Friday.
Woke up feeling better than usual this morning.
Getting up before the alarm rang is quite rare.
Even groggy, my mind was sharp as I reached for my phone.

“Oh, I didn’t charge it.”

Come to think of it, I spoke to Amamiya Tōru last night.
But I have no memory of the latter part. I’m not even sure what I was talking about with her.

　Oh, right. I must have fallen asleep on the call.

I suppose she ended it.
Thanks to that, I avoided waking up to a dead battery from the auto-lock kicking in.
Still, my phone’s battery was low — only 28% left.

I sent Amamiya a message on LINE apologising for falling asleep on her.

　mashiro: ‘(A stamp showing a white cat stretching with its bum in the air after waking up, with “Good morning!” displayed)’
mashiro: ‘Amemiya-san, sorry I fell asleep yesterday (´;ω;｀)’
mashiro: ‘If you really want to buy the white cat or black cat series stamps, I can show you how to buy them after school today when we meet up o(￣︶￣)o’

　……….

I waited for about a minute, staring at the chat screen.
But unsurprisingly, it didn’t get read instantly.

Well, it was morning.
In fact, even the alarm I’d set hadn’t gone off yet.
The time displayed on my phone was just before six. It was highly likely Amamiya Tōru was still asleep.
Right then, what should I do?
Even if I tried to go back to sleep, my eyes were wide awake.

　My hair was a mess, and I needed to wash my face.
But that could wait until later.

For now, I got out of bed.
I opened the curtains.
It was almost winter break, so even before six, it was surprisingly bright outside.

“Right then, time to get dressed.”

I took off my pyjamas.
My body shivered. It was cold.

　Now in my underwear, I turned on the room heater.
Come to think of it, I don’t believe Amamiya Tōru’s room had air conditioning.
How does she manage through this cold season? And the sweltering heat of midsummer?

…I’ll ask her about that today too.

I’d found a topic to discuss with Amamiya Tōru.
That was about the extent of my motivation.

“It’s still too early for my uniform, so I’ll just wear my loungewear.”

My stomach gets cold easily and I’m prone to diarrhoea.
The room hadn’t warmed up yet since I’d only just turned on the heating.
So I decided to quickly change into my loungewear.

I pulled on the fluffy-looking loungewear trousers.
Then, just as I went to put on the matching top, I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror.

　To be more precise, my left arm in the mirror. The part above the elbow.

Perhaps no new magic will ever be etched here again.

The black-handled scissors on my study desk finally seem destined for a proper purpose.

I still have anxieties. Worries remain. Countless unpleasant things too.
But it’s not just that.
Right now, I feel content.
　Thanks to Amamiya Tōru, my empty vessel of a heart will no longer be filled solely with negative emotions.

I stroke the scar.

Back then, only unpleasant things nested within me.
Those negative emotions piled up until they had nowhere left to go.
I felt I needed to create an exit with a sharp blade, to let them flow out. They threatened to burst inside me.
　So when I saw the red stuff oozing out of the wound, it felt like my heart was emptying.
I couldn’t stop.
It wasn’t about wanting someone to worry about me, or wanting attention. There was none of that. Purely, from the bottom of my heart, this ‘self-harm’ saved me.

So self-harm was magic for me.
The magic of salvation.

But that too has now served its purpose.
When Amamiya Tōru sees this mark on me, she might not realise it herself, but she slightly furrows her brow. She had been secretly hurt on my account.
If it had been me just a few months ago, when we had only just begun our relationship.
I might even have been glad that something like that could draw her feelings to the surface.

　But now, I’ve grown too attached towards Amamiya Tōru as an individual woman to take pleasure in making her look sad.
She’s no longer merely an object of longing, someone I impose my fantasies upon.

So then, I’ll put an end to this self-harm.
The time of hurting myself, of only hurting myself, is over.
If hurting myself also wounds someone else’s heart, that’s not what I intended.

　Brrrr

My body shivers again.

Cold, cold.

I put on my HeatTech layer, then my loungewear over it.
This should keep me a bit warmer.

Now that I’m changed, what shall I do?
There’s still plenty of time.
Reading? No, but I feel like trying something I’ve never done before. That’s the mood I’m in now.

　Games? What about that?
I considered going for a walk, but I’m not keen on the cold.
I’ve never installed a single game app on my phone. But right now, I want to experience something new like that.
If I’m going to do it, I’d prefer something I can play with Amamiya Tōru on the way home from school.

I tried installing a game app called “Reversi”.

　I fantasised about a future where I could happily play games with Amamiya Tōru.
It seemed so enjoyable, and somehow today I found myself wanting to get to school early.

All of this was possible because I’d managed to tell her I liked her yesterday.
It was precisely because we’d both come to know each other’s feelings that a sense of ease had settled in my heart.
Our physical closeness had transformed mutual affection into certainty.

Ah, I want to see her soon.

I spent a gentle, yet fulfilling morning.

　◆

That day, Amamiya Tōru skipped school.
She missed the following Monday too, after the weekend.
Her absence continued that week and the next.

Her LINE messages remained unread.

Even when I rang her doorbell, there was no response.

　I realised the ‘leeway’ I thought I had in my heart was only temporary, containing a definite fragility.

Little by little, yet surely.

A gap began to form in my once contented heart.
The vessel of my heart started to crack.

Tormented by empty, frustrating hours, school broke for winter holidays.

Amamiya Tōru, completely out of contact.
I’m starting to forget how to laugh.