Episode 64
“Morishita, it’s only your first year — you don’t have to push yourself so hard. Let’s take it easy, loosen those shoulders a bit.”
“Yes.”
“Come on, you can head home for today!”
My mentor, Kamo-san, spoke to me kindly.
On the ring finger of this serious-looking woman, a ring glinted.
I took her up on it, gave a small parting greeting, and left the workplace.
I lifted my face and looked out over the city.
It had been nearly a week since I’d started living in this city, and taking in the unfamiliar scenery wasn’t bad, as it turned out.
Still, there were times I felt worn out from all the new information pouring in.
I decided I’d go to bed early today.
I got back to the place where I lived alone now, and though part of me really wanted to dive straight into bed, I opened the fridge instead.
The vegetables were about to go bad, and I knew I ought to cook something with them, but I didn’t have it in me, and ended up just pouring hot water into a cup noodle instead.
I’ll start cooking for myself properly once I’m used to the job — that was the excuse I let myself get away with, for now.
When I’d lived with my mother, thoughts this slack never used to occur to me, and I never let myself off the hook like this.
Finally free of that suffocation, I found myself feeling short of breath far less often now.
I slurped the cup noodles as if savoring this happiness. But the room was so quiet it only made the hollow feeling grow.
Maybe I should buy a TV sometime.
Living alone, worries I’d never even imagined kept cropping up.
Maybe it would help to just get used to this life quickly — but I found myself anxious, wondering whether it was even something you could get used to.
Carrying those gloomy feelings, I finished dinner and switched on the water heater.
Relieved by that, I meant to take a bath before I fell asleep, but I ended up collapsing straight into bed instead.
Maybe I’m a little lonely…
The thought startled me, and I caught my breath.
There was no way — no way I could be missing my life with my mother.
Then why, just now, had I thought I was lonely?
A memory from about a month ago flashed through my mind.
“I love you, Morishita—”
Fujishiro, saying that?
I hadn’t known she held feelings like that for me.
No… maybe I’d just been looking away from it.
Even so, I had no idea what the right answer was supposed to be.
Watching my mother, I’d come to believe that things like love and romance were the least trustworthy things there were.
Having that feeling directed at me by Fujishiro — the one person I’d let my guard down for, if only a little — left me with something short of discomfort, but a kind of unease all the same. And yet it was also true that knowing someone held positive feelings toward me made me a little bit happy.
But…
Without meaning to, I found myself gripping the sheets tight.
I hadn’t seen Fujishiro since the day she confessed.
She’d stopped asking to meet up, and something about me being the one to say I wanted to see her felt wrong too, so I hadn’t said anything.
Things between us had gotten to the point where I was starting to wonder if her saying she liked me had been a lie.
Maybe Fujishiro’s new life had started and she was too caught up in the excitement of it.
I wanted to know what she was doing now. We lived in the same prefecture, so if I wanted to see her, I could. But I couldn’t think of a single reason to.
There was no more need to study for exams together.
I don’t want to go read manga, I don’t need help studying — not one of those reasons existed anymore.
I’d started worrying over things like this more and more.
I twisted onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.
Staring at the blank white ceiling got boring too, so I took a deep breath and decided to close my eyes.
Just a short nap, to clear my head.
As I kept breathing in and out, the intercom suddenly rang, and I shot upright as if I’d been startled awake.
Maybe it was the shampoo I’d ordered online, arriving.
I shuffled unsteadily over and peered through the peephole.
What I saw outside nearly stopped my heart, and I threw the door open at once.
There was a dull thud, and the girl staggered back a step, then two, clutching her head. But she immediately shook her head hard and turned a smile my way.
“Why…”
“I’m Fujishiro — I just moved in next door today. Nice to meet you!”
Fujishiro said it with a beaming smile. In an instant, I went completely blank.
The person who’d moved in next door looked, on the surface, like someone flawless — but was actually missing a great deal, and in some ways not so different from me: Fujishiro Nanoha.