6: One cold morning at the station
It was the second half of second semester, a weekend in the midst of preparations for the school festival. Yuzu Izumi was worried.
“Something seems weird lately!”
She was sipping a caramel Frappuccino from Starbucks and baring her heart to Mutsumi Kawaguchi, who was sitting across from her.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s just tired,” Kawaguchi said blandly.
“Maybe…,” Izumi pouted. A turquoise necklace peeked out from the collar of her low-cut shirt.
“You just have to deal for now, don’t you?”
“We haven’t even been dating for six months! I asked him to hang out today, and all he said was that he’s busy again…” Izumi sighed. She was worrying about the fact that her boyfriend, Shuji Nakamura, hadn’t wanted to hang out much lately.
“Shuji-kun does seem like the type who gets bored easily. What can you do?”
“Don’t say that! You’re making me more worried…,” Izumi pleaded.
Kawaguchi frowned. “Oh, I don’t think he’s cheating on you.”
“Stop it! Don’t say that, either!”
Kawaguchi laughed. “Ah-ha-ha. What’s the problem? I said I didn’t think he was!”
“I just don’t wanna hear the word!” Izumi flopped onto the table.
“Oh, come on. Fine, I’m sorry.”
“Give me some real advice already!”
Kawaguchi’s failure to take her seriously was only making Izumi feel more jealous. But the truth was, she was going out with Nakamura way less often lately. Every time Izumi asked him to do something, he said he was busy or he had plans, which made her very nervous. She’d asked him out again in hopes of having a good talk, but he turned her down again. And so the downward spiral continued.
“Guys have their own way of dating, right?”
“Hmm… Maybe that’s it?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Ugh, you’re driving me nuts!” Izumi shouted, her face screwed up in frustration.
“You’re funny, Yuzu.”
“I am not!”
But from the outside, she seemed like she was overanxious—she didn’t have to take the problem so seriously yet.
* * *
But then the whole situation changed.
“Hey, Yuzu! Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
Class hadn’t started yet, but she was already at her desk. She turned toward Kawaguchi’s voice and saw that her friend looked more serious than usual.
“Wh-what’s wrong?”
Kawaguchi’s expression whipped up her worries, and she lowered her voice so only Izumi could hear her.
“I heard someone saw him.”
“S-saw who?”
“Um…Shuji-kun, with…”
Izumi’s heart skipped a beat. “With…who?” Anxious as she was, her mind had already imagined the worst. She hoped desperately that her friend would say something unimportant.
But Kawaguchi was grave.
“They saw Shuji-kun walking with another girl.”
“What…?”
Izumi felt a little hole growing in her heart. Her face went slack, and her mind slipped into chaos over what to do.
“Were they alone?”
“Yeah.”
But she didn’t know for sure yet; she couldn’t say it was the scenario she’d been fearing. Striving to stay calm, she asked Kawaguchi a few more questions.
“When did it happen?”
“This past Sunday.”
“…That’s…”
Sunday—the very same day Nakamura had turned down Izumi’s invitation. The same day she’d complained about it to Kawaguchi.
Meanwhile, he’d been with another girl.
“…Where?”
“Um, Ma-chan in the next class over is the one who said she saw them, I guess at Laketown.”
“…Oh.”
Dark clouds filled Izumi’s heart. Koshigaya Laketown was the big mall where students often went for dates on the weekend.
“Maybe it was someone else?”
“I don’t think so. She said she was really close to them.”
“Oh.”
“But it could have been someone who looked like him…”
“Yeah… Okay, thanks.” Izumi felt like she was choking. Like a bowling ball had been dropped on her chest.
Kawaguchi peered worriedly into her face. “…What are you going to do?” she asked softly.
“Um…” Izumi wasn’t sure.
How should she react to news like this?
If he told her he’d been doing something else on Sunday and sent her a photo to prove it, she could rest assured that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding.
It was also possible he’d gone to Laketown but that the girl was just a friend. Maybe they’d been in a group and just happened to end up alone together at that moment. If they’d specifically been hanging out one-on-one, she’d want him to tell her the honest truth, even though she did feel it was a slightly odd thing to do given that he had a girlfriend. Of course, she wasn’t happy, but she didn’t want to tie him down.
“I…”
Problem was, she wasn’t sure if she should ask him directly.
