Moored Ship
“I PROCESS THINGS QUICKLY,” she said.
The face that stared back at me wore a slightly different expression from the pleasant smile I’d grown accustomed to seeing. Something glossy, like droplets of water, inched down her obviously blushing cheeks.
“Process?” I asked, holding back the slight bewilderment that crept over me.
“That’s right. I guess you could say I’m practical or that I don’t lose sleep over things I can’t control.”
A shadow came over her face again. It was as though the sun had set, and something dark was reaching out from afar.
“I’m never angry or sad for long. I can’t do it, even if I try. It hurts when your feelings don’t mesh with someone else’s and things don’t go over well. It hurts, a lot. But it’s like my heart dries up fast. It’s the same for anger—I can’t be angry at a person for more than thirty minutes.”
I supposed thirty minutes really wasn’t very long. Personally, I could stay angry for a whole year, or even two.
“I feel like morning turns to night faster for me than other people,” she continued. “Plus, people keep telling me that I walk too fast.”
“I don’t know if that one’s connected…”
She might simply be an impatient person. Still, I did envy how quickly she could switch gears. I was the kind of person who lingered and drew things out, which created the best conditions for regrets.
There wasn’t even a table between us; we were very, very close. Close enough that, had she sunk down slightly, we would have practically been on top of each other. Close enough that I could swear I heard the creaking of her bones as she placed a hand on the floor.
“That’s why, even though my eyes were following someone else a little while ago, they’re only looking at you now, Sayaka-senpai.”
Sure enough, her chestnut eyes were fixed on me directly. I did my best not to react to what had practically been a confession of love. Since I was the older one—her upperclassman—I felt a certain degree of pride and stubbornness, as though I had to make sure I wasn’t the one who gave in first.
“That’s what you’d call being on the verge of love,” I said. I’d felt it before, and knew what it was, though it felt a little arrogant to say so when I was the apparent object of such affections.
“Well, I guess that might be what it ends up being. But that’s just, I dunno…so blunt.”
This close, it was difficult to avoid her gaze. Every time we spoke, the passion in our voices rose, and I felt it getting harder to breathe.
“Well, I just can’t help it. You’re just so amazingly…amazing to me.”
That vocabulary was enough to make me worry about her grades. Maybe this was proof I shouldn’t be getting involved with an underclassman?
“If I had to say what I like best about you, uh, it’d be your face,” she continued. “Your face is just the best.” Suddenly bashful, she closed her eyes, as though trying to conceal how her nose was turning red.
“Thanks…” I had to admit her fidgeting was adorable. “I can understand that.”
Appearances may not be everything, but they’re important. I considered it more sincere to compliment a person’s appearance when you didn’t know them very well, rather than pretend to know their inner thoughts.
In return, I evaluated her with the same sincerity she’d given me. She was looking straight at me, head-on. She always had, since the moment we first met. I appreciated that for the privilege it was, but there was something I was wondering about.
“When you said that your emotions don’t last long—does that include things you enjoy?”
And does that include when you love someone?
“It might.” Was the hint of loneliness in her mellow voice because she had an inkling of what might be to come? The shadow over her face deepened. “And since it might not last long, I thought I should say it now.”
In that moment, it was like she became my shadow itself. If we were stars, we would have drawn too close—close enough that both of us might be destroyed. There was a fervor layered over her face and voice that I had never seen in her before.
“Because, right now, I’ve fallen for you,” she said.
And so, it was partway through my second year in college that a girl confessed her love to me.
How long had it been since I last had such an encounter?