It happened back when we went to consult the literature club.
The club met in an open classroom near the music room. The furniture was slightly different from what we used in our classrooms; maybe the members had provided it themselves. There were thick curtains drawn to block out the sunlight, making the air seem dusty. Though not much sound reached us from the music room—potentially because of soundproofing—I could hear the lively shouts from the sports clubs running on the school grounds.
There were six club members. Each of them held a book in one hand, so it was quite plain to see they were the literature club. However…
“Sorry, but none of us write.”
I wonder what went through Touko’s mind when she was promptly rejected by the literature club president. At the very least, she was still friendly on the surface.
“What do you normally do?” she asked.
“We talk about our impressions of the books we’ve read, and so on.”
“I see…” Touko didn’t press any further, leaving the club room with a simple “Thank you.”
As I started to follow her, I heard something.
“Was that Nanami-san? I hardly recognized her.”
Sitting in the corner, one of the girls from the literature club muttered to another as though she had just made the realization. I looked over my shoulder. Something about the way she said it, and her expression, stuck with me even after I left the room.
“So the literature club was a bust,” Touko lamented in the hallway. “I guess it makes sense. It is easier and more fun to read than to write, after all.”
“Is that what it is?”
I didn’t find much interest in reading, so it was difficult for me to sympathize with Touko’s observation. At this point, my junior high self would have changed herself to align with Touko. Looking back, there were times when I felt that had been a mistake, but now I wondered what would be the best choice in this situation.
Which did Touko want me to do?
“What should we do? I can’t think of a single other idea.”
“Right…” I mumbled. There was something else on my mind, and soon, my walking slowed to a stop. “Hey, Touko.”
“Hm?”
“I think I want to talk to them a little more. Could you go on ahead without me?”
I knew that there was a certain unnaturalness to my excuse. They had given me no reason to want to ask about anything else.
Even though she seemed to want to ask why? Touko purposefully didn’t say it out loud. “Okay, then I’ll head over to the student council.”
“Yes. I’ll come right after I’m done.” Just as usual, we parted ways amicably—even though there was more that each of us wanted to say to the other.
Touko had acted like she wanted to ask me something, but she hadn’t mentioned it out loud. Most likely, she was being careful because she herself had something she didn’t want me to pry into. The fact that we allowed each other to have secrets made things easier. As long as the distance between us remained constant, we would continue to walk side by side.
Endlessly, without ever changing.
I returned to the literature club’s room. “Excuse me.”
The literature club girl who had spoken before appeared slightly surprised to see me return so soon. “Oh. Ermm…Saeki-san, is it?”
When she said my name, even though we hadn’t been introduced that I recalled, I reservedly answered, “That’s right.”
“Um, did you need something from me?”
“More or less.”
“Well, come in.”
Closing the book she was holding, the girl pulled up a chair next to her. “Thanks,” I said, sitting down at once. The other club members must have been wondering why I had come—both me and Touko.
“Sorry for interrupting while you’re having your club meeting.”
“Oh, well, we’re just reading right now anyway. Are you interested in the literature club? Of course you’re not.”
She finished by answering her own question, which put me in a difficult position. She was right, though. What I was interested in wasn’t the club, but in Touko.
“It’s not a big deal or anything, but…are you a friend of Touko’s?”
Her earlier comment had made it seem as if she knew Touko from the past. Naturally, there was a younger version of Nanami Touko I didn’t know. A slight amount of jealousy accompanied my curiosity.
I was lucky to have met Touko in high school, but I ended up greedily wishing I had met her even earlier. I wondered what kind of person I would have become if I had met Touko in elementary school. That desire, a dream that could never see the light, only grew as I became closer to Touko.
“You mean Nanami-san? We were classmates in elementary school. She seems so different that I didn’t recognize her right away.”
“Huh…” Touko as an elementary student. I just imagined her as her current self but shrunk down. I couldn’t picture her with the backpacks elementary students wore.
“What was she like?” I asked her out of curiosity.
“Well…” The literature club member put the corner of the book to her bottom lip. “She used to be quite plain.”
“How unexpected…” Now that was even more impossible to picture.
“She did what she was told and didn’t talk much. Her grades in school weren’t that great, and she was terrible at PE. Oh, and my scores were usually higher than hers.”
As I absorbed this series of her impressions, I almost wanted to ask, Was that really Touko? I wondered what had happened to make Touko who she was today. It felt almost as though she had been replaced at some point.
“I think she seems more like her older sister now.”
“Touko has a sister?”
“Yeah. I’ve only seen her once or twice though, so I couldn’t say for sure.”
“Hmm…” I never knew she had an older sister. I suppose I hadn’t talked with Touko about her family that much. If this older sister was anything like Touko, though, she would make a good impression on anyone she met.
“Oh, but Nanami-san’s sister is…” the girl added as though she had just remembered something, and then trailed off for a moment. I waited, curious about what she would say next. “Her sister passed away.”
“What…?” For a moment, I was so shocked that I couldn’t even hear anything else.
“I heard it was an accident, I think. It wasn’t as though our class went to the funeral, so I don’t really remember much.”
“I had no idea…” This must be the reason Touko never seemed to talk about her family.