Episode 8

I shifted position and felt the softness of the mattress against my whole body. Fujishiro sleeps in quite a luxurious bed, I thought.

A moment later I shifted again, rolling to face the other way.

“Aren’t you a little too at home in someone else’s house?”
“You’re the one who said I could use the bed.”
“I didn’t think you’d actually take me up on it so thoroughly.”

It was true — being this shameless wasn’t really like me. I must have been lying on Fujishiro’s bed reading manga for about two hours by now.

After school, I went to work and she went to student council.
Then, when both of us had finished our respective business around eight in the evening, a message would arrive on my phone.

Coming today?
Yeah.
I’ll be waiting.

Nothing but logistics, really. But being able to message each other had made things considerably easier.

And so here I was again today, at Fujishiro’s apartment for the manga. It was getting close to eleven — I’d have to leave soon.

She was working away in silence at her studies.
Fujishiro spent basically the whole time I was there studying.

“You really are diligent, even outside of school.”
“I’m not usually able to study much at all.”
“Is that right?”
“Being alone at home at this hour makes me feel like I’m losing my mind, so I used to wander around outside a lot.”
“Hm.”

I wasn’t particularly interested — still, I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of her life changing because of me either.

“Did you stop wandering around because of me?”
“I suppose so. I have manga to lend you, so I stay home.”
“Then I’ll stop coming.”
“No — actually, having you here helps me concentrate. My studying’s been going better. Ahh, I’ve hit my limit for today anyway.”

Fujishiro closed her textbook with a snap and came over.

She pushed at me insistently to make room for both of us on the narrow bed. I tucked a bookmark into the manga so I wouldn’t lose my page.

“It’s cramped.”
“This is my bed.”
“Then move so I can get out.”

I started to climb off the bed — and Fujishiro sat up and leaned over me. She closed the distance, and then her hand found my leg. And more than that — her hand slipped under my skirt, which came to the knee.

She stroked my thigh with a completely natural, unhurried motion, and I found I couldn’t say anything at all.

I see.
When something completely unexpected happens, understanding can’t catch up fast enough to produce a voice. That was apparently the mechanism.

Interesting discovery, I thought — but this was no time for that.

Her cold hand moved from the outside of my thigh to the inside. Because her hands were cold, I could feel precisely where she was touching me, and it was deeply unpleasant.

“I always thought Fujishiro was a pervert, but I didn’t think she was this far gone.”
“What are you imagining? I’m just checking something.”
“Checking?”

Her thought process was completely incomprehensible to me, so I grabbed her arm. I pinched it, and Fujishiro removed her hand from my thigh without resistance.

“Morishita does have unexpectedly decent muscle, as it turns out. The way you moved in that volleyball match — you’d need real leg strength for that.”
“That’s not a reason to touch my legs. I’ll sue.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ll tell everyone at school.”
“Be my guest. If you went around telling our classmates that, which one of us do you think would come across as the pervert?”

I had nothing to say to that.
She was right.

The Fujishiro who was around me seemed unhinged — but the Fujishiro at school was always thinking, always aware of her position, always acting accordingly.

If I went to school and said Fujishiro Nanoha groped me, the only person likely to believe it was Ran. And actually, even Ran might not believe me.

That was how well-regarded Fujishiro was at school.
And I was close to the bottom.

No matter how many times I thought about it, I still couldn’t understand what she found unsatisfying about her life.

In any case, I’d had enough of this spot where there was a risk of having my legs touched, and climbed off the bed.

When I went to put the manga I’d borrowed back on the shelf, I noticed something tucked away at the back. It was a row of shoujo manga with titles that made their contents fairly easy to imagine.

I reached out and picked one up — and a sharp pain ran up my arm. Fujishiro had apparently grabbed it with considerable force.

“You’re the pervert, going through someone’s bookshelf uninvited.”
“You said I could read whatever I liked.”
“I did, but……”

Fujishiro was frowning — unusual for her — her expression tight and guarded.

Something ran down my spine at that face. I found the corner of my mouth pulling upward as I looked at her. Which made her expression go even more guarded.

“So Fujishiro reads that kind of thing.”
“Is that a problem?”
“I’d heard you’d turned down every confession from boys at other schools too. I figured you just had no interest in romance.”

I’d heard from Ran that Fujishiro had been confessed to by any number of boys and had turned all of them down — the unattainable type. I’d assumed she simply had no interest in love at all — but looking at the number of shoujo manga hidden at the back of that shelf, she was apparently quite interested in it.

I might have just found one of her weaknesses, I thought, with a small quickening in my chest. I’d been at a disadvantage with all of mine in her hands. This was a welcome shift.

“I didn’t know Fujishiro had a secret like this.”
“Please don’t tell anyone……”

Unusually — Fujishiro’s voice had gone small and fragile.
It was the first time I’d heard her like that. It felt oddly new.

“There’s nothing wrong with being interested in it.”
“I know — just, please don’t tell anyone……”

She looked down and the grip on my arm tightened.

I didn’t have enough friends to go talking about Fujishiro to anyone in the first place, so I didn’t quite understand what she was so afraid of.

