Episode 1

There has always been someone I love.

Ten and a half years of carrying that feeling.

Obsessions cool eventually. You tire of things. That’s a common enough story — but as time passed, what I felt only grew, until it reached a point I can no longer control on my own.

We met in the winter of my first year of middle school.

I was trying to die.

The cause was something small. A manga I’d been drawing hidden in the corner of the classroom was spotted by a classmate, and the news spread through the entire class. That was all.

A common enough story.

Everyone in the class was pleasant on the surface — no water thrown at me, no shoes hidden, nothing said to my face.

But they started avoiding me, unmistakably. Every day I was subjected to looks that said I was strange.

Through the homeroom teacher, it reached my family too. My mother never denied it — but she never affirmed it either. The look in her eyes then, I still can’t forget.

And so I lost my place at home too.

The answer I arrived at, in the end, was to end my life. For a child, apparently, it had been the limit.

◇

A day of heavy snowfall, bitterly cold. Strange for December, I thought — unusually heavy even for the city.

It hadn’t been snowing in the morning, so I’d left home without an umbrella. Now I was stranded, unable to leave the school building.

I could have run through it and made it home — but I hadn’t wanted to go home. I was drawing more of my manga in the corner of an empty third-year classroom.

That I hadn’t stopped drawing even after everything that had happened — it really must have been something I loved. The characters in my pictures were holding hands, laughing, looking happy, looking loved.

I had probably intended to die once I’d finished their story. I wanted at least the two of them — the ones I’d brought into the world — to find their happiness.

“Oh, hello there. Mind if I come in?”

The sound of pattering feet, and a girl pushed open the door. A lively-seeming girl, short. Going by the colour of her indoor shoes she was a third-year — but she was considerably smaller than me.

“S-sorry… I’ll leave right away…”

I stuffed the notebook and pen into my bag and readied myself to run out without looking at her face.

Wait, she said, and a small shadow fell over me.

“Were you drawing?”

A small hand caught my arm. Outside there was a heavy snowstorm — and yet her hand was warm.

“I wasn’t. I was doing homework…”

A lie.

“But — look…”

In my rush to pack it away, a corner of the notebook was sticking out of my bag. She was observant.

“Show me what you drew, if you don’t mind. I like manga. And — I forgot my umbrella, so I can’t go home either.”

She pointed at the window and turned a bashful smile on me — same as you, right? It was almost too bright to look at.

I had probably stopped caring. If I hadn’t already decided to die, I’d have run home in the snow rather than stay. She’d be graduating and gone soon enough anyway. So it didn’t matter. That’s what I thought.

I sat back down, took one notebook from my bag, and handed it over quietly. The cover was plain white — nothing on it — but open one page and inside lay my world.

“Thank you~ I’ll read it.”

She settled into the seat right next to me with the happy expression of a child who’d been given a toy.

She’s always smiling. The kind of person who has surely spent their whole life surrounded by friends.

In the quiet classroom, the only sounds were my breathing and the turn of each page.

She won’t understand it. But this was a story I’d drawn for myself — so please, whatever you do, don’t say something unnecessary.

Ten minutes or so after handing it over. I’d expected her to put it down and leave quickly — but she was reading it far more carefully than I’d imagined.

The snow outside kept falling without pause. Would either of us make it home safely?

She closed the notebook with a soft pat and gave a long, full-body stretch. She seemed to have finished.

What will she say. I was braced for it — but imagining the actual words made my chest tighten.

“Is there more?”

…Huh?

There’s more — I haven’t drawn it yet.

“…Doesn’t it… bother you…?”

“Does what?”

I didn’t understand. Why ask for more? Of a story like this—

“If the person drawing manga bothered people, the art club would have a lot to answer for.”

That wasn’t what I meant. That wasn’t the point.

“But…”

“I like this one. She’s bright and cute.”

She seemed to have lost interest in my question. With a cheerful little bounce she pointed to a page.

A scene where the protagonist accepts the heroine’s worry, and the two of them look quietly at each other. A familiar beat, but I thought I’d drawn it well.

The character she was pointing to was the heroine — conceived from the simple image of a bright, cheerful, popular girl. Pretty and fashionable, loved by many friends.

The opposite of me. Perhaps she had been a projection of what I wanted to be.

“Romantic comedies are so good~ I got a little flustered.”

“What about… the other one…?”

I asked about the other character too. Dark-haired, quiet — but a girl with a steady core, who loved the heroine faithfully.

I didn’t think I’d projected myself into her — but on the surface, she resembled me just slightly. Maybe I’d also been holding, without knowing it, the wish to become someone with that kind of backbone.

She put her chin in her hand and thought it over.

“I like her too because she’s cute. But I still like this one better.”

“I must have a thing for cheerful girls. This one really gets to me.”

“I see…”

“Show me the rest once you’ve drawn it. But it had better be a happy ending.”

The hand that received the notebook back was trembling. My pulse was rising, my face growing hot.

“Oh! The snow’s letting up! I have to go now—”

She raised her voice and jumped up from the chair.

She’s leaving already. I felt reluctant to let her go. I actually thought that.

“U-um—!”

The words came out before I’d thought them.

“H-how… how could I become someone like you, senpai — pretty… and bright…”

What was I asking.

My brain or my mouth was moving without my say-so.

She definitely thinks I’m strange now.

She blinked several times — and then, taking my hand, she said:

“Why not aim to be the heroine in your manga?”

“She came from you, didn’t she? So becoming her shouldn’t be hard.”

She was looking up at me with a smile full to bursting, and her face began to blur.

Not wanting her to see me cry, I pulled my hand away and turned my back.

“…Someone like me could never do that.”

“Yes you could.”

She probably had a serious expression right now, even though I couldn’t see her face. The drop in her tone said so.

“Because you’re cute. Your face, your voice.”

My heart gave a hard beat. I wanted to turn around and look at her, but my vision was only blurring further, and I didn’t want her to see me crying.

“Middle school’s a pain with the teachers, so maybe not yet — but when you get to high school, try dressing up a bit? A fresh start~”

“I’m absolutely dyeing my hair next year.”

Her laughing voice sounded far away. The sound seemed to be blurring along with my vision, as though the tears were washing it out too. I wanted to hear this voice more. Closer, and for longer—

“Oh — I never told you my name. I’m Takemi Hiito. What about you?”

“I-Ichikawa… “

Ichikawa-san~ she murmured, and ducked her head to peek at my face. Those eyes. Beautiful eyes.

“Glasses first! And your fringe! You’re cute — hiding it like that, of course you don’t look it.”

“Well then, I’m off~”

I’ll be waiting for the rest! — and she was gone, like a small storm, and I watched her go.

My heartbeat wouldn’t settle. If anything, it was still climbing.

A meeting of less than twenty minutes. To her, it had probably been nothing more than something to pass the time until the snow stopped.

But in twenty minutes of killing time, my life was tethered back together.

I don’t need a happy ending.

That was the thought — and it was the moment the future that was supposed to end badly was redrawn.

From that day on, there has always been someone I love.