Volume 7 Episode 07

When I woke up, Miyagi’s face was right in front of me.

Last night, it had been Miyagi who stopped me when I tried to cancel the sleepover and return to my room, and it had been me who decided to sleep in her bed. She had turned her back to me and gone to sleep. That much was unmistakable, and I remembered it clearly. Yet now I could see Miyagi’s face perfectly well.

I didn’t know when Miyagi had turned toward me, but I was happy.

I poked her cheek.

Miyagi was sleeping soundly and didn’t react.

In the past, whenever we’d slept together until morning, Miyagi had always been the first to wake up, so I was a little surprised that she didn’t so much as twitch.

Maybe she was tired from going out with Utsunomiya.

I stroked Miyagi’s hair.

Yesterday wasn’t supposed to turn into something like that.

It was jumping the gun a little, but I had invited her to work a part-time job together over winter break, intending for us to spend the time watching movies or dramas, or playing one of Miyagi’s favorite games, or something like that. But because Miyagi had come home late after going out with Utsunomiya, when I saw her return, I imagined that she must have had a good time with Utsunomiya, and my chest had ached. Even so, after I pulled myself together with some delicious pudding, she delivered the finishing blow with, “I won’t work a part-time job with Sendai-san,” and I hadn’t been able to stop myself from going too far.

I touched Miyagi’s piercing.

It was hard to say that I had managed to keep the promise I’d sworn.

Looking only at the result, I probably hadn’t broken it, but when I thought about everything I’d done along the way, the fact that Miyagi hadn’t kicked me out of the room felt like a miracle.

Well, that miracle was also rather painful.

I wanted to stay by Miyagi’s side, and I wanted to sleep in the same bed.

I always felt that way, but yesterday, it would have been easier to return to my room.

If I was going to sleep peacefully after something like that had happened, it took a certain amount of effort. Feelings didn’t switch over that easily, so Miyagi, who had forced me to make that effort, was cruel. But I also understood that it was proof she trusted me, so I held back the feelings that kept trying to turn toward Miyagi, redirected them, and slept as though nothing had happened.

Even so, once I woke up, I couldn’t help thinking about yesterday.

The sensation of her breasts.

Her body, hotter than usual.

Her disordered breathing.

And the hand that had pulled me close.

All of it could only be taken as Miyagi accepting me, and none of it had been enough to make me stop. If I’d kept whispering, kept touching her, and swept her away with my feelings, I thought Miyagi would have continued to let me, just like that. But if I’d obtained her without even giving her time to think, nothing good would have come of it for me. If I’d continued touching Miyagi without her consent, in a brightly lit room, the Miyagi who had fled even the first time wouldn’t be here now.

And a Miyagi who had disappeared wouldn’t be easy to find.

She probably wouldn’t go to Utsunomiya’s place like she had the first time, and since she knew that Utsunomiya and I were in contact, she’d go somewhere even Utsunomiya didn’t know about. If that happened, I wouldn’t be able to bring her back. Yesterday, drawing out Miyagi’s words and trying to hear what she had to say hadn’t been a mistake. I myself had wanted to know what Miyagi was thinking.

I thought the me of yesterday, who had slept quietly beside Miyagi, had been right.

I was convinced of that, yet when I looked at Miyagi, who seemed ready to accept me, I found myself unable to wait. Miyagi was always vague, always just within reach, and sometimes that became painful.

I let out a small haa and lightly tugged on Miyagi’s bangs.

Sure enough, Miyagi didn’t so much as twitch.

“You really sleep well.”

—Without even knowing how I feel.

If she was going to stop me, I wished she would stop me with stronger words.

Stay as roommates a little longer.

Because she had stopped me with such half-hearted words, I wanted so badly to touch the sleeping Miyagi that I could hardly stand it.

I didn’t know how long that “a little longer” was supposed to last. Maybe that “a little longer” would continue forever, or maybe she’d become something other than roommates right away. At the very least, she wasn’t opposed to living together as roommates. That meant she had at least some affection for me, and there was a good chance that affection could eventually become the same as mine.

I didn’t have enough confidence to declare that Miyagi liked me, but I could feel that she was thinking about me more than she had before.

