Chapter XXIII - Like I Was Never Born (VII)

Minazuki-san stared at me for a long moment.

"Why?" she asked finally.

"Why what?"

"Why would you do that? Why would you order cookies for me? After everything..."

She looked away for a bit, unsure of herself, before she looked back at me.

"After... everything I did to you?"

The question hung in the air between us, loaded with all the history we shared—the time she broke my nose, the months of cold silence...

I suggested the order before we had our first real conversation.

So, honestly, I couldn't blame her for wondering.

I couldn't give her the full answer.

I didn't know the full answer myself.

So I gave her the half of it.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But...I guess... I thought it might make things a little less..." I trailed off, searching for the right word.

"Less what?"

"Less lonely."

She blinked.

"Being so far from home. In a place where everything is unfamiliar." I finished.

It took about another five or ten seconds for Minazuki-san to speak after she turned her head sideaways, staring at outline of the Yokohama Bay Bridge in the distance, and then, quietly, in a tone that felt like a whisper in the wind, she said:

"I'm not lonely."

The words hung in the air like frost.

"I don't need to feel lonely because loneliness requires attachment. And attachment... is a luxury I no longer indulge in."

I wanted to believe that she was lying, that this was just another layer of her protective shell.

I wanted to, but the look in her eyes told me otherwise.

She picked up one of the cookies, examining it as if it held the secrets of the universe.

"These remind me of Sunday mornings in Milan. My mother's housekeeper would bring them with espresso after we returned from church. My mother rarely ate them—too many carbs for a professional soprano. But my father would take two, always exactly two, and read his newspaper while pretending not to notice when I took a third."

The sudden glimpse into her life caught me off guard. It wasn't the content so much as the delivery. She spoke about her parents so flatly, so clinically, as if describing characters in a movie rather than her own family.

But regardless, she continued to stare off towards the sunset.

"The people society refers to as my 'parents' sent me here as punishment. They didn't want to deal with the embarrassment I caused. It was easier to ship the problem child to a foreign country than to acknowledge her failures."

She broke the cookie in her hand, watching as the crumbs scattered across the table.

"So no, Kagami, I'm not lonely. To be lonely, I would have to miss them. And I don't. I hate them."

And there, I understood Minazuki Serena—if just a little bit more.

It wasn't that she couldn't feel lonely, rather, she wouldn't allow herself to. Indeed she had learned, perhaps too young, that vulnerability was a weapon others could use against you. That feelings were liabilities. That isolation was safer than connection.

She didn't have anyone.

She didn't allow herself anyone.

It was like looking in a mirror.

The only difference was the upbringings we had that inverted how we coped with this reality. Japan was inherently a collectivist culture. Italy, from what I gathered, was largely individualistic.

I made people happy.

She pushed them away.

We both ran from our emotions.

Because running was the only thing that stopped us from being hurt again.

We sat in silence for a moment.

From inside the store, I caught a glimpse of Mio-san giving me a dramatic thumbs-up through the window. Her enthusiasm felt jarringly out of place given the gravity of our conversation. I shifted in my seat as my hand unconsciously moved to my pocket where her earbud had resided for days now. The weight of my own deception suddenly felt unbearable.

"I have something to tell you," I began, my throat suddenly dry. "You're probably going to hate me for it."

Her eyebrow raised fractionally.

"The other day, after... after our conversation on the roof, I realized I had something of yours." I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small white earbud, placing it carefully on the table between us. "You dropped it in class. I found it by your desk."

Her eyes fixed on the earbud, then slowly lifted to my face. Reading her expression was like deciphering hieroglyphics.

"I meant to return it right away, but then—I don't know—it became this... this thing I carried around. Like a... like a talisman or something. Which sounds completely insane when I say it out loud and I-I'm sorry! I-It was weird and inappropriate and I should have just given it back immediately!"

I was rambling. I was rambling like an idiot.

I shut my eyes, bracing for her anger.

But only the familiar silence followed.

