Chapter 3: The Moon and Courage

Chapter 3:
The Moon and Courage

S OME TOOK PITY ON ME, and others were kind enough to ignore me.

This applied to every field trip I ever went on in elementary school. I always wandered around alone, and then when it was time for lunch, I ate my sandwich alone, too. Some teachers would feel sorry for me and offer to accompany me, while other teachers didn’t seem to care. And since I had chosen solitude of my own free will, naturally, I preferred the latter. I had no trouble turning down similar offers from my peers, but when it came to authority figures, I couldn’t really say no. Thus, I would inevitably end up eating lunch with them, chewing on autopilot until my jaw ached, unable to taste a single thing.

I was fine on my own. I simply didn’t care enough about other people to put effort into reading their emotions. And if I wasn’t going to offer the proper amount of respect for others, then I was better off not trying to make any connections at all. After all, I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. It was easier to coast through life never causing any problems.

That said, there was one time during fifth grade that I purposely went out of my way to try and make friends. I was influenced by all the information bombarding me at the time: Friends are our greatest assets. Friendship is beautiful. Blah, blah, blah. So I did my best to smile, and ask questions about the other person, and all that. Then I learned how to spot other kids who were bad at social interactions, and if I targeted them specifically, making friends with them wasn’t that hard at all.

But these forced friendships weighed down on me, suppressing my emotions, erasing all my imperfections. Whenever one of them spoke to me, I had to craft a fitting response and keep the conversation going. No part of this was genuine; I just parroted whatever I heard other people saying.

Every time I repeated this process, I grew restless. And every time I gained a new friend, I boxed myself in further, closing off my exits.

But then one day I threw it all in the trash and walked off without them…and that was the day I noticed just how freeing it felt. All I needed was a single breath of fresh air to finally realize that I was meant to live my life alone.

***

There I was, sitting in the second-floor gym loft once again. But unlike last fall, when the place felt like an oven, this time the heat was mild. That, and Shimamura wasn’t here.

I sat with my knees tucked up to my chin, gazing out the window, hoping faintly that the spring sun would warm up the icy floor along with the white walls. My body felt like lead, and no matter how much time passed, the weight refused to lift. Even when I closed my eyes, I could still feel it there.

I let out a sigh for the umpteenth time. At this point, I kind of regretted moving up a grade at all. Our lives had changed, and in a blink, Shimamura was surrounded by new people. They walled her off from me, like a protective force field. But I was the only one who saw the wall for what it was; Shimamura welcomed the wall.

Long story short: now that we were second-years, Shimamura was thriving, and I…wasn’t.

Shimamura wasn’t like me—she never hit a dead end in her friendships with other people. Honestly, it was probably sheer coincidence that she came up to the loft back when we were first-years. Something must have pushed her here, and she simply went with it. I had skipped class to be alone, but Shimamura had skipped class out of boredom. Our motives were not the same.

Life was not comprised of neat little chapters; happiness was short-lived and fleeting, lost to the steady passage of time. And the joy I felt at being assigned to the same class as Shimamura was starting to scatter like sakura petals.

I had grown complacent. When she called me by my first name, I knew it was just a joke, but I let it go to my head. I told myself our bond was as strong as an iron chain…and that was when it started to rust.

As I thought back to the way Shimamura had acted in class, I hung my head until my forehead touched my knees. She had smiled at those people—a polite and vaguely friendly smile, probably reserved for anyone she didn’t know well. I knew that, but the problem was…I couldn’t tell the difference between that one and the one she always directed at me .

I was so irrationally frustrated, both at Shimamura and the girls she smiled at, that it made me want to claw my own face off. I felt so petty for feeling betrayed over this. My heart ached with despair, and I wanted to cry. I really thought we built something together…but whatever I had with Shimamura, it wasn’t special or magical. It couldn’t support our weight at all. Instead, it fell apart faster than a sandcastle.

And yet, in choosing to come here of all places, I was clearly hoping Shimamura would prove me wrong.

