Touko’s tone was relaxed, too. A calm atmosphere enveloped the room between us, as though a passing cloud had dispersed to let in the spring sunlight once again.
“Do I really seem that tense most of the time?”
“Hmm… You just have a serious face, I guess.”
What does that look like? I wanted to ask her. Then, as though she had assumed I would ask, Touko added to her statement.
“It’s really pretty, and you make sure you don’t let anything compromise that…but you’re also unconsciously working really hard to do so,” Touko said cheerfully, still chasing after the cat that had escaped from her. “That’s what I love about you—you’re so diligent.”
When she so lightly used the word love , it shot through me like an arrow. It was quiet, and so unexpected, that it went straight through my inner turmoil and into my heart.
It was true: I made sure to retain control over what others could see of me from the outside. I’m sure Touko was doing the same. Perhaps Touko felt a sense of affinity because she saw herself in me.
I feel the same way about you, Touko . I swallowed the words I wanted to say. My face probably did look serious, as Touko had said, as I turned my eyes away from her.
Yes, I would be diligent. I would work hard in order to fulfill my dreams. That much was obvious. I’d always been the kind of person who could produce good results if I tried hard enough, ever since I was a child.
Right now, I had something I wanted to do. To be by Touko’s side, no matter what form that took. That longing ate away at me, like a thirsting throat that couldn’t be quenched.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, wow. I never thought the time would come when it was your turn, Sayaka,” Touko said as she emerged.
My turn? At first, I was quizzical. Then I looked around at my surroundings and realized what she meant. We were in the woods, slightly off the path to the student council room. Touko and I were alone in the private space between the trees and the wall of the school building. She must have misunderstood why I had called her here just because of the location and circumstances in which we were meeting.
I thought about when I had been confessed to just a short time ago and became flustered. “No, you have it wrong. It’s not like that .” I would be in trouble if she asked me any details about what that was supposed to be, so I quickly continued. “This place really is convenient for a private conversation, that’s all. Besides, people who haven’t been here before can get here really easily without getting lost.”
Though on the other hand, some people might get lost and wander into this clearing by mistake, too.
“Hmm. I’ve always been called out here by someone, never the other way around, so I never realized that.” Touko nodded as if impressed. I smiled slightly at her odd way of looking at things, and a few cracks formed in the hard shell of tension around my heart.
After the closing ceremony, with summer break about to begin, I caught Touko in the classroom and brought her along with me to this place. Not to confess, of course. Well…it resembled a confession, but it wasn’t as big of a deal.
As the sense of liberation and excitement carried everyone else towards the main gate, Touko and I faced each other. The sound of the cicadas, ever-present in the heat of July, seemed to build to a fever pitch, advancing on me from the right as if it had physical form. It felt like it was pressing down over my hair.
“I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to do if that were the case. So, what did you need?”
It seemed Touko was amenable, but a bit skeptical, about the formal summons I had given her. The talk wouldn’t last long. It couldn’t—my choices would make sure of that.
“………”
As I took a deep breath of the warm air, the back of my chest filled with lukewarm heat.
There was something I wanted Touko to know before summer break started. I found out about your sister a while ago. I was about to tell her this in order to take another step forward into her life.
“Actually, come to think of it, I was confessed to just a week ago,” Touko blurted out, as though she had spotted something in the scenery.
“Again?”
“Yes, again. But it wasn’t the same person as before, of course.”
If it happened the week before, it must have been immediately after we finished our exams. I suppose the confessor must have wanted to tell her before we went into summer break…just like me.
“At this rate, it seems like you actually will get confessions from the whole school.”
“I think it’d be kind of uncomfortable if it got to that point.” She smiled demurely, as though she didn’t believe she could gather that much affection. “Anyway, I turned that person down with the same reason as usual, that I can’t fall in love with anyone.”
“Right.”
“And then he started saying all this stuff. Like that even if I didn’t like him now, if we spent time together and got to know each other, I might end up liking him back…but I don’t ever see that happening.”
Touko’s casual denial was like a blade that sliced the words from my lips.
“But then I thought, oh, maybe that’s how it is for normal people.” Touko hurriedly tossed out the rest of her statement and then raised her face slightly. When she did, the shadows that extended from the trees followed her graceful features. “If that’s what it means to fall in love, then I…”
I don’t want anyone to fall in love with me.
She didn’t actually go as far as to say that. But her hard tone made it clear. As if noticing that herself, Touko returned to a softer voice. “Oh, sorry. I came to hear what you had to say, Sayaka.” She covered her mouth with one hand and looked at me apologetically. “Sorry for rambling. I’m listening now… So what did you want to talk about?”
But her urging was no use to me now.
“Right…yes. What I wanted to say was…”
I had no idea whether it was intentional or a coincidence, and Touko’s face didn’t reveal anything as she waited for me to speak. But her sudden outburst was more than enough to quell both my conviction and my voice. Touko had just denied there being any connection between understanding someone and affection. What was I supposed to say to her now? Should I still reveal that I understood her?
“Touko, you…”
Do you want to become like your older sister?
If I asked her that, she would likely deny it. Based on the perfection Touko disguised herself in, there was reason to believe she didn’t want to just seem like her sister but wanted to actually be her.
But…I suppose her denying it would be the best-case scenario. What if my carelessly intruding on her personal life drove her away from me? That thought was what I dreaded most of all.
If she wanted to talk about it, I would be happy to listen and face her problems with her. But it wasn’t as though I could just announce: I found out about your sister and that the reason you’re in the student council and worried about the play is because you’re essentially trying to do it in your sister’s place, so I’d like to talk about how that’s going to affect you.
And I also couldn’t say: It’s important to remember someone who’s passed on, but you can’t get hung up on that, and if you would just think more about moving forward, I would be really happy to be by your side and support you, so let’s do this together.
Even though there were plenty of things I wanted to say, I couldn’t say any of them.
…No, that wasn’t true. I was lying to myself. There were plenty of things I could have said, but I purposefully kept my mouth shut. I did it for myself—in order to protect myself.
It was as though I were at a standstill, trying to be content with what I had. I looked into the distance. I let my thoughts travel far into the future.
I was pretending I couldn’t see the present.
Then I spoke.
“Touko, I’m getting ahead of myself about this, but…I was wondering whether you’d go with me to the cultural festival?”