The School’s Top Idol Is Acting Like She’s My Childhood Friend for Some Reason and Just Keeps Closing the Distance on Her Own…?! ~Stop Getting All Gloomy on Me Just Because I Turned You Down!~
Twenty days until the cultural festival.
The smell of paint mixed with cardboard filled the classroom after school.
All the desks had been pushed back, and large sheets of drawing paper were spread out on the floor. Following the sketches drawn by the decoration team, several of my classmates were moving their brushes.
Written in the center was the name of the retro café our class was running.
“Café Twilight”
Shinozaki came up with the name.
Even though she usually looks sleepy, she comes up with strangely clever ideas only at times like this. Hara raved about it, and we adopted it on the spur of the moment.
As I drew a gold line along the edge of the sign, I checked the overall balance.
“Takahara, maybe you should make that a little thicker.”
“If I make it any thicker, won’t it stand out more than the letters?”
“You’re right. Then let’s leave it as is.”
I replied to my male classmate and resumed painting.
Creating something while consulting with others.
Putting forward my own opinion and having it accepted.
The old me would have tensed up just from that alone.
What if my judgment was wrong?
What if the other person secretly found it a nuisance?
What if I messed up and ruined the atmosphere?
Those thoughts would take precedence, and even when asked for my opinion, I’d just reply, “Anything is fine.”
It’s not like that fear has completely disappeared now.
But lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of looking to my right whenever I start to feel scared.
Today, Rino, sitting to my right, was holding a paper plate filled with white paint and applying it to the sign with a serious expression.
She was wearing a black apron for the cultural festival to keep the paint from getting on her uniform. Her long hair was tied back in a single ponytail, making her look a little younger than usual.
She wasn’t an idol dancing flawlessly on stage.
She was just an ordinary high school girl making a sign with her classmates in the classroom after school.
This was exactly the kind of cultural festival Rino had hoped for.
Looking at her face, the anxiety lingering in my chest subsided just a little.
“Seita.”
“What?”
“You’re staring too much.”
Rino said this without taking her eyes off the sign.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were staring for about thirty seconds.”
“Don’t count.”
“I know exactly how long Seita has been looking at me.”
“Don’t make it sound like some kind of superpower.”
Rino’s lips curved into a happy smile.
“But it’s okay if you watch.”
“Get back to work.”
“I’ll work while watching you, Seita.”
“You’re going to cause an accident.”
The moment she said that, the tip of Rino’s brush brushed against my cheek.
For a split second, I didn’t know what had happened.
Rino froze, too.
A cool sensation lingered on my cheek.
“……Rino.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t cause an accident right after you say that.”
“It’s because you were so close, Seita.”
“You’ve been standing in the same spot the whole time, haven’t you?”
Just as I reached to touch my cheek, Rino hurriedly grabbed my wrist.
“Wait. It’ll smear.”
Rino took a handkerchief out of her pocket and brought her face close to my cheek.
The soft fabric wiped away the paint.
We were so close.
I could even feel her breath.
Even though there were other students in the classroom, Rino was completely focused on my cheek.
“Did you get it all off?”
“There’s still a little left.”
“Just wash it off with water.”
“I put it there, so I’ll take it off.”
It was strange how she was taking such responsibility.
Rino’s finger traced my cheek through the handkerchief.
I couldn’t move.
No, it was just that I thought moving would draw even more attention.
It was definitely not because I didn’t mind Rino touching me that I didn’t move.
“There. It’s clean now.”
“Thanks.”
“But it’s a bit of a shame.”
“What is?”
“Seita had my color on him.”
“Don’t use paint as a metaphor for possessiveness.”
Rino looked genuinely disappointed.
Hara, who had been watching the scene, spoke up from a short distance away.
“Aren’t cultural festival preparations supposed to be more like… a way for everyone to foster friendship?”
“We are fostering it, aren’t we?”
“It’s just that something else is growing a bit too much over there.”
Shinozaki nodded as she made paper flowers for the sign.
“You’re really a big tree now, aren’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your relationship.”
“Don’t compare it to a tree.”
Laughter rang out from all over the classroom.
I didn’t feel as terrified by that laughter as I used to.
They weren’t making fun of me.
I’d gradually come to understand that much.
Rino looked embarrassed, but she didn’t move away from me.
In fact, she was lightly holding onto the hem of my apron.
“Seita.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you just feel like running away?”
Her voice was so soft that no one around us could hear it.
Rino knows how sensitive I am to being laughed at.
And she knows it brings back memories from the past.
“It was a little embarrassing, but I’m fine.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I can tell that wasn’t a mean kind of laughter.”
