“…I’m so happy for you, Hinata,” Kumori said after a while, sounding just as amazed as her friend. “This cream really is amazing. Even after seeing it in action, I can still barely believe it. This is no ordinary medical product. It’s almost like…”
She got that far and abruptly stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to finish the thought. Instead, she put down the mirror and took out a plastic bag from the box the cream had come in. She opened the bag and offered it to Hinata, who lifted the scar—still held tightly between the tweezers—and dropped it into the bag.
“There… It’s done,” Hinata choked out, forcing down the tears that had started creeping into her eyes. “Now all that’s left is to keep it somewhere safe and clean, right? Would my desk drawer work for that? What do you think, Kumori?”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s in a bag you can seal shut, so that should be hygienic enough. You don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
“So we’ll be fine so long as we keep the bag somewhere it won’t get ripped open?”
“Probably. I think a lot of those warnings were just talking about fresh wounds, like cuts and scrapes.”
“That makes sense. You normally have to wash those and keep them clean so they won’t get infected.”
Hinata nodded, satisfied.
“Okay then, that does it for my scar…”
She sealed the bag before offering the still-open tub of cream to Kumori.
“It’s your turn next!”
Now they knew that the cream really worked. It seemed only natural to Hinata that Kumori would want to use it, too. She could finally be rid of the burn scar on her face.
To Hinata’s surprise, though, her friend gently shook her head, refusing to take the cream.
“No, that’s okay. I’m good.”
“Huh? Don’t worry; there’s plenty left. I made sure to leave enough for you.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Listen, Hinata…” Kumori stared straight into Hinata’s eyes. “I’ve never really wanted this scar to go away.”
“…Really?”
“Really. More than changing myself, I want the world to change. I’d like to live in a world where people don’t care what my face looks like. So I think I’ll keep this scar just the way it is.”
How was Hinata supposed to respond? She’d never thought about it like that before.
After a long silence, she finally managed to mumble, “You’re amazing, Kumori… Changing the world? I had no idea you were thinking about stuff on that level. Here I am only thinking of myself and what would make me feel better. Next to you, I feel so petty…”
Her shoulders slumped in disappointment. But Kumori just smiled.
“Oh, Hinata. You don’t need to feel bad about that. You and I are different people, so of course we’re going to want different things. That’s all there is to it. Being ‘petty’ or whatever doesn’t come into it.”
“Kumori…”
“Besides, I really am happy that you’ve gotten what you wanted,” she said, smiling again.
I should have known… This is just the kind of person Kumori is.
So confident, so thoughtful… It was sometimes hard to believe she was the same age as Hinata. And just because she could put up with pain or discomfort, she’d never push that suffering onto somebody else. Hinata respected her from the very bottom of her heart. She was so lucky to have someone as amazing as this in her life.
My life started out pretty terrible because of my parents. But at least I ended up here and got to meet Kumori. That makes all that bad stuff from before worth it.
That was just how much Kumori meant to Hinata.
“Kumori…” Hinata threw the bag with the scar in it on the floor and leaped forward to embrace her friend. “Whether the world changes or not, I’ll always love you. More than anyone in the whole world.”
“Thanks, Hinata. I love you, too. More than anyone in the whole universe,” Kumori replied without missing a beat.
Hinata hugged her even tighter.
Wait, the universe…? That’s bigger than the world, right? It is, isn’t it…? Hinata wondered.
She looked at Kumori’s face for confirmation. Her friend seemed to guess what she was thinking and laughed mischievously. Hinata loved that side of her as well. She gave her another extra-tight hug.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next day, the vending machine that had sold the Injury Peeling Cream was gone.
“That girl was right. We really won’t be able to get more of this stuff.”
“I guess not. We should probably put aside what we’ve got left for emergencies.”
They decided to keep the existence of the cream a secret between the two of them. Perhaps one day, one of them would get seriously hurt. Or they’d meet someone else with a scar that really bothered them. The girls promised to use the cream only for those kinds of occasions.
However, it wasn’t long before Hinata and Kumori broke out the peeling cream again, to deal with a relatively minor injury. One of the younger boys from the orphanage tripped and fell while out in the backyard, scraping his knee badly. It just so happened that the two girls were also there at the time.
They could have simply taken him to the nurse’s office, but they hated to see a kid so much younger than them in such pain. They really wanted to do something for him, and he was young enough that they could probably explain away the “magic” cream without too much trouble.
Hinata quickly smeared some cream over the boy’s knee. However, she was in so much of a hurry that she forgot to peel it off with the tweezers.
“Ow!” Hinata yelped.
“Hinata, are you okay? Oh!” said Kumori.
The moment Hinata had touched the scrape, it had attached itself to her hand instead.
The girls saw the boy safely back to his room, then used the cream again, this time making sure to use the tweezers.
“Come to think of it, the manual did say not to touch injuries with your bare hands.”
“Hold on, Hinata. You’ve got to wash it off and disinfect the wound before you put it in the bag. If there’s still dirt and stuff mixed in there, it could get infected. You don’t want to get tetanus or anything like that.”
Hinata did as Kumori said. Since the boy’s graze had made its way onto Hinata’s hand, it counted as her wound now. It hurt just as if she were the one who’d fallen. But the moment they peeled it off, the pain disappeared. Even when they washed the wound and sprayed it with disinfectant, she didn’t feel a thing. After that, they wrapped it in a large bandage and sealed it in a plastic bag.
As the days went by, the graze got smaller and smaller. And eventually—after the same amount of time it usually took a wound like that to heal—it disappeared completely.
“You can basically put your injuries away so they don’t hurt while they’re healing. That’s pretty handy,” Kumori said.
Hinata nodded, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She was thinking about a different use for the cream.
Hmm… So, technically, you could use it to move an injury from one person to another, too…
✦ ✦ ✦
Everything was normal for the next six months or so. Then, one day, Hinata and Kumori were playing in a little park behind a shrine in their neighborhood. It was on the outskirts of town, so hardly anyone ever went there. They’d been exploring a dense grassy area, and Hinata tripped on a furrow in the ground and fell.
On its own, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But it turned out that furrow was full of broken glass and bottles. As a result, her leg had gotten cut up really badly.
“Ah…!”
So much blood was coming from the wound. Hinata finally realized what was happening, and she felt a rush of pain.
“Urgh! Ow…! Wh-what do I do? What do I do…?”
“Hinata, the cream! You’ve got that with you, don’t you?”
“Oh, right!”
Hinata always carried the Injury Peeling Cream with her in case of emergencies. They were able to use it to remove the large gash from her leg almost immediately. It took a lot of cream, though. Deep, fresh wounds wouldn’t come off unless you applied it really thoroughly. When they were done, there wasn’t a single bit of cream left in the tub.
“That’s it, huh? Feels like a waste to use something so special for a thing like this…,” said Hinata.
“What are you talking about? This is exactly the kind of thing we should be using it for. We set it aside for emergencies, and this definitely qualifies as one of those.”
“Yeah, I guess…”
The moment they peeled the cut away, the pain faded, just like always. The wound stopped bleeding, too.
All they had left to do was wash and disinfect the cut, seal it inside a plastic bag, and wait for it to heal.
Except…
“Hey, Kumori?”
Hinata stared at the wound held between the tweezers, and a plan began to form in the back of her mind.