Episode 40
Ten in the morning.
Definitely too early.
What am I even doing.
I was pacing back and forth in the entrance of Fujishiro’s nice apartment building.
Could it be I was actually looking forward to this…?
No way.
I told myself that firmly, and kept pressing and un-pressing the button for Fujishiro’s room number.
“What are you doing?”
“Wha— why are you here?”
“On my way back from shopping.”
Fujishiro was holding a bag, and lifted it slightly so I could see it better. I could tell she’d been shopping just from looking at her, she didn’t need to demonstrate.
What I wanted to ask was why Fujishiro was here at all.
“I was waiting for Morishita.”
“You were shopping.”
“Got tired of waiting, so I went out to kill time.”
Fujishiro said that and grabbed my arm without asking. I stayed silent. I was genuinely relieved she hadn’t asked were you looking forward to it? If she’d asked that, I think I would have fled the scene entirely.
Once we were inside her apartment, we settled into our usual rhythm.
I’d hesitated even to step inside at first, and now I was here as though it were nothing at all.
Sometimes I catch myself and think, this isn’t normal.
That this time with her, which I’d once thought could end at any moment, had become so ordinary, it was almost absurd.
Grumbling that to myself internally, I sat down on Fujishiro’s floor.
After a while she brought me a cup of tea. It eased my throat, dry from tension.
Fujishiro sat down right next to me without asking and leaned her upper body against me. This too had become ordinary, and yet it still wasn’t normal.
“Move away.”
“Why, it’s fine, isn’t it.”
I told her to move and she came even closer. Her ears and brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly.
Glancing sideways at her, I noticed the choker wrapped around her neck.
She wasn’t even going outside today, and yet she was wearing the choker with her regular clothes.
Strange creature.
Being near her started to feel like too much, so I lay down on the bed.
I don’t want to think about anything unnecessary, so I’ll just sleep.
If I was only going to sleep, why had I come here at all. I threw that question at myself and closed my eyes anyway.
…
Turning my back to her while I slept had been a mistake.
Fujishiro pressed herself flush against my back.
“Why don’t you study?”
“Later. Doesn’t Morishita read manga?”
“Not in the mood today.”
“What mood are you in?”
“Not manga, not studying. I want to do something different. Think of something.”
Completely my own selfishness.
Her apartment is calming, but sometimes it feels boring too. I could go to the living room and borrow the TV, but getting my body up off the bed felt like too much effort.
Fujishiro sat up from where she’d been lying, and the bed creaked. She loomed over me with a smile.
I had no idea what she meant by it.
Already annoying enough as it was, she traced her finger along my lips without asking.
“Want to do something indecent?”
“How does your mind even go there?”
I grabbed the hand tracing my lips, and slender fingers slid between mine instead.
She’d laced our fingers together tightly.
“Should I close the curtains, make it darker?”
“That’s not the issue.”
“Atmosphere matters, doesn’t it.”
“Why did this turn into that.”
“Morishita’s the one who said she wanted to do something different. Selfish.”
Whatever was funny about it, the corners of her mouth stayed lifted the whole time.
Strange creature.
Weirdo.
I kept glaring at her until she seemed to give up, released my hand, and flopped down next to me instead. I decided to turn my back on her and sleep, ignoring her entirely.
But I couldn’t sleep.
This time she was tracing something on my back with her finger.
Slightly ticklish. And annoying.
“What are you doing?”
“Guess-the-letter game. Try to guess what I’m writing.”
“Too much effort.”
I thought I’d refused with full force, but her ears clearly weren’t working again.
I wanted to keep ignoring her, but the touch kept pulling my attention to my back.
She traced na.
“Got it?”
“I said it was too much effort.”
“Just play along a little.”
“Haah.”
I let out a huge sigh, but she kept writing na over and over regardless.
“Say it out loud?”
“Na.”
I decided to humour her tedious game a little.
Better than doing something indecent, probably.
Actually, what did she even mean by indecent?
A question I didn’t need to be considering resurfaced anyway.
“Hey, focus.”
“Yes, yes.”
Her slender finger tracing my back was ticklish, and I nearly squirmed.
I wanted this over quickly.
“no.”
“Correct. Last one.”
“ha.”
“Say it together?”
Nanoha.
I don’t think I’ll ever understand this idiot’s intentions, and I don’t intend to try.
“Why won’t you say it?”
“It’s over now, I’m sleeping.”
“Hey hey, Morishita, look this way.”
“Are you especially noisy today?”
“Fujishiro Nanoha has days like this.”
“I see.”
“If you don’t look at me I’ll keep writing on your back.”
Too much effort to keep resisting, so I turned toward her, and she caught both my hands tightly.
“Morishita, caught you.”
“Pointless.”
“Let’s nap together? I’m sleepy.”
