“I can walk by myself, you know,” Koyuki grumbled.
“This is my fault, so just let me help you out, all right?” Naoya replied. He walked slowly as he carried Koyuki on his back through the dimming evening city.
After Koyuki’s accident, Naoya and Koyuki had headed back to school—they had parted ways with Tatsumi and Yui at the crepe store. Although the couple had both been worried about Koyuki, they had left the responsibility of dealing with the situation in Naoya’s hands for some reason. At the infirmary, the nurse had informed them that Koyuki had lightly sprained her leg and that she would need to stay off it for about a day. She’d initially refused the idea of being carried around when Naoya had volunteered, but she quickly surrendered after trying to walk by herself for a few feet.
Naoya could tell that Koyuki was being careful not to hurt him with her arms wrapped around his neck, and he appreciated her concern. While he carried her on his back, Yui’s parting words churned through his mind endlessly: “Maybe next time, take things a bit slower, Naoya!”
“Um, I’m sorry about earlier. I was too forward,” he apologized.
“Way too forward. Now I can’t go to that store for a while,” Koyuki sulked. After a moment of silence, she fidgeted and asked quietly, “Were you serious about what you said earlier?”
“I was. I like you romantically,” he stated.
“Ugggh, stop saying it like that...” she complained. Still, Naoya could feel her racing heartbeat and her erratic breaths directly on his back. “But do you, like, really like me?”
“What?” he asked. He hadn’t expected that question.
“I mean, we’ve barely just gotten to know each other. There’s gotta be some misunderstanding, or you’re just joking... right?” Her voice trembled as she spoke. He couldn’t see her properly, but the image of her face scrunched in embarrassment rose to his mind. “I want to believe you... but I can’t.”
“Okay,” he replied after a pause.
Although he had tried to sound cool and collected, he couldn’t deny the sensibility in her words, nor the sense of shock he’d felt when he’d heard them. It only makes sense that confessing to someone so quickly would only freak them out...
It was like petting a stray cat before it had gotten used to you. In the end, acting rashly only trampled a budding sense of trust. “I honestly do like you a lot,” he insisted. “I’ll just have to make you believe me.”
“Do whatever you want. I don’t care. You’re a weirdo anyway,” she replied. Naoya pretended to not hear her sniffling to herself.
Guess she was being serious about wanting to believe me, but not being able to. No need to panic, though—I’ll start taking things slow and steady, he assured himself. The first stop was already complete: he now understood how he felt. But the real battle had only just begun.
He continued with a light tone to his voice, “But if I’m ever convinced that I’ve gotten it across, I’m gonna confess right there on the spot. Might wanna start thinking about your answer right now.”
“No pressure, then... What are you gonna do if I reject you?” she asked hesitantly.
“I’ll just confess again.”
“I was worried you’d say that. You’re that kind of idiot,” she muttered with a tired sigh. Life quickly returned to her voice, however, and she said, “If you’re gonna insist on confessing, it’s all gonna be on you. Okay?”
“Got it. I’m already working on my finest lines for when it goes down,” he replied.
“Don’t work too hard—if you make them too cringey, I’ll die of embarrassment.”
“I feel like when it comes to stuff like this, you gotta either go big or go home. Oh yeah, by the way—I work at a second-hand book store. I could probably afford a ring or something with about 3 months of my pay. D’you want me to go for that, or nah?”
“Jeez, have you ever heard of walking before you can run?! I don’t need anything like that yet!” she shouted.
“‘Yet’? Okay, you’re the boss,” Naoya backed off, glad that she didn’t notice her Freudian slip.
They eventually arrived at a residential area. As Naoya navigated down the streets, he soon reached a particularly quiet neighborhood. That was when Koyuki told Naoya to stop. When he took a moment to take a good look around, he realized he was standing outside of a formidable Western-style house enclosed by large walls.
“This your house, Shirogane? It’s massive,” he said, amazed.
“What? I think it’s about normal,” she waved him off.
It was basically a palace in Naoya’s eyes. When they headed inside, Naoya was greeted by tall ceilings and walls fully furnished with elaborate and expensive-looking paintings. Naoya placed Koyuki gingerly down near the entryway.
“Thanks for bringing me home. Do you maybe want to come in?” she ventured nervously.
“Not today. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“O-Okay then,” she said.
Naoya realized he was disappointing her—and men everywhere, for that matter—by not accepting the beautiful girl's invitation into her home. “Your parents aren’t home, right? I’ll wait until they’re back. That way, I can come with gifts and stuff and introduce myself properly,” he explained.
“I wanna ask how you knew how my parents aren’t home, or why you think you need to be so formal with them, but I doubt that’ll go anywhere,” she grumbled. She seemed to be learning to read Naoya by now, too—at least to a certain extent. She sighed, then looked at Naoya with a slight blush tinting her face. “Yeah, it is pretty late. I guess I’ll see you... next time?”
“Yep. I’m looking forward to it. Bye. Mind the leg,” he replied, ready to leave.
“W-Wait a sec,” she spoke up.
Naoya turned back and saw Koyuki digging through her school bag. When she found what she had been searching for—a small notebook—she handed it over to Naoya. “You might not need this, but, uh, take it. They’re the notes I made for that last math test. They might help,” she explained.
“Whoa, really?! Are you sure?!” Naoya exclaimed. He accepted the notebook and began flipping through its contents. Important points were underlined neatly with colored pens, and instructions for calculations were methodically written in sequence. It looked more helpful than most textbooks. There were over 10 pages of notes, and Naoya found himself at a loss for words.
Koyuki appeared concerned at his silence. “Sorry if this was rude of me. I just figured you’d want it. I wanted to give it to you at the school gate, but we had to go get crepes, and I ended up forgetting. Plus...” she trailed off as she stared at Naoya. “What?”
“Nah, it’s just...” Naoya mumbled. He found his hand rising to cover his mouth, but it did little to hide his growing smile. “Are you sure I can’t just confess to you right now?”
“What?! You said you were gonna look for a better time, right?!” she yelped.
“But I already really, really like you,” he said earnestly and without a hint of embarrassment. A thought had occurred to him—when they had met at school earlier, she had said she’d been studying in the library. She must have been making the notes then, just for Naoya. “You’re already wife material. Come on, le—”
“Shut up! And get out!” Koyuki screeched. She tore the notebook out of Naoya’s hands and began beating him over the head with it, unrelenting until she had driven him out of the house. And with that, she tossed the notebook out and slammed the door behind him.
Despite her harsh actions, he quickly received a text message. “If you don’t get something, ask me anytime. Later,” it stated.
Naoya alternated glances between the notebook and his phone screen. Then, he looked up toward the heavens and declared, “Yep, I’m in love.”
It had certainly taken him a while to figure out—so long, in fact, that the affection he had bottled up for her threatened to gush forth at any moment like a broken dam.
He felt a smile rise to his lips that he had some suspicions might never disappear. While he returned home, he mumbled lovesick nothings out loud to himself. “I need to be careful. I need to wait until she’s ready... But I wanna confess nooow...”
Twilight was being ushered in, and the deep crimson hues of early evening were slowly replaced by shades of indigo. The changes in the sky might have seemed melancholic to someone who was in bad spirits, but Naoya was unflappable. He barely paid attention to his surroundings as he practically skipped his way home.
Suddenly, he sensed a pair of eyes on his back and whirled around. There was no one there, though he felt as though the presence had come from the direction of Koyuki’s house. “Must’ve been my imagination,” he mumbled to himself. He turned on his heel and resumed the trek home, albeit slightly faster than he had before.
The truth of what Naoya had sensed would take a few days to come to light, and it would all start with a letter left in his shoe self.