Episode 56
Hot…
The heat was sapping my concentration.
Exams are getting close, and yet the warmth of the person beside me is enough to make it impossible to focus on studying.
Still, I gripped my pen firmly and faced my reference book. The girl beside me was gripping her own pen quietly too, studying.
“Hey, Fujishiro. Aren’t you a bit close?”
“Am I? This is normal for me.”
Fujishiro wasn’t even looking my way, entirely absorbed in her reference book. We were close enough that our shoulders nearly touched, and the heat was bad enough that the air conditioning felt pointless.
When I tried to shift slightly away, Fujishiro moved too, closing the gap right back down. We repeated that a few times, and in the end I never managed to actually put any distance between us.
Haah…
I don’t have anywhere else to go, so I end up studying at Fujishiro’s place, but maybe I should try to find somewhere else that works better.
Once summer break ends and September comes, the exam will be right there.
At this point I still can’t picture myself passing it. The competition ratio is fairly high, and the test itself is reasonably difficult.
Thanks to Fujishiro, I can solve problems much more easily than before, but the anxiety is still enormous.
And even supposing I do pass, picturing myself actually living alone afterward is even harder.
“Are you looking forward to graduating, Fujishiro?”
“Where’d that come from?”
“No, just… wondering, I guess…”
Of course, being somewhere other than home means not having to fight with the part of myself I hate, and I imagine life would feel brighter than it does now. But with the exam right in front of me, the anxiety kept growing too.
“I’m looking forward to living alone. I feel like I’ll actually be free.”
“I see.”
“Aren’t you looking forward to it, Morishita?”
“I’ve never lived alone before, so I don’t know.”
Honestly, the anxiety was much bigger than that, but showing Fujishiro a weak side of myself felt unpleasant, so I ended up being stubborn about it instead.
As if seeing straight through what I actually felt, Fujishiro smiled.
“There it is, the anxious one.”
“Not particularly.”
“If you’re anxious, want to live together?”
Fujishiro finally lifted her eyes from her textbook and looked at me.
At first the corners of her mouth had lifted into a smile, but the moment our eyes met, something wavered in hers, and she looked away.
Her cheeks had gone a deep russet colour, and she started combing through her own hair with her fingers.
Fujishiro’s been like this lately.
Acting suspicious, restless, whenever she’s around me.
Ever since the day we watched the fireworks together…
That behaviour, which could almost be read as her avoiding me, didn’t sit right with me, so I grabbed her chin firmly and turned her face toward mine. Her ears went red too, and she absolutely refused to meet my eyes.
“What? If I did something that upset you, I want you to tell me.”
“That’s not it…”
“Then what.”
Why was she acting like this.
When her attitude changes from how it used to be, it makes me anxious.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and yet she kept sitting this close while we studied, and the contradiction of it left something restless churning in my chest.
Fujishiro still had her face turned away.
Thinking about it further felt like too much effort, so I let go of her.
“So… which is it?”
“Which is what?”
“Living together…”
Fujishiro’s voice, usually so confident, trailed off into nothing.
Whenever her rhythm gets thrown off like that, it feels like my own rhythm gets thrown off too, and I don’t like it.
I wished she’d hurry up and go back to being the usual Fujishiro. For that to happen, I thought, I needed to stay the usual me too.
“Why would I have to live with you?”
“No… well… I guess that’s true…”
Her expression fell, crestfallen.
I don’t get it.
It feels like I’ve done something wrong, so I wish she wouldn’t make a face like that.
In the end, the conversation trailed off with my own feelings still unsettled.
We studied on like that until late into the night, and I decided it was time to leave Fujishiro’s place.
“See you.”
“Morishita…”
“Hm?”
“During summer break, want to go somewhere together?”
“Go where?”
“I don’t know, somewhere far away, with no one around…”
“Why? Exams are coming up, aren’t they?”
“You’re right…”
Fujishiro’s brow creased, and she immediately put on a forced smile toward me. I couldn’t accept that, and pulled hard on her cheek.
“One day would be fine.”
“Eh?”
“I want a break sometimes too.”
The moment I said that, Fujishiro’s whole face lit up.
“It’s a date!”
“How does that make it a date. It’s just a normal outing.”
“Where do you want to go? Is there something you want to see? What should I wear?”
Fujishiro rattled on by herself, deciding everything on her own without waiting for answers.
But that’s exactly like her, and it settled something in me, made my heart considerably calmer.
All it took was going along with one small suggestion, and this was the result.
I ended up thinking that Fujishiro is simple, and easy to handle.