Episode 26

Nanoha walked beside me the whole way without saying a word.
I was relieved she didn’t push for details.
But I was bitterly regretting having been maneuvered so neatly into coming outside. She really is a genius at coercing people.

If she told the police, my mother would be taken away, and I’d be taken somewhere I didn’t know.

That was the one outcome I absolutely couldn’t allow.

My flat and Nanoha’s turned out to be further apart than I’d thought, and the long silence between us for the whole walk was its own kind of awkward.

When we arrived, Nanoha suddenly started pulling off my hat and scarf and coat without asking, pushed me into her room, said “don’t come out,” and shut me in.

The whirlwind of it had left me exhausted, but it was also true that being in Nanoha’s room had already settled something in me.

Strange.
It had been less than a month since I thought I had nothing more to do with Nanoha, and here I was in her flat again.

For some reason no matter how I tried, I couldn’t sever the connection with her.

No — the more accurate thing to say was that I couldn’t bring myself to sever it.

Without noticing when, I had come to feel that losing any connection with Nanoha would be something I didn’t want.

It was probably just because I had no place of my own at home, and when I went looking for somewhere that could stand in for it, this happened to be the right fit.

Just that. Nothing more.
Telling myself that, I sat quietly in her room.

The door creaked open and Nanoha came in.

“What were you doing?”
“Morishita, I need you to just do what I say without arguing.”
“What?”

Nanoha is always incomprehensible, but today she was especially so.

She had a serious expression as she pressed something cold against my face without warning.

I moved to brush it away, but she was looking at me with such complete intent that I couldn’t say anything.

“You’re being nosy.”
“Don’t you want to get back to school quickly?”
“Did Ran tell you something?”

I said it in an angry tone and Nanoha dropped her shoulders with a large sigh.

“She told me nothing. I said don’t argue, didn’t I?”
“How am I supposed to stay quiet when you’re doing this. You’re just feeling sorry for me, aren’t you.”

Everyone does.
When I was in primary school, I went to school without giving a second thought to how my mother was treating me, and a group of adults I didn’t know surrounded me and my mother was crying.

I thought at the time — why is everyone being cruel to my mother — but when I said that, everyone looked at me with eyes full of pity.

Don’t look at me like that.

The people who made my mother sad were the ones who were wrong, and when I said I’ll stay by your side, my mother smiled — so I thought I was the only one who could protect her.

But as I grew older and came to know my friends’ home situations, I began to understand that mine wasn’t normal.

That was when it started — the split between the part of me that wanted to stay by my mother’s side, and the part that wished she would just disappear.

So I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want people to know about me.

I came to dislike people, to think that managing surface-level relationships was enough.

Nanoha is no different from the people who look at me with pity.
She just wants to feel like a good person by feeling sorry for me. That’s all.

“Yes, I do feel sorry for you.”
“Don’t look at me like that. Everyone does that, playing the good person, all hypocrites!”

I swung my arm and my elbow connected solidly with her body. A dull thud, then Nanoha’s strained ugh, and the blood drained from my face.

“Sorry—”
“I’ll be a hypocrite for Morishita’s sake.”
“What…?”

The ice pack touched my face again, gently, carefully.
It carried the soft smell that always came from Nanoha’s bed, mixed with a sharp antiseptic note.

With my resistance gone, Nanoha was smiling at me with an expression softer than anything I’d seen from her before.

Being looked at like that made my chest ache.
It felt like being forgiven. It made me want to let my guard down completely.

The ice pack at the right temperature was becoming comfortable.

“You know, I used to think being a hypocrite was something you did for your own benefit.”
“Nanoha’s always playing the good person.”
“Exactly. All of it for myself. But—”

She looked down, uncertain for a moment, then met my eyes again. And then the usual confident expression came back.

“Right now I want to be a hypocrite for Morishita.”
“…That makes no sense.”
“It doesn’t have to.”

The cold thing left my face gently, and now her too-warm hand touched the painful spot.

A sticky cream spread across my temple, and every place it passed went warm with a deep, throbbing heat.

“What are you doing.”
“Something to make the bruise heal faster.”
“Why do you even have something like that.”

Thinking about it calmly, both the ice pack and the bruise cream — wasn’t this too well-prepared?

“You’re interested in me today.”
“I’m interested in the cream. Not in you.”

I forced my swollen eyelid to open. It should have been painful, but by now it was so cold it had lost most of its feeling.

Nanoha continued, with a quietly forlorn expression.

“Up until middle school I liked sports even though I had no talent for them. My coordination was terrible, so I was always getting bruises — that’s why I had these things. I wanted to join a club in high school too.”
“Then you should have joined one.”

I threw the words out without thinking, and only after saying them understood they were wrong.
Nanoha’s face had gone into something pained and difficult.

“I’m not skilled enough a person to do everything I want to do.”
“…”

Nothing came.

I know Nanoha is clumsy at things that matter.
I know she hides it by playing the good person at school, performing the role of someone perfect.

Even though she’s actually fragile enough to be trembling alone in a gym storeroom.
Even though she’s not perfect at all.
Even though she gets lonely enough to look like she might die.

She pushes herself to try anyway.

I don’t know what drives her to do it, but I think she’s a fool for it.

