Part-3 Ch-06 Ep-05

“I hate… that part of you, Mari.”

The words Maki uttered drove straight through my chest.

I could feel my own cheeks twitch as I stared back at her, and instinctively, I nearly looked away. Still, I suppressed the urge and held my gaze firmly in place.

I did it because the eyes Maki was using to stare back at me looked as though they might spill tears at any moment.

“Well, I love you.”

Refusing to yield, I looked directly into those eyes of hers and said it, prompting Maki to pull an exasperated “Geez…” face before immediately burrowing back beneath her blanket.

“Maki, Maki, hey.”

“……Shut up.”

“Yeah, sorry. But I love you.”

“……We can’t even have a proper fight like this.”

She was clearly aware that she’d deliberately said something meant to hurt me, and her muffled voice sounded unbearably awkward because of it.

“True. After all, even if you say you hate me, I already know you actually love me, Maki.”

“……Yeah. Sorry.”

“I’m not angry. So come on, let me see your face again.”

As I said that, I gently patted the mound of blanket in front of me a couple of times, and my precious childhood friend slowly peeked her face out from beneath it.

“Why did you say you hated me?” I asked softly.

Maki sat upright with stiff, awkward movements, and though she hesitated for a moment, the words gradually began spilling out of her little by little.

“……Because you keep saying things like an adult, Mari.”

“Yeah.”

“……I don’t want you acting like an adult and being so understanding. I don’t want you to rationalize everything so easily.”

“Yeah.”

“……I don’t want you to give up. I want you to be more selfish.”

Like a small child throwing a tantrum, the words kept pouring out of Maki one after another.

As for me, listening to her made it feel as though she were laying herself completely bare before me, and I could feel my cheeks soften into a smile. Even while Maki was still speaking, I reached out and gently smoothed down her disheveled bangs.

“Yeah, and what else?”

“……I can’t just neatly come to terms with my own future path like that, so I don’t want you to be the first one looking all satisfied with it, Mari.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

Drawing the dejected Maki into my arms, I stroked her head as though soothing a child.

Before anything else, the thought that crossed my mind was simply how unbearably adorable she was.

Maki probably already understood which choice was the right one to make.

But most likely, her heart simply couldn’t catch up to it yet.

Because neither Maki nor I had fully become adults just yet.

That was something I’d only finally realized.

The girl right in front of my eyes wasn’t some game heroine anymore; she was simply an ordinary girl.

Even so.

“I’m sorry for not realizing it sooner. But… what you want to do at university connects to a future where we’re still together farther down the line, right?”

When I said that, Maki gave a tiny nod.

Back during the open campus visit we’d gone to together before, Maki had said she wanted to conduct “research that would allow people to have children no matter what form their partnership takes.”

I think she’d been thinking about it ever since then.

I think she’d researched countless different things.

I think she’d agonized over it more seriously than anyone else.

But even so, I hated the idea of making Maki shoulder the burden of deciding something so important entirely on her own.

Because right now, at this very moment, I was here beside her.

When it came to important things, I wanted us to decide them together, and I wanted us to shoulder that responsibility together too.

“Then, I’m going to believe in the future me…and the future you too, Maki.”

When I said that, Maki gave a firm nod, her face still locked in a stubborn pout.

……A few days later, after her fever had finally broken, Maki returned to school and informed Nitobe-sensei that she would be changing her career path to a university in another prefecture.