She said, “[Cruel Classmate]-kun, you’ll catch a cold like that.”
I accepted her gesture of kindness, although I felt unworthy. Then she gasped.
“[Cruel Classmate]-kun! You’re bleeding.”
Looking upset, she took a handkerchief from her pocket and held it against my left brow. I hadn’t realized I was bleeding. I’d thought he’d struck me with his bare hands. Had he used a weapon? I wondered, although in that moment, I wasn’t interested in the details.
Instead, I looked at his face. He was still standing in the same place as before, having been passed by as she ran over to me. Words couldn’t describe how drastically his expression had changed. I’d read the description “overflowing with emotion” before, and now I’d seen firsthand what those words meant.
She was saying, “What happened to you?” and, “Why are you bleeding?” and so on. I was ignoring her, not intentionally, but because his expression had completely captured my attention. He answered her for me.
“Sakura…” he said. “What are you doing with someone like that?”
Keeping her handkerchief pressed against my brow, she looked over her shoulder at him. When he saw her face, he grimaced again.
She said, “Someone like that…? You mean [Cruel Classmate]-kun?”
“Yeah, him,” he said, his tone defensive. “He’s been hanging on to you, so I took care of him. He won’t be bothering you anymore.”
Maybe he believed she’d think better of him now. Maybe he wanted to her to notice him again. But he couldn’t see what she was thinking.
I had now completely taken on the role of observer, and all I could do was watch the scene unfold. She had frozen, her gaze on him with one arm raised to keep the handkerchief on my forehead. He had on a half-smile, like a child awaiting his praise. The other half was scared.
A few seconds later, the fear took over the rest of his face.
Finally, she spoke a single word, as if all her emotions had coalesced into a ball in her gut that needed spitting out.
“Creep.”
He looked dumbstruck.
She immediately turned to me, and her face took me by surprise. I’d thought she possessed a wide range of emotions, but that they all held at least an element of cheerfulness. Even when she was angry, even when she cried, her expression was never dark. I had been wrong.
This was a look I hadn’t seen from her before. It was a look intended to wound.
When she looked back at me, her expression quickly transformed into a smile mixed with uncertainty. She helped me to my feet. My pants and shirt were soaked through, but at least this was still summer, and I wasn’t cold. The summer air kept me warm, as did her hand on my arm.
I picked up my bag. She pulled me along as she walked in the boy’s direction. I looked at his face; seeing him so crestfallen, I didn’t think he’d be stealing any of my belongings anymore.
We walked past him, and I thought she’d keep propelling me forward, so when she suddenly stopped, I nearly collided into her back. Our umbrellas knocked into each other and sent fat water drops falling.
Without turning, she spoke in a voice that was somehow simultaneously quiet and loud.
“I don’t like you anymore, Takahiro. Don’t ever do anything else to me or anyone around me again.”
The boy she’d called Takahiro said nothing. I looked at him one last time; he was facing away from us now. He seemed to be crying.
She dragged me all the way back to her house. We went inside but didn’t speak, aside from her handing me a towel and a change of clothes and telling me to take a shower. I did just that.
Until I’d borrowed the clothing—a men’s T-shirt, boxer shorts, and track pants—I hadn’t known she had a brother several years older than her. I didn’t even know who was in her family.
After I changed clothes, she called me into her bedroom. She was sitting formally on her floor.
It was there that we did something I’d never done before. As I rarely associated with others, I didn’t know what to call two people trying to speak openly and honestly with each other.
She called the process “making up.”
Of all the human interactions I’d experienced before this point, this was the one that most made me itch with embarrassment.
She apologized to me. I apologized to her. She explained that when she hugged me, she thought I would look uncomfortable but then laugh. So I explained that for a reason I didn’t understand, I felt like she was making a fool of me, and I got angry. She said she came after me in the rain because she didn’t want to let things stay bad between us, and she had cried when I pushed her over purely because she was afraid of a man’s physical strength.
I apologized from the bottom of my heart.
During our talk, I brought up the boy we’d left in the rain because I was still curious about him. My conjecture proved correct: The class representative had been her most recent boyfriend. I told her what I had thought as the rain poured onto me—that she was better off with somebody who had genuine feelings for her. We had only encountered each other in the hospital by pure chance.
As soon as I said that, she admonished, “You’re wrong. It wasn’t chance. Everyone is where they are because of the choices they’ve made. Our choices led us to being in the same class. Our choices brought us to the hospital. Not chance. There’s no such thing as fate. All the choices you’ve made and all the choices I’ve made brought us together. You and I met by our own decisions.”
I was silent. There was nothing I could say. I was amazed at how much I learned from her. If she had more than a year left to live—if she could somehow live longer—how much more could she teach me, after everything I’d already learned? I was certain that no amount of time would have been enough.
I borrowed a plastic bag for my wet clothes, along with the fresh clothes on my back and the book she’d promised me. I informed her that I read my books in the order in which I obtained them, and a number were ahead on the queue. She told me I could just return the book to her in a year, and I agreed. In not so many words, I made the promise that we would keep getting along as long as she lived.
The next day, I returned to school for the first day of summer school. My slippers were where they were supposed to be.
When I went to class, she wasn’t there. When first period started, she still hadn’t come. Nor was she there the next hour, or the one after that. Even after the school day was over, I hadn’t seen her.
That night, I learned why.
She had been hospitalized.