I knew you couldn’t see the heart or emotions, yet I was still superficial about them.
Emotions were living things and circulated as certainly as the air.
Just as how, at some point, Touko had come to love Koito-san and had left my side.
“Oh, I know. Hey, Sayaka, try telling me you love me.”
“Huh? Me?”
This time, Manaka was making that request of me. While I was stunned into silence, Midori jabbed, “What are you doing, cheating right out in the open like that?”
“Well, I just had the idea…”
“Maybe if you didn’t blurt out every idea that pops into your head…”
“………”
So I was going to say it too, then. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.
“I love you, Manaka.”
Even though it was my own request that started it, I felt a little embarrassed doing this with my friends.
“Ooh, that’s nice.”
Manaka didn’t seem to be bashful at all—she was delighted.
“Midori, you say it, too.”
Manaka asked Midori for seconds like a kid begging for more candy, to which Midori replied in an exasperated voice, “For some reason, I don’t want to.”
“Huh? You don’t love me?”
“What? No, I do love you, but…”
Maybe Midori was acting annoyed as a way to hide her embarrassment.
“Wow, what should I do? You both confessed your love to me. Two-timing isn’t good, though.”
“Yeah, it really is no good.”
At this point, Midori was just going with it.
“You two can forget about me and live happily ever after together.”
“What? Et tu, Sayaka?”
“All right. I’ll accept your feelings, then, Midori.”
“Wooow, I’m sooo happy.”
I almost ended up sputtering with laughter at Midori’s deadpan voice.
Time seemed to turn back when I talked to them, making me recall our high school classroom.
“I’ve been rejected,” I muttered quietly. Of course, all I really felt was calm clarity.
It really is different, I became clearly aware.
It wasn’t like with Edamoto-san. If anything, I supposed it was Edamoto-san who was the special case.
My friends’ ideas showed me an answer in a way I never would have come up with. I felt like such opportunities came up often with Manaka. Even if she didn’t seem to be thinking at all—no, even if she really wasn’t thinking—she still seemed to be able to see certain things clearly.
“Sorry, Sayaka. I love the cats at your house, too.”
“Do you? I’ll let them know later.”
Though I might have been giving her too much credit.
“Oh, cats are great. Hey, Midori, I’d like to live with a cat.”
“We’re not allowed to have pets here.”
“Not right now, but in a little while. After we finish college.”
“You mean I’m going to be with you even after we graduate, Manaka? …Will that happen? I wonder…”
“I’ll be the one to decide on the cat’s name. If I left it to you, I feel like you’d end up naming it after a military commander.”
“If we’re going to get a pet, I think I’d prefer a bird…”
“Whaaat? Why?”
“Well, because I like birds better. Plus, I’ve already got something close enough to a cat.”
“But all birds have got are feathers.”
“I don’t understand what you mean about saying that’s all they’ve got. I mean, all cats have got are tails.”
“Um.”
“No, they’ve got ears, too—you know, cat ears. Like this. And Midori, you know what, you’re—”
“Can I hang up?”
“Just listen for a little longer.”
Why?
In the end, I ended up silently listening to them talk for about twenty minutes after that.
It was noisy, unproductive, and not boring in the least.
“Senpai, I love you lots.”
“You love saying ‘I love you lots’ a lot, don’t you?”
Though these confessions of love were meant to be like surprise attacks, I had gotten slightly used to them.
“Huh? I never thought that you’d confess your love so passionately to me, Senpai.”
“You do know…”
“Kidding, kidding.”
That day, Edamoto-san had invited me over for lunch, so I went to her apartment.
The sound of the air conditioning working hard was rattling overhead, as though it had replaced the cicadas.
In actuality, I had planned to go to the library during my spare time, but I supposed there would be no point trying to read if Edamoto-san was with me. Most of all, when I was in this room, I stopped wanting to leave until time was up.
There wasn’t a single place on campus where I could relax this much.
“Just so you know, your confession already got through to me.”
Since she kept telling me she loved me, I thought that she might not realize I had understood that.
“No, that’s not the issue.” Edamoto-san shook her head. “I just feel like if you don’t make sure something is clear, it’ll start to fade. So, I just wanted to make sure my feelings are clear, to the point you can almost see them. I think that’s really hard to do, though.”
Edamoto-san spoke lightly while scooping wakame seaweed for the miso soup, not making it sound particularly difficult. But considering Edamoto-san’s clear voice, I felt like she probably could accomplish that.
It was as though her voice remained in my ears almost like stone… It had real substance.
“Well, it might not be working out too well, but I just couldn’t think of anything else.”
Edamoto-san laughed awkwardly and glossed over it.
“Is that why you say you love me lots?”
“I couldn’t think of anything else,” she repeated again, as though she were pushing against a hard wall. Even if she couldn’t think of something, she took action anyway.
The resolution I lacked, Edamoto-san had in spades—to a dangerous degree.
She seemed to have a clear sense of what people around her liked and disliked, too.
“When I talk to you, I feel like there are so many things I should be learning from you, Edamoto-san.”
“Y-You think so?”
That kind of compliment made Edamoto-san bashful
like a normal person. I felt like there were a lot of other things that she should have been embarrassed about, though.
“But if I keep learning from you, then even I might end up becoming more like you, Edamoto-san.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t be good.”
Edamoto-san acted like she was seriously concerned by my joke.
“I love you the way you are right now, Sayaka-senpai.”
When Edamoto-san declared her affections casually, it caught my interest somehow.
“What do you mean about loving me how I am right now?”
I couldn’t help reacting to how she spoke as though she knew something even I did not.
But she responded quite clearly to my abstract question.
“The Sayaka-senpai I see in front of my eyes is everything. I can’t explain it any other way.”
Her declaration brushed along my skin even more strongly than the breeze blowing from the air conditioner.
Edamoto-san continued, “I don’t care about a person’s dark side or what they’re really thinking anymore. I don’t understand all that, and I probably never will, but…what’s important is that you’re smiling right now and that you’re happy… That’s what matters to me. Sorry I can’t really find the right words for it. But I think that your thoughts always show up on your face. That’s why I love everything I can see of you right now, and that’s all I need to know.”