Still — I felt as though I’d glimpsed, just a little, not the surface Nanoha but the weak place underneath.

“Morishita, take your clothes off.”
“Excuse me?”

I thought she’d run out of energy — and then she said something strange, so I reacted with quite a loud voice I think. Still, Nanoha pushed closer.

“I need to ice it and put cream on it. You have other painful places too, don’t you.”
“I don’t.”
“Then prove it, take them off.”
“No.”
“What would make you take them off?”
“Nothing would. Absolutely not.”

I’d already had my terrible face seen. I wasn’t going to let her see my wretched body too.

My face and my body are both wretched — I really have nothing good about me, the thought surfaced unbidden.

“You don’t want to take them off, why? We’re both girls, so it’s not a big deal, is it? And we’ve already had a bath together.”
“That’s not what this is about. I’m… dirty…”
“Hah.”

Nanoha ruffled her own hair roughly and looked at me with a cool expression.

“Don’t flatter yourself — that’s what I said to you. I don’t care what Morishita’s body looks like. Right now show me the injuries.”
“It’s embarrassing—”

It was embarrassing regardless of whether we were both girls. Because I had no idea what someone would think seeing me. And if they said you’re defective again, I’d have a wound in a place that couldn’t heal on top of everything else.

The bruises on my body would heal eventually, but wounds on the heart never did.

“Okay.”

I had no idea what she’d understood — but Nanoha started undoing her own necktie, unfastening her own buttons without explanation.

She shrugged off her blazer, then dropped her shirt to the floor in one soft motion.

A pale yellow bra covered her neat chest. Then she took off her skirt too, so the only thing left protecting Nanoha was her underwear.

“If I’m like this, it’s not embarrassing, is it.”
“…That’s not the point.”

I was embarrassed and looked away from her.

Even so she closed the distance so that she stayed in my line of sight.
She turned off the main light with the remote, so with only the night light on, her body was much less visible.

“Give up. I’ve already given you this much—”

Her voice settled into the room, and it felt like it meant I had no more room to refuse.

Always. Always. Always.
Nanoha pushes things forward by force.

But it would hurt to throw away the feelings behind her doing something this embarrassing on my behalf.

Reluctantly, I took off my house clothes.

The room had the heater on, but without clothes the air was cool against my skin.

Goosebumps rose across my whole body at once, and my already ugly body felt uglier still.

Having her turn the light off was the one mercy.

With the embarrassment making my focus drift through the darkness, something cold pressed flat against my back, and my body clenched tight.

After the painful places had been iced for a while, Nanoha’s hand touched my body.

She was trying to be gentle in her own way, but some places hurt just from being touched, and I gripped the bed sheet tightly so no strange sound would escape.

“Does it hurt?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Bear with it a little longer.”

Her slender fingers moved across my body.

Because they moved slowly, I could feel more precisely where her hand was than before, and my skin prickled with a restless sensitivity.

“That tickles.”
“I’m done with your back, turn this way.”
“No.”

I absolutely didn’t want her to see my front, but Nanoha is a cruel person and says the things I least want to hear.

“If you won’t turn over I’ll tell, you know~”
“Then I’ll sue you for blackmail.”
“Go ahead.”
“You think I’m not serious. I am serious.”
“I know. Morishita’s body matters more to me.”

At those words my heart beat hard and loud.

She probably says things like that easily to anyone.

It’s Nanoha’s social grace.

That’s what I told myself. I must not take Nanoha’s words seriously.

“It’s dark so you can’t see anything, don’t worry.”

That was a lie too, obviously.

Because she was finding my painful places accurately and putting cream on them.

Still, I resigned myself and turned to face her.

When I did, Nanoha was in the same state as me, and despite being the same, she was beautiful.

I found myself staring at her body, beautiful enough to make me jealous.

“Morishita, you’re terrible. You’ve been looking at me too much.”
“Self-important pervert.”
“That’s a spell-like insult.”

She let out a small laugh but her hands never stopped. The painful places had gone numb from the cold, and over them the unpleasant ointment was spread. Then every place she’d applied it went warm and throbbing. She finished applying it to my legs too, and Nanoha looked satisfied.

I hurried back into my house clothes.

“You just need to rest and you’ll be fine.”
“Shut up.”

No.
That’s not the right word.
I should be thanking her properly, and yet at a moment like this why can’t I be honest.

“Come rest in the bed for a bit.”
“I’m fine. I’m going home.”
“Rest.”

Nanoha pushed the duvet over me by force.

Her warmth doing that meant my cold body kept getting warmer and warmer.

“If anything happens, call me. I’ll be studying.”

She said it and her warmth began to move away.

My body moved on its own before I could think. I grabbed Nanoha’s hand, pushed on her shoulder, and laid her down on the bed.

“Morishita?”
“Stay here.”

I lay down with my back to her.

“Is that alright?”
“Shut up. Sleep.”

I said it sharply, and something soft and warm and light settled on top of my head. It seemed Nanoha was gently stroking my hair.

“What are you doing…”
“Casting a spell so Morishita can sleep peacefully.”
“That makes no sense…”

I should have resisted, but I had no strength left for it, and before I knew it my vision had gone completely dark.