Episode 56: Vow
When Honoka gently rested her head against my shoulder, something deep inside me warmed, slow and quiet.
Her body heat seemed to seep into me, and I could feel the anxiety that had settled in my chest slowly dissolving.
“I’m so glad… you came back…”
The murmur slipped out of her, quiet — as if she were confirming it to herself, and still somehow couldn’t fully believe it.
I gripped Honoka’s hand tight and gave a small nod.
“Yeah, I came back. To you.”
Those words held nothing false in them. They came straight from the heart.
Even if I’d taken a roundabout path to get here, I always come back to this place, in the end.
However lost I get, however much I get hurt — even so, the place I return to is, in the end, only ever beside Honoka.
“…Hey, Yuna.”
The head resting on my shoulder shifted, just slightly. I realized Honoka had lifted her face.
I turned to meet her eyes, slowly.
“…Did something happen, with that woman?”
Her eyes were swollen red, and yet there was something sharp in them — a question that left no room to escape.
For just an instant, I lowered my gaze at those words.
“…We talked about a lot of things. And she confessed to me.”
“…! Confessed… to you?”
Honoka’s voice went taut, trembling.
Surprise, and anger, and — more than anything — fear bled through it.
“But… I turned her down.”
“R-really…?”
Honoka looked up at me, anxious.
Her eyes were wet, as if she might start crying again at any moment.
“…Yeah.”
I nodded, trying to reassure her.
“I see…”
Honoka only murmured that, and let out a breath, relieved. Then she rested her head against my shoulder again. The gesture had something needy in it, something aching and dear all at once.
“Thank god… really…”
Her voice was trembling faintly, but softer than before, and I gently stroked her hair.
“…Yuna.”
“Mm?”
“I love you.”
“…Yeah.”
“I love you so much. So much…”
“…Me too.”
We said it to each other, over and over, as if confirming it again and again. Honoka’s tears had stopped, but her voice began to tremble once more.
I kept gently stroking her hair. Again and again.
“…Yuna.”
“Mm?”
“…Don’t go anywhere else, ever again, okay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
The moment I said it, Honoka gripped my hand tight. Through her palm, the heat of her feelings bled through, and my chest tightened with it.
I won’t run. I won’t waver. I’ve already decided — I’m staying here.
Honoka’s anxiety, her loneliness, all of it — I want to hold it all, with these hands.
No matter what happens, I vowed in my heart never to let go of Honoka again.