Episode 5

The sensation of sinking into the deep sea.
Pitch-dark, my body drifting weightlessly — and yet I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get air. I clawed at the water around me trying to escape the suffocation, but nothing changed.
The pain became unbearable, and consciousness began to recede.

※

I jolted upright.
Despite it not being summer, my back was drenched in sweat — cold and unpleasant against my skin.

I dragged my heavy body out of bed and made my way to the living room.

Light was coming into the too-large living room. I padded through the room where only my own footsteps sounded, and reached the kitchen.

In the sink sat the frying pan still marked with scorch, and two of everything — dishes, cups, chopsticks — left soaking in water.

I washed them with hands that found the water too cold for this early in the morning.

That’s right…….
Morishita was here yesterday, wasn’t she.

I was the one who’d invited her, and yet yesterday already felt like a dream.

Whether it had been enjoyable — not exactly, no.
If anything, Morishita had put me down quite a lot. But I hadn’t felt the weariness I always feel when I’m around people.

I wanted to sit quietly with that feeling, but morning time was finite, so I hurried through getting ready and left the house.

“Nanoha-chan, morning——!”
“Rie-chan, good morning.”
“It’s Nanoha-chan! Morning——!”
“Yui-chan, good morning.”

The moment I arrived at school, I put force into my face and greeted my classmates. I had the names and faces of every student in this year level memorised, so I could respond to anyone instantly. That effort, among other things, was why I was popular in the class.

“Nanoha-chan, you look cute as always today.”
“Oh, stop it — but that makes me happy. Thank you.”
“Being able to receive a compliment gracefully is one of your good points too, Nanoha-chan!”

Me, saying things I don’t mean without a flicker of hesitation.
My classmates, taking every word of it at face value.

From the outside, a laughably hollow set of relationships.
And the fact that I don’t have the courage to dismantle any of it — that suffocating feeling — is something I hate about myself.

Another day had begun.

“Morning, Nanoha——”

Someone patted my head twice, lightly, and a cool, composed girl settled into the seat in front of me. I wanted to swat the hand away immediately, but I suppressed that impulse and arranged my face into a smile.

“Morning, Yudzuki.”

I greeted her with a full, constructed smile. Yudzuki looked back at me with an expression of faint displeasure.

My heart gave a heavy thud at that face.
I wanted her to show me that face as often as possible, I thought.

The part of me that thought that was probably broken in some way.

Yudzuki had been wearing that reluctant expression — and yet now she was leaning slightly toward me, a faint flush on her cheeks.

“The student council meeting today has a lot on the agenda, doesn’t it. I’m counting on you again.”
“Of course. I’ll do my best for the student council president.”
“Having you around is reassuring, Nanoha.”

She reached over and touched my head again, tapping lightly.
Something close to hatred began to stir, and I wished with real feeling that she would stop touching me.

To Yudzuki, I was a highly useful asset. But to me, Yudzuki was nothing but an object of envy and resentment.

My life had been thrown off course because of Yudzuki.

Yudzuki was this school’s student council president and the top academic performer in the year. She topped every exam without fail. Widely trusted, admired by many.

I ran for student council president — and lost. There were no other candidates for vice-president, so that position fell to me by default.

Yudzuki was my childhood friend. She had been beside me since we were small, and as long as she existed, I could never be first in the year, could never be student council president.
To me, she was an obstacle.

“Nanoha, are you alright?”

Yudzuki peered at me with a look of concern. The dark feeling inside me swelled, and I painted over it with brightness, constructing a smile.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

I let out a slow breath and told myself to focus on what was in front of me.

Another day of clinging to the teacher’s every word, turning over how to score full marks on the next test.

Every day was a struggle, and each one passed quickly. The daytime classes ended, the after-school student council meeting ended, and I walked the familiar road home.

Unfortunately, when I arrived, there was no welcome back waiting for me.

Until not long ago, there would have been. Its sudden absence felt enormously lonely. But I supposed I would have to get used to this life soon enough.

In the too-quiet living room, only the small, persistent ticking of the clock’s second hand moved through the air.

Time alone, I thought, was a dangerous kind of time. Unpleasant things floated up one after another.