When I answered that, Rino smiled as if relieved.
“Seita, you’ve changed.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Rino.”
“Thanks to me?”
“About half of it.”
“And the other half?”
I looked around the classroom.
Hara was wildly waving her brush about, and Shinozaki was scolding her.
The boys were arguing about the strength of the structure as they assembled the base for the sign.
If someone made a mistake, someone else would laugh and fix it.
It wasn’t perfect.
But that’s exactly why it didn’t look like the terrifying group I’d imagined back then.
“Everyone was more normal than I’d expected.”
“Normal?”
“Even if you mess up, no one yells at you. Even if you have a different opinion, you don’t get disliked just for that.”
As I said this, my chest began to ache a little.
I hadn’t been able to believe even such obvious things for so long.
“Maybe there were parts where I was just scaring myself for no reason.”
“It wasn’t for no reason.”
Rino immediately denied it.
“There’s a reason you became scared, Seita. So you don’t have to blame the Seita from back then.”
“But—”
“It’s because the Seita from back then ran away that the Seita of today is alive, right?”
Hearing those words, I couldn’t say a thing in reply.
I ran away.
I’d always been ashamed of that.
From the classroom.
From school.
From my friends.
From my youth.
I thought the version of myself who ran away was weak, pathetic, and a person nobody needed.
But Rino didn’t even deny the fact that I’d run away.
“If you ran away to survive, that’s not a bad thing.”
Rino spoke quietly, still holding onto my apron.
“I’m back now because I want to be. I think that’s enough.”
“……Rino, you say some really sensible things every now and then.”
“Every now and then?”
“You’re usually too heavy to handle.”
“You’re heavy right now, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Both the Seita from the past and the Seita of today—you’re holding onto it all and don’t want to let go.”
“You really are heavy.”
But I didn’t mind that weight.
I gently slipped the hem of my apron out of Rino’s grasp.
Instead, I held her fingertips just once.
Since we were in the middle of the classroom and it would draw attention, I let go right away.
Even so, Rino pulled the hand I’d touched to her chest and clutched it as if it were precious.
“I want to capture that moment in a photo, too.”
“That’s impossible, isn’t it?”
“It’s already etched in my heart.”
“Then you’ll just have to make do with that.”
“I’ll keep it there for the rest of my life.”
“That’s a heavy commitment.”
We got back to work.
By evening, the sign was almost finished.
Golden lettering stood out against a deep brown background.
Red and orange patterns reminiscent of a sunset were painted around the edges.
We all lifted the sign and placed it temporarily in front of the blackboard, and cheers erupted from the classroom.
“Wow! It really looks like a store!”
“Let’s take a picture!”
“Everyone get in the shot!”
At Hara’s call, the remaining students began gathering in front of the sign.
I instinctively took a step back.
A group photo.
Everyone lined up.
We put on smiles.
An old memory resurfaced deep within my heart.
A school event photo from middle school.
Around the time I started avoiding going to class, I used to stand at the very edge.
There was an unnatural gap between me and the student next to me.
After the photos were handed out, I didn’t want to see myself in it, so I shoved it to the back of my desk drawer.
That feeling from back then is coming back to me.
I’m the only one who shouldn’t be here.
If I mix in with everyone’s memories, I’ll ruin the photo.
That thought still won’t go away easily, even now.
“Seita”
Before I knew it, Rino was standing in front of me.
“Don’t you like having your picture taken?”
“…I’m not really into it.”
“Well, then, you don’t have to force yourself to be in it.”
Rino said that.
She didn’t try to pull me along.
But she didn’t join the line either; she stayed right in front of me.
“You should go, Rino.”
“If Seita isn’t going to be in it, then I’m fine too.”
“We made that sign together with everyone.”
“Seita helped make it too.”
“So what?”
“I don’t want a photo without Seita to be our finished memory.”
Something stirred deep inside my chest.
Rino didn’t grab my sleeve.
She didn’t pull my hand either.
She was just waiting.
Hara and the others weren’t rushing me either; they were just looking at me.
“Takahara-kun, we’ll leave the spot in the middle open for you!”
“Come stand with Rino!”
Shinozaki called out in a sleepy voice.
No one seemed bothered by the idea of me joining them.
If anything, they were waiting for me.
I was scared.
But before I ran away, I said,
“Rino.”
“What?”
“Will you stand next to me?”
Rino’s expression softened.
“Of course.”
“Then, let’s go.”
We walked side by side toward the sign.
Hara really had left the center open.
“Okay, the executive committee members go in the middle!”
“The sides are fine, right?”
“No way. You two are the center!”