The question itself would suggest she didn’t trust him, and digging into every detail of what he did when they weren’t together might seem controlling, even if they were exclusive. She didn’t like any of that. She just wanted a relationship where they trusted each other without having to be nosy.
“…I’m going to trust him a little longer.”
“Hmm…okay.” Kawaguchi wasn’t going to make any more comments.
And so Izumi pushed aside the seed of doubt in her heart and went through the school day the way she always did.
* * *
“…Geez.”
It was the following weekend, and Izumi was sighing as she reread a LINE chat with Nakamura.
[You free next Saturday?]
[i’ve got plans]
[Gotcha, okay!]
This was the third time in a row he’d turned down an invitation from her.
Before, he’d usually made some time for her on either Saturday or Sunday, and on most holidays during the week, they went somewhere together. Now, suddenly, this.
She wasn’t sure if the scenario she most feared was playing out. But she also couldn’t fathom why else this would be happening.
In a hazy, unsettled mood, Izumi lay her head on her pillow and sighed. Her warm, moist breath bounced off her pillow and left her cheek damp.
“…I better get ready.”
She got up, took a shower, pulled on a thick, white, off-the-shoulder sweater and a tight gray checkered skirt, and did her makeup.
She stopped in the entryway to pull on her coat and tall black boots, then headed off to the station.
She took the train to Omiya.
“Hi!”
“Oh, hi!”
“Heya!”
When she arrived at the bronze statue of Toto-chan the squirrel outside the east exit, Kawaguchi and Mao Kamimae were already waiting for her. A few minutes later, Erika Konno joined them. The group of four headed for the Arche building by the west exit.
“Man, it’s cold today.”
“Yeah,” Kawaguchi agreed as Konno rubbed her hands together.
“I should have worn thicker tights!”
Chatting about nothing in particular, they made their way into the building. Izumi tried to forget about her worries by concentrating on the conversation, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Nakamura.
* * *
“This is so cute!” Izumi cried.
“Didn’t you just buy something like that, Yuzu?” replied Kamimae.
“Did I? What do you mean?”
“Remember, that black fluffy thing?”
The two girls were scrutinizing some clothes.
“No way, this is totally different! That one was fluffy, but this one is fuzzy.”
“Not sure I see the difference…” Kamimae gave the overly discerning Izumi a confused look.
“Yuzu,” Konno called, “come over here for a second.”
“Huh?”
Konno was standing in front of a mirror, wearing a black motorcycle jacket. She did a twirl to give Izumi a 360 view as she approached.
“Whatcha think?”
Her tone was casual, but the fact that she’d called Izumi over just to ask her opinion was a sign of how much she trusted her fashion sense. Pleased by the gesture, Izumi gave the jacket a hard look.
The tight, fake leather fit Konno perfectly, making her already slender form look even more sleek.
“It looks amazing on you! But…”
“What’s up?”
“You’ve got such a nice shape, so I think a shorter one might be even better.”
Konno gave a satisfied nod. “Could be. Thanks!”
She shrugged off the jacket, replaced it on the rack, and started rifling through the clothes again. Times like this, you could never really tell whether Konno would be cooperative or not, but Izumi liked that about her.
Suddenly she spotted another jacket.
“Hey, Erika, how about this one?”
“I’ll try it on.”
“Sounds good.”
On the surface, Izumi appeared to be having just as much fun as always on their shopping trip, but inside, her anxiety bubbled relentlessly.
What was Nakamura doing right now?
* * *
The four of them worked their way down from the top floor of the Arche building, and when they’d finished shopping, they headed over to a popular pancake shop. With branches in Harajuku and Shibuya, it was famous for its melt-in-your-mouth pancakes.
A short while after they sat down and ordered, the waiter delivered four soufflé-like concoctions. They looked rich and delicious.
Kamimae couldn’t contain her excitement. “Oh my god! I’ve gotta get a picture of this!” She started snapping photos from every angle with her phone. “It looks amazing!”
“Oh, good idea.”
The other three pulled out their phones and started snapping, showing one another their shots. Of course, taking pictures of the pancakes was standard procedure for four high school girls; there were actually a couple of other groups doing the same thing right next to them.
“Oooh, that’s a good one, Yuzu!” Konno sounded impressed.
“Right?!”
“You always take the best pictures.”
“Lemme see!” Kawaguchi leaned over to see Izumi’s screen, interrupting her chummy exchange with Konno.
