“Huh? What was that?” she asked. Knowing her, she probably didn’t think too hard about anything she said. But I didn’t answer, because I didn’t have the courage to repeat the words: Miki-chan, you shouldn’t talk to me.
Instead, I sank deeper.
Then I thought of something: what if I dropped out of school after this field trip was over? Surely everyone would shrug it off as more of Looney’s lunacy. Then the other girl wouldn’t have to see my face—she had already left the bath, so she clearly despised me. Oh, and Miyazato-chan wouldn’t have to be afraid of me anymore, either… This was starting to sound like a good idea.
Alternatively, I could…
For some reason, my body was going completely out of whack. My heart was racing, and I couldn’t stop crying—all because of the bathwater heating me up, probably. I pressed my face against the edge of the tub. Then, as Miki-chan and the others were getting ready to leave, I told them I wanted to stay a little longer. Did my voice shake? Did they see the tears in my eyes? I was scared.
If only I didn’t have this power to see people’s heartbeats. I never asked for this. Things would be so much better if only I had the power to stop crying…or stop someone else from crying, I thought to myself like the idiot I was.
But just then, my wish came true ever so slightly, and my tears dried. Sniffling, I rose to my feet. I felt lightheaded—perhaps I’d stayed in the water a little too long. I set one foot out of the tub and onto the cold tile floor.
At first, I thought I’d slipped.
With my utter lack of athletic reflexes, I frequently fell flat on my face. I figured the same thing must have happened again. But this time, it felt different, somehow. There was no palpable feeling of my foot slipping or the floor sliding away from me. The simplest way I could possibly put it would be that it felt like the floor had vanished entirely.
I heard a girl scream. My heart was pounding in my ears a million miles a minute. I tried to summon my strength, but it was no use…and then eventually, as my mind faded, I couldn’t hear anything at all.
I felt hot and weightless and sick to my stomach. Again and again, someone poured something cold into my mouth, and I swallowed it. Then they put something cold on my forehead. Unless I was imagining it.
I awoke in darkness, and for a while I couldn’t tell up from down or right from left, even with my eyes open. Eventually I managed to twitch my fingers. They brushed against fabric, and I realized I was lying on a futon. From there, I discovered I could move the rest of my body, though it felt like lead. I lifted an arm and then let it fall back to the futon; I figured if someone was around, they’d hear the sound and realize I was awake. And sure enough, I was right.
“Are you awake? Can you see me?”
A dim light clicked on, and an unfamiliar woman came into view beside me. I couldn’t find the energy to speak, so I just nodded instead. She told me she was a doctor. With her help, I rolled over onto my side and sipped a sports drink from a straw. It was so cold, I could practically feel it seeping into my blood vessels.
First, she told me I had passed out in the bath—a type of heatstroke, apparently. When she asked me what might have caused it, I told her I was sleep deprived, out of shape, and hadn’t eaten much that day. She scolded me gently and then told me she was going to go scold my teachers for neglecting to look after me properly.
“But…it’s my fault…”
At this, she scolded me all over again. Fortunately, heat syncope was relatively minor in the scope of things, and my symptoms were mild. And so she left to go report back to the teachers. Her last words to me: Take it easy and get some rest. Easier said than done—would I even be able to sleep?
Luckily, this turned out to be an unnecessary worry. As soon as I closed my eyes, my brain shut off, and I fell asleep.
The next day, we were scheduled to take a boat out to a remote island, but I stayed behind at the hotel with one of the teachers. During a normal field trip, I’d never have the chance to spend a whole day zoning out in an air-conditioned room, but here we were.
Last night when I passed out, it caused a big scandal, just as I suspected. Miki-chan was in her underwear, trying to drag my limp, naked body out into the hall, and everyone had to work together to stop her. The mental image was hilarious, but the reality of it was probably a lot more serious. Despite being told to let the teachers handle it, she was caught wandering the hall in the middle of the night. As a result, she was running on hardly any sleep today when she left the hotel.
When I ran into her this morning, I wanted to apologize for causing a scene, but I couldn’t. One look at her puffy red eyes and pounding heart and I knew I had really scared her. Times like these, even I knew the right thing to say wasn’t sorry, but thank you.
Alone in this quiet makeshift infirmary, I thought it all over and ultimately decided that I was being uncharacteristically irrational yesterday. And with all the health stuff piled on top of that, I ended up losing control of my heart rate. Right now, my pulse was a little faster than normal but still stable. The memory of yesterday made it start to waver again, but I could handle it. Going forward, I could make up for my mistakes.
Now that I thought about it, I was an idiot to consider dropping out of school. If I vanished at a time like this, Miyazato-chan and the other girl would both worry about me, and Miki-chan would probably show up at my house every day. I couldn’t possibly force her to have to do that. Honestly, if a little heatstroke was all it took to finally get a clue, then maybe I got off lightly.
Fortunately, this morning I managed to be my usual self in front of them. I toyed with their hearts and then sent them off with a smile. Hopefully that way they’d spend the day having fun instead of worrying about me.
Now my only concern was my prince and his bell. When I initially discovered he had one, it was the morning of the first day, and no one would be stupid enough to make their move that early. Therefore, he had to be planning to confess to someone—but who? At the time, his eyes were on Miki-chan. What if he gave it to her today, while I wasn’t around? What would I do then?
I thought back to the conversation I had with him yesterday. It took place immediately after he had finished rejecting someone who had feelings for him, and yet his heart rate was perfectly steady… No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t bring myself to like him. But at the same time, I only knew about his heart because of my power, so to everyone else, he was just a friendly guy. Thus, I couldn’t really blame his victims for falling for his act. Instead, I wanted to keep them safe from him.
Obviously, I was aware of my hypocrisy here. After all, I was no different, trying desperately to be friends with Miki-chan and the others while hiding a darker side, and yet I was willing to absolve myself of those same crimes. But it was because of that that I dearly wanted Miki-chan to notice the pure-hearted soul who cared for her far more deeply than my prince and I did. That way she could eventually forget all about us.
Was Kyou putting himself out there today? Because tomorrow, we were scheduled to fly home.
By evening, my health had fully recovered, but I wasn’t looking for excuses to needlessly expend my energy. Thus, I continued to nap in my futon—at least, until I heard the murmur of voices in the distance. Evidently the others had returned. I sat up and smoothed the wrinkles from my clothes. This quickly proved to be the right call, because I soon heard a knock at the door. I opened it to find the teacher who had spent the day looking after me. He asked me how I was doing, so I told him I was fine, and when he asked me if I was hungry, I told him I was starving—you know, in a Looney sort of way.
A short while later, my class advisor showed up and told me to wait here in this room until dinnertime, at which point I would be permitted to meet up with the others in the dining hall. “If I send you back to your room now, Miki’s gonna scream her head off,” he said jokingly, though I could tell he half-meant it, too.
And so, I decided to wait patiently for dinner. I folded up my futon and then sat down on the chair near the window. When I opened it, a pleasant breeze rolled in.