Chapter 8

“You sound hoarse. Are you thirsty?” she asked, ignoring my question. My throat was parched; she was right about that. And it was hard for me to speak. Plus, I wasn’t used to talking to people. My voice didn’t come out. I didn’t know what the lady thought of my lack of response, but she kept pulling me along. Even if I stopped walking, it felt like we’d probably keep moving somehow. It was a weird feeling I’d never had before. Maybe it was because I’d never walked hand in hand with my mom. She was always carrying bags. I was so tired, I thought about just stopping and letting the woman move me along, but that was stupid. If I stopped, she’d probably leave, so I kept walking… But why? “Sorry, but…can you explain? What are you doing?” I nearly tripped over my words, not sure I was making myself clear. “I’m hitting on you. What else?” Hitting on me? She took me to a coffee house. Was that the term, coffee house? No, wait—coffee shop? I tried to read the foreign-looking shop name. “Dou…toru?” It sounded like How will you have it? in Japanese. I immediately regretted my attempt at deciphering the name, though—the lady’s shoulders shook as she giggled. What was the deal with her anyway? Whatever. It was too hot to think. “I like your little pun on the shop name.” “I wasn’t making a pun…” I honestly didn’t know how to read it. The lady noticed my embarrassment and carefully explained the pronunciation: Doutor. I’d been mostly right. “I’ve never been here.” “Ooh, first-timer? Perfect!” She put her arm around me, as if to make sure I couldn’t escape. Not that I’d try—I had nowhere to go. I really was powerless. Eh, but whatever. I didn’t care anymore. “Do they sell apple juice?” I asked, and the lady laughed again. She let go of my hand. She seemed to be having a lot of fun—no idea why. Her smile was so bright, I had to look away from her. The lady ordered for both of us. She got me the apple juice I’d asked for. It arrived in a glass, not in a carton. When was the last time I’d had juice out of a glass? The lady led me to a table, and we sat down. I had no idea what the drink she’d ordered was. An ordinary high school girl would probably recognize the name. It was evening, but the shop was still packed. Some of the customers were in school uniforms. Everyone was chatting loudly and laughing without shame, as if they were sitting on park benches and not inside a shop. “Enjoy your juice.” “I…don’t have any money.” “I wasn’t asking if you had money. Drink.” I took the cold glass in my hand and sipped the yellowish juice through a straw. The sweet taste and icy liquid filled the inside of my mouth. The temperature difference almost made my cheeks hurt. The juice felt invigorating, but it also reminded my stomach that it was empty, and it rumbled. I let out a big breath. The cool air from the overhead AC was stripping the layers of heat off me, as if they’d all been piled up on top of my head. I noticed my fingers were no longer shaking. The chilly glass in my hand was erasing the sting of slapping that person. I took more sips of the juice, and it was like all the nasty things that had been clinging to me were finally letting go. Before I knew it, the glass was half empty. “Is it good?” “I was just thirsty…” Why was I being evasive? The lady had simply asked if the juice was good. It wouldn’t hurt my pride to admit I liked it, surely. The woman’s eyes moved, and she reached toward my face with her hand. When she touched my cheek, I hissed at the sharp pain. “You’ve got a scratch there,” she pointed out. It must’ve been from that fight. The lady wasn’t saying anything more, so it was probably just the one. I was relieved my face wasn’t covered in bruises or anything—it’d have sucked to discover that after being out like this all day. “You’re in high school, and you ran away from a difficult home,” the lady easily guessed. “Am I right?” “Maybe.” She was pretty much spot-on. The home didn’t belong to my family—it was a temporary one—but other than that, all correct. And what did I know about her? She was beautiful, period. Her clothes didn’t betray her occupation, unlike my uniform. She was a complete mystery to me. “So what?” I asked. The lady raised her eyebrows, sipping…whatever her drink was. “What is what?” “What do you want from me? I dunno what it is, but you gotta want something, right?” People didn’t just go around buying juice for schoolgirls without wanting anything in return. “Hmm… What shall we talk about…?” Her fingers danced as if she were counting invisible stars. “How much will you tell me about yourself?” “About me? Why?” The lady saw I was completely thrown off. She smiled at me. “I told you I was hitting on you. I wanted a high school girl to take out on a date.” “Jokes aside.” “Why else would I approach a girl I don’t know?” She meant her question, so I gave it some real thought, too. Who would talk to an unfamiliar girl they saw in town? The lady didn’t look like a police officer, so that left… Did it leave anything at all? Some kind of recruiter? “I’m not joining any religion. I’m too dumb for that.” “A dumb girl shouldn’t be so distrustful,” she said, peering into my eyes. Her voice seemed to resonate inside my skull. “You’re not dumb; I can tell you that. You’re suspicious of me, which means you’re using your head. It wouldn’t even occur to a dumb girl to distrust someone.” It sounded like she was speaking from experience, and the argument was convincing. “You’re just a normal girl. Albeit a very cute girl.” I didn’t know how to react to a nonambiguous compliment like that. The lady was smiling, and her smile brought to my mind a flower open in full bloom, hiding nothing. Was I cute? Heck, maybe I was. My mom was very beautiful, so if I was anything like her, maybe I was a beauty, too. I didn’t like looking into mirrors, so I never really gave much thought to my appearance. “I said to myself, There’s an awfully cute girl looking like she’s in trouble. Just a gentle little push and she’s mine.” First, she called me “very cute,” then “awfully cute.” Was awfully stronger than very? “You wanted to take advantage of the fact that I seemed to be in trouble?” “Guilty as charged,” she admitted cheerfully. She really did seem nice. “Will you tell me what kind of trouble you’re in?” Who’d be so happy to ask a person they didn’t really know about their problems? This lady was weird. I didn’t feel like answering her. Not having a home to go back to wasn’t a problem you could solve just by chatting with a stranger. My silence made the lady shift in her seat. “Let me try to guess. You need money?” “Yeah.” I shrank back. I couldn’t even pay for the damn juice. The lady seemed to have been waiting for me to confess to financial troubles. She pulled the straw out of her glass and pointed it at me. A drop plopped back into her drink. “Would you like me to give you money?” “Whuh…?” I was so thrown by her unbelievable proposal, my voice didn’t come out right. She couldn’t have been serious about just giving me money because I needed it. I was even more suspicious her now. I willed my lazy brain to work. The lady was beautiful and kind, like a goddess, but it’d be stupid to think she was a goddess coming to save me for free. “In a nutshell, I’ll pay you if you let me have you.” “What…?” She looked away from me with a smile, waiting for me to process what she was offering and give her a reply. “‘Have me’ as in…sleep with you?” “Correct.” Like mother, like daughter. I recognized the offer for what it was. Getting money in return for letting another person use my body, whether I liked it or not… “That’s prostitution.” “You can put it that way, yes.” How else was there to put it? Well, there might be some. As with any shady business, people probably came up with lots of roundabout ways to talk about it. Nothing was coming to my mind, though. I looked the lady up and down. She was definitely a woman. A beautiful woman. Was she just messing with me? “But we’re both women…” “Would you only sell yourself to a man?” “That’s not what I was… No, listen, I can’t. Besides, it’s a crime…” The lady smiled, watching the realization dawn on my face. I didn’t know how bad of a crime it was, but it clearly wasn’t the first time for this lady. Her manner told me she’d hit on many girls before me, offering them money in return for sex. Until that day, I hadn’t really thought about it, but people like her must’ve been all around. Sometimes, our hosts were women. Were they offering us housing in return for my mom…doing that with them? The world is really messed up, I thought, but I wasn’t particularly outraged or anything. I thought about my mom, and about money. About selling yourself to make money. Was I going to enter the same trade as my mom? It was a way of making ends meet. I hated how my life was, but was the only way I could change it doing exactly the same thing as my mom? Was I doomed to be like her? The realization made me feel hopeless, like a tortoise flipped onto its back. But what else was there for me? I had nothing I could sell besides my body. I had no home. I had no choice. I should’ve learned that by now, so why hadn’t I gotten desensitized to it yet? I didn’t want to go back to that apartment. The owner would probably kick me out anyway. So what if the lady wanted to buy me? I could use somewhere to spend the night. “…Okay, then,” I told her with resignation, looking at her pretty hands. Whatever she wanted. I imagined those hands stroking my skin, and it didn’t totally suck. When she’d held my hand earlier, I’d noticed how smooth her skin was. Not like my hands, which had scabs on them. The touch of her fingertips was like a gentle breeze. So…so I could let her touch me. It wouldn’t be so bad. This lady wanted me. The owner of the apartment wanted me. Was I really such a treat? The lady took the straw out of her mouth. A little smile appeared on her lips. “Perfect,” she said. “Enjoy.” I didn’t care anymore. When we left the coffee shop, the lady took my hand without hesitation. Her fingernails were so finely groomed and shiny, I felt embarrassed by my own. “My hand…,” I said, feeling bad about my ugly, damaged hand next to her elegant one. “…It’s dirty. You might not want to hold it.” On closer inspection, I had someone else’s skin stuck behind my fingernails. I’d scratched them good. “Hmm, you’re right. It is in a sorry state,” the lady said, examining my hand. I turned away, muttering, “Don’t look.” Instead of letting go, she started walking, and I followed in tow. I didn’t care where she was taking me, but I idly hoped there’d be somewhere for me to lie down or at least to sit so I could close my eyes and forget about everything for a while. Or forget about everything forever. We passed by the station escalator and stopped in front of a small drugstore. “Why’re we here?” I asked, but the lady only smiled in response. I had no idea what she was thinking. We went in and she bought a packet of bandages. Next, she led me to the station restrooms. If she needed the restroom, she should let me wait outside, I thought, but she wasn’t letting go of my hand. She didn’t go into a stall, though. Instead, she headed straight for the sinks, where, to my surprise, she began to wash my hands. As she scrubbed the abrasions, they stung like little electric shocks. “What’re you doing?” She didn’t answer me that time, either. I had no say in any of this, I guess. I noticed she wasn’t just washing my hands anymore; she was playing with them. “…” Somehow, the way she was tracing the outlines of my fingers gave me goose bumps. When she was done, she wiped my hands dry with a hankie made of soft fabric. Without blood and bits of another person’s skin stuck to them, my hands didn’t look so bad. The lady gave my fingers one last once-over to make sure there was no dirt left on them, and she walked out of the restroom. I didn’t follow after her right away and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked very skinny, with untidy hair left to grow long, the color fading to brown at the tips. My eyes were full of misery, as if there was nothing about the world I liked. My inner light had been switched off. It’d been a long time since I’d spent any time with my reflection. What was cute about me? I couldn’t see anything. I left the restroom and spotted the lady waiting for me next to a nearby electric pole, like she was confident I’d return to her. To be fair, the restroom only had one exit, so it wasn’t like I could’ve sneaked away. I checked my hands one more time before walking over to her. She took my hand, but not to lead me somewhere. She bent over it, checking the scrapes attentively. “What’re you doing?” “A little extra care goes a long way toward winning me the hearts of young ladies,” she replied. My hand stung again as she applied something to the wounds. “There, all disinfected,” she announced, putting away a little box that had “antibacterial ointment” written on it. She must’ve bought this earlier. “You want to have girls falling in love with you?” “Believe me, I do.” “Okay…” I thought her looks alone would achieve that, even if she didn’t go the extra mile, but then again, I was no expert on relationships. Now that my hand was clean and disinfected, the lady put bandages on the wounds. That was the first time someone had done it for me. Normally, I just walked around with that stuff uncovered. All wounds healed on their own with enough time. But the lady was getting me patched up so I’d recover a little quicker. I stared down at my hand, covered in bandages, and I got a heavy feeling in my eyes. I had to look back up, afraid I might cry. The lady was watching me, waiting. “Uh… Thanks…,” I said, wondering if I should’ve been more polite. I hadn’t really been in many situations where gratitude was expected, so I was unsure how to do it right. The lady seemed surprised by my flustered reply. “Well? Have you fallen in love with me yet?” “You wish,” I shot back at her, feeling a bit more confident. My confidence didn’t last so long, though. After I stopped getting emotional over her care for my hand, anxiety over where she was going to take me next crept in. Still, I resolutely kept pace next to her. Maybe she’d take me to a hotel. I’d never been to one before. Would they let me in, while I was wearing my school uniform? We walked to the second floor of the station building, where we turned away from the ticket gates. We passed through a brightly lit automatic door, and the smell of people changed to the smell of food, which reminded my stomach to loudly beg for a meal. “…” “It’s a yakitori restaurant,” the lady said without me asking, even though I could gather as much from the signboard in front of the place. The delicious smell of grilled chicken and onion was