“Ooh, yeah! Send it to me later!”
“Sure!”
Once the photo shoot was over, they moved on to eating.
“Let’s dig in!”
Izumi drenched her pancake in maple syrup, and the golden, glittering liquid ran down the sides and pooled on her plate. Just watching the syrup flowing over the edges, she could tell how soft the pancake was.
The four girls watched it as it glittered like a jewel.
“Damn, this makes a great picture, too,” Konno blurted out.
“Yeah!”
“I was thinking the same thing!”
Another pancake photo shoot began.
* * *
There was a recent topic that none of the four girls mentioned, but all of them faintly sensed it was taboo.
“How are things going with Hashiguchi lately, Mutsumi?” Kamimae asked.
“Um, well…we went to Disneyland the other day,” Kawaguchi said shyly.
“Really? Just the two of you?”
“Um… Uh-huh…”
“What?! That’s, like, a date!” Kamimae shouted excitedly.
“Did he say he wanted to start going out?” Konno asked.
“No…we just hung out like usual and then went home.”
“What is he, in junior high or something?” Smacking her lips, Konno smiled at Kawaguchi.
“Y-yeah, I know… What do you think is going on?” Kawaguchi asked uncertainly.
Izumi gulped down a bite of pancake before answering. “Hashiguchi seems like the safety-first type to me…”
They were happily chatting away about their respective love lives when the taboo first reared its head—the taboo of Izumi and Nakamura.
They were talking about romance, so it would have been natural for the conversation to turn to Izumi and Nakamura’s relationship, but no one mentioned it. They couldn’t mention it.
Even though Izumi, Kawaguchi, and Kamimae couldn’t stop talking about the suspicious Nakamura sighting when the three of them were alone, now that Konno was there, they couldn’t say a word.
The conversation had to make detours around the subject, so every now and then there were awkward pauses as they all searched for a different, non-Nakamura-related topic.
“…Um…”
“So…”
This was just such a moment. Kawaguchi and Kamimae both sensed that the conversation was about to turn toward Izumi, and they were trying to find a different course. There was a subtle discomfort in the air, but since they couldn’t talk about why, that only made the tension worse.
“…Hey,” Konno suddenly said.
“Yeah?” Izumi answered.
Without any obvious emotion, Konno went on in a natural tone.
“How are things with you lately? You and Shuji?”
The air froze. The very person who had established the taboo had just broken it.
The other three looked at one another, searching for the right thing to say.
“Um, well—”
But Konno interrupted again. “I don’t know why you’re tiptoeing around—I really don’t care.” Her face gave little away as she looked at Izumi.
Her words were blunt, but there was a hint of kindness to them; she was trying to ease the friction that clung to the group like frost. This was a considerate gesture from the class queen. The truth was, she couldn’t possibly not care, but her friendship with Izumi seemed to have won out.
Izumi gulped before finally nodding slowly.
“Okay… Sorry for being weird about it.”
“Honestly? I’d rather you just come out and talk about it already!” Konno said, raising one eyebrow. It wasn’t a kind or gentle expression, but she didn’t look displeased.
“Well then…there’s something I want to ask your advice on, if you don’t mind.”
With that, Izumi started to explain the current situation with Nakamura.
* * *
“Seriously?”
“Yeah…”
Izumi had just finished telling Konno about how they hardly ever went out anymore and how he’d been spotted with another girl.
“Geez. That’s super sketchy.” Konno looked more than a little surprised.
“You think so, too? …Oh man.” Izumi looked down, her face dark.
“I don’t think that’s what’s going on, Yuzu!”
“Yeah! Shuji-kun wouldn’t do something like that!”
Kamimae and Kawaguchi tried to pull Izumi out of her funk.
“No, this is pretty serious. Shuji definitely has it in him.” Konno decisively contradicted the other two.
“Y-yeah…I agree.”
Izumi and Konno were aligned now, and the two of them frowned solemnly.
Kawaguchi and Kamimae watched them, whispering to each other.
“Aren’t those two supposed to like Shuji-kun…?”
“Yeah, I wonder why they’re so suspicious of him…”
They looked at each other, struggling to understand.
Izumi and Konno ignored them.
“So he turned you down again today, right? What if you asked him what he’s doing right now? Send him a LINE.”
“Won’t he think I’m being clingy?”
