Episode 36
I silenced the alarm by feel, without opening my eyes.
It was Golden Week, but I had to get up anyway, for one reason only: to take first place on the next test.
Just ten more minutes… I told myself, hugging the plushie Morishita had given me.
The choker sat by my pillow.
I’d decided I could only wear it in regular clothes, never to school or around the apartment otherwise. The dog’s listless, droopy face stared back at me.
She’s always so cold to me.
Acts like she has no interest in me at all.
I wished she hadn’t given me this thing.
Holding it just makes me think of her, makes me want to see her.
Morishita, you idiot…
She hadn’t contacted me once since Golden Week started. Then again, she barely contacts me regardless of the season. It’s always me reaching out to her, clinging to whatever connection we have so it doesn’t slip away entirely.
Always me, tangled around her.
I know it isn’t good for me. And yet I can’t stop myself, like a fool.
Curled up in the lukewarm bedding, listening to the faint ticking of the second hand, I closed my eyes again.
I didn’t want to think about her, which is exactly why her face kept surfacing.
Maybe a walk outside would clear my head. Just as I was about to get up, my phone buzzed.
Free today? — from Morishita.
I replied free with a speed that genuinely surprised me.
I changed quickly into regular clothes, hesitated over whether to put the choker on, then decided against it. If I wasn’t even leaving the apartment, wearing it might just come across as strange to her.
Should I curl my hair?
Maybe a little makeup?
While I was still deciding, she’d already arrived.
“What’s going on, Morishita?”
I held out a glass of tea, watching her.
“Came to study.”
“Got it.”
I nodded and spread my study materials across the desk. She immediately did the same beside me.
Even with her right there, the room kept its usual silence. And still my chest felt warm, my heart light.
After a while she got bored first, as always, eyes drifting around the room until they landed on the plushie by my pillow.
“He’s cute, right? I haven’t named him yet. I wanted to think of one with you… any ideas?”
“Figure it out yourself.”
“If it’s just me I might pick something weird. Is that okay?”
“Fine by me.”
“Then I’ll take the first letters of our names and call him Mofu-chan.”
“Isn’t that a terrible name?”
She said it so flatly, and then laughed, properly, more than the moment seemed to call for.
Seeing that unguarded laugh come from somewhere deep in her, I found myself staring.
“I like Mofu-chan.”
“See, you do like it after all. He’s cute, isn’t he.”
“Yeah, cute. Makes me want to say his name over and over.”
“Hey, Morishita. Use my given name too.”
I’d always felt a wall in being addressed by surname only.
It had stung the other day, out with everyone — I was the only one there she didn’t call by name.
Showing that obviously how much she disliked me, I thought, what a difficult person.
When I asked, she looked back at me with the suspicious expression I’d expected.
“Fujishiro’s easy enough to say. That’s fine.”
“Then I’ll call you Mei.”
“I’m used to Morishita. Keep it that way.”
“Why?”
“No particular reason. Hurry up and study.”
She always escapes into studying like this when it matters.
I don’t like that about her.
She says no to things constantly and never explains why.
She barely tells me anything about herself.
I didn’t even know her birthday — I had to rely on Suzuki Ran for that.
Her birthday is June tenth.
I should start thinking about what to give her, but I have no idea what she’d actually accept. She probably wouldn’t take anything I offered anyway.
I don’t know what Morishita likes.
Asking outright clearly wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I should probably spend more time with her outside this room to learn more about her, but somehow I never manage to increase it.
Before I knew it, she was up on the bed, hugging Mofu-chan. I thought I might lie down beside her too, and leaned over the bed with my arm resting there.
“What are you doing, Morishita?”
“Got sleepy. Lend me the bed.”
“I can sleep next to you, if that’s alright.”
“No. Fujishiro should be stud—”
“Goodnight, Morishita.”
I pushed her gently toward the wall and lay down on the bed myself. At first she made a sour, displeased face, brow furrowed, but sleepiness won out and her eyelids slowly drooped. Soon a soft, even breathing reached me, and there in front of me was a girl sleeping peacefully.
Morishita really does have a pretty face, I think.
Pale skin, soft cheeks.
I’d probably get scolded if I touched it.
I glanced at Mofu-chan, held tight in her arms, looking precious to her. I felt envious of him. Jealous, even.
I want to know about Morishita.
I want to know, and she won’t tell me.
How do I break this wall down?