coming from the inside. “We can go somewhere else if you prefer. How about ramen?” I followed the lady’s gaze to the ramen restaurant on the other side. There was a noodle bar next to it. Any place I looked at made my stomach growl. I’d never been to a restaurant before, though. The lights felt too bright. “Anything’s fine by me…but why did you bring me here?” “What’s so strange about taking my date out for a meal?” She gently tugged at my hand, and we went into the yakitori place. She didn’t wait to see if I really did want to go somewhere else, but whatever. “You’re not gonna ask me to strip naked for you in here, right?” “Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed, which meant my question was really stupid. I hung my head and didn’t dare look up until we sat down at a table. The light in the restaurant had a warm tinge to it. I felt as if it was enveloping me, warming my neck. It was on the second floor of the building, but not too high compared with the street level. I could see people walking outside, and they could see the diners. Once I was sitting at our table, I calmed down somewhat and started noticing things about the interior. It was pretty busy, but I couldn’t see a single customer in a school uniform—it was all adults on the way home from work, based on their smart shirts. The lady and I stood out as the only pair who was both female. “Classy place for a date with a high schooler, hmm?” the lady asked cheerfully, opening the menu. A date… What were dates supposed to be like, anyhow? I had never been on a date, which was probably why I was so antsy. It was a mystery to me why the woman would even take me out for a meal. Why, why, why—that word kept coming back to me. I crammed all my doubts into one short question. “Why’re we here?” “That again?” The lady laughed at my repeated question. How could I not ask, though? Everything that was happening was new to me. I’d never imagined myself in this situation. I’d been hijacked from my usual reality to somewhere even my dreams had never taken me to. This place, its smells, the lady sitting opposite me—it was all foreign to me. I was still barely processing what was happening, and her confidence was making my anxiety worse. “I don’t get it… Why’d you…?” I couldn’t find the words to express myself, as if there were an invisible gag around my mouth. “Because it’s no fun on an empty stomach, that’s why,” the lady explained matter-of-factly. “Really…?” I cocked my head at her. I was inexperienced, so it wouldn’t have occurred to me. So what we were going to do later was supposed to be fun? I guessed it had to be, if my mom was getting us places to stay. So the lady and I were going to have fun. But then my mom didn’t act like someone with a fun life. Why? Maybe the lady was messing with me. I glared at her suspiciously, but she had shielded herself with the big menu. “Let’s order some food. What would you like?” “…” I wanted to say something in protest, but my mouth filled with drool at the thought of food. I looked down at my hand, and my eyes felt heavy again. I sat back in my chair and breathed out so hard, I wondered if my soul would leave along with the hot air. “I don’t want vegetables, only meat. Lots.” “Let’s get you that, then.” The lady waved over a server and recited a list of dishes. I was spacing out, only half hearing the exchange between her and the server. I let my head hang and thought a bit about my mom and a bit about myself. Lastly, I thought about the lady. While we waited for the food, she smiled and started chatting with me. “Will you tell me your phone number?” “I don’t have one. I mean, I don’t have a phone.” “Oh, come on,” the lady insisted, assuming I was either joking or too wary to give out my number. “I’m not lying. I don’t have one,” I replied, looking into her eyes. She realized I was being honest. “You’re quite different, aren’t you?” she said, studying me like I were an exotic animal in a zoo. She took out a phone from her bag. “Keep this one. It’s yours to use.” “You can’t be serious…” I’d automatically taken the phone from her when she’d passed it to me, and it was only when I felt its warm weight that I froze up. “Don’t worry, I have lots. This is what they’re for.” For giving out to girls who didn’t have their own phones…? I stared at the screen, feeling beads of sweat appear on my forehead. I didn’t even know how to use a smartphone. “It has only one number saved—mine. You can save others, if you want.” “I…don’t think I will.” “You could save your school friends’ numbers?” “Do I look like I have friends?” If I did, I’d have asked them for help instead of letting this suspicious lady pick me up off the street. “You look pretty enough to be popular with both girls and boys.” Just like her, then? Nah, I didn’t buy it. Pretty or not, who’d like to hang out with a depressed girl like me? Why had I taken that phone without thinking? I turned it around in my hand. It didn’t belong to me. Wasn’t the lady worried I might…use it for something bad? Like…steal money from her or something? I didn’t really know if you could do that with just someone’s phone. I didn’t know enough to tell what was possible. You had to be smart to see all the options open to you, after all. But how could I get smart? Studying hard didn’t seem to be helping me any. “Are you tired? You don’t really seem present,” the lady remarked, peering at me intensely. I felt like a product in a shop window. I was tired, but that wasn’t why I was spacey. “It’s just…so strange. I feel lost.” “Why do you feel lost?” “Dunno. I guess nobody’s ever been this nice to me before.” I didn’t know what was making the bottom part of my body feel floaty and my skin itchy all over. “I don’t know if people would call what I’m doing being nice to you.” The lady laughed, making me uneasy. “Well, how do you like it?” “It’s creeping me out.” The lady was unlike anyone else I’d known, and it scared me that I had no idea what she was thinking. Case in point, she reacted to my complaint with another burst of happy laughter. What was wrong with her…? “You’re so pure. Dry soil waiting for the first rain.” “Sorry, what?” “You’re getting me so excited.” “I don’t…get it…” What was she raving about? A short while later, the server began bringing plates of food to our table. There was a lot of grilled chicken on skewers, served with shredded cabbage. The salted, grilled meat smelled so good. “I really don’t have any money, though,” I reminded her one last time before reaching for the food. The lady smiled, reached into her handbag, and took out her wallet. She began laying one bill after another between the plates, and then she shoved the stash my way. “What’s this supposed to be…?” “I’m paying you. For the date.” She was giving me more money than I’d ever held in my hands or even seen, and apparently, this was nothing to her. It shocked me she was doing it in plain sight; I could barely sit still. The lady casually pushed the money and a plate of chicken toward me. “All yours.” It was like something out of a fairy tale. I felt dizzy, as if the labyrinth of my inner ear had stopped working right. The smell of grilled chicken brought me back down to earth, and the rational part of my brain started analyzing the situation. The lady had given me a lot of money, on top of buying me a meal. That was a payment for using my body. The realization sank in that the lady was shamelessly committing a pretty big crime, and throwing money at me was no big deal to her, either. Was that the going price for high school girls these days? I had no way of telling if what was a small fortune to me was a good or bad price for my own body. I must’ve been making weird faces as those thoughts raced in my head, because the lady was watching me with an amused grin. I’d lost count of the red flags. My brain was flashing a big warning sign. Getting involved with her could end very badly for me…but that pile of cash she’d given me. I still could run away, but I couldn’t take it back if I did. I’d have to give up all she had offered me. In my head, that red light was still flashing in the distance. But if there was a red light, that meant there was a road I could fling myself down. I had a painful awareness of just how important money was, because I didn’t have any. I’d made up my mind. “No returns,” I said, grabbing the bills. I didn’t have a wallet to put them in. When I picked up the money, I got an anxious ache in my stomach like I’d been kicked. My guts knew I was doing something that wasn’t right. “You’ll pay me back,” the lady said with a cheeky smile. “With your body.” “…Deal.” She chuckled, her face alive with joy. “I’ve always wanted to say that line.” Satisfied, she put her expensive-looking wallet back in the bag and motioned with her hand at the food. “Well, dig in. You’re hungry, aren’t you?” “…Yes.” I nodded, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye as I racked my brain over where to put the money. “And…after we eat…” “Hmm? Ah. After the meal, I’d like to chat with you more. You’re not in a rush, are you?” “You want to…just talk?” “If you’re in the mood.” I didn’t get her. What did she want from me? She was baiting me like an animal, and I was too desperate to run away from an obvious trap. If I could afford myself more time to think, I’d probably go crazy from my brain spinning in circles. “I don’t get rich people,” I told the lady. She put her bag back and resumed watching me with a warm smile as I dug into the chicken. I still had the money in my other hand. I loved the taste and texture of every bite. It’d only been days since I’d last had a proper meal, but the painful, sucking feeling in my stomach felt like I’d been starving for years. The lady was just sitting, not picking up any food. Was it all for me? Okay then. I grabbed another skewer. I didn’t know what part of chicken it was, but the flavor was different from the one I’d eaten earlier, and it was chewier. The taste was more like blood. I felt like a carnivorous animal getting just what it wanted. It was the best. My stomach was trembling with excitement at getting meat. Normally, I survived on whatever scraps I managed to get. The unexpected meal of chicken made me feel alive, like the ghostly contours of my body were getting redrawn with thicker lines. The rhythmic movements of my jaw shook my brain into action, and it decided to remind me how important eating was. When I finished my third skewer, as if on cue, the lady took out her phone. “We’ll have to update the names our numbers are saved under. What’s your name?” “My name…” Should I give my full name to this strange lady, who was going to pay me for sex? Should I tell her my real name at all? I looked down at my patched-up hand. I owed her a debt for her kindness. “My name’s Umi,” I said. “Umi? Umi. Nice.” In the end, I told her my real first name. If I’d come up with a fake name, I might forget to respond if she called me by it. Telling someone your first name only wasn’t a big deal, was it? Even if I’d given her my full name, it wasn’t like it’d have mattered, probably. There weren’t many things I felt like I had to hide from people. “And you?” “My name, hmm… Chiki Rikunaka.” Not her real name, I was sure. “Um… How do you want me to call you?” I asked. “Just Chiki.” I thought that name sounded delicious, somehow. Looking down at what I was eating, I realized why, and I smiled a little. “Ms. Chiki,” I said tentatively, and the lady smiled with pleasure. “Heh,” I laughed dryly, not really sure why, and picked up another skewer. It was a weird day, but as long as I made it through. The next day, I’d probably be left with nothing again. At the time, I didn’t think about the future past that one night. I never considered that I might see Ms. Chiki for over half a year and become deeply entangled with her. Ms. Chiki had a vision for her future. When you have money, beauty, and no worries, you can afford to have one of those. I didn’t want to just barely stay afloat, powerlessly going with the flow, either. I wanted to have a good life. A life I’d want to remember and reflect on. I had to take matters into my own hands. I had to take matters into my own hands, but it wasn’t going how I’d imagined. There I was, sweating in a cool room, not studying when I should’ve been. The more I thought about it, the more I regretted it. I was feeling guilty about all the bad things I was doing. Meanwhile, Ms. Chiki was lying in bed next to me with a smile on her face, completely at peace. Was she not scared I might betray her? If I reported her, it might be all over for her. Was she so powerful that even that wouldn’t bring her down? Or did she have absolute trust in me? I only knew her from her good side, and I still had no clue what was going on in her head. I didn’t know her. The softness of the sheets was inviting me to fall asleep. I had the cover drawn up to my chest, the AC pleasantly cooling my bare shoulders. Everything about my time with Ms. Chiki was different from what I’d known growing up. I was rootless now, but maybe I’d end up growing a root or two, settle into this kind of life, and never leave it again. The room was huge. Three chairs would have been plenty, but there were five, and the suite had another room as big as the bedroom, with a sofa so long that you could have a whole party of people sitting next to one another. What was the point of having all that in a suite for two? The bathtub was big enough to swim in, and there were also two separate shower rooms—who knows why? There was enough space around the toilet that I could open my arms wide without touching the walls. The view from the curtain-covered windows was a forest of tall tower blocks, their lights like stars in the night sky. That’s the sort of hotel it was, so luxurious that I’d balked at the idea of going inside, but Ms. Chiki had gently persuaded me to be brave, take her hand, and join her. Once we were in our room, we’d done the usual. She was always taking me to high-class hotels, and I never had to pay for anything. I probably wouldn’t be able to afford even the cheapest thing they offered. Those hotels existed in a world different than the one I was from, and the contrast was so staggering, I wondered if they even recognized yen as a currency. It felt unreal to be somewhere so expensive. “Pinch!” Ms. Chiki interrupted my daydreaming. “I’m awake,” I told her. I won’t say where she pinched me. Drowsiness was starting to color the delicate skin under my eyes. I looked over at Ms. Chiki. She was lying face down next to me, with one hand under her pillow, and the other gently stroking my cheek. “…” When I first met her, she’d been wearing a white skirt, and a brown…blouse? I wasn’t quite sure what her top had been, actually, since I’d been keeping