“…Yes, I suppose so.” I couldn’t deny that I was making a big deal out of it. Still, it was important to me.
Then, for some reason, Nanami Touko—I mean, Touko—slumped over slightly. “You were serious.” She pressed her fingers together in front of her nose, forming a triangle that covered her mouth, as her shoulders quivered.
…Is she laughing ?
“Was there something funny about that?”
“No, you didn’t say anything strange. It’s just that you were so serious about it, Saeki-san.”
“That’s just the way I am.”
Despite her explanation, I was embarrassed that Touko was laughing at me. I couldn’t just casually slide something like that into the natural flow of conversation. I grappled with things one at a time. I had always built things up like this, so that was the only way I could do things when it came to Touko, too.
“It’s a good way to be.”
“Thank you.”
I was glad she hadn’t said she liked that about me. I didn’t think I would be able to get through the rest of the conversation with a cool head if she had.
“Can I call you Sayaka, too?”
“Yes, of course.”
When Touko said my name so brightly, it felt like the golden light was breaking through the clouds beyond…like something bright and sunny was shining on me, not from the cloudy sky above, but from right beside me.
The light seemed to create an illusion of radiance in the corner of my eyes. I suppose sometimes, depending on the circumstances, people see things that aren’t actually there. But to me, it was like Touko was shining light on me.
“I’m really glad that I invited you to the student council, Sayaka.”
“Thank you.” I felt like she had said that in the past, too. Since she’d brought up the student council, I ventured the question. “Did you join the student council with a specific goal in mind?”
I doubted just being a member was enough to satisfy her. Touko’s eyes shifted, as though she were looking at something far off in the distance.
“A goal… Yes, I do have a goal.” She covered her mouth with her hand like she had earlier, but this time, her shoulders did not move. “If I can, I’d like to start working on it this year, but I’m not sure… I guess it depends on the president.”
“Will you tell me what it is?”
“Um…” She dragged out her response lightly as she took her bag and stood, then finally said, “I can’t talk about it yet. I’ll confide in you about it after we formally become officers, okay?”
Nanami Touko was running away, if only a little. Maybe her feelings about the student council ran deeper than I thought. It might be something she couldn’t very well expose to someone she had only finally started calling by her first name that very day.
Not knowing something important about the person I cared for made me anxious. But if she said that she would talk to me about it eventually, that would have to be good enough for now.
“I understand. Then, I’ll wait for that time to come.”
When I indicated my intent to abandon the topic, Touko’s mouth loosened and quirked up in gratitude. “You’re so kind, Sayaka.”
“That’s not it at all.” I don’t think you could call my self-centered fear of being hated for overstepping into her personal life ‘kindness.’ I was scared, so I would wait by the sidelines until she came to me. I wondered when I had gotten so good at waiting. But this was different from junior high. Back then, the choice to wait wasn’t even up to me in the first place.
It’s different, I repeated in the back of my throat, as though I were trying to convince myself.
Touko held the straps of her bag as she looked intently into the forest.
“Touko?” Though there were many other ways I could have called out to her, I deliberately called her name.
Turning, Touko smiled faintly and told me, “It’s nothing.”
I glanced beyond the trees as I passed by, but all I saw was the color of more tree trunks sprawling out beyond. The person I was at that time couldn’t find anything else to see.
But I would soon find out what Touko had seen there.