“A-Anyway, I’m totally fine! Nothing to worry about at all,” I said.
“Oh, really...?” Makina replied.
She cocked her head skeptically, but didn’t try to dig any deeper. I wondered idly if it was hard for her to question me in much the same way I was having a hard time questioning her...though even if she did try asking, there was absolutely no way I’d be able to come out and say, “Oh, I was just remembering that one time you kissed me.” I could not be that honest. After all...I was already in a relationship. As far as society was concerned, what had happened between the two of us was definitely some form of cheating.
I’d known how Makina felt about me even before she kissed me out of the blue. I’d known that she loved me, and I knew it was that sort of love; I just hadn’t been able to work up the nerve to respond to her feelings. I was taken, and I knew it, so by all rights I should have told her that we couldn’t be together in that way...but we’d only just reunited, and had only just started spending time together again. I was scared that if I rejected her, we could end up estranged all over again.
And so instead of resolving the problem, I just kept kicking it along down the road. Was I really in any position to blame her for kissing me, considering how I’d been running from my own responsibilities? When it all came down to it, this was my fault...and yet there I was, letting my heart skip a beat at the sight of her all over again.
I really am the worst. I’ve been awful to Yuna, to Rinka, and to Makina too...
“Yotsy.”
Thinking back on how things had turned out this way put me on a one-way trip to the depths of self-loathing in a car with no brakes whatsoever, but then Makina tapped me on the shoulder.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“What? Oh...”
Before I knew it, we’d arrived at—and almost walked right past—my house. Makina’s home was just a few steps away as well. In the end, I’d spent almost the entire trip from school to our houses lost in thought.
“Sorry, Makina,” I said. “I just...”
“No, I understand. I can tell how tired you are. And besides, I’m happy just being around you, so it’s fine.”
“Makina...” There she went again, saying just the right thing to make me both happy and completely befuddled at the same time.
Makina smiled. “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”
“Y-Yeah... See you,” I said with a nod that was so stiff and awkward, even I could tell. Then I watched as she turned around and went along on her way.
What exactly was it that I even wanted? I knew that things couldn’t stay this way. I couldn’t keep turning a blind eye to Makina’s feelings and acting like we were still just ordinary childhood friends. It would be so much easier if things could work that way, but they just wouldn’t.
And then there was Yuna and Rinka. I was already asking a lot of them when it came to my two-timing, and if I kept this up much longer, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if they decided that they’d had enough and left me.
I can’t bring myself to choose, and end up making everyone unhappy instead. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if I just...
It was a thought that I’d had on a number of occasions—more and more of them with each passing day. But...just thinking about an outcome like that was enough to make me feel like I couldn’t breathe. It made me want to break down and sob.
“I don’t want that...”
My heart ached. My head was pounding. Why was I like this? And why had everyone chosen me, of all the people they could have fallen for? Why...?
“Hey, are you okay?”
I felt someone touch my shoulder. I’d sort of forgotten that I was on a perfectly normal city street, right out in public. Of course curling up into a ball in a place like this would end up making someone worry about me.
Okay, gotta stand up! I’ll just stand up, smile, and say I’m fine, I told myself. I stood up, turned around—and was struck dumb.
The girl standing before me was wearing a big, thick, long coat that looked pretty out of season, even considering that it was starting to get a little chilly. She also had a hat on that was pulled way down, a big medical mask covering the lower half of her face, and sunglasses to boot. I could barely even make out a patch or two of her actual skin. She looked, to put it gently, more than a little suspicious.
“Eeek— Mmphgh?!” I grunted. I’d almost screamed with all my might, thinking that she might be the dangerous sort of creeper, but before I could get more than the very beginning of that shriek out, she clapped a hand over my mouth!
“Hey! Come on, don’t make a scene!” the girl hissed.
“Mmmph?! Mnggh?!” I-I’ve gotta run away! But for some reason, I can’t move at all! What’s gonna happen to me now? Who even knows where she might take me...? Maybe she’ll take me deep, deep down into the sort of pit where the sun never shines, hand me a pickaxe, and force me to do manual labor until I’m a broken husk of skin and bone!
“Oh, for the... It’s me! You know, me!”
The (alleged) creeper pulled the mask and sunglasses off her face, revealing, much to my surprise...a perfectly normal but rather pretty person?
“It’s me! Mio Kuruma!”
“...Who?”
But, nope! Still didn’t know her at all.