The figure I was looking at with a prayer turned around.
The person who turned around at my voice was Soejima-kun, who had a slightly more mature face. His eyes widened. We stared at each other for a few seconds. Making his way through the crowd, Soejima-kun slowly walked toward me, and I walked toward him.
We stood facing each other. Soejima-kun, with an almost unbelievable expression, was standing in front of me. He looked at me with a dreamy look on his face, then showed a complex expression of joy and anxiety and spoke in a small voice, “Don’t tell me you’re a spirit again.”
At that moment, I was at a loss of words.
“Hey… ouch!”
Soejima-kun pinched my cheek with his fingertips. As if confirming, he traced my face, but then bowed his head as if to hide it. The cool palm that touched my cheek was dyed with my body temperature…
When I had previously hushed my voice and tried to erase my presence, I had lost sight of myself. But this palm touching my cheek dispelled my doubts, telling me that I was alive and was not a spirit; I had not lost my existence.
I felt warmth. My cells breathed. The withered air was fresh, the footsteps of passing people bounced like music, and the breath I exhaled in the freezing cold told me of my breathing.
Yes, I always wanted to tell Soejima-kun. I am…
“…not a spirit.”
Soejima-kun didn’t move his downturned face. Wondering if it was hard to hear, I opened my mouth again.
“I’m here.”
“I can hear you clearly.”
Saying that, Soejima-kun, who raised his face, was slightly teary-eyed. “I could hear you.”
A slightly more mature Soejima-kun, smiling with teary eyes, was reflected in my eyes. A sight I couldn’t have imagined was clearly reflected in my eyes.
“I thought there would be nothing good in my future.”
A shyly smiling Soejima-kun was reflected in my eyes. Nothing was obstructing the view. The bangs fluttering in the wind no longer hid my alien-like eyes. What was in front of my eyes wasn’t darkness, like I had always thought. It was something much brighter and more dazzling than I could have ever imagined.
This dazzle might be a momentary sparkle. The nearby sadness and the uncertain future could easily darken everything at any time.
But what was hidden in that darkness was not just suffering. Believing in my figure that became invisible in the shadows, my voice that seemed drowned out by the noise, I walked through the darkness.
If I force my feet that are about to stop to stand up and strain my eyes to see the unobstructed view, I’m sure I can find beautiful things that have melted into the darkness. I will meet such a sparkling moment again.
A large number of people came and went the station’s premises. Lost in the crowd, my figure, which had become invisible and buried among many people, seemed to be clearly emerging. Here. Now.
Amid the overflowing crowd, the real me, not a spirit, was certainly here.
The end