“Yeah, he might. So…” Konno looked over at Kawaguchi and Kamimae. “One of you should ask him.”
“Oh, good idea!”
“Obviously.”
The concept was simple. Instead of Izumi asking directly, one of the other girls could ask casually and then relay whatever he said in reply. Konno’s group and Nakamura’s group were on friendly terms, at least until a big blowup, so either Kawaguchi or Kamimae could easily get in touch with Nakamura without arousing much suspicion.
“But what should I ask him?”
“Um, lend me your phone for a second, okay?” Before waiting for an answer, Konno grabbed Kawaguchi’s phone.
“Uh, go ahead, I guess.”
“Hmm…”
Giving her permission after the fact, Kawaguchi watched as Konno started typing on her phone like she had every right to do so. The hierarchy between them was obvious.
Konno opened a chat window with Nakamura on Kawaguchi’s LINE account and typed in, [What are you up to?] After getting Kawaguchi’s okay, she hit send.
Next she tapped the ATTACH PHOTO button and sent him one of the pictures they’d taken earlier of their pancakes. It was a slightly wide-view shot that included her own pancake, with part of Kamimae’s body and some of the other pancakes.
Once she confirmed that it had been sent, she typed in, [Look what we got!]
“That should do it.”
“Wow.” Kamimae was impressed.
“Drawing him out, huh?” Kawaguchi said with satisfaction.
Konno had asked what he was doing, then sent a photo that showed her own answer. She didn’t directly ask him to send a picture, but a similar message and picture would be the natural response.
“He’ll probably send back a picture. Although this is Shuji we’re talking about, so he might ignore the hint.”
“Ah-ha-ha…I could see that.”
Izumi chuckled, but she was really grateful she could count on Konno to step in to help her worries. This was a huge favor, even though Izumi was dating the same person she’d had a crush on herself. Konno wasn’t entirely selfish. She could be really scary, and Izumi still believed the bullying she’d done was wrong, but she couldn’t help liking her all the same.
“Oh, look, he read it,” Konno said.
“What?!” Izumi answered, surprised. She was partly nervous about how he would respond and partly a bit jealous. He never read her LINE messages that quickly.
“Wonder what he’ll say!”
Kawaguchi sounded a little excited. Izumi was worried, but Kawaguchi didn’t have much skin in the game. Plus, they weren’t even sure Nakamura was cheating. Overall, she was optimistic about the situation.
After a brief wait, Nakamura answered. As they’d hoped, he responded with a picture.
The photo was of Takahiro Mizusawa eating a hamburger at a diner. There was a short message, too: [burgers with takahiro]
“So that’s what he’s up to!” Izumi said with a relieved sigh.
“See? I told you you worry too much!” Kawaguchi thumped Izumi’s shoulder and grinned.
“Yeah, he’s, like, head over heels for you. He’d never cheat,” Kamimae piled on cheerfully.
“R-right? I’m sorry for making such a big deal, guys…,” Izumi had started to say, when Konno noticed something.
“Wait a second. Look.” She set the phone on the table and zoomed in on one part of the photo.
“…No way.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh my God.”
Whatever it was, it was bad news.
Konno was pointing at an iPhone with an obviously girly case.
“That doesn’t belong to Shuji or Takahiro, does it?” Izumi asked, despite knowing the obvious answer.
“Nope,” Konno said calmly, frowning. “Well, Takahiro is there, too, and just because a girl’s there doesn’t mean he’s cheating…”
“…Yeah.” Izumi nodded and completed the thought. “But…why is he hiding it?”
* * *
After that, the four of them had a lively debate about the photo.
“He’d only hide it if he was doing something suspicious! And it’s even worse that he tried to hide it in a message to me!” Kawaguchi said.
Konno tilted her head. “He sent it to you, but I bet he guessed you might be with Yuzu.”
“Yeah, could be. I didn’t say who I was with.”
Konno nodded. “Plus, don’t you think it’s weird that there are two guys, Shuji and Takahiro, but only one girl? I bet another girl is with them.”
Kawaguchi gaped in surprise at Konno’s deduction. “You mean like one of those matchmaking parties?”
“Yeah,” said Konno. “Look, we’re talking about Shuji and Casahiro. It’s totally possible. Also, Takei isn’t with them.”
“Ah-ha-ha. ‘Casahiro’?” Kamimae laughed at the sketchy nickname.