Almost by force, Rino and I were positioned in the center of the sign.
Rino’s shoulder brushed against my arm.
There was no way to escape this position.
Even so, I didn’t feel the same suffocating pressure as before.
“Seita, smile.”
“I’m not good at smiling for photos.”
“Look at me.”
“I have to look forward for the photo to come out right, don’t I?”
“Just until right before the shot.”
I did as she said and looked at Rino.
She was smiling as if she were truly happy.
It seemed she was that happy just to be in the same photo as me.
Drawn in by her expression, the corners of my mouth turned up just a little.
“Okay, here we go!”
Rino hooked her little finger around mine.
Out of sight.
Like a little promise.
“Three, two, one!”
The shutter clicked.
The photo was taken.
I didn’t run away.
I stood among everyone else and smiled next to Rino.
Hara checked the photo he’d taken and exclaimed,
“This is awesome! I’m sending it to the group chat!”
I looked at the photo that arrived on my phone.
My classmates lined up in front of the sign.
In the center of it all were Rino and me.
My smile was a little awkward.
Still, it was different from the photos from middle school.
There was no gap between Rino and me.
Our little fingers weren’t visible in the photo.
But we were definitely connected.
“Seita.”
“What?”
“I’m going to treasure this photo.”
“It’s a group photo, you know.”
“It’s the first photo I took with you while we were preparing for the cultural festival.”
“Another anniversary?”
“Can I set it as my wallpaper?”
“Everyone’s in it.”
“I’ll just crop out the part with you.”
“Don’t do that. It’s creepy.”
“Then just the two of us.”
“That’ll just lead to even more misunderstandings.”
Rino had already zoomed in on the photo.
On the screen, only Rino and I were visible.
In front of the same sign.
Wearing the same aprons.
With our shoulders pressed together, I’m smiling after looking at Rino.
“This is nice,”
Rino said quietly.
“When I look back at this someday, I’ll remember it as the day Seita didn’t run away from me.”
Hearing those words, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her to delete it.
“…Don’t make it your wallpaper, though.”
“What if it’s on the home screen?”
“It’s the same thing.”
“The lock screen and the home screen are different.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then I’ll set it as the profile picture for Seita’s contact.”
“What was the point of asking me?”
“I thought I’d be happy if I could get your permission.”
“I haven’t given you permission for a single thing.”
Rino laughed cheerfully.
By the time we finished our work for the day and left the classroom, it had grown completely dark outside.
Rino and I walked side by side down the hallway.
“Seita.”
“What?”
“Thanks for being in the photo with me today.”
“I’m on the organizing committee, after all.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Rino stopped in her tracks.
“Even though you were scared, you chose to be with me.”
I stopped too.
In the dark hallway, the last rays of twilight streamed in through the window.
“If you hadn’t been there, I don’t think I would’ve been able to do it.”
“Then, from now on, I’ll be right next to you whenever we take a photo.”
“Every time?”
“For the rest of my life.”
“That’s a long time again.”
“At graduation, and beyond.”
Rino naturally took my hand.
In the empty hallway, we intertwined our fingers.
“I don’t want to add any more photos to Seita’s memories where I’m not in them.”
“That’s a heavy burden.”
“Do you mind?”
I thought back to the photo we’d taken today.
There I was, standing next to Rino in the center of the group.
A shot I definitely wouldn’t have been able to capture before.
“…I don’t mind.”
I squeezed Rino’s hand in return.
“I’d like to add more photos with you in them, little by little, too.”
Rino came to a complete stop.
“Seita.”
“What?”
“Come over to my place tonight.”
“Why so sudden?”
“I can’t go home alone with those words still weighing on me.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I’m just so happy—I want you to be near me.”
“We’ll see each other tomorrow, right?”
“Today’s Seita is only for today.”
It’s heavy.
It’s a hassle.
But I already know that feeling.
Rino is afraid that the happier the moment, the more it will end.
“I’ll walk you home.”
“Come on up.”
“Just for a little while.”
“Let’s play cards, too.”
“You’re tired, aren’t you?”
“Let’s read I Don’t Need Youth!! too.”
“This is going to take longer than working on the cultural festival.”
“You can stay over if you want.”
“I’m going home, though.”
When I made that clear, Rino looked a little displeased, but she happily shook our clasped hands.
In the classroom, the sign we’d just finished today stood in front of the empty blackboard.
On my phone was a photo I’d taken with everyone.
And right in the center of it was me, laughing with Rino as we leaned on each other’s shoulders.
Twenty days left until the cultural festival.
My once-empty school life was slowly beginning to fill up with memories of Rino.
Maigetsu