“Let go — it hurts.”
“Promise you won’t say anything, and I’ll let go.”
“Fine, I won’t.”

At that, her hand slipped away from my arm.
There was a red mark where she’d been gripping it.

I should have just left then — but I was tired, and I sank down to sit on the floor, leaning back against the bed.

Fujishiro sat down beside me.

“Morishita — do you have any interest?”
“In what?”
“Romance. That kind of thing.”
“No.”
“Why not?”

Why was a difficult question……

“I don’t have the time to think about that sort of thing. Surviving takes everything I have. Also — I don’t believe in things like love or caring for someone.”

I’m not very capable. If I’d been more capable, my mother wouldn’t have been so disappointed in me.

I’ve got no particular talents, so I just drift through life, work without much thought, and I suppose I’ll carry on living like that.

I doubt there’s anyone who would like a person like me.

And surely no one would love me. Even my own mother couldn’t, after all.

Love probably didn’t exist to begin with. What everyone called love was something built entirely out of lies and pretence. I’d decided to believe that — because if I didn’t, I felt like my heart would break apart.

“I don’t believe in love either. Maybe because I don’t believe in it, I end up dreaming about it through things like this.”
“That makes sense. Like how you dream about having the powers of a shounen manga protagonist.”
“That’s just you, surely.”

Fujishiro let out a small, quiet laugh.
That was new from her too.

During the PE lesson, Fujishiro’s face had been dead. Like a doll’s — as if nothing she did produced any feeling. But when she was with me, she was surprisingly expressive.

A strange person.

Our meeting had been bizarre — and yet lately, the time I spent with her had become more than I spent with anyone else.

But the manga I’d wanted to read would be finished soon. And when it was, I’d have no reason to come here anymore……

…………Had I just felt something like loneliness?

That couldn’t be right.

It was probably just that Fujishiro’s bed was comfortable. That was all.

“Hey, Morishita——”
“Hm……?”

Fujishiro began to speak, and her voice had a strained, airless quality.
I thought I’d make it easier for her to talk.

I reached toward her collar and loosened her tie, undid her top button. Fujishiro’s cheeks went slightly pink, and her eyes moved away and back.

That expression on her face made what I’d done feel strangely wrong, and a flush of embarrassment came over me.

“Stop saying things so gravely. It’s exhausting.”
“Morishita really is a pervert. How many times are you going to loosen someone’s tie?”
“Never mind me — what were you trying to say, Fujishiro?”
“Strangle me again like before.”
“What?”

She was a pervert after all — there was no other conclusion. The request made no sense coming out of the flow of conversation.

“I know I’m not right in the head — but when you had your hands around my throat, I felt I’m alive. I can’t forget what that felt like. Can you do it again?”
“That makes no sense.”

Fujishiro was a pretty seriously unhinged monster wearing the skin of a normal person, I thought. Who would ever imagine she was like this.

But then, I was probably something similar.

I was on the verge of acting on murderous intent toward my own mother.

Both Fujishiro and I were broken somewhere.
Maybe that was why being together like this felt comfortable.

“No?”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’re the one who made me crazy like this, Morishita.”

I hadn’t done anything.
And yet Fujishiro was saying it was my fault.

The girl pleading in front of me looked up at me with a beseeching expression.

“Do something else instead. There are plenty of ways to feel alive that aren’t that.”

It was a desperate excuse, really.
Wrapping my hands around someone’s throat wasn’t something I found pleasant. And I didn’t want Fujishiro to die.

My firm words seemed to give her pause, and she fell into thought.

Next she’ll probably ask me to cut her with the knife, I thought wearily. But it seemed I’d underestimated her.

My tie is yanked sharply.
Fujishiro is right in front of me, her face close to mine.

My heart starts pounding loudly.

By the time I understood what was happening, Fujishiro’s lips were against mine.

Huh……?

I couldn’t process what was happening and shoved her away hard.

Huh……?
It made no sense.

“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m sorry……”

Not sorry — I want an explanation for what just happened.

A pulse beat through me from every direction, and heat gathered in my face and chest.

“Don’t use me to satisfy your curiosity. Do that with someone else.”
“It wasn’t curiosity.”
“Then what was it?”

My head and body still couldn’t process any of this. And yet Fujishiro said something even harder to make sense of.

“I thought — if I kissed someone, maybe I’d be able to feel my heart beating. Feel that I was alive……”
“Are you an idiot?”

This was beyond reasoning with.
I grabbed my things and left in a hurry.

She caught my arm in the entryway.

“Morishita, I’m sorry…… I won’t ever do it again……”
“Don’t come near me anymore.”

I shook her hand off and flew out through the door.

I scrubbed at my lips with my sleeve as I ran.
The soft feeling of her lips stayed vivid and wouldn’t leave, burning itself into my mind.

Fujishiro Nanoha was becoming more incomprehensible by the moment.

My heart was moving so fast it felt like something might break, and when I got home and burrowed under my duvet, there was no chance of sleep — I could only lie there and wait for time to pass.