my head down. I had noticed she was wearing comfortable sandals. We’d met outside a local train station. The memory of her skirt got almost completely overwritten when I finally looked up and saw her face. Her medium-length chestnut hair was tucked behind her ears. Her lips weren’t dry like mine, there wasn’t a scratch on her skin, and the look in her eyes wasn’t dark and gloomy. Her impression was softly dazzling, someone who smiled easily and showed her chalk-white teeth. I’d thought if I touched her, my hand might disappear in her radiance. Looking at her was like peeking inside a flower store. Your eyes couldn’t help being drawn to her. She naturally became the focus of attention. To put it simply, she was incredibly beautiful. And this incredibly beautiful person wasn’t wearing a skirt, or sandals, or a blouse now. Her beauty was bare for me to marvel at. I had to try not to let it get to me, or my head would start pounding like it was going to burst open. I’d been seeing her for over half a year, but I hadn’t developed any immunity to her. As a side note, the day after my first night with Ms. Chiki, I’d found my mom carrying a big bag of our belongings. She’d told me, a little proudly for some reason, that she’d gotten whacked twice but managed to escape. There was a toughness to her, a robustness, and she probably wouldn’t have been able to live the way she did without it. “Are you tired?” Ms. Chiki asked me. I must’ve been looking very sleepy. “You tired me out,” I replied. “I suppose I did.” Ms. Chiki smiled mischievously, probably thinking about what she’d been doing to me earlier. A twinge of sharp pain ran from my ear to my cheek, as if I’d been cut, but it was just from heat. Whenever I went to meet Ms. Chiki, I’d bring my textbook with me, but it didn’t see that much use. About half the time, I’d be too engrossed with Ms. Chiki to have attention left for anything else. “You always tense up when you touch me,” she said. I wasn’t used to touching people in general, and touching Ms. Chiki in the places she wanted me to gave me a tingling sensation in my fingers. “You must be used to being touched, Ms. Chiki. Doesn’t look like it’s got much of an effect on you.” I didn’t mean it, but my words came out accusatory. I covered my mouth with my hand, regretting I’d said anything and hoping Ms. Chiki wouldn’t pick up on it. “Oh, your touch has more of an effect on me than you think.” She narrowed her eyes, placing her hands on my shoulders. “You underestimate the appeal of the outline of breasts hidden under a passing schoolgirl’s uniform, her lips parting prettily in heated conversations with school friends, her skirt covering up her thighs and beyond… Having you here, all to myself, and touching you freely is a dream come true…” She was speaking seductively, but something about her words snagged on me, and I couldn’t let it go. “A passing schoolgirl? That’s not me you’re talking about, is it?” I wanted to get up, but then all strength left me. Ms. Chiki’s eyebrows rose, and I dreaded her response, but she laughed with her mouth wide open, as if what I’d said gave her so much joy. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous? Are you?” “No.” “Ha-ha-ha! You can’t get a lie past me!” She reached for my hand tentatively. Having her fingers interlace with mine filled me with so much emotion, I couldn’t speak. “Your body feels even hotter now.” “It’s because you…” The only person I could run to for shelter was the huntress whose prey I was. Was I running to safety or to my doom? “Because I what?” she prompted me. It was like nothing ever fazed her. How much longer did I have with her? The idea that one day our relationship might end almost made me tear up. “It’s because your hand is so hot,” I said stupidly. “I suppose it is,” Ms. Chiki agreed, but I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “I’m having so much fun with you,” she continued. She didn’t have to say it—it was obvious from the big grin on her face. “But your body is burning. My hands are hot, and even I can feel it.” She lightly scratched at my thumbnail. What was she trying to say? For some reason, I felt really embarrassed…then I got it. Burning with jealousy—that was what we’d been talking about. I stared at Ms. Chiki with defiance, and stared, and stared…but soon, I had to surrender. “It’s because…you make it sound like it doesn’t matter who she is as long as she’s in high school… Whatever, forget it.” I wasn’t jealous; it would just be gross if Ms. Chiki was thinking about somebody else when she was touching me. It really didn’t matter, though. I wanted to drop this subject, but Ms. Chiki was having fun, and she wouldn’t let me change it. “I haven’t been with other girls since meeting you.” My naive heart soared, and I wanted to punch it. I knew I shouldn’t probe any more, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Meaning you’ve had lots of other girls before me?” Why couldn’t I shut up and wait for Ms. Chiki to talk about something else? I felt like such an idiot. “Can’t deny it.” She laughed unapologetically. Of course she’d been with others; I could’ve guessed it, and it was none of my business. In any case, it didn’t matter. Ms. Chiki wasn’t my girlfriend, so even if she was seeing someone else besides me now, it wouldn’t be cheating, probably. “So how many other girls did you toy with?” I was disgusted with myself for being so nosy, but deep down, I knew it wasn’t the number of girls she’d been with that I cared about. I was hoping to hear something specific from her, and I could only get at it indirectly. I wished I could’ve been better at words. I didn’t want Ms. Chiki to realize what was really behind my question, but of course, I could hide nothing from her. Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she stroked my cheek. “You want me to tell you it’s not just toying when it’s with you?” My mind went blank. “I’m going home,” I said. I wanted to disappear. I couldn’t stand being there a second longer. I jumped out of bed, but Ms. Chiki hurriedly stopped me, putting her hands on my shoulders. “There are no more trains until morning.” “I’ll walk.” “I’m sorry I teased you. Plus, I don’t think you should go out naked.” She mocked me playfully for my rashness, and I felt so stupid. Ms. Chiki pressed her body against mine and pulled me in for a kiss a little too fast, so that our foreheads and left cheeks bumped together. My left eye flashed white from pain, but Ms. Chiki wasn’t put off at all. She repositioned her head and pulled me even closer. The sensation of her tongue sliding into my mouth became everything for a moment, and all sounds became muted. She was holding me by my wrists, sealing my mouth with hers—her smell, her touch, her taste enveloped me. I didn’t know what to do with my body, so I was just going limp in her embrace. Blood surged in my veins like a flooding river, deafeningly loud. My body wanted to live, to feel. Ms. Chiki and I were pressed so close together, we were like one person. She had me trapped, breathless, and the suffocation made me panic for a second. I had to pound her back with my fists for her to finally let me go. She’d been exploring my mouth with her tongue so enthusiastically, it was making our saliva frothy. I’d never compared people’s tongues, so I couldn’t be sure, but Ms. Chiki’s seemed to be unusually long. What was I even thinking? My oxygen-starved brain couldn’t handle forming sentences. “…Long.” “I thought you might calm down if I stopped you from breathing for a few moments.” She laughed, her shoulders shaking. Her face was as red as mine. I had no strength left to resist her. We both fell back onto the bed. My gaze dropped to her bare breasts, but I caught myself staring and looked away at Ms. Chiki’s face. She was still holding my hand, as if to stop me from leaving. “I’m too sleepy. I’ll leave in the morning.” I remembered I hadn’t done any studying, but I was too tired for it then. What future awaited me if I let Ms. Chiki take over my life, if I ended up dumb and uneducated? I was already giving up on the things that mattered to me. My entire sense of being was being invaded by Ms. Chiki. And yet I welcomed her. I felt like a traitor, but who or what was I betraying? No idea. I could still taste Ms. Chiki inside my mouth, and my heart was beating faster than it should. When both of us caught our breath, Ms. Chiki put an arm around my waist and pulled me close. Her hand was very warm. “I’m sorry. Don’t cry?” “Me? Am I crying?” I touched my cheeks anxiously, but they were dry. My bangs were sticking to my sweaty forehead. I brushed them away. “I’m not only toying with you, Umi. I love you.” “I bet you say that to every girl.” “Aw, you don’t trust me at all, do you?” She seemed surprised, and I wanted to poke her cute little nose. “I trust you with some things. Not so much with others.” To be more precise, I trusted what I could feel with my body, but not any of Ms. Chiki’s verbal assurances. I might have a distrustful nature. I knew other people didn’t see me as trustworthy, so I also naturally assumed they would lie to me. Maybe that approach was hurting me more than helping, but I couldn’t just change my character. “Hmm, I see…,” Ms. Chiki said with a thoughtful expression. I had a hunch she was just having horny thoughts again. And I was right. “Feel my boobs, then. You can play with them as much as you want.” She beamed at me, her white teeth almost glowing. “I wouldn’t let someone I didn’t love do that, would I?” Probably not, but was that how you convinced a girl she was special to you? Ms. Chiki was a weirdo. “No thanks, I’m good.” “You’ve already had your fill today?” Ms. Chiki was smiling, blushing faintly. If she was blushing a little, I must’ve been as red as a lobster. “I don’t want to be like that…” “Like what?” “I don’t want you to…try to prove anything to me. If I can’t just feel it naturally…it doesn’t feel right.” I couldn’t really explain myself—I was too inexperienced. I was tracing an outline, suddenly realizing I’d lost it. Ms. Chiki was wise, having done many more things in her life than I had, but even she couldn’t puzzle out what was eating me. Her lips curved in a bemused expression I hadn’t seen on her face much before. She muttered to herself, “Hmm…” and “Hmm?” for a while before giving up. “You’re very picky about how you want to be loved, Umi,” she finally said. “…” I didn’t know how I wanted to be loved. Did I want to be loved at all? Why should I care about what others felt toward me…? No, I wasn’t tough like that. I was lying to myself, pretending I wasn’t really sure. It pained me to admit it, but of course I thirsted for love. “I love you; really, I do,” she said. “But I can’t seem to find how to express it in a way you’d accept.” Ms. Chiki smiled wryly, as if she was disappointed with herself. I didn’t know what to say to that. What she implied often went over my head. “What about me stops you from trusting my words?” “It’s not something about you… I don’t believe a person like you would love me, that’s all.” “Why wouldn’t I? You’re so cute; that alone could make me fall in love with you,” she said in a stronger voice. Her breath brushed against the tip of my nose, giving me a tingling sensation in my shoulders. “I did pick you up because you were cute, and what’s wrong with that? I didn’t know anything about you, so all I had to go on was your appearance.” She affectionately poked my forehead with her finger. I knew she was being honest—she was into schoolgirls, after all, and she had an eye for prettiness. “And do you love anything about me besides my looks now?” I asked her, curling up into a fetal position to avoid looking at her. “I love that you can’t help but ask me,” she replied, stroking my ear and my hair. “It’s so cute.” She was being evasive; that was clear to me. Ms. Chiki was good, beautiful, smelled nice, was smart, kind, caring, and calming to be around. And just stunning. Having so many good qualities all at once seemed unrealistic, which was why Ms. Chiki made me so anxious. I was obviously not a good match for her. She was only playing with me. I had to keep reminding myself of it for my sanity. She was paying me for sex, which…was far from the worst thing in the world. I also got to sleep in hotel rooms with AC. I was incredibly lucky to have been picked by Ms. Chiki to be her paid lover, so I shouldn’t be greedy and want anything beyond that. Our deal was physical; feelings should stay out of it. At least, that’s what I’d thought in the beginning. Later, the same anxiety I felt about my life had crept into my relationship with Ms. Chiki. Was it our financial arrangement stopping her from developing feelings for me? But I needed the money. Money gave me at least some sense of security. One day, it might be all I could rely on. “…” She was paying me to see her, so why was I scared she might abandon me? That was stupid. And besides, she’d stop wanting to see me eventually anyway. Schoolgirls were her thing, so once I graduated from high school, I’d be out. I didn’t have much longer. So… So… What was I even trying to say? I was walking in circles instead of arriving at some conclusion. “I hope you’ll want to see me again,” I said candidly, the hopeless idiot that I am. I didn’t want Ms. Chiki’s money. I wanted her…heart. I didn’t want to say “love” even in my thoughts, because that would make me feel even more pathetic. “Likewise!” She embraced me, and I melted into her softness, breathing in her divine scent. The strong front I’d been putting on crumbled away. She always turned my brain to mush, and my eyes stung. For the time being, I could hold the tears back, but how much longer? My meetings with Ms. Chiki were like walking through a flower field. I didn’t want to step on any of the blooms; it would stir emotions that would get tears out of me, but they were everywhere. I was running out of ground to stand on. I wouldn’t reach for her hand first, but she always took mine, gently squeezing it. She’d lead me somewhere, and I’d follow. I was terrified of how happy she made me. We never talked about when we’d see each other next when we parted ways. It was just “bye” and “good-bye.” I never knew when or if I’d meet her again. “…” The objective part of me, which loved to pick apart my emotions, pointed out to me that even though I pretended not to care, I wanted a connection. I wanted to feel it. Maybe I already had a bond I just couldn’t recognize for what it was. I couldn’t imagine a future for myself without Ms. Chiki in it. I ran into Sorahoshi’s mom outside their apartment. “Returning in the morning? Umi, you little rascal.” “Hello.” With her hair neatly tied, Sorahoshi’s mom made a different impression than when I saw her in the house. I