/
Chapter 208
After Miyagi — 208
Translated by KaiesV
Edited by KaiesV
I take off my clothes and reflect my body in the mirror in the changing room.
I thought yesterday and this morning, but it’s really bad.
In the mirror, I am covered with countless marks left by Miyagi. The marks are only in places that can be hidden by clothing, so the chance of anyone seeing them is infinitesimally small, but I sigh when I think of an accident or illness that would require a trip to the hospital.
I really should have stopped Miyagi earlier.
When she told me to check the mark.
When I told her to turn my clothes over properly.
When she pushed me down.
I had many chances to stop Miyagi. But I couldn’t stop her and allowed her to add new marks on my body.
Below the collarbone, I stroke the mark that was put on me yesterday.
Miyagi knows that I will do what she says no matter what I say.
That is why she can make such a mark.
Once, twice, thrice.
In the mirror, my fingertips trace the marks made by Miyagi. Just by touching some of the countless marks, I feel Miyagi, who is not here, and my body heats up. Today, the traces that have increased in number strengthen the desire for Miyagi.
They are all mine.
Because of the strange things Miyagi said to me yesterday, my body reacts strangely to the marks on me.
I should have said earlier that I wouldn’t be working part-time or going to college.
I think of that, and close my eyes tightly.
In the end, I couldn’t touch Miyagi any more.
It was the right thing to do, and I think Miyagi would’ve wanted that.
I didn’t do anything wrong.
And yet I regret it.
I slowly open my eyes and touch my lips to Miyagi’s bite.
There is no blood on my fingertips, but it still hurts.
Miyagi is an idiot.
Wearing a hickey so that you can’t see it is meaningless if you have a noticeable scar on your lips.
Still, the wounds are easy to recognize.
It hurts, it bleeds, and you know immediately that this is a wound and that it is something that needs to heal. But the marks on the body are different. The blood-like red in the mirror resembles a wound, yet it’s not a wound, nor does it look like an injury. What was just an internal hemorrhage just because Miyagi put it on became something special to me, becoming familiar to my body and soaking up Miyagi.
Even if it disappears, I am sure it will remain with me forever, making me want the next trace.
The marks made by Miyagi are such marks and I wouldn’t want to heal them like scars. On the contrary, I want more marks and I want them to be visible. I want new marks more than she wants to keep adding to her marks today.
Because of the marks made by Miyagi, my heart aches as if I’m trying to follow reason and I’m trying to escape from reason, and I’m trying to separate the two.
I, who should be locked up in my mind, want to throw away my college and part-time job and choose to stay by Miyagi’s side.
「This is crazy.」
I mutter quietly and enter the bathroom.
I get some warm water from the shower and run it over the marks on my body to wash them away, scrubbing them hard even though they will never go away.
I don’t mind being marked like this, and I don’t mind Miyagi looking at my body. But if this keeps happening, I won’t be able to stop myself from trying to separate in the near future.
I wish I had the power to turn the impossible into possible.
I want to fulfill Miyagi’s wishes as much as I can, but I cannot fulfill the hopes I heard today. She probably knows this, but it’s an unrealistic hope to say,「Stay here and don’t work part-time or go to college.」
I can give Miyagi all my time for two or three days, but I can’t keep giving it to her. If I continues to take time off from college, my support from home will be cut off, and if that happens I will have to work to maintain my current lifestyle. If I start working to make a living, I won’t be able to stay home any longer than I am now.
I would like to do what Miyagi says, and if that makes her happy, then so be it.
It doesn’t matter what I want.
I believe that, but I don’t have the power to change the impossible into possible.
I could give her as much as I want if it were just my feelings.
My heart is so full of feelings for Miyagi that I almost say I don’t need Miyagi. I don’t know when it got so big, but the swollen feeling wants to get out of me, when I should want to maintain the status quo. But I can’t tell her that I love her.
I turn up the hot water in the shower.
The water, as warm as my body temperature, soaks several marks and goes down the drain. I couldn’t help but wish that what warmed me up halfway through was the heat from the palace, so I turned off the shower.
Still be roommates.
Feelings I knew I shouldn’t have said, Miyagi’s words became a curse, and they are holding my mouth tighter.
And the feelings for Miyagi, which have grown too deep, are becoming something I shouldn’t say no matter what, even without the chains of being roommates inside me.
This is because I’m afraid that if I tell her I like her, I will break not only our relationship as roommates, but also Miyagi.
Lately Miyagi has been chatty and often says things that I can only assume she likes me. I approach Miyagi, feeling as if I’m allowed to think that I love her because she expresses my feelings in words that amaze me. But she quickly moves away, leaving only a piece of Miyagi in my hand.
I think I am getting closer, but it’s only for a moment, and the next time I see Miyagi, it’s as if she’s in a different place.
Even if we are eating together, even if we are in the same room, even if we are next to each other and can feel each other’s body temperature, we’re not in the same place.
Only pieces of Miyagi have fallen here and there and I am picking them up.
I am afraid that if I continue to approach Miyagi and tell her how I feel, she will crumble to pieces and disappear from me. And yet I want to get even closer to Miyagi than I am now and tell her I love her.
I get the hot water out of the shower.
I wash my hair and body and leave the bathroom.
I changed into a sweatshirt instead of pajamas, dried my hair, and drank orange juice in the common area. The glass emptied quickly and I looked at the door to Miyagi’s room.
I think I should go back to my room today without speaking to her.
My hand is knocking on the door even though I think so.
「What?」
The door slammed three times opens slightly and Miyagi appears.
「The bathroom’s empty.」
When I say so, the door is about to close with a「okay」and I call out「Miyagi.」
「Is there something more?」
「Shall we take a bath together sometime?」
I’m not serious, but I say what I really want it to be.
「No. I’m not going in.」
「I knew you’d say that.」
I answered shortly, and as Miyagi went to close the door again, I grabbed her hand.
I should honestly go back to my room.
I know that, but I can’t let go of Miyagi’s hand. I thought I was good at adjusting to others, but I can’t adjust well to Miyagi. What I had always been able to do, I am unable to do only in front of her.
「Sendai-san.」
Miyagi’s small voice shudders my eardrums.
「What is it?」
「…Am I the only one who does to Sendai-san what I just did?」
To make a red mark.
To wear a hickey.
To make a mark only on Miyagi.
Whatever it may be, it is easy to tell that “something like what you just did” refers to such things.
「I wouldn’t let anyone but Miyagi do something like that.」
「Then okay.」
I don’t know what “okay” meant to.
Is it “okay” for “I’m glad”, “okay” for “good”, or is it a different “okay”?
Without understanding it, the door slammed shut.