“…Ugh…” Izumi was growing more depressed by the second, but she had every reason to. Her boyfriend was with another girl, and he’d basically lied about it.
Konno patted her shoulder with a half smile. “We still don’t know anything yet. Maybe he just doesn’t want to go to all the trouble of explaining… But I don’t think it’s a good idea to be too trusting. You might just get hurt later on.”
“…Yeah, you’re right.” Izumi’s expression remained dark.
Konno looked at her and thought for a second. “Well, if it’s bothering you, ask Takahiro about it when you get home tonight. Ask him who he was with. If we ask Shuji right now whose phone that is, it’ll be too nosy.”
Izumi’s face brightened slightly. “Good idea. He probably wouldn’t mind.”
“If he tells you they were with a girl, you’ll know it was just a friend. But if he says it was just him and Shuji, you’ll know Hiro is in on it, too.”
“…Yeah, I’ll do that.” Izumi nodded with determination. “Thank you, Erika.”
“No worries,” Konno said casually—but she was trying to make up her mind about something.
Call it a girl’s intuition or maybe a queen’s premonition—but she did have a feeling.
Should she say it to Izumi or not?
If you ask me, you’d be better off not knowing.
* * *
That night, Izumi lay on her bed holding her phone with sweaty hands.
A LINE chat window was open on the screen.
The name in the “To” field was Takahiro Mizusawa.
A million thoughts were running through her mind as she typed.
Should she pretend she hadn’t noticed and just chat randomly? But that would be weird given the timing, and Mizusawa was sharp. There was a very good possibility he’d notice something was up.
So should she just come clean and tell him honestly that she was worried?
But if she did that, he might tell Nakamura. And that might make him think she was clingy, which she didn’t want.
She decided on a third approach, typed in the words, and hit send.
[Hey!
You and Shuji had a guy’s day out today, right?]
That was it—a very simple message.
He’d have a hard time reading her intentions from just that, wouldn’t he?
Pressing her hands to her chest to slow her beating heart, she opened her home page and waited for his answer.
If he told her another girl had been with them, she was in the clear.
But if he implied it was just the two of them—she was in trouble.
She tossed her phone onto a corner of the bed and slipped under the covers. As soon as she did, she heard the chime for a new message. She flinched at the speed of his response.
Hurriedly flipping back the cover and grabbing her phone, she looked down at the screen.
This is what the message said.
[Yeah
Why?]
She quietly slipped back under the covers.
* * *
A few days passed. Izumi had gotten a message from Nakamura, and she was ignoring it.
He hadn’t said anything else—she’d simply ended the chat without responding to his question. She’d been vaguely cold toward him at school, but he hadn’t brought it up. In fact, her actions were so subtle they hardly even counted as ignoring him.
He probably doesn’t even care that I didn’t respond, Izumi thought to herself.
When Nakamura was even a little bit late in responding to one of her messages, she got jealous, but when she left his message unanswered for days, he didn’t even seem to notice.
The whole thing made her sad and lonely, almost desperate. What had she been doing these past months?
“Aaaaaargh!”
She buried her mouth in her pillow and screamed. But instead of releasing her emotions, she only felt more anxious.
“…Erg.”
She thought back over her relationship with Nakamura.
The time he asked her out in the park.
The weekend she squeezed his hand.
The first time they went to his house alone.
The warmth of his hand when he poked her teasingly in the forehead. The look on his face when he thought she didn’t know he was looking at her.
She couldn’t help thinking of him at the smallest opportunity.
She was always the one chasing him, always worrying that he would run off somewhere if she didn’t keep hold of him.
Of course he looked at other girls. Like whoever was with him when he sent the photo to Kawaguchi.
What kind of girl does that iPhone belong to? What does she wear? Does she look like me? Or is she completely different?
…Is she prettier than me?
The thoughts went round and round Izumi’s mind until finally she couldn’t stand it.
“Blrghhhh!!!”
She screamed into her pillow again, even louder this time.
* * *
It happened the next day.
Izumi’s phone buzzed early in the morning.
Woken up by the vibration, she saw the word Shuji on the screen. It was a LINE call from Nakamura.
“…Really?”
She was suddenly wide awake, and her stomach was in knots. They hadn’t messaged each other at all the past few days. Just before that, she’d learned about his suspicious behavior and the possibility of another girl.
And now this call.