In those two little words, “a little longer,” I could see so much hope that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep my own feelings bottled up inside.

If I thrust my feelings at Miyagi while she was saying she didn’t want to change our relationship yet, she might never look at me again.

I thought whispering “I like you” to the sleeping Miyagi might be forgiven, but I had a feeling that someone like Miyagi would choose exactly a moment like this to wake up.

For better or worse, she never acted the way I expected her to.

I swallowed the words that had been about to leave my mouth and whispered something else instead.

“…Shiori.”

Something like this ought to be allowed.

Even if she woke up, it would only make her a little grumpy; it wouldn’t become something irreversible.

I combed my fingers through her black hair and stroked her cheek.

Once more, I softly called, “Shiori,” and kissed her lips.

I let my fingers trail along her limp arm and linked our hands.

When I kissed her fingertips and touched her lips again, Miyagi finally began to stir restlessly. Her hand tried to slip free of mine, so I tightened my grip. When I pulled her waist closer, Miyagi’s eyes opened.

“Good morning.”

I spoke to the sleepy Miyagi.

“…Sendai-san?”

A voice thick with sleep reached me.

I traced a finger over her lips and told her the words I wanted her to say.

“Hazuki.”

“Nn? Hazuki?”

“Yeah. Say it one more time.”

I tried saying it gently to the still-dazed Miyagi, but even though she had only just woken up, she immediately became the usual Miyagi and refused to go along with what I wanted.

“…Why are you facing this way?”

She muttered, then roughly peeled away both the hand I had linked with hers and the one I had wrapped around her waist.

“So you’ve woken up completely, huh.”

Miyagi really was stingy.

The time she allowed me to dream was far too short.

I wished she’d stay half-asleep a little longer.

“Don’t make me say weird things.”

Under the towel blanket, Miyagi kicked at my leg.

“Isn’t it harsh to call a person’s name a weird thing?”

“It’s not harsh. It’s hot, so get away.”

When she shoved my shoulder hard and I grabbed her hand, she yanked it back and sank her teeth into my finger.

It hurt.

She was holding back, but she bit down with quite a bit of force, so I moved a little farther away from her.

“Miyagi, you cheapskate. What’s wrong with staying close?”

“I’m getting up already.”

Miyagi sat up and tried to get out of bed, so I tugged on her T-shirt.

“Just lounge around a little longer.”

“What about breakfast?”

“Making it is a pain, so we can just have it with lunch.”

“No. I’m hungry, so I’ll go make something.”

I tightened my grip on her T-shirt.

It was the reverse of yesterday.

The me who had been held back when I tried to return to my room before going to sleep was now the one holding Miyagi back in the morning.

“Sendai-san, the T-shirt’s going to stretch.”

“If you don’t want it stretched, then just lie down a little longer.”

“How long are you planning to sleep?”

“Until noon.”

There was nothing in particular going on, but I wanted to spend a little more time in the same bed. Right now, I wasn’t hoping for much. I just wanted her to let me feel the warmth of her body beside me a little longer.

“…Then Sendai-san can make lunch.”

Speaking in a sulky voice, Miyagi lay back down on the bed.

But I couldn’t see her face.

All I could see was her back.

“Fine. I’ll boil some water and pour it for you.”

“You’re planning to just settle for cup ramen for lunch, aren’t you.”

“It’s easy.”

“Make something proper.”

“If you turn this way, I’ll make you something delicious.”

“Something delicious? Like what?”

“Let’s talk it over.”

When I tugged on her arm, Miyagi turned toward me.

✧✧✧✧✧

Sleeping in the same bed as Miyagi.

It was something that almost never happened, and we hadn’t slept together since that day when we’d stayed in bed until noon.

Standing in front of the refrigerator, I groaned, “Nnngh.”

Before I knew it, summer vacation had reached its final day, and Miyagi’s birthday was just around the corner.

What should I do about the cake?

If possible, I wanted to make it myself. But I’d never made a cake even once in my life, and I had no confidence that I could make one properly without a few practice runs. I’d barely made any sweets at all, aside from the friendship chocolates I’d made for Valentine’s Day. There had never been anyone I wanted to make a cake for and have eat it.

