“Here, consider this a token of my gratitude for what happened yesterday.”
“Wow, are you serious?!” Makoto asked Toiru.
Lunch break had just started. She was embarrassed, so they looked for a place that wasn’t too crowded. Because she was uncomfortable, he felt more stressed than he should have.
Toiro had prepared a bento as thanks for his valiant efforts yesterday. They finally picked a spot beneath a cherry tree on the edge of the schoolyard and opened the bento boxes.
“Whoaaa, wow!”
For Makoto, who was a school lunch kind of guy, this was the most touching kind of gesture. The portions were pretty healthy too, to boot.
“I can’t vouch for the taste, though.” Toiro bashfully waited for Makoto’s reaction.
“This tastes great!” Makoto roared immediately upon chomping down on a mini hamburger.
His older brother Takaki’s self-professed hobby was cooking, so the food he made was generally better than most stuff Makoto would get when he ate out. Toiro’s cooking was equally good. The reasons Makoto ate school food were quantity and price rather than taste.
“I just made this with stuff that was in the fridge,” she told him.
“Cafeteria food is no match for this,” he said, thoroughly satisfied.
Makoto quickly devoured the contents of the bento and eagerly moved on to sipping the tea Toiro had brought in a thermos. It was a nice barley tea, well chilled and without the smell of chlorine.
“Hey, do you make bento every day? Because I saw you had one yesterday,” he asked.
“Yes. I also made one for my father, so… it’s economical.”
“Whoa, you’re pretty driven for somebody so young.”
He meant it as a joke, since they were the same age. But her expressions and mannerisms, not to mention her slender appearance, made her seem like a proper young lady. Quite unexpectedly, he somehow felt an affinity towards her.
“I live with my older brother, y’see. We do all our own chores, so I know a little bit about how hard it is for you, Hiura.”
Toiro looked at him with interest. “Do you live away from your parents, Makoto-kun?”
“Well, sort of,” he answered.
“What’s it like not living with your parents?” Toiro leaned forward, showing an earnest interest. But he couldn’t tell if she was interested in him or if she was interested in the fact someone her age was living away from his parents. Whatever the case, she seemed awfully serious.
Makoto hesitated as he mulled things over. After a brief pause, he said, “It’s a little… lonely… I guess…”
Those were his true feelings.
“Well, I have my brother, at least,” he added.
“At least?”
She realized something in Makoto had changed. He was speaking in a softer, lower tone of voice.
“Well, I was in an orphanage,” he revealed.
“Whaaat?”
“When I was in grade school, my mom and dad died. So, after me and my brother got passed around by our relatives, we were put in an orphanage. It’s not too far from here. It was called ‘Nanoha-en.’ We lived there for a long time with dozens of other kids just like us. So now it’s just the two of us, it’s kinda lonely, I guess.”
He smiled. She, on the other hand, was terribly surprised. Well, it was only natural for her to feel that way.
Normally, Makoto never showed this side of himself. He didn’t want anybody to feel sorry for him, and he hated being pitied. He was always composed—cheerful, happy, as if he had no troubles in the world. He did not want others to share his sadness. He didn’t want to be understood. They wouldn’t understand anyway. Only a person who suffered the same injuries could understand his pain. So Makoto smiled and hid his wounds.
“Come to think of it,” he mumbled to himself, “I haven’t shown my face at Nanoha-en in ages. I wonder how those guys are doing now.”
Inwardly, he was thinking, Oh brother, I did it again. I shouldn’t have mentioned it… Especially to a girl I might like.
But the girl continued to look straight at Makoto. Usually, in these types of situations, the automatic response would be, “Oh, sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.” Then they would look at you with pity in their eyes. He didn’t want an apology or sympathy.
But she was different.
Instead of apologizing, Toiro talked about herself. “At my house… my mother left us. She left with another guy. It was right before I started junior high. That day… my junior high school uniform was ready, so I went to pick it up. I was so happy I even wore my new uniform home. I wanted to show it off to my mother, so I hurried home. But… she wasn’t there. My mother was nowhere to be found… She left.”
“…Hiura…”
This turn of events was a first for him. Makoto was confused. In all honesty, he didn’t know what to say to her. He might have been used to sympathy, but he wasn’t used to doling it out himself. He had always been on the receiving end, not the giving end.
No, he didn’t need to give her his sympathy, he realized. After all, she was in a sort of similar situation as he was.
“Thank you,” Toiro replied. Extending her hand slowly, she touched Makoto’s chest with her index finger. She pointed to his heart and said, “Thank you for showing me your wounds.”
She did her best to smile. Her eyes were welling up with tears, but she tried her best. She was smiling for him. Her smile somehow pierced his wound and it felt painful. But maybe he could open up his heart to this girl. So it seemed.
He was happy.