No, absolutely not. Hang in there, Adachi.
Eventually, after she’d had her fill of rolling around with the seal plushie, she sat upright, a dull glint in her eyes. Now I was about to see the result of whatever turmoil she’d just clawed her way out of.
She closed her eyes…extended her left hand out in front of her…and started inching along like a snail in my direction.
“You sure you should keep your eyes closed?”
“I can’t do this if they’re open!”
“Oh. Sorry,” I replied reflexively. Didn’t know that was how it worked.
At the end of her mannequin-rigid arm was a fist clenched so tight, it seemed to hold the reins of her passion. To an outside observer, it might have looked like she was about to punch me. And yet, though her eyes were closed, the hand was advancing directly toward…somewhere. Maybe she was just squinting really hard.
I shot a sidelong glance at our open notebooks and chuckled silently. Yeah, I knew we weren’t going to study. So I closed my eyes, too, vowing to accept her touch no matter where it landed. I could picture it: two girls facing each other with their eyes closed, one reaching out to bridge the gap. This is so weird, I thought to myself as I waited in the dark.
And as I waited, what should come to mind but the friends I would hang out with this summer. Every time we met, I always wondered if this would be the last time. But I wanted to see them, so off I went—just as Adachi had come here today.
A soft light, like the gentle flicker of a candle, rose up inside me, and the timid heat gradually consumed me. Which would melt first: the wax, or my skin?
Funny how I still recognized her fingers, even with my eyes closed. I could feel her…soul? Was the soul in her hands? Ah, I get it. If I kept honing this sensation, perhaps I too could learn to sense her presence from afar.
My thoughts were a stark departure from what was actually happening.
“Ah…”
Her slightest exhale contained so much, and when I heard it, I returned to reality. My eyes opened, and…
“So that’s your move, eh?”
This was her intention. What had touched me was her heart.
As for where she was touching me…well, some things were meant only for the two of us to know.
Her fingers opened and closed faintly, as if grasping at something fuzzy, like a dream. As I watched her, a small smile crept up on my face. She’s in heaven.
Here we were in a world where someone could die while our eyes were closed, and what on earth were we doing? Maybe you’d roll your eyes at us and scoff. But one day I was going to die, and so would the girl living so recklessly right in front of me.
If I imagined her face without the panic, without the blushing, all ice and no heat, it made me want to scream. If I pictured her frozen for the rest of time, unwaking and unchanging no matter what I did, the screams in my head got louder. You know…aaaaahh. It’s hard to explain, but I just really didn’t want that. The mere thought was crushing, and painfully so.
The thought of losing Adachi made me feel like shredded cheese. I could viscerally imagine the sensation of my upper body being torn in half at the shoulders. That was how deeply she was embedded in the fabric of my every day. The roots of her Sakura tree had curled around me, and I could tell I was stuck for life. But the flowers that bloomed overhead were admittedly very pretty, so…it seemed I had chosen to accept it.
Though she was in a constant battle with herself, she had once again held her ground to the very end.
Someone once told me talent is the ability to do stuff you were never taught. Maybe that was true. But Adachi was at least trying to do the things no one had ever bothered to teach her. Even though she wasn’t sure she could pull it off, she still did her best, in spite of her fear. And if you asked me, that was a type of talent, too.
“Adachi?”
“Wheh?!” She froze, startled, as her sweat levels increased by thirty percent.
“You’re talented, you know that?”
“Hggbbhhg?!” It sounded like she was biting back an explosion.
With all the emo feelings stuff left out, my comment could be interpreted in a lot of ways. But if I tried to delicately explain what I meant, I was liable to yelp and bounce around myself. Eh, forget it. To minimize the damage, I rerouted my embarrassment into the grade-school approach:
“Ada-cheechee hor-neenee!”
“Yyhhh, stbbgg?!” Flailing her empty right hand, she switched from ghostly pale to bright red and back.
This. This was the Adachi I wanted to see. Satisfaction enveloped me like a warm hug as I realized: this was what I wanted from Adachi right now. Maybe it wasn’t the exact same as what she wanted, but I would do my best to reach a compromise.
By studying, learning, and understanding deeply, I could get there with or without any god-given gift. Surely we had the time—time enough for that. And perhaps that was the biggest blessing of all.
I may not have talent, but I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep up.
I looked at Adachi’s swinging fingers, and as the knowledge that they had touched me slowly sank in, I quietly closed my eyes. Elsewhere in this world, people were dying…and others were taking their first breath.