Episode 17

The squeak of shoes on the gymnasium floor reached me as I made my way through the building, passing all kinds of people — students my own age, adults — heading for where I needed to be.

Up the stairs, through the second-floor door, and a bank of spectator seating opened out before me.
Cheering, the crack of a ball being struck, players calling to each other —

A place full of different sounds.

Fewer people were moving alone than I’d expected; everyone clustered and moved in groups.

I didn’t think of myself as a lone wolf exactly, but I’d quietly decided I was more dignified than the kind of person who moved in clusters.

— Or maybe I was just tired of being around people, and that was the story I told myself to make being alone seem like a choice.

The second floor wrapped around the court below like a gallery, spectator seating arranged to look down on two volleyball courts side by side on the ground floor.

The largest gymnasium in the city.

I settled into a front-row seat where I could make out the players’ faces down on the court, and watched.

Today I wasn’t wearing the uniform that wound itself around my throat and made it hard to breathe.

A white jumper, a long skirt, dressed simply. My hair, unusually, was gathered into a single bundle — so probably no one who knew me would recognise me immediately.

I’d walked quickly to get here, and could feel the dampness of sweat across my back. My breathing was evening out gradually, but my heart was moving as though it was looking forward to something.

It must be my imagination…

I didn’t understand why I was here — or why part of me was, faintly, looking forward to it.

I narrowed my eyes, and through the distance I found a girl with an expression of such thorough boredom that it was visible from here.

The sight made me smile.

If you’re going to look that reluctant, you didn’t have to enter, I thought — and yet Morishita had apparently decided to play in the volleyball inter-school tournament.

Yudzuki had told me that Morishita actually seemed to be enjoying volleyball, despite everything.

All I should have felt at that was something simple and clean — happiness for her. But there was something broken in me, because I found emotions arising that weren’t just happiness.

I had decided to help her study so she could do what she wanted, yes. The time I spent with her had increased, yes.

And yet I couldn’t find it in me to celebrate watching Morishita — who should have been grounded and struggling, unable to fly — spreading her wings and going somewhere.

In fact — why was I thinking about her this much?

Because she’d looked at me with murderous eyes?
Because she didn’t expect anything from me?
Because I didn’t have to perform around her?

I didn’t know the reason.
The degree of my fixation on Morishita was starting to feel suffocating.

It wouldn’t matter if Morishita stopped coming to my house from tomorrow.
That was actually the more likely outcome.

Because it was a relationship that could dissolve at any moment, it was comfortable — that was why neither of us pressed, and both of us could breathe.
I told myself that, firmly.

While I’d been lost in thought, the match had apparently begun.

It was obvious, but the level was nothing like school PE. Rallies sustained, attack and defence traded fiercely — it didn’t get boring to watch.

Above all, Morishita looked like she was having fun.
Her expression was blank, but the enjoyment came through.

That gave me a small pang of jealousy.

I had sensed that Morishita felt the same despair about being alive that I did. But she had things she was genuinely good at. Things she found genuinely enjoyable.

Suzuki Ran ruffled her hair vigorously every time Morishita made a good play, and Yudzuki ran over to her during breaks, talking to her with obvious delight.

Oh… so Morishita can be like that with people her own age.

The other day, Morishita had laughed watching me try to make tamagoyaki.
I’d seen her smile for the first time.
A surprisingly soft, almost sweet expression — nothing like the cool composure she usually wore.

I’d felt a kind of pride about that — that I was the one who’d seen it. But apparently Morishita turned that face toward more people than I’d thought.

During the match, during the breaks, she was laughing with her teammates. Every time a point was scored, everyone high-fived, pressed close together, openly, visibly happy.

Morishita was fitting into the human world just fine.

She’d been holding a knife, with a madness in her eyes that had seemed barely human… and yet here she was.

I could just expose everything about Morishita to the whole school—.

The ugly thought surfaced easily.

But recently I hadn’t seen any of that dangerous edge in her. Maybe she was already changing.

While I stayed the same.
Unable to change.

Because there was nothing in me that was better than ordinary.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have come today. Twisting everything into the worst possible shape in my own head, spiralling — I was being foolish.

A slow breath out. I tried to redirect my thinking. But there was nothing for me to think about, and I was struck by the flatness of it — what a joyless life.

The match wasn’t over, but I left the gymnasium.

I drifted through the town without direction, walking past shop fronts without seeing them, going nowhere.

It was still well over a month away, and yet Christmas decorations had already started appearing in shop windows.

“Christmas…”

Once, not so long ago, I must have spent Christmas like any ordinary family did.
Now it was the worst event of the year.

All of it was my fault.

If only I’d had something in me worth having…

Carrying the bleak weight of things I couldn’t change, I wandered the streets.

I wish Christmas would just disappear—.

Today was a bad day.
Too many things mixed up inside.

I was chasing after somewhere empty of people, as though trying to flee something.

The sun had gone down and the streets were dark.
Without thinking about it, my feet had turned toward the familiar shrine.