Chapter 6: Beautiful Girl Without a Room, Without Food

A convenience store at night. The unnecessarily bright light spilling out stabbed my vision and I reflexively looked away.

The stuffy night air.

Two shadows stretched and spread on the asphalt.

Breath containing humidity falls.

「Never thought you'd be hungry.」

「...Hungry, eat, food.」

She talks like a beast starved for love.

...Well, maybe she doesn't mean it that way. In my contemplation, I held it out.

「Here, rice ball. It was cheap.」

There's no gloomy atmosphere.

Orimoto's suspicions about me have cleared up for now. I'm uninvolved and not manipulating the phenomenon in question.

I'm just an ordinary person who can somehow perceive Orimoto Suzuka, who's invisible to others.

I don't want her to misunderstand just that point.

Besides, it's impossible, impossible impossible.

What I'm good at is at most arranging books, and there's no way I could manipulate memory or cognition.

Orimoto, who received the rice ball, looked at it with an expression mixing bewilderment and a wry smile.

「...I'm getting you involved in something weird.」

The window glass of the nearest convenience store is cloudy and blurred with a combo of condensation and humidity.

But if I focus my eyes.

There are definitely the standing figures of me and Orimoto.

It happened right after we left the family restaurant.

A stomach growled. ——Orimoto's, that is.

In other words, hunger. No wonder she was staring holes through the café menu.

「Thank you! ...Ah, I'll pay back the money, I won't just keep what I received!」

「I won't say pay it back right now. But pay it back.」

「Mm, of course!」

This girl called Orimoto might be unexpectedly tough, and maybe mentally strong.

She had been ignored by everyone.

She had been treated as if she didn't exist.

It's still hard to believe, but she was cornered in a supernatural environment. Yet she's eating the rice ball quite deliciously.

If I were to add sound effects, it'd be munch munch munch.

「...You're pretty easygoing. Are you surprisingly okay with this situation?」

「I wanted to die just a while ago, you know?」

「Ouhh? ...Ouuhh?」

I didn't understand. Mm?

A beat of silence.

——Wait wait.

So she wasn't unexpectedly fine.

Heavy breath gets stuck in my throat.

「When I got pushed, honestly... I was scared, but I also had this "ahh, I see" feeling.」

Being told so casually that she wanted to die makes me wonder if my ears are broken.

「...It's not my place as a stranger to say this, but isn't it too early to die? There might be solutions.」

「Were you listening? That was just until recently.」

Orimoto corrects me.

Less than an acquaintance, a classmate. Even with such a person, watching them commit suicide is out of the question. It would make the meaning of me saving her while being exposed to embarrassment completely pointless.

「I never imagined I'd be driven this far in just a few days, but if Kasugai-kun hadn't been there, I would have jumped from the footbridge with high probability.」

「Jumped——.」

Orimoto put her index finger to her cheek.

「——When I woke up, my room was gone. I wasn't in the family photos.」

Orimoto says while gazing at the streetlight. There was a fantastical quality as if she were faintly outlined by light.

「Wah, there was a grain of rice. Embarrassing...」

Orimoto pops the rice grain from her cheek into her mouth.

That casual gesture somehow loosens the tense atmosphere. She's normally right there.

「My friends' eyes don't reflect me, and when I try to touch them, they give me startled looks. ——It seems like I'm thought of as some kind of ghost. When I pick up other people's belongings, they become invisible. When I let go, they can find them. Can you believe that? It's like an unpleasant nightmare, right?」

She seems to be quite the talkative type, as she looks.

While maintaining a certain intonation, it's never boring narration.

I found myself gradually listening.

Orimoto's long eyelashes tremble, and she occasionally plays with the tips with her fingertips. From my perspective, it's a beautiful girl's gesture, and I almost found myself enchanted.

「I keep saying this, but it's only been a few days?! To be driven this far in just a few days... I'm weak~」

Orimoto lets out a long, thin sigh.

「...Normally, your existence doesn't just disappear. It's different from pure trouble. Besides, it'd be scary if you just accepted disappearing.」

「Yet Kasugai-kun is talking to me with a relatively calm face. What if I'm not the one who's crazy but Kasugai-kun is?」

I was told that and couldn't argue back.

I do think "certainly".

I can't immediately come up with an answer to bounce back her question of "which one of us is strange?"

...No wait, it's obviously Orimoto.

I can talk to other people. I get blamed for spilling water. I get treated as troublesome and strange.

「That's not it. The staff was worried about me.」

「...That was really my fault, I thought the quickest way to get you to believe my situation...!」

I scratched the tip of my nose.

「It's kinda sudden.」

「What do you mean?」

Orimoto widened her eyes with a blank look and took a listening posture. Even that gesture is cute.

I think beautiful girls and handsome guys have it good.

There's been rising criticism of lookism lately, but appearance is still justice and weaponry.

「If someone told me "Nobody can see me!" I'd tell them to get their head screwed on right, but over these past few days the discomfort wouldn't go away.」

「I see, you're a realist.」

「...Whether this is reality is highly questionable. I only believe what I see, that's all.」

Before I know it, one rice ball is gone.

I gave her two. She's started peeling the wrapper of the other one, so she must have been quite hungry.

The first rice ball was still in her mouth, puffing out one cheek. ——Was she talking with food in her mouth? But I'm not in a position to point out manners, and the situation is what it is.

「Rice won't run away.」

When I commented, Orimoto vigorously shook her head sideways. Her chestnut-colored hair swayed left and right with a delay.

A sweet fragrance fills the slight distance.

「It will run away! You know, my side dishes are missing, and when I served rice, Okaa-san panicked, it's a big deal?!」

「...You're too close, too close...!」

Orimoto, who had brought her face close, had my dazed face reflected in her eyes. Beautiful double eyelids.

I can understand why she's rumored about at school.

Being a member of Sera's harem also makes sense, and with that guy, this beautiful childhood friend was a given.

It's enviable, but I wouldn't want to trade places.

It might be interesting if I did, but with my personality, I couldn't endure the men's resentment.

When I stepped back, Orimoto also seemed to notice the physical distance and gave a small cough.

「Anyway! Food runs away! Rather than running away, it's not there! ...Yum yum yum.」

「...Where are you sleeping?」

I suddenly became curious.

「Eh, that's sudden. I was thinking you might be a good person, but Kasugai-kun, are you a pervert?」

「Hell no! You said there's no food, so as an extension of that, I was just wondering if you've been going home these past few days!」

I made detailed corrections to fix the misunderstanding.

I'm not good at speaking at length.

Something struck a chord, and after laughing for a while, she said "It's okay, I'm sleeping in the hallway", hitting me with another melancholy line.

Orimoto's "former" room has already become a storage room and is more cramped than the hallway.

「——So you are going home.」

「But I can't rest easy! Also, I don't have money, so currently I can only rely on Kasugai-kun!」

Orimoto stated that she lost all her property-like possessions, hidden New Year's money, bank accounts, and various other things.

「......Seriously?」

「Yeah, seriously.」