Episode 23
My phone chimed and I grabbed it quickly.
“Oh. Just Yudzuki.”
I left the screen unread and tossed the phone onto the bed.
Rolling around wasn’t going to change anything. It had been over a week since Morishita stopped coming over. Winter break was almost done.
A New Year’s message, at the very least — but even that hadn’t come.
Our relationship was probably exactly that kind of thing.
Rather than just waiting, I could send something myself — but some stubborn part of me resisted being the one to reach out to Morishita first.
I was staring vacantly at the ceiling when there was a knock at my door and I startled upright.
I rushed to open it.
“Right, so — I’ll be heading off to work again for a while.”
“Okay. Take care.”
My father had come home for the first time in ages over New Year’s.
Two months, maybe.
But barely two days after getting back, he was leaving again for work. He said overseas trips had been increasing, which meant he could come home even less than before.
There was so much I’d wanted to talk to him about, so much I’d wanted him to hear. And none of it had been said.
I was seeing him off at the door when he spoke, with a sigh mixed into his voice.
“Make sure you get back to the top of the year group on the next test.”
“Yes…”
His words set my heart hammering, and my vision swam. The breathing that had always come without thinking suddenly wouldn’t come properly, and my hand went to my throat.
I stood straight so he wouldn’t notice anything was wrong.
Think of yourself as a doll right now.
I forced my stiffened face into a smile.
“Stop making that face. You look like her.”
My father gave me a puzzled look, then walked out the door.
The latch clicked shut. The key turned from outside.
The room went completely, suddenly quiet. I sank to my knees on the entrance floor. The strength had drained from my body, and I wasn’t going to be able to move for a while.
Thud, thud, thud — a sound started up from my chest and I pulled air in.
“Hah… hah… hah…”
My body wanted oxygen. I tried to breathe in again and again, but the air wouldn’t come properly, and I only became more and more suffocated.
I pressed hard against my chest.
If I fail next time, my father will leave me too.
That was the one future I couldn’t bear.
I have to study…
I’d forgotten to turn the heater on and the room was cold.
I picked up a pen in that cold room, but the feeling in my hands was draining away bit by bit.
Alive or dead, like a doll that couldn’t tell the difference.
This is no different from being dead…
There was no way I could concentrate on studying like this. I lay down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling again. It was pure white, like a picture of the inside of my head right now.
I wrapped both hands around my own throat.
Pressed harder.
Nothing.
When Morishita strangled me it felt completely different. Painful, but my heart racing, warm, a feeling of safety somehow.
No matter what I do to myself, I can’t reach that feeling.
I lifted my frozen hands from my throat.
Whatever I do right now, it’s going to be painful.
I turned off the light and closed my eyes.
Just sleep. Calm down a little.
Eyes closed, I kept breathing in that unnatural way.
Buzz buzz.
My phone vibrated and shook my pillow.
In the darkened room I squinted at the bright screen — and the surprise took my voice away.
Morishita: Happy New Year.
Reading that message, my body, which until moments ago had felt neither warmth nor emotion, held a small handful of heat.
“Ahaha! Now you send it?!”
I was talking to myself with no one around.
It was the fourth of January.
A little late for a New Year’s greeting.
What had Morishita been thinking, sending this now?
I want to see Morishita right now.
But with her, that wish wasn’t one that came true easily. Such a frustrating relationship, I thought.
I couldn’t see her — but I could hear her voice.
Without hesitating, I pressed the call button. She probably wasn’t the type to pick up. But if there was even a small chance, I wanted to hear her voice.
I pulled the duvet over myself, warming my cold body, and listened to the ringing. It cut off suddenly and went silent, and I felt anxious — but that anxiety turned out to be unnecessary.
“What?”
Her voice came through the phone, obviously and entirely not in a good mood. Right now, though, her mood didn’t matter at all.
“Hey, hey. Why are you only sending a New Year’s message now?”
“If it’s a nuisance I won’t bother next time.”
“No — I said it because I was happy. That’s why I asked.”