I sat up a little taller, then hunched back down, as I debated whether to sneak a peek down at the first floor. Eventually, when I decided to take a quick look, I spotted Shimamura down there. Apparently they’d decided to hold gym class indoors today, probably because of the rain. I could hear basketballs thudding against the floor. Was Shimamura throwing a ball around right about now? Did she notice I wasn’t in class this morning? Was she thinking about me? Did she suspect that maybe I was up here?

I thought about spying on her, but if by any chance she looked up and caught me, I wouldn’t know what to do. So instead I played it safe and waited. I could hear the rain drilling against the wall behind me.

Then I heard footsteps, and I looked up. Someone was coming up the stairs to the loft. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling like an idiot as I watched to see who it was. For some reason, I wasn’t remotely scared that it was a teacher coming to lecture me, either. My heart was filled with light.

But as I would quickly discover, that light would sting my eyes.

It wasn’t Shimamura. It was some girl I didn’t recognize. When she noticed me sitting here, she reacted awkwardly, but otherwise kept walking right on past me to the corner. Then she sat down, legs extended and crossed, and took out a small paperback book. Her hair was a long, dark, indistinct mass, concealing her elongated, oval-shaped face. I quickly lost interest and let out a sigh.

Once again, I had lost my place.

If I can’t be with Shimamura, then I’d rather be alone —that was my entire motivation for coming here. Disappointed, I decided to make my retreat. So I grabbed my bookbag, slung it over my shoulder, and headed down the stairs.

As I contemplated where to go next, I heard footsteps from above.

“Uh, wait! You there!”

The other girl had followed after me to the landing. Clinging to the handrail, she bent forward to look down at me. I fixed her with a wordless, inquiring look. She smiled.

“Sorry I stole your spot.”

“…It’s fine.”

I tried my best not to be rude, in case she was an older student. So I inclined my head slightly and hurried out of the gym before anyone in my class could spot me…and before I had to look at Shimamura having fun with people who weren’t me.

Outside the gym, there were no teachers—just the faint patter of rain. As I tried my best to stay dry, I found myself steadily moving away from the school building. Then I felt the weight of my bookbag against my shoulder and decided it was too much effort to turn back…so I didn’t.

Not like I’d left anything behind.

***

As I biked along down the street, I gazed around at the scenery and wondered to myself: Where am I going?

I left campus on autopilot in the exact opposite direction of my house. Belatedly, I realized I didn’t want to risk encountering my mom back at home, since she’d probably chew me out. But biking around town didn’t exactly make the time fly by; I was fully conscious of every agonizing second that passed. The vague warmth of spring mixed with the rain to create a state of torpor that slowly engulfed me.

I passed by the driving school and cut through the parking lot of the men’s clothing store until I arrived at the same shopping mall I’d visited with Shimamura a handful of times in the past. I didn’t have anywhere else to be, so perhaps this would suit my purposes just fine. I parked my bike and hurried inside, out of the rain.

The interior had been remodeled at some point last year to add new stores. As I walked along, the scent in the air shifted to something sweet. Someone once told me about how malls in other countries all smell the exact same way. Then, as I passed by the electronics store, I picked up the scent of maple syrup.

If Shimamura was here with me, which stores would she want to visit? I contemplated this question as I walked. We didn’t have any plans to come here together, and yet I couldn’t help but think about it anyway. Honestly, I still didn’t have a firm grasp of her likes and dislikes. How could I get her to enjoy herself with wild abandon? She had zero hobbies—she literally said as much to my face—so it was kind of impossible. Not like there was a boomerang store here.

I wanted to know everything about Shimamura…well, unless she secretly hated me or something, in which case I didn’t want to know about it. But if I did know about it, then maybe I could figure out a way to change her mind, so maybe I did want to know about it. So yeah, I wanted to know everything about Shimamura. Everything .

But now we were second-years, and I’d scarcely heard her voice at all. Well, okay, technically I’d heard it a lot. But it was in the background, not directed at me. Sure, I could just call her up on my cell phone, but that wasn’t the issue. So what do I actually DO about this? What is it that I want to change?

