Episode 54
“As expected of you, Nanoha. You’re always early.”
“You’re just as early as ever too, Yudzuki.”
“Well, Hinata’s the only one who’s never on time.”
Yudzuki and I sat down on the park bench.
The sun had started to set, scattering deep red light across the sky. More people than usual were walking through the area, all seeming to head toward the riverbank.
Every year, on the day of the fireworks festival, stalls line the riverbank and the streets nearby.
Walking with my two childhood friends through the crowds, watching the fireworks once the time comes, that’s the yearly tradition.
But I’ve never told either of them that every year, surrounded by that many people, I end up feeling sick from the crowd.
“Nanoha, you look cute again today.”
Yudzuki said that while touching the ends of my hair. I couldn’t figure out what she meant by saying that to me.
She looks down on me anyway, so I don’t understand her reason for complimenting me.
While I was sitting with that discomfort, I heard the sound of footsteps running toward us.
“Sorry, you two!”
“You definitely don’t mean that.”
“Caught, huh, Yudzuki. Actually, today I brought a guest!”
At Hinata’s words I lifted my face and looked ahead.
There stood Suzuki Ran, carrying her usual soft, easygoing air, and Morishita, wearing her usual sharp expression.
Morishita…
My heart suddenly started pounding hard.
I hadn’t imagined for a moment that Morishita would come to the summer festival, and I found myself staring at her without meaning to.
Of course, Morishita didn’t even glance my way.
“I thought going with a bigger group might be nice for once!”
Hinata spoke with her usual innocent, carefree expression.
Meanwhile Yudzuki wore a strained smile, Suzuki Ran kept her usual unreadable, easy grin, and Morishita was just Morishita.
Would this actually turn out alright?
The summer festival began, carrying that vague unease.
There was still about two hours before the fireworks would start.
The five of us wandered through the stalls, drifting apart and back together several times, and the group had already scattered into disorder.
Even so, I kept walking without much concern, until something caught my eye. Without paying attention to anyone else, I found myself staring at a small stuffed dog, one of the prizes at a shooting gallery.
It looked exactly like Mofu-chan, the one at home.
Even the pitiful look in its eyes staring back at me was similar.
Realising I’d been spacing out too long, I turned to face forward again, and only then noticed that everyone else had disappeared, and panic set in.
Looking around in every direction, I couldn’t find a single familiar face, and I felt wrapped in the kind of unnamed anxiety a lost child must feel.
“Fujishiro.”
A familiar voice came from behind me, and I turned around.
There was Morishita, wearing her usual blank, uninterested expression.
“You were spacing out too much. Everyone went that way.”
“Sorry.”
“Something catch your eye?”
Maybe because no one else was around, Morishita was talking to me the way she usually does.
I let myself lean into that and answered honestly.
“That stuffed prize at the shooting gallery looks like Mofu-chan…”
“It does look a little similar, I guess.”
“I’m going to try for it.”
“Don’t you need to catch up with everyone?”
“I figured we can always meet up again if I message them.”
“True.”
Morishita said that and stayed beside me.
I let myself feel, without permission, a small flare of happiness, imagining she’d chosen to stay with me over rejoining the group.
I paid the well-built man with the headband wrapped around his head and picked up the toy gun.
Even though it was supposed to be a toy, it was heavier than I’d expected, and the weight surprised me. Still, I held it steady and pulled the lever.
I aimed at the small plushie and pulled the trigger, the shot landing squarely on target.
And yet, it didn’t so much as twitch.
Frustration rose in me, and I readied the gun again right away.
But even though my aim was true, even though the shots landed, the plushie wouldn’t move at all.
Repeating that over and over, I had only one shot left.
Surely the last one would end the same way.
I wasn’t doing anything wrong, my aim was steady, and yet I couldn’t knock it down, and the sight of it started to feel like a portrait of my own life, leaving an unpleasant feeling in me.
“Fujishiro, let me try.”
“Eh?”
Morishita smoothly took the gun from my hands.
She leaned forward, holding the gun in one hand, taking aim.
The pose didn’t suit the kind-hearted Morishita I actually knew.
I thought again, as I always do, that being a killer really doesn’t suit her.
But the shot she fired hit the plushie cleanly, and the prize toppled down.
The man picked up the prize and handed it to Morishita.
Morishita, wearing a difficult expression, held out a palm-sized plushie to me.
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for getting it for me.”
“Yeah.”
She turned and started walking toward wherever everyone else probably was.
I probably should have just followed after her, the way I was.
But I didn’t want to let this chance, being alone together, slip away. I felt certain that if we caught up with everyone now, I wouldn’t get to talk to Morishita again.
I grabbed her arm tightly.
Morishita stopped moving instantly and turned back.
“Hey, want to go around, just the two of us?”
“The two of us?”
“Yeah. I want to watch the fireworks with just Morishita.”
My ears went hot.
Sweat had started beading on my back from the summer heat too, leaving me feeling slightly unwell.
Morishita just kept staring at me in silence.
I scrambled to think of some reason.
“It’s crowded here… I thought I wanted somewhere quiet.”
“Got it.”
“Eh?”
“What, eh. You don’t like crowds, right?”
Morishita said it with a face that suggested it was obvious, seeing right through something I dislike, and I wondered how she manages to say things that shake someone’s heart this much without even realising she’s doing it.
“I don’t like it. So let’s go somewhere far away.”
I took Morishita’s hand and started walking.