Chapter 4: A Love Letter

Chapter 4: A Love Letter

Chapter 4:

A Love Letter

T UESDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH . That morning, I met with Horikita in the elevator on our way to school. After exchanging a brief greeting, we walked through the lobby and exited the dormitory building together.

“Have you heard?” she said. “The entire third-year grade is supposedly going to be practicing for the Cultural Festival the day before the festival proper.”

“Yeah. Apparently, they’re inviting first-years and second-years to participate as well.”

This news had actually been posted to the school’s bulletin board last night, informing students in all grades. It originated from the student council, essentially meaning that it was Nagumo’s decision. I figured this must have been what Nagumo had been referring to last week when he mentioned the student council were putting forward a proposal that wouldn’t be so bad. We were free to participate in any form. We could provide actual food or just an imitation. This proposal would let us put all our offerings on at once, and then we could make last-minute adjustments prior to the real Cultural Festival the next day.

“The student council has already heard that many classes intend to participate,” said Horikita. “I’m sure that even other classes who have been keeping what they’re doing under wraps will want an evaluation from a third party.”

“So a lot of classes are receptive to the idea?”

“I think that the fact that Class 3-A rented the gym and demonstrated their showing publicly was probably a big factor.”

Class 3-A hadn’t hidden what they were doing; they announced it openly, and then they actually did a trial run. The improvements they made after their demonstration were public knowledge to the students enrolled here. I figured there must’ve been a number of students who weren’t just hoping to win the Cultural Festival—they wanted to make it a real success as students, and they were looking forward to it as a whole.

“I’m guessing that the student council’s decision to pay for consumables and other goods pushed more people to join,” Horikita added.

After all, even if you were just doing a trial run, it would still cost money. A separate budget from the one that was provided to us specifically for the Cultural Festival would have to be set up, and naturally, individuals would have to fund it with Private Points. If students had to pay out of their own pockets, I was sure more classes would decide to skip doing a trial, but I supposed this was yet another example of what the student council could do.

The student council covering the expenses was a godsend, and it also meant that there was little to no reason not to participate. Students were also told that if they submitted receipts, they would be reimbursed from the student council’s budget. Of course, it wasn’t like they’d pay out limitlessly. There was an equal purchasing limit for all classes in the several tens of thousands of points.

“It’s all right for us to participate too, yes?” asked Horikita.

“Of course,” I replied. “The whole school knows that we’re putting on a maid café anyway. It can’t hurt.”

“You’re right. It’s the same for Ryuuen-kun and his class too.”

Horikita shot me a meaningful look after that, and I responded with a light nod.

“You’re saying we can get a peek at their skills,” I said.

This would be a great opportunity for us to see what kinds of things Ryuuen was doing and to get more details.

“You don’t think we’re going to lose?” asked Horikita.

“I’m not sure.”

“You look pretty confident.”

“It’s not like that. I’m not feeling too confident,” I said. “I’m just doing everything that I can.”

“That’s true, I suppose. But even so, isn’t it normal to feel anxious?” Apparently, Horikita was concerned that even though we were fully prepared, we could still come up short. “Maybe I’m scared about losing.”

Even if a class didn’t win, they wouldn’t lose any Class Points. But even so, if you didn’t win any and other classes did, it was all the same in the end. It was only natural that she didn’t want our class to stagnate. We had been steadily building momentum and closing in on Class A.

“You probably wouldn’t be so anxious if you were still the old you,” I remarked.

“That was just me being reckless… No, rather, it was just that I didn’t see anything around me.”

Now, Horikita’s vision had begun to widen, little by little. That was exactly why she couldn’t help but consider the possibility of losing.

“As a class leader, there’s nothing wrong with considering the possibilities of what might happen if you win or if you lose,” I said. “I’m simply one of your pawns. I just made an irresponsible statement, that’s all.”

Well, I supposed that the fact that Horikita couldn’t easily dismiss that statement was both one of her weaknesses and one of her strengths. If it were Sakayanagi and Ryuuen I was speaking to, they wouldn’t have listened at all. In the case of Ichinose, she would’ve listened and focused on it. Horikita, on the other hand, did both.

“I think that I understand what I’m doing, but…I don’t know,” she said.

In response to Horikita’s self-derision, I lightly smacked her back with the palm of my hand, just once.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she asked.