"Say something... Tell me I'm creepy. Tell me I'm pathetic. Just... say something."

"A talisman," she repeated, the word sounding foreign on her tongue. "Against what?"

I blinked, unprepared for the question. "I—I don't know. Everything, I guess. The emptiness. The pointlessness. The feeling that none of it matters."

"And it worked?"

The question wasn't mocking; if anything, there was a genuine sense of curiosity in her voice.

"I'm still here, I guess..." I replied.

She pushed the earbud to my side of the table.

"Keep it, then."

I stared at the small white device, then back at her.

"What?"

"The earbud. Keep it. I have others. And if it's... helping you that much, then I don't need it back... Not that I care about you or anything."

I blankly stared at her, unable to process this unexpected response.

"But it's yours."

"It's a five-hundred-yen earbud from a convenience store, Kagami. Not my grandmother's wedding ring. Besides, I'm not sure I want it back now that I'll have to think about where it's been."

I immediately jumped out of my seat as if she had set me on fire, stammering a litany of apologies and denials.

"No, I didn't—! That's not—! I swear I didn't do anything weird with it!"

"Ah, really? Then why are you reacting like that?"

This wasn't possible! This was the first time in a span of two days where Minazuki Serena actually took an interest to indulge in humor!

And she was smiling! She was smiling!

And I was blushing like a freaking schoolgirl!

"Because you're looking at me like I'm some sort of pervert!" I protested, trying and failing to keep my voice down. "I just carried it around, that's all!"

"But, you are a pervert, Kagami. Didn't you find my apartment based on the school directory addresses, and even knocked on my door and try to talk to me while I clearly wasn't properly dressed? You're the biggest pervert I've ever known, to be honest."

"I-I...I!"

I tried to find any argument to refute what she had just said, only for her to press her palm onto her lips, hiding a smile. She was enjoying teasing me, and that in itself was a miracle.

I groaned in agony, but eventually gave in, and just took a seat again, with a smile. A smile that I tried to hide. A smile that I tried to hide because I was genuinely happy.

Happy because Minazuki-san... at least... found some joy in conversing with me.

Though...

"You're not mad?"

"I've broken your nose, insulted you repeatedly—for rightful reasons more or less, and just told you I hate my parents. I think we're well past the point of getting upset about an earbud."

She had a point. Our relationship—if you could call it that—had never followed normal patterns.

"Thank you," I said before carefully returning the earbud to my pocket. "But you should know... it doesn't just help because it's a distraction or a superstition. It helps because it's yours. Because it reminds me of—"

"The voice that saved you, which is also me," she finished for me. "I know, you stalker."

I could only chuckle at that. At the nickname. At the way she had used it. It was a lot warmer than before. For a moment, we just looked at each other, and I felt something shift in the air between us. Not quite comfort, not quite understanding, but something adjacent to both.

"I was thinking... I should probably just find 'Echi Perduti' online and listen to it. That way you don't have to feel... I don't know, responsible for me. Like you need to be at school singing after hours because some guy might be having a bad day."

Her expression instantly hardened.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't listen to it online. It's not the same."

"I just thought—"

"You thought wrong." She looked away, profile sharp against the evening light. "If you listened to that singer performing it, you'd ruin everything."

There was something in her tone I hadn't heard before—neither anger, nor irritation, but something fragile. Almost vulnerable.

"That singer?"

"Doesn't matter. I'll always be in their shadow anyway," she spat as the billowing wind became steel in the air again.

This was dangeorus territory. I could feel it in the tension radiating from her like an electric field. But she wasn't punching me in the nose, and she wasn't walking away, so that had to count for something, right?

So, I had to hedge my bets.

"Whoever... the singer is, that doesn't matter to me. What mattered to me that day when I first discovered the song was your voice. What has saved me over these past few days is your voice. That won't ever change. And I'll keep saying it as long as I have to until you believe it. You have a gift, Minazuki-san."

Her gaze flickered to me, and for a moment, I thought I saw the ice in her eyes melt just slightly. They widened a little, and her lips parted, as if she was about to speak, but no words came.

