I was already turning it over in my head. As though she were telling me to stop, Edamoto-san waved her hand side to side. “So I guess that means I initially fell in love with your face.”
“Mm-hmm.” Since I understood that, I agreed automatically and then felt a little bashful. So it was this face, I thought and brushed my cheek with my fingers. “I see.”
“Yeah, I guess so…” Edamoto-san’s voice didn’t sit right, as though she had lost her balance. Her tone indicated she was impatient to hear what came next.
I opened my eyes wide and looked at her intently.
“Well then, if I may…”
“Uh-huh…”
“To be honest, I can’t say that I’m exactly head over heels in love with you right now.”
I jumped right into it, assuming she had already figured out this much.
But then…
“Huh?” Edamoto-san looked genuinely taken aback.
“Wait, erm…did you really assume that I would be madly in love with you?”
When I pointed that out, Edamoto-san grew embarrassed and squirmed on the spot. “Well, I mean…obviously I wasn’t that confident… Oh, but if you’re not, that’s not good…”
Edamoto-san hemmed and hawed. …The conversation was already completely off-track.
I was almost at a loss about what to do. Should I keep going and pretend this interruption had never happened?
Edamoto-san seemed like she was likely to keep mumbling to herself forever at this rate, so I couldn’t expect the situation to improve.
I tried waiting it out, but nothing changed as the cicadas cried. The clouds continued to swim, still unable to reach the towering sky.
“………”
I decided to pretend it hadn’t happened.
“Something like this happened in the past, too, and I ended up actually falling for that person.”
Once I shifted back to the conversation abruptly, Edamoto-san stopped her squirming and came back to her senses.
“This was the person you were dating before, right? My exact opposite.”
I nodded a little.
“Back then, I didn’t know what it meant to love someone. But I wanted to know, so I thought I would try dating her. I had no idea where the future would lead, either. That might have been a disingenuous reason, but that was what started it. I think that this case is very similar.”
Even though they were completely different people, the situations themselves were quite closely related. It was a curious thing.
Perhaps each person has their own particular path that leads to their heart, and so when different people follow it, they’ll inevitably encounter similarities.
“Um, so…in other words?”
I was sure there were no lies when it came to her love. I knew that, and I wanted to believe it.
But I still couldn’t forget how things had concluded back then.
I mean, in the end, there hadn’t been any lies in my love for Senpai, either.
I couldn’t help thinking about what would happen if I were to become the betrayer this time.
It was like grasping at air.
I didn’t get closer to her, but I couldn’t leave her.
I was at a standstill part of the way there.
“I wouldn’t call it dating yet, but let’s try being together.”
Once I finished saying that, the sound of the crying cicadas seemed to nestle up to the back of my ears and grow louder all at once.
Edamoto-san seemed frozen after hearing me, as though she didn’t understand at first.
Perhaps my brazen response left the possibility that this might even be a roundabout rejection.
“Only if that’s okay with you, of course,” I ended up adding on, like an excuse.
“So should I be happy about this?”
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
I will be the first to admit that I was being a bit annoying.
Edamoto-san slouched a bit and her forehead wrinkled, but as soon as she straightened herself, she smiled.
“I guess it’s kind of like a sample.”
“A sample?”
“Oh, or I guess you’d call it a trial period. Like, ‘if you’re enjoying our product, please subscribe,’ that sort of thing.”
“I’m sorry to give such an indecisive answer.”
When she explained things so positively, it made me feel apologetic.
“If you haven’t decided yet, then there’s a chance you’ll still pick me! So yeah…”
Edamoto-san gestured as though beckoning me over to her.
“You sure have a positive outlook on things…”
I wondered if I would be part of the “outlook” she sought.
…No, even if I weren’t part of it, Edamoto-san would turn around, find me, and make the place she had turned to her new outlook. Maybe being in love meant changing your course, at least a little bit.
“Well, cheers!”
It was difficult to even smile vaguely at her unfaltering voice.
“Hmm…yeah? Hm…”
“What’s wrong?”
Edamoto-san continued to speed along as she craned her head toward me. I was afraid she would hurt her neck from whipping it around so fast.
“Well, we’re walking together on campus, so…”
“Yes?”
“I was just wondering how this is any different from before.”
The day after I gave my response to Edamoto-san’s confession, our ordinary routine had continued on. Even our surroundings hadn’t changed. The college was bustling, the wind that breezed by was occasionally loud and unpleasantly warm, and the world seemed almost besieged by cicadas.
Edamoto-san and I existed within a section of that world. It was true—I couldn’t find a difference.
“There’s gotta be something, though. Otherwise, I feel like nothing’s changed.”
“………”
For a moment, I recalled my time with Touko.
How I deliberately chose not to change anything and acted accordingly.
I considered who I had become: scared of change—cautious—a coward.
These days, I felt like I understood a bit of how Touko must have felt.
“Well then…”
When I tried to part ways with her, since we were going to different lectures, Edamoto-san raised her right hand and pointed in a random direction.
Automatically, my eyes followed.
“What is it?”
“Sayaka-senpai, I love you lots,” Edamoto-san declared with a big smile.
For a moment, a heat haze seemed to appear over the scenery, as though the sun were quivering behind my back.
This was quite a passionate goodbye.
“What makes you say that all of a sudden?”
“Just wanted to make sure.”
Sure of what? Before I could ask, Edamoto-san had already started walking.
“Lots, she says…” I echoed the word under my breath as I put my hand on my hip unconsciously and looked away.
Even though I wasn’t the one who said it, the amount of embarrassment I felt bubbling up within me was considerable.
“Looove yooou looots!” she added loudly, waving her hand wildly from afar.
“Stop that.”
I muttered my response too quietly for her to hear.
While I hesitated over whether to wave back at her, Edamoto-san vanished before I could decide. How bold of her to just do whatever she liked… Ah, but I guess what she liked was me, so perhaps I should say she was acting self-centered? But I was being self-centered, too—in fact, I was the only one being selfish here.
How could I ask her to stay by my side if I didn’t love her in return?
What an awful thing to do to a underclassman, I must say.
I couldn’t lead her on for too long just on a whim. No—I shouldn’t lead her on, period.
Something like guilt ate away at me a little at a time whenever we were apart.