“It’s far too early to get accustomed to winning,” I told her.

“Hmph…” The look on her face suggested that she was slightly angry, but she must have realized I had hit the nail on the head. “Yes, you’re right. It was a conceited way of thinking on my part, even though what happened wasn’t all down to my own actions.”

Whether we were talking about what happened on the uninhabited island or the Unanimous Special Exam… Either way, those weren’t wins based solely on her ability.

“You…” she began.

“What?”

“I’m not trying to take what you’re saying too seriously, but you’ve been awfully cooperative lately, which I find extra annoying. I don’t know how to process that in my mind, and it’s bothering me.”

“In that case, I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t seek my cooperation at all in the future.”

I tried to walk away as quickly as I could, but she grabbed a hold of my shoulder.

“That’s a no-go,” she declared.

Even though I attempted to make a break for it, I was immediately captured and brought back.

“I’d like to stop by the convenience store on the way to school,” she said. “Would you like to come with me?”

“The convenience store?”

“I have my own preparations to do for the day before the Cultural Festival, so I wanted to make the most of my lunch break today.”

“Sure, that’s fine, I guess.”

It wasn’t like stopping there for a few minutes was going to cause any problems. I followed Horikita there and went inside. I just so happened to see Kouenji there as well, paying for his items. He was purchasing only two things: a bottle of soy milk and a chicken tenderloin salad. It was a very light meal to have for lunch, so I wondered if maybe he was going to eat it during the morning break. Actually, as I thought about it, I realized hardly ever saw Kouenji eating anything at all… His life really was a complete mystery.

“Good morning, Kouenji-kun,” Horikita called out to him.

After finishing paying for his items, Kouenji simply smiled in response and said nothing in return.

“So, I hear that Kouenji’s the only one who hasn’t been assigned a role,” I said. “He’s not doing anything for the Cultural Festival?”

“He told me that he wasn’t going to do anything,” Horikita replied. “And he’s not likely going to change his mind.”

She didn’t seem particularly concerned about that, though. She went to the register and chose a meal she could eat quickly. She declined a plastic bag and instead stuck her purchases in her own bag.

“You’re sure you’re not going to buy anything?” she asked.

“I don’t need anything, and it’s not like I have a surplus of Private Points anyway.”

November had been easier on my wallet to some extent, but I had plans to spend very soon.

“You’re not giving points to Kushida-san anymore, are you?” she asked.

“She’s not really demanding it from me, so no.”

“So, if she demanded you pay up, you’d pay her?”

“Do you really think that she’ll ask me to pay?” I said sarcastically.

“No, I guess not,” Horikita muttered. “Well, if she did, that’d be a problem. I’d end up having to worry about her again.”

Despite the twisted route it had taken, Kushida had undergone a significant change. And if it was heading in the direction of growth, then I had to believe in it.

4.1

A FTER CLASS THAT DAY , as Horikita sat at the front of the classroom, Ichihashi approached her, albeit somewhat hesitantly.

“Um, excuse me, Horikita-san…? May I have a minute?”

Ichihashi didn’t really have any point of connection with Horikita normally, and she had rarely ever gone to talk to her. The normal thing to assume was that this must be about the upcoming Cultural Festival, which was just around the corner. However…the thing that girl was holding in her hand suggested that she had a different reason for approaching Horikita.

“What is it?” asked Horikita.

“Actually, I have a small favor to ask. You have student council business later today, right?”

“Yes. As I told everyone in class a little while ago, I have student council business. I can’t help with the Cultural Festival all the time.”

“Yes, I know, but, um, it’s not like that. Could you…please deliver this for me?”

I happened to catch a glimpse of an envelope with a heart-shaped sticker on the flap as she handed it over.

“What’s this?” asked Horikita.

“It’s, um, a love letter…” said Ichihashi.

Horikita blinked. “…Huh?”

It wasn’t surprising that for a moment, Horikita had a look of complete bewilderment on her face, like she couldn’t understand the meaning of this. Even though we were living in an age where diversity was accepted, it was understandable that it would be more of a shock for a girl to receive a love letter from another girl instead of from a boy.

“O-oh, um, this isn’t a letter from me to you, Horikita-san,” Ichihashi said. “Okay? Actually, it’s…from a friend of mine, she asked me to give it to Student Council President Nagumo.”

