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Chapter 5 ā To Move Forward\nVolume 2\n<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide">\nI should stop delaying my conclusions by concealing whatās in my heart.\n
Thatās what I was thinking.\n
Fujisaki probably mustered up the courage to tell me how she felt. But itās unfair that Iām the only one who stays in the safe zone and keeps quiet.\n
Tomorrow. The day I go to karaoke with Fujisaki and Sayaka.\n
Iāve decided to tell her everything.\n
About the past. What Iāve been struggling with. After that, Iāll clearly state my conclusion.\n
For a long time, I had thought that my feelings should not be known. I didnāt want people to know how ugly I am. But maybe that was the wrong choice.\n\n
With such determination, I welcomed the next dayā¦ or was supposed to.\n\n
But it didnāt work out that way. And there was a reason for that.\n\n
āGeho, goho.ā\n\n
The morning came. I was lying in bed, coughing.\n
I covered my mouth with my hand and sniffled.\n
My vision was blurry. I couldnāt get my head off the pillow.\n
My body shuddered.\n\n
āDamn it.\n\n
My throat hurts. I tried to sit up, but I felt a strong resistance to getting out of bed.\n
I was definitely not feeling well. Considering what Iāve been doing, I think it was probably transferred to me from Enami-san or her mother. I was confident that I could take care of myself, so I was confident that I would be fine.\n
It had been years since I had been sick.\n
At least, I donāt think Iāve gotten sick since my mother died. I washed my hands and gargled every day and disciplined myself to lead a regular life. I cooked nutritiously and tried not to eat between meals.\n\n
āI let my guard down.\n\n
No matter how much I pay attention to my health when itās not good, itās not good.\n
Making breakfast. Going out with Sayaka. To meet with Fujisaki and talk about various things. I thought of all the things I should do today, but I didnāt feel like I could do any of them.\n
In the end, I decided to leave the housework to my father and Sayaka.\n
I felt guilty regarding Fujisaki and Sayaka, but I had to let them go by themselves today.\n\n
Sayaka came to my room about half an hour before the appointed time.\n\n
āā¦Iāve already informed Fujisaki-sanā\n\n
She changed into her casual clothes. The purpose of the karaoke was for Sayaka and Fujisaki to meet. Even if Iām not there, thereās no reason to cancel.\n
I nodded once.\n\n
āSorry ā¦please apologize to Fujisaki for me.ā\n
āI donāt mind. I mean, itās really bad timing, isnāt it?ā\n
āIt hurts to hear you say thatā¦ā\n\n
You are not going to blame me for this, though, are you?\n\n
āYou guys have fun today. Donāt worry about me, okay?ā\n
āI knowā¦ Then Iām off.ā\n\n
After saying that, Sayaka left my room.\n
I picked up the smartphone that I had left by my bed. Then, I opened the line and typed a message.\n\n
Naoya Ookusu: Iām sorry. Iām sure youāve heard from Sayaka, but Iāve got a fever. Iāll make it up to you for this some other time.\n\n
My head feels fuzzy.\n
It was hard to look at the screen. As soon as I saw that it had been sent, I immediately put down my phone.\n\n
I closed my eyes.\n\n
ā¦How long has it been since Iāve taken a full day off?\n\n
Since that incident four years ago, Iāve been trying to keep myself in check. Iāve been studying and doing chores single-mindedly so that I wouldnāt have to think about anything else. If I had time to relax, I went to my desk. It was easier for me that way.\n
The time I spent awake and asleep was repeated frequently.\n
Sleepiness and pain were mixed together.\n
The muscles in my legs and arms relaxed. My senses were foggy and I couldnāt tell if I was awake or asleep.\n
The sound of shaking paper on the wall.\n
The warm breeze from the heater. A film of tears slowly spreading behind my eyelids.\n
Little by little, the tug of war between drowsiness and suffering shifted towards drowsiness.\n
Time was flowing slowly. The sound of my breathing gradually faded away.\n
Just as I was about to lose consciousness, I suddenly heard the sound of a door opening with a crack from the back of the room.\n\n
ā?\n\n
I half opened my eyes and turned to look at it. But I couldnāt focus.\n
Thereās someone near the door.\n\n
āWho is that?\n\n
Just one person. Standing there, looking at me.\n
A straight back. White skin covered the face and arms.\n
I strained my eyes. The focus was unstable, like when you move a magnifying glass up and down.\n
That person was approaching me with a relaxed gait. The figure reflected in my blurry vision was neither Sayaka nor my father. When that person stood close to me, I noticed that the thing covering her lower body was a skirt.\n
I could almost reach this person if I reached out. But I still didnāt know who it was.\n
I heard a voice.\n\n
(Hoā¦ are..)\n\n
But I couldnāt discern what was being said.\n
I opened my mouth to answer something, but all that came through my airway was a thin breath.\n\n
(thiā¦ isā¦ menā¦)\n\n
The words continued. I listened, puzzled.\n
I donāt know who it is, but theyāve entered this room. The room was a mess of papers and study materials. I didnāt want anyone to know that I was studying in this kind of place. However, the person in front of me didnāt seem to care about that.\n
Disjointed words were intermittently delivered to my ears.\n\n
(atā¦ and whenā¦)\n\n
Despite my will, my consciousness became even more distant.\n
The figure of the person standing in front of me was faint. I tried my best to gather my scattered consciousness and focus my eyes. The face looked flat, but I could see the color of the hair. Itās brown. It reached up to the shoulders. Who is this? My head was not functioning properly. The voice continued to speak. I couldnāt understand what it was saying, but I felt comfortable with the sound of it. It sounded soft and gentle. Sunlight was floating on the side of the bed. The sound of her voice lulled me further into sleep. The sick feeling I had felt earlier seemed to disappear. I have to say something. Such a sense of mission is crushed by sleepiness. That voice became more and more fluffy and blurry. My eyelids were gradually covering my vision.\n