I knew there was no need to force myself to make one.

Even so, I’d gathered the necessary tools and bought the ingredients with the intention of trying one as a test. But summer vacation was about to end, and I still hadn’t managed a single practice run.

“Trying it out is fine, but…”

The person I wanted to eat the cake lived in the same house.

I didn’t particularly want to surprise her by secretly making the cake without Miyagi knowing, so I didn’t mind if she knew what I was doing. But that left the problem of what to do with the practice cake.

I opened the refrigerator and looked at the milk and eggs, their expiration dates drawing near.

I wasn’t planning to make a particularly large cake, but it still wouldn’t be something one person could finish alone. Maybe it would be fine to eat it with Miyagi, but then I’d be making the very person I wanted to feed it to eat the practice cake. And serving her the same cake again on her birthday wouldn’t be very exciting, either.

“I should just go buy one after all.”

What Miyagi needed for her birthday wasn’t a handmade cake. Any cake would do. What mattered was that the two of us ate a whole cake together. I had to make sure Miyagi didn’t spend her birthday all alone, and that the leftover cake didn’t end up sitting in the refrigerator.

I let out a quiet fuu and sat down in a chair.

Even if I wasn’t going to make a cake, I still hadn’t decided on a present.

I thought back to the cake I’d eaten on my own birthday and the cat-shaped chopstick rest I’d received the following day.

I could tell she’d chosen a cake she thought I’d like, and the cat chopstick rest was clearly something she’d agonized over before choosing. I wanted to think and worry over Miyagi’s present in the same way she had for mine, and celebrate her birthday properly.

I looked toward the door to Miyagi’s room.

She’d said she was going to finish the rest of her assignments today, and she hadn’t come out of her room except for meals.

I hesitated over whether to knock.

If I wasn’t going to make a cake, I wanted to make something else with the ingredients in the refrigerator. But if I was going to make something, I wanted to make it with Miyagi. Still, I didn’t want to interrupt her while she was working on her assignments.

I stood up and took a glass from the cupboard.

After pouring myself some barley tea and taking a sip, the door opened and Miyagi came out.

“Did you finish your assignments?”

I asked the girl who opened the refrigerator without a word and took out a bottle of cider. A curt “Finished” came in reply.

“What is Sendai-san doing?”

Miyagi said it with an uninterested expression, set a glass on the table, and poured herself some cider.

“I was thinking about what to make for dinner.”

I couldn’t tell her I’d been agonizing over whether to make a cake, so I replaced my real concern with something safer and answered.

“We just ate lunch a little while ago.”

“It’s been over an hour, so I don’t think it’s fair to say we just ate.”

“Well, yeah.”

It was a trivial conversation, the kind that didn’t matter whether it continued or ended there. As if to prove it, Miyagi put the plastic bottle of cider back in the refrigerator, then turned her back to me with her glass in hand.

“What is Miyagi going to do now?”

“Nothing in particular.”

Miyagi didn’t look at me.

Since she’d finished her assignments, it would’ve been fine for me to follow her and ask to go into her room. She probably wouldn’t refuse. But today, there was something I wanted to do more than go to her room.

“In that case, want to make cookies?”

Movies and games weren’t bad, but every now and then, I wanted to do something different.

“Cookies?”

“Yeah. I was thinking I’d like to make them together.”

“No.”

Miyagi turned around and said it plainly.

“Why?”

“I hate cookies.”

“Even though we’ve eaten them together plenty of times?”

It wasn’t that I absolutely had to make cookies, so anything would’ve been fine. But this was the first I’d heard of Miyagi hating them. Or rather, there was no way she hated cookies. When Utsunomiya had come over to hang out, the two of them had brought cookies to eat, and there had been plenty of times when Miyagi had offered me cookies herself.

“I just started hating them now.”

Miyagi muttered the words, then gulped down the cider in her hand.

“Can I ask the reason you started hating them?”

“Why do you want to ask something like that?”

“Not many people hate cookies, and not many people suddenly start hating them, either.”

As I answered Miyagi, I thought about why she’d suddenly wanted to say that she hated them.