I wanted…to be with Shimamura. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted her attention. That was the honest truth of how I felt, and I wasn’t trying to turn a blind eye to it. But there was one thing I could say for sure: I wasn’t going to fix anything by wandering around the mall on a weekday afternoon. So what was I doing here?

There were twenty-four miserable hours in a day, and I hadn’t spent a single one of them doing anything productive. I could sum up the entire day’s events in a single breath. How did each day manage to be both long and short at the same time?

It felt like I was living in monochrome. Everything was so dull without Shimamura. God, I’m such a boring person.

As I walked along the far edge of the mall, I picked up the sounds of chatter—animal chatter, to be specific. I glanced around and swiftly spotted what appeared to be a brand-new pet shop with not only puppies and kittens, but fish and…even sheep? At least, according to the sign outside.

“This could work.”

Maybe there was a chance Shimamura would take an interest in this kind of store.

As I examined it further, I noticed another teenage girl standing out front, scanning the store, almost like she, too, was scoping the place out. Toying with one of her long, loose curls, she peered in through the open door. She was a bit taller than me, and she radiated an aura of maturity that suggested she was older than me, too. Then she sensed me staring, glanced at me, and moved to walk away—but she was apparently so startled, she slammed her bookbag right into mine.

“Sorry!”

The impact knocked something loose, and it fell to the floor. I caught sight of it, stopped short, and bent down to pick it up. It was a little bear strap. But its owner didn’t seem to notice that she’d dropped it; she was still walking. Conflicted, I debated what to do about it, but ultimately decided it’d be a real jerk move to let her walk off without her bear…so I gave chase.

“Hey, um, wait,” I called timidly after her.

She turned back, her bangs fluttering with the motion.

“You dropped this.” I held out the bear strap.

She took it and looked down at it. “Oh, thanks.” Then she did a double-take. “Oh! Oh my god! Thank you so much!”

Apparently it meant a lot to her, in which case I was glad I plucked up the courage to get it back to its owner. But if she was at the mall on a weekday afternoon, then she was probably a delinquent… Not that I had any right to judge her, obviously.

“I must’ve been fidgeting with it too much… Ugh, I need to be more careful… Seriously…”

And so she walked off, petting the bear. She was actually friendlier than I was expecting based on her looks. I guess she must really love that little thing . I was never interested in bag straps, so I didn’t have any, but…maybe if me and Shimamura had matching ones…

“That sounds nice…”

Specifically the part where no one else was involved. That part was crucial. Mandatory, even. Very important. Because other people loved to butt in on my time with Shimamura.

Since I was already standing in front of the pet store, I decided to have a look inside. The entrance I chose apparently led to the back of the store, because the first thing I encountered was the aquarium section. The air in here was uncomfortably humid; I scanned around, then moved on to the next room, where I found…the insect and reptile section. I decided to give it a passing glance and move on.

The next room was narrower, and by far the most deafening—the bird section. A parrot beat its wings against the confines of its cramped cage, using its beak to struggle valiantly with the door lock. It was so aggressive, I was half-afraid it might actually get it open. The next few minutes were spent watching with bated breath; then I slipped out of the bird section to the front of the store.

Here, puppies and kittens were relegated to their own separate glass cases, with separate beds for each of them to sleep in, surrounded on all sides by uncomfortably pristine white walls. Surely this was no way for an animal to live.

Then, as I passed by, one of the puppies woke up and rushed over to me. Startled, I recoiled slightly. Standing on its hind legs with its front paws propped up against the glass, it wagged its tail at me, tongue lolling. Almost like it was trained to do this to tug at my heartstrings…and it was working . I could feel tears start to prick at the corners of my eyes.

I felt no sadness looking at the birds in their cages or the fish in their tanks, and yet these glass cases provoked an emotional response from me. Why? As I gazed down at the little white puppy, I realized: because it felt like looking in a mirror.

I, too, was a puppy on display. Even worse, I’d basically put myself in the glass case on purpose. But instead of trying to act cute, I just sat there.

Now that I was faced with a perfect mirror image of myself, it shook me to my core. The root of my sadness was self-pity.