couldn’t wrap my head around how someone so zippy and put-together could be my mom’s friend, but apparently, they were. Unlike her daughter, Sorahoshi’s mom had black hair. “How are you getting along with Takasora?” It took me a moment to understand who she meant. So it wasn’t Taka Sorahoshi, but Takasora Hoshi… “Um, fine. We’re getting along fine.” I had to if we were going to stay at their place. I couldn’t repeat the earlier disaster…but it was different with this family. The mom was my mom’s friend, and she was even nice to me, instead of ignoring me or getting violent. “You don’t have to force yourselves to like each other, but at least try not to fight. I want peace in the house.” Hoshi’s mom laughed and turned to leave, but then she turned back toward me again. “You know where to find the spare key. Please make sure to leave it in the same place.” “I will.” It helped that she was so easygoing, although she did make us pay for things. “And try not to worry your mom too much.” “Um, right…” Would my mom ever worry about me? Wasn’t she too much of an airhead for that? If her mom hadn’t said Hoshi’s first name, I wouldn’t have realized it was supposed to be Takasora, and the surname was just Hoshi. What an unusual first name. When I entered our room, Hoshi was asleep. She was curled up on the edge of the futon, with the blanket crumpled on the side. She’d probably gotten hot and kicked it off in her sleep. I crouched down and idly looked at her butt, which was sticking out toward the wall. “It’s not the same…” Looking at this girl, I didn’t feel any of the emotions I did when I was watching Ms. Chiki. I didn’t feel anything at all, in fact. It was just a girl’s bottom. I lost interest and moved to sit in the corner. I leaned back against the wall, turned my face upward, and sat there, listening to my own breathing. The walk back from the station had left me tired. I was always exhausted after coming back from seeing Ms. Chiki, knowing I was returning to my drab life. Maybe that was how people felt coming back from vacation. Whenever I had nothing to do, I’d start thinking about Ms. Chiki. She’d taught me many things, like that I cared too much about what others thought about me. That I became visibly fragile when people treated me nicely. That if someone told me they loved me, their words would play on loop in my head into the next day. And she’d taught me plenty of other things that I wouldn’t talk about with anyone. I wondered if some of those things were special to me only because they had to do with Ms. Chiki. You don’t have to be an expert to recognize when a work of art is beautiful. Real beauty appeals to people of all kinds. Ms. Chiki was like that. Unlike with Ms. Chiki, I could look at Hoshi and feel nothing. Her hair color was distinctive, since it was unusually bright. When she moved her head, it was like the rays of the setting sun were dancing. It could look quite pretty. If I had to guess, I’d say it was natural, but she hadn’t gotten it from her mom. Dad, then? Come to think of it, she didn’t seem to have a dad. At least, he wasn’t living with them. Same as me. Maybe he was a foreigner—her dad, I mean, not mine. Wonder what the deal was with him and her mom… Nah, actually, that was none of my business. Hoshi was an okay person. If I could get along with her, as her mom wanted, that’d be fine. I wasn’t looking to make a long-term friend, though. I had time before I had to leave for school. I spent it thinking, dozing, and daydreaming. Then it was time to get changed into my school uniform. Ms. Chiki liked it a lot. I picked up the jacket by a sleeve. It was just an ordinary school uniform—nothing to get excited about. “Ah, almost forgot.” I hid the money Ms. Chiki had given me, placing it separately from my other money. It’d been a smart move to put myself forward for cleaning duties—that way, I wasn’t risking Hoshi finding my stash. She probably wasn’t the type to steal from me, but she might get nosy about where I was getting it from. Although, she didn’t seem to care much about what I did, which was a big plus. Maybe she wouldn’t bother asking. Maybe I could afford to be a little optimistic. I checked the time and thought I should wake Hoshi up. “We’ve gotta go, or we’ll be late,” I said, shaking her shoulder. “Mnnngh?” she grunted like some sort of animal, lifting her heavy eyelids. She was barely awake, but she reacted to the word late by swearing, writhing on the futon, and scratching her head furiously. She tried to reach for her school bag and get up from the futon at the same time, which just got her all twisted up like a croissant. Klutz, I thought, leaving the room. I knew the way to school by then, so I could just go on my own. I had nothing to do at the apartment anyway. Might as well. I was about to leave when Hoshi came out of our room and walked over to me, sniffing loudly, her back kind of hunched, eyes sleepily vacant. I stopped dead, kind of freaked out by her. She kept sniffing the air. When she tried to sniff my elbow, I quickly pulled my arm away. “It’s that floral scent.” “Um… Yeah?” What was up with her? I felt a little shock of worry. I didn’t know what to say to her. The scent had, of course, come from Ms. Chiki. Hoshi sniffed the air some more, swore again, and rushed off to wash her face. I swore, too. “Shit.” I’d never really thought before about Ms. Chiki’s perfume smell on me, since it was a pleasant one, but it had become a problem now that I’d started sharing a room. I didn’t want to be questioned on why I’d come back smelling of perfume when I didn’t normally wear any. It hurt my head to think about how to explain it away, though. Maybe I’d just tell her it was because I was blossoming into a woman, and that would shut her up. But I knew people weren’t so easy to shut up once they got nosy. My mom was still asleep, as usual. I saw her peacefully lying on a futon in the living room. Seeing her like that, sleeping in without a single worry made me…reassured? No, it was another feeling; I just didn’t know what to call it. I knew it wasn’t dark. It was bright and calm, like morning light. “I’m going out,” I announced without looking back, and I left through the front door, wondering what to do about the perfume issue. I walked down the narrow road, which was shaded by tall apartment blocks, and passed by a car-repair shop, a car dealership, and a two-story French restaurant. That was when Hoshi caught up to me. She’d come running after me when she’d finished changing, it looked like. Once she got to where I was, she came to a sudden stop as if she’d stepped in glue, panting. “You left in a hurry,” I said, “so I didn’t want to be late.” “Um, okay.” I had rushed out the door, but not because of the time. Hoshi and I started walking together. She probably hadn’t had the time to even brush her hair, because she was combing it with her fingers. Speaking of hair, mine used to be a total mess until I’d started using this sweet-smelling oil from Ms. Chiki every day. It got rid of the frizz and made the strands way healthier. When I’d told Ms. Chiki about it, she’d been really happy for some reason. Maybe because she liked to stroke it, and it felt nicer to touch since I’d started applying the oil. I’d wanted to make my hair even better for Ms. Chiki, so I’d begun taking better care of it. I’d started making some other changes, but I stopped when I realized what I was doing. I hadn’t wanted to be a pathetic loser doing everything she could to appeal to Ms. Chiki. That was a few months earlier, when I’d still been defiant about the whole thing, but later, it was as if I’d become a different person at the cellular level. After crossing the pedestrian bridge, I saw other girls in uniforms from our school. They walked in groups, chatting. I wasn’t chatting with Hoshi, but I wasn’t alone, either. Still, two wasn’t a group. We weren’t a group, but we were a…plural? No, that probably doesn’t make sense. Whatever. I didn’t know where Ms. Chiki lived, but she apparently saw girls like me heading to school every day, and she’d watch them while imagining lewd things. If she wasn’t gorgeous herself, she wouldn’t get away with so much. Not that beauty made wrongs right. The girls probably would’ve never guessed some pretty lady was observing them with lust. It wasn’t right, but the fact that I knew it made me feel superior at times. Which was dumb, because I wasn’t the only one. The other girls Ms. Chiki had bought sex from also knew about her. Thinking about them made me unbearably uneasy, and angry. I knew why, but I didn’t want to admit it, or I’d lose the last bit of my sense of self. “…” If Ms. Chiki’s interest changed from me to Hoshi, for example, I’d start hating Hoshi. I’d see her as my enemy. “Is something…wrong?” I must’ve been glaring at Hoshi without realizing. She stopped touching her hair and laughed nervously. “No, nothing.” I looked away from her and forced myself to stop imagining stupid things. Hoshi was nice. Maybe I could even call her a friend. It was scary how people could change their attitude at the drop of a hat, I thought. All over something as dumb as love. “That girl’s Mizuike, right?” I was startled by someone suddenly speaking to me and by what they’d said. It wasn’t my turn to run, but my heart started racing. Different classes would come together for PE. It was cloudy that day, and we were doing laps outside. I’d seen a familiar face among the girls who were already running and was absentmindedly following her with my eyes. Her face was blank, and her running speed average, so that she was consistently in the middle of the group. Nobody was making an effort to jog together next to her. There was, in fact, a noticeable gap between her and the girls behind and in front of her, but maybe I was reading too much into it. Anyway, I’d been sitting in one corner of the school courtyard, watching her, when someone pointed her out and said her name. I was with Girl A, who was in her usual company of Girls B and C. At least, that’s what I called them; Girl A was actually called Eiko, and Girl C was Shiina. Girl B wasn’t a pun, though. Her real surname was Satou, which didn’t have any Bs in it. I just called her B because she was always with A and C. Letting my mind wander to those trivial thoughts helped me calm down a little. My palms were still sweating, though. I looked straight ahead, trying to come up with something to say. “Her name’s Mizuike?” I said stiffly. I glanced sideways at the girl who’d correctly identified Mizuike earlier, noting it was Shiina. “Wait…,” she said, puzzled. “I thought you knew her?” “Nope. She’s not in my class. I was just…” I stopped abruptly, my unfinished sentence flapping like a fish out of water. I was just what? Hmm. Hmm… Oh. “I was just noticing how big her boobs were for someone that short.” It wasn’t the best excuse, but I was too freaked out to think of anything better. Did I even need to lie about not knowing Mizuike? It was better to lie, probably, than to admit she was living with me—that’d get me weird looks. “Yeah, she does,” Eiko agreed. “So that’s what you’re into, huh?” she asked, making me sound like a lesbian. She threw her chest forward in some attempt to show off, I guess, but it wasn’t much bigger than mine. “That girl rents herself out,” Satou chimed in with an offhand remark, which got all of us staring at her in surprise. She seemed kind of overwhelmed by the sudden attention. “At least, that’s what I heard people saying.” “Rings a bell, actually,” said Eiko. “Huh.” She stared at Mizuike in the distance with undisguised curiosity. As for Mizuike, I don’t think she noticed us watching her. She kept running at the same unmotivated pace. So there were rumors about Mizuike selling herself. I’d already suspected as much, but hearing about it from other kids at my school made me certain. Even though gossip was the only proof at the moment. “I’ve never heard those rumors, but I did see her hanging out by the station late at night,” Shiina added. “Huh,” I muttered, feigning lack of interest. “And what were you doing at the station late at night?” asked Eiko. “Going home from my part-time job,” Shiina replied huffily, offended Eiko was insinuating she had her own unsavory side hustle. Satou had more to say. “I also heard she’s homeless and used to get bullied for being poor. There’s all sorts of rumors about her!” I could vouch for at least part of that, but Satou didn’t have to keep spreading it around. As for the rest, some of the girls must’ve been in the same elementary or junior high school as Mizuike. The info about the bullying would’ve come from them. These girls would be in for a shock if I revealed Mizuike was sharing a room with me. They’d probably never talk to me again. We were only casual friends who chatted about nonconfrontational stuff. “Eh, I bet people make up all sorts of nasty gossip about her because she’s pretty,” Shiina opined. “Heh,” Eiko laughed. “No one ever talks crap about us, so what does that say?” “Ha-ha-ha.” Laughter was a convenient way to dodge the expectation of making a comment. And I knew people gossiped about me sometimes, mainly because of my hair color. Anyway, I’d learned I wasn’t the only one who thought Mizuike was exceptionally good-looking. Our turn to run came around, and the girls reluctantly got up and started walking toward the track. Eiko and Satou went on ahead, while Shiina stayed beside me. She leaned in to whisper into my ear. “I saw you walking to school with Mizuike.” It was like a sharp needle had pierced my temple, coming right out the other side without any pain. Shiina’s unaffected, masculine way of talking made me decide to be honest with her. “Yeah, I did.” “You cool with people knowing, or nah?” “I’d rather not.” “Okay.” She walked away without pressing the matter. Shiina kept to herself and only spoke when she had something to say. She was a good friend to have and naturally considerate, so she wouldn’t give me trouble, but I cursed myself for being so careless. Of course someone would notice me arriving at school together with Mizuike. Never mind that I’d had no idea there were rumors about her—I should’ve been more careful. You have to watch your back at school. “Come on! You’re running, too!” Shiina called to me. I jumped to my feet, brushed the sand off my butt, and hurried to join my friends. Mizuike was walking back from the track quite far behind her group. We passed by each other in silence. I didn’t feel obliged to acknowledge her in any way, and my voice would’ve gotten caught in my throat anyway now that I knew what sorts of things people were saying about her. But after a few paces, I turned my head to look back at her. I won’t lie; I was hoping for…something, a little bit, but Mizuike