Episode 18

Moonlight was falling across the shrine, making it seem brighter than usual. I sat down on the bench in the little park beside it.

This place is quiet, almost no one comes here. I remembered the wonder I’d felt the first time I found it.

I took a long, slow breath and tried to cool down the strange heat in my head.

Once I’d calmed down a little, I’d go home, have a bath, get to sleep early.

When the sun came up, maybe my mood would lift at least a little.
I wanted to believe that.
I kept breathing — deliberately, unnaturally — waiting for the feeling inside me to settle.

…I want to disappear.

That’s no good.
Today, no matter what I did, the bad thoughts kept coming back.

A tightness in my chest, aching and oppressive and squirming, beyond anything I could do about it.

“…I want to die.”
“That again?”

My words — which should have had no one to return them — came back to me in a slightly low voice, and I leapt to my feet.

Standing in front of me was a slender girl in a windbreaker.

“Why are you here?”
“You haven’t been checking your phone?”

I startled and looked. Two hours ago, a notification from Morishita: teach me to study, nothing else.

“I wanted a reply.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t looking at it at all.”
“Right.”

Morishita dropped down onto the bench beside me with a thud, bumping into me as she sat. The awkwardness of a moment ago had already gone somewhere — and along with it, the negative weight I’d been carrying until just now.

As always, Morishita stayed silent unless I spoke first. It was always me who gave in to the quiet and hunted for something to say.

“Oh — how was the match?”
“Exhausting.”
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”
“You came to watch?”

Oh no…
I hadn’t told anyone I was going to the match today — the realisation caught up with me and I corrected quickly.

“I mean — you seemed like you would be.”
“Volleyball is fun. But I’m tired.”

Morishita rummaged in her bag and produced a piece of chocolate, putting it in her mouth without comment. That she was carrying food at all struck me as unusual.

“You having snacks — that’s rare.”
“Someone brought them as a contribution to the team. Want some, Fujishiro?”

I hadn’t said yes, but Morishita placed a piece of chocolate in my hand without asking.

Come to think of it — I hadn’t eaten anything since morning.

Whether it was seeing the chocolate or just that my body had relaxed enough to notice, I suddenly felt hungry.

I tore open the individual wrapper and put the chocolate in my mouth.

Sweet.
Sweeter than usual, somehow.

“You’re in casual clothes. That’s rare.”
“You’re in a windbreaker. That’s rare.”
“Had a match today. Ran lent it to me.”
“Hmm.”

That was something I didn’t particularly want to hear.
The image of Morishita’s face at the gymnasium — that enjoyment — rose in my mind, and something ugly came swelling up from somewhere deep in my body.

I wanted to break everything about her—

I pushed Morishita sideways with both hands and straddled her. My hands went to her throat.

I pressed down. Morishita’s brow creased — and then, almost immediately, her expression went flat.

“You really are strange, Fujishiro.”
“You can talk.”

Every time Morishita made a sound, every breath she took, I could feel the vibration in her throat.

Obviously — she was a person with blood in her. A living human being.

Morishita was probably normal.
I was the one who was wrong.
I’d always known that.
And yet there was a part of me that couldn’t accept it.

“If you’re going to do it, do it properly.”

Morishita gripped my arm, hard. In response my hands tightened further.

My fingers pressed into her throat. I’d pushed too hard — my nails were digging into her skin.

Morishita’s expression grew harder, and in step with it, my whole body and both hands were shaking. As if to hold back the shaking, I released the pressure — and Morishita, who had looked pained, returned to her usual expression.

“You’re a coward, Fujishiro. See it through.”
“You’re a coward too.”
“…You’re right.”

Morishita sat up and pushed me off her, and we were side by side on the bench again.

I was not just an empty person — I had been about to do something unforgivable to someone.

I felt as though I was sinking further and further down into the ground, with no bottom in sight.

“I’m not going to tell you to talk if you don’t want to — but I want to know why you did that to me.”

Morishita only ever asked me things like this at moments like this.
But the fact that she was curious about me — that was something I was glad of, so I decided to let it out honestly.

“I saw you looking happier than me, and I wanted to break something. Wanted everything to fall apart—”

I knew I was saying something fairly terrible.
But there was no lie in those words.

When I first got involved with Morishita, I’d looked at her and thought she was more miserable than me — looked down at her, pitied her. I’d taken it upon myself to feel a kind of kinship with someone I thought was similar to me. But Morishita was leaving me behind and becoming happy. That sat badly with me.

Saying something this unhinged — it wouldn’t be strange if she told me she wanted nothing more to do with me.

There was something like loneliness in the thought of Morishita not being here. But being with her was starting to make me feel wretched.

What a contradiction, I thought, hating myself for it.

“Ahaha. You really are pretty unhinged, Fujishiro.”
“I know. So you’d be better off not having anything to do with me anymore.”

The fear of being hurt was making me push her away first.
I knew that if I was the one to say it, I couldn’t complain if Morishita walked away. And yet I was expecting something from her.

“I’m not saying you’re right — but I understand that feeling. A little.”
“Sorry?”
“Wanting to smash something about a person. I get like that too, sometimes.”

I looked at the girl beside me. She was saying it with a wry, slightly rueful expression.

“You’re pretty unhinged yourself, Morishita.”
“Yeah. — Anyway, lend me your shoulder.”
“Sorry?”

Before I could refuse, she laid her head on my shoulder. Such a small thing — and yet I suddenly felt as though something inside me was being squeezed.

“Morishita, what’s wrong?”
“Tired.”

Morishita smelled different from usual — a human smell, closer and more present — and I wanted to push her away, honestly, but her voice had a fragility to it that I couldn’t act on.

Between what had happened during the day and the smell coming off her now, Morishita was irritating me today. But hearing that faint weakness in her voice, I found myself reconsidering my own behaviour, just a little.

From where I’d been sitting, Morishita had looked like she was having fun today.
But what I’d actually heard from her was volleyball is fun and I’m tired.

Morishita, who never lies, had said nothing beyond that.
The person who had looked happy to me was still a person wearing a mask — and maybe what I’d seen hadn’t been the real her at all.

I decided to trust the words she’d actually said over what I’d thought I saw.

“Do you want to come over now?”
“I’m too tired today.”
“Right…”
“I’ll come tomorrow.”
“What…?”

I’d been sure she wouldn’t come to my apartment anymore — the surprise made me turn to look at her, and with my movement her head slid off my shoulder. She fixed me with a sharp look.

“You’ll come? Even after what I just did?”
“If you don’t want me to, I won’t.”
“It’s not that — I did something pretty terrible to you just now…?”

Morishita let out a breath and ran her hand roughly through her hair.

“End-of-term exams are coming up. You said you’d help me study — that’s why I played in the match today. Take responsibility.”
“Y— yeah… that’s fair…”

I hadn’t finished getting settled when she leaned back against me again, leaving me stuck in an awkward position for a while, propping her up with nowhere to go.