“…Never mind. This place sucks.”

And so I decided against bringing Shimamura here. Wiping at my damp eyes before the tears could fall, I hurried away from the metaphorical mirror in the direction of the nearest exit.

Once I made it outside, my plan was to walk around the perimeter to the bike parking area. But as I walked, I spotted some sort of attraction set up against the wall near a different mall entrance.

A woman was seated at a long table decorated with a banner that read: Get Advice For Love, Money, Marriage, and More! She looked to be in her late twenties, though her face was concealed behind a purple veil. Classic “mysterious fortune-teller” aesthetic. Her skin was as pale as plaster, throwing her crimson cheeks into sharp relief. But with her visible lack of makeup, she struck me as somewhat unsophisticated. Her setup was first-rate, but she seemed like a total amateur.

“Welcome, welcome! Have a seat,” she called, gesturing to the chair in front of her, even though we hadn’t so much as made eye contact. I tried to pretend she wasn’t talking to me, but before I could walk by, she continued, “You can go ahead and take your worries home with you, but your tomorrow will be just as ugly as today.”

Reflexively, I stopped short.

Then I heard her pat the table. “Come, come.”

I turned back to look at the fortune-teller(?), unsmiling. In contrast to her singsong voice, her expression was dead serious.

“Hurry on over, now,” she pressed, beckoning to me.

The banner shifted slightly. My eyes settled on the first half: Get Advice For Love. Not that my “worries” were all that love-related . Well, not really. I was pretty sure it was something else. But the more I thought about it, the more I risked setting my cheeks ablaze in public, so I timidly walked over.

Admittedly, part of me was concerned that this was a scam. But the fact of the matter was, I was in a vulnerable state of mind.

Before I sat down, I took another look at the fortune-teller. Her expression remained gravely serious. At the very least, she seemed more trustworthy than the headbanger swinging her hair around on that one horoscope TV show.

“Are you a real fortune-teller?” I asked, comparing the person in front of me with her somewhat professional setup.

“Yes, I suppose so. A fortune-shaman, if you will.”

“…Okay…”

I’d never heard of that job title in my life, and it kinda sounded like she just invented it. Also, upon further inspection, her crystal ball had a crack in it.

“I can divine anything. For example…let’s see…I can tell you where those tears came from,” she declared, pointing at my eyes.

I straightened up sharply.

At this, she grabbed her crystal ball, set it in her palm, and gazed at me through it. “Yes, I see it… You’re lovesick.”

Again, I flinched, shrinking into myself slightly. This, I believe, was my downfall.

“You’re so easy to read. What a sucker—I mean, what a sweetheart! Ahem!”

She started fake-coughing, but I was too flustered to care. She hadn’t even looked at my palm yet…so how could she tell? Er, not that I was lovesick for Shimamura or anything. That would just be weird.

“Heh.” With a tiny chuckle, the fortune-shaman gently held out her hand, palm up. “One thousand yen.”

“What?”

“Normally this would cost at least three thousand, but you teenagers are too cheap—I mean—I’ll offer you a student discount.”

Her expression was firm, and yet her lips were loose enough to make wildly unnecessary comments.

“I have to pay a thousand yen for this?”

“Frankly, you’re getting a real bargain.”

She held out her hand once more. But the word “bargain” only made me more suspicious. Not that I expected her to do her job for free or anything, but I innately questioned the value of anything priced above 500 yen. Maybe it was just human nature.

That said, I was already sitting here, and I got the feeling this lady wasn’t about to just let me walk away. Her fingers wiggled impatiently. So I took out my wallet, and as I pulled out a one thousand yen bill, my brain calculated the cost equivalent at my workplace: two lunch specials. As I placed the bill into her palm, she snatched it up like a vacuum and tucked it away into her pocket.

“Thank you.”

Evidently she took better care of her money than she did her equipment. This was not very reassuring.

First the horoscope show, and now this. Am I just drawn to this stuff? I really need to make sure I don’t get duped into wasting my money. But at the same time, it felt like it was probably too late.

