Episode Twenty-Four
I let Fuuka lead the way to whatever café she had in mind and kept walking. She’d been asking an unusual amount about my stepsister along the way, and every time I’d answered vaguely — I wonder how that looked from where she was standing.
I still can’t tell Fuuka about Ao. I haven’t even sorted out my own feelings about it, so there’s no way I could talk about it properly in a state like this. And if she asked when I would be able to — I don’t know that either.
As the sun, which had been almost obnoxiously bright, started to lean lower, the temperature dropped along with it, and the hand that had been faintly sweaty this morning felt dry now. As the air cooled, was it just my imagination that the grip on our joined hands had gotten firmer? Not quite cold enough to need it, I don’t think.
We’d been together all day at school, and we’d been together since this morning too, and yet there was still no sign of us running out of things to talk about. Maybe Fuuka and I really could talk forever.
“After the break, maybe we should look at clothes for you. Something a bit more grown-up.”
“Mine’s fine, don’t worry about it. I told you I’m low on money.”
“Come on, don’t say that. You should try different things sometimes too—”
Fuuka’s endless stream of talk cut off mid-sentence. Curious, I looked up at her face and caught her eyes go briefly, sharply wide. But almost instantly she snapped back into her usual smile and called out, loud, toward someone ahead of us.
“Hey, isn’t that Ao! Yoo-hoo! What are you doing here?”
“Huh?”
Time seemed to stop. The people on the street, the cars on the road, even the huge advertising screen still running its loop — everything except the two of us seemed to lose its colour and sound all at once.
“F— Fuuka… hi.”
“…I’m just out shopping. You two seem… pretty close.”
There’s nothing to be guilty about, so I should just talk like normal. That’s what I told myself, but my swimming vision couldn’t quite manage to focus on Ao standing right in front of me.
“Yeah, well. Today’s our ‘date.’”
Fuuka raised our laced-together hands as if showing them off. They felt more tightly clasped than before — maybe that was just the sweat that had suddenly broken out.
“…I see. Should I not have seen this?”
“Not really~ I’m not hiding it, I don’t mind if everyone—”
“That’s not it!!!”
People walking nearby shot me wary looks.
A scream. Or maybe something closer to an anguished cry. It felt like it was happening to me, and yet somehow not to me at all. I don’t think I’ve ever made a sound like that in my whole life.
“F— Fuuka just said she wanted to hold hands for fun.”
“It’s not like we’re actually dating or anything.”
I forced the corners of my mouth up as far as they’d go and squeezed the words out of a head gone completely white. My voice was shaking the whole time I tried desperately to keep smiling — it must have looked thoroughly ridiculous.
“You don’t have to go that far, do you. I’m a girl too, you know, in case you forgot.”
“That’s right, Yuna. Don’t make Fuuka cry, okay?”
“Y— yeah… right, I know…”
Her voice, her expression — completely normal, the whole time. Standing there like the popular girl surrounded by friends in the middle of the classroom that she always is.
“Don’t want to get in your way, I’ll head off now.”
“Bye~ See you tomorrow~”
Without even getting to say goodbye, Ao had already disappeared from sight by the time I noticed.
“Bumping into a friend in a crowd this huge, isn’t that kind of a miracle?”
“I always think this, but her legs are seriously too long. I should ask her sometime how she pulls that off.”
“……”
She saw it. Ao saw me holding hands with Fuuka, playing around — doing what’s sometimes called the “lovers’ grip.”
I don’t think it should matter if she saw. Because Ao already knows how I feel and hasn’t given me an answer, so there can’t be even the faintest chance for me. Which means there’s basically no possibility of Ao and me ever becoming something more. I’ve just been misreading her teasing as affection for me, on my own, the whole time.
And yet my chest won’t stop aching, and breathing has gotten difficult.
“Yuna? You’re sweating — are you feeling sick? Let’s take a break somewhere.”
“…I’m fine.”
“We should get to the café.”
I barely remember anything about what we did or talked about with Fuuka after that. I think I ordered coffee at the old-fashioned coffee shop. Or was it tea? I don’t even remember that much.
The look on Ao’s face as she walked away stayed lodged somewhere deep in my head, refusing to leave.
“You’ve been completely zoned out. Did something happen?”
“What? No, it’s… nothing.”
The sun had fully set by the time we came out of the ticket gate near home, and Fuuka turned to me with a suspicious expression.
“I said today was a date, didn’t I. I’d really rather you weren’t thinking about anyone else but me.”
“Wh— what? I don’t know what you mean by ‘anyone.’ I’m just tired.”
“Yeah, this is no good. Today’s date counts as a failure. I’ll give you a chance at a redo sometime, so let’s try again.”
Fuuka let out a small, exasperated sound and slowly pulled my hand along after her.
“Wait, where are we going? Your place is the other direction.”
“…Listen up.”
“As if I’d say goodbye to my beloved girlfriend right at the station and call it a day. I’m walking you all the way home properly.”
I followed silently behind Fuuka, a step or two ahead of me. I think I’d seen this same view before, on the walk home after Mum had scolded me as a kid.
“Sorry.”
“For what~?”
“…For making things weird.”
“If you know you did, then that’s something, I guess. Maybe the redo should be an overnight trip.”
“Bullet train, eki-ben on the way, a hot spring, a fancy dinner in the room, sleeping under the same futon. Sounds fun, right?”
Her voice carried its usual easygoing lightness, but her back looked somehow lonely. Even if it was only “practice,” having a friend’s mood suddenly go strange in the middle of a date probably does that to a person.
“That actually sounds nice.”
I answered her ridiculous request with as bright a voice as I could manage. By the time that trip happened, my feelings would probably have settled into something different — might be a good change of pace.
“I’m not letting you forget you said that, okay~”
“…Yeah.”
A street I walk every single day, familiar without thinking. But walking it together with Fuuka felt like something I hadn’t done in a long while.
“We’re here~”
At Fuuka’s words, our laced fingers came apart. My fingertips, faintly numb, seemed to carry the shape of Fuuka’s quiet, intense kindness, and I felt an odd reluctance to let it go.
“I won’t ask what happened. But if it’s too much to carry, tell me, okay?”
“I’ll let you settle the consultation fee with just the date practice, so don’t worry about that.”
“…Mmph.”
Pulled into Fuuka’s generous embrace, a small breath escaped me before I could stop it.
“…Thanks. I’ll, um — properly talk to you about it sometime soon. I think.”
“I’ll go at your pace. Just make sure you send me the photos from today, properly.”
“Okay. Get home safe.”
I watched Fuuka’s figure until it disappeared from view and let out a long breath.
“…Haah.”
Letting out one more sigh, I put my hand on the door, which felt several times heavier than it usually does.