louder than my own heart.

“A date — we’re friends, though…?”
“But you’ve always been someone I can’t stop thinking about, Uta. There’s nothing outside of you that I think about…”

Shion’s murmur, and my heart goes noisy again. And yet my eardrums catch her voice regardless, always.

“And I’ve been feeling lonely not seeing you lately. If that’s an excuse to see you, anything would do.”

I feel like the word excuse is being used in a fairly spectacular misapplication here. The logical objection — wrapping a wish inside another wish doesn’t make it an excuse — did occur to me.

But I can’t refuse Shion’s requests regardless.

“Okay. Shall we go to the sea.”

“Not shall we — say you want to go.”

Shion said it with evident delight. She really had become quite wilful — quite the little Kaguya.