wasn’t looking at me. So I stopped looking at her, too, and started walking faster. Any connection I had imagined was just loose strands of thread. The frustration made my body feel hotter. My face and shoulders tensed up from self-consciousness. I hadn’t been careful outside school, but that was a mistake. It’d been on my mind throughout the classes that day, and it still nagged at me as I packed my bags after the last lesson. People were already saying Mizuike was involved in something sketchy, and if they saw her hanging out with the girl with attention-grabbing hair, it’d fuel their imagination even more. For my reputation, I’d have to avoid going to school at the same time as Mizuike. That was a pain in the neck, though. Maybe too much. If people found out we were living together, what did I have to lose? Just my friends… On second thought, that’d be pretty bad. The thought of having to establish even stricter rules between Mizuike and me, though, drained me of energy. Yeah, it was too much work. Also, Mizuike would probably agree to keep away from me, and I’d never be able to get close to her again. But so what? I didn’t care about being close to her. Did I? “Argh… What’s up with me…?” I hated not being able to make up my mind. Ever since she’d arrived, it was like I was fighting myself and getting kicked around like an idiot, unable to find any peace. If it wasn’t for her, my life would be nice and uneventful until I graduated, and…and what? I wanted to leave this town and move somewhere far away, but I had no detailed vision for how to achieve that. Could I do it, just by letting life go on without sticking my head out? And anyway, I’d move somewhere else, and then what? I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to live elsewhere. I arrived home from school, no change to the status quo, apart from the fact that I was more acutely aware of being stuck in that town, in that life. As soon as I went in, I saw Mizuike, who was tidying up the entrance hall. There was no escape for me. “Oh. Hi.” “Hi.” I looked down at Mizuike. She was carefully wiping the floor with a cleaning cloth. I stared at her head as if I could peer into it and discover the truth behind the rumors, but all I could see was that the nape of her neck looked very pretty with her hair cascading down it. I took off my shoes, giving up on trying to supernaturally sense Mizuike’s secrets. I felt bad about putting my shoes on the floor while she was cleaning, but she didn’t seem to mind. On the one hand, it was great to have someone else do the cleaning—but on the other, having to do all the chores again once she was gone might feel even more tiresome than before. She reckoned we’d kick her and her mom out after about a month, but I wondered about that. Her mom and mine were friends, after all; Mizuike was paying us back for any expenses; and…having her in the house no longer bothered me. I couldn’t think of a reason to kick her and her mom out. Maybe they’d stay with us longer than a month, then. Maybe…forever? I never would’ve guessed our household would expand in such a way. I caught sight of a human-shaped white curtain moving busily on the floor of the living room. It was Mizuike’s mom, of course. Like her daughter, she was wiping the floor with a cloth. I wondered what had bitten her to make her join in with the chores after she’d seemed totally disinterested in contributing before. Her thin butt was facing toward me, shaking this way and that as she worked. She kept moving backward on all fours, until her feet bumped into mine. It was only then that she noticed me. “Welcome back.” “Thanks…” I hadn’t really spoken to her before, so I wasn’t sure what tone to use or what degree of formality. “Umi told me I should help out with the chores, too,” Mizuike’s mom explained. “Um, cool. Thanks.” The fragile woman stood up unsteadily. She looked at my hair with friendly curiosity. “Takasora, your hair! That’s your natural color, isn’t it?” “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” “Took after your dad?” “As far as I know.” Sure didn’t take after my mom—her hair was tar black. I couldn’t really remember my dad’s face, though, or how old I’d been when he’d still been living with us. My memories of him were like blurry photographs. I couldn’t make them move, no matter how hard I tried. Except I was pretty sure his hair was almost exactly the same shade as mine. I did remember looking way, way up at him and his hair, which had been like golden threads. “You must be turning heads with your hair, but let me tell you, Nat had crazy-colored hair in high school, too!” “‘Nat’…?” Ah, right. My mother. “It was a surprise for me to find out she’d moved here.” “She’s not from this town?” “No. We grew up in another town.” “I didn’t know that…” I hadn’t had any idea my mother had ever moved. She must’ve done it before I was born. The conversation paused on a weird note, but Mizuike’s mom seemed perfectly chill. Maybe she was like my mom and she just wasn’t sensitive to (or didn’t care about) the general mood. “Well, anyway,” I said, gave a small nod, and turned to go to my room. “Takasora,” Mizuike’s mom quietly called after me, and I turned. She was right behind me—too close behind me. Her voice was soft but impossible to ignore. Her face didn’t resemble Mizuike’s, but maybe the reason was that this woman always wore a big cheerful expression, while her daughter’s face was calm like the windless sea. “Please be nice to Umi. It’s my fault she doesn’t have any friends.” She dropped that on me with a nonchalant smile. “Um…” “Yes,” she said, as if offering me my line. I had no choice but to nod like a child getting orders from an adult. I couldn’t exactly tell Mizuike’s mom that being friends with her daughter might get me in trouble because whatever she was doing out at night was causing rumors at school. She was probably aware of that anyway. Something told me she wasn’t the type to correct her daughter’s conduct, because she was powerless to enforce any kind of rules. “I’ll… I’ll see what I can do,” I said noncommittally and ran away to my room. Mizuike’s mom made me uncomfortable in a different way from her daughter. In my room, I dropped my school bag on the floor, sitting down heavily next to it. School, home—Mizuike was leaving imprints on all aspects of my life. She was just a roommate, but she was quickly becoming a central figure. My mother came home when we finished dinner. She practically collapsed on Mizuike’s mom, falling like a sack of potatoes to the floor. “I’m so done! Please help.” “Aw. Wanna rest your head in my lap?” “What a question!” My mother impatiently flailed her arms and legs. I decided to leave them. In my room, Mizuike was studying as usual. I sat down near her, watching her—also as usual. I was still a little unsure of how close to sit. I was testing our boundaries by trial and error. Finding a comfortable distance was of utmost importance if we were going to keep living together. “What do you want to do after you get smarter?” I asked, since studying was the only thing I ever saw Mizuike get really into. “Uh…,” she muttered, frowning, still holding her textbook by the cover. “Well, you have to get smart to know what doors it’ll open for you. So I dunno what I wanna do yet.” “Hmm.” It sounded deep but probably wasn’t. “How about you, Hoshi?” she asked me. “What about me?” She’d realized my name was just Hoshi, not Sorahoshi. Lots of people made that mistake, so it didn’t bother me. “You got any dreams for the future?” “Dreams, huh? Hmm…” Dreams didn’t have to be anything precise, but at the same time, I felt like I wouldn’t get away with making something up on the spot. But thinking about it or even talking about it, I felt like I could only see my ideas for the future through a mosaic. “Just things like…wanting to leave this town.” “Getting an apartment of your own somewhere?” It wasn’t exactly that I wanted a place of my own, but it would be a natural consequence of moving out. “It’s like, ‘What am I doing with my life,’ you know? The classic teenage existential crisis.” I laughed, hoping to see Mizuike laughing for the first time, too. But she took what I’d said with total seriousness. “I get it, kinda.” “…Yeah?” Guess she would have a crisis worse than mine, considering what she was doing. Neither of us seemed to know what to do to change our respective situations, though. I wanted to get her talking more about herself, but we were interrupted by the chime of a phone. Not mine, I realized with annoyance. Mizuike picked up her phone and stared at it. “I’ll be going out.” “Overnight?” “Yeah.” After that monosyllabic answer, she started getting herself ready. She left the room quickly, and I sat with my arms around my knees, overcome with that frustrating feeling of having an itch somewhere but not knowing where to scratch. I didn’t like it. Whatever Mizuike’s reasons, whatever her background, I just didn’t like what she was doing. I hated it so much. I took deep breaths to calm myself down, not wanting the roiling waves of my indignation to crash into Mizuike. She returned from the bathroom and started to undress. I didn’t turn away this time, but I became so self-conscious of watching her that my shoulders stiffened up. Why was I being like this? I couldn’t stop watching her spine; my eyes and cheeks were hot like I was going to cry. Mizuike finished changing quickly, but my gaze lingered on her, like I hadn’t had enough. I thought about how someone else would get to look at her as much as they liked, and even more than that… My chest tightened painfully, anxiously. “Going to study with friends?” I asked sarcastically when she put her textbook in her bag, telling myself I didn’t really care. Mizuike picked up her bag and turned toward me. “Maybe.” “Yeah?” Why did I have to give her attitude? It was so obvious I was in a mood. I was totally failing at pretending I was fine, like a little kid who couldn’t control their feelings. I had to look away, but then I heard Mizuike say something as she was leaving. “Oh, a study group?” her mom said. I looked up at Mizuike. “…Ah…” She was smiling. That glimpse as she was heading out pierced my soul. Her first smile that I got to see. So that’s what she looked like when she smiled. There were no hidden thorns in it. It rose from her soul, like a soft, gentle caress of the wind. Its impact was silent, but it went straight through my body and into my heart, where it would stay forever. I never would have imagined a smile could be so powerful, and probably only Mizuike could manage it. The invader in my life had attacked me from yet another side. “What the hell…?” My head felt too heavy to support with my hand, so I unrolled my futon and threw myself on it. My eyes felt dry, like I hadn’t been blinking enough. I was wide-awake, and for some reason, I sensed a smile beginning to form on my face. Where were these emotions coming from? I had no idea. The cells of my body were working on something without my intervention; something was sprouting in between the turbulent waves of feelings. I felt like an egg from which something was hatching, a new life forming amid the pain. These sensations confused me. My strength drained out of me, as if I was coming down with a fever. I didn’t know how to make the afterimage of that smile stop haunting me. I shut my eyes, rubbed my face, and lay face down on the bed. Why had she left with that smile on her face? It hadn’t been for me. She’d never smiled at me, not once. Who was she going to meet? What was that person to her? The lack of information was feeding my doubts. If the school rumors were right, Mizuike wouldn’t be going out smiling so sincerely. That sort of world was entirely alien to me, but I was pretty sure there was nothing heartwarming about it. No, the rumors had to be wrong. But then what was Mizuike up to? I didn’t know where she had come from or where she was going out to. I tried to think from her perspective, and it didn’t help. Everything about Mizuike was elusive. I rolled on the futon this way and that, as if I was too deep in mud to drag myself out. What was Mizuike doing at that moment? I couldn’t get that question out of my head. No matter how much I tossed and turned, staring at this or that wall, I couldn’t stop thinking. “You should see your face right now.” “Don’t really want to.” “You look so serious. Poised.” “What?” I was probably just squinting because my eyes were bad. I’d met with Ms. Chiki outside the station as usual and gone to a hotel, but we were studying that evening. The thing about a study group had turned out to be true. I was studying in a ridiculously luxurious setting, breathing in the loveliest of scents. I ran my finger over the slightly worn-out cover of my textbook. “You didn’t get to study at all last time, so I wanted to make it up to you.” “That’s kind of you. Thanks.” It was nice of her, but…I was disappointed. When I’d gone out to meet Ms. Chiki, I hadn’t been in the mood for studying. No, it wasn’t a mood; it was… I don’t know. Anticipation? That’s not quite right, either. I’d gone on the train fighting with words in my head. I had tension in my shoulders and a heaviness in my stomach. Once my expectations had collapsed, I should’ve just chucked them. But no, maybe there would be something else after we finished studying. Ms. Chiki was sitting on the edge of the bed with a book in her hand. It had a cover over it, so I couldn’t see the title. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, her legs were crossed, and her eyes and her nose were all pointing downward—everything was so elegant, like a waterfall. Ms. Chiki was picture-perfect, I thought to myself, and then I looked back down at my notebook. I’d ask Ms. Chiki for help if there was something I didn’t understand, but if I could do the exercises by myself, I didn’t bother her. I worried about her wasting her time on me. When I was with her, I was always conscious of her presence. I could totally forget most people were in a room with me, but not her. “What are you reading?” I asked her, even though I probably wouldn’t know the book. “Faint Blue Sky.” “Ah.” Yep, never heard of it. “It’s by Shouko Kai. A really good read.” “Is it?” Why had I asked her about the book when I knew I wouldn’t have anything smart to say? I looked searchingly at Ms. Chiki. She wasn’t lifting her eyes off the book, but I didn’t want her to catch me staring, so I quickly turned away. “You don’t read much, do you?” she asked me. “I don’t read at all.” I had never read a book apart from the stories in my Japanese textbooks. “Not even manga?” “No. I don’t even know any manga.” I hadn’t been exposed to any of that when I was little, so I’d grown up without any interest in it. We moved from one house to another often, and I had to make myself invisible to avoid getting in trouble with our hosts, so I never did anything for fun. If the room I was staying in had a window, I’d stare out of it. That was how I used to spend my time. I’d just watch the sky, not thinking about anything in particular. I felt a bit happier when evening came, because sleeping was the best part of my life. “Do you hold a grudge against your mom?” “Huh? Why?” “For not giving you a better life.” Ms. Chiki usually spoke in a calm, composed voice, but that time, there were sharp thorns in her tone. Was she angry? Why? Who at? I was really confused. She wouldn’t be angry at my mom out of sympathy for me; that was for sure. I wasn’t smart, but I wasn’t that naive, either. “I don’t hold anything against her. I don’t hate my mom. How could I when…?” “When what?” “Never mind,” I muttered, realizing I didn’t want to talk about it. Without me, my mom would have an easier life. She wouldn’t have trouble finding people who’d let her move in with them. That was why I felt responsible… No, that wasn’t the right word. The right word wasn’t coming to me. I turned over a page in my textbook, then another, and another, before I settled on calling it “feeling obligated” to my mom. I couldn’t hate her because I felt obligated to her. “Hmm,” Ms. Chiki muttered. Short nonreplies like that scared me. Ms. Chiki was unreadable to me at the best of times, and when she stopped talking, I had no idea what was going on. Was she angry, amused, or indifferent? I couldn’t decipher her expression. I should’ve been studying her, not English vocabulary. Interpreting Ms. Chiki’s behavior was a more useful skill for me to know. Neither of us was speaking. I used to like it when everything was quiet around me, because any involvement with other people meant danger. But the silence between me and Ms. Chiki was hard to bear. She was so gentle with me. I wanted her to keep being gentle. I didn’t want her attitude to change. I was scared it might. My feelings began to trickle out like raindrops. Or tears. Salty droplets laying my heart bare. “Umi…” “Yes?” “What color is your underwear?” I stopped doing my English vocab exercises. I didn’t have the brain space to make sense of sentences in another language. I forced myself to get a grip, put my pen down, and turned toward Ms. Chiki. “Sorry, what were you asking?” “The color of your underwear today.” I hadn’t misheard, and it was too blunt to mean she was making fun of me. I wondered whether to answer that question at all, but Ms. Chiki’s intense gaze always melted my resolve. “It’s…blue.” Dark blue or powder blue? I couldn’t remember the color of my own undies. “Nice. Show me.” Ms. Chiki snapped her book shut and watched me excitedly, as if I was going to show her a magic trick. I was really confused, wondering if I was misunderstanding something. “Why?” “Why do you think? Because I want to see your panties!” Why would a person so smart act like such a total idiot sometimes? “You’ve seen them before.” “But not today.” Her eyes were sparkling. I knew I couldn’t say no to her when she gave me that look, so I reluctantly stood up and managed to summon about half of the anticipation I’d felt before coming to see Ms. Chiki. As I started to remove my shirt, she said, “No. Just the bottom.” “You want me to…keep the top on?” “Correct! Take off your pants!” I couldn’t even be bothered to ask why she wanted it that way. Whatever, I’d satisfy her weird request. I reached for the button of my shorts. “No, this is a shameless abuse of power. I shouldn’t bend an unwilling girl to my will with money,” she interrupted me again, swinging her legs playfully. What she said wasn’t untrue, but hearing her say it… I didn’t like it. My hands closed into fists. “It’s not because of your money,” I protested. It was like she was denying we had a relationship. “I need the money, but it’s not because of the money that I do these things for you. I wouldn’t do it for anyone who offered to pay me. I’m not doing it just to please you… I mean, I want to please you, too… It’s just… I don’t even know what I’m saying.” My ears were burning. I was trying to talk around my deepest feelings, tripping over my own words. All I succeeded at was showing I was hopeless at getting a point across. “Well, well,” Ms. Chiki said, grinning, as if she had gleaned some meaning from me after all. “In other words, you’re undressing for me purely because you want to. That makes me even happier.” “Uh… I guess…” I couldn’t deny it now; I’d dug my own grave. I was starting to sweat from embarrassment. Ms. Chiki sprang up from the bed and pounced on me, grasping my hand and pulling me close before I had the time to react. She pressed her lips to mine, but she didn’t slide her tongue in. It was just a gentle kiss. “I love you.” She’d let go of my lips, but I was panting heavily, my heart about to jump out of my chest. “That’s—That’s a lie…” I was gasping for air; I was only saying that to stop myself from giving in to the sweet pleasure of believing Ms. Chiki’s confession. I didn’t deserve such happiness. “You’re a coward.” She was probably right. Ms. Chiki laughed and walked back to the bed. She bounced up and down impatiently, and I started to regret letting my feelings out of their bottle. I closed my eyes and pulled down my shorts. Stupidly, I tried to get both of my feet out at the same time, and I tripped, almost falling forward. I was drowning in shame by then. “Are you happy now?” I asked, standing in front of Ms. Chiki in just my top and my panties. I’d often be naked in front of her, but somehow, being only partly undressed was more embarrassing. Being put on display like that made my cheeks hot. Or maybe I was blushing because I felt insecure about my lower body. When I was fully naked with Ms. Chiki, she never gave me any time to think too deeply about what was happening. “Whether you cover your panties with your hand or offer me a full view, you look equally obscene.” “You’re the only obscene one here.” “Let’s take a closer look.” She leaned toward my panties to inspect them. I was really starting to sweat now, and I wanted to ask her to stop. Blood was rushing to my ears, and they felt like ripe fruit dangling from a tree. “Ah, I recognize these! I had you take them off for me before.” “You could’ve just said you’d seen them before.” I had a flashback to that time. “Well, well,” she said, finishing her inspection. She sat back down on the bed, opening her book. “Can I put my pants back on now?” “No,” she said without even looking at me. I wished she’d look. What was I showing the goods for? No, actually, I didn’t want her staring at me, but was she going to make me keep studying without my pants on? “I think I’ve had enough reading for now. Going to take a bath.” “What…?” Ms. Chiki put down the book after barely reading a page, and she started swiftly removing her clothes. I looked away from her as soon as I saw what she was doing, even though I’d seen her naked many times. Maybe it was different because the lights were on? “Why don’t you undress in the bathroom?” I asked. “I love the hotel atmosphere. It feels great to throw my head back and just breathe in the air.” “Did you hear what I said…?” She probably did mean it about loving hotels. She’d get excited just sitting in the lobby. “Would you like to get in the bath with me?” she asked, swinging her panties around her index finger. She was naked and made no attempt to cover any part of her body from me. My heart immediately flooded with intense emotions. The temperature difference between my cold feet and burning cheeks sent a shudder down my spine. “Not today.” “Okay, I’ll go in without you.” “Enjoy…” I stood where I was, watching her shapely butt disappear behind the bathroom door. “This is killing me…” Memories of the things Ms. Chiki had me do for her, which I had complied with, crowded my head. The heat, the wetness, the feel of her skin, the steam, her hair, her lips—all sorts of images were flashing one after another, making it impossible to gather my thoughts. The skin on my face hurt like it was going to fall off. I sat down, or rather, collapsed onto the floor, pressing my hands to my temples to fight back a sudden headache. I keeled over onto the floor, after which I clumsily crept to the bed. I thought about the phrase stark naked, which was exactly what Ms. Chiki had been a moment ago, but what was the point of stark being there? You were naked, or you weren’t; what did it add? My cheeks felt rigid, and I couldn’t keep my eyelids up. With my eyes closed, it was dark, and sounds seemed more distant. The focus of my senses drifted to my nose. I smelled something pleasant, which made me curious enough to open my eyes a little. I saw Ms. Chiki’s clothes scattered over the bed. Having established the source of the nice scent, I lay back down. I couldn’t look at Ms. Chiki’s clothes, especially her underwear. It made me feel weirdly self-conscious, like I was staring at her body. My stupid brain was obsessively thinking about how those items of clothing had been rubbing against Ms. Chiki’s skin all day. I slammed my head against the mattress to get those thoughts out, but it was too soft to be of any help. A cheaper, thinner mattress would’ve been better. Sometime later, Ms. Chiki came out from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, dressed in the hotel bathrobe and with her hair wrapped in a towel. I got off the bed, giving it over to her now she was back. “Are you sleepy?” she asked me. “Nah, not really,” I muttered indistinctly, walking back to my chair with my head hung. It was only when I heard Ms. Chiki turn the pages of her book again that I managed to steer my thoughts back to studying. I looked down at my textbook, remembering I was doing English exercises. Compared with the subjects I really sucked at, my English grades weren’t so bad…but that didn’t make them good, either. If you could make things good by comparing them with something worse, nothing would be bad ever. Anyway, English vocab was easy. Learn it by heart, write it down, no need to even think about it. What was hard for me was math. Modern Japanese was also a pain. I’d told Ms. Chiki earlier which subjects I was the worst at, and she’d laughed, saying she was bad with numbers, too. Why was it funny to her? “Umi…” “…Yes?” Something about her tone put me on guard. “Let’s go shopping for lingerie next time.” “Sorry?” I was so thrown. I could’ve sworn she was going to ask me to take off my panties, not talk about me putting more on. I mean, I had them on right now. “Why do you want to buy me panties?” “To have you wear them, of course,” she replied patiently. I turned to shoot her a look, tired of her weird ideas. She wasn’t looking at me, though, apparently engrossed in her book. “I noticed you don’t have that many pairs.” “I guess I don’t…” As long as I had enough to last me until laundry day, I thought it was fine. “I’m so excited for our shopping date!” I hadn’t agreed yet, but she had already decided we’d go. It wasn’t like I could’ve said no anyhow, for more than one reason. We mostly met in hotels, so going out with Ms. Chiki somewhere else would be… I didn’t know how to put it into words. What do you call the emotion when it’s like you can walk with your back straight and your head up and feel the breeze on your chest? I didn’t know. Ever since I’d met Ms. Chiki, I’d often thought I was too inexperienced to know what’s what. Ms. Chiki’s book must’ve been funny, because her shoulders would shake every now and again as she quietly laughed. Her damp hair would shake, too, glistening prettily like it was emitting the light it had absorbed earlier. Ms. Chiki wasn’t naked, so I didn’t feel bad about watching her. I ended up just staring until she noticed. “Hmm? Do you want something?” “No, I…was just looking at you laughing. Is the book good?” I hoped I’d managed to make it sound casual. Ms. Chiki turned as if to show me the book cover. “It is. I love the foul language; it’s exactly to my taste.” “The…foul language…?” Did Ms. Chiki ever swear viciously at anyone? With me, she was always smiling, so I couldn’t imagine her yelling at people. I only knew her from one side, though. “So reading books can be fun?” “Depending on the book, of course,” she said, cocking her head at me. “You really don’t even read manga?” “I don’t.” I was pretty sure I had never read any. I never read any books in the houses we stayed at, afraid the host would get mad if I touched anything. I’d never gotten into the habit of reading. “I guess it must be fun, since so many people read books… I don’t really know what I’m talking about, though.” I didn’t get why fun was such a big deal to people. What was “fun,” exactly? Smiling and laughing seemed to mean you were enjoying yourself, but did you have to be smiling or laughing to be having fun? I rarely… No, I never laughed. Pretty sure of that. I didn’t know if I ever smiled—I didn’t sit in front of a mirror all day—but I doubted it. If I ever had fun, it was so rare that I’d never learned how to recognize it. I told Ms. Chiki about this as best I could. She put a bookmark between the pages of her book and closed it. “Interesting.” She looked around the room and checked the time on the wall clock. “I’ve already had a bath, but… Well, doesn’t matter.” She put the towel on the bed and started stripping off her bathrobe off in such a hurry, you’d think it was burning her. I gasped and turned away from her. Do I have to? I asked myself. I could feel my pulse in my neck, and I was starting to sweat. I turned the page of my textbook, unseeing, hearing the bathrobe fall onto the floor. It was like I was linked to her, my body responding more to her than myself. I wanted to bang my head against the wall, but that’d make Ms. Chiki worry. “I’m just going out to buy something.” “This late?” At that hour, only convenience and liquor stores were open. I turned toward Ms. Chiki. She was dressed, holding her wallet, ready to go out. “I’ll be back soon,” she said and left. It’d happened so confusingly fast. I didn’t want her to leave me alone in the hotel room. A chill ran down my back, being all by myself in that huge space. That feeling of not belonging came back to me stronger than ever. The pretty nighttime cityscape out the window suddenly looked cold. I was so lonely and anxious that I had to stand up to search for somewhere else to sit, where I’d be calmer. I walked around, and everywhere was too overwhelmingly spacious. In the end, I squeezed myself in between the bed and the sideboard, with my back against the wall. I could breathe more easily there, feeling more secure. I’d gotten too used to living in cramped spaces. “What the hell am I doing here…?” I was