That girl I met back then was endlessly one-sided. I wonder if she ever thought about my feelings even once. We were children then, so perhaps she wasn’t capable of that level of thinking, and I’m sure her natural personality had something to do with it, too. Though her behavior and expectations had generally bothered me at the time, now I might be able to grasp her wishes and intentions a bit more. I think that’s a sign that I’ve grown.
“Hmm…uhh…Sayaka-senpai, do I bother you?”
“Not at the moment, at least.”
Besides, your cooking’s quite good, I thought, taking another bite to thoughtfully analyze the flavor. As I chewed, I felt a desire for some palate-cleansing soup, but of course I didn’t say that out loud. Edamoto-san slumped onto the table.
“Whaaat… So I’m like them, but I don’t bother you… I don’t get it.”
“You’re just a bit like her, that’s all. You aren’t the same person.”
“How am I like her?”
“Well…you’re energetic, I suppose.”
“You don’t like energetic people? Sayaka-senpai, how have you gotten by until now? Wouldn’t that leave you so down in the dumps you’d grow mushrooms out of your head?”
She ended up concerned for me, imagining I had gloomy relationships. I suppose that might be a concern if a bunch of non-energetic people all gathered together.
“…Perhaps I phrased that poorly. I think what I mean is, you act without thinking first.”
She was like a cat pouncing on anything that moved. Only after the fact would she finally think about what it meant. It was the precise opposite of being prudent, but it meant she was able to progress forward faster than people who were prone to becoming fixated and stagnating. When I was a child, I could never bring myself to take action until I found a good reason.
“So that’s what you mean. I guess that kinda makes sense.”
Edamoto-san straightened up, as though she’d hit on an idea. Then, she looked at me.
It was hard to eat while being stared at so intently. I lowered my chopsticks.
What’s wrong? I asked with my eyes. Edamoto-san chuckled lightly.
“If I don’t rush things, I’m afraid they’ll just end right away.”
“What will end?”
Edamoto-san stood up without responding to my question and then headed to the sink. I heard her starting to wash the dishes.
“If you waited a little longer, I would’ve helped.”
“The sink is small, so it’d be hard for you to help anyway.”
True, I nearly agreed out loud. If Edamoto-san and I tried to stand side by side in there, it would probably be too cramped.
As I picked up the sounds of the running water from the hardworking air conditioner, I felt the illusion of cold droplets trickling along my neck.
“Sayaka-senpai, what are your plans for today?”
“Once lunch break is over, I’m going to class, and then…”
“And then?”
“…I’ll go home.”
“Aww, too bad.”
Edamoto-san’s tone was light, conveying that she hadn’t particularly been expecting anything.
I actually had one place I needed to stop by before going home, but I left that out, figuring she didn’t need to know the details. There wasn’t such a lack of boundaries between us that I felt obliged to reveal everything.
I wonder if a relationship undivided by any walls even exists in the first place.
People even hide things from their own family, to some extent.
If you shared everything with someone without reserve, you might not even be separate individuals anymore.
“So, Sayaka-senpai…are you seeing anyone?”
“………”
The way she asked that, and how I should answer—those two things tripped me up.
But again, it wasn’t as though there were no walls between us.
“That’s a secret.”
For a while after I dodged the question, I only heard the sound of running water.
“Tsk.”
“What are you tsking for?”
“I was just thinking how I’d like us to become close enough that you would tell me something like that, I guess.”
With that, she trailed off, and the sound of rushing water grew louder. Even when I turned to her, I couldn’t see her expression.
I wanted to ask her exactly what kind of relationship she was hoping to have with me.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I moved my chopsticks to eat faster so she wouldn’t have to do dishes in two rounds. When I ate more quickly, I could barely register the taste, which seemed like a waste.
I lightly traced the surface of the bowl that I had just bought with my thumb.
Saeki-san, Sayaka-chan, Sayaka, Saeki-senpai. The names by which people I’d grown closest with referred to me over the years were all over the place. Such simple differences in what they called to me spoke volumes about each person and my relationship with them.
Maybe Sayaka-senpai would be added to their number. Maybe it wouldn’t.
But if my incredibly uncertain premonition—perhaps I should call it a hunch—was right…
I felt sure that it would.
>>I’m here.<<
>>I’ll go ahead in.<<
>I just arrived, too.<
>>I can see your head.<<
>>Wah!<<
“Looks like business is booming.”
“Yeah, I can even hear voices from the second floor.”
I closed my eyes, inhaling the quiet murmur of footsteps and chatter along with the pleasant fragrance.
It seemed that Miyako-san’s café was doing better than it had in the past. The previously unused second floor was open now, and she had the capacity to hire part-time staff. Girls who looked like they were in high school whirled about in uniform, taking and serving orders as if they could barely keep up.
“You come here a lot, don’t you, Senpai?”
“Yes, especially on my way home after buying a new book.”
When I said that, the bookseller bowed her head jokingly. “Thank you for being a loyal customer.”
“What about you, Koito-san?”
“Not on my own, usually… I wouldn’t really fit in here by myself, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
The girl who sat across from me was Koito Yuu. She was a past underclassman and a current friend. She was also a person I’d had some very complicated feelings and opinions about.
Koito-san had lost her pigtails and now wore her slightly longer hair down. Naturally, she had become more grown-up than before. No one ever said that about me, so I might have already looked older than my years during my high school days. I felt like our height difference, and thus the difference in the level of our eyes, had shrunk a bit since then. Although the same amount of time has passed for both of us… I thought with a little smile.
“How’s Touko?”
Though she wasn’t here with us now, I asked for the latest news about her anyway. Koito-san held up her coffee cup, looking deep in thought.
“Well, erm…she’s running around a lot, I guess?”
“What does that mean?”
“She seems busy with her theater group, and also…”
“She acts on the professional stage sometimes, doesn’t she? That’s amazing.”
“It seems like she’s still hesitating about whether to really try becoming an actress, though.”