I listened to her and decided to deliberately treat it like a joke.
“If you’re so worried, then why don’t you just be important to me?”
“I’m working on it.” As though trying to act confident, Haru responded with a smile. “Sayaka-senpai, make sure you hurry up and fall in love with me.”
“I’m trying my hardest.”
As we walked together, when I looked over and saw my underclassman by my side, I felt something like relief.
Just as hair could grow very long unnoticed, it seemed hearts could change without you realizing it.
“I feel like it’s been forever since I last saw you, Sayaka-chan.”
“Stop calling me Sayaka-chan.”
That was my first response to my friend.
While drinking tea under a gigantic parasol, I followed the goings-on of college students with my eyes for no reason in particular. My friend was slumped on the table.
“The others have been saying they haven’t seen you lately either, Sayaka.”
“Have they?”
I had a thought as to why, but I lightly brushed it off. Of course it was because I was always meeting with Haru.
It seemed when it came to love, I was the type that leaned towards becoming neglectful of other things. As always, I was terribly biased when it came to what I was interested in.
I wondered whether it was the same for others, like Koito-san or Touko.
“Did you get a boyfriend, too, Sayaka?”
“It’s not like that.”
I smiled and brushed it aside. It really was like that, though. I sipped my straw a bit then thought, Hm?
“What do you mean by ‘too’?”
“Since my other friends seem to be putting tons of effort into that.”
My crushed friend let out a few groans. I had noticed an increased number of lecture absences recently; apparently this was the reason. Maybe others weren’t that different from me after all.
I didn’t really care, but my friend who was facedown babbled like a cicada that had fallen from a tree.
“It’s like, y’know…”
“Ah.”
As I was offhandedly agreeing with my rambling friend, I saw Haru in the crowd. She was walking briskly through on her own, as though she were ignoring the flow. It looked like she was headed to the gate. As I followed her with my eyes, she seemed almost to notice my gaze, and turned toward us.
Haru’s face lit up, but once she glanced at my friend beside me, she lowered her head and started walking off.
“I feel like I’ve seen that underclassman before.”
“Right.”
There was another instance when I was with this friend and saw Haru walk away.
What was different this time was that I stared in the direction that she had left.
Our relationship…
I thought about it for a bit and then went on the move.
“I just realized I have to do something,” I lied and stood up from my seat. Maybe that was too blunt?
But if I didn’t hurry, I wouldn’t be able to catch up with Haru.
“Oh, even Sayaka has abandoned me…” my friend lamented while pretending to cry.
“Sorry.”
“I’m joooking. See ya.”
She raised her unreliable hand and waved it like a flag as she watched me go.
My flippantly smiling friend was reasonable about it, but she didn’t move at all in the end.
I left behind my friend, who remained immobile as though she had used up all her strength, and followed after Haru’s back. Haru was quick, so I never would be able to close in on her by walking. This is such a bother, I laughed to myself as I started to run.
Of course, after running for a short while, I was soon within arm’s reach of Haru as she quickly walked along.
I tapped her and then stopped by her side and lightly steadied my breathing.
I had to run, but having an outcome made me feel like I accomplished something, too.
After she looked up at me when I came by her side, Haru turned around to glance behind us.
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
“I wouldn’t have come if I wasn’t.”
I had done the thing that I had wanted to. That was all.
I regretted that back when I was dating Senpai, it had ended without me doing what I wanted even a single time.
Although perhaps I was just being stubborn and selfish.
When I was in junior high, and even during my time in high school, I think I had been a good girl.
I think that I had been bound by virtue until I was unable to move.
This time, if I didn’t move, she might get away.
“Okay. Good.” Haru’s white teeth peeked out as though she were acknowledging me.
“It’s a little late to ask this now that I’ve already followed you, but where were you going? Did you have something you needed to do?”
If she were doing something, then there was a chance I would get in her way if I were to follow her.
“I was planning on going home to eat something, but…what do you think about coming along?”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
That was exactly where I wanted to go. We walked quickly, heading towards her apartment.
They say that time flies when you are with someone, but when it came to Haru and me, I felt like we would be able to make that time last a little bit longer.
“It looks like we’re making use of your tableware, Sayaka-senpai.”
Haru smiled happily as she prepared lunch after we got to the apartment.
“I think they’ve already more than made up for their cost.”
As I appraised the results of today’s meal, Haru accepted that with an agreeable smile.
While we rested after eating, I absentmindedly thought that I might eventually need to get a toothbrush to keep here, too. But if I did that, it would seem like we were living together. I hadn’t had a sleepover so far since coming to college, but even that might be a matter of time.
Would my family, other than my perceptive grandmother, comment on that change in me?
I wondered a bit whether Koito-san had explained Touko to her family.
Haru took a glance at me after she finished the dishes and broke out into a smile. Then, she walked over to me. As I inexplicably thought of my cats walking down my house’s hallway, Haru came around behind me. I partially turned around, wondering what she was doing, but Haru leaned on me from behind and clung to my back.
Since it was so sudden, for a moment, everything in front of my eyes seemed to nearly go blank. I suppose this is what people would call being flurried.
“Oh, sorry. Did I surprise you?”
When I heard her voice whisper from the side of my ear, I shivered.
I was about to bluff “not at all,” but when she was so close, I felt like she would figure out my lie, so I didn’t.
“I guess I’m just…not used to it.”
“Used to what?”
“Being clung to.”
Her breath that brushed my neck was ticklish. Then, as though to close the gap even further, Haru pushed her body closer to me. My shoulders twitched and I stiffened, but I could tell Haru was smiling.