After that, the fortune-shaman seemed to grow tired of holding up the crystal ball, so she set it back down and scrutinized me directly. I could practically feel her gaze sliding over every inch of my body…over my uniform… All at once, I was overcome with deep regret. I wanted nothing more than to get out of here and go home. So I decided I would count to five, and if she was still ogling me, I would grab my bag and run.

But the fortune-shaman seemed to read my mind. “I do have one question about this person: is their hair longer than yours?”

“What person?”

“Your beloved.”

The word beloved made me think of Shimamura, and that made me blush furiously.

Be-love-d. Love. This was the kind of thing I could never say aloud, but at the very least, it felt more accurate than trying to say I was in love with her.

So, which of us had longer hair? Honestly, I had never thought to directly compare my hair to Shimamura’s. I thought back to all my most recent memories of her. Usually I was looking at her from the side rather than the front, which was depressing. From what I could recall, she hadn’t given me even a passing glance these days. And of the times she did look at me, she usually had an awkward smile on her face…

“Oh ho. That bad, hmm?”

“…What?”

Once again, I hadn’t said a word, and yet she was already smirking.

“If you can’t even answer that question, then I already have all the information I need.”

“…You do?”

I couldn’t believe it. Oh god, what if she read my mind? One minute all the blood had drained from my face, and the next minute I was blushing all over again.

“I see what it is you lack. And what you lack is courage ,” she declared in the midst of my panic. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face! You’re hiding because you’re afraid of what others will think.”

She was completely right. I stared back, stunned. Was it really that obvious at a glance? At this point, I was genuinely concerned that this woman might be able to read minds. She was a fortune-teller, after all.

But for as impressive as it was, something felt off.

“I shall teach you an easy way to gain the courage you need. Go stand over there and start shouting.”

“What ?!”

She was pointing at the mall interior, at a passageway just a few feet away. Granted, it wasn’t the most populated area, but we weren’t exactly alone out here, either. I could easily imagine the sorts of weird looks I would get if I started screaming for no reason.

Dubiously, I looked back at the fortune-shaman, but she simply picked up her crystal ball and smiled calmly. “You can choose not to, of course, if that’s your preference. All you’ll lose is the thousand yen you paid.”

Now I deeply regretted paying up front.

“If you want to get your money’s worth, then get out there.”

I flinched, and my chair creaked. Again, it was as if she had read my mind.

Every now and then, I thought back to this one time in junior high when I worked as a library assistant. There was this girl—I couldn’t remember her name or even what she looked like, but she asked me if I had any friends. At the time, I told her I didn’t, and that I was fine with it…but looking back, I couldn’t help but wonder why she asked me that. Was she going to offer to be my friend?

Even then, my answer would have remained the same. I would have told her I didn’t need any friends. But part of me regretted how that interaction played out. Part of me felt that we should have talked it out first, like actual human beings, instead of me one-sidedly slamming her with rejection.

With that in mind, I didn’t want to add to my list of regrets. I couldn’t keep sticking my head in the sand. No, I was going to take action. And if I ended up regretting that , then so be it.

As I rose to my feet, my sight went black, as though I’d closed my eyes.

“Raise your fists and make your declaration. It’s the only way to carve it deep into your heart.”

As I started to raise my arms, it occurred to me that this lady seemed less like a fortune-teller and more like a life coach.

“I…I can do this,” I said aloud in a barely audible whisper as I glanced around at the people nearby.

Meanwhile, the fortune-shaman sat at her table and critiqued my attempt, her chin resting in her palm. “Your voice is too quiet, your statement is too vague, and you’re not raising your fists. What’s the matter?”

If I—

“If you had that kind of courage, you wouldn’t need advice, is that it?”

My arms flinched as she read my mind.

“Heh.” Another tiny chuckle. “Think about it in reverse: with enough courage, you can solve any problem. Now then, let’s see you try again.”

Her words swayed me. At her insistence, I straightened up. “I’m gonna…do my best!”

“This is your best? I don’t think so. Try again.”

