Episode Twenty-Five: Interlude
A thin, fluttery one-piece dress and a small handbag. Shoes with a slight heel that, however you looked at it, she clearly wasn’t used to walking in.
Something about it felt wrong. I’d have thought Yuna was the type who cares about how she looks, and yet I’ve never once seen her go out dressed like that.
She’d said she was going out with Fuuka, which made it even less convincing. The two of them are always together, apparently childhood friends since primary school — Dad mentioned that once. If that’s true, she should have picked something more like her usual relaxed style.
I ate the French toast she’d left ready for me, finished the washing-up, and ran the vacuum. I saw the happy couple off as they headed out together and sank into the living room sofa.
I love the French toast Yuna makes. Fresh is best, but even reheated it’s plenty good. She taught me how to make it, but when I tried it myself it never came out nearly as well. Same ingredients, same steps, supposedly.
“…Ugh.”
Trying to escape a reality I don’t want to face head-on just means it catches up with me faster. Apparently running away from things isn’t as easy as it sounds.
I’d been turning it over in my head this whole time, and the murky feeling sitting in my chest wasn’t going anywhere. Getting dressed up like that, something she never does, to go out with a friend. And at the front door earlier, talking to me, she’d seemed oddly fixated on the time.
Even with my face buried in a cushion, eyes closed, Yuna kept flickering at the edge of my thoughts, and I couldn’t see myself getting any sleep.
The uniform worn slightly undone, the ugly T-shirt she wears as pyjamas. The thin cardigan she always throws on whenever she comes to my room. I think all of that is a version of Yuna that only I get to see.
So then — what about this morning?
That was a Yuna I didn’t know. A version she puts on, not for me, but for someone else?
It’s irritating. Even exam stress doesn’t get under my skin like this.
The plan today had been to watch the anime Ichiha recommended and take it easy, but maybe staying home wasn’t the better option after all.
Bored. Anyone free to hang out today?
I fired off a careless message to the group chat with Tatsuka and Ichiha, and headed for the bathroom.
◇
“…So hot.”
The strong sunlight alone was bad enough, and the sheer crush of people filling the street nearly made me choke. It’s almost evening — where is everyone even going.
Turned down by my favourite friends, I ended up wandering a big city with nowhere in particular to be. I’d thought about going somewhere further out, but in the end I picked the same district we always come to anyway.
Over there’s the brand Tatsuka likes, full of cute skirts. That pasta place is Ichiha’s regular — she’s been saying for a year now that she’ll bring a boyfriend there someday. A district that’s fun with everyone is just full of people when you’re on your own. I didn’t feel like browsing clothes, no plans to buy cosmetics either. There were things that caught my eye, but none of it had to be today.
I could always come back and look properly with Yuna sometime—
The feeling I’d been trying to forget surfaced again, and my gaze dropped.
I don’t really understand why I’m feeling like this. Yuna is my stepsister, and a classmate. Nothing more, nothing less.
She thinks of me as someone special, and whenever I tease her even a little, her face goes red instantly and her whole body trembles. Sorry to her, I know, but seeing that gives me a kind of heat low in my chest, and makes me want to see even more expressions like it.
But ever since the day she nursed me through that fever, something about how I feel toward her seems to have shifted, somehow. Even when I try to tease her, I find myself hesitating for no clear reason. What if she got angry. What if she ended up hating me — thinking that, my hands just stop moving.
Not doing anything strange because I’m afraid of being disliked — that’s such an ordinary feeling, and yet until recently it never once crossed my mind.
I thought getting outside might change something, but apparently it doesn’t work that way. The day’s nearly over, and the restlessness hasn’t gone anywhere.
Maybe when I get home I’ll tease Yuna a little, like old times. Maybe even film something this time. Then, on days like today, I could watch it back and distract myself. A photo alone doesn’t have her voice in it.
There were shops I was curious about, but I ended up picking the same chain café that’s near school for my break. Cold juice, resting for a bit.