intimidated by the hotel room, a place I’d never be able to enter if it wasn’t for someone else bringing me along. A fear came over me that someone would come and ask how I’d gotten in, then tell me to get out. I was imagining myself as the victim because that was the most common situation for me. Everyone shunned me, especially when I’d been little. All my memories of other people were of them giving me the cold shoulder. I had to raise my head up, because staring at the floor was triggering all those painful memories to come back to me one by one. I saw Ms. Chiki had left her expensive-looking bag and smartphone on the sideboard. That’s reckless of her, I thought, glancing at them out of the corner of my eye. Not much I could do with her phone, but the contents of her bag… Not that I’d do anything so outrageous. Anyway, if there was money inside, it’d just be what she’d hand over to me at the end anyway… But wait, would she pay me? We hadn’t done anything; I had only been studying. She was paying me for…other services, after all. I scratched my forehead and the hair above it to get rid of the feelings of shame connected to everything Ms. Chiki and I had been doing. What had Ms. Chiki been thinking anyway? She’d invited me to the hotel just for me to study? No, she’d had me show her my panties. That was already pretty raunchy, which probably meant my job was done. I always had to guess at what the rules were. That bag, though, kept drawing my eyes. There might be some kind of ID in it, which would tell me Ms. Chiki’s real name, if nothing else. I was more interested in uncovering Ms. Chiki’s secrets than my own future or anything like that. I held my breath. I could easily take a look inside her bag then and there. “No…” I held my right hand with my left, stopping it from reaching for the bag. I couldn’t do it. I was dying with curiosity about Ms. Chiki, the mysterious woman. But enough to go rummaging in her bag without permission? No, no, no. I turned my head away from the bag and rested my chin in my hand. I gave up on that idea not because it was wrong, but because Ms. Chiki would be disappointed in me if she found out, and I was terrified of that. “Ugh… I’m hopeless.” Why had I ended up becoming so dependent on Ms. Chiki? Because she was so pretty? Because I was desperate for attention? Both of those were true, but what clinched it was that she made me feel needed. She was paying to get what she needed from me, but still. “…Hmm?” A feeling struck me—just a minor thing that didn’t feel right, like a pebble in a shoe. It was too vague for me to mull over it, though, so I soon thought about something else—what had Ms. Chiki gone out to buy? “Don’t tell me she went out to buy me panties…” She’d been talking about that before going out, so maybe that was it. Maybe she just couldn’t wait to make me change into the new ones in front of her. But would any stores that sell panties be open this late? I wasn’t familiar with that part of town. Maybe in the city center, there were lingerie stores open until late, brightly lit and inviting even in the middle of the night. I knew too little about the world to tell. It used to be my goal to see more of the world and move somewhere else, but then my curiosity about Ms. Chiki had reordered my priorities. I was really dumb, wasn’t I? I wanted Ms. Chiki to hurry up and come back already, and the fact that I was being so needy made me feel like even more of an idiot. But what could I do? “I’m baaack!” she called from the doorway soon enough. Now I was full of guilt because of the weird thoughts I’d been having, and I didn’t reply. She found me next to the bed and walked briskly up to me to give me a kiss like before. And like before, it took my breath away. My mind instantly went blank, and my body went limp and hot. “You didn’t welcome me back, so I stole a kiss!” “…Sometimes, I wonder if you’re really from this planet.” “And I’m wondering why you’re sitting there.” She took my hand and pulled me out of the gap between the furniture. “It was cozy,” I told her, and she laughed. “I suppose I know what you mean.” I was surprised because I’d been sure she’d say something about how weird I was being. Ms. Chiki put her wallet on top of her bag and gave me the thing she had gone out to buy. She just had it in her hand, not even in a shopping bag. “What’s this?” A book? It didn’t look like a novel. “A manga. Let’s read it together.” The cover was very colorful, as cheerful as Ms. Chiki’s smile. Not knowing how to react, I froze. Ms. Chiki sat down on the bed and gestured for me to come closer, so I did. When she patted the bed, I obediently sat down next to her. “Ah…” I’d forgotten I wasn’t wearing my shorts, and I felt a wave of embarrassment seeing my naked legs next to Ms. Chiki’s. I should’ve gotten dressed again when she was out. “They only had the latest volume at the convenience store, but it shouldn’t matter.” The manga she’d bought was a popular title that even I had heard of. It was about some boy with stretchy arms. Or was it legs? “It’s really fun, reading manga. This is what I want you to learn today.” “‘Learn,’ huh…” Ms. Chiki excitedly opened the manga for me, so I took a look inside. There were lots of black and white lines. “You’ve got to learn about all sorts of ways to have a good time, sweetie,” Ms. Chiki said in a tone as soft as a mother’s caress, gently guiding me toward new experiences. She always made my objections melt on my tongue like candy before I could speak them. Ms. Chiki was looking at the manga happily, but I was focused on her profile. Emotions started welling up inside me, each politely waiting their turn to wash over me. “Ms. Chiki.” Her name slipped out of my mouth. “Hmm?” She wouldn’t know how tracing the shape of her name with my tongue was both terribly satisfying and making me hungrier for what I could never have enough of. She was waiting for me to speak, smiling gently. “Um…” I hadn’t said her name because I had anything to tell her, but I remembered there was something I should say. “Thank you.” I couldn’t meet her eyes, sure that I was making a stupid face, so I kept my head down the way I always did. “It was my pleasure,” I heard her reply. With that, she began teaching me, like a private tutor, how to read manga. “You read from the top right, to the left, and then move down to the next row.” “Okay…” I followed where she was pointing with her finger, but she moved it so fast that I couldn’t keep up. “It’s…” “Yes?” “It’s really messy…but I think I get it.” There was so much information on every page, I didn’t know where to look at first. There was text around the drawings of people, written in large characters here, small there, on this side, on that side. Trying to follow it was like doing some kind of weird eye-muscle exercise. “Don’t worry, we’ll read it together.” “Okay…” Ms. Chiki started reading the text…the dialogue, I guess? She was going over every line, pointing to which picture to look at next, and explaining in detail the relationships between the characters in the story. She was so kind and patient with me—maybe it was an act, I wouldn’t know—bringing me into something I had never tried before. It made me feel so comfortable and relaxed, like warming my back against a radiator in the winter. “…” I wasn’t sure I wasn’t dreaming. A cooling breeze was taking off the edge of the summer heat. I was in a room with clean walls and a clean ceiling, sitting on top of a luxuriously soft bed with clean sheets that felt nice to touch. The lighting was perfect; I could see the glimmering night cityscape out the window, and the air smelled of flowers. It really was like a dream. I had to be asleep. Ms. Chiki’s voice as she read to me only enhanced that feeling. I saw something round: big bubbles. They were shaking but not bursting. “What’s that…?” They started rolling down, and my vision became blurry. “Umi…” “Everything’s fine. I don’t know why this is happening.” I felt out of touch with my tears. More were coming, and I couldn’t really see anymore. There were so many; they were streaming out of my eyes so rapidly, I wondered if my eyeballs were going to dry and shrivel up. They kept falling like raindrops onto my thighs, splashing them wet. The teardrops were big and heavy and hurt when they hit my skin. Despite everything, I didn’t feel any different. I wasn’t feeling tearful at all, but out of the blue, my eyes were running. It was as automatic as breathing. I sensed something bigger was going to follow the tears soon. “Pain in the ass.” I started wiping my eyes, but another hand, familiarly soft, grasped my wrist and stopped me. “You can’t cry outside, can you? So let it all out here.” “…I don’t want to.” I probably looked awful crying, and I didn’t want Ms. Chiki to see me like that. Except I couldn’t stop the tears. Ms. Chiki continued reading to me while I cried, and listening to her only made me cry more and more. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t. I didn’t! Why were those tears streaming from my eyes? Why were there so many of them? Why was Ms. Chiki being so kind to me? Nothing was making sense. Nobody needed me. Nobody wanted me. I was the extra wheel. I was a burden. An annoying brat. Many people had made it clear to me that I was a waste of space, but Ms. Chiki was sitting next to me and reading to me in a voice filled with kindness and warmth. And I was melting in it. Maybe she was letting me see her soft side to get me totally addicted to her. Her kindness was all I wanted. I didn’t want it from anyone else—only from Ms. Chiki. I was shaking, and along with the tears, it was all coming out—the feelings I’d been denying and bottling up for too long. I knew I’d ultimately suffer because of them, because she wouldn’t feel the same. I loved Ms. Chiki. I wanted her to be kind to me, to love me, to love me, to love me, to love me, to love me, to love me, to love me, to love me, to love me, to love me, to love me. I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her. I loved her. I loved her, I loved her. I loved her, I loved her, I loved her. I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her! I loved her, I loved her! I loved her! I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her! I loved her, I loved her! I wanted her so much. The emotions I’d been cramming into a tiny corner of my heart had turned into tears and were flowing freely, as if they’d never stop. They were gushing out in a torrent straight from my suffocatingly tight chest. “Sorry, this has nothing to do with the tears…” “Hmm?” I still couldn’t really see out of my eyes, but my other senses were working. I felt cold air on my legs. “Can I put my pants back on now?” “No.” Why?! I felt my gastric fluids sloshing inside me like waves, coming up, then retreating again. At least they were retreating back to their place. Helplessly uncomfortable, I stared into the darkness, praying for the night to end already. My throat was parched, but I didn’t feel like getting up to get water. I just wanted it to end. But what was “it”? I couldn’t say, exactly. I was at home, but I felt a longing like homesickness. Was it loneliness? Anxiety? Some chilling feeling, like my blood draining. I was missing something and had nothing to fill the emptiness. I’d been in that mental state all evening and into the night. I felt trapped, rooted to the spot. My limbs felt so bone-dry, I thought I might start rattling like an actual skeleton when the door slowly slid open and startled me. It was still dark outside. “Welcome back.” “Oh.” She was faintly surprised. I awkwardly got up, wrapped in my blanket. Mizuike, still standing in the doorway, was staring at me. I had no idea if I’d gotten much rest at all. Awake or asleep, I’d been obsessively thinking about the same thing anyway. Actually, I was pretty sure I’d barely caught any sleep, waiting for her return. What was up with me? What was up with her? “You’re up early today,” she said. “It was too hot to sleep.” The lie came easier to me than I’d expected. The room did, in fact, get very hot, so you could forget about having a refreshing start to the day. It was like riding on the train with summer itself sitting on the seat across from you. Mizuike went to her usual corner. She sighed, put down her bag carefully next to her, and sat with her chin in her hand and eyes closed, as if thinking hard about something. Or maybe she was just sleepy. I didn’t feel like trying to fall back asleep, either, so I sat down like her and watched her without making it obvious I was doing it. At least, I hoped it wasn’t obvious. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off Mizuike since she’d gotten back. “…” It wasn’t that I was curious… No, a darker feeling arose in me. I was dying to ask her about her night out. She had that floral scent on her again. Where had she picked it up from? Was it a smell of the place she’d been to? Or the person she’d been with? I wanted to lean in close and pepper her with questions, but she probably wouldn’t tell me anything. Worse, she might shut me out altogether. Just thinking about it made me depressed. It was as if new buildings were cropping up all over the land of my mind, and I didn’t know if it was me developing or someone else taking over. Mizuike slowly opened her eyes and yawned. Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. She was going to wipe them, but she stopped midmotion, looking at her hand thoughtfully. She’d come back in the morning, and she was tired. Where had she been? What had she been doing? I wanted to ask her so badly, but considering our relationship, I wasn’t in a position to do that. What would my relation to her have to be for me to be able to ask her anything? I hated having to sit in silence. To think that not so long ago, I couldn’t even stand looking at Mizuike… No, that was a lie. Right from the start, I’d enjoyed looking at her. She’s so pretty, after all, I thought, looking at her profile…then I noticed it. “They’re puffy…” “Huh?” Mizuike lazily turned toward me. I pointed to my eyes. “Your eyes are puffy.” She’d been crying. I waited for Mizuike to reply after I made that observation, but she just walked out of the room. A moment later, I heard her saying, “Crap, it’s true.” She must have gone to check in the mirror. “Ugh…” My own eyes were stinging. They were really dry. I hadn’t had the chance to check myself in the mirror yet, but I was pretty sure it was obvious I hadn’t slept much. I blinked a few times, and it only resulted in burning pain and my eyes watering. Mizuike came back and pointed at her face with her dainty index finger. She always wore that dour expression on her face, but her mannerisms were cute. “Know any way to make the swelling go down?” “Um… I think I saw somewhere that alternating warm and cold cloths a few times helps.” “Cool, I’ll give it a try. Can I borrow a towel?” “Sure.” She left the room in a hurry. Despite the evidence, there was no hint of hurt in her attitude or voice. Had she been crying from joy, then? Just what sort of drama had played out in her life last night? Mizuike returned with a wet towel and sat down with her knees drawn up to her chin, pressing the towel to her eyes. She couldn’t see me, so I watched her openly. It was still early in the morning, but her skin was glowing, as if she’d had a bath recently. That only made me imagine more distressing stuff. Below the towel, her lips moved slightly. She was saying something. I didn’t quite catch it, but it seemed like a person’s name, and it sure wasn’t mine. She knew my first name, and I knew hers, but we hadn’t used them yet, as far as I remembered. Eye contact or “you” worked just fine anyway. I didn’t feel ready to call her by her name. It’d been just over two weeks since she’d moved in—not long enough for any significant changes in our relationship, but there had been plenty of changes inside me. I’d stopped feeling hostility toward the girl who had claimed half of my room. She’d stopped being an annoyance in my eyes. That fleeting smile I had glimpsed on her face was to blame. “Let’s go for a walk,” I said, then immediately regretted it. I scratched my knees anxiously, thinking that it kept happening lately; I’d impulsively say something only to regret it. The triangle I had worked to build in my mind was coming apart, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Mizuike turned to me, still holding the towel to her face. “Are you talking to me?” “You can come, too.” What a dumb conversation. It was like we weren’t quite on the same wavelengths. “I always go for a walk when I wake up early,” I added, and it wasn’t even a lie. In the summer, my room would get so hot that I’d wake up early, unable to sleep, and I’d go out. That was the only time of year I’d be out so early, taking in the morning scenery. Mizuike opened her mouth as if to say something but froze, thinking in the darkness under the towel. I wanted her to give me some sort of answer. The skin on my neck was tingling from impatience as if I had ants running up and down it. “All right.” Her answer was short, but to me, those two words were tremendous. Mizuike put the towel down and stood up, ready to go right then and there. I followed after her, but then I turned back to take a five-hundred-yen coin out of my wallet. I hurried after Mizuike, clutching the coin in my hand. My mother and her mom were sleeping next to each other in the living room. My mother probably would have left for work by the time we got back. I tiptoed past the two women so as not to wake them up, and I noticed Mizuike was walking even more quietly than me, as if she was used to concealing her presence. We left the apartment, and I locked the door behind us. I slipped the key into my pocket, where it jangled against the coin. Mizuike and I started walking together, next to each other. I glanced over at her, and I could tell she was worried about her puffy eyes. But enough about her eyes—her jawline was so perfect, it was like the work of an artist. All the walls I had erected between me and her were being smashed into pieces by the beauty of her profile. We got to the main road, but instead of getting on the pedestrian bridge like when we were going to school, we turned left. We walked toward a reflexology clinic with a hedge planted in front of it, where elderly walkers liked to take a break. We sat down on a bench in the dark shade of the shrubbery. Next to the reflexologist was a supermarket. There were lots of bicycles parked outside when it was open, but it was still too early. I noticed there were vending machines next to the parking lot. Good thing I’d brought that coin. I walked over to the vending machines and bought two cans of chilled green tea. Then I went back to the bench and gave Mizuike one can. “Thanks.” She took a few sips and said, “Thanks,” again, looking at the road. “No problem. I invited you out, after all.” We sat there together, breathing in the morning air, being part of the morning cityscape. There was already quite a lot of traffic on the road. The blue sky seemed to be expanding down, bringing with it a refreshing morning atmosphere. Unusually for the rainy season, it wasn’t humid. It was a very pleasant morning. “Did something…bad happen to you?” I asked when it felt like the right time to do so. Mizuike cocked her head. The can in her hand tilted at a similar angle. “Why do you ask?” “You look like you’ve been crying.” That was better than questioning what she’d been up to last night. It made me sound kinder. I sat straight as a pole, doing my best to keep the kind-but-concerned act up. Mizuike touched the top of her cheek. “No, it wasn’t anything like that,” she replied vaguely. “Ah. Okay then.” Except it wasn’t. If it wasn’t “anything like that,” then what was it? I wanted to know—not because I was worried about Mizuike, but just because not knowing was torture. I wanted to wring the truth out of her. If only I could, but I was well aware that if I started interrogating her, my questions would become unstoppable like an avalanche, and that could only end in disaster. She’d hate me. She’d reject me. She’d want nothing to do with me. That was a scary vision. I knew I shouldn’t probe… I knew I shouldn’t, but… If you suddenly ran out into the road, you might get hit by a car. But metaphorically keeping to the safe sidewalk was driving me insane. “…” I…didn’t dislike Umi Mizuike, but she was making me hate myself. At the same time, I was sure if I stayed nice, I’d only end up with regrets later. The self-contradictory urges were tugging at and twisting my heart. After some time, though, my mood lifted again. Morning brought with it that optimistic sense of beginning, and I was feeling its effects. It shone light into the darkness of my depression. It must have had a similar effect on Mizuike. She was sipping her drink with a relaxed expression—or maybe she was spacing out. I tried not to stare at her too much, not wanting her prettiness to stir any more weird feelings in me. I felt as if we’d arrived somewhere after a journey, even though it had only been a short walk. A pleasant view could be enough to give you a high, but like morning, the feeling wouldn’t last. As the day progressed toward evening, my emotions would swing in another direction. I knew nothing lasted, good or bad. That evening, my roommate wasn’t studying. She was sitting in her corner with her knees drawn up, reading a manga. “That’s new.” “Hmm? Ah, yeah.” Weirdly, Mizuike’s face was screwed up in concentration. She didn’t seem to be enjoying herself. “Is it good?” “I don’t know, I guess? I don’t really get the story. I haven’t read the previous ones.” “What?” “The pictures are good, though. Must be so cool to be able to draw like this.” Cool, cool, cool—she had the vocabulary of a small kid, but unlike a small kid, she remained impassive no matter what she was saying. “You don’t get this good at drawing out of nowhere. At some point, you gotta start doing something special that’ll set you on the path. I think that’s really cool.” It annoyed me that she was getting so impressed by a manga. For some reason, it reminded me of when I’d been the thing she called cool. “Well, I can cook,” I said defiantly, as if that could make me compete with a popular manga artist. I felt beads of cold sweat on my back. Mizuike raised her head from the manga and was sitting still. I could tell from the serious look in her eyes that she understood what I had been getting at. I wished I had kept my mouth shut, but what had been said had been said. “Being able to cook is cool.” “Thanks.” Ugh, I wish I hadn’t said anything! “I’m going to sleep,” I said as a way out of that. I lay down on the futon with my back against the wall, pressing my hands against my face and silently groaning. Had I been alone in my room, I’d kick my feet up like a shrimp. I had this pent-up energy in my lower back that made me want to roll around. “I’ll go to sleep, too.” Mizuike turned the lights off, maybe out of consideration for me. I heard the soft rustling of the covers as she also went to bed. With the room divided in half, we had to sleep curled up on our sides of the futon. If we lay lengthwise, we’d be able to stretch out, but we’d be very close to each other. The reason we’d divided the room the way we did was to avoid that, but I came to think it’d be all right to sleep beside her. I was a hairbreadth away from admitting to myself it’d be more than all right. “Good night.” “…Night,” I muttered unclearly in reply. It became so quiet, the silence was hurting my ears. There should be sounds coming from the living room, of the TV or my mother talking to Mizuike’s mom, but I couldn’t hear anything except for some rustling whenever Mizuike shifted slightly on the futon. It was like my senses were zeroed in on Mizuike. It wasn’t intentional, this hyperfocus on her. Was it because I was in (…)? Because I (…) Mizuike? I found her beautiful; that was a fact. Appearance alone can give rise to certain feelings. It wasn’t a case of (…) at first sight, was it? No, no way, not with her. I’d never agreed to her moving in. She’d just turned up one day, and I’d had to give up half of my personal space to her. Whenever I tried to chat with her, she’d be so dead serious. She helped out with house chores, which was to her credit, and she’d called me a friend one time. She said I was cool. She was so pretty, her skin glowing, her breasts so big. So pretty. Wow, wasn’t I eloquent? My head was like a trash can chock-full of crumpled pieces of paper, with praises of Mizuike written in bright red, in my handwriting. The scales weighing my feelings toward Mizuike had swung down so far to one side, they’d broken. All that just because she was attractive? Had her pretty face doomed me? I pressed my hands to my temples as another headache started to grow, when I heard Mizuike’s breathy voice. I was so attuned to every little noise she made that, unlike the first time, I could make out what she was whispering—“Chikichiki.” I didn’t know what it meant, though. Chikichiki… Could be another language. Or maybe it was just “Chiki,” a person? Or a magical incantation? I had to stop myself from saying it out loud as I puzzled over it. Was it important? If so, I’d probably start obsessing. I wondered whether to ask her about it, but before I made up my mind, my lips had already formed the words. “What’s that?” “What’s what?” Mizuike asked back. I didn’t get the impression she was being evasive. Maybe she hadn’t realized she’d said that word out loud. “You said something just now. Sounded like a name.” “Ugh.” She sounded disappointed with herself. “Again? I really am pathetic.” I wasn’t sure whether to turn toward her, but maybe it was better I was facing away from her. Less pressure. If I was looking into her eyes, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep calm. “So what is it you were saying?” “Hmm, I don’t really know.” “Hmph.” She didn’t want to tell me. Fine, I thought, but I was so annoyed that my insides felt like they were smoldering. No way I was going to fall asleep like that. I ground my teeth, tapping my temples. This was bad for my health, this stress. Mizuike was going to drive me to the grave. Maybe she was a demon in disguise. Demons had to be bewitching to do their job, which checked out. God, I was being so stupid. “I lied,” she suddenly said. I’d been drifting away into the dark land of my intrusive thoughts, but that snapped me right back into focus. “It was the name of someone I like.” I could’ve sworn bright light had beamed at the back of my head. White jigsaw pieces floated in the darkness in front of me. The cogwheels in my head began to turn at full steam, rifts openings left and right. “Huh,” I said dumbly. “You’re in love with someone.” My voice was as dry as parchment. “Wouldn’t have guessed,” I added, feeling as if my voice were rising from the throbbing vein on my neck. “It was a surprise for me, too. Never been in love before.” “So you’ve got a boyfriend?” I asked without waiting for her to finish. I was curled up on the bed protectively, my arms around my knees, pressing on. I had to steel myself for whatever answer I’d get back. I had to become hard as stone, immovably heavy. There was a pause before she answered: “No. It’s one-sided.” Conflicting feelings—relief and a sensation like a punch in the head—made me feel sick to my stomach. “What’s he like?” “…Why do you wanna keep talking about this?” She sounded irked, and to be honest, I didn’t want to hear any more about the person she loved, but at the same time, I had a terrible urge to ask. I really couldn’t make up my mind about what I wanted. Both things at the same time. “Girls talk about love in the middle of the night. That’s a thing, right?” I quickly made up a reason. “Is it?” she asked back, sounding uncomfortable. She fell silent after that, and I got worried our talk was over. I pressed on. “What’s it like to be in love when it’s one-sided?” Like I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure she’d bother answering, but she did. “It’s like…having a wobbly tooth.” “Sorry, what?” “You know you should just leave it, but it bugs you, and you can’t stop yourself from touching it, and you’re thinking about it all the time. That’s what it feels like.” “Huh.” It was a weird way to put it, but actually, it felt oddly accurate. I was no stranger to that. “Can I go to sleep now?” she said. She seemed to have decided that the conversation was over. “…Night,” I said. I had to let go, unable to find a way to close the distance between us. Did that brief exchange even count as having a conversation? It left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I was slightly feverish and wide-awake, wondering if I’d ever be able to sleep again. Which was why I wanted to keep talking to her. I was running. I felt like if I stopped, I’d die, but I had no destination to aim for. My only alternative was to jump from the path and roll off a cliff. Whatever that meant. I couldn’t put my feelings into words any better. My vocabulary was as limited as Mizuike’s with her “cool” this and “cool” that and being impressed by things like me cooking a basic meal. I’d never felt that way toward anyone else before, so I was at a loss. I couldn’t understand how she was doing that to me. I was sinking in the sea of my questions. “There’s no hope…,” I whispered. No hope for me. I was drowning, sucked in under the waves. Umi Mizuike should have swamp added to the watery themes of her name.