Chapter 3: The Chimes of Midnight (2) |
“Shuu-kun, that strap’s cute, huh?”
It was about a week later on the Friday. I was sitting in the clubroom waiting for any new applicants that would never arrive, reading sluggishly. Ruka-senpai was across from me, studying.
We’d been there for about an hour. Suddenly, she had seen my phone on the desk and asked about it.
“It was a present, from Eina.”
“You mean that writer?” I nodded, “Do you meet her often?”
She put her pencil down and leaned forwards, completely in gossip mode. I put my book down and looked at her.
“We’ve never actually met.”
“Eh? How do you know her then? A social network?”
“Yeah, something like that,” I admitted.
“What’s with that ‘little old lady’, you’re only a year older than me!”
“Ahaha. Well, jokes aside… haven’t you thought of meeting her? You seem to get on pretty well, wouldn’t it be more fun to talk in person?”
“We… can’t meet. There are reasons.”
“By that, you do want to meet.”
“Eh?”
She’d caught me off guard, how did she know?
“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have said you can’t meet, right?” She smiled gently.
“…Yeah, if the circumstances weren’t an issue, I’d want to meet her.”
We’d actually tried, but we couldn’t.
She tilted her head in consideration with a thoughtful noise before suddenly asking.
“Shuu-kun, you like her, don’t you?”
She spoke casually, as if it was just a continuation of the conversation.
But the moment I heard her words, my heart froze.
Do I… like Eina…?
The instant I put it into words, I was conscious of everything about her, and my head went white. I couldn’t say a word. Ruka-senpai looked at me in amusement and then let out a small sigh.
“I see, so I lost to someone you haven’t even seen.”
“…Lost?” I managed to get out. I couldn’t follow the conversation.
“Don’t worry about it, I was talking to myself. Hey, if you like her, you need to meet her and let her know how you feel. You’ll definitely regret it if not.”
“There’s a lot of reasons we can’t.”
“But you like her, right?”
“…I do,” I admitted.
I thought it would be nice to have her at my side when I was preparing for the cultural festival. When we were talking on my birthday, I really did want her beside me, and when I received my present, I really wanted her to have given it to me in person. I’m sure I thought like that because I liked her.
“You want to be sure who she is, right?”
“…I do,” I said again, after a longer pause this time.
“Right, then your wonderful Senpai will help. So, why can’t you meet?”
“Will you listen without laughing? I’m… going to say something that sounds unbelievable,” I’d already given up, I’d tell her everything. I might have lost my normal judgement, but impulses are an important part of life, “Eina doesn’t actually live in the present, she’s from five years ago. I don’t know how, but my phone is connected to that time and I can talk with her.”
Her expression was amazing at my words, her mouth was slightly agape and it looked like her mind had shut down.
“Sorry, can you say that one more time?”
“I’ll say it over and over, Eina lives in the past. I live in the present, so we can’t actually meet.”
“I’m just checking, but that’s not just an excuse you’re giving me, right?”
“See, you don’t believe me.”
“Oi, don’t sulk. Who’d believe something like that right away! Ah! I don’t mean I don’t believe you, just let me think,” she said, and folded her arms. “…Well, it fits I guess. You’re hiding the truth about Eina because you don’t think anyone will believe you if you said anything?”
“That’s about right.”
“Got it. I believe you. You’re not one to make up strange lies anyway,” she said and smiled at me, and it felt like a load had been taken off my back, “then why can’t you meet her from now? Though it does mean making her wait for five years.”
“That’s because Eina doesn’t want to meet me five years from when she is, she doesn’t want to know her future.”
“Hmmm, I’d just be interested in what happened to me in the future.”
“Eina is pessimistic so she thinks her future might be worse and is scared of knowing it. She thinks I wouldn’t hide it if something terrible had happened to her, so she asked not to meet.”
“I see.”
She nodded.
“And so, I really respect her for it, but…”
“But you want to meet her, right?”
“Right.”
“Then our goal is to find out who Eina is without her knowing, and go and meet her,” then she slumped, “but how do we do that?”
“I don’t know either.”
“We need some help.”
I only knew one person knowledgeable about things like that. The newspaper club’s ace, Sakai. He was skilled at gathering information, so he should be able to find her.
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