I’d come all this way, so I wanted to do something before heading home, but I couldn’t summon any motivation at all. If I was going to feel like this, I should’ve just stayed home and slept. If I forgot everything and slept, Yuna would be home again before too long.
Stepping through the automatic doors, the heat outside made me wince, and as I walked toward the station my legs stopped dead at two figures in my line of sight. In the middle of the wide pavement, the bag slipping off my shoulder nearly fell.
“Hey, isn’t that Ao! Yoo-hoo! What are you doing here?”
Kuyo Fuuka. A classmate since last year, always getting scolded during class, but friendly and easy to like — popular in the classroom. With a figure that doesn’t really look like a high schooler’s, I think half the boys in school have their eye on her.
A cut-and-sew top, high at the neck but leaving both shoulders bare, and a long skirt fluttering in the wind. However you looked at it, that wasn’t the outfit of someone casually going out with a childhood friend.
And beside her — the person I most wanted to see and least wanted to see, both at once. Her gestures and way of speaking always seem grown-up, but there’s something faintly childlike underneath it too. My stepsister.
If people breathe through the palms of their hands, I think they’d have suffocated right there. That’s how tightly, without a single gap, their fingers were laced together.
“F— Fuuka… hi.”
Whose voice was that. Faint and uncertain, like it might just get carried off by the wind and vanish.
“…I’m just out shopping. You two seem… pretty close.”
A strange sensation, like watching my own body move on its own from somewhere far away. It feels disgusting. If I threw up right here, would the people around us be shocked.
I pulled my eyes away from Fuuka and found Yuna wearing an expression I’d never seen on her before. I want to know what she’s thinking right now.
“Yeah, well. Today’s our ‘date.’”
Chest puffed out, Fuuka raised their joined hands as if showing them off.
You don’t need to show me. I can see perfectly well without that. Our height isn’t all that different, and yet I’ve always thought her hand, smaller than mine, was cute.
That small hand is mine.
“…I see. Should I not have seen this?”
I forced the words out along with a smile I had to build by hand. I think this is the same face I make whenever some stranger confesses to me.
“Not really~ I’m not hiding it, I don’t mind if everyone—”
“That’s not it!!!”
Yuna, wearing an expression I’d never seen, let out a voice I’d never heard. I didn’t care at all that everyone nearby had turned to look at us.
“F— Fuuka just said she wanted to hold hands for fun.”
“It’s not like we’re actually dating or anything.”
I see. Good, then. If it was just for fun, she could’ve said so sooner. All that worrying for nothing.
I’m apparently not very good at lying to myself.
Do people hold hands like that just for fun? And besides — how does Yuna actually see Fuuka. If she’s really looking at her properly, I think even she would be able to tell instantly that this isn’t just for fun.
“You don’t have to go that far, do you. I’m a girl too, you know, in case you forgot.”
The words were trying for teasing, but her voice wasn’t managing it.
“That’s right, Yuna. Don’t make Fuuka cry, okay?”
“Don’t want to get in your way, I’ll head off now.”
Keeping my mouth curved into something like a smile, I turned my back on both of them and retraced my steps. Home was the other direction, but I didn’t want to stay near the two of them a moment longer.
Fuuka’s known Yuna for so much longer than I have. I have no idea how she really feels about her. Fuuka seems like the type who stands close to people easily, so maybe it really was just for fun.
But when our eyes met for a second, and I saw how unsteady hers looked, I think I understood her feelings anyway.
Yuna is mine. I don’t care if she’s a childhood friend or whatever else — if you’re going to take her out somewhere, ask my permission first.
I never imagined Yuna, who’s always so careful about what people think of her, would raise her voice like that in the middle of a crowd this size. I can’t get that look on her face out of my head.
Was it Yuna who was being strange — or is it me, watching her, who is.
The murky feeling that had been drifting through my chest without ever taking a clear shape — I think, in that single moment, it finally showed itself.