Like the Distant Skies
✦ ✦ ✦
I FELT MY SCATTERED THOUGHTS collect and focus on something in front of my face, like the sensation of narrowed eyes opening.
I put my hand on the bench and realized that the sky I had absently been looking up at had undergone a slight transformation. Dense clouds flowed in from afar and were attempting to temporarily hide the sun. Just before it was snuffed out as though covered by a lid, one last warm beam of light soaked my shoulder.
Spring allowed me the vulnerability to easily accept my surroundings. Maybe that was why it was such a comfortable season.
I was between lectures in college. I’d left my friend who was in the same lecture to steal a short moment of alone time. The bench behind the building was empty, with only the shadow from the wall to keep me company. The scenery that accompanied it—the sunlight streaming through the leaves and the mild fragrance from the trees—reminded me of the path to the student council room.
Perhaps that was why I let my mind drift freely down memory lane.
The sun momentarily obscured itself with the clouds, so I could look up at the sky again without being blinded by its light. The amount of time that had passed since high school felt as far as the distant sky.
Nothing that had surrounded me during that time remained by my side now. I took a deep breath as I reflected nostalgically on the atmosphere of the student council room.
When I first became a high school student, I had reminisced about junior high in the same way. Now I was a college student and reminisced about high school. I kept moving forward, repeating the same cycle.
This time, I had no regrets.
No, that’s not true. Of course I had regrets.
Still, it wasn’t so bad if I could bluff that I had none without it being too much of a stretch. I was satisfied with that.
The clouds kept moving without a pause and left the sun behind. When the sunlight suddenly shone directly on me, I lowered my eyes and almost closed them. There, my gaze fell on a pair of feet. It was so sudden, I was slightly taken aback.
I hesitated for a moment about whether to move my eyes up or down from the feet. Up, of course. When I raised my head, I could tell the person was a girl from her clothes and build.
At some point, this girl had come to lean against the wall of the lecture building. She was just a few steps from the bench and had tears in the corners of her eyes. The edges of her eyes and the tip of her sniffling nose were red. It didn’t seem like she was having seasonal allergies. Those looked like tears of grief.
But it’s so nice out, I thought for some odd reason. Still, I really did feel like springtime wasn’t the right time for tears.
“Ugh, it’s so…buh?”
The girl seemed to have finally noticed me as my thoughts wandered. Her wet eyes, which were brimming with tears, caught sight of me and froze. She wiped them quickly, looking embarrassed. I wouldn’t have guessed I would meet someone with so many complications in this place, where hardly anyone ever came… But I suppose she had come here because it was usually empty. That much was obvious.
That said, I was at a loss about what to do. She seemed to feel equally awkward.
“I’m sorry.” I apologized instinctively, though that wasn’t really what the situation called for. We had just happened across each other in a slightly awkward way.
“Same here. Ermm…”
It wasn’t as though I could tell her, Don’t mind me . I picked up my bag and stood up from the bench.
“Oh…”
I bobbed my head politely and left, not waiting for the girl to finish whatever she was about to say. Between someone who was crying and someone who was basking in the sun, it was obviously the former that needed breathing room. Better to let her have the
space.
Even though I still had time to spare, I headed towards the classroom of my next lecture. The road to the building I needed diverged onto many other paths, stairs, and gates. It reminded me of a narrow alleyway from my childhood. I had gone down it occasionally when I thought I would be late to swim class.
Once I turned off the road, I looked back, wondering if she was still crying back there. I could still clearly remember the last time I had cried, even now. Still, if I hadn’t cried since then, that wasn’t such a bad thing.
When I entered the classroom on the first floor of the lecture building and contacted my friend, she reported back with a cute emoji that she was taking a free study period. College students liked to use important-sounding phrases, even when what they meant was that they were skipping class.
Thus far, I had gone to every lecture for the classes I was in. I didn’t have anything that was important enough to skip lectures for anyway. I wondered what my friend had found that was.
“Oh…” As I sat by myself and waited for lecture to start, a tiny exclamation of surprise escaped my lips.
The girl who had been crying was at the entrance. She appeared to have noticed that I had seen her, as she was frozen in place staring back at me. The students coming in behind her slipped around either side of her, giving her puzzled looks as they went. Realizing she was standing in the way, she started to stumble uncertainly to the left and right.
Evidently, not sure of where to go or what to do, she almost looked like a scared, confused dog. I took a closer look at the girl. Her vibrant hair flowed with her nervous movements, and there was something lively and distinct about the way she moved her limbs, her petite body visibly overflowing with energy.
The lost girl came over to me. The long lecture hall desk was sandwiched between us as she started talking to me. I didn’t sense any tears in her voice anymore.
“Can I sit here—next to you?”
“Go ahead…”
My friend wasn’t coming anyway. The girl sat down, leaving a seat in between us. It started to feel like a strange situation.
“About before…” The girl’s face was turned down toward the desk as she spoke haltingly. I waited for her to continue, since it appeared that she was having a hard time saying it.
“Thank you.”
It seemed like she had been hesitant about whether to apologize again. The girl stole a glance at me from the side of her eyes. The traces of her tears were immediately obvious when I looked at her profile.
“Don’t worry about it.” Honestly, she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“But I am worried about it…” The girl took a deep breath while covering her eyes. Of course, I would have minded if someone had seen me crying, too. I think I would have wanted the other person to forget it. People were apt to feel anxious when exposing their weaknesses. They were afraid that the people around them would come to dislike them because of it.
Suddenly, Touko came into my thoughts. She had never truly revealed her weaknesses to me. I still felt a little forlorn about that, even now.
The girl seemed a little hesitant about whether to leave her seat, but the instructor had arrived now, so she decided to stay for the course of the lecture. The girl put her bag back down and started getting her writing supplies ready, occasionally glancing in my direction. And since I noticed that, that meant I was looking at her, too.
I was curious about why she had been crying, but of course we weren’t close enough for me to get involved.
“………”
I remembered my friends from high school, Manaka and Midori. The two of them probably would have been able to share why they were crying immediately.
Whether it was quick, shallow, deep, or cautious, taking the first step in a relationship was difficult.
“I never thought I would end up crying so soon after coming here.”
Oh? When I heard her complain to herself, my interest was piqued.
“Are you a first year?”
I decided to respond in a roundabout way to this new information. The girl’s mouth hung half open, as if she was equally surprised at herself. What about you? the movement of her eyes seemed to ask.
“A second year.”
“Does that make you my upperclassman, ma’am?” She was suddenly awkwardly formal. I realized immediately that she wasn’t used to being formal with upperclassmen. It seemed a bit strange to me.
“Don’t worry about it. You can talk to me like normal.” Forcing formality from someone who wasn’t used to it would just be an ordeal for both of us.
“Are you sure?”
“Why not?” I didn’t feel confident enough to act like someone’s upperclassman anyway.
“Well, then, don’t mind if I do.”
“All right, but the lecture is starting, so the professor might mind if we talk right now,” I warned her gently. Maybe that was a bit upperclassman-like of me after all.
She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything, as though her voice had failed her. I faced forward, but privately I was still thinking about it. A first year, eh?
I guess enough time has passed for me to have an underclassman again .