“I’m not going to switch to a different college.”
What?
I stopped short. Likewise, Kyou-kun took a few more steps, then came to a stop and donned a smile. He was always the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back if he thought you needed it.
“I thought about it, and…that’s what I decided.”
“Wh-why not?”
“Mmmm…” This time, instead of just groaning, he kept going. “I just don’t see it happening.”
“I mean, sure, their admission standards are a bit higher, but…”
Truth be told, I knew it wasn’t about admission standards or GPA. Those things were important, but right now, they clearly didn’t matter. But I played dumb, hoping to mask my feelings. Not for any particular reason, of course.
“After we started writing these letters, for the first time in my life, I took a hard look at my plans for the future. And in the end, I realized…a loser like me just isn’t…”
He wasn’t just pausing to catch his breath—he simply wasn’t willing to continue. He was too scared. He knew how he felt, but he didn’t want to admit it.
“And you’re the only person I can talk to about it.”
I knew what he meant by that. He knew I would understand, and so he wanted my compassion. Unfortunately, I could easily imagine how he must have felt.
Like him, I’d spent my whole life thinking of myself as a loser. Lesser. Unworthy. Obviously, I knew everyone had their own personal insecurities, but when it came to people like myself and Kyou-kun, for whatever reason, those same insecurities were painfully debilitating. Maybe we were just born this way.
But while I understood his pain, I no longer believed it was my duty as his friend to mindlessly validate it. This was something I learned after getting to know him and the others.
“Stop that.” I took a deep breath. “If…if you’re going to be a quitter, then do it right! Don’t hide your letter from her—write the words ‘I don’t love you’ and…and go show it to her right now!”
My voice cracked and wavered. After all, a loser like me had no right to say this.
“She’s the one you need to tell! Not me!”
It would have been so easy to talk him out of his own feelings—he was factually incorrect, after all. I would simply have to sacrifice our friendship in the process. But I didn’t go that route. Not because I was scared of losing said friendship, mind you.
If he got his wish through sheer inertia, without ever actually working for it, his arrow would entirely go to waste. A love as tremendous as his deserved to have real effort put into it.
“If you keep acting like this, you won’t want to meet up with us ten years from now!”
We had a lot in common, and I knew if he kept lying to himself and pretending it was over—if he never tried to be anything more than friends with Mickey—then by the time ten years had passed, he wouldn’t want to come dig up the time capsule with the rest of us. He wouldn’t want to come face to face with the regret he had buried there.
Then it occurred to me: maybe those adults hadn’t actually forgotten where their time capsules were buried.
Kyou-kun fell silent, and the time I spent waiting for him to respond was nothing but sheer terror. It had taken me a lot of courage to say all that, but in hindsight, I wasn’t confident it was any of my business. Regret welled up inside me—regret and anxiety and a tiny hint of despair. Almost like BOTH of us are struggling with one-sided feelings, I thought to myself.
Then his conflicted expression shifted to sadness as he gazed at me. A moment later, I realized it wasn’t sadness at all, but fear. He let out a small breath, the same way he did whenever he was about to say something he knew he shouldn’t.
“I mean…it’s thanks to you that I’ve become friends with her,” he said.
I strongly disagreed with that, but for the sake of conversation, I nodded.
“And so I keep asking myself: do I really need more than that?”
I started to tell him to stop thinking like that, but then he kept going.
“And every time, I think…”
Yeah?
“Deep down, I know the answer to that question is yes. Being friends was never going to be enough for me. With every passing day, I…”
Love her more and more. My brain automatically filled in the blank. But he didn’t really need to say that part out loud. I wasn’t the target audience, anyway.
I could read his expression, and out of all the scary things in the world, I knew what frightened him most of all: his feelings. No matter how hard he tried to convince himself that he was content, his feelings wouldn’t listen, and he was terrified that they would run down a different path. Which path? Well, there was really only one option. But it felt so distant…and deep.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, as if he’d searched every corner of his heart and those were the only words he could find. But I didn’t have any helpful advice for him.
“I don’t know for sure, but…do you want my opinion?”
I made sure to ask first. He nodded softly.
“I think it would make her happy. She would really take it seriously, too.”
It sounded like something out of a stereotypical shoujo manga, and after I said it, I realized: he already knew that. That was why he was scared.
Together, we trudged down the street, agonizing over Mickey. He hadn’t brought his bike today, so we were both on foot. Then, at long last, we came to a stop at the branching path between his house and mine. I must have felt the impulse to say something, and before I knew it, the words had left my lips.
“I’d hate to see someone else steal her away.”
It was one of my deepest, darkest thoughts, and I knew it would only make him feel even more pressured. Why did I say that? Immediately, I cursed myself…but at the same time, deep down, part of me was proud of myself for speaking my mind.
Perhaps he sensed this small fragment of untimely joy. “So you approve?” he asked with a small smile—the first I’d seen from him all day. I nodded without hesitation.
Then, with a wave, we went our separate ways home.
Later that night, I was having trouble sleeping, so I decided to write another letter.
Dear Mickey,
You have the power to change people from the inside out. You might not know this, but when you showed up at my house last year, I was really annoyed at first. Annoyed that some girl who didn’t even know me would suddenly force her way in. And I admit, I thought you were rude and inappropriate. But when you looked me in the eyes and told me you wanted to be friends, the next thing I knew, I found the courage to trust you…and now I’m really glad I did.
After we got to know each other, I discovered that there’s really nothing more adorable than a bubbly, down-to-earth girl who wants to be a hero. Plus, you’re so pretty and athletic… It’s completely unfair. Of course, while you have lots of strengths, you have plenty of flaws, too. I know because I’m your friend. But if I were a boy, I’d probably fall in love with you, flaws and all. I repeat: It’s SO unfair.
You’re a hero, Mickey, and everyone around you intuitively trusts you. For example: Normally, a guy with no self-confidence would never dream of being in love with a popular girl like you. But in your case, he could rest easy, knowing you’d never scoff at his feelings. That’s just another reason why we all love you so much.
Lastly, allow me to be blunt: You’re as blind as a bat, you dumbo!
I woke up, looked at my clock, and then sprang out of bed. Crap! School! But as I was pulling on my uniform, I belatedly remembered that the teachers had canceled today’s supplementary lessons. That was why I set my alarm back an extra hour.
I took my uniform back off, then went to the kitchen and ate the breakfast Mom cooked for me. And as I was eating, I realized that it was probably a bad thing that the lessons got canceled.
Normally, whenever we didn’t have class, we’d all meet up in the library (plus or minus Zuka-kun, depending on if he had practice that day). There was no pre-established agreement to meet up at any certain time; we’d just naturally bump into each other in the middle of our other plans. So if someone didn’t show up, it wasn’t a big deal. But we were now so used to meeting up at the library that any absence would be painfully obvious.