Using cookies as a starting point, I searched through my memories and arrived at a certain day in August.

My birthday.

That day, I’d received cookies as a birthday present from Kikyou-chan, the student I tutored. When I came home and suggested that we eat them together, Miyagi had refused in a sulky voice.

Miyagi’s mood always soured whenever I brought up my part-time job.

There had even been times when she’d told me to quit.

“There isn’t any particular reason.”

Her low voice reached me.

Her usual sulky voice.

The voice of someone who hated something as ordinary as cookies, something that shouldn’t have given her any reason to hate it.

Maybe, just maybe.

The thought crossed my mind, only for me to immediately deny it.

But another part of me thought it wasn’t impossible.

—The kind of feelings I get when I’m jealous of Utsunomiya.

Maybe Miyagi had those feelings, too.

Maybe some part of the Miyagi who wanted us to remain roommates a little longer was beginning to change into something that went beyond being roommates. I hoped that was the case.

“Anyway, why did you suddenly decide you wanted to make cookies?”

Miyagi said it in a voice that was unmistakably irritated, then set her glass of cider on the table.

Her gaze was fixed on the door to her room.

“Just because.”

I wanted to press her about why she claimed to hate cookies, but if I pushed her too far, Miyagi would run away. Even now, she seemed ready to return to her room, leaving her cider behind. Before she could disappear, I grabbed her hand.

When I pressed my lips to her fingertips, she stepped on my foot, apparently displeased.

“If it’s just because, then you don’t have to make them.”

“I don’t have to, but there’s no reason I can’t make them, either. Let’s make them together.”

“I told you I hate cookies.”

Miyagi yanked her hand back and glared at me.

“I’ll eat all the cookies we make.”

“Then what’s the point of me making cookies?”

“Then what does Miyagi want to eat? Tell me, and I’ll make that.”

If Miyagi was willing to make something with me as long as it wasn’t cookies, that was fine, too. I lined up words that might convince her to stay.

“Anything’s fine to make, so just stay here. Once university starts, we won’t be able to spend as much time together as we do now.”

I smiled brightly at her and took a sip of the cider Miyagi had left on the table.

The carbonation fizzed and popped in my mouth before sliding down into my stomach. It was cold, but I could barely taste it. Even if it was something Miyagi liked, I still wasn’t good with carbonated drinks.

Even so, when I took another sip of the cider, a small voice reached me.

“…How do you make them?”

“I’ll look it up right now.”

I put the glass of cider back on the table and grabbed her hand once more to keep Miyagi from escaping. Then I picked up my phone.

Cookie recipes.

When I searched, all kinds of recipes appeared, from simple ones to complicated ones, and I showed them to Miyagi.

“Which cookies do you want to eat?”

“I don’t want to eat cookies, though.”

Miyagi was still treating cookies like the enemy and refused to look at the search results.

“Then I’ll decide.”

I chose a recipe that wasn’t too difficult, one that seemed unlikely to make her complain, then prepared a bowl and a rubber spatula. I took the butter out of the refrigerator and measured out the required amount. Then I measured the cake flour, handed Miyagi the flour sifter, and a dissatisfied voice reached me.

“What’s this?”

“The tool Miyagi uses to sift the cake flour.”

“What a pain. Can’t I just use the cake flour as it is?”

“Apparently not.”

The cookie recipe I’d found on my phone said to soften the butter to room temperature and sift the cake flour.

“Why not?”

“Who knows? Probably to make them taste better?”

I answered while cracking an egg and beating it.

“Sendai-san, you’re so careless.”

“I’ll look up the reason later, so just do it for now. They’ll taste better if we do it properly, right? If it’s too much trouble, I’ll do it, so just leave it there.”

The recipe didn’t explain why the cake flour needed to be sifted, but it shouldn’t have included the step for no reason. Rather than skip it, I wanted to follow the instructions as written.

“…Fine. I’ll do it.”

Accompanied by a voice devoid of motivation, the cake flour was sifted.

The two of us together in the shared space.

As I watched the cake flour fall into the bowl, I thought.