“To the Student Council President?” said Horikita. “Isn’t this something that she should be giving to him directly?”

If you were going to tell someone that you had feelings for them, the standard procedure was, naturally, to go for it and tell them directly.

“She asked me to do it because she was too nervous to give it herself. But it’s like, I guess I don’t really have the guts to just hand it over to the Student Council President directly myself, either…” said Ichihashi. “I mean, it’s not like I have any connection to him or anything.”

Although Nagumo was a more sociable person than, say, the former Student Council President Horikita Manabu, he was still our senpai and a representative of this school. It would be a very high ask for someone who had never spoken to him before to approach him. For Horikita, though, things were different. It was easy to imagine that she talked to him on a daily basis for student council business.

“I can understand your situation, but…” Horikita began.

“Please. She’s really been agonizing over this for a long, long time, and… She seems to have finally found the courage.”

If this had been the Horikita of a little while ago, she might’ve turned down the request. However, it was important for her to build relationships with her classmates now. That was unavoidable if she was going to get back what was lost in the Unanimous Special Exam.

“…Very well,” she said. “If I see an opportunity, I’ll hand it to him. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” But even though Ichihashi said that, her answer seemed somewhat evasive.

“Is there something wrong?” asked Horikita.

“Oh, um, well, it’s just that there’s a…slight problem with the love letter.”

Horikita, upon taking the envelope in her hands, looked at both the front and back of it and realized that no name was written on it. Which meant that the identity of the sender would be unknown unless you opened the envelope and looked at the letter inside.

“Am I correct in assuming that this letter is from whoever wrote it?” asked Horikita.

“I’m not sure… Normally, yes, you think that the sender would write it themselves, but… Well, if she’s satisfied just with telling him how she feels, then she might not have actually written it herself.”

In other words, neither the messenger, Horikita, nor the recipient, Nagumo, would know the identity of the sender of the love letter.

“This is a little difficult… I’ll explain when I give it to him, of course, but if I’m not careful, he might get the wrong idea and think this letter is from me.”

The possibility that Nagumo might interpret the situation in a different way, like, Horikita said that she was asked to deliver the letter on behalf of someone else, but it was actually from her, wasn’t zero. There was no way that you could say the possibility was nonexistent.

“W-well, could you ask someone else to do that?” asked Ichihashi. “Like, maybe…a boy you know on the student council or something? Would that work? I’d kind of like this to get delivered today.”

“Easier said than done…” grumbled Horikita.

Despite her misgivings, though, she thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. “I’ll try my best, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to get it to him. Okay?”

“I’m just glad that you’re going to try, Horikita-san,” Ichihashi said. “I’m sure my friend will be really happy.”

Horikita agreed, albeit reluctantly, to deliver the love letter to Nagumo. In a situation like this, you normally would have asked who the letter was from, but Horikita must not have been interested, because she didn’t press the matter too deeply.

4.2

A FTER GETTING this unexpected request, my footsteps felt a little… No, actually, they felt very heavy.

“Why didn’t she just deliver it herself…? Good grief,” I huffed.

Accepting this request was a mistake. This had nothing to do with me… Maybe I ought to turn back and tell Ichihashi-san to tell her friend that she should deliver it herself…

“That would be the correct thing to do,” I told myself.

Just then, as the desire to run away from this flashed through my mind, I suddenly recalled the time I tried to give my older brother a letter when his high school enrollment was finalized. The old me was an idiot—I didn’t even realize by then that my brother was being cold to me, and I so desperately wanted to somehow go back to how things were in the old days, when we were close. I thought that if I couldn’t talk to him face-to-face, then I could just put my feelings in a letter.

But the words didn’t come out as smoothly from the pen in my hand as they did in my head. I thought about it for days and days, hesitating, writing, erasing, writing, and erasing. How can I get my thoughts across? I wondered. How can I make my brother happy? Even though I was writing a simple letter, that act alone felt like a desperate struggle. And in the end…I wasn’t able to give it to him. My brother ended up heading off to this school, and I was no longer able to see or even contact him anymore.

“That reminds me, whatever happened with that letter? I wonder…”

As I dug through my memories, I seemed to recall putting it in my older brother’s desk drawer…

“Wait, does that mean if my brother comes back home, he’ll see it?” I asked myself.

I came to a stop in the hallway, suddenly feeling my heart rate speed up. If he saw that letter now, after all this time…he would laugh at me.

