“—Happy birthday, Aoi.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Pop-pop, pa-pa-pop. Patter-patter-patter.
On the screen, the multicolored confetti fluttered downward. The celebratory ribbons tangled together, reflected in Hinami’s dark, somber eyes. Her mother and her sister were both smiling, but Hinami’s face was rapidly losing all expression.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You really have grown up well these past seventeen years. I remember when you were participating in your elementary school marathon; you were knee-high to a grasshopper. And now you’ve gone on to run track at nationals. But now that I think about it, even back then, you were firmly on the path to run to your destiny and who you are now.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The woman who told that story looked a lot like Hinami. She was pretty as a bell, with a bright voice that drew you in and sounded somehow purer than Hinami’s. Her smile was youthful, with an honesty that put you at ease.
✦ ✦ ✦
“—Stop it!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Hinami shrieked like a cornered animal. She sounded so freaked out, the celebratory atmosphere vanished like a candle going out.
✦ ✦ ✦
There were noises of confusion, then a tense silence.
Mimimi, Tama-chan, Izumi, Kikuchi-san, Nakamura, and the guys were all glancing at one another, confused. What had made her so upset? What about this image was taboo for her? Was it just that it involved her family, or was it—?
I was watching Hinami, with no idea what was going on.
“A-Aoi…?” Izumi said, clearly rattled. She was the one who had set up the video letter from the Hinami family, which was on-screen right now.
But the person even more frustrated than her was—
“Why would you do something like this? …Stop it.”
Hinami’s lips were trembling slightly, the controller fallen at her feet. She always kept a handle on things within her immediate vicinity, but she’d abandoned the controller carelessly on the floor, with the cord chaotically fallen around it.
Suddenly, I thought of—
—the final ride that same day. On the dinosaur-shaped car as it slowly moved along under the setting sun, I had asked about Hinami’s past. She’d told me that she would never understand the cause of her sister’s death and that she accepted it. Those feelings were rooted deep in her—I could tell.
This video must have been filmed in a bedroom—a traditional, Japanese-style room with a hanging scroll on the wall. The two smiling faces were very gentle. But Hinami’s expression was absolutely frozen.
“Oh, Aoi! I’m sorry!” Mimimi kept her voice bright, and all gazes went to her. Count on her to always break the tension. “Um, I guess we kinda upset you with this, but—”
“You’re not the one who set this up, are you?” Hinami sharply cut off Mimimi’s attempt to be considerate.
“!”
Was Hinami trying to shut her down, or was it an accident? Either way, she succeeded.
“Yuzu, Shuji. What is this?” she said, searching for the one responsible, which made it even harder to breathe.
Pressed for an answer, Izumi opened her mouth as if to reply, but she just closed it and opened it again wordlessly, inhaling like she wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
“…What’s the deal, Aoi?” Nakamura said. He wasn’t hiding his frustration as he took a step forward with hostility in his eyes. “Sure, yeah, we did this without asking, but is it that bad?”
“H-hey, Shuji…!”
“You don’t have to be such an ass about it.” He ignored Izumi’s attempt to stop him from protecting her and kept going.
They glared at each other.
“—The two of them can’t even begin to imagine this is something that I could be this openly hostile about.” Her words were not carefully chosen, and they were stinging. “So could you spare me the selfish BS?”
Hinami was swinging wildly right now. It reminded me of the time that she had punished Erika Konno, but unlike back then, when everything she said had been calculated for the sake of her goal, this time, she was just hitting wherever she could with full force.
“…Listen, Aoi. Yuzu went to the trouble of meeting with your family and filming that for you. And you—”
“If you think that’s okay just because it was ‘for me’—” Hinami cut off Nakamura with a withering glare. “Then that means that I can hit you as hard as I can right now. Otherwise, you’re gonna say something you shouldn’t—so really, I’m doing it ‘for you.’”
“What?”
All her words were empty. It was that frustrating kind of logic that was solely used to argue. It wasn’t for convincing anyone—just pure aggression against their feelings and good will. It was no surprise that Nakamura sounded so astounded.
“…Aoi…what the heck…?” Izumi said sadly. She must have been thinking about patching things up. But right now, Hinami was venting her feelings and daring any of us to help her.
“You don’t… You don’t know anything,” she repeated with an expression that could have been anger or sadness.
Yes, I wanted to know what was beneath Hinami’s mask.
But this battered mess was not what I wanted to see.
“We don’t know, so tell us. We won’t know if you don’t say anything,” Nakamura said, and he was entirely correct.
Even if you do say everything you have to say, it’s hard for people to understand each other 100 percent. But if you don’t say anything, you can’t even start.
Nakamura was showing that he was ready to meet her halfway. Even after all that rejection, when Hinami was trying to hurt us, Nakamura was still reaching out to her.
And yet—
“…I don’t think I have anything to say.”
“What?”
“Sorry. I don’t feel well, so I’m going back to my room.” Hinami turned her back to us.
“Hey, Aoi—”
“Are you okay? I’ll go with you!” Izumi said, trying to be considerate.
Hinami was obviously lying, and she’d chosen a strange time to flee the scene. She gave Izumi a glance and said, “I’m okay. I can get back on my own.” Her immediate refusal was accompanied by a perfect smile.
Her mask was so thick, and that only added to the sense that their friendship was breaking.
“See you.”
She cut straight through the room without even a glance at us, then opened the door to the hallway.
“W-wait, Aoi—”
Mimimi was cut off by the slam of the door, and then Hinami was gone. We didn’t even know what to say. We just looked at one another.
“…”
I was the first one to move, stepping toward the closed door.
“Fumiya-kun?!”
Even as Kikuchi-san called after me, I raced out of the room and after Hinami.