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the vulnerability vanished, replaced by her familiar mask of indifference.

"Whatever... I need to go. This has been... whatever." She stood abruptly, gathering her belongings and shoving them haphazardly into her bag. "Don't follow me."

The sudden shift was jarring. One minute we'd been having what felt like a genuine conversation, and the next she was shutting down completely. I watched, perplexed, as she roughly shoved her cap back on her head and pulled up her hood.

"D-Did I do something wrong?" The question slipped out before I could stop it, sounding more pathetic than I'd intended.

"I just remembered I have things to do. That's all."

"Oh... okay." I stood as well, not wanting her to leave but unsure how to ask her to stay. "Thanks for the earbud, and the conversation."

She didn't respond, just turned to go. But as she did, something slipped from her bag and fell to the ground between us—a small notebook with a leather cover.

I bent to pick it up, flipping it over to see the words "Mio Diario" embossed in gold on the front.

Mio Diario?

I didn't know what that translated to but it sounded like Italian.

Diario though... it sounded like that English word called—

"DON'T TOUCH THAT!"

She lunged for the notebook with such speed and cheetah-like ferocity that I stumbled backward, nearly toppling my chair. Her face had turned almost as red as her hair with her eyes bulging wide like a cartoon.

"I was just—"

She snatched it from my hand and shoved it deep into her bag, then hunched her shoulders as if physically protecting it from view.

"Forget you saw that," she hissed, but the usual ice in her voice was compromised by the lingering blush on her cheeks.

"I-I didn't see anything!" I stammered, raising my hands defensively. "It just fell out of your bag, that's all."

She stared at me for a moment longer, as if determining whether to believe me.

Then, apparently satisfied, she turned and strode away without another word, posture rigid with what I could only interpret as embarrassment.

I watched her go, trying to make sense of what had just happened. One minute we'd been sharing something close to a connection, and the next she'd fled as if I'd uncovered some terrible secret. The rapid oscillation between openness and retreat left me dizzy, like trying to navigate shifting ground.

Through the window, I caught sight of Mio-san shaking her head dramatically, hands pressed against her cheeks in theatrical dismay. She mouthed what looked to be analogus to:

"You blew it!"

But had I?

Despite the abrupt ending, something had changed between Minazuki-san and me. The earbud in my pocket was proof of that; it was something she'd chosen to give me. A connection, however small, that she'd willingly established.

I walked back inside, bracing myself for Mio-san's inevitable barrage of questions and disappointment.

"What happened?! One minute you two were having this intense, soulful conversation, and the next she bolts like you asked her to play a round of strip poker! Whatdya say?!"

"Nothing," I said honestly. "At least, I don't think I said anything wrong. She just... got spooked, I guess."

Mio-san studied me for a moment, then sighed.

"That's the thing about the mysterious ones, Shou-chan. They're used to keeping people at a distance. When someone gets too close too fast, they panic."

For all her dramatic tendencies, Mio-san occasionally displayed some surprising insight.

Well, being the older sister of Takahashi Ryunosuke would do that to a young woman.

"So what do I do?" I asked, feeling oddly vulnerable.

"She'll come to you. Just be patient."

"I've been patient. For months. It hasn't made a difference."

The frustration in my voice surprised even me.

"Shou-chan..." Her face softened, and for a second, I saw a glimpse of the caring, almost motherly side she rarely let show. "You... really like her, don't you?"

I guess I should be... honest with myself.

"I think... I might..."

It was an unreasonable answer. An unjustified one.

But...

"Even after everything you've been through? Even after she broke your nose, insults you all the time, and pushed you away at every turn?"

"Yes... I guess I'm a masochist that way."

I knew it was an unjustifiable affection at first sight. I knew I had no reason, at least, no reason to justify my infatuation, and yet...

As I took off my uniform, ended the night shift, and headed back home to my personal purgatory once more...

All I could think about was Minazuki-san’s smile, and the feelings that would never reach her.