The day after my birthday, while eating the cookies Kikyou-chan had given me, I’d thought how nice it would be if Miyagi and I could make cookies together. And now, that wish had already come true.

The long summer vacation had been filled with nothing but good things. It felt as though I’d borrowed all the good fortune meant for next year and spent it already. On the day we went to the aquarium, I’d decided to believe there were still more good things waiting for me, but so many fun things had happened that I was starting to worry about next year’s me.

It wasn’t that I believed good things and bad things had to balance each other out, or that bad things would come in proportion to the amount of happiness I’d had. But when good things kept happening one after another, I couldn’t help feeling as though something bad might come along just to even the score. And that feeling was probably because Miyagi had been far too curt with me until now.

“Sendai-san, stop staring over here and do your part properly.”

Miyagi stopped sifting the cake flour and glared at me.

The sulky-looking girl seemed like she was about to complain another couple of times, but since she was making cookies with me, there was something slightly different about her than before.

I didn’t know what kind of Miyagi tomorrow’s Miyagi would be, but I wanted her to be the kind of Miyagi who, even when she was a little grumpy, would still choose to stay with me, just as she was today. Even after summer vacation ended, I wanted her to keep making me believe that nothing but good things would come.

“I’ll do it properly, so please take care of the sugar, too.”

I handed Miyagi the measured amount of sugar and asked her to sift it. Then I put the butter into the bowl and creamed it with a whisk. I didn’t know why it needed to be creamed, but I moved the whisk around and around before adding the sugar she’d sifted for me. Like Miyagi, I was curious about why the butter needed to be creamed, but I decided to look it up later. I added the beaten egg a little at a time, mixing everything thoroughly.

Once the contents of the bowl had become light and fluffy, I added the cake flour Miyagi had sifted for me and mixed it lightly with the rubber spatula. Then I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

“We’re going to let the dough rest for a little while.”

When I told Miyagi, she looked at the refrigerator and asked, “How long is ‘a little’?”

“It says about thirty minutes to an hour, so thirty minutes should be fine.”

“Sendai-san, you’re a liar. Thirty minutes isn’t ‘a little.’”

“It is a little.”

“‘A little’ is shorter than that.”

A slightly low voice reached me, and I grabbed her hand before she could return to her room.

“What’s this hand for?”

Miyagi lowered her gaze to our linked hands.

“I thought you were going back to your room.”

“I’m not going back, so let go.”

She swung her hand with a bun and, after I obediently released it, sat down in a chair. Apparently, she intended to stay in the shared space while the dough rested.

I decided to wash the dishes and turned my back to Miyagi. I placed the containers and utensils I’d used to make the cookie dough in the sink, squeezed some detergent onto the sponge, and was called, “Sendai-san.”

“What?”

As I answered while washing the rubber spatula, a reserved voice reached me.

“Were you planning to make cookies today?”

“Not exactly, but why?”

“Because you have the ingredients.”

“They just happened to be there. Cookie ingredients aren’t exactly rare, right?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

Miyagi’s voice trailed off, leaving only the sound of running water and clinking dishes echoing through the shared space. At times like this, Miyagi never said what she really wanted to say. I was the type to swallow a lot of words myself, but Miyagi seemed to swallow more than twice as many as I did.

“If there’s something you want to say, just say it.”

I asked even though I knew I wouldn’t get an answer.

“Nothing.”

The short reply was exactly what I’d expected, and Miyagi didn’t say anything more after that. We’d grown hesitant to talk about trivial things, yet when it came to the words that sank deepest into our hearts, we still held back. Since there were things I couldn’t say either, I didn’t intend to press her any further for now.

I quickly finished the dishes, pulled a chair up beside Miyagi, and sat down.

“Why do you bother coming all the way over here, Sendai-san?”

“Because closer is better.”

If we were going to be together anyway, I wanted to be close enough to touch her. But since I didn’t have anything in particular to say, I simply sat there.

The cookies were taking too long, I thought.

After this, we still had to bake the dough in the oven.

It would take far less time than letting the dough rest, but we’d still have to wait about fifteen minutes.

If we were going to make something, I felt like conversation would flow more easily if it were something that kept us busy the entire time.

