4

“I’m home,” Eita announced in an utterly exhausted voice.

“Oh, welcome back,” replied his mother. She was in the kitchen preparing dinner while the evening news blared from the living room television. “You’re home late. How did things go at school?”

Eita managed to make out his mother’s question as he washed his hands and gargled in the bathroom. “Eh, it was pretty normal.”

It had been the farthest thing from normal. Well, the school was normal, but two unexpected long-time reunions in a row certainly couldn’t be considered normal. He had even been privy to someone making a romantic confession.

Then again, Haruto had more or less bailed at the last second, so it ultimately didn’t turn out to be a very romantic moment… But he had at least gotten somewhere.

“Oh right, I happened to run into another mother at the supermarket. She still works at the hospital just down the way. It was… right, Haruto-kun, Haruto-kun’s mom. You were in middle school together.”

“I’ll actually be going out with Haruto-kun tomorrow. I might not be able to clean my room much.” Eita wiped his hands dry and left the bathroom.

It wasn’t just Haruto he’d be seeing tomorrow. Both the girls that had been there earlier would be coming along. Which was to say, Morikawa Hazuki and Natsume Mio.

As Haruto was stumbling through his confession, Hazuki happened to spot Eita and Mio watching from behind him. In the middle of all that awkwardness, Haruto fumbled out, “Maybe, if you’re free tomorrow, we should go out and do something fun.” Eita couldn’t bring himself to say no, and had a sneaking suspicion that Mio agreed for the same reason.

Eita wandered to his room, ignoring whatever his mother was saying behind him.

Cardboard boxes were piled high in the room, left over from the move. It didn’t feel like a room that belonged to him at all. The only usable furniture in the room was a bed and a desk. Eita collapsed face down on the bed.

“…Man, I’m wiped.”

With a transfer happening at that time of the year, all he was supposed to do was go to school and graduate. He didn’t want anything more, and hadn’t considered that anything else would come of his time there.

And then he met Haruto and Mio again…

“Natsume’s… different…” Eita mumbled, only heard by his pillow.

Mio had cram school after she left high school, so it was past 10 PM by the time she finally made it home. She ate a bit of the food her mother had prepared, careful to watch the amount so she wouldn’t put on any weight, then got into the bath.

Relaxing in the bathtub finally helped relieve some of her tension, and her mind slowly switched off of exam studying mode. That left all the stuff that had happened back at the school.

Mio quickly got out of the bath, trying not to let any of that settle. She dried herself off in a daze, changing into her pajamas. But as she began blowdrying her hair, the events of the day began replaying yet again.

“Why… Why did Izumi come back now of all times…”

She knew that she was getting mad at the wrong person.

As she turned off the hair dyer, Labby, her family’s labrador retriever, walked in and began taking up a lot of space in the bathroom.

Mio squatted down, holding Labby’s face in her hands.

“He probably… still remembers, doesn’t he?”

The feelings that only Eita had ever noticed. Her long-standing, one-sided crush.

“I was supposed to finally be able to put it all behind me…”

Or so she had thought. That was supposed to be the plan. Graduation would put an end to it. It should have gone that way.

“Why now… now of all times…”

She had been thrust into a very odd situation. She hadn’t wanted to see it. Even hours later, her mixed-up feelings refused to settle down. She felt so uncomfortable, like she had left her normal self behind somewhere and forgotten to get it back.

She heaved a great sigh before she could stop herself.

“So what do I do about tomorrow?”

Labby tilted his head, looking up.

She had promised to go along with them.

What kind of face was she supposed to make? What was she supposed to act like? Should she act like normal? Should she contact Haruto immediately to back out? But she didn’t know his LINE info, and didn’t want his plans to fail because she backed out. That would make him so disappointed. Then she’d feel guilty, and everything would be awful.

She needed to make sure Eita didn’t say anything out of line, either.

That said, she definitely needed to go.

She came to her decision feeling something awfully close to resignation, and all her worries remained conglomerated into a big lump in the center of her chest. But since she had already decided to go, the next important thing was…

“So, what am I gonna wear…”

End of Chapter 1