“Oh, come on! Uhhh…”

I raised my arms, then retracted them again. I couldn’t think of anything else to shout, so I looked to the fortune-shaman for help.

“No backing down,” she cautioned me.

No backing down. No running.

“…I won’t back down from this.”

“What was that?”

I…I…I won’t…

I won’t…back…down…

Three, two, one—

“I WON’T BACK DOWN!”

The next thing I knew, my arms were in the air. My mind went blank. My vision went white. Beside me, I could hear applause.

“Oh, that’s wonderful! One more time.”

“I! WON’T! BACK! DOWN!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

My eyes felt like they were bursting. Something shot up from the soles of my feet all the way to my skull, and by the time my ears stopped ringing, all that remained was an almost drunken lightheadedness. I staggered back to my chair and took a seat.

“Wonderful,” the fortune-shaman repeated, chin in hand. “I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“Thanks, I guess…?”

“People don’t need to know the future. They only need to want it.”

The way she spoke, it felt like she’d dropped the fortune-teller pretense in order to level with me. For once, her words struck me as sincere. “I, um…”

But just then, her gaze shifted to the right. “Oh dear, dear, dear.”

I retracted what I was about to say and instead followed suit.

Someone was running in our direction…someone wearing a navy-blue uniform… Belatedly, I realized it was a mall cop. My eyes flew open, and the blood drained from my face. Why was a mall cop barreling towards us?!

“Looks like we made too much noise.”

The fortune-shaman clucked her tongue in annoyance. Without wasting a single moment, she yanked up her banner and used it to wrap up everything on her desk in a single bundle. Then she leapt to her feet, knocking her chair over. She was moving so quickly, my brain couldn’t keep up.

Yet again, she let out a tiny chuckle. “Well then, I’ll be going now. May your future be bright.” And with that, she slung her bundle over her shoulder and took off running like a real class act. Something told me this was how her crystal ball got cracked.

The mall cop ignored me and went after the fortune-shaman. Part of me was relieved, but the panic was still there. Was she some kind of unlicensed fraud fortune-teller? If so, I was apparently a terrible judge of character.

Then again, being unlicensed didn’t necessarily make you a fraud, did it? Maybe it was just bureaucracy keeping her down. Sure, she took one look at my uniform and assumed I’d run away from school, and the rest of her observations were shallow at best, but in the end, her advice was the real deal.

Something had quietly taken root inside me, convincing me that the thousand yen I paid was worth it. All I could do now was take a deep breath and wait for it to bloom.

***

The next day at school, I spent the morning hiding up in the gym loft. Quietly, I exhaled. Without any hobbies of my own, I was an empty void, filled halfway with thoughts of Shimamura. Without her, what would I have left? I would probably just sit around and stare into space, like I was doing right now.

Down on the first floor, I could hear lots of voices. Apparently the first-years were having gym class; I could feel the vibrations from their footsteps through the floor, and it almost felt like the sounds filled the room all the way up to the roof.

Dazedly, I bobbed my head up and down. This was a big, fat waste of my time. The seed planted in me yesterday was still smoldering weakly.

But as I craned my neck around, suddenly, I spotted something lying on a dusty ping-pong table—something that wasn’t there last time. And by this point, I was bored enough that this tiny change drew my interest.

Carefully, to avoid being seen, I crawled over to the table. Resting directly on one corner of the table was a small paperback book with a bookmark sticking out of it. Was this the same one that girl from yesterday was reading? It was placed too perfectly to have been carelessly forgotten… Maybe it was her way of saying “this space is reserved.”

Casually, I picked up the book and looked at it. It was missing its dust jacket, but the title and author were still listed on the front cover. Apparently it was written by someone named Kitsukawa Eiji; I wasn’t a bookworm, so I didn’t know who that was.

I flipped to the page where the bookmark was placed and started reading. Obviously I wasn’t expecting anything to make sense, since I was starting partway through, but one passage in particular drew my attention:

“Why did I keep running away, you ask? The answer was simple: because I was afraid. Day in and day out, I was terrified to think that my future was going to leave me behind. So, rather than let things change without me, I chose to take the initiative myself.”