Like the French toast Miyagi and I had made during last summer vacation, for example.

I remembered what had happened that summer.

Back then, I’d gone out to buy the ingredients for French toast because I wanted to escape the feeling that I wanted to touch Miyagi.

“Why are you so quiet?”

Miyagi said it in a dissatisfied voice and lightly stepped on my foot.

“I was remembering last summer vacation. How we made French toast together.”

“……Back then, why did you suddenly go buy the ingredients for French toast?”

Miyagi seemed to remember what had happened that summer too, and she asked me the one question I didn’t want to hear.

“Who knows? I forgot.”

I answered as lightly as I could and took Miyagi’s hand.

A little over a year had passed since then, and our relationship had changed.

Now that we were roommates, I could touch her whenever I wanted.

“Miyagi.”

I still hadn’t reached the point where I could call her Shiori, but when I called her name and squeezed our joined hands, Miyagi didn’t get angry or try to pull away. I gave her hand a gentle tug and leaned closer. Miyagi never initiated, but she closed her eyes as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I closed the distance between us, brushed my lips against hers, and pulled away at once.

Miyagi had changed.

It was only when I looked back on the past that I could tell. She’d changed so gradually that it was hard to notice, but she was different from the way she’d been back then.

It didn’t seem like a bad change.

If that was the case, I wanted her to keep changing in the way I hoped she would.

And I hoped it would happen soon.

I understood that I had to wait, but I couldn’t help thinking about it. I wanted Miyagi to change even faster than the cookies could finish baking.

“Sendai-san, what time is it? Hasn’t it been about thirty minutes already?”

Miyagi looked at me without letting go of my hand.

I checked my phone. It was still a little short of thirty minutes.

“Just a little longer.”

“If it’s only a little longer, then it’s fine already.”

With that, Miyagi stood up and opened the fridge. Then, without waiting for my permission, she took out the cookie dough and called my name.

“Sendai-san.”

“What do we do next?”

Asked by Miyagi, who was going completely against the recipe, I remembered that we didn’t have a rolling pin.

“We’re supposed to roll out the dough… Just wait a second.”

Standing in front of the cookie dough on the counter, I searched my phone for something we could use in place of a rolling pin.

“Miyagi, get the jam.”

“Jam?”

“Yeah.”

With a puzzled look, Miyagi took a jar of jam from the fridge. I took it from her, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and used it as a makeshift rolling pin to flatten the dough.

“Aren’t you supposed to use a rolling pin for this kind of thing?”

“You can’t roll it out with something you don’t have, so it can’t be helped. And while we’re at it, we don’t have cookie cutters either.”

My plans had started with cake and somehow turned into cookies, so it was only natural that we were missing a few things.

“…So what you said earlier was true.”

Miyagi muttered under her breath.

“What did I say earlier?”

“That you weren’t actually planning to make cookies.”

“Well, yeah.”

I decided to cut the rolled-out dough into squares with a knife.

They wouldn’t be cute or come in any particular shape, but the taste shouldn’t change.

I made several vertical cuts, and just as I was about to cut across them horizontally, a hand reached in from the side.

“Give me this part.”

Miyagi pointed to the very edge of the cookie dough.

“Sure, but what are you going to do with it?”

“I want to make it into whatever shape I like.”

I handed Miyagi one vertical strip of dough and continued cutting the rest horizontally. The squares were finished in no time, and when I glanced to the side, Miyagi was rolling the cookie dough between her fingers like clay, molding it into something.

She stacked the pieces of dough together like a snowman and attached something resembling ears to the top piece.

“…A cat?”

I wanted to say that a cat was making a cat, but that would probably cause trouble, so I swallowed the words.

“A dog is fine too.”

If she called it a dog, it didn’t look completely unlike one, but it was definitely closer to a cat. That wasn’t the real problem, though.

“That’s going to end up underbaked, you know.”

Watching Miyagi earnestly shape something out of cookie dough was cute, but the pieces she’d rolled were too thick. I didn’t think the heat would reach all the way through.

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Make it thinner.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? There’s no point in making it if it won’t bake properly. Hand over that cat.”

