Episode 39
“Morishita, what’s your favourite food?”
“None.”
“Favourite game?”
“None.”
“Hobbies?”
“None.”
Fujishiro is noisy.
Lately she keeps asking me questions, one after another.
It feels like she’s fishing for something, which is suspicious in the extreme.
I don’t know what she’s scheming, but it’s irritating.
The Fujishiro I’d found comfortable to be around was one who seemed interested in everything and was actually interested in nothing — but now she’s become very hard to be around. And on top of that hard-to-be-around feeling, something even worse happens.
She rested her head against my shoulder with a soft thud.
“What’s this all of a sudden?”
“Lending me your shoulder.”
She was leaning with more weight than I’d expected, which was getting in the way of studying. It was in the way — and yet having Fujishiro do this was, for some reason, not unpleasant. Not unpleasant, but it meant I couldn’t study anymore.
“Does Morishita have anyone else she studies with like this?”
“Ran, actually.”
“Are you this close with Ran?”
“Ran doesn’t do strange things like this.”
“So it’s just me, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
A bright answer came back — and then she suddenly stopped leaning against me and went back to studying with full concentration. The very person who’d interrupted my concentration and caused it to snap does her own studying on her own timeline.
I was irritated at that, so I leaned against her in return.
“What’s wrong?”
“You interrupted me so I’m interrupting back.”
“You’re unexpectedly childish in the weirdest ways.”
“Fujishiro’s the childish one.”
“Sure, sure.”
A sudden pain shot through my head, and I rubbed the spot.
Fujishiro had apparently headbutted me.
“What are you doing…?”
“Interrupting back at you?”
“Fujishiro really is an idiot.”
“And who’s the one spending time with that idiot?”
A soft laugh, heh, and she went back to studying.
Lately Fujishiro’s laugh has been spilling out of her more easily.
Somehow that made me feel happy — or indifferent — a feeling somewhere between the two.
The other day, on a whim, I invited Fujishiro out.
To be precise, I wanted to see whether she was actually wearing the choker.
Just as I’d expected, it suited her very well, and I was relieved.
Fujishiro suited cute things so perfectly that I even found myself wanting to wear something like it too — that was how well it suited her.
When I was small I loved cute things, wanted so many things, and must have had plenty of things I liked and wanted and wanted to do — and now I have none of that anymore.
That’s fine.
If I have no desires, I won’t feel the emptiness and loneliness of those desires going unfulfilled.
That’s what I’d told myself — and yet I’d begun projecting my own ideal onto Fujishiro.
She’s pretty, clever, wealthy — close to the kind of person I’d wanted to become.
I want to be someone like Fujishiro, who looks cute in anything and any hairstyle. But as my mother said, cute things don’t suit me — so instead I dress Fujishiro in cute things and satisfy my own desires that way, which makes no sense at all.
I know it isn’t good to project the self I wanted to be onto her. And yet this dynamic between us has become comfortable, and I can’t bring myself to stop.
“By the way, Morishita, are you free this Saturday?”
“This Saturday? I’m free, but.”
“Anywhere is fine, do you want to go out?”
“With tests coming up?”
“Just one day. Is there anywhere you want to go?”
“Fujishiro’s place is fine.”
Her intentions were hard to read, but if we were meeting, inside was fine with me.
“Hmm, I’d have liked to go outside for once, but that’s okay, I guess. Being at home with Morishita is fun too.”
Fujishiro gave up more quickly than I’d expected and broke into a smile.
She’s more willing than I’d thought to count staying at home with me as something good, rather than going out to a shiny, bright life somewhere.
At first, I’d thought Fujishiro was someone living in a completely different world from me. A world I’d never be able to reach no matter how long I lived.
But once I actually knew her, she was standing on the same ground as me, no different at all. Standing on the ground, desperately trying to fly from it.
Like a bird whose wings have been torn away, struggling ugly and graceless on the earth.
I thought that graceless Fujishiro was beautiful.
No matter how wretched her situation, she looks as though she believes in the day she’ll be able to fly again, facing forward, living on.
“Fujishiro, you’re more ordinary than I expected.”
“That’s true. How did I seem to you before, Morishita?”
“Someone who lives a shiny, bright life.”
“So to Morishita I was that dazzling a presence, huh.”
A smirk, aimed at me.
I realised I’d made a mistake and immediately started looking for a correction.
“I meant someone who’s good at pretending to be cheerful.”
“What! Morishita is genuinely so interesting. Being with you never gets boring.”
“I find being with you exhausting.”
“Really?”
Fujishiro’s voice, shadowed with something like sorrow, made me close my mouth.
At moments like these, she always looks sad and asks that.
She really is a dreadful person, pressing on people’s guilt like that.
“…Exhausting was a lie. I don’t actually dislike it.”
“That makes me happy. I like being with Morishita too.”
“I didn’t say I liked it.”
“You’re not honest at all. Anyway, what should we do on Saturday?”
“Whatever.”
“Hmm… I’ll think of something.”
Fujishiro sat with her chin in her hand, thinking for a while.
And just like that, without my noticing when, the days I was spending time with Fujishiro had increased to include weekends too.