“Let’s…just forget about that,” I declared.

Even if I drove myself into a panic and tried to do something about it, there was no way to get rid of the letter or make it look like it was never there. Right now, all I could do was hope that my brother didn’t find it. I remembered the sight of his back from my window, and then I brought my hands together.

“Right… Yes, that’s right.”

Writing a letter to a loved one wasn’t easy. Giving it to the person directly was even more difficult. If you asked me right now if I could give my brother another letter expressing my feelings for him, it would be hard for me to give you an immediate answer. I didn’t know who this letter was from, but the intended receiver was Student Council President Nagumo. I supposed I might have to take the sender’s feelings of hesitancy into account.

By the time I arrived at my destination, the student council office, I somehow managed to come up with an excuse to hand over the letter. When I opened the door, I saw that all of the members of the student council were already there, with the exception of President Nagumo. Not counting him, there were three boys on the student council—Yagami-kun, a first-year student; Aga-kun, also a first-year student; and then Vice President Kiriyama-senpai, a third-year student. However, asking just any boy wouldn’t do. I couldn’t casually entrust them with a love letter, something that wasn’t even routine student council business.

Out of all of the boys here, Yagami-kun was the only one that I was on relatively friendly terms with and could talk to normally. I knew I was taking advantage of my position as his senpai, but as they say, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

Yagami-kun was seated and engaging in friendly chit-chat with Ichinose-san. Hoping to take care of this bothersome affair quickly, I reached into my bag for the love letter.

But just then, President Nagumo appeared.

“Let’s get this meeting started immediately. Take your seats,” said President Nagumo, his voice low and dispirited as he came into the student council office.

I felt the air instantly turn tense, like we were on pins and needles. I pulled my hand back out of my bag—there was no way that I could come out and say that I was asked to deliver a love letter under these circumstances.

“Ichinose, if you have anything to report, let’s hear it,” said President Nagumo.

“Yes,” she replied. “It looks as though all classes have decided that they will be participating in the trial run on the day before the Cultural Festival.”

“They decided that in just about half a day, huh? It seems like the President’s decision was correct, then. However, since this was a decision made at the President’s own discretion as part of the student council, I wish we would’ve been notified about it a little sooner,” remarked Vice President Kiriyama-senpai icily.

“It was a whim. I thought getting this festival thing started a little earlier would make our kouhai happy,” said President Nagumo, replying without giving much of an apology.

What I was seeing was becoming something of an established custom for student council meetings. Basically, student council initiatives began with an idea from Student Council President Nagumo. Sometimes they were born from comments made during meetings, and other times they came from things we had no knowledge of.

Then, there was a period of silence, and President Nagumo crossed his arms and closed his eyes. He was clearly holding back his anger. Or that’s what it looked like, anyway.

“Um, excuse me, Nagumo-senpai… Is something the matter?” asked Ichinose-san fearfully, unable to bear it any longer.

“I heard a strange rumor today,” said President Nagumo.

“A…rumor?” she asked.

“It’s groundless, but anyway, people are saying that I was apparently putting up a lot of money on a bet to get a specific student expelled, or something like that.”

“Huh? What does that mean?”

It wasn’t any wonder that Ichinose-san had asked that question. After all, I too was keen to know more about what President Nagumo just said.

“Who did you hear such a ridiculous story from?” asked Vice President Kiriyama-senpai.

“Someone from your class,” President Nagumo said. His eyes were still shut, but he directed his words at Vice President Kiriyama-senpai. “Kishi.”

“…From Kishi?”

“I figured it was just gossip among friends, but I thought it wouldn’t have been strange if you had caught wind of it.”

“Sorry, but this is the first I’m hearing of it,” Vice President Kiriyama-senpai replied. “Anyway, I don’t understand the point in risking so much money in trying to get someone expelled in the first place.”

Normally, if someone was using a lot of money, it was to bring a specific person into Class A. If that was the sort of discussion they were having, then not even I would find that unreasonable. The third-year students in particular were concerned about their outcomes, and if they were called to come to President Nagumo’s class, then that was practically a guarantee that they would be graduating from Class A. Putting it less delicately, it was possible that Private Points were secretly being offered to those President Nagumo was friendly with, giving them the right to transfer classes.

