Episode 55
We wove through the crowd on foot.
Before fully clearing it, I turned back to check on Morishita.
“Want to buy something to eat?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ll get yakisoba.”
“Then I’ll get takoyaki, I guess.”
We each bought our food and made our way out of the crowd.
Morishita was being relatively gentle today.
Why…?
She has times like this sometimes.
I tried to think through what actually separates her gentle moments from her cold ones, but I couldn’t work it out.
I spoke to the girl walking beside me, tentative.
“Why did you say we should slip away, just the two of us?”
“Why?”
I was the one asking the question, so why was she turning it back into one?
I gave up and tried a different question instead.
“Didn’t you want to watch the fireworks with Suzuki Ran? Or with Hinata-chan, since she’s the one who invited you?”
Why, when all I wanted was to understand Morishita, did it always come out sounding this barbed?
I really do hate how incapable I am of being honest.
“I wonder why.”
“Eh?”
Ignoring my confusion, Morishita was looking up at the pitch-black night sky.
The clouds tonight meant no stars were visible.
What was she thinking, staring up at that dark, empty sky like that?
Tonight her thoughts felt more distant, more unreadable than usual, and it unsettled something in my chest.
But then, completely without regard for the mood, her stomach let out a loud growl, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re hungry, right? Let’s eat.”
“That’s annoying.”
“Why?! Come on, let’s go.”
We headed toward somewhere with fewer people.
We sat down together on a bench along the riverbank, right at the edge of where the fireworks would be visible.
Enough time had passed since buying it that the takoyaki had gone cold.
The thick, richly flavoured filling spread through my mouth.
Even so, it was more than enough to satisfy my hunger.
While I was absorbed in eating, I felt a gaze from beside me.
Morishita was staring fixedly at the takoyaki. It reminded me of a pet dog eyeing its owner’s food, and it made me want to spoil her.
I laughed quietly and brought a piece up to her mouth.
“Here, have one.”
“Is that okay?”
“If you’re going to look at me with a face that wanting, I have no choice but to give you one.”
“Never mind, I don’t want it.”
“Liar. Come on, Morishita. Open up.”
I pushed the takoyaki closer and closer, and she opened her mouth and took a bite. She chewed it looking pleased, swallowing with an audible gulp.
“Takoyaki’s good.”
“Right?”
“Want some of mine, Fujishiro?”
Morishita held out a piece of yakisoba dangling from her chopsticks, bringing it toward me. I had no reason to refuse, so I opened my mouth, and for some reason it landed squarely on my nose instead.
Morishita grinned, mischievous, like a child pulling a prank.
She did that on purpose, I thought, but before I could say anything the yakisoba was pushed straight into my mouth, and all I could do was close it and chew quietly.
So Morishita does things like that…
An unexpectedly childish side of her.
Cool, keeping everyone at a distance, somehow more grown-up than her age, and yet every so often she shows this younger, more playful side.
Or maybe, this mischievous side is who she really is underneath.
Feeling like I’d touched some small part of Morishita’s heart made me happy.
After that, we fell into silence, quietly bringing food to our mouths.
Once my stomach was full, I checked the time, and the fireworks were about to start soon.
Morishita just stood quietly beside me. Then, unhurriedly, she opened her mouth.
“So, about what I said earlier.”
“Earlier…?”
“Yeah. Why we slipped away, just the two of us.”
“Oh, right?”
“I thought I wanted to watch the fireworks with Fujishiro—”
“Eh—?”
There was so much I wanted to ask, but before I could make a sound a thunderous roar echoed through the air.
I stood and looked toward the sound, and a beautiful flower had bloomed across the night sky.
Not just one.
Countless blossoms opened and scattered, lighting up everything around us.
Again and again, flowers bloomed and fell across the pitch-black canvas.
The sight was so beautiful my whole heart felt pinned to it, along with my eyes.
Glancing sideways, Morishita was pinned to the sky too.
Her profile was so achingly beautiful, and every time a flower bloomed in her eyes with each burst of sound, it was so lovely that I found myself pinned not to the fireworks, but to Morishita.
My heart climbed the stairs inside my chest at an abnormal speed, my vision swaying with the force of my own pulse.
Even so, I kept my eyes wide open, burning her profile into my memory.
“Morishita, you’re beautiful—”
“Yeah. Fireworks really are beautiful.”
That’s not it.
What I thought was beautiful was—
Morishita turned to look at me suddenly.
Our eyes met, and I thought I saw something waver in hers.
But almost immediately, she scolded me.
“Don’t look this way, watch the fireworks.”
“Then, hold my hand?”
“No.”
“Please, Morishita.”
“…Why do I have to hold your hand. Be quiet.”
Complaining the whole time, Morishita grabbed my hand roughly anyway.
Just that alone, and a sweet, tight ache spread through my chest.
I simply obeyed her words and closed my mouth.
I watched the fireworks bloom beautifully overhead.
The fireworks were beautiful.
But Morishita, the way she’d looked a moment ago, had been even more beautiful.
My heartbeat grew more violent, thudding hard.
My pulse was moving so fiercely inside my body that I thought she might feel it through the hand holding mine.
Ah… so this is what it is.
Something Yudzuki had said clicked quietly into place.
This violent movement in my chest that I so often feel when I’m with Morishita.
The feeling of being most alive, no matter what I’m doing, as long as she’s there.
Because she’s here, even going home every day to that suffocating house, I find myself looking forward to the next day.
The ordinary, unremarkable time spent with her gives colour to my everyday life.
Morishita took a body that couldn’t tell whether it was alive or dead and planted a heart inside it, let it feel a pulse.
I am kept alive by Morishita.
“Morishita, kill me.”
Morishita had made my heart move on her own.
She’d breathed life into this body that should have simply run out.
If that’s true, then I want her to be the one who takes responsibility and ends it too.
“Still thinking about that?”
“Yeah. If I’m going to be killed, I want it to be by you.”
“Same old, crazy as ever.”
Lit by the light of the fireworks, Morishita was laughing.
Her smile was a strange, otherworldly kind of beautiful.
It seems that I’ve fallen in love with Morishita Mei.