Episode Twenty-Nine
Runa’s message setting the student council group chat buzzing — something about all going to the summer festival at the end of the month — scrolled past the edge of my vision as I leaned back against my chair.
Runa and Rin talking excitedly about it. Going with Fuuka or the student council, either sounds fine. Just not right now — I don’t have the space in my head for something like that. I’ll reply later. I turned my phone face-down and brought my eyes back to the notebook lying open in front of me.
Maths formulas. Historical events. Physics. What’s the point of memorising any of it, I wonder. Adults tell you to study while you’re young, but rather than any of that — how to get along with people, or… love. I’d rather someone taught me properly about the things in life you can’t look away from. If they had, maybe it wouldn’t have come to this—
The pen I’d been gripping slipped from my hand just as a tentative knock sounded at the door behind me.
The quiet beating of my heart kicked into noise.
“Onee-chan. Can I come in now?”
A small, uncertain voice. She could just open it without waiting for an answer, like she always does.
I turned toward the door and drew in a slow breath, let it out. I’m all right. Calmer than I expected, actually.
“Come in.”
I waited a beat before answering. The doorknob turning slowly was visible, but the door didn’t open straight away.
“Sorry. It’s late.”
“It’s fine. It’s always like this.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Nothing but apologies. Her gaze passed over me and landed somewhere far away, and both hands were still gripping the hem of her shirt. She looked like a child bracing to be scolded.
“I’ll be out of here soon. I just… wanted to apologise properly.”
“…Okay.”
Without noticing, I’d grabbed the hem of my own shirt too. The rabbit printed on the front had gotten all twisted out of shape.
“I know you probably won’t believe me, but… I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. I was just going to tease you a bit about the Fuuka thing.”
“…Okay.”
“But then I just… lost track of myself, somehow.”
“I know we’re family, and it was terrible. It must have felt disgusting. I’m sorry.”
We’re family…
Being called family by the person I love most — I think that’s actually a kind of happiness. An ordinary classmate drifts further and further away over time and eventually disappears from your life entirely. But family means being together forever. There aren’t many kinds of happiness you can say that about.
And yet there’s an ugly part of me that doesn’t want Ao to call us family. The chain of “family” feels suffocating. I want to bite through it right now — I’ve told myself that over and over, hesitated over and over.
“I was in the wrong too. I should have stopped you. I didn’t.”
Does Ao feel the same things I do, deep down? I want to ask. I want to know what she really thinks.
If she’s carrying the same feeling I am… maybe it would be all right for both of us to break together.
“Ao — do you—”
Like me?
Just two little words. A second, maybe less. I thought I could say it. But the words knotted in my throat and wouldn’t come out.
“Sorry, never mind.”
Ao is still standing in the doorway. She’s ready to leave the moment she’s told to.
“Let’s make up. Being like this is exhausting.”
I said it and gently held out my right hand. My palm was warm with faint sweat.
“I’m so glad you said that. I cried when I saw the omurice.”
“…Was it good?”
“Obviously. If it had been fresh out of the pan, it would’ve been even… better, I think.”
Ao’s unsteady voice started to fill with tears. The drops tracking down her cheeks caught the light and seemed to shine, and the sight of her shoulders trembling as she held back her sobs sent a small shiver through me.
Ao is beautiful even when she cries. I want to see so many more sides of her. My head was a mess of ugly, relentless feeling.
“Will you make up with me?… You’re not still angry? You don’t think it was… disgusting?”
Still with wet cheeks, Ao looked at me with frightened eyes.
“I was angry at the time, but—”
I’m the one who resists being called family, and yet I raged at Ao for nearly breaking that family apart. I think I’m the one who’s disgusting.
“I decided I was the one more at fault. Sorry, Ao.”
She crumpled to her knees and pressed her face down, crying like a child. I reached over and gently rubbed her back. From the outside, we must look like nothing but sisters right now. A composed older sister soothing a crying younger one. How much easier my life would have been if I could have lived without feeling how strange that is.
The sound of Ao’s crying and the clock’s second hand were the only things in the room — and yet the time felt far more comfortable than those silent, suffocating meals had been.
I set a mug down in front of Ao’s tear-reddened eyes. Not the one she usually uses — my own favourite.
“…Thanks. This is yours, isn’t it?”
“A peace offering. It’s cute, isn’t it.”
“Cute… I guess.”
She looked sideways at the illustration on the mug, uncertain, and brought it cautiously to her lips. I couldn’t take my eyes off her mouth.
“I won’t do anything like that again. I promise.”
“So… thank you. For forgiving me.”
“I told you I was in the wrong too. We’re even.”
Awkward, but the oppressive weight of the morning had gone. Though — would she really go back to the Ao I knew? Now that we’d made up, somehow I felt that the distance between us might end up wider than before. I couldn’t explain where the feeling came from.
“I should get back to my room. Really — thank you.”
Mug still held in both hands, Ao gave a small bashful smile and slowly got to her feet. She could stay a little longer. Tomorrow was a school day, but it wasn’t quite time for bed yet.
“Goodnight.”
A word flew out before I could stop it, as if to catch the hand she’d put on the doorknob.
“Th— this weekend!”
“Want to go out somewhere? There’s a shop I’ve been wanting to try. Would you… come with me?”
I heard the sound of Ao drawing in a sharp breath.