I was at the end of my limit. The thread of my consciousness was about to break.\n
At the last moment. Just as my eyelids were about to close, a question mark appeared in my mind.\n
For a brief moment, I could see the personās face clearly.\n
It was the same face I had seen so often lately, but with a different, gentler expression, speaking to me.\n
I called out to her without sound.\n\n
āEnami-sanā¦?\n\n
ļ¼ćļ¼ćļ¼\n\n
How long had I been asleep? Suddenly my consciousness surfaced and I came back to myself.\n
I opened my eyelids.\n
And sat up.\n
It was quiet. The scene before I fell asleep seemed to be a lie. There was no one there.\n\n
āHuh?\n\n
It was evening. Outside the window was reddish, and the leafless branches were swaying in the wind.\n
I was in my room. It didnāt look like someone had intruded. Wiping the sweat from my eyes, I looked at the empty space in my room.\n
There were no traces of anything.\n
Even my memory was fuzzy.\n
Only a faint residue of memory told me that someone had been here.\n
I held my head with my right hand.\n
ā¦Was it a dream.?Ā Was it an illusion that was shown to me unconsciously because I just couldnāt distinguish between slumber and wakefulness?\n
Because thereās no way that could have happened. There was no way Enami-san would go out of her way to check on me when I had a cold. In the first place, she doesnāt know that I have a cold.\n
Thinking about this, I felt a little calmer.\n
It seemed that I was feeling a little better. The chill had diminished considerably.\n
The moment I left the room, I ran into Sayaka. She seemed to have just come home and was still dressed in her casual attire.\n\n
āAh, shitty brotherā¦ā\n
āThat was surprisingly quick. Did you have fun?ā\n
āYes.ā\n\n
Sayaka pressed her hand against my forehead. Then she frowned, āYouāre still warmā.\n\n
āStill it has improved a lot. What about Fujisaki?ā\n
āNo, nothing particular. She was worried about you. But she was hoping the three of us could go together next time.ā\n
āI seeā¦ Thatās right. Iāll have to make it up to her.ā\n
āItās not like you had a choice. Well, Iām going to changeā¦ā\n\n
She quickly left, as if she did not want to catch my cold. It was a natural reaction. I went downstairs, moistened my mouth with water, and went back to my room.\n
I grabbed the phone that I had left on the bed. I opened the screen, but there were no notifications.\n\n
āBy the wayā¦\n\n
I remembered that I had sent a line message before going to bed.\n
I wondered if she had already replied.\n
I open the line. But no one had contacted me. Fujisaki had a habit of returning messages as soon as possible, so I guess she just hadnāt noticed yet.\n
And then I tilted my head.\n\n
āHm?\n\n
A strange feeling. And I knew immediately what it was.\n
ā¦The message I was supposed to have sent today was missing.\n
Before I went to bed, I apologized to Fujisaki through a message. Iām pretty sure I did.\n
I opened and closed the message several times, but it still didnāt appear. I wonder if even that was a dream.\n
As soon as I closed the conversation history and tried to put the phone to sleep, I realized something.\n\n
(Sorry. Iām sure youāve heard this from Sayakaā¦)\n\n
The sentence as I remembered it was displayed at the top of the screen.\n
I noticed a certain fact as well.\n
ā¦That message was addressed to Enami-san.\n
My thoughts froze. Immediately, I couldnāt grasp the situation myself.\n
In a panic, I opened the conversation history.\n\n
Naoya Ookusu: Iām sorry. Iām sure youāve heard from Sayaka, but Iāve got a fever. Iāll make it up to you for this some other time.\n\n
No matter how many times I looked at it, the reality remained the same. It was sent to Enami-san, not Fujisaki.\n
Indeed, my consciousness was wandering. Anyway, I was so busy making the text that I couldnāt even check who it was sent to. Did my fingers choose Enami-sanās account instead of Fujisakiās?\n
It was already read. That means Enami-san read my message.\n
A different kind of sweat came to my face, one that I hadnāt felt when I was sleeping.\n
I felt the need to tell her that I made a mistake, but at the same time, my thoughts started to move in a different direction. About what happened today. Iāve been thinking about the dream-like eventā¦\n\n
āDonāt tell meā¦\n\n
She shouldnāt have known about the cold. However, I think that Enami-san must have learned about it from this message.\n
It all makes sense. Was it really real? Did Enami-san really come to my house?\n\n
āButā¦\n\n
One question came to my mind.\n
There was something I couldnāt understand.\n
It was after that sermon that I started to get involved with Enami-san. Before that, we had never even had a conversation. Itās not like we were close when we were kids. To begin with, it was only in high school that Enami-san and I started being in the same school building.\n\n
āHow did Enami-san know where I lived?\n\n
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldnāt get an answer to that question.\n
I couldnāt even find a clue.\n
From outside the window, I could hear the laughter of children.\n
It was Sunday. A winter evening. The room was getting colder and colder.\n\n
All alone, I sat on my bed and pondered endlessly.\n\n
<<End of Volume 2>>ććććććć\n\n
<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide">\nTN: Thatās the end of volume 2 and the end of the available WN main story. We have a few Sidestories left. Iāll get around to it later. \n\n