“Man, your rich-girl mansion is something else.”
My mind and body were both so relaxed, it had evidently loosened my lips.
After treating me to a lovely lunch, Hino had (probably jokingly) suggested that we take a midday soak in the tub—to which I readily agreed. Relaxing in my towel afterward, I was so cozy that I fell asleep. Strange how something as commonplace as a post-meal bath could feel so much more refreshing here.
“One minute, I’m nodding off, and the next thing I know, the sun’s setting.” What was more, I remembered sitting in the open-air corridor, yet now I found myself lying on a bed. “Did you carry me here?”
“Me? Good one. No, I asked Enome-san…uh, one of the assistants.”
“How thoughtful.”
“You were out cold, by the way. She thought it was hilarious.”
“That’s really, um, shameful. My bad!” I laughed, running a hand through my surprisingly silky hair.
“You’re kind of a ditz, you know that?”
“Huh? I am?”
“See? There it is again!”
She pointed at my face, so I reached up to touch it. After that bath, my skin was as smooth as butter.
On my way out, Hino walked me to the front door.
“So I heard you’re moving away after college.”
From who? I wondered. Nevertheless, I nodded. “Depends where I get hired, of course. But, ideally, yeah.”
“Then I guess we won’t see much of each other,” she remarked offhandedly.
That was an understatement. Once I moved away, we literally wouldn’t see each other at all—quite possibly for the rest of our lives. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to say.
“This is how I know we’re friends. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t even think about saying goodbye,” she continued. Then, after a pause, she scratched her cheek. “That was a sick line, huh?”
“Sure was! Encore, encore!”
“Uhhh…Shima, you’re my buddy, awright!” Hino burst out laughing, and I knew that this time, she hadn’t actually forgotten what she’d first said—she was just being shy.
“Close enough.”
“I know, right?” With a hand on her hip, she proudly thrust out her chest. “However many years go by, it won’t change the fact that we were friends here and now. If you ask me, that’s enough.”
“…Yeah.”
She made it sound so simple, yet it shook me to the core. To me, it sounded as though she took comfort in the past’s immutability—it meant that the good parts would always be there, forever enshrined.
“Well, this is it.”
“Yep.”
“Say hi to Adatsy for me.”
With a wave, I started walking. I briefly debated whether to say, “See you around,” but ultimately decided against it. After all, like she said, what we had wasn’t going anywhere. And so I left her house, taking in the sight of the bamboo forest dyed amber, like waves of grain.
Just then…
“Oh!”
As if on cue, my phone buzzed—and instantly, I knew who’d messaged me.
Sure, come over, I replied. Then, still holding my phone, I stretched my hand straight out in front of me, toward the horizon.
What was this strange thrill I felt? My heart was full of sunset, pumping it straight to my wrist. As my pulse quickened, so did my breaths, until at last the ordinary sunset turned tangerine, as if heralding the arrival of a new world.
And “arrive” she did, pedaling at such a breakneck speed that I thought she might bowl me over.
“Ha ha!” When I saw her, I couldn’t help laughing so hard that my voice cracked.
✦ ✦ ✦
That night, I opened the living room window and looked out at our yard. Compared to Hino’s, it was downright tiny but also cozy—the ideal state for the place I called home. I could’ve stood there forever, gazing absently at the distant skyline, thinking back to the words I’d heard at sunset.
Thinking back to Adachi.
My post-bath flush had faded slightly; it now resembled something akin to a toasty-warm drowsiness that enveloped me inside and out. That feeling of supreme satisfaction evidently wasn’t limited to my stomach.
“You seem rather amused,” a childlike voice suddenly remarked from overhead. A beat later, a curtain of blue particles began to rain down slowly. If she was sitting on my shoulders, I could scarcely feel it.
“And you’ve got pillow marks on your face.” When I looked up, those—and the light—were all I could see.
“Whenever my belly is full, I become sleepy. That is simply the way I am.”
“Pretty normal, actually.”
I pulled her off my shoulders and plopped her down beside me. She stood there without a fuss, her lion tail swaying alongside her little legs. Why did it almost seem to have a mind of its own? It was just part of the onesie, right?
“You seem rather amused,” she repeated.
Was I smiling or something? I touched my lips lightly. After a moment of contemplation, I decided that her observation was correct; apparently, I was. After all, it was impossible to think back to the way Adachi had acted today without making myself laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”
“It is good to have fun.”
A persuasive statement, coming from a girl who seemingly never stopped smiling. There simply wasn’t an ounce of negativity in her body—like she was a manifestation of everything good in the world. In that sense, maybe she fell into the same category as Hino’s house.
“What about you? Did my sister get you a gift or anything?”
“She did not believe me. Ho ho ho!” Yashiro beamed, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Little is very sharp, for in truth, I do not know when my birthday is. Please do not tell anyone!”
I’d seen that coming a mile away, but I nodded nevertheless.
“That said, she did purchase me a chocolate bar.”
“Nice.” Although no piece of chocolate could be sweeter than my little sis.
“I hope tomorrow is my birthday too.”
“That’s not how your birthday works.” I poked her head wryly; she pitched sideways, squealing in delight. “Birthdays are fun because they only happen once in a looong while.”
“Is that true?”
“Indeed,” I replied, mimicking her voice. Then I let out a breath. “Once a year, your age goes up, and then…”
“And then?”
“And then you keep making an effort to celebrate it instead of dreading it. At least, that’s my plan.”
“Ohhh.” She didn’t sound genuinely impressed.
Chuckling, I tilted my head back and thought I felt a cold liquid flow past my cheeks and chin. I reached up to search for it, but it turned out not to be the sort of trail my fingers could track.
“And I hope I never stop…right up until the birthday before I die,” I admitted honestly, wagging my index finger. “Because when death comes for me…it’d be kind of sad to want to fight it.”
After all, that wish would be doomed to go ungranted. So I hoped I’d be ready to welcome death on my final day. Was that a weakling’s mindset? If I was strong, would I be up for anything? I was still a total wimp, so I wouldn’t know that feeling.
“Hmmm.” Her lion ears wiggled. “To be truthful, I do not fully understand.”
“I’m not surprised.”
In my opinion, an alien didn’t need to understand that. But that was probably what I liked about her—the ease with which she bridged the gap between herself and entire planets.
She raised her hand to make an offer. “However, if you feel you would struggle on your own, I would be happy to figure out your final day with you!”
“You would…?”
“Heh heh heh. I am a very good person, you see.” She sounded confident, if nothing else.
“My final day, huh…?” While I appreciated her kind offer, that was (hopefully) a long time from now. “Do you know when that’ll be?”
In the worst-case scenario, I could die tonight in my sleep. Nothing was guaranteed.
“Ho ho ho! At the very least, it is not today.”
“Good. That would really suck.”
Adachi and I had already planned so much. There were a lot of promises I had yet to keep. Before I died, I wanted to live happily ever after…and to share that happiness with her.
“For right now—” Yashiro lowered her hood, her faint blue sparkle illuminating the room—“I wish you a happy birthday, Shimamura-san.”
The words hit me squarely in the face, and as always, I could tell there was genuinely sheer kindness behind them.
“You too,” I replied after a beat.
The fuzzy feeling carved out in the aftermath of our conversation compelled me to reach out to stroke her hair. It felt like my fingers were combing through moonlight.