“Sure, it’s just a rumor. But even so, I’m not willing to just sit idly by and let this misinformation go unchallenged,” announced President Nagumo.

It was certainly true that, as student council president, such rumors could damage him one way or another. I could see why he was in such a bad mood.

“So,” he began, “the student council is going to be suspending activities for a while.”

“Suspending…?” Ichinose-san was shocked by President Nagumo’s unexpected proposal.

The student council had been coming together once a week like this to discuss a variety of topics. The only exceptions to this were testing periods and some special exams—it was unprecedented to flat-out suspend our activities.

“We’re done discussing the Cultural Festival,” President Nagumo said. “There shouldn’t be any problems.”

“Are you planning to look for the people behind the rumor?” asked Vice President Kiriyama-senpai.

“Of course. I’m going to conduct a thorough investigation. Anyway, our next meeting will be held sometime after the Cultural Festival.”

Then, we discussed what would happen on the day prior to the Cultural Festival, and shortly after that, the meeting was adjourned. To my relief, most of the other students left the student council office.

Now that Yagami-kun and I were alone, I decided to talk to him. I got up from my seat and walked over. Perhaps he sensed that I was approaching—he looked up from his notebook, his hands stopped moving, and he closed his book. As the secretary of the student council, he had been keeping meeting minutes.

“Do you have a moment?” I asked.

Yagami-kun seemed slightly surprised, but then he turned to face me without a word.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Were you still in the middle of taking down notes?”

“Oh, no, I just finished. Please don’t worry.” Placing his hands gently over his closed notebook, Yagami-kun looked at me with a smile. “What’s going on, Horikita-senpai?”

“Yagami-kun. I was wondering if I might ask a somewhat bothersome favor of you.”

“What is it?”

“I want you to deliver this to President Nagumo. It’s a love letter.”

I took the letter out of my bag and presented it to Yagami-kun.

“It’s unusual to see this kind of thing these days,” he mused as he accepted the letter. “I’ve heard people normally do this over chat or with a phone call…”

When I saw the surprised look on his face, I quickly appended my statement. “For the record, it’s not from me.”

“I see. I thought for sure it was a letter from you, Horikita-senpai… Or are you saying that it is, but you just want me to present like it’s not?”

“No. A girl from my class asked me to deliver it.”

“The sender’s name isn’t on it. Who wrote this? I can let President Nagumo who it’s from.”

“I can’t say. She wishes to remain anonymous.”

“An…anonymous love letter?” asked Yagami-kun.

“I was asked to deliver it since I’m a member of the student council, but there’s the issue of anonymity,” I explained. “If I were to hand over the letter, President Nagumo might get the wrong idea. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I suppose there’s a good chance of that happening. To be honest, even now, a small part of me suspects that you were the one who wrote the letter after all, Horikita-senpai,” said Yagami-kun with a smirk.

It looked like he found this all a little amusing, but this absolutely was not a laughing matter to me.

“I’m joking,” he added. “I can tell from the look of displeasure on your face that it’s not really from you, senpai.”

If so, then, good… I thought to myself.

“This whole thing would’ve gone by more smoothly if I could have given you this letter before President Nagumo came into the office, but…”

“Even if I had received the letter from you then, I don’t think I would’ve been able to give it to him,” Yagami-kun said. “It really didn’t seem like the kind of moment where I could’ve handed him a letter.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. It wasn’t the right time.”

Under those circumstances, no one would have been able to talk to Student Council President Nagumo.

“I’m sorry to ask you to do this, but could you please deliver this to him as soon as possible? I’m sure that the sender is hoping that it will be received today.”

“In that case, I’ll stop by his dormitory later,” said Yagami-kun. He stared at the envelope with a somewhat puzzled look on his face. “Is this really a love letter?”

“Probably,” I replied. “Supposedly the girl poured her heart into it, but we can’t really be sure.”

It wasn’t like we could peel off the sticker and check the contents, after all.

“I was just thinking… If I presented this to Student Council President Nagumo as a love letter, but it actually turned out to be something else, it could be disrespectful to him,” said Yagami-kun.

“I suppose that’s possible, yes.”

“I’ll downplay it a bit and say that I had been asked to hand over a letter from someone, then.”

“Okay. I think that’s a good idea. Thank you.” I expressed my sincere gratitude for accepting the letter. “At any rate, being the secretary must be tough work, having to keep meeting minutes by hand even in this day and age.”

