Episode 38
Today is the day of my date with Morishita.
I hadn’t expected her to be the one to invite me. The thought had me standing in front of my wardrobe, agonising over what to wear.
What was I even doing…
Calling it a date to myself, like that…
I was appalled at how giddy I’d become.
After a great deal of deliberation I settled on something casual, a knit top and a long skirt.
Morishita is a mystery to me.
What she likes, what she dislikes.
Her private life, barely known.
And yet a little more has become clear, gradually.
Morishita had been unusually interested in me when my hair was curled.
That it made me happy — I really have become foolish.
And dressing up for Morishita’s sake — even more foolish.
And yet I couldn’t stop myself.
I curled my hair carefully, and wound the choker she’d given me around my neck.
The choker pressed against my throat, slightly constraining, but somehow warm, and above all it made me feel pretty.
I checked my reflection one final time and went outside.
A little early for the meeting time, but I wanted to arrive calmly and settle my feelings, so I made my way to the meeting place.
What version of Morishita would I get to know today?
Just a little, I was looking forward to it.
I reached the shrine and sat on the bench where Morishita usually settles, checking my phone.
Hinata had sent free today? but I’d left it on read.
Lately Hinata had scolded me for being antisocial.
Of course spending time with childhood friends matters, but recently I haven’t felt like it.
I’d been with Yudzuki and Hinata for years, and being with the two of them had always felt easy — and yet someone had casually come along and taken that top spot from them without any effort at all.
The scrape of sneakers on gravel.
I looked toward the sound and Morishita was there.
Unlike last time she wasn’t in a dress, just trousers and a casual hoodie.
I stood, and she was closer than I’d expected, my heart beating one beat faster.
Her dark eyes fixed on mine and I felt pulled in.
Her hand reached smoothly toward my throat, and the choker was tugged firmly.
The pressure drew me toward her, and she was laughing.
“You actually wore it. Good girl.”
Her voice was softer and more deliberate than usual, and it clung to my ears, making my face go hot.
Being moved this much by a single word from Morishita — I was not in a normal state.
I pulled myself back to normal.
“You gave it to me, so it would be a waste not to wear it.”
“The collar suits you.”
“It’s not a collar. It’s a choker. Don’t treat me like a dog.”
“You’re basically a dog. Wear that for other people too.”
She let out a soft breath of laughter and stepped back from me.
Incomprehensible.
Incomprehensible — and yet my chest was soaring, which was the most incomprehensible thing of all.
She disliked being close with me, and yet apparently it was fine for me to show this choker off to everyone.
What kind of weirdo was that.
I complained silently and hurried after her retreating back, falling into step beside her.
“What are we doing today?”
“Buying stationery.”
“And after that?”
“Wherever you want to go.”
“Sorry?”
Morishita inviting me out when she had no particular need to — I couldn’t make sense of it. As much as I tried to dismiss the conceited feeling rising in me, I couldn’t quite shake it.
“Could it be you just wanted to see me wearing the choker?”
“Shut up.”
What was that…
It was sort of anticlimactic, and yet — Morishita really was an unidentified life form at every turn.
Cold, then warm. Fragile, then cool. Foolish, then not.
Genuinely strange.
I walked through the streets in silence.
I hoped everyone would see us walking together like this, and walked slowly, wishing for it privately.
When we reached a small shopping mall, Morishita really did walk straight into a stationery shop. I followed her in and she looked at me with suspicion.
“Don’t follow me.”
“I want to look at stationery too.”
She didn’t push back on that as much as I’d expected, and turned back to looking at the shelves.
The stationery she picked was uniformly simple.
In a good way, not particularly like a high school girl.
“Hey, let’s get matching mechanical pencils.”
“Why.”
“It gives things a special feeling, makes me want to try harder. And it concerns you too.”
“How does it concern me?”
“If you get matching ones with me, I might be able to take first on the test.”
Honestly — whether I got first or not was starting to feel beside the point. The reason I was still performing for my father was to get him to fund my way through university.
After graduation, I planned to cut ties.
Being able to think like that was thanks to Morishita.
Still, I hadn’t given up on taking first.
I’d made a promise with Morishita, and I wanted to actually keep it.
Taking first meant the terms of our relationship would be fulfilled and it would end — and that was the last thing I wanted. And yet having Morishita think I was the kind of person who didn’t follow through was also something I couldn’t accept. My feelings contradicted themselves at every turn.
“If you promise to take first, matching is fine.”
“Really?!”
If I was thinking ahead properly, I shouldn’t make that promise.
Because after taking first on the test, I still wanted to go on being with Morishita the way we were now. More than that — I’d even started thinking that when we went to university, living together might be fine. That was how much I’d let her in.
…What was I thinking, all on my own like this.
I’d been touching the choker at my throat without noticing, and my hand was taken.
Morishita does that sort of thing suddenly.
My heart couldn’t bear the surprise, and clenched tight with it.
I reflexively put distance between us, and Morishita’s face went a little sad as she opened her mouth.
“Which pencil do you want?”
“Morishita, what’s your favourite animal?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Then which of these do you like best?”
I lined up five pencils — a dog, a rabbit, a bear, a sparrow, a dolphin. She turned her face away.
“I don’t want something that looks like a primary schooler uses it.”
“Why, they’re cute. Age has nothing to do with it.”
I held each pencil up in front of her face one by one. All of them got vague reactions — except one, where her brow twitched just slightly.
“Morishita, do you like dogs?”
“I don’t like dogs. I just thought the way it was wearing a collar and looking pleased about it reminded me of you.”
“Then let’s get this one.”
“I said I don’t like it, so why does that follow?”
“Because I want you to think of me every time you study.”
She’d probably meant it as an insult, but that didn’t matter.
If she thought of me every time she picked up her pencil to study, that was enough.
I bought two dog pencils and placed one in her palm.
Morishita stared at it for a long moment, then drifted out of the stationery shop unsteadily, still looking at the pencil in her hand as she walked. It was almost dangerous.
I’d been about to say something, when I heard, just barely audible, “thank you” — so instead I took her hand to keep her from walking into anything.
“Morishita, what do you want for lunch?”
“Anything.”
“Want to eat something I’ve made?”
“That I don’t want.”
“Then ‘anything’ was a lie.”
“Ugh… I don’t feel like eating anything right now.”
“Ahaha. Is that so. What a shame.”
It was rare for Morishita to lose the thread of a comeback like that, and a laugh slipped out of me.
Time spent with her is happiness.
Just shopping, simply, with nothing else to it.
“Morishita, thank you for inviting me today.”
“I just wanted to look at stationery.”
“Yeah. Let’s come again sometime.”
No answer came to that, but I decided I’d drag her here again regardless.
After that we just wandered the streets with no particular aim.
Just that. And yet my chest was full to the brim with happiness.