When he sat back down with a cup full of melon soda, Nanaka giggled while munching on a fry. “That’s kinda unexpected,” she said with a laugh.
“What is?” Kai asked.
“That,” she clarified, pointing toward his drink. “You like melon soda?”
“Um, well... I wonder,” he admitted. “I wasn’t really thinking when I filled my cup... Oh, but I drink this pretty often when I come to these kinds of places. Maybe I do like it?” The end of his sentence inflected upwards, as if to convey doubt.
“Kai-kun, I can’t answer a question about your taste,” Nanaka told him.
“O-Oh, right.”
“That is right,” she laughed cheerily. “I feel sort of relieved.”
“...Did something happen?” he asked.
“Well... that ‘something’ is you, Kai-kun.”
“Me?”
“Yup,” she said, shifting her pointer finger toward him. “When you told me, ‘I want to write the proposal myself.’ ...No, even before that. Ever since we left Tokyo, I felt like you were a bit off.”
“That’s because—” you wanted to show off your cool side to Nanaka-chan, right? he thought, and stopped speaking mid-sentence.
“...Kai-kun? You okay? Your face is getting red...”
“Um... It’s just... I was feeling a little stressed,” he told her, as a little Misako danced around his brain with a smug grin. You only noticed thanks to me! she said, and he swatted the image out of his mind.
“I see,” said Nanaka. “Was it because of that Hifumi Tetsuya person and Kongouin-san?”
“No,” he replied. There was that, too, but that wasn’t quite the core of it.
“Something else?”
Kai began to nod, but froze midway. If he nodded, then the next thing Nanaka would ask about was what he had been stressing over; that much was plain to see. It would be simple to say, ‘I’m stressing because of you.’ The words were simple, and what’s more, it was the truth. Even he could probably say that much. But it wasn’t the whole truth; there was something more that kept him from nodding.
No one would sit by idly when told something was their fault. Kai knew that he would definitely ask for the reason if someone said, “I’m stressing because of you,” to him. And thanks to his stupid sister, he knew exactly why he was stressing over Nanaka.
He could tell her. He could convey that idea if he wanted to: ‘I was stressed. I felt like you would continue walking forward without me. I wanted to prove to you that I could do it, too. I wanted you to see my cool side, just this once. I wanted to show off.’ If he really bit the bullet, he could say all of this. After all, it was only the truth.
But that wasn’t it, either. There was something even beyond that. Why did he want to show off his cool side? Why had he panicked, when he’d felt like she was leaving him behind? To answer that, he arrived at a single conclusion: he didn’t want to be left behind because that meant he wouldn’t be beside her. The trigger for his unusual urge to talk big and show off... If he answered these questions, there would be no denying it.
It wouldn’t be any different than telling her, ‘Shiraseki Kai _____ you.’
“Kai-kun?” said Nanaka.
“Y-Yeah?! U-Uh! Um, sorry! It’s, uh, nothing.”
“R-Really?”
It obviously was more than nothing. Even to Kai, his reply sounded pathetic. “Um... how do I put this?” he said, trying to explain. “The reason you thought I was acting weird... and the reason I’m acting weird now, is because my circumstances... er, my headspace? Yeah, my headspace is a little off. So don’t worry about... Nanaka-san?”
“Pft,” Kai looked up to see that Nanaka was holding her mouth and chuckling at him. “S-Sorry,” she apologized, joyfully stifling another laugh and wiping at her eyes. “You’re so funny, Kai-kun.”
The soft smile on her face pierced through Kai’s heart all too easily.
“Okay, let’s get started,” she said, clearing the air. Then, the two of them nibbled on fries and visited the drink bar as they put their heads together to pump out new ideas.
Even with two of them, there was no guarantee that a stellar, revolutionary, overwhelmingly new idea would fall into their laps. The creativity slowly dwindled, and the time spent looking up at the ceiling with their arms folded, or staring outside, or groaning with their heads in their hands increased.
The time ticked away, but they didn’t throw in the towel. Having someone struggling together beside you is reason enough to push forward, Kai realized.
“Whoa, it’s already this late?” said Nanaka, checking her phone.
The summer days were now long enough for there to still be sunlight, but it was nearly 6:00 pm. They paid their bill and stepped out of the restaurant into the hot midsummer air. The temperature had hardly fallen since noon, and it completely enveloped them. It was hot. Beside him, Kai could see Nanaka groaning about the heat while fanning the collar of her blouse.
“Alright,” she said, “let’s go home.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m going for a little walk,” Kai replied.
“A walk?” asked Nanaka, tilting her head in confusion.
Kai couldn’t blame her. Until now, he hadn’t acted like the sort of person who went for walks. He’d look more natural cooped up indoors, like a snail in its shell, having a staring contest with his smartphone. That impression of him wasn’t exactly wrong, per se.
“My sister told me to take a walk when I was feeling stuck... Probably as a change of pace,” he explained.
“Change of pace...” echoed Nanaka.
Last time, by some unbelievable coincidence, Kai had run into Aina’s grandmother and ended up following her to her home. The whole ordeal overwrote any sense of mental organization he could have amassed. He did learn something from his encounter with Aina herself, though; Misako would likely tell him that those unimaginable events were an important part of what made walking outdoors special.
“Kai-kun,” Nanaka took a step forward from his side and twirled back to face him. “In that case, would you mind going out with me tomorrow morning?”