Episode 80: I Love You

Two weeks was far too long. They were days of being made to understand, over and over, just how empty things were without Shion.

Shion’s dependence on me loosening — and my own dependence rising to the surface in its place. In the midst of that seesaw’s swaying, the one thing at its centre that never wavered at all was the wish to write Shion’s beauty into words, and the wish to stand on equal ground with her.

I channelled everything into the novel — the heat, the coldness, the shameful honest feelings, the desperate, scorching longing. I unravelled each of my own emotions through words, one by one.

I’d thought readers would find it less appealing with the heroine barely appearing — but that turned out not to be the case at all.

“The protagonist’s feelings for the heroine are too much in the best possible way.”

Comments like that came in, warm and frequent. Before, the comments had often been about the heroine’s feelings for the protagonist; now even the comment section had shifted to mirror our relationship, changing character along with it. Partly driven by that momentum, the site contest I’d entered on a whim had passed the reader selection stage — and even so, what mattered most to me was still writing what I felt about Shion.

Through all of that, the one presence whose tone never changed was Otonashi-san, whose comments remained as distinctive and quietly mysterious as ever.

“I believe the heroine wants to catch up to the protagonist as quickly as possible.”

Or:

“I think the heroine wants to see the protagonist even more than the protagonist realises.”

Reading the heroine’s unspoken feelings, speaking for a character who barely appeared in the text — the skill of that imagination left me genuinely in awe.

And really, I thought greedily — I hope Shion thinks of me, just the way Otonashi-san says. As if tracing that wish, LINE messages came from Shion now and then.

“I’m doing my best for you.”

Or:

“I want to see you soon.”

The words were direct, uncomplicated — in contrast to Otonashi-san — and just receiving them added colour to those grey days. Even today, the day before the competition, it was no different.

“Tomorrow, I’ll play piano for you.”

Everything to do with the novel wrapped up, I had just slipped into bed when a message from Shion arrived.

“Thank you. Do your best. It’s been so long since I’ve watched you play — I’m really looking forward to it.”

I put my feelings into words as directly as she had. With the performance this close, I want so badly for things to go well for her. I want the audience and the judges to feel Shion’s beauty reach them.

“Tomorrow morning, Mama and I will come and pick you up, so let’s go to the venue together. If I can see you before the performance, there’s nothing in the world I’ll be afraid of.”
“Thank you. Then I’ll take you up on that — I’ll be waiting at the usual spot.”
“Okay. This is a secret from Mama — but she’s been lonely without seeing you all this time. Tomorrow she’ll be happy to see you too.”

That message made something warm bloom in my chest. The time the three of us spend together — Shion, Anon-san, me — is precious to me in a different way from the time alone with Shion, and the fact of being welcomed by the Kanzaki family gently holds something I’d been carrying, a kind of complex I had about my own mother. The fact of being genuinely wanted — that has always been something like a prescription. I think it was what let me turn and face my mother again.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to Anon-san too, it’s been a while.”
“…Talking is fine but no falling for her, okay…!”

That message, so entirely Shion. When she shows me that kind of possessiveness, it feels as though we’re on equal footing — a joy that carries just a shadow at its edge. I can’t do anything about that shadow yet, with the person I am now. But someday, I thought — not imagined, but truly — I want to actually be equal. Not a seesaw where one side tipping throws the whole thing off balance, but a scale where we’ve placed our feelings on each side, and it sways just a little, and creaks, and we stand at the same height looking at the same view.

“I wouldn’t do that. I love you — Shion.”

I sent those words without the slightest embarrassment. I noticed as I typed it that this was the first time I’d said it on my own, without being asked — and that was where I was now, honestly. That was what love was, for me.

Wanting to share the same time as you. Wanting to see the same view. Wanting to be at the same temperature. Because it’s Shion — the most beautiful person in the world, the one who should have been out of reach. Out of reach, and yet we’ve held each other, kissed, touched — and because it’s Shion, who I somehow reached against all likelihood, I can carry a love that is greedy and forward-looking, not fearful.

“I love you too.”

Someday — like our heights, already nearly the same — I want to say those words at eye level with each other. When I can describe Shion’s beauty in words the way I’ve always imagined it — when that day comes.