Whether she slept was her own business.
But holding my hand made no sense.
And then I ended up learning a body temperature I didn’t need to know, which made it worse.
Fujishiro’s hands are often cold, but sometimes they’re warm.
I’d realized that reflects her state of mind.
When she’s struggling with something painful, her hands go cold. When she’s happy or having fun, they go warm.
An easy person to read, I think.
“Let go of my hand.”
“Fine if Morishita hugs me instead.”
“No.”
“Then give up.”
“Haah… isn’t today especially exhausting?”
Today’s Fujishiro was more exhausting than usual. But I was the one who decided to spend today with her regardless.
Too much effort to keep thinking about it, so I wrapped an arm around her and closed my eyes.
※
When I woke and opened my eyes, the comfortable warmth was gone.
Handing over her warmth without asking, then leaving without asking.
Same as my mother.
The memory of my mother flickered through my mind and turned my stomach.
Irritated by that, I sat up, and Fujishiro wasn’t in the room.
She’d barged into my pitch-dark world uninvited and lit it up, and now she’d suddenly put the light out, leaving a hollow feeling in my chest.
The door opened with a click and Fujishiro looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“Morning.”
“Not morning.”
I yanked her arm hard.
Probably just bad mood from waking up.
Or maybe hunger.
I remembered the day my mother started leaving me behind. I’ve gotten used to it now, but at first it was unbearably painful, and even now it surfaces like it happened yesterday.
I pushed Fujishiro straight down onto the bed.
“Morishita?”
“Don’t go off somewhere without asking.”
“Sorry…?”
I didn’t want her looking at me with that bewildered expression.
Fujishiro, idiot.
I pulled her in tight and something like relief wrapped around me.
I could feel her warmth.
She was properly here, close.
A warmth I never would have known if I hadn’t met Fujishiro that day.
A world I only came to know because my feelings toward my mother had come close to bursting and I fled outside to hold myself together.
If I had killed my mother that day, what would I be now?
Thinking about the future that might have been sent a chill down my spine.
Right now, I’m glad I met Fujishiro.
Meeting people is always accidental, capricious, like a stray cat.
I touched her neck and felt the choker I’d given her still there, and it steadied me.
“Morishita’s the one doing something indecent now.”
“If this counts as indecent, everyone in the world is indecent.”
“Well, fair enough.”
My arms tightened further around her.
I don’t actually mind if Fujishiro disappears from in front of me tomorrow. That’s what I keep telling myself. So why am I holding onto her like this, unwilling to let go?
Fujishiro shifted uncomfortably in my arms and lifted her face.
“Morishita, did something happen?”
“Nothing.”
I tugged at her choker and it came loose easily.
“That’s my favourite, don’t take it off.”
“So what.”
“Oh, good idea.”
Fujishiro pushed against me and slipped the choker off her own neck.
Just as I thought she’d taken it off, she reached her arms around my neck instead.
“What are you doing?”
“I think this suits Morishita better than me.”
My heart pounded hard at that.
She tied the choker snug enough that my throat felt slightly constricted.
“Yeah, this suits you better! You’re cute!”
Fujishiro’s clear, unclouded voice struck straight into my chest.
She scrambled to get a mirror and handed it to me.
I peered into it cautiously, and there was a pretty choker around my neck.
“This is uncomfortable.”
“Bear with it. You’re wearing it today.”
“No.”
I reached to take it off and she caught my arm, smiling.
Being shown a face that happy left me unable to say anything.
“No, it’s cute.”
When I let my hand go slack, Fujishiro traced the choker fondly, and my neck went ticklish.
“Morishita has a cute face, so anything suits you.”
“Not cute.”
“You are.”
Fujishiro said it straight to me, and touched my cheek.
It should have been unpleasant and irritating, but I found I didn’t want to refuse either the touch or the words.
She stroked my cheek several times, then moved to stroke my head.
“What.”
“You’re being unusually docile about being petted, so I was wondering how far I’d have to go before you bit me.”
“You want to be bitten?”
“Sure, go ahead, bite.”
She held her slender, pretty arm out toward me.
Wanting to be bitten, Fujishiro really is unhinged.
Not unhinged exactly, maybe, more that she was probably doing things I dislike on purpose.
I decided I didn’t want to act exactly as she wanted.
“Sleeping.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“…I am.”
“I made food, want to eat?”
“Sorry?”
I sat straight back up from where I’d flopped down.
Fujishiro’s cheeks had gone red.
“I’m not eating.”
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“That’s true, but…”
Fujishiro’s cooking isn’t good.
It makes me feel unwell.
But wasting food isn’t right either.
Prioritise my own body, or avoid being unkind to the food…
“…I’ll eat.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
She laughed, pleased, and led me out to the living room.