Episode 39: Anxiety and Doubt
With a hoarse voice, Honoka’s fingers grip the collar of my uniform, hard.
“…Not enough.”
“…What?”
The word drops out of her quietly, and for a moment I catch my breath.
Honoka’s eyes are trembling now, even more unsettled than before.
“I know… I know you care about me, Yuna. But that alone isn’t enough… it’s still frightening.”
The hand gripping my uniform shakes.
“Do you really… need me…?”
As she says it, her body presses in against mine.
“Words alone… they don’t make the anxiety go away…”
In the next moment, her lips touch my throat.
She kisses there, along my neck, slow and firm, as if drawing me in.
“…!”
“…This alone still isn’t nearly enough.”
A sweet whisper tickles my ear.
“Hey, more… I want to be yours, more completely…”
Honoka’s hand touches the buttons of my uniform.
I try to stop her hand — but seeing the anxious look on her face, I stop myself instead.
“…Honoka.”
When I touch her cheek gently, she leans her face into my hand as if clinging to it.
“…Yuna.”
Her wavering eyes look at me, searching for something.
I didn’t say anything more.
Because I knew there were ways of communicating beyond words.
The feel of fingers undoing buttons, the heat of skin against skin.
Our lips met, our heartbeats mingling together.
Honoka’s arms held me as if refusing to let me go, and I accepted that warmth.
Answering what she asked of me, again and again, we confirmed each other.
In the quiet, only Honoka’s breathing and my voice filled the room—
─────
The next morning, putting on my uniform sent a dull ache through my skin.
“…!”
Shifting the collar slightly aside, I found vivid marks left there.
Not just one or two, either.
Around my collarbone, along my throat, and rolling up my sleeve — more marks carved into my arm as well.
“…That’s a lot.”
The murmur slipped out before I could stop it.
To have obsession carved into me this thoroughly—
“So that anyone who sees will know Yuna is mine…”
Honoka’s words from last night drifted, unbidden, through my head.
That night, she’d sought me out again and again.
To fill the anxiety. To keep me from slipping away.
That had been her utmost effort at “tying me down.”
“…”
I asked myself the question again, plainly.
Is it really all right to go on like this?
What am I supposed to do, to take away Honoka’s anxiety?
Is it really all right, just accepting this obsession like this, over and over…?
No answer came, however much I turned it over, and I finished getting ready for school.
─────
At school, I found myself conscious of my classmates’ glances.
Almost certainly, the reason was the marks faintly visible at my collar and cuffs. Even hidden by my uniform, I couldn’t quite cover them completely.
“Yuna-chan.”
Just then, a voice called out to me suddenly, from behind.
“…Shiori.”
I turned, and there she was.
Wearing her usual composed smile, watching me steadily.
“Got a minute to talk?”
Shiori’s eyes were fixed straight on me.