“Being happy about a New Year’s message — are you an idiot?”
Maybe she had a point.
I’d received New Year’s messages from Yudzuki and Hinata too. I’d replied normally, and we were still messaging back and forth normally. It should have been no different with Morishita.
And yet Morishita’s message made me happier than anything from anyone else.
“Idiot or not, can we talk for a bit?”
“Why do we need to talk. You’re just lonely.”
“Please.”
It stung that Morishita had seen straight through me.
If she were in front of me I probably couldn’t have admitted it — I’d have dug in and snapped something back.
But on a phone call, you can’t see the other person’s face. The reassurance that they can’t see all of you made it a little easier to speak honestly.
“Haah…”
“Sorry.”
“If you’re going to apologise, don’t ask in the first place.”
A rustling sound, then her voice disappeared. I was afraid she was about to hang up and pressed the phone close to my ear — and then her voice came through clearer than before.
“What were you doing?”
“Looking for my earphones.”
“See, Morishita was planning to talk to me all along.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“I’m joking.”
The familiar back-and-forth settled something in me.
Even on the phone, Morishita was Morishita.
“Belated happy New Year. Please take care of me this year too.”
“No intention of taking care of you.”
“You’re so stubborn. Hey hey, what did you do over New Year’s?”
“Slept.”
“Ahaha. Very you. How come you haven’t been coming over lately?”
“Figured it would be a nuisance over New Year’s.”
“So Morishita does think about that kind of thing.”
“If you’re going to make fun of me, I’m hanging up.”
“Sorry, sorry. Like I said before — you have my number, so just ask. I’ll tell you if it’s a bad time.”
She didn’t reply to that, but I had a feeling she’d reach out next time.
Morishita’s voice coming through a phone — what a strange feeling.
She wouldn’t talk unless I asked her something, but even the silent stretches felt comfortable, and the bed was soft and warm, and sleepiness was coming for me.
Until a little while ago my body had been cold, barely feeling alive — and now it was the opposite, my pulse calm, my chest and body softly, gently warm.
“Morishita, come over now.”
“Why?”
“I want to see you. It’s been a while.”
Phones are amazing, I thought.
Being able to say what I actually mean this easily to the person herself — that wasn’t like me at all.
Probably because I was sleepy and my better judgment wasn’t working properly.
“School starts tomorrow.”
“You’d be annoyed if I talked to you at school anyway, right?”
“Don’t talk to me for no reason.”
“Why do you dislike me so much?”
I couldn’t think of anything about being close to me at school that would hurt Morishita.
“Nanoha and I live in different worlds.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that.
Whether she considered herself above me or below me, I couldn’t tell.
Either way it didn’t matter — what I didn’t want was to be recognised as some creature from a completely different world.
Morishita and I were both incomplete.
We were no different from each other at all.
“Hey, Morishita — say something.”
“Something like what?”
“Anything. Whatever.”
Hearing Morishita’s voice was calming. A little while ago I’d been lonely and frightened, and now my mood was lifting and floating.
I wanted her to go along with my selfishness, just for today.
“No. If Nanoha’s not going to talk either, I’m hanging up.”
“Ugh… that’s the worst, so I’ll try.”
My thoughts were drifting, my voice going soft and unhurried. I could no longer quite track what I was saying.
My eyelids grew heavy and fell closed.
I jolted awake and checked the phone — still connected to Morishita. A wave of relief.
“Sorry. I…”
“If you’re sleepy, hang up.”
“Just a little longer…”
I wanted to keep talking to Morishita a little longer.
But my body wouldn’t listen, and my vision was going dark.
*
I opened my eyes and the phone had gone quiet.
I rubbed my eyes and checked the call history — she’d hung up a few minutes ago.
But when I saw the call duration, I was surprised.
We’d been connected that long.
She must have stayed on the line for a while after I fell asleep.
“Morishita is such a fool and an idiot and kind.”
My body, which had been stone cold, was somewhere along the way quietly putting out warmth.