She couldn’t help thinking it all pointed to one thing.
This is it.
She hesitated to answer, staring at the screen.
If she ran away now, nothing would change. She would just put off the inevitable. But she still couldn’t bring herself to answer.
When the buzzing stopped, she assumed he’d given up.
“…Ugh, I hate this.”
She desperately tried to think with her still-sleepy head.
What should she do? What should she say?
How could she escape the horrible fate waiting for her?
Before she could come up with an answer, her phone rang again.
Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t believe she’d been asleep only moments before. She didn’t want to talk to him. But she had to do something, or the anxiety would crush her. This time, she answered in the hopes of just getting it over with.
“…Hello?” she said, making an effort to sound normal.
The voice on the other end was even more cheerful than usual, which struck her as thoughtless, even cruel.
“…Hey.”
“What’s going on?”
“Uh…”
His voice was low. Meanwhile, she was trying to cover up her feelings with a fake normal tone. This was embarrassing.
He went on, haltingly. “Do you…have time to…get together and talk right now?”
“…What?”
Her ominous hunch turned into certainty. He was asking to talk without saying what it was about.
“Why?”
He was silent for a moment, then answered a little more forcefully. “You can guess, can’t you?”
Izumi’s heart froze. Yes, she certainly could. “Um…yeah.”
“So can you come over to my place?”
She was sure now—he was going to dump her. She could sense the life draining out of her voice as a powerful wave of regret overtook her.
Why had she done that? After she saw the picture, after she’d checked with Mizusawa, why had she let her meaningless pride and competitiveness win? Why hadn’t she answered his LINE message?
What if she’d just done something about it once she sensed him drifting away? Maybe they wouldn’t have reached this point.
“…I hate this.”
The shaking that she’d been struggling to control overtook her, and her emotions reached her words.
“What?”
“I said I hate this!!” she shouted.
“…What are you talking about?” Nakamura said grumpily.
“I just hate it! You know what I mean! I know you understand the word hate!”
“I mean, yeah, but… What?”
“I’m not going,” she said desperately. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say, so I’m not going. I’m staying home all day.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Yuzu Izumi?”
“I am Yuzu Izumi,” she said childishly, and she immediately regretted it. The more they talked, the worse she felt.
“…Then I’ll come to you.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll call you when I get to the station.”
“Wait…”
“Okay, later…”
“Wait!”
He hung up.
“…Crap.”
Her phone beeped.
She’d forgotten to charge it the night before, and the red battery symbol on the screen was telling her she only had five percent left.
“Ahhh—!!”
She tried to release her stress by screaming so loudly even her pillow couldn’t absorb the sound, but all she could do was wait for Nakamura to call again.
* * *
[i’m on the 10:24 train]
His message arrived.
Now that her fate was sealed, Izumi calmly closed the LINE app. She plugged her phone into the charger and stuck it under her pillow so she wouldn’t get even more worked up.
Then she curled up on her bed and waited. Her mind was blank, but then…
What was he planning to say when he broke her heart? Would he forgive her if she refused to let him go? Forgive what? Was he just bored with her? If she said she didn’t want to break up, would that make her clingy?
She battered herself with unanswerable questions until just after ten.
“…I better go soon.”
She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but she put in a pair of colored contact lenses that made her black eyes look bigger. As for clothes, she couldn’t help choosing carefully even at a moment like this. After all, Nakamura would be seeing her. She smiled cynically at herself.
She arrived at the station at around 10:20, wrapped her scarf around her neck so it covered half her face, and waited.
A few minutes passed.
For the first time in a while, his familiar form appeared on the stairs.
“Ah…”
Tears were already pricking at her eyes, just seeing him.
She’d felt this tightness in her chest before—when she was waiting for his response on LINE after they’d been apart for a while or when he turned down one of her invitations. Her mind filled with anxiety.
But the second she saw his face, all her emotions flip-flopped like the pieces on an Othello board—and her affection for him took control.
I hate this. I hate it. I don’t want it to end.
She pushed down the urge to just turn and run. Pulling her scarf up even farther, she hid behind the soft fabric. She was sure her tears would spill over if she just stood there in the cold with all these feelings, and she didn’t want him to see her so weak.
Under her scarf, she bit her lip and forced herself not to cry.
Nakamura was right in front of her now. “Hey… Haven’t seen you in a while.” He avoided her eyes, seeming uncharacteristically unsure how to act.