I held out my hand, and Miyagi reluctantly passed me the cat she’d made from cookie dough.

I gathered all of it into a single lump.

“You’re so mean, Sendai-san.”

I heard the resentment in her voice, but I divided the ball of dough that had once been a cat in half. I handed one half back to Miyagi and flattened the other into a round shape, then added ears and eyes. Seeing what I’d done, Miyagi made a cat of her own in the same way, and I put all the cookie dough into the preheated oven.

The baking time was fifteen minutes.

I sat down in a chair.

But Miyagi remained where she was, staring intently into the oven.

“Is it interesting?”

“Normal.”

A curt reply came back.

If it was only normal and not interesting, she could at least look over here, I thought.

“Miyagi.”

“What?”

She still didn’t look at me.

I stood up and hugged her from behind.

“Don’t cling to me. It’s hot.”

She slapped the arm I had wrapped around her stomach.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

Miyagi peeled my hands away one by one before sitting down in a chair.

Well, whatever.

If the bonus time lasted too long, it would have started to make me anxious.

Maybe this much was just right for the last day of summer vacation.

I sat down beside Miyagi, just as I had before.

As September drew to a close, beneath a sun that was far too energetic for a time when summer was already supposed to be fading, I walked on, determined to keep a promise.

Today was Miyagi’s birthday.

I’d reserved a small whole cake from a shop famous for how delicious its cakes were, choosing one from among the many they had to offer, and today I’d gone to pick it up. Honestly, I’d wanted to ask Miyagi what kind of cake she wanted, but if I asked, she’d probably just say “anything is fine,” and in the worst case, she might even tell me she didn’t need one. So I’d decided to prepare a whole cake myself.

Rain or shine, this was something I absolutely had to do today.

Just to be extra sure.

I’d told Miyagi yesterday to stay home, and I reminded her again before I left.

I walked along the path where Mike-chan was sometimes there and sometimes nowhere to be seen, making my way home.

Even though it was hot, my steps felt light. I could almost have been walking on wings.

I took large strides, careful not to jostle the cake and make it collapse, and with every step, the house drew closer.

I kept walking, opened the front door, and found Miyagi’s shoes waiting there.

Even though evening had already come, she seemed to have stayed home without going anywhere.

I took off my shoes and headed toward the shared space.

I’d been worried about what I would do if I came back after picking up the reserved cake only to find that Miyagi wasn’t home, but that hadn’t happened. Without the birthday girl, even a birthday cake would have nowhere to go.

I put the cake in the fridge and knocked on Miyagi’s door. Ton, ton.

After two soft knocks, Miyagi poked her head out of the room.

I told her I was home, and she answered with a welcome back.

“I bought a cake.”

“…You didn’t have to.”

Miyagi said almost exactly what I’d expected, her voice flat.

“We promised, didn’t we? That on Miyagi’s birthday, the two of us would eat a whole round cake together.”

We’d made several promises on my birthday.

One of them was that on Miyagi’s birthday, we’d eat a whole cake that was just the right size for the two of us to finish without leaving anything behind.

From this day onward, that promise would be kept.

Miyagi hadn’t let me swear it on her piercing, but there was no way I was going to break it.

Because I wanted her to trust me.

More than that, this promise carried a certain weight, and a version of myself who couldn’t keep it would have no value. Precisely because Miyagi hadn’t made me swear it on her piercing, I felt all the more strongly that it was something I could never break.

“I didn’t think you’d actually buy one.”

Compared to the weight of my feelings, the voice that reached me was surprisingly small. When I couldn’t help staring at her, she looked away.

Her voice was a little low, but she didn’t seem to be in a bad mood.

If anything, her expression was almost blank.

She looked as though she’d left her emotions somewhere else.

I wondered what birthdays meant to Miyagi.

Maybe it was a day she didn’t want anyone to celebrate.

The thought crossed my mind.

“I won’t break a promise with you, Miyagi. I don’t have work today, and none of my friends are going to suddenly contact me.”

I took Miyagi’s hand, as though I could dispel the thought that had just surfaced.

That day, Miyagi had looked as if she didn’t believe in today.

So I’d decided that I absolutely wouldn’t break the promise.

