Episode 53: Decision
Shiori’s body sways. She doesn’t try to resist.
“…I’m sorry, Shiori. I still… I still love Honoka.”
My voice was trembling, but I said it clearly.
A tight, aching pain settled deep in my chest.
Knowing what Shiori felt for me — that was exactly why saying those words was so unbearably hard.
Shiori’s eyes blinked slowly, and then closed, quietly.
A few seconds of silence, and then a small voice fell out.
“…I see. That’s how it is, then.”
There was something like a faint, bitter smile in that voice, and just the smallest thread of loneliness woven through it.
“I did all this, thinking surely it would be fine, in the end… I guess feelings not reaching someone is just something that happens.”
The words dropped out one at a time, as if she were carefully choosing each one, and they stung.
It should have sounded calm and composed. And yet it was unbearably sad.
Shiori lifted her face — not forcing a smile, just looking straight at me. I could tell she was fighting hard to hold something back, deep behind her eyes.
A taut, strained silence, as if suppressing something. That quiet said more about what was in Shiori’s heart than any words could have.
“…I’m awful, aren’t I.”
The words slipped out of me before I could stop them. Making Shiori fall for me, letting her hope, and then turning my back on her at the very end.
“No. You faced it properly, Yuna-chan.”
Shiori shook her head. Her voice trembled faintly, but there was a strength in it, like something being held down by force.
“…You should probably go now, shouldn’t you?”
“…Eh?”
I lifted my face, and Shiori was looking at me without turning her eyes away.
“You know where you need to go right now, don’t you?”
Her voice was gentle, and yet carried something that felt like it was pushing me away.
It was as if she hated having to push my back toward the door, and yet couldn’t stop herself from doing it anyway.
“…Yeah.”
I nodded quietly.
I opened the door to Shiori’s apartment.
Cold air touched my skin, and my shoulders drew in on their own.
Turning back, Shiori was watching me from inside the room.
Her face didn’t seem to show any emotion at all, and yet I could sense something taut in the air around her.
“…Thank you, Shiori.”
Just before closing the door, I said it, quietly. It was heartfelt gratitude.
Shiori didn’t answer. She just watched me go, silently.
And in the moment I’d gone fully outside, and disappeared from view—
“…Just for now, I’ll give up. But someday, without fail…”
Shiori’s murmur fell quietly into the empty room, heard by no one.