The Stars Waver
WHEN YOU FALL IN LOVE with someone, it’s as though you are reaching towards a star. I pretended I hadn’t noticed that I never seemed to reach it, no matter how much I reached my hand towards it.
Because there was something incredibly beautiful in the direction I reached towards.
It was just that I couldn’t reach it.
Stars are incredibly distant things.
Without jumping clear over everything to reach a place high up, you would never be able to touch one.
And if you did reach one, the star would lose its light and simply settle into the commonplace within your hands.
Regardless of that…
Wishing to touch them, even though they would lose their radiance upon approaching them…
…there was a girl who reached for the stars.
Seeing her, I finally decided to move as well.
I was far too late, it was reckless, and I didn’t reach the star in the end, but it allowed me to progress forward.
And so, eventually, I was able to find another star.
I wanted to touch that star, this time for sure.
Yes, it’s true…
This time, I finally took the leap.
“I’ve been thinking this for a while, but you really don’t need to add ‘senpai’ to my name.”
After leaving Haru’s apartment and walking halfway down the stairs, I said something I’d been thinking about for a while.
Haru, who was following a step behind me to see me off, replied along with her light footsteps. “But you are my senpai.”
“You can call me Sayaka.” I turned around and mimicked a certain someone, who pushed out her bottom lip, which made my shoulders quiver slightly.
“It’s dangerous if you don’t watch your step as you go down the stairs…”
“Okay, okay.”
Though it was much more dangerous for Haru, considering she regularly ran everywhere.
Each time I went down a step, the winter air bit at my ears. The temperature that continued to sink with the coming of night gave rise to a smarting, burning pain as it touched my skin. Though I had met Haru just as the heat and season had bordered on summer, the flow of time had gone by before I knew it. Even as we continually looked away and made detours, time silently and perseveringly marched on, without either accelerating or stagnating.
“S-Sayaka?”
“Yes.”
I realized Haru’s voice was getting away from her and couldn’t help but laugh. When I finished going down the stairs and turned around, Haru’s face looked uneasy, as though it didn’t feel right. Her eyes escaped to the right, and her mouth and nose were turned down.
“No, I don’t think I can…” Haru turned away as she mumbled. “I just feel a ton of resistance about calling someone older than me by their first name.”
“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”
When I teased her and patted her head, Haru turned around and retreated to dodge me.
After she took a little distance from me, she looked at me from head to toe.
“What?”
“You’re beautiful!”
Haru gave me a thumbs up. She’s doing it again. My embarrassment intermingled with a smile.
“Thank you.”
“Sometimes I just can’t believe someone as beautiful as you loves me.”
I felt like we had had this conversation before.
Haru, who had come closer to me, patted my shoulders and elbows as if checking them. It was as though the moment we separated, she doubted my existence, even though we had been thoroughly sticking close to each other until just earlier. Her eyes reflected me flatly, like the surface of water.
“Do you really?”
“Really.”
I brushed aside her bangs slightly and touched her forehead. Haru was warm.
Warm to the point I almost felt like it was wasteful of my chilled palm to steal that heat.
“I’m happy when you say you love me. When you praise me for being beautiful, my heart pounds. So yes, I love you.”
“I love you, too!” her answer overlapped with mine.
Haru accepted my statement and seemed satisfied; she touched my hair, which was now at my back, and stroked it softly.
For a while, we stayed like that in front of the apartment front with its small amount of illumination.
Eventually, after Haru took a step back, she mumbled again, “Using your first name, huh… Maybe I’ll ask Yuu-chan for pointers.”
“Koito-san? Do you talk to her a lot?”
“Every once in a while. I ask her about you and get her advice.”
She grinned. Thinking that she might be asking about my high school days, I ended up turning sullen.
“I can’t say I approve of gossiping about people behind their backs.”
“I don’t think you’d tell me anything if I asked you, though.”
“What did you even ask her…?”
Maybe I ought to have a small talk with Koito-san to tell her not to share anything embarrassing.
But then she was likely to ask me, like what?, and I would end up being put into a tough spot instead.
“Since Yuu-chan said that she uses her girlfriend’s first name.”
“Huh…”
I didn’t know that. I wondered if, when they were alone together with hands entwined, they put aside all distance and called each other by their first names.
“………”
I didn’t know.
In my high school days, I had thought there wasn’t anything about Touko I didn’t know.
Maybe the things I didn’t know about Touko and Koito-san would start to accumulate faster and faster from now on.
But that was a natural part of meeting and parting with people. I had left Touko’s side, and the current me was setting out into the night. Many bright things awaited me beyond the thin, elongated clouds of evening.
“You don’t have to walk me out any farther than this.” Since she seemed likely to tag along with me all the way to the station if I didn’t say anything, I let her know in advance. When I said that, Haru’s right foot stopped momentarily in midair. Her white breath billowed out as she stayed frozen.
Haru, a college student who didn’t go home to her parents’ house even on our incredibly long spring breaks, had told me “I want to see you,” so I ended up getting on a train even though I had no business on campus. When I was going home, even though it wasn’t yet late at night, the darkness seemed deep enough that I could dip my palms into it like a ladle.
“You don’t like the cold, right?” I said.
Haru put on a joking grin. “Since my name is Haru.”
“Ah yes, of course.”
When we played with her name—pronounced the same as the word for spring—I smiled slightly. It was cold outside right now, so it would be best if I started walking and Haru went back to her room.
Even though I knew that, I just couldn’t bring myself to move.
That was how our partings always were.
It was a little bit like when we tried to hang up on the phone.
“Yuu-chan is a good girl.” Haru kept talking, as though she too was reluctant to part.