The part-time shift she’d been worried about was on a day when I hadn’t originally been scheduled to work. Even if a friend suddenly invited me somewhere, I had no intention of going. Besides, I’d already put my phone on silent, so it wouldn’t make a sound.

“What do you mean, no one will contact you?”

Miyagi tried to pull her hand free, so I tightened my grip.

“You were worried about what would happen if my shift didn’t end or if a friend suddenly asked me out, weren’t you?”

“I wasn’t worried, and I never said anything about ‘what if.’”

“Then be happy about the cake. It’s your birthday, after all.”

She was probably just afraid.

Trapped by all the birthdays she’d spent alone, unable to escape them. Even now, she was afraid of the possibility that a whole round cake might be left behind in the fridge, that she might be left alone with it.

I felt a little uneasy. I’d never seen anyone so unenthusiastic about a birthday cake, but I reassured myself that this interpretation of mine couldn’t be wrong.

“Even without a cake, it’s still a birthday.”

Miyagi muttered.

“It changes. It’s better to have a cake on Miyagi’s birthday, and you should look like you’re having fun.”

“…You didn’t look like you were having much fun on your birthday either, Sendai-san.”

Miyagi stared at me, and I remembered August 23rd.

That day hadn’t been fun because Miyagi had said she was meeting a friend and gone out. But that was only until she’d thrown me into her room. Once I learned that she was going to celebrate my birthday, the heaviness inside me had lifted.

“That’s not true.”

I firmly denied Miyagi’s words.

“It is. …You didn’t look happy.”

“I was just surprised because I hadn’t expected Miyagi to do anything for my birthday. I was really, really happy.”

Of all nineteen birthdays I’d had, that one had made me the happiest, and I’d been overjoyed.

If it hadn’t looked that way, it was only because Miyagi kept doing things I’d thought were impossible, so the surprise had risen to the surface more strongly than the joy.

But right now, I didn’t matter.

Miyagi’s feelings were more important.

“Miyagi, do you not want your birthday to be celebrated?”

“…I don’t know. There was never anyone who bought a cake like this and said we’d eat the whole round cake together.”

Her reply came in a voice that sounded strangely uncertain.

“You’ve received presents from friends before, right? Didn’t you ever have birthday parties?”

“I did get presents, but… I don’t like birthday parties.”

“Why?”

“After they’re over, it just feels kind of awful.”

“What do you mean, ‘kind of’?”

The reason she disliked it.

It was surely the same as the reason she disliked whole cakes——.

“Sendai-san, you said earlier that there was something you wanted me to help with today, right? What do you want me to help with? I’ll do it, I’ll do it, so just tell me already.”

As if she didn’t want to give me an answer to the question, Miyagi hurriedly spoke over me, cutting off my thoughts.

“Ah, I was thinking of having you help me with the cooking.”

I told her what I’d wanted her to help with before I left.

I didn’t want to drag Miyagi’s bad memories of birthdays back to the surface. We didn’t need to spend today talking about unpleasant things, so I took Miyagi’s hand and led her toward the kitchen.

“Cooking? For what we’re eating now?”

“Yeah. It won’t be a full-blown party, but we’ll make something like one.”

“Isn’t it weird that I’m helping make it when it’s my birthday?”

“Even if it is, it’ll be something we remember, right? And it’s more fun when we make it together.”

“I think you’re the only one who finds it fun, though.”

She sounded reluctant, but she seemed willing to help, and Miyagi obediently followed me into the kitchen.

I wanted to overwrite Miyagi’s memories of her birthdays with memories of me.

I wanted her to believe that having me here was natural, and that the two of us spending birthdays together would simply continue, next year and the year after that.

“…What are we making?”

“Karaage.”

“You like karaage, don’t you, Sendai-san.”

“It’s a classic, and it’s delicious, right? And then we’ll make little pizzas with gyoza wrappers…”

I wasn’t planning to make anything elaborate, but I wanted to make something delicious.

A whole cake and a little feast.

Nothing difficult was necessary.

As long as today stayed in Miyagi’s memories, that was enough.

I opened the fridge and began preparing the meal we were about to eat.