I Drink Every Night With a Lookalike of a Popular Idol on the Riverbank
“Nanase, aren’t you drinking too much? Your face is red.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m not drunk.”
Her slurred speech made her words completely unconvincing. Nanase was drinking faster than usual today.
While I was finishing one can of chuhai, she was already reaching for her second. Maybe something unpleasant had happened.
She slowly leaned back and lay down without hesitation.
“Nanase, you’ll catch a cold…”
“No, I’m fine… Look, Yosuke. The sky is clear. Lie down and see for yourself.”
Nanase smiled slightly and pointed to the sky.
As she said, I slowly sat down next to her and then lay down.
The cool feel of the concrete and the smell of the earth spread across my back. The orange-tinged night sky of the city spread out before my eyes. It was too bright to see any stars. Only a faint moon floated behind thin clouds.
“You’re right. There’s nothing.”
“Right. It’s empty. It feels good.”
She said that and closed her eyes contentedly. She really looked like she was about to fall asleep.
“I feel like I’m going to fall asleep… It feels so good.”
When I said that, she, who was still lying with her eyes closed next to me, chuckled.
“But from the stars’ perspective, it’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“They’re always shining, but we can’t see them because of our circumstances. If it were dark and our eyes were good, we should be able to see them.”
“That’s how it is… Besides, in such an environment, there are so many stars that it’s just one of many. It’s not easy to focus on a specific star.”
“Well… that’s true. Still, there are stars I want to see…”
While Nanase was talking about that, their hands bumped into each other. Nanase stopped talking, so I couldn’t help but focus on her hand.
“What… What were we talking about? Ah… Ahaha…”
Nanase laughed awkwardly, as if trying to cover something up.
“We were talking about how stars are beautiful even when you can’t see them.”
“Fufu… Beautiful even when you can’t see them, huh. That’s true. Still… maybe sometimes you can get closer to the stars so you can see them.”
Nanase said that and took my hand.
“What… What?”
“It’s just the whims of the stars.”
“Oh, I see…”
Nanase-san squeezed my hand whimsically.
“Some stars might be saying, ‘Please let me be seen,’ while others might be saying, ‘It’s okay if I’m not visible right now’… I think. The surrounding light is too bright.”
“Huh…”
“Well… something like that.”
“I see… Does this hand have anything to do with it?”
“No, it’s not. It’s just a whim.”
Nanase said that, but she didn’t let go of my hand. She just looked up and closed her eyes.
“Yousuke, the stars are above us, not next to us. Don’t stare.”
“I know that!”
I felt embarrassed that she had noticed me staring at her, so I quickly looked up.
Then, maybe because my eyes had adjusted, I could see a few stars.
“Oh, I can see the stars.”
“Huh!?”
Nanase looked at me in surprise.
“Up there.”
“Over there….”
“Where else would they be…”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Nanase smiled as she looked up at the sky.
“Hmm… Wait, isn’t that a plane? Or maybe a drone? That red one over there?”
“Eh… Oh, you’re right… It was blinking…”
“Haha. I guess you can’t see the stars after all.”
Nanase said that while holding my hand repeatedly.
Maiasa