It was a rather abstract piece of writing, and I didn’t fully grasp what it was getting at. Not that I was expecting this single passage to single-handedly explain the main character’s motivations, of course. That said, the words “leave me behind” rendered me dizzy. I read the passage again and again and again. Then I put the book back where I found it and sat down on the spot.

I stared up at the lights on the ceiling as though I was gazing up at the soul leaving my body. This random nobody author had somehow picked the exact combination of words necessary to ignite the seed inside me.

Shimamura and I both shared the same classroom, but only she was functioning as a second-year. Meanwhile, I was stuck in the past.

My mind reeled. My body reeled. It felt like my eyes were rolling around in their sockets, and it frightened me. Times like these, thinking about Shimamura was the only thing that helped me keep it together…on the outside, anyway. On the inside, my heart was a total mess.

In the end, it was safe to say that Shimamura was my entire life. She was the basis for all my decisions. So, seeing as Shimamura was on my mind, what was my next move?

Then the bell rang to signal the end of class and the start of lunch break. Girls would flock to Shimamura, and she would sit in the classroom and eat her lunch.

I pinched my bicep, willing myself to stop holding out hope. She won’t come up here. You know that. You know for a fact that she won’t, so give up already. I could feel my jaw slacken from zoning out, so I pursed my lips tightly together as I pushed my daydreams away.

How long was I going to waste my time entertaining this delusion that if I sulked for long enough, Shimamura would come check on me? Something spurred me forward, warning me that I needed to act before it was too late.

Too late for what?

This thought dragged up the fear buried deep inside me. What if Shimamura and I actually stopped being friends because of this? What if our friendship died because I sat around up here for no reason?

I stared, wide-eyed, unblinking. Lukewarm tears filled my vision as my eyes attempted to lubricate themselves. There was no emotion behind them; if I wiped them away, no more would take their place. These tears operated independent of sadness.

There’s still time, something whispered.

But what could I do? Could I join the group of other second-years gathered around Shimamura? Objectively speaking, it would probably make everything really awkward, if I was being completely honest with myself. But while I understood that…there was still a tiny chance that I could fit in with them. Maybe that option was available to me, and I just hadn’t noticed.

But if I took that route, I would stop being myself.

I wasn’t perfect; I couldn’t predict the future. I knew that. So what kind of person was I? What was I afraid of losing?

Right now, I was empty, but stable. In spite of the nerve-wracking impatience I felt, deep down, part of me was comfortable—content with being alone. When it came down to it, I was naturally disposed to solitude…but that didn’t mean it was what I wanted.

In a sense, “making an attempt” was always the correct choice over the alternative, but this way of thinking had the tendency to forego actual personal growth. After all, you could justify any meager effort as “an attempt” and simply give up afterwards, leading to a slow decline. If I wanted to better myself, then I needed to do the impossible.

I rose to my feet and started walking. I could feel my back threatening to hunch over, so I stood up straight and faced forward.

Honestly, it was stupid of me to expect anything of other people. Well, okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But there was no point in making other people solve my problems for me—it was my responsibility. Other people couldn’t feel my emotions; only I could locate the pain. Thus, it was up to me to do something about it.

Without any hobbies of my own, I was an empty void, filled halfway with thoughts of Shimamura. Without her, this was all I would have left…so the solution was simple.

As I hurried down the stairs, I thought back to yesterday.

“I can do it, I can do it, I can do it…”

My heart trembled as I gave myself a running start. Then I threw my arms into the air and shouted the magic words:

“I WON’T BACK DOWN!”

And then I immediately bolted from the gym. Apparently the fortune-teller had rubbed off on me in more ways than one.

I went to the school store, bought whatever looked appetizing, and headed to the classroom. There she was, surrounded with people, smiling faintly, looking at someone who wasn’t me, just like any other day. Each of these things served as a strong deterrent. There was no space for me there.

But as it turned out, I could always just make my own.

This time, I didn’t let the presence of other people stop me from calling out to her.

“Shimamura.”

And that was the moment I truly became a second-year.