Volume 2 - CH 3.6

On the way home, Yuriko and I took separate buses from Tachibana and Nagai. Tachibana and Nagai seemed to walk a little toward the front of the station before returning home.

We got on the bus and sat down side by side in the seat that was just empty. After a little while, Yuriko began to doze off beside me. Her head swayed dizzily, and fell onto my shoulder. The round head took up most of my vision, and I could smell the sweet shampoo and then her sweat that I had felt during that kiss. I leaned back a little and saw her expression through the gap in her bangs.

Her eyelashes are overlapping each other. Her chest rises and falls slightly and quietly in time with her breathing.

Suddenly, my mind drifted back to a day in the sixth grade when we traveled by bus to a distant venue for a tournament. After playing three games from early in the morning until dusk, we were all exhausted, and on the bus ride home, almost everyone was asleep. When I woke up to the vibration of the bus, I saw Yuriko's face with her head still asleep. When I regained consciousness, I turned her head back to the original position, but Yuriko did not wake up. Then, her head fell back on my shoulder.

It was right around that time. I began to recognize her as the opposite sex, even though we had played soccer together and played around together until then.

I looked at Yuriko's face and thought, "She's the same,". Her cheeks were a little puffier than the boys', and she had a thin neck, fine hair, and long eyelashes. Even though her hair was longer and her expression more mature, Yuriko's face at that time overlapped with it.

Looking back, there were many moments when I noticed the changes in her. However, these small feelings of awareness and discomfort were soon drowned out by the daily routine of my life. Perhaps the feelings I had for her were the same.

The snowy day that summer began clearly showed me that I was no longer with the Yuriko I had known before. As Yuriko said the other day, our relationship cannot stay like this forever.

Our relationship must have changed definitely since then, but I have been unable to accept the change, and we have continued to spend strange times together, as if nothing has changed on the surface.

As the bus stop approached, I called out to Yuriko.

"---Yuriko. We've almost arrived."

"......Hmm. Yeah."

She lifted her eyelids heavily and exhaled.

"Are you tired?"

"No. I'm fine."

She shook her head and let out a coughing sound from the back of her throat as she sat up from her deeply sunken position in the chair.

The bus door opens, and we put our fares in the fare box and step out. The red evening sun was staining the walls of the houses in the residential area. The contours of the floating clouds glowed gold, and wisps of light leaked into the city through the clouds.

A short walk from the bus stop, we soon arrived in front of Yuriko's house. Without any particular conversation, we walked that short distance. Yuriko has her hair tied in a ponytail, her jersey zipped up to her chin, and her bag slung over her shoulder. 

"Then, see you. I enjoyed the game."

When we finally arrived at her house, I said, Then, as I started to walk away, Yuriko took a step toward me.

"Kenichi, say,"

Her shadow stretched long behind her, bathed in the setting sun. She was stretching the sleeves of her jersey up to her fingertips, as if out of habit. Her white socks were stained with a few traces of brown mud.

"What?"

"Please don't lie, Kenichi, because I will wait for you to answer to me. Whether it's good or bad for me."

Hearing her words, I felt a strong pain in my heart. I wondered what this pain was. This pain that felt like a numbness deep inside my body. I closed my eyes tightly for a moment, like blinking, to bear the pain. I knew intuitively that this pain was an emotion. Something unspoken, something that goes beyond words. I didn't know that my body ached just because my mind was shaken. I was stunned for a moment by this realization. 

"Yuriko."

Eventually, I called her name without thinking.

"I'll be sure to respond to you. I'm going to do everything right, including replying to you and all that. I've been thinking about how I need to change since that day."

When I said that, Yuriko remained silent and nodded.

"Thanks for inviting me. See you."

When I waved my hand, "Yeah," Yuriko raised her hand and nodded somewhat anxiously.

Even after I left her, my heart was pounding, throbbing, silently, strongly. I tried to get it under control as I walked more slowly than usual down the road to my house. The red sky at dusk, the clouds in black shadows, the telephone poles with faded posters, the electric wires stretching to many houses and surrounding the sky, the weeds growing through the cracks in the asphalt, all these things that I see every day, they all seem so fresh.

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When I returned home, I found my mother sitting in the dining room chair facing her laptop computer, and Izumi, her hair tied back in a single elastic band, sitting on the opposite side of the table, studying with her notebook and books spread out.

"Welcome home."

Izumi said as I entered the living room. My mother looked at me from her laptop screen,

"Did you go somewhere?" She asked.

"Yeah. I went to Yuriko's soccer game with friends."

"I see."

Then my mother, who had started to face the laptop again, said, "Ah,"

"My god. I was going to ask Kenichi to buy groceries for me, but I forgot to call you."

"Oh, then, I'll go. I was just thinking of going for a walk."

Saying that, Izumi put down her writing utensil and closed her notebook.

"Really? Then, may I ask you for a favor?"

"Yes," Izumi said, getting up from her seat.

While I was walking home, there was something I was thinking about. If I didn't do it now, I would lose my resolve.

Okay, I fired up in my mind. If I told her that I would go shopping, I would be able to say it naturally while telling her that I had something else to do.

"Umm."

When I call out, Izumi tilts her head and gives me a "what?". Immediately, the words are withdrawn. My mind goes blank. The silence, which would have lasted at most two or three seconds, felt incredibly long. However, I felt that if I didn't say it out loud, the silence would continue for a long time.

"Rina......-san......"

Ahhhhhh, I could hear the sound of my body boiling.

I thought this is what they mean when they say fire comes out of your face. After I said it, my body was burning, but my consciousness was strangely calm, and I wondered what I had done so hastily. I don't know why I added "san" to her name.

Izumi stood there in a daze with her mouth hanging open, not saying a word, then came to herself with a shiver  and said, "W-What is it......?" 

......It was extremely awkward.

The air between me and Izumi instantly turned awkward. It was as if we were back to the days immediately after Izumi moved in three months ago. Then, "What are you calling Rina-chan by her name so casually!?" my mother said, stunned. And with that, the frozen time started moving again.

---Though wasn't casually, not at all.

Afterward, I asked my mother, as if pushing her with all my might, "I'll go shopping, what should I buy?" I jotted down the list on my phone and immediately left the house again, heading for the supermarket.

The breath coming out of my mouth was hot and feverish for a while as I cycled along the dimly lit road where the red-setting sun and the dark blue of the night jostled against each other.

Since a while ago, I've been acting strange. I'm losing my composure. I felt strange, as if I was floating on a high fever. The autumn evening breeze felt unusually cool on my burning skin.