I’m disappointed in you. It’s because of how you raised her.
Why is everything always my fault?! You never helped either.
That’s your job. Useless.
I’m not a tool. I don’t want to be with someone like this anymore.
Fine then. Do what you like.

Stop——.
I’ll be a perfect child.
I’ll work harder.

My mother leaving the house — that was because I was defective.
My father stopped coming home — that too was because I was defective.

The core of what our family had been rested entirely with me, and I was the one who had broken it.

Even so, I still held a faint, fragile hope that the family might somehow be repaired, and I kept living as hard as I could. But what surfaced sometimes was only this: why was I born, and why am I still alive?

Why do I work this hard every single day?
Why do I have to be perfect?
Why do I keep chasing a life that will never come back?

I don’t feel alive.

My body must have a heart in it somewhere, pumping blood — but I can’t feel the sound of it from inside my own chest.

Like this, I was no different from something already dead.

I want to disappear——.

That feeling had been growing stronger lately. What had set it off was something small — but small things accumulated, and that accumulation had made me what I was now.

I’d looked up many ways to disappear without suffering, but no such convenient method seemed to exist, and I remained in my suffering.

Then, a few days ago, on a night of heavy rain.
My father, who was almost never home, had returned for the first time in a while.

Dad…….
I’ll leave this month’s money. I’m back at work from tomorrow, so I won’t be home for a while.

He smelled of cigarettes and alcohol.
He slumped onto the sofa with the weight of someone exhausted to the bone and stared at the television without really seeing it.

I couldn’t stand to be in that room. I ran out into the street in just my uniform, taking nothing with me.

A dull, needling pain ran through my insides, building into something I could barely endure. The rain had soaked me through entirely, and my body was cold to the core.

I found my way to the shrine with few people around, and sat on a bench. The body that already felt nothing began to lose sensation from its extremities outward, and I found myself thinking — if I could just die here like this……

That was when I met Morishita Mei.

She was in Class 2-A — someone I’d thought of as one of the less visible students, the type who faded into the background. An introvert, in a word.

No particular standout abilities. No particularly standout grades.
A little taller than me, slender built, reasonably good-looking. That was the extent of what I’d thought of her.

But that night, I couldn’t hide my astonishment at what she was carrying.

She dropped a sharp knife in front of me — not exactly suited to killing a person, its purpose unclear. I’d thought at first it might be for self-defence, but when I picked it up and went to hand it back, I saw Morishita’s face — and something inside me that had been aching came awake.

Morishita was laughing. Like someone unhinged.

Her eyes had no clear focus, and the expression on her face was exactly what you’d picture on a violent murderer.

The instant I saw it, a shiver ran down my spine — and my heart leapt with elation.

Morishita’s killing intent——
If it were ever directed at me, I wouldn’t be able to stay normal. In order to make that wish come true, I decided to use her as leverage.

I didn’t know who had put that look on Morishita’s face, but it didn’t matter to me.

Family, friend, stranger — anyone would do.
I needed someone — anyone — who would erase my existence.

A conveniently useful person had appeared at exactly the right moment.

From the next day, I began trying to learn about Morishita.
But the only thing I managed to find out was that she barely ate. Beyond that, she was an indistinct figure.

I didn’t know why I did what I did next.
Probably, I’d felt some pity for her — some sense that she was pitiable somewhere — and I’d wanted to feel superior to her.

I’d wanted to do something for her.

I’d never cooked before, since my mother had always done everything — but rice balls should be manageable, I thought, and tried. As it turned out, however, I appeared to be defective at everything I attempted.

I couldn’t even make a rice ball properly.
Couldn’t cook.

I’d shown her this humiliating side of myself, and I was certain Morishita would be disappointed. That she’d look at me with the same cold eyes my father and mother had.

But instead of disappointment, she said she felt nothing about me at all.
And she ate all the food I’d made — every last bit of my defectiveness served up on a plate.

What a foolish person, I thought.
But for just a moment — just a moment — I found myself thinking: maybe the me who has to be perfect doesn’t actually have to be perfect.

No. It was surely just a passing confusion.

Being in that too-silent room had made me think too much.

I’d finally survived another suffocating day, and yet tomorrow the same life would begin again.

I want to put an end to this life, soon.

For that, I would simply use Morishita.
For that — I decided I would call on her again.