“…Yeah.”
But Izumi stared into his face anyway. Maybe it was because she wanted to burn the image of my boyfriend, Nakamura into her memory.
“This isn’t the greatest spot… Wanna go over there?” He indicated a bench at the park across from the station.
They’d sat on that bench countless times since they started dating, talking about topics both unimportant and important. So many memories had been made there.
“…Okay.” Izumi nodded and trailed after him.
They sat down next to each other. A dusty, dry wind whipped the bare branches of the trees around.
They were silent for a moment.
Then Nakamura broached the topic. “Well…,” he began slowly, his hands in his pockets.
Izumi sat and waited for him to go on, sure that he was about to pull out an invisible dagger and sever their relationship.
“Wait!!” she shouted, desperate to intercept him. “I can’t!! I don’t want to break up!!”
Heedless of what he or anyone else might think, she told him the truth. Nakamura stared at her in a daze.
She didn’t care if her struggle was useless. She didn’t care if he thought she was clingy. The only thing she knew was that everything inside her wanted to hold on to this relationship.
“I know I’m an idiot, and I’m always getting in your way, but I still…”
The dam broke and her tears spilled out as she shouted the rest of her sentence.
“I still love you!!”
Silence.
She didn’t take her eyes off him. But what was going on?
Something was wrong with his reaction. Like her brutally honest words had had no effect on him, like—
“No, listen.”
Izumi could never have imagined what he was about to say.
“Happy birthday.”
Izumi sat there gaping in silence. “…What?”
Nakamura smiled wryly. “…I have no idea what’s going on in your head, but…” He was holding out his hand with a little package wrapped in cute paper balanced on his palm. “Today’s your birthday, right? I just wanted to give you your present. Geez.” He sounded irritated, but his smile was teasing.
Izumi thought back on how he’d been acting lately, and on everything that had happened since they first met. Suddenly the whole story fell into place—and she screamed.
“Aaaaaaaaah—?!”
* * *
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Nakamura seemed to find the whole situation hilarious.
“It’s not funny! I was really worried!”
“Damn. You were right about being an idiot.”
Izumi couldn’t argue with him, so she just blushed and groaned.
“The reason I couldn’t hang out lately is that I was getting a friend of Takahiro’s to help me pick out a present for you.”
“So that girly phone in the picture you sent was…”
“Hers. We met her at a school festival we went to a while ago. There’s nothing going on.”
“Ohhhh…” Izumi was so embarrassed, she couldn’t even look at Nakamura’s face. “And when you said on the phone that I should know why you wanted to get together…”
“Ha-ha-ha! I meant because today was your birthday.”
“True…”
It was so obvious now that her behavior before seemed completely irrational. She’d completely forgotten. She had nothing to say.
Nakamura wiped away the tears from laughing so hard and rolled his eyes. “Oh man, who forgets their own birthday?”
“Shut up!”
Using her sleeve to roughly wipe away the tears that she didn’t even know why she was shedding, she let all her emotions show. All her embarrassment was gone, and she glared at him with the eyes of a wild animal.
Nakamura looked back at her gently and sighed. “Listen…I’m not interested in anyone else. So stop worrying every time anything happens.”
“Uh…”
“Okay?”
His piercing gaze was as honest and straightforward as always.
He’s always so simple and childish, but then he uses it to get to me! Izumi thought to herself. “…Okay. Got it.”
Somehow, he’d gotten her agreement. He gave a satisfied smile. “What, has no one else wished you happy birthday yet?”
“Huh?”
She’d been so depressed she hadn’t even charged her phone, and after he called that morning, looking at messages from anyone else was out of the question.
She opened her LINE app.
“…Oh.”
It was filled with messages from Konno, Kawaguchi, Kamimae, Hinami, Nanami, and other friends.
“Crap.” Her eyes were full of tears again.
“What’s up?”
“I was dying, and now I’m suddenly so happy it’s like my brain can’t keep up.”
It was like the Othello pieces had been flipped from black to white and then to rainbow colors.
“Ha-ha-ha. You really are crazy.”
This had to be the worst and best birthday she’d ever had, Izumi thought.
“So what if I am?!”
And so it turned out that Yuzu Izumi’s bout of depression had all been for nothing.
“Aaargh, I can’t take it! I’m so happy!!”
Her usual smile had returned to her face.