The cherry blossoms at school began to fall around the start of April.
I caught glimpses of the flowers being buffeted by the warm wind at the edge of my vision. The fragrance of spring jogged my memories, taking me back to this time last year when I was secretly delighted to be in the same class two years in a row.
Now, it was the beginning of my last year in high school. We stood side by side as we looked up at the class lists that had been posted on the board. Among the cheers of some students, and the anguish of others, Touko and I stood stock-still like pillars.
“Did you find it?”
“Yeah.”
I pointed at class three. Touko looked up and murmured, “I can’t believe it.”
Touko had found her name much faster than I had found mine.
I was in class three. Touko was in class one.
I lowered my hand, and Touko turned towards me with a rather unhappy smile. “I guess we couldn’t be together forever.”
“Indeed.” My reply was half-automatic. The bland smile I pasted across my face felt like someone else had prepared it for me beforehand. I felt like this was all happening to someone else, just like when I parted ways with Yuzuki-senpai.
Oh, this won’t do, I thought. I tried to take hold of my thoughts as they attempted to flee from reality and forced them to face forward.
“Touko.” That name had once been difficult for me to use in conversation, but at some point it became perfectly natural. Touko waited patiently for my words. The chattering around us seemed to bounce away from my ears, so the sounds didn’t fully reach me. “We’re only going to be slightly apart.”
Touko took a moment, inhaled deeply, and then smiled at my little show of bravery. “You’re right.”
My relationship with Touko wasn’t so fragile that it would fall apart just because of a little distance. What I had established between us wouldn’t change. Even if the form it took wasn’t what I wanted.
“Touko,” I said again. Then I pointedly shifted my gaze. I was telling her that a certain someone was standing far behind her.
When Touko followed my eyes and turned around, she seemed to successfully guess at what I was pointing out. Touko’s shoulders turned that way to head in her direction, but then she paused, as though it pained her to do that to me.
It was enough that she had thought about me slightly in that moment, so I smiled. I thought that the expression on my face was appropriate for the gentle spring air.
Touko accepted that for face value. “I’ll just be a minute,” she told me and headed off to where that girl was.
I almost responded but decided against it. See you soon was an expression you only used for someone who was actually coming back.
The wind rushed past me, as though caressing me on its way by, and carried Touko away from me along with a storm of cherry blossom petals. When did I start only ever seeing her from behind again, I wonder?
For the last two years, all I had done was follow Touko. But somewhere along the way, we stopped being by each other’s sides and even grew slightly further apart.
Only slightly. But the difference that slight amount made showed itself to me as I saw Touko leaving me.
Hesitation, regret, loss…though I dug those things out of my heart, I couldn’t find anything to be positive about. Had I made the wrong choice? I wondered whether I could have remained by Touko’s side if I had run parallel to her for eternity.
The answer was…no.
When she met Koito-san, Touko found herself at a crossroads. She finally found the ability to accept someone whose road intersected with hers. As soon as that happened, I lost my chance to get closer to her on my parallel path.
But even though I knew that these changes in her weren’t caused by me, I still couldn’t help wishing that I could keep walking alongside Touko.
In the end, that wish didn’t come true.
Even so, I want to believe that I did cross paths with Touko, if only for a moment. Even if our paths went in separate directions afterward.
The spring sunlight and the cherry blossom petals danced together, and something warm brushed against my face. A bright light seemed to blur the face of the schoolgirl standing next to Touko so that I couldn’t make it out.
✦ ✦ ✦
I had been determined I wouldn’t fail again after becoming a high school student.
I had thought that as long as I knew why I had failed, I wouldn’t fail again the next time.
I thought that I understood everything about what it meant to love someone.