“Hmm? Yes, she is.”
“Plus, when I told her to call me Haru, she called me Haru-chan right away.”
“Right…I didn’t call you that right away, so I’m a bad girl, aren’t I?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess that’s true.” Haru grinned, looking highly amused. “But I like bad upperclassmen, too.”
I was sure she said that nonchalantly, but it made my heart feel lighter.
“That’s good to know…”
How reassuring it was to be given permission.
To meet someone, come into contact with someone, and be influenced by them.
It was impossible to live that way without changing.
Haru, who had come all the way out to the sidewalk, looked up at the sky as she grumbled, “I wonder if spring will come in the morning.”
“The sun is starting to set later, so it’ll be soon.”
While breathing in the freezing air of March, I stood next to Haru. She definitely was smaller than me.
I secretly thought that her height would eventually catch up with me, but it didn’t seem that would be the case after all.
“I was crying when I met you in spring, wasn’t I?” Haru looked up at me.
“Yes, I suppose that did happen,” I replied as though I had forgotten about it.
In actuality, I remembered that day without having to retrieve it from memory.
There was still far, far more distance to go until I could look up at the sky and reminisce on that.
I thought that it would be good if it continued to be far, far away.
“I hope that I don’t cry this spring.”
Of course, I started to say and then swerved into some slight teasing. “A bad upperclassman just might make you cry.”
“Ahaha, in what way?” Haru asked, not acting serious at all.
“Huh? Umm…”
I was at a loss when she asked for a specific way I would do it. I might not have ever made anyone cry before up until this point. Though others had made me cry quite a bit. That’s pretty terrible… I felt objective pity for myself.
“So what is it? How are you going to make me cry?”
“I-I’ll slap you.”
“I can’t believe you’d resort to violence against me!” Haru sounded shocked. Caught up in the moment, I raised my arm.
“Like this?”
“Looks like you’re getting cold feet, Sayaka-senpai.”
She didn’t point at my raised arm but instead down at my feet. I cleared my throat as I put my hand down.
“Well, I haven’t hit anyone before.”
“You really are a good girl, Senpai.”
“I’m not a good girl or anything… I’m sure I was just holding back.”
I looked down at my right hand. I’d been through plenty of aggravating experiences, of course.
There were even times when I got angry and my fingertips firmly curled up.
But I had thought that was a bad thing and held back.
When I thought about it, I realized there were a lot of times like that for me. I’m not sure if I had a knack for it or if it was in my nature, but even though I had held back for a lot of it, I still managed to bear through it. Maybe I was resilient when it came to pain, though it wasn’t as though I didn’t feel it.
“Then you don’t have to hold back with me. If you want to hit me, you can.”
Haru took my right hand and put it against her cheek. Her cheek was already cold.
“Whoa, your hand is cold, Senpai.”
You too, I conveyed to her with the faint movements of my fingertips. Then, we looked at each other, and I suddenly lowered my shoulders.
“But I’m not here because I’m holding something back.”
“Me either.”
Our chilliness and the slow itchiness that was coming about and the warmth…
Those all seemed to make small lights twinkle in the back of my head.
But…
“…Much…”
Much? I wished she wouldn’t say things that would ruin me.
My heart complained happily.
“Of course, I’m working hard so that won’t happen. I realized that was important after I was dumped.”
At Haru’s bashful voice, my earlobes felt ticklish.
It was the same answer I once found in one of my own past failures.
“Me too.” When I muttered that quietly, almost as though it were just grazing my back teeth, I wondered whether it reached Haru’s ears in the end.
A thin flow of air streamed out from Haru’s smile.
It was her sigh, whose temperature I knew.
When I was conscious of it, I wanted to feel it closer.
When I stooped slightly to bring my face closer, Haru immediately responded by stretching herself up slightly. As though a string were entangling us, our faces came closer together, and then met. No matter how many times we did it, the feeling of my breath being stopped by her lips made me feel almost as though I had landed somewhere… It gave me an odd sense of arrival and relief.
Though it was the middle of the night, we were still in front of her apartment, so we couldn’t keep doing this for long.
Only the sensation of Haru’s lips continued to remain.
Whether we touched in the winter or under the night…
“You’re warm.”
When I let that impression slip, Haru, cherry-blossom hued, touched her own lips as though to check.
After that, I finally left Haru and walked alone into the night.
The warmth I had gotten was deprived from me bit by bit, as though it were chasing after the breaths that stretched out behind me.
When that happened, I ended up wanting to touch Haru again as soon as possible.
When I thought that if I turned around and went back, I could see her again immediately, my body was almost close to stopping.
In fact, I really did stop.
“………”
I shook my head.
“No, I can’t.”
If I went back to the apartment now, I felt that I would be hopeless. That I would melt.
It’s too early for that sort of thing. Not yet. I took another step forward and saved face.
Didn’t I just say I was good at holding back?
But maybe this was just part of falling in love with someone.
It made you more and more insistent on having your desires. In other words, it made you indulgent.
My answer was that greed and love were very difficult to separate from each other.
I would probably become even closer to my real self from here on out.
I only hoped that that would be connected to Haru’s happiness.
…But, for three more months or so, I wanted to at least feign being a good senpai.
It would be no joke if “Sayaka-senpai” couldn’t even last a whole year.
I was so happy right now that I could have strange internal conflicts like this.
Happy enough that no matter how much I breathed in the cold, or touched the open air, something warm continued to flow deep in my chest.
Partway through walking to the station, as I followed the many twinkles of the town with my eyes, I looked up at the sky.
In sync with my large inhale and exhale, several stars wavered.
I was sure spring was right around the corner.