“If you’re going to turn to ice either way, you might as well do something to deserve it, don’t you think? It’d be far more fun to be punished for an avalanche of kisses.”
This was another source of energy for him: whether or not something was fun.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“In summary, follow your heart. I should think kissing itself is its own kind of fruit.”
“But then why…?” Why were humans programmed to fall in love? If it was only about kissing, then no one would ever get their heart broken.
Himari thought about last night—about what she remembered and the truth therein. In that memory, she accepted an apple; was that the fruit of romance? Was that the source of the pain she felt in her chest?
There was a voice in her head, telling her Shoma was her soul mate. If what she felt was in fact true love, then chasing it would only bring pain to her and everyone around her. Their family would surely split apart, and chances were good it would spark a domino effect of other, more unpleasant memories rising to the forefront of her mind. If so, she would regret ever falling in love. In fact, she might even feel guilty for remembering who her soul mate truly was.
“Dr. Sanetoshi, why did you want to talk to me about love? Are you in love?”
He smiled softly. “Why, yes. And it makes every moment simply stunning.”
Sanetoshi couldn’t afford to let his guard down for even an instant. After all, his sneaky little lover, Momoka, was surely watching this unfold just as he was—watching this young girl stare down at her hands with the countenance of a grown woman. And Sanetoshi was planning to keep showering his lover in a hailstorm of kisses without ever turning to ice. But his kisses weren’t guaranteed to be soft and sweet. At times they could sizzle and burn with the intensity of a raging fire.
At the dumpsters out behind the school building, a handful of students, including me and Yamashita, were tasked with sorting the trash into two large bags: burnable and nonburnable.
“Burnable…nonburnable…burnable…nonburnable… Wait, what about this one? Uhhh…I guess it’s nonburnable,” Yamashita sighed lazily as he used his trash-picking tongs to toss an empty can into the bag. “Ugh, this sucks… Punished with chores? What are we, five?”
I was so distracted thinking about my family situation, I was practically sorting on autopilot. Frankly, it was highly inefficient to make us sort the trash after lumping it all together to begin with. With a building of this size, they should have known just how much waste was produced on a daily basis. They’d save a ton of time if they set up two different trash cans in each location and taught the students to sort their trash into the correct can. Heck, even our house had two different trash cans for that reason. But I couldn’t actually point this out or else everyone would call me a househusband.
“We were just minding our business, but because we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it turned into some crap about ‘collective responsibility’ or whatever. Why should we have to be punished? It’s their fault! So stupid. One bad apple spoils the rest of us, I tell ya,” Yamashita complained quietly into my ear. Then he paused to crack his neck.
He had a point, though. Kanba and Himari and I had nothing to do with our parents’ crimes, so it was completely unfair for any of us to have to pay the price for it. We never chose to be related to them, but as a result, we were forced to carry the burden of responsibility for the rest of our lives.
“Oh yeah, that reminds me, Shoma-kun…” Yamashita donned a sinister smirk. “How’d it go with that one girl?”
“What one girl?” I shot him a withering look.
“The cute one! From the onsen! She seemed kinda touchy, but I could go for that.”
“Things are…normal, I guess?” I told him, though I didn’t actually know what normal looked like.
“What do you mean, normal? Don’t tell me you’re already an item!” he gasped, recoiling melodramatically.
“Wh-what? No! We’re not an item!”
Oginome-san was a good friend, but the subject had never come up. Granted, I was done shutting her out of my life, but merely changing my perspective was not enough to change the past. It didn’t solve everything.
“Man…I’d love to date a chick from Oukagyoen…”
“I’m telling you, we’re not dating! Maybe you’d actually get a girlfriend if you stopped making assumptions all the time!”
I started working faster, but I was in no real rush to leave campus. Although I knew for a fact that Kanba and Himari would both come home in due time, I was terrified at the thought of spending a single minute sitting alone in that empty house, waiting for them. But of course, the task at hand eventually came to an end. Naturally, Yamashita was totally jealous that I finished ahead of him. After I managed to calm him down, I slung my book bag over my shoulder, tied my blue-and-beige tartan scarf around my neck, and trudged off in the direction of the school gates.
For some reason, my brain recalled the conversation I had with Kanba about why Yamashita could never get a girlfriend. Annoying, no filter, unfunny… Honestly, the latter two were basically the same thing as annoying…
“Shoma-kun!” Oginome-san called, leaning against the wall just outside the gates, wearing a light school-issued jacket. I forced a smile.
“Oh, hey, Oginome-san. Were you waiting for me? You could have sent me an email, you know.”
“I just showed up on a whim, that’s all. Glad I could see you,” she replied, looking into my eyes and smiling—a pure, genuine smile that caught me by surprise. She saw my expression shift. “What’s wrong?” she asked, frowning slightly.
I looked into her big, round eyes, and for the first time in my life, I felt a strong urge to talk about myself. I wanted her to understand me.
Oginome-san never once tried to force anything out of me. As our bodies swayed with the train’s motions, I gazed out at the darkness beyond the window and thought back to that dream I once had about an endless dark railroad and a train that never stopped—or rather, couldn’t stop. Not yet.