I tried to move closer, but Mofu-chan sat between us, keeping a fixed distance.
Her face, at least, was fully exposed, so I brought my own face close to it.
Close enough that I could have kissed her, and still she didn’t wake.
“Falling asleep in front of the person you kissed — that’s far too careless…”
Having her face this close brought that memory back, and heat gathered in my own face.
She’d fallen asleep without pulling the duvet over herself, so I pulled it over both of us and slipped underneath.
I closed my eyes.
Having her in my sight wasn’t good for me.
I end up thinking about things I don’t need to think about.
Eyes shut tight, I must have drifted off without noticing.
※
Warm. Drowsy.
I must have fallen asleep at some point, and as my consciousness slowly surfaced back into reality, I realized something unbelievable was happening.
The situation was so clearly wrong that my heart felt close to bursting. The instant I twitched, Morishita’s arms tightened around me further.
Where had Mofu-chan gone, the one who’d been between us?
I wanted to look for him, but she was holding me too tightly to move.
Her good smell flowed directly into my nose.
It seemed I’d been mistaken for Mofu-chan and turned into a substitute pillow.
When I lifted my face, Morishita’s beautiful face was right there, and my heart rate spiked the way it does when you’ve done something wrong, even though I hadn’t.
Too close —
I’m usually the one saying we’re both girls, it doesn’t matter.
Right.
There’s nothing strange about being this close to her.
Trying to suppress my racing heart, I kept my breathing as shallow as I could so she wouldn’t wake.
If she woke up now, somehow this would end up being my fault. I was panicking about being made into the strange one again.
While I was trying to figure out how to slip away without waking her, she stirred.
Morishita’s eyes blinked open, dark pupils fixing on me.
My heart pounded loud enough that it seemed to demand an explanation, immediately.
“This isn’t, it’s not what—”
I tried to explain how this had happened, and she pulled me in tighter instead. The pressure made it hard to breathe.
“Where’d Mofu-chan go?”
“I don’t know. I woke up and it was already like this…”
“Then be his substitute.”
“Sorry…?”
She pulled me closer than before.
Her sudden fragility left me with a feeling I couldn’t quite place.
“Morishita, what’s wrong?”
“Do you hate it?”
“I don’t hate it…”
I reached out and touched her cheek.
I stroked her smooth, soft cheek, her eyelids, her glossy black hair. She stayed still, no complaints, letting me touch her.
“No biting today?”
“You want me to bite you?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re such a pervert.”
She pursed her lips and glared at me.
Today really was different from usual.
She almost never falls asleep the moment she arrives at my place, and this fragile version of her was rare too.
Maybe something happened at home.
I wanted to know, but asking felt like it would be overstepping, so I kept quiet.
I pressed myself closer against her, and I started to hear her heartbeat.
Each breath she took made her chest rise, her heartbeat pressing closer against my ear. Her heart moved slower than mine, and my own pulse seemed to slow itself to match.
“You’re alive, Morishita.”
“Saying something that obvious so confidently.”
“You always look half-dead, so.”
“Not really one to talk, Fujishiro.”
“Ahaha. True. Want to listen to mine too?”
“Huh… sure.”
I hadn’t expected her to actually agree, and I think I just sat there, stunned. Morishita kept her usual unhappy expression and pressed her ear against my chest.
My heart, which had only just settled, leapt again at the sudden contact.
“Yours is fast, isn’t it.”
“Quiet.”
I pulled her head in tight, almost crushing it against me.
Asking want to listen? in the first place had been foolish of me.
Embarrassing.
All I could do was scold my own heart for racing like that.
“Hey, Fujishiro.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Going back to sleep.”
“…Okay.”
Morishita buried her face against my body.
Something must have happened.
I couldn’t ask what she’d been about to say.
It takes courage to step into someone else’s pain, and courage to let someone step into yours.
Sometimes acting with good intentions ends up tearing the wound open further instead.
I’ve had salt rubbed into my own wounds that way, by all kinds of people, which is why I’m afraid to step forward in moments like this.
I’ve always treated Morishita the same way, holding back.
And yet she chose to act on her own this time. I think that means she trusts me, at least a little.
Someone who’s actually fragile underneath, but can’t lean on anyone.
I’m a little like that too.
I rubbed her back slowly, gently.
Just a little.
Just the smallest amount, I felt like I’d gotten a little closer to who Morishita really is.