I was sure that it wouldn’t be an issue even if we were to use computers for our work nowadays, anyway.

“Tradition is important too,” Yagami-kun said. “Meeting minutes have always been kept as physical records, ever since this school was established. Suddenly transitioning to digital would cause a sense of discomfort.”

He turned and stared at the bookshelves. It was certainly true that the bookshelves were filled with lots of lots of meeting minute records, which told the accumulated history of everything the student council had done up until now. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if we were to change our file storage methods during our time here, like to store things digitally or something, but Yagami-kun had a point. If we wanted to honor tradition, then perhaps this was exactly the sort of thing we should continue doing.

“I’ve also heard that it’s best to endure hardships while we’re students. If we’re used to things being easy at an early age, we might suffer later on.” Yagami-kun showed a slightly more mature attitude than one would expect from a first-year high school student. “In that sense, I suppose that this love letter might be something similar.”

It was true that it was more common for a person to tell another how they felt over the phone nowadays. But even I understood that there was a certain degree of meaning in conveying your thoughts in writing instead.

“Anyway, I have to say, Student Council President Nagumo really didn’t seem very composed today, did he?” I said.

“Yes, you’re right,” said Yagami-kun. “All that business about him supposedly putting up a lot of money and trying to get a student expelled. And if I remember correctly… What was that name again…?”

As though he just remembered something, Yagami-kun opened the meeting minutes notebook and showed it to me. The first page that he opened was from sometime in the middle of last year and seemed to have been written by someone who was now a third-year student, back when they were in their second year. Then, as he flipped through, I saw where the handwriting changed and matched that of the most recent meeting minutes. I spotted the change instantly because the minutes kept by Yagami-kun were written perfectly, in a tidy, methodical fashion, being well-spaced and coherent. Actually, his handwriting was so refined that it was hard to believe that it was done by hand.

“Here we are. If I remember correctly, he said Kishi-senpai might have been spreading this rumor. Do you happen to know what class Kishi-senpai is in?” he asked me. His expression as he did was no different from usual as he showed me the meeting minutes.

However, my brain had suddenly been yanked into a different direction. This handwriting… What I was looking at was strikingly similar to the handwriting that I had been investigating a little while ago, which had almost slipped from my memory.

The person who sent me that letter during the Uninhabited Island Special Exam.

I felt so shaken that my vision threatened to blur, but I fixed my gaze on the notebook and eventually found the minutes for today’s meeting. As Yagami-kun was looking at me calmly, with that same smile he always had, I tried to step back and look at the first-year from a broader perspective.

It couldn’t be…

But… No, he… It’s not possible.

Amidst a whirlwind of emotions, I tried to think. I kept up my act, keeping my eyes lowered and focusing on the meeting minutes.

“Horikita-senpai?” he asked.

“…I’m sorry, I don’t know,” I said. “If we check OAA, we should find out immediately, though.”

“Yes, that’s a good point. I’ll look into it right away.”

“I’m sorry, but I just remembered that I have a little something I need to take care of. I’ll be going now,” I said.

“Oh, is that so? I understand.”

I averted my eyes from him and quickly turned away, trying to escape. “Well then, I’m terribly sorry about the bother, but thank you for handling giving that letter to the president.”

“Yes. Thank you for all of your hard work, as always, Horikita-senpai,” Yagami-kun replied.

If he were to look at me right now, I would probably end up asking him about his handwriting. I intuitively felt that I needed to stop that from happening. I exited the student council office and slowly closed the door behind me. But just before it closed, there was a split second when I could see Yagami-kun through the gap between the door and the frame, looking at me with a smile.

It was almost as if he was testing me.

Almost as if he were provoking me, asking me the question, “Did you notice?” Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of opening the meeting minutes notebook and deliberately showing me his handwriting.

The door shut with a ka-chak .

I couldn’t deny the possibility that his handwriting only just so happened to be the same through sheer coincidence. A good deal of time had passed since I had seen that letter, and my memory of it had gotten fuzzy. Yet, for some reason, his handwriting was so strikingly similar that it made me feel certain.

If I were to assume he really was the person who wrote that letter to me, then… That meant that he had to have been acting entirely normal, completely unbothered, even though we’d been near each other for a long time now.

At the same time